Posted on 03/25/2021 7:41:51 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
This date in 1843 was a good one to just stick with the guacamole. Though the Republic of Texas (it would join the United States in 1846) had won its independence from Mexico a few years before, hostilities between the two continued.
Skirmishes in the frontierlands at length triggered a Texan reprisal-slash-plundering expedition.
The officially independent Somervell Expedition of volunteer Texan militiamen captured a couple of Mexican towns, then disbanded to go home. Those members of it optimistic about their chances for more raiding set off for Ciudad Mier* — the Mier Expedition.
Their optimism was misplaced.
The Mier Expedition was a flop, and the irate Mexican President Santa Anna ordered the entire band shot to make an example. Anglo diplomatic wrangling got him to go down to shooting one tenth of the band.
Well, you’ve gotta pick that tenth somehow.
So on this day, 176 potentially condemned men were made to draw a bean from a pot containing 159 white ones and 17 fatal black ones....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
This disgustingly racist event needs to be erased from the history books pronto.
What great diplomats, they sound like the diplomats of today making a casual deal to let 17 guys die.
Maybe they should have “ called Saul”.
Beans are racist!
As an interesting aside Santa Anna was one of the most incompetent generals and politicians the world has seen. He stands out even in Mexico which is no stranger to incompetent pols. Yet he remained very popular, nonetheless.
Literally, everything this guy did turned to crap. He’d be a DemonRAT Presidential candidate if he was alive in the USA today.
BLACK BEANS MATTER!!!!
“....of the most incompetent generals and politicians the world has seen. ....”
But suprisingly lucky & sucessful con man. No matter how bad he did he. Somehow he could charm his way into getting backers and come out smelling like a rose. Ready again to lead Mexico to is next catastrophe. After the Texas Revolution he got US backers - Andrew jackson to send him back to Mexico. Thate didn’t end well, so after the Mexican War exile again and he finagled a way to go back to Mexico again and again.
Interesting historical aside: Santa Anna got into a business deal with an American over a natural rubber substitute which which gave birth to the chewing gum industry and it even led to “chiclets”.
Amazingly buried as a national hero in Mexico City.
Interesting!
I am sure the Mexican national hero thing is due to the “chichlets” !
“Amazingly buried as a national hero in Mexico City.”
Why not? We have monuments to FDR. J Edgar Hoover, even.
This is where we get the term, “decimation,” from the execution of one in ten.
When a Roman army unit disgraced itself for failing to fight hard enough, the soldiers were divided into groups of ten and drew lots. Then the other nine would have to kill the one who drew the short straw, who probably was someone they had been fighting beside for years.
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