It is apt that the most glorious moment of Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón's life was when a gun on a French ship blew his leg off. Well done that ship! He was an old fashioned, white, middle class Mexican, who openly despised Indians and seduced the maids. Not a nice boy. He was clever and half educated. He was a bully!
He was born in Xalapa, which is a pretty town. Though Xalapa doesn't boast about him much. He started out as as a shopkeeper in Vera Cruz and then became Captain Arredondo, the Indian killer's cadet, which was a Bad move. And bad move followed bad move. He stole money to gamble, womanised.
In the early years, he follwed Arredondo about hunting down Mexican fighters for Independence and killing the so called Chichimecas and then, when the Spanish were already on the run, really, he chose to fight for the Mexican "Emperor" Iturbide, who made him a general. By way of thanks, Antonio helped overthrow Iturbide.
Then he helped remove from office Presidents Gomez Pedraza and Vicente Guerrero. And the treacherous guy carried on the way he started. As governor of Yucatan he was like an old time "Negro Durazo". Worse. He thought it would be a good idea to invade Cuba, but no one was all that that enthusiastic. But he did beat back a small Spanish expeditionary force and allowed himself the luxury of a title: He called himself the "Glorious Saviour of the Fatherland."
But he always remembered to speak up for the threatened and endangered interests of the privileged and the oppressors and then, after the murder Vicente Guerrero, was made President. And subsequently banned Congress and suspended the constitution, saying:
"My people will not be ready for democracy, not in a hundred years, so I'll give them a benevolent dictatorship instead." Except, that wasn't very benevolent of him, was it?
And then comes the best bit. He lost the war against the United States. The Texans, just like the Israeli settlers are doing now in Palestine, were colonising Mexican land and pushing the Mexicans out. They had became a force in the North. After the Alamo, Antonio lost the war and was caught and threatened by the US generals with death if he didn't comply to US demands. In return for his life he signed away 50% of Mexican territory. Everything below the Colorado river. Imagine the size of that land claim. 50% of Mexican territory.
Antonio de Santa Anna finally reached flourishment in betrayal. Now who can take as binding the word of a snivelling coward under duress? Well the US government did. That was their modus operandi after all. Geronimo. Think of all the Indian treaties made around 1836.
The French invaded and Santa Anna lost his leg, which the bombastic fool buried it with great ceremony. He redeemed himself somewhat. Defeating the French at the Battle of Puebla.
But just think of it. Thousands at a funeral for a dictator's foot. Why do the US Mexicans make a big deal of the Battle of Puebla? Don't they know what a traitor Santa Anna was?
The Zapotecas of Xico caught him but he escaped to the US and then when the US invaded in 1846 They insisted that this Mexican "patriot" be made President again. A bit decrepit by now he took a 15 year old girl and made her his wife. You'd get jailed for that nowadays. But he had kids with her.
Well of course, he promised the US everything in return for their support. He was made president for life by the Conservatives. And then made a laughing stock of them by channelling all government money into his pockets, including money from the sale of all the "contested" land to the US, which he authorised, and then he kept the money for himself. The Mexicans finally found him out and sent to New York.
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón's Last small act of treachery was to help make Mexican chewing gum a US icon. He commercialised it in the States. Antonio died poor and blind and without a leg to stand on in Mexico City. Remember, it was the Mexicans who invented chewing gum.
That's "chicle" to you "Buddy"!
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