Prior to setting up a munitions compound to repair weapons and work gunpowder, I did accept an assignment from General Guerrero to carry a message back to Iturbide, with Maria accompanying me.
At dawn, Maria and I headed toward Chilpancingo, “Place of the Wasps.”
Over two hundred years old, the town lay in the Sierra Madre del Sur along the Huacapa River. To the rebels, it had a greater distinction than age: It was the site of the first revolutionary congress—called by Father Morelos—and the site of battles with the royals.
Maria told me Iturbide kept that area under constant surveillance, not only because it was an important town on the China Road but because it sometimes was occupied by the rebels.
She and I also discussed our respective lives quite a bit. Even though she knew about my prior work for the revolution, she still seemed skeptical of my commitment to the cause. In fact, my gun- and powder-running to the rebels only infuriated her because she felt I’d betrayed her by concealing it from her—even though I was protecting her in the process—and protecting the cause.
I already knew I could not win with this woman.
In turn, I directed some of my feelings about her activities to her. I felt she was endangering herself writing pamphlets and by letting her emotions run away with her good sense.
She should have known her trip to Taxco for printer’s ink would be monitored.
At one point on our journey, however, I crossed the line.
“War is a man’s job,” I definitively proclaimed.
Again, I felt I was under the 120-foot tsunami of a wave. She detailed for me all the heroines of the revolution, including a woman whom Iturbide had ordered shot. She thundered:
“Manuela Medina, Maria Fernanda Creek, María Louisa Martínez, Gertrudis Bocanegra, all died fighting. Antonia Nava was a general who won many battles. And there was La Corregidora, Doña Josefa, who sparked the revolution by sending a message to Hidalgo and Allende that they were to be arrested.
“Maria Tomasa Estévez—she and other women and men faced firing squads ordered by Iturbide without a trial.
“Not the least to face a firing squad was Gertrudis Bocanegra Mendoza, who created an underground network of women freedom fighters. She was taken prisoner, tortured to give the names of conspirators, which she never did, and was executed. She was fifty-two years old and had four adult children, all of whom rallied to the revolution. Before she died, her husband, son, and son-in-law had fallen in battle.
“Is my life any more important than these brave women?” Maria asked.
“It is to me,” I said.
She requited my love with a look that was hard enough to cut diamonds.
I wilted under her stern gaze.
I had come to realize that a woman’s scorn was often more lethal than a man’s pistola.
HUNDRED FOURTEEN
MY INSTRUCTIONS FROM General Guerrero were to meet with Iturbide and evaluate the man’s proposal.
If I was satisfied that Iturbide had a reasonable plan for independence, I was to tell Iturbide that Vicente will meet him near the town of Acatempan to make an agreement.
The exact location of the Acatempan meeting would not be established until the guerrillas had made sure the royals were not setting a trap.
We reached Chilpancingo, where I had to talk to Iturbide. I told Maria to be prepared to fade into the surrounding wilds if I did not return.
I also told her I believed Iturbide—who was not a gachupine but a criollo who resented being lorded over by men born in Spain—genuinely wanted to join forces with Guerrero.
“What Iturbide wants is true independence from Spain,” I told Maria.
“It’s a trick to trap and kill us,” she said.
“No, it’s a miracle. The revolution has gone on for eleven years. Hundreds of thousands are dead, and no one has won.”
“I’m surprised Vicente would agree to meet with Iturbide,” Maria said. “He’s too smart to fall for that trick.”
“He agreed because he sees an opportunity to end the stalemate.”
Iturbide greeted me as an old comrade … but only because I had something he wanted, of course.
He got down to business immediately.
He walked with me away from the hearing of others and told me his proposal—a unification of the forces under the joint command of him and Guerrero and a march on Mexico City to drive out the gachupines.
“Madrid is too weak right now to support the viceroy. He has to draw his support from the criollo leaders in the colony. That support will fall away from him when my fellow criollos see that between General Guerrero and myself, we are bringing peace and prosperity to the colony.”
He stopped and locked eyes with me.
“I have a plan to take effect after the gachupines leave,” he said. “One that will make the colony an independent nation.”
HUNDRED FIFTEEN
Acatempan, February 1821
GUERRERO WAS GOOD as his word. When I arranged for an evening meeting with Iturbide in a wooded enclosure outside of Acatempan one cool night in February, the rebel general arrived on time on his favorite warhorse—a big broad-shouldered roan. He was dressed in black casual clothes, wearing a matching wide-brimmed low-crowned hat of well-worn felt—its dark leather hatband was embellished with silver conchos—and ebony-hued leather riding boots, heeled with rowels.
General Iturbide, on the other hand, was decked out in a tan dress uniform of his own design and a short cylindrically shaped general’s hat. The front of his uniform was weighted down with medals.
Their honor guard’s garb reflected their superiors—that of Guerrero’s the casual catch-as-catch-can attire of irregulars, Iturbide’s men decked out in formal Spanish uniforms.
The two men dismounted and studied each other in awkward silence, standing only a few feet apart. For over a decade they fought as sworn mortal enemies, trying by any means possible to kill each other. Had they met, blood would have flowed. Even now, each wore a brace of pistols strapped to his waist. For a moment I wondered whether they might use the weapons.
Iturbide spoke first—his tone friendly but pompous: “I am honored to finally meet you—a patriot who like myself has cherished the dream of independence and freedom. We have both survived much bloodshed and disaster to maintain the sacred flame of liberty and to keep the dream of freedom alive … a dream whose realization I sincerely believe is within our grasp.”
Guerrero replied, “And I, señor, congratulate my country upon recovering a son whose valor and knowledge have all but destroyed it.”
To my utter astonishment Iturbide’s eyes teared over.
Then Guerrero gave him the abrazo—an embrace.
With shocking celerity they came to terms. Iturbide and Guerrero would jointly publish a plan that would make the colony independent from Spain, referring to the colony as Independent Mexico. The plan had three major provisions: creation of a monarchy with limited powers (the throne would be offered to a Spanish prince); Catholicism as the official state religion; and racial equality.
Iturbide’s and Guerrero’s forces would join to form the Army of the Three Guarantees.
The Plan was cleverly designed, I thought—it created a monarchy to satisfy church and conservatives and independence to satisfy the rebels. But I knew too well that words on paper are not always reflected in the acts of their authors.
I knew that the events that were taking place at a clearing in the colony had more to do with events in faraway Spain than they did with events in New Spain.
Spain was in the throes of political and armed chaos. Because Ferdinand VII had betrayed the guerrillas who saved Spain from the French, Spanish liberals were forcing the unpopular king to make political concessions.
Those concessions frightened the criollos of New Spain. While they despised gachupine rule by the mother country, at least they were left alone to enjoy their vast wealth. They also kept their hands off the Church. Most of the wealth in the
country was owned by the conservative, land-owning criollos and the Church—and these two rich, powerful factions realized that the revolutionary movement would come to power in the colony once the liberals in the mother country had their way.
Facing the inevitable, the rich criollos and the Church had made strange bedfellows in a secret plot to free the colony from Spanish rule: They had decided to make peace with the revolutionaries and make the colony independent of Spain, but in a way that would keep the status quo.
Iturbide had fought Hidalgo, Morelos, Guerrero, and most of the major rebel leaders over a decade; now, after nearly eleven years of bloody warfare, the heads of two opposing armies would join forces and fight for Mexico’s independence from Spain.
Their coalition army would have the first chance of succeeding since Cortés had wrested an empire from the Aztecs.
To ensure that his soldiers and important criollos would support the plan, Iturbide said he wanted a hundred copies printed to be distributed.
Guerrero changed the wording that Iturbide presented: Guerrero said the third clause, providing for racial equality, was too vague. He had it reworded to specify that all people, including black, indios, and mixed bloods, had civil rights.
The two longtime enemies embraced again as if they were old friends …
“People will remember this night for all time,” Maria whispered.
“What?”
“This abrazo de Acatempan.” The embrace at Acatempan. “The day all Mexicans became free and equal. It’s too bad that so many patriots didn’t live to see this day.”
As we walked away from the two leaders, Maria said, “He achieved high rank and wealth by killing.”
“Who?”
“Iturbide. He killed thousands.”
I shrugged. “So did Guerrero.”
“There’s no comparison. Vicente Guerrero fought for freedom for all. He fought back against despots and tyranny. Iturbide served those who wish to enslave and exploit us.”
I knew she was right—I knew it from being around Iturbide that the man did not have a democratic bone in his body. But it was a time for hope, not nay-saying.
She was quiet for a moment and then asked me, “Can a man who fought brutally against freedom for all suddenly change his skin and claim to desire liberty and equality?”
“We’ll soon find out.”
Maria’s secret printing press was hidden at the nearby town of Iguala and she printed the declaration, which included freedom and equality for all peons—blacks, indios, mestizos, mulattoes.
Maria cried with joy as she read her proclamation—but told me again of her misgivings about the preening, strutting Iturbide.
“I keep wondering, Juan,” she asked, “whether we will get rid of one devil of a tyrant for … another.”
As I took the printed materials to Iturbide, an old acquaintance stepped out of the general’s tent laughing: Madero, the viceroy’s secret police chief.
“I will serve you well, General. My flogging post will work overtime to keep you informed.”
I ducked back around the tent’s corner, so they couldn’t see me.
But I couldn’t believe my ears.
The infamous torturing bastard was now Iturbide’s chief of police.
“Grab your things. We’re heading out,” I told Maria.
“To where?”
“You’re right. Regardless of Iturbide’s intentions, he’s allied himself with that torturing killer Madero. Guerrero can’t trust Iturbide now. He will need a strong ally.”
“Who?”
“Guadalupe Victoria.”
PART XXV
The Art of War is the Art of Deception.
—Sun Tzu
HUNDRED SIXTEEN
Jungle, Veracruz Region
THE BAREFOOTED, HALF-NAKED man stared at the bunch of tortillas hanging from a tree branch.
It reminded him of the live chicken he had seen hunters hang from a branch to attract jaguar, the king of the jungle.
Had he not been hungry—emaciated from over two years in hiding and running, living off whatever he could find or catch with his bare hands—he would not even have stopped and stared at the tortillas.
He had been so long without human companionship, prepared food, music, and conversation, that a bunch of stale tortillas brought sensations of happier days, gayer moments.
He had not always been a naked, white-skinned savage, hiding in tangled sweltering jungle with nothing but a ragged blanket draped over his shoulders. He had once ridden tall in the saddle at the head of an army.
His name was Guadalupe Victoria, though that was not his birth name.
Once he was the most hunted man in the colony. That troops no longer beat the bushes for him in no way indicated disinterest. It only indicated that they thought he was dead.
To those who stood in the way of making the colony a republic with freedom and equality for all, he was the most dangerous man in the colony …
… Born in 1786, the miserable escapado was Don José Fernández y Félix—a criollo of good family.
He adopted the nom de guerre Guadalupe Victoria— the Victory of Guadalupe—as a tribute to the revolution and the patron saint of New Spain.
Like Mina, he had left the study of law to fight in the revolution, joining Morelos’s army in 1812 after the downfall and death of Hidalgo.
During the siege of Cuautla—when Morelos and his insurgents escaped from the town after a long, bloody siege, and the angry Spanish general, Calleja, (who beat Hidalgo in the final battle) savagely slaughtered the inhabitants—he had been badly wounded in the thigh.
He rose quickly in Morelos’s army. In 1814 Morelos made him a colonel and sent him to assist the rebel general in charge of the Veracruz area.
Spain’s two lifelines were Veracruz on the Atlantic and Acapulco on the Pacific, with Veracruz the most important many times over. If they could control the Veracruz–Jalapa road, the rebels could economically strangle Spanish interests.
Victoria was small-built, curly-haired, and had a pleasant, courteous disposition. The commander of the Veracruz region immediately assumed Victoria was too weak and incompetent to lead. He was wrong. Victoria was bright, and an excellent tactician, courageous, and intelligent. He raced on horseback from one defense to another. He was invariably the first to attack the enemy and the last to withdraw.
The locals as a whole were friendly toward the rebellion, but distrustful of rebels because many of them were little more than bandidos and murderers. Victoria, on the other hand, treated prisoners with respect, never tortured or killed them cruelly as some generals did.
The people repaid him with a loyalty they did not give the other rebel leaders. His men called him “Don Guadalupe” while some of the other leaders ridiculed his name change.
Some critics disparaged his name change as romantic vanity.
After the death of Morelos in 1815, the Spanish government offered indultos (pardons) to those willing to give up the fight. Many leaders and common soldiers took them, leaving two leaders fighting in the two main economic pipelines of the colony—Guerrero in the Acapulco region and Victoria in Veracruz.
As resistance evaporated in other areas, the Spanish focused their main effort to get Victoria. He was not only important because of Veracruz, but he, along with Guerrero, were symbols of the continued vitality of the independence movement—and he was a criollo.
Twenty times, the official organ of the viceroy, the Mexican Gazette, announced that Victoria had been killed; then he would suddenly reappear, at the head of a guerrilla unit, make an attack, and melt away …
The Spanish instituted another tactic in the Veracruz area—any village suspected of giving any aid to the rebels was burned, its lands confiscated, its inhabitants arrested and often enslaved.
Using overwhelming force and brutal tactics, Victoria’s forces were defeated. Victoria, however, was also keenly aware of the despair and fear not only of his men but of the people whose
support was necessary; but rather than personally surrender and take a pardon, he went into hiding in the jungles to wait for the tide to turn back to revolution.
He disappeared into the jungles in late 1818, avoiding massive searches for him and intimidation of anyone who could help. He ended up living as a hermit, eating off the land, keeping on the move with long, shaggy hair, ragged clothes. Skinny and barefooted, his skin and feet torn by thorns, often ravaged by fever, cuts and bruises festering into sores and burrowing insects.
Finally, a decomposed body was identified as Victoria’s and the hunt wound down.
Two and a half years later, in February 1821, the independence movement erupted again with Iturbide and the Plan of Iguala.
When word reached Veracruz about the Plan of Iguala, two followers set out in hopes of finding Victoria alive. They found a footprint they recognized as that of a white man because of the shape created by having once worn shoes.
One of the indios tied a bundle of tortillas from a branch where it would be in open sight. Several days later, Victoria found the tortillas and spotted the men, who ran at the sight of the aberration and stopped as Victoria kept shouting his name.
Emaciated, his hair and beard were long, his nails had turned into claws; he was naked except for a tattered blanket.
He was led to the messengers from Guerrero who had launched the search for him.
“Don Guadalupe,” Juan said, “your people need you.”
HUNDRED SEVENTEEN
AFTER MARIA AND I brought Guadalupe Victoria back from the dead, we returned to General Guerrero, who had another mission for us. He told us that the two armies would slowly move toward Mexico City but that Iturbide needed to gather his criollo support from the Bajio before they attempted to take the capital.
Aztec Fire Page 31
