An historical Sketch.--Truth seldom spoken of Santa Anna.--Santa Anna's
early Life.--Causes of the Revolution.--The Virgin Mary's Approval of
King Ferdinand.--The Inquisition imprisons the Vice-King.--Santa Anna
enters the King's Army.--The plan of Iguala.--The War of the two
Virgins.--Santa Anna pronounces for Independence.
Before commencing our journey to the interior, we must break the thread
of our narrative by a brief biographical sketch: for this town is the
birth-place, and here began the public career of that man whose life
has become the history of his country. With him the Mexican Republic
began, and with him it has been terminated. In 1822 he was first to
proclaim a Republic in the Plaza of Vera Cruz; and when I stood in the
Plaza of the city of Mexico, in the winter of 1854, I heard him
proclaimed absolute ruler of a state which had already ceased to be a
Republic. This was not the first time that he had been raised to
absolute authority in Mexico, but the third time that this had occurred
in his checkered career--a career that resembles more the vicissitudes
in the life of a hero of Spanish romance than the memoirs of a living
politician.
SANTA ANNA.
Santa Anna is a man of whom the truth has seldom been spoken; for no
man can raise himself from a humble position to be the embodiment of
all the powers of the state without creating a host of enemies; nor can
a man be long in possession of absolute authority without raising up a
tribe of flatterers. To the one, he is every thing that is shocking to
humanity; while to the other he is the perfection of all the moral
qualities. This scurrilous manner in which all political discussions
are carried on in Mexico, has always furnished a ready apology for the
suppression of liberty of speech, and for the enforcement of the
Mexican law of ostracism in turn by every party in power.
As we Americans have nothing to hope from his friendship, and nothing
to fear from the displeasure of Santa Anna, we are able to take a
correct view of his character from the records, and to affirm that he
is neither a saint, as represented by one party, nor a monster, as
represented by the other; and as greatness is a comparative term, and
goodness is often used in a comparative sense, we may also add that he
is the first of Mexican statesmen, and as good as the best of his
rivals. He has suffered unnumbered and overwhelming defeats, which have
so exhibited his recuperative talents as to attract the admiration of
foreigners. Other aspirants have risen to popular favor, and then
fallen, one after the other, and have disappeared. But Santa Anna's
falls have ever been a prelude to his rising again to a greater
elevation; and there is no point of elevation to which he has risen
from which he has not been ignominiously hurled. He is a politician
whose course reminds us of a skillful swimmer in the breakers; half the
time he rides the waves and half the time he is submerged, yet never
sinks so deep but that he rises again to the surface. When Santa Anna
is in authority the fickle multitude cry out against him, and when he
is in exile no suffering innocent can compare with him; and the books
that at such times sell best in Mexico are those that vindicate his
past career. Of such a man something must be said, and to render that
something intelligible, a brief account of the social and political
changes of his times must be rendered.
Santa Anna was born at Vera Cruz, in the year 1796, in the most
prosperous era of the colonial government of the vice-kingdom of New
Spain, while Ravillagigedo was Virey. The new and liberal code,
regulating mines and mining, was yielding its legitimate fruits in the
immensely increased production of silver and gold, while the
newly-granted privilege of unrestricted trade with Spain and her other
colonies was followed by considerable shipments of grain from the
table-lands of Mexico to the West India Islands. The profound peace
that had reigned uninterruptedly for two hundred and seventy-five years
was still unbroken. Not a word of disloyalty was breathed; while the
Inquisition of Mexico watched with the utmost care for the least
appearance of rebellion against God or the king. Such was the religious
and political stagnation at the time Santa Anna was born; and so it
continued for the first twelve years of his life. But his youth was not
to be passed in a period of national repose.
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION.
It was the year 1808 that the news arrived in Mexico of the
imprisonment of Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII., the dotard and
simpleton who then disputed the Spanish throne, and who had rendered
themselves the laughing stock of all Europe by going, each one in
person, to advocate his side of a family quarrel before a common enemy,
the French Emperor, by whom both had thus been caught like mice in a
cage, and compelled to abdicate. At this news a feeling of indignation
ran through the vice-kingdom, while all Europe laughed at the strange
combination of knave and fool exhibited in the characters of the two
Spanish kings. The people of New Spain saw in them only the guardians
of the Church in the power of the infidels, and at once forgot the
unnatural crimes of their two kings. They thought only of their piety,
and with joy the news was carried throughout New Spain, that one of
their previous kings had consecrated his imprisonment to embroidering a
petticoat for the Virgin Mary; and when this announcement was followed
by another, a little more apocryphal, that the most holy image had, by
a nod, signified her acceptance of the present, there could no longer
be a doubt of his title of Most Catholic King, which might from that
time onward be interpreted Most Catholic Mantua-maker. The world might
now laugh at him, and hold him up to ridicule. All its ridicule
mattered nothing to the Mexicans. It made no difference to them. To
revere the king and render him a blind obedience was at all times a
part of their religion. Whether either of the two were fit to be kings
was not a question for the people to determine; and if the Virgin Mary
had not nodded her approval, the solution of this question of
competency would still be reserved for the tribunals of God and the
Inquisition. It was sufficient for the people to know that both father
and son had been compelled to abdicate, and that they no longer were
kings of Spain, and that the brother of the French Emperor occupied the
vacant throne, which the Inquisition had associated, in their
superstition, with the throne of God itself. God and the king were
inseparable words in the mouth of a citizen of New Spain, and he that
dared to separate them was thought worthy of Inquisitorial fires. They
owed the same reverence which the Aztecs rendered to their emperor
before the conquest.
Next to God and the king was the vice-king. Yet they had seen their
beloved viceroy, Iturrigaray, deposed by a conspiracy of Spanish
shop-keepers, which had organized itself in that focus of Mexican
trade, the Parian. All this was bewildering to the nation. All New
Spain was astonished to see a power sufficiently potent to arrest the
vice-king emanate from such a quarter. And not only had they witnessed
this, but they had also seen this same officer, whose person was so
sacred in their eyes, cast into the prison of the Inquisition among
"heretics, and accursed of God, and despised of Christian men," because
he had not discriminated in favor of the Spanish-born in his appeal to
the patriotism of the people.
Before they had escaped from this bewildering of all their ideas of
government, they were suddenly called upon to take sides in a war of
races that had sprung up in determining the question, who constituted
the people, among the divers races that composed the population of
Mexico? The Cortes of Spain had just proclaimed the sovereignty of the
people. But who were the people? The solution of this question excited
one of the most cruel and envenomed wars on record. The handful of
whites who had been born in Spain, and who enjoyed a monopoly of the
lucrative offices in Church and in State, as well as a monopoly in
trade, claimed it as their exclusive privilege to be considered the
people, and they it was who imprisoned the vice-king, because he
appeared to have more enlarged views than themselves. The Creoles, as
those of pure white blood born in America are called, who were excluded
from all places of honor or profit, held the balance of power, and it
was doubtful for a long time to which side the Creole soldiers would
incline. But they were not long in suspense; for when fired upon by an
undisciplined rabble, rather than an army, of Indians, they returned
the fire, and there, in sight of the city of Mexico, settled the
character of a contest which was, from that time forward, to shake the
whole social organization of the vice-kingdom--in which plantations
were destroyed, and villages and cities sacked and burned, and the most
unheard-of cruelties practiced by one party or the other on the
defenseless, until the final triumph of the Creole, or white troops, in
the time of the viceroy, Apaduer, over the insurgents, composed chiefly
of Indians and those of mixed blood.
RISE OF SANTA ANNA.
While this war was raging in all its fury, Santa Anna arrived at an age
to choose an occupation for life; and with the ardor of youth he
entered the king's service as a Creole officer, a cadet in the _Fijo
de Vera Cruz_. In this fratricidal war he soon distinguished himself
by that activity in the performance of the duties of a subaltern which,
in more mature years, distinguished him as a leader and a politician.
He was at that time in the unhappy dilemma of every man born in Spanish
America; he was compelled to choose between two evils--either to join
the king's cause, and fight for the Spaniards who oppressed his
country, or to run the hazard of seeing re-enacted in Mexico the bloody
tragedy of San Domingo, if the colored races should conquer in a
contest with the Spaniards. A few Creoles had chosen the side of the
insurgents; but they were few; as the Spanish cause could not have been
sustained for a day, if it had not been for the want of confidence in
the leaders of the insurrection. But it was not in contests with his
own countrymen that Santa Anna first won distinction; it was in a
battle with the filibustering invaders while yet Mexico was a colony of
Spain: it was in the bloody battle of the river Madina, in Texas, where
an army of three thousand men (according to Mexican accounts), on their
way to join the Mexican insurgents, were totally routed by Aridondo.
The zeal which Santa Anna continually exhibited in almost daily
contests with guerillas outside of the walls of Vera Cruz, so long as
the contest was confined to a war of races, soon won him distinction.
But now he is called to play the part of a military politician; for
when the news arrived in Mexico of the new constitutional revolution of
1820 in Spain itself, all the higher classes of society in the
vice-kingdom were in terror. Ten years of bloodshed and civil disorder
had been the fruits to Mexico of the first revolution of Spain--an
insurrection that had not been effectually put down until Spain herself
had returned to despotism, and now the newly-restored peace was
threatened with a more bloody insurrection than the former, unless
there was an entire separation of the two countries. Experience had
fully demonstrated that the Spanish colonial system was compatible only
with Spanish despotism. All native-born races desired to be free from
the political disorders consequent upon the military revolutions of
Spain herself. In this desire they were joined by that class who then
ruled over the consciences of all men in Mexico, the clergy; for that
powerful body preferred to sacrifice the allegiance they owed to the
king, from whom they had received their preferments, rather than run
the risk of losing their privileges.
THE PLAN OF IGUALA.
That which was the thought of all Mexicans capable of thinking, was not
long in receiving a definite shape and form. The _pronunciamiento_
of Colonel Iturbide, at the city of Iguala, on the 24th of February
1821, united all the conflicting elements of Mexican society; for all
could agree upon a plan that proposed a separation from Spain, while it
gave guarantees to property, to the army, and to the church. Men who
had been educated under the fatherly care of the Inquisition, had no
idea of religious toleration; toleration for heresy was no part of
their creed; nor had their long civil wars produced that alienation
from the priesthood which had arisen from this cause in the other
Spanish American states. One reason for this was that the first
insurrection was headed by the parish priest, Hidalgo; and because the
most prominent leaders in it were priests; while the watchword of the
insurgents was, "_Viva_ Our Lady of Guadalupe!" who is the patron
saint of the colored races of Mexico. The insurrection of Iguala was
entirely distinct in its character from the popular insurrection of
1810; for that was an insurrection of the oppressed races against the
despotism that was grinding them in the dust. It was a peasant war; but
the cry of Iguala rose from the soldiers of the government. It was the
first of that long list of military insurrections that have afflicted
Mexico. It was an insurrection of the Creole supporters of the
government, and rendered the government powerless at once. Colonel
Iturbide had distinguished himself, as a Creole soldier, by his
courage, and by the cruelty which he exercised toward the first
insurgents.
When an officer in the service of the king in the first insurrection
obtained a victory, he went to make his offering, not at the shrine of
the Virgin of Guadalupe, but at the shrine of the Virgin of Remedies,
so that as long as the Spanish cause prospered, the shrine of Guadalupe
remained in obscurity; but as soon, however, as Iturbide and the
Creoles deserted the cause of the king and joined the national
standard, the Lady of Guadalupe was made the national patroness, and
the order of Guadalupe was established as the first and only order of
the empire, while Our Lady of Remedies sank into obscurity. This gave
occasion to an unbelieving Mexican to remark that the revolution was a
war between the Blessed Virgins, and that she of Guadalupe had
triumphed over her that had taken shelter in the plant.
As soon as the tidings of the plan of Iguala reached Vera Cruz, Santa
Anna hastened to give in his adhesion to the cause now truly national,
which guaranteed equal rights to all under the united leadership of
Iturbide and of General Guerrero, the only remaining Creole leader of
the first insurrection still in arms. On the 18th day of March, 1821,
he was the first to proclaim the plan of Iguala in the Plaza of Vera
Cruz. This promptness of Santa Anna in proclaiming the independence
determined many who were hesitating in dread of a bombardment from
Spanish forces in the Castle of San Juan de Ulua; and this important
step it was which first brought him prominently into notice. As a
consequence of this political movement, Santa Anna was appointed second
in command in Vera Cruz.