Last year at about this time, the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture published a paper that concluded, according to its lead author David E. Hayes-Bautista, "Cinco de Mayo is important to California because it was invented here." He went on to say that "It provides a collective identity for all Latinos, whether they were born here in California or immigrated from Mexico, Central America or South America. It binds them together in an identity — it is as important to Latinos as the Alamo is to Anglo-Texans." (UCLA Press Release)

In the US, Cinco de Mayo is so widely publicized that many people think it's like the Fourth of July -- a celebration of Mexican
independence. (It's not. September 16th is.)

In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is mostly celebrated in Puebla, where the main event of the day occurred. It's not even a national holiday. So just what happened on the 5th of May?

The event was the victory of the Mexican Army over the French in a battle that occurred on the edge of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

At the time Mexico was still recovering from the Guerra de Reforma, the War of the Reform, a three year war that lasted from 1858 until January 1861. The Gerra de Reforma pitted The Catholic Church and Conservatives against the Liberals. It started as a reaction Mexico's first fully liberal constitution, approved in February, 1857. Failing to declare that Catholicism was the exclusive religion of Mexico, it was sumarily rejected by the Church and the Conservative army took up the fight.

After three years of bloody battles, including a now infamous massacre where all prisoners held in Tacuba were executed, the Liberals under the leadership of Benito Juárez and Melchor Ocampo prevailed.

Celebrations were tempered by continuing violence -- Ocampo was kidnapped by Conservative guerrillas, executed and his body hung from a tree. In addition to the continuing violence, Mexico was bankrupt, unable to make payments on huge debts it owed to France, Spain and Britain. The US also had claims, but they were distracted with their own Civil War and weren't pressing for payments.

The newly seated Congress elected Juárez president to deal with the violence in a still divided country saddled by debts it couldn't pay.

The Spark

Juarez took the most reasonable course he could and declared a two-year moratorium on all foreign debts. More rational European leaders might have looked at Mexico and noted this was better than any deal they could otherwise get. Spain had never fully acknowledged its loss of Mexico in the revolution. France was run by Napolean III who had designs on creating an empire that rivalled the one Britain was building. For Napolean, the delayed payment was an excuse to invade -- he had even selected an emperor, Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian of Austria.

In October, 1861 the three debtees reached an agreement to force Mexico to pay -- they planned to seize strategic sites on the coast and hold them until Mexico came up with the money. Their ships arrived off Veracruz and landed in January 1862. They duly proclaimed that they just wanted to collect their money.

By April, after the French leader Comte Charles Ferdinand Latrille de Lorencez revealed his true plans, the three had fallen out. Spain and Britain withdrew. Lorencez, with 6,000 soldiers, was free to embark on Napolean's planned conquest.

There is controversy over the status of the Mexican Army that Lorencz first encountered. It is sometimes described as a "ragtag force", "armed with machetes" and at other times as "regular military units." The truth is probably a combination of both. The result was what mattered.

After a couple of skirmishes, the Mexican Army, under command of Guerra-de-Reforma hero Ignacio Zaragoza, retreated to fortified high ground between Fort Guadalupe and Fort Loreto in Puebla. Lorencez, suffering from an affliction shared by a few of our current-day leaders, believed his forces would be welcomed by the common people. He was wrong. After three attacks and 500 casualties, Lorencez was forced to retreat. His next act was to petition Napoleon for another 30,000 troops. So much for the welcome.

The forts still stand. There's a park and a monument there today. (Google Maps Link.)

Aftermath

Alas, the victory at Puebla had the effect of delaying the French conquest, but not preventing it. Oddly, it may also have prevented the US from splitting in two. Fehrenbach, in Fire & Blood, speculates that if Lorencez had not been thwarted in Puebla he might have reached the Rio Bravo where US Confederates were near victory. This could have boldened Napolean to intervene on the side of the South to assure his cotton supplies. A French intervention could easily have strengthened the Confederates and enabled them to win.

Cinco de Mayo

We're left with Cinco de Mayo. Who can quible with a holdiay that helps provide a "a collective identity for all Latinos, whether they were born here in California or immigrated from Mexico, Central America or South America." It's important enough in the US, we've even commemorated it with a postage stamp. And in Puebla, it's celebrated as well: Cinco de Mayo in Puebla.

For a much more detailed account of the people and events in this story, see T. R. Fehrenbach, Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico (ISBN: 978-0306806285) and Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power: A History of Modern Mexico, 1810-1996 (ISBN: 978-0060929176).