Liberal Arts Blog — The Cinco De Mayo is Not The Mexican Fourth of July
Liberal Arts Blog — Tuesday is the Joy of Literature, Language, Religion, and Culture Day
Today’s Topic: the Cinco de Mayo is Not the Mexican Fourth of July
The Cinco de Mayo, really a child of the Chicano movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and some aggressive marketing by beer, wine, and tequila companies in the 1980s, celebrates the victory of the Mexican Army over the French Army in the first Battle of Puebla of May 5, 1862.
The Mexican equivalent of the July 4, 1776 is September 16, 1810, the official “Dia de la Independencia,” the climax of the “mes de la Independencia” (month of independence).
What happened on September 16, 1810? And what is the significance of the Battle of Puebla?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
SEPTEMBER 16, 1810 IS THE DAY FATHER HIDALGO, A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, RANG HIS CHURCH BELL AND ISSUED “A CALL TO ARMS” AGAINST THE SPANISH EMPIRE — This is called the “Grito (Cry) de Dolores (a town in Guanajuato)” Below is part of Juan O’Gorman’s “Retablo (originally a painting behind the altar of a church) de la Independencia”
1. The Mexican Declaration of Independence was signed at the end not the beginning of the war.
2. The Mexican War of Independence lasted 11 years, 12 days — until September 28, 1821.
3. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla is known as the “Father of the Nation” — eg. Mexico’s George Washington.
NB: Hidalgo “marched across Mexico and gathered an army of nearly 90,000 poor farmers and Mexican civilians who attacked Spanish Peninsular and Criollo elites. Hidalgo’s insurgent army accumulated initial victories on its way to Mexico City, but his troops ultimately lacked training and were poorly armed. These troops ran into an army of well-trained Spanish troops in the Battle of Calderon Bridge and were defeated. After the battle, Hidalgo and his remaining troops fled north, but Hidalgo was betrayed, captured and executed.”
THE VICTORY OF THE FIRST BATTLE OF PUEBLA IN 1862 WAS FOLLOWED BY A DEFEAT AT THE SECOND BATTLE OF PUEBLA BUT THE FRENCH EVENTUALLY WITHDREW AS THE UNITED STATES SUPPORTED THE MEXICAN REPUBLICANS AGAINST THE CONSERVATIVES WHO WERE ALLIED WITH THE FRENCH — what were the French doing in Mexico anyway? (below, Benito Juarez, the hero of Mexico’s ouster of the French)
1. Defeated in a three year civil war against the liberal govenment of Benito Juarez, Mexican conservatives welcomed the French invasion of Mexico in 1861 “to force the collection of Mexican debts in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain.”
2. The French established a Mexican monarchy under Archduke Maximilian but Napoleon III withdrew his troops a few years later as the Prussian threat in Europe demanded a re-allocation of resources and US aid to the liberals made victory less likely.
3. Maximilian was executed by firing squad in 1867. The execution was immortalized in a series of paintings by Edouard Manet (1832–1883). (see Appendix below)
NB: Benito Juarez (1806–1872) “Of Zapotec ancestry, he was the first and only indigenous president of Mexico and the first democratically elected indigenous president in the postcolonial Americas….He is considered the most popular Mexican president of the 19th century.” (see fifth link below for details)
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION, CONSIDERED THE DEFINING EVENT OF MEXICAN HISTORY OCCURRED IN THE 20TH CENTURY — between 1910 and 1920 — about a million people (mostly noncombatants) died, but who was the hero?
1. Was it Emiliano Zapata, the leader of the peasant army of the south?
2. Or was it Pancho Villa in the North?
3. Or was it the more moderate Francisco Madero? or General Obregon?
NB: The bad guy was the dictator Porfirio Diaz (1830–1915) who ruled Mexico off and on for 35 years. His reign is referred to as the “Porfiriato.”
APPENDIX — Edouard Manet’s “Execution of Emperor Maximilian” (and two of his generals)
1. “Maximilian was captured on Cerro de las Campanas in May 1867, sentenced to death at a court martial and executed together with Generals Miguel Miramon and Tomas Mejia on 19 June 1867.”
2. Manet produced five works on the subject between 1867 and 1869.
3. The painting is clearly inspired by the even more famous “Third of May 1808” by Francisco Goya (1746–1828) which depicted the execution of members of the Spanish resistance to the invading troops of Napoleon I.
Mexican War of Independence — Wikipedia
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla — Wikipedia
Second French intervention in Mexico — Wikipedia
The Execution of Emperor Maximilian — Wikipedia
The Third of May 1808 — Wikipedia
Francisco I. Madero — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY INTO FOURTEEN BOOK-LENGTH PDFS:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to words, language, literature, religion, culture.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to Words, Language, Literature (eg. quotes, poetry, vocabulary) that you have not yet shared.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
