Some associate serpent and eagle with the novel-as-history about Mexico’s 1910 Revolution by Martin Guzman. (Guzman served with Doroteo Arango. Thus his best book: “Memoirs of Pancho Villa”). The two words also echo Aesop’s Fables and ancient Nordic Germanic Runes. And, of course, here recall the famed legend in which the migrating tribe of Mexica (me-shee-ka) was told by its sun-fire-war god, Huitzilopochtli, to settle where an eagle perched on a nopal cactus held a writhing serpent in its beak. (Pre-Hispanic depictions of Tenochtitlan’s founding by Mexica artists exist; so do Conquistador-era scenes — Codex Mendoza, c.1541.)
In 1950, to a gringo adolescent stalking Teotihuacan’s ruins and colonial era halls of the old Museo Nacional and Museo Nacional de Antropologia, both in the National Palace — all rich in overwhelming pre-Colombian litter — the words meant only one thing: Quezalcoatl, the god who fled, the Plumed Serpent.
For most Mexicans the words this week referred to the National Flag — emblazoned with Mexico’s serpent\eagle coat of arms. The national (now modest) commemoration of what is to many a new version of an old flag is a 1821 date, February 24.
The official design of Mexico’s flag didn’t become an article of law until 1989. The first flags flying over this part of the New World were viceregal flags signifying Spain’s conquest of Tenochtitlån and the Mexica empire.
The first flags designed by Mexicans, not Spaniards, were the War of Independence flags of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Castillo and his successor, Father Jose Maria Morelos that bore the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Morelos’ flag added a blue and white insignia with a crowned eagle on a cactus over a three-arched bridge and the letters V. V. M.: Viva la Virgin Maria.
The first flag of newly independent Mexico appeared in 1821, a date crowded with contradictions. It was a more critical moment than the leaders and certainly the citizenry understood — scraping opportunity while planting a pattern of poisoned roots with pomp and ceremony.
On that day, General Agustin de Iturbe — who had defeated Morelos in Michoacan and was to win Mexico’s long fight for independence — announced his Plan de Iguala. Posing as a criollo (a Spaniard born in New Spain), even though he had an Indian mother, Itubide was an able battlefield commander “possessing a ruthless, immoral nature that sought sanctity,” it is said. And like every royalist general, he was corrupt. Viceroy Juan de Apodaca sent him into the southern sierra to capture the Liberal guerrillero Vicente Guerrero. He was easily defeated. But Iturbide was distracted by his plotting with disaffected criollos and Spanish conservatives in the capital who were unhappy with Apodaca. Itubide sent agents to parley with Guerrero and troops to loot a government pack train carrying silver to Acapulco.
Guerrero, who stayed alive as others were hunted down, did not trust Itubide. But Itubide, flashing seductive charm, proposed the two forces join to implement his plan for the independence of Mexico.
Shorn of its rhetoric, the plan seemed possible, because its core was simple: Three “guarantees’ (forget the other 20 provisions): 1) Independence of Mexico as a constitutional monarchy, 2) establishment of Roman Catholicism as the state religion, 3) citizenship for all those in Mexico — Spaniards, criollos, mestizos, blacks and Indians.
It seemed to offer something for everyone: the Church, the criollos, the masses (citizenship and equality). But, as one historian says, “Far better-educated men than Guerrero did not see that the first two guarantees rendered the third meaningless for most Mexicans.”
At the “gran comida” announcing their agreement on the Plan de Iguala, Iturbide and Guerrero are said to have designed a new Mexican flag. Itubide reportedly proposed a flag divided into three colors: Green for independence, white for religion, red for the union of Mexicans and Europeans. Common folk of the time, including many watching the ceremonial meal, took a more rustic view. They joked that during the comida, filled with toasts pledging unity and loyalty... and other festive doings, the two men sliced open a watermelon on the table’s pale cloth. There the bright colors were: Green rind, the melon’s red flesh, and, on the white tablecloth, the centerpiece — crown and eagle.
A new Spanish viceroy arrived in Mexico; he and Iturbide negotiated Spain’s withdrawal. Iturbide was empowered by both Conservative and Liberal backers to form a council of governors to run the country and elect a constituent congress. This bogged down in useless philosophic debates. The economy was sliding toward ruin. Ferdinand VII, seen as everyone’s saviour from Napoleonic plots, returned to power and rescinded everything liberal he could see. An indigent Congress put soldiers on half pay, then cut the military by half. A feckless government was turning suicidal.
| The image recalls the 11th Century migration of a tribe that founded an island settlement, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), and created a vast empire that became Spain’s richest colony, and Latin America’s most fabled nation. |
May 5, 1822, a “spontaneous” movement proclaimed Iturbe “Agustin 1, El Emperor de Mexico.” In the national Cathedral, July 22, a crown was placed on Itubide’s head. He annexed Central America, became monarch of a empire — reaching from Oregon to the Isthmus of Panama — that no one comprehended.
By 1823 the monarchy was bankrupt. Agustin 1 abdicated March 19. Central America cut imperial ties. The flag’s crown fell from the eagle, now embraced by oak and olive branches (used in today’s flag), the snake went into the raptor’s right talon. Under this more egalitarian banner Felix Hernandez, a guerrilla leader known as Guadalupe Victoria, became Mexico’s first duly elected president.
Most people didn’t vote — it was an act too odd to grasp. Victoria institutionalized Hidalgo’s “Grito de Dolores” — shout for independence — making its date, September 16, a national holiday.
During Benito Juarez’s peripatetic presidency, Napoleon III put Maxmillian on the throne of Mexico’s second monarchy in 1864.
Maxmillian’s flag was busy, its coat of arms so crowded that few Mexicans ever figured it out.
Today’s flag is a close version of the 1916 banner adopted during the Revolution by self-appointed president Venustiano Carranza. The stripes are the same as before. The eagle is there, facing left, wings in combative stance, eating a snake held in its right talon.
The spiny nopal on which the eagle defiantly stands bears fruit (tunas) and grows from a stone partially immersed in the Mexica symbol for water. Interpretations, official, academic and homely (by indios and campesinos), often vary. To those who’ve alertly examined Mexican history, ancient and modern, this defiant, challenged eagle\snake image seems appropriately chosen.
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