From what I read I just feel that many people who is reading this kind of lecture will probably think that Antonio Lopez De Santa Anna was a very good man and someone who did everything for Mexico but I do not think in that way. When I was taking history courses in my country they told us that Santa Anna was a traitor, a person who betrayed Mexico and its people but the most important thing is when he sold a big part of Mexico to the United States of America which was terrible.
On the other hand, I think the caudillos were a very important part of our history at least in Latin America, specially in countries like Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, among others. They used to be very powerful and charismatic leaders I mean they were always convincing people that the actual leaders and governors were very corrupt so that they could be in power. Caudillos also took advantages of different things like civil wars, economic issues, poverty, famine, ineffective political parties but specially from the independence movements.
Caudillos were characterised for being true leaders who usually made lots of promises to its people but more important they were seen as a hope to their citizens. The strategy which they used to gain power was very useful in those times. It consisted of gathering lots of people specially soldiers from the military forces and also support from the rich who live in towns or villages to overthrown the person who was ruling in that time so that someone else in this case the caudillo could be the next governor or the local ruler.
Nowadays, many politicians from countries in Latin America have same characteristics as the caudillos because when elections are really close they start to criticise the actual government so that they could gain advantage and popularity but the most important thing here is to destabilise the actual leader.
Ultimately, the document which was written by Esteban Echeverria was very interesting because you can see the difference between the real barbarians and the unitarians. Barbarians were more identified as the church and government, they were unfair to its people because when they wrote the rule that says “nobody can eat this type of meal” they did not respect that at all. In addition to, unitarians did not have too many choices so they just could follow these kind of rules or having worse consequences like the poor boy who died in this event.
Nice post! You have unique perspective on the readings. It’s always nice to hear counter-opinions on the topics we cover. Learning that Santa Anna wasn’t all he was cracked up to be is interesting! I also like what you wrote about caudillos influencing Latin American politics today. I don’t know much about the current politics in LA countries- and was wondering about it while reading about the caudillos this week. Nice 1 Adrian!
Hey Adrian, I really like your insight on this! I’m from the States and when we learned about Santa Anna I was taught that he was a nemesis of the U.S.A army, he fought very hard during the Mexican-American war to keep Mexico unified and out of American hand, so it’s interesting to see a criticism coming from someone who’s not American. When you mention your country, do you mean Mexico? I ask because I’m curious to know what country views Santa Anna as a traitor. I didn’t know Santa Anna sold a part of Mexico to the U.S. I thought it was forcefully taken from him after he was defeated in war, is that false? and if it is I totally understand why people would call him a traitor. But, I liked your blog on this, thanks for your insight!