William Barret Travis

William Barret Travis, a native of South Carolina, was raised in Alabama, where he taught school, edited a newspaper, and passed the bar before turning 21. He moved to Texas in 1831 to escape debt and a failing marriage and quickly became involved in opposition to laws passed by Mexican administrations that many saw as tyrannical and rooted in fear of unruly American colonists in Texas. In 1832, his behavior sparked a small revolt in Anahuac. Despite his distrust of the Mexican government, he became a close associate of Stephen F. Austin and other significant colonists. He welcomed the split with Mexico in 1835, captured a Mexican supply train at the Grass Fight during the Siege of Béxar, and arrived in Bexar in February 1836 with a small company of men to reinforce the Alamo, where his cry, "Victory or Death," ensured that Texans remembered the Alamo after his death there in 1836.

San Antonio, Texas · United States