Honoring the Alamo's Latino defenders

George Benavides' home is decorated with art marking the battle his ancestor fought for Texas. Ralph Barrera AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Austinite is proud that ancestor who fought alongside Travis and Bowie is finding his way into history

By Ricardo Gándara
American-Statesman Staff

Posted: April 10, 2004

Esparza's fame has never approached that of the holy trinity of Texas history: Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William Travis. They were Anglos whose heroism was told and retold in Anglo accounts. But the list of defenders whose names are etched on monuments and put into movies has grown in recent decades with the inclusion of Hispanics who joined the fight for an independent Texas.

Disney's much-awaited film of the epic battle, shot mostly near Dripping Springs and Bastrop, opened nationwide on Friday. When George Benavides of Austin watched the movie Friday afternoon, he was anxious to see how his great-great-great-great grandfather Gregorio Esparza was portrayed — however briefly.

Benavides is a member of the Alamo Defenders' Descendants Association. Members must prove they descended from someone who fought in the battle, a lineage Benavides wasn't certain he could trace until the 1980s.

Esparza and seven other Tejanos — the name given Hispanic settlers of the Mexican state that included Tejas — now receive the credit and recognition given the other 180 or so defenders. That has come about because of historians and people such as Benavides who have documented the roles of these Tejanos. Although Esparza's character plays a minor role in the new, $95 million version of "The Alamo," his death on screen further confirms a public recognition of the Tejano contingent, an acknowledgment that didn't emerge until the late 1960s. Why did it take so long?

"Texas history was taught largely in terms of myth in the early 20th century," said James Crisp, a Texas historian and professor at North Carolina State University. "Now it's harder to sustain the myth that Anglos were the only fighters for Texas freedom when you have a large and vocal Tejano community in Texas in the late 20th century. Tejano scholars like Andres Tijerina have made a difference." (Tijerina is a professor of history at Austin Community College and author of "Tejanos in Texas Under the Mexican Flag.")

Film historian Frank Thompson, a consultant for "The Alamo" and author of a new book "The Alamo: The Illustrated History of the Epic Film," agrees the changes were overdue. "And it was always difficult to get the idea across that it was nothing more than a small band of white people surrounded by a large band of brown people," Thompson said.

"We now have a balance, though, and no one thinks of it in those ethnic terms anymore," he said.

Besides Esparza, the other Tejanos who fought and died at the Alamo were Juan Abamillo, Juan Badillo, Antonio Fuentes, Toribio Losoya, Damacio Jimenez, Andres Nava and Carlos Espalier. It is believed that Espalier and Charles Despallier, of French descent, may be the same person, but it is generally accepted he was one of the Tejanos.

There also were at least two families inside the Alamo during the siege. Among the lives spared were those of Gregorio Esparza's wife, Ana Salazar Esparza; three sons, Enrique, then 8, Francisco, then 6, and Manuel, then 4; and a baby daughter, Maria de Jesus.

Nothing in the book

Benavides first heard of his possible family connection to the Alamo as a child in Beeville. On an after-school visit with his grandmother Margarita Sotelo Rosales in 1965, he took along homework about Texas history and the Alamo. Grandma interrupted the boy's excitement. "Did you know that one of your ancestors died at the Alamo?" she asked.

"I immediately thought, well, it must have been for the Mexican side, but she said, 'No, for Texas,' " said Benavides, parts manager for Champion Toyota.

The boy reached for his history book. "I said, 'There's nothing in here about Mexican Americans fighting for Texas.' "

"Grandma said, 'I don't care what the book says. I'm telling you what I know. One of your ancestors fought and died in the Alamo.' "

He let his grandmother's words be. He was only 9.

Today, Benavides racks his brain trying to remember more about what his grandmother told him of Gregorio Esparza, who was 34 when he lost his life. "She always called him an Alamo defender, and if she ever told me his name, I don't remember," said Benavides.

George Benavides, standing in front of a joke historical marker at his home, is a descendant of Gregorio Esparza, a cannoneer at the Alamo who fought for Texas independence. Ralph Barrera AMERICAN-STATESMAN

A search for family

Esparza's name had long been known by historians because Enrique Esparza, one of his sons who survived, began telling his stories to San Antonio newspapers in the early 1900s. His vivid recollection of the siege and massacre included details of witnessing the deaths of his own father and Col. James Bowie.

However, Benavides was unsure of his link to the surviving Esparza family until his genealogical research was under way. Only then did his grandmother's stories take root.

When he set out to learn more about his family, he just wanted to know how long his family had been in Texas, not to prove his lineage to anyone who died in the Alamo. Census records in 1840 led him to Ana Salazar Esparza and her four children, but he did not know of her connection to the Alamo or Gregorio Esparza.

Benavides stumbled across the Texas State Archives near the Capitol one day when he and his wife were dropping off a friend. When he checked for relatives of his grandmother Rosales, it did not take him long to connect to a band of 15 families who came from the Canary Islands to the San Antonio area on July 9, 1731. "I remember my grandmother saying things like, 'We were here 100 years before Texas became a country,' but I never gave it much thought. So I guess we've only been Texans for 272 years," he said.

In 1989, in the midst of his research, Benavides and his wife, Mary Ann, and their first child, Juliana, visited the Alamo. Their tour guide, a young Hispanic woman, told the group they probably had heard of William Travis and Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. "But if I asked you about Esparza and Fuentes and Nava and Losoya, how would you respond?"

"I nudged my wife," recalled Benavides. " 'She said Esparza — that's the family I've been researching.' The woman went on to say that Gregorio was an unsung hero who was the only Alamo defender to receive a Christian burial and had in fact been buried by his brother Francisco, who was in Santa Anna's army. She said the Esparzas were the largest family inside the Alamo when it fell. It hit me hard," said Benavides, who still tears up when he tells the story.

Gregorio Esparza's legacy of fighting for freedom runs through the families that followed him. George Benavides' dad, Frank Benavides Sr., now 72, fought in the Korean War. Benavides' brother and Frank's son, Frank Benavides Jr., fought with the Marines in Vietnam. And now Frank Benavides III, Frank Jr.'s son, is stationed at Fort Hood. The soldier is getting married in Beeville today before his deployment to Iraq.

George Benavides now gives history lessens to family members at reunions, as well as to schoolchildren and whoever is willing to listen. It's important to pay attention to the stories of grandparents, he tells them. "I learned that the sacrifices my family has made through the years are enormous. It's why I'm so proud to be an American and a Texan," he said.

Thompson, the film historian, hopes the Esparzas get their due from now on, just like Susanna Dickinson and her daughter Angelina, the family of an Anglo defender and later residents of Austin. "These two families were equal components of what the fight was all about," he said. "The Dickinsons were immigrants looking for a new life, and the Esparzas were natives preserving their way of life. Together, they stood against Santa Anna's tyranny."

rgandara@statesman.com; 445-3632