Cinco de Mayo
5 May 2027
On 5 May 1862, at Puebla in central Mexico, an army under General Ignacio Zaragoza stopped a French force sent by Napoleon III. The anniversary is Cinco de Mayo, and it is not Mexico’s independence day, which is 16 September.
The background is a debt crisis. In 1861, after years of civil war, President Benito Juárez suspended repayment of foreign loans. British, Spanish and French troops landed at Veracruz. The British and Spanish withdrew after negotiations; the French did not, and in April 1862 they marched inland toward Mexico City.
Zaragoza, commanding the Army of the East, fortified the hills of Loreto and Guadalupe above Puebla. The numbers are not agreed. One account drawing on the French staff history gives 3,791 Mexicans against 5,730 French; other histories give about 4,000 Mexicans and 6,000 to 8,000 French. The French commander, Charles de Lorencez, ordered frontal assaults up the slopes. They failed. The fighting ran from about nine in the morning until late afternoon, when the French pulled back toward Orizaba.
The casualties are disputed too, and sharply. Britannica says the French “lost about 1,000 men”. The French staff history put their loss at 476. Zaragoza’s own report to the war ministry claimed more than 1,000 French killed and wounded, a figure the city took up. Mexican losses are usually given as 83 killed, 132 wounded and 12 missing.
In the United States the day became a way of asserting Mexican heritage in the mid-twentieth century. Britannica notes that critics have observed the broader American enthusiasm did not take off until it was linked to selling tequila, margaritas and Mexican beer, and that the festivities can both repeat stereotypes and encourage heavy drinking. The French took Puebla the following year and installed Maximilian as emperor. They left in 1867.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Cinco de Mayo”
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of Puebla”
- Hubert Howe Bancroft, “History of Mexico”, vol. 6, ch. 2 (1888), quoting the French staff history
- Timeanddate.com, “Holidays and Observances in the United States in 2027”
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