José Tomás de la Luz MejÃÂa Camacho, better known as Tomás MejÃÂa (17 September 1820 â 19 June 1867), was a Mexican soldier of Otomi background, who consistently sided with the Conservative Party throughout its nineteenth century conflicts with the Liberals.
MejÃÂa was one of the leading conservative commanders during the War of Reform and during the French invasion of Mexico that established the Second Mexican Empire. He became known for repeatedly using the Sierra Gorda, which he was familiar with since childhood, as his base of operations. After the fall of the empire, MejÃÂa was executed on 19 June 1867, alongside Emperor Maximilian and fellow conservative commander Miguel Miramón.
Little is known about MejÃÂa's childhood, but he was likely born in Pinal de Amoles, Sierra Gorda, Querétaro. He attended the primary school of the Villa del Jalpan.
His father Cristóbal MejÃÂa was from 1840 to 1842 prefect of the Jalpan district. This was during the Centralist Republic, when Mexico had been divided into departments, and during which there were many rebellions in favor of states' rights which sought to restore the federalist system by which Mexico had previously been governed. One such revolt in 1840 had been led by José de Urrea, who defeated, then found himself in Jalpan by 1841, where Cristóbal MejÃÂa harbored Urrea in his home. The young Tomás MejÃÂa met Urrea and the latter told him war stories and encouraged him in his wishes to join the military.
Government forces led by Juan Cano then arrived in Jalpan, and MejÃÂa enlisted in the army right there and then. Cano was impressed by the prefect's son, and his talent for horse riding, writing a letter of recommendation to President Anastasio Bustamante so that MejÃÂa could be admitted to the Military Academy in Mexico City.
MejÃÂa's first tour of service was as part of ApacheâÂÂMexico Wars, during which he was stationed in the city of Chihuahua and fought against the Apache from 1842 to 1845. For his service he was promoted in ranks.
After the United States annexed Texas, and tensions between Mexico and the U.S. were leading to war, MejÃÂa formed part of the Army of the North sent to patrol the Mexican frontier. He was transferred from Chihuahua to Monterrey. After the American invasion began, MejÃÂa followed the Mexican army as it fell back, and he saw action at the Battle of Buena Vista.
The American northern advance under Zachary Taylor stalled after the Battle of Buena Vista, and after the bulk of the Mexican army was called back to the capital to face Winfield Scott's expedition from the East, MejÃÂa was made part of a garrison that was ordered to stay in the north at San Luis PotosÃÂ where he remained until the end of the war. In 1849, he was granted the rank of commander.
In 1850, during the presidency of Mariano Arista, a revolt flared up in the Sierra Gorda led by the rebel Quiros, and MejÃÂa was among the troops sent to pacify the region. The operation was a success and Quiros was executed at the end of the year. The region had long been a source of instability and President Arista began to plan a series of military colonies to help maintain order in the region. MejÃÂa was made military commander of the region, but the colonization project was interrupted when the Arista administration was overthrown in 1853 and replaced by Santa Anna. Nonetheless, MejÃÂa maintained his post as the region's political administrator.
The liberal Plan of Ayutla was proclaimed against Santa Anna in 1854, but MejÃÂa remained loyal to the government, and crushed a local revolt. The Plan of Ayutla however continued to gain adherents. The governor of Querétaro, MejÃÂa's superior, was overthrown, and MejÃÂa attempted to join a counter-revolt, which however surrendered to the government. MejÃÂa was pardoned by the new liberal government.
The Plan of Ayutla triumphed and resulted in the liberal Juan ÃÂlvarez coming to power. His administration embarked on a series of reforms known as La Reforma, which included a new constitution and anti-clerical measures intended to strip the Catholic Church of its legal privileges and wealth.
On 25 June 1856, under the presidency of Ignacio Comonfort, the Lerdo law was passed, nationalizing lands which were legally held communally. The measure stripped both the Catholic Church and Mexico's Indigenous communities of the land that they owned, and it was intended to break up the land and sell it to individual owners, under the assumption that this would lead to economic development.
Amidst nationwide conservative revolts, on 13 October, MejÃÂa took over the city of Querétaro, proclaiming his defense of the church and also promising the Indigenous communities to protect their communal lands which had also been affected by the Ley Lerdo. The government sent General Manuel Doblado to take back the city, and MejÃÂa was forced to evacuate it on 21 October, heading towards the Sierra Gorda.
MejÃÂa was now dedicated to waging guerilla warfare while staying based in the Sierra Gorda. General Vicente Rosas Landa attempted to reach a compromise with MejÃÂa, and offered official government recognition of his rank, an arrangement which President Ignacio Comonfort opposed. Negotiations fell apart, and MejÃÂa went back to the Sierra.
The revolts against La Reforma developed into full blown civil war after President Comonfort joined Félix MarÃÂa Zuloaga's Plan of Ayutla, amounting to a self coup, and which proposed to draft a new, more moderate constitution. Comonfort later backed out of the plan, and left the capital. The constitutional presidency now passed on to the president of the Supreme Court Benito Juárez, while a conservative junta declared Zuloaga to be president. States began to split their allegiances among the rival governments. By April 1858, the liberal Juárez government was esconced in Veracruz, while the conservative government remained in Mexico City. In January 1859, the conservatives chose Miguel Miramón as their new president.
MejÃÂa joined Miramón to occupy the city of San Luis Potosàon 13 September 1858, and they defeated the liberal general Santiago Vidaurri on 29 September.
In April 1859, MejÃÂa was among the conservative troops falling back upon Mexico City where they routed liberal troops under the command of Santos Degollado. On 12 April, MejÃÂa participated in a Mexico City celebration regarding the victory.
On 19 April, MejÃÂa and Márquez were dispatched with a strong army to operate in the state of Michoacán.
The tide of the war began to turn against the conservatives in 1860. Miramón had already failed to capture the liberal capital of Veracruz and another attempt in July of that year failed due to the intervention of the United States Navy. Miramón retreated back to Mexico City as liberal forces closed in on the capital.
MejÃÂa was present at the Battle of Silao at 10 August at which the conservatives were routed. Miramón then retreated to Mexico City. The liberals finally captured Mexico City in January 1861. MejÃÂa was at Querétaro when the conservative government fell, and he escaped afterwards to the Sierra Gorda.
MejÃÂa now found himself in the city of Jalpan, where he attempted to continue the conservative revolt. He succeeded in capturing the city of Rio Verde and took the garrison commander, Mariano Escobedo, prisoner. False stories that Escobedo had been shot circulated in the press, but in reality, MejÃÂa had let him go. Escobedo would later capture MejÃÂa during the Siege of Querétaro, which led to MejÃÂa's execution.
After taking RÃÂo Verde's war supplies, MejÃÂa returned to Jalpan where he joined his forces with those of Leonardo Márquez, the military head of the surviving conservative movement and Ramón Méndez to form an army of about two thousand. Márquez reprimanded MejÃÂa for not having shot Escobedo, warning him that Escobedo would one day in turn have him shot, words that would in the end prove prophetic.
The government sent troops under Manuel Doblado to Jalpan, but MejÃÂa defeated him in multiple skirmishes, before utterly routing him at Cuesta del Huizache, causing Doblado to retreat from the Sierra Gorda.
MejÃÂa remained stationed at Jalpan, while Márquez went on to notable successes, managing to kill the liberal generals Santos Degollado and .
In May, MejÃÂa briefly occupied Querétaro and around the same time President Benito Juárez placed a bounty on MejÃÂa's head amounting to 10,000 pesos.
MejÃÂa left Querétaro and the Sierra Gorda, heading towards the state of Hidalgo where on 5 July he attacked the city of Huichapan taking all of its garrison prisoner. He then fell back upon the Sierra Gorda to join the rest of the conservative forces which had failed in an attack on Mexico City.
In July 1861, President Juárez suspended foreign debt payments in response to a financial crisis, and on 31 October the convention of London, saw Spain, the United Kingdom, and France, agreeing to militarily intervene in Mexico for the sake of pledging Mexico to pay its debts.
On 14 December 1861, a Spanish fleet sailed into and took possession of the port of Veracruz. The city was occupied on 17 December. French and British forces arrived on 7 January 1862. On 10 January, a manifesto was issued by Spanish General Juan Prim disavowing rumors that the allies had come to conquer or to impose a new government. It was emphasized that the three powers merely wanted to open negotiations regarding their claims of damages. On 17 April 1862, Juan Almonte, who had been a foreign minister of the conservative government during the Reform War, and who was brought back to Mexico by the French, released his own manifesto, assuring the Mexican people of benevolent French intentions. Zuloaga and Márquez joined Almonte, but MejÃÂa, who was reluctant to fight for the Spanish, took on an attitude of wait and see.
Meanwhile, Spain and the United Kingdom had come to agreements with the Juárez government and departed Mexico as they learned that France intended to overthrow the Mexican government and replace it with a monarchy. On 5 May 1862 Charles de Lorencez's small expeditionary force was repulsed at the Battle of Puebla, and the French army retreated to Orizaba to await reinforcements.
MejÃÂa was meanwhile based in Querétaro, and he published a newspaper expressing his opinions on the ongoing war. Like other conservatives, he did not believe that the French threatened Mexico's independence, and by October, he openly supported the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire with Maximilian of Habsburg as its monarch.
By June 1863, the capital had fallen and a conservative government had been installed by the French; upon which MejÃÂa headed to the capital to offer his services.
In Mexico City he was received warmly by Marshal Forey, then commander in chief of the French forces in Mexico, who resupplied MejÃÂa's troops. MejÃÂa was then given military command over the interior of the nation.
MejÃÂa was present at the opening of the Assembly of Notables in July, which resolved to found a monarchy and invite Maximilian of Habsburg to assume the throne.
MejÃÂa now took part in the military campaigns by Franco-Mexican forces to consolidate control of the rest of the nation. On 25 December, he captured the city of San Luis PotosÃÂ. Two days later liberal forces under Miguel Negrete attempted to take back the city only to be utterly routed, losing all of their war material and leaving nine hundred prisoners. The defeat also resulted in the voluntary surrender of the liberal generals Aramberri, Parrodi, and Ampudia.
In January 1864 MejÃÂa was transferred to Matehuala. In May, liberal forces under Manuel Doblado attempted to take the town, only to suffer a decisive defeat at the hands of MejÃÂa, causing Doblado to leave the nation. Because of this victory, Napoleon III granted MejÃÂa the cross of the Legion of Honour.
On 12 June, MejÃÂa was present at the National Palace at the official reception for the arrival of the royal couple. He was appointed spokesman by the Knights of Guadalupe, and Emperor Maximilian embraced MejÃÂa.
For the second half of 1864, MejÃÂa was stationed in the northeast of the nation working to pacify the region with Charles-Louis Du Pin and .
The tide of the Empire began to turn with the conclusion of the American Civil War in April 1865, after which the United States began to supply Mexican Republican forces, and put pressure on France to leave the continent. The Republican General Negrete, with some American mercenaries, began to capture towns along the RÃÂo Grande, and MejÃÂa retreated to Matamoros to await reinforcements.
MejÃÂa protested to the American commandant at Clarksville that American aid and troops was being given to Republican forces, but the commandant replied that such men did so on their own behalf and not on that of the United States government. In spite of that, another American raid cause the U.S. government to remove the commandant from his post and to reprimand the soldiers involved.
As the Empire began to falter, MejÃÂa was forced to retreat from Matamoros on 23 June 1866, and withdraw to Veracruz. By December of that year he and his troops found themselves at Guanajuato. By January 1867, French troops had evacuated Mexico. Imperialist forces while retaining control of Mexico City, began to consolidate at Querétaro, where the Emperor and his leading generals, including MejÃÂa, now found themselves.
At a council of war on 22 February 1867, MejÃÂa opposed Márquez's notion to retreat to Mexico City. On 12 March, republican forces commanded by Mariano Escobedo finally appeared at Querétaro.
The Imperialists held out the siege for the time being and MejÃÂa played his role in repulsing the besieging republicans, but after a few weeks of combat, MejÃÂa was persuaded to support a plan of retreat, which was opposed by Miramon and ultimately not followed through by Maximilian. On 24 March, MejÃÂa once more repulsed another republican assault.
MejÃÂa then fell ill, delaying Imperialist plans of attempting to break through the Republican lines. Nonetheless, MejÃÂa recovered enough to continue plans to escape and seek refuge in MejÃÂa's old haunt, the Sierra Gorda, where he was well known and regarded amongst the population.
MejÃÂa, and the rest of the imperial leadership were captured on 15 May 1867. Escobedo, whose life had been spared by MejÃÂa six years earlier offered MejÃÂa an escape, but he refused it unless he could be accompanied by Maximilian and Miramón, terms which Escobedo found unacceptable.
MejÃÂa was tried by a court martial presided by Col. Rafael Platón Sánchez at which he was defended by lawyer Próspero Vega. The defense brought up that previously MejÃÂa had been merciful when capturing the enemy, sparing general Mariano Escobedo, and Jerónimo Treviño, but the court still sentenced MejÃÂa to death. MejÃÂa, Maximilian, and Miramón were shot by firing squad at dawn on 19 June 1867.
MejÃÂa was awarded Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Guadalupe in 1864 and Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of the Mexican Eagle in 1865.
In 1865, Napoleon III granted him the cross of the Legion of Honour.