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Paul V. Murray*

Veracruz and the Veracruzanos as Seen By English and American Travellers*

Introduction

Ever since its foundation the port of Veracruz has been the most important gateway into Mexico. Through it have passed conquerors and viceroys, friars and bishops, immigrants and nobles, travellers and spies, the slave and the free. Among those hundreds of thousands of men and women were many Englishmen and Americans; and it is to them I have turned for some impressions of the three-times heroic city as it appeared when they landed in or departed from there. Naturally, I have looked into but a fraction of the hundreds of books written by such travellers; for time and the exigencies of my work would not permit me to give to the task all of the energies and the research that it so richly deserves. However, I trust that these lines will prove of interest to my audience and that they will serve to call to the attention of others the rich materials that await the historians and sociologists who are intent on re­creating a true picture of the Mexican past.
        As an American, I have developed a conviction that the Mex­ican scene has too often been distorted when seen through English and American eyes; and that Englishmen and Americans have been profoundly, and sometimes adversely, influenced by the scores of books written by their fellow countrymen. Therefore, the Mexican —and most especially the Mexican scholar— who seeks to present his country in a different light to the Anglo-American peoples can well afford to spend some time in a careful study of the travel liter-

*  Paper read in the Congress of History (held at Jalapa, Veracruz) on July 26, 1951.

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ature in English written about Mexico. Some of it is very good and has a lasting value for us all. Too much of it is superficial, narrow, and unfriendly — if not actually hostile. In this brief paper I have tried to include many shades of opinion so that Mexicans in general and Veracruzans in particular will be able to understand what the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns, had in mind when he wrote "On wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!"
        I should like to make one more point before beginning: I have confined myself to the port of Veracruz and its environs, since any attempt to develop the impressions of my authors beyond such bounds would make this paper almost interminable. Jalapa, Cordoba, Orizaba, Perote and other towns and cities of Veracruz visited by Anglo-American travellers will have to be studied at another time.
        It would seem that the first English-speaking person to give his countrymen a view of Veracruz was the embittered English Dominican friar, Thomas Gage. Although his book was not published until 1648, when he had already left the Roman Catholic Church, had married and become a minister in the Anglican community, Gage came to New Spain in 1625. Despite the fact that all his writing is colored by his deep hatred of all things Catholic and Spanish, he cannot forget the wondrous sights he saw in America nor the sharp impression they made on his youthful mind. The Veracruz that greeted his eye would seem to have had no more than three thousand inhabitants; and it was far from substantially built, for Friar Thomas wrote of the buildings: "... they are all, both houses, churches, and cloisters, built with boards and timber, the walls of the richest men's houses being made but of boards, which with the impetuous winds from the North hath been the cause that many times the town has been for the most part of it burnt down to the ground."¹ Despite the lack of impressive buildings, however, Gage saw Veracruz as a wealthy community; and in his quaint English he gives us a word

¹ Thomas Gage, The English American, A New Survey of the West, Indies, 1648 (Lon­don; The Broadway Travellers and George Routledge and Sons. Ltd., 1946), p. 35.

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picture that makes one thrill to the meaning of what Spanish trade was like in the golden age of Spain's overseas empire:
        The great trading from Mexico, and by Mexico from the East Indies, from Spain, from Cuba, Sto. Domingo, Yucatán, Portables [sic], and by Portobello from Peru, from Cartagena, and all the islands lying upon the North Sea, and by the River Alvarado going up to Zapotecas, St. Ildefonso, and towards Oaxaca, and by the river Grijalva, running up to Tabasco, Los Zoques and Chiapa de Indies, maketh this little town very rich and to abound with all the commodities of the continent land, and of all the East and West Indies' treasures.²
        Gage, in mentioning the wind from the north, had touched upon one of the scourges of Veracruz that seems never to have es­caped mention by any traveller whose writings I have read. He did not fail to mention the other—insalubrity: "The unhealthiness of the place is the reason for the paucity of inhabitants..."³ was the way he put it. Down until very recent times this note has been struck by visitors and natives, to most of whom el vómtlo remained a tene­brous mystery until it was banished from the port by men and women trained in modern methods of public health control. Before taking our leave of Friar Thomas, we should not fail to observe that he included in his chronicle a mention of cultural activities which did great credit to the inhabitants of the little town. After visiting friends and bidding them farewell, writes Gage, "seats were prepar­ed for us in the cathedral church to sit and see a comedy acted, which had been on purpose studied and prepared by the town for the entertainment of the new Viceroy of Mexico." ⁴

* * *

        My brief researches yielded no further works by English and American travellers until after the Cura Hidalgo had given "El Grito de Dolores" in 1810. Some six years later, William Davis Robinson, an American merchant, came to New Spain with the expectation of collecting some accounts owed him by insurgent leaders.

² Ibid.
3Ibid.
4 Ibid., p. 37. The new viceroy, the Marqués de Serralvo, came out to New Spain in the same fleet as Gage. The English friar was accompanied by other Dominicans.

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Unfortunately for him, he was captured by Spanish soldiers and accused of being Dr. John Hamilton Robinson, a fellow countryman who had come into the country to fight on the side of the insurgents. Neither identification papers nor explanations were sufficient to convince the Spanish authorities that they had not captured the Yankee soldier whose activities had so annoyed them. The poor merchant was confined in many places in Mexico and eventually was shipped off to a Spanish prison, from whence he escaped. One can hardly describe him as either a traveller or a visitor during his stay in Veracruz because the unhappy man was a prisoner for eleven long months in the dark dungeons of San Juan Ulua. It is little wonder, then, that after his arrival in the city on February 3, 1817, William Davis Robinson found no time to admire the port and commit to memory his impressions for the book he was to write three years later. He does tell us of the kindness showed him by a certain Don Lorenzo Murphy and of a visit paid him in prison by a Lieut. Porter of the U. S. brig "Boxer" (in September, 1817). And it is fully understandable why he could write of San Juan Ulua and Omoa: ". . .it must be understood that there are not to be found such mansions of horror in any other part of the world."⁵
        Four years after Mr. Robinson had sailed away from his dank prison, another American came ashore at Veracruz to open a chapter in Mexican history that still gives rise to long discussion and heated debate. Joel Roberts Poinsett, destined to be the first diplomatic representative of his country sent to Mexico, cast a keen eye over his surroundings and began to gather material for those Notes on Mexico⁶ which are so helpful to those of us who have studied the activities of a man whose influence has been felt here for generations. The South Carolinian commented upon the fact that Spaniards still faced Mexicans in battle array across a narrow stretch of water when he wrote:

⁵ William Davis Robinson, Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution (Philadelphia: Lydia R. Bailey, Printer, 1820), xv. See vi-xiv for his adventures until he was jailed in Veracruz.
⁶ There is a Mexican edition entitled Notas sobre México (1822), (México: Editorial Jus. 1950), translated by Pablo Martínez del Campo with notes by Eduardo Enrique Ríos. The edition in English was published in Philadelphia in 1825 and I do not think it was ever reprinted. Not having it at hand I have had to re-translate from the Mexican edition the portions used in this paper.

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It is a strange state of affairs since the city is in the hands of the new government and the castle is held by the old. When the independence forces.took Veracruz, about eighteen months ago, the royalists retired to the castle of San Juan de Ulúa, from where they dominate the entrance to the port and find it easy to cannonade the city at any time. It is a strong fortress with a garrison of 600 men, mounts more than a hundred pieces of heavy artillery and is provided with supplies and ammunition sufficient to withstand a prolonged siege. During the day there is constant communication between the city and the castle and at night they watch each other jealously. The governor of the castle allows merchant ships to enter but he imposes a tax of eight per cent on the prices of the cargo bills.⁷

        It is probable that Poinsett was the first writer in English to attempt a description of a man whose name resounded through Mexican politics for more than three decades. This was his impression of the military governor of the city:

Santa Anna is a man of some thirty years of age, of a thin but symmetrical build, with an expressive and intelligent face; but it is evident that be suffers from fatigue and the effects of an unhealthy climate. He is surrounded by officers who wear, like him, the insignias of the new Imperial orders. The welcome which they gave us was cour­teous and cordial; and when we stood up to go he insisted that we should return to dine with him.⁸

Like Thomas Gage before him and most others after him, Poinsett reported on the unhealthiness of the city. Unlike many others, however, he sought a reason for this and called upon his experiences as a traveller to supply the answer. A walk about Veracruz showed him that "It is well and compactly built; it is so extremely clean and neat that from an examination of the interior.... alone it would be difficult to explain the causes of the pestilential illnesses which has given it such unhappy renown."⁹ This American traveller knew little or nothing of diseases caused by insects but experience and per­haps intuition evidently caused him to make this observation:

The city is surrounded by dunes and pools of stagnant water, which in the tropics is sufficient to produce the black vomit and bilious fever. The inhabitants and those accustomed to the climate arc not exposed

⁷ Op. cit., pp. 49-50.
⁸ Ibid., p. 52.
⁹ Ibid., p. 53.

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to the first of these diseases; but all foreigners, even those from Ha­vana and the West Indies, are subject to this contagion. No precaution whatsoever will protect the stranger from this fatal illness and many have died in Jalapa who merely passed through the city of Veracruz.¹⁰

        Poinsett was a good judge of human nature and a capable student of military tactics. He reveals this in his account of a conversation held with Santa Anna just before leaving Veracruz for the interior. Santa Anna confided to him his plans for the conquest of the castle: "He proposes to blockade it by water, construct a battery at each end of the port to impede the passage to the docks and set out who knows how many mortars to throw balls into the fort." The governor explained that the batteries would be protected by the houses in the city and "because they are mostly the property of European Spaniards he does not believe that they will be the target of fire from the castle."¹¹ The American was not at all in agreement but he avoided expressing the opinion which he afterwards recorded in his Notes: "The castle is very strong; in the winter, because of the violent, fre­quent and tremendous winds, it will not be possible to establish the blockade of the entrance; the batteries can be destroyed at the will of the commandant of the castle and it is not probable that respect for the properties of his compatriots will lead him to sacrifice the security of the post with which he has been charged."¹²
        Approximately fourteen months later—on December 11, 1823— there landed in the port an English gentleman who formed part of His Britannic Majesty's Commission to Mexico. His name was H. G. Ward, and if on this occasion he arrived in the country later than Mr. Poinsett, he was hardly ever again to be outdistanced by that clever fellow. For H. G. Ward eventually became the first British minister to Mexico; and during his term of office he proved himself a worthy diplomatic opponent of Don Joel. His two-volume study of the country entitled Mexico in 1827 ¹³ is of interest not only be cause of its historical content, travel notes, and personal opinions but also because of the mass of information concerning mines that Mr. Ward obtained in his long and arduous journeys through the land.

¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Ibid., pp. 54-55.
¹²Ibid., p. 55.
¹³(London: Henry Colburn, 1828), II, pp. 171-172. The book is illustrated with etchings done by Mrs. Ward, who shared all the dangers and difficulties of the journeys with her husband.

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        Ward did not find the city to be as attractive as Poinsett had reported; in fact, it seemed deserted. Going ashore on December 12, he discovered that the officer in charge was none other than General Guadalupe Victoria who, naturally enough, was celebrating his saint's day. The party of Englishmen was invited to the fiesta, and Ward recorded that many toasts were drunk to the "happy coincidence of our arrival having taken place upon the day sacred to the Patroness of Mexico and of Guadalupe Victoria..."¹⁴ As we know, San Juan de Ulúa was still held by the Spaniards. Ward, with the Englishman's dry sense of humor, tells us how Victoria's men, wishing to send the members of the commission back to their ship with due honors, fired a volley from their guns. It seems, however, that the guns were not only loaded but "directed against the castle, which immediately opened its batteries in return, so that for some time we had the pleasure of finding ourselves between two fires.." ¹⁵ Because of the difficulty of obtaining mules and supplies, the commis­sion could not leave for the capital as soon as desired and again the general opened his house and offered food and drink to its members (December 14). During the course of the evening a violent norte blew up and Victoria offered a lodging for the night as well, since it was impossible for the Englishmen to return to their ship. Two days later everything was in order and they bade farwell to the city and their host. ¹⁶
        It is quite probable that no Englishman or American —perhaps no Mexican either— has told us so much about the city of Veracruz as it was in the first decade of independence as Captain G. F. Lyon, of the Royal Navy, whose stout little two-volume work deserves to be better known than it is. It has, as the Mexicans would say, a "kilometric title": Journal of a Residence and Tour in the Republic of Mexico in the Year of 1826 with Some Account of the Mines of that Country. " Capt. Lyon, unlike the travellers we have quoted so far, arrived in the city after seven months in the interior so that his first view of the city was from the landward side: "A strong norther was blowing, and a heavy surf broke along the line of the coast, while the island castle of San Juan de Ulua and a cluster of

¹⁴ Op. cit., p. 175. It is well known that the general's name was Félix Maria Fernández, "Guadalupe Victoria" being the nombre de guerra be had taken during the war for independence.
¹⁵ Ibid., p. 176.
¹⁶ Ibid.
¹⁷ (London: John Murray, 1828).

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shipping beneath its walls, with the city of Vera Cruz terminating the long yellow line of sand, formed an extremely pretty picture of about four miles in depth."¹⁶ Entering on November 8, the captain stayed on until December 4 when he embarked for New York and home.
        Since the author devotes some eighteen pages of his Journal to the city of Veracruz alone, it is not possible to give all his impressions in detail so I have selected some of those which are most revealing—of the city and of the author as well. He passed his first night in "a nasty Meson. . . the worst. . . I had seen, which is saying a great deal" but the next day he was happier because he found an inn "in which was a coffee-room, a public table, and the first civilized comforts I have enjoyed out of a private house."¹⁹ He reports bathing in the sea on November 10, although "the natives are not much addicted to ablutions of any kind. . ."; and later on he attended the funeral of a young Englishman who "had just been carried off by the Vómito." The body was buried in some bushes outside the Campo Santo "which could not, of course," writes the Captain rather bitterly, "afford repose to the body of a heretic. . ." He took grim satisfaction in the thought that the bodies inside the cemetery were not much better protected, at least from the elements, than the young Englishman as ". . .a peep through the ruined door. . ." discovered ". . .hundreds of whitened skulls scattered at random upon the ground, while the usual troops of familiar carrion vultures..." roamed "...undisturbed amidst the crumbling bones."²⁰
        Captain Lyon enjoyed his walks along the Mole, watching the "Crowds of Negro porters. . . .in constant motion" and the "noisy concourse of cart-men scrambling and quarrelling for the chance of employment; their pay, as well as that of porters, is very high, many of them earning five and six dollars in a day." ²¹ He described the two-wheel carts as being drawn by "three mules abreast, the driver riding on the near one. . ."; viewed men and boys fishing "either with casting-nets or simple rods and lines. . . for Mojarra, Rouco, Barbudo, and Xurel" (though the captain contends he never saw them catch any!); reported "150 Presidiarios, or convicts, embarked... for

^{18 Op. cit.,} p. 211. He wrote, p. 212, that he had used the "much-condemned route" between Vera Cruz and Mexico by way of Real del Monte; and "from experience can affirm that it is the most beautiful, most civilized, comfortable and convenient route in the whole of the Mexican Republic."
¹⁹ Ibid., pp. 211-Z12.
²⁰ Ibid., pp. 212-213.
²¹ Ibid., pp. 214.

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Campeachy. . . I think I never saw a more villainous set of faces; and as some of them were very ill-clothed, their bare arms, backs, and breasts, exhibited many scars of the knife fights, which are so common with the class from which these prisoners had been taken." ²²
        On other strolls about the city, this English traveller observed the scavenging work of both jackal and vulture; the Alameda, which because of weather exposure or civic neglect (he knew not which), "is unshaded by a single tree"; many kinds of birds and marine life; Los Cocos, source of the city's water supply. He found many of the houses "excellent," the streets "straight and spacious," the paving "very good," every street with "a raised footway on each side. . . filled with a fine cement of lime, sand, and shells, which equals stone in hardness and durability, and even acquires a polish from the feet of passengers." The best houses, the captain found, rented for 3,000 dollars per year and cost close to 100,000 dollars to build! He attributed these high costs to the scarcity of materials. And the houses, he adds, "are kept studiously clean"; and most of them, like all "the principal buildings have also a Mirador, or little watch turret, on their roofs, from which a good view is obtained and a fresher air inhaled." To them the families go in the cool of the evening; and from there also "the anxious merchant. . . .looks out upon the coming sail, which is announced by the bell of the church of San Francesco tolling five times, so that by this very judicious plan the news is published to all the town." ^2S
        The plaza of the city impressed Capt. Lyon as being "small and not remarkable." At the Plaza de Verduras, he found that good cabbages cost four reales and a large onion half a real. The hospitals for the sick he did not visit "as the Vómito was still very prevalent." One or two "declining establishments of friars" were in existence and there was being erected a theater, "somewhat smaller than any of those in our country villages." The most recent census showed a population of about 8,000, not counting 1,000 soldiers nor the prisoners, whose numbers always fluctuated. The trade of the city, the captain observed, had declined greatly, "owing to the excessive and injudiciously imposed duties, which have obliged the principal mercantile houses to revoke their orders for shipment..."; thus, "the very means which the Mexican financiers have adopted

^22. Ibid., pp. 214-215.
^23. Ibid., pp. 216-222.

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in hopes of increasing the revenue, have most effectually and irremediably injured it." ²⁴
        Towards the last of his stay in Veracruz, Captain Lyon observed the celebrations in honor of the first anniversary of the fall of the castle of San Juan de Ulúa:

Salutes from the ships and castle announced before daylight the joyful event, and processions and fireworks were not spared. The Plaza was occupied by a triumphal Temple of Victory, and an artificial Castle of Ulua was erected on the Mole, where it fell gloriously under a heavy fire of squibs and crackers. Poor General Barragan also formed part of the show, and paraded all the streets bearing a silk flag, and attended by soldiers marching the balance step.²⁵
        

        The fiesta lasted for three days and was brought to a close on November 26 by the presentation of "Vera Cruz Triunfante" in which the "Heroic City" was "personated by a young lady habited as a tragedy queen, supported on one side by General Barragan in full uniform, and on the other by a judge in a full suit of court mourning." Because the car in which the young lady was supposed to ride had been poorly made, she was obliged to walk, "preceded by two slaves, who were liberated for the occasion, and dressed in white; these were flanked by two little puppet-show children, one personifying Mars, the other Mercury, but which gay personages with their bright tinsel ornaments were taken by some of the mob for San Pedro and San Francesco." A band of music led the way and some two hundred "well-dressed people attended with large lighted wax candles." Captain Lyon could not refrain from observing that the cost of the festival was 13,000 dollars; "while a ruined mole, fallen batteries, unrepaired public buildings, and unpaid troops, bespoke the poverty of the State." Still, he could find a reason and an excuse: ". . .the good people of Vera Cruz, and in fact all Mexicans, dearly love a show; and I must confess are the best regulated and most (Orderly multitude on these occasions that I ever saw." ²⁶

On the evening of November 30, Capt. Lyon attended a ball at "the Government-house." The ladies were "prettily dressed" and the gentlemen "had paid much attention to their toilette. No smoking, by either ladies or gentlemen, was permitted in the ballroom,

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 222-224.
²⁵ Ibid., pp. 224.
²⁶ Ibid., pp. 224-226. He says in a note that he did not know of the existence of a single slave in the whole republic but had heard that there were some when he arrived at Veracruz.

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which was spacious, well lighted, and very neatly furnished; and the whole display was extremely pleasing." The next day the traveller visited the castle of San Juan Ulúa; and among the most interesting things he noted about it was the "Mexican squadron commanded by Commodore Porter" and which consisted of "a frigate of thirty-two guns, a twenty-four gun brig, with two of eighteen, and some schooners." Two days later, December 3, the captain was ready to sail "after having passed four anxious weeks at Vera Cruz waiting for a passage." There had been frequent nortes but the vómito had not disappeared and deaths from it had been frequent. He had found the temperature "rather agreeable than otherwise" with a range of from 86 to 92 degrees. When there were gales, however, the temperature usually fell to 75° which, says our traveller, "was considered as cold by many of the long resident English, who astonished me by closing their doors and windows, and in many instances putting on warmer clothes." ²⁷ He left Veracruz the next day but his memories of those long weeks of waiting are charmingly preserved for us in many of the 627 pages of his Journal.
        Twelve years after Captain Lyon's visit, a ship arrived from Havana bearing a lady whose letters home, at the insistence of a friend —the great historian, William Hickling Prescott— were to be published as Life in Mexico.²⁸ When she first sighted Veracruz on December 2, 1838, the one-time Frances Erskine Inglis, born in Scotland of good family and raised in the United States, was Señora Calderón de la Barca, her husband being the first Spanish minister sent to Mexico after independence. Her book is regarded by Mexicans and foreigners alike as a classic of its kind and needs no further praise from me here.
        The poor lady, like many other travellers before her, found el norte a serious business for it took her party sixteen days to get ashore (December 2 to 18) since the ship was unable to come in close due to the heavy gale. No wonder that she saw Veracruz through "much-wearied eyes." The pilot who finally brought them in to shore was a Spaniard who pointed to San Juan Ulúa and said: "We, although but a handful of men, defended ourselves for years like soldiers, and now these Frenchmen took it in three days!" His allu-

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 227-229.
²⁸ (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1931), p. 24. The first edition was published in Boston and London in 1843, the same year in which Prescott published his Conquest of Mexico. It has been said that Life in Mexico caused such a good impression that it was used as a guide by General Scott and his officers during the war against Mexico. See the introduction by Henry Baerlein in the 1931 edition, p. xiv.

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sion was to the recent occupation by French troops during the so-called "Guerra de los Pasteles." And certainly Veracruz must have suffered in the dozen years that had passed since Captain Lyon wrote, for our lady traveller saw it as "the miserable, black-looking city. . . "²⁹ Her view is depressing indeed: ". . .the surrounding houses black with smoke of powder or with fire —a view of bare red sandhills all round—not a tree, or shrub, or flower, or bird, except the horrid black sopilote, or police-officer." She turned to the Bible for a simile: "All looks as though the prophet Jeremiah had passed through the city denouncing woe to the dwellers thereof. Such a melancholy, wholly deserted-looking burial-ground as we saw!"³⁰ In spite of her feelings, the Señora found words of praise for this, her first resting-place in Mexico:

War and revolution have no doubt done their work, yet I find difficulty in believing those who speak of Vera Cruz as having been a gay and delightful residence in former days, though even now, those who have resided here for any length of time, even foreigners, almost invariably become attached to it; and as for those born here, they are the truest of patriots, holding up Vera Cruz as superior to all other parts of the world. ³¹

        Before the new minister's party landed, "a salute of twenty guns was fired from our ship" and "the same number of cannon was then fired from the castle, in honour of the first Spanish man-of-war that has appeared in this port since the Revolution." The wharf was crowded with a colorful mass of people, whose appearance inspired the pen of their fair visitor. "Some had no pantaloons" although others "to make up for their neighbours' deficiencies, had two pair —the upper slit up the side of the leg, Mexican fashion." Hats were large, "with silver or bead rolls" and there was "every tinge of complexion, from the pure Indian, upwards." Humor and interest inspired this observation: "Some dresses were entirely composed of rags, clinging together by the attraction of cohesion; others had only a few holes to let in the air. All were crowding, jostling, and nearly throwing each other into the water, and gazing with faces of intense curiosity." ³²
        Señora Calderón de la Barca left Veracruz on December 22, 1838, after having met General Guadalupe Victoria, the English and

²⁹ Op. cit.. pp. 24-25.
³⁰ Ibid., p. 29.
³¹ Ibid.
³² Ibid., p. 25.

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French consuls, and several other people. We shall not take time to describe her visit to Santa Anna and his family at Manga de Clavo since it took place outside the city which we have set for ourselves as the central point of this paper. However, I cannot refrain from inserting here her description of our host city, a description so friendly in spirit as to make all of us feel that we should like to have been on hand to meet her as she came into town in the diligencia. "It was nearly two in the morning when we reached Jalapa, tired to death, and shivering with cold. Greatly we rejoiced as we rattled through its mountainous streets, and still more when we found our­selves in a nice clean inn, with brick floors and decent small beds, and everything prepared for us." After a good night's sleep, she rose refreshed and was waited on "by such a nice, civil, clean little old woman, that I should like to carry her off with me." Officials of the town came to wait at the door for her husband. A final note: "Our breakfast was delicious. Such fresh eggs, and fresh butter, and good coffee and well-fried chickens; moreover, such good bread and peculiarly excellent water, that we fell very much in love with Ja­lapa." ³³ Perhaps her words help us to understand why this city prov­ed so attractive to the many people, both native and foreign, who came here to reside during the months when el vómito made living in Veracruz a dangerous and depressing adventure.
        Joel Roberts Poinsett was succeeded, in his role of minister to Mexico, by many different men. Few of them wrote books. One who did, however, was Mr. Waddy Thompson, who represented his country here between 1842 and 1844. In a volume entitled Recollec­tions of Mexico ³⁴, Thompson relates his entry into Mexico by way of Veracruz. Some of the scars of war and the smoke of battle that disconcerted Sra. Calderón de la Barca must have disappeared by April 2, 1842, because the minister found it "rather a pretty town, with broad and reasonably clean streets." He did, however, write a great deal about the nortes and el vómito. As regards the latter, he not only gave many statistics concerning the number of people afflicted and the deaths among them but he discussed at length the virtues of various remedies for the fever. The treatment given by Veracruz physicians, he wrote, was "very simple, and certainly not very unpleasant; . . . nothing more than cold applications to the stom­ach, and lime juice and sweet oil given internally; and this practice

³³ Ibid., p. 38.
³⁴ (New York and London: Wiley and Putnam, 1846).

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is so generally successful, as to give the results which I have stated —five per cent of deaths." On the other hand, the American minister said that one could make a defense of treatment by calomel, even though Veracruzans believe such treatment to be fatal. He reported the experience of a young American doctor who accompanied the Texas prisoners brought to Mexico after their capture on the Santa Fe expedition. Forty-five were attacked by yellow fever yet only one died. The only medicine was calomel, and Thompson supported its efficacy by remarking: "I am not certain that a single one died of the disease."³⁵
        The minister observed that "A new and handsome custom house has just been completed on the mole. . ." though it was strange to find that ". . .the material of which it is built is brought from Quincy, in Massachusetts, although there is stone equally good within ten miles of Vera Cruz. . ." ³⁶ Another innovation since the visit of Sra. Calderón de la Barca was "a very good line of stages, making three trips every week between Vera Cruz and Mexico, which has entirely superseded all other modes of conveyance." Travel by stage was very expensive but considered cheaper, more expeditious, and more pleasant than transportation by litera though, for some unexplained reason, "literas are very rarely robbed." The line was "established by an American" but it had passed into the hands of "a rich Mexican —who is daily growing wealthier by it." The horses were Mexican, seven to a stage; these vehicles were "built at Troy, New York, and the drivers are all Americans. . ." ³⁷ Mr. Thompson had high hopes for steam travel in the near future as he contended that "a railroad from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico constructed at almost any cost, would be extremely profitable to the stockholders." This was true because "a very large proportion of all the European manufactures and merchandise which are consumed in Mexico" land at Veracruz and are "carried to the city of Mexico on mules, at a very high rate of freight," and then are distributed "all over the Republic." ³⁸ The railroad was not completed until many years after Mr. Thompson had returned home to write his Recollections of his sojourn in Mexico.

³⁵ Op. cit., pp. 1-5. The abortive expedition of the Texans in 1841, in an effort to capture the most important city in New Mexico, is described in much detail in a famous work, Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, 2 vols., by George W. Kendall. The 1844 edition, published in New York, is rare. There is a modern edition (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 1929). Kendall, a newspaperman, took part in the expedition and with his defeated companions was taken to Mexico as a prisoner.
³⁶ Recollections of Mexico, p. 8.
³⁷ Ibid., p. 10.
³⁸ Ibid., p. 205.

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        The year 1847 was a sad one for Mexico in general and Veracruz in particular. For the second time in less than a decade, a foreign invader seized the city after visiting upon it bloodshed and destruction. American troops under General Winfield Scott landed in March of that year. An eyewitness remembered some of the scenes, and we quote him: "The debarkation took place inside of the little island of Sacrificios, some three miles south of Vera Cruz. The vessels could not get anywhere near shore, so that everything had to be landed in lighters or surfboats. . ." The waves were high and the landings long and dangerous. The men got ashore quickly, but equipment, provisions, ammunition and other supplies took several days to land. The eyewitness wrote, with a touch of humor, that "The Mexicans were kind to us. . . and threw no obstacles in the way of our landing except an occasional shot from their nearest fort. During the debarkation one shot took off the head of Major Albertis. No other, I believe, reached anywhere near the same distance." On the 9th of March, "the troops were landed and the investment of Vera Cruz, from the Gulf of Mexico south of the city to the Gulf again on the north, was soon and easily effected. The landing of stores was continued until everything was got ashore." ³⁹ These words came from the pen of a man dying from cancer of the throat and setting them down for money in order to pay, honorably, debts incurred by friends who had treated him dishonorably. The year was 1883, the writer General Ulysses Simpson Grant, ex-president of the United States, victor over Robert E. Lee in the greatest war the world had known up till that time, once an humble second lieutenant in the army of General Scott.
        A dozen years later, Veracruz was again an important prize in a bloody struggle, only this time the struggle was between brothers and has been called the War of the Reform or the Three Years' War. Housed in the city was the Liberal government of Benito Juárez and the men of the Reform. Negotiations with the American government had begun, and President Buchanan had sent a secret agent to represent him at the meetings. William Churchwell of Tennessee knew nothing of Mexico and less about the men with whom he was dealing. Still, he was a politician and a student of human

³⁸ Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, 2 vols. (New York: Charles L. Webster & Co.), I, p. 126. After leaving the presidency, the former president formed a partnership with some men in an investment company. The company failed and Gen. Grant felt it was his duty to pay the debts contracted by himself and his partners. In spite of his painful illness, the general was able to finish his Memoirs before he died; and with the profits of the sale of the book to pay all the creditors of the bankrupt company.

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nature so that what he wrote to his superior in Washington is worthy of note.
        Churchwell's third dispatch, sent directly to Buchanan and written on February 22, 1859, is extremely interesting because of the descriptions of Juárez, Ocampo and Lerdo which it contains. In his eyes Juárez was a prudent and sound jurisconsult but as a politician he considered him distrustful and timid; stern and incorruptible yet mild and benignant. "He has his voice in the council and is listened to with respect, but he has no influence over his Ministers and is unconsciously under their most absolute and unlimited control." ⁴⁰ He describes Ocampo as "a gentleman of great native intellect, and of considerable parts and learning, inflexible in his resolves, peremptory in his views, rather prompt in discourse and impatient of contradiction; but high minded, honest and like his Chief incorruptible."⁴¹ Of Lerdo, the friend of former Minister Forsyth, he said that he had all the brilliant qualities of the other two, was as pure as they, more practical towards the actualities of life. "He is the most popular man among his party, and deservedly considered as the master spirit of the Cabinet." ⁴² We know that Churchwell's work made easier the task of Minister Robert M. M^cLane when he went to Veracruz in April, 1859, to sign sometime later (December 14, 1859) the treaty which bore his name and that of Don Melchor Ocampo.⁴³
        The War of the Reform was scarcely ended when the French invaded Mexico (1862), and five more weary years were spent in fratricidal strife. Anglo-American visitors were not very numerous during the period but one Englishman, who came out to join Maximilian's forces (was it just for sport?) wrote a book of reminiscences in which we find a description of Veracruz as it was during the French domination.⁴⁴ Mr. J. F. Elton wrote of the city as he saw it on April 13, 1866: "Vera Cruz rejoices in many steeples and domes, and they shone out clear and white, like marble, against the deep blue of the mountains far away inland." In the background

>40 Wm. Manning (ed.), Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Inter-American Affairs, 1831-1860, Vol. II, Mexico (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1937), p. 1033.
⁴¹ Ibid.
⁴² Ibid.
⁴³ For further details see Paul V. Murray, Tres norteamericanos y su participation en el desarrollo del tratado M^cLane-Ocampo, 1856-1860 (Guadalajara: Imprenta "Gráfica," 1946), pp. 29-45.
⁴⁴ J. F. Elton, With the French in Mexico (London: Chapman and Hall, 1867). Mr. Elton said that he was hunting along the Scheldt River when he got the idea to go to Mexico and take part in the French intervention
.
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"the last rays of the sun faintly lit up the snow-peak of Orizaba" while over towards Sacrificios there lay "the wreck of a large vessel, driven on the sands by a strong 'norte,' standing out in black and ominous effect, and almost intercepting the view." ⁴⁵ The military air of those days in the port is sounded in the following description: "Vera Cruz was a very Babel. Zouaves, Turcos, Chasseurs d'Afrique, and Nubians —belonging to the Egyptian Legion— were bustling about, and hurrying their way through the crowds of Mexicans, Indians, cargadores, arrieros, and impatient travellers [who] were more than anxious to turn their backs on the town, and the chances of yellow-fever." In the crowd, too, were invalided soldiers and those whose time had expired. "They bore all the unmistakable signs of having made many a long and weary march in Mexico, and their travel-stained uniforms made the white dresses of the Egyptian soldiers stand out in striking contrast." ⁴⁶ If Mr. Elton's book is a reliable source of information, it would seem that Veracruzans have tragic reason to remember those white-robed, dark-faced men:

These same Egyptians have garrisoned Vera Cruz for about four years, being lent to the French Government by the Viceroy of Egypt. They are exceedingly clean and smart soldiers, nor in one instance have they failed to behave admirably before the enemy; in fact, they are more dreaded in the 'Tierra Caliente' by the guerilla bands than most of the other troops who have had the bad fortune to be garrisoned in this unhealthy climate. Perhaps offenders have a wholesome recollection of their vengeance, when they sallied forth from Tejeria to kill every man in a village hard by, where one of their comrades had been assassinated; and I imagine it will be many a long day before the freebooters will venture to dwell again in this place of ill omen."⁴⁷

Mr. Elton did not linger long in the port. The morning of April 15 "saw our party off by the 'Imperial Mexican Railroad' to Paso del Macho, a distance of some fifty miles, and the terminus at present of the line, which, when completed, is to run to the capital."⁴⁸ The hunter-traveler turned soldier did not remain long in the country since we know that, after a series of campaigns with the imperial forces, he returned to Veracruz and sailed 'from there for Habana on January 13, 1867. When his manuscript was written,

⁴⁵ Op. cit., pp. 9-10. He mentions both the "black vomit" and the zopilotes (vultures).
⁴⁶ Ibid., pp. 11-12.
⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 12. With these words Mr. Elton reveals his ignorance of the great problems that existed before and during the French intervention.
⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 13.

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Maximilian was still alive and the last act of the drama at Querétaro was still to be written by Juárez and his followers.⁴⁹
        A little known incident that took place during the post-Empire years was the visit to Mexico of the Honorable William H. Seward who, as Secretary of State in the cabinet of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, brought much influence to bear on the side of Juárez and the Liberals. Mr. Seward entered the country at Manzanillo on October 7, 1869, and left it at Veracruz on January 11, 1870. This unusual journey (for those times) had its chronicler in the person of Col. Albert S. Evans of San Francisco, California, whose book of more than 500 pages was entitled Our Sister Republic: A Gala Trip through Tropical Mexico in 1869-70.⁵⁰ Mr. Seward and his party were royally entertained wherever they went; and there was no doubt at all in Col. Evans's mind that Juárez and the Liberals showed by their actions the gratitude they felt towards the man who had helped them in their hour of need. But the colonel's book is less taken up with political considerations than with his sketches of people and places. He arrived in Veracruz before Mr. Seward and almost immediately his eye was attracted to a group of men at Schliden & Company who were counting new silver dollars. They were very expert, he wrote, "in detecting defective or base coin. It is said that when they pour a bag of these dollars upon the table, they will decide in an instant whether they are of the coinage of Zacatecas, Guanajuato, or Mexico, by the ring in each, though it is wholly imperceptible to the ear of the uninitiated." Still marvelling at their dexterity, the colonel wrote: "I have never seen any specie-counters or experts who could beat these uneducated Indian-blooded Veracruzanos, save the Chinese experts, who do the same business for the banks in San Francisco. . ." ⁵¹
        The soldierly chronicler did not fail to notice the marks of war which the city showed. "I frequently saw balls or pieces of exploded shells, embedden in the pavement. Many of these were thrown into the city by Miramón, in the attempt to dislodge Juárez in the early part of 1860. . ." ⁵² Down in the harbor, he saw the wrecks of "a large number of steam launches of iron" brought by the French, "their bottoms stove in and machinery removed or ruined... all around

⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 193.
⁵⁰ (Hartford: Columbian Book Company; London, Triibner & Co., 1871).
⁵¹ Op. cit., p. 472.
⁵² Ibid., p. 478. He makes but a slight reference to the American intervention in the Anton Lizard affair, March, 1860.

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the eastern side of the castle." San Juan Ulúa looked down on still other relics of past battles for the colonel wrote: "Many old Spanish guns of the finest metal, thrown into the sea years ago, are still lying in the shallow water around the castle, and might be converted into ploughshares and pruning-hooks to the benefit of the country. . ." ^5S Interesting, too, are the statistics on religion in Veracruz as furnished by Col. Evans. He listed the population as having 15,777 Catholics, 71 Protestants ("all foreigners," he added), 1 Jew and 1 Mohammedan. The nationality of the inhabitants was, according to him: "Mexicans, 14,834; Spaniards, 736; Cubans (nearly all poli­tical exiles), 242; French, 218; Citizens of the United States, 108; Germans, 68; Italians, 37; English, 23; Peruvianos, 5; Africans, 5; other or uncertain nationalities, 24." ⁵⁴ Even more interesting than these figures was the truly humorous description of a fight between a California grizzly bear (whom Col. Evans nicknamed "Old Samp­son") and a bull, which the Seward party witnessed:

At the first touch of the bull's horns, old Sampson raised his im­mense, bulky carcass, took the poor bull lovingly in his brawny arms, and grasping him by the neck with his worn-out teeth proceeded to shake him, as a terrier dog a rat. His teeth were so bad he could not break the bull's neck, but he held him as a mother holds her Infant, and compressed his neck as if it had been a loaf of bread. This went on until the bull called for help, and the audience began to call out, ‘give the bull a chance!' when the Señor, and his assistants dashed water by the hogshead upon the bear to make him break his hold, and at last sueceeded.³⁵

The bear eventually injured the bull so badly that the latter had to be destroyed. The Seward party enjoyed other entertainments before it sailed, but no incident seems to have been more enjoyable —at least to Col. Evans— than the victory of his "paisano" over the bull. 
        Shortly after Don Porfirio Díaz became president for the first time, Mexico began to enjoy (or should I say suffer from?) a new role as hostess to hundreds of tourists who came into the country by ship and, eventually, by rail from the north. A skimming of their books will show that few made observations that were above the commonplace; and only a handful gathered information worth quot­ing. However, they cannot be ignored in such a paper as this. For example, in 1879, an Englishman, Thomas Unett Brocklehurst, saw

⁵³ Ibid., pp. 502-503. 
⁵⁴ Ibid., p. 484. 
55Ibid., p. 489.

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little that was startling in the city of Veracruz but he did leave a record of what travel was like on the railroad leaving the port in those days. "We had not been travelling more than half an hour, when, near Tejeria, the engine was thrown off the rail, and the train brought to a standstill. Some cows had gone to sleep on the line, and the engine had jumped over them; the first two carriages, being empty and light, were flung off the rails and smashed, and the third carriage, in which we were sitting, after a series of bumpings and jumping, came to a dead stop. . ." Some time later, an engine came out from the city and hauled the train back to Veracruz. There was an unhappy wait until the line was reported ready for travel as the passengers were "not allowed to leave the carriages, as the officials declared they did not know at what moment the train would start."⁵⁴ I am sure that many Mexicans and tourists of our day quite fully understand the feelings of Mr. Brocklehurst and his fellow travellers even though seventy-two years have passed since he wrote his book! 
        In 1881, another Englishman, the apparently widely-travelled J. J. Aubertin, passed through Veracruz in the summer without making much comment on the city. He was, though, mightily attracted to the Pico de Orizaba which, he said, in contrast to the other Mexican volcanoes, "boasts of the easiest name." In his enthusiasm for the beauty of the mountain, Mr. Aubertin developed this comparison: "Many and many a time during my two months in the country, I have gazed on him from almost every point of view, and on leaving him for the last time he seemed to me, as did the interior of the dome of St. Peter's on a like occasion, more grand and beautiful than ever." " A forlorn echo of the days of Maximilian's passing glory is found in another passage of Mr. Aubertin's book. After referring to a conversation with a Veracruzano who saw Maximilian land from the Novara in 1864, the Englishman wrote: "In reference to this conversation, I was afterwards assured that one Señor Montez, a Cuban, known to be very parsimonious, paid twenty-five cents each —about a shilling— to fifty men to cheer Maximilian. Many of them afterwards denied the cheering, but did not deny having had the money. It is on record that the coldness of the reception was so marked that the Empress shed tears." ^5S

⁵⁶ Mexico Today: A Country With a Great Future (London: John Murray 1883) pp. 8-9.
⁵⁷ A Flight to Mexico (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882), p. 27. Mr. Aubertin makes many allusions to his trips to Europe,Brazil,etc.
⁵⁸ Ibid., pp. 31-32.

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        In the same year and at almost the same time, an American, William Henry Bishop, came ashore from a steamship, noting that "it was the anniversary of the arrival of Cortez, in. . .1519. He had arrived on the evening of Thursday of Holy Week, and so had I." Mr. Bishop is one of the few writers I have consulted who had a good word to say of the famous zopilotes. "All the world knows," he wrote, "that the streetcleaning of Vera Cruz is conducted by the ravens, or buzzards; but all the world does not know with what a dignity these large zopilotes, of a glossy blackness, often pose themselves immovably on the eaves against the deep blue sky. They might be carved there for ornament. Many a street-cleaning department is at least less sculpturesque, and perhaps less efficient." ⁵⁹ This American deplored the fact that Mexico had not yet developed Veracruz properly as a harbor since it received "nine tenths of the commerce of a nation of ten million people." Disasters to ships have "led the underwriters to make their risks to Vera Cruz about five times higher than to most other ports. The aggregate of these losses for a brief time would pay the cost of works needed to make the inhospitable roadstead a harbor."⁶⁰ The business-minded visitor was critical also of the high duties and fees charged at the port and illustrated his point with a story told by the American consul:

I will tell you... of an unlucky fellow who came here from England with a small venture of fancy goods, part free of duty. The whole cost him originally $1200; and he had consulted the Mexican consul at Liverpool, and thought he knew what he was about. When he got through the Custom-house his total charges and fines had amounted to $2850. He sold his stock for $2000, and borrowed money to pay the difference and get out of the country. ⁶¹

Hearing this story we can well understand why President Díaz was so interested in changing import and export laws after he became president for the second time.
In October of 1883, a man who identified himself only as "A Gringo" but who would seem to have been an Englishman, liked what he saw from aboard his steamer. "Very beautiful did Vera Cruz look. . . with a background of cocoanut-trees waving in the breeze and a dense tropical vegetation. In the distance... the blue mountains of the Sierra Madre. . . the snow tipped peak of Oriza­ba. .. cupolas of the churches dazzled the eye with the reflection of

⁵⁹ Old Mexico and Her Lost Provinces (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1883), pp. 18-19.
⁶⁰ Ibid., pp. 20-21.
⁶¹ Ibid., p. 23.


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the sun's rays on their tile-covered domes, . . low one-storyed houses, with their white walls and green verandahs, looked invitingly cool." ⁶² Once ashore, he visited the usual places; but San Juan Ulúa seemed to shock him. "This is a terrible place in which to expiate a crime," he wrote, "and the convict's life must be an exceptionally hard one. In one great cavernous cell were confined some hundreds of prisoners at the time of my visit. . . formed into a double line, every fourth man holding aloft a small oil lamp." Once accustomed to the gloom, the visitor discerned "the figures of the wretched men... stripped to the waist, with gloomy ferocious faces to which the flickering light gave an uncanny aspect." He left sorry for them but seemed to feel also that it was well to have them confined for the good of society. "The prisoners take it in turn to work on the rocks surrounding the fortress, carrying coal to the lighters under the fierce rays of the tropical sun." He found that when the poor fellows had a little free time they carved cocoanut shells "with sharp-pointed nails, which they fit into rough wood handles, no knives being allowed. Many of these shells are worked into artistic patterns, and on all is the pathetic motto, 'Recuerdo de San Juan de Ulloa,' to remind the purchaser, in his happy freedom, of the prisoners who have spent over these shells so many hours of labour." ⁶³ Surely the man who signed himself "A Gringo" had a warm heart indeed if he could stop for a moment in his travels to shed a silent tear over the plight of those miserable pariahs in the old fortress of San Juan.
        Miss Susan Hale, a writer, passed through Veracruz, probably in the spring of 1888, seeking material for a book about the country. Her brief references to the city are mostly humorous, some complimentary. After landing and then spending a night at a hotel, she wrote: "In Mexico there is no effort on the part of an hotel proprietor to speed the parting guest. He signs the bill overnight and betakes himself to repose, undisturbed by the exodus in early morning." The cargadores are on hand, Miss Hale found, to carry the luggage to the railroad station but "There is no sign of breakfast at the hotel. Nobody is stirring but one sleepy inn-keeper." All is not lost for the hungry traveller, however, for she discovered "as in every Mexican town. . . a cafe, where excellent hot coffee is furnished, with plenty of boiled milk and good bread in many and

⁶² "A Gringo," Through the Land of the Aztecs (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1892), pp. 1-2. He says that both Englishmen and Americans have been called "gringos."
⁶³ Ibid., pp. 9-10.

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various forms. Here we may sit and refresh ourselves with cup after cup, if we like, until the short, sharp whistle of the steam-engine warns us to take the train." ⁶⁴ Although her book, a kind of popular history of Mexico, makes few references after this to her personal views, it would seem that she was well impressed with the country and sought to make friends for it through her writing. 
        One of the most elaborate travel books ever written on Mexico came from the pen of Mrs. Marie Robinson Wright, an Amer­ican, who first visited the country in 1892 and then returned again in 1895-96 to gather material for the huge volume she published in 1897 and dedicated to Don Porfirio Díaz. In Picturesque Mexico⁶⁵ Mrs. Wright gives the reader the more attractive side of things dur­ing the Porfirian epoch; and the photographs that illustrate the big book are sure to bring nostalgia to those who remember another and older Mexico. She dedicates a chapter to each of the states, and Veracruz is not neglected though the city itself has little that is unusual said about it. In one place she does declare that "The working people of Vera Cruz are a clean, well-fed lot. They earn far bet­ter pay than the workers of the table-land cities. The common labor­ers get a dollar and a quarter a day, and a stevedore three dollars." ⁶⁶ But she is much more concerned with a romantic approach to the city than a social one as we can tell from the following:

Throughout the city of Vera Cruz the stranger finds something en­chanting and unreal in the different streets, with their innumerable balconies and fluttering awnings. During the hot afternoon one looks in vain for any sign of life in the great stone houses with their many windows and with their heavy draperies lazily waving in the soft breeze... The long rest-time has cast its spell over everybody, and there is nothing to do but go and lie down to dream of the ships, the bearded captains, and the grim castle; of the far-distant days of romance when Cortez and his men in armor first saw this strange land; and even further back than that, when the Toltecs and Aztecas had things all their own way; and then Vera Cruz seems hoary with antiquity, and the creatures of today naught but mere incidents in the great scroll of history.⁶⁷

It was indeed a romantic, a peaceful picture that Mrs. Wright painted for her readers. Like many other writers of that period, Mexican and foreign alike, she thought that the once war-torn country was

⁶⁴ Mexico (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons; London; T. Fisher Unwin, 1901), pp. 4-5.
⁶⁵ (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1897).
⁶⁶ Op. cit., p. 190.
⁶⁷ Ibid., p. 191.

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now on the high road to peaceful progress and would move forward with ever-greater strides.
        A day came indeed when that peaceful progress was halted and the forward strides were stopped. The Revolution of 1910 that sent Don Porfirio Díaz into exile from Veracruz itself and brought first Francisco I. Madero and then Victoriano Huerta into power at the capital, had powerful repercussions in the country's most impor­tant port. The city was destined to suffer again all the horrors of war —bombardment, siege, hunger, foreign occupation. It has been said that "Time heals all wounds" but one seldom forgets that he was wounded. Strange as it may seem, one of the best, most compassionate descriptions of prostrate Veracruz, immediately after the American attack of April 21, 1914, is to be found in the book called A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico ⁶⁸ of which Mrs. Nelson O'Shaugh-nessy was the author. This cultured lady, who seems to have had a deep affection for this country and its people, was the wife of the American charge d'affaires at the embassy in Mexico City; and her first words about Veracruz were penned as she passed through it on October 7, 1913. Huerta was provisional president and Woodrow Wilson, newly-elected in the United States, would not recognize him. Indeed, Mr. John Lind, who came to confer with Huerta, was on hand with Mr. O'Shaughnessy to greet the diplomat's wife as she came ashore. Admiral Fletcher, commander of American naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico, was also introduced to her at that time.⁶⁹ Five and a half months later, she was back in the captured port, a kind of diplomatic refugee from the embassy in the capital, having been given a safe conduct through the lines because of the anti-American feeling in Mexico City.
        Veracruzans should know her book. Its last forty pages are of great interest to them, indeed to all students of Mexican history. She arrived on April 24 and left on May 3; and her descriptions are marked by the mixed emotions of a patriotic American gentle­woman who loved Mexico and grieved to see her torn by war and revolution. Only brief glimpses at her well-written pages can be recorded here. She saw the U. S. hospital ship Solace out in the harbor, filled with "the wounded, the dead, and, mayhap, the dying ones." There, too, were the chartered boats of the Ward Line—the Mexico, Monterrey, Esperanza, "also the now historic Ypiranga,

⁶⁸ (New York: Harper, 1916). The book is made up of letters which the author sent to her mother.
⁶⁹ Op. cit., pp. 4-5.

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waiting to take American refugees to New Orleans." The signs of war confronted her: "Everywhere are the marks of bullets along the once-peaceful streets—the clean perforations of the steel-jacket­ed bullets of the American rifles; quaint cornices chipped; electric street globes destroyed; pink facades looking as if there was a design in white where the shots, had taken off the color." ⁷⁰ Her visit to the Naval Academy shocked her and moved her to write sadly:

It was patrolled by our men, its facade telling the tale of the taking of the town only too well; windows destroyed by the Chester's guns, balconies hanging limply from their fastenings... Every conceivable disorder was evident — cadets' uniforms lay with sheets, pillows, books, broken furniture, heaps of mortar, plaster. The boys made a heroic stand, and many of them gave up their lives; but what could they do when every window was a target for the unerring mark of the Chester's guns? Many a mother's hope and pride died that day for his country, before he had a chance to live for it. This is history at close range. ⁷¹

Even though she despised war and all that it meant, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy was critical of her country's seeming unwillingness to face facts. "What we are doing," she wrote, "is war accompanied by all the iniquitous results of half-measures, and in Washington they call it 'peaceful intervention'." ⁷²
        The American flag was raised over the city on April 26 and the city was put under martial law. Of San Juan Ulúa Mrs. O'Shaughnessy says "we sent one thousand rations into the starving fort. . . and today our flag flies above it. All the political prisoners were released." ⁷³ Her word picture of the army officer who took over command from Admiral Fletcher is as follows: "General Funston is small, quick, and vigorous. There is a great atmosphere of competency about him, and he is, they tell me, a magnificent field officer. He had been to Mexico nineteen years before, thinking to invest money in coffee; now in the turning wheel of life his reputation is being invested in the situation which he is more than equal to." ⁷⁴ There is a certain amount of nationalistic fervor in the American lady's description of the army replacing the navy: "The passing of the troops [sailors and marines] took exactly thirty-seven minutes. They seemed to vanish away, to be dissolved into the sea, their na-

⁷⁰ Ibid., pp. 313-314.
⁷¹ Ibid., p. 316.
⁷² Ibid., p. 317.
⁷³ Ibid., pp. 321-325.
⁷⁴Ibid., p. 339.

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tural element. For a moment only the harbor looked like some old print of Nelsonion embarkings—Trafalgar, the Nile, Copenhagen, I know not what." ⁷⁵ On May 3, 1914, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy follow­ed the sailors and marines aboard ship. Her last recorded view of the occupied city is a most impressive one:

As we pushed off over the water... great patches of khaki colored the shores of the town. They were squads of our men, their tents and paraphernalia, the color coming out strong against Vera Cruz, which had an unwonted grayish tone that afternoon. The Yankton was lying in the outer harbor, surrounded by battle-ships, dreadnoughts, and torpedo-boats — a mighty showing, a circle of iron around that artery of beautiful, gasping Mexico... As I looked about I seemed to be in a strange, gray city of battle-ships. ⁷⁶

We know that Mexico and the United States did not go to war and that the troops were withdrawn a year later. We can be devoutly thankful to the Almighty for having helped us to avoid that terrible calamity.
        Twenty-four years later, in March, 1938, an English novelist paused briefly in Veracruz and jotted down his impressions: "It is a gay and pretty town with its little balconied houses and shell boxes and shell picture frames and rosaries of shells, and the cantinas open to the street to catch whatever breeze there may be." On a street car he saw "A little blond girl of two. . . wearily asleep in her nurse's arms, washed out and fragile as a shell, with her tiny ears already drilled for rings and a gold bangle around the little bony wrist—handcuffed to sophistication at birth—like goodness dying out in the hot seaport." He saw people crowding around a bank, "pushing their way towards the counter to exchange their notes for silver—all because of the expropriation of the oil fields." Into the American con­sulate he went "and there was the consul going through his weekly lottery ticket—seriously, as if it were a game of skill." ^7T The novelist was Graham Greene and he was on his way to Tabasco and Chiapas. Out of that voyage across the Gulf came one of his most powerful novels, The Power and the Glory, a story of religious persecution in modern Mexico. It is unforgettable.
        To whom should we turn in order to bring this little study to a close? I have chosen Ambassador Josephus Daniels for it is very

⁷⁵ Ibid., p. 341.
⁷⁶ Ibid., pp. 348-349.
⁷⁷ Graham Greene, Another Mexico (New York: Viking Press, Inc., 1939), p. 113.

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probable that no other American tried harder than Mr. Daniels to erase the errors of the past and to set new and firm foundations to Mexican-American relations. In that volume of his autobiography which deals with Mexico —entitled Shirt Sleeve Diploma⁷⁸— the former ambassador speaks frankly about his feelings in relation to Veracruz and his part in its bombardment and capture. More im­portant to us are several stories he tells concerning the city, the state, and some of its citizens. Although these take us a bit outside the confines of our topic, I ask your indulgence to repeat some of them because they give light and meaning to the sincerity of Mr. Daniels' and Mr. Roosevelt's interpretation of the Good Neighbor Policy. Since the ambassador gives few dates in his book, I cannot tell you when some of these things took place but they must have transpired between 1933 and 1941, the years of his term of office. Although advised not to go to the city because the residents might be hostile, Mr. Daniels wrote: "I had seen more of Vera Cruz than many Mexicans know. One night before taking the steamer to the United States I had quietly, unknown to anyone —and against the protest of the consul— driven out to the monument to the cadets who died when I sent the fleet there and placed a wreath upon it. I felt in my heart that these young men had died bravely for their country, which they believed was being invaded." ⁷⁹
        When Don Miguel Alemán was elected governor of Veracruz, Mr. Daniels was invited to speak at the inauguration. His advisers were opposed as they "warned that some resentful Mexican, who had not forgotten that I sent the fleet to Vera Cruz, might seize upon the occasion to get revenge. I made light of their fears and went gladly to the capital city of the state. I was treated with every courtesy and kindness and was thanked for my Good Neighbor Ad­dress. The day was beautiful."⁸⁰ Once the ambassador narrowly escaped death in an accident in Jalapa. An artist, whom he calls only Pancho, painted a retablo for him, attributing the escape to St. Christopher. Mr. Daniels placed it in a tin frame from Spratling's in Taxco and "gave it a place of honor in the Embassy and it now hangs in my Mexican room in Raleigh under the oil portrait of Juárez, and pictures of Rodríguez, Cárdenas, Camacho, Alamán [sic] and other Mexican leaders. I regard it as an emblem of my luck in

⁷⁸ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947).The Mexican edition is called Diplomático en mangos de camisa (Mexico: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación 1949)
⁷⁹ Op.cit., p. 88. 
⁸⁰ Ibid., p. 89.

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Veracruz which began and steadily improved throughout my years in Mexico." ^8l
        One of the ambassador's most touching stories refers to his visit to the home of the Martínez Zorrilla family, two of whose members became famous as athletes at Cornell University. The ambassador saw the picture of a young man in naval uniform, asked who it was, and was taken aback when his host said calmly that it was his brother, one of the naval cadets killed during the Veracruz occupation. Seeing the diplomat's discomfiture, Sr. Martínez Zorrilla remarked gently: "It was the fortune of war. We cannot avert such tragedies. I do not blame you." Of this spirit the ambassador wrote: "If any Mexican had cause for resentment to me and the Wilson administration, it is the Martínez Zorrilla family, but they understand and acted with generosity." Later, these Mexican friends of Mr. Daniels showed still more of the forgiving spirit by asking him to be a witness at the civil wedding of one of the nephews of the man who died at Veracruz.⁸²
        The last of the Daniels' stories concerns Mexico's last two chief executives. After the ambassador retired, he received a visit from Lic. Miguel Alemán, who presented him with a silk flag, the gift of President Manuel Avila Camacho, and the following message: "... he sends you this flag with his esteem and asks you to promise you will never live a day without being under the folds of the Mexican flag." Mr. Daniels made the promise and lived up to it, for of the flag he wrote: "It hangs now in my home in Raleigh." ^8S As I recount these incidents the thought comes to me that Presidents Avila Camacho and Alemán did not wait for Time to heal the wounds of the past. They made Mr. Daniels feel that his part in the mistakes of 1914 were forgiven; and he, in turn, showed by his actions, both as ambassador and private citizen, that he had learned to love and admire the country and the people whom he had once so little understood.
        More than three centuries separate Friar Thomas Gage and Am­bassador Josephus Daniels but throughout those long years the port of Veracruz has stood, sometimes smiling brightly, sometimes bat-

⁸¹ Ibid., p. 91.
⁸² Ibid., pp. 91-92.
⁸³ Ibid., p. 92. In July of 1946, President-elect Alemán sent Mr. Daniels an invitation to his inauguration.

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tered and forlorn, waiting to welcome the weary sea traveller who seeks her hospitality. May she stand there for many centuries more; and may all who write about her —but most especially Englishmen and Americans— seek to know her and appreciate her as have many of the writers we have cited here today. As for myself, I say with all my heart: ¡Viva Veracruz! Viva México! ¡Vivan los congresos de historia!

Paul V. Murray, Department of History and Political Science

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This version of a chapter of Antología (Mexico: Mexico City College, 1956) has retained its original pagination.

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