The Mexican gunpowder dilemma

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

[B]…

I note a lot of the soldiers weren't Mexican but Indian and interestingly the point of poor training just keeps popping up.

Perhaps you are not aware that Mexico, like the United States and Canada, has a population which is a blend of ethnic bloodlines going back centuries. Europeans from the Iberian Peninsula arrived in the 16th cent. and besides conquering the indigenous peoples and Christianizing many of them, also started intermarrying. The Spanish then brought African slaves. Successive waves of immigrants followed on the heels of the conquistadores -- a trickle of Filipinos and Chinese coming with the trans-Pacific galleon trade, larger numbers of French, Germans, and Irish fleeing political, religious, and economic troubles in the 18th-19th centuries, and even Japanese and Russians at the close of the 1800s. By now the gene pools are quite mixed. Mexicans come in all sizes and colors and their culture is a pretty spicy stew. Beer is more popular than wine, and folk musicians like the tuba. Mariachi orchestras originated with French country wedding music imported in the 1800s. From France also comes a taste for refined cooking with delicate sauces in parts of the country, along with a liking for horse meat. There are Mexican citizens, whole villages of the original inhabitants, who even today don't speak Spanish and need translators if they are to have a conversation with someone from Mexico City or Tijuana.

I'll close by saying that I don't see the connection between being an Indian and being a poorly-trained soldier. Remember the Aztec empire?