Were these Mexican-American War heroes real?

No Mexico City itinerary is implicit without a sojourn to Chapultepec Park, the expansive municipality woodland that holds immoderate of the country’s astir grandiose monuments, museums and creation galleries.  For a parkland that offers specified tranquility amid the frenetic gait of the city, it’s hard to ideate the bloodshed that took spot determination during the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848.

Toward the extremity of the war, connected Sept. 13, 1847, astir 2,000 U.S. troops led by Gen. Winfield Scott stormed Chapultepec Castle, which astatine the clip housed the subject academy wherever service cadets trained. It was a decisive U.S. triumph which proved pivotal to the American concern of Mexico City and the subsequent annexation of Mexico’s bluish territories, including Alta California, Arizona and New Mexico.

The Battle of Chapultepec from the position of the invaders. (Adolphe Jean-Baptiste Bayot)

In the U.S. corporate imagination, the penetration of Mexico receives acold little attraction than the Civil War that followed a small implicit a decennary later.  But the warfare was pivotal successful U.S. history: it helped solidify the bluish country’s expansionism and gave governmental and geographical value to the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Events similar the 1836 Battle of the Alamo — technically portion of the Texas Revolution — are much wide remembered, possibly due to the fact that it was a loss. Defeat invites narrative, giving radical a crushed to grieve, rally and mythologize.

In the Mexican nationalist consciousness, the Battle of Chapultepec is remembered for the heroic acts of the Niños Héroes (Boy Heroes), six cadets from the academy who allegedly disobeyed Gen. Nicolás Bravo’s bid to basal down. Agustín Melgar, Fernando Montes de Oca, Francisco Márquez, Juan de la Barrera, Juan Escutia and Vicente Suárez fought to their past enactment to support the castle. Escutia, the past surviving cadet, is said to person wrapped himself successful the Mexican emblem earlier leaping from the castle to his decease to forestall U.S. forces from capturing it. 

The Niños Héroes’ names and exploits are learned by Mexican schoolchildren arsenic portion of the nationalist program acceptable by the Ministry of Education. They are remembered arsenic valiant martyrs who dodged bullets and bayonets, preferring to dice for their state than surrender to invading forces. “The connection was to emotion your state to death,” Adolfo Zambrano, a sociologist astatine the University of Bielefeld, told Mexico News Daily.

At Puerta de los Leones, the main entranceway to Chapultepec, the gleaming achromatic Altar a la Patria (Altar to the Homeland) comes into presumption down wrought robust gates. Built betwixt 1947 and 1952 from Italian marble, this monument commemorates the Mexican lives mislaid successful the Mexican-American War. The six cadets are represented by towering pillars, each crowned with an eagle and a torch pointing skyward. At the monument’s halfway stands the Motherland, personified by a muscular Indigenous pistillate cradling a fallen cadet draped successful the nationalist flag. Look intimately beyond the monument and you’ll spot Chapultepec Castle perched connected the elevation straight above, with the aforesaid emblem flying from its peak— a symbolic reclaiming of the narrative, softly denying that the U.S. emblem ever flew there.

De Altar a la Patria monument successful Chapultepec Park. (Gobierno de México)

Fact, fabrication and humanities ambiguity

Across Mexico, successful astir each metropolis and town, streets, plazas and adjacent autobus stations carnivore the sanction of the Niños Héroes. Though their communicative is wide shared, separating information from fabrication proves much difficult. Myths surrounding the cadets person agelong been accepted arsenic humanities truth. For instance, authoritative authorities sources inactive asseverate that they were the last defenders of the castle, contempt a deficiency of evidence. Their names, present carved into stone, didn’t look successful a past publication until 1883, 36 years aft the battle.

To statesman with, the thought that the cadets were children is misleading. While 2 were nether the property of 18, the remaining 4 were young adults, including Juan Escutia, who was 20. Juan de la Barrera, 19, really held the fertile of lieutenant successful the subject engineers. Referring to them arsenic boys heightens the affectional resonance of their sacrifice and positions them arsenic aspirational figures wrong the nationalist imagination, reinforcing values of duty, loyalty and patriotism.

Their youthful representation does much than elevate them arsenic relation models. The innocence projected onto the Niños Héroes mirrors the infancy of the Mexican republic itself. Barely 2 decades aft gaining independency from Spain, Mexico successful the 1840s was inactive a fragile and profoundly divided nation, struggling to specify itself against interior strife and overseas aggression. The communicative of six brave cadets, young and outmatched, lasting steadfast against a almighty invading force, became a potent allegory for a federation clinging to sovereignty.

Some critics person questioned whether the six Niños Héroes existed successful the signifier remembered today. However, humanities accounts suggest that astir 50 cadets, successful an enactment of defiance, remained astatine Chapultepec Castle to combat alongside the Mexican Army. Though their determination whitethorn person been reckless, it has been reframed arsenic an enactment of bravery and patriotic sacrifice.

The archetypal monument to the Niños Héroes, erected successful 1882. (Protoplasmakid/CC-BY-SA 4.0)

The Battle of Chapultepec was officially commemorated for the archetypal clip connected Sept. 13, 1882, during the presidency of Manuel González Flores, the four-year play of indirect regularisation during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. The ceremonial inaugurated the Obelisco a los Niños Héroes monument, which inactive stands astatine the ft of Chapultepec Castle and was designed by Ramón Rodríguez Arangoiti, himself 1 of the cadets captured during the battle. That contented continues today: each twelvemonth connected September 13 the president reads the names of the Niños Héroes astatine the Altar a la Patria monument. 

Did Juan Escutia truly wrapper himself successful the flag?

Chapultepec Castle is present a museum, mostly preserved arsenic it was during Emperor Maximilian’s regularisation nether French occupation. Visitors who ascent the winding way to the apical volition find much lifelike statues of the Niños Héroes. In the castle’s cardinal stairway, a 1967 ceiling mural by Gabriel Flores depicts Juan Escutia’s leap to his death, wrapped successful the Mexican flag. But did it truly hap that way?

Evidence suggests Escutia whitethorn not person been a cadet astatine all, but a worker successful the San Blas Battalion. That unit, founded successful Nayarit successful 1823, was led during the Battle of Chapultepec by a lesser-known fig named  Felipe Santiago Xicoténcatl. According to eyewitness accounts, Xicoténcatl was gunned down by U.S. forces portion trying to support his battalion’s emblem aloft. As helium fell, his comrades wrapped his assemblage successful the emblem and buried him with it.

The Niños Héroes arsenic depicted connected a 5000-peso measure from the 1980s, successful which they look with European features.

It’s imaginable the communicative of Xicoténcatl was aboriginal transferred to Escutia, who was reimagined arsenic a lad to heighten the drama. In 1947, Xicoténcatl’s remains were exhumed and yet entombed alongside the remains of six radical recovered successful Chapultepec and alleged to beryllium the Niños Héroes beneath the Altar a la Patria monument astatine the park’s entrance– different assertion that proves hard to substantiate.

Notably, Xicoténcatl was Indigenous, a Nahua serviceman from Tlaxcala, portion the Niños Héroes are astir ever depicted arsenic light-skinned, European-looking cadets. This opposition reveals however post-independence Mexican nationalism often privileged a Europeanized perfect of citizenship. By transferring the communicative of patriotic sacrifice to Juan Escutia, a fig reimagined arsenic youthful and white, the story erased the Indigenous person’s contribution.

What bash the Niños Héroes archer america astir Mexico?

Regardless of however overmuch of their communicative is true, the enduring prominence of the Niños Héroes reflects the aboriginal nation-state’s request to alteration narratives of nonaccomplishment and sacrifice into unifying myths. Their fable offers consolation for the nonaccomplishment of astir fractional of Mexico’s nationalist territory pursuing the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and continues to person affectional resonance for Mexicans today. Recalling his puerility successful a 2005 essay, Mexico City-born literate professional Guillermo Sheridan remembers the power of the Niños Héroes: “That determination mightiness beryllium boys who, too being boys, were heroes, added up to a pressing request connected my ain imaginable heroism. Many a clip did I imagination of myself duly chopped up and distributed implicit respective monuments for having defended the peaks of the Popocatépetl to the extremity from immoderate overseas scoundrel.” The powerfulness of the communicative lies not lone successful what it commemorates, but successful however it continues to signifier nationalist identity. As Adolfo Zambrano of Bielefeld University enactment it, “There’s a portion of maine that believes the story really happened contempt the deficiency of evidence.”

One illustration of the ubiquitousness of the Niños Héroes: a mediate schoolhouse named for them successful the authorities of México. (MiPueblo2018/CC-BY-SA 4.0)

When we perceive speech of President Donald Trump’s renewed expansionist ambitions, it’s tempting to dainty specified rhetoric arsenic an anomaly. However, a person look astatine this play successful Mexican past reveals that territorial aggression has agelong been a tenet of U.S. overseas policy. The wounds of the Mexican-American War tally heavy successful Mexico’s corporate memory, and they proceed to signifier however the state understands its narration with its bluish neighbor. The story of the Niños Héroes is 1 mode of processing that legacy— recasting decision not arsenic humiliation, but arsenic a heroic exemplary of sacrifice.

Shyal Bhandari is simply a British-Indian writer caught successful a whirlwind romance with Mexico. He holds an MPhil successful Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge. His penning has appeared successful publications including Vogue, Ojarasca, Little White Lies and Asymptote Journal. In 2019-2020 helium ran a bid of literate workshops with Indigenous poets successful the southbound of Mexico with the enactment of the Royal and Ancient International Scholarship.