Includes bibliographical references.

"There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events … owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten or twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos-- Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels-- scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict arising from Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo … explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows us how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries." --,Page [4] of cover.