Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day.
On May 5, 1862, in a battle at Puebla, 100 miles east of Mexico City, 4,000 Mexican soldiers defeated an 8,000-man army of French and dissident Mexican soldiers.
Five months earlier, the French had landed in Mexico along with Spanish and English troops, on the pretext of collecting Mexican debts from the newly elected government of President Benito Juarez.
The English and Spanish made their deals and left. The French, however, had other plans.
The French Army attacked, on the assumption that the Mexicans would give up should their capital fall to the enemy – as European countries traditionally did.
Gen. Ignacio Segu n Zaragosa (who was born in what is now Goliad, Texas) was put in charge of the battle.
When the smoke cleared, the ragtag band of Mexican peasants had kept Napoleon from supplying the confederate rebels for another year, defeating what was at the time the world’s strongest army.
President Juarez made the victory a national celebration.
The French, unaccustomed to defeat, returned to France, gathered up a force of 30,000 men and marched on Mexico again, this time defeating Puebla. Once Juarez was in exile and Mexico City had fallen to French control, Maximilian of Hapsburg was named Emperor of Mexico.
Maximilian decreed that followers of Juarez would be put to death within 24 hours of capture. Meanwhile, Juarez, in exile, continued to wage battle through loyalists.
Finally, in 1867, Maximilian was executed for his role in a conflict that cost 50,000 Mexican lives. To this day, Cinco de Mayo celebrates freedom and liberty.
– Ellen Sweets
The website www.lasculturas.com contributed to this report.
