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Thi s book seeks to explain why Mexico went to war with the Uni ted States in 1846, and why that war went so badly for Mexico. Enthusiasts -for military history should be fore- warned: even though the book ostensibly is about "war," it spends relatively little time detailing military maneuvering, focusing instead on political and diplomatic maneuvering. Tu s is not to suggest that the mechanics of warfare were ir- relevant; it is, rather, to suggest that an examination of how and why Mexico and the United States went to war sheds light on the conflict's real significance. It explains, for exam- ple, how both sides used specious arguments to justify the war , why the outcome was so lopsided, and why the war had such far-reaching consequences.

Most of what little literature is available <on the U.S.- M exican War in English deals primarily with military matters and tells the tale almost exclusively from the U .S. point of ~ - This book, ~ contrast, pl'ivtleges the other side. While most readers are likely aware that the United States went to war with Mexico to gai territory and fulfill its "Manifest

xvii j PREFACE

Destiny," they will be far less certain why Mexico went to war with the United States.

· One explanation holds that the Mexicans went to war be- cause they were proud to the point of delusion, arrogantly overestimating their own strength. In fact, however, most of the Mexican politicians who led their country to war had a sober sense of their country's strengths and weaknesses and few imagined that Mexico would prevail in a war with the United States. They led their country to war just the same, largely because of the gaping divisions in race, class, and ide- ology that prevented Mexico from being truly a "nation," and because they seethed in the daunting shadow of a powerful, wealthy, and aggressive neighbor.

I make no effort to resolve the question of which side-tl1e United States or Mexico-was to "blame" for the war. There were cynical, shortsighted, unethical, reckless, and bigoted leaders on both sides, and there was plenty of blame to go around. Mexico's weakness with respect to the United States which lay at the root of the conflict, was no one's fault but wa~ rather the result of a long and complex history.

While according to nearly every economic and social indi- cator, M_exico was weaker than the United States, merely to assert this fact would be unenlightening. To paraphrase Tol- stoy, every weak country is weak in its own way. Understand- ing the root causes of Mexico's weakness is crucial. Mexico began its independent life with a host of formidable obstacles to achieving coherent nationhood--obstacles that the United States simply did not have to face. At first glance Mexico se~~s to h~ve begun its independent life as a proud and opti- ffilst:lc empire but descended within a decade into complete anarchy. As historian Timothy Anna points out, however, it is probably more accurate to see the process going on in those decades no_t as an unraveling but rather as a kind of groping toward nationhood-a series of halting attempts to overcome the obstacles created by the many disparate regions, races, cultures, and classes that made up Mexico and to forge a com-

PREFACE X iX

mon identity. This book, then, rather than trying to assign blame, seeks to understand Mexico's weakness and how that weakness helped to land it in a war with the United States.

That such a book is needed has been brought home to me by some of the frenzied rhetoric iliat swirls around U.S.- 1exican relations in our own day. The disparity in wealth

and power between ilie United States and Mexico-which, of course, remains very much intact-has given rise to many problems, including massive immigration from Mexico into ilie United States, much of it illegal. The immigration issue periodically flares into heated debate, as it did while I was completing this book. On ilie American far right some hys- terically characterize Mexican immigration as an "invasion." One fringe group even conjures ilie specter of a "Conquest of Aztlan," charging iliat ilie Mexican government is actively abetting a conspiracy to retake ilie lands it lost to ilie United

tates in 1848. And while some imagine an insidious takeover of ilie U.S. Souiliwest, oiliers look with equal virulence in ilie oilier direction. A letter to ilie editor of ilie Greensboro

f"'<JJs & Record, written in ilie immediate aftermaili of ilie U .S. invasion of Iraq, proposed, wiiliout a hint of drollery, that ilie United States follow up on ilie Iraq venture by invad- ing Mexico. "Since we have no way to stop [Mexican immi- gration]," iliis citizen wrote, "why not invade Mexico and ma ke it our 51st state?" 1

What such views have in common is a profound indiffer- en ce toward Mexico's realities and a iliorough lack of respect fur its people. If Mexicans desperate for work enter the United States, they are derided as a horde and a contagion. If Americans, on the other hand, should enter Mexico with hos- tile intent, it is assumed their cause must be righteous and chat the Mexicans would be too pusillanimous to resist. It is

·te possible that the U.S.-Mexican War had the pernicious effect of helping to instill in Americans the notion that the

rld's peoples are a perfectly pliant mass and that invading d incorporating foreign lands is an easy and painless under-

xx PREFACE

taking. Subsequent U.S. experiences in the Philippines, Cuba, Vietnam, and Iraq have abundantly belied this notion, but the lesson, it seems, never quite gets learned. Historians second- guess the past at their peril, but it seems safe enough to sug- gest that had the United States chosen to remain in Mexico after the war, the results would have been catastrophic. Most of the Mexicans who fought ifl' the war against the United States had little incentive to defend a government that did not represent them and that, in fact, despised them. That does not mean they would have welcomed U.S . domination.

_The war between the United States and Mexico ended up bemg costly for both countries. Apart from the obvious costs in blood and treasure, the war accelerated social and political processes that eventually plunged both countries into bitter civil wars. It also left a legacy of mistrust and resentment be- tween the United States and Mexico, as well as between the United States and the rest of its hemispheric neighbors. A re- cent minor diplomatic flare-up helps to illustrate the point . Marine Lance Corporal Juan Lopez Rangel, the son of Mexi- can p~ren~ who had migrated to a small town in Georgia, was killed m the Iraq war on June 21, 2004. His parents de- cided to have his remains buried in his hometown, San Luis de la Paz, in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. The ceremony, which took place over the July 4 weekend, was supposed to feature a Marine Corps Honor Guard carrying ceremonial weapons. But just short of the gravesite, a dozen Mexican sol- diers stopped the honor guard and demanded that they sur- render their "weapons." When the Marines refused , they were escorted to their cars and held under armed guard until the funeral ceremony was concluded. The presence of armed American soldiers on Mexican soil, it would seem, still arouses strong feelings, even when their weapons are fake and their intent is respectful.

The tempest that followed the incident is also telling. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico called Lance Corporal Lopez a "h " d d ero an expresse outrage over the scene at the gravesite.

PREFACE xx i

That outrage was rejoined in letters to Mexico's left-leaning 'Spapers by those who saw Corporal Lopez as at best a vie-

. of U.S. aggression and at worst an agent of U.S. imperial- ism. "Our heroes," read one letter to a national newspaper,

2re not the traitors who join the American army but those M exicans who fought the Americans when they invaded our coun try in 1846."2

Ulysses S. Grant, who served as a young second lieutenant durin g the U.S.-Mexican War, late in his life famously de- scribed that war as "one of the most unjust ever waged by a suo nger against a weaker nation.'' 3 The sentiment might well

ve been sincere, but at roughly the same time he wrote th ose words, Grant was in the forefront of plotting a com- mercial assault on Mexico . In an interview he assured poten- rial U.S. investors that the Mexican people were "industrious, frugal, and willing to work for even a pittance, if afforded an opportunity." 4 That Grant considered the Mexicans' most re- markable characteristic to be their capacity to work hard for 2 pittance suggests that he exemplified a peculiar strain of American hubris. Throughout history, it seems, American in- terest in Mexico has been conditioned by Mexico's ability to benefit or menace the United States. A true collaboration based on mutual respect and an understanding of our com- mon history would be a welcome change, one that would surely help to resolve vexing problems on both sides of the border. I hope this book, in some small way, will contribute to such a change.

A NOTE ON PLACE NAMES

I have chosen to refer to places by the names that are most fa- miliar to American readers . Thus San Antonio de Bexar, com- monly known as Bexar when Texas was a Mexican state, I call San Antonio . Likewise, the river that Mexicans call the Rfo Bravo de! Norte is herein referred to as the Rio Grande.

6

THB ANNEXATION CRISIS

The idea that the United States should annex Texas was cer­ tainly not .new in 1844, but in that year it seemed suddenly to gain a ferocious momentum that affected several nations and many compe�·g· interests. Texas annexation would likely have proved _d1V1s1ve no matter how it was accomplished, but the fact that it was accomplished by ethically and legally dubi­ ous means ensured that it would provoke crises and that those crises w_ould be severe. The political crisis it provoked within the Uruted States became an important cause of the Civil War of the 1860s. Annexation also provoked yet another round of severe political crises in Mexico, as well as a series of attempted interventions by European powers anxious to halt the territorial expansion of the United States.

THE ANNEXATION DEBATE

IN THE UNITED STATES

In .the . U°!ted States sentiment was badly split on the issue

of temtonal expansion in general and on the acquisition of

134 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

Texas in particular. Critics of expansion held that the wealth and cares brought by expansion would doom democracy, just as it had done in ancient Athens and republican Rome. Oth- ers suspected that expansion was a scheme by southern slave owners to add new slave states and thus increase their power. Proponents of expansion worked hard to overcome such ob- jections, coming up at times with ingenious arguments de- signed to appease critics while simultaneously increasing the ardor of their fellow expansionists .

No one was more ingenious in devising ways to batter down objections to annexation than Senator Robert]. Walker of Mississippi. A transplanted Pennsylvania lawyer, Walker was well versed in the arguments for and against annexation, and he set about to find the common ground-or rather, to find and exploit useful prejudices common to nearly all white Americans. Northern opponents of slavery may have de- plored the "peculiar institution" and wished to see its demise, but that did not mean that they were comfortable with the prospect of living side by side with free blacks on terms · of equality. Most, in fact, assumed that the white race would be gravely threatened by emancipation, · particularly i.f it were accomplished precipitately. Walker played cleverly ·on thos<:! racial anxieties.

In 1844 Walker wrote a twenty-six-page letter that was subsequently printed in full in some of the country's leading newspapers and circulated by the millions of copies in pam- phlet form . The real threat, Walker explained, was not slavery but the presence of blacks throughout the country . Walker made much use of data from the 1840 census, which were re- markable indeed. The census appeared to give resounding support to the slave owners' long-held contention that slavery was good for blacks, saving them from their own bestial na- tures and forcing upon them at least the bare rudiments of civilization. Free blacks, the census seemed to show, were eleven times more likely to be physically deformed or mentally

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THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 135

deranged than slaves. Some pointed out that the census data were implausible, to say the least. In Worcester, Massachu- setts, for instance, a whopping 13 3 out of 151 black residents were classed as insane, and some towns that had no black res- idents at all appeared in the census as home to shocking numbers of black beggars, cripples, and lunatics. The patent inaccuracy of the data, however, mattered little, for white Americans of the 1840s w.ere generally predisposed to believe the worst about blacks.

They were also generally inclined to think the worst about England, another favorite bugbear . Perhaps Walker's most impressive gambit was to wed anglophobia to negrophobia to advance the annexationist cause. England, according to his reasoning, was intent on mediating the dispute between Mex- ico and Texas in the hope of persuading Mexico to recognize Texas's independence . That independence would be guaran- teed by England on the condition that the Texans agreed nei- ther to seek nor accept annexation to the United States. England would then pressure Texas to abolish slavery, and horrifying consequences would soon follow. Walker and other apologists for slavery were cynical about England's mo- tives, for England had freed the slaves in its West Indian colonies in 183 3 and as a result had taken a beating in the colonial sugar trade. Accordingly, Walker charged , the British hoped to push abolition elsewhere, not for altruistic reasons but so that its West Indian products would become more competitive. Moreover, England would set up preferential trade with Texas, importjng Texas cotton duty free and selling manufactured goods unburdened by the discriminatory tariff charged by the United States. Other states in the U.S. South and Southwest might be tempted to leave the Union and join with Texas so as to gain preferential access to the British mar- ket; or the United States might be pressured to end its own protective tariffs, which would damage the U.S . economy and destroy its revenues. In addition to economic concerns, the

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United States had to consider a pro-British Texas a threat to its national security, for in the event of hostilities the United States would find itself bordered by Britain or its allies to both north and south. With Texas a British ally, the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River would be imperiled. Walker's allies, such as President Tyler's secretary of state, Abel Up- shur, embellished this nightmarish picture by pointing out that England might be tempted to goad American blacks to

revolt, subverting U.S. security from within. In short, the consequences of not annexing Texas, as out-

lined by Walker, would be alarming : Americans of every sec- tion of the country would soon find themselves surrounded by weak-minded, physically deformed, and morally depraved black people; the country would face economic depression, civil war, and dismemberment; and America's most powerful enemy would be handed a potent weapon with which to men- ace the nation's security. On the other hand, should annexa- tion be accomplished, it would bring untold blessings to all Americans. Those who assumed that a1mexation would be a boon to the forces of slavery erred, for ultimately the out- come would be precisely the opposite. Surprisingly, Walker argued, annexation would be a first step toward ridding the United States of the baneful institution of slavery. Slaves and their owners would be attracted to the warm climate and other enticements that Texas offered, and more and more of them would migrate southward. Texas would be a gateway to the still more agreeable climes of Mexico and Central and South America. Blacks in those countries would mix with 1 In- dians, affording them a step up in the racial hierarchy. In

ti. me all blacks both enslaved and free, would be drained ' ' away from the United States, leaving it an all-white repub-

lic-for many whites in 1840s America, a highly desirable outcome. Walker, hoping to allay the widespread suspicion that annexation was part of a conspiracy by southern slave owners, was at pains to point out that southern slave owners

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 137

were not the only ones who stood to benefit from the acquisi- tion of Texas; nor would they be the biggest losers should an- nexation fail.

Arguments such as Walker's certainly did not persuade the most adamant opponents of annexation, some of whom glee- fully ridiculed the ·particulars. But the prospect of ending slavery and racial strife so painlessly gave the arguments widespread appeal. According to the Richmond Enquirer, they continued for months to be "the theme the talk the

' ' fashion, the very rage." 1 The specific arguments regarding race and commerce blended nicely with the imperious pro- nouncements of writers like John L. O'Sullivan, coiner of the phrase "Manifest Destiny," that dismissed such niceties as "rights of discovery, exploration, settlement, contiguity, etc .," as mere quibbling. Providence had simply and unambigu- ously intended the United States to spread its "great experi- ment of liberty and federative self government" across the North American continent, and the nation's right to extra ter- ritory was as na_tural and unquestionable "as that of the tree to the space of air and earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth." Any who complained proved, by the very act of complaining, that they were unwor- thy of the possession of valuable real estate. "Public sentiment with us," editorialized the New York Morning News in 1845, "repudiates possession without use ... This national policy, necessity or destiny, we know to be just and beneficent, and we can, therefore, afford to scorn the invective and imputa- tions of rival nations." 2 Such arguments made for a heady brew of artless optimism and hubris and they were, for the moment at least, intoxicating enough to overcome divisions over slavery and section.

With the aid of such visionary polemics, sentiment in favor of annexing Texas had been gaining grow1d steadily since 1841, and by 1844 a large segment of the American public was ready to be persuaded. The arguments had persuaded

138 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

President John Tyler, a lanky Virginia planter and slave owner, who had succeeded to the presidency in 1841 upon the death of William Henry Harrison. Earlier in his career Tyler had bolted the Democratic Party for the Whig Party, and his subsequent disputes with the Whigs had led to his ex- pulsion from that party as well. He was thus an unelected president without a party and only a slender base of support. He hoped to ride the issue of Texas annexatio n to popularity and possibly reelection. But the Whigs, led by Henry Clay, eloquently objected that the addition of Texas would upset the delicate balance of power between North and South and lead inevitably to war with Mexico. The Senate rejected Tyler's treaty of annexation in June 1844, only six months be- fore the end of his term. Tyler dropped out of the presidential race, leaving the struggle to the anti-annexation Whig candi- date Henry Clay and his yet-to-be-chosen Democratic Party

rival. There was tension among Democrats on the expansion

issue. The early front-runner for the nomination was Mar- tin Van Buren, who shared with Clay the conviction that Tyler's rush to annexation was reckless. Determined pro- annexationists, including Robert J. Walker, maneuvering deftly at the Democratic convention, managed to persuade their party to repudiate Vari Buren and opt instead for a dark horse candidate known to favor annexation, former Tennessee

congressman and governor James K. Polk. The Democratic Party platform under Polk came to advo-

cate the "reannexation" of Texas, claiming that Texas had in fact been part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, which had been bargained away in the 1819 Adams-Onfs treaty with Spain. That tactic had two advantages: it used semantics to make Texas annexation seem a matter of elementary justice, while also taking a swipe at the negotiator of the 1819 treaty, John Quincy Adams, who was currently the most vocal critic of Texas annexation. Adams and his coreligionaries took the

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 13 9

view that annexation would be unconstitutional, would risk an unnecessary and dishonorable war, and would worsen the slavery problem. By contrast, Democratic candidate Polk-a small, intense, uncharismatic, and humorless man-refused to acknowledge any connecti?n between territorial expansion and slavery and had no doubts about the moral superiority and special destiny of Anglo-Saxon Americans. After a bitter campaign Polle won the presidency by a scant thirty-eight thousand votes. He and his supporters interpreted this slen- der victory as nothing less than a "mandate" for Texas annex- ation.

President Tyler,,still hopeful of pushing through Texas an- nexation on his watch, proposed that Texas be invited into the Union through a joint resolution rather than a treaty. The resolution would be easier to get passed, needing only a sim- ple majority vote in both houses of Congress. According to the resolution, Texas would be immediately offered admission to the Union as a state-presumably one in which slavery would be .legal. The amendment passed the House but stalled in the Senate. Senator Walker proposed a solution to the Senate impasse: incoming President Polk would have the op- tion of accepting the resolution as passed by the House or ne- gotiating a new treaty with the Texans. Polk, eager to see the resolution passed as quickly as po ssible, apparently allowed opponents of the original resolution to believe he preferred negotiating a new treaty with Texas in which slavery might be excluded and the boundary dispute resolved. With that un- derstanding, enough sehators switched their votes to allow the amended joint resolution to pass 27-25.

The two-option compromise was evidently nothing but a political ploy. On March 3, his last day in office, President Tyler sent a courier to Texas with an offer of immediate an- nexation. Polk endorsed Tyler's actions upon entering office. He also pointedly declared that the Rio Grande was to be the nonnegotiable boundary of the U.S. state of Texas. The re-

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

fusal to negotiate on the disputed territory was clearly a provocation, one that Polk was prepared to exploit should

diplomacy with Mexico fail.

TEXAS, MEXICO, AND THE

GREAT POWERS OF EUROPE

The American expansionists may have exaggerated in their denunciations of British intrigues, but those intrigues were not entirely a matter of paranoid fantasy. England paid close attention to Texas issues, having good reasons for wanting to see that republic remain independent and prosperous. En- gland was apprehensive about the growing size and power of the United States and hoped Texas might prove useful in stemming that tide. And just as Walker and his allies asserted, England assumed that an independent cotton-growing Texas would provide a cheap and reliable source of raw materials for British factories, as well as a healthy market for the output of those factories. Also, British merchants and bondholders hoped that a strong, independent Texas would increase the chances that Mexico might one day repay its debts, for it would remove Mexico's pretext for lavishing its scant re- sources on its bloated army. Finally, the British feared that Texas annexation to the United States would perpetuate slav- ery there. An independent Texas beholden to England might be induced to abolish that evil institution.

Lord Aberdeen, the British foreign secretary, appeared dis- posed to take strong measures in defense of Texas. Four ob- stacles, however, stood in the way of success. First, the Texans themselves seemed eager to join the United States and would have to be persuaded that independence was a more desirable option. Second, the Mexicans continued obstinately to refuse to acknowledge Texas's independence. They would have to be persuaded that recognition of Texas would bring tangible benefits without damaging their national dignity. Third, En-

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS

gland would have to proceed somewhat delicately, since it was even then embroiled in an acrimonious dispute with the United States over the Oregon Territory, which both coun- tries claimed. England was not eager for war with the United States. And finally, in order to achieve a happy outcome, En- gland would likely have to enlist the support of France. Fran~ois Guizot, who wielded executive power in France, was interested in cooperating, but here again there were obsta- cles. France had blockaded and attacked Mexico as recently as 1838, and her relations with Mexico remained poor. Nor were Anglo-French relations entirely harmonious, despite the personal rapport between Guizot and Aberdeen. The major- ity of the French people rather liked the idea of Texas annex- ation to the United States, for no better reason than that the prospect was displeasing to the British. Keeping Texas inde- pendent would not be an easy task.

In late May 1844, as the U .S. Senate was close to rejecting President Tyler's annexation treaty, Aberdeen spoke with the diplomatic representatives of both Texas and Mexico, outlin- ing his plan for what he called a "diplomatic act" respecting Texas. According to this plan, if Mexico agreed to recognize Texas's independence, England and France would jointly guarantee that independence, and they would also ensure that Mexico would retain possession of New Mexico and Califor- nia. If the United States should go ahead with its annexation plans, England and France would "assist Mexico in the con- test which may be thereby brought on." 3

This plan had little chance of success. The French, faced (

with the possibility. of war with the United States, responded tepidly to Aberdeen's suggestions. Meanwhile the British and French ministers at Washington warned that any suggestion of British and French meddling in Texas might doom the can- didacy of anti-annexationist Henry Clay, thus playing into the hands of the annexationists. The Texans, for their part, wished to keep their options open . Anson Jones, who won the

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A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

Texas presidency in September 1844, openly complained that Texas had been "shabbily used" by the United States, and he generally viewed the Europeans warmly. Out~oin~ _presi- dent Sam Houston-who according to one of his .cnttcs fa- vored annexation when sober and violently opposed it when drunk-apparently urged acceptance of the British plan. Even so, Jones was skeptical of the idea: the diplomatic act would give England the right to arbitrate American disputes, doom any prospect of annexation, and possibly lead to war between Europe and America. Jones instructed Texas diplomats to cease discussing the plan, and the diplomatic act came to

naught. The Mexicans, for their part, did little to help advance any

sort of diplomatic settlement. At the very moment when the British and French were exploring a negotiated settlement of the Mexico-Texas dispute, Santa Anna was escalating his bombast, vowing that the invasion of Texas would begin any day and that all Texas prisoners would be summarily shot as traitors. The British explicitly assured Santa Anna that, should he invade Texas and find himself in difficulties, "he must not look for the support of Great Britain in aiding him to extricate himself from those difficulties." French king Louis Philippe personally harangued the Mexican minister to France on the topic, accusing the Mexicans of "infatuation" with Texas. "This infatuation," he said, · "prevents you from recognizing what everybody ,else sees; that is, that you have

lost Texas irrevocably."4

The Mexican 'stance toward recognizing Texas was not en- tirely unreasonable . T.he Mexicans argued that it would be folly to trust in the good faith of Texans, who had repeate~ly proved themselves unreliable. If Mexico were to recogruz_e Texas as an independent ·country, what assurance would 1t have that the Texans would not subsequently seek annexation to the United States? Or that they would refrain from attack- ing Mexico? Indeed, Mexican recognition would increase

THE ANNE X ATION CRISIS 1 43

· these possibilities, since by granting recognition Mexico , would be acknowledging that the Texans were free to do whatever they pleased. The Mexicans maintained that the Texans, like all savage peoples, respected only the threat of physical force. If the British and French wanted Mexico to recognize Texas independence, they must agree unequivocally to supply that force. Despite these arguments, Santa Anna eventually softened on the issue. He agreed to recognize Texas in late November 1844 in exchange for a generous in- demnity from the United States and a British and French commitment to defend a favorable boundary. But the British and French once again backed away from granting hard and fast guarantees, and Santa Anna's government was over- thrown a week later.

The Mexican attitude toward Texas softened even more af- ter Santa Anna's ouster. The dictator's successor, General]ose Joaquin de Herrera, was a dedicated moderate. He was, like Santa Anna, a na.tive of Veracruz state, and like Santa Anna he had joined the Spanish royal army while still a teenager. Ex- cept for a brief stint as a druggist , he had spent his entire ca- reer in the army. But unlike Santa Anna, Herrera sought sincerely to reconcile Mexico's irreconcilable factions while scrupulously avoiding rash acts. Although of modest financial means himself, he was comfortable in the company of the hombres de bien, and he shared their uneasiness toward the commoners. In a refreshing contrast to so many others, he was known for his honesty and integrity, common sense and sound judgment, though in some ways his modesty and mod- eration made him poorly suited to times of crisis: when so 'many demanded heroics, Herrera offered only sober, unglam- orous reason. Nor did he possess the kind of dynamic person- ality that might have helped him sell his policies effectively.

Herrera, of course, confronted the same problems · that had already undone so many previous regimes. Mexico's total rev- enues amounted to less than half of expenses. The single

144 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

largest expense remained the army, which continued_ to cl_aim budget priority by conjuring the ;J'exas menace. Factionalism, too, remained a volatile problem. The constitution Herrera inherited from the Santa Anna dictatorship, the so-called Or- ganic,Bases, was wildly unpopular, and it provided ~e.radi~al liberals-who began styling themselves puros, to d1st1ngrush themselves from the moderados, or moderate federalists-with a potent issue. The constitution restricted citizenship to peo- ple of means, concentrated power in Mexico Ci~, _re~uced the states to "departments," and allowed for no civil nghts. But while puros demanded an immediate resurrection of the federalist Constitution of 1824, Herrera merely appointed a committee to consider constitutional reform. Such dallying cost him a great deal of political support .

By far the most heated rhetoric, however, swirled around the perennial hot-button issue of Texas. Herrera was well aware that Mexico was in no condition to risk war with the United States. Moreover, he had seen how Santa Anna's ef- forts to rally the nation for an invasion of Texas had fizzled. Herrera, in fact, was strongly inclined to avert war by recog- nizing Texas independence, with Mexico availing itself of whatever . good offices Britain and France tnight be willing to provide. He managed to get authorization ·from congress to open negotiations with Texas, and he had strong support in his quest for an "honorable treaty" from moderates. The more radical puros, however, lost no opportunity to make po- litical hay out of Herrera's alleged weakness and cowardice.

While much of what the politicians and journalists wrote and said was simply irresponsible demagoguery, they did make some points that were not easily gainsaid. Mexicans who followed the debates on annexation that raged in U.S. newspapers were alarmed by the blatantly racist rhetoric they found there. Anglo-Saxon Americans clearly considered Mexicans their racial inferiors, lumping them into the same category as blacks and Indians. Given that the Americans had

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 145

enslaved blacks and exterminated or relocated Indians, Mexi- cans could not be sanguine about what fate might befall them should the Americans conquer their country. Mexicans were also well aware of the inflammatory rhetoric of racial destiny that was reaching a crescendo in the 1840s. While some U.S. writers claimed that the destiny of Anglo-Saxons was to uplift and civilize benighted peoples, others argued that it was sim- ply to overwhelm and displace those peoples who held valu- able resources undeservingly. "When the white races of this country multiply as they will multiply to a certain extent," wrote James Gordon Bennett of the influential New York Her- ald in 1844, "all the colored races will : disappear. We have seen that problem already solved and detertnined in the case of the Indian races." 5 The Americans appeared to have noth- ing but disdain for the way the Mexicans had been utilizing their lands. Were they, too, destined to "disappear"? And who could say when the Americans would be satisfied with the ex- tent oL their territory? Resistance might indeed be futile, some maintained, but the question was one of national sur- vival. Mexicans simply had no choice but to fight.

While these concerns may have had merit, puro politicians flogged them to the point of hysteria. To judge from the tone of some liberal newspapers and broadsides, one would have thought that war fever was sweeping Mexico. "Federation and war on Texas," declared La Voz de! Pueblo, "that is the cry of the people."6 Former vice president Valentin Gomez Farias, who had spent much time · ·in exile, returned to Mexico in March 1845 and assumed leadership of the radical faction, becoming the most strident advocate of war against Texas. Gomez Farias maintained that the reconquest of Texas was absolutely indispensable to Mexico's prosperity, and he even suggested that it would be a fairly easy undertaking: the Tex- ans, he claimed, were badly divided, and the largely Mexican population of San Antonio would support Mexico against the Texans. The campaign should begin at once.

146 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

Such was the situation in Mexico when James K. Polle was elected president of the United States-an event that British newspapers denounced as "the triumph of everything that is worst" in America-and the annexation resolution was passed. The Mexican minister to Washington Juan N. Al- monte in accordance with his instructions, immediately re- quested his passports, severed diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico, and returned home to help

Mexico prepare for war. Despite Almonte's precipitous action, all was not necessar-

ily lost. The annexation resolution still needed the approval of the Texans, and that they would grant it was not an entirely foregone conclusion. Both Sam Houston and his successor, Anson Jones, had well-known doubts about the matter. They, like many Texans, had assumed that Texas would be wel- comed into the Union immediately after winning its inde- pendence, and they were offended by the long delay. Their most cherished hope was that the United States might offer annexation at the same time Mexico offered recognition, so that Texans could make a reasoned decision between inde- pendence and statehood. Jones pointedly avoided the annexa- tion issue during his campaign, made no mention of it in his inaugural address, and continued his silence even after the resolution was approved in the U.S. Congress . The British and French representatives urged him to delay action for ninety days, simultaneously lending their good offices to help Texas obtain recognition from Mexico. By this time Britain and France had abandoned any notion of giving Mexico any solid guarantees, especially ones involving the use of force. They were resolved only to use their "moral influence" to

bring the Mexicans around. Diplomacy finally bore fruit. On May 19, 1845, Mexico

agreed to formally recognize the independence of Texas on the condition that Texas agree not be annexed to the United States. Boundary issues were to be resolved later through ne-

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 147

gotiation and arbitration. Anson Jones got his wish and was now able to present his fellow Texans with a choice between annexation and independence.

As it turned out, the reservation~ that Houston and Jones had toward annexation were not widely shared by their fellow Texans. The U .S. charge d'affaires to Texas, Andrew Jackson Donelson, nephew of 10ld Hickory and a skilled diplomat in his own right, had spent months in Texas ardently promot- ing annexation. The Texas congress had already come out strongly for annexation. The vast majority of Texans favored annexation and zealously resented Jones's tepidness on the matter, to the point of burning him in effigy and threatening him with ouster. Upon receiving the news of Mexican will- ingness to recognize Texas's independence, Jones called a convention to consider the two offers. Meeting at Austin on July 4, the convention wasted little time before rejecting Mexico's offer of recognition and accepting annexation by a lopsided vote of fifty-five to one. After taking care of the re- maining details, Jones wastable to declare on February 1.9, 1846, that "the final act in this great drama is now performed; the Republic of Texas is no more."

THE FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY

The news that Texas had accepted annexation to the United States was a tremendous blow to Herrera and his µioderate allies. Stung by the failure of his conciliatory policy and a barrage of abuse from his domestic critics, Herrera was vir- tually forced to rattle some sabers, declaring that · Mexico

· would fight to defend her honor. After all, Mexico had declared publicly that it would view annexation as an act of war.

The Polle administration missed few chances to fan the flames of Mexico's war hysteria. It clung fiercely to its con- tention that Texas was bounded to the south by the Rio

•· ..

148 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

Grande, not the Nueces as it had been when it was a Mexican state. Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor, the commander at Fort Jesup in western Louisiana, to move his troops toward the Rio Grande . By mid-July Taylor's forces were encamped at Corpus Christi, just inside the disputed territory. Mean- while, papers allied to the Polk administration were denounc- ing the "insolence, stupidity and folly" of the Mexicans, ridiculing their threats of war. Apparently Polk and his sup- porters believed that bellicosity was the best way to bring the Mexicans to the bargaining table. In fact, bellicosity had pre- cisely the opposite effect: it inspired fear, humiliation, and rage, playing squarely into the hands of Mexico's war party. Herrera, with few options, sent Mexican troops to the Rio Grande with orders to remain south of the river and to avoid

hostilities. The Mexican army was in no sense prepared for war with

the United States. "Strictly speaking," lamented one moder- ate Mexican politician, "the army does not exist. What today bears that name is only a mass of men without training and without weapons." 7 Mexican officers might create an impres- sive spectacle with their fine mounts and gaudy uniforms, but many were political hacks whose loyalty was questionable and who lacked the most basic military competence. According to one estimate, there were eighteen officers for every five regu- lar soldiers, and those officers' bloated salaries were ruinous to the budget. Service in the Mexican army was infamously unattractive, so recruits had to be coerced. Prisoners, va- grants, and drunkards were pressed into service. Indians were often captured, quite literally, with lassos as they tried to flee from recruiters, and brought to the barracks chained to- gether. Discipline was notoriously derelict. Brantz Mayer, secretary of the U.S. legation during the 1840s, recounted seeing a sergeant at Veracruz drilling a few recruits "to the tap of the drum. The music seemed to be a dead march, and the step of the soldiers was slow and solemn. Nothing could

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 1 49

be more dreary-more heart-sickening." 8 Armaments were scarce and of low quality. Mexico had no firearms factories, so most of the army's weapons were antiquated muskets pur- chased at bargain prices in Europe, which were useless except at short range. U.S. minister to Mexico Waddy Thompson guessed that no more than one in ten recruits had ever seen a gun prior to doing service, and fewer than one in a hun - dred had actually fired one. Food and clothing were likewise scarce. Under such circumstances desertion was an entirely sensible option and was often employed. In 1845 General Mariano Arista, who commanded the Mexican forces at the northern frontier, complained that of the four thousand troops who had been sent to the border since 1841, all had deserted, and he was left with only a small corps of veterans on the very eve of hostilities with the United States.

To his credit, Herrera did try to reform the military . He simplified the command structure, changed the system of promotions to reward merit rather than partisan allegiance, and clearly delineated the powers of state governors and mil- itary officers in hopes of eliminating the problem of regional caudillos . Most controversially, he tried to revive the idea of a civic militia-an idea that had fallen on hard times during the era of centralized government. He authorized the creation of a new force to be known as the Volunteers in Defense of In- dependence and the Law, which was suppos.ed to serve as a counterweight to the regular army and, to some extent, give Mexicans a greater stake in their own defense. Unfortunately, Herrera handled the matter clumsily. Many who might have served in such a force were incensed that Herrera had dis- banded the volunteer militias that had formed spontaneously to defeat Santa Anna in January 1845. lt was presumed that Herrera feared that those militias might turn against his own government, lending considerable credence to the charge that Herrera simply did not trust the common folk. The charge was further borne out by the details of Herrera's proposal:

"I\ '" Ill 11,, Ill\

"'i Iii\ :111 ,~ ' I ~

1''1

[i i\l\ ...

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT 1 50

service in the new militia was to be voluntary and unpaid, and the prerequisites for service-militiamen had to have incom~s of at least two hundred pesos per year and could not be aru- sans or public servants-excluded all but wealthy Mexicans . Recruitment was disappointing, to say the least. The largest unit was in Morelia, Michoacan, where a mere thirty-seven volunteers turned out. · In many cities, no one volunteered at all. Herrera's failed effort to create a militia turned out to be one ofthe great disasters of his presidency. It alienated reac- tionary officers of the regular army and failed to provide for a force that might have risen to defend Herrera's government when it came under attack. Moreover, it did nothing to en- hance Mexico's preparedness for war. The Mexican military continued to be manned by unwilling conscripts rather than

by patriotic citizens . . . Knowing full well that Mexico was in no condinon to fight

the United States, Herrera sought to explore all options for avoiding war. Unfortunately, peace was an entirely se_ns_ible but politically ruinous proposition. Politicians were sph~ mto four factions: moderate federalists, who wanted some liberal reforms but shared the elite's horror of the lower classes; rad - ical federalists, who relied on lower-class support and wished to weaken the power of the church and army; traditional conservatives, who were increasingly convinced that only a legitimate European monarch could save the country; and santanistas, who believed that only Santa Anna could save the country. Of these factions, only moderate federalists like Her - rera consistently advocated a negotiated settlement of the dis- pute with the United States . Politicians of the three other factions mercilessly attacked Herrera with charges of cow-

ardice. Herrera did get congress to authorize the raising of a

15-million-peso loan, and there was some discussion of just how to tap into the church's wealth to support a war effort. But Herrera still seemed resolved to continue to work

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 15 1

through diplomatic channels as far as possible. He let it be ~ow~ that he ~ould be willing to discus,s the Texas boundary issue_ 1f the Uruted States were willing to pay an indemnity. Wilham Parrott, a confidential agent sent by the Polk admin- istration to explore diplomatic options in Mexico, reported that although calls for war were shrill and insistent, the Mex- icans' awareness of their own weakness probably meant that an amicable arrangement could be reached. He suggested ~at_ the United States send a suitably qualified envoy, pre- d1ctmg that such a person could likely settle all issues "over a breakfast." Taking that advice to heart, Polk selected John Slidell, a generally well-regarded Louisiana politician who spoke Spanish fluently.

For a brief while, prospects for a settlement seemed favor- able. U.S. diplomats reported optimistically that Herrera's government might even be persuaded to sell New Mexico and California in addition to Texas. Slidell, accordingly, was au- thorized to treat for as much territory as he could talk the Mexicans out of. His instructions mentioned the over $3 mil- lion in American claims against Mexico, proposing that those cla_ims be liquidated if Mexico agreed to a general boundary adjustment. The instructions forcefully asserted that the Rio Grande was the nonnegotiable southern border of Texas, and that the United States was prepared to pay $5 million in ex- change for Texas and New Mexico. The payment would rise to as ·much as $2 5 million if Mexico would toss in California including San Francisco and Monterey with their valuabl~ harbors. Privately, Polk assured Slidell that if the Mexicans p,roved recalcitrant, he was prepared to make an issue of U.S. claims against Mexico, taking "redress for the wrongs and in- juries we have suffered."

Slidell arrived in Mexico City on December 6, 1845, and was greeted by a tempest of angry diatribes in die Mexican press denouncing the Americans and accusing Herrera of plotting to sell Mexico's northern territories. Some editorials

u' r U'

152 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

openly advocated overthrowing the Herrera government "be- fore it is too late." Herrera, shocked by the vehemence of the denunciations, quickly determined that it would be a mistake to receive Slidell. The U.S. government had in fact provided the Mexicans with a convenient pretext for refusing to receive him: Slidell carried the title "minister plenipotentiary" to Mexico. Mexico had agreed to receive only a "commissioner." To receive a minister would imply that Mexico had resumed full diplomatic relations with the United States, something Herrera insisted only congress was empowered to do and that in any case would likely be done only if the United States expressed sufficient contrition to permit Mexico to resume relations in a face-saving way.

Herrera's last-minute change of heart made little differ- ence. By the time Slidell arrived in Mexico, the plotting of Herrera's overthrow was already well advanced. The key fig- ure in the plot was the archconservative General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, the army commander at San Luis Potosi who had helped bring Herrera to power the year before. Paredes had for some time been corresponding with Her- rera's opponents, including many liberals. Paredes's own sympathies were revealed in his correspondence with the con- servative intellectual Lucas Alaman and with the Spanish minister to Mexico Salvador Bermudez de Castro, who as- sured Paredes that they could come up with funding to bring a European prince to assume the throne of Mexico. Paredes's loathing of the common folk was extreme even by the stan- dards of the Mexican elite, and like most conservatives he be~ lieved that the two pillars of the old colonial order-king and church-were the best means of keeping the poor in their place.

Early in December, when Herrera ordered Paredes to re- inforce Mariano Arista's forces in the north, Paredes refused, instead demanding that Herrera resign the presidency. The formal rebellion began on December 14 with the Plan of San

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 153

Luis Potosi, which charged Herrera with trying to bargain away precious national territory, creating a militia of the rab- ble, trying to abolish the army, and generally causing chaos and anarchy. Most army garrisons seconded the revolt. Her- rera's government made a show of defiance: speakers in con- gress called Paredes a scoundrel, a traitor, and a drunkard, and at the last possible moment the government hastily dis- tributed some seven thousand muskets. But Herrera's im- promptu militia 'was easily disarmed, and by the end of December, when the capital garrison joined the revolt, the Herrera government collapsed so unceremoniously that, ac- cording to one observer, "any foreigner coming into Mexico would not have the slightest idea that the country had gone through an upheaval. "9

The hombres de bien were delighted by the Paredes revolt, but most Mexicans were less pleased. Monarchy was not a popular option in Mexico, and Paredes was attacked for his monarchist sympathies and his authoritarian bent. Easily the most ironic of the many charges leveled against Paredes, however, was that he was insufficiently jingoist. He had justi- fied his overthrow of Herrera partly on the grounds that Mer- rera had no stomach for war, but once in office Paredes proved to be just as anxious to avoid conflict with the United States. John Slidell was guardedly optimistic tq~t the Paredes government would receive him eventually. ··late January Slidell left Mexico City for Jalapa, Veracruz, but not before dropping a few hints that he held the answer to Mexico's ex- treme financial distress.

A patient policy might have borne fruit, but the Americans opted instead to force the issue. President Polk and his secre- tary of state, James Buchanan, instructed Slidell to continue trying to meet with the government, but at the same time they hinted that if the Mexicans continued to refuse, dire consequences would follow. To reinforce that threat, the ad- ministration sent orders to General Taylor, who had been

I

154 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

biding his time at Corpus Christi, to move his forces to the Rio Grande and occupy positions at Laredo and Point Isabel, at the river's mouth. At the same time naval squadrons took up stations off Veracruz and Mazatlan. Upon learning of these maneuvers, Slidell grew emboldened: on March 1 he sent an ultimatum to the Mexican foreign minister. Mexico, it said, had two weeks to choose between peace and war.

Once again the apparent assumption that the Mexicans would back down in the face of threats revealed appalling ig- norance of the political dynamics within Mexico. Threats and attempts at intimidation were practically guaranteed to offend the Mexicans' sense of honor and incline them toward greater obstinacy. That, in fact, is precisely what Slidell's note accom- plished. Paredes's foreign minister, Joaquin Castillo y Lanzas, answered Slidell's brusque note with an equally brusque one. Castillo y Lanzas insisted that the recent military maneuvers in Texas and the Gulf were proof of American bad faith. He accused the United States of having masterminded an elabo- rate plot to seize Texas and charged that the designation of Slidell as "minister plenipotentiary" was not an oversight but a calculated insult. Slidell, the note made clear, would not be received, and if hostilities should erupt, they would be the fault of the United States. Slidell downplayed the American military presence, refuted the account of the Texas issue, and accused the Mexicans of answering good faith offers of peace with bullheadedness and insults. He prepared to abandon his mission and return home.

Even as Slidell was packing his bags, General Zachary Tay- lor and his troops were arriving at the banks of the Rio Grande, deep within the disputed territory. General Pedro Ampudia demanded that Taylor move his forces back across the Nueces River within twenty-four hours. Taylor refused; his primary intention was clearly to provoke an incident that would serve as a pretext for war. President Polk made no se-

THE ANNEXATION CRISIS 155

cret of his conviction that diplomacy had been exhausted and that he was now resolved to declare war: he needed only some plausible pretext. He pondered basing a war declaration on the supposed insult to Slidell, or perhaps on Mexico's failure to pay its debts, but neither option would be ideal. He fer- vently hoped the Mexicans would attack Taylor's forces in the disputed territory.

On May 8 he got his wish. On that date Zachary Taylor's dispatch arrived at the White House bearing the news that a force ·of several hundred Mexicans had attacked a small re- connaissance party on April 25 at a place on the Rio Grande about fifteen miles upstream from the present-day site of Brownsville, Texas. Sixteen Americans had been killed or wounded in the melee, the rest taken prisoner. Polk immedi- ately set to work on his war message, which unequivocally ,branded the Mexicans as the aggressors and the Americans as long-suffering victims:

The cup of forbearance had been exhausted even before

the recent information from the frontier of the Del Norte

[Rio Grande]. But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico

has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded

our territory and shed America11 .. blood -on-Amer.ican-soil.-

She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nation s-:lfenow iit\var: ---··-· .. ··-· .. - - ··- -- --

The declaration was;·of~~~se, founded upon a deliberate de- ception. The Mexicans had not invaded American territory. The Americans, rather, had provoked an attack in territory they claimed on dubious grounds. Polk's maneuvering leaves little room to doubt that he was resolved to relieve Mexico of its northern lands by fair means or foul.

Two battles-Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, both vic- tories for the United States-were fought even before the of-

. .. . - ----

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

ficial U.S. declaration of war was signed on May 13, and the call went out for volunteers to help deliver to Mexico her just punishment. The long-anticipated war between the United

States and Mexico was finally under way. "Ho," said the most famous recruiting poster, "for the halls

of the Montezumas!"

7

THB WAR Of 1847

As war began, most realistic Mexicans realized that their country had little hope of victory. They thought, however, that they might manage to avoid a crushing defeat. If they could hold the line at the frontier, it would force the United States to launch a risky amphibious invasion. Perhaps the Mexicans could then ottle up e nv-a · ers at e coast, where tropical diseases would take a fearsome toll. If all else failed, they hoped they might be able to wear down the en-

. emy with ga:rerrtl a arlare. All of these strategies, however, presumed the existence of

a motivated fighting force. Commodore Matthew Perry, who commanded U.S. naval forces during the war, commented in- sightfully on the problem. "The Mexicans are not deficient in personal courage," he wrote; "nothing is wanting to make them good soldiers, other than military discipline and na- tional ardor which cannot be expected of men impressed as they are into service, in the most cruel and ruthless manner." 1

The elites who managed the war tried mightily to convince

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

themselves that the Mexican people clamored for a vinaica - · ~ w r, but in fact very few of those people were passionate aoou fight. Nonelite Mexicans-the ones who were ex- pected to do most of the fighting-realized that, in the eyes of their leaders, they were useful only as drudges or cannon fodder. During the war and its aftermath, when impoverished Mexicans fought enthusiastically, it was not against the for- eign invaders but against th · ',oQ - verlevds.

"National ardor" was also lacking among the elites them- selves, making a unified response to the invasion practically impossible. Civil strife had become such an ingrained habit among Mexican politicos that not even a -f01~eign · vasion could keep them from figh-1:ingo:on ano er. "A sensible, pa- triotic people unites and offers a solid front at the first hint of the common peril," moaned one Mexican politician, even as U .S. forces closed in on Mexico City. "A people that is nei- ther ensi e nor patriotic gr0w eak, thus smoothing out difficulties for the invader, who wins without opposition." 2

POLITICS AND WAR

During 1846, even as war with the United States loomed, Mexican politics remained tumultuous. Mariano Paredes had come to power in late 1845 as part of a conspiracy to convert Me ·eo to monarchy . He backed off of his monarchist preten- sions upon becoming aware of how genuine! unpopular the

lr!J!-;was n ~ xico. Still, the very threat of a to sucli a esp1sea system was enough to fire up the

pure who believed that a return to the feoeralrS' @onstitu- tion of 1824 was the ticket to victory in the war with the United States . Confident of this prescription, the puros be- came by far the most strident advocates of war. Indeed, they have the distinction of being virtually the only group that seemed actually o belieY.e.-Mexico co Id win-but victory, in their view, woukl e .ssible on y unaer the proper political

THE WAR OF 1847 159

system. PwJ eader Va . tin~@6me E rias was the most ar- ~ ent champion of war and--fecleralis · . So intent was he on dumping Paredes that he was willing to deal with the devil. In 1846 he began a regular correspondence with his old nemesis Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who had been exiled fro~ ~exico "for life" in 1845. Santa Anna was presently devoting himself to banquets and cockfights in Cuba. Gomez Farias believed that he and Santa Anna would make an unbeatable governing team: Gomez Farias claimed to have influence over tl1e ass_es, while Santa Anna held sway with rm .

Gomez Farias was not Santa Anna's i nly potential route back to power. At the same time he was parleying with the Mexican puros, Santa Anna was also putting out feelers to tl1eir archenemies, the Americans. In February 1846 a U.S. citizen named Alejandro Jose Atocha visited President Polk claiming that Santa Anna had expressed a willingness, upon being restored to power, to make remarkable concessions: the Rio Grande boundary and all of modern-day New Mexico and northern California, in exchange for a $30 million in- demnity. It was an attractive offer, but Atocha was a shady character. Polk was skeptical but was nevertheless persuaded that Santa Anna wo_µld be more conciliatory than Paredes. If some subtle way could be found to help Santa Anna make his political comeback, Polk was on board.

Meanwhile, Santa Anna assured Gomez Farias that during . his Cuban sojourn he had become a liberal of conviction . Cu- riously, Gomez Farias seems to have found this plausible. A key feature of Santa Anna's genius was his impressive ability to per:su.acle people that he was h~rres and sin'tere despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Some Mexicans were themselves fairly mystified at their. co . tinued willingness to trust the wily general. Moderate politician Jose Fernando Ramirez, who was normally of a very skeptical turn of mind, wrote to a friend, "There is no doubt whatsoever that [Santa Anna] is returning as a real democrat, and I can conceive of

160 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

his being one." Ramirez, perhaps realizing how absurd that sounded, added laconically, "I cannot tell you on what I base

my conviction ."3

The lib-erals launched their rebellion in late July, even :as l:h-S, ~es ere occupymg a-lifomia, preparing to occupy New Mexico, and plotting strategy in northern Mexico. When General Jose Mariano Salas joined the revolt in Mex- ico City, Paredes was finished. Paredes had been head- ing north to take charge of the army but was arrested en route . Salas became provisional president, but pending Santa Anna's return, Gomez Farias exercised the real power. In Au- gust 1846 the ~ ·s onstitutio _ o '1.-S:21 once again was declared to be the lai · f.J,LYJ;~!M.!,

Santa Anna landed at Veracruz in August, apparently with the acquiescence of the American fleet that was blockading the Mexican coast. On Mexico's independence day, Septem- ber 16, Gomez Farias and Santa Anna entered the capital to- gether in an open carriage. The entry was deliberately low key, for the nation was in grave peril and the two leaders were resolved to appear as sobe ml inee e em crats . An enor- mous banner of the recently resurrected federalist constitu- tion fluttered to the side of the carriage, but apart from that there were few decorations, and the two men were dressed in subtle civilian attire-no medals, no frock coats, nothing that might smack of aristocracy. According to Ramirez, they "seemed more like · e -· s than conqu._erors. "

4

Ever the man of action, Santa Anna spent only two weeks in the capital before sallying northward at the head of three thousand ragged troops . In his absence he was elected presi- dent, and after some ugly politicking Gomez Farias became vice president , with power to govern while Santa Anna

fought. General Juan Alvarez, a caudillo of southern Mexico who

was among the few bold enough to openly oppose the war with the United States, sized up the new regime's chief prob-

THE WAR OF 1847

!em nicely. "M-0.ney, oney, mi--n'i<')re::money;:" he wrote, ' re th e tlu,e~ thin_gs:-whmh are ee e in or e to ecover [Texas],

- alifo a , nd resewe om . ·0nalieyi"5 Mexico's treasury, as usual, was bare, its normally meager revenues made more meager still by the U.S. blockade . The govern- ment decreed a barrage of emergency taxes and demanded contribu~ons from the states and from urban property own- ers, but 1t lacked the means to collect such exactions or to deal with th e fierce resistance they engendered.

The atholi € nurch, with its apparent opulence, was as always a tempting place to lo le £o , ds. As a liberal ,of conviction, Gomez Farias was famously hostile toward tl1e church, not merely for its wealth but because of the formida- ble obstacle it presented to the creation of a modern, liberal, secular nation-state. As he had done during his 1832-33 gov- <;:rnment, Gomez Farias artacked the church frontally. On January 11, 184 7, he persuaded congress to authorize the goverru~ent to raise ·"-Ilion~ -esos for the war effort by Illf)Jc.tgagm selling ohur.e p..1:_opei:ty; he made exceptions for cnurc sc oo s, osp1ta s, and chatj · e . The clergy loudly protested the measure, and they had plenty of support. Demonstrators .. threw stones at the National Palace, leaflets advocated death to congress and Gomez Farfas, the churches of Mexico City suspended services in protest, and pulpits thundered with antigovernment jeremiads. Several states in the center of the country denounced the measure as ruinous not only to the church but to all those businesses, ranches, and farms that had borrowed money from church coffers. Za- catecas went so far as to advocate overthrowing the federal

· authorities and negotiating a quick end to the war with the United States, while the governor of San Luis Potosi asked the legislature to declare his state's independence from Mex- i~o. There were even rumors that Zacatecas, Durango, Smaloa, and Tabasco discussed declaring their independence from Mexico and asking for U.S. protection.

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

The crisis worsened when the p.w: goye or of Mexico City, boldly declaring himself an i!heis,t, sought to ignore some of the tax exemptions for &harl® s1f ls that had been mentioned in the Ja uarf' l 1 aw. In late February, when Gomez Farfas ordered a conservative militia battal- ion-known as /os polkos because of their fondness for dancing the polka-to prepare for the defense of Veracruz against an anticipated American invasion, the polkas efused to go. In- stead, with moral and financial support from the church, they began a rebellion that plunged Mexico City into a condition just short of civil war. They denounced Gomez Farfas fo_r sur- rounding himself with the "most wretched and despicable [men] from among the dregs of all factions." They first de- manded the repeal of the offensive tax laws and the dissolu- tion of the executive and legislative branches of government but eventually said they would settle for the dismissal of Gomez Farfas.

The polkas had little popular support. Many residents of the city did not fail to notice the appalling cynicism involved in sparking such an upheaval at the very moment when Mex- ican troops were battling the Americans in the north and when American forces were preparing to land at Veracruz for a march on the capital. The c ch seems to have lo..s.t...io ' e g es"tige because of its role in the _eolk-0s a ai : few people turned out for the Holy Week celebrations later that year, and most did not even doff their hats out of respect as the re- ligious processions passed by.

As had often happened previously in such situations, many looked to Santa Anna for salvation. At a critical moment Santa Anna abandoned the fight in the north and returned to Mexico City. People cheered and threw garlands of flowers in his path as he approached the city in late March. Just as he had done in 1833, Santa Anna now took the side of Gomez

anass ene ·es: he persuad ed the church to lend the govern- an a;h millia pesos in exchange for the nullifi-

THE WAR OF 18 47

cation of the offen ing tax law, while at the same time he withdrew his support from Gomez Farfas. He pressured con- gress to simply abolish the office of vice president, and the stubborn Gomez Farias had no recourse but to step down. A S~nta Anna crony, General Pedro Marfa Anaya, became sub- stitute president while Santa Anna prepared to continue fighting the war.

While the politicians wrf~ gled, the war continued along its disastrous course . In June _ul 6, onl~ men th, after the U.S . declaration of ,war against Mexico, the Mexicans received the unwelcome news that the Uni e S:tates @tell ritain a~er some moments f high tension, had patched up ,t.hei; differences over the regon errcitory. M'llfl M·exican hacf. hoped that that dispute might lead to war betwee reat

ritain ~ d th Un-rte State , which could conceivably have ~esulted _m an Al;!glo- exica alliance. Instead, Britain rap- idly lost mterest in Mexico's plight, and the United States was free to pursue its war with Mexico with one ess disrraet:icm.

Z eh~ :Jay . .for's army won victories at two battles just north of the Rio Grande-Palo Alto and Resaca de 1a Palma- in early May 1846, and his troops took Matamoros without resistance . The Mexican forces withdrew to the city of Mon- terrey, about two hundred miles west of Matamoros. At that point, ha?1pered by the departure of volunteers serving short- term enlistments and by lack of supplies, Taylor bided his time until fresh troops and supplies arrived . On September 20 Taylor's forces laid siege to Monterrey, forcing the Mexicans to capitulate after four days of fierce street fighting. A new force under General John E. Wool linked up with those of Taylor in February 1847, even as General Santa Anna was taking over the Mexican war effort.

Santa Anna, upon returning to Mexico, had hastily as-

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

sembled an armyapraetically without funding. He mortgaged his own property, cobbled together his own resources, and pressed the peons from his own haciendas into service. In San _ Luis Potosi he seized bars of silver from the local mint, most ~ of which belonged to Spaniards. None of this was sufficient to form a credible fighting force. Santa Anna's army had @ wuforms -H e rood,-in:fe:riQF wea , ons, and little training. The lack of artillery and long-range rifles meant they could fight only at close range, but the formidable U.S. artillery was capable of slaughtering them ruthlessly at a comfortable dis.; tance, making it nearly impossible for the Mexicans to mouth an effective charge-a disadvantage that would cripple Mexi- can military efforts throughout the war. Statesmen in Mexico City might make much of Mexican "honor," but for the rank- and-file soldier national honor was a hopeless abstraction that provided scant incentive for wanton self-sacrifice. And if death on the field of battle seemed less than glorious, for many such a death would have been a luxury: of the 20,eoo or so troops Santa Anna assembled at San Luis Potosi, nearly five thousan perished of ~ er rs , exhaustion, an ex ,eo ,c; during the grueling 240-mile march north to Saltillo. Thousand mQr- wou a1e on e mareh-b:tc:

· ve~ despite the appalling losses, Santa Anna's forces still numbered some 15,000 upon reaching the environs of Saltillo, where Taylor's men were encamped at a good defen-_ sible position near a hacienda called Buena Vista. The Mexi- cans-hungry, exhausted, and demoralized as they were-still had a decided ' numerical advantage, for Taylor had only around 5,000 mostly green troops. Santa Anna was by this time aware that the Americans were preparing an amphibious invasion at Veracruz, and strategically it would have made sense for him to refocus his efforts toward repelling that as- sault. But Santa Anna coula no resist the temptation of en- hancing his heroic stature by handing his enemy a 0 · o s

ouncing: His army attacked on February 22 and again on

THE WAR OF 1847

February 23, 1847. The fighting was intense and bloody. The Mexicans lost around 2J .00 men, the Americans 6f/-3 plus some ~ desertions. Even with their terrible losses, the Mexicans retained a comfortable numerical advantage. Had Santa Anna chosen to renew the attack on February 24, the Mexicans might well have prevailed. But Santa Anna, per- suaded that his army did not have enough food to hold out for another day, decided to withdraw his forces back to San Luis Potosi. The march back was probably as costly as a con- tinuation of the battle would have been . By the time Santa Anna's army reached San Luis Potosi on March 12, he had lost more than half his original army of twenty thousand. The battle was reckoned an American victory, since it was the Mexicans who withdrew. Santa Anna suffered vicious criti- cism, including numerous charges of incompetence and trea- son, for his conduct of the campaign.

While the fighting raged in northern Mexico and political fa~tions clashed in Mexico City, President Polk put into oper- ation the next part of his plan-a move that had been under discussion for some time . ~ olk was persuaded that diplomacy and reason would not work witl1 the Mexicans and that only a solid and indisputable rout would com el them to negotiate. He therefore appointed Ge er-al Wmfield Scott-a man he held in low esteem but whose military talents he appreci- ated-to head up an invasion of Mexico from the east. Scott's force of 12,0QP landed south of Veracruz city on March 5, 1847, and invited the lightly defended city to surrender. Upon receiving a defiant reply, Scott ordered a bombardment that visited hellish destruction until the city surrendered on March 29. Anxious to move his forces inland before the heat of summer brought the scourge of yellow fever, Scott and his army set out almost immediately for the highlands.

The Americans, in their march from the coast, followed essentially the same route that the Spanish conquistador Heman Cortes had followed more than three hundred years

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT 166

earlier. Both ortes and ScGtt landed at Veracruz during Holy Week, making the historical ~ara~lel a bit ee~ie. The symbolism was not lost on either side m the confli~t. The American soldiers were voracious readers of William H. Prescott's volume History of the Conquest of Mexico, published in 1843. They 'seem to have gained from that w~rk a se~se of historical and, perhaps; ntci?il aestmy, even while learnm~ a bit about the Mexican landscape and archaeological remams. The Spanish conquest was again invoked when, after the war, General William J. Worth ptesented President Polk with a fine copy of a famous painting of Cortes. Alth~ugh P~lk fre- quently and vehemently denied that his war with MeXlCO was a war of conquest, he does not seem to have o?jected to ~e obvious symbolism of the gift: it first hung m the _White House and currently hangs in Polk's ancestral home m Co-

lumbia, Tennessee. On the Mexican side, some drew a dispiriting lesson from

the conquest analogy. Five hundred years earlier a small crew of Spanish adventurers had been able to l~y· wa~te to an enor - mous empire because the people of MeXI«O failed to pull to - gether against their common enemy. History seemed to be repeating itself. Other Mexicans sought to us~ the parallel more constrUctively: puros did their best to mvoke Aztec imagery in hopes tof ,instilling in the Me~can ~eople some sense of racial pride and solidarity and to 1dent1fy the hated

Spaniards with the new conquerors. . Efforts to instill pride and patriotism in exhausted MeX1can

soldiers were fairly futile given the wretched and onerous conditions under which they were made to operate. Many of the troops who had fought at Buena Vista were now forcibly marched hundreds of miles southward, where, under the command of the indefatigable Santa Anna, they dug in to re- ceive Scott's forces at a jagged mountain pass near the small town of Cerro Gordo . The position seemed well-nigh im- pregnable, surrounded as it was by a river,_ hills, and steep

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T H E WAR OF 1847

. After the Battle of Cerro Gordo, comparisons to the con- (!Uest grew starker and more disheartening. " e troops h:rtre co11;e back very much depressed," wrote m derate politician Jose Fernando Ramirez . "The leaders ana officers declare that . th_e Yankees are invincible, and e soldiers are telling temble tales that bring to mind the <t:onquest. Some say that the enemy soldiers are such hu e, strong men that they can ~ut an o~ponent in two with single sweep of their swords. It 1s a!so said that their horses e gigantic and very fast and that ~e~r ~uskets dis~harge s o which, once they leave the gun, d1V1de mto fifty pieces, ach one fatal and well-aimed. Let us say nothing about the artillery, which has inspired fear and terror in all our tro ps and is undeniable proof of our back- wardness in milita art ."6

In fact, however, Scott's army had its own problems. Some three thousand of his volunteers had enlisted for a year and were now free to go. On May 6, seven U .S. regiments marched off toward the coast to board ship for home. Another two ~ousand or so U .S. troops were wounded or gravely ill. Mak- mg matters still worse, on April 28, ten days after the Battle

168 A GLOR I OUS OEFEAT

of Cerro Gordo, substitute president Pedro Maria ~ aya is- sued a call for well-heeled patriots to form guerrilla units to disrupt the American supply lines along the Mexico City- Veracruz corridor. Other guerrilla units formed spontane- ously and without government sanction. The guerrillas were quite successful in making life perilous for the Americans. Scott's army now consisted of fewer than five thousand healthy men, with no reinforcements expected and no reliable

source of supplies. General Scott-who, like Cortes, was gifted in both the

military arts and those of diplomacy-was well aware of the dangers of widespread guerrilla warfare. He was also aware that the surest way to spawn guerrilla warfare was to mistreat ordinary Mexicans. He therefore carefully cultivated the goodwill of the common people by sternly disciplining any misbehavior on the part of his troops. He also wisely sought to appease the Roman Catholic clergy, ordering his soldiers to salute priests on the streets, requesting that priests cele- brate mass with his troops, and personally attending mass in the opulent cathedrals of the cities. This strategy paid divi- dends: many top clergymen eagerly betrayed Santa Anna and made common cause with the invaders. Scott's forces were welcomed into the city of Puebla-a city some sixty miles southeast of Mexico City, known for its conservatism and piety-almost cordially, "more like travelers than enemies," in the words of the Spanish minister.

Scott spent a full three months at Puebla, plotting his as- sault on Mexico City. While he was there, a new character entered into the drama: upon learning of the seizure of Ve- racruz, Polk had dispatched a Spanish-speaking diplomat, Nicholas P. Trist, with authority to negotiate peace-presum- ing, of course, large territorial concessions-with the Mexi- cans. Trist had impeccable credentials, having studied law under Thomas Jefferson, married Jefferson's granddaughter, served as Andrew Jackson's private secretary, and been U.S.

THE WAR O f 1847 169

consul to Cuba. Even so, Scott resented what he saw as Polk's effort to undercut his authority . He treated Trist coldly at first, though soon enough the two men became friendly. Trist was intrigued when the British minister informed him that Santa had hinted that he would be susceptible to ,bu: ery-his price was ten thousand dollars down and an- other "Ilion once a treaty was ratified. Bribery was not only ethically dubious and sure to anger the administration in Washington; it was also an unreliable method .of doing busi- ness, especialll 'given Santa Anna's penchant for duplicity. With many reservations, General Scott approved the plan and provided the en~thousand clolla:Fs from his own funds for "secret expenses."

Nothing came of the bribe~ scheme. The Mexican con- gress had gree.ted news of the Mexican loss at the Battle of Cerro Gordo 'with a fresh round of defiance: two days after the battle they passed a law declaring it treasonous to so much as discuss treating with the enemy. Santa A.Jvia claimed that this law obliged him to abandon negotiations with the U.S. agents-but not before he pocketed the ten thousand dollars. Santa Anna then told Trist that a U.S. attack on Mex- ico City would have the beneficial effect of frightening the opponents of peace into submission, enabling • him to seize power and make peace. This interesting proposition clearly opened the way for a U.S. assault on the capital; the problem was, neither side was quite sure if the att ck would be in earnest or for show.

. The siege began August 20, 184 7, with a pair of battles on the black craggy lava beds to the city's south. Once again the Mexican forces, though swelled by militiamen and even some Irish deserters from Scott's army, gave way before the supe- rior U.S. firepower. The battles were costly to both sides, the Mexicans losing some four thousand men and the Americans more than a thousand. Sentiment among Mexican leaders in favor of surrender was by now considerable, but Santa Anna

.. 17 0 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

instead proposed a truce. Scott and Trist agre~d and waited to see what sorts of concessions Santa Anna might make. The terms Santa Anna spelled out in a memo of August 26 were surprising: Mexico would recognize the independence of Texas but with the Nueces as its southern border; the Amer- icans ~ust evacuate all occupied territory and raise the block- ade of Mexico's ports; Mexico would consider granting the Americans some trading privileges in California; and the United States must pay all the costs of war, cancel all Mexican debts, and recognize all Mexican land grants in Te~as made prior to 1836. With Mexican military fortunes at their lowest ebb, Santa Anna now proposed to end the war as though the Mexicans had won it.

Santa a's oifer was rejected, of course, but negotiations still proceeded desultori y. All the while Santa Anna was al- lowing himself to be persuaded by those who a~vocated co_n- tinued stubborn resistance. Perhaps the crowrung absurdity of the matter was the ultimate sticking point: neither side was willing to barter away its preferred boundary for Texas. T~e virtually worthless territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers-a swath of land so arid it could not even sup- port a cotton crop until the 1920s-":as nonnegotiable f~r both sides. The Americans were determmed to own the tern- tory so as to maintain the fiction that the Mexicans had sparked the war by invading U.S. territory. Santa_ Anna be- lieved the territory was essential as a buffer agamst future U.S. aggression. When the Mexican negotiators made it clear that they would not relinquish their demand for the_ Nue~es boundary, and also that they had no intention of partmg with New Mexico or southern California, the truce collapsed. Santa Anna had used the time to improve the city's defenses, in violation of the terms of the truce.

The fighting resumed on September 8 when th_e U.S. forces attacked an old flour mill known as the Molmo del Rey, ~hich they erroneously suspected of housing a cannon

THE WAR OF 1847

foundary. The Mexicans put up fierce resistance, engulfing I the U.S. troops in a sustained hail of artillery fire, but after a

two-hour fight the Mexican resistance collapsed. Before dawn on September 12 the Americans began shelling Chapultepec

1Castle, an imposing edifice that had once served as a resi- dence [ or viceroys but that now served as Mexico's military academy. The castle, which rested on a hilltop some two hun- dred feet above the plain, guarded the western entrance to Mexico City. After a full day's bombardment the castle was badly damaged. On the morning of September 13 the bom- bardment resumed, followed by an assault. Specially selected U .S. troops used scaling ladders to climb the slopes, breach the castle walls, and engage the castle's defenders in brutal hand-to-hand combat. By nine-thirty in the morning, the cas- tle had fallen to the Americans. The Battle of Chapultepec provided the ultimate symbol of Mexico's doomed resistance: six teenaged cadets, ordered to fall back, instead chose to fight to the de.a th. One of the boys, according to patriotic leg- end, wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and leaped from the castle to his death rather than allow the flag to fall into Amer- ican hands.

Late on the night after the Battle of Chapultepec, Santa Anna resigneq the presidency of Mexico, gathered what was left of his army, and withdrew from the cfty. Shortly there- after he besieged the tiny and ailing contingent that Scott had left at Puebla, but his army disintegrated as soon as U.S. reinforcements arrived. Santa Anna's midnight evacuation of Me~co City made him the object of much scorn and scape- goatmg. When he was summoned to a military court of in- ~ui1y, he resigned his military command and made his way mto yet another exile.

On the morning of September 14 the American forces musr_ered in_ Mexico City's main square while a band played martial music and the Stars and Stripes were raised over the National Palace. Around midday General Scott rode into the

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17 2 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

square, resplendent in full-dress uniform, to accept the for-

mal surrender of the city.

THE TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO

The surrender of Mexico City did not stop the fighting. The conflict simply devolved into something resembling class warfare, as the city's leperos-the urban poor so feared by the comfortable classes-joined by prisoners Santa Anna had or- dered released from the city's jails, ransacked the National Palace and other public buildings. Even after the city seemed pacified, both the U.S. soldiers and city residents co~mitted excesses and atrocities. Soldiers who ventured out mto the streets, especially if they wandered from the city's center, were often shot from rooftops. On one occasion the corpses of several U.S. soldiers were found in a tavern where they had apparently been served poisoned pulque, the ferme~ted maguey juice that was the favorite intoxicant of the MeXIcan poor. Many also fell victim to dysentery.

With the surrender of the city and the resignation of Santa Anna from the presidency, ad interim executive power fell to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Manuel de la Pefia Y Pena. Pena y Pena relocated his government to the city of Queretaro, about one hundred miles to the north of Mexico City. There the politicians deliberated over whether to ~eat with the Americans or continue the war. They were as nven by faction as ever. Some felt the country's only hope of sa.lva- tion lay in locating a European prince to assume the MeXIcan throne. Others maintained their loathing of monarchical gov- ernment but had nevertheless come to the conclusion that Mexicans were incapable of governing themselves and would require outside assistance lest they succumb to the lawless passions of the "rabble." Some liberals favored making Mex- ico a protectorate of the United States, which would presum- ably restrain the power of the clergy, the monarchists, and

THE WAR OF 18 47 17 3

the army while enhancing trade and bringing stability and i progress to the country. Some puros went still further, favor-

ing continuing the war until the United States agreed to out- right annexation of the entire country.

A minority believed that Mexico might eventually prevail ,, against the United States through guerrilla warfare. Most,

however, were terrified by that prospect, for it would mean placing weapons and power in the hands of the unwashed masses and could morph into racial or class warfare. That, in turn, could end up consuming Mexico's privileged groups in the sort of hideous conflagration they had so long dreaded .

~ In the end, the Mexican elite's fear of the people proved decisive to the outcome of the war with the United States. The occupation of their country by a foreign power was, in the end, less unsettling than the specter of race war, which,

, they noted with great alarm, appeared already to be taking shape. The profound injustices of rural Mexico-a place where enormous haciendas monopolized the land, depriving or mercilessly exploiting Indian and mestizo peasants-meant that anger simmered and the threat of violent rebellion con- tinually smoldered . In "normal" times suppressing rural dis- content was a large part of the Mexican army's job. With the wa~ ~e ~exi~an .army was momentarily ~estroyed and the polincal el1te m disarray. That created an opening that peas- ants in several regions of Mexico seized ferv~ntly.

In the far-off, perennially separatist state of Yucatan, Mayan Indians who had been mobilized by the white elite to fight on behalf of state autonomy charged that promises made to them in exchange for their military services were unful- filled. They rose up against the peninsula's whites in what Yucatan's governor described as a "savage and exterminat- ing war." "Everything is ravaged and destroyed," Governor Santiago Mendez wrote to U.S. secretary of state James Buchanan. "(T]he towns are delivered to flames and all without consideration of sex or age, who fall into the blood;

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hands of these barbarians, are murdered without pity, and with the most cruel tortures." The terrified whites knew they could expect no succor from Mexico: there was too m~ch bad blood between Yucatan and central Mexico, and MeXIco was in no condition to help in any case. In their desperation the Yucatecans implored the United States to intervene, offering in return nothing less than "dominion and sovereignty of the Country ."7 The United ·States declined the offer. This "C aste War of Yucatan" would come to rank among the most violent episodes in the history of the western hemisphere, costing the lives of some two-hundred thousand people in 1848 alone. By the time it wound down, the populati?n of ~e Yucatan Peninsula had been reduced by half. Fmally, m Decem- ber 1848 Mexico was able to send some sixteen thousand troops to pacify the peninsula, a larger force than had ever been deployed during the war with the United Srntes. .

Meanwhile in the Sierra Gorda, a mountamous reg10n comprised of parts of the states of Queretaro, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosf, peasants using arms they had bought cheaply from U.S. troops at Tampico had been rebelling vio- lently against war taxes since 1846 . In 1847 they _iomed thelf tax and agrarian demands to a demand for war w1tl1out quar- ter against the Americans. By the end of 1847 the movement was growing more violent still under the leadership of a Mex- ican army deserter named Eleuterio Quiroz . Peasant revolts were also ongoing in Puebla, San Luis Potosf, the Huasteca region of Veracruz, and Tarnaulipas, where local a~chives and haciendas were torched, judges and landowners killed. Even more than usual Mexico appeared to be spinning wildly out of control. Ending the war with the United States was essential to containing race and class violence-that, at least, was something most Mexican politicians could agree on. Toward the end of 1847 the Mexican congress managed to elect Gen- eral Pedro Marfa Anaya, a former henchman of Santa Anna's but a man of moderate tendencies, to tl1e presidency. Anaya,

THE WAR OF 1847 175

in turn, commissioned a trio of commissioners to negotiate a peace ~ith the United States. The negotiations began in ear~est m January 1848. The Mexicans thus acknowledged

., the!f loss of the war. It only remained to be seen how much territory they would lose in the bargain.

On the U .S. side, some were encouraged by Mexico's on- going ~sfortunes. U.S. negotiator Nicholas Trist, seeing the desperat10n of the elite Mexicans at the continuing violence and social disintegration of their country, fell prey to the same sort of myopic Anleric an exceptionalism that had made

t, Joel Poinsett such anathema to Mexican nationalists: he be- came convinced that the notion of annexing all of Mexico to the United States had widespread and enthusiastic support a~ong Mexicans, at least among the "best part" of the popu- lat10n, What the United States encountered in the wake of the war was, Trist enthused, a "phenomenon altogether unex- ampled in the history of the world : a nation [the United States], to whose principles & habits & institutions the spirit of conquest is altogether foreign, actually has thrust upon her by its own inhabitants, the acquisition of a country, rich be~ yo~d calculation in numberless sources of commercial pros- penty, & ,~boundi~g in every thing that ca make a country deslfable. For Tnst, even the most passionate statements of defiance seemed to confirm the Mexicans' secret desire to re- linquish their nation .s

·Those Mexicans who favored joining the United States would likely have had second thoughts had they been aware of ~e kind of rhetoric that swirled around this option in the .Uruted States. There was indeed a movement pushing for U.S. acquisition of all of Mexico . For some, news of U.S. mil- ita7 successes was an occasion to indulge in a giddy spree .

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racial self-congratulation. In early 1847 a writer for the Dem- ocratic Review predicted optimistically, "The Mexican race now see, in the fate of the aborigines of the north their own inevitable destiny. They must amalgamate and be iost, in the

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A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

superior vigor of the Anglo-Saxon race, or they must utterly perish." 9 The New York Globe was still more to the point: "There is a spirit abroad which will not long be stayed-a spirit of progress, which will ,compel us, for the good of both nations and the world at large, TO DESTROY THE NATIONAL~ ITY of that besotted people. It would almost seem that they,' like the Israelites of old, had brought upon themselves the vengeance of the Almighty and we ourselves had been raised up to overthrow AND UTTERLY DESTROY THEM as a separate and distinct nation." 10

Some in the United States, of course, decried such senti- ments as immoral and arrogant imperialist fantasies. But the arguments that eventually carried the day against the "All Mexico" movement were essentially racist ones. Ironically, southern slave owners, who before the war had been among the most aggressive expansionists, were at the forefront of the opposition to the movement. Mexico had a long history of hostility to slavery, so its incorporation as a free state would have immensely · strengthened the antislavery forces. Oppo- nents of the All Mexico movement also argued that Mexico contained entirely too many Mexicans-a people they had long denounced as a vicious, ignorant, slothful, uncivilized, "mongrel" race. Making such people citizens of the Union would be offering them a distinction they did not merit; such people, rather than allowing themselves to be uplifted by the Anglo-Saxons, just might end up dragging the Anglos down to their level. John C. Calhoun, ardent expansionist and de- fender of slavery, emerged as perhaps the most vocal oppo- nent of acquiring all of Mexico. The United States, he said, had never incorporated nonwhite people as citizens . "Ours is a government of the white man," he told Congress, and to place nonwhites on an equal plane with whites would be a "fatal error." 11 It would be better, Calhoun and others of his ilk concluded , to take over only the sparsely inhabited regions of Mexico's far north.

• THE WAR OF 1847 177

The All Mexico movement was of little consequence in the end. Nicholas Trist, despite his enthusiasm for taking over the entire country, based his peace negotiations on what Pres-

'1 ident Polk had said he wanted . The negotiations were not without friction. Back in October President Polk, upon learn- ing of the failure of negotiations during the truce preceding the assault on Mexico City, had ordered Trist to abandon his mission and return to the United States. Since communica- tion between Washington and Mexico took from three weeks to a month in transit, Trist did not learn of his recall until

JI Nbvember 16. By that time the Mexican government, con- trolled by moderates, was clearly disposed to negotiate. Trist therefore resolved to disregard the order for his recall and press ahead with negotiations.

From there the negotiations went relatively smoothly and quickly. By the end of January the Mexicans had agreed to nearly all of the demands that Polk had insisted upon in his original instructions to Trist. They were willing to accept the Ri.o Grande as the boundary of Texas, and a border for New Mexico and California running from El Paso to the Pacific at the thirty-second parallel. The United Sta es would assume all of the debts it claimed Mexico owed to U.S. citizens and pay an indemnity of $15 million for New Mexico and Califor- nia-some $10 million less than the United States had been willing to spend before the war. The territory in question comprised over 525,000 square miles, about 55 percent of Mexico's land. It would eventually be divided into the states of Texas, California, and Utah, most of New Mexico and Ari- z~na, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Trist and the Mexican commissioners signed the treaty on February 2 at the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo, very near the shrine of Mex-

. ico's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe . Polk, though enraged by Trist's act of insubordination and

deeply ensconced in second thoughts about just how much territory the United States should acquire from Mexico,

178 A GLORIOUS DEFEAT

could not find a face-saving way of quashing the treaty, inas­ much as it granted everything he had claimed to be seeking at the outset of the war. To oppose the treaty now that it was a fait accompli would be rank hypocrisy, especially given his re­ peated insistence that the war with Mexico had not been a war of conquest. Polk considered Trist to be "destitute of honour or principle ... a very base man," but he nevertheless forwarded the treaty to Congress. After some contentious de­ bate it was approved on March 10. Mexico's congress ratified the treaty on March 30. In mid-June U.S. troops began their evacuation of Mexico City, and by the end of]uly Mexico was entirely free of foreign occupation.

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