In fact, no city on the American continent has such a bloody
record as San Antonio. From its settlement by the warlike
monks of 1692, to its final capture by the Americans in 1836,
it was well named "the city of the sword." The Comanche and
the white man fought around its walls their forty years'
battle for supremacy. From 1810 to 1821 its streets were
constantly bloody with the fight between the royalists and
republicans, and the city and the citadel passed from, one
party to the other continually. And when it came to the
question of freedom and American domination, San Antonio
was, as it had ever been, the great Texan battle-field.
Its citizens then were well used to the fortunes and changes
of war. Men were living who had seen the horrors of the auto
da fe and the splendors of viceregal authority. Insurgent
nobles, fighting priests, revolutionizing Americans, all sorts
and conditions of men, all chances and changes of religious
and military power, had ruled it with a temporary absolutism
during their generation.
In the main there was a favorable feeling regarding its
occupation by the Americans. The most lawless of them were
law-abiding in comparison with any kind of victorious
Mexicans. Americans protected private property, they honored
women, they observed the sanctity of every man's home; "and,
as for being heretics, that was an affair for the saints and
the priests; the comfortable benefits of the Holy Catholic
Church, had not been vouchsafed to all nations.
Pages:
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194