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Ferdinand VII

Hildago

José María Morelos

Simón Bolivar

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
in middle age

The Alamo

World News for this month

Spanish America against Napoleon

More than a few people in Spain's colonies were influenced by the Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions, and among them was a growing dislike of Spain's restrictions over economic matters. There were restrictions on trading with foreigners, restrictions against growing crops that would compete with crops grown in Spain, and restrictions on making goods that would compete with goods made in Spain. Taxes imposed by Spanish authorities were also annoying. People of Spanish heritage born in Latin America were not participating in government the way that people of British heritage had been in Britain's colonies. Criólles (those born in America claiming pure Spanish blood) were living under the more authoritarian tradition of the Spaniards. The Church and its Inquisition were dominated by Spaniards. So too was the military in Latin America. The families of Spain's officials enjoyed their authority and higher status. They were haughty toward the Criolles as well as toward Indians, and the Criolles resented it. Many of them had a non-white in their family sometime in the 200 years since the Europeans had arrived in the New World, while people born in Spain prided themselves on their purity.

A turning point for Latin America was Napoleon's move into Spain and Portugal. From 1808 to 1814, Napoleon held Spain's king, Ferdinand VII, captive. With this, to the Criollos, Spanish authorities in Latin America appeared to be agents of the French. Criollo of both liberal and conservative persuasion formed committees (juntas) that declared their loyalty to King Ferdinand -- believed by some to be their divinely chosen authority. On May 25, 1810, a junta in Argentina claimed rule on behalf of Ferdinand VII. A junta in Santiago (Chile) declared independence on September 18, 1810, and in Acuncion (Paraguay) independence was declared on May 14, 1811. A junta in Caracas (Venezuela) declared independence on July 5, 1811, and independence was declared also in La Paz (Bolivia) and in New Grenada (Colombia). And fighting erupted between Spanish authorities in Latin America and those associated with the juntas.

Hildago and Morelos in New Spain (Mexico)

In Mexico City - the administrative center of New Spain -- a Criollo junta declared its support for Ferdinand VII and for independence. New Spain extended from Panama in the south to the territories of Alto California, Nuevo Mexico and Texas in the north (Nuevo Mexico including territory between Texas and Alto California as far north as what eventually would be called Wyoming). New Spain had a population of around 1.2 million whites, 2 million mestizos (part Indian, part white), 4 million Indians (about a million more than a century and a half earlier but down from 15 million at the time of Cortez), and there were some blacks on the Caribbean coast. The Criollos were interested in maintaining their property and status vis-à-vis Mexico's vast numbers of Indians and mestizos.

A sixty-year-old Criollo priest, Miguel Hidalgo, had a more radical response to events. Hidalgo was an intellectual who had drawn from the Enlightenment, and he dismissed popular notions concerning race. Hidalgo had been fighting for the well-being of Mexico's Indians and Mestizos, including a call for the return of lands stolen from the Indians. Pursuing this in the wake of the more conservative independence movement in Mexico City, he organized an uprising for December 8, 1810. Then, in the early morning of September 15 at the village of Dolores (110 miles northwest of Mexico City), Hidalgo was warned that Spanish authorities in the nearby town of Querétaro had learned of his plans and were sending a force against him. Hidalgo rang his church bell, calling his Indian and Mestizo followers to action. And, according to reports, he shouted:

Long live Ferdinand VII! Long live religion! Death to bad government!

Hidalgo's followers, with their farm tools as weapons, marched to the town of San Miguel thirty miles to the northwest, picking up hundreds of combatants from farms and mines along the way. The militia of San Miguel joined the uprising, Hidalgo's army swelling to several thousand. Encouraged by their numbers, the insurgents began to sack shops and loot the houses of whites. Within a week, Hidalgo's army reached the town of Guanajuato, sixty miles farther northwest, their army now numbering around 50,000. And now they met resistance. Defending soldiers killed 2,000 of Hidalgo's men. Shocked by the reality of warfare, Hidalgo's men went on a rampage, killing all opponents they could, including those who surrendered.

The growing army moved on, taking one town after another. They defeated an army of 7,000 that had been sent against them. But Hidalgo's force was tiring and many had lost their weapons. Rather than strike for control of the capital, Mexico City, Hidalgo ordered his force to the nearby provincial capital, Guadalajara, for a rest. There he set up a government, with one small printing press, and began training his army. He sent another priest, José María Morelos, and 25 men on a mission to capture Acapulco (on the coast in southern Mexico).

Moving against Hidalgo's rebellion, 6,000 soldiers moved through Guanajuato and approached Guadalajara. Hidalgo's army outnumbered the rival force thirteen to one, but a battle outside of town went badly for Hidalgo's men. They panicked and fled. Hidalgo, with about a thousand men, retreated north to Saltillo in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra mountains (near Monterrey). Those around Hildago replaced him as their leader, while their enemy was capturing one town after another, and they captured Hidalgo. He was tried by the Inquisition, defrocked and executed by firing squad at Dolores on July 31, 1811.

José María Morelos, meanwhile, had gathered a force of around 9,000 men and was occupying towns and hills south of Mexico City. Following Napoleon's withdrawal from Spain and Ferdinand's return to power in 1814, Ferdinand sent additional troops to Mexico. In 1815 the Spaniards overwhelmed Morelos and his force, with 2,000 escaping to Puebla and about 1,000 to Oaxaca. Morelos stood before the Inquisition, was defrocked, and he too was executed by firing squad, on December 22, 1815.

The uprising to 1816 had killed between 200 thousand and 500 thousand people. If the deaths were 200 thousand, that would be a little more than 3.3 percent of the population and equivalent to the U.S. in the year 2000 (with a population of 280 million) losing more than nine million.

Spain and Liberators in South America

Simón Bolivar was a Criollo with a few drops of Indian and African blood and proud of it. He was born into Venezuela's plantation society and into wealth, and in his late teens he enjoyed leisure in Europe. He was influenced by liberalism and the Enlightenment, and he acquired an admiration for Napoleon. In the year 1810, at the age of 27, he was back in Venezuela, supporting Venezuela's pro-independence junta and having outgrown youthful frivolity. The junta sent Bolivar back to Europe as the head of a delegation aiming at international support. He returned in 1811 unsuccessful but with Venezuela's leading dissident, a vain revolutionary, Francisco de Miranda, who had been in exile in England.

In behalf of the junta in Caracas, Miranda declared Venezuela and New Grenada (Columbia) to be republics. The junta removed the trading restrictions that Spain had imposed. It exempted taxes from the sale of food, ended the paying of tribute to the government by Venezuela's Indians and prohibited slavery. Battles were fought between Miranda's forces and a Spanish army that had been stationed in Venezuela, the Spanish forces winning considerable support among Venezuela's illiterate masses. In March 1812, an earthquake devastated Caracas. The Spanish clergy in Caracas claimed that the earthquake was God's anger against the sins of the rebel government. And in July Miranda's forces were defeated and the Spaniards regained control over Caracas.

Outside Caracas small bands of rebels led by military chieftains continued their defiance of Spanish authority. Simón Bolivar built a force of 2,000 men and fought his way back to the city, entering in triumph on August 7, 1813. Following Ferdinand's return to power in 1814 and more troops arriving from Spain, Bolivar was driven westward to New Granada.

Rebel forces could no longer claim power in the name of King Ferdinand, and Spanish forces were advancing against the rebels elsewhere in Spanish America. In Chile the leader of liberal regime, Bernardo O'Higgins, was forced to flee with his army across the Andes mountains into Western Argentina, where he was welcomed by José de San Martín, the liberal-monarchist governor in the province of Cuyo. In Venezuela, the Spaniards put Miranda in a dungeon -- where he died in 1816. The Spanish drove Bolivar from New Grenada, Bolivar fleeing to Jamaica and Haiti. He was depressed and without any of his former wealth, but his hopes of creating a new order in South America soon revived.

In 1817, San Martín and O'Higgins went with their armies back across the Andes Mountains to Chile. There they defeated the Spanish and took power in the city of Santiago. They laid plans to sail north to Lima (Peru), the center of Spain's authority in Latin America, the most wealthy and economically successful of Spain's Latin American cities -- a city filled with conservative créoles who, with an abundance of slaves, had never had to dirty their hands with any kind of work.

On the Atlantic coast, in an area called Banda Oriental (northeast of Buenos Aires), another rebel force was having successes. This force was under José Gervasio Artigas, who was allied with other cattle-raising, gaucho, landowners. He distrusted urbanites, broke with junta leaders in Buenos Aires and fought against Brazil's intrusions. Eventually he was to be known as the father of his country: Uruguay.

In 1817 Bolivar and a small force returned to Venezuela and established a base inland in the rain forest along the Orinoco River. There he gathered new recruits, new supplies and added to his reputation. The drive of Spain's forces into Venezuela's interior aroused people there into a more active rebellion, and Bolivar allied himself with the rebellious cattle herdsmen, Indians and semi-nomadic hunters there. He found that liberating slaves gave him added support and strength, and where he and his army went he gave slaves their freedom. But, unable to unify those rebelling against Spain, he concluded that he could not move into Caracas, and instead he laid plans to move his force again to New Grenada.

In 1818, Spain invaded Chile again and defeated O'Higgins at Cancha Rayada, but San Martín defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Maipú. In 1919, Spain lost in New Grenada to Bolivar, who arrived in Bogotá in August, 1819. Bolivar organized what became Gran Colombia -- including what is now Ecuador, Colombia and Panama, and became its president on December 17, 1819.

King Ferdinand, meanwhile, was having trouble in Spain. After returning to power in 1814 he had been pursuing a policy of absolutism. And he was not paying his army. In 1820, soldiers assembled for embarkation to the Americas revolted, and various groups in Spain joined the revolt. They drove Ferdinand from power. Bolivar moved with his army back to Venezuela and late that year he signed an armistice with the commander of Spain's forces there. In 1821, Bolivar's armistice with the Spanish ended. On June 21 he won the Battle of Carabobo (about ninety miles, or 150 kilometers southwest of Caracas), and Caracas fell to Bolivar a few days later. Venezuela was now free of Spanish rule.

By now San Martín had landed in Peru, with the help of a British sea captain, Thomas Cochran. The invasion force was welcomed by rebellious inhabitants of coastal towns and joined by Peru's Indians. Lima's conservative forces fled inland. Spain's viceroy in Lima preferred negotiations to fighting and invited San Martín and his force into Lima, San Martín entering the city on July 12 amid celebrations in the streets. San Martín had not come to rule. All he wanted was Peru's independence. And he had Bolivar's help. Bolivar defeated Spain's supporters at Quito in May, 1822. In July, Bolivar met with San Martín, who was still combating Spain's supporters in the interior. Martín turned Peru over to Bolivar and returned to Chile.

In 1823, Europe's Holy Alliance delegated the French to put Ferdinand back onto his throne. Louis XVIII of France sent an army of 100,000 into Spain, and a bloodbath followed Ferdinand's restoration. Britain was enjoying the trade with Latin America that had been denied by Spain, and Britain warned against any attempt to reestablish Spain's rule in Latin America. The United States was also enjoying its new freedom to trade with Latin America, and in December that year the U.S. President, James Monroe, proclaimed what became known as the Monroe Doctrine: aimed at Russian designs on Alaska and also against Spain attempting to regain its lost colonies.

In August, 1824, Bolivar launched an important battle at Junín, in what was soon to be called Bolivia in honor of Bolivar. Next, in December, fighting alongside a Peruvian force, Bolivar won the Battle of Ayacucho, 200 miles southeast of Lima. Spain was no longer a colonial power in South America.

Portugal and Brazil

Portugal's royal family debarked on a fleet of ships in late November 1807, barely escaping from Napoleon Bonaparte's grasp, taking with them their royal carriages, the crown jewels and much other baggage. Portugal's queen, Maria, was incapacitated with fears. She heard voices and saw demons, and her thirty-nine year-old son, João, was prince regent, ruling in her name. Queen Maria had to be taken aboard against her will.

The royal party sailed across the Atlantic and reached Brazil four months later. The people of Rio de Janeiro escorted João and his party across flower-strewn streets. The queen, Maria, arrived three days later, to a welcome of respectful quiet.

Rio de Janeiro became the defacto capital of Portugal's empire. In addition to the good cheer, the royals found black slaves working the docks and black slaves in fine dress but barefeet tending the carriages of Brazil's Criollo elite. They found white ladies wearing Paris fashions more than twenty years out of date, including the monstrous wigs.

Cheered by his reception, and allied with Britain against Napoleon, João decreed a number of reforms, including opening Brazil's trade with all friendly nations and abolishing the commercial monopoly that the mother country had held over its colony. Preferential tariffs were granted to Britain as reward for British help against Napoleon. And João opened Brazil to visitations by foreign scholars and to immigration.

In 1815, João raised Brazil to the status of a kingdom united with Portugal. In March 1816, with the death of Queen Maria, João became King João VI. In 1817 unrest appeared in Brazil. There was economic deprivation. Some were hurting from the freer trade, and there was discontent among liberals over repressions such as censorship. Discontent in the Pernambuco area (1000 miles north of Rio de Janiero) turned into rebellion, which João's military repressed.

Following the withdrawal of Napoleon's forces from Portugal, the British had set up a regency there, and they asked João to return, but he declined. Then, in 1820, liberals took power in Portugal -- alongside the takeover by liberals in Spain. Like Spain, Portugal acquired a liberal constitution. In Brazil, news of the revolution in Portugal created celebrations. In 1821 the British finally persuaded João to return, João accepting his role as a constitutional monarch and leaving his elder son, Pedro, on the throne in Brazil.

The regime in Portugal attempted to reinstate economic favoritism for Portugal and economic restrictions for Brazil, which sparked resistance among those who would have been hurt by such restrictions. Brazil's ruler, Pedro, disliked Portugal's attempt at impositions, and the regime in Portugal labeled him a rebel. Pedro heard that Portugal was sending troops to arrest him. He had enough military support to prohibit the landing of the troops from Portugal, and Portugal's squadron of ships returned to Portugal without Pedro. Celebrating his triumph, Pedro, on September 7, 1822, on his balcony at his royal palace at Ipiranga, drew his sword and declared "Independence or death!" On October 12, at the age of 24, he was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil.

Brazil's independence was not accepted by Portugal's liberal regime -- one of history's odd developments. Then Britain's foreign minister, George Canning, announced that it would not tolerate any European intervention in the Western Hemisphere, a position echoed by the Monroe Doctrine, aimed at Portugal as well as Spain.

Independence did not bring to Brazil much lasting happiness. Many remained at odds with Pedro's policies on human rights, his authoritarian rule, governmental control over ideas, education still dominated by the Church, and land dominated by a few. And there was agitation for an end to slavery. Pedro bent to liberal pressures, and in 1824, a constitution was granted the Brazilians, derived in part from words used in France's Declaration of the Rights of Men. But it was in good measure a conservative document. Slavery was not mentioned. There was to be a parliament and Pedro was to be a constitutional monarch, but he was to retain considerable power, including the ability to bypass parliament, the judiciary and local authorities. He was to have a veto over legislation. He was to be able to appoint senators for life, and parliament's Chamber of Deputies and local councils were to be elected by very limited suffrage.

In 1825, in exchange for international recognition, Emperor Pedro agreed to settle Brazil's debts with Britain, and he agreed to end the importation of slaves by 1830. Planters in Brazil were upset by Pedro's agreement regarding slaves. And more trouble came for Pedro following the death of his father, João, in 1826. The idea of Pedro becoming king of Portugal as well as Brazil, ending Brazil's independence, produced a storm of discontent in Brazil. To preserve his position in Brazil, Pedro abdicated the throne in Portugal in favor of his seven-year-old daughter, who became Maria II, and his brother, Dom Miguel, became Maria's regent.

Dom Miguel had the support of upper-clergy, the judiciary, nobles and other conservatives in Portugal, and in 1828 he engineered a coup d'etat against the liberal regime and proclaimed himself king. Maria II and a few around her found refuge in Britain, as a bloodbath unfolded in Portugal.

Pedro abdicated his throne in Brazil in favor of his five-year-old son, who was put under a regency, and Pedro went to Europe in hope of putting his daughter Maria II back on her throne. He won the support of France's new liberal monarch, Louis-Phillipe, and a force under Pedro's command landed in Portugal in 1833. Later that year, Maria was restored to her throne. Then in 1834, at the age of thirty-six, Pedro died from tuberculosis.

Unrest continued in Brazil, and it was splintered by provincial rebellions, but Pedro's son was popular. He was one of those rare royals who by accident was also highly intelligent. At the age of six he was reading and writing both Portuguese and English and studying French. He was tutored in science, and, in the year 1840, at the age of fifteen, liberals of influence had him declared of age, and he was crowned king: Pedro II.

A New Era for South America

Wars against the Spanish in South America had disrupted the lives and economies there. People had been uprooted. Mines had been flooded and abandoned, roads had been neglected and harbor facilities had fallen into decay. All this could be repaired soon enough, but establishing the equality, freedom and democracy that liberals tended to believe in was questionable. While fighting for independence some had thought about justice for Indians, but after the wars most of them ignored the Indians, and societies continued to be highly stratified according to race. The Criollos were now free from paying taxes to the Spanish, and they could now aspire to offices that had been held by Spaniards, but many non-whites remained in debt slavery or tied to the lands of the wealthy Criollos. Some wealthy landholders who had led bands of rebels against the Spanish had a taste for applying military action for political ends and personal glory.

Bolivar had seen as far back as 1815 that the kind of independence that had been created by Britain's colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America could not be created in South America. He disliked what he saw as a tendency toward anarchy and political immaturity. Bolivar believed in institutions, the rule of law, a strong central government, social justice, the end to forced labor and all employment freely and fairly contracted. Spain, he complained, had not allowed people in the New World to experience and develop self-government within a framework of institutions.

Bolivar's ally, San Martín, had left Argentina for Europe after his wife's death in 1823, and was living in poverty. In Chile, O'Higgins had been energetic and honest. He established courts, colleges, libraries and hospitals, but he angered the Church with his reforms and antagonized men of commerce. He was driven from power, and Chile fragmented into warring factions. Uruguay's founding father, José Gervasio Artigas, was in exile in Paraguay, never to return to Uruguay. In April 1826, Bolivar returned to Caracas from Peru and tried to persuade competing factions there to resume a rule of law. In July, he convened the Congress of Panama to promote democracy and cooperation between Latin America's independent states, but Argentina, Chile and Brazil refused to attend the conference, and the conference was a failure.

In 1827 Bolivar accepted an invitation from the Congress in Bogotá and became President of the Republic of Columbia. Factional disputes interfered with governance. Bolivar acquired dictatorial authority but was then forced to flee. His health was fading, and on December 27, 1830, he died.

Mexico, California and New Mexico

In 1820, following the liberal uprising that drove Ferdinand VII from power in Spain, conservatives in Mexico broke with Spanish authority and moved toward independence. Their leader was a Criollo military officer, Agustín de Iturbide, who, on February 24, 1821, launched the Plan of Iguala. Under this plan, the Criollos and resident Spaniards in Mexico (the Gauchupines) were to be equal in rights and Mexico was to be a constitutional monarchy; Mexico was to be officially Roman Catholic and the Church was to maintain its traditional powers; Mexicans were to have freedom to worship as they pleased; and military commanders were to order no capital punishment against "an accused person."

An attempt was made to establish a broadly based independence, and so the two most prominent revolutionaries, viewed as leaders of common folk, were invited to join as subordinates. The two outstanding revolutionist leaders still surviving were the Criollo Guadalupe Victoria (whose real name was Manuel Félix Fernández), who had been holding out in a cave near Puebla, and Vicente Guerrero, an uneducated mestizo who had been protected by the rugged mountains around Oaxaca. Both were future presidents.

Conservative and moderates associated republicanism with radicals and the bloodshed of the French Revolution, and they favored a monarch from an internationally recognized royal family. Iturbide invited Spain's deposed king, Ferdinand, to be Mexico's king, or any prince whom Ferdinand would suggest in his place. But Ferdinand was not interested. And no prince came in his stead. So it was Iturbide, considered the father of independent Mexico, who became monarch, on May 21, 1822 -- declared so by a National Constituent Congress that had been created two months before. And Agustín de Iturbide was crowned with Church ritual on July 25, 1822, Iturbide taking the title of Emperor Agustín I.

The liberal government in Spain had signed a treaty recognizing Mexico's independence, on August 24, 1821 -- the Treaty of Cordoba. But unofficially the Spanish did not yet fully accept Mexico as independent.

With Mexico, Central America had been a part of New Spain, and it split from Mexico and acquired independence. Between 1825 and 1838 it formed what was called the United Provinces of Central America. Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras would become sovereign republics in 1838, with British settlers still on the eastern coast of Honduras, at Belize. El Salvador and Guatemala would become independent republics in 1839.

Constitutional Government in Mexico

Mexicans were blissful about independence. They were expecting prosperity. Instead there was a rise in prices and stagnation. In fact, the economy of Mexico (with other Spanish colonies on the American mainland) had been stagnate since the early 1700s. Britain's colonies since 1700 had been growing at a rate of 0.5 percent per year. Mexico in the 1700s had been exporting a lot of silver to Spain, and Spain had been drawing taxes from Mexico to meet its own needs, while Mexicans had little wealth left over to invest in their own growth. By 1800 the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Mexico divided by its population was $40. The per capita GDP in the United States, soon to be a rival power, was twice that and continuing to grow. [note]

Mexico was handicapped by its colonial past, and it was short of fertile land. Much of Mexico was mountainous, and much was desert. What it needed now was development of what agriculture potential it had, and cheaper food for consumers, leaving them with money to buy greater variety -- in other words, an advance in the market economy and more purchasing power for Mexico's hardworking multitude. Mexico also needed peace, stability and confidence that investing in growth would produce benefits. It needed better roads for transporting goods. It needed freedom from the huge debt that the Spaniards had left behind for the government in Mexico City. And Mexico needed more wealth for government in the form of revenues from modest taxation.

Emperor Iturbide's government had too little money, and a convenient way for him to raise money (and to reward followers) was to sell commissions in the army. Congress was also short of money, and it left the army starved for funds.

Iturbide could not get legislation passed as congressmen quibbled over procedural matters. Iturbide quarreled with Congress and he learned of a move within Congress to strip him of his power and to proclaim a republic. Iturbide learned of this and had sixty-six arrested. On October 31, 1822, Iturbide ordered his army to dissolve Congress, and he replaced Congress with a junta packed with his supporters.

Most of those who had been arrested by Emperor Iturbide were free again by December. And it was in December that a young and ambitious Criollo military commander in the province of Veracruz, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, led a revolt against Iturbide. Santa Anna had begun his career at age eighteen as a junior officer in Spain's army of occupation. He had continued losing money at gambling and had managed to stave off debt collectors by less than honest means. He had another weakness: an admiration of a man most triumphant in glory and power -- Napoleon Bonaparte. Santa Anna combed his hair as he imagined Bonaparte combed his, and he enjoyed riding a white horse.

Santa Anna had gone over to the side of revolution not out of conviction; he had switched sides when it was opportune to do so. Emperor Iturbide had seen Santa Anna for what he was -- extremely ambitious -- including the courtship of a woman more than thirty years his senior: Iturbide's sister. After Santa Anna was aware that he was out of favor with the emperor, he moved against him. He joined his army with others who wanted a republic, led by Guadalupe Victoria. This was a force that attracted Mexico's other anti-Iturbide military commanders to the extent that they forced Iturbide into exile, to Britain -- Iturbide leaving behind a large government debt piled upon the debt left behind by the Spaniards.

In Mexico City, on December 6, 1822, a republic was proclaimed. Congress was reconvened and worked toward the creation of a federalist constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution of 1824 proclaimed "The United Mexican States" a federated republic, with federal powers divided between its legislature, executive and judiciary. The executive (president) was to serve a four-year term without succession. Congressmen were to be elected every other year, and states were to establish requirements for voting.

Congress declared Iturbide a traitor and an outlaw and forbade his return to Mexico. Iturbide did not learn of this, and when he sailed back to Mexico in 1824 he was arrested as he landed, and he was shot a few days later -- on July 19.

Santa Anna was living comfortably as a prestigious and popular military commander at the age of thirty-one, and he married a fourteen-year-old Gauchupina with a moderate-sized dowry. Guadalupe Victoria became President of Mexico on October 1824, under the new constitution, which stipulated four-year presidential terms.

President Victoria was on the liberal side of the political spectrum, favoring increases in social justice, freedom of the press and other reforms. For the sake of balance and to appease conservatives a conservative had been made vice president. This was Nicolás Bravo, who, with conservative allies, attempted a coup in December, 1825. The rising was easily crushed, and President Victoria served out his four-year term, the only Mexican president to do so in the coming forty years.

California

News of Mexico's independence reached California's capital, Monterey, in April 1822, eight months after the Treaty of Cordoba. Spain's governor in California, Pablo Solá, swore allegiance to the new government in Mexico City and became a delegate from California to Mexico's Congress in Mexico City.

Mexico's break with Spain freed trade between Californians and foreigners. More ships would now arrive on California's coast -- Spanish ships having come infrequently to the remote outpost of California due to the long, costly and hazardous out-of-the-way journey. Since 1810 no Spanish supply ships had arrived. In 1820 California experienced a rise in trade and the number of people traveling up and down its main inland trade route, El Camino Real. Ships owned by the Boston firm of Bryant, Sturgis and Company were sailing between Boston and California -- a three-month journey around Cape Horn, and from California to Hawaii and China. In California they were selling tobacco, silk stockings and other goods, and from California they were hauling hides for New England's shoe-making industry.

The Russians were still in California, hunting sea otters in San Francisco Bay and as far south as San Pedro, with Mexico's approval. Mexico was eager to develop trade, and in 1824 Congress passed a law that the persons and property of foreigners would be secure for those who settled in California and obeyed Mexico's laws. Foreigners who were Catholic or who converted to Catholicism could, after becoming naturalized, hold land. Upon hearing of Mexico's welcome to immigration, a few people from the eastern United States began making the three-month sail to California, mainly to its territorial capital, Monterey, and soon started families there. And trappers came overland to California to take part in the fur industry.

In 1824, Indians revolted in California, following an outrage by soldiers at Santa Ynez, twenty miles northwest of Santa Barbara. The Indians were well armed, to the surprise of authorities. The rebellion was crushed after reinforcements made the long trek from Santa Barbara, but periodic revolts by Indians would continue.

With independence from Spain, the arrival of missionaries from Spain was cut, and feelings against Spaniards, including Spanish monks, started to put California's missions into decline. In 1826 the governor of California, José Maria Echeandia, moved to convert the missions to secular townships (pueblos). Conflict over the issue delayed the move for a few years. In 1834 the conversion of the missions began in earnest. Whites began buying mission property. Indians who had been living and working in the missions were forced to seek an alternative, which lowered their morale.

New (Nuevo) Mexico

With the turmoil in Mexico around the time of independence, Mexico City left the missions at Tumacacori and San Xavier del Bac in western New Mexico (Arizona) exposed to Apaches, and these settlements had to be abandoned. The main town in New Mexico, Santa Fe, continued to thrive. Mexico's independence and its lifting of Spain's restrictions on trade with foreigners coincided with the development of trade along the Santa Fe trail -- which began as a passageway by traders from Franklin, Missouri, in 1821. Merchants in Missouri began sending manufactured goods to Santa Fe in exchange for furs and other Mexican or Indian goods, and Mexican caravans journeyed the 800 miles from Santa Fe to Missouri. Santa Fe had changed from a sleepy town of priests, a few soldiers and some Indians into a frontier town of commerce, with whitewashed adobe structures, gambling halls, prostitutes, numerous small churches, a grand cathedral, a customs house and a hotel. According to an observer from Kentucky, the cathedral had fine alter vessels and Indians near Santa Fe were wearing hand-woven cotton garments and coral or turquoise jewelry.

Mexico's liberal policy toward migration applied also to New Mexico, and a few trappers for beaver for men's hats drifted in, joining the Hispanics and Indians there. In 1824 the Bent brothers from Virginia built a trading post where the Arkansas and Purgatoire rivers met -- to become Bent's Fort -- then a part of New Mexico territory, in what is now Colorado. In 1826 a fourteen-year-old saddle-maker's apprentice, Kit Carson, ran away from Missouri and arrived in New Mexico.

More Chaos in Mexico

In the presidential contest of 1829, Vicente Guerrero (the former revolutionary then military general and vice president under Victoria) ran against Manuel Gómez Pedraza, a conservative scholar who had been Foreign Minister and Minister of War under President Victoria. Guerrero won the most votes cast by eligible voters, but Mexico's House of Representatives elected Pedraza. Guerrero claimed that he had been cheated, and rather than letting Mexico's judiciary decide the issue in accordance with the Constitution, Santa Anna intervened on the side of Guerrero, while cries of "Viva Guerrero" were frightening property owners. Armies fought skirmishes. Santa Anna and Guerrero won. Pedraza withdrew, Guerrero was elected president, and Santa Anna was rewarded. He became both a general and the governor of Veracruz, a warlord of sorts, demanding contributions from men of wealth and demanding a list of those who had not contributed -- which increased contributions dramatically. And Santa Anna's estate in Veracruz grew to thirty-five miles along the gulf coast.

Since 1823 Ferdinand VII had been back in power in Spain again, and his ministers were watching the instability in Mexico and believed that the time was ripe to reconquer Mexico. On July 6, 1829, a Spanish force sailed from what was still Spain's colony, Cuba -- during the yellow fever season on Mexico's gulf coast. A force of 2,600 landed on the gulf coast. President Guerrero gave Santa Anna the job of defending Mexico from the Spanish invasion, and, in August, Congress gave Guerrero emergency dictatorial powers. In September, Santa Anna, not a talented tactician, defeated the invaders. The Spaniards had lost 908 men, mostly to disease. The Mexicans lost 135 dead and 151 wounded. The invaders were permitted to sail back to Cuba. And Santa Anna was elevated higher in the eyes of the average Mexican. Like other peoples -- Germans, Russians and people in the United States -- Mexicans appreciated heroes. Congress bestowed upon Santa Anna the title of "Benefactor of the Nation" and in Veracruz were celebrations and church services of praise (Te Deums).

Liberals, meanwhile, had assuaged conservatives by giving the vice presidency to one of them: Anastasio Bustamante. Following the defeat of the Spanish, Guerrero refused to surrender his dictatorial powers. Conservatives moved against Guerrero. In December, Guerrero responded with a decree to put himself in command of an army to suppress the insurrection against him. The conservatives held that Guerrero was in violation of the constitution, and, in February, Congress declared President Guerrero unfit for office and voted for Bustamante to replace him. Guerrero, former popular revolutionary leader with a public following, took up arms against the Bustamante government. In January 1831, Guerrero was captured, and he was shot to death on February 14.

Texas and the Alamo

Mexico's migration policy for Texas was similar to that for California and New Mexico. Stephen F. Austin, from Arkansas, acquired land that had been granted his late father, Moses Austin, in 1820. In 1823, Mexico confirmed Austin's land grant and allowed Stephen Austin to sell plots to settlers so long as they were of good character, and Austin began advertising for settlers in frontier newspapers. He had no trouble finding takers. The land could be bought for 12.5 cents and acre -- one tenth the cost of unwanted land in the United States. Austin's land was good for farming crops such as cotton, sugar, corn, potatoes and fruit trees. Word spread, and from Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee, Illinois and Ohio people came to Texas to buy land that Mexico was offering. Mexico responded by applying new restrictions. Foreigners could hold title to no more than 49,000 acres (which amounts to land 8.7 by 8.7 miles). A head of a family could acquire 4,428 acres of land (2.6 by 2.6 miles) for a fee of 30 dollars, paid in installments of from four to six years.

In 1828, awareness of Texas in the United States led its president, Andrew Jackson, to offer to buy Texas, but Mexico refused his offer. Austin's migrants were an industrious lot. Many arrived with their own tools and machinery. Most had some education, and the migrants were setting up schools to educate their young. Concerning Texas, Mexico was handicapped by its gap between its elite and its poor. Mexico's elite had no desire to move to Texas and take up farming. Mexico's poor had not been led to believe that they had opportunity to succeed as farmers in Texas. Extremely poor Mexicans already in Texas were not climbing any such ladder of success. The total population of Texas in 1829 was about 20,000, which left much of it still unsettled. There were about 1,000 slaves and about 5,000 Mexicans.

Leaders in Mexico City became worried about immigrants taking over Texas, and they considered settling convicts in Texas or inviting Catholic migrants from Europe. In 1829 President Guerrero abolished slavery in Mexico's territories as a way of discouraging Yankee migration. In 1830, during the presidency of Anastasio Bustamante, Mexico's Congress passed a law prohibiting foreigners from settling on Mexican territory unless they had a passport issued by Mexico. Mexico vowed strict enforcement of laws against a further introduction of slaves, and it reimposed customs duties.

Mexico did not begin arresting settlers with slaves, but it began to encourage Mexicans and people from Europe, particularly from Switzerland and Germany, to settle in Texas. This upset the Anglos in Texas. They were concerned about preserving their own culture and their ability to express themselves politically, including a demand that slavery be allowed.

Mexico was in political turmoil again. President Bustamante was unpopular, in part because of the execution of the Guerrero. Santa Anna backed an uprising against Bustamante in early 1832. Liberals sided with Santa Anna, seeing him as one of them -- the man who had proclaimed a republic back in 1822 and had defended Mexico against the Spanish. Santa Anna rode into Mexico City in early January, 1833. Elections were held, and Santa Anna won in a great landslide. A liberal, Valentín Gómez Farías, became Vice President. Santa Anna found the duties of the presidency burdensome and returned to the comforts of his estate, while remaining officially president. Presidential duties were left to the liberal vice president, Gómez Farías, and he began a bold move against conservative forces: the army and the Church. He reduced the size of the army and put the army under more restrictive governmental controls. He moved to secularize education and denied the Church its right to collect an involuntary tithe, leaving what people gave the Church a matter of conscience.

Anglos in Texas had cheered Santa Anna's electoral success, believing like others that he was a liberal. The Anglos held a convention in 1833, at San Felipe (130 miles east of San Antonio), attended by around 56 delegates. It called for repeal of the anti-immigration section of the law of April 6, 1830. Texas had been united with the state of Coahuila back in 1824, and the convention called for Texas to become an independent state within Mexico. It called also for judicial reform, habeas corpus, trial by jury, freedom of the press, universal suffrage and improved mail service. The convention sent Stephen Austin to Mexico City with their request for reform.

On June 1, 1833, Mexico's military, led by General Gabriél Durán, rebelled against Gómez Farías and kidnapped Santa Anna, declaring the great hero Santa Anna to be dictator. Santa Anna went over to the side of the conservatives and overthrew the government from which he had been absent.

Austin had arrived in Mexico City in July and was received with hostility. On his way back to Texas, in Saltillo (70 kilometers southwest of Monterrey), he was arrested and put into prison, accused of inciting insurrection in Texas.

Santa Anna repealed the constitution of 1824, and in May, 1834, he sent Gómez Farías into exile. For months Santa Anna's military attacked in various states, Santa Anna allowing his military to run wild to intimidate those inclined to rebel. In July 1835, Austin was freed under a general amnesty law and returned to the United States through New Orleans, but in Texas the unrest continued. In November, the Anglo-Americans defied Santa Anna by voting to defend Mexico's 1824 constitution, and volunteers began arriving from the United States to take part in a war against Santa Anna.

Santa Anna sent his brother-in law, General Cós, with 500 troops to Texas to disarm the settlers and to expel "troublemakers." Cós and company arrived in September, 1835. Fighting erupted, and in November, during the fighting, the Anglo-Americans created a document known as the Organic Law, outlining a provisional government for Texas. Then in December, on the outskirts of San Antonio, at a fortress in a place called the Alamo, a horde of armed Anglo farmers defeated Cós, who surrendered.

Santa Anna finished putting down a rebellion in the state of Zacatecas. He led an army toward Texas, losing half of his more than 6,000 ill-clad and ill-fed men across desert and through winter weather, and in February he suddenly appeared in Texas with his army of 3,000. When Cós surrendered he promised to take his men with him out of Texas and to fight the Anglos no more, but Cós joined his few hundred men with those of Santa Anna. The military leader of the Anglos, Sam Houston, advised fighters to abandon San Antonio, proclaiming that standing there was futile, but a couple of hundred of them refused. They decided to hold up at the place of victory against Cós -- the Alamo. Most of the Anglos at the Alamo followed the romanticism of the commander there, Colonel William Travis -- the kind of romanticism rejected by modern professional soldiers.

Santa Anna raised a scarlet flag on the belfry of San Antonio's church, indicating that he would not be granting mercy to any Anglo who surrendered. Among the Anglos at the Alamo words were spoken about fighting to the death. In the fighting that followed around 78 Mexicans died, 26 of them officers, and 251 Mexicans were wounded. Only six of the 188 or so Anglo men survived. Santa Anna provided the women and children at the Alamo safe passage through his lines. He gave them protection, a blanket and a little money for survival. The six who surrendered - one of whom was Davy Crocket -- were cut down the following day with swords. Crocket was a celebrity in the United States, and people there wanted to believe that Crockett had gone down fighting to the end.

Santa Anna assumed that he had defeated the Anglos of Texas, and he relaxed. He dispersed his army and ordered that all Anglos caught bearing arms were to be executed as pirates and that expenses for his campaign were to be raised from confiscated property. One of his generals, Urrea, ambushed 41 Anglos at Los Cuantes de Agua Dulce, and most of the 41 were killed, with no casualties among the Urrea's force. Urrea captured 400 Anglos near Goliad (85 miles southeast of San Antonio) and requested amnesty from Santa Anna. Instead, Santa Anna ordered all to be executed, the executions taking place on March 27, 1836. The Anglos in Texas, meanwhile, on March 2, had issued their Declaration of Independence.

On April 20, Santa Anna, now with a force of around 1,110 men, met a force of 800 men led by Sam Houston, near the San Jacinto River (on the eastern side of what is now the city of Houston). Santa Anna's force was overwhelmed and Santa Anna was taken prisoner -- while napping. Some Anglos wanted him killed. Santa Anna was unnerved and asked for, and was given, some opium. Houston treated Santa Anna as a guest, and he won from Santa Anna a pledge to end the fighting and to withdraw Mexico's army from Texas. A second pledge by Santa Anna remained secret, an agreement by Santa Anna to prepare Mexico City to receive a peace delegation from Texas for formal recognition of the independence of Texas.

One of Santa Anna's generals obeyed Santa Anna and withdrew Mexican military personnel from Texas. In November, 1836, Houston allowed Santa Anna to travel to Washington, where Santa Anna met with President Andrew Jackson and a delegation from Texas. There, during a dinner, Santa Anna tried unassertively to sell Texas to the United States at a bargain price, but Jackson was not buying. He saw Texas as already independent of Mexico, and he sent Santa Anna back to Veracruz aboard a U.S. warship.

In 1837, the United States officially recognized Texas as independent. Mexico refused. France established a trade agreement with Texas and recognized it as independent in 1839. Trade agreements and recognition by Great Britain, Holland and Belgium followed months later.

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