The Journal of James A. Brush: The Expedition and Military Operations of General Don Francisco Xavier Mina in Mexico, 1816–1817 ed. by Karen Racine and Graham Lloyd

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Journal of James A. Brush: The Expedition and Military Operations of General Don Francisco Xavier Mina in Mexico, 1816–1817 ed. by Karen Racine and Graham Lloyd Francis X. Galán The Journal of James A. Brush: The Expedition and Military Operations of General Don Francisco Xavier Mina in Mexico, 1816–1817. Edited by Karen Racine and Graham Lloyd. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2020. Pp. 265. Illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index.) Historians of many stripes will be absolutely delighted with this hidden gem from the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Latin American scholar Karen Racine and fellow editor Graham Lloyd transcribed and annotated this action-packed yet even-keeled memoir from the Scottish-born James A. Brush, a British military veteran of the Napoleonic wars who joined the expedition of Francisco Xavier Mina, which launched from Liverpool, England, on May 15, 1816, and landed in Norfolk, Virginia, the following month. Mina, a native of the Spanish kingdom of Navarre in the Basque region of northern Spain, fought against Napoleon’s occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The editors explain that a Mexican priest encouraged Mina “to fight with the patriots of Mexico, arguing that any blow against Spanish tyranny in one place would advance the cause of liberty everywhere” (7). Although several other unpublished document-memoirs by foreign contemporaries describe the revolutionary events in Mexico that followed, the editors claim Brush’s account is not only the longest and most detailed but “the one written without an immediate personal or political motivation,” which includes many “crossover personnel” in Texas. (15). Racine and Lloyd deftly contextualize this journal with succinct biographies of both Mina and Brush in the introduction before picking up Brush’s insightful descriptions about the richness of the environment, minerals, and people of Mexico. His observations include sympathetic portrayals of ordinary folk such as Privateer Luis Aury’s Black Haitian troops, Indigenous Mexican rebels, and women. Brush unsurprisingly [End Page 205] reveals prejudice toward the Roman Catholic Church, especially the Inquisition, and comments on the general state of war between the viceroy of Mexico and independent Indians. Whereas priests offered civilization, which the Indians viewed “as a state of slavish subjection to the Spaniards,” Brush also notes the success of some missions in Upper California in converting a few natives. Yet he seemed bewildered at “those children of the forest, who disdain to barter their independence for what are called the conveniences of civilized life” (27–28). Paradoxically, Brush also observes syncretic practices of the Indians who carry images of the saints interspersed with representations of the moon and sun while “on solemn occasions they still use the ancient religious dances . . . performed in the churches after Mass is celebrated” (28–30). As for the peasants of Nuevo Santander, where Mina’s expedition landed on April 15, 1817, at the mouth of the Santander River in the Gulf of Mexico, Brush appeared to marvel at their cowboy skills and promise. He noted how these people of the country “are mostly rancheros and excellent horsemen,” whose “heels are equipped with huge iron spurs” and legs “eased in very strong boots,” adding they would “make excellent dragoons if properly disciplined” (53). Joining with their cause for liberty, Brush discusses the roles of various foreigners, such as American colonel Henry Perry and his fifty-man infantry, against Spanish royalists, as well as Commodore Aury, who then left Mina’s expedition to make an establishment at Matagorda in Texas, fearing that Soto la Marina, the small village inland base off the Santander River, was not a suitable port for their purpose. One of the first major engagements occurred at the three-hour Battle of Peotillos, where three hundred insurgents under Mina defeated two thousand royalists under Colonel Benito Armiñán. Brush added that, despite being surrounded by the royalists, rebel infantry under Colonel Guilford Dudley Young let out destructive firepower and then yelled “Hurrah!” (70), which panicked Spanish infantry and cavalry to flee. However, near the end of Mina’s successful expeditionary campaigns in Guanajuato, Brush saved perhaps his greatest disdain for a couple of jealous Mexican rebel officers (General Torres and Colonel Noboa), who withheld promised support...