Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican/Volume 1/Book 3/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
1829—1843.
Violent as was the conduct of the pretended liberals in overthrowing their rivals the Escocesses, and firmly as it may be supposed such a band was cemented in opposition to the machination of a bold monarchical party, we, nevertheless, find that treason existed in the hearts of the conspirators against the patriot hero whom they had used in their usurpation of the presidency. Scarcely had Guerrero been seated in the chair of state when it became known that there was a conspiracy to displace him. He had been induced by the condition of the country, and by the bad advice of his enemies to assume the authority of dictator. This power, he alleged, was exercised only for the suppression of the intriguing Escocesses; but its continued exercise served as a pretext at least, for the vice president, General Bustamante, to place himself at the head of a republican division and pronounce against the president he had so recently contributed to place in power. The executive commanded Santa Anna to advance against the assailants; but this chief, at first, feebly opposed the insurgents, and, finally, fraternizing with Bustamante, marched on the capital whence they drove Guerrero and his partisans to Valladolid in Michoacan. Here the dethroned dictator organized a government, whilst the usurping vice president, Bustamante, assumed the reins in the capital. In Michoacan, Guerrero, who was well known and loved for his revolutionary enterprises in the west of Mexico, found no difficulty in recruiting a force with which he hoped to regain his executive post. Congress was divided in opinion between the rival factions of the liberalists, and the republic was shaken by the continual strife, until Bustamante despatched a powerful division against Guerrero, which defeated, and dispersed his army. This was the conclusion of that successful warrior's career. He was a good soldier but a miserable statesman. His private character and natural disposition are represented, by those who knew him best, to have been irreproachable; yet he was fitted alone for the early struggles of Mexico in the field, and was so ignorant of the administrative functions needed in his country at such a period, that it is not surprising to find he had been used as a tool, and cast aside when the service for which his intriguing coadjutors required him was performed. His historical popularity and character rendered him available for a reckless party in overthrowing a constitutional election; and, even when beaten by the new usurper, and with scarcely the shadow of a party in the nation, it was still feared that his ancient usefulness in the wars of independence, might render him again the nucleus of political discontent. Accordingly, the pursuit of Guerrero was not abandoned when his army fled. The west coast was watched by the myrmidons of the usurpers, and the war-worn hero was finally betrayed on board a vessel by a spy, where he was arrested for bearing arms against the government of which he was the real head, according to the solemn decision of congress! In February, 1831, a court martial, ordered by General Montezuma tried him for this pretended crime. His sentence was, of course, known as soon as his judges were named; and, thus, another chief of the revolutionary war was rewarded by death for his patriotic services. We cannot regard this act of Bustamante and Santa Anna, except as a deliberate murder for which they richly deserve the condemnation of impartial history, even if they had no other crimes to answer at the bar of God and their country.
Whilst these internal contests were agitating the heart of Mexico, an expedition had been fitted out at Havana composed of four thousand troops commanded by Barradas, designed to invade the lost colony and restore it to the Spanish crown. The accounts given of this force and its condition when landed at Tampico, vary according to the partizans by whom they are written; but there is reason to believe that the Spanish troops were so weakened by disease and losses in the summer of 1830, that when Santa Anna and a French officer,—Colonel Woll— attacked them In the month of September, they fell an easy prey into the hands of the Mexicans. Santa Anna, however, with his usual talent for such composition, magnified the defeat into a magnificent conquest. He was hailed as the victor who broke the last link between Spain and her viceroyalty. Pompous bulletins and despatches were published in the papers; and the commander-in-chief returned to the capital, covered with honors, as the saviour of the republic.
There is an anecdote connected with the final expulsion of the Spaniards from Mexico, which deserves to be recorded as it exhibits a fact which superstitious persons might conceive to be the avenging decree of retributive providence. Dona Isabel Montezuma, the eldest daughter of the unfortunate Emperor had been married to his successor on the Aztec throne, and, after his wretched death, was united to various distinguished Spaniards, the last of whom was Juan Andrade, ancestor of the Andrade Montezumas and Counts of Miravalle. General Miguel Barragan, who afterwards became president ad interim of Mexico, and to whom the castle of San Juan de Ulua was surrendered by the European forces—was married to Manuela Trebuesta y Casasola, daughter of the last Count of Miravalle, and it is thus a singular coincidence that the husband of a lady who was the legitimate descendant of Montezuma, should have been destined to receive the keys of the last stronghold on which the Spanish banner floated on this continent![1]
By intrigue and victories Santa Anna had acquired so much popular renown throughout the country and with the army that he found the time was arriving when he might safely avail himself of his old and recent services against Iturbide and Barradas. Under the influence of his machinations Bustamante began to fail in popular estimation. He was spoken of as a tyrant; his administration was characterized as inauspicious; and the public mind was gradually prepared for an outbreak in 1832. Santa Anna, who had, in fact, placed and sustained Bustamante in power, was, in reality, the instigator of this revolt. The ambitious chief, first of all issued his pronunciamiento against the ministry of the president, and then, shortly after, against that functionary himself. But Bustamante, a man of nerve and capacity, was not to be destroyed as easily as his victim, Guerrero. He threw himself at the head of his loyal troops and encountering the rebels at Tolomi routed them completely. Santa Anna, therefore, retired to Vera Cruz, and, strengthening his forces from some of the other states, declared himself in favor of the restoration of the constitutional president Pedraza, whom he had previously driven out of Mexico. As Bustamante advanced towards the coast his army melted away.
The country was opposed to him. He was wise enough to perceive that his usurped power was lost; and prudently entered into a pacific convention with Santa Anna at Zavaleta in December, 1832. The successful insurgent immediately despatched a vessel for the banished Pedraza, and brought him back to the capital to serve out the remaining three months of his unexpired administration!
The object of Santa Anna in restoring Pedraza was not to sustain any one of the old parties which had now become strangely mingled and confused by the factions or ambitions of all the leaders. His main design was to secure the services and influence of the centralists, as far as they were yet available, in controling his election to the presidency upon which he had fixed his heart. On the 16th of May, 1833, he reached the goal of his ambition.[2]
The congress of 1834 was unquestionably federal republican in its character, and Santa Anna seemed to be perfectly in accord with his vice 6presidential compeer, Gomez Farias. But the church,—warned by a bill introduced into congress the previous year by Zavala, by which he aimed a blow at the temporalities of the spiritual lords,—did not remain contented spectators while the power reposed in the hands of his federal partizans. The popular representatives were accordingly approached by skilful emissaries, and it was soon found that the centralists were strongly represented in a body hitherto regarded as altogether republican. It is charged in Mexico, that bribery was freely resorted to; and, when the solicitations became sufficiently powerful, even the inflexible patriotism of Santa Anna yielded, though the vice president Farias, remained incorruptible.
On the 13th of May, 1834, the president suddenly and unwarrantably dissolved congress, and maintained his arbitrary decree and power by the army, which was entirely at his service. In the following year, Gomez Farias was deposed from the vice presidency by the venal congress, and Barragan raised to the vacant post. The militia was disarmed, the central forces strengthened, and the people placed entirely at the mercy of the executive and his minions, who completed the destruction of the constitution of 1824 by blotting it from the statute book of Mexico.
Puebla, Jalisco, Oaxaca, parts of Mexico, Zacatecas and Texas revolted against this assumption of the centralists, though they were finally not able to maintain absolutely their free stand against the dictator. Zacatecas and Texas, alone, presented a formidable aspect to Santa Anna, who was, nevertheless, too strong and skilful for the ill regulated forces of the former state. The victorious troops entered the rebellious capital with savage fury; and, after committing the most disgusting acts of brutality and violence against all classes and sexes, they disarmed the citizens entirely and placed a military governor over the province. In Coahuila and Texas, symptoms of discontent were far more important, for the federalists met at Monclova, and, after electing Agustin Viesca governor, defied the opposite faction by which a military officer had been assigned to perform the executive duties of the state General Cos, however, soon dispersed the legislature by violence and imprisoned the governor and his companions whom he arrested as they were hastening to cross the Rio Grande. These evil doings were regarded sorrowfully but sternly by the North Americans who had flocked to Texas, under the sanctions and assurances of the federal constitution, and they resolved not to countenance the usurpation of their unquestionable rights.
Such was the state of affairs in the Mexican Republic when the Plan of Toluca was issued, by which the federal constitution was absolutely abolished, and the principles of a consolidated central government fully announced. Previous to this, however, a pronunciamiento had been made by a certain Escalada at Morelia, in favor of the fueros, or especial privileges and rights of the church and army. This outbreak was, of course, central in its character; whilst another ferment in Cuautla had been productive of Santa Anna's nomination as dictator, an office which he promptly refused to accept.
The Plan of Toluca was unquestionably favored by Santa Anna who had gone over to the centralists. It was a scheme designed to test national feeling and to prepare the people for the overthrow of state governments. The supreme power was vested by it in the executive and national congress; and the states were changed into departments under the command of military governors, who were responsible for their trust to the chief national authorities instead of the people. Such was the Central Constitution of 1836.
It is quite probable that Santa Anna's prudent care of himself and his popularity, as well as his military patriotism induced him to leave the government in the hands of the vice president Barragan whilst the new constitution was under discussion, and to lead the Mexican troops, personally, against the revolted Texans, who had never desisted from open hostility to the central usurpations. But as the history of that luckless expedition is to be recounted elsewhere in this volume, we shall content ourselves with simply recording the fact that on the 21st of April, 1836, the president and his army were completely routed by General Houston and the Texans; and, that instead of returning to the metropolis crowned with glory, as he had done from the capture of Barradas, Santa Anna owed his life to the generosity of the Texan insurgents whose companions in arms had recently been butchered by his orders at Goliad and San Antonio de Bejar.[3]
During Santa Anna's absence, vice president Barragan filled the executive office up to the time of his death, when he was succeeded by Coro, until the return from France of Bustamante, who had been elected president under the new central constitution of 1836. In the following year Santa Anna was sent back to Mexico in a vessel of the United States government. But he was a disgraced man in the nation's eyes. He returned to his hacienda of Manga de Clavo, and burying himself for a while in obscurity, was screened from the open manifestation of popular odium. Here he lurked until the brilliant attempt was made to disenthral his country by Mexia, in 1838. Demanding, once more, the privilege of leading the army, he was entrusted with its command, and, encountering the defender of federation in the neighborhood of Puebla, he gave him battle immediately. Mexia lost the day; and, with brief time for shrift or communication with his family, he was condemned by a drum-head court martial and shot upon the field of battle. This was a severe doom; but the personal animosity between the commanders was equally unrelenting, for when the sentence was announced to the brave but rash Mexia, he promptly and firmly declared that Santa Anna was right to execute him on the spot, inasmuch, as he would not have granted the usurper half the time that elapsed since his capture, had it been his destiny to prove victorious!
Soon after the accession of Bustamante there had been gritos in favor of federation and Gomez Farias, who was, at that period, imprisoned; but these trifling outbreaks were merely local and easily suppressed by Pedraza and Rodriguez.
In the winter of 1838, however, Mexico was more severely threatened from abroad than she had recently been by her internal discords. It was at this time that a French fleet appeared at Vera Cruz, under the orders of Admiral Baudin, to demand satisfaction for injuries to French subjects, and unsettled pecuniary claims which had been long and unavailingly subjects of diplomacy. Distracted for years by internal broils that paralized the industry of the country ever since the outbreak of the revolution, Mexico was in no condition to respond promptly to demands for money. But national pride forbade the idea of surrendering without a blow. The military resources of the country and of the Castle of San Juan de Ulua, were, accordingly, mustered with due celerity, and the assailed department of Vera Cruz entrusted to the defence of Santa Anna, whose fame had been somewhat refreshed by his victory over Mexia. Meanwhile the French fleet kept up a stringent blockade of Vera Cruz, and still more crippled the commercial revenues of Mexico by cutting off the greater part of its most valuable trade. Finding, however, that neither the blockade nor additional diplomacy would induce the stubborn government to accede to terms which the Mexicans knew would finally be forced on them, the French squadron attacked the city with forces landed from the vessels, whilst they assailed the redoubtable castle with three frigates, a corvette and two bomb vessels, whence, during an action of six hours, they threw three hundred and two shells, one hundred and seventy-seven paixhan, and seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-one solid shot. The assaults upon the town were not so successful as those on the castle, where the explosion of a magazine forced the Mexicans to surrender. The troops that had been landed were not numerous enough to hold the advantages they gained; and it was in gallantly repulsing a storming party at the gates of the city, that Santa Anna lost a leg by a parting shot from a small piece of ordnance as the French retreated on the quay to their boats.
The capture of the castle, however, placed the city at the mercy of the French, and the Mexicans were soon induced to enter into satisfactory stipulations for the adjustment of all debts and difficulties.
In 1839, General Canales fomented a revolt in some of the the north-eastern departments. The proposal of this insurgent was to form a republican confederation of Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Durango, which three states or departments, he designed should adopt for themselves the federal constitution of 1824, and, assuming the title of the independent "Republic of the Rio Grande," should pledge themselves to co-operate with Texas against Bustamante and the centralists. An alliance was entered into with Texas to that effect, and an expedition of united Texans and Republicans of the Rio Grande, was set on foot to occupy Coahuila; but at the appearance of General Arista in the field early in 1840, and after an action in which the combined forces were defeated, Canales left the discomfitted Texans to seek safety by hastening back to their own territory.
The administration of Bustamante was sorely tried by foreign and domestic broils, for, whilst Texas and the Republic of the Rio Grande were assailing him in the north, the federalists attacked him in the capital, and the Yucatecos revolted in the south. This last outbreak was not quelled as easily as the rebellion in the north; nor was it, in fact, until long afterwards during another administration, that the people of the Peninsula were again induced to return to their allegiance. Bustamante seems to have vexed the Yucatecos by unwise interference in the commercial and industrial interests of the country. The revolt was temporarily successful; On the 31st of March, 1841, a constitution was proclaimed in Yucatan, which erected it into a free and sovereign state, and exempted the people from many burdens as well as the odious intolerance of all other religions except the Roman Catholic, that had been imposed by both the federal constitution of 1824 and the central one of 1836.
The discontent with Bustamante's administration, arising chiefly from a consumption duty of 15 per cent, which had been imposed by congress, was now well spread throughout the republic. The pronunciamiento of Urrea on the 15th of July, 1840, at the palace of Mexico was mainly an effort of the federalists to put down violently the constitution of 1836; and although the insurgents had possession, at one period, of the person of the president, yet the revolt was easily suppressed by Valencia, and his faithful troops in the capital.
But, a year later, the revolutionary spirit had ripened into readiness for successful action. We have reason to believe that the most extensive combinations were made by active agents in all parts of Mexico to ensure the downfall of Bustamante and the elevation of Santa Anna. Accordingly, in August, 1841, a pronunciamiento of General Paredes, in Guadalajara, was speedily responded to by Valencia and Lombardini in the capital, and by Santa Anna himself at Vera Cruz. But the outbreak was not confined merely to proclamations or the adhesion of military garrisons; for a large body of troops and citizens continued loyal to the president and resolved to sustain the government in the capital. This fierce fidelity to the constitution on the one hand, and bitter hostility to the chief magistrate on the other, resulted in one of the most sanguinary conflicts that had taken place in Mexico since the early days of independence. For a whole month the contest was carried on with balls and grape shot in the streets of Mexico, whilst the rebels, who held the citadel outside the city, finished the shameless drama, by throwing a shower of bombs into the metropolis, shattering the houses, and involving innocent and guilty, citizens, strangers, combatants and non-combatants, in a common fate. This cowardly assault under the orders of Valencia, was made solely with the view of forcing the citizens, who were unconcerned in the quarrel between the factions, into insisting upon the surrender of Mexico, in order to save their town and families from destruction. There was a faint show of military manœuvres in the fields adjoining the city; but the troops on both sides shrank from battle when they were removed from the protecting shelter of walls and houses. At length, the intervention of Mexican citizens who were most interested in the cessation of hostilities, produced an arrangement between the belligerents at Estanzuela near the capital, and, finally, the Plan of Tacubaya was agreed on by the chiefs—as a substitute for the constitution of 1836. By the seventh article of this document, Santa Anna was effectually invested with dictatorial powers until a new constitution was formed.
The Plan of Tacubaya provided that a congress should be convened, in 1842, to form a new constitution, and in June, a body of patriotic citizens, chosen by the people, assembled for that purpose in the metropolis. Santa Anna opened the session with a speech in which he announced his predilection for a strong central government, but he professed perfect willingness to yield to whatever might be the decision of congress. Nevertheless, in December of the same year, after the assembly had made two efforts to form a constitution suitable to the country and the cabinet, president Santa Anna,—in spite of his professed submission to the national will expressed through the representatives,—suddenly and unauthorizedly, dissolved the congress. It was a daring act; but Santa Anna knew that he could rely upon his troops, his officers, and the mercantile classes for support. The capital wanted quietness for a while; and the interests of trade as well as the army united in confidence in the strong will of one who was disposed to maintain order by force.
After congress had been dissolved by Santa Anna, there was, of course, no further necessity of an appeal to the people. The nation had spoken, but its voice was disregarded. Nothing therefore remained, save to allow the dictator, himself, to frame the organic laws; and for this purpose he appointed a Junta of Notables, who proclaimed, on the 13th of June, 1843, an instrument which never took the name of a constitution, but bore the mongrel title of "Bases of the Political Organization of the Mexican Republic." It is essentially central, in its provisions; and whilst it is as intolerant upon the subject of religion, as the two former fundamental systems, it is even less popular in its general provisions than the constitution of 1836.
- ↑ Alaman Disertaciones, vol. i, p. 219.
- ↑ The following letter from Santa Anna to a distinguished foreigner, will afford the reader a specimen of his personal modesty and political humility. The individual to whom it was written, was afterwards expelled by Santa Anna from the republic during his presidency, after having been invited by him to the country:
"Vera Cruz, October 31th, 1831.
"My Esteemed Friend:—I have the pleasure to answer your favor of the 5th ultimo, by which I perceive that my letter of the 9th of April last, came to hand. I have received the prospectus of the "Foreign College" you contemplate to establish, which not only meets with my entire approbation, but, considering your talents and uncommon acquirements, I congratulate you on employing them in a manner so generally useful, and personally honorable. I thank you cordially for the news and observations you have had the kindness to communicate to me, and both make me desire the continuation of your esteemed epistles. Retired as I am, on my farm, and there exclusively devoted to the cultivation and improvement of my small estate, I cannot reply, as I desire, to the news with which you have favored me. But, even in that retirement, and though separated from the arena of politics, I could never view with indifference any discredit thrown on my country, nor any thing which might, in the smallest degree, possess that tendency. We enjoy at present peace and tranquillity, and I do not know of any other question of public interest now in agitation, than the approaching elections of President and Vice President. When that period shall arrive, should I obtain a majority of suffrages, I am ready to accept the honor, and to sacrifice, for the benefit of the nation my repose and the charms of private life. My fixed system is to be called (ser llamado), resembling in this a modest maid (modesta doncella), who rather expects to he desired, than to show herself to be desiring. I think that my position justifies me in this respect. Nevertheless, as what is written in a foreign country has much influence at home, especially among us, in your city I think it proper to make a great step on this subject; and by fixing the true aspect, in which such or such services should be regarded, as respects the various candidates, one could undoubtedly contribute to fix here public opinion, which is at present extremely wavering and uncertain. Of course, this is the peculiar province of the friends of Mexico; and as well by this title, as on account of the acquirements and instruction you possess, I know of no one better qualified than yourself to execute such a benevolent undertaking. * * * * *
"I hope you will favor me from time to time with information, which will always give satisfaction to your true friend and servant, who kisses your hand."
"Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna."
- ↑ See Gen. Waddy Thompson's Recollections of Mexico, p. G9, for Santa Anna's wretched vindication of these sanguinary deeds.