California’s entry into the Union as a free state upset the delicate balance between slave and free states, and despite subsequent legal developments favorable to them, from the Fugitive Slave Act to the Dred Scott decision, the slave states were anxious about the permanence of slavery under the U.S. Constitution. Southern states relied heavily on slavery, not only as an economic force but also to maintain a racially segregated society. They interpreted Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election to mean that their property rights over slaves henceforth would not be protected (see figure 4). Unwilling, therefore, to keep trying to defend slavery through the constitutional process, in 1860–1861 nearly all the Southern states seceded and asserted themselves to be a new nation, the Confederate States of America.1
The Confederacy would establish its capital at Richmond, Virginia, barely a hundred miles from Washington, DC. It laid claim to all property within its bounds formerly belonging to its “predecessor” government, the United States, including Fort Sumter, off Charleston, South Carolina. President Lincoln, of course, recognized no such claims—indeed, refused to recognize the self-proclaimed new “nation”—and deliberately insisted on attempting to relieve Fort Sumter. The resulting Confederate bombardment of the fort, beginning April 12, 1861, signaled the start of the Civil War.
Combat began in earnest on July 21, when the Union and Confederate armies clashed at Bull Run, about thirty miles from Washington. To the United States’ shock and dismay, the Federal lines collapsed after a few hours’ fighting, in what turned into a complete rout. There were fears the Confederates would proceed to take Washington and thereby end the war almost as soon as it had begun, with victory for the South. Yet this did not happen. The editor of a Spanish-language newspaper in California thought, “The success that crowned the Confederates’ arms when the war broke out, especially when the Federal forces were defeated at Bull Run, confused them—surprised at the latter’s defeat—has inspired too much confidence in their own forces, and has induced them to stay inactive, without taking advantage of the head start that a first victory always provides.”2
FIGURE 4. Abraham Lincoln, whose election as president in 1860 led to the Southern states’ decision to secede from the United States and form the Confederate States of America, which they intended would maintain slavery as an institution. (John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, plate between pages 288 and 289)
Southern troops remained in northern Virginia for some time, feeding worries of an eventual Confederate attack on the United States capital. But eventually, as autumn wore on, they moved back toward Richmond. The U.S. Army had been disgraced by its shameful performance, and Lincoln sacked the hapless General Irvin MacDowell. In contrast, the Confederates seemed to be blessed with better leadership. Commenting on recent maneuvers by the Confederate forces, José E. Gonzáles, the editor of the pro-Union Spanish-language paper El Amigo del Pueblo in Los Angeles, observed, “The latter have able commanders; and, as it appears, a great unanimity prevails throughout the South.” As the fall of 1861 turned to winter, the Union’s supporters grew tense and unhappy. Clearly the war was not going to be over in a matter of days; clearly the South was an enemy to contend with. And clearly, much more blood was going to be shed. In the same editorial, Gonzáles reflected unhappily that while some people still hoped decisive Union military action would bring a swift conclusion to the conflict, “others believe it is impossible to subdue a people like those of the South. We believe what both sides admit: that it is a sad, ruinous, bloody war, and we are profoundly sorry for it.”3
FIGURE 5. Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian from Oaxaca, served four terms as president of the Republic of Mexico, 1858–1872. During his first term, the Conservative Party repudiated his government and essentially seceded from Mexico for nearly three years, forcing a civil war. No sooner had Juárez won back control of his country in 1861 than the Southern states seceded from the United States and Abraham Lincoln had to fight a civil war to keep that country together. (Percy F. Martin, Maximilian in Mexico: The Story of the French Intervention, 1861–1867, plate between pages 414 and 415)
Three days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, President Benito Juárez of Mexico was informed that at Calpulalpan on December 22, 1860, his government’s forces had firmly defeated the conservative rebels who had, in essence, seceded from the rest of Mexico in 1857 (see figure 5). After three years of the bloody War of the Reform, Mexico was finally restored as one country under a single constitution, that of 1857, and one president. Juárez now moved his government from Veracruz back to the nation’s historical capital, Mexico City.4
Juárez then sent his young foreign minister, Matías Romero—who had been the chargé d’affaires representing the legitimate government of Mexico in Washington, DC, during Mexico’s civil war—to Springfield, Illinois. There, in January 1861, Romero met with president-elect Abraham Lincoln to discuss U.S.-Mexican relations, especially the common interest Juárez and Lincoln had in maintaining democratic governments in their respective countries against reactionary forces seeking to replace them with aristocratic or monarchical forms of government. This first of several meetings he would have with Lincoln convinced Romero that the two new presidents not only faced similar problems but also occupied common political and philosophical ground.5
After what Juárez had just been through—the rebels’ repudiation of the constitution, withdrawal from government institutions, and formation of an alternative government—the political crisis facing his new counterpart in the United States was only too familiar to him. But domestic budgetary matters occupied most of his attention. Mexico’s rebel government had contracted for various loans with banks headquartered in Britain, Spain, and France. The rebels had spent part of these funds on their military revolt, then fled the country with much of the remaining cash, leaving Juárez the task of reconstructing his government and country with virtually nothing in the national treasury but a stack of promissory notes. Although the banks were pressing for payment, there was no way he could satisfy their demands. So on July 17, 1861, while Union and Confederate forces were marching to their first battle, Juárez announced that he was forced to suspend payment on Mexico’s foreign debt for a period of two years.6
But the Civil War now raging north of the border intruded into Mexican daily reality. Suddenly sharing a long border with the self-proclaimed Confederate States of America, Mexico was in a strategic position that could be of considerable utility to either the Confederacy or the United States. The greatest worry for the Union was that the Confederacy might conquer some or all of Mexico’s northern states, thereby expanding slave territory and gaining ports and supply lines. Another worry was that the Confederates might be able to persuade a cash-strapped Mexican government to grant them shipping access to Mexican ports; Guaymas, for example, would make an excellent transshipping point for supplies headed to Confederate-held Arizona. In June 1861, Lincoln’s secretary of state, William H. Seward, instructed U.S. Ambassador Thomas Corwin in Mexico City to do everything possible to interrupt any cooperation between the Confederacy and Mexico.7
Seward’s fears were well grounded. Even as he wrote to Corwin, Santiago Vidaurri, the strongman governor of the combined states of Nuevo León and Coahuila—who himself had flirted earlier with the idea of seceding from Mexico and creating a new country—was meeting with Confederate agents. Both the Union’s embargo on shipping cotton from the South to the textile mills of Britain and the South’s own suspension of exporting cotton in an (unsuccessful) effort to coerce Britain into supporting the Confederacy already were starting to hurt mill owners and workers overseas, as Spanish-speaking readers in California were made aware.8 So it was no surprise that Vidaurri soon tacitly allowed the Confederates to use his territory to evade the Union blockade—for a price. According to a letter from an unnamed correspondent of La Voz de Méjico in Brownsville, Texas, “Vidaurri has imposed a tax of a cent and a half on each pound of cotton that is shipped to Mexico, and another tax of twenty-five percent on all goods that leave Mexico for Texas.”9 He later openly declared his support for the Confederacy.
While some Mexican governors seemed susceptible to Confederate blandishments, others turned a deaf ear. Officials in the neighboring state of Chihuahua, for example, flatly turned down a Confederate request to be allowed to pass through Mexican territory to reach Texas.10 Governor Ignacio Pesqueira of Sonora received a considerable amount of Confederate attention, including both polite requests and barely disguised threats in mid-1861, aimed at “inducing this governor to make a sort of alliance with the states belonging to the Southern confederation, [and] obtaining rights of transit through that state and a depot in Guaymas, thereby making him into an enemy of the Union government.” Pesqueira, however, declined to cooperate.11
Some Confederates did not bother with niceties of negotiation but simply strong-armed their way into Mexico when it suited their needs. Early in February 1862, for example, an armed group of Confederates and some local allies invaded Janos in Chihuahua. Also in 1862, Confederates attacked Piedras Negras in Coahuila “in order to plunder the customhouse; and, upon being received with gunfire by the residents, they have set several houses on fire. Forces from neighboring communities have marched to the aid of the town, and the filibusters must have been punished [by now].”12 Moreover, “Mr. Allen, the American consul in Minatitlan, confirms the news that the Rebels want to take over the states of Sonora and Chihuahua, where rich mines of gold and silver are to be found. For this reason, he advises that warships be stationed at Guaymas, and that troops from California be disembarked at that point, so that from there they may go to Arizona. . . . He says that the conquest of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Baja California by the Rebels would be very useful to their cause.”13 The Civil War was threatening to draw Mexico into the U.S. crisis to the north, and President Juárez already had his hands full elsewhere.
Juárez’s decision to suspend payment on the debt owed to French, British, and Spanish banks ultimately entwined Mexico in the U.S. conflict. Enraged at the suspension, the French ambassador to Mexico, Count Alphonse Dubois de Saligny, declared that normal relations between the two countries had ruptured and sent a note to Paris urging that troops be sent to enforce the claims of French citizens against the Mexican government. The British ambassador announced that relations between his country and Mexico were temporarily “suspended,” only one step less severe. Relations between Spain and Mexico already had been broken off, when the latter ousted the Spanish ambassador after detecting him in improper communication with the rebels.14
The three countries aggrieved with the reestablished Mexican government agreed among themselves in the Convention of London to send armed forces to Mexico to demand and take by force if necessary payment on the debts owed their respective bankers. Britain, however, was not completely assured that Spain and France did not also harbor expansionist ambitions in Mexico and insisted that the convention contain language stipulating that the European powers would not become involved in Mexico’s internal politics. This was despite the fact that British banks were owed the most, $69.9 million. Spanish banks were owed $9.46 million, and French banks only $2.86 million, less than 4 percent of the total debt owed to the three countries.15
Calling themselves the Triple Alliance, the members of the Convention of London landed troops in Veracruz, Mexico, between December 1861 and January 1862. Yellow fever almost immediately began to ravage the European soldiers, and Juárez offered to negotiate the claims in return for allowing the European troops to leave Veracruz for a more salubrious climate at higher elevations. At the Cinco de Mayo celebration in San Francisco in 1865, the Mexican consul José A. Godoy described details of the negotiations between the Juárez government and the Triple Alliance: “In the town of Soledad, General Manuel Doblado . . . made a pact with General Prim, plenipotentiary for Spain, and working in the names of Saligny and Wyke, who were plenipotentiaries for France and England: the Preliminaries that came to be a treaty among the belligerent parties.”16
Latinos in California followed these negotiations in Spanish-language press accounts. In 1865, Rafael H. González laced his Cinco de Mayo speech in Virginia City, Nevada, with many accurate details of the intervention.17 In the Gold Rush mining town of Hornitos in Mariposa County, Ramón Martínez’s Cinco de Mayo address that year reminded his Spanish-speaking audience, “You all know the origin of the war . . . with France united with England and Spain, they made a pact among themselves called the ‘Convention of London,’ with the goal of making certain claims against the constitutional government [of Mexico].”18
The Preliminaries of Soledad were essentially an agreement to begin formal negotiations. An important condition for Juárez was the Triple Alliance’s agreement that all three of its members would recognize his government as the legitimate, constitutional government of Mexico. On February 19, 1862, the Spanish forces’ commander, General Juan Prim, took the Preliminaries of Soledad back to the French and British representatives in Veracruz so that the next phase of negotiations could begin. Yet disagreements about the purpose of the expedition to Mexico had arisen between the three creditor nations’ representatives. Great Britain and Spain had begun to suspect that the French, not simply interested in collecting old debts, also had another agenda, which entailed interference in the internal politics of Mexico. All three powers signed the Preliminaries of Soledad, but then the Triple Alliance came apart.
When the Mexican government’s representatives arrived in Orizaba for the negotiations, the British and Spanish representatives told them that the Triple Alliance was dissolved and that each government henceforth would negotiate separately with the Mexican government.19 On April 16, Dubois de Saligny informed the French foreign minister that a number of French soldiers had been killed outside Veracruz and Córdoba, which he claimed was proof the Mexican government was not negotiating in good faith, so on behalf of France he was ending all talks.20 That same day, the French published a proclamation to the citizens of Orizaba, that French troops were going to remain in Mexico. “Mexicans: We have not come here to take sides in your quarrels; we have come to make them stop. What we want is to call all men of good will to take part in the strengthening of order.” Of course, the current Mexican government would not approve of that line of action, so, the French announcement continued, “the Mexican government has responded to the moderateness of our conduct with measures to which we never have given our moral support, and for which the civilized world would reproach us for sanctioning with our presence. Between it and us, war is today declared.” In spite of these protestations that the French were in Mexico only to help, Dubois de Saligny added a menacing note: “France’s flag has been planted on Mexican soil, and this flag will not retreat; so let all honorable men welcome it as a friendly flag. Let fools dare to fight it!”21
Four days later, Juan N. Almonte, a Mexican official collaborating with the French, issued his “Pronunciamiento de Orizaba” (Orizaba Proclamation):
Article 1. The authority of the pretended president of the republic Don Benito Juárez is not recognized.
Article 2. His Excellency General Juan N. Almonte is recognized as supreme leader of the said republic, and of the forces which follow the present plan.22
The self-serving pronunciamiento also authorized Almonte to make any agreements he felt necessary with French forces already on Mexican soil. California’s Spanish-language newspapers quoted a Mexico City newspaper, El Heraldo, as issuing a war cry in response: “To arms, Mexicans! War is inevitable now! Defend your homes, your families . . . !”23
Each side in a combat tends to see, and afterward emphasize in its reporting, different aspects of what transpired in the fight. The following account is taken from reports published in the San Francisco Spanish-language paper La Voz de Méjico, which unabashedly supported Benito Juárez’s government. It printed documents that its editor, Manuel E. Rodríguez, identified as full, verbatim dispatches (some in Spanish translation) from the Mexican and French commanders and their subordinates. The newspaper’s version has not been checked against original official dispatches in Mexico City or Paris or against standard histories of the battle subsequently written by historians of any stripe.24 For the purposes of this study, what actually happened at Puebla on May 5, 1862, and why—to the extent it can be determined precisely—is not the point. What matters instead is what the people who would, in response, create the Cinco de Mayo holiday perceived to have happened there. Rodríguez’s was the main account of the battle available to the vast majority of Latinos in California in 1862–1863. For better or worse, it ever after formed the basis of their perceptions of what had happened on that fateful day at Puebla.25
The French general Charles Ferdinand Latrille, comte de Lorencez, noted that the Mexican commander, Ignacio Zaragoza, was retreating about a day’s march ahead of him, burning all structures and food supplies to deny them to his enemies. Lorencez had been assured by French officials that all Mexico welcomed French rule and would greet him with open arms, showering his troops with flowers. Thus, he arrived at the first city of consequence, Puebla de los Ángeles, on May 4, expecting little resistance.26 But Puebla had been a beehive of activity for some time, with fortifications built, trenches dug, and artillery pieces moved into place by the Mexican defenders.27
By 9 A.M. on May 5, the French artillery had opened fire on the various forts around Puebla, and Mexican artillery had responded in kind.28 After an hour’s artillery duel, the French infantry marched into view, arrayed in three columns, colors waving. Lorencez sent one column to attack the fort on Guadalupe Hill and another the fort on Loreto Hill, expecting a quick, decisive victory.29 At 11:30, the attack on the Guadalupe fort began. According to La Voz de Méjico, General Lorencez afterward recounted, “The zouaves and the light infantry charged, with the intelligent boldness that is traditional in these two corps. They did what only French troops are capable of doing.” But the Mexicans did not break and run as expected. Instead, they stood their ground, and the French found themselves “under terrible fire from artillery and small arms, from shrapnel and shells filled with grapeshot. Some men got as far as scaling the wall, where they were killed; with the exception of the bugler Roblet, who belonged to the light infantry, who stood there for a time sounding the ‘charge.’”30 Then, as reported by a Mexican observer, the Mexican 1st and 3rd Toluca Light Regiments fixed bayonets, left their defensive positions, and engaged the French in fierce hand-to-hand combat. After about five minutes of this, there was a sight that had not been seen involving French troops since Waterloo, nearly fifty years before: “the zouaves fleeing in shameful flight.”31
Outnumbered as he was and without cavalry, Zaragoza did not dare pursue the fleeing French, although the advantage was clear to him. Allowed this breathing room, the French regrouped; then, with reinforcements, their zouaves mounted another fierce attack up the slope. They came close, some even reaching the fort’s artillery, but Mexican shrapnel and bullets tore them apart, and once again they had to retreat.32
While these two attacks were taking place at the Guadalupe fort, French zouaves and infantry also attacked the fort on Loreto Hill, but here also the Mexicans held their positions and repulsed them. As the French retreated, Mexico’s General Francisco de Lamadrid ordered his flanking cavalry to charge them. The French infantry tried to defend themselves by forming defensive squares, which usually could hold against a cavalry attack. But the weight of the Mexican cavalry broke a square outside Puebla, and most of the men in it were cut down.33
Meanwhile, at Guadalupe, the French rushed the fort a third time. Mexico was well into its rainy season, and the heavens chose this moment to open up and deluge the French, who now could not scale the wet, slippery walls.34 Once again, they retired, this time well beyond the range of the Mexican guns, in an attempt to reorganize, but by then it was late enough in the day that nothing further came of their efforts.35
In the last major encounter of the day, the Mexican collaborator General Leonardo Márquez, serving under French command, tried to join Lorencez with five thousand fresh troops, but the Mexican patriot General Tomás O’Horan intercepted them at Atlixco and forced them back to Matamoros de Izucar.36 Finally, around 7 P.M., the French troops at Puebla retired to their camp, which they spent all that night and most of the next day moving to a safer position, carrying their dead and wounded from the battlefield.37
It became clear the next day, May 6, that the initiative had shifted. In the morning the French attacked and again were repulsed and chased back to their camp.38 Meanwhile, Mexican reinforcements streamed toward Puebla. General Florencio Antillón arrived with his two thousand troops from Guanajuato, warmly welcomed by General Zaragoza.39 Pedro Ogazón was expected the next day with three thousand from Jalisco, and Jesús González Ortega within four days from Zacatecas with six thousand troops and an artillery train.40 The morale of the Mexican soldiers was rising, their successes of the previous day filling them with confidence; now they wanted to attack. For their part, the French did not take the offensive again that day. On May 7, they were observed building fortifications.41
Accordingly, at noon on May 8, the Mexicans were ready to face the once feared French army. Alejo Ruiz, an observer for the Mexican Army of the East, spent all afternoon, into the early evening, at his post in Puebla’s cathedral tower, watching the French forces’ movements. After facing the Mexicans in a stalemate lasting nearly four hours, the French soldiers did what they were never supposed to do: they withdrew from the battlefield, unwilling to engage in combat. Once he was sure the French were retreating, Ruiz hurriedly sent his report to his commanding officer. Ruiz’s report, with those of other officers in the forts that ringed Puebla, was telegraphed to President Juárez’s headquarters in Mexico City. There they were compiled and released to a public anxiously awaiting news of the confrontation just fifty-five miles to the east of the capital. Mexican newspapers, among them the Monitor Republicano, gleefully reprinted the telegraphic dispatches verbatim.42
FIGURE 6. The May 27, 1862, issue of La Voz de Méjico, published in San Francisco, gave its readers the earliest notice of the Mexican victory at the first battle of Puebla, on May 5. (CESLAC UCLA)
The Mexico City newspapers, along with correspondence from private individuals, subsequently made the trip by horse and stagecoach to the tropical port of Acapulco, where the steamship Orizaba picked them up on May 17, making its usual stop for passengers and mail on its route from Panama to San Francisco. After chugging up the coast, the ship dropped anchor in San Francisco at 7 A.M. on May 26. Along with its 580 passengers, it unloaded the Mexican newspapers containing dispatches from the front.43 These soon made their way to the offices of the two major Spanish-language newspapers in San Francisco: La Voz de Méjico, begun in March 1862, and El Éco del Pacífico, the Spanish-language pages printed since 1852 under the aegis of the French-language L’Écho du Pacifique.44
Eager to share the momentous news with their readers, the two newspapers’ editors printed the telegraphed reports from the front verbatim, adding their own comments (see figure 6).45 Bundles of their freshly printed papers were loaded onto the river steamers that plied between San Francisco on the coast and the inland communities of Sacramento, Marysville, and Stockton, the major jumping-off points for the gold country. From there the news spread swiftly, via stagecoaches and mule trains, to smaller towns in the Mother Lode—Sonora, Columbia, San Andreas, Hornitos, Calaveritas, Melones, Banderitas, Vallecito—and then out to the tiny camps such as Greaser Gulch, Merced River Camp, Feliciana Mine, and El Mono Mine. In all these places, groups of Latinos anxiously awaited news of the battle in far-off Puebla.
The news was joyous: “HURRAH FOR MEXICO!!! HURRAH FOR INDEPENDENCE!” The banks below the headlines further rejoiced, “Hurrah for the valiant Mexican soldiers!! Hurrah for the heroic General Zaragoza and his comrades!”46 In town after town, camp after camp, mine after mine, ranch after ranch, Latinos eagerly absorbed the news. Those who could read shared the glorious details with their illiterate fellows, and up and down the state, Latinos savored the blow-by-blow reporting from the front lines of the conflict that had so riveted their attention.
To the Gold Rush town of Columbia, in Tuolumne County, goes the honor of having held the first spontaneous celebration of the victory of the battle of Puebla.47 Shortly after the May 27 issue of La Voz de Méjico arrived there, the Latino inhabitants experienced the “incomparable joy with which the satisfying news of our triumph against the French were received.” A self-appointed correspondent who identified himself only by the initials A.M. dashed off a letter to the newspaper describing a joyful celebration of gun salvos and banquets complete with toasts to Mexico and the singing of patriotic songs. He originally provided a detailed description of the event, including a fiery patriotic speech given by one Señora Eligia Mendoza, but the editor of La Voz de Méjico decided not to publish the entire letter, so the modern reader is left merely with an enticing outline of the first-ever celebration of Cinco de Mayo in California (see figure 7).48
The huge wave of Gold Rush–induced immigration from Mexico to California had brought a number of Mexican war veterans to the state. One of them, Francisco Tapia, was living in Columbia when news of the unexpected victory broke. In fact, just a week before news of the battle of Puebla reached Columbia, he had written an open letter to young Latinos urging them to go to Mexico to join the forces defending the republic against the French. Tapia had a respectable record of patriotic service himself. He described himself as over eighty years old and still suffering from a war wound delivered by a Spanish lance during the Battle of Calderón Bridge (1811), in the first phase of the war for Mexican independence. Tapia also had been wounded by a U.S. bullet during the Mexican-American War, at the battle of Angostura (or Buena Vista, 1847). Yet old and disabled as he was, Tapia declared himself ready to take up arms again in defense of his homeland. He closed his letter with the resounding plea “I hope, my fellow Mexicans, that . . . we may come together and march at once, with the liveliest and warmest valor, to take up the rifle, in order to swell the ranks of our dear brethren; in order to make people see that we are as brave as tigers, and that we are able to defeat those lions who try to scare us in the shape of roosters.”49
FIGURE 7. As reported in this newspaper article, the first Cinco de Mayo celebration in California took place in the mining town of Columbia, in Tuolumne County, in May 1862, barely three weeks after the first battle of Puebla. (La Voz de Méjico, June 7, 1862, p. 2. CESLAC UCLA)
After nearly a year of hearing about unwelcome Confederate defeats of Federal troops in the eastern United States, the surprising Mexican victory at Puebla was a jolt of welcome news for supporters of Juárez and of the legitimacy of democratic government in general. Some measure of the impact can be gleaned from the reaction of Latino men both to news of the victory and to Tapia’s plea for involvement. About two weeks after the news of Zaragoza’s victory washed over California’s Latino communities, the state hummed with discussions and calls to action, as reported by La Voz de Méjico. “They are writing to us from the hinterland that in the counties of Tuolumne, Mariposa, Napa, Calaveras, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, etc., there are more than a thousand Mexicans ready and willing to march to Mexico to offer their services in defending their country against the foreign aggression.” Calling this wave of enthusiasm an “echo which Mexicans issue from California in response to the voice of Puebla’s defenders,” the editor Manuel E. Rodríguez characterized it as an indication of the patriotism still felt for Mexico and as support for the defenders of the constitutional government under attack by foreign invaders and domestic traitors who supported the French.50
In Mexico, meanwhile, people were aware of the considerable Latino presence in California. On the same day Francisco Tapia issued his call to arms from the town of Columbia, nearly 1,500 miles away in Acapulco, Vicente Méndez composed a poem dedicated “to my brothers, the Mexicans who live in the Republic of the United States in the North.” It read, in part:
From the North turn your astonished gaze;
Contemplate from Aculzingo, the immortal mountain,
Heroic Puebla; turn your glance,
And, brothers, you will feel your heart throb.
Méndez saw the battle as between not simply the Mexican and French armies but also their respective political values and institutions: outmoded monarchy versus new “democracy and republic,” and conservative rebellion against legitimate constitutional authority. To him, its meaning was encapsulated in “the magic word, the voice, of Liberty.”51
On June 17, three weeks after receiving news of the victory at Puebla, Rodríguez shared with the readers of his La Voz de Méjico an item from the Mexican government’s official newspaper. “We see, in the Siglo XIX for May 18, a list of donations toward a sword that is going to be given to the unconquered General Zaragoza. The donations by that day had amounted to $612 and 50 cents.” Then, perhaps merely thinking out loud, he offered a suggestion that, did he but know it, was going to change Latino society and identity in ways that persist to the twenty-first century: “Would it not be fitting that, here in California, some show of appreciation be made, which those valiant men merit who have spilled their blood in defense of the homeland?”52
The very next day, his competitor, El Éco del Pacífico, announced that it had opened a subscription “to aid those wounded Mexicans who fell at Puebla.” Somewhat annoyed by his rival editor’s interpreting La Voz de Méjico’s notice about the sword of honor subscription as a not-so-subtle hint that the paper’s readers should imitate their compatriots in Mexico City, Rodríguez responded on June 19 that such had not been his original intent—but now that it had been suggested, he thought it was not a bad idea to acknowledge with “an award from the hands of the Mexicans of California” the skill and patriotism of the general who had thrown the enemy back from Puebla. He urged his readers to join him in this effort. “We issue a call to the patriotism of our brethren of California. . . . It would be useful to hold meetings and compile subscription lists, with the goal that, imitating the example of our countrymen in the capital [of Mexico], we should gather together a sum to have a sword of honor made here in San Francisco and to send it to Citizen General Ignacio Zaragoza, as a token that the Mexicans who live in California give, of their appreciation of his military virtues and untarnished patriotism.”53
Rodríguez offered the infrastructure of his newspaper in the service of this effort. “In all our agents’ offices in the hinterland, printed registration lists will be found; and the amounts that may be collected will be sent to this newspaper’s office, where they will be published, to the extent that the contributors’ names shall be received. As of today, a subscription book lies open for this city.”54
The next day, the first donors from San Francisco came to the offices of La Voz de Méjico to offer contributions. On June 21, Rodríguez proudly announced, “Today we publish the first subscription list for the Sword of Honor which is going to be given to General Zaragoza. . . . It may be demonstrated that, even though we live in a foreign land, we retain a lively attachment to our country.” He informed his readers that the donors included Latinos from all walks of life. “By this, one will see that every Mexican here, rich or poor, has written his name in the list; for it belongs to all of them to make a public demonstration of their feelings toward the illustrious leader who won at Puebla.”55
The names on the list did indeed represent a socioeconomic cross section of Latino San Francisco. At one end of the spectrum, for instance, was Gerardo López del Castillo, a Mexican actor and theater impresario whose troupe, the Estrella Company, had come to San Francisco soon after the French invasion of their homeland. Once there, he increasingly took part in civic affairs in California’s Latino community and gave rousing speeches at public events.56 The list also included humbler donors, such as Dolores Mojica, a maker of musical instruments who advertised himself professionally as a “Mexican woodworker.”57
The donations came in slowly at first, primarily from San Francisco. To speed things up, Rodríguez reminded his readers that if they had no cash, they could pay with postage stamps enclosed in letters sent to his office.58 But then the rudimentary network of Latino communities that Spanish-language newspapers had supported and strengthened since the early days of the Gold Rush began to rouse to action. Groups of donors were organized in the far-flung towns of California, and donations began to be lumped together by the donors’ places of residence. The first organized response from outside San Francisco apparently came from nearby Sonoma, from the family of General Mariano G. Vallejo.59 Subsequently, lists of donors arrived from all over the state: from gold country towns and camps such as Greenwood, Columbia, Jenny Lind, Hornitos, Santa Cruz in Mariposa County, San Andreas, Laporte, Calaveritas, Coulterville, Placerville, West Point, Lancha Plana, Mayfield, Chinese Camp, and Murphy’s Camp; from towns in the Central Valley such as Yreka, Marysville, and Stockton; and from older, more settled, heavily Californio towns near the coast, including Sonoma, Watsonville, San Luis Obispo, San Lorenzo, San Leandro, Alvarado, New Almaden, San Juan, Washington District in Alameda County, Pachecoville, and Los Angeles.60 Map 2 shows the distribution of the lists of organized donors to the Latino sword of honor.61
The lists of donors also show the cosmopolitan nature of the Latino population in California barely fourteen years after it had passed from Mexican to United States control. Rodríguez’s initial appeal had been made to “Mexicans who live in California,” and more specifically, to those who had arrived from Mexico after February 2, 1848, both miners and others. Yet those Latinos who had been living in California prior to the Gold Rush, and their descendants, clearly felt an affinity with the more recent immigrant arrivals, and many of them, like the Vallejos, subscribed for the Latino sword of honor.62 Similarly, Latinos drawn from all over Latin America by the Gold Rush also subscribed for General Zaragoza’s sword. Tomás Mora, a Chilean living in San Francisco, was an early subscriber, as was an anonymous Peruvian living in Marysville.63 Another was a Salvadoran who would later play a leading role in Cinco de Mayo events in California, Juan Vicente Martorell, then living in Hornitos. Samuel Delgado, an Argentine living in Alameda County, also subscribed early on. Continuing the decades-old linkage between New Mexico and California, Estipula Vaca from New Mexico, residing in San Luis Obispo, was quick to sign up. Even non-Latinos volunteered their donations. One Eduardo (or Edward) Hays, described as an “Americano” from San Lorenzo, was an early contributor.64 Rodríguez made a point of specially acknowledging the contributions made by those not of Mexican origin.65
MAP 2. Locations donating to the Latino sword of honor, 1862. (Werner Schink)
Initially, women were included in the lists as individual subscribers, along with the men. Latina donors in the mining town of Columbia, however, were the first to have their joint contribution, which they had raised as an exclusively female group, specifically acknowledged. In July, Agustina Ayala y León was tapped by her (male) local subscription collector, J. M. Hernández, to create a list of female donors from her community. In a letter to La Voz de Méjico, she proudly reported her success. “Señor J. M. Hernández . . . being the person entrusted with receiving the contributions of the persons who care to subscribe for the presentation of the Sword of Honor to General Ignacio Zaragoza, has done me the honor of distinguishing me with a list of the ladies; which I have carried out with the greatest pleasure, for my part making every effort possible to make up a regular sum.” She apologized for the smallness of the amount contributed by the women—although, in fact, it was only two dollars less than that donated by Columbia’s men—but asserted that the willingness with which it had been given was “very acute.” Indeed, the list of Columbia’s contributors to the sword of honor fund, printed on the same page of the issue in which her letter appeared, was divided into two categories: one for men and one for women. The editor Rodríguez responded with a tribute to the patriotism of Latinas in both Mexico and California.66 This distinguishing of female donors from their male counterparts would be echoed not long thereafter in the formation of specifically female Latina patriotic societies.
On August 9, Rodríguez announced the closing of the subscription and proudly proclaimed patriotism alive and well in the Latino communities of California. “Today we close the subscription for the presentation of the sword that is going to be offered to Citizen General Ignacio Zaragoza, as a tribute in recognition of the eminent services he has done to his country, by his fellow citizens from California. . . . In this fashion we show our brethren in the motherland that, whether in Mexico or in a foreign land, we retain a Mexican heart, for our country.” In a little more than two months, $1,250 had been collected.67
R. B. Gray and Co. in San Francisco was hired to make the sword. Rodríguez conveyed to his readership that “we have been assured that it will be one of the best swords of its type that has ever been made in America.”68 The “Messrs. Nahl” had produced the design elements that would distinguish this sword from all others. Charles Christian Nahl and his half-brother, Hugo Nahl, were Germans who had come to California in the early years of the Gold Rush. After discovering that they were not adept miners, the Nahl brothers moved to San Francisco and opened an art studio that offered portraits, landscapes, photography, and design to the public. One Señor Villalón executed supplementary designs for the sword.69
By mid-October, the sword was finished and placed on display for the public to admire at the jewelers’ shop Tucker and Co., which had been responsible for the goldwork on the sword and the jewels set into its hilt. Photographs were taken—possibly by Charles Christian Nahl—and sent to Mexico.70 To date, however, none of these photographs of the sword have been found, and the sword itself has been lost.71 Nonetheless, its original appearance can be vividly imagined, thanks to a detailed description in La Voz de Méjico on November 1, 1862.
The Latino sword of honor encapsulated the battle of Puebla as perceived by Latinos in California. It was a parade sword thirty-nine inches in length, with a thirty-two-inch blade. The hilt was solid gold. On the grip appeared a figure representing America—in contemporary iconography, usually a female rather fancifully dressed as an Indian, with a feather headdress—here shown with her right foot treading on tyranny, as represented by an overturned royal crown. On her burnished shield appeared the word LIBERTAD (“Liberty”). The rest of the design elements were a fascinating mixture of Mexican and Californian symbols. Set into the pommel was an oval chunk of gold-bearing California quartz. The pommel itself was shaped like an eagle holding a serpent in its beak, the serpent’s body forming part of the elaborate guard. This was inspired by the eagle and the serpent on the Mexican flag, which refer to the legend of Tenochtitlan’s founding in 1325. The eyes of the eagle and the serpent were set with diamonds. Another Mexican theme appeared at the base of the hilt, near the pommel, where an engraved castle represented the heroic city of Puebla, with the date “5 de Mayo de 1862” inscribed below. Around the upper hilt, near the cross guard, was the inscription “To Citizen General Ignacio Zaragoza, [from] the grateful Mexicans of California.” The seven-inch chape at the tip of the blued-steel scabbard had at its center a cameo cut in San Francisco featuring the head of the goddess Minerva—an emblem of the state of California since 1849—surrounded by the panoply of war. A four-and-a-half-inch plaque halfway up the scabbard was decorated with the silver head of a “California bear,” presumably a grizzly, with rubies for eyes, and the nearly six-inch locket at the scabbard’s mouth bore another image of America personified, this time depicted with the sword and scales of Justice, with two supplicating figures kneeling before her.72
In anticipation of the public celebration that would accompany the sword’s send-off to Mexico, Henry Payot’s bookstore in San Francisco commissioned a lithographic portrait of General Zaragoza, made from an original photograph.73 But then, just as the sword was about to depart, dismaying news arrived. Ignacio Zaragoza had contracted typhoid fever and had died on September 8, 1862. The news had taken nearly a month to travel to California; when it arrived, on October 7, the impact was tremendous.74 In its issues of October 7, 9, and 11, La Voz de Méjico printed black borders of mourning around its columns on every page. Francisco Herrera, a writer living in San Francisco, contributed a piece published in the paper on October 7, “¡Zaragoza No Ha Muerto!” (“Zaragoza Has Not Died!”). In it, he argued that as with other past heroes, while the physical man might have perished, the inspiration he provided to others lived on. “But Zaragoza has not died; among those who love their homeland, there is Zaragoza.” He reminded his readers that Zaragoza had not simply been defending the country of Mexico; rather, he had fought for a larger cause, the preservation of democracy. “He has not died: see him smiling among the apostles and martyrs of democracy.” In furtherance of this point, Herrera compared the Mexican general to other great liberators of North and South America: “We repeat it: Heroes never die. Washington lives today, above thirty million human beings. Bolívar exists among the communities of Colombia. . . . But you, Zaragoza, you live throughout the Hispano-American continent. You live, for it conceived your great soul in this sacrosanct principle of equality.”75 Implicit in this comparison was a linkage between the Juarist and Union causes, both fighting for equality and democracy against autocratically minded foes.
The following morning, October 8, grief at the news of Zaragoza’s death drew together a group of Latinos in San José. As Catholics, they decided the best way to mourn him was to sponsor a special memorial mass. They raised fifty dollars and took this sum to a local priest, asking that he say a mass to console them. To their consternation, the priest responded that he could not do so until he had telegraphed to Archbishop Josep Alemany of San Francisco for permission. Personally, the priest could see no reason why permission would be refused, but he evidently was acting in obedience to previous orders not to say any masses for Zaragoza without prior consultation. Despite the priest’s optimism, the answer came back from the archbishop that a mass could be celebrated “only when it may be made clear that General Zaragoza has publicly retracted.” Apparently Archbishop Alemany had been made uncomfortable by Zaragoza’s reputation as a defender of the 1857 Mexican constitution, which mandated the separation of church and state. One of the San José delegation’s leaders, José Ruiz, indignantly related these events in a letter to La Voz de Méjico. The editor Rodríguez vowed to look into the matter at once.76
The results of his investigation roused Rodríguez to a public expression of outrage that the Catholic church in California would so neglect Christian charity as to refuse to conduct services for Zaragoza while the archbishop was awaiting “the proof, perhaps, that the illustrious General Zaragoza had not been excommunicated.” Rodríguez thought the burden of proof lay on the archbishop’s side, to show why the memorial mass should not be conducted rather than simply presume that it should not until Zaragoza’s religious orthodoxy could be demonstrated. He pointed out that Zaragoza’s body had lain in state in the parish church of San Martín Tesmelucan in Mexico and subsequently had been buried in the pantheon of San Fernando, “which belongs to the Catholics.” Not receiving any satisfactory response from Archbishop Alemany, he asked trenchantly, “Can it be so that ecclesiastical law may be one thing for Señor Alemany and another, very different, thing for the diocesan bishops of Mexico City and of Puebla—who were closer to the truth?”77
News of Zaragoza’s death took most of October 8 to travel to Hornitos in Mariposa County, where it arrived around nine o’clock that night. The news profoundly grieved the Latino population of the town, and by dawn on October 9, their doors and windows were draped in black. Four Mexicans living in the town, wearing black armbands and black bands on their hats, punctually fired salvos every fifteen minutes throughout the day, using a cannon ornamented with a black flag and black ribbons twined through the spokes of its gun carriage wheels and gunpowder bought by two of the more prosperous local residents, Pedro Sáenz and Eutimio Castillo. The local correspondent who described the scene to La Voz de Méjico expected mourning to continue for the standard nine days, “down to the sorriest miner’s tent.”78
But another issue now arose: what should be done with the Latino sword of honor that had been the first fruits of California Latinos’ support of the war for freedom and democracy in Mexico? “We find ourselves in a dilemma. The sword . . . is on the verge of being finished. If Zaragoza had left a son, he without a doubt would have been the legitimate heir of our gratitude and sympathies; but, unfortunately, he passed away leaving only a little girl.” Rodríguez’s admitted preference was for sending the sword to the Mexican Congress, to be disposed of as that body should see fit. Nevertheless, claiming that he did not wish to impose his opinions on others, he suggested that all who had contributed to the sword’s making should decide collectively what to do with it. To speed up the process, he asked the newspaper’s agents throughout the state to consult with their respective territories’ donors and write back to him without delay.79
At a meeting of the San Francisco junta patriótica (patriotic assembly; see chapter 4) held on October 12, a general consensus was declared to have emerged among the donors. “Taking advantage of the current meeting, the president of the board asked if it was believed, in conformity with what was proposed by the newspaper La Voz de Méjico, that the Sword of Honor which had been destined for the unfortunate General Zaragoza should be sent to the general Congress in Mexico, so that this body might dispose of it as it thought best to carry out the donors’ views; and this proposal was approved unanimously.”80
After appearing for public view for a week in the showroom of Tucker and Co., the sword was sent aboard the steamer Orizaba on November 11, 1862. The Pacific Navigation Company waived all shipping fees.81 After a voyage of nearly two weeks, the sword arrived in Acapulco, whence it was taken to General Juan Álvarez’s hacienda—La Providencia, about thirty miles inland, which was serving as the military headquarters for his Division of the South—and placed in his care. On receiving the sword, General Álvarez wrote, “Upon seeing so rare an object, which I now have in my keeping, my heart cannot but be moved; for, coming from a country that once belonged to Mexico, it symbolizes that feeling for the homeland still lives in the children of that country.”82
Newspaper readers in Mexico were informed of the magnanimous gesture made by Latinos in California and the widespread support for President Juárez among them. The Mexican government’s official newspaper, Siglo XIX, ran an article describing their patriotic efforts, which La Voz de Méjico reprinted. It emphasized, in idealized terms, the harmonious pan-Latino nature of the enterprise: “One feels an agreeable satisfaction upon learning of the patriotic conduct that Mexicans in Alta California are observing. They retain a lively sense of their nationality, they are closely united, and for them there is no division of parties or of fortunes. They have celebrated civic festivals on the anniversary of our Independence, with not just Mexicans delivering enthusiastic speeches, but also other South Americans, who fraternize cordially with our countrymen.”83
While Zaragoza had beaten the French decisively at Puebla on May 5, their army had not left Mexico and indeed was being reinforced by new troops from France. These troops’ continuing presence and their encouragement of armed groups of reactionary collaborators made travel dangerous. Via a letter to La Voz de Méjico written on December 5, Álvarez assured Latinos in California that he would take care of their sword by providing it with a military escort: “Concerning the sword of honor . . . I have announced its receipt in my previous letter. It will leave tomorrow, with sufficient escort, for Cuernavaca, where it is to be delivered to Señor Altamirano, if he happens to be there; but if he is not, it will continue in the same fashion all the way to the capital of the Republic.”84
The sword’s journey from La Providencia to Cuernavaca took almost three weeks; it finally arrived on December 21. Although it is less than sixty miles from Cuernavaca to Mexico City, the roads were so infested with conservative partisans and common bandits that the next leg of the trip took another three weeks. A letter published in La Voz de Méjico gives some idea of the difficulties the sword faced in reaching Mexico City. “But, oh, my friend! From that date until this very day, rounding Cape Horn would have been less dangerous than a passage from here to Cuernavaca. Such a precarious eighteen leagues! Imagine large gangs of traitors and of bandits owning the road and robbing every passerby.”85 Thanks to its military escort, however, the sword of honor finally arrived in Mexico City and on January 29, 1863, was presented to Bartolomé E. Almada and Antonio G. Pérez, deputy secretaries to the Secretariat of the Mexican Congress.
These two officials wrote to Latinos in California that “the sword that the Mexicans living in Alta California had made, at their own expense, to bestow upon the illustrious General Zaragoza . . . now has been presented to the Permanent Committee, of which we are secretaries.” The question of what to do with the sword was given to the war council to work out. On February 26, 1863, Almada and Pérez, on behalf of the war council, officially thanked Latinos in California for this wonderful present. They then detailed three proposals made by the war council. “First. Unless the Congress dispose otherwise, the sword which the Mexicans living in Alta California dedicated to the general and distinguished citizen Ignacio Zaragoza should be placed in the meeting hall. Second. It should send a satisfactory reply to the Mexicans of Alta California, thanking them and sending them a transcript of the decision.” The third proposal would have virtually apotheosized the Latino sword of honor: “And in order to perpetuate such patriotic sentiments, the Permanent Committee also resolves—and probably the national representative body will approve—that the said sword be placed in the meeting hall next to that of the liberator Iturbide.”86 A place of honor next to the nearly sacred sword of Iturbide! This was the highest tribute that could be paid, and it was proposed to be paid to the gift of California’s Latinos.
Without a doubt, the first battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, had an extraordinary impact on Latinos living in California. But it was only the first major battle in a five-year French occupation of Mexico. Many full-scale battles—in Mazatlán, Acapulco, San Luis Potosí, Alamos, and Querétaro—and numerous smaller skirmishes would be fought after that. So why, out of all these engagements between Mexican and French forces, is the first battle of Puebla still commemorated by Latinos in California 150 years later?
