Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress, Part III
Mr. Romero to Mr. Seward
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor of transmitting to you, for the information of the government of the United States, documents relating to Mexican affairs; and although some of them are of old date, I think them all of sufficient importance to be submitted officially to your consideration.
You will find among them several that manifest the atrocities of the European mercenaries sent to enslave the Mexican people, and to perpetrate all sorts of outrages upon them in the name of civilization, and in a country they already consider as conquered, and other reliable reports of the condition of things in the central part of Mexico and on the western coast of the republic.
I embrace this occasion to renew to you, Mr. Secretary, the assurances of my most distinguished consideration.
Hon. William H. Seward, &c., &c., &c.
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The citizen President of the republic has seen with pleasure what you have communicated in your note No. 137, of the 4th of April of this year, with reference to the demonstrations of public rejoicing which took place in Washington upon the reception of the news of the occupation of Petersburg and of Richmond by the troops of the Union.
The allusions of the Hon. Mr. Johnson, who at that time only had the character of Vice-President of the United States, and of the Hon. Mr. Seward, demonstrate that in that country the intrigues and the acts by which Napoleon has sought to injure the United States during its civil war have not been lost sight of. Napoleon has offended the people [Page 665] of the south by not favoring them, from fear of an open rupture of the government of the United States, as much as they expected and wished; and he has offended the north by clearly showing, so far as that fear would let him, how much he desired their downfall and the permanent destruction of the Union. Without doubt the terms of Napoleon’s letter to General Forey have also been remembered, in which, without tact or prevision, he stated that the principal object of the intervention in Mexico was to oppose the United States, and to raise up against it the Latin race, as if it was possible to elevate a race by seeking to humiliate and degrade one of its members and foment forgetfulness of all of its sentiments of national dignity. In order to avert the effects of that stupid lack of foresight, the French senate has sought recently to record, in its answer to the address on the opening of the sessions, that the intervention in Mexico has not had any object in the antagonism of races, the senate thus pretending to deny the express terms of the letter of Napoleon.
In the allusions of Mr. Seward to the prudence of the Emperor of Austria, who has taken care to make known that he has no sympathy with rebellion anywhere, he assuredly had reference to what was manifested to his government with reference to the civil war in the United States, and also to what the government of the republic bas reason to know was communicated to that of the United States at the beginning of last year with reference to the arrival of Maximilian in Mexico, explaining that it was his own personal affair, in which the government of the Emperor, his brother, had no part whatever. This was an act of prudence on the part of that sovereign, and at the same time of dignity; for he did not wish to take part in the unworthy enterprise of the archduke, his brother, who consented to come to Mexico to represent there the humble position of the simple instrument of a foreign government, and, in addition, the instrument of a government which had just, in Lombardy, been the means of conquering and humiliating his country and family; who consented also, at the call of a few Mexican traitors to their country, and reserving, in his turn, to deceive them and to prove false to them, when after a little he should be ordered by the French government.
I renew to you my attentive consideration.
Citizen Matias Romero, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Mexican Republic in Washington.
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The following letter was written by a Mexican officer in the service of Maximilian, who was accompanying a detachment of Belgian troops sent into the State of Michoacan. It reveals a tale of horror that shows how utterly impossible it is for Maximilian ever to pacify that country except by the extermination of all its inhabitants. The civilization he is introducing is worse than that of the Goths and Vandals:
My Dear Uncle: Since I left Mexico this is the first opportunity I have had to address you a letter and communicate anything about our campaign, in which the fatigue is very great and the results next to nothing. For fifteen days we have been marching through mountains and deserts, behind an enemy whom we have not had the felicity of seeing even at a distance. We arrived at Zitacuro and found it deserted—the houses open but without inhabitants, nor even a sign that they had been occupied; for, all the inhabitants being enemies, they had retired some time since to the mountains and the most distant estates. Finding the place deserted in this manner, this circumstance, added to what had occurred some days before to the force of Lamabrid, caused the Belgian colonel, the sole commander of the expedition, to become very indignant, and to order the most severe measures yet necessary in such cases as this.
On the day following our arrival at this collection of houses—for it cannot be called a town where there are no inhabitants—we left for the neighboring villages and ranches with precise orders “to raze and destroy everything in them.” In fact, on this day we burned the villages of San Francisco and San Miguel, leaving their inhabitants without property or home. It was a scene that would have filled with consternation even a Nero. Think of the families in the street, the children crying, some calling for their fathers, who had fled distracted to the mountains; others entreating in the most pitiful manner; and, accompanying all these laments, the echoes of the trumpet sounding without cessation the order to set fire. Everywhere was seen nothing but flames, which devoured everything. In fine, to relate to you all that I saw would be impossible. This operation finished, we scoured the fields and drove off the cattle, the horses, the mules, everything, in fact, which belonged to the miserable unfortunates who, in less than three hours, saw perish all their savings of many years. These operations we have repeated with two other villages and a [Page 666] hacienda belonging to one Arias, who is serving with Riva Palacios, and finally we left for this point, whence we proceed to Morelia.
Up to the present time I have only lost from my squadron two men and twelve Belgians, whom the Indians surprised in the mountains and whom they killed like dogs in the village of San Mateo, which also disappeared from the scene, thanks to the fire which consumed it.
I have met with no accident, and as I am more accustomed to active life than to quiet, I am well and in very good condition.
I trust that your health has also improved, and that everything is going on well, which I shall be much pleased to hear.
With great and sincere affection, your nephew, who hopes to see you soon,
General José Antonio Herredia.
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Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, well-deserving citizen of the country, and general of division of the national armies of Mexico, to his countrymen:
Mexicans: He who has always addressed you on solemn occasions, whether to explain to you his political conduct, or to give you advice, or to offer you his sword, is the same who now claims from you the greatest calmness and attention, in order that you may listen to him once more I speak to you from the heart. I have never deceived you, because truth has always been my rule.
The respect which in all times and under all circumstances I have paid the majority of the people, imposes upon me the duty to impress upon you that which you have already read in my manifesto, issued at Vera Cruz on the 27th of February, 1864.
I adhered to the system of government which appeared to be proclaimed by a considerable majority, in obedience to the principles which I professed, based upon submission to the national will, under the conviction that the Mexicans were those who, exercising their civil omnipotence, had given themselves new institutions, and were trying to find the way to conciliate order with liberty. But what a painful error! From this hospitable island I contemplate with increasing indignation the scaffold which the tyranny of a usurping people is raising in cur beloved country to stain it with the blood of our brothers, and for the destruction of our people.
From this island I have contemplated also, with pride, your struggle for life with the invaders of your country, the soldiers called forth by the intervention, and the trumpet of the free has made my heart palpitate with joy, as in the happy days in which we combated together in defence of our firesides and our outraged rights. The hopes of those who sought in monarchy the repose which the republic denied them have been disappointed; the national dignity has been contemned, justice derided, our holy rights trodden under foot, thought enslaved, prostitution elevated and virtue vilified, the sanctuary draped in mourning, and the church afflicted with tribulations. Terror is seated upon the scaffold, brandishing over the patriots the knife of extermination. War to the invaders! Liberty or death should be the cry of every generous bosom in which honor has her home, independence her altar, and liberty her rites.
We thought that the Archduke Maximilian of Austria would restore to us peace, and he has been the new element of discord; that with wise laws he would enrich our treasury, and he has impoverished it in an incredible manner; that he would bring us happiness, and the misfortunes are innumerable which in so short a time he has heaped upon the ruins of ensanguined Mexico; that in fine he would be consistent in his principles and promises if he accepted the views of President Juarez in all that related to reform, at the same time that he persecutes him and gives him war to the knife.
European adventurers formed his guard of honor. The French bayonets are the foundations of his throne, and in the mean time so many see themselves condemned to oblivion, to the contempt of the veterans of independence, once the glory of our nation, and now objects of derision and mockery for the foreign soldiery. Such insults cannot be tolerated any longer. The hour has come in which we should exterminate from the sacred soil of the free the farcical rabble who profane the land with their feet, and insult us with their presence.
Liberals and conservatives, forget our fratricidal contentions, and advance to the rescue. Let us unite together against the common enemy. One banner covers us—the flag of liberty. One thought alone animates us—that of war and death to the invaders who destroy our towns and cities and behead our brothers. Eternal execration to the tyrants Of our country!
[Page 667]Compatriots, if, on reading my manifesto of last year, your attention should be arrested by the expression that “the last words of my conscience and of my convictions is constitutional monarchy,” remember that I also said on the same occasion, “I am not an enemy of democracy, but of its excesses;” and, above all, do not forget that I was the founder of the republic. A people is free, whatever be their form of government, when the head of the nation forgets that he is human. Let him remember only that he is the organ of the law. This, my belief, was also yours when the republic was changed to an empire.
But we have been mistaken. The prince whom you chose is not the organ of the law, hut the usurper of our rights. He is not the defender of national independence, for if he were he would not cede Sonora. He is not the sovereign of the nation, but the humble vassal of a foreign potentate.
In order to inspire greater confidence in the new form of government which you have just adopted, and to carry to the throne for your benefit the advice of experience, I went to Vera Cruz to meet the proclaimed emperor, disposed to give him, without reserve, all my support; but his arbitrariness and discourtesy closed the doors of my country upon me. The decree of my expulsion was written in a language which our forefathers did not speak.
I owe you an explanation. The public journals of the capital published my recognition of the French intervention. This act of mine did not originate from my own will, but was imposed upon me by the force of circumstances.
Scarcely did the steamer that conducted me anchor in the port, ere a French commander presented himself before me on board of the vessel, as the chief superior of Vera Cruz, and made known to me that I would not be allowed to land, but, on the contrary, he should oblige me to return in the same vessel, if I did not immediately comply with the conditions which he presented to me written in French. These conditions required me to recognize the intervention and the monarch elect, and not to address the people.
Such quiet insolence could only excite my indignation. But the sufferings of my wife, caused by the painful journey by the sea, and the advice of some of my friends who came to meet me, inclined me to subscribe to these conditions, which, however, did not liberate me from the annoyances to which I was exposed.
All this proves that the intervention could not be supported without mistrust of the presence of the soldier who had always defended with energy the rights of his country, humbling on various occasions the flag of the haughty potentates and making their so-called invincible legions bow under the yoke of democracy.
My friends, in addressing you to-day, I am only inspired with the desire for your happiness and the glory of Mexico. No unworthy sentiments dictate my words. I have shed some drops of my blood in your defence, and I would shed it all, were it necessary, fighting in your armies, if not as your chief, then as a private soldier. In the mean time, while circumstances prevent me from joining your ranks, I wish you to know the sentiments with which I am animated.
Compatriots! on the memorable 2d of December, 1822, I adopted as my motto these words: “Down with the empire! Live the republic!”Abajo el imperio! Viva la republica! And now, from the foreign soil upon which I am exiled, I repeat that motto with the same enthusiasm.
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On the 16th of September last was the 44th anniversary of Mexican independence. Maximilian availed himself of that occasion to make a most remarkable speech, intended as a warning to the United States
If any one had been laboring under the idea that the Austrian archduke was about to leave Mexico, that impression must be dispelled. However great may be the complications that are to arise with the United States, he is committed irrevocably to remain in Mexico. His speech contains the following solemn and unmistakable words:
“No influence in this world can make me waver in my duty; every drop of my blood is Mexican now, and if God sends fresh dangers to threaten our country you will see me fight in. your ranks for its independence and integrity. I am willing to die at the foot of our glorious banner, because no human power can wrest from me the trust with which you have endowed me.”
No more direct reference or open defiance to the United States could be made. Now, after our war has terminated and time for reflection has been given, Maximilian, in defiance of the well-known views of the United States, deliberately takes his stand, and says: “I shall remain in Mexico.” It is too late for him to say, as he might have done before, that [Page 668] he was mistaken and had been misinformed with reference to the views of the Mexican people; and that they do not desire an imperial form of government, and that in deference to their wishes he was willing to abdicate the throne. Now the die is cast, and the throne usurped through the aid of the arms of France is to be maintained at all hazards This important step, however, had a higher origin than the vacillating purpose and feeble will of Maximilian. It emanates from Paris. Maximilian is the speaker, but the words are the words of Louis Napoleon. It is evident, from the advices that have reached here from France, that this speech, as well as the abandonment of the journey of Carlota, his wife, to Belgium, are the result of direct orders from Napoleon, who has decided to meet the issue, and he it is that is to be held responsible.
So strong has been the feeling of confidence here on the part of Maximilian and his advisers, since the receipt of recent advices from Paris, that he has gone further than anybody had dreamed he would, and has attempted, in order to encourage emigration from the south, to establish slavery in his dominions. Before entering on his edict upon this subject, I will refer for a moment to the colonization business and how it has been managed here.
It has always been the plan of Louis Napoleon and of Maximilian to rely in a considerable degree for the maintenance of their position here upon the support of discontented emigrants from the south who would seek refuge in this country.
In the Mexicans alone they saw no elements strong enough to oppose the United States, in the difficulties which they foresaw would arise upon the termination of our war. But they have calculated upon a large emigration from the south, and this explains their anxiety to receive with open arms all who harbored prejudice or had grievances yet to redress with the United States.
To secure this immigration they were willing, of course, to take them with all their prejudices of color, and, in fact, if necessary, indirectly to adopt, for a time at least, their well-tried system of labor.
The first plan was to have Duke Gwin, as commissioner general of emigration, to be located in the northern and frontier States, and there to build up a barrier against the encroachments of the United States. This plan would have been carried out had not the rebellion been crushed so speedily. That unexpected and undesired event deranged their plans and rendered more caution necessary. Duke Gwin was obnoxious to many of the leading rebels, who soon arrived in Mexico, and his name had been too prominently mentioned in connexion with the scheme, and its purpose was too well known, for it to be prudent to have him any longer at the head of it. Consequently Duke Gwin was unceremoniously thrown overboard, and a new plan has now, after much deliberation and study, been adopted. This plan, besides accomplishing all the purposes of the original scheme, has the merit of appearing not to be exclusive, and of presenting only the honest purpose of populating the country with laborers from abroad, whose presence all admit is so much needed.
The scheme is embraced in several decrees which have been recently issued. One issued on the 5th of September proclaims “that Mexico is freely opened to emigration from all countries,” (which means southern emigration,) and is followed by certain “Regulations,” signed by Maximilian himself, which, while declaring free, according to the laws of the empire, all who enter the Mexican territory, proceeds to establish certain rales and regulations by which the laborer is thrown really into a worse state of slavery than that of the southern States; and a slavery that is not confined to the colored man, but extends to all laborers alike.
The peons, or laborers, have to make a contract with their master, who is styled patron, by which they engage to work in his service for a period of not less than five nor more than ten years, which contract can be renewed at its expiration.
The patron is to engage himself to feed, clothe, and keep the serfs and to nurse them when sick, paying them also some nominal wages in money. The patron has also to feed his servant’s children, and these, should the father die, are to remain in his service until they become of age. Fugitive serfs are condemned to the public works, without pay, until their master may demand them.
You have doubtless heard of the former peonage system of this country, of which scarcely a vestige has for many years remained, and that only in a limited part of southern Mexico, where it has existed in violation of law and only under an abusive practice of the land-owners, who have there a controlling influence. This system was equivalent to slavery, but the early legislation of Mexico and the constitution of 1857, in express terms, strictly abolished it and prohibited its exercise under severe penalties.
But it has remained for Maximilian, the Austrian, the docile tool of Napoleon, to attempt, to re-establish this odious relic of the past, and deliberately to systematize by formal edict, and cover with the color of lawful right, this shameful practice of virtual human slavery. Can such things be allowed in the middle of this nineteenth century, and when in the United States that odious institution has just been abolished at the cost [Page 669] of the greatest war the world has ever seen? The object of this scheme is, while avoiding the use of the word “slavery,” to establish a system in place of it which shall be equally satisfactory to southern men, and, while thus apparently drawing them in as emigrants, to strengthen their hands in the event of any movement by the United States. For the information of your readers I enclose a copy of the decree and “regulations” annexed.
In addition to the evidence showing a design to secure the support of discontented people from the south, constant additions to the existing force in this country are being made from France. A French steam transport has just landed at Vera Cruz 800 men, and the last packet from St. Nazaire brought 500.
There are also on the way and expected soon to arrive 1,200 Egyptians, while the money remittances from France show that Napoleon is preparing to maintain a large army here.
The recent order of the Secretary of War disbanding a large part of Sheridan’s army on the Rio Grande, has caused a great deal of satisfaction to the government here; and they assume that it is proof positive that the United States does not intend to disturb their possession of Mexico.
It is even asserted that the recognition of the United States will yet be obtained. Quite a number of agents of Maximilian are now at work in the United States, who are well supplied with funds for influencing popular opinion there through the press and other channels. The chief of these is an Austrian count, a personal friend of Maximilian, who was formerly acting as the assistant secretary of the yet to be created navy. Señor Arroyo is acting under him as so-called commercial agent, and Señor Degollado holds an inferior position subordinate to both. Encouraged by the reported withdrawal of our troops from the Rio Grande, these efforts will be redoubled; but it is to be hoped our government will in season appreciate how great an encouragement to Napoleon this measure will be, and suspend any further diminution of the forces at this most important strategic point.
The internal condition of affairs here could hardly be worse for Maximilian and the French than it is at present. The number of guerillas increases every day, and new leaders are coming into the field in every direction. They annoy and cut off the communication of the French, interrupt their mails, attack their convoys, prevent all travel except under strong military escort, stop the transit of merchandise, pick off the French pickets, and, whenever an opportunity is afforded them, swoop down upon and surprise some small outlying detachment. When pursued, they invariably disband and disperse in every direction, and are constantly always being pursued but never destroyed. As can easily be imagined, this kind of warfare is excessively annoying and unsatisfactory to the French. They are kept in a continual state of uncertainty and alarm, are constantly subjected to long and weary marches, and are fighting an enemy who is always before them but never overtaken, and is as intangible as a shadow, yet surrounds them and harasses them everywhere night and day. The Austrians and Belgians in considerable bodies have often been defeated by the guerillas, so that the former are no longer feared by the Mexicans, while the latter are even despised, and when taken prisoners are simply disarmed and let go at once. If I were to enumerate all the different encounters with the guerillas which are contained in the recent numbers of the Franco-Mexican papers, I should fill whole pages of the Herald. I will therefore content myself, as evidence, with translating a few items from La Sociedad, an ultra clerical paper of this city, and L’Estafette, the organ of General Bazaine.
The Estafette of the 7th of September comments upon the defeat at the Rio Florido, in the State of Chihuahua, of a detachment of French soldiers by the liberal General Patoni. The same issue has also the following:
“The neighborhood of Toluca has just been the scene of painful events. The ‘dissidents’ having surprised at San Felipe a detachment of the municipal guards, it was destroyed. This disaster costs the municipal guard of Mexico seventy men, and Captains Concha and Moncada, and Lieutenant Galindo.”
The Sociedad of the 8th says:
“Figueroa took possession at Tecomovaca of a conducta of $200,000, proceeding from Oaxaca to Vera Cruz, the troops that escorted the money having been completely routed.”
In the issue of the 10th the same paper adds:
“The Boletin of Tlaccotalpam publishes Figueroa’s report of his engagement with the Austrians, after he left Tehuacan, at Trapichito, on the Rio Salado. Figueroa states that the enemy’s losses were more than twenty killed and forty-eight prisoners, among them an Austrian lieutenant of cavalry.” The same paper adds: “We are informed from a trustworthy source that Fragoso, who is again in the field, surprised, on the evening of the 2d instant, at the hacienda of San Antonio del Valle, an imperial force of ninety dragoons from San Juan del Rio. All were taken prisoners, except a few who escaped by scaling the walls of the hacienda. From the same source we learn that Ugalde, (another liberal chief,) coming from Huapango, crossed the national road to the interior on the 3d instant with a force of five hundred men on his way to Mezquital.”
[Page 670]El Pajaro Verde of the 9th says:
“General Rueles (imperialist) is fortifying Tepeje del Rio, to await there the enemy, who is approaching that locality with upwards of twelve hundred men.”
I should never finish were I to repeat all that is published of this character, and which is the staple of our daily news. “Tula, in the State of Mexico, has been captured by the republicans.” “The republican forces have approached the outskirts of Orizaba.” “The imperial General Tenajero has been defeated in Nuevo Leon.” Such items fill the papers constantly. Maximilian, or rather General Bazaine, who is the real emperor, has abandoned the policy of conciliation heretofore pursued, and it is now a war of extermination against all who oppose them.
Here in the capital we have recently had an alarm, and some forty prominent Mexicans of distinction were arrested and imprisoned without trial or charge, and for no reason other than that they were known to be unfriendly to the empire in the opinions which they entertained, but without taking any part whatever in the struggle that is going on. No reason whatever has been assigned for their arrest and imprisonment, nor have they been brought before any tribunal for trial. Rumor says to-day that they are to be sent to Martinique, subject to hard labor. The outrages and atrocities that are being committed here by the French will, when known, shock the whole world and fill it with horror. Poland, even, has scarcely been the theatre of more iniquitous events.
The Sociedad of the 6th instant publishes the following, taken from an official report of an engagement in Aguas Calientes:
“According to orders, and with the greatest secrecy, without calling upon the authorities of the place, Don Manuel Lozano (a supposed republican) was arrested and immediately shot in his own house.”
Speaking of French atrocities, the Sombra, a semi-liberal paper of this city, publishes the following:
“We have denounced before the nation many acts of cruelty of which the press of this city has taken no notice at all. We have also stated in our remarks addressed to the Estafette that it is impossible to consolidate peace in the presence of a power which, in utter disregard of the laws of nature, and stifling all feelings of humanity, decrees with profound secrecy and without any law but its own will the death of citizens. It is impossible, we repeat, to re-establish peace and public confidence by the use of such means.”
In my next I will send you further extracts, which will unmistakably show the course of events.* * *