Juárez and Lincoln were good friends, allies, quite aligned politically, both liberales in the classic sense of the term ... they helped each other as much as possible, which was not much as they were both faced with difficult wars .... but Lincoln sold México rifles and ammunition, some time after the battle of Puebla, and Juárez encouraged chicanos to support the northern states, through the Sociedades .... other bits of mutual aid as well, and all against considerable domestic opposition on both sides .... there are at least two good books on events of the time, in the library at UNAM, one of them was commissioned by Vasconcelos when he was ministre of education [or he was co-author? - can't recall]
These things are not as well known in México as they should be, either .... there has been so much rancour, defensiveness, that the fact we have friends in the US has been too much overlooked .... mexicanos of the time quite rightly revered Lincoln, along with Daniel Webster, Thoreau, and dozens of other prominent anti-imperial liberales
We don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo so much in the southeast, nowhere near like the chicanos do .... it became central to the chicanos because through the Sociedades they were able to contribute to the struggles against both the french and the slavers
Trivia factoid - Porfirio Díaz was the leftenant who led a critical charge at Puebla ..... at the time he was a liberal, a state of mind that did not survive his attainment of power |
