The former Mexican president, originally from Veracruz, had a habit of chewing chicle, but that is not why Santa Anna brought such a large amount of it to the United States. It was a rubbery substance and came from the sap of a tropical tree called the sapodilla. Adams was somewhat of an amateur inventor and was fascinated with something that Santa Anna brought with him to New York. While living in Staten Island, an American was assigned to the former president of Mexico to be his personal secretary. Santa Anna closed down his estate and sold off his holdings in the Danish West Indies and moved to New York to plead his case to American politicians and to raise money from wealthy backers who believed in his cause. He received Seward cordially in his library and although their meeting lasted less than an hour, Santa Anna got the mistaken impression that the United States was sympathetic to his return to Mexico and would support him in his quest to become Mexico’s president for the 12 th time. Santa Anna left Mexico with millions of pesos and a sizeable entourage and was living a life of a nobleman in a large estate near the Danish governor’s mansion. Thomas Seward called on a curious local resident, Antonio López de Santa Anna, the 11-time president of Mexico who had been living in this Danish tropical outpost – which would later become the US Virgin Islands – since 1858. Part of a Caribbean cruise Secretary Seward would meet with the Danish governor of the islands and local elites during his brief stay. Seward and his delegation sailed into the harbor at Charlotte Amalie on the island of Saint Thomas in the Danish West Indies.
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