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Personal life

Santa Anna married twice, both times to wealthy young women. At neither wedding ceremony did he appear, legally empowering his future father-in-law to serve as a proxy at his first wedding and a friend at his second. One assessment of the two marriages is that they were arranged marriages of convenience, bringing considerable wealth to Santa Anna and that his lack of attendance at the ceremonies "appears to confirm that he was purely interested in the financial aspect o the alliance."

In 1825, Santa Anna married Inés García, the daughter of wealthy Spanish parents in Veracruz, and the couple had four children: María de Guadalupe, María del Carmen, Manuel, and Antonio López de Santa Anna y García. By 1825, Santa Anna had distinguished himself as a military man, joining the movement for independence. When Iturbide lost support, Santa Anna had been in the forefront of leaders seeking to oust him. Although his family was of modest means, Santa Anna was of good creole lineage; the García family may well have seen a match between their young daughter and the up-and-coming Santa Anna as advantageous. Inés' dowry allowed Santa Anna to purchase the first of his haciendas, Manga de Clavo, in Veracruz.

The first Spanish ambassador to Mexico and his wife, Fanny Calderón de la Barca, visited with Inés at Manga de Clavo, where they were well-received with a breakfast banquet. Calderón de la Barca observed that "After breakfast, the Señora having dispatched an officer for her cigar-case, which was gold with a diamond latch, offered me a cigar, which I having declined, she lighted her own, a little paper 'cigarette', and the gentlemen followed her good example."

Two months after the death of his wife Inés in 1844, the 50-year-old Santa Anna married 16-year-old María de Los Dolores de Tosta. The couple rarely lived together; de Tosta resided primarily in Mexico City, and Santa Anna's political and military activities took him around the country. They had no children, leading biographer Will Fowler to speculate that either the marriage was primarily platonic or de Tosta was infertile.

Several women claimed to have borne Santa Anna natural children. In his will, he acknowledged and made provisions for four: Paula, María de la Merced, Petra, and José López de Santa Anna. Biographers have identified three more: Pedro López de Santa Anna, and Ángel and Augustina Rosa López de Santa Anna.