Mar 10, 2020 - Sale 2533

Sale 2533 - Lot 223

Price Realized: $ 75,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 40,000 - $ 60,000
BROADSIDE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE FALL OF THE ALAMO (TEXAS.) Noticia estraordinaria, viva la patria y el ejercito mexicano. Letterpress broadside, 12 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches; horizontal fold, minor wear and toning along right edge; uncut. Mexico: Juan Matute, 1836
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"Probably the first announcement in Mexico City of the fall of the Alamo"--Streeter, Texas 895. This hastily printed broadside was issued in Mexico City shortly after the Texian defenders of the Alamo were defeated and executed on 6 March 1836. It denounces the "pérfidos é ingratos colonos de Tejas que defendian la fortaleza de Alamos" and proclaims a death count of more than 600 at the hands of the brave Mexican army: "Mas de seiscientos estrangeros perversos han sido víctimas del noble furor de nuestros valientes soldados." The broadside was clearly printed in haste as soon as the news was received in the capital, as the date of the battle is given as "6 de Marzo de 836" and that the Governor has ordered it printed before all of the details could be included: "Por no retardar al público tan plausible noticia, el E. Sr. Gobernador ha dispuesto se le de sin los pormenores." It concludes with a rallying cry, "Viva al Ejército defenzor de los derechos nacionales."
This document is printed on Italian laid paper with an Al Masso watermark as seen in other Mexican documents printed in the 1830s. Streeter traced only one surviving example of this broadside in 1956: his own personal copy. One example in OCLC (Yale University), and only one other traced at auction, at Sotheby's in 2004.