ABSTRACT
A beacon of the Spanish colonization of modern-day Mexico, the former monastery now serves as a painful reminder of Mexico’s often fraught and complicated relationship with its northern neighbor: the United States (US). The former monastery is significant not only because it houses historical relics of multiple interventions by the United States into Mexico, but the monastery itself was the site of one of the final battles of the US-Mexico War. In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner delivered an infamous, if problematic paper, claiming that this destiny had been fulfilled. Historian Sarah K. M. Rodriguez has thoroughly researched how the earliest immigrants who came with Austin under several land grants fully intended to become Mexican citizens and shed their US citizenship. John Quincy Adams also had his eyes on Texas and hoped to one day bring it into the fold of the United States. Deep in the political capital of Mexico, independence felt fragile.
