Glaciers, Water and Wind, Oh My! Activity
What is erosion and how does it relate to math and engineering? In this hands-on, math-enriched activity designed for fifth graders, students learn about five types of erosion (chemical, water, wind, glacier and temperature) as they rotate through stations and model each type on rocks, soils and minerals. Students learn about the effects of each erosion type and discover that engineers study erosion in order to design ways to protect our environment, structures and people’s lives. In a series of real-world scenarios (math word problems), students make calculations about the effects of erosion, including calculating erosion damage on forest, personal property and mountains, as well as determining the cost of damage. This activity includes two student worksheets and is part of a nine-lesson and 16-activity elementary-level unit called “Engineering for the Earth.” The activity meets several state and national math standards including CCMS, and science and technology standards, including NGSS and ITEEA.
"I love this curriculum. It’s scalable for middle and high school students, and it’s an important skill that is typically overlooked," said one of our partner teachers. While years of research have linked spatial visualization skills to success in engineering, NEW research shows that spatial visualization skills can be LEARNED. To begin this lesson, students complete a 12-question, multiple-choice spatial visualization practice quiz. Then, through four associated activities, students work through hands-on, interactive and tangible exercises on the topics of isometric drawings and coded plans, orthographic views, one-axis rotations and two-axis rotations. Finally, students take the quiz again to see how they've improved. This curriculum is the result of years of testing with first-year engineering college students, and has proved successful in improving student spatial visualization skills—thereby setting them up for success in engineering. Bring SV into your classroom today!
How can engineers display data and results in an aesthetically pleasing, easy-to-understand way? In this high school lesson, students learn the value of—and connections between—art and writing in both science and engineering. They learn the principles of visual design (contrast, alignment, repetition and proximity) as well as the elements of visual design (line, color, texture, shape, size, value and space) to acquire the vocabulary to describe visual art and design. Engineers often need to convey their designs and ideas visually to create buy-in, appeal to clients or win research funding. So engineers must be able to creatively and clearly communicate their work and designs—often using art. Students also learn about the science and engineering research funding process and heat flow/thermal conductivity basics, which prepare them for the associated engineering design activity in which they create visual representations to communicate their collected experimental data. This lesson and activity meet many math, science and technology standards, including CCMS, NGSS and ITEEA.
Just Breathe Activity
Breathe in. Breathe out. What is happening to your lungs as you inhale and exhale? In this popular hands-on activity, students learn about the respiratory system and explore the inhalation/exhalation process of the lungs. Using everyday materials (2-liter plastic bottles and balloons), students act as engineers and create model lungs to analyze their function and the overall breathing process. They learn that during inhalation, the volume of the thoracic cavity increases while pressure in the lungs decreases, and that during exhalation, the volume of the thoracic cavity decreases while pressure in the lungs increases. By studying the respiratory system, engineers have been able to create life-saving technologies such as the heart-lung machine that keeps patients alive during heart transplant procedures. Students learn about the many engineering advancements that have helped people who have respiratory system difficulties. At activity end, student teams demonstrate their models and explore what happens to the respiratory system if punctured. This upper elementary-level activity meets science and technology standards, including NGSS and ITEEA.
Can you improve the efficiency of a fast-food restaurant through engineering analysis and design? In this thought-provoking activity, students attempt to improve the efficiency of a fast-food restaurant that is financially struggling due to inefficient daily routines by considering trade-offs and constraints. Acting as engineers, students identify strengths and weaknesses in the existing system and generate a plan to improve efficiency—such as restructuring employee responsibilities, revising a floor plan and delegating tasks—while following requirements and limitations. Students culminate their analyses by writing argumentative essays summarizing and defending their suggested changes and improvements. This activity is especially engaging for students with workforce experience, helping them make meaningful connections between their everyday experiences and engineering. The activity is suitable for middle and high school students and meets science and technology standards, including NGSS and ITEEA.
Alloy the Way to Mars Activity
NASA needs your help! What alloy would you recommend they use for a new engine intended to transport astronauts to Mars? In this straightforward activity that requires few materials, students must think like real-world engineers to help NASA decide which material to use for its RS-25 engine and turbine design. Student groups work as engineering teams, taking various measurements and performing calculations to determine the specific strength of different alloys. Students test to look for a material that is both strong and lightweight and discover that a higher specific strength yields a stronger, more lightweight material. Students learn about the ultimate tensile strength, the maximum amount of stress a material can sustain before failing, and use that and the material density to calculate specific strength of the various alloys. The activity culminates in a creative writing project as students compose letters to the Deputy Program Manager at NASA outlining their recommendations. Geared towards middle school students, this activity meets science and technology standards including NGSS and ITEEA, and comes with a preparatory lesson.
Imagine one day that you open your eyes and realize that you can only see a small portion of your surroundings—much of your range of vision is gone! Many people with glaucoma experience this every day. In this engaging activity, middle school students experience how engineers help people; they act as biomedical engineers to design pressure sensors that measure eye pressure and use 3D software to design and print 3D prototypes of their sensors (or modeling clay as an alternative). Presented with personal stories of two people with glaucoma, student teams are challenged to develop prototypes that can help them identify pressure changes in the eyes. Students learn about radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology and conduct research on pressure gauges. They are given project requirements: designs must use RFID technology, be lightweight and small, and measure eye pressure. Over seven days, teams determine an appropriate pressure gauge, design an intraocular pressor sensor prototype given constraints, 3D print the prototypes, and present them to the class. This activity meets many STEM standards, including CCMS, NGSS and ITEEA.
Imagine you are a runner, but you lost a leg in an accident—how can you keep running? In this easy-to-prep informal learning "sprinkle," middle school students design, build and test prosthetic legs in two hours using ordinary household materials. First, students learn about prostheses, the importance of replacement legs for individuals who have lost their leg(s) to accident or injury, and are tasked to follow the steps of the engineering design process to make prosthetic leg prototypes. Student teams discuss important features of replacement legs and brainstorm design ideas. They choose fabrication materials from provided supplies, sketch their design plan and gain instructor design approval prior to constructing their prototypes. After building, students test the prosthetic limbs, making sure they can be used to walk successfully around the classroom (crude but functional!). Students improve their designs as necessary and present them to the class at the end. This engaging and fun "sprinkle" is also available in Spanish!
Growing and Graphing Activity
How tall are you? In this kindergarten activity, students get to meet older schoolmates and explore their schools while measuring the heights of the older students using large building blocks, which they later translate into pictorial bar graphs. This activity provides a fun and refreshing way to introduce young students to measurement and graphing at an early age; they learn how to take real-world measurements and then graph and examine the data. The kindergarteners visit second and fourth grade classes and work in pairs to make height measurements of students and adults by using large building blocks and keeping tallies. Back in their classroom, they glue pre-cut construction paper rectangles (~1-3 inches in size, representing the building blocks they used for measurement) onto lined chart paper to make bar graphs of the different height measurements. Then they compare the heights of second-graders, fourth-graders and adults—discussing the differences and patterns, sorting the heights from tallest to shortest and determining the median height. This activity meets many math, science and technology standards, including CCMS, NGSS and ITEEA.
Right on Target: Catapult Game Activity
Ready, set, catapult! In this hands-on activity, student groups are tasked with designing and constructing precise and accurate catapults using everyday materials and guidance from the engineering design process. With the goal to launch ping-pong balls to hit different targets, student teams experiment with different designs. Will the catapult shoot the ping-pong ball far enough to hit the target? Students must apply an understanding of projectile motion to determine the best launch angle to travel the farthest distance. They analyze the different forces acting on their catapults and make their structures robust enough to withstand them. After constructing their catapults, students test their structures and see how many targets they can successfully hit. Teams earn points for hitting targets and tally their scores to determine a winning team. Students present their designs to the class, suggest improvements and discuss the characteristics of successful catapults. This engaging and playful activity meets many math, science and technology standards, including CCMS, NGSS and ITEEA.
Physics of Roller Coasters Lesson
Ack! You are at the top of a roller coaster about to drop—then, thanks to physics and engineering, you make a safe landing despite all the jitters! In this lesson, middle school students learn about the physics behind roller coasters, investigating potential and kinetic energy as well as friction and gravity, and explore how engineers apply the basics of physics to roller coaster designs. They learn how the force of gravity drives roller coasters and that the conversion between potential and kinetic energy is essential to its motion. In addition, they learn how roller coasters slow down due to friction and the role that velocity and acceleration play in the motion of these exhilarating rides. This imaginative lesson provides the necessary background knowledge for its associated activity, "Building Roller Coasters," in which students design and build model roller coasters. This lesson geared towards upper middle school students meets many science and technology standards, including NGSS and ITEEA.
Zero-Energy Housing Activity
Brrr! It's a chilly March night—can you think of a way to heat your house without using an electric or gas heater? In this hands-on activity, teens design and construct one-bedroom model houses within specified constraints (and a variety of material options) and are challenged to warm up their houses as much as they can and maintain the heated temperatures for as long as possible using passive solar heating design techniques. Students learn about solar heating (including how insulation, window placement, thermal mass, surface colors and site orientation are all essential in design), and apply learned concepts to the design and construction of their model houses. After constructing, students test their model homes during simulated daytime and nighttime conditions to examine thermal gains and losses. Finally, students present and compare their designs and suggest improvements. This engaging high school activity meets multiple science and technology standards, and is NGSS and ITEEA aligned.
Quick! The power is out, you're in the dark and immediately grab your flashlight. Ever wondered how flashlights work? What makes them light up so easily? In this easy-prep informal learning sprinkle, elementary students design, build and test their own flashlights. Student first learn and discuss the essential components of flashlights: the importance of a switch, how flashlights are composed of a simple series circuit, and that the batteries and switch must be correctly oriented to work. Given a list of available supplies, they sketch their own flashlight designs that incorporate a switch, a reflector-enhanced light (such as with foil) and batteries contained in a paper tube. After building, students test for reliability, checking to see if the light can be turned on three times in a row. Students improve their designs as necessary and present their flashlights to the class at the end. This is a great starter engineering project—good for afterschool clubs and rainy afternoons. Also available in Spanish!
Engineering a Mountain Rescue Litter Activity
Imagine hiking in the mountains, suddenly getting injured and being unable to walk. In this hands-on design challenge, elementary-age students consider this situation and act as engineers to create rescue litters/baskets for use in hard-to-get-to places such as mountainous terrain. Using a potato to model an injured person, teams build small-sized prototypes that meet given criteria and constraints: lightweight and inexpensive, break down to be small and portable, quick assembly and stable transport of an injured body. They learn about the human bodys nerves and spinal cord and the importance of protecting it. They "purchase" ordinary building materials such as toothpicks, paper towels, craft sticks, foil and sponges to design and build prototypes. Through timed tests, they assess their design success in assembly and transport of the injured person (potato). Then students compare statistics (litter mass, cost, stability and rescue time) and graph all team data, analyzing the results to determine which designs performed best. Part of a biomedical engineering unit, this engaging activity meets many science and technology standards, including NGSS and ITEEA.
Clearing a Path to the Heart Activity
Can you think of a way to unclog blood vessels? In this open-ended design project, student teams act as biomedical engineers to create and build devices capable of removing and/or flattening plaque build-up inside artery walls. They follow the steps of the engineering design process, apply their knowledge of the circulatory system and learn about existing methods to treat blocked arteries (angioplasty/stent and coronary bypass surgery). First they gain an understanding of the need (chest pain, heart attacks), then brainstorm ideas, design and plan, create and test a prototype, and then refine their designs. Students assess their success by first observing how two liters of water flows through model clogged arteries (tubes with play dough or peanut butter in them) and then timing how fast the water flows through the cleared arteries. Students present their designs to the class, explaining what worked and what improvements are needed. This middle school activity is part of a larger biomedical engineering unit and meets many math, science and technology standards, including CCMS, NGSS and ITEEA.
Mars Rover App Creation Activity
Did you know that the Mars Curiosity rover discovered water on Mars?! How do engineers develop such an intelligent vehicle capable of such vast exploration? In this activity, students explore the programming and technology realms to discover and create Android apps capable of controlling LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT robots to simulate a planetary rover remote sensing task. Using MIT's App Inventor software, student teams create their own mobile applications that they execute on Android devices to control specific aspects of an NXT robot. They might program actions such as driving the robot, moving an arm, detecting objects, applying a game or using a light sensor. Student teams follow the steps of the software/systems design process and gain programming design experience. Groups present their apps to the class and demonstrate how they control a robot. This middle/high school activity meets many science and technology standards, including NGSS and ITEEA.
Most people take no notice of above-ground storage tanks in their communities! The tanks might contain water or petrochemicals in liquid or gas form, or other industrial explosive and toxic materials. What's important is that engineers design the tanks to be structurally sound—and hopefully strong enough to remain intact during major storms and hurricanes! In this activity, teens act as engineers in design teams tasked to examine the stability of certain above-ground storage tanks (and demonstrate their understanding of Archimedes' principle and Pascal's law). Guided by worksheets and during five class periods, they derive equations and make analyses to determine whether the storage tanks will displace or remain stationary in the event of flooding. Then they are challenged to think of improved designs to prevent displacement and buckling. They present their results and design ideas to the class. This high school activity concludes the Above-Ground Storage Tanks in the Houston Ship Channel lesson, which is part of The Physics of Fluid Mechanics unit, and meets many science, math and technology standards, including NGSS and Common Core Math.
Youngsters know the foods they eat and the clothes they wear, but may have never made the connection to climate. In this elementary-level lesson, students learn the effects of climate on our food options and water sources, as well as on our clothing and shelter types. In small groups, students role-play families living in different regions around the globe and determine where they live based on their clothing and food (provided on notecards). They discuss factors that affect the climate such as latitude, elevation, land features and weather, and learn about different climates such as tropical, desert, alpine, oceanic. They also learn how engineers develop technologies to predict and be protected from weather and climate. In the associated activity, students learn the steps of the engineering design process as they explore ways to provide water to a (hypothetical) community facing a water crisis. This lesson is part of a nine-lesson unit, "Engineering for the Earth."
What happens to trash when you throw it away? What does it mean to be "environmentally friendly"? Elementary school students build and then observe small model landfills over five days as a way to learn about biodegradability and the processes that engineers use to reduce solid waste. The simple model landfills are created in cut-apart two-liter plastic bottles with four garbage samples tested: paper, apple, lettuce and plastic. Students make predictions and then note how the different items biodegrade over time. From this, they learn that engineers optimize the composting process and improve landfills so food, animal and other waste are converted into high-nutrient soil. They experience modeling; a common engineering approach to understand and improve how things work. This fun activity meets many science, math and technology standards, including NGSS and Common Core Math.
What is an anemometer? And how is it useful? In this easy-prep informal learning sprinkle (which takes less than an hour to conduct!) student pairs build and use simple paper-cup anemometers to measure wind speed as if they were engineers identifying good locations for wind turbines. Elementary students are able to determine relative speeds by counting rotations of the spinning paper cups. By measuring wind speed at five outside locations, students see how it varies and where it is strongest, which helps them understand how knowing wind speed at multiple locations is important. For wind turbines, stronger winds generate more electricity! Real-time wind speed data collected at airports helps pilots safely take off and land. Continuously measuring wind speed at uncountable locations around the planet provides essential data for weather prediction and public safety alerts.
Animals and Engineering Lesson
What do animals have to do with engineering? Some students might be surprised to hear that animals are directly related to engineering! In fact, some of the most remarkable engineering innovations were inspired by animals and nature. In this lesson, students learn the role of animals in engineering innovation, particularly how animal characteristics and features are mimicked in engineering design to create new technologies—otherwise known as biomimicry. Such examples of biomimicry include airplanes, boats, underwater sea vessels, and antibiotics and healing drugs. Additionally, students learn about animal interactions and the basic animal classifications to better understanding how animals live and to relate the natural world to engineering innovation. This informative and interesting lesson, targeted for elementary school students, meets both NGSS and Common Core Math standards. Image source: Dreamstime.com
Ice, Ice, PV! Activity
As the use of renewable energy grows, most teenagers have seen photovoltaic solar panels in their communities and on everyday items such as back packs, battery chargers and outdoor lighting devices. These photovoltaic (PV) solar panels generate power that can be used in many applications in their lives. In this activity, students explore variables that affect the power output of PV panels to answer the question: “If engineers installed the exact same power plant in Las Vegas, NV, and Fargo, ND, would it produce the exact same amount of power over the course of a year?” Student teams collect data in this engaging hands-on activity and apply mathematical equations based on electrical power and the temperature coefficient to learn how temperature and climate affect PV panels and to predict the power output of PV panels at different temperatures. This activity also meets NGSS and Common Core Math standards. Photo credit: Candice Nyando, Black Rock Solar.
Imagine having to carry water dozens of miles, up and around mountains, just to be able to boil that water for cooking and cleaning! Students learn the important role engineers play in the management of groundwater, and the importance of clean, accessible water. The realities of how water is acquired, and subsequently used, for daily survival—especially in developing countries—can be a new concept for students, especially Americans used to readily available clean water. Creating a system to transport water, helps “water poor” populations whose water does not come directly from a faucet! Students learn exactly how such a water transportation system is developed and used. This middle school-level activity meets one NGSS design problem standard.
Making solar ovens is a classic, fun and delicious engineering activity—and one with great potential to help others worldwide. Middle school students learn the value of solar ovens as they use cardboard, insulation, foil and Plexiglas to design, construct and test devices that apply their understanding of thermal energy transfer. Student teams devise solutions to meet problem criteria and constraints, as well as collect and analyze data to determine the effectiveness of their designs. Then, expand students' context for how a project like this can help others by showing them a video clip about Infinity Bakery—a low-cost solar oven design being prototyped in Burundi to enable smoke-free and fuel-free cooking and baking. This activity fits into many areas of study, including energy, social studies, planets and seasons, graphing and analysis—and meets many NGSS and Common Core Math standards.
In this NGSS-aligned unit, high school students learn about environmental and biomedical engineering through the study of nanotechnology and its relationship to skin cancer. Through three lessons and three associated activities, students learn about the electromagnetic spectrum, wavelengths and how the ozone helps block ultraviolet radiation; how repeated exposure to ultraviolet radiation impacts our skin with harmful, long-lasting effects; and how persons with skin cancer are treated with nanoparticles, a result of modern technological advancements employed by engineers around the world. After this unit, students will have an understanding of the causes, diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer and an appreciation of the vital role biomedical engineers and nanoparticle research play in preventing humans from the (oftentimes life-threatening) condition of skin cancer. This unit requires approximately 12 days (60-minute periods) to complete.
Sugar Spill! (for Informal Learning) Sprinkle
Oh no! There has been a major pollutant spill, and environmental engineers must clean it up fast. How can it be done? What can be used to "soak up" the spill? In this informal learning sprinkle, students see how environmental spills are contained through "bioremediation"—a process that plays an important role for engineers to quickly and efficiently clean up toxic (or non-toxic, but messy) spills. Through the use of common household products—in this case sugar, yeast and vinegar—students learn that engineers do not actually "soak up" environmental spills, but use chemicals to safely degrade (or "eat up") harmful bacteria to restore balance to an area affected by a contaminant.
Oil on the Ocean Activity
Engineering design activities can play an important role in helping students make connections among the STEM subjects. This activity does that by engaging fifth-grade students in a fun, hands-on project to design, build, and re-design prototype oil booms to contain oil spills. This project weaves together a range of scientific concepts and topics, including ecosystems, material properties, density and pollution as well as considerations for the impact on wildlife, habitat and food supplies, related economic and political issues, and the use of technology by humans. Over three, hour-long class periods, student teams experience the full engineering design process, from understanding the problem and brainstorming solutions to drawing, prototyping, testing and redesigning solutions. Like real-world engineers, students work within given requirements and constraints, use assorted ordinary materials—duct tape, cotton balls, straws, sponges—and test their designs in miniature oil spill simulations. As a bonus, teaching this activity meets numerous NGSS (science) and ITEEA (technology) educational standards.
Solar Water Heater Activity
It is easy to take for granted the luxury of a hot shower or bath. An engineering mind wonders: How did the water get heated? How much energy is used? What types of energy are used? Could we use energy from the sun to heat it? Ask your high school students these questions to engage them in this NGSS- and Common Core Math-aligned activity to create miniature solar water heaters. In the process, they deepen their understanding of conduction, convection and radiation—each of which plays a role in the heater design. After the hands-on design/build projects are completed, students perform efficiency calculations, compare designs and think of improvements—just like engineers—thereby also experiencing the analysis phase of the engineering design process. This activity also passed the extensive review process of the Climate Literacy & Energy Network (CLEAN).
Power, Work and the Waterwheel Activity
Water is one of our world's most precious resources. Imagine if water could be put to work to make even another resource. Well it can! Water, on its own has a lot of power, but create a mechanism to harness that water power, and you can generate a lot of electrical energy. Why do we care about using water for creating energy? Well, energy is another precious resource for the inhabitants of our planet. This hands-on activity teaches middle school students about the power of water and why we care about harnessing water for energy use. Using simple supplies found at home or at a recycling center, students design and build their own water wheels, simulating hydroelectric power plants. They learn how engineers measure water power, and troubleshoot ways to increase that power. This activity is aligned to numerous standards, including NGSS, Common Core Math and ITEEA.
After this activity, students will never forget how heart valves work as part of the circulatory system! Acting as biomedical engineers, middle school student teams experience the full engineering design process as they brainstorm, design, prototype, test and redesign replacement valves for a large-scale model heart. Simple cardboard boxes with middle dividers model the left atrium and left ventricle chambers. A gap in the divider awaits implanted prototypes for artificial one-way mitral valves that must permit blood cells, represented by marbles, to move from the left atrium to the left ventricle, but stop blood flow in the opposite direction. Part of work includes defining the criteria and constraints of the problem while taking into account the science of the human body and possible impacts on people. They use ordinary materials—cardboard, wooden sticks, string, foil, tape and glue—to create working valve prototypes. Students' work is deepened by systematically evaluating competing design solutions to gauge their effectiveness. A worksheet guides the test evaluation procedure and scoring point system for comparing designs and material usage. This activity is aligned to numerous science standards, including Common Core Math and Next Gen Science Standards.


Oral literature, the standard forms (or genres) of literature found in societies without writing. The term oral literature is also used to describe the tradition in written civilizations in which certain genres are transmitted by word of mouth or are confined to the so-called folk (i.e., those who are “unlettered,” or do not use writing).
Oral literature is, arguably, the best phrase available for describing these two senses. The term oral covers both, but these two meanings should be distinguished. While certain forms, such as the folktale, continue to exist, especially among the unlettered component of complex societies, what might also be called oral tradition (or folk literature) is inevitably influenced by the elite written culture. The term literature also poses problems because it is ultimately derived from the Latin littera, “letter,” essentially a written, indeed alphabetic, concept. Among scholars, the phrases standardized oral forms and oral genres have been suggested in place of oral literature, but, since the word literature is so widely used, it has to be reckoned with, even though it is essential to recall the major differences between the two registers, oral and written, as well as the way in which the latter influences the spoken word.
The relation of speech to writing
Because writing is an additional register to speech, writing’s advent has an important influence on speech. Writing’s effects have been dramatic on society generally, but, for much of the vast span of recorded history, writing and reading were confined to a small, elite minority of a population, while a large proportion of people continued to depend on oral communication alone. In many cases these two traditions existed side by side. Such a combination creates problems for the analysis of the various genres or oral literature, for there is a tendency today to read back the characteristics of literate literature (such as the use of a narrative structure) into purely oral genres. Written literature is never simply a matter of writing down what already exists; a myth or story is always changed in being “transcribed” and takes its place among a set of new genres as well as among modifications of old ones.
The term folklore generally refers to certain of the spoken (or nonwritten) activities of complex literate cultures where only a minority can read and write and where the rest are illiterate, a frequent situation of the peasantry in the post-Bronze Age cultures of Europe and Asia especially. While these activities have some links with parallel ones in purely oral cultures, they are inevitably influenced by the always-dominant literary modes, especially those related to the major (written) religions. (Folklore is largely confined to the exposition of peripheral beliefs.) But even the forms taken by genres such as the epic can influence folklore.
It is clear that, in societies with writing, a great deal of communication—including communication that takes literary forms—is still done by word of mouth. Not only is this an aspect of all human intercourse, but it was inevitably the case until near-universal literacy was achieved in Europe during the last quarter of the 19th century. Until that time, literature had to be oral for the large part of the population. That did not mean oral literature was uninfluenced by the written word. Indeed, some of the oral communication consisted in the repetition of written texts, as when lessons from the Bible were preached to an unlettered populace. A written epic, as was the case with the Hindu Vedas or the works of Homer, might be learned by heart and recited to the population at large, by priests in the former case and by the rhapsodes in the latter. Of course a society with writing might inherit some genres, such as folktales, largely unchanged from an earlier, purely oral culture whereas other genres, such as the epic, would undergo a sea change.
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Part of the influence of the written word on speech consisted in the development not of oratory but of its formal counterpart, rhetoric, with its explicit body of rules. Specialists in the spoken word might achieve fame and be rewarded for their appearance in presenting a case at court. More directly in the field of the arts, specialist reciters, especially of praise songs but also of epics and other lengthy recitations, might be recompensed for their contributions, either as freelance performers or as professionals.
Many early written forms, such as the Breton lays, draw their subject matter from spoken genres, though inevitably transformations take place in the face of the new media. There has also been a good deal of exchange between coexistent folk and written (elite) literature. Homer’s poems incorporated “popular” tales, for example, as did the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, although these transfers are as much between genres as between the registers of speech and writing, akin to when popular melodies, such as the bourrée of rural France, were taken up by those composing elite music in the urban courts of 17th-century Europe.
The example of the epic
The Homeric poems are often viewed as oral epics that have been transposed into writing. Commentators have dwelt on the presence of certain features, such as the formulaic expressions (epithets and repeated verses) that they see as typical of oral forms. Yet, while the regular repetition of phrases is found in such forms, some have argued that the precise format of Homer’s formula—as defined by the American scholar Milman Parry, who in the 1930s recorded epics in Yugoslavia performed by guslari—is very likely an early literate device.
The epic itself is a case in point. It is often assumed to be a typical product of oral cultures, being sung by bards at courts or in camps. However, records of epics in purely oral cultures are sparse. Epics tend to be found in early states with important warrior classes that enjoy hearing of the brave exploits of their predecessors. These societies already have writing, but the texts are often committed to memory and reproduced by the speaker rather than read aloud from a written version of the text. These oral texts are recited in gatherings of chiefs and warriors by specialist bards and, in fact, are the works that have been written down at some point. Indeed, only because they have been written down are they known at all. And it is a regular characteristic of early written works, such as Homer’s or the Vedas, that, although written versions exist, these are learned by heart, internalized, and reproduced through the spoken word alone, just as is often the case with religious texts such as the Qurʾān and the Bible. At the very moment in history when writing allows one to dispose of verbal memory as a means of recalling such works, the role of verbal memory is in fact enhanced—hence part of the difficulty in deciding whether these works are both orally composed and orally reproduced. They are typical of societies where only the few can read and where mnemonic skills and devices that encourage the perfect oral reproduction of written texts are therefore encouraged.
The way that purely oral forms have been changed under the influence of written cultures is illustrated by the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, a final version of which was published in 1849 by Elias Lönnrot. A systematic collector of folk poetry, Lönnrot concluded that what had been recorded as distinct poems could be conflated into a continuous folk epic. He joined a number of shorter compositions together with material of his own and imposed on the whole a unifying plot. Its publication had an enormous influence on Finnish culture. It has been suggested that the Gilgamesh epic may have been constructed in a similar way; other cases have been reported from Africa. In North America stories that centre on particular characters such as Coyote or Raven (see Raven cycle) are sometimes grouped together by scholars into cycles, but it seems doubtful whether these cycles represent a meaningful category for the Native Americans who created these tales.
Differences between oral and written literatures
Oral and written literatures differ in their authorship and audience. In oral cultures the memory of authorship, though never entirely absent, is of little general importance—occasionally with songs but not with myths, folktales, and, rarely, epics. That is not to say that these genres do not become the subjects of intellectual property rights. Songs may be associated with particular clans, recitations with specific groups or gatherings. But usually no individual author is traced. That absence, however, does not imply that there is a process of collective composition. Each reciter will introduce variations of his own, some of which will be taken up by succeeding speakers for whom the previous version will have been the (or a) model. In this way changes are constantly being introduced by individuals but anonymously, in a syntagmatic (contextual) chain, without looking back to any fixed original. Only with writing and with oral recitations in literate societies, as in the case of Homer or the Vedas, is the oral transmission of an original possible, partly because writing introduces a new dimension to verbal memory and partly because reference can then always be made back to the “correct” version. As a result, it seems to be in these early literate societies that the development of mnemonic skills and aide-mémoire is first found.
Beyond the epic, the main oral genres include the folktale; song, including laments, praise songs, and work songs; folk drama; myth; and, closely related, legend and historical recitation. There are also the minor genres of the proverb and the riddle.
While these genres are not necessarily always given separate designations in local languages, in scholarly practice they are distinguished because of their different forms, content, and functions, which relate partly to their audience. At the very broadest level, folktales are rarely seen as anything but fictional, whereas the other genres, apart from song, have quite a different relation to “truth.” In purely oral societies, recitations and songs encompass the whole of life’s experience, including cosmology and theology. In early societies with writing, the religious domain tends to be incorporated by way of texts associated with a religion’s canon (its most important scriptural works), leaving the oral literature to deal with the peripheral—with magic, charms, and fairy tales.
With oral literature, as with any other literature, it is important to always consider not only the speaker but the audience and the situational context. Intention, form, and content make all the difference between recitations in a religious or ritual ceremony and the kind of story told at a veillée (a small private gathering for storytelling) in Europe. These differences mean that to incorporate all these genres in one holistic analysis of culture, symbolism, or myth runs the risk of mixing levels of communication that should be the subject of distinct interpretations.
Folktales are virtually universal. These are short, occasionally in verse, sometimes with an ending that echoes the explanations embedded in Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories (e.g., “
How the Camel Got His Hump”), and possibly with an irrelevant coda. The personages consist of humans, animals, gods, and, more rarely, inventions such as giants and monsters, who interact with one another by speech and by other means. In this wide array of tales there is a place for the salacious, and some stories are apparently directed to adults (or at least to adolescents), but the bulk of folktales undoubtedly anticipate an audience of children. Grim as some of their contents can be, they are “nursery tales,” to use an English term equivalent to Charles Perrault’s “fairy stories” (contes des fées).
Because the vast number of folktales are intended for children, it is quite mistaken for anthropologists to use them as evidence of the typical thoughts of primitive societies or for historians to do the same for, say, the rural population of 17th-century Europe. But just such an approach is sometimes taken by those who see culture holistically, with each item having the same representative status and value in characterizing mentalities, beliefs, and practices and with each item taken to exist within an undifferentiated cultural ensemble of artistic forms. In fact, the relationship of these stories to other aspects of culture is very particular.
While their relationships to culture are very particular, the stories told within folktales also persist over long periods of time and have no very close relationship to a particular culture at a particular time; examples from English-speaking societies include children’s rhymes and songs such as “
Ring a Ring of Roses” and “
Three Blind Mice” and the story “
Jack and the Beanstalk.” Like the rhyme “
Frères Jacques” or the story of Cinderella, they cross sociopolitical and linguistic boundaries rather freely and are adapted by individual storytellers. Such movement across boundaries is encouraged by the relatively small size of individual oral cultures, and these stories may be transposed into other dialects and other languages; the ease with which that can happen emphasizes the transcultural character of their themes and expressions. It is this comparative insulation of children’s stories that, arguably, accounts for their relative homogeneity around the world, as does their frequent use of nonhuman animals and panhuman themes.
Fables are a subcategory of the folktale, employing animals as well as humans as the main characters. In the form they are known today, either from ancient Greece and Rome (e.g., Aesop’s fables) or from India, they are in fact products of written cultures but are close in many respects to folktales more generally.
Song plays a very general role in oral culture. A song’s words often resemble lyric poetry, having to be of a tight metrical structure because of the musical accompaniment. Equally, when epic and other recitations are accompanied by a musical instrument or a strong beat, the rhythmic verbal structure is always influenced. An important variety of song is the lament at the death of an individual, which may take the form of stressed speech or follow a more melodic line.
Songs may be included in rituals and in folktales and other genres, but they are often performed solely for entertainment. The melodies themselves may be elaborated and expanded upon by way of musical instruments, leading to innumerable variations invented for the occasion, as with jazz. An important subcategory is the work song, the performance of which is likely to be gendered, as is the work itself.
The ballad is a form of narrative song that arose in Europe during the Middle Ages and hence is arguably part of a mixed oral-literary tradition. The genre displays strong metrical forms associated with a melodic accompaniment; it is often concerned with conflict (especially in the Scottish-English border ballads of the 15th and 16th centuries), celebrating heroes and outlaws, and has held its popularity in the modern period, as exemplified in popular songs such as “
Frankie and Johnny.” Narrative songs of this kind are much less common in oral cultures, though varieties of the form mark early literate societies.
Songs are distinguished from chant by being shorter and more melodic. Chant is a rhythmic manner of presenting speech that verges on recitation; while it may be accompanied, chant is carried out with a regular beat that does not interfere greatly with the words, which are deemed more important than the music. Chant may be used for shorter recitals and in such contexts as the Maori haka, and it is sometimes employed for epic poetry or for the long recitations typically categorized as myth.
Theatre in the modern sense is an outcome of the written tradition in Greece, Europe, India, Japan, and elsewhere. It is sometimes difficult to draw a distinction between drama and ritual; indeed, the origins of drama in Europe lie in religious and ritual performances. The occurrence of secular drama in oral cultures is not well attested and, where it does occur, is peripheral. Nevertheless, (folk) plays of a more or less secular kind do occur in the popular culture of literate societies, such as the mumming plays of the European tradition, which stand in opposition to the written plays of the elite theatre.
Myth is a particular form of oral literature, the subject of which is cosmological. It was earlier thought that many such stories were explanatory. A few undoubtedly are, including those of “that is why the camel has a hump” variety, but most are not, even though intellectual curiosity (sometimes expressed through the notion of the quest, for example) is often incorporated. For some commentators, myth was central to folktales: the meaning of folktales was seen to derive from their assumed status as broken-down myths that accounted for solar, meteorological, or other natural phenomena. Other commentators (such as representatives of the myth and ritual school at the beginning of the 20th century) have seen the explanation of myth as a function of ritual and of ritual as a function of myth. Such an explanation, however, does little to explain the content of myth or ritual. Others, such as Bronisław Malinowski and the functionalist school, have understood myth as a legitimizing “charter” of social institutions. Later in the 20th century there was a move to interpretations of myth that were dependent on a search for hidden meanings, some relying on psychoanalysis, others on different approaches to symbolic decoding, and yet others on structuralist analyses, especially in the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, which sought in myths an underlying structure of abstract similarities (often binary in character) between a range of social institutions.
Myth is often considered to be the highest achievement of oral literature. It has certainly proved to be the most interesting to outsiders and at the same time the most difficult to comprehend, because, even though it deals in cosmological matters, myth is in some ways the most localized of genres and the most embedded in cultural action (such as when it is recited in a very specific ceremonial context). The oral literature of the Australian Aborigines, for example, has an essential ceremonial function. The song cycles and narratives relate to the Dreaming, a mythological past in which the existing environment was shaped and humanized by ancestral beings. These performances may be open to the world at large (and hence akin to entertainment) or closed to all but initiates.
It is important to distinguish between contributions to mythologies (i.e., accounts of worldviews constructed by observers) and myths in a narrower sense, which are actual recitations around a cosmological theme (for example, creation myths). The latter are relatively rare and unevenly distributed around the world, being recited in particular restricted circumstances. As such, the knowledge they contain is available not to all but only to certain individuals. Women in some groups, for example, may be excluded from certain ritual occasions. Yet these women, precluded from some knowledge, may also have parallel ceremonies from which men are excluded and during which women hand down different bodies of knowledge.
Myths were earlier thought to have been transmitted verbatim from one generation to the next, partly because that is how those who conveyed the myths often understood the situation. As such, the myths were interpreted as “keys to culture,” throwing a privileged light on society as a whole. But the advent of the portable audio recorder and of air travel enabled investigators to return at intervals to record such recitations in the actual context of performance rather than with pencil and paper in a decontextualized situation. These new techniques showed that myths vary considerably over time, the exigencies of oral reproduction making such generative transmission a virtual necessity. In other words: people invent and fill in where they do not have perfect recall. The result is a plurality of versions spread over time (and space), but, arguably, no fixed text such as often found with written literature.
Legends and historical recitations
Legends and historical recitations—or “histories”—occur everywhere: chiefless societies might produce stories of clan migration, for instance, while chiefly societies might generate stories of the coming of rulers and of the establishment of kingdoms. Examples proliferate with writing and become more differentiated, but they exist in purely oral cultures as an important formal activity, to be told on ritual occasions. These genres may also be associated with totemism, telling how a particular animal helped a past ancestor in troubled times and so is taboo to his or her descendants. The term legend (derived from the Latin legenda, “to be read”) was especially applied to the stories of saints in Roman Catholic Europe, but similar kinds of narrative, believed to be true, are also characteristic of oral cultures and often later form the basis for the construction of written histories, as was the case in early Greece.
Some formalized historical recitations in purely oral cultures retain earlier forms and content that have passed out of current usage. The speech of former generations can legitimize the material within a recitation, making that material more valuable and more sacred at the time of the recitation, but it can also make the material less comprehensible, more mysterious, and more prone to conflicting and ambiguous interpretations. More broadly, histories are often more concerned with legitimation, especially in providing a suggested link with the distant past, rather than with the story itself.
Performance, content, and distribution
In oral cultures the genres described above are not simply categories in a library catalog but are part of an ensemble of actions that constitute the setting, often the ritual, and sometimes the music and dance of the performers; these actions also guide the voice and gestures and the intentions of the performers, as well as the audience and its expectations. Each genre has its characteristic context of performance, its own place, its own time, its own performers, and its own aims. Myths, in the concrete sense, are unlikely to be recited by “ordinary” people but instead by specialists in special ritual contexts. Folktales may be told by adults who have built up a reputation for doing so, but they are more likely to make the rounds within families or among groups of children.
Given the variety of genres of oral literature, it is difficult to generalize about their content as a whole, but it is (perhaps misleadingly) easy to generalize within each genre. Mythology deals with gods, deities, and supernatural agencies in their relationship—whether distant or close—with humankind. Epics often deal with human as well as half-divine heroes and monsters. Folktales show a nearly universal concern with animals, and they introduce as actors humans, gods, and sometimes monsters. The widespread inclusion of animals, in turn, may indicate a recognition of a continuity between living things; animals often reenact the lives of humans, not only by speaking but in their roles and actions. A continuity between living things is also expressed in tales of humans born of animals, being cared for by them (as in the case of Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome), or being looked after by them in a more mystical sense (as with the North American Indian notion of the guardian spirit or in versions of totemism where humankind is aided by or even descended from an animal). Yet animals recur across many of the genres that can be classed as oral literature, where they take on multiple meanings and stand for many concepts. It is, again, difficult to generalize in good faith about the content of oral literature.
While similar genres are found widely distributed in oral cultures and in oral traditions, they do not occur equally in all contexts. Long recitations defined above as myths are very unequally distributed even in neighbouring societies that otherwise display rather similar practices and beliefs, for they occur only under very restricted conditions. Epics and histories tend to be associated with warrior and chiefly societies, respectively. Some researchers have argued that there appears to be little use of proverbs and riddles in America, a situation they contrast with Africa, where collections of proverbs (such as those made in Asante by the Swiss missionary J.G. Christaller) were considered very common. (Other researchers disagree and question the historical and geographical generalizations embodied in such characterizations of “America” and “Africa.”)
The content of myths and legends is considered by many in oral societies to be true; by contrast, the content of folktales and fables is believed to be fictional. While the first are often tied to particular societies (and later to written religions), the latter travel relatively freely between groups, including linguistic groups. That ability to travel reaffirms the fact that both have a different “truth” status, with folktales rarely tied to specific cosmologies but instead showing a more universal appeal, especially to children. Märchen (folktales with an element of the magical or supernatural) and ghost stories have a wider appeal and are widespread features of both oral literature and written literature told orally; monsters are found in many societies, and even specific types, such as dragons, turn up over large areas. Fairies and trolls are found yet more frequently as characters in folktales and cosmologies, operating as intermediaries between humankind and the higher deities and either helping or hindering their activities. Attempts to explain “rationally” and “historically” (which are nothing but speculation) the contents of oral literature have led the enquiry down false paths. As with oral literature in general, it is essential, wherever possible, to consider the context of performance and of transmission.


Battle Of The Alamo
Facts, information and articles about Battle Of The Alamo, an event of Westward Expansion from the Wild West
Battle Of The Alamo Facts
February 23, 1836 – March 6, 1836
San Antonio de Bexar, Texas Republic, now: San Antonio, Texas
William Travis, Texas
James Bowie, Texas
President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Mexico
189 United States
1,800 – 6,000 Mexico
Texas decided it wanted to be independent from Mexico.
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Battle Of The Alamo summary: The Mission San Antonio de Valero, established in the early 18th century, was situated along the San Antonio River. By 1800, the Missionaries were displaced and their land was seized for military purposes. Occupying soldiers called the Mission-turned-garrison El Alamo after the cottonwood trees surrounding it. Eventually the mission was officially renamed The Alamo. First Spanish soldiers, then Mexican soldiers occupied The Alamo.
Mexico had gained independence from Spain by the early 1820s. Settlers from other states began flocking toward Texas. In December of the mid-1830s, a fight for independence from Mexico developed between Texans and Mexicans. By the middle of February in 1836, things became heated and two volunteers, George Collinsworth and Benjamin Milam, led a group of people to overtake the garrison at The Alamo.
At that time, Colonel James Bowie and Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis prepared to defend the Alamo from the Mexicans who were going to take it back. David Crockett arrived in February 1836 to participate in the battle. Texan forces were never more than 200 strong. The Mexicans were estimated to number between 1800 and 6000. Texans held Gen. Santa Anna off for thirteen days. On March 6th, the Texans were beaten. Santa Anna slaughtered everyone except a few, among which was Susannah Dickinson, wife of captain Almaron Dickinson who perished in the battle.
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The Alamo: 13 Days of Glory
February 23, 1836, began the siege of the Alamo, a 13-day moment in history that turned a ruined Spanish mission in the heart of downtown San Antonio, Texas, into a shrine known and revered the world over. But what is it that makes this one battle so different from any other battle fought in the name of freedom? The people involved? Yes, that’s part of it. The issues at hand? Yes, that’s another part. Or can it be that the mysteries, myths and legends surrounding it are still tantalizing minds even today? Yes. Yes. Yes. All of these things have made the battle stand apart and have caused it to be so well remembered throughout the nation 160 years later. Yet, as historian Walter Lord said in 1960, ‘It is…a rash man indeed who claims he has the final answer to everything that happened at the Alamo.
History records three revolutions that led to the Battle of the Alamo. The first, the Spanish revolt against French occupation of Spain, occurred in 1808. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain, and it took six years for Spanish resistance forces to oust the French emperor and restore Ferdinand VII to the throne. The fires of the Spanish revolt crossed the ocean, and in Mexico Father Miguel Hidalgo rang the bells of his small church in Dolores at midnight on September 15, 1810, to herald the beginning of the second revolution. This Mexican revolt against Spanish occupation traveled quickly across Mexico and into the northern frontier of the Mexican territory of Texas. San Antonio de Béxar, the capital of Texas, became a center of revolutionary activity and a haven for resistance fighters. One revolutionary, Captain Jose Menchaca, was captured by Spanish troops, shot and beheaded. His head was then stuck on a pole in front of the Alamo. Instead of setting an example for the other insurgents, however, Menchaca’s execution only added fuel to the revolt.
After an 11-year struggle, Mexico gained its freedom in 1821. Within that same year, Agustin de Iturbide, a Spanish general turned rebel and a hero of the revolution, became emperor of the new nation. But his regime was too extravagant for some tastes, and in no time a revolt led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna brought about Iturbide’s downfall and established a Mexican republic.
Under Iturbide, American colonists had been allowed to settle in Texas. About the only condition to owning land was that all immigrant landowners had to be Catholic, an easy enough problem to overcome for non-Catholics. William Travis, for instance, became Catholic to purchase land, but remained a staunch Methodist until the day he died at the Alamo.
Unfortunately, the fledgling Republic of Mexico was born bankrupt and ill-prepared for self-government. In fact, during its first 15 years of independence, it had 13 presidents. All of them struggled for power, shifting between the liberal-leaning Federalists and the dictatorial Centralists. The first president was a Federalist, General Guadalupe Victoria, a hero of the revolution who had changed his name from Miguel Felix Hernandez to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, for his victory. It was he who established the liberal Constitution of 1824 that so infuriated Santa Anna and that would lead to the Battle of the Alamo 12 years later.
It was also during this tumultuous struggle for control of Mexico’s presidency that the northern territory of Texas was mostly neglected. When Mexico redefined its territories in 1824, Texas was the only separate territory to lose its independence. It was joined to Coahuila and the capital was moved from San Antonio de Béxar to Saltillo. Armed citizens gathered in protest. In September 1835, they petitioned for statehood separate from Coahuila. They wrote out their needs and their complaints in The Declaration of Causes. This document was designed to convince the Federalists that the Texans desired only to preserve the 1824 Constitution, which guaranteed the rights of everyone living on Mexican soil. But by this time, Santa Anna was in power, having seized control in 1833, and he advocated the removal of all foreigners. His answer was to send his crack troops, commanded by his brother-in-law, General Martín Perfecto de Cós, to San Antonio to disarm the Texans.
October 1835 found San Antonio de Béxar under military rule, with 1,200 Mexican troops under General Cós’ command. When Cós ordered the small community of Gonzales, about 50 miles east of San Antonio, to return a cannon loaned to the town for defense against Indian attack–rightfully fearing that the citizens might use the cannon against his own troops–the Gonzales residents refused. Come and take it! they taunted, setting off a charge of old chains and scrap iron, shot from the mouth of the tiny cannon mounted on ox-cart wheels. Although the only casualty was one Mexican soldier, Gonzales became enshrined in history as the Lexington of Texas. The Texas Revolution was on.
On December 5, 200 Texan volunteers commanded by Ben Milam attacked Cós’ troops in San Antonio de Béxar, which was about 400 yards from the Alamo compound. The fighting in Béxar raged with a house-to-house assault unlike anything the Mexican army had ever before experienced. Cós finally flew the white flag of surrender from the Alamo on December 9. More than 200 of his men lay dead, and as many more were wounded. He signed papers of capitulation, giving the Texans all public property, money, arms and ammunition in San Antonio, and by Christmas Day, the Mexican army was back across the Rio Grande. To the Texans, who lost about 20 men, including Ben Milam, the victory seemed cheap and easy.
The siege of Béxar and Cós’ surrender brought immediate retaliation from Santa Anna. He whipped together a force of 8,000 men, many of them foreign adventurers from Europe and America. One of his deadliest snipers was an Illinois man named Johnson! Santa Anna, the self-styled Napoleon of the West, marched at the head of the massive army; he was determined to stamp out all opposition and teach the Texans a lesson. The word went out to his generals: In this war, you understand, there are no prisoners.
Although it was midwinter, Santa Anna pushed his army mercilessly toward Texas. The frigid, wind-battered deserts of northern Mexico took their toll. Men and animals died by the hundreds and were left on the trail, and the brigades strung out for uncounted miles. When the big siege guns bogged down in one of the many quagmires, Santa Anna pushed on without them. Nothing would stop him. Meanwhile, after the defeated Mexican force under General Cós had left San Antonio, Colonel James C. Neill had assumed command of the Alamo garrison, which consisted of about 80 poorly equipped men in several small companies, including the volunteers. The rest of the soldiers had returned home to their families and farm chores. In this command were an artillery company under Captain William R. Carey known as the Invincibles, two small infantry companies known as the New Orleans Greys under Captain William Blazeby, and the Béxar Guards under Captain Robert White.
On January 17, 1836, Sam Houston, the commander of the revolutionary troops, sent Colonel Jim Bowie and 25 men to San Antonio with orders to destroy the Alamo fortifications and retire eastward with the artillery. But Bowie and Neill agreed that it would be impossible to remove the 24 captured cannons without oxen, mules or horses. And they deemed it foolhardy to abandon that much firepower–by far the most concentrated at any location during the Texas Revolution. Bowie also had a keen eye for logistics, terrain, and avenues of assault. Knowing that General Houston needed time to raise a sizable army to repel Santa Anna, Bowie set about reinforcing the Alamo after Neill was forced to leave because of sickness in his family.
Colonel William Travis arrived in San Antonio on February 2 with a small cavalry company, bringing the total number of Alamo defenders to about 130. Although spies told him that Santa Anna had crossed the Rio Grande, Travis did not expect the dictator before early spring. He sent letter after letter, pleading for supplies and more men. He and Bowie also competed for command of the garrison before it was decided that Bowie would command the volunteers and Travis the regular army. On February 9, David Crockett and the 14 other Tennessee Mounted Volunteers (only three were actually from Tennessee) rode into San Antonio. Alarmed by the Mexican army on the outskirts of town, Travis vigorously renewed his pleas for help. His February 24 letter, To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World….I shall never surrender or retreat….Victory or Death! is considered one of the most heart-wrenching pleas ever written. Travis sent the message out with Captain Albert Martin.
The day before, February 23, Santa Anna had reclaimed San Antonio. To the triumphant music of a military band, he took possession of the town, set up headquarters on the main plaza, and began the siege. He had his standard-bearers climb to the top of the bell tower of San Fernando Church and unfurl the scarlet flag of no quarter. Inside the Alamo, Travis and the Texans fired their message to Santa Anna with a blast from their 18-pounder. They had their music, too, with Davy Crockett’s fiddle and John McGregor’s bagpipes. In fact, Davy’s fiddle-playing and outlandish storytelling kept up the spirits of the besieged defenders.
Santa Anna ordered his men to pound the fortifications with cannon and rifle fire for 12 days and nights. His idea was to wear out the defenders inside, giving them no chance for rest or sleep. He reasoned that a weary army would be an easy one to defeat. But the noise worked on his own army, too. Unable to hear clearly through the din, they allowed courier after courier to escape from the Alamo. On March 2, racing through the enemy’s lines, the last group to reinforce the Alamo arrived. These men were the relief force from Gonzales, the only town to answer Travis’ pleas to send help. The total number of Alamo defenders now stood at between 180 and 190.
At 4 o’clock on the morning of March 6, 1836, Santa Anna advanced his men to within 200 yards of the Alamo’s walls. Just as dawn was breaking, the Mexican bloodcurdling bugle call of the Deguello echoed the meaning of the scarlet flag above San Fernando: no quarter. It was Captain Juan Seguin’s Tejanos, the native-born Mexicans fighting in the Texan army, who interpreted the chilling music for the other defenders.
Santa Anna’s first charge was repulsed, as was the second, by the deadly fire of Travis’ artillery. At the third charge, one Mexican column attacked near a breach in the north wall, another in the area of the chapel, and a third, the Toluca Battalion, commenced to scale the walls. All suffered severely. Out of 800 men in the Toluca Battalion, only 130 were left alive. Fighting was hand to hand with knives, pistols, clubbed rifles, lances, pikes, knees and fists. The dead lay everywhere. Blood spilled in the convent, the barracks, the entrance to the church, and finally in the rubble-strewn church interior itself. Ninety minutes after it began, it was over.
All the Texans died. Santa Anna’s loss was 1,544 men. More than 500 Mexicans lay wounded, their groans mingling with the haunting strains of the distant bugle calls. Santa Anna airily dismissed the Alamo conquest as a small affair, but one of his officers commented, Another such victory will ruin us.
As many of the Mexican dead as possible were given the rites of the church and buried, but there were so many that there was not sufficient room in the cemetery. Santa Anna ordered all the bodies of the Texans to be contemptuously stacked like cord wood in three heaps, mixed with fuel, wood and dry branches from the neighboring forest, and set on fire–except one. Jose Gregorio Esparza was given a Christian burial because his brother Francisco was a member of General Cós’ presidio guards.
Six weeks after the Alamo, while the Mexican wounded still languished in San Antonio, Santa Anna met his Waterloo at San Jacinto. The men who died inside the walls of the Alamo had bought with their lives the time needed for General Sam Houston to weld a force that won Texas its independence. The great sacrifice would not be forgotten by history, nor would the Alamo’s many legends and stories, most of which can never be proved or disproved because all the defenders died.
One of the most enduring questions is whether Travis really did draw a line in the earth, the grand canyon of Texas, and ask all to step over who were willing to die for the cause. It is probably based on fact. Travis anticipated a battle to the death. Since he was also one for fairness, it’s logical to believe that he would give the men an opportunity to leave the ill-fated garrison. It is a fact that one man did leave. Louis Rose was from France, and he had already served in one bloody war as a noncommissioned officer in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. Before the final assault on the Alamo he left, sustaining many leg wounds from cactuses and thorns during his escape that plagued him the remainder of his life. Asked why he chose not to stay with the rest, he replied, By God, I wasn’t ready to die. It is Rose’s tale of the line in the dust that has become legend.
Two of Santa Anna’s earliest opponents were Erasmo Seguin and his son Juan, of San Antonio. In fact, it was Juan who became one of the staunchest fighters for Texas freedom, forming his own band of Tejanos to stand alongside his Anglo counterparts. Juan Seguin was on a courier mission for Travis when the Alamo fell, but he vowed to one day honor the Alamo dead in a church ceremony, a ceremony that had been denied by Santa Anna. Legend claims that Seguin collected the ashes and placed them in a casket covered with black. Inside the lid, he had the names of Travis, Bowie and Crockett engraved. He then buried the casket. Where? No one knows. Shortly before his death, when he was in his 80s, Juan Seguin stated that he had buried the casket outside the sanctuary railing, near the steps in the old San Fernando Church. In 1936, repair work on the altar railing of the cathedral led to the unearthing of a box containing charred bones, rusty nails, shreds of uniforms and buttons, particles of coal, and crushed skulls. From that discovery arose a controversy that continues to this day. Are they the bones of the Alamo defenders? Many believe yes, but since the defenders did not wear uniforms, many others think not.
Questions also still remain about the death of David Crockett, who, without doubt, was the most famous defender of the siege. Shortly after the capture of Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, rumors began to circulate that 49-year-old Crockett had not died alongside his men in the final moments of the Alamo. Conflicting testimony claimed that Crockett and a handful of others–including Lieutenant James Butler Bonham, who rode back into the Alamo on March 3 knowing full well that it was a death trap–survived the siege, only to be destroyed on the orders of an enraged Santa Anna a few minutes later. True…or not? No one may ever really know. But most people prefer to believe that Crockett died a heroic death inside the Alamo.
Davy Crockett was a national folk hero long before the events of the Alamo. Born August 17, 1786, in an East Tennessee wilderness cabin in what is now Greene County, he struck out on his own at the tender age of 12 to help drive a herd of cattle to Virginia. By 1813, he was serving as one of General Andrew Jackson’s scouts in the Creek War. He apparently did not enjoy fighting Indians and returned home as soon as his 90-day enlistment was up. In 1821, he was elected to the Tennessee Legislature for the first time, representing a district of 11 western counties in the state. He later served two terms in the United States Congress.
Crockett was always one for adventure. When defeated at the polls for a third term in Congress in 1835, he turned in typical Crockett fashion to the cause of Texan freedom as a way to completely cut off one phase of his life and begin another. Before leaving for Texas, however, he gave his constituents one last speech. He concluded …by telling them that I was done with politics for the present, and that they might all go to hell, and I would go to Texas. After arriving in San Antonio in early February 1836, Crockett and the other Tennessee Mounted Volunteers eventually retreated into the Alamo.
The old fortress spread over three acres as it surrounded a rough rectangle of bare ground, about the size of a gigantic city block, called the plaza. On the south side of this plaza and detached from the church by a distance of some 10 feet was a long one-story building called the low barracks. Adobe huts spread along the west side, which was protected by a 12-foot-high stone wall. A similar wall ran across the north side. A two-story building called the long barracks/convent/hospital covered the east side, along with the church, which sat in the southeast corner, facing west.
Crockett and his men defended a low wooden palisade erected to breach the gap between the church and the low barracks of the south wall. The position of the low barracks was in front of, and perpendicular to, the right side of the church–an area that is now covered in flagstone. This palisade consisted of two rows of pointed wooden stakes with rocks and earth between the rows. All combatants considered the position to be the most vulnerable and hardest to defend area of the fortress. But Crockett and the other Tennesseans were expert marksmen, the best the small Texan army had. They most likely held their position until death.
As news of Crockett’s death swept across America, some stories portrayed him as standing in the thickest of the fighting, using his trusty flintlock rifle Old Betsy like a club, until being cut down by Mexican bayonets and bullets. Well…maybe that’s the way it really happened. Then again…maybe not.
Minutes after the fighting ceased, Santa Anna instructed Alcalde Francisco Ruiz to identify the bodies of the dead Texans, especially those of the leaders. According to the alcalde, Toward the west and in a small fort opposite the city, we found the body of Colonel Crockett…and we may infer that he either commanded that point or was stationed there as a sharpshooter. The only logical explanation is that the small courtyard bounded by the palisade on the south, the church on the east and the hospital on the north, where Crockett and the Tennesseans were stationed, was considered a small fort all its own.
But one month later, the imprisoned General Cós told Dr. George Patrick that Davy Crockett had survived the battle. According to Cós, Crockett had locked himself in one of the rooms of the barracks. When the Mexican soldiers discovered him, Crockett explained that he was on a visit and had accidentally got caught in the Alamo after it was too late to escape. Cós further said that Crockett wanted him to intercede with Santa Anna, asking for mercy, which Cós agreed to do–only Santa Anna had ordered no quarter and was incensed at such a request. The Mexican leader refused to spare Crockett’s life.
In 1878, writer Josephus Conn Guild offered a similar version in which Crockett and five others survived the siege. When overrun by the Mexican soldiers, the Alamo survivors surrendered to General Manuel Castrillón under promise of his protection, …but being taken before Santa Anna, they were by his orders instantly put to death. Colonel Crockett fell with a dozen swords sheathed in his breast. Actually, much of the same story had appeared as far back as 1836, when the diary of Lt. Col. José Enrique de la Peña was published in Mexico City. When the diary was finally published in English in the 1970s, it stirred up those Americans who felt the heroic Crockett never would have surrendered.
Another account, from Mexican Sergeant Felix Nunez, related details of the death of a Texan on the palisade: He was a tall American of rather dark complexion and had a long buckskin coat and a round cap without any bill, made of fox skin with the long tail hanging down his back. This man apparently had a charmed life. Of the many soldiers who took deliberate aim at him and fired, not one ever hit him. On the contrary, he never missed a shot. He may not have been describing Davy Crockett, but who else dressed in that fashion?
Susanna Dickinson (sometimes spelled Dickerson), one of the noncombatant survivors of the battle, stated in her memoirs that she saw Crockett and a handful of others lying mangled and mutilated between the church and the two-story barrack building, and even remembered seeing his peculiar cap laying by his side, as she was led from the scene by a Mexican officer. Perhaps she had seen Crockett after his execution, which supposedly occurred near the front of the church. But some people just won’t buy a capture-execution scenario. And perhaps Reuben Marmaduke Potter had it right all along when he wrote, David Crockett never surrendered to bear or tiger, Indian or Mexican.
There is also a controversial story about the Alamo’s secondmost legendary figure. That story, which has never been proved one way or the other, says that Bowie was the last to die in the fighting at the Alamo.
Jim Bowie, whose exploits made his name familiar in almost every American home during his lifetime, was born about 1796 (in either Tennessee, Kentucky, or Georgia–sources vary). When Jim was in his teens, the family settled at Bayou Boeuf, Rapides Parish, La., where he later operated a sugar plantation with his brother Rezin. It was his involvement with the pirate Jean Lafitte in the slave trade, though, that earned him a measure of notoriety. In September 1827, he killed a man with his huge knife during a brawl on a Mississippi sandbar just above Natchez. It was the Vidalia sandbar fight that firmly established him as a legendary fighter throughout the South.
Bowie left for Texas in 1828 to settle in San Antonio de Béxar, where his land dealings made him modestly wealthy almost overnight. Bowie also became a Mexican citizen and married into the Mexican aristocracy, which, more than anything else, gained him the friendship, confidence and support of the Mexican population. By 1831, he was fluent in Spanish.
Since he had been a colonel in a Texas Ranger company in 1830, he carried this title and authority when he answered the call for Texan volunteers. The 40-year-old frontiersman and Indian fighter was described as a normally calm, mild man until his temper was aroused. Absolutely fearless, he gave orders to the volunteers at the Alamo while 26-year-old Colonel Travis, a disciplinarian, took charge of the regulars and cavalry. The difference in their personalities, coupled with the difference in their ages, resulted in the two men sharing a somewhat antagonistic competition for command of the entire garrison. On one point they did agree: The Alamo was the most important stronghold of Texas.
Sometime around February 21, 1836, Bowie decided to help construct a lookout post or gun garrison along one of the walls. Although there are conflicting opinions on what actually happened, most accounts think that he lost his balance on the scaffold and fell 8 feet to the ground, breaking either his hip or his leg. This incident has also been called hogwash by other historians, who claim that Bowie never suffered any accident while at the Alamo. Whether or not he also suffered from tuberculosis, diphtheria, or the dreaded typhoid pneumonia is also a matter of conjecture. In any event, Bowie’s incapacitation left Travis with full authority from that point onward.
Bowie took to his sick bed in the low barracks on or about the second day of the siege, and there’s little doubt that he would have succumbed to his illness in a matter of days had not the Mexican soldiers dispatched him when they did.
On the final day of the 13-day siege, legend claims that it was Crockett who stole into Bowie’s room and gave the sick man two pistols to be used for defense. Most accounts agree that Bowie was found dead on his cot, but since his nurse, Madame Candelaria, never told the exact same story twice about the sequence of events, who really knows what happened that day? Bowie probably participated in the battle, dying in the fall of the Alamo with the other defenders. But was he the last to fall? Everyone agrees that the last position to fall was the church, and Bowie wasn’t even close to the church. As the Mexican soldiers stormed over the walls of the compound, the defenders raced to the long barracks, where there was no exit, and to the church. None of them ferried a sick man on a cot.
Still, the Mexican soldiers could have taken pity on Bowie when they saw him more dead than alive, prostrate on his cot in his room in the low barracks. In fact, an odd report claims that as the funeral pyres blazed high and soldiers heaped dead Texans on the pile, some soldiers carried out a man on a cot, a man the captain of the detail identified as no other than the infamous Bowie. Although the man was still alive, Santa Anna ordered him thrown into the fire along with the rest. Would Santa Anna be so cruel? Yes, especially if the man were a Mexican citizen fighting in the Texan army.
Although the fact remains that no one knows why some 188 men chose to die on the plains of Texas in a ruined Spanish mission that required at least 1,200 men to adequately defend all its acreage, their sacrifice brought Texas independence, which paved the way for expansion to the Pacific and added more than a million square miles to the American nation at that time. And because of their sacrifice, the Alamo is now a shrine respected and revered throughout the world. Remember the Alamo became the battle cry that broke Santa Anna’s back.
This article was written by Lee Paul and originally appeared in the February 1996 issue of Wild West. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Wild West magazine today!