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The butcher of the Alamo and Goliad. The traitor who sold half of Mexico. The Napoleon of the Western. Mr. Fifteen Nails. The Mom Country's seducer. Almost 150 years after his fatality, a great deal of name-calling continues to be being directed towards Antonio López de Santa Anna, leader of Mexico 11 times in the 19th century, and today, almost all his compatriots consider him the greatest traitor in history. It was not like that in his day; actually, there possessed never been a more popular man in Mexico, or anyone more eulogized and essential than Basic Santa Anna. In life he was the most well-known - and at intervals most infamous - Mexican standard and politician. Justo Sierra, the eminent article writer and historian who watched him when he was a child, composed that the public came to consider him as a Messiah: "The people had a obscure self-assurance that he could do wonders." Sierra composed that Santa Anna was "the vital man, the person for our times of turmoil, our deus ex lover machina." The political factions that rose against him and delivered him into exile a year or two later were knocking at his door begging him another when the nation was coming aside at its seams. Then Santa Anna delivered to Mexico, and he seduced her, united the individuals, and produced armies out of nothing to combat the new threats to the motherland: Spain, France, and america. At exactly the same time, in the same way there are men who embody all the country's virtues - like Benito Juárez in Mexico or Abraham Lincoln in america - the Mexicans have, matching to their public background, a villain by decree, guilty of all evils except maybe the earthquakes. Essentially the most serious accusation is that Santa Anna let go half of Mexico's territory to america. "Me? Selling half of Mexico?" says the General in Enrique Serna's brilliant novel, The Mom Country's Seducer. "For Christ's sake! When will these childish Mexicans learn that if this dispatch sank, it had not been the helmsman's mistake only, however the laziness and ineptitude of the oarsmen? Like all human beings, I have dedicated mistakes, plus some had dire consequences. But from there to the monstrosity they would like to blame me for, there can be an abyss." The general had not been a man of much learning, but he understood how to use the sentiment of the time, which is merely a means of stating that he was a competent adventurer. He had the air for the office and enjoyed all types of display. Generally he dropped in disgrace, suffered the ingratitude of his people, and only by sheer good fortune was saved many times from being taken. His fortune always was, as so eloquently put in the 13th century poem Carmina Burana, changeable like the moon. Santa Anna deserves a more objective common sense than that of public background. For his sins, he certainly paid, in part by living long past his time. It really could have been better for his reputation if he had gone faster. But either way, his life tale is more interesting than all but a go for few, and it offers a small amount of everything, including glory, tragedy, intrigue, love, exile, and oblivion. Santa Anna: The Life and Legacy of the Legendary Mexican Chief executive and Basic appears at one of Mexico's most significant figures.
