sion. He marched his army to Tampico, where he de-
feated the Spanish, earning him the appellation “Victor
of Tampico” and making him a hero in Mexico.
Although he retired from the army soon after Tam-
pico, in 1833 Santa Anna reemerged to run for the presi-
dency. His program was based on liberal principles and
opposition to the power of the Catholic Church, and he
was elected on 1 April. A year into his administration,
however, he renounced his principles and advocated a
centralization of power in Mexico City, the capital. He
clashed with his liberal vice president, Valentin Gomez
Farias, over the direction of the government. When the
liberals of the Zacatecas province denied his authority to
centralize the government in 1833, Santa Anna marched
on the rebels, crushing them with exacting brutality and
instituting a campaign of repression unseen even under
Spanish rule. This backfired on him and led to a chaotic
period in Mexican history that saw 36 different admin-
istrations in 20 years, with Santa Anna playing a leading
part in 11 of them. He was forced out of the presidency
in 1834, but a year later he led his own rebellion when
reforms proposed by the president were approved by the
Church.
Santa Anna’s biggest problem, however, was not in-
ternal but external. For a number of years, the Mexican
government had encouraged American settlers to move
into the area now known as the U.S. state of Texas. By
1835, their numbers had grown so much that Mexico
sought to end its liberal immigration policy, but the
Americans in Texas resisted the move, and on 3 Novem-
ber 1835 they declared themselves an independent nation.
Considering the settlers and their leaders to be traitors,
Santa Anna marched an army of some 6,000 men north
to fight. He met his first real resistance on 6 March 1836
at an old mission known as the Alamo in what is now the
city of San Antonio. There he found a small band of ap-
proximately 200 American fighters, led by William Travis,
Davy Crockett, and Jim Bowie, who refused to surrender
to the vastly superior Mexican force. Instead of bypass-
ing the small, militarily insignificant mission, Santa Anna
decided to attack it. Although the Americans put up a
brave fight, they were quickly overwhelmed and killed,
although Santa Anna ordered that women and children
found inside were not to be harmed.
This was a tactical victory for the Mexicans, but
also a strategic mistake as it stirred the Texans to rise
up to avenge the slaughter. With shouts of “Remember
the Alamo,” a Texan army led by Sam Houston marched
quickly on Santa Anna’s force, which had crossed the
Brazos River to capture the Texas government in the city
of Harrisburg.
Realizing he was being pursued by the Americans,
Santa Anna turned back and met the Houston force at
San Jacinto on the San Jacinto River (21 April 1836).
The Americans destroyed a bridge which the Mexicans
could have used to escape; Texan troops then attacked
the Mexican front line, killing some 700 Mexican sol-
diers and forcing another 700 to surrender in just a half
hour. A monument at the site of the battle reads: “Mea-
sured by its results, San Jacinto was one of the decisive
battles of the world. The freedom of Texas from Mexico
won here led to annexation and to the Mexican War,
resulting in the acquisition by the United States of the
States of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Califor-
nia, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and
Oklahoma. Almost one-third of the present area of the
American nation, nearly a million square miles of terri-
tory, changed sovereignty.”
Santa Anna was captured by the Americans and
taken back to Washington, D.C., where he could have
stood trial. Instead, in exchange for his release he signed a
treaty recognizing Texas’s independence. However, upon
his return to Mexico, the government there rejected theAntonio López de Santa Anna
0 SAntA AnnA, Antonio lópez De