Where was Santa Anna getting his powder? Was it supplied by England as well as most of the weapons?
Turns out England had produced more than 1.6 million Brown Bess muskets between 1804 and 1815 for the Napoleonic Wars, so it no wonder that they showed up all over the world in the following decades. I dunno that it was Santa Anna per se who purchased the weapons used on the Texas campaign or a prior regime.
Black powder of course seems a more fragile commodity than guns, I have no idea as to global powder production in those years. Black powder was ground in mills.
The Spanish word for "mill" is "molino", one of the bloodiest battles in the Mexican War would be fought over the Molino del Rey (King's Mill) armaments production complex outside of Mexico City. Part of this blew up in a massive explosion at the close of the fight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Molino_del_ReyWorking in a powder mill at any time in the candle and lantern era had to be a risky proposition
but even then-remote San Antonio may have been making at least some of its own powder. A tall powder mill famously stood on a hill (Powder House Hill) in an open area some distance east of town overlooking the Alamo and turns up in the background of a number of period paintings, I do not know much about it but it had to have been of Spanish/Mexican origin.
Long way of saying that I believe the Mexicans were using home grown powder but in the absence of production figures I dunno.
Birdwatcher
