Antonio López de Santa Anna

Background

Antonio López de Santa Ana was born on February 21, 1794 in Jalapa, Veracruz. His family was Spanish and Caucasian. His father, a well-to-do Veracruz mortgage broker, had estates in Jalapa.

Education

When Santa Ana was 16, the family sent him to the military academy, from which he graduated in time to serve in the royalist army against the forces of independence.

Career

He fought against Miguel Hidalgo, the priest and original leader of the independence movement, in Texas and distinguished himself in battle. Apparently a gambling scandal delayed his promotion, and by 1821, despite a distinguished record in the Spanish army, Santa Ana had reached only the rank of captain. In that year he defected to the conservative but proindependence army of Gen. Agustín de Iturbide. The grateful rebels made him first a colonel and later a brigadier general.

Santa Ana did not remain loyal for long; he was one of the first to pronounce against Iturbide's empire, seizing the port of Veracruz in the name of the 1823 revolt which ended Iturbide's short-lived imperial experiment. In 1823 Santa Ana endorsed a republic but later admitted that a Jalapa lawyer had only briefly explained to him all that he knew about republicanism.

In the late 1820s the "republican" general Santa Ana served various Mexican governments as an officer first in Yucatän and later in Veracruz. In 1827 he was one of the principal supporters of the presidential bid of independence hero Vicente Guerrero. The same year at Tampico he took the surrender of a small yellow fever-ridden Spanish force from Cuba which had attempted to invade Mexico. Now the "hero of Tampico, " he became an important figure in the chaotic world of Mexican politics. The liberal Congress elected him president, and he took office in 1833 with the determined anticlerical Valentín Gómez Farías his vice president.

Santa Ana's first presidency never even got started. The newly elected president pleaded sick and remained on his hacienda, Magna de Clavo, in Veracruz, leaving Gómez Farías as provisional president. The latter attacked Church and military legal privileges and attempted to reduce the army's size. Santa Ana then posed as the champion of traditional interests and overthrew Gómez Farías. Calling himself "liberator of Mexico, " he assumed a dictatorship, dismissed Congress, restored military and ecclesiastical prerogatives, and exiled the leading liberals.

The result was a period of confusion: revolts and counterrevolts, with Santa Ana resigning and again taking office. In 1836 he led a Mexican army into Texas, and after some initial successes his forces were annihilated by Sam Houston at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. Santa Ana, a prisoner of the Texans, signed the Treaty of Velasco, granting the withdrawal of Mexican troops and the "independence" of Texas. During a short sojourn as a prisoner in Washington, he conferred with President Andrew Jackson and returned to Mexico in February 1837.

While imprisoned in the United States, Santa Ana had been deposed by the conservative Congress, which had abrogated his agreement with the Texans and recalled former president Anastasio Bustamante. Still somehow a national hero, Santa Ana retired to Magna de Clavo for 18 months. In November 1838 he emerged to lead a Mexican force against a French squadron bombarding San Juan de Ulúa in the "pastry war. " Caught in a cannonade, he lost a leg to the invaders, a sacrifice which apparently greatly increased his political appeal. He was now the "hero of Veracruz. "

In 1839, faced with a liberal revolt, President Bustamante named Santa Ana interim president, a post which he held from March to July. In a period of further confusion and fiscal bankruptcy, Santa Ana doggedly maneuvered through various alliances. By October 1841 he had returned to Mexico City, where he was once again president of Mexico by virtue of a conservative junta. This time his government lasted until 1842. In March 1843 he again resumed the executive and ruled until July 1844.

Overthrown in 1844, Santa Ana again retreated to Veracruz. In 1845 the government captured him and exiled him to Cuba. He solicited aid from the United States, promising to amicably settle the Texas boundary dispute if he returned to power. Permitted to pass through the American blockade of the Mexican coast, he broke his promise and began to prepare Mexico for war. In December 1846 he became Mexico's president. In 1847 he once more led Mexican troops against American forces. The Mexicans, badly beaten owing in part to Santa Ana's incompetence and in part to internal quarrels, lost much valuable territory. In 1847, fleeing both his Yankee and Mexican enemies, the general took refuge on the British Island of Jamaica, but his incredible career had not yet closed. He spent 2 years in Venezuela, devoting his time to farming while Mexico sank further into chaos.

In 1853 the conservatives again seized power. Their leader, Lucas Alamán, sponsored Santa Ana as an interim president until a suitable monarch could be found. In April 1853 Santa Ana again returned as president of Mexico. But Alamán's constructive influence ended with his death in June, and Santa Ana continued to dissipate government funds. In April 1854 he signed the Gadsden Treaty, selling Arizona to the United States for $10 million. In August 1855 the liberals, led by Juan Álvarez, revolted against the increasingly corrupt regime. Santa Ana again fled. A decade later he attempted to stage yet another comeback during the European intervention, but he no longer had any following. He again went into exile but was allowed to return in 1873 to Mexico. No longer a danger, he lived out his last days in semipoverty, dying in Mexico City in June 1876.

Achievements

• The Mexican general and statesman Antonio López de Santa Ana was often called the "man who was Mexico. " An unprincipled adventurer, he dominated Mexico for some 25 years, during which he served as president six times, switching parties and ideologies at will.

Works

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• book

  • IMPORTANTE DOCUMENTO PARA JUZGAR SI TRAICIONO A MEXICO

Politics

He remained a political illiterate all his life, one year a rabid Jacobin liberal, the next a monarchist.

Antonio López de Santa Anna was a Mexican politician and general who fought to defend royalist New Spain and then for Mexican independence. He greatly influenced early Mexican politics and government, and was a skilled soldier and cunning politician, who dominated Mexican history in the first half of the nineteenth century to such an extent that historians often refer to it as the "Age of Santa Anna". He was called "the Man of Destiny", who "loomed over his time like a melodramatic colossus, the uncrowned monarch. " Santa Anna first opposed the movement for Mexican independence from Spain, but then fought in support of it. Though not the first caudillo (military leader) of modern Mexico, he "represents the stereotypical caudillo in Mexican history, " and among the earliest. Conservative historian, intellectual, and politician Lucas Alamán wrote that "The history of Mexico since 1822 might accurately be called the history of Santa Anna's revolutions. .. . His name plays the major role in all the political events of the country and its destiny has become intertwined with his. "

An enigmatic, patriotic and controversial figure, Santa Anna had great power in Mexico; during a turbulent 40-year career, he served as general at crucial points and served eleven non-consecutive presidential terms over a period of 22 years. In the periods of time when he was not serving as president, he continued to pursue his military career. A wealthy landowner, he built a firm political base in the major port city of Veracruz. He was perceived as a hero by his troops; he sought glory for himself and his army, and independent Mexico. He repeatedly rebuilt his reputation after major losses. Historians and many Mexicans also rank him as perhaps the principal inhabitant even today of Mexico's pantheon of "those who failed the nation. " His centralist rhetoric and military failures resulted in Mexico losing just over half its territory, beginning with the Texas Revolution of 1836, and culminating with the Mexican Cession of 1848 following its defeat by the United States in the Mexican–American War.

His political positions changed frequently in his lifetime; "his opportunistic politics made him a Liberal, Conservative, and uncrowned king. " He was overthrown for the final time by the liberal Revolution of Ayutla in 1854 and lived most of his later years in exile.

Connections

Santa Anna married twice, both times to wealthy teenage girls. At neither wedding ceremony did he appear, legally empowering his future father-in-law to serve as proxy at his first wedding and a friend at his second. One assessment of the two marriages is that they were arranged marriages of convenience, bringing considerable wealth to Santa Anna, and that his lack of attendance at the wedding ceremonies "appears to confirm that he was purely interested in the financial aspect on the alliance. "

In 1825, he married María Inés García, the daughter of wealthy Spanish parents in Veracruz, and the couple had four children: María de Guadalupe, María del Carmen, Manuel, and Antonio López de Santa Anna y García. By 1825, Santa Anna had distinguished himself as a military man, joining the movement for independence when other creoles were also seeing Mexican autonomy as the way forward under royalist turned insurgent Agustín de Iturbide and the Army of Three Guarantees. When Iturbide as Mexican emperor lost support, Santa Anna had been in the forefront of leaders seeking to oust him. Although Santa Anna's family was of modest means, he was of good creole lineage; the García family may well have seen a match between their young daughter and the up-and-coming Santa Anna as advantageous. María Inés's dowry allowed Santa Anna to purchase the first of his haciendas, Manga de Clavo, in Veracruz state.

The wife of the first Spanish Ambassador to Mexico, Fanny Calderón de la Barca and her husband visited with Santa Anna's first wife Inés at Manga de Clavo, where they were well-received with a breakfast banquet. Mme. Calderón de la Barca observed that "After breakfast, the Señora having dispatched an officer for her cigar-case, which was gold with a diamond latch, offered me a cigar, which I having declined, she lighted her own, a little paper 'cigarito', and the gentlemen followed her good example. "

Two months after the death of his wife Inés García's in 1844, the 50-year-old Santa Anna married 16-year-old María de los Dolores de Tosta. The couple rarely lived together; de Tosta resided primarily in Mexico City and Santa Anna's political and military activities took him around the country. They had no children, leading biographer Will Fowler to speculate that the marriage was either primarily platonic or that de Tosta was infertile.

Several women claimed to have borne Santa Anna natural children. In his will, Santa Anna acknowledged and made provisions for four: Paula, María de la Merced, Petra, and José López de Santa Anna. Biographers have identified three more: Pedro López de Santa Anna, and Ángel and Augustina Rosa López de Santa Anna.

Father:

Antonio López de Santa Anna

Mother:

Manuela Pérez de Lebrón

Daughter:

María del Carmen

Daughter:

María de Guadalupe,

Son:

Antonio López de Santa Anna y García

Son:

Manuel López de Santa Anna y García

Spouse (2):

María de los Dolores de Tosta

(1844-1876); his death

Spouse (1):

María Inés de la Paz García

(1825-1844); her death

References

• Santa Anna;: The story of an enigma who once was Mexico
• The Eagle: The Autobiography of Santa Anna
• Forging Mexico, 1821-1835
• The Central Republic in Mexico, 1835-1846: 'Hombres de Bien' in the Age of Santa Anna (Cambridge Latin American Studies)
• Santa Anna’s Mexican Army 1821–48 (Elite)