Santa Anna of Mexico (review)

Most histories of Mexico during the period from Independence to the Reforma (1821–1856) revolve to a greater or lesser degree around the figure of Antonio de Padua Maria Severino López de Santa Anna. The Diccionario Porrua has him as President of Mexico on ten separate occasions, and he plays prominent roles in every major event from the proclaiming of the republic in 1823, to the ending of the French empire in 1867. He has come to symbolize everything that went wrong about that time, personifying the factionalism, instability, corruption, and Mexico’s inability to defend itself from foreign invasion. Yet, the man who managed to live to 82-years-old, minus one leg, even today exerts a perverse fascination for his charisma, well over a century after his death.

Will Fowler’s new biography of “the man who was Mexico” takes up the challenge and carefully recreates this very important life. Surprisingly, the Antonio López de Santa Anna who emerges from these pages is both more believable than past incarnations, but less important. One of Fowler’s major contributions is to situate the man firmly in his locale in Veracruz. He illustrates how Santa Anna’s loyalty to his patria chica and unbridled love for his lands influenced his decisions. Apparently, he was a first-rate hacendado as was his first wife, Doña Inés, and was so successful that he brought notable prosperity to whatever estates he managed—whether in Mexico or in Colombia during his exile. Fowler also documents his subject’s loyalty to the army above all other aspects of Mexican nationality.

Santa Anna was content with his relatively narrow sphere of influence and as Fowler shows conclusively, never wanted to stay in Mexico City and govern. He preferred instead to act as a mediator in the disputes of the day. Perhaps had Santa Anna been the caudillo of Guadalajara or even Zacatecas his persistent urge to flee the capital would have done less damage. Instead, he held sway over the customs revenues from Mexico’s most important port. With the coffers of Veracruz in hand, he was unstoppable. When that was coupled, as it was until 1853, with the pen of Jose Maria Tornel, a brilliant propagandist and loyal friend, Santa Anna became the indispensable man in any moment of national crisis, of which there were more than enough. Given that Santa Anna was the obvious answer to any grave situation, his refusal to govern becomes much more significant. No one else had his prestige and charisma, and no one had his revenues either. The fact that he was unwilling to use his personal standing (when he had it) and his considerable energy to impose his will on politician and mass alike in order to settle disputes had a devastating impact. We cannot know if he could have brought order to Mexico in the 1820s or 1830s; Fowler asserts subtly that no one could have, but Santa Anna’s personality made that impossible.

It is a shame that this study is such a conventional biography with its traditional emphasis on politics and personality. Fowler admits at the end that Santa Anna was a product of his times, but throughout the book the reader is hard pressed to know what else was going on in Mexico. To some degree this is necessary. Certainly any biography of Santa Anna has to recount and explain every significant battle (although maps would have helped here), and most took place far away from Mexico City. Yet, Fowler’s Mexico seems basically unchanged for close to 50 years. There is enough secondary literature now available so that an author can outline the development of the country through the decades. Further, Fowler often leaves out inconvenient aspects that make for a much richer and complex study. For example, he repeats several times how Santa Anna enjoyed attending cockfights and mingling with the crowd on such occasions, but he says nothing about his relationships with...