CINCO DE MAYO

CINCO DE MAYO

MAY 2006 Report by E.C.McMullen Jr. Copyright 2006 by E.C.McMullen Jr. for feoamante.com

SHOULD YOU? TIP JAR

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo!

Cool! Wow! Cinco de Mayo! What's that mean?

May 5th.

Oh, um...

It has a rich history.

Yeah?

In 1862, a small Mexican Army of 4,000, led by Texas born General Ignacio Zaragosa - a Chicano - and his Colonel, Porfirio Diaz, destroyed the much larger invading French Army and traitorous Mexican Army (a combined force of 8,000). The victory was short lived. Under another pretext, the French sent 30,000 troops the following year, installing a relative of the French governing family, Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Mexico asked for our help.

Mexico asked the United States for help?

This, in itself, was a minor miracle for the following reasons.

As a third world fledgling nation, The United States often found itself paying "tribute" to other, more powerful European nations under one pretext or another. In April of 1803, France, under Napoleon Bonaparte, wanted to sell us the Louisiana territory.

We didn't ASK if he would sell it to us - he TOLD us that he would sell it to us - at HIS price - and we would PAY.

Thomas Jefferson

THOMAS JEFFERSON HAD TO TREAD *REAL* SOFT BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE WITH NAPOLEON BONAPART

Then U.S.  President, Thomas Jefferson, was concerned as to what the then incredibly powerful Bonaparte would do if we said "No thanks!".

On the one hand, the newborn U.S. certainly wouldn't mind more than doubling the size of the country. On the other, The Louisiana territory wasn't Bonaparte's to sell - the Spanish government owned it - and it had been a land of contention between Spain and France. Bonapart needed money to fund his wars in Europe, but if we cheesed off Spain, there would be hell to pay. But if we DIDN'T buy the Louisiana territory, Bonaparte threatened to come over and take what he wanted from us with nothing in return: in short, it would be war - it was an offer the U.S. couldn't refuse - even though it was, arguably, unconstitutional. We kept Bonaparte waiting for nearly six months, during which time he rattled his sabers at us, before we agreed to it and made the purchase in October.

The Louisiana Purchase cost $15 million in 1803 dollars (which was quite the pretty penny back then in the days before income tax) and included a treaty with France - meaning Bonapart promised he wouldn't come over and kick our butts, anyway. To put that $15 million into perspective: in 1803 you could buy a brand new, custom built, seven bedroom two story house on 20 acres of property, in a really nice area, for about $300 dollars. So the Louisiana Purchase was about 50,000 of those properties - undeveloped.

WHERE'S MY MONEY, JEFFERSON? YOU GOT MY MONEY? YOU DO? KTHXBAI!

Jefferson paid the money to Bonaparte and "with the stroke of a pen, the U.S. doubled in size."

Well, not quite. The U.S. hoped that, if Spain had a problem with the purchase, and intended to DO something about it, we could at least negotiate tariff free shipping up and down the Mississippi. But the world, at that time, considered Louisiana a blight: loaded with swamps that carried deadly disease. Spain didn't want it any more than France and on November 1803, in an official ceremony in New Orleans, signed the Louisiana Territories over to France.

The problem with that: We had already paid for Louisiana a month earlier. And we were not invited to the ceremony.

Then we waited.

Finally, nearly a month later on December 20, 1803, France honored our agreement and turned Louisiana over to the United States. This was a HUGE sigh of relief for the U.S. and made President Thomas Jefferson a hero of mythic proportions. We had avoided a war we likely couldn't win with France, another one with Spain (although they still didn't like us), and doubled the size of the U.S.

Right after we paid for Louisiana, the U.S. was also a lot poorer, and like the Martians in H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, other nations, "Viewed our world with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."

After Jefferson was gone, the mood of Americans changed. People started talking about a new philosophy they called "Manifest Destiny". U.S. citizens now believed that we should behave like the rest of the "civilized" world: Which meant land grabbing (all the "cool" countries do it). We had doubled our size; why not go all the way across to the Pacific Ocean? Why not have the U.S. extend from sea to shining sea? We frown on this now, but in the 1800s and earlier, it was common for nations to spread their influence by colonization across the world. Every organized government did it, and the ones who were the most technologically advanced, or best organized, won^.

^By the 21st Century, nearly all of the countries of the 19th Century and earlier that did not? They have vanished from the face of the earth forever.

Manifest Destiny

What stood in our way was the wild lands of what would later become the future Mexico - and that territory was controlled by Spain: And Spain didn't like us.

After the Louisiana Purchase, Americans were moving ever westward, often, and unknowingly, crossing borders outside of the U.S. and setting up homes. There were no border guards in those times - no fences - and common folks had no idea when they left the U.S. territories. What's more, there were all of the aforementioned native tribes who didn't think that Spain had any more right to the land than the French or the U.S. In fact, many of the native tribes didn't even think the other native tribes had a reason to exist at all. Tribes like the Apaches and Cherokee were constantly raiding and slaughtering neighboring tribes: it's how you got to be a great warrior. So the very idea of borders, at that time, was wholly dependent, not on "good guys" and "bad guys", but just whose side you were on.

Over 40 years after the Louisiana Purchase, citizens of the U.S. felt that we were finally strong enough and wealthy enough to enact our "Manifest Destiny".

1843 and the newborn Mexican government was causing trouble for the U.S. citizens who had moved into her territories - and for good reason: many brought slaves with them. Mexico had laws against owning other humans and, at that time, was a more advanced nation than we were, thanks largely to the technology that Spain brought over during her conquest of the land. The Mexicans were slaves under Spain and one of the first things they did when they won their independence was to outlaw slavery. This revolution was actually fought out in combination with the Creoles (people of Spanish descent who were born in Mexico), the native people, and the Metizos (people of Indian and Spanish blood - the largest part of the Mexican population today). So Mexico drove out the Spaniards in 1821, and they weren't about to let a bunch of illegal aliens from the north - with their foreign ways and language - come in and start telling them that Mexico had to change its laws to suit THEM!

Ahem...

Now understand the tension at that time. France appeared to control all of Europe. But in truth, Corsica controlled nearly all of Europe - as Napoleon Bonaparte was born Napoleon Buonaparte in Ajaccio, Corsica (he Frenchi-fied his name to become Emperor of France). Napoleon then installed another Corsican, his older brother, Giuseppe Nabulion Buonaparte as king of the newly acquired Spain. Giuseppe changed his name to the more French-ified Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte. The Spaniards didn't like him and nicknamed him Pepe Botella, as a reference to his alleged alcoholism. He could also barely speak Spanish.

So why did Spain hate us?

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E.C.McMullen Jr. article first posted on May 4, 2006