The gardens of the Alamo in San Antonio are visited by visitors. Matthew Busch is a reporter for The New York Times.
Raymond was a boy when his grandfather would take him on walks to the Alamo.
He would tell me that they built all this on top of the campo santo. The Tp Plam Coahuiltecan Nation elder said that all the tourists were standing on the bones of their ancestors.
The site of the pivotal 1836 battle in the Texas Revolution where American settlers fought to secede from Mexico and forge a republic that would become part of the United States is visited by thousands of visitors on a busy day.
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Spanish missionaries used the Mission San Antonio de Valero to spread Christianity to Native Americans. The Alamo was built by people from different tribes, and many of them were buried around the mission.
Texas officials are pushing ahead with a $400 million renovation plan for the site while Native Americans and descendants of some of San Antonio's founding families seek protections for the human remains.
At a time when political leaders in Texas are trying to bolster long-standing depictions of the state's history, how teachers discuss the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution and target hundreds of books for potential removal from schools, there is a feud. Critics accuse leaders of political overreach, and the dispute over the burial grounds has raised questions about whether the focus on the 1836 battle at the Alamo comes at the expense of the site's Native American history.
The leader of the Tp Plam nation criticized state officials who have resisted calls for the Alamo and its surroundings to be designated as a historically significant cemetery.
He likened the dispute to discussions about protecting important burial sites across the United States, such as those in Sugar Land, Texas, of the remains of 95 African Americans forced into plantation labor after emancipation.
Vsquez said that they were not against telling the story of 1836, but they wanted to have a say in how the remains are treated. The whole story of the site is what we are saying. We have a chance to correct something.
The Texas General Land Office, custodian of the site, and the Alamo Trust, the nonprofit overseeing the development plan, said in court documents that the Tp Plam's claims of ancestral lineage do not give them a constitutionally protected right.
The lawyers argued that if the Tp Plam were to be granted such a role, it would set a precedent for other people who could trace their ancestry back to someone who lived or died at the Alamo.
The Tp Plam have appealed victories to the official stewards of the Alamo, which have been handed down by courts.
Their strategy is close to producing results.
Two people involved in the mediation proceedings, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the talks, said this week that Texas state officials were preparing to give in to several demands from the Tp Plam. They requested to regain access to the Alamo chapel for religious ceremonies, improve training for Alamo staff, and have a role in discussions over how human remains should be treated.
The settlement would need to be approved by the San Antonio City Council and other parties to take effect, according to court documents filed this week. The Land Office said in a statement that it would continue to fight the Tp Plam in the courts.
Stephen Chang, the land office's spokesman, said that they plan to walk away from the proposed agreement. The mediation was supposed to end the lawsuits.
The $400 million renovation plan, which includes building a 100,000- square-foot museum and visitor center, is moving forward despite some criticism.
The 1836 battle of the Alamo made folk heroes out of men such as Davy Crockett, a former Tennessee lawmaker who died in the clash, according to others. The president of This Is Texas Freedom Force, who has appeared openly armed around the Alamo to protest changes at the site, said he opposed placing Native Americans at the center of the Alamo story.
They don't want to shine the light on the Alamo defenders who died there, said a former fugitive recovery officer. I have some good news for them, people come from all over the world because of that battle, not because of the Native Americans that were there before them.
George P. Bush is the Texas land commissioner. Bush said that the plan to restore and preserve the Alamo was focused on the battle of 1836 and the defenders who gave their lives for their independence.
The recent tensions have shed light on important phases of the state's Indigenous history. Texas was home to hundreds of tribes, such as the Anadarko and Karankawa, when Spanish missionaries arrived in the 1700s.
The names of hundreds of individuals from many different tribes are in the burial records of the Alamo. Conepunda, a Sifame Indian child, was last rites said by priests in 1745. In 1755, a Ypandi Indian named Magdalena was laid to rest.
Mirabeau Lamar, who was in charge of the independent republic of Texas after the state's independence in 1836, reversed an appeasement policy towards Native Americans enacted by his predecessor, Sam Houston.
Lamar chose to wage an "exterminating war" against tribes in Texas. Some Native peoples were wiped out and others were forced to relocate to Oklahoma as a result of the ethnic cleansing push.
Ral Ramos, a historian at the University of Houston who has written extensively on the Alamo, said there was a state-sanctioned program of genocide during the Republic of Texas. The Alabama- Coushatta, Tigua and Kickapoo are the only federally recognized tribes in Texas.
The issue over the Alamo has raised new questions about who qualifies as Indigenous. Similar to other groups that have coalesced, such as Genzaros in New Mexico and Colorado, the Tp Plam have decided against seeking federal recognition because it is up to tribal members.
The Tp Plam, whose religious practices blend peyote rituals with Catholic traditions, have more than 1,000 registered tribal members. Their leaders have created a for-profit corporation to train Native American entrepreneurs. The Tp Plam believes there are more than 100,000 Indians in San Antonio who descend from the Indians who lived at the Alamo and other Spanish missions in Texas.
The Tp Plam had a lawsuit against them over the burial ground. They filed the suit after they were barred from using the Alamo chapel to carry out private services for their ancestors.
The Texas Historical Commission rejected a request to officially designate 10 acres around the Alamo as a cemetery, which would have imposed more stringent handling standards for any human remains, instead choosing to only designate the mission-era church as a cemetery.
The remains of three people were found in a dig at the Alamo. The Tp Plam was not consulted on how to proceed by the Alamo Trust. The Lipan Apache, a state-recognized tribe in Texas, has signed on as an ally of the Tp Plam.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was enacted in 1990 to give more control over the removal of Native American human remains. The Tp Plam, who use mission birth and death records to show their genealogy, are angry that they have been ignored by the Alamo's stewards.
More people are looking at the Alamo's burial records as the conflict drags on.
The Tp Plam believes that 80% of those buried around the mission were Native Americans.
Juan Blanco, a free Black man who was a Mexican soldier on the frontier before he was killed by Apache Indians in 1721, is one of the people from a variety of background. Antonio Eloza, the Cuban-born commander of Mexican troops in Texas, was one of the last to be buried at the Alamo.
The president of the 1718 Founding Families and Descendants said she was shocked to learn she had ancestors buried in the Alamo cemetery.
Bicente and Maria Sepeda are thought to be buried near a federal building opposite the Alamo.
The government continues to deny that there is a burial site for our ancestors. Sometimes I stare at the sky and wonder what is keeping them from telling the truth.
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