Abstract
The third act of Spain’s drive to re-create its empire between 1859 and 1861 took shape in Mexico at the tail end of a civil war between competing political factions, leading to the French intervention in 1862 and the fall of the Liberal Union government in Spain by early 1863.¹ Both the War of the Reform (1858–61) and Spanish plotting in the Caribbean contributed greatly to the turmoil and chaos that descended upon Mexico. In 1856 assassinations of Spaniards at San Vicente, a sugar mill near Cuernavaca, aggravated tensions with Spain, although the criminals subsequently were put to death.²