New battle of the Alamo... over US war memorabilia donated by Phil Collins
‘Get the hell out of Texas’
Historic: Phil Collins with an item from his Alamo collection – Davy Crockett’s leather pouch
FOR decades Phil Collins has been accumulating a huge collection of memorabilia from the legendary siege of the Alamo.
Now the 70-year-old Genesis frontman’s hoard of weapons, clothing, letters and other artefacts are at the centre of another battle – a very modern one about race.
Critics argue the collection helps perpetuate a narrative that focuses only on the battle’s white leaders and ignores Latinos, Native Americans and black figures. On the other side are those who want the museum to simply remember the core participants of the 1836 battle between Texan rebels and Mexican soldiers.
Collins has been obsessed since childhood with the battle and even believes he is a reincarnation of one of the defenders.
He says he became fixated on the battle as a child growing up in Hounslow, west London, watching a 1950s Disney TV series about Alamo defender Davy Crockett and the 1960 John Wayne film The Alamo. As he became a multi-millionaire, he began collecting Alamo memorabilia, much of it linked to the leaders of the siege, including Crockett’s rifle and Mexican general Santa Anna’s sword.
In 2014, Collins gave the 430piece collection – worth up to £10million – to Texas. His only proviso was that, by 2021, the state create a museum at the Alamo – a 300-year-old fortified mission in San Antonio that’s now a tourist landmark – to display it.
The 24,000 sq ft building will cost £15million and is scheduled to open next summer. However, Hispanic-Texan activists say the collection will only reinforce the idea of a heroic struggle between a handful of whites and a Mexican horde. They want it to reflect the contributions to Texan independence of Texans of Mexican descent as well as Native Americans and black slaves.
Local politicians say it should remain largely focused on the Alamo’s leaders and the men – many of whom had come from Britain – who fought under them. The arguments have become so heated that armed protesters have turned up at the monument.
George Cisneros, one of the leaders of the movement to make Alamo commemorations more multi-racial, said he feared the museum would be an ‘expensive palace glorifying the Alamo myth’.
But Brandon Burkhart, of the This is Freedom Texas Force, a conservative group, said: ‘If they want to bring up that it was about slavery, or say the Alamo defenders were racist… they need to take their rear ends over the state border and get the hell out of Texas.’
The Alamo attracts 1.6million visitors a year and – thanks to Hollywood – has an almost mythical status for many Americans. The battle in 1836 lasted 13 days when fewer than 200 Texan volunteers were eventually overwhelmed by up to 6,000 Mexican troops.
Collins, whose poor health means he has to sing from a chair, has not commented on the current row. Last week Genesis had to abandon their reunion tour because of Covid cases in the band.