Section 15
Guillén the Liberator During Peacetime
After the Treaty of Córdoba. Emperor Guillén returned to a grand, Roman-style triumph in Mexico City where the Cortez formally gave him the title "The Liberator" (
El Libertador). He took the opportunity to finally pass the Liberation Edict of 1660 that formally outlawed slavery in the Mexican Empire (although there will still hundreds of men forced to labor in mines and fields for supporting the Spanish, but those were ignored). Similarly, he resettled roughly 2,000 Santo Domingo slaves who supported the occupation and guerrilla campaign during the War in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas in the hopes that they would act as a deterrent against Spanish invasions from Florida. They named their settlement Ciudad Guillén.
He also sent government representatives to the Pueblo people to insure that the Spanish there were respecting the toleration edict and freedom edicts. The roughly 15,000 Pueblo who remained where represented by a Tewa religious leader named Po'pay who was given the title Marquis of Tewa (guaranteeing him a vote in the Council of Nobles) and tasked with reporting on their conditions and ensuring loyalty to the Mexican government.
In honor of his friend Professor Diego Rodriguez and the strains the two cities went through, Guillén endowed the Diego Rodriguez University in Veracruz and the Emperor Guillén University in Acapulco in 1661, both on his 50th birthday.
The emperor was a man advanced in years and spent long hours sitting in a balcony overlooking the busy streets of Mexico City. Occasionally there was an adviser, courtier, or diplomat sitting with him and every once in a while someone in the streets would wave or salute and he would return the gesture. There were the odd Spanish loyalist uprisings (usually inspired by missionaries and priests who resented the loss of their privileges), but those were suppressed quickly and the ringleaders exiled to San Diego.
Peace wouldn't last. The Dutch alliance would be tested in 1665, and the Mexican Empire was loyal to its vow.
statue of Emperor Guillén in Mexico City
Section 16
The Second Anglo-Dutch War (Europe)/ First Orange Alliance War (Mexico)
War between the English and the Dutch broke out in March 1665, and Mexico officially joined the war in November 1665 with unanimous support in the Cortez (Mexican privateers had been attacking English ships since the English capture of New Netherland/New York in 1664).
The Caribbean front was dominated by Mexican, Dutch, and (after mid-1666) French forces. The English captured Sint Eustatius, but the island was quickly retaken by the English half of St. Kitts was taken by the French and Mexican forces took Antigua. An interesting situation occurred on the island of Montserrat. Montserrat was settled by Irishmen in 1642 and thus had no loyalty to the English and invited the French to "invade" in 1666. The French didn't send troops, but the Mexicans, eager to take more land after Antigua. sent men to the island. The settlers, who didn't seem to understand the difference between French and Spanish but did understand these soldiers were Catholic, welcomed the Mexicans and would later help repulse an attempt by the English to retake the islands.
While a Dutch-Mexican fleet under Dutch Admiral Abraham Crijnssen left to liberate Sint Eustatius, another Mexican-Dutch fleet under Mexican Admiral Diego de la Vega captured Suriname with 5,000 soldiers and remained Fort Willoughby Fort Vega. He left 3,000 men to garrison the colony before returning to join Admiral Crijnssen and French Admiral Joseph-Antoine de la Barre for an invasion of the English island of Nervis.
The Battle of Nevis was almost a disaster. The French line fell into confusion and de la Barre's flagship was surrounded by English ships and mauled while it attempted to help. The Dutch and Mexicans assisted the French and gave the main English ship
Coronation a fierce fight but had to withdraw when threatened by fireships. The battle became a long-range slugfest, but the French fleet, seeing the English fleet still holding the line and suffering heavy casualties alongside the injured flagship, retreated to St. Kitts. Admiral Crijnssen was furious, and Admiral de la Vega was speechless. Crijnssen signaled to de la Vega to see what he was planning, and de la Vega just pointed at Nevis. It took the rest of the day and the next, but the 11 English ships were reduced to 8 and nearly 3,000 Dutch-Mexicans managed to make an assault on the island and take it in the name of the Dutch Republic.
Crijnseen, still fuming over the French debacle, parted company with the French but continued to sail with de la Vega. He would later write,
"I doubt that either France or Mexico will make great maritime powers, but at least the Mexicans can sail and fight competently." De la Vega would claim that was the first compliment given to a Mexican force from a European power in the nation's history, a claim not easily contested.
west coast of Nevis
The French fleet would later be virtually destroyed in the Battle of Martinique, but an English attack on Cayenne was repulsed with the aid of reinforcements from Mexican Suriname.
In 1667, following the entry of Denmark-Norway into the war, a Dutch raid on Medway that destroyed the English fleet there, the Great Fire of London making Londoners feel more vulnerable, the sheer cost of the war (not helped by Charles II's extravagant spending in court), and the Great Plague left Charles II of England in a position where he had to sue for peace before an open revolt broke out.
Section 17
Aftermath of the First Orange Alliance War
On July 31, 1667 the Treaty of Breda was signed between England, the Dutch Republic, France, Denmark-Norway, and Mexico. The result of the treaty was
uti possidetis (as you possess). England kept Manhattan; the Dutch kept Pulau Run (a spice island in Indonesia that insured a monopoly on nutmeg), Nevis; France kept the whole of St. Kitts; Mexico kept Antigua, Montserrat (still unaware that it was Mexican and not French), and Suriname; and the English Act of Navigation was altered to allow the Dutch to ship German goods to England. De Witt, leader of the Dutch, also used the opportunity to get Charles to join the Triple Alliance (alongside Sweden) to protect Spain from France (who had declared war for the Spanish Netherlands on flimsy legal grounds and was then forced to grant the territory back to avoid a larger war). Mexico was offered a part in the alliance, but Ambassador Iglesias (nearly a 20-year veteran in his position) refused to join any alliance to aid Spain until Spain recognized Mexican independence.
contemporary engraving of the end of the conclusion of the peace
In October 27, 1667, amid strong pro-Mexican feelings in Amsterdam, Prince Guillén of Mexico and Maria of Nassau were married in a Reformed ceremony (they would later be remarried in a Catholic ceremony in Mexico City that was mostly for pomp but that raised the question if children born before that ceremony should be considered out of wedlock). Payments for the bride price began in early 1668. As previously stated, the friendship between William III of Orange and Prince Guillén developed during this period as evidenced during the birth of the couple's first child in 1669, a daughter named Amelia, when William III was named godfather.
In Mexico, the celebrations were tremendous. Another Roman-style triumph was held in Mexico City and Admiral Diego de la Vega was made Duke of Suriname and allowed to retire from active duty to be Lord High Admiral. In Europe, the colonial powers (aside from Spain) recognized Mexico as an important ally to have in the region seeing as its entire population, army, and navy were in the Caribbean and allowed to mobilize more effectively and with greater results.