Malcontents, Rebels, and Pronunciados: The Politics of Insurrection in Nineteenth-Century Mexico

10. The Pronunciamientos of Antonio López de Santa Anna,1821–1867

will fowler Ten. The Pronunciamientos of Antonio López de Santa Anna, 1821–1867 A s described by U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary WaddyThompson in the 1840s, “General Santa Anna has for the last quarter of a century played so conspicuous a part in the drama of Mexican politics and civil war, as to have attracted the attention of the world, and to have made his name in some degree historic . No history of his country for that period can be written without constant mention of his name.”1 Mexican conservative historian , politician, and ideologue Lucas Alamán would arrive at the same conclusion five years later, when he claimed in his 1852 Historia de Méjico that the country’s history during the early national period “could well be called the history of Santa Anna’s revolutions .”2 If there was one truly consummate and repeat-offending pronunciado in nineteenth-century Mexico, it was without doubt the Veracruzan warlord, hacendado, and six-times president, Antonio López de Santa Anna.3 In the course of his long and eventful life he initiated or took over the leadership of five separate national pronunciamientos— in Veracruz, 2 December 1822; San Luis Potosí, 5 June 1823; Perote , 16 September 1828; Veracruz, 2 January 1832; and Perote, 9 September 1841—and tried but failed to stage a sixth in Veracruz on 7 June 1867.4 He rose to the presidential seat, moreover, as an indirect result of the pronunciamiento series of 1832, 1846, 206 Fowler and 1852–53; in each of these cases the pronunciamientos created a context in which Santa Anna could be elected president (1833, 1846) or in which the government could declare him ruler (1853). The Bases de Tacubaya that led to Santa Anna having “almost absolute power,” to quote the British minister plenipotentiary of the time, were drafted in 1841 as a direct result of the combined pronunciamientos of Guadalajara (8 August), the Ciudadela barracks in Mexico City (4 September), and Perote (9 September).5 Beyond those pronunciamientos that he led or which resulted in his rising to power, he was invited, alongside General Anastasio Bustamante, to lead the pronunciamiento of Xalapa (4 December 1829), which culminated in the overthrow of General Vicente Guerrero’s government. And Santa Anna was invited again four years later, this time to become absolute dictator of Mexico, in the plans of Ignacio Escalada (26 May 1833), Gabriel Durán (1 June 1833), and Mariano Arista (8 June 1833). On both these occasions Santa Anna declined the invitation. When in power, he also exploited the cycles of pronunciamientos of 1834 and 1842 to close down Congress and the series of 1835 to bring an end to the First Federal Republic. Although he was not the obvious or declared author or instigator of these pronunciamientos , politicians close to him were, such as the ubiquitous José María Tornel.6 Although two of the successful pronunciamiento cycles in which Santa Anna participated while in the opposition served to bring him to power through extra-constitutional means (1832, 1841), those that he backed indirectly or with which he sympathized while in power allowed him to adopt temporary dictatorial measures. Whether allegedly challenging tyranny or supposedly adopting emergency powers to save the patria from social dissolution, the use of the pronunciamiento would allow him to Pronunciamientos of Antonio López de Santa Anna 207 claim that he was obeying the “will of the people,” as expressed in so many constellations of pronunciamientos of the period.7 As well as leading and evidently benefiting from the success of a number of pronunciamientos, he actively backed pronunciamientos like the Plan of Iguala (24 February 1821) with which Mexico achieved its independence. He also came to endorse the demands of pronunciamientos he had not in fact promoted, either directly or indirectly, as was the case with the 1847 pronunciamientos of the so-called Polkos of 26 February and 8 March, which forcefully persuaded him to remove Vice-President Valent ín Gómez Farías from office and to repeal the anticlerical law of 11 January. Notwithstanding Santa Anna’s prominent and notorious role as a regular instigator and cunning user of pronunciamientos, it is worth noting that he played an equally important role as a crusher of pronunciamientos. Besides being a compulsive pronunciado who planned, led, and benefited from participating in or endorsing one or more pronunciamientos in 1821, 1822...