Veracruz Trivia

Veracruz was the first Colonial Settlement in Mexico. ¨La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz¨ (The Rich Town of the True Cross) was founded in 1519 by Herman Cortez when he first landed and was used by him as a base for his expeditions of conquest inland. Besides being the subject of four formal invasions throughout it´s history by Spain (1815), France (1862), The USA (1847) and again by the USA (1914), Veracruz has had to deal with at least two major attacks by pirates (1653 and 1712) and with the very strange ¨French Pastry War¨ of 1838.

The "French Pastry War"

In this dispute a French restaurant owner complained to France that his Veracruz restaurant had been damaged and looted by several drunken Mexican sailors. The French Government responded by demanding $600,000 Pesos in damages from Mexico on their citizen´s behalf. Since the daily Mexican wage at the time was one Peso per day, Mexico considered this amount to be just a tad excessive and refused to pay. In retaliation, France then called it´s loans to Mexico and Mexico defaulted. France countered by blockading the Country with a force of 30,000 outnumbering Mexico´s forces of 3,000 by 10 to 1. The famous Veracruz resident, Mexican General and former President, Antonio Lopes de Santa Anna, came out of retirement to take command of the delicate situation. It was in the resulting skirmish that Santa Anna lost his leg to canon fire. He ordered the leg buried with full Military Honors and, exploiting his wounds with eloquent propaganda, Santa Anna catapulted himself back into Political power. The dispute was eventually mediated after almost a year by Great Britain with Mexico promising to pay the $600,000 Pesos. History does not record if the payment was ever actually made. I sincerely hope that it was not!