Friendly Betrayal
Page 15
Volumes have been written about Miguel Hidalgo’s “Grito” in 1810. The sad truth is that his initial effort was quickly stopped by the more powerful Spanish Army. While strong resistance continued through numerous guerrilla-type skirmishes, they only served as training grounds for a number of generals who were incapable of leading Mexico in the long term.
Actual independence did not occur until 1821. As mentioned previously, its realization was the result of an agreement between the viceroy and the leader of the largest Mexican insurgent force.
Initially, the Mexican crown was offered to Fernando VII, but he declined, since he was again King of Spain. It’s suspected that Iturbide manipulated this part of the treaty so that he could take the throne himself.
After much political maneuvering, Iturbide did just that in May 1822. His reign was brief though; serving as Mexico’s emperor less than one year. His main problem in ruling is that his policies seemed to continue those of Colonial Spain. It was obvious that a monarchy type of government of any sort just wouldn’t do for the people of Mexico.
It is sufficient to say that the period between 1821 and 1835, saw the installation of over two dozen heads of state. Mexico’s status began as a constitutional monarch; then a regency period, and finally a republic.
The list of captains who took the helm of the Mexican ship of hope is endless. In short, the Mexican president’s chair was a well-worn stage for a succession of leaders. As noble as they were intended, their fiery speeches produced more chaos and less prosperity.
The shaky footing provided a questionable foundation stone for the young nation that once promised such optimism. Yearning to follow the U.S. colonies’ example of liberty and justice for all, militarist leaders seeking Mexico’s top civilian position still had a lot to learn about democracy.
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As for federalism supporters, as those in Texas and Tamaulipas, the creation of Coahuila y Texas in 1829 was bad enough. Then, the 1824 Constitution was revoked. Rayo saw these actions as an extension of the lawlessness he was unwittingly playing a role in. He wanted no part of it. He then begins to seriously question his position as an elected official.
Soon, heavily disheartened, he moved in with Porfirio, his brother. Porfirio owned a rancho near Laredo and it was there that he relocated to in order to raise his children.
To help provide security for his own family and others in Laredo, he decided to organize a compañía volante with his old comrades
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Of all the civil war revolts across Mexico, the Texas revolt movement was the only one commandeered by U.S. expatriate Anglos. As discussed earlier, the disposition of Anglos now swarming into Texas was much different in disposition than the first group brought in by Stephen F. Austin.
With his compadre’s knowledge, Tomás had volunteered several times to join vaqueros taking cattle to market in San Antonio. However, Tomás had even found himself a place to live in the regional capital. After living an isolated life in the remote Villas del Norte on the Rio Grande, he liked the hustle and bustle of San Antonio’s night life. With its large population and vibrant activities, San Antonio was where he would now live.
On one particular trip, Tomás met several other immigrants from the U.S. He enjoyed having long conversations in his primary language of English. Fittingly so, they convinced him that for Anglos to make it in Mexico, the slave prohibition had to end.
They even told him that they had bribed several Mexican officials in getting Mexico’s anti-slavery laws retracted in Texas. In addition, the Anglo émigrés convinced him that sooner or later, total separation should now be their main goal.
The problem and instability caused by the increasing numbers of Anglos in Texas had alarmed the Mexican government into passing legislation halting further immigration from the U.S. In fact, Tomás had heard that secret meetings were being held regularly in the east to plot the separation of Texas from Mexico.
The more that Tomás listened to their propaganda, the more he liked what he heard. Soon, he joined one of the secret vigilante groups controlled by Anglo slave owners. In that manner, Tomás was now part of a larger plot to lead an insurrection against the central government in Mexico City. Texas in the 1830s was full of Anglo land speculators who didn’t particularly care for Mexican laws and its people, whom they treated with disdain. Tomás was now part of it.
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Regardless, when Tomás learned of Rayo’s security force, he proposed to his compadre that he and his battle-experienced veterans march to San Antonio where many Tejanos and Anglo expatriates were already assembling, ready to fight General Santa Anna.
Sadly, Rayo was duped into accepting the mistaken impression that Father Miguel Hidalgo’s fight for justice was to continue. Thus, he gave in to Miller’s encouragement. Rayo and his reassembled band of Indios, including a mulatto agree to proceed on to Presidio San Antonio de Béxar, also known as El Álamo to aid the cause of freedom.
On his way to San Antonio, Rayo met Colonel Juan Seguín near the Encinal de Medina. Oddly, they were both there to pay homage to the brave 800 Tejanos who had paid the ultimate price for Texas independence on August 18, 1813. Lamentably, he still thinks it’s a federalist revolt.
Rayo is reassured by Colonel Seguín that their armed revolt against the centralists is meant to achieve unrestricted autonomy as regards trade and commerce. He adds that Texas is solidly a Mexican province. That is good news for Rayo. What he doesn’t know at the time is that he will be greatly disappointed in the movement’s change of direction caused by their Anglo allies.
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In truth, citizens in Texas and in Tamaulipas’ Villas del Norte region were threatened by a two-prong attack. The first prong of the threat is that General (President) Santa Anna himself, who has just quelled a bloody uprising in Zacatecas. Santa Anna is now on his way to Texas to stop the federalist uprising.
The second prong is the fear of U.S. annexation. The Anglo immigrants opted for a change in direction of the armed conflict. The Anglo clean break from Mexico betrayed the Tejanos who believed until it was too late that they were fighting for a federalist type of government.
It must be noted that the first (1820s) Anglo newcomers did not wish Texas to be separated from Mexico either. They supported the federalists who had experienced a long struggle for Texas independence since 1813.
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What must be remembered is that mainstream historians ignore the slavery issue as the cause for the 1836 Texas Revolution. Since most Anglos arriving from the U.S. owned slaves, they wished to keep them. Indeed, it was this critical issue that caused the Anglos to rebel and seek total independence from Mexico. Unfortunately, the incidents of 1836 have been so blurred with myth and legend that it is difficult to sort it out. Regardless, Texas became independent in 1836.
Afterwards, pushed by a clear anti-Spanish Mexican bias, loyal Tejanos and their families were chased out of Texas or displaced from their ranchos and towns, such as San Antonio and Goliad.
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The rumor mill was non-stop. Based on the best sources, a rumor said that the U.S. was sending a large army to invade Texas. There was much speculation regarding U.S. agents thought to be among refugees from the U.S. arriving daily. Adding fuel to the worsening fears included the oft repeated rumor that a large U.S. Army would soon cross the Sabine River to take Texas.
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Promising Tejanos that life for them would be better with total independence, the Tejanos acquiesced. Yet, in their hearts total separation from Mexico was not their aim. In short, federalist Tejano leaders were duped by their Anglo allies.
News of the Battle of the Álamo spread quickly, especially General Santa Anna’s “no quarter” (no prisoners) orders. Santa Anna reminded the revolutionaries of the mandated execution of federalists, Tejanos, or anyone else who was raising arms against the central government. In particul
ar, he aimed at armed Anglo expatriates from the U.S. These latest developments served as the final push to convince the federalists that they should join forces with the Anglos.
As a result, Juan Seguín asked Rayo and his small party to return to Laredo to continue recruiting of soldiers to fight the centralist army headed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna.
Meanwhile, Colonel Seguín and his men marched east to meet with Sam Houston. A few weeks later, Sam Houston’s army of Anglos and Tejanos defeated General Santa Anna and the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto. Colonel Juan Seguín gallantly lead Tejanos in cavalry charges against the unsuspecting Mexican Army. His contribution is the main factor that assured Sam Houston’s victory over Santa Anna.
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On their way to the Rio Grande, Rayo and his men were captured by a larger, heavily armed Anglo patrol. The Tejanos are stripped of their weapons and personal items, such as, wedding bands, money, and anything of value.
“What shall we do with this gang? Asked one Anglo. “Hang ‘em”, cried another.
Yet, another, “They look Mexican. They look like the enemy, so, let’s kill them right here!”
Rayo and his men were severely beaten. In the best English he could muster, the seriously injured Rayo asserted to his captors, “We are on your side. We are friends of Colonel Juan Seguín”. His appeals were to no avail. It was obvious that the leader of the Anglo party didn’t know about Juan Seguín. They were eventually bound and taken as captives to await a larger party headed by a “Captain Miller”.
To Rayo’s puzzled relief, the additional party is headed by his compadre, Tomás Miller who is now a captain in the Anglo militia. Miller brings news of the victory at San Jacinto.
At the same time, Tomás pretended not to know Rayo. Taking charge of the prisoners, they ride on. Once on the move, Rayo challenged Tomás as to why he never told him of his secret involvement with the Anglo settlers’ militia.
Tomás responded by telling Rayo that Mexicans are no longer safe in San Antonio. Feeling deep remorse as to his betrayal of his faithful friend, Tomás allowed Rayo and his men to escape.
The compadres said goodbye, never to see each other again. In a much larger scale, their separation symbolizes the betrayal of the Anglos toward their Tejano allies. Arriving Anglos at first joined the federalists and their drive for independence. Due to the issue of slavery, the Anglo leaders changed the course of the federalists’ cause and commandeered the revolt.
In fact, Colonel Juan Seguín and his Tejano cavalry was the deciding factor at the Battle of San Jacinto. Yet, shortly after the Texas Revolution, they were accused of being loyal to Mexico, just because of their ethnic heritage. Soon, ethnic-cleansing drives began, forcing Tejanos and their families to leave their ancestral lands in the region now encompassed by San Antonio/Austin to the north, Nacogdoches to the east, and Goliad to the south.
The volley of indignities aimed at Mexican-descent Texans was only surpassed by those lobbed at Blacks in Texas in what can only be described as the irony of ironies as shown below.
1810. Padre Miguel Hidalgo is first leader to declare slaves free in America!
1813. José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara (First President of Texas) won freedom for slaves, Native Americans, mestizos, & creoles.
1829. Mexico officially abolished slavery. First country in America to do so.
1836. Anglos in Texas declared independence from Mexico.
1845. (A short nine years later), Anglos traded their independence to join the U.S. as a slave state (re-enslaving freed Black families in Texas).
It was now clear that the U.S. émigrés wanted more than the land. They wanted to exterminate the resident population in Texas, just as they had done in the east coast with the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Mainly, the Anglos forever smeared Texas with the ugliness of slavery. It is a topic that mainstream historians find hard to deal with. As regards the extermination of Mexicans and Native Americans in Texas and the Southwest, that will prove to be a bit harder than the Anglos ever dreamed of.
Still, the Manifest Destiny plan’s evil ill-will toward Mexico is forever recorded in the history of the U.S. Senate. In savoring the territorial acquisition from Mexico, Senator John C. Calhoun, addressed his colleagues on the floor of the U.S. Senate as follows:
“We have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race – the free white race. To incorporate Mexico would be the very first instance of the kind, of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the government of the white race…”
The die was cast! Hereafter, the negative overview toward Mexicans began in the U.S. Colonial-style policies shunned the new citizens from Texas to California.
Ostracized by the new majority society that rejected them, some Mexican-descent parents taught their children not to speak Spanish or bring attention to their heritage, as when seeking employment.
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U.S. Mexico War of 1846-48
(Adding insult to injury)
In their thirst for expansion, the U.S. pushed its Manifest Destiny to its limits. Bluntly, the U.S. took advantage of its weaker neighbor, Mexico by ignoring the Adams-Onis Treaty. Racist legislators in the U.S. Congress waved the proverbial “bloody shirt” with vicious anti-Mexico rhetoric.
Their evil plot worked! It had only one goal; to inflame the population. Although the Mexican people had not done any harm to their English-speaking neighbors, popular opinion of anything Mexican sank to a low that continues to affect U.S. policy decisions regarding Mexico to this day.
In spite of warnings from sensible members of congress, among them Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman from Illinois, the U.S. invaded Mexico. After threatening to subsume all of the country, the U.S. forced Mexico to sign a surrender agreement dictated by U.S. President James K. Polk that forced Mexico to give up more than half of its sovereign land. Following is what happened:
In 1845, the U.S. admitted Texas as a slave state in spite of it being a province of Mexico. The bullying act was typical for pro-slavery and Manifest Destiny disciple, President James K. Polk, whose campaign promised to annex Texas. The provocation was designed to draw Mexico into a military confrontation the U.S. was sure to win. At stake? U.S. leaders coveted their neighbor Mexico’s land (today’s entire Southwest).
Outgunned and fully aware of its underdog role, the noble nation of Mexico responded by declaring war on the U.S. Their valiant response wasn’t enough. Two years later, the war ended badly for Mexico, even though the nation’s gallantry to protect its sovereignty is one of history’s best examples of altruism, embodied by the bravery of the Niños Heroes at Chapultepec Castle.
In the end, vanquished Mexico was at the mercy of President Polk. The Mexican envoys objected to the conditions to end the war (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo). In response to their protest, President Polk issued an ultimatum. Unless Mexico signed the document, the U.S. would carry out an “All of Mexico” offensive plan that U.S. war hawks had long supported.
President Polk’s imperious message was blunt, absolute, and final. Mexico had no other choice, but to pay the price! The result? Mexico’s loss in blood and treasure was massive; greatly exceeding the capability of a set of scales.
In U.S.-Mexico relations, this initial assault to Mexico’s national identity set the standard for today’s one-sided U.S. foreign policy. Even now, undignified U.S. political arena rhetoric toward Mexico and the Mexican people continues.
Likewise, Spanish-speaking Mexican-descent and Native American citizens on this side of the border still suffer from the sharp edge of U.S. Anglo-Saxon colonial-style rule.
Quite bluntly, the U.S. sought living space. Not only did the U.S. take Texas, but also (l) moved its southern border f
rom the Nueces River to the Rio Grande, adding to Texas a large piece of the State of Tamaulipas (now South Texas); (2) the northern part of the State of Coahuila; (3) Nuevo México (New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and parts of Utah and Nevada); and (4) California.
It must be noted that, notwithstanding the lengthy U.S. campaign to exterminate Native American families from Florida to the Northwest, this extensive land acquisition was the only time the U.S. used military conquest to enlarge its mainland empire.
In seizing Alta California, Mexico’s most western province, President Polk was well aware that gold in California was discovered at a time when it still belonged to Mexico and before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed.
That explains why the U.S. was so adamant in spreading its reach from “sea to shining sea”; enriching itself with ample gold deposits at the expense of its neighbor sister republic of Mexico, the legitimate owner of the land.
In short, Mexico paid dearly for the forcible U.S. colonization of its territory. In terms of losses by sovereign countries, only one other nation of brown-skin people paid more. During what can only be described as a cruel one-two punch in 1894-98, the Kingdom of Hawaii, lost all its land to the U.S.
Previously in 1819, the U.S. had agreed to limit its southwestern expansion by signing the Adams-Onís Treaty with Spain. When approved in 1821, the U.S. received Florida, vowed to stay east of the Mississippi River, abandon its claim to Texas, and promised to respect New Spain (Mexico) borders. Regrettably, as with so many other treaties with Native American tribes, the U.S. ignored the Adams-Onís treaty.
It’s quite possible then, that history would’ve developed much differently if the U.S. had kept its non-aggression pledge. That is, had the U.S. not invaded Mexico, the novice nation would’ve continued to develop its fertile northern provinces, including abundant gold and natural resources.