rica are called, who were excluded
from all places of honor or profit, held the balance of power, and it
was doubtful for a long time to which side the Creole soldiers would
incline. But they were not long in suspense; for when fired upon by an
undisciplined rabble, rather than an army, of Indians, they returned
the fire, and there, in sight of the city of Mexico, settled the
character of a contest which was, from that time forward, to shake the
whole social organization of the vice-kingdom--in which plantations
were destroyed, and villages and cities sacked and burned, and the most
unheard-of cruelties practiced by one party or the other on the
defenseless, until the final triumph of the Creole, or white troops, in
the time of the viceroy, Apaduer, over the insurgents, composed chiefly
of Indians and those of mixed blood.

RISE OF SANTA ANNA.

While this war was raging in all its fury, Santa Anna arrived at an age
to choose an occupation for life; and with the ardor of youth he
entered the king's service as a Creole officer, a cadet in the _Fijo
de Vera Cruz_. In this fratricidal war he soon distinguished himself
by that activity in the performance of the duties of a subaltern which,
in more mature years, distinguished him as a leader and a politician.
He was at that time in the unhappy dilemma of every man born in Spanish
America; he was compelled to choose between two evils--either to join
the king's cause, and fight for the Spaniards who oppressed his
country, or to run the hazard of seeing re-enacted in Mexico the bloody
tragedy of San Domingo, if the colored races should conquer in a
contest with the Spaniards. A few Creoles had chosen the side of the
insurgents; but they were few; as the Spanish cause could not have been
sustained for a day, if it had not been for the want of confidence in
the leaders of the insurrection. But it was not in contests with his
own countrymen that Santa Anna first won distinction; it was in a
battle with the filibustering invaders while yet Mexico was a colony of
Spain: it was in the bloody battle of the river Madina, in Texas, where
an army of three thousand men (according to Mexican accounts), on their
way to join the Mexican insurgents, were totally routed by Aridondo.

The zeal which Santa Anna continually exhibited in almost daily
contests with guerillas outside of the walls of Vera Cruz, so long as
the contest was confined to a war of races, soon won him distinction.
But n