Alamo Traces (59 page)
Authors: Thomas Ricks Lindley
Pena's prison conditions did not improve. On December 6, 1838, he wrote that he and the other prisoners from Mazatlan were in “solitary confinement.” He continued to complain: “. . . today it makes seven months that I have been reduced to imprisonment, . . . and it is going on three [months] that I am held incommunicado, deprived of every recourse. . . . The sentiment which causes injustice, the ill will that produces excessive oppression, the torments that make me suffer my physical ills which grow every day, have pulled out from me a new outcry and this digression, and servile souls will not be lacking who may look on the frankness of my language as a crime, because their blindness reaches such a gloomy level; but fortunately the power of tyrants does not extend to consciences, nor to volitions, and mine is invariable in order to tell the truth; the truth embitters him who provokes it; my suffering will even be refined by it still more, but I shall not be the one to
kiss the hand of my executioner. . . . Moreover, because General Paredes has subjected me to a salary less than that which a second infantry sergeant enjoys, I cannot pay the board that in that hospital is required from the prisoners of Mazatlan. . . .”
34
Ironically, on March 6, 1839, the three-year anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, Pena again wrote of his prison conditions in a petition to the powers that controlled his situation. He wrote:
A Mexican official [Pena] who today has been deprived for ten months of his liberty, submerged in a dirty and unhealthy jail, oppressed and mistreated by a power as unjust as it is arbitrary, which has not respected in his person any of the social guarantees, is finally deciding to raise his complaints to Your Excellency. . . .
It is eight months ago that they took the declarations of my companions and me with charges [being brought]; in conformity with the laws we were afterward put in full communication, but it is now more than five months that we are held incommunicado, depriving us thereby of the resources that our debtors could have provided us, of the consolations with which friendship could have sweetened the bitterness of our misfortune, and of consulting a lawyer to promote the appeals most in conformity with our rights. . . .
My demands against a solitary confinement so contrary to the laws, to humanity, and to the spirit of the century in which we live have been useless, and it will not have an end, I believe, if Your Excellency does not put the justification thereof to the test. The injuries that they have caused us with this proceeding, besides those which are consequences of an imprisonment, are unspeakable. In consequence of the first solitary confinement, a servant marched off carrying the few pecuniary resources which I relied on, and everything that had any value in my luggage; another followed after this bad example, absconding with the few resources that some good friends had provided me. A lady who was taking care of the scant clothing that remained to me, a month and ahalf ago disappeared with it, and this very day, sympathizing with my [bad] luck, the official of the guard has had to employ his authority so that another woman did not keep the only change of clothing that I possess. . . .
Although since the 10th of July of last year, four reales are provided to us daily, with the punctuality that the notorious scarcities of the public treasury permit, this quantity is not Sufficient to attend [even] to the most urgent necessities, because those that we have contracted by our upbringing and our respective classes in the army, far exceed those that a common soldier has, and therefore a law provided that every accused official should enjoy thirty pesos, and besides, of one-third of the amount by which his pay should [have] exceeded this, if I do not remember incorrectly. . . .
The moral ills that I have mentioned and that affect my soul infinitely, contribute to making my physical sufferings more cruel. I have seen myself in the bed of grave illness, without any effort being sufficient for them to permit me to go to the hospital, and although it is true that I was allowed to have a doctor prescribe for me in the presence of a sentry, it also is [true] that afterward I was deprived of this aid so necessary to my preservation. . . . Because of the unhealthfulness of the jail in which I have found myself since a month ago, my illnesses have been considerably aggravated, but I have resolved to die in silence, and not breathe here a single complaint, because I am personally convinced that pity will not be taken on my sorrows by those who can and should mitigate them â even on behalf of their good name, seeing that they do not want to do it in deference to humanity.
35
Pena did not die at that time. In May 1839 he escaped his prison cell and hit the road for Culiacan. However, after a chance encounter with a General Alcorta, he changed plans and traveled to Durango. Soon after his arrival, he was betrayed by a “false and vile female accuser” and thrown back into jail.
36
Sometime later Pena was transferred to Inquisition prison in Mexico City. From there he wrote on October 7, 1839: “In the calamitous age in which we live, in which inconsequentiality, denunciation, villainy and the most immoral actions are rewarded, it seems to be in the order [of things] that the one who detests infamy and speaks the truth is punished.
Because of this, undoubtedly, I am still being oppressed after sixteen months of imprisonment and of suffering all classes of mistreatment. . . .
“Only if I die soon will I leave unpublished the infamies that the commander in chief has done to the prisoners of Durango and to me, and the base actions of his vile minions Don Miguel Gomez, Don Jose Maria Aldana, Don Augustin Cevallos, and Don Rafael Andrade, so that they may receive at least the indignation of sensible men of all parties â although they are men so lacking in modesty that public contempt will have scant effect on them, since they still have the audacity to live in a settlement where because their evils are known, they are generally detested even by the prostitutes.”
37
Clearly, Pena's own words show that his prison time was stressful. Also, given the conditions under which he was imprisoned, it seems extremely doubtful he would have had the resources to obtain the books and documents that contain the additional source material reflected in the memoir manuscript.
A Comparison of Entries from the Campaign Diary
and the Pena Memoir
38
Appendix number eleven contains two handwriting samples. The first comes from the Campaign Diary, Sample B., appendix nine. The second sample is from the memoir manuscript, Samples B and C, appendix ten. Both samples are entries for March 31, 1836, and both report essentially the same information in about the same language. Thus, we have almost a word for word comparison in the examination of the two handwriting samples. In transcription and translation, the two samples read:
Campaign Diary
31. El dia 31, Jueves Santo, salimos del Cibolo y campamos en un paraje sin nombre donde habia cortos charcos de agua, despues de haber caminado de 16 a 18 millas. (Aqui suprime el autor del diario la causa que puso su vida en peligro, parte del dia y de la noche).
39
31. The thirty-first day, Holy Thursday, we set out from the Cibolo and camped at a spot with no name, where there were scarce ponds of water, after having traveled 16 to 18 miles. (Here the author of the diary omits the cause that put his life in danger for part of the day and of the night.)
Memoir Manuscript
El dia, 31, Jueves Santo, salimos del Civolo y campamos en un parage cuyo nombre era des conocido [desconocido] donde unicam. te habia unos cortos charcos de agua llove disa p. a hombres y bestias y caminamos de 16 a 18 millas. (Aqui suprimo la causa q. e puso mi vida en peligro parte del dia y de la noche p.r ser una cosa pura-Mente personal.)
40
The 31st, Holy Thursday, we set out from the Cibolo and camped in a spot whose name was unknown, where there were only some ponds of rainwater for men and beasts, and we walked 16 to 18 miles. (Here I omit the cause that put my life in danger part of the day and of the night, because it was a purely personal matter.)
In comparing individual words from the two March 31 entries, we find a number of words that were clearly not written by the same person.
First, is the creek name Cibolo.
Campaign Diary | Memoir Manuscript |
|
|
The authentic Campaign Diary uses “Cibolo” three times. The name is spelled once with a “b” and twice with a “v,” which is normal for Spanish. Two examples of Cibolo come from the Memoir manuscript. Both are spelled with a “v.” The ending “o” in Cibolo in the Campaign Diary was formed by having the pen stroke turn downward to the right and turn up and connect with line to form the “o.” Whereas, in the two examples from the Memoir manuscript, the pen stroke for the ending “o” in Cibolo turns upward to the left and travels down to cross the line forming an “o” that looks like a lowercase “e.” Also, the capital “C” is different. In the Memoir manuscript the pen stroke closes to form an egg shaped figure. In the authentic diary, one example of the “C” is closed, but it is not as pronounced as in the Memoir manuscript.
The second example is the manner in which
Dela noche
is written.
Campaign Diary | Memoir Manuscript |
|
|
