Welcome to the Republic of the Rio Grande.

Episode 14, Rescuing Zapata.

I'm Brandon Seal.

When centralist general Mariano Arista rode in to Santa Rita de Morrellos on the morning of March 25, 1840, he was exhausted.

He and most of his men had been marching non-stop since the morning before, covering something

like 40 miles in just 24 hours.

But the sight of the sweat-stained hat of the prisoner being brought before him now

reminded General Arista what had it all been for.

There, in Santa Rita de Morrellos, General Mariano Arista looked upon Antonio Zapata in the flesh for the first time.

In some way, the two men represented the forces warring for the soul of the new Mexican nation.

Zapata's dark skin and distinctively African and mestizo features spoke to his mixed heritage,

a heritage that most of the population of Mexico shared.

He also represented that revolutionary impulse that insisted that Mexico's independence meant a break from the past,

towards something better and something new.

By contrast, General Arista was the Creole son of a Spanish colonel,

a veteran himself of the War of Mexican Independence, most of which though he had spent in a Spanish uniform.

Yet General Arista had come over with Iturbide to the side of Mexican independence

and had spent the subsequent 20 years of his career in a uniform trying to preserve that independence

and establish some measure of stability for this new nation.

Arista represented the spirit of continuity, a spirit that

insisted that whatever came after independence for Mexico must respect the traditions that had formed

Mexico in the first place. And the irony of this whole situation is that despite their

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