Santa Anna: Mexico’s Man of Destiny

**Sanitized Transcript:**

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Now, back to today’s video. For most Americans, he is a historical figure associated with the Mexican-American War and the Alamo. If people north of the border know much more about him, it’s often limited to his role in the Mexican-American War or perhaps his legendary excesses. However, there was so much more to Santa Anna than a footnote in U.S. history. Far from being a cartoonish villain, he was a consummate political survivor, managing to dominate Mexican politics for over 30 years.

Born Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in the port city of Veracruz, Santa Anna had an ability to adapt like no other—whether as a royalist or a rebel, liberal or conservative, democrat or dictator. He always found a way to not just survive the changing political winds but to thrive. The one constant in a half-century of chaos was his presidency, which he held no less than 11 times. This is the story of the man who shaped Mexico’s destiny, both for better and for worse.

Santa Anna repeatedly became president of his nation. Perhaps the most surprising thing about him is that he never really wanted Mexico to be independent. Born in Jalapa near Veracruz on February 21, 1794, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna grew up as a beneficiary of Spanish rule. At this time, Mexico was the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which included not just modern-day Mexico but also Central America and large portions of what we now call the southwestern U.S. This was a world segregated along strict lines, placing his family near the top. His parents were Creoles, people of ethnic Spanish descent born in the New World. While they ranked below the Peninsulares, people born in Spain, they did well for themselves. Santa Anna’s father owned estates and made money doing business for the Spanish crown. They weren’t rich, but they were wealthy enough that Santa Anna could drop out of school and still land a decent job with a merchant in Veracruz, New Spain’s key port.

However, the military was where his heart lay. At the age of 16, Santa Anna started pestering his father about joining the army. Despite having served himself, his father was reluctant to allow his son to become a cadet. But if there was one thing Santa Anna was good at, even at age 16, it was persuading people to let him do what he wanted. In June 1810, he enrolled in the Army of New Spain.

If you know anything about Mexican history, you’ll know that this was especially bad timing. 1810 was when the Viceroyalty collectively lost control. Just two years earlier, Napoleon had deposed the Bourbon monarchy in Spain, triggering the wars of independence in South America. However, New Spain had so far resisted the cry for revolution. At the time Santa Anna joined the cadets, a region known as the Bajío was on the cusp of exploding. The silver mining region had been hit hard by an economic crisis, leading to famine, despair, and resentment.

It was in this fertile soil that Don Miguel Hidalgo would plant the seeds of Mexican independence. On September 16, 1810, he combined his themes of poverty and independence into the famous “Grito de Dolores,” a call for his poverty-stricken congregation to take up arms against the Viceroyalty. Rather than join the independence struggle, Santa Anna was tasked with crushing it. As a new recruit, he was placed under the command of Joaquín de Arredondo and set out to destroy the rebels.

The Mexican War of Independence was chaotic, and Santa Anna soon found himself fighting both Indian uprisings and incursions from private adventurers known as filibusters. In 1812, he was deployed to Texas, where he was spellbound by Arredondo’s strategic genius. Arredondo was able to reduce a rebel force of 1,400 to just 100 survivors by choosing his defensive position wisely. However, his brutal tactics, including mass executions of rebels and punishing their families, left a lasting impression on the young soldier.

As the war dragged on, it began to look like Santa Anna had picked his side well. After years of bloody fighting, Hidalgo was long dead, and the Bourbon monarchy had been restored in Spain. In 1816, a new viceroy was sent from Spain, one who was more open to negotiation. It seemed like the war was winding down, and Santa Anna was winding down with it. Now in his mid-twenties, he had gone from fighting Indians to helping rebuild their villages. Although disciplined for misusing his unit’s funds, he had also risen through the ranks.

In 1820, a mutiny in Cadiz saw a new liberal constitution forced upon the king. Staying under the monarchy went from something New Spain’s conservatives desperately wanted to something about as appealing as a hamburger made of anthrax. The first to switch sides was Agustín de Iturbide, supposedly the head of the anti-rebel forces, who instead joined forces with one of the biggest rebel groups. Together, they marched on the capital. At this moment, Santa Anna made his first great pivot, declaring himself in support of the rebels. He took control of Veracruz, bringing it over to the republican side, and he couldn’t have timed it better.

Seeing the growing rebellion, New Spain threw in the towel, negotiations were opened, and on September 28, Mexico was declared an independent state. While not key to victory, Santa Anna’s pivot to the rebels was recognized, and he was promoted to general. In his new role, he fully supported Iturbide’s post-independence power grab, as the former soldier declared himself Emperor Agustín I of Mexico. However, the first Mexican Empire was too unstable for Santa Anna to stay on that side for long.

As Emperor Agustín was less an Augustus than a budding tyrant, he dissolved Congress and moved to set up a dictatorship. His worst move came in Veracruz, where he stripped Santa Anna of his rank, just as it became clear he was alienating all his supporters. With impeccable timing, Santa Anna switched sides again, declaring himself in support of the dissolved Congress. The results were significant; after Santa Anna broke ranks, other generals followed, and on March 19, 1823, the first Mexican emperor resigned, fleeing into exile.

His exit led to the Central American states jumping ship from Mexico, significantly reducing the young nation’s territory, but it also led to the restoration of the republic. Although he championed it at the time, Santa Anna later admitted he had no idea what republicanism really involved. As the restored Congress began to reorganize Mexico, Santa Anna took a step back from public life, exited the military, and became the civilian governor of Veracruz. He married Inés García, but if anyone assumed that was the end of Mexico’s man of destiny, they couldn’t have been more wrong.

The fall of Agustín gave everyone a taste of the divisions that would soon split Mexico. On one side stood the conservatives, pro-church and pro-centralized state, while on the other stood the liberals, who desired social justice and power to be devolved to Mexico’s individual states. After Agustín fled, it was the liberals who emerged triumphant, writing a new constitution that gave the federal government almost no power over the states. Unfortunately, this coincided with a massive economic slump, and the government defaulted on its loans, leading to widespread poverty.

Against this backdrop, the divisive election of 1828 was held. If you thought the 2020 U.S. election was divisive, just know that Mexico’s 1828 election was far worse. There were riots, uprisings, and disorder that lasted not just for years but for decades. From 1828 to 1855, the Mexican presidency would change hands no less than 48 times. Guess which political chameleon benefited from the chaos? As the echoes of that terrible election reverberated across the nation, Santa Anna found himself more popular than ever.

He was helped by Spain, which saw the 1828 debacle as an opportunity to land an expeditionary force and retake the country. They landed at Tampico, only for Santa Anna to raise an army and force them to retreat. This act of heroism earned him the nickname “Napoleon of the West.” By now, Santa Anna had helped see off a vice royalty, an emperor, and the Spanish navy.

In December 1829, Vice President Anastasio Bustamante overthrew his boss and began turning Mexico into a loose federation of states. However, each state had its own regional strongman or caudillo, none eager to give up power. Realizing the caudillos might rebel, Bustamante dispatched the army to kill Santa Anna. This went poorly for him; when Santa Anna got wind of the approaching army, he went on the attack, driving them out of Veracruz and back to the capital. In December 1832, his men marched triumphantly into Mexico City, defeating Bustamante, who fled into temporary exile.

Santa Anna became Mexico’s eighth president in May 1833. His ascension was seen as a triumph for Mexico’s liberals, but he was more interested in enjoying his title than exercising power. After a short stay in the capital, he put his VP, the radical liberal Valentín Gómez Farías, in charge and returned to Veracruz. However, by 1835, Farías’s radical reforms angered many, leading to revolts. Rather than support his VP, Santa Anna returned to Mexico City, overthrew him, and announced himself the head of a new conservative dictatorship.

Santa Anna’s transformation from liberal champion to conservative tyrant was complete. He dissolved Congress, exiled leading liberals, and published the “Siete Leyes,” stripping the states of their powers and consolidating them in his hands. For historians, this marks the end of Mexico’s first republic and the beginning of the centralist republic.

Most English-language documentaries on Santa Anna focus on his role in the Texas Revolution, but our goal is to provide an overview of his entire life. Not long after Texas erupted, Santa Anna personally rode north at the head of 7,000 men to quell the rebellion. Although his army was under-equipped, they laid siege to the Alamo, which fell in a bloody battle in early March. Santa Anna ordered the execution of captured men, a lesson learned long ago from Arredondo. However, he did allow women, children, and enslaved people at the Alamo to go free.

This act of clemency was a one-off; Santa Anna had studied under Arredondo and was determined to honor his old commander. The pinnacle of this came with the Goliad Massacre on March 27, where between 350 and 425 Texan prisoners of war were executed under Santa Anna’s orders, despite pleas from his commanders to reconsider. This became a public relations disaster, leading to a rallying cry among Texans.

On April 21, they ambushed Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, capturing him and forcing him to negotiate a deal that recognized Texas’s independence in exchange for his life. When he returned to Mexico, his reputation was in tatters. He resigned the presidency and retired, seemingly for good. However, Santa Anna was not just anyone; he was Mexico’s greatest political survivor.

A few years earlier, a minor incident involving a French pastry shop led to the French demanding compensation from Mexico. This conflict, known as the Pastry War, helped Santa Anna engineer a comeback. When the French fleet invaded Veracruz, he raised an army and successfully defended the city, although he lost his leg in the process. This act of sacrifice rehabilitated his image, and he became a hero once again.

When the presidency became vacant in 1841, Santa Anna returned to power. His transformation from outcast to hero president was remarkable, but it also led to some bizarre behavior. After the Pastry War, he had his amputated leg buried with full military honors, complete with a parade and speeches.

While his earlier presidency was marked by centralization, his new reign was far stranger. He became fixated on the idea of Mexico needing a monarch. Although he didn’t declare himself king, he forced people to call him “His Most Serene Highness” and signed his letters with grand titles. Statues of him sprang up across Mexico City, and streets were renamed in his honor. However, like Agustín, Santa Anna underestimated his country’s tolerance for a decadent monarch.

In 1844, after the death of his wife, he announced plans to marry a 15-year-old, which was too much for Mexican society. Rebellions erupted, and he was forced to flee the capital. Captured by an indigenous tribe, he was humorously threatened with being returned as a tamale. The new powers were done worrying about Santa Anna, and he was sent into exile once again.

However, this would not be the end. The election of James K. Polk in 1844 destabilized Mexico further. Polk was dedicated to expanding America, and in 1845, he authorized the annexation of Texas, which Mexico still claimed. In 1846, a Mexican unit shot at American troops, leading to the Mexican-American War. Santa Anna offered to negotiate with Polk, but upon landing in Mexico, he switched sides and raised an army against the Americans.

Despite some initial victories, Santa Anna’s army was no match for American forces. Mexico City fell in September 1847, and Santa Anna’s latest comeback was over. Once again, he was stripped of the presidency and sent into exile. The treaty forced on Mexico was nearly as destabilizing as the war itself, leading to the collapse of subsequent governments.

By 1853, Mexico was in chaos, and the conservative faction hatched a plan to establish a monarchy, needing someone strong in charge. On April 20, 1853, Santa Anna returned to power for the final time. However, once secure, he killed the plans for a monarchy and declared himself emperor. His rule was met with resistance, and his final undoing came when he exiled leading liberals instead of killing them.

One liberal, Benito Juárez, directed an uprising that chased Santa Anna from power. This time, no one expected it to be the end, but it was. Santa Anna’s last influence on Mexican politics was in 1855. What followed was an era dominated by Juárez, only broken when conservatives installed an emperor with French help.

For the next few decades, Santa Anna bounced around the Caribbean, waiting for a chance to return. He tried to stage another comeback after the second Mexican emperor fell but was tried for treason and sent back into exile, losing most of his property. In 1870, President Juárez announced a general amnesty for exiles, but Santa Anna waited until Juárez died before returning home in 1874.

By then, he was old, partially deaf, nearly blind, and forgotten by a country that had moved on. Unable to make another bid for power, Mexico’s great survivor died alone in poverty on June 21, 1876. Before the year was out, another caudillo, Porfirio Díaz, seized power, ruling with an iron fist for 34 years.

Compared to larger-than-life figures in Mexican history, Santa Anna is today semi-obscure—a villain in Texas’s origin story and a long-dead tyrant who once gave his own leg a state funeral. His impact has been smaller than that of Díaz, Hidalgo, or Juárez. His time at the top was a strange interlude when a vain strongman managed to convince people he was the Mexican Napoleon.

This view does Santa Anna a disservice. He was a leader who was a product of his time, an agent of chaos born from one of the most tumultuous periods in the nation’s history. The saying goes, “Cometh the hour, cometh the man.” In Santa Anna, for better and for worse, Mexico found the perfect man for an imperfect era.

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