Art Martinez de Vara goes “On the Record” to discuses his new book.

Art Martinez de Vara goes “On the Record” to discuses his new book “Beneath Sacred Ground” about the Mission San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo) cemetery and those buried in it. The interview originally aired June 27, 2024.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ07BEl3my8

BENEATH SACRED GROUND by Art Martínez de Vara documents the lives, struggles, and ethnogenesis of the residents of Mission San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo) through the vehicle of their burial records. This work includes a full transcription of the original Spanish records, dating from 1706 to 1782, as well as modern Spanish and English translations for each entry. The records are annotated to provide information not contained in the original manuscript, such as indigenous names, ethnonyms, family structures, compadrazgo relationships, social status and political offices held. In this way it is possible to understand the people of Mission San Antonio de Valero in ways never intended or envisioned by the friars who created the burial records. The book is 798 pages and contains 137 illustrations. In addition to the 1154 burials contained in the surviving burial books, the appendix contains an additional 34 burials records recovered from external sources, a glossary of Latin and ecclesiastical terms, extensive bibliography and index of records. The records, as annotated by Martínez de Vara, reveal tragic stories of famine, epidemic, conflict and forced labor, but also stories of resistance, love, familial ties, cultural integration, and survival. The evidence of these stories is found interwoven in the sacramental records of this historic mission and are revealed from obscurity by applying several innovative research methods to guide the researcher.