Dr. Bruce Winders, Former Alamo Historian & Curator
Many Americans grew up reading stories of the frontier that chronicled the westward expansion of the United States. However, other frontier regions existed that are less well known. One of these was Spanish Texas, the location of San Antonio and the Alamo.
Frontiers are often called borderlands because they form the borders between areas claimed by competing nations. Distant from the centers of population, frontiers usually share several characteristics: indigenous inhabitants hostile to encroachment, few settlements, and little if any existing infrastructure such as roads. Harsh frontier conditions failed to beckon to settlers until security and at least some trapping of civilization was established. For this reason, authorities in New Spain sent missionaries and soldiers into Texas.
One military unit in particular had a strong tie to San Antonio and the Alamo — La Segunda Compañía Volante de San Carlos de Parras. Transferred from its hometown of Alamo de Parras located south of the Rio Grande, the hundred-strong man company arrived in force in 1803.
They were not alone, however: their families also made the move. The unit took up residence at San Antonio de Valero, a recently closed mission situated on the east bank of the San Antonio River. The mission’s old convento became a barracks for the soldiers. Spanish authorities even established a military hospital on the building’s second story. Within a short period of time people were calling the old mission the Pueblo de la Compañía del Alamo. Eventually, the compound was just called ‘the Alamo’ and would be home for the company for thirty-two years (1803–1835).
La Segunda Compañía Volante de San Carlos de Parras was well suited for frontier service. Designated a “flying company,” soldiers of the unit were mounted and armed with a lance (lanza), short sword (espada ancha), carbine (escopeta), and pistol (pistola). For protection against arrows, they sometimes wore a padded leather vest (cuera) and carried a thick leather shield (adarga). The company’s original duties included protecting San Antonio and the area around it from Indian raiders as well as escorting travelers, merchants, and officials to places like Monterrey, Monclova, and Saltillo. As the 1800’s progressed, their members were called on to intercept, capture or turn back encroaching Americans who were increasingly showing interest in Texas. Momentous events, however, tested the loyalty of the Alamo Company.
Father Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 anti-Spanish revolt spread across Mexico and extended into Texas. Although they were supposed to battle the rebels, some members of the Alamo Company switched sides and joined forces with the Mexican revolutionaries and American volunteers who attempted to transform Texas into an independent republic. In August 1813, a Spanish army crushed the revolt at the Battle of Medina. Many of the rebels, including members of the company, were forced to flee for their lives. With order restored, the company resumed its traditional role of fighting Indians and interdicting interlopers.
In 1821, Alamo Company shifted its allegiance to the newly formed independent nation of Mexico. In 1828, in the twilight of the company’s existence, a traveler through San Antonio commented on the company and its home, the Alamo:
An enormous battlement and some barracks are found there, as well as the remains of a church which could pass for one of the loveliest monuments of the area . . . . In the barracks of that mission lives a presidial company, long since come from . . . a presidio called Alamo de Parras, which has retained the same name in Texas. . . . Composed of some hundred houses, the quarters of the Alamo is considered as part of San Fernando de Béxar. It is subject to the same authorities, and is separated only by the river.
The Alamo Company witnessed the influx of American colonists to Texas throughout the 1820s and early 1830s and was drawn into the growing dispute between the newcomers and the Mexican government. With Texas in open revolt in the autumn of 1835, members of the Alamo Company were once again forced to take sides.
Unlike the earlier revolt, though, this one spelled the end of the Alamo Company. The demise of the Alamo Company opened the way for another, more famous, frontier military unit — the Texas Rangers.
