36: Mexican-American War (Part 4): Los Niños Héroes, St. Patrick’s Battalion, & the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

History That Doesn't Suck

ProfGregJackson

Education, History, Society & Culture

4.5 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2019

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the story of the Mexican-American War’s end and the making of Mexican heroes. Winfield Scott is closing in on Mexico City. Battles rage as Mexican troops defend, but General Scott can’t be stopped. American troops even snag one of Santa Anna’s spare prosthetic legs! But sometimes loss can be the breeding ground of heroes, and that’s just what happens as US forces close in on Mexico’s capital. Six teenage Mexican cadets--one of whom is only 13-years-old--fight to the death. Meanwhile, Catholic US troops who’ve defected to the Mexican side in response to American anti-Catholicism are caught by the US army and mostly hung to death. Los Niños Héroes and the San Patricios might not make it out of this war alive, but they’ll live forever in the memory of Mexico. And what does the war’s end mean? Should the US annex the parts of Mexico it claimed belonged to Texas, or should it take more? Perhaps all of Mexico? As this is being debated in the US, particularly in the Senate, the question of what it means to be “American” rests at the heart of what will and won’t be taken. As President Polk leans toward “all of Mexico,” an upstart Congressman named Abe Lincoln questions the premise of the war, and Nicholas Trist negotiates a treaty in defiance of the President--this won’t be pretty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	History that doesn't suck is a bi-weekly podcast delivering a legit, seriously researched
0:04.8	hard-hitting survey of American history through entertaining stories.
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0:24.4	And if you have any questions after this episode, send them our way.
0:28.1	We'll be happy to get to them on the office hours with Greg Podcasts, where I alternate
0:32.8	between interviewing other experts and talking history with Josh and CL. Hope you enjoy it.
0:49.0	Welcome to History that doesn't suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you
0:54.6	a story. It's just after sunrise on the morning of September 9, 1847, as armed guards
1:01.5	march 23 prisoners of war toward the Plaza de San Jacinto in San Anjel, Mexico.
1:08.2	It's a miserable sight. Dirt and grime from their final,
1:12.1	valiant fight at the Battle of Chorobusco three weeks back still cling to their torn blue
1:17.0	uniforms and pale faces. Struggling to maintain balance with their hands tightly bound,
1:23.2	their feet slip as they walk on cobblestone roads made slick by the morning's rain.
1:29.0	Soon though, they see what their forced march is about. Among the plazas' lovely trees and
1:34.0	it's nearby rose-colored colonial church is a 40-foot long 14-foot tall gallows.
1:41.4	Each of its 16 swaying ropes ends in a hangman's noose. This is the end for these captured soldiers
1:48.6	of St. Patrick's battalion. Or should I say Batallón de San Patricio? Because to be clear,
1:56.8	the condemned are primarily Irish and other Catholic Europeans who immigrated to the United States
2:02.2	and joined the U.S. Army but then defected to fight for Mexico. See, much of primarily protestant
2:08.7	America has become unnerved by the spike in recent years of Catholic immigration,
	...

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