It's all about freedom and liberty. The Cinco de Mayo celebration is not always understood as being  relevant to the US, but it is.

The 5th of May is not  Mexican independence day, but it should be! And Cinco de Mayo is not an American holiday, but it should be. Mexico actually declared its independence from Spain on midnight of the 15th of September, 1810 - in effect el Dieciseis. (See El Grito) But it took eleven years before the first Spanish soldiers were notified of the fact, then forced to leave Mexico. It was fifty-two years before the Cinco de  Mayo.

So why Cinco de Mayo and why should Americans savor this day as well? Because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed  the French (and their own Mexican traitor army) of 8,000 at the City of Puebla,  Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862.

The French occupation took shape in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. With this war,  Mexico entered a period of national crisis during the 1850s. Years of fighting, not only the Americans but also a civil war, had left Mexico devastated and  bankrupt. On July 17, 1861 President Benito Juarez issued a moratorium in which all foreign debt payments were suspended for a brief period of two years.

The French had landed in Mexico (along with Spanish and English troops) five months earlier on the pretext of collecting the debts from the newly elected government (of democratic and Indian) President Juarez. The English and Spanish quickly made deals and  left. The French, however, had other ideas. They intended to acquire a new  French colony.

Under Emperor Napoleon III,  who detested the United States, the French came to stay. They brought a Hapsburg  prince with them to rule the new Mexican empire. His name was Maximilian; his  wife Carlota. Napoleon's French army had not been defeated in 50 years. France  invaded Mexico with its finest in modern equipment and with a newly reconstituted Foreign Legion. The French were not afraid of anyone, especially since the United States was embroiled in its own Civil War.

The French army left the port of Veracruz to attack Mexico City to the West. The French assumed that the Mexicans would give up easily once their capital fell to them-- as traditionally  happened with European countries.

Under the command of Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza (and the cavalry under the command of Porfirio Diaz, later to be Mexico's president and dictator) the Mexicans awaited. Brightly dressed French Dragoons led the enemy columns. The Mexican army was less stylish.

General Zaragoza ordered Colonel Diaz to take his cavalry, the best in the world, out to the French flanks. In response, the French did a most stupid thing: they sent their cavalry off to chase Diaz and his men, who proceeded to butcher them. The remaining  French infantrymen charged the Mexican defenders through sloppy mud from a  thunderstorm, and through hundreds of head of cattle stirred up by Indians armed only with machetes.

When the battle was over,  many (1,000) French were killed or wounded and their cavalry was being chased by  Diaz' superb horsemen miles away. The Mexicans had won a great victory that kept  Napoleon III from supplying the confederate rebels for another year. This allowed the United States to build the greatest army the world had ever seen.  This grand army smashed the Confederates at Gettysburg just 14 months after the Battle of Puebla, essentially ending the Civil War.

Union forces were then rushed to the Texas/Mexico border under General Phil Sheridan, who made sure  that the Mexicans got all the weapons and ammunition they needed to expel the  French. American soldiers were discharged with their uniforms and rifles if they promised to join the Mexican army to fight the French. The American Legion of  Honor marched in the victory parade in Mexico City.

It might be a historical stretch to credit the survival of the United States to those brave 4,000 Mexicans who faced an army twice as large in 1862¦ but who knows!?

In gratitude, thousands of Mexicans crossed the border after Pearl harbor to join the US Armed Forces.  Even as recently as the Persian Gulf War, Mexicans flooded American consulates with phone calls trying to join up and fight another war for America.

Mexicans, you see, never forget who their friends are; and neither do Americans. That's why Cinco de Mayo  is such a party -- a party that celebrates freedom and liberty. These are two  ideals, which Mexicans and Americans have fought shoulder to shoulder to protect  ever since the 5th of May, 1862.

Adapted by Jose C. Salazar, from Viva Cinco de Mayo*