What Cinco de Mayo Really Celebrates

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

So if I were to hand you a calendar right now, and just ask you to circle the date of Mexico's Independence Day, what would you choose?

SPEAKER_2 (0:07)

No, I mean, I know what most people would choose.

SPEAKER_1 (0:10)

Right. If you're like a vast majority of people, especially in the United States, your pen is probably hovering right over May 5th, you know, Cinco de Mayo.

SPEAKER_2 (0:17)

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_1 (0:19)

It's a day entirely associated with like massive parades, parties, and just this huge general celebration of Mexican culture. But circling May 5th for Mexican independence would be completely wrong.

Mexico's actual Independence Day is September 16th.

SPEAKER_2 (0:36)

Yeah, September 16th.

SPEAKER_1 (0:38)

And that commemorates the cry of Dolores, which was from the year 1810 That's what actually kicked off the 11-year war against Spanish rule. May 5th has absolutely nothing to do with independence from Spain. Right. So what are we actually celebrating on May 5th?

To figure that out, we have to travel to the year 1862 And instead of a declaration of independence, we're looking at a stunned, bleeding, and honestly humiliated French army retreating from the hills outside of Mexican city called Puebla.

SPEAKER_2 (1:11)

Which is wildly out of place, you know, considering the French military was widely considered the most elite, unstoppable fighting force on the planet at the time.

SPEAKER_1 (1:21)

Unstoppable. Exactly.

SPEAKER_2 (1:23)

It's just an incredible piece of military history. You have this outnumbered, outgunned, and just severely under equipped Mexican Republican force that somehow managed to shatter the whole aura of invincibility surrounding the French Empire.

SPEAKER_1 (1:36)

It's a total David versus Goliath story.

So our mission for this deep dive is to figure out how that actually happened. We're going to use our sources to look at the real history of the Battle of Puebla, how the Mexican defenders pulled off an absolute tactical miracle, the, well, the tragic aftermath of that victory, and how one highly specific military engagement from the 1860s somehow morphed into a massive cultural phenomenon in the modern United States.

SPEAKER_2 (2:04)

Yeah, it's quite the journey.

SPEAKER_1 (2:05)

But to understand why a major battle even erupted on May 5th, we really need to look at the mechanics of the global economy in the early 1860s.

SPEAKER_2 (2:14)

Right, follow the money.

SPEAKER_1 (2:16)

Always.

We have to ask why European armies were suddenly marching through central Mexico in the first place. And it starts, as so many global conflicts do, with a severe lack of money. So in 1861, the Mexican president, Benito Juarez, was looking at a severely depleted national treasury.

SPEAKER_2 (2:34)

It was basically empty.

SPEAKER_1 (2:35)

Yeah, totally empty. So he made a drastic call.

He imposed a two-year freeze on paying foreign debts, like a total moratorium on loan interest payments, specifically to French, British, and Spanish creditors.

SPEAKER_2 (2:49)

And those creditors did not take the news well.

SPEAKER_1 (2:52)

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_2 (2:52)

I mean, by December of 1861, a Spanish fleet sailed right into the port of Veracruz and effectively occupied it.

And then by early January 1862, British and French naval forces arrived as well. This joint operation was known as the Tripartite Expedition.

SPEAKER_1 (3:08)

Okay. I always try to map these historical events onto situations we'd recognize today.

It's like missing a string of car payments and the bank sends the repo man.

SPEAKER_2 (3:18)

That's a good way to look at it, right?

SPEAKER_1 (3:20)

You expect them to maybe take the car or at least demand a check.

The Spanish general, Juan Prim, even issued a manifesto saying exactly that. He claimed they were just there to open negotiations and collect damages, not to overthrow the government.

SPEAKER_2 (3:34)

And initially, that diplomatic approach held up. In January, the Mexican Foreign Minister Manuel de Blato invited the European Commissioners to travel inland to Orizaba for a conference. And they actually reached a preliminary agreement where Europe recognized Juarez's government and respected Mexican sovereignty.

But by April, that entire diplomatic framework just collapsed.

SPEAKER_1 (3:55)

Because the French Repel man decided he didn't just want the car, he wanted to move into your house, kick you out, and declare himself the new homeowner.

SPEAKER_2 (4:03)

Exactly.

SPEAKER_1 (4:04)

So why did France suddenly break ranks with Britain and Spain? Like, what changed?

SPEAKER_2 (4:09)

Well, the British and the Spanish realized that France, who was under the rule of Emperor Napoleon III at the time, had entirely different imperial ambitions. France didn't just want its money back.

SPEAKER_1 (4:20)

Right, they wanted more.

SPEAKER_2 (4:22)

Napoleon III saw a vulnerable nation and wanted to establish a puppet empire in Mexico. He basically wanted to turn it into a massive resource extraction franchise for Europe.