You’re
looking at that title and thinking, “Bold statement, Scott, but do you have the
facts to back it up?” No. I cannot definitively say we would not have Cinco de
Mayo or chewing gum without the Pastry War having taken place, but even if the
chain of events that brought these two things about had not included that
conflict, it sure did help.
Cinco de
Mayo is one of the two favorite appropriated holidays of drunken gringos. I
perennially like to call it, in a nod to the other one, “Mexican St. Patrick’s
Day”. In case you don’t know, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day;
that’s September 16. That day commemorates the Grito de Dolores (Cry of
Dolores), when Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Mexican-born Catholic priest
led a Mass in the town of Dolores, in what was then the Viceroyalty of New
Spain. Directed by Father Hidalgo, his brother and other leaders opposed to the
colonial government, which was dominated by European-born Spaniards, had just freed
by force a group of agitators from the local jail. No one recorded the words of
his homily, so there’s no scholarly consensus on whether it was an actual call
for Mexican independence, or as others say, more of an exhortation to defend
the interests of the Spanish King, who had been imprisoned by Napoleon, and the
King’s representative, the Viceroy, who had been overthrown and replaced by the
Spanish-born elite of New Spain. Whatever he said though, it fired people up,
and in a fit of pissed-off rage they gathered an army as they went, and captured
the nearby city of Guanajuato.
With that
victory under their belts, the rebels marched on Mexico City. The new Viceroy
sent an army against them and the rebels defeated that army at the Battle of
Monte de las Cruces, capturing a large number of artillery pieces. Holy shit,
did things look bad for the Viceroy and his backers, holed up in the capital! But
they lucked out. In a move that would have given General George S. "In
case of doubt, ATTACK!" Patton a fit, the rebels chose that moment to retreat;
with the result being the Viceroy and the colonial army getting it together,
marching on the rebels, and defeating them. Hidalgo and other leaders were
captured and executed.
But they
had started a revolution that raged for another eleven years, until Mexico was
finally declared independent in 1821. Unfortunately for Mexico, the
then-current crop of leaders were not motivated as much by the impulses of
Father Hidalgo, who had been shocked into action by the condition of the poor. General
Agustín de Iturbide, the main rebel leader, was crowned as Emperor of Mexico,
after having that honor ‘forced’ on him by his troops. You know how this goes;
Iturbide dissolved Congress (He had to do it, man!), then ended up facing a
revolt of his own, intent on reinstating the Congress and the establishing of
the First Mexican Republic.
Notice that
it is named the First Republic, so I don’t think I need to spell things out as
we fast forward to 1838 when Mexico is in sad shape, having come through a
period of turmoil that saw coups, dictatorships, a whole butt-load of civil
war, the revolt and independence of Texas, and then more of the same. The
economy was really in the crapper, and former general and president, Anastasio
Bustamante, was back in that office, having been recalled from exile to save the
country from Texas. Some things never change.
Bad news
for Mexico; about ten years before, some Mexican soldiers had looted a pastry
shop in Mexico City owned by a French-born chef named Remontel. He appealed for
aid to France, which had been going through a similar political situation --
but you know, Frenchied-up. In 1838 France had a king again, Louise-Phillipe,
who finally got around to asking for compensation for Remontel, to the tune of
600,000 pesos. Some people think the millions of dollars in loans from France
that Mexico had defaulted on might have had something to do with it also.
Bustamante,
predictably told France to get stuffed, resulting in a fit of gunboat diplomacy
by the French. Admiral Charles Baudin carried out a blockade of the entire
Mexican coast on the Gulf side, bombarded some Mexican forts, and seized the Mexican
fleet, and the city of Veracruz, thus endangering the vital fish taco supply
line to Mexico City, and the future of Taco del Mar. That last part isn’t true.
Fish tacos originated in Baja California, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, so
Baudin’s blockade on the Gulf coast could not have endangered the fish taco
supply line; fooled you.
This was
the cue for a certain serial Mexican president/coup leader: the Napoleon of the
West! El Hombre del Destino! The Ayatolla of a-Rock-and-Roll-a!!! General Antonio
de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrónnnnnn! You know.
Santa Anna. The guy who defeated the rebels at the Alamo, had Davey Crocket
killed, and was then beaten by the Texan rebels led by Sam Houston at the
Battle of San Jacinto. Yeah, that guy.
Without
anyone asking him to, he came out of retirement, and offered to lead the
Mexican army against the French. The Congress . . . stupid, stupid Congress,
accepted. He then promptly got his leg shot off at Veracruz. This would
eventually lead to the capture of not one, but two of Santa Anna’s wooden legs
by soldiers of the 4th Illinois Infantry in the Mexican-American War, about ten
years later.
No kidding,
you can go to the Illinois State Military Museum in Springfield and see one of
them. The other one, a peg leg, was used by soldiers as a baseball bat, and is
on display at the Decatur home of former Illinois Governor, Richard J. Oglesby,
who was with the 4th Illinois. The latter leg will be more famous in
the future, when it will be used in 2021 by time-travelers, who will go back in
time, whittle it down to a stake using George Washington’s pen-knife, and drive
it through the heart of Vampire-President-for-Life, Donald J. Trump after he
overthrows our current government and establishes the First American Vampire
Republic. It’ll be the best Trump . . . wait for it . . . stake ever! Oh, the irony! I’ll take my
chances with the Secret Service to make that joke.
Santa Anna,
of course, used his military service against the French to rehabilitate his
political career and become President for the fifth, but not last, time. He would
go on to plague Mexico until 1855 when he was semi-permanently exiled.
“So where
does Cinco de Mayo come into this, you freaking weirdo? You never got to that!”
you’re probably thinking right now. Yes, well, as I said, Cinco de Mayo is not
Mexican Independence Day. It celebrates the victory of Mexican forces over the French
at the Battle of Puebla, during the Second French Intervention in Mexico; the
Pastry War being the First French Intervention in Mexico. The latter had ended
with Britain negotiating a diplomatic end in which Mexico agreed to pay France
the 600,000 pesos. The Second Intervention ended much better for Mexico, with
them driving out the French forces that had installed an Austrian nobleman on
the throne as Emperor of the Second Mexican Empire. Said Austrian nobleman -- Maximilian
I, who many say was an alright, if gullible dude, having had a serious desire
to enact liberal reform and help the people of Mexico -- ended up being
executed by firing squad.
Hopefully,
you can see where I’m going with this: that the Pastry War set a pattern for
French intervention in Mexico, without which we wouldn’t have had the Battle of
Puebla or Cinco de Mayo. It’s not a slam dunk I admit; we could very well be drinking
margaritas on some other stolen Mexican holiday. Never underestimate the
perseverance and ingenuity of drunken gringos.
And chewing
gum? In 1869, while in his last period of exile, Santa Anna was living in Staten
Island, New York. His American secretary, Thomas Adams – future partner of a dude
named William Wrigley, Jr., was intrigued by Santa Anna’s chewing of the
hardened sap of certain Central American trees of the genus Manilkara, a substance known to the
Aztecs and later, Mexicans as chicle. Adams
was an inventor and thought that chicle
could be a cheaper replacement for the rubber that was then being used in
carriage tires. He bought one ton from Santa Anna, who was trying to raise
money to hire an army to go back to Mexico, so he could be president, yet
again. But when chicle turned out to
not be so great for making tires, Adams was like, “Damn! What am I going to do
with all this chicle?” Fortunately, he was able to turn them into the
first commercially available chewing gum, Chiclets.
So would we
have chewing gum without the Pastry War? Who knows? Santa Anna could have ended up in Staten Island anyway. He was President of
Mexico something like ten or eleven times total. The dude was fucking unstoppable. Maybe
getting his leg shot off wouldn’t have made a difference in the invention of
chewing gum. Then again, maybe it’s all like that butterfly effect thing, and without
getting his leg shot off, history would have been totally different. Santa Anna
never would have met Adams, and we’d all be chewing whale blubber or something.
Gwyneth Paltrow would not have taken that train. And we would not be looking
forward to the First American Vampire Republic. I don’t know, man. History is
weird.
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