Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend

Journalist Jackson (Alamo Legacy) and preservationist White deliver a cradle-to-grave biography that transcends its connection to the Alamo, though that connection may be the main reason most readers will reach for this book. The authors are experts on the March 1836 attack by the Mexican army on the Texan outpost, and the second half of their book is gripping and action packed. The siege at the Alamo has reached almost mythical proportions in its many retellings, but Jackson and White hew closely to documented facts. However, that the lone male survivor of the assault was a slave called Joe, owned by the Alamo’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis, reveals this book’s importance and the story’s central irony. Joe fought at his master’s side, but victory didn’t go to the white men of the Alamo. Jackson and White have rescued Joe from being regarded solely as a curious footnote to this event, and his life as a slave is the real story here: born in Kentucky in 1815, taken to a fledgling plantation in Missouri, and then on to Texas, none of it by choice. The authors make the most of limited evidence, presenting a vivid picture of the impact slavery had on one man’s life. Illus. [em](Mar.) [/em]