CHICANO STUDIES 101
Instructors Notes
Developed by Charlene Garcia Simms

UNIT 2

Mexican Independence War

We discussed the Mexican Independence War in Mexico which started on September 16, 1810.  Father Miguel Hidalgo had given his famous GRITO telling the world that the poor peasants, Mestizos and Indians of Mexico were not going to be oppressed anymore. This started the Mexican Independence War. This is a whole study by itself. What is important to know for the scope of this class is that it lasted eleven years from September 16, 1810, to September 1821. By the end of the war Mexico was broke. It was a weak country, financially and in spirit. Father  Miguel Hidalgo  was 57 years old in 1810 when he led the revolution against Spain. He was captured in March 1811, and  was tried for heresy and treason. The court turned him over to the secular arm for execution. At dawn on July 31 the firing squad did its job. Hidalgo's corpse was decapitated and his head, fastened to a pole, was displayed on the charred wall of the granary in Guanajuato as an object lesson to potential rebels. Father Jose Maria Morelos, a Mestizo, took over but by 1815 he had been captured and executed.  For the next five years there was much guerilla fighting. The two most effective independent leaders were Guadalupe Victoria and Vicente Guerrero who helped with the defeat. But, it was a defector against Spain, Augustin de Iturbide, who ultimately took over.

On February 24, 1821 the Plan de Iguala (to end the war) asked for  23 things but mainly that the Mexican nation would be organized as a constitutional monarchy with the crown offered to the king of Spain or some other European prince;  the Roman Catholic religion would be given a monopoly on the spiritual life of the country; and its clergymen would retain all rights and privileges as before; and criollos and peninsulares would be treated equally in the new state. In the treaty that ended the war Iturbide feathered his own nest by adding that if no suitable European monarch was found the New World would choose a new Emperor, him.   Iturbide had himself named emperor. Mexico had won its independence from Spain. Nueva Espana would be no more (as discussed earlier, up until this time this vast area had been known as Nueva Espana or New Spain). Drawing on the real name of the Aztecs, the Mexica, Mexico was born.

Mexico was vast with very poor leadership. For the Indian and Mestizo, life remained the same except they were now ruled under a new flag. The mines had closed; many workers were killed; the mines flooded so there was no money to be made there. Impact on agriculture was the same; the new emperor was blamed and exiled and later executed. The first Mexican empire had been a failure. Mexico would now be an independent nation run as a republic. In 1824 a constitution similar to the United States Constitution was written. Mexico was no better off. In fact, in the first thirty years of its independence it did not progress but went backward. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna who had entered the picture, was part of the regime that knew only how to run a country based on control of the military, the Church and the wealthy. As we will see Santa Anna had great influence over the future of Mexico.

Note: It is important to realize that when studying the history of the southwest, we are studying the history of Mexico. Even through today, often, what happens in Mexico greatly affects the United States.

We are going to be entering an era where two cultures collided. A legacy of hate in the U. S. was born in Texas and would carry forward to the entire southwest and involve racism, prejudice, discrimination, and segregation. It is important to understand the definition of these terms to fully understand their impact. We will study these terms when we discuss the Nature of Prejudice. First we need to know what was going on at this time in the southwest.

What was happening in the southwest in the early 1800s or in what was still northern Mexico?

By the early 1800s traders, trappers, and mountain men from the east were going west. The Louisiana Purchase was  made by the United States in 1803, so the United States was expanding. With the Santa Fe Trail opening up in 1821, the markets in New Mexico no longer had to depend only on the Chihuahua Trail.  While exploring the west, Zebulon Montgomery Pike had been captured and taken to Mexico. On his return he was able to give the Americans a map to invasion. California and New Mexico attracted merchants. Texas attracted colonists who were there to stay.

Legacy of Hate:

The Legacy of Hate between the British and the Spanish went back to the 15th century and the Black Legend:

The Black Legend: a label given by Spanish historians to the anti-Spanish views by the English especially the negative attitudes towards Catholic Spaniards which Anglo Americans inherited from their Protestant forbears. However, it went beyond anti-Catholicism. The English colonists believed the Spanish government was authoritarian, corrupt and decadent and that Spaniards were bigoted, cruel greedy, tyrannical, fanatical, treacherous and lazy. The origin of the Black Legend is complex and goes back to the battles between Spain and England in the 15th century and to self-critical writings of Spaniards such as Bartolome de las Casas whose writings were widely read in England and its American colonies. The early perceptions of Spaniards remained alive and was carried to Spain's (Mexico's American) heirs. Some American historians see the Black Legend as one reason for anti-Mexicanism by Anglo Americans. (from David Weber, Yankee Infiltration)
 
·The term Scarcer Than Apes meant less than human, Mexicanity.
 
Causes of Stereotypes according to Scarcer than Apes by David Weber:

    * The Black Legend
    * Initial contacts with each other on the borderlands;
    * assumptions made by journalists and writers and taken back to the east coast
    * invalid generalizations
    * Anglos despised the racial mixture
    * Superiority complex of Anglo-Americans
    * The economy was underdeveloped - this caused the Anglos to look at the New Mexicans as lazy.
    * Ethnic hostility can be a projection of unacceptable inner strivings into a minority group
    * Justification of exploitation and mistreatment of a people for economic gain

Carey McWilliams, North From Mexico, states that the following factors added to the legacy of hate as cultures met in the borderlands and collided:

    * language barrier
    * Mexicans knew almost nothing of local self-government while Americans carried a copy of the constitution in their back pocket
    * Superior attitude of the Anglo-Americans
    * disagreed on slavery (while Mexicans practiced the peonage system, they were against slavery)
    * Protestant vs Catholic
    * both groups lacked familiarity with existing Mexican law
    * cultural differences led to misconceptions--to misunderstandings-- to distrust-- to antagonism and finally conflict.
    * New stereotypes were formed and perpetuated well into the 20th century

The Legacy of hate grew with:

    * the battles at the Alamo, Goliad and San Jacinto
    * murder matched by murder
    * Through the decade of the Texas Republic (1836-1845) there were no boundaries  -- Texas claimed to the Rio Grande; Mexico to the Nueces River
    * The Americans believed in Manifest Destiny, that it was their God given right to rule from sea to shining sea. James K. Polk ran for the presidency in 1845 and won. He ran under an expansionist platform. His goal was to expand the United States from the east coast to the west coast at all costs. He would keep his word.
    * The United States declared war against Mexico on May 11, 1846
    * The way the war was fought greatly added to the legacy of hate

What led to the Mexican American War?

    * Anti-slave laws by the Mexicans
    * Santa Anna
    * Battles at the Alamo, Goliad and San Jacinto (Weber)
    * Forming the Republic of Texas in 1836. Mexico never recognized this.
    * Annexation of Texas in 1845
    * President Polk's Expansionist Theory known as Manifest Destiny
    * Legacy of Hate
    * Disputed Territory
    * Blood shed on disputed territory

What was Polk's three-fold plan? Discussion in class.

Other characters in this saga:

    * Manuel Armijo - last governor of New Mexico as part of Mexico; probably a traitor
    * Charles Bent - first governor of New Mexico as part of the United States
    * Father Jose Antonio Martinez - visionary; may have helped with the Taos Revolt of January 1847 in which Governor Bent was killed
    * Rack n' Sackers - renegades from Arkansas who were responsible for the massacre at Agua Nueva
    * Robert E. Lee, Engineer
    * Abraham Lincoln, Henry David Thoreau, Ulysses Grant
    * insubordination of General Valencia; The boy heroes of Chapultepec; the San Patricio Battalion;

Handouts:

    * The Mexican American War & Hispanic Land Dispossessions;
    * Commentary on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo;

Summary on the Mexican American War and its results;
Why did the Mexicans lose the war?

    * Mexico was weakened financially after the Mexican Independence War - they were broke
    * Mexico had leaders with their own personal agendas
    * The Mexican generals were insubordinate
    * Santa Anna's poor leadership - was he bribed?
    * American's commitment to Manifest Destiny
    * Americans had superior weapons and military strategies (the generals were trained in West Point)
    * While Mexico had more men, most were peasants with no war experience or training
    * No cohesion between the southwestern states

The Mexican American War lasted from May 1846-February 1848 (the actual fighting ended in September 1847) and resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which transferred California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, southern Colorado and Texas to the United States.

What happened to the Citizens by Default after the war: (Weber, All the Rights of Citizens)

    * citizens by default were treated as foreigners in their own land.
    * There were men who became social bandits after they experienced several atrocities.  Some of these men were Joaquin Murrieta; Tiburcio Vasquez, Juan Cortina; Gregorio Cortez. Crimes of Violence were committed against Mexicans especially in Texas. The Texas Rangers would kill Mexicans without any repercussions.
    * The citizens by default did not know American law, most did not know English and could not read enough to understand legal documents. There was much political corruption by Anglo lawyers, politicians, bankers and merchants. This included several upper class Mexicans.  An alliance called the Santa Fe Ring, led by Thomas Catron swindled many Mexican people out of their land. Sometimes the people paid the lawyers by giving them their land. "The Americans not only took possession of their country and its government, but in many cases despoiled them of their ancestral acres and their personal property. Injustice rankled, and they were often treated by the rougher American elements as aliens and intruders, who had no right in the the land of their birth."

The dispossession of land for the Chicanos varied from state to state. What is important to note is that this dispossession of land depleted the economic base of Chicanos and they had also lost their political clout. Without a land base, Chicanos had to turn to wage labor in agricultural, industrial and service professions.

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