Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo

Hello all, and welcome back to A Different Opinion. Today, in honor of this special holiday, Cinco de Mayo, I thought it would be appropriate for us to talk about what Cinco de Mayo is and how this day became a holiday. Keep in mind that this will be an abridged account of the events that led up to the Battle of Puebla and Cinco de Mayo, so feel free to look up more information if this has interested you in the history of this holiday. Let’s get started.

Now before I talk about what Cinco de Mayo is, let’s talk about the historical background to this event.  After the Texas War for Independence, the United States of America wanted to annex Texas and create it into a state. The United States couldn’t annex Texas not only because it would anger Mexico, but because if they did, Texas would be a slave state and that would upset the tense situation in Congress on the topic of slave states. It wasn’t until 1845 that Texas was actually annexed and this led to the Mexican-American War. Mexico claimed that the border between Texas and Mexico was the Rio Nueces while the United States claimed the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico. This disagreement caused the Mexican-American War because at the time Manifest Destiny was a sentiment shared by many of the politicians at the time. Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was destined to expand from coast to coast. President James K. Polk was an advocate for Manifest Destiny and attempted to gain the Oregon territory from the British, but was unable to gain all of it, settling for half.

So how did this lead up to Cinco de Mayo? Well, I’m getting there. President Polk ordered troops to the Rio Grande border in order to tempt Mexico into attacking the troops and giving Polk an excuse to convince Congress to declare war on Mexico for “spilling American blood on American soil” even though that land was disputed. This in turn caused the Mexican-American War. Polk wanted to tempt Mexico into war so that the United States could take the California and other territories.

After fighting for about a year, the United States won the war and Mexico had to give the California territory to the United States, and later Mexico would sell a small strip of land in the Gadsden Purchase. After the Mexican-American War Mexico was broke and the President/dictator at the time, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna decided to sell the small strip of land to the United States so Mexico could have some money; however, Santa Anna spent most of the money and was exiled from Mexico. Let’s fast forward about 15 years. Benito Juarez became President, though Santa Anna would not stay in exile for long. One of Juarez’s first acts as president was to hold off payments to foreign countries. This angered the major creditors of Mexico, France, Great Britain, and Spain. The three countries decided to unite their efforts to get their money from Mexico by signing the Treaty of London in 1861. France, under Emperor Napoleon III, decided that invading Mexico and conquering it would be a better decision than simply taking over Mexico’s ports. Once Great Britain and Spain found out about this, they backed off and withdrew their support.

France decided to appoint Archduke Maximilian I of Austria as emperor of Mexico as a puppet monarch so that Mexico could be properly under French control. Of course Mexico resisted these attempts of the French to control them. French troops were retreating to the coast and Mexican troops saw them and misunderstood the retreat, attacking the French. Mexican troops were pushed back to Acultzingo Pass where the Mexicans were defeated in a skirmish on April 28. The leader of the Mexican troops, General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, decided to retreat to the heavily fortified city of Puebla. Here’s where things get better. On May 5, 1862 the leader of the French troops, General Charles de Lorencez, decided to attack the city because he believed that the citizens of Puebla would be friendly to the French. He was wrong. Not only were the citizens of Puebla against the French, but his attack would be useless because of the fortifications of the city. As the French retreated from their final assault, Zaragoza had his cavalry attack them from the right and left while troops concealed along the road pivoted out to flank them badly. By 3 p.m. the daily rains had started, making a slippery quagmire of the battlefield. Lorencez withdrew to distant positions, counting 462 of his men killed against only 83 of the Mexicans. He waited a couple of days for Zaragoza to attack again, but Zaragoza held his ground. Lorencez then completely withdrew to Orizaba.

This battle was a huge morale booster for the Mexicans fighting against the French, and helped delay the French winning the war. Ultimately the French managed to win the war, and Mexico would be under French rule until 1867 when Maximilian was overthrown and executed. The future president/dictator of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, was fighting in this battle, and began to get national importance because of the role he played. Now that we’ve covered the history of the Battle of Puebla, how important is the anniversary of the battle? On May 9, 1862 President Juarez declared Cinco de Mayo to be a national holiday, and today schools are closed in honor of this day, but most of the celebrations of the Battle of Puebla are mostly centered in the state of Puebla and other regions, not the whole country. Many misconceptions have arisen from the fact that it is a holiday in the United States, such as some people believing Cinco de Mayo to be the Mexican Independence day, which is September 16. In the US Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in an attempt to show Mexican heritage, though many people tend to associate it with Hispanic/Latin heritage. Cinco de Mayo was originally only celebrated by Mexican immigrants or Mexican-Americans in the US during the American Civil War. As my old AP World History teacher used to say, “Americans will celebrate any holiday that lets them get drunk in the middle of the day without looking bad.”