When reports reached Los Angeles of Zaragoza’s victory against the French, Latinos made the Civil War connection immediately. Now living in California, a free state, they saw the pro-slavery Confederacy as an existential threat. When their home countries won independence from Spain, they had unilaterally abolished slavery and established citizenship for non-whites. Hayes Bautista says California Latinos were ardent Union supporters. David Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the UCLA School of Medicine, was looking up birth and death records in 19th-century Spanish-speaking California newspapers when he found news reports of the very first celebrations of Cinco de Mayo as early as 1862. The critical timing of the French defeat at the first Battle of Puebla was not lost on Mexican-Americans and other Latinos living in California, many who had flocked to the state during the Gold Rush. “Even if French were able to set their supply lines by mid-1863, it would have made very little difference in the outcome of the Civil War.” Why We Celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the United States Rojo points out that the Battle of Gettysburg was about to begin and that Union victories were 'signaling the beginning of the end' for the Confederacy.

Army Colonel and commander-in-chief of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, an organization composed of descendants of Union officers in the Civil War.

“By the time the French occupy Mexico City in June of 1863, the battle of Vicksburg was already underway,' says Eric Rojo, a retired U.S. The Inuit Woman Who Survived Alone on an Arctic Island After a Disastrous Expedition Spain and the UK ended up cutting deals, but French Emperor Napoleon III, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, had other plans. Spain, the United Kingdom and France didn’t like the delay and sent over joint forces in 1861 to collect on Mexico’s debt. The lead-up to the battle began in 1860 when the Mexican government, bankrupt after decades of internal conflict, announced it was suspending debt payments to its European creditors for two years. Debts to France Lead to the Battle of Puebla In fact, this underdog Mexican victory may have played a part in preventing French Emperor Napoleon III from helping the Confederacy win the American Civil War. Some think it’s a holiday celebrating Mexican independence from Spain (that’s actually September 16), or the 1910 Mexican Revolution (November 20), or that it was dreamed up to sell more beer and guacamole.Ĭinco de Mayo actually marks the unlikely defeat of elite French forces by an undermanned Mexican army in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. There can be confusion over the origins of Cinco de Mayo.

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