Ignacio Zaragoza

Who was Ignacio Zaragoza?

Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, was a general in the Mexican army, best known for defeating invading French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

Zaragoza was born in the early Mexican Texas village of Bahía del Espíritu Santo in what was then the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas. He was the son of Miguel G. Zaragoza and María de Jesús Seguín, who was a niece of Erasmo Seguín and cousin of Juan Seguín. The Zaragoza family moved to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in 1834 and thence to Monterrey, Mexico, in 1844, where young Ignacio entered a seminary.

During the political unrest of the 1850s, Zaragoza joined the army supporting the cause of the Liberal Party, in opposition to dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna. Zaragoza rose to command an army of volunteers that in 1855 defeated Santa Anna and led to the reestablishment of a constitutional democratic government in Mexico.

Zaragoza served as Secretary of War from April through October 1861, in the cabinet of Benito Juárez. He resigned in order to lead the Army of the East against the Europeans who, using the Mexican external debt as a pretext under the Treaty of London concluded earlier that year, had invaded Mexico.