Monday, 1 January 2018
A Few Points Concerning the Life and Times of Lorenzo de Zavala...
PLEASE NOTE: IF THIS ARTICLE APPEARS IN ONLY BLACK AND WHITE, PLEASE RIGHT CLICK ON THE WHITE AREA ON THE FAR RIGHT MARGIN AND WAIT FOR A SECOND OR TWO. THE COLORIFIC PRESENTATION SHOULD APPEAR AUTOMATICALLY.
We include the first overview of Lorenzo as a matter of convenience. Some of our readers are interested in copying the article for the purpose intended. that purpose is to provide especially the younger among us
to see, hear, and envision within their own minds something beyond the standard, at times valid and at times misunderstood, treatment of the period from 1834 to and including almost all of 1836.
that the Mision San Antonio de Valero del Alamo, the Roman Catholic teaching mission established to deal with Indians who were not as advanced as those nations that had been encountered 200 years before in the central part of what became known as Mexico.
__________________
1st Volume:
 |
Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano
de Zavala y Sáenz
|
Of all the figures in the panoply of saints of the Texian Cause against the Centralist Forces in Mexico, during the period uniting the first and second thirds of the 19th Century, my decision as to the most important and valuable personality has been made. This is at the point where El Gringo Viejo, truly is 'viejo' and has long since crossed third base in the game of Life. This is a truly, long-term studied opinion.
The man whom we wish to celebrate and commend to the attention of all the youngsters who are wandering around on their computer games and twitter accounts, is the individual pictured on the left.
He has the typical long, drawn-out, Spanish formal name placed there so that younger Texians can become familiar with such things. In probability his first two names came from both sides of his parentage. The third "first name" belonged first to a favoured Uncle possibly. And, the Zavala name is his father's surname, Saenz is his mother's.
Some historians are certain that Zavala y Saenz had at least paternal Basque (north and north central Spanish) ancestry. The surnames, however, might point the researcher in the direction of the medieval Arabic (Zavala) and Hebrew (Saenz) origin from the same period, drawn from the Sephardics who had filtered in from the punishment and fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman Empire, and then again accompanying the Saracen Invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by the Mohammedans in the 7th Century.
 |
| Franciscan mission established in 1500's in the Mayan village of Tecoh |
While one-fourth of the Spanish language is derived from classical Arabic even to-day, other languages whittled away at the "official language of Islam" (Arabic) for 700 years until it became quite obvious that a new language had been forming and solidifying during that time lapse. Latin (Italian), Gaelic, French, Greek, and the peculiar Basque language worked their linguistic chemistry until, let us arbitrarily say, Spanish would first distill itself around 900 a.d. and become later a trade and commercial "language of Empire" when Spain would dominate the world stage. That would have been in the 1200 a.d. through 1700 a.d. period. These matters are important, because it would appear to this writer that the family of Lorenzo de Zavala always seemed to be properly placed. They were not royal or even of the higher aristocracy, but they were literate, well-schooled, involved in commerce and wealth production and protection, and because some or much of the extended family were lower level aristocrats, they gained and kept high office.
 |
| Typical double-apsial home in Tecoh, a bit more elaborate but very similar to what Lorenzo would have seen. There are many still and the traditional style above is very prevalent to this day |
For instance, during the 1700s, Lorenzo's gradnfather and father worked both in Peru before moving to the North and the Spanish province of Yucatan, in what was New Spain (Mexico) at that time. Actually, the Yucatan then, as now, had the air about it that it was a separate place, unto itself.
And what was his "office"? He was a "notario", a very important legal position in Spain, the colonial areas of Spain around the world, and even to-day in Mexico. For instance the buying and selling of land and real property in Mexico is best done to this day, and officialised only by, a Notario Publico. The same rule applies throughout Latin America where Spain once dominated and ruled.
Lorenzo de Zavala was born, in 1788, in a small village by the name of Tecoh (teh-KOH) not far from the elegant City of Merida, known as the "White City". Some say that the city was so named because it was the centre of population for the Caucasian population of the Yucatan (partially true), while others point out that even to-day, the construction and painting that predominates is white cement, limestone blocks, white brick, and white paint (especially true).
El Gringo Viejo assures one and all that it is very "white", eye-squintingly bright, especially during the torrid, tropical Summertime. Mornings and late afternoons and evenings are wonderfully pleasant and worthy of investigation by any reasonable traveller.
 |
| An idea about why the "White City" Merida is called what it is. |
Even in the days of Lorenzo's childhood, Tecoh was a short distance, perhaps an hour by carriage to the Cathedral in the middle of Merida. There is little doubt that Lorenzo could speak the language of the native peoples, the Maya. That language has six major dialectic groups, and as many as 90 significant sub- dialects. But, the Maya around where Lorenzo grew up thought of themselves as "The Maya" and spoke Maaya t'aan (literally - Maya speech). The division of Maya who resided in the Yucatan were known to other Maya further to the South as the Puuc Maya....puuc meaning "flatlands".
We then must consider that Lorenzo de Zavala was a boy born into the lower range of the upper class, that he was very literate, and he was very intelligent. He also gained the sense that the Yucatan was a different place from Mexico. He understood that the two entities were related and entangled politically, but he also thought it well that more power and authority be reserved to the locales and States and regions of Mexico than should be concentrated in Mexico City. The distance between Mexico City and its outlying domain was obviously one reason, but Lorenzo, early on, developed a certain mistrust for autocratic and bureaucratic centralised control. As an additional point of reference, Merida being far, far to the east of Mexico City, did not have freight or passenger rail service until 1954. Mexico City and Guadalajara and Mexico City Vera Cruz lines were finished a half century to almost a century before.
The Yucatan, during his time, and even to this day, was relatively non-corrupt when compared to the institutions operated by the Central Government. Laws passed were normally adhered to, and deals made were almost always respected the next morning. And furthermore, it was a place that could make its own way with fish and henequen. The world ate salted fish and the maritime world bought tonnes and tonnes of henequen rope and fibre. The climate of the region also lent to the production of citrus, tomatoe, corn, peppers (including the much ballyhoo'd habanero), and many other goodies from it rocky but fertile soils.
These matters are important, because it would appear to this writer that the family of Lorenzo de Zavala always seemed to be properly placed. They were not royal or even of the higher aristocracy, but they were literate, well-schooled, involved in commerce and wealth production and protection, and because some or much of the families were lower level aristocrats, they gained and kept high office.
For instance, during the 1700s, Lorenzo's father worked both in Peru and in the Spanish province of Yucatan, in what was New Spain (Mexico) at that time. Actually, the Yucatan then, as now, had the air about it that it was a separate place, unto itself. And what was his "office"? He was a "notario", a very important legal position in Spain, the colonial areas of Spain around the world, and even to-day in Mexico, for instance. The buying and selling of land and real property in Mexico is best done
and officialised only by, a Notario Publico. The same rule applies throughout Latin America where Spain once dominated and ruled.
We then must consider that Lorenzo de Zavala was a boy born into the lower range of the upper class, that he was very literate, and he was very intelligent. He also gained the sense that the Yucatan was a different place from Mexico. He understood that the two entities were related and entangled politically, but he also thought it well that more power and authority be reserved to the locales and States and regions of Mexico than should be concentrated in Mexico City. The distance between Mexico City and its outlying domain was obviously one reason, but Lorenzo, early on, developed a certain mistrust for autocratic and bureaucratic centralised control. As an additional point of reference, Merida being far, far to the east of Mexico City, did not have freight or passenger rail service until 1954. Mexico City and Guadalajara and Mexico City Vera Cruz lines were finished a half century to almost a century before.
The Yucatan, during his time, and even to this day, was relatively non-corrupt when compared to the institutions operated by the Central Government. Laws passed were normally adhered to, and deals made were almost always respected the next morning. And furthermore, it was a place that could make its own way with fish and henequen. The world ate salted fish and the maritime world bought tonnes and tonnes of henequen rope and fibre. The climate of the region also lent to the production of citrus, tomatoe, corn, peppers (including the much ballyhoo'd habanero), and many other goodies from it rocky but fertile soils.
Lorenzo de Zavala performed as a young man in such a way as to not only make his parents proud, but also to impress other forward looking thinkers and business people in the Yucatan. He had studied at the prestigious Franciscan Tridentine School of San Ildefonso in Merida, and then later began a newspaper that took issue with the treatment of Mexico by the Spanish Court and Spanish Royals. His newspaper eventually brought the wrath of the Spanish Cortez down upon Lorenzo and he was rewarded with three years of imprisonment for offending Rey Ferdinand VII and his buddies on the Spanish Court.
During his time in the "bote" (can), he actively pursued studies in the medical arts and sciences...qualifying for practice after two years study, a record for the time. However, he saw his calling in the task of "muckraking" and calling down the privileged and titled who did not also serve all classes of people in New Spain....soon to be Mexico.
He did not hate the rich, nor did he eschew their right to wealth and social position or their professions, but he did believe in the parable that"...those who had received much, of them shall be required much". He could be styled as a believer in the ancillary story of the three servants who had been entrusted with five talents to the first one, four to the second one, and one talent to the third. The master congratulated the first two for doubling their portion, but he castigated the third, and poorest one, for not having gained, for his own good, a matching talent.
His entire mindset was very much one of a person who would favour and endorse a general governmental scheme of democratic republicanism. He was not a fan of monarchy because he had seen the lack of political value and cultural worth of the Spanish crown during its decay (especially after the year 1800). His idea was to build a society based upon the value of each man, and each family as separate and sovereign entities bound in a society and culture of common law, applicable equally to the wealthy, the poor, and all social levels in between. While the swirl of the of the Mexican uprising against Spanish Rule began and deepened, Lorenzo appointed himself, being Governor of the Yucatan, to be the representative of that Province to the Royal Spanish Court. While enduring the wiles and caprices of Court political manoeuvring, he also sharpened his linguistic skills, perfecting his French and English to a point that during his travels in Europe people had difficulty determining his nationality. This would come to serve his purposes and objectives in life well in the years to come.
While before the Court, he advised the august body that Spain could win many battles against the Mexicans, but it would be a contest that would eventually be resolved in favour of the Mexicans. He told them about being a governor of a land of many haciendas, ruled as small nations essentially, producing henequen (sisal fibre), and tropical fruit and vegetables. He told them that their labour force were aboriginals who had built great cities and structures more impressive and of greater size than those found in Giza or anywhere in Europe.
He spoke of his native Maya Puuc and that they alone numbered almost 600, 000 souls, almost all now Christian, and that there were many nations within Mexico, many languages, that counting only the ten largest nations...the Maya, the Huastec, the Tlaxcala, the Otomi', the Mixtec, the Zapotec, the Quichole, the Totonac, the less organised Chichimeca of the north, and the upper and lower Tarascan of the Central Highlands...easily totalled to 7,000,000 souls. He would speak of the good the Spanish had done in educating and protecting in their way the native populations, but he warned that the time had come that the Aboriginal Peoples would demand legal equality and respect as independent citizens and cultures.
One could make the case that Lorenzo began to pave the road that would lead to an end of the War of Secession against Spain and allow for the establishment of an independent and sovereign nation of Mexico. That event occurred in 1821 when the Vice-Regency of Mexico, in the person of Juan O'Donoju' y O'Ryan, a brilliant diplomat, soldier, and political expert, came into Mexico at Vera Cruz, meeting with the leader of the Mexican forces who were fighting for some recognition of independence from the disordered Spanish authority.
True enough, much of the problems with Spanish order had been caused by the insistence of Napoleon Bonaparte to place his nephew on the Spanish throne, displacing the House of Borbon, this in 1812. This resulted, directly, in the various elements of Spanish influence, and the Portuguese, along with the United Kingdom combining and finally bringing Napoleon to his knees at Waterloo.
Instability continued in Mexico, further fracturing the concept of a monocultural government being able to control, administer, and advance life conditions for a nation that, at that time included everything from what is now Panama' up to and including what is now a significant portion of southwestern Canada. To this day, Mexico retains the marks of this period of regionalism. Large segments of Mexico have populations that truly tend to consider themselves first "Yucateco", or "Tapatio" (of the Region dominated by Guadalajara and the State of Jalisco), or "Capitalino" (people of the central Mexican capital), or "Regiomontano" (people of the land of Monterrey and Nuevo Leon - The Mountainous Kingdom) and so forth. These divisions exist to this day, although the knives are dull, they remain nevertheless, knives ready to be sharpened.
This brilliant leader, O'Donoju' y O'Ryan, most certainly would have had contact with Lorenzo during their time together at the Cadiz (lower chamber of the Spanish representation) and the Royal Court (the upper chamber of titled personalities). O'Donoju', early in 1821 sailed for Vera Cruz and met with his titular adversary, General Agustin de Iturbide, titular head of the armies of Mexico and a titled person with royal blood as well as being a Hero of the Independence movement.
The meeting in Vera Cruz resulted in fairly quick order in a suspension of hostilities, an agreement concerning the retirement of the Royal Army from Mexico along with various other technical details regard an armistice and recognition of Mexico's Independence and status as a Constitutional Monarchy, with Agustin de Iturbide being made the first Emperor of Mexico.
All of this might have seemed well and good to Lorenzo de Zavala, but while he admired O'Donoju' because of his "englightened" and very democratic republican proclivities, de Zavala felt strongly that Emperor Agustin would install a Roman Catholic hegemony and a rigid, centralist, and imperial governing system. It would be as if Spain of Old would be resuscitated on Mexican soil, and that the "disenlightenment" would be re-established.
He was not the only one. There were many intellectuals and many in the formative middle-class, along with certain of the wealthy hacienda and mining interests who had heard of and perhaps even studied a bit of "The American Experiment" with making every man a sovereign and every family a kingdom unto itself. Almost immediately, these agents of change began to move against the Empire. Before long, Agustin, who in fact had very shallow backing was deposed and exiled. Conventions were called and meetings held and a Constitution was published after considerable pushing and shoving and interminable speechifying. Among those who became most influential, a kind of Thomas Jefferson of Mexico, was one political prisoner, lawyer, newpaper publisher, medical doctor, political leader and ex-Governor of the Province of Yucatan, Lorenzo de Zavala. It was Lorenzo who contributed most to the writing of the Mexican Constitution of 1824. It was, with few exceptions a near perfect form of a true democratic republican blueprint prescribing common law approved by a Divine, but not necessarily Roman Catholic, hand.
The truth was clearly known by all. The document was largely Masonic of the York Rite. It was careful to avoid the demagoguery of the bloody and senseless Voltaire and Robespierre French experiment of the late 1780s. While many people can still be surprised that the Masonic movement ever touched Mexican shores, serious students of Mexican history know that almost all political matters in Mexico, since the 1750s especially, have been controlled by or participated in by Masonic interests. At times, the Mason fought among themselves between the liberal Yorquinos (York Rite) and the more conservative Escoseces (Scottish Rite).
It was the Constitucion de 1824 upon which Texians placed their faith before various Centralist actors on the Mexican political scene, including Nicolas Bravo and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna destroyed the document, through death by neglect. By the time the year 1836 rolled around, the Texians and the people of Coahuila were certain that the document was essentially ready for the "round file".
There is lore and some support for the idea that two flags flew at the Alamo, for instance. One was the banner of the New Orleans Greys, the one uniformed and relatively militarily equipped force that was recruited and trained in New Orleans, and which sent a fairly large body of troops (160 or so, with about 30 serving at the Alamo). The other was the Mexican tri-colour pictured above, which passively yet strongly proclaimed that the Alamo was fighting as a Mexican entity and that to assail against this flag was an act of political heresy.
Various Texians who owned property in Coahuila and elsewhere in Mexico, such as Colonel Dimmit, and of course, James Bowie held out hope that Texas could remain, somehow, fully sovereign, yet part of the Mexican panoply. Supposedly Santa Anna became furious when he saw the banner, although many if not most historians seem to doubt that such a marker existed on the parapets of the Alamo.
In any regard, the 1824 Constitution of Mexico was a wondrous work, done by the hand of Lorenzo de Zavala, and had it endured, much of Mexico's delay in becoming a developed nation would have been avoided. Because of its demise and its ultimate replacement by the Constitution of 1857 and then the post-revolucionario Constitucion de 1917, Mexico has suffered frequently from political forces and men who were either too strong or too weak.
|
| Typical double-apsial home in Tecoh, a bit more elaborate but very similar to what Lorenzo would have seen. There are many still and the traditional style above is very prevalent to this day |
and officialised only by, a Notario Publico. The same rule applies throughout Latin America where Spain once dominated and ruled.
We then must consider that Lorenzo de Zavala was a boy born into the lower range of the upper class, that he was very literate, and he was very intelligent. He also gained the sense that the Yucatan was a different place from Mexico. He understood that the two entities were related and entangled politically, but he also thought it well that more power and authority be reserved to the locales and States and regions of Mexico than should be concentrated in Mexico City. The distance between Mexico City and its outlying domain was obviously one reason, but Lorenzo, early on, developed a certain mistrust for autocratic and bureaucratic centralised control. As an additional point of reference, Merida being far, far to the east of Mexico City, did not have freight or passenger rail service until 1954. Mexico City and Guadalajara and Mexico City Vera Cruz lines were finished a half century to almost a century before.
 |
| Ferdinand VII, King of Spain until the usurpation by Napoleon in 1812 |
Lorenzo de Zavala performed as a young man in such a way as to not only make his parents proud, but also to impress other forward looking thinkers and business people in the Yucatan. He had studied at the prestigious Franciscan Tridentine School of San Ildefonso in Merida, and then later began a newspaper that took issue with the treatment of Mexico by the Spanish Court and Spanish Royals. His newspaper eventually brought the wrath of the Spanish Cortez down upon Lorenzo and he was rewarded with three years of imprisonment for offending Rey Ferdinand VII and his buddies on the Spanish Court.
During his time in the "bote" (can), he actively pursued studies in the medical arts and sciences...qualifying for practice after two years study, a record for the time. However, he saw his calling in the task of "muckraking" and calling down the privileged and titled who did not also serve all classes of people in New Spain....soon to be Mexico.
He did not hate the rich, nor did he eschew their right to wealth and social position or their professions, but he did believe in the parable that"...those who had received much, of them shall be required much". He could be styled as a believer in the ancillary story of the three servants who had been entrusted with five talents to the first one, four to the second one, and one talent to the third. The master congratulated the first two for doubling their portion, but he castigated the third, and poorest one, for not having gained, for his own good, a matching talent.
His entire mindset was very much one of a person who would favour and endorse a general governmental scheme of democratic republicanism. He was not a fan of monarchy because he had seen the lack of political value and cultural worth of the Spanish crown during its decay (especially after the year 1800). His idea was to build a society based upon the value of each man, and each family as separate and sovereign entities bound in a society and culture of common law, applicable equally to the wealthy, the poor, and all social levels in between. While the swirl of the of the Mexican uprising against Spanish Rule began and deepened, Lorenzo appointed himself, being Governor of the Yucatan, to be the representative of that Province to the Royal Spanish Court. While enduring the wiles and caprices of Court political manoeuvring, he also sharpened his linguistic skills, perfecting his French and English to a point that during his travels in Europe people had difficulty determining his nationality. This would come to serve his purposes and objectives in life well in the years to come.
While before the Court, he advised the august body that Spain could win many battles against the Mexicans, but it would be a contest that would eventually be resolved in favour of the Mexicans. He told them about being a governor of a land of many haciendas, ruled as small nations essentially, producing henequen (sisal fibre), and tropical fruit and vegetables. He told them that their labour force were aboriginals who had built great cities and structures more impressive and of greater size than those found in Giza or anywhere in Europe.
He spoke of his native Maya Puuc and that they alone numbered almost 600, 000 souls, almost all now Christian, and that there were many nations within Mexico, many languages, that counting only the ten largest nations...the Maya, the Huastec, the Tlaxcala, the Otomi', the Mixtec, the Zapotec, the Quichole, the Totonac, the less organised Chichimeca of the north, and the upper and lower Tarascan of the Central Highlands...easily totalled to 7,000,000 souls. He would speak of the good the Spanish had done in educating and protecting in their way the native populations, but he warned that the time had come that the Aboriginal Peoples would demand legal equality and respect as independent citizens and cultures.
True enough, much of the problems with Spanish order had been caused by the insistence of Napoleon Bonaparte to place his nephew on the Spanish throne, displacing the House of Borbon, this in 1812. This resulted, directly, in the various elements of Spanish influence, and the Portuguese, along with the United Kingdom combining and finally bringing Napoleon to his knees at Waterloo.
Instability continued in Mexico, further fracturing the concept of a monocultural government being able to control, administer, and advance life conditions for a nation that, at that time included everything from what is now Panama' up to and including what is now a significant portion of southwestern Canada. To this day, Mexico retains the marks of this period of regionalism. Large segments of Mexico have populations that truly tend to consider themselves first "Yucateco", or "Tapatio" (of the Region dominated by Guadalajara and the State of Jalisco), or "Capitalino" (people of the central Mexican capital), or "Regiomontano" (people of the land of Monterrey and Nuevo Leon - The Mountainous Kingdom) and so forth. These divisions exist to this day, although the knives are dull, they remain nevertheless, knives ready to be sharpened.
This brilliant leader, O'Donoju' y O'Ryan, most certainly would have had contact with Lorenzo during their time together at the Cadiz (lower chamber of the Spanish representation) and the Royal Court (the upper chamber of titled personalities). O'Donoju', early in 1821 sailed for Vera Cruz and met with his titular adversary, General Agustin de Iturbide, titular head of the armies of Mexico and a titled person with royal blood as well as being a Hero of the Independence movement.
 |
| Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu 1783 – 1824 |
All of this might have seemed well and good to Lorenzo de Zavala, but while he admired O'Donoju' because of his "englightened" and very democratic republican proclivities, de Zavala felt strongly that Emperor Agustin would install a Roman Catholic hegemony and a rigid, centralist, and imperial governing system. It would be as if Spain of Old would be resuscitated on Mexican soil, and that the "disenlightenment" would be re-established.
He was not the only one. There were many intellectuals and many in the formative middle-class, along with certain of the wealthy hacienda and mining interests who had heard of and perhaps even studied a bit of "The American Experiment" with making every man a sovereign and every family a kingdom unto itself. Almost immediately, these agents of change began to move against the Empire. Before long, Agustin, who in fact had very shallow backing was deposed and exiled. Conventions were called and meetings held and a Constitution was published after considerable pushing and shoving and interminable speechifying. Among those who became most influential, a kind of Thomas Jefferson of Mexico, was one political prisoner, lawyer, newpaper publisher, medical doctor, political leader and ex-Governor of the Province of Yucatan, Lorenzo de Zavala. It was Lorenzo who contributed most to the writing of the Mexican Constitution of 1824. It was, with few exceptions a near perfect form of a true democratic republican blueprint prescribing common law approved by a Divine, but not necessarily Roman Catholic, hand.
The truth was clearly known by all. The document was largely Masonic of the York Rite. It was careful to avoid the demagoguery of the bloody and senseless Voltaire and Robespierre French experiment of the late 1780s. While many people can still be surprised that the Masonic movement ever touched Mexican shores, serious students of Mexican history know that almost all political matters in Mexico, since the 1750s especially, have been controlled by or participated in by Masonic interests. At times, the Mason fought among themselves between the liberal Yorquinos (York Rite) and the more conservative Escoseces (Scottish Rite).
There is lore and some support for the idea that two flags flew at the Alamo, for instance. One was the banner of the New Orleans Greys, the one uniformed and relatively militarily equipped force that was recruited and trained in New Orleans, and which sent a fairly large body of troops (160 or so, with about 30 serving at the Alamo). The other was the Mexican tri-colour pictured above, which passively yet strongly proclaimed that the Alamo was fighting as a Mexican entity and that to assail against this flag was an act of political heresy.
Various Texians who owned property in Coahuila and elsewhere in Mexico, such as Colonel Dimmit, and of course, James Bowie held out hope that Texas could remain, somehow, fully sovereign, yet part of the Mexican panoply. Supposedly Santa Anna became furious when he saw the banner, although many if not most historians seem to doubt that such a marker existed on the parapets of the Alamo.
In any regard, the 1824 Constitution of Mexico was a wondrous work, done by the hand of Lorenzo de Zavala, and had it endured, much of Mexico's delay in becoming a developed nation would have been avoided. Because of its demise and its ultimate replacement by the Constitution of 1857 and then the post-revolucionario Constitucion de 1917, Mexico has suffered frequently from political forces and men who were either too strong or too weak.
__________________________
In the next installment, we shall take the reader into the mess surrounding the period of the first half of the year of 1836, and how it involved Lorenzo de Zavala, and why that is important to the "real Texian".
El GRINGO VIEJO
_______________________
2nd Volume
The turbulence of the period from 1821 through 1824 included not only the writing of the Constitucion de 1824, but also the problem of Agustin de Iturbide. His expulsion was not on "friendly terms". He was advised by the insurgent, republican group that Mexico would not have a regal office or person presiding over the nation. No Monarch!!
He was put on a ship and sent into exile in perpetuity. That meant, if he should return, he would certainly be captured and executed for violating the instruction to never set foot on Mexican soil again. Iturbide and his wife, children, and bevy of servants arrived in exile in Cuba, then Italy, and then in England. He set about writing a biography of his service and life, as well as a description of both his negotiation of the Treaty with O'Donaju' and the mecanation that he was going to return to Mexico's lightly populated northeast, and gather an army that would dislodge the Republican Constituitonalists from the rosy accommodations in Mexico City. He chose to land in Soto la Marina (dense undergrowth by the sea) - La Pesca (the business of fishing). Soto la Marina was a bit inland, while La Pesca was set directly at the mouth of the Rio Soto la Marina, about 13 miles from the town of the same name. Both of these names came from the homeland in northernmost Spain of Jose' de Escandon, one of the very best colonisers in the entire Spanish Colonial Epoch (1521 - 1821).
 |
| Mision de Santiago, Jalpan Fr. Junipero Serra Arquitecto |
It serves to point out that Father Junipero Serra is also the same priest who designed and supervised the building of various of the California missions, including the famous Capistrano...the one associated with the seasonal comings and goings of the swallows. Escandon would also move north, under orders from the Crown, to settle, late in the Colonial period, the Seno Mexicano (The Chest of Mexico), one of the most prohibitive parts of the entire extension of Spain in what would finally become the North American Continent.
The Seno Mexicano was a dreaded place, full of scorpions, rattlesnakes, thick underbrush, hopelessly dry, yet beset by 2.3 hurricanes per decade, and some of the orneriest Indians a group of Spanish colonial settlers could ever hope to run across, or not. The Indians here were not advanced of language, culture, or technology. They were very few, and beset with all nature of physical problems. The tribes were small, more like groupings of 30 - 40 individuals, and they were few. They would be set upon by the marauding Comanches and Apaches at regular intervals, every Spring.
Escandon had seven columns of soldiers who went to the edges of the newly openned country, and worked towards a centre that would take the name of San Fernando. He would settle in a place that would take the name of Soto la Marina (Undergrowth by the Sea), which was the name of Escandon's home town back in northernmost Spain. The entire province would take the name of Nuevo Santander, after Escandon's home province of Santander, situated with a nice view of the Bay of Biscay. During the 1750s, places whose names would become Reynosa, Matamoros, Rio Bravo, Mier, Camargo, Laredo, and Santander, Soto la Marina, and La Pesca were established and populated, once again by an able Army officer, and industrious settlers. In spite of all difficulties, the settlements took root, and prospered in spite of all the negative forces against them. There were many secondary settlements, many setbacks, but many more accomplishments.
The thing was, it had become an area where Agustin de Iturbide (Ah - guz - TEEN de ee - tehr - BEE - deh) thought that he would be well received, and which would have a large element of militia to drill and organise up to military grade troops to confront the upstart Republicans. But such was not to be. Iturbide left England, and made his way in good order with his family in tow, along with a small cadre of scribes, butlers, and maids.
As they made their way towards Soto la Marina, a column of Mexican soldiers came up and first arrested the es-Emperor. The commander of the soldiers was a Gen. de la Garza, who, lore has it, was the Godson of Iturbide. Before long, within hours, the good General had capitulated and become Iturbide's ally. But, by the time they made it to Soto la Marina, which had a considerable military presence, and the old, original Presidencia (offices and home) of Jose de Escandon, Gen. de la Garza determined that he would have to follow the orders of the the Mexican Congress, and execute the newly returned ex-Emperor.
Here, there is a bit of a disconnect. Normally it is reported that Iturbide was killed by a firing squad, being hit only by three balls, and only one being the mortal shot. It is said by researchers that the execution took place in Padilla, but it would have been impossible for the group to have been moved to Padilla, some seventy miles of very difficult trail, in four days from the time of arrival on the coast.
 |
| The chapel honouring the remains of the first Emperor of Mexico, Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu 27 September 1783 – 19 July 1824 |
And, we invite any who might wish, to study the intrigues and manoeuvring at the time between the general winding down of armed conflict between Spanish and Mexican forces and interests. The maze and the labyrinthine plots during the period of from 1821 and 1824 is something akin to trying to untangle a bird's nest in a fishing reel, in the middle of the night, when lightning is striking all around your boat, and you suddenly hear the sound of the rattles of a rattlesnake, and did I say, it's pitch-black midnight.
Some assistance might be rendered by reviewing the experiences of Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first minister and later full Ambassador of the United States to Mexico. It was remarked concerning Poinsett's service that;
"From the outset of his tenure as ambassador to Mexico, Poinsett was an outspoken
proponent of U.S.-style liberalism: decentralized, constitutional, republican government; anticlericalism; and free trade. A substantial number of influential Mexicans
found such activity decidedly pernicious, and their antipathy toward him was exacerbated
by the fact that the ambassador advocated extending the southern boundary of the
United States to the Rio Grande. Poinsett found like-minded cohorts in the York Rite
Masonic Lodge, which he helped to organise in Mexico. The York Rite Masons (or
Yorkinos) were rivals of the Scottish Rite Masons (or Escoceses), and the two lodges
increasingly emerged as bitter, secretive political clubs. The sub-rosa nature of these
political organisations was conducive to conspiratorial thinking, and Conservative
Escoceses became increasingly convinced that Poinsett was a subversive foreign agent
seeking deliberately to weaken and undermine Mexico."
AND, he was also a very active member of the York Rite Masonic fraternal order. Because of this he had a large choir of supporters...for instance...all of the York Rite Masonic members in Mexico were unabashed republicans, anti-monarchist, and even opposed to having a State church. Some even thought that it would be an interesting idea to allow women to vote, if literate, and perhaps especially in local elections.
The Escoceses (Scottish) Rite were dedicated to the idea of a State Church apostolically aligned directly with the See in Rome. They were also dedicated to maintaining the system of peonaje (peonage) which allowed large landowners and industrial interests to essentially simply control the underclass in a manner more constrictive than the system of slavery in the American South. It was a large group, united in the notion that people were born to their positions and that concepts such as social mobility were to be frowned upon. They were, howver, Masons, and very much dedicated to eleemosynary pursuits in terms of "helping" the poor, the prisoners, the oppressed, etc.
Our historical companion in these times and places, the then General de Brigada Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, switched back and forth between being a "Yorkino" and an "Escoces" apparently by the flip of a coin in the morning after he awoke and before his coffee with Kahlua.
At one time, he was even a strong proponent of the Constitution of 1824, although during the time of his military contention with Agustin Iturbide shortly after the brief Emperiato, Lopez de Santa Anna declared that he had no true idea of what a "Republic" even was; living proof that even a sociopathic psychopath can tell the truth about himself at least once.
Once again we must demand and require that the reader, be he a fifth grader, spreading his intellectual wings, or a junior at Texas State University taking the advanced Mexican History course as part of her degree package, to delve into the morass and quagmire of the period from 1821 until 1831 in Mexico. There was more intrique, backstabbing, lying, heroism, stick-to-it-ive-ness, nobility, and degenerate egotism than could have ever be crammed into a blog entry such as this. Simply following the time line of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna y Padua between and including the two year-markers above-included is enough for a doctoral dissertation, and has been enough for over 10,000 doctoral dissertations in academia during the past almost 200 years.
To make a long story as short as it can possibly be, let it be known that Poinsett and his Mexican Masonic friends were "whacked" politically by the Conservatives in Mexico's central zone (which, of course, included Mexico City). The Conservatives were not like the conservatives in the America of to-day. Those from the times present ostensibly say they want concentration of governmental power in the local areas...such as States, counties, and organised cities. Those Conservatives from the times that we are now considering wanted everything controlled by Mexico City...governmental, provincial, and / or religious matters should be controlled by personalities and officials of, for, and with the Mexico City "control group". After all they reasoned, why is it that "We of Mexico City are so clean and fair and almost everyone from 'la Provencia' is stupid, dark, and corrupt?" It was the perfect cultural / political storm.
As my Grandma Mamie would have said, "Each said of the other what the other said of each."
 |
| Poinsett's Christmas Flower gift to Ameroca Christmas Christmas Flower of Mexico given by a Conservative, (Scottish Rite) Masonic General Officer to the leader of the "liberal" (York Rite)Masonic Foreigner group, Joel Roberts Poinsett. Christmas would never be the same. afterwards. |
Almost everyone knows that the greatest botanical contribution that Poinsett brought back from Mexico was one that celebrated the coldest and darkest times. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna gave this gift to the very interesting and interested American Masonic interloper and it was duly loaded onto the ship that would return Poinsett to an American port. Lopez de Santa Anna had an elaborate collection of exotic orchids and tropical flowers, and he knew that Poinsett was interested in such things. So, in spite of the emnity between them, as a typical Mexican, he sent several bushels of prepared-for-transport tropical plants for a ride on the waves to South Carolina.
As an aside, the two houses of the Masonic orders more or less arrived at an unspoken accord during the Porfiriato (the Presidency of José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori, who like Benito Juarez Garcia, was a Mason of the liberal orders of the Escoceses. It is known, because of the precendents set by Santa Anna and others, that all municipality presidents, and all national Presidents, Senators, and Congressman, almost all gobernadores of States, were almost all Masons until the year1982 or so. Also....Please understand that many exceptions served to prove the general rule, to be sure.
___________________________
We have gone about as f''ur as we could go....More on Sunday!! F R E E EE!!!
El GRINGO VIEJO
_____________________________
______________________________
VOLUME 3
______________________________
VOLUME 3
If the reader understands nothing more, it is enough to understand that the 1820s in Mexico were turbulent and treacherous. It was a time when incessant intrigue and danger would permeate every aspect of business, political, and religious life. There were those who would stand by their principles, be those conservative, centralist views or the more liberal, local and State sovereignty advocates. But there were a few, very astute, totally corrupt, morally rudderless individuals who desired not the good life, but a great life, being adored, adulated, feared, and served.
At least, with Iturbide as Emperor, the top of the food chain was supposed to have been a fait accompli that would seal by inherited incumbency the "top spot" in the government. Agustin de Iturbide and his heirs would provide leadership within the construct of a parliamentary monarchy that would prove to be a model for the evolving, modern world.
As we pointed out before, a relatively humble Iturbide side-stepped and backed into the position of Emperor of all Lands west of the Missouri and Mississippi, and from (and including the Isthmus of Panama' to what is now British Columbia.
At least, with Iturbide as Emperor, the top of the food chain was supposed to have been a fait accompli that would seal by inherited incumbency the "top spot" in the government. Agustin de Iturbide and his heirs would provide leadership within the construct of a parliamentary monarchy that would prove to be a model for the evolving, modern world.
As we pointed out before, a relatively humble Iturbide side-stepped and backed into the position of Emperor of all Lands west of the Missouri and Mississippi, and from (and including the Isthmus of Panama' to what is now British Columbia.
