SONS OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS For additional information, Search Handbook of Texas Online From Mexico and Her Military Chieftains by Fay Robinson, published 1847 (continued)
Santa Anna was a man for great emergencies, and sought out of the "nettle danger to pluck the flower safety," by a coup de main against the capital; when, however, within sight of the city, these men declared against him. He then proceeded towards Vera Cruz, whence he was also repulsed. It was now obvious to him that all was over, as he was deserted by the remnant of his troops, except about two thousand five hundred men of all arms. He, however, made an attack on Puebla, from which be was repulsed, and fled to San Antonio, with one thousand horse. He fled thence at night towards Encerro almost alone, but was recognised by a party of Indians at Mico, three leagues from Jalapa, detained, and subsequently surrendered to the commander of the neighboring city. He addressed, on the 22d of January, a most humiliating petition to the congress, in which he adopts the European maxim, that the king can do no wrong, and offered to substitute his ministers for himself to fulfil the requisitions of justice. His address stated
His address contained this remarkable passage:
It was generally supposed in Mexico, that congress would confiscate his property, especially as it became generally known that from apprehension of some such difficulty, he had sent eight thousand doubloons (one hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars) by a previous packet to Havana, and had also invested in European funds, more than one million of dollars. The congress continued to debate on its course in this crisis, and the friends of Santa Anna rallied around him, so that at one time, it became probable he would be able to resume his power. In the long intrigues which took place, he was ably sustained by Almonte, but was, on a final vote, banished for ten years. He was also stripped of a great portion of his money, his estate being suffered to remain in the hands of his administrador or agent. This occurred during the early part of June, 1845, and he immediately embarked on board of the English steamer Medway, in the river Antigua, about twelve miles north of Vera Cruz, accompanied only by his wife, a young woman of fortune, of about sixteen years of age, whom he had married not long previously, his nephew and a few personal friends. A general amnesty was then proclaimed, and congress, by a large vote, authorized the conclusion of a treaty recognizing the independence of Texas, provided it should not become annexed to the United States. Santa Anna immediately left the country for Havana, and it appeared probable that Mexico would at length be at peace. sdct There Santa Anna remained, until by the events of the existing war he was, by the unanimous voice of the Mexican people, recalled, and immediately restored to power. On his return to Vera Cruz, he published a proclamation so strange in itself, but so curious, both as a demonstration of the manner in which he has ever led the Mexican people, that it will not be considered irrelevant, in spite of its length, to reprint it. Vera Cruz, August 16, 1846. MEXICANS: Called by the people and the garrisons of the departments of Jalisco, Vera Cruz, and Sinaloa, South Mexico, and other points of the republic, I quitted Havana on the 8th inst. at nine in the evening, with the sole object of coming to aid you in saving our country from its enemies, internal and external. Great has been my joy, when, on arriving at this point, I learned that the former had been overthrown by your own forces; and that I was already proclaimed, on all sides, as general-in-chief of the liberating army. A proof of so much confidence will be met by me with the utmost loyalty; but on accepting the plan proclaimed, allow me to enter into some explanation, which I consider necessary, in order to dispel any suspicions founded on a past, the recollections of which are so painful to me. Desiring to consolidate peace in the interior of the republic, in order to make it flourish and prosper, and to assure by that means the integrity of our immense territory, I devoted all my efforts, in consequence of the events of 1834, to establish an administration endowed with vigor and energy, and capable of keeping down the spirit of turbulence and discord. Without ever going beyond republican forms, I endeavored for this purpose to support myself on property, on high position, on creeds, and even on the few historical memorials existing in our country; hoping thus to moderate, by the inertia of conservative instincts, the vehemence of popular masses. But without ascendancy and prestige, as I was, and the elements assembled by me being viewed with distrust, resistance was made on all sides; which, however, expected to overcome in time. I call on God to witness, that in this I acted with patriotism, with sincerity, and with good faith. After some years of trial, I began to remark that the republic did not advance; that some departments showed tendencies of separation from the others; and that the public discontent was daily increasing wavering then in my convictions, they afterwards lost all their power, when a part of the country had been occupied by strangers, and our national existence of the, whole was endangered. I called on the people to the rescue, and they answered me with threats; as if any other misfortune could have been preferable to that in which the country then was placed. Urged by the firm determination that we should be a sovereign and independent people, and knowing, on the other hand, the vast resources on which we could rely for support, I then became convinced that our government, being organized in a manner by no means conformable with the wishes of the nation, and governed by secondary legislature, not adapted for the advancement of its interests, the people revenged themselves in that way, by seeking for an occasion in which they should be called on to take care of their own good, and to organize their government in a manner which they should consider most proper. In our time, we have seen another nation, in a similar conflict employing similar means to oblige its government to promise the representative system which it was anxious to have established, and when that had been obtained, we have seen its moral apathy changed into heroic enthusiasm against the foreign invader who endeavored to subjugate it. Is there anything, therefore, strange in the idea that our people should, in this instance, do as much to recover the full enjoyment of their sovereignty, acknowledged by all governments, though trodden under foot by all, in the practical administration of affairs? On this point I owe to my country, in consideration of the part which I have taken, to declare frankly and honestly, upon this critical and solemn occasion, that it can be saved only by a return to first principles, with entire, submission of the minority to the sovereign will of the majority of the nation. Upon proof so clear and peremptory, of the serious difficulties attending that which I had considered best calculated to secure to the republic respectability abroad, I found it right to recede, and to yield to public opinion, and follow it with the same ardor and constancy with which I had opposed it before comprehending it. To discover the most effective means of raising the spirit of the public, and predisposing it to the war, with which we were threatened on the north, was my employment; and I was beginning to develop the measures for that purpose, when the events of the 6th of December, 1844, occurred, and plunged the republic into the miserable situation in which you now see it. Expatriated from that time forever from the national territory, with a prohibition to return to it under the hard penalty of death, the obstacle which I was supposed to present to the establishment of an administrative system, conformable with public exigencies, being removed, I believed that the men who had succeeded in placing themselves in my stead, by calling public opinion to their aid in effecting it, would respect that opinion, and summon the nation to organize its government according to its own wishes. Pained, as I was, not to be allowed to take part in the real regeneration of the country, I still most sincerely desired it; because I believed that whilst our political horizon was daily becoming darker, no other means was left to save us. My prayers for this were redoubled, on seeing that, in consequence of the development of the invasive policy of the United States, stimulated by the perfidy of the cabinet of General Herrera, on the serious question of our northern frontiers, the European press began to indicate the necessity of a foreign intervention in our domestic concerns, in order to preserve us from the ambitious projects of the neighboring republic. That, however, which raised my uneasiness to the greatest height, was to see in a newspaper of credit and influence, published in the old world, a proposition made in October last, to bring us back, by force, under the yoke of our ancient masters. My conviction was, nevertheless, still strong, that no Mexican, however weak might be his feelings of attachment for his country, would dare to favor such ideas openly, and still less to recommend them to the consideration of the people. Meanwhile, news reached me of a revolution projected by General Paredes, which revived my hopes; for though he had been the determined enemy of every representative popular government, I supposed that he had altered his opinions, and I honored him so far as to believe him incapable of advancing schemes for European intervention, in the interior administration of the republic. He succeeded, and his manifesto declaring his adhesion to the plan proposed by the troops quartered at San Luls Potosi, increased my uneasiness; because I clearly saw in it a diatribe against the independence of the nation, rather than the patriotic address of a Mexican general, seeking, in good faith, to remedy the evils of his country. His perverse designs were, in fine, fully revealed, as well by his summons [for the assemblage of congress] of the 24th of last January, issued in consequence of this revolution, as by the newspapers showing the tendency of his administration to the establishment of a monarchy, under a foreign prince, in the republic. As one of the principal chiefs of the independence of our country, and the founder of the republican system, I was then indignant at this endeavor of some of its sons to deliver the nation up to the scoffs of the world, and to carry it back to the ominous days of the conquest. I thereupon took the firm determination to come and aid you to save our country from such a stain, and to avoid the horrible consequences of a measure by which its glorious destiny was to be reversed, carrying it back to what it was, and to what it never should be again. To execute this determination, was to offer up my blood to any one who, in case of failure, might choose to shed it, in compliance with the terms of the barbarous decree which drove me from the republic; but I preferred to perish in this noble attempt, rather than appear indifferent to the ignominy of my country, and see the countless sacrifices made for our independence, and the right to govern ourselves, all rendered illusory. Mexicans: The real objects of those who, while invoking, order and tranquillity, have constantly endeavored to prevent the nation from organizing its government as it chose, have now been laid open; and the time is come when all true republicans of all parties, the body of the people as well as the army, should unite their efforts sincerely, in order to secure entirely the independence of our country, and to place it at liberty to adopt the form of government most suitable to its wishes, each sacrificing his own individual convictions to the will of the majority. How, indeed, can the minority, however wise, opulent, and powerful they may be, pretend to assume to themselves the right to regulate the affairs of the community, or to govern the majority, without an express delegation from the latter, given of their own accord, not presumed, nor still less extorted by force? This may be among people who are ignorant of their own rights, and where the want of the means of independent subsistence subjects the many to the few, who have monopolized everything; but it is not to be effected among us, in whom the democratic spirit, in the midst of so many favoring circumstances, has been developing itself for thirty-six years, and now renders imperious and decisive, the necessity of concentrating by practice, the political axiom of the sovereignty of the nation. This most essential circumstance has been disregarded and despised in all the constitutions hitherto given to the country; and in the only one which has appeared most popular, the antagonism of the principles adopted, has rendered it ineffective; so that democracy, which alone can serve as a solid basis for our social edifice, has been unable to develope itself, and thus to afford the peace which is its instinctive law, and the other ineffable benefits which it produces. Hence the convulsions which have so long agitated us, and of which some European writers have taken advantage, so far as to depreciate our race; opposing the liberty and independence of the republic; manifesting the necessity of interference, in order to strengthen it against the febrile invasion of the United States; and declaring, in fine, that it would be as easy to conquer Mexico with a portion of the troops now quartered in the island of Cuba, as it was in the time of the native Mexican princes. My blood boils on seeing the contempt with which we are thus treated, by men who either do not know us well, or who, interested in transplanting among us the fruits of their old social systems, and of the times in which they originated, consider America in the same state in which it was in the sixteenth century. Should any attempts be made, as indicated, to carry these mad plans into effect, all interests of race would be silenced, and but one voice would be heard throughout the continent. The one hemisphere would then be seen arrayed against the other, and for the disasters each would fall on the rash aggressor who should thus attempt to interfere with the internal administration of other nations, he alone would be responsible. To pronounce thus against the many nations which form the great Hispano-American family, to declare them incapable of enjoying republican institutions is, in fact, to be ignorant of, or to conceal, what is proved by the testimony of Chili, New Grenada, arid Venezuela, in contradiction of such assertions. It is to attribute, no doubt with evil intentions, to men of a certain race, defects of administrative forms, which, not being entirely democratic, have produced the bitter fruits of the monarchical forms, engrafted on them, without adverting to the fatal influence of the latter on the lot of the others. To expect, moreover, to strengthen the nation by monarchy, under a foreign prince, is to suppose the existence in it of elements for the establishment and maintenance of that system; or that, wearied by its struggle, to conquer its liberty, the nation sighs for European masters, or for anything else than the peace, which alone it wants. Erroneous, most erroneous indeed is this idea. In the efforts of the nation to emancipate itself from the power of the few, who, in good or in bad faith, have endeavored to rule it in their own way, its democratic tendencies have acquired such a degree of intensity and energy, that to oppose them, to attempt to destroy the hopes to which they gave birth, by a project such as that advanced, would be to provoke a desperate measure; to endeavor to cure an evil by the means calculated to exasperate it. Fascinated by the example of a nation not yet a century old, and which, under its own government, has attained a degree of prosperity and advantages not enjoyed by those of the Old World, notwithstanding their antiquity, and the slow progress of their political systems, our republic aspires only to the management of its own affairs, either by itself, or through representatives in whom it has confidence, in order to develop the vast resources of power and wealth in its bosom. This being therefore its dominant, its absorbing idea, it would have resisted the other plan with all its might and if an attempt bad been made to change its direction by the employment of foreign bayonets, it would have flown to arms, and war would have burst forth throughout its immense territory, renewing even more disastrously the bloody scenes of 1820 and the succeeding years. From such a state of things, the Anglo-American race would have derived great advantage for the progress of its ambitious schemes, or for forming a new republic from our interior departments, by exciting their sympathies and gratitude for the services rendered them in repelling a project no less injurious to itself. This tendency, which has been excited in some departments by disappointment from not obtaining provincial liberties, which they desired, would have become general throughout all; and no force would have been able to restrain them from carrying such views into effect. sdct On the other hand, the republic being composed for the most part of young men, who have no knowledge of the past, except from the sinister accounts of their fathers, and who, educated with republican ideas, rely with confidence on a government eminently popular, to lead their country to prosperity and greatness---where are the internal supports which monarchy presented as the means on which our salvation can be founded? That which has disappeared, habits of passive obedience no longer exist; and if there remains a sentiment of religion, time has undermined the political power of the directors of consciences. An influential aristocracy, so necessary for the permanence of monarchies such as exist in old Europe, the only proper place for institutions of that class, is not to be found, nor can it ever be organized here. In Europe, the misery of the great mass of the overloaded population, which depends on its own labor to obtain what is strictly and merely necessary for its subsistence, in the midst of an industry which is so severely tasked, allows no time to the people to think of their political rights, nor means to free themselves from the tyranny of the patrician families, on whom they depend, all the landed property being in their hands. But no such state of things can be found in our republic; in which all is uncultivated, virgin, rich, and fruitful, offering to man, in the utmost abundance, and with the greatest facility, all that he can ask for his labor---all that can lead to that individual independence which favors the development of democratic instincts. These difficulties being, therefore, of such a nature as to render nearly impossible the establishment of monarchy in our country, attempts have been made, in order to overcome them, to throw the affairs of the republic into the greatest disorder, preventing the organization of its government within, and aggravating the most serious question of our northern frontiers with another nation. In this manner the faction which fostered that parricide project, having attained the first of its ends by many years of artifices and maneuvering, next proposed to carry the second into effect, by provoking, in a manner almost direct, the government of the United States to aggrandize itself by taking our rich department of Texas, and then advancing into the very heart of our country. To involve our people in the evils of a fearful invasion, has been its last resource, in order to force them to accept its painful alternative obliging them either to become the prey of Anglo-American ambition, or to fly, for the safety of their national existence, to monarchical forms under a European prince. For this object it was that this party, having the control in the chambers of 1844-45, refused to the government of that period the appropriations which it asked for maintaining the integrity of the national territory, already seriously jeoparded. It did more: it raised up a revolution, in which the slender allowances made to the government for that object, on its urgent demands, were unblushingly declared to be suppressed; and, on its triumph, it scattered the means collected for the war, and hastened to recognise the independence of Texas. The chief of this revolution, who has always acted under the influence of his own fatal inspirations, then appeared again in insurrection at San Luis Potosi, with the force destined for the defence of the frontiers; and withdrawing that force to the capital of the republic, he there usurped the supreme power, and began to put in operation his scheme of European intervention in our interior administration, whilst the hosts of the Anglo-Americans were advancing to take possession, even of the banks of the Rio Bravo. Having at his disposal considerable forces in the adjoining departments, he allowed the enemy time to advance, without resistance, through our territory; and at length-most tardily-be sent to Matamoras a small body of troops, needy, and unprovided with anything necessary for conducting the campaign with success. Who can fail to see, in these perfidious maneuvers, the bastard design of attracting the forces of the enemy to our central territories, in order there to propose to us, in the midst of the conflicts of war, as the only means of safety, the subjection of the republic to servitude, the ignominy of the country, the revival of the plan of Iguala---in fine, the return to the government of the viceroys. With this object, and for this fatal moment, which every means was employed to hasten, was a congress assembled, chosen for the purpose, composed only of representatives of certain determined classes, not forming even a sixth of our population, and elected in a manner, perfidiously arranged, to secure a number of voices sufficient to place the seal of opprobrium on the nation. Leaving, with scarcely a single representative, the great majority of the nation, the eleven bishops of our dioceses were declared deputies, and our ecclesiastical cabildos were authorized to elect nine others on their parts, giving to the bishops the faculty of appointing such proxies as they might choose, to take their places in case they should not find it convenient to attend in person. Does not this prove abundantly that a decided endeavor was made to supplant the will of the nation, in order to give some species of authority to this scheme of European intervention in the settlement of our internal affairs? The protestation of republican sentiments made by General Paredes, after these irrefragable proofs so fully condemning him, were only new acts of perfidy, intended to tranquilize the republic, to set its suspicions at rest, and to arrange the occasion for carrying into effect his base designs. He uttered these protestations in the middle of March last, when he saw the public discontent manifest itself against his powers and his plans. But what followed? Did he not continue to protect the Tiempo, a newspaper established in the capital itself, for the sole object of rendering republican forms odious, and recommending the necessity of a monarchy; advancing every argument which could be supposed calculated to lead astray the good sense of the nation? Did he convene another popular congress? Did he retract the summons which be had issued in January, placing the fate of the nation at the mercy of the few men who remain among us of the old colonial regime? Everything continued in the same way; and, when the press was prohibited from discussing forms of government, it was in order to give an amnesty to the writers in favour of monarchy, who were then prosecuted by the judicial power, and to encourage them to continue their criminal publications, while silence was imposed on the defenders of the republican system. Meanwhile he hastened, by every means in his power, the assemblage of the congress destined to carry into effect his monarchical plan; he concentrated his forces, in order to suppress all movements on the part of the people, alarmed by the neat, approach of such an unpropitious event; abandoning our frontiers to the invaders, or rather surrendering them to the foreign enemy, by the reverses which he had prepared and arranged at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. No, Mexicans! let there be no compromise with a party whose conduct has been a tissue of cruel treachery towards our country ; have nothing to do with it, however flattering be its promises, and whatsoever the forms with which it may in future invest itself. In the last convulsions of its agony it sought to assure its safety by its accustomed maneuvers. It proclaimed principles which it detested. It allied itself with bastard republicans, and exhibited itself as the friend of liberty, in order, by that means, to avoid its just punishment, to maintain itself in power, and to continue to undermine the edifice cemented by the illustrious blood of the Hidalgos and Morelos. The fraudulent schemes of the enemies of our country being thus unfolded, and the true source of its misfortunes being laid open to all, the radical remedy of the whole evil consists in putting an end for ever to the ruinous control of minorities, by calling on the nation honestly to fix its own destiny, and to secure its territory, its honor, and its welfare. Thus placed in entire liberty to act, as it should be, in the midst of the discussions carried on by the press, in the tribune, and even in the streets and squares, it will take into consideration the evils which surround it, and seek the means of resisting them 1 and satisfied in its desires, mistress of its own fate, it will display the energy peculiar to a free people I will prove equal to the conflicts in which it is to be engaged-and will come out of them, not only honorably, but moreover, entirely regenerated. In this way, the administration, established, resting on, and springing from public opinion, may display all its organized forces, to maintain our territory, instead of quartering them in the central towns, as hitherto, under a government created by seditious movements, constantly at war with the nation, and occupied solely in endeavoring to save itself, without regard for our external dangers. Fellow-countrymen, never has the situation of the republic been so difficult as at present. Its national existence threatened on one side, on the other an attempt has been to subject it to the hardest of all lots, to European dominion. Such is the abyss to which we have been brought by the endeavor to govern our young society according to the system adopted in the old. This is the true cause of the long struggle in which we have been engaged, which has weakened our forces, and by which the interests of the majority have been sacrificed to the extravagant pretensions of a small minority. This state of things must be ended, in compliance with the wishes of the nation; and by opposing to the former, the Union of republicans of true faith, the concert of the army and the people. By this union we shall conquer the independence of our country; thus united, we shall confirm it by establishing peace on the solid basis of public liberty thus united, we shall preserve the integrity of our immense territory. But now, with regard to the plan proposed for revolution, it is my honor and my duty to observe, that by limiting the congress therein proclaimed to the organization of the system of government, and the determination of what relates to the serious question of our northern frontiers, the provisional government of the nation would find itself required, until the system has been thus organized, to use its own discretion on all other points. This would be investing the provisional government with a dictatorship, always odious, however imperious might be the circumstances rendering it necessary. I therefore propose that the said assembly should come fully authorized to determine with regard to all branches of the public administration, which may be of general interest, and within the attributes of the legislative, power; the provisional executive of the nation acting with entire submission to its determinations. I consider it, moreover, indispensable that a uniform rule be established for the regulation of the interior affairs of the departments; and that for this purpose the constitution of the year 1824 be adopted, until the new constitutional code be completed. By this means we shall avoid that divergency of opinions, at this critical moment, when uniformity is so much needed; the national will which sanctioned that, code will have been consulted, and the executive of the nation will have a guide to follow, so far as the present eccentric position of the republic will allow. I submit both measures to the will of the departments, expressed by the authorities, who may be established in consequence of the revolution; proposing, moreover, that the provisional government of the nation should adopt forthwith the second, as the rule of its conduct, until it be determined otherwise by the majority of the departments, in the form already indicated. The slave of public opinion myself, I shall act in accordance with it, seeking for it henceforth in the manner in which it may be known and expressed, and subjecting myself afterwards entirely to the decisions of the constituent assembly, the organ of the sovereign will of the nation. Mexicans! There was once a day, and my heart dilates with the remembrance, when leading on the popular masses, and the army, to demand the rights of the nation, you saluted me with the enviable title of soldier of the people. Allow me again to take it, never more to be given up; and to devote myself until death, to the defence of the liberty and independence of the republic. ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA His old position he yet occupies, in spite of two signal defeats and a tide of misfortunes, which would justify a more volatile people than the Mexicans, in a popular commotion. Of all the men in that country, he is best calculated to guide her in such an emergency as has befallen her, and he is doubtless wise enough to know that not only the good of the country, but his own selfish ends, can only be attained in a season of peace. The glance we have thus given of the public events of the life of General Santa Anna, is a meager sketch, but will suffice to show that he has played no inconsiderable part in the events which have occurred in Mexico, all of which will appear either to have been effected by him or for his benefit. One who occupies so prominent a station, cannot be denied to be great, though it is by no means a consequence that he is good. It is probable no one living is so unpopular in the United States, in some portions of which his name is never mentioned but with execrations. The events of the war with Texas, so disastrous to him, have made him universally known; and so long as English is written, will the massacre of Colonel Fanning be looked on as an atrocity unparalleled, and worthy of the severest punishment. We cannot but look on his violations of his treaty with Houston as being a willful disregard of his word, but to both the one and the other it may be urged that he followed the example of those whom the world points to as models. Malta is yet in the hands of the English, in spite of a sealed treaty which promised its surrender, and often have the rules of war been violated by the same government, with regard to her prisoners. It may not be amiss to hear what he says himself in relation to the first of these occurrences, as reported by an unquestionable authority. sdct
His justification of the shooting of Fanning's men, has been given in an earlier part of this work. In a career of thirty years, but three events have occurred to cast on Santa Anna the stains of cruelty; and when we remember the sanguinary school in which he grew up, we have more reason to wonder at his moderation than his excesses. Far hence be any design to palliate his faults, which are dark enough to need no fancy touches and misrepresentations to give them theatrical effect to suit those who most prefer to sup on horrors. Santa Anna has amassed a vast fortune; it does not, however, follow that this has been by means of peculation, for his father was an officer of rank, and he has twice married women of estate. The first Senora Santa Anna has been represented by all as kind and gentle, ever exerting her influence for good, and deservedly popular. Much of the consideration and kindness extended to the Santa Fe prisoners was to be attributed to her, and more than one of them have remembered her. She was the mother of a daughter of whom the journals of Mexico have recently made but little mention. The present Senora he married soon after the death of the former, which took place in 1843. The second one is said to be attached to him, has shared his exile, and submitted to much privation with him. Such is Santa Anna, whether good or bad, what his country has made him. A chapter of his history is yet to be written which will perhaps display him in yet more brilliant colors: or, it may be, record another reverse from which he will be unable to recover himself. sdct From Mexico and Her Military Chieftains by Fay Robinson, 1847
How loved, how valued once avails thee not.
"From the diplomat's mysterious conduct, I understood his intentions." Some unscrupulous persons, led by a Spanish Jew, who frequented St. Thomas, fell into his line of thought, and persuaded him that Secretary Seward intended for him to come at once to New York, and Washington, and they interested him in preparing an expedition to Mexico. They contrived to get his signature to notes, and mortgages, for large sums to be used in outfitting the expedition, and as part of the plan, persuaded him that he should visit New York and Washington. They went so far as to forge a letter over Secretary Seward's signature, promising him that the American congress would loan fifty million pesos for the adventure, in its desire to get Maximilian out of Mexico. These rascals robbed him of the remnant of his fortune, and left him penniless. In June, 1867, while he was in New York City, Maximilian was captured by Mexican insurgents and shot, and shortly afterward, El Presidente sailed from New York on an American vessel, and was soon at Vera Cruz, where he planned to land, and make an effort to regain his lost power. At the instance of those in authority in Mexico, the Washington government had him detained and prevented his landing from a ship carrying the American flag. A few weeks later, he affected a landing in Yucatan; but the new Mexican leaders, who had destroyed Maximilian, had no notion of allowing him to intermeddle with their plans. Speaking of his landing, he writes in his memoirs:
He was locked in a dungeon at the fortress of Ula, at Vera Cruz, and after a time was tried for having been "addicted to the Empire." He was convicted and sentenced to eight years further exile, and again shipped away to Havana. After a time, he removed to Nassau, on the Island of St. Thomas, where he wrote in his memoirs, in 1870:
When he was writing the closing lines of his autobiography, his attention was called to the fact that Juarez, then President of Mexico, had published an amnesty, naming many former political offenders, and pardoning them, and that his name was in the list. This awful imputation that he was an offender against his country, coupled with an offer of amnesty from Juarez, whom be despised as an Indian usurper, aroused the slumbering flame of his Spanish frenzy, and he closed his account with a vehement protest against the imputation that he needed a pardon for any offense against his country:
He ended his narrative in March, 1870, and four years later added a postscript eloquent with the melancholy reflections of a closing life:
.....Four years later, in 1874, an old, crippled man, supported by two women, who walked on either side of him, disembarked at the wharf of Vera Cruz. As they made their painful, tedious way along the streets, looking for a cheap lodging house, no one recognized in the penniless, pitiful person the former dashing El Presidente. When his identity was known, it made no impression, and created little comment. After a time, he arranged for passage to the capitol, and they rode unnoticed in a public coach through the scenes of former grandeur. A stranger slept at Manga de Clavo, and as the coach rumbled into his native city of Jalapa, his coming was void of consequence. In an obscure, mean abode at the capitol, he lived for two more weary years, wholly ignored. He applied for a restoration of his rank, and for governmental aid, but his request was denied. Alone and in squalor, he died on June 21, 1876. A week later, the Two Republics, a leading journal in the City of Mexico, carried this simple obituary:
From Santa Anna: The Napoleon of the West by Frank C. Hanighen......In 1874 the ban of exile was removed and he returned to Mexico. But no guns boomed from San Juan Ulloa as he landed; a few friends met and escorted him not to a fine coach bound for Manga de Clavo, but to a railroad "Car" which rolled him past his old hacienda where, alas, a stranger now slept. He was met by his family and some old soldiers, among them the faithful adjutant Gimenez, at the station in Mexico City, and went to his home in the Calle de Vergara. There he held a sorry court with octogenarians and broken-down generals coming to pay him visits. As befitted a former President of the Republic, he wrote to the incumbent of that office, one whom he had never known, Sebastian Lerdo, asking for an appointment. The President subtly put him off by insisting that to climb the National Palace steps would be too much of a task for the ex-President because of his mutilated leg, and suggested that Santa Anna should wait until he, Lerdo, should pay a call at the house in the Calle Vergara. But Santa Anna waited and waited ; Lerdo did not come. The rest of the government and the press were not so kind. On the curious basis that national defeats are an occasion for anniversaries, the government celebrated the battle of Churubusco on the site itself with speeches and reviews of troops. But it issued no invitation to attend to the ex-President who had commanded the Mexican forces so creditably there. Aggrieved, he wrote his reminiscences of the battle for a newspaper, but the Republican organs ridiculed it and others with even less charity reprinted our hero's correspondence with Estrada regarding Maximilian's projected Empire which hurt still more. He talked about leaving ungrateful and spiteful Mexico. But he had no money, living on the bounty of his son-in-law, for the Government steadfastly refused him a pension. Finally Escandon, the famous profiteer, died and left him fourteen thousand pesos. But even with this windfall, he stayed on in Mexico, perhaps from sheer fatigue of age. What a touching picture his friend Gimenez paints, of the former President visiting the shrine of Guadalupe. After all he had been faithful to this, the patron Virgin of Mexico, in his fashion, for had he not favored her above the gachupin Virgin of the Remedies? And had he not named one of his illegitimate daughters Guadalupe? An abbe led him up to the high altar, opened the glass door and allowed him to kiss the sacred picture. Turning he surveyed this famous nave where in former days he had so often walked in splendor, with no less than a mitred Archbishop escorting him on the occasion of a victory imagined or real, on his Saint's day, on the anniversary of the loss of his leg, on the parade of the Order of Guadalupe that time when he had sat so regally on a dais; he had countless gaudy memories of this shrine. Finally, laboriously toiling down the steps, he hobbled out the door just an old man with a wooden leg. His ills increased, his eyesight failed and complete senility set in. The Flower of Mexico, now a shrewish middleaged woman, gave him just enough attention to see that the Escandon legacy was conjugally disposed of, and he died penniless on June the 21st, 1876. Forty coaches followed him to a modest tomb in Guadalupe cemetery. sdct Next page 4 Santa Anna's Captivity in Texas SONS OF DEWITT
COLONY TEXAS |
[Image from Durham's
Santa Anna: Prisoner of War in Texas, 1986] Things might have remained in
this condition for a long time, but on the 2d of December, 1844, Canalizo, the president
ad interim, assumed the responsibility of closing the session of congress, and of
declaring Santa Anna dictator. For some days, this palpable violation of the constitution
apparently attracted but little attention, but on its being reported at Puebla, the
commander-in-chief also pronounced against Santa Anna. On the 5th, the garrison and people
of the city cast off their torpor, and imprisoned Canalizo and his ministers. The congress
immediately assembled and appointed General Herrera president pro tempore. A new ministry
was appointed by Herrera, to the authority of which the whole country, including Vera
Cruz, the strong-hold of Santa Anna, at once yielded obedience. The new ministry was
composed of Herrera, president of the cabinet and depository of the executive power;
Gonzago Cuevas, ininister of foreign affairs; Mariano Riva Palacios, minister of justice;
Pedro Jesus Echavarri, minister of finances; and Pedro Garcia Conde, of war and marine.
Santa Anna was left almost alone at Queretaro, with a few troops, already wavering in
their attachment, in consequence of an appeal of Garcia Conde, who bade them leave Santa
Anna and participate in the advantages of the new regime. Santa Anna was, it will be
remembered, deposed from the command, and finally, by the proclamation of Garcia Conde,
referred to above, was notified that he still was the constitutional president, and, as
such, debarred from command without the Consent of congress. His situation thus become
drear enough, and it was obvious his chance of regaining power must continue slight,
unless some great crisis should occur in which his one idea, self, might have an
opportunity to undermine the many-phased Mexican republic.
From the Handbook of
Texas: At the beginning of the Mexican War, Santa Anna entered into
negotiations with President James K. Polk. He offered the possibility of a negotiated
settlement to the United States and was permitted to enter Mexico through the American
blockade. Once in the country he rallied resistance to the foreign invaders. As commanding
officer in the northern campaign he lost the battle of Buena Vista in February 1847,
returned to Mexico City, reorganized the demoralized government, and turned east to be
defeated by Winfield S. Scott's forces at Cerro Gordo. Secret negotiations with Scott
failed, and when Mexico City was captured, Santa Anna retired to exile. In 1853 he was
recalled by the Centralists, but again power turned his head. To help meet expenses he
sold the Mesilla Valley to the United States as the Gadsden Purchase and was overthrown
and banished by the liberals in 1855. For eleven years he schemed to return to
Mexico, conniving with the French and with Maximilian. After a visit from the American
secretary of state, W. H. Seward, he invested most of his property in a vessel that he
sailed to New York to become the nucleus of a planned invading force from the United
States. Disappointed in his efforts, he proceeded towards Mexico, was arrested on the
coast, and returned to exile. From 1867 to 1874 he lived in Cuba, the Dominican Republic,
and Nassau. During this time he finally abandoned politics and wrote his memoirs. In 1874
he was allowed to return to Mexico City, where he lived in obscurity until his death on
June 21, 1876. He was buried at Tepeyac Cemetery, near Guadalupe Hidalgo. Santa Anna was
married twice, to Inés García in 1825, and, a few months after the death of his first
wife in 1844, to María Dolores de Tosta, who survived him. 
[Image
circa 1860 from Hanighen's Santa Anna: The Napoleon of the West, 1934]
From El Presidente by Clarence R. Wharton. .......late in 1865,
Seward, Secretary of State for the United States, was in the West Indes, and had occasion
to call on the Governor of the Island of St. Thomas, and learning that General Santa
Anna's residence was near, walked over for a visit to the fallen chieftain. The old man
fancied this was an answer to his letter, and though Mr. Seward merely exchanged
compliments with him, and intended a mere social call, he was sure it had a deep meaning,
and interpreted the Secretary's reserve and cautious speech as ominous.