Santa Anna fought ten years against Mexican independence before switching sides
Antonio López de Santa Anna spent more than a decade as a royalist officer hunting Mexico's independence rebels, then changed sides in 1821 once his commander did. Side-switching became his trademark. He was elected president as a liberal twice and both times turned on his liberal vice president to govern with conservatives.
Santa Anna was born on 21 February 1794 in Xalapa, Veracruz, to a respected criollo family. His father wanted him to be a shopkeeper, but his mother backed a military career and used her friendship with the governor to get him a commission at sixteen, though he was underage. Growing up on the Gulf coast also gave him immunity to yellow fever, a real edge over officers from the interior posted to the sickly port of Veracruz.
As a young royalist he took an arrow in the left hand in 1811, fought in Texas and was cited for bravery at the Battle of Medina in 1813. When the royalist commander Agustín de Iturbide allied with the rebel Vicente Guerrero in 1821, Santa Anna followed. Iturbide, crowned emperor, gave him command of Veracruz, then removed him, and Santa Anna rose against him in December 1822. Once the emperor abdicated, Santa Anna hurried to put himself at the head of the new federalist movement, a pattern he would repeat for decades.
Sent to govern Yucatán, he declared war on Spain on his own authority and loaded a thousand Mexicans onto ships to invade Cuba, where he expected to be hailed as liberator. News of Spanish reinforcements ended the plan. He liked cockfights and ordinary company, and felt awkward among Mexico City's elite, often retreating to Veracruz.
Between 1832 and 1855 he held power again and again, scrapped the liberal constitution in 1835 and restored it in 1847, and used troops to shut Congress more than once. His rule saw the loss of Texas and the Mexican–American War, where his refusal to give up denied President Polk a quick victory. In 1854 he sold more land to the United States in the Gadsden Purchase, and late in life called himself His Most Serene Highness. Many Mexicans remember him as a vendepatria, a seller of the homeland. Ousted in 1855, he was allowed home in 1874 and died in Mexico City in 1876.
Source: Antonio López de Santa Anna
