In the 1850’s-60’s, Mexico was in turmoil. There were dictators (Antonio López de Santa Ana); the military and the clergy joined in a coup under the Plan de Tacubaya; the war against the U.S. had just ended with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, where Mexico ceded much of what is now the U.S. Southwest, from Texas to California, to the U.S. And then there was Mexico’s own civil war known as, La Guerra de la Reforma between conservative and liberal forces.
