Mexico and her military chieftains, from the revolution of Hidalgo to the present time. Comprising sketches of the lives of Hidalgo, Morelos, Iturbide, Santa Anna, Gomez, Farias, Bustamente, Paredes, Almonte, Arista, Alaman, Ampudia, Herrera, and De la Vega

Front matter

Don'Antonio^Lopez de Santa Anna.

MEXICO

MILITARY CHIEFTAINS,

Contents

CHAPTER I. — Mexico under the Viceroys. Extent of the viceroyalty of Mexico — Form of government— Taxes— The clergy— Education— Classes of the people — Topography — Political divisions . . Page 13

CHAPTER IL— The Revolution.

Abdication of the Bourbons in Spain — Effects in Spain

Chapter I. Mexico Under The Viceroys

Extent of the viceroyalty of Mexico — Form of goverment — Taxes — ^The clergy — Education — Classes of the people — Topography — Political divisions.

By far the most beautiful portion of all the possessions of Spain in America, which extended from the mouth of the Sabine, with but few interruptions, except the Brazils, to the fortieth degree of south latitude on the Atlantic, and on the Pacific from the forty-second degree north to the fortieth south, was the viceroyalty of Mexico. It occupied a portion of the globe, towards which nature has • been peculiarly beneficent, where every mountain was the seat of mines, and where in contradiction of the rule which condemns to sterility regions which abound in mineral wealth, every fruit of every clime grew in proximity. It was strewn with vast and venerable ruins, which even now astonish the traveller and reveal to him the monumental history of a bygone people, the great resources and peculiar civilization of whom constituted but a portion of its power. The vice-kingdom of Mexico was of far greater extent 1*

14 MEXICO AND HER MILITARY CHIETAINS.

than the old Aztec Empire, and Galvez and Iturrigaray ruled over nations and countries of the existence of which Montezuma and his ancestors were ignorant. It embraced people of many languages and habits, originally with different laws and peculiar creeds, all of which had been annihilated by a long series of oppression and reduced to one level, that of slavery and degradation. How this vast region passed under the dominion of Spain, is an important point in the history of the world, to the elucidation of which some of the most skilful pens and brightest intellects of the age have been employed ; but interesting as it is, scarcely comports with the plan marked out for this sketch — though from that conquest Resulted the fearful peculiarities of the ante-revolutionary rule, and indirectly the long series of atrocities which finally subsided into the present unsettled mi5-government, which so far has borne but the ashes and dust of turmoil and strife, instead of the wholesome fruit of order and free institutions. As it is, however, it seems indispensable to refer to the condition of Mexico under the Spanish rule, and to the events of its first revolution, before we touch upon the men who have influenced its subsequent destinies.

It is the greatest curse of misgovernment that it destroys not only the present happiness of a people, but its future capacities ; and it is true that rarely has any people, which has been long oppressed, been able to establish a good government, until it had learned by a series of calamities, that freedom is not an absence of restraint, but a rule, the correct administration of which requires as many sacrifices, or as passive obedience, as the purest monarchy. This is obvious, when we remember that the difference between the freest and most absolute governments is but that in the first, the wishes of the individual must be sacrificed to the interests of a community, in the second, the interests of a community to the wishes of an individual. ' The one is not more exacting than the other, though few are able to think this is the case, and hence originates not a few of the errors so fatal to new governments, in the establishment of which it has been necessary to beware of the example of the past not to take advantage of accumulations of its experience. The history of all the revolutions which have yet occurred also teach, that those nations which have been most oppressed have had most difficulty in perceiving what course true wisdom prescribed to them ; a more striking evidence of the truth of this can no where be found than in the annals of the Mexican Republic.

Mexico, Peru, Buenos Ayres, Chih, Cuba, and the other Spanish possessions in America were never known as colonies, in the sense attached to that term by England and France. They were not subject to the law of Spain, but were governed by codes prepared to suit what were considered their respective exigencies, and reference was made to the Roman law only in cases for which no provision w^as made in the several systems ordained for them. Each and all were in fact separate kingdoms, and were called such, with the exception of Cuba, and united formed that empire which enabled the successors of Ferdinand and Isabella to call themselves Kings of Spain and the Indies. At the head of each of these realms, except Chili and Cuba, which were governed by Captains- General, and Quito, at the head of which was always a Presidente, was a Viceroy, representative of royal authority, and, as far as the people were concerned, entirely irresponsible. They were appointed by the real audiencia de las Indias, representing the imperial power, residing in Spain, and in many respects the most peculiar body which ever existed. It was estabUshed in 151 Ij consequently very soon after the discovery of the American continent, and under the Rois Faineants of the house of Bourbon gradually usurped exclusive control of the Indies. As a legislature, it issued all laws and regulations for the government of the Indies; in the exercise of its executive faculties, it made or confirmed all appointments, civil, military, and even ecclesiastical, and ordered or instructed the higher officers, wdth regard to the performance of their duties ; lastly, it was a supreme court of judicature, to which causes involving important questions might be submitted for their final determination.

It thus possessed all the powers of the government over these extensive realms. The assent of the monarch w^as, indeed, necessary to give authority to its proceedings, yet that assent w^as rarely, if ever, withheld ; and as vacancies in its own body were always filled agreeably to its own recommendation, the whole period of its existence might be viewed as the reign of one absolute sovereign, ever sagacious, and ever adding to his stores of experience. The viceroy w^as but their creature, responsible only to them, and by a most tyrannical provision could only be proceeded against within a very short time after the expiration of the term for which he was appointed — five years. The viceroys were almost always nobles and courtiers, who came to Mexico to restore dilapidated fortunes, and generally returned effete with wealth wrung from the American subjects of their master. It sometimes happened they were willing to remain for longer terms. As these officers could scarcely be presumed familiar with the administration of justice, they were provided w^ith Fiscales or administrators of various kinds, whom they were obliged to consuit before taking any important step ; each might act contrary to the opinion of his Fiscal, but the latter had the right to enter his protest, which might afterwards be submitted to the Supreme Council. Such a system carried out correctly would be bad enough, but in its appointments the real audiencia seems to have forgotten that they owed any obligation to the people of Mexico, thinking them only beasts of burden bound to eternal vassalage, not only to the Spanish monarch, but to every Spaniard.

Long, long after the establishment of this system, scarcely more than thirty years ago, it was gravely asserted in a Spanish legislative assemblage, that " as long as one man lived in Spain, he had a right to the obedience of every American," a paradox more ridiculous than any of the grave sayings of Sir Robert Filmer. In the long list of viceroys appointed to all the Indies (one hundred and sixty in America), but four were born on this side the Atlantic, and the proportion of other officers was quite as small. In 1785 the minister Galvez referred to the fact that a few Mexicans held office in their own country as an abuse. The conduct of the audiencia and the officers they sent to America fully authorized the maxim which seems to have actuated the one in their forgetfulness of all humanity, and the other in the hopeless submission to the rule, that God IS IN Heaven and the King in Spain : from one they inferred there was no limit to their power, from the other no remedy for their wrongs. When we look at this state of things, can we be astonished at the condition of Mexico at the present time? When oppression does not force from its victims the fierce spirit of resistance, it evidently degrades those on whom it weighs ; when violence does not struggle with injustice, man is driven to cunning and subterfuge, and habits of fraud take pos 2 session of the whole mind, and those who have suffered from the tyranny of others are ever most prone to exhibit their own haughtiness and arrogance. Thus it is, that after expelling the Spanish oppressors, so few Mexicans are found worthy of the power they have won.

As a check on the power of the viceroy, to secure the royal privileges, another officer was appointed an Intendente, the duty of whom it was to take care of the collection and application of the taxes, of the revenue of the mines, and the imposts, which were many and vexatious. Subordinate to these in each province was an officer, usually a military commander, called Intendente de Provincia, the powers of whom were those of a governor, and who was responsible to the viceroy. The provinces were divided into districts, each of which was superintended by a board called El Cabildo or Jiyuntamiento , the power of appointing which, either rested with, or was controlled by the higher authorities.

The most serious check upon the absoluteness or the ambition of all the executive officers, were the Audiendas or high courts of justice, of which one or two were established in every kingdom. They consisted each of a small number, generally between three and eight, of Oidores or judges, aided by Fiscales, chancellors, notaries, Alguaziles or sheriffs, and other officers or agents. On ordinary occasions they were presided over by one of their own number, styled a Regent ; the viceroy was, however, ex-officio^ the President of the Audiencia established in his capital.

The taxes we have said were vexatious, and it is a matter of mystery and surprise, how any people submitted so long to such extortion. The chief of these, independent of the odious capitation tax or tribute, levied on the Indians, whether rich or poor, were the almojarifazgo, or import duty ; the alcabala, on all sales of estates; the ??ii//io7ie, on the articles of daily use; and monopolies of all necessaries, whether of life or of industry, as salt, tobacco, quicksilver used in mines, &c. That under such a system, so crushing to energy and industry, the people became idle and nerveless, is not to be wondered at ; the wonder is, that they existed at all. The worst features of the two worst governments in the world, the Gothic rule, and that of the Spanish. Moors, had been combined to form the government of the mother- country, and its worst features had been carefully preserved to oppress the native population of Mexico, in the code sent out to them by the supreme council of the Indies. Why they did not resist centuries before, we cannot imagine, since the military force consisting of regulars, w^ere nearly all Spaniards, and of native militia, neither class, however, at any time very numerous ; the government appearing to have but little dread of foreign attacks, and to place full confidence in the organization of its civil powers, for preventing internal disturbances.

The ecclesiastical establishment was an important branch of the government of America, where it was maintained in great splendor and dignity. The clergy presented the same characteristics there, as in other countries w^here the Roman Catholic religion prevailed exclusively ; the inferior members being generally honest, kind, and simple-minded persons, loving and loved by their parishioners, while the high dignitaries were, for the most part, arrogant, intriguing, and tyrannical. The Inquisition exercised its detestable sway, unchecked, in every part of the dominions ; occasionally exhibiting to the people of the great cities, the edifying spectacle of an auto da fe, in which human victims were sacrificed, to confirm the faith of the beholders in the power of the archbishop and the viceroy.

Before the revolution, the diffusion of knowledge was studiously prevented. The charge of keeping them in ignorance was committed to the priests, who, v;ith the exception of the Jesuits, executed it with fidelity ; the few schools and colleges were directed solely by ecclesiastics, who excluded from the course of instruction every branch of study, and from the public and private libraries every book calculated to strengthen the mental faculties, or to elevate the feelings. In the year 1806, there was but one printing-press at Mexico, from which a newspaper was published, under the immediate direction of the government ; and as the Spanish newspapers, the only ones allowed to be imported, were devoted almost wholly to the movements of the court or the church, the inhabitants remained in absolute ignorance of all that transpired elsewhere. A few poems and plays, none of any value, and some works on natural history, or speculations, generally wild and baseless, on the antiquities of those countries, form nearly the whole of their original literature.

The incomplete outline here given of the system by which Mexico was governed, at the time when that system was the most liberal, and perhaps, in general, the most liberally administered, may serve to afford some idea of the evils to which it was subjected before its separation from Spain — evils by no means productive of proportional advantage to the oppressors. A more minute review of the history of Spanish supremacy in America, would serve to show that, throughout the whole period of its existence, the wishes and welfare of the inhabitants were sacrificed to the interests, real or supposed, of the monarch or of his European subjects.

To secure these interests permanently was the great object of the government, and, unfortunately for America, they were considered as being confined within very narrow hmits ; in fact, it had long been established as a principle, that to supply Spain with the greatest quantity of the precious metals, and to gratify her nobility and influential persons with lucrative situations fox themselves or their dependants, were the only purposes for which these countries could be rendered available without endangering the perpetuity of the dominion over them. The people were divided into seven great classes ; 1st, The old Spaniards, known as Guachupines in the history of the civil wars ; 2d, the Creoles, or whites of pure European race but born in America ; 3d, the Indigenes, or Indians ; 4th, the Mestizos, of mixed breeds of whites and Indians, gradually merging into Creoles as the Indian parentage became more and more remote ; 5th, the Mulattoes, or descendants of whites and negroes, and 7th, the African Negroes ; of these classes, the last named was very small, and the others were intermingled^ so as to produce crosses, to be defined by no possible degree of anthropological science. The white population was chiefly collected in the table land, near the centre of which the Indian race also concentrated (near Puebla, Oaxaca, Mexico, Guanajuato, and Valladolid) ; while the northern frontier was inhabited almost entirely by whites, the Indian population having retired before them. In Durango, New Mexico, and the interior provinces, the true Indian breed was almost unknown. In Sonora it again appears. The coasts both of the Gulf and the Pacific, to the south, were inhabited by a race, in which there was a great mixture of African blood, from the fact, that to these unhealthy provinces, the few slaves imported into Mexico were sent.

There they have multipled with the fecundity peculiar to the descendants of African parentage, and now form a mixed breed, peculiar to the tierra caliente, and unlike any other in the world. The mestizos are found every where, from the fact that but few Spanish women emigrated early to America, and the great mass of the population is of this class ; and now too that a connexion with the aboriginal race confers no disadvantage, few pretend to deny it. The pure Indians in 1803 exceeded two millions and and a half, and next to them are the mestizos. At the time of the revolution the pure whites were estimated at one million two hundred thousand, of whom eighty thousand only were Europeans. These distinctions were, however, soon annihilated, and at an early day in the revolution the only distinction known was of Americans and Europeans.

The events of the present war have so universally directed attention to Mexico, that its geography and topography are well known, and will excuse any more minute allusion to it than the following. The Cordillera of the Andes, after passing along the whole western coast of South America and through the Isthmus of Panama, immediately on entering the northern continent is divided into two branches, which leave between them an immense plateau, the central point of which is seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. This elevation towards the eastern coast gradually subsides to a level with the ocean, but on the west maintains itself in its stern rigidity till it becomes lost in the ices of the north. This table land presents some rare vegetable phenomena. On the coast its tropical latitude exhibits itself in its productions, but the rarefaction of the air attendant on elevation gradually neutralizes this, until at the central points we find growing the productions of colder climes.

Thus Mexico, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas, enjoy a far different temperature from that of Vera Cruz, Tampico, and other cities on the coast. On the ascent from Vera Cruz to Mexico, Humboldt says that climates succeed each other by stories, and in the course of forty-eight hours we pass through every variety of vegetation. The tropical plants are succeeded by the oak, and the salubrious air of Jalapa replaces the deadly atmosphere of Vera Cruz. The sky is generally cloudless and without rain, and a succession of hills, seemingly at some remote day the boundaries of lakes, are now the limits of extensive plains or llanos. The country is barren because it is dry, and every stream is accompanied with fertility. The first of these stories is called the tierra caliente, or hot, where the fruits and diseases of the tropics are produced ; the tierra templada, or temperate, a term needing no explanation ; while far beyond the city is the tierra fria^ where the vegetation is alpine and the hills are covered with eternal snow.

The present states of Mexico are nineteen in number : Yucatan, Tabasco, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, Vera Cruz, Tamaulipas, St. Luis de Potosi, New Leon, Coahuila, Puebla, Mexico, Valladolid, Guadalajara, Sonora, Sinaloa, Guanajuato, Queretaro, Zacatecas, Durango, Chihuahua, New Mexico, and the Californias. In several instances two of these are united to form one state. Thus was the country divided previous to the revolution, and so it has continued ; with the exception only, that the governments of the Intendentes de provincias have now become states, and that some of the southern provinces have (as now they may) occupied a position difficult to define, now claiming to belong to Central America, now to Mexico, and again to be independent.

Chapter II. The Revolution

Abdication of the Bourbons in Spain — Effects in Spain — Effects in Mexico — Supreme central junta resigns — Change in the Spadish constitution — Insurrections in America — Vanegas appointed viceroy — Hidalgo.

On the 5th of May, 1808, by means of a series of fraud, and treason, which recalls to us the annals of that prince whom Machiavelli immortalized, Charles IV. of Spain, his son and rival Ferdinand VII., and the male members of his family, were induced to place themselves in the power of Napoleon at Bayonne, and to surrender, for themselves and their heirs, all right to the crown of Spain. Joseph Bonaparte, the elder brother of the emperor of the French, was immediately placed in the vacant throne, and a constitution promulgated for the government of the Spanish empire, by which the subjects of the American colonies were to enjoy all the privileges of the mother country, and to be represented by deputies in the Cortes or General Congress at Madrid. The nobles of Spain, effete with luxury and forgetful of the chivalry which had made them the admiration of Europe, submitted to the new authorities imposed by fraud and violence on the nation, while the great mass of the people rejected the rule with scorn. Insurrections broke out every where in the kingdom, and Juntas or boards of direction were formed in every place for the support of the national cause.

Success attends all popular movements. When a people rises in its might it is sure of success. The attacks of the French were repelled with great valor ; at Baylen a whole army was forced to surrender, and those who kept the field began gradually to waste away, under the influence of what might be considered assassination, were not all things justifiable in a people fighting for its liberty and integrity. The country was at last partially freed from the pollution of the French, and a supreme junta established at Seville, to watch over the interests of Ferdinand VII., yet a prisoner, which claimed from every Spanish subject the same obedience due the monarch.

The news of the captivity of the monarch and the abdication of the princes they had been so faithful to, produced in Mexico and in all the Spanish colonies a feeling of the greatest dismay. It shook loose the whole social system, it broke all the links of society, and revealed to all the necessity of some provision against the eflfects of convulsion not to be influenced or controlled by the action of persons on this side of the Atlantic. The feelings called forth were, however, various in character, and the only universal sentiment seemed that of opposition to the French.

The dethronement of the Spanish Bourbons was first proclaimed to the people of Mexico on the 20th of July, 1808, by the viceroy, who declared himself determined to sustain their interest in his government. This seemed a general determination throughout all Spanish America. In Havana the captain-general Somruelos decided on this course, in which he was sustained by the people, the ecclesiastical authority, and the army. In Buenos Ayres, Liniers, an officer of French extraction, who had been made viceroy in consequence of the valor displayed in resisting the English invasion under Sir Home Popham, having exhibited some disposition to favor King Joseph, or at least to remain neutral until the difficulties of the peninsula should be settled, insisting that Buenos Ayres should be a dependency of the Spanish crown, was at once displaced, and Don Baltasar de Cisneros was sent to replace him by the junta. So it was in Grenada, where war was declared by the audiencia against all the partisans of Bonaparte, and at Popayan and Quito. Iturrigaray, the viceroy, soon after made known the establishment of the junta, and required the ayuntamiento to submit to its orders. The seed had now begun to ripen : they were yet faithful to Ferdinand ; he was still their monarch ; but they recollected that Mexico and Spain were two kingdoms, that the Junta had no authority, either direct or by implication, in Mexico, and refused it obedience, at the same time recommending the establishment of a similar body, to be composed of deputies from all the local ca- UldoSj in Mexico, to take care of the interests of Ferdinand VII. in his Mexican possessions.

Iturrigaray was inclined to give his assent to this scheme ; and judging from this fact and his great popularity, it is probable he was a kind, sensible man, too good for those with whom he had to deal. We may here state that in the ayuntamiento of Mexico there chanced to be a majority of natives of the soil. This action of Iturrigaray was of course opposed by the audiencia, composed as it will be remembered oioidores, Jiscales and the military and civil officers sent out from Spain, erected into a species of oligarchy and forbidden by law to marry with the children of the soil. Finding their remonstrances vain, the audiencia arrested the viceroy in his palace, and confided his functions temporarily to the archbishop of Lizana. The audiencia, by a system of bold and oppressive action, drowned all opposition to the authority of the central junta, which, on its becoming evident that the archbishop was incompetent, endowed it with all the viceroy's authority, until some noble could be found in Spain on whom it might confer the vacant appointment. Thus things continued during 1809, a year of great distress in Spain, the French having overrun the whole country and the junta being driven to Cadiz, its last foothold, from Seville. The junta was now evidently incompetent, and it laid down its power. It however previously summoned a Cortes, or council of the whole nation, which was to convene at Cadiz on the 1st of March, 1810, and in which the American kingdoms were to be represented as integral portions of the empire. As they could not be notified in time, the places of American deputies were to be filled temporarily by persons chosen in Spain. The supreme central junta having appointed a regency of five to administer the government until the meeting of the cortes in February, 1810, disappeared from history. The regency immediately addressed a circular decree to the different provinces of the Indies, calling upon them w^ithout delay to elect their deputies, who were to be in number twenty-six ; this decree was accompanied by an appeal to the people, reminding them that " they were now raised to the dignity of freemen,'^^ and imploring those who would be called on to vote for the deputies, to remember that " their lot no longer depended upon the will of Icings , viceroys, or governors, but would be determined by themselves.''^ There was now no withdrawal ; the die was cast, the collars were cast from the necks of the slaves, and no event which could occur would rivet them again. Thus it seemed to the governing class in America, and to those who had so long submitted. The feeling of the former was that the existing government was subverted; of the latter, that joy those only could know who had been taught that ^^ while one Spaniard remained, he had a right to govern the Americans.''^

The reverses sustained by the Spanish arms had taught the Mexicans to hope they would be able to free themselves from the control of the audiencia, the idea of popular rights not seeming to have entered their minds, while even the Spanish office-holders seemed to be divided, a large party wishing to remain neutrals, as had been done in the dispute between the first Bourbon king and the house of Austria. The people took advantage of this ; parties were formed, and it become evident that a slight spark would produce a general conflagration. Rebellion had taken place in La Plata, which was suppressed, and in Quito, where the people overawed the presidente, and a confederation of the provinces of Guayaquil, Popayan, Panama and Quito arose, which professed obedience to Ferdinand VII. at the same time that it denounced the authority of the central junta. In all the American dominions, except Mexico, there had been difficulties ; and there, too, the match was burning slowly but surely. As the news of the Spanish disasters became known through Mexico, associations were formed far and wide to further the general scheme of independence of the Spanish junta or audiencia. The exertions of these, however, a watchful government contrived to foil, and by prompt action prevented more than one attempt at revolution ; as at Vallodolid, in May, 1810, where the conspirators were arrested, and we need not say, executed just as all had been prepared for action.

At this crisis came Don Francisco Xavier Vanegas to assume the viceroyalty. He was the last man to whom, at this crisis, authority should have been confided ; he was brave, and valor was needed to enable him to fulfil the duties of ruler of a realm on the eve of convulsion, but he was passionate when he should have been careful, and hasty when every word should have been uttered with consideration and reflection. The mild Iturrigaray might have restored quiet. Vanegas but hurried on the outbreak. He most imprudently continued, with greater vigor, the course marked out by the audiencia, and left to the people no hopes, but of resistance, or doing what never yet people did, resuming duties from which they had been released. The insurrection had been suppressed at Valladolid, the capital of Michoacan, but oroke out in Guanajuato, where a remarkable man appeared on the stage.

HIDALGO.

Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was the Cura^ or parish priest of Dolores, a quiet and secluded town in the state, or as it was then called, intendencia of Guanajuato, midway between San Luis de Potosi and Guanajuato. He was a man of undeniable acquirements, who had read much and thought more, who was devoted to his duties and evidently anxious to promote a knowledge of the branches of industry then almost unknown in Mexico. He had introduced the silk-worm, in the rearing of which in 1810 his people had made much progress, and had turned his attention to the cultivation of the vine, seeing, as all must who look at the peculiarities of the soil and climate of Mexico, that it was calculated to become a great source of wealth. Hidalgo was a man of books ; a mighty revolution had taken place on the American continent, of which he could not he. ignorant, and the events of later date in Europe officially promulgated had awakened a deep feeling in the whole people, to which he was no stranger. A quiet, unambitious, meditative man, he was far in advance of the most of his countrymen, but might have continued to dream of freedom, yet restricted his sphere of action to his own cure, had he not been called forth by one of those personal wTongs, in all cases found to be the most powerful means of awakening man to a perception of the sufferings of his neighbour.