Santa Anna sold La Mesilla to the United States for $10 million, mortgaged his estates from exile, and Illinois keeps his leg

Antonio López de Santa Anna was president of Mexico several times. He lost a leg in the French attack on Veracruz in 1838 and buried it with military honors. When he fell from power in December 1844, a mob dug the leg up and dragged it through the streets. On 18 April 1847, at Cerro Gordo, soldiers of the 4th Illinois Volunteers captured his cork leg. On 30 December 1853 he signed the Gadsden treaty. The revised version of 8 June 1854 sold 29,670 square miles for $10 million. He needed the money to raise an army against rebellions. He was overthrown in 1855 and lived in exile in Colombia, Saint Thomas, Cuba and the United States. In Turbaco, Colombia, he built a farm business with sugar mills, tobacco and cattle. On 28 June 1866, in New York, he issued $500 bonds pledging his estates to raise $750,000 for a return to power. He brought chicle to New York, which Thomas Adams later used to make chewing gum^†. He returned under an 1874 amnesty, nearly blind, and died in Mexico City in 1876. He is buried at the Panteón del Tepeyac. In 2025 the cork leg remained at the Illinois State Military Museum in Springfield, which has refused Mexico's requests to return it.