Way Down to Mexico Way
By Stephen Deng (邓星驰)


[native-American guitar virtuoso Hendrix]

In the early months of 1967, Jimi Hendrix’s Acid test Rock and roll version of Hey Joe was a number one hit worldwide.*1* The style, or “sound” was new, but the song was not—and its story even less so. The idea of running from the Law is a theme in all the human arts as old as the Law itself, and in the USA the idea of Mexico as a kind of safe haven for those on the run has been a regular theme since the twilight of European colonization.

the Duelist
In 1804 [嘉庆9] Thomas Jefferson’s vice-president shot dead the first federal Treasury Secretary. The occasion was a duel, an “affair of honour” [面子], and the duelist left standing at its conclusion was Aaron Burr. “The Veep had just lost our gubernatorial election,”*2* says Skip Lunch, legendary New York punk guitarist. “He had run as an independent against Jefferson’s Republicans, and their campaign marked a new low in New York politics—I’m talking [about] really sleazy attack ads. And the first Secretary wasn’t a Republican either, you’d expect him to speak up against such a circus--if not actually to defend Burr--wouldn’t you? But No--that federal turtle’s egg was right in there with the other vile creatures, slinging mud.”*3*


[the Veep defends his Honour]

Burr did not have to flee as far as the Spanish-controled parts of America. There not yet being an FBI, he had only to fear the sheriffs of New Jersey, where Hamilton and he had gone to duel. “Jersey’s right across the river,” says Lunch. “It’s like when you require someone who's looking for a good smack to step outside the bar.” Burr's enemies in New York would badger him with para-legal harrassment,*4* but in as near a state as Pennsylvania he had his liberty; Extradition might loom, but he was unarrestable in the Senate [until after the new year, when the next elected VP would take over his chair]; and in all states south of the capital he found himself lionised.*5* All the same, within two months of the shooting Burr had left the country and was weighing his prospects in Florida.

This minor part of New Spain had a fortified port on the Mississippi [called Baton Rouge, across the river from US-controled New Orleans]. And the major part of it—that is, Mexico—was not terribly far away : its border lay just west of the US port, behind a 70 km-wide Neutral Zone.

“Burr was welcomed with travel documents by a friendly Spanish official,” says Bulei Tsering, a drummer from Batang, Sichuan, whom some readers will have seen playing with the street jam band Bad Background / 地主出身 as recently as 2005. “But he took to plotting to overthrow the royal government of New Spain, to bring in soldiers of fortune from the Mississippi valley—like Andrew Jackson, general of the Tennessee militia--and with them seize all of Mexico for himself, to make a true civilization on this God-forsaken continent and to share it with a host of choice spirits. But toward the end of 1806 a triple agent in the US army let the cat out of the bag and Jefferson had the exile nabbed and brought back to one of his courts on the Atlantic seaboard. Burr was to stand trial for “Launching an expedition against a Spanish colony”—and for Treason. The latter charge, which carried a death sentence, was trumped up—the president claimed to have evidence but would let no one see it. And Jefferson even tried to suspend habeas corpus, the hallowed right of all English-speaking peoples. Imagine!”*6*

Independent of president and party, the court found Burr innocent and freed him.
In 1812 for the second and last time the US declared war against the UK. King George had been on the point of supporting Burr’s Mexican project as an ideal counterweight to Jefferson’s republic; now his majesty’s navy landed troops directly onto US territory. General Jackson, unconvicted, soundly defeated the King’s native-American allies in the Mississippi valley, his Spanish allies in Florida, and finally his royal army at New Orleans.
This battle, the last occasion where US soldiers officially meant to kill British ones, is now known to popular history because of a jingoistic song written some 13 or 14 decades later. The version by Columbia Records’ rockabilly performer Johnny Horton won a Grammy award in 1960.*7* Horton, the husband of Hank Williams’ widow, died later that year in a car crash.


[We fired our guns and the British kept a-coming ..]

Notes :
*1* Acid test style Rock and roll [henceforth “Acid rock”], also known as “psychedelic rock” because of its interplay with the concurrent psychedelia phase of funk fashion. “Worldwide” of course excludes the broad masses of the communist bloc, or “second world” countries.

*2* Veep [vi:p] = VP, vice-president. Gubernatorial = 州长 [PRC 省长] 的.

*3* Sleazy [sli:zi]= 低级, 不要脸的. Attack ad [-vertisement] = character assassination, normally--but not in electoral campaigns--libelous. Sling mud = 乱说坏话.

*4* The New York prosecutor laid charges against the VP but these, says Lunch, were “totally illegal. The Party seized his house and stuff—that on top of the lost election left him bankrupt.” The Richmond Hill house, in Manhattan 区, had been a previous VP's residence--when New York City was still the federal capital. Burr did not return to the state until the year of the Second UK war.

*5* Extradite = 引渡. The US VP, not having much else to do, is by custom the chairman of the Senate. Lionise X = heroicise X, make a hero of X.

*6* Let the cat out of the bag = divulge information at a bad time or to the wrong people. Also “spill the beans.” The slogan “to make a true civilization ..” is Burr’s own. Bulei’s rather unexpected familiarity with US history is due to his close reading of Gore Vidal’s septalogy [= 7-novel series; also “septet”] Narrative of Empire. “The septet is pretty much a standard text for English language improvement in India,” says the drummer, who studied in the former UK colony during the recent fin de siecle. “It’s unforgettable.”
Vidal, firming up the young tongues of the Subcontinent.

*7* rockabilly = country [乡下]-style Rock and Roll. Grammy = [US] National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.