Main Plaza — Plaza de las Islas — has been the civic heart of San Antonio since 1731, and history lies densely layered beneath your feet here. The plaza takes its name from the Canary Islanders — 56 settlers from the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco — who arrived here in 1731 at the order of the Spanish Crown, walking overland from Veracruz to establish the first formally chartered civil government in Texas. These families, who called themselves 'los isleños,' were granted noble status and privileges by the Spanish government, and they immediately claimed the best land, the most prominent civic positions, and this central plaza as the symbolic center of their community.
Main Plaza quickly became what it has remained ever since: the place where San Antonio conducts its public life. The city council met here. Markets were held here.
Public punishments were carried out here. During the Texas Revolution, the plaza was the site of the Siege of Béxar in December 1835, when Texian forces under Ben Milam stormed the Mexican garrison in brutal house-to-house fighting. The cry 'Who will go with old Ben Milam?' became one of the first battle cries of the Texas Revolution.
Today, San Fernando Cathedral anchors one side of the plaza, City Hall occupies another, and the flow of tourists, office workers, and longtime residents continues the three-century tradition of gathering in this irreplaceable civic space.