Cinco de Mayo’s Civil War Connection

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

May 5, 1862. The French have landed in Mexico. Napoleon III wants to conquer the country and assert France’s imperial dominance in the Americas. In his way? The Mexican army, held up in the city of Puebla. The Battle of Puebla will come to define this struggle: a European monarch against a fledgling democracy, led by Benito Juárez. Mexico’s victory will be especially celebrated by Latinos in the United States, who are watching this struggle play out while their new country is embroiled in a Civil War. This first holiday, in 1862, would mark the beginning of a new tradition, unique to this new American community. How is Cinco de Mayo connected to a broad struggle for freedom across the continent in the 1860s? And what does this holiday really mean? Special thanks to David Hayes-Bautista, distinguished professor of medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and author of El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:04.5	History this week, May 5th, 1862.
0:11.0	I'm Alana Casanova Burgess.
0:18.6	It's a spring morning in Puebla, a city around 80 miles southeast of Mexico City, about three days on horseback.
0:26.6	Bartolo Bautista is standing on the walls that fortify the city, looking out into the distance.
0:34.6	The day is gray, the pressure is dropping. It feels like it's going to rain.
0:41.0	But Bautista isn't watching the weather. He's looking to the horizon. And then he sees it,
0:48.9	way out in the distance, a sea of blue and white with flashes of gold.
0:55.8	The French army.
0:59.1	6,000 men marching towards him,
1:01.0	marching towards Puebla.
1:03.4	The family story goes.
1:04.8	The French were approaching.
1:08.9	That's Bartolo Bautista's great, great grandson,
1:10.5	David Hayes, Bautista. And many of the men fighting at Puebla
1:13.0	on May 5, 1862 are just like his ancestor.
1:17.7	They were part of their were called Civiles Armados, they're armed civilians, just called
1:22.4	up his cannon fodder, given a rifle, said, go fight the France.
1:26.0	The Mexican army is in a pinch.
1:28.6	Their forces and their funds are depleted from a recent civil war.
1:33.6	They need civilians like Bautista just to have the numbers to fight.
1:37.7	And now, they're facing down one of the most formidable armies in the world.
	...

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