People forget the horrific brutality Santa Anna represented.
As a young Lieutenant he had participated on the Spanish side in the First Texas Revolution wherein 1,000 Americans and 500 Tejanos united to fight for Texas independence from Spain. In the aftermath of the Battle of Medina (August 18th, 1813) several hundred, possibly as many as 900 American and Tejano prisoners were executed on the battlefield, some being tortured with fire first to reveal the names of co-conspirators.
Arriving in San Antonio after the battle Arredondo, the Spanish General, imprisoned almost all the 2,000 Tejano inhabitants, handing the women and girls over to his 1,800 man army. Ten prisoners were executed every day for a month, 300 total, their heads put on pikes around the town plaza.
IIRC Santa Anna, lauded for his enthusiasm by Arredondo, was with the detachment sent up the Camino Real to Nacodoches with orders to execute every man and youth they came across that couldn’t prove they had always been loyal to Spain, executing another 100 Tejano men and youths.
Nothing remotely comparable to this campaign occurred anywhere else in our history.
Twenty two years later, 1835, the new Presidente Santa Ana abolished the admirable Mexican Constitution of 1824, sparking a civil war. 1835 El Presidente was preoccupied slaughtering his fellow Mexicans in order to stay in power, including thousands of civilians when he turned his army loose of the city of Zazatecas.
By the time Santa Ana arrives in Texas in February of 1836, none of all this is news to the Texians. No surprise this butcher summarily executed more than 300 men of the Texian Army at Goliad after they had surrendered under promise of good treatment.
Yep, it was about slavery alright
