Alamo historians now question story about 'John,' a slave said to have died in the famous battle

The Alamo’s official website lists “John,” a slave, as among the 189 known defenders who died in the 1836 battle at the fort. The Texas State Historical Association’s Handbook of Texas Online says John belonged to Francis L. Desauque and was a clerk in Desauque’s Matagorda County store near the coast. Both were at the Alamo before Desauque was sent out for supplies right before the start of a 13-day siege. John is said to have died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836. Desauque was killed in the executions at Goliad three weeks later. But a historical researcher who has meticulously tried to name everyone inside the walls of the Alamo that year believes John is the product of an 1836 printing error and people’s imaginations. “I don’t think the guy really existed,” said unofficial Alamo historian Bill Groneman, a retired New York City arson investigator who lives in Kerrville. He said the Alamo website and online handbook should remove any references to “John.”

But Carey Latimore, a Trinity University history professor specializing in African American studies, said the entries on John should be rewritten, not removed. He believes John could have been Anglo or an enslaved Black person, but he almost certainly was not a freed Black and was not necessarily at the Alamo when the battle occurred. “There are certain desires to make him Black, to make him a defender of the Alamo, to make him a free negro, which would mean he’s perhaps choosing to be there. We have to let the evidence drive us, not our own desires,” said Latimore, who serves as a history adviser on the Alamo Citizens Advisory Committee, Most people familiar with the Alamo have heard of Joe, William Barret Travis’ enslaved servant who survived the battle, gave eyewitness accounts and escaped bondage a year later. Joe said other Black individuals were present during the 13-day siege and battle, which concluded with the death of up to 257 soldiers and volunteers in the fort. About 20 women, children and slaves survived, although one enslaved Black woman is said to have been killed in the crossfire. Alamo devotees who have heard of John have long thought he also was among the dead. But Groneman has publicly questioned that narrative for nearly a decade. In a 2012 article in The Alamo Journal, a publication of The Alamo Society, an international group of aficionados of the siege and battle, he wrote that “collectively we have built an actual person out of nothing.”