The Course of Mexican History 11th Edition - PDF Ebook

THE COURSE OF MEXICAN HISTORY

THE COURSE OF
MEXICAN HISTORY

eleventh edition

Susan M. Deeds
northern arizona university
Michael C. Meyer
university of arizona
William L. Sherman
university of nebraska-lincoln
N E W Y O R K O X F O R D
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Deeds, Susan M., author. | Meyer, Michael C. | Sherman, William L.

Title: The course of Mexican history / Susan M. Deeds, Northern Arizona
University, Michael C. Meyer, University of Arizona, William L. Sherman,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Description: Eleventh edition. | New York, NY : Oxford University Press,
2017. | Meyer’s name appears first on earlier editions. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017025522 | ISBN 9780190659011 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Mexico—History.
Classification: LCC F1226 .M54 2017 | DDC 972—dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025522
987654321
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America.
CONTENTS
maps and c har ts ix

new to this editi on xi
preface xii
PA R T I PRE-COLUMBIAN MEXICO 1
chapter 1 The First Mexicans 3

chapter 2 Mesoamerica’s Golden Age: The Classic Period 11
chapter 3 Times of Trouble: Post-Classic Mexico 29
chapter 4 The Rise of the Aztecs 43
chapter 5 Aztec Society and Culture 53
PA R T I I COLLIDING WORLDS 73
chapter 6 The Spanish Invasion 75

chapter 7 The Settlement of New Spain 96
PA R T I I I L I V I N G I N T H E V I C E R O YA LT Y 113
chapter 8 The Imperial System Entrenched 115

chapter 9 The Colonial Economy 127
chapter 10 The Colonial Church 142
chapter 11 Colonial Society: Race, Ethnicity, Class, Gender,
and Identity 158
c h a p t e r 12 Culture and Daily Life in New Spain 176
v
vi contents
PA R T I V REFORM AND REACTION: THE MOVE TO

INDEPENDENCE 195
chapter 13 The Bourbons Restructure New Spain 197

chapter 14 Society and Stress in the Late Colonial Period 208
chapter 15 The Wars for Independence 224
chapter 16 The First Mexican Empire 235
PA R T V T H E T R I A L S O F N AT I O N H O O D 241
c h a p t e r 17 The Early Mexican Republic 2 4 3

c h a p t e r 18 S anta Anna, the Centralized State, and the War with
the United States 251
c h a p t e r 19 S ociety and Culture in the First Half of the
Nineteenth Century 270
PA R T V I L I B E R A L S A N D C O N S E R VAT I V E S S E A R C H F O R
SOMETHING BETTER 281
c h a p t e r 20 The Reform and the French Intervention 283

c h a p t e r 21 The Restored Republic: Nascent Modernization 300
c h a p t e r 22 S ociety and Culture in the Middle of the
Nineteenth Century 3 0 9
PA R T V I I T H E M O D E R N I Z AT I O N O F M E X I C O 319
c h a p t e r 23 The Porfiriato: Order and Progress 321

c h a p t e r 24 The Costs of Modernization 3 3 5
c h a p t e r 25 Society and Culture during the Porfiriato 345
PA R T V I I I THE REVOLUTION OF 1910 357
c h a p t e r 26 M adero and the Liberal Indictment of

the Porfiriato 359
c h a p t e r 27 R evolts and Dictatorship Obstruct the Democratic
Overture 3 7 8
c h a p t e r 28 The Illusory Quest for a Better Way 391
c h a p t e r 29 S ociety and Culture during the Revolutionary
Years 411
Contents vii
PA R T I X T H E R E V O L U T I O N A R Y A F T E R M AT H 423
c h a p t e r 30 Calles: Supreme Chief of an Institutionalized

Revolution 425
c h a p t e r 31 Cárdenas and the Essence of the Revolution 435
c h a p t e r 32 S ociety and Culture in the Postrevolutionary
Period 455
PA R T X D E V E L O P M E N T A N D D I S S E N T U N D E R A O N E - PA R T Y
SYSTEM 471
chapter 33 From Revolution to Evolution 473
chapter 34 The Lull and the Storm 482
chapter 35 Failures of Development in the One-Party State 496
chapter 36 Society and Culture: A New Internationalism 506
PA R T X I CRISIS AND CHANGE IN AN ERA OF

G L O B A L I Z AT I O N 5 2 5
chapter 37 The Neo-Liberal State: A Path to Democracy? 527

chapter 38 The Challenges of Democratization 544
chapter 39 Problems and Promise 562
chapter 40 S ociety and Culture in an Era of Crises and Global
Entanglements 581
appendix: mexican heads of state 609

sources of illust rations 614
index 618
color plates foll ow 318

MAPS AND CHARTS
Periods in Pre-Columbian Mexico 5

Principal Archaeological Sites 24
Principal Lake Cities in the Valley of Mexico during the Aztec Period 48
Route of Cortés 86
Principal Explorations and Conquests in the Sixteenth Century 100
Route of Coronado’s Expedition, 1540–42 108
White Population of New Spain 160
Indian Population of Central Mexico 163
Value of New Spain’s Annual Production (1810) 201
Interior Provinces (Late Eighteenth Century) 202
Territory under Insurgent Control, 1811–13 230
The Mexican Republic in 1824 245
United States–Texas Border Dispute 259
US Invasion, 1846–48 261
Income and Expenditures, 1839–46 265
Mexican Population Growth, 1800–50 271
Schools and Student Enrollment, 1844–74 307
Growth of Foreign Trade, 1877–1910 333
Population of Selected Mexican Cities during the Porfiriato 346
Mexico 397
Federal Expenditures for Education 403
The Violence Takes a Toll 417
Percentage of Land Distribution by Administration, 1915–40 438
Industrial Loans of the Nacional Financiera, 1940–45 451
ix
x maps and charts
Urban–Rural Population Distribution 485

Illiteracy, 1910–60 486
Mexican Oil Zones (Including Off-shore) 502
Growth of the Mexican Petroleum Industry 502
Mexican Presidential Elections, 1958–88: PRI Candidates’ Percentage
of Votes 535
The 2000 Mexican Presidential Election 545
Presidential Election, 2006 556
Presidential Election, 2012 569
Urban-Rural Population Distribution, 2015 583
Metropolitan Areas of Mexico with Populations over a Million (2015) 586
Adult Literacy, 1980–2015 588
NEW TO THIS EDITION
Updates to pre-Columbian chapters including recent discoveries at the pyramids of

Teotihuacan and on Maya codices (picture writing)
New material on the Spanish conquest of Mexico and native responses to colonial rule
Revisionist interpretations of Santa Anna and the US-Mexican War
Re-evaluation of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and its aftermath
Expanded coverage of social and cultural history throughout, including discussions of
gender history, ethnic groups, local religion, cultural nationalism, environmental change,
popular protests, and urban life
Updates on recent political crises and corruption as well as US-Mexico relations
Extended analysis of border issues, including migration and narcotraffic
Reflections and illustrations of Mexico’s rich contemporary popular culture, including film,
television, music, cuisine, leisure, and sport
xi
PREFACE
I n the nearly forty years since the first edition of The Course of Mexican History was pub-
lished in 1979, much has changed in Mexico. Successive editions of the book have noted
transformations in the political, economic, social, cultural, and diplomatic history over
time. Each addition has also incorporated new and revisionist interpretations of Mexico’s
past based on the most recent archival research of hundreds of scholars. When the original
authors, Michael Meyer and William Sherman, undertook the project of writing a textbook
to help college students acquire a deep appreciation of Mexico’s past, as well as a nuanced
understanding of the present, they could not have anticipated that their collaboration on
the subject they themselves found so fascinating would prove so enduring.
Their empathy and appreciation for Mexico’s peoples and cultures continue to resonate
in the eleventh edition. After the death of Professor Sherman in 1998, Professor Meyer and
I collaborated on three more editions of the book. When Michael C. Meyer died in 2007,
he left a rich legacy of original scholarship on Mexican history. But perhaps his most last-
ing contribution is to be found in this fundamental survey text that faithfully maintains
his desire to provide sound, up-to-date historical synthesis unencumbered by polemic or
theoretical jargon.
For Professor Meyer, the understanding of Mexican history logically began with an
understanding of the major political developments that provided a foundation upon which
to develop themes of Mexico’s socioeconomic and cultural history in the pre-Columbian,
colonial, and modern periods. This model has once again served me well for incorporating
new materials and perspectives from recent publications to update the basic text. In this edi-
tion, I have reorganized the periodization of chapters in the modern era to reflect changes in
overall interpretations of the Mexican past. College instructors can supplement our material
from the increasingly expansive scholarship that continues to be published on a multiplicity
of topics in Mexican history.
The general contours of historical scholarship on Mexico have shifted over the last
few decades. Scholars have increasingly called attention to continuities in Mexico’s
xii
Preface xiii
historical experience over time. Changing emphases have illuminated the roles of the
popular classes and of women in shaping Mexican history. New cultural approaches
have offered alternative insights to explain nation building and the evolution of Mexican
national identity. The focus of much of the new scholarship examines the postrevolu-
tionary p eriods, questioning the degree to which the revolution of 1910 wrought social
and political change.
Mexico’s place in the world community continues to be remarkable and unique. Even
before Mesoamerica was connected to the rest of the globe, it boasted several of the world’s
most complex civilizations. Distinguished by its significant presence in the Atlantic and
Pacific world economies in the colonial period, Mexico later became the first nation to carry
out a social revolution in twentieth century. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Mexico
once again commanded attention by ending seventy years of one-party rule and embark-
ing on a more politically pluralistic path. Just twelve years later, the return of the Partido
Revolucionario Institucional offered poignant testimony to the enormous difficulties of
transforming an entrenched political culture.
An even more intractable problem is the drug war that has engulfed Mexico for more
than a decade, producing thousands of deaths and disappearances. Recently, migration has
topped the list of dilemmas for Mexico to confront. The ties that connect Mexico to the
United States have deep historical roots in the border crossings that have evolved for nearly
200 years since Mexico became an independent nation. In this decade, nearly 34 million
Hispanics of Mexican origin live in the United States, making meaningful contributions to
US society across the political, economic, social, and cultural spectra. Approximately two-
thirds of them were born in the United States, and the other third consists of immigrants.
The immigrant population expanded significantly after 1970 and then declined in recent
years; one-half are undocumented while legal permanent residents and naturalized US cit-
izens make up the other half. As this book goes to press, undocumented Mexicans face
a serious crisis, stemming from the 2016 election of Donald Trump as US president. The
protracted stalemate in the US Congress which prevented a resolution of the migrant issue
resulted in Trump’s nationalist and xenophobic agenda. Threats of mass deportations now
loom large.
The lessons of history teach us that Mexico will meet future challenges with characteris-
tic creativity, dynamism, and resilience. And, more than ever, US citizens can benefit from
understanding the past of their southern neighbor.
During a long relationship with the fine staff at the Higher Education Division of Oxford
University Press, the authors of The Course of Mexican History have worked with several edi-
tors who offered wise counsel. I would like to thank Charles Cavaliere, my editor on the
eleventh edition, and the rest of the editorial staff for their skillful guidance and sound edi-
torial judgment. Above all, I am deeply indebted to Catherine Tracy Goode whose profes-
sional and editorial skills were crucial to the writing of this edition. I also thank Ana Ortiz
Islas who assisted with the illustrations, Rosalba Gasparrini who proofread many chapters,
and the many colleagues who suggested changes. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Ross
Hassig, Professor Emeritus, University of Oklahoma; Susan Kellogg, University of Houston;
xiii
xiv p r e fa c e
Cynthia Radding, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill; John W. Sherman, Wright
State University; Donald F. Stevens, Drexel University; and Dana Velasco Murillo, University
of California – San Diego who shared invaluable feedback with me.
Mexico City S. M. D.
July 2017
THE COURSE OF MEXICAN HISTORY
PA RT
1
PRE-COLUMBIAN MEXICO
CHA PTER 1
THE FIRST MEXICANS
T here is in Mexican society a pervasive awareness of the ancients. The Indian presence
intrudes on the national psyche; it suffuses the art, philosophy, and literature. It lies
within the marvelous prehistoric ruins among whose haunted piles the Mexicans seek their
origins. It has not always been so. Following the Spanish conquest of the sixteenth century,
a combination of the conquerors’ ethnocentrism and excessive Christian zeal denigrated
most things Indian. At the end of the nineteenth century Mexican political elites saw that the
grandeur of the Aztec empire could be invoked to validate their own ambitions, but the great
push to revive the indigenous past occurred later during the revolution of 1910, as leaders
turned it to the service of a unifying national myth that could transcend the contradictions
of an ethnically and culturally divided society. In their search for mexicanidad—the spirit of
an inclusive Mexican cultural identity—revolutionary intellectuals looked to new configura-
tions of stories, places, and heroes from the past. For several decades talented anthropolo-
gists, historians, painters, musicians, novelists, and craftsmen extolled native traditions if
not their contemporary reality. Then as cultural nationalism gave way to more nuanced
representations of ancient cultures, so did the circumstances of contemporary indigenous
peoples pose ever more stark contrasts to the depictions of stunning past achievements. The
contradictions were startlingly manifested in the Chiapas insurrection of 1994.
P R E - A G R I C U LT U R A L A N D P R O T O - A G R I C U LT U R A L M E X I C O
At what point or how the first Mexicans appeared on the scene is still debated. The most
accepted academic theory is that they are descended from the intrepid hunters who crossed
from northwest Asia to Alaska. There may have been several waves of migrants, beginning as
early as 40,000 years ago, when sea levels were lower and a land bridge over the Bering Strait
facilitated the passage. When a melting trend began around 9000 BC, the migrations likely
slowed or ceased.
3
4 pre-columbian mexico
More recent archaeological discoveries posit new hypotheses that support the idea of
sea routes from Asia to North America and a coastal migration pattern down the Pacific
coastline. Biological evidence from skeletons and mitochondrial DNA also suggests con-
nections with Polynesian, Japanese, and European peoples (who migrated as far as Sibe-
ria). Native Americans offer their own explanations and oppose skeletal dating methods
on religious grounds. As new archaeological, genetic, and linguistic discoveries are made,
changing and competing understandings about these matters will persist. Advances in the
decipherment of hieroglyphic writing will also continue to alter how we divide prehispanic
Mexico into chronological periods with distinctive cultural characteristics. The chart below
provides a general overview, although not all cultures fit within it and dates vary by group
and location.
The early human inhabitants of America were hunters, food gatherers, and some-
times fishermen. They were constantly on the move, searching for food and using crude
stone tools. For thousands of years, these early hunters led a precarious existence, with
little perceptible improvement in technology until about 10,000 BC, when fine pressure-
flaked stone points made hunting easier. At this time, the still moist conditions of the
late Pleistocene supported lush grasslands and full foliage—ample fodder for animal
prey—hairy mammoths, mastodons, giant armadillos, and early ancestors of the bison,
camel, and horse. These animals were hunted by men who assailed their prey with
missiles—including stone-tipped lances or darts propelled by the atl-atl, or “spear
thrower.” Human remains dating to 13,000 years ago have been discovered in various
Mexican sites, most recently in underwater caves near Tulum on the Caribbean coast of
the Yucatán Peninsula. These predate the 10,000-year-old “Tepexpan Man” (who, as it
turned out, was a woman), discovered in the 1940s just north of Mexico City in the vil-
lage of Tepexpan. Mammoth bones with stone points lodged in the ribs, lying adjacent
to flint knives, dating to more than 20,000 years ago, offer another kind of evidence for
human habitation. The earliest hunter-gatherer sites have been unearthed in Puebla and
Oaxaca.
Around 7500 BC, a drying-up phase began: rainfall was less frequent, and the rich plant life
gradually yielded to sparse vegetation; the lakes shriveled up; and the huge beasts that had pro-
vided a plentiful supply of meat eventually became extinct as their sources of food and water
disappeared. Ancient Mexicans were again back to eating insects, lizards, snakes, rodents, and
anything else remotely edible, to supplement their diet of seeds, roots, nuts, berries, eggs, and
shellfish. The audacious killer of mammoths gave way to the hunter of small game.
As meat consumption fell to less than 21 percent of the diet by 4000 BC, collection of
plants increased. And over several millennia maize cultivation developed as teosinte grass
underwent genetic alteration to produce small corn cobs. Maize became the basis of the
Mexican diet. We know, for example, that as early as 5000 BC primitive farmers practiced
rudimentary agriculture at Tehuacan in the modern state of Puebla, although we have no
precise data for the domestication of corn. By at least 2000 BC, maize, along with previously
domesticated beans and squash, had become a widespread source of human sustenance in
Mesoamerica, or Middle America, as indicated by the presence of grinding stones for the
making of meal.
The First Mexicans 5
40,000–7000 BC Pre-Agricultural: Nomadic hunters and food gatherers.
7000–1500 BC Archaic (Incipient Agricultural): Slowly evolving domestication of food plants; nascent village life;
development of primitive skills.
1500 BC–AD 150 Formative or Pre-Classic: Elaboration of farming, villages, and pottery; appearance of chiefdoms,
public architecture, solar calendar, and long-distance exchange.
AD 150–900 Classic: The florescence of ancient Mexican civilization with state-level societies ruled by kings and
priests; elaboration of cities and monumental architecture; intensification of agriculture; increased
social stratification; advancement in artistic expression, literacy, and science.
AD 900–1521 Post-Classic: Growth of city-states and empires; expansion of commerce; intensification of Late
Classic trends in sacrifice and warfare; development of metallurgy; final destruction of Indian states
by Spanish conquest.
PERIODS IN PRE-COLUMBIAN MEXICO
The farmer was evolving; but there was great variation in this process throughout Mexico,
and hunting and gathering continued to be practiced to differing degrees, even solely by
some nomadic groups. But in central and southern Mexico, barring disasters common to
all tillers of the soil, a fairly reliable source of food allowed populations to grow and to find
leisure time for experimentation, to develop and refine skills and talents. Weavers of baskets
and mats began to shape clay, a most important development.
T H E F O R M AT I V E P E R I O D
Ancient garbage dumps are to the archaeologist what documents are to the historian.
From those piles of refuse scientific investigators patiently assemble pictures of early soci-
eties. Much has, of course, long been reduced to dust; and whatever use early inhabitants
made of wood, hides, and woven reeds must be left to speculation. But instruments of
flint, obsidian, and various kinds of stone survive; and some pottery has left us indelible
traces of early cultures.
By 2000 BC the rough outlines of a Mesoamerican identity had begun to form.
“Mesoamerican” refers to a loosely defined cultural tradition that characterized much of
pre-contact Mexico and Central America. In the Formative period, its fundamental common
characteristics were the dependence on maize agriculture and the evolution of an agricul-
tural technology that used a wooden digging stick. Agriculture advanced with the beginning
of irrigation, terracing, fertilizers, and raised fields. Implements of stone and wood facili-
tated cultivation of fields by farmers, who built huts of branches, reeds, and mud nearby.
A simple village life with incipient political and social orders evolved. Subsequently, cliques
emerged to control both power and wealth. Increased exchange of goods among different
societies developed as a result of distinctive products and artisan specialties. In addition,
varied climate and geography yielded regional fruits, vegetables, woods, stone, and other
items of value, such as shells, jade, cotton, and turquoise. This spreading trade naturally led
to cultural exchanges as well.
Artists began to create ceramics that were both esthetically pleasing and functional.
Clay figurines, usually of females, were produced in great numbers. Among them were
those of Tlatilco, in the Valley of Mexico, where artists rendered charming figurines of the
type known as “pretty lady,” with delicate and beautiful faces. The eyes are almost slant-
ing and the hairdos sometimes elaborate. The figures have tiny waists and bulging thighs.
At the same time, a fascination with the deformed manifested early the Mexican idea of
duality, for other small clay figurines represented dwarfs, hunchbacks, and the diseased.
Some figurines are of interest for their depiction of everyday life—nursing babies, dancing,
playing, and performing acrobatics. Through them we gain some idea of popular pastimes,
the use of jewelry, and clothing. Still other pieces were made in the images of animals and
gods whose forms suggest ritual purposes related to natural forces and dependence upon
the products of the earth.
During the Late Formative period agriculture was further enhanced by the use of terracing
and raised fields. One form of the latter was the chinampa, the so-called floating garden, rectan-
gular areas constructed by building up layers of mud and aquatic vegetation in a shallow lake.
Although textile manufacturing had evolved, it is likely that, in the more temperate zones
anyway, people went about nude, or almost so. Clothing was apparently worn more among the
upper classes than the lower, as were sandals, jewelry, and other adornments. Individual expres-
sion and vanity were evident in the dyed hair and elaborate coiffures of aristocratic women.
Ceramic figurine of a dancer from Tlatilco, near Mexico

City.
As villages grew in size and society became more complex, serious decisions had to be
made by those who were most knowledgeable. Increasing reliance on agriculture made
people aware that their security depended upon the blessings of nature. The mysteries of
the universe were associated with the supernatural and, as in other ancient cultures, gods
of nature came to be worshipped. Vagaries of the elements were equated with capricious
gods. When rain failed, for example, supplication was made to the angry deity through a
priesthood that acquired a predominant position. This presumed special relationship with
the gods, astutely cultivated by the priests, gave them a certain mystique and a hold over the
community. In order to pay due reverence to the gods and to ensure their cooperation in
providing rain and sunshine, priests ordered the construction of mounds, on top of which
offerings were made. As the structures became larger and more elaborate, advanced perma-
nent architecture evolved. By the Middle Formative (1200–400 BC) some impressive sites
were already in evidence.
O L M E C C U LT U R E A N D I N F L U E N C E
For many years, archaeologists exclusively associated the early development of complex soci-
ety in Mesoamerica with the Olmec culture of the Gulf coast lowlands in southern Veracruz
and Tabasco. They believed it to have been the “mother culture” that profoundly influenced
later Classic period civilizations. In the past few decades, scholars have learned more about
the Olmecs, whose sites of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, and La Venta, Tabasco, offered tantaliz-
ing clues for reconstructing their development. From simple village cultures, Olmecs and
other simultaneously evolving groups developed societies with distinctive art forms, eco-
nomic specialization, new forms of religious life, and the building of large platforms and
mounds with temples. Although Olmec culture evolved in the propitious natural setting
of the coastal villages of the Gulf coast, it was distributed over several phases (dating from
about 1500 BC to the Christian era).
Massive public construction seems to have begun at San Lorenzo by 1350 BC, where we
find the Olmec “pudgy babies,” or dolls, and motifs like the serpent mouth. The site also
came to have a drainage system, a ball court, and the colossal stone heads for which the
Olmecs are most well known. Some of these spectacular sculptured heads—embellished
likenesses of rulers—were over nine feet high and weighed as much as 40 tons. By about
850 BC, San Lorenzo was eclipsed by the island site of La Venta, where elites mobilized labor
and directed construction of this city of monumental architecture for over 400 years. Their
tombs have furnished many artifacts of Olmec culture including large mosaic masks and el-
egantly carved jade figurines. Early Olmecs revered the alligator, representing the earth, and
the shark, representing the sea. Elites added the serpent as a symbol of rule, along with were-
jaguars. One theory holds that these supposed were-jaguars were actually symbols related
to women and their healing powers. Olmecs also had a god for precious, life-giving corn.
The Olmec and some contemporary cultures in the highland valleys of Mexico seem
to have been the originators of the elite-commoner class divide that came to characterize
Mesoamerican societies. Elites commanded resources from commoners, who grew maize.
Elites also developed the long-distance trade in obsidian, jade, cacao, and other items that
Genderless “pudgy babies” like this hollow ce-

This handsome basalt stone carving from the Gulf ramic figurine (13.5 inches in height) may rep-
coast Olmec culture is known as “The Wrestler.” resent Olmec lineages or gods, or perhaps even
effigies of infants destined for sacrifice.
helped to spread Olmec influence. Their impact on surrounding and later cultures can also
be seen in the advancement of terracing in agriculture and a calendrical system that meshed
ritual and solar calendars. Speculation persists about whether Olmecs developed the first
writing system, but discoveries since the 1990s have strengthened the hypothesis that they
did. These include a cylindrical ceramic stamp and a tablet called the Cascajal block, the
latter dated about 900 BC, found in the Veracruz lowlands. Both have incised glyphs that are
still being studied.
Other Mesoamerican societies developed sophisticated polities in the Late Formative
period that had features in common with the Olmec: the building of public structures, the
rapid growth of villages, the development of calendrical and writing systems, craft specializa-
tion, and long-distance trade. The nature of the exchanges between them is not well under-
stood, but archaeologists now believe that although Olmec characteristics may have been
widespread, they were not singular. “Sister cultures” may have evolved comparable tradi-
tions and technologies independently. Similar types of Pre-Classic architecture and ritual
symbols have been found in sites throughout central and southern Mexico in the present-
day states of Mexico, Morelos, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas.
New centers with temple-pyramid complexes like that at Cuicuilco, located on the out-
skirts of present-day Mexico City, and at lowland Maya locations to the south emerged in the
Late Formative period (400 BC-AD 200). Some of the new sites would develop into great hubs
Several colossal Olmec stone heads have been discovered. This one, more than eight feet high, is covered with
what appears to be a helmet.
of the Classic world in Mexico. On a hilltop in the Valley of Oaxaca, the site of Monte Alban
expanded into an urban center administering much of the surrounding countryside. And
in the Valley of Mexico, Cuicuilco’s destruction by a volcano in the first century AD encour-
aged rapid urban growth at nearby Teotihuacan. Above an area of natural caves—considered
sacred in Mesoamerican religion—its inhabitants constructed huge pyramids dedicated to
the moon and the sun. By the end of the Formative period, the civic–religious complex at
Teotihuacan had amassed the technology and central authority necessary for the creation of
one of the splendors of the world.
RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY
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Adams, Richard E. W., and Murdo J. MacLeod, eds. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas,
Vol. II: Mesoamerica. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Bernal, Ignacio. The Olmec World. Translated by Doris Heyden and Fernando Horcasitas. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1969.
Blake, Michael. Maize for the Gods: Unearthing a 9,000-Year History of Corn. Berkeley: University of C
alifornia
Press, 2015.
Carmack, Robert M., Janine Gasco, and Gary H. Gossen. The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of
a Native American Civilization. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.
Coe, Michael, and Richard A. Diehl. In the Land of the Olmec. 2 vols. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980.
Diehl, Richard A. The Olmecs: America’s First Civilization. London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 2004.
Flannery, Kent V., ed. The Early Mesoamerican Village. New York: Academic Press, 1976.
Flannery, Kent V., and Joyce Marcus, eds. The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec
Civilizations. New York: Academic Press, 1983.
Grove, David C. Discovering the Olmecs: An Unconventional History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014.
Guernsey, Julia. Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica. New York: Cambridge University
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Miller, Mary Ellen. The Art of Mesoamerica, from Olmec to Aztec. London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1986.
Pohl, Mary E. D., K. O. Pope, and C. Von Nagy. “Olmec Origins of Mesoamerican Writing.” Science,
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Pool, Christopher A. Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Rodríguez Martínez, María del Carmen, et al. “Oldest Writing in the New World.” Science, 313/5793
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Sharer, Robert J., and David C. Grove. Regional Perspectives on the Olmec. New York: Cambridge University
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CHA PTER 2
MESOAMERICA’S GOLDEN AGE:

The Classic Period
T he Mesoamerican culture region flourished over the first millennium AD, most visible in
the monumental architecture of cities and the refinement of calendrical and astronomical
knowledge. As the Roman empire crumbled in Europe, Mesoamerica was resplendent.
THE FLOWERING OF CITIES
The period from AD 150 to 900 has been viewed as a “golden age” of intellectual and artistic
endeavor. Because of the many societies under consideration, the Classic cannot be put into
any simple chronological framework.1 Some sites, such as Teotihuacan and Monte Alban,
developed Classic features much earlier. Most Classic cultures declined in the ninth century,
but some persisted as late as AD 1000.
One is struck by the grandiose scale of human endeavor in those centuries, most notable
in the stunning architecture but also by the excellence of the ceramics, sculpture, and murals.
Religion was the cohesive force in an increasingly stratified society, and kings invested with
sacred power exacted both labor and tribute from the masses. It was a time of great vigor,
with the proliferation of crafts and skills necessary to provide for complex communities. The
leadership was dedicated to a sense of order in propitiating the gods, made possible by an
apparently strict adherence to regimentation. Pressures to provide sustenance for a burgeon-
ing population led to more careful consideration of planting cycles, which in turn produced
exact calculations of the seasons. Even more important was the Mesoamerican belief that
all things—gods, people, animals, plants, mountains, even cities—were alive and that their
movements could be timed to account for all life events. Consequently, there developed a
sophisticated knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, which made possible precise calen-
drical markings. Mesoamericans devised a highly sophisticated calendar system that included
a 365-day solar count as well as a ritual calendar and counts of many other celestial bodies.
1 With only a tiny fraction of the thousands of known archaeological sites in Mexico having been scientifi-
cally excavated, the complexities of charting can be appreciated.
11
Why is this boy laughing? Such unrestrained A howling coyote, another delightful piece from
joy is characteristic of the thousands of ceramic the Remojadas culture, AD 300-900. Indian art-
pieces found at the site of Remojadas in the state ists frequently displayed a touch of whimsy in
of Veracruz. Unique for their expressiveness, the their works.
figurines have triangular, flattened heads and
teeth that are often filed to points.
Farming became scientific; abstract thinking soared. The intellectuals in ancient Mesoamerica
apparently arrived at the revolutionary concept of the zero cipher well before its arrival in
Europe in 1202 AD, when it was introduced by Arab mathematicians. Despite their advanced
understanding of astronomy and math, they made almost no practical use of metals, relying
instead upon chipped stone like flint for cutting tools. However, the sharpness of the pris-
matic blades they crafted from obsidian (volcanic glass) required sophisticated skills virtually
unknown today. Although Mesoamericans were aware of the wheel (used in children’s toys),
the lack of draft animals meant that there was no practical use for wheels in transport.
In some places Mesoamericans were able to raise structures to the height of 230 feet that
have stood for some fifteen hundred years. What many have described as their technical lim-
itations was equaled by their ingenuity. In lowland areas, massive blocks of cut stone were
most likely transported on river rafts from quarries to distant cities, and logs may have been
used in other zones. For lifting the pieces high in the air some clever engineering devices
were utilized. Armies of laborers toiled for years on public works projects. An architectural
design tradition evolved to take earthquakes into account in the highlands, but technical
perfection in construction tended to be subordinated to an irresistible propensity for the
esthetic. Though capable of exact measurements, they avoided harsh angles unpleasing to
the eye. If the result was agreeable to humans, the purpose, it is clear, was to please the gods.
Mesoamerica’s Golden Age 13
For many years archaeologists believed that these building complexes were not true cities
but only ceremonial centers inhabited by priests, rulers, and their retainers. Today it is univer-
sally agreed that Classic centers were true cities and that urbanism is a defining Mesoameri-
can characteristic. Elites lived in the most luxurious chambers of palace compounds nearest
the primary ceremonial complexes or major avenues, which consisted of temple-pyramids,
tombs, observatories, and acropolises. Other urban features include ball courts, steam baths,
and causeways. Surrounding the city core in a concentric pattern were the apartment com-
plexes of artisans who specialized in craft production as well as those of other middling
occupational groups such as petty officials, soldiers, and merchants. Laborers, farmers, and
others of the commoner class lived even further out, in modest thatched-roof huts of wattle
and daub construction. There they farmed the land, hunted, fished, carried the burdens, and
performed all sorts of tasks necessary to support the aristocracy. During festivals, religious in
nature, or on market days, masses of people tended to gather in the central precincts.
These Mesoamerican cities functioned first and foremost as administrative and religious
centers whose architecture and spatial design attempted to replicate the order of the universe
and the hierarchical relationships that linked humans and super naturals. Teotihuacan in
central Mexico was truly remarkable for its size and religious importance. The marvelous
stone cities of the Classic period were conceived for an impression of grandeur and laid out
in breathtaking expanses. The architects were true artists, interposing grand courtyards to
offset with horizontal lines the massive vertical projections. As Monte Alban dramatically
testifies, they blended their creations with nature and composed with stone and textures that
reflected the sunlight.
Although city size, population density, and spatial arrangements varied among Classic
centers, there is no question that concentrated populations in so many sites had an incalcu-
lable impact on culture. The arts thrive with greatest vigor in an urban milieu, and intellec-
tual growth is enhanced as well. At the same time, the stratification of society is inevitable.
So, too, is a central administration to maintain order, promote public works, provide justice,
set regulations—to perform, in short, on a more simplified scale, the functions familiar to
city administrators of our own times. Great plazas and avenues were paved, buildings were
plastered and painted, subterranean tile drainage systems were provided, waste was disposed
of, domestic water supplies were channeled, and the staggering problems of food supply
were met. Marketplaces were also a feature of cities, although we know less about how ex-
changes functioned.
Traditionally, scholars viewed the Classic period as having been devoted to moderation
and comparative serenity, with order imposed by dominant centers such as Teotihuacan
and Monte Alban. These powers, like city-states, carved out spheres of influence that were
tolerated by others. We now realize that warfare and human sacrifice were very much a part
of the Classic and that conquest explains why certain city-states were able to exercise sway
over surrounding territory. Although much of the evidence for the prevalence of sacrificial
practices comes from the Maya area, excavations in central Mexico testify to mass executions
of warriors and other captives. Classic cities once thought to have lacked fortifications were
often built on defensible hilltops. In the art of the Classic, we find images of soldiers, weap-
ons, and slaves. The wide dispersion of a pan-Mesoamerican culture resulted not only from
peaceful exchange but also from forceful impositions. The ruling class consisted not only of
powerful priests but also of warriors.
The conventional view of relative tranquility has been most discredited in the case of
the Classic Maya. Because of important revelations as a result of improved deciphering of
Maya hieroglyphic script, the characteristics of Classic societies have been dramatically
reassessed. The Maya genius in art, architecture, and science remains clear; nevertheless,
the romanticized version of a society ruled by a benevolent and intellectual priesthood,
shunning violence and conquest, now rings hollow. Scholars have revealed that aggressive
Maya kings during the Classic period regularly made war on their neighbors for both ritu-
alistic and materialistic motives. The most valued prize was another king, who would be
humiliated over a period of time, subjected to exquisite tortures, and finally decapitated.
These kings, with a profound sense of history, erected monuments to commemorate their
victories and to record their lineage. Maya kingdoms tended to be small in scale, control-
ling limited territory; but at times regional states were able to subdue larger areas and
exercise power over several hundreds of thousands. Various constellations of Maya states
formed blocs or were interdependent in terms of trade and defense, but the Maya were not
politically unified as a whole.
A unifying element in Classic societies was religion. Shaman-priest kings derived their
authority from the gods. Priests were guardians of scientific and genealogical knowledge,
and, along with other cultural leaders like scribes and painters, they held high social status
and provided guidance to those below. The pantheon of gods included the omnipresent rain
god Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl, the “Feathered Serpent.” To the god of the sun and goddess
of the moon were added deities to celebrate the beneficence of fire, corn, and the butterfly.
In these polities social cleavage was implicit. There was an order in which everyone had
an assigned place. In this respect social stratification was like that in other parts of the world,
except that the commoners who supplied tribute in goods and labor may have benefited
more from the calendrical knowledge of their rulers, which helped to ensure good harvests.
Families thus had their daily needs met, and rulers enjoyed the surpluses. We cannot know
how willingly the masses performed their obligatory duties, but as warfare increased, states
commanded loyalty as long as they could provide a measure of security.
After a spectacular run of several centuries, the Classic world in Mesoamerica began to dete-
riorate. Just why the great centers fell is still a mystery, although some theories have wide accep-
tance; in the case of the Maya, drought has emerged as a main factor. While some of the cities
went into gradual decline, others, it appears, met a sudden, violent end. Pressures of various
kinds impinged on ordered ways: aggressive nomadic tribes on the peripheries and wars be-
tween kingdoms played a role in some cases. Demand for increased food supplies, the result of
population pressures, crop failures, and possibly soil exhaustion, was another cause. Perhaps an
internal disruption was occasioned by a peasants’ revolt against the ruling classes, bred by exces-
sive demands or the priests’ inability to mediate successfully with the all-important nature gods.
Or were there plagues of some kind? The reasons no doubt vary from place to place, and there
may well have been a combination of factors. Scholars lean more and more to explanations
that stress overpopulation, environmental destruction, and increasing warfare. In any event,
the golden age came apart after a long period of human intellectual and cultural achievement.
Small, hairless techichi dogs from Colima were bred for the table and were also used as foot-warmers. Molded in
various poses, these ceramic pieces are usually in the form of a vessel.
A bearded musician sings and keeps rhythm with

Poised for action, another Colima figure may rep- rasps. The clay figure, from the state of Nayarit
resent either a warrior or an athlete. (AD 300-900), is about twenty inches in height.
TEOTIHUACAN AND ITS SUCCESSORS
Classic Mexico had many important centers, but at least three dominant polities exer-
cised great influence over surrounding regions—Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, and some
Maya centers. The most important city of its time was the immense urban complex of
Teotihuacan, “the Place of the Gods,” as the Aztecs were to call it later. The overall ex-
panse measured perhaps twelve square miles, in the core of which was the ceremonial
center occupying about two square miles. Surrounding this precinct were the sumptuous
quarters of the rulers and their retainers, and on the outer fringes the masses resided
in apartments and rude dwellings that have long since disappeared. The population of
the city at its height of prosperity remains in dispute, but it may have had as many as
160,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest cities in the world at the time. Long
after its fall the site was held in reverence and awe by succeeding cultures, and owing to
the grandiose dimensions of its structures, the Aztecs considered it to have been built by
a race of giants.
The origins of the Teotihuacanos are unknown, but the destruction of nearby Cui-
cuilco in the first century AD coincided with the emergence of Teotihuacan as a powerful
kingdom in the central Valley of Mexico. Exceptional urban planning created a colossal
city of avenues, a grid system of streets, plazas, markets, temples, palaces, apartment
complexes, waterways, and drainage systems. Its main thoroughfare was the Avenue of
the Dead, 150 feet wide and stretching over two miles. It connects the Pyramid of the
Moon, the Pyramid of the Sun, and the Ciudadela (Citadel), a ceremonial plaza that
covers nearly 40 acres. The most striking monument is the splendid Pyramid of the Sun,
measuring over 700 feet at the base lines and rising about 215 feet high. The truncated
structure covered a sacred cave reminiscent of origin myths and served as a base for the
elevation of a temple on top. In Mesoamerica, caves were considered sacred and seen
as entrances to an underworld, perhaps a dark, watery void from which humankind
emerged. The summit, reached after an ascent of 268 steps, offers the breathless viewer
a commanding sweep of the surrounding valley. Even so, what we see today is a pale
replica of the former magnificence of the Pyramid of the Sun. Its construction probably
occupied 10,000 workers for two decades. Excavations under the smaller Pyramid of the
Moon have yielded animal and human skeletal remains, suggesting it functioned as a
religious sacrificial space. The Ciudadela was flanked by fifteen low pyramid mounds.
Near one end is the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, its incline studded with carved stone pro-
jections of the Feathered Serpent and Tlaloc that seem as phantasmic as medieval gar-
goyles. Linking the Ciudadela and the temple is an underground tunnel (discovered in
2003) that has yielded thousands of artifacts, including statues, jewelry, and obsidian
knives.
Teotihuacan must have been a bustling metropolis, teeming with porters carrying goods
to the marketplace, laborers erecting temples, artisans busily engaged with their crafts, and
here and there the sober presence of the elegant lords. Along the main avenue were various
kinds of edifices covered with lime stucco, painted, and polished. Walkways and courts were
paved. Of the one hundred palaces, the largest had an estimated three hundred rooms. Some
of the salons contained bright frescoes.
The Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan dominates the extensive ruins of the ancient city.
The dominance of Teotihuacan was so extensive that some scholars have discussed it
in terms of an empire, believing its hegemony, based in part on its monopoly of obsidian
so necessary to daily life and ritual, to have been as broad as that of the later Aztecs. In any
event, its trading network reached from parts of northern Mexico down into Guatemala, and
artisans from Monte Alban, Mayan city-states, and other distant places resided there, crafting
exotic goods. Foreign ambassadors and trade missions occupied special quarters in the city.
Undoubtedly heavily influenced by Teotihuacan, nonetheless Monte Alban and the Maya
culture remained independent of this metropolitan power. Within its sphere, the impact of
that great city consisted not only of its cultural imperialism with respect to art and architec-
ture but also of its religious significance. Although much of what we know about Teotihua-
can was transmitted by later cultures who revered it, religion and warfare were central to its
governance. Its pantheon of gods included Quetzalcoatl, representing fertility, as well as dei-
ties of warfare, sun, rain, and other aspects of nature. According to the later Aztecs, gods had
sacrificed themselves at Teotihuacan to sustain the sun, thus initiating their cosmos—the
Fifth Sun—that required continuous blood sacrifice.
For some reason, perhaps related to an agricultural debacle, decline set in, inviting incur-
sions on the northern frontier. About AD 650 a weakened Teotihuacan suffered desecration
and partial burning—apparently by its own inhabitants. The fall of the mightiest center was
the first casualty in the gradual decay of the Classic world in Mexico.
With the Teotihuacano culture dissipated, central Mexico lost its focus. A number of other
states emerged but commanded smaller spheres of influence. Cholula in the modern state of
Carved stone images of the rain god Tlaloc

and Quetzalcoatl on the Temple of Quet-
zalcoatl at Teotihuacan.
Puebla was a holy city and a large center of considerable importance. While tradition has it that
365 Christian chapels were later built over the ruins of “pagan” temples, the actual number is
closer to 70. The nature of the city’s relationship with Teotihuacan is not entirely clear, but it
seems to have been close. The center was dominated by its massive pyramid, the largest single
monument in pre-Columbian America, with a total volume greater than that of Egypt’s Pyra-
mid of Cheops. It was a sanctuary of Quetzalcoatl, and many of the refugees from Teotihuacan
fled to Cholula, which continued to flourish until it fell to invaders about AD 800.
Other successor states like Xochicalco in Morelos and Cacaxtla in Puebla were built on
mountaintops and manifest the alarming escalation of militarism that developed in Mexico
in the Late Classic period. Striking combinations of Teotihuacan and Maya influences are
revealed at these sites, nowhere more graphically than in the beautifully painted murals that
have been discovered at Cacaxtla since the 1970s.
El Tajín in Veracruz had extensive influence along the Gulf coast. A dramatic example
of its unique architecture is the Pyramid of Niches, of which there is one for each day of
the year. The vigorous life at Tajín included bloody rites that anticipated the terror of the
Detail of a plumed serpent head. The eyes at one time held red jewels, long since plucked out by vandals.
Post-Classic period. The ball game ollama was an ancient tradition that became an obsession
with these lowland peoples. Most of the prominent centers in Mexico had ball courts, and
Tajín had no fewer than eleven. Along each side of the court (which could vary consider-
ably in length, according to the culture) was a wall on which a stone ring was fixed. Two
teams played, the object being to keep the seven to eight-inch solid rubber ball out of the
opponents’ possession and, if possible, to hit the ball through one of the rings. Scoring was
exceedingly difficult, not only because the ring was small and high but also because the play-
ers could not hit the ball with their hands. Often they were allowed to use only their hips,
although rules differed according to time and place. The athletes wore padding in vulnerable
spots as the flying ball could kill if struck with sufficient force. Contests were played with
great enthusiasm, and on some occasions large sums were wagered. Ollama was more than
a game, however; it was a sacred ritual in imitation of the movement of celestial bodies and
associated with human fate. On occasion, the teams represented political factions. So seri-
ously was the contest taken that the losing captain was sometimes sacrificed, as scenes on
the architectural friezes depict. In another variation, the losers became slaves of the victors.
Not as well researched and understood are the peoples who created monumental ar-
chitecture and exquisite artifacts of ceramic, jade, and stone in the Occident (west Mexico,
including Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima). Sharing characteristics and some gods with other
prehispanic Mesoamerican cultures, these groups also created distinctive works, including
shaft tombs, circular pyramidal structures and plazas, wetland gardens, and copper tools.
And to the north, the cultures and cities that evolved in Zacatecas (Chalchihuites and La
Quemada) likewise had Mesoamerican features related to monument-building and warfare,
but scholars disagree about their origins and place in regional networks.
MONTE ALBAN
From its lofty eminence 1,300 feet above the valley floor, Monte Alban, the creation of the
Zapotecs, dominated surrounding Oaxaca for centuries. Less grand in scale than its contem-
porary Teotihuacan, it was nevertheless spacious, literally sculpted out of a mountaintop
more than 3,000 feet long and half again as wide. Urban construction was carried out at great
cost in human effort because all materials, even water, had to be hauled up the mountain-
sides. Many temples, platforms, and low pyramids, along with sunken patios, stood adjacent
to its great paved plaza. Surrounding the center were many separate barrios (neighborhoods)
of houses terraced into the hillsides. The early evolution of Zapotec urban society at Monte
Alban between 500 and 100 BC reflects Olmec-like features. At the top of the social hier-
archy that strictly separated nobles and commoners sat a hereditary king and a hereditary
high priest. The king controlled noble administrators who ruled the surrounding towns in
Oaxaca. By the fourth century, higher population density and military strength had been cre-
ated through colonization, conquest, and alliance building to bring more distant provinces
into Monte Alban’s tribute-paying orbit. Skilled diplomacy enabled the Zapotecs to coexist
The Pyramid of Niches, El Tajín, state of Veracruz.

A ball court at Monte Alban. The ball game of ollama (tlachtli) was played in many different cultures, although
the rules and courts varied somewhat.
peacefully with Teotihuacan, but between AD 400 and 800 Monte Alban lost its dominant
position in Oaxaca as subject towns—especially those in more defensible positions and
better agricultural locations—grew in size and asserted their autonomy. In decentralized
fashion, through Zapotec marriage alliances with neighboring Mixtecs at Mitla, both groups
continued to exercise influence in Oaxaca for many centuries, enduring to the present day.
T H E M AYA
Although the Maya in the Pacific coastal plain and highland areas created marketing and cer-
emonial centers with temple architecture as early as 400 BC, their greatest florescence came
later, occurring between AD 250 and 800, primarily in the southern lowlands of present-day
Yucatán, Guatemala, and Honduras.
The Classic Maya had many important centers, no one of which completely dominated
the others. A number of regional states, each composed of a capital city and subject towns,
competed with each other, expanding and contracting over time in response to changing
fortunes of war and trade. Defeated kingdoms supplied rulers for sacrifice and tribute in
goods and slaves to conquering cities. Trade with Teotihuacan was accompanied by bride
exchanges and the incorporation of art and architectural styles from this northern neighbor.
The Petén in northern Guatemala could be said to be the heartland of the Classic Maya,
but they also lived in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, and Yucatán, as
well as in Quintana Roo. The development of Classic Maya centers reflected an increasing
emphasis on the lineage of hereditary kings, supported by a noble class of warriors and in-
tellectuals; below them artisans, skilled laborers, and peasant farmers produced the luxury
items enjoyed by the aristocracy as well as the basic staples of maize, beans, and vegetables
that sustained the entire society. We know much more about the lifestyles of elites who are
depicted through a variety of Maya art forms. Their esthetic sensibilities appear in elaborate
ornamentation in dress and jewelry (often fashioned from jade), cranial deformation that
flattened and slanted the head both front and back, filed teeth, and extensive body tattooing.
For many years, archaeologists believed the lowland Maya cities to have been primarily cer-
emonial, reasoning that the surrounding jungle could not have supported large populations
with slash-and-burn agriculture. Extensive archaeological excavation demonstrated, however,
that these areas were densely populated and that the Maya also used raised fields, terracing, and
kitchen gardens to augment the production of corn and other foodstuffs. They also utilized plen-
tiful local limestone for building. Like Teotihuacan and Monte Alban, the Maya had a vigorous
ceramic tradition and produced lovely polychrome bowls and cylinders that recorded mundane
events. In their murals and bas-reliefs, however, they tended less to the geometric designs of cen-
tral Mexico and more to the depiction of the human form, often rendered with superb draftsman-
ship. In 2001, archaeologists discovered in the northern Petén what is thought to be the oldest
intact Maya mural. Over 2,000 years old, its red, black, and yellow colors depict the resurrection
of the corn god and provide clues to the nature of Maya kinship and society. The great fluidity and
exuberance of Maya art give it a baroque quality, whether in stone or stucco. Of the fascinating co-
dices, only four survived the ravages of time, climate, insects, and the fires of Spanish clergymen.2
The Maya stand as the premier scientists of ancient America, noted for their independent
invention of a positional numeration system based on the mathematical concept for zero. Just
as impressive were their achievements in calendars and writing. Like other Mexican calendars,
theirs had 365 days; in addition, a ceremonial calendar had 260 days. The two calendars co-
incided every fifty-two years when the cycle of life was believed to be renewed. In 1996 some
Maya scholars found an inscribed plaque in southern Mexico that led to the erroneous inter-
pretation that the Mayas had predicted the world would come to an end on December 21, 2012.
Of course the date passed without incident, but it had fueled a frenzy of apocalyptic thinking,
despite the fact that scholars had carefully explained the reasons why the inscription had been
so misinterpreted.3 It is true that the Maya accurately observed and recorded the movements
of celestial bodies to aid in predicting future phenomena, but they did not prophesy the end
2 Only about two dozen pre-Columbian codices survive; these are screenfolds made of deerskin, cotton cloth,
or bark paper featuring illustrations or hieroglyphic text. They variously include calendrical and other scien-
tific data, prophecies, and information on dieties and rulers. Three of the Maya codices are named after the
cities where they are housed: Dresden, Madrid, and Paris. The fourth, the Grolier Codex, long believed to be
a fake, was authenticated in 2016 and is the earliest, dating from the thirteenth century.
3 See, for example, Matthew Restall and Amara Solari, 2012 and the End of the World: The Western Roots of the
Maya Apocalypse (Lanham, MD, 2011).
An overview of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, showing its platforms and expansive plazas.
Incised on stone slabs, curious figures who seem to be danc-

ing are a feature of Monte Alban. They are called danzantes
and are believed to represent the bodies of slain enemies.
Principal Archaeological Sites
of the world. Coincidentally in 2012, another archaeological discovery in a remote corner of

northeastern Guatemala revealed wall paintings dating from the ninth century that depict the
oldest known Mayan calendar and provide more evidence to counter doomsday fears.
The Maya also inscribed hieroglyphic texts on stone pillars (stelae), facades, and stair-
ways. These inscriptions recorded historical events and were intended to highlight the an-
cestral privilege of Maya kings (and occasionally queens, probably ruling as regents for
minor sons) who were also the incarnation of local sacred knowledge. In ceremonies of self-
mutilation, Maya rulers ritually shed blood from their own penis, ear, lips, and tongue, sym-
bolically manifesting the life force that also substantiated their lineage and power. They were
particularly obsessed with engraving their triumphs in stone. Recent progress in deciphering
Maya writing has revealed that highly learned scribes, responsible for recording these histo-
ries, ranked at the highest levels of Maya society.
The extensive pantheon of Maya deities included four lords who held the earth and sky
apart at the four cardinal directions. Life had emerged from an underworld of darkness and
death due to the sun deity’s daily travels through a triple-layered cosmos. Many Maya gods,
bearing human or animal attributes, have been identified. They regularly embody the dual-
ism common to Mesoamerican cosmology—that a deity may have both male and female, or
both benevolent and malevolent, attributes.
The metropolis of the Maya Classic was Tikal, with a population of about fifty thousand.
It is one of the earliest sites, settled in the Formative period long before AD 292, the date of its
In dark hardwood, this unusual carving known as

the Mirror Bearer depicts a dignified Maya worthy. It
dates from the sixth century.
earliest inscription. Set in a clearing of Guatemala’s Petén jungle, Tikal is dominated by six
great pyramids, including the tallest of any in the Maya civilization, towering 230 feet. The
inner precinct covers more than a square mile, with other ceremonial edifices surrounding
the core for a considerable distance. Aside from the usual temples, palaces, plazas, and ball
courts, Tikal had ten reservoirs and was beautified by artificial lakes.
The Maya designed their temple-pyramids architecturally and artistically to proclaim the
power of the site and glorify the rulers. Their brilliantly decorated masonry, roof combs, stat-
uary, and interior murals exhibit highly sophisticated craftsmanship. The cultural achieve-
ments of the Maya, from astronomy and calendars to architecture, art, and writing, were
fruits of their understanding and legitimation of a complex cosmic order.
As the largest of the Classic Maya city-states, Tikal and Calakmul were rivals in dominat-
ing large areas of the Maya lowlands in which Dos Pilas played an important role. Recent
excavations have also highlighted the importance of the affluent trading center of Cancuen
on the Pasión River in Guatemala. Other major Classic era kingdoms included Copan in
Honduras and Piedras Negras in Guatemala. Yaxchilan, in the modern state of Chiapas, is
known for its great central plaza, a thousand feet long. Palenque (Chiapas), though rela-
tively small, is considered the gem of the Maya cities because of its exquisite sculpture. The
bas-relief work there shows the art in its highest form. Although of minor importance in
most respects, Bonampak (Chiapas) contains the most illustrious of the Maya murals, bril-
liantly depicting the aftermath of a battle, captives, and sacrifice.
Although central Mexican pyramids are usually

solid, without interior chambers, to the south
temple-pyramids of the Maya sometimes con-
tain tombs like the one shown here at Palenque’s
Temple of the Inscriptions.
The Temple of the Sun at Palenque is framed by thick
jungle growth.
A superb stucco head with an elegant

headdress found at the Temple of the
Inscriptions at Palenque.
A pot-bellied, seed-filled ceramic rattle from the Of the same Maya culture is this whistle, in the
Maya culture on the small island of Jaina, off the form of an embracing couple.
coast of Campeche.
There may have been no one cause for the decline of Classic Maya centers that began
around 750 AD, scattered as they were over considerable distances, although drought
seems to have been a key factor. One hypothesis posits climate change and suggests that
the Mayas’ exploitation of seasonal wetlands may have induced drought and rising tem-
peratures. Explanations have tended to highlight demographic and ecological stress re-
sulting from rapidly growing populations and intensification of agriculture. Population
densities may have been as high as six hundred per square mile in some places. It is also
possible that commoners rose up in rebellion against increasing demands from their
overlords as well as food shortages. But there is growing evidence that warfare—which es-
calated dramatically in the Late Classic along with human sacrifice—played a significant
role. Foreign intrusion from other Maya areas probably capitalized on the instability that
prevailed after AD 800. By 900 most of the southern lowland cities were abandoned as
many Mayas fled north to the Yucatán Peninsula. Others moved back into the surround-
ing countryside where they and their descendants have continued to farm for centuries
and today number some 20 million people. Their “lost” cities were reclaimed by the
jungle until archaeologists began to excavate the lichen-mottled ruins nearly 1,000 years
later. Thus, the Classic world in Mesoamerica folded, but in its demise loomed alarming
portents of what was to follow.
Adams, Richard E. W., ed. The Origins of Maya Civilization. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1978.
Bassie-Sweet, Karen. At the Edge of the World: Caves and Late Classic Maya World View. Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1996.
Bricker, Harvey M., and Victoria R. Bricker. Astronomy in the Maya Codices. Philadelphia, PA: American
Philosophical Society, 2011.
Coe, Michael D. Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs. London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
Cowgill, George L. Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2015.
Culbert, T. P., ed. The Classic Maya Collapse. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977.
Doolittle, William E. Canal Irrigation in Prehistoric Mexico: The Sequence of Technological Change. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1990.
Fash, William L., and Leonardo López Luján, eds. The Art of Urbanism: How Mesoamerican Kingdoms Repre-
sented Themselves in Architecture and Imagery. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and
Collections. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Florescano, Enrique. The Myth of Quetzalcoatl. Translated by Lisa Hochroth. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1999.
Foster, Michael S. Greater Mesoamerica: The Archaeology of West and Northwest Mexico. Salt Lake City: Uni-
versity of Utah Press, 2010.
Freidel, David, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker. Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path.
New York: William Morrow & Co., 1993.
Graulich, Michel. Myths of Ancient Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.
Houston, Stephen D. The Life Within: Classic Maya and the Matter of Permanence. New Haven, CT: Yale
Houston, Stephen, David Stuart, and Karl Taube. The Memory of Bones, Body, Being, and Experience among
the Classic Maya. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.
Joyce, Arthur A. Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Chatinos: Ancient Peoples of Southern Mexico. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2009.
Joyce, Rosemary. Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.
King, Eleanor M., ed. The Ancient Maya Marketplace: The Archaeology of Transient Space. Tucson: University
of Arizona Press, 2015.
Kubler, George. Art and Architecture of Ancient America. Harmondsworth, UK, and Baltimore, MD:
Pelican, 1984.
Marcus, Joyce, and Kent V. Flannery. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca
Valley. London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
Miller, Mary Ellen, and Karl Taube. The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated
Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London, UK: Thames & Hudson, 1993.
Proskouriakoff, Tatiana. Maya History. Edited by Rosemary A. Joyce. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.
Restall, Matthew, and Amara Solari. 2012 and the End of the World: The Western Roots of the Maya Apocalypse.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011.
Scarborough, Vernon L., and David R. Wilcox. The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1991.
Schele, Linda, and David Friedel. A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York: William
Morrow & Co., 1990.
Sharer, Robert J., ed. The Ancient Maya, 6th ed., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
Stuart, David. Palenque: Eternal City of the Maya. London, UK: Thames & Hudson, 2008.
CHA PTER 3
TIMES OF TROUBLE
Post-Classic Mexico
T he order imposed by Teotihuacan’s dominance during the Classic period gave way to a
fragmentation of power among the transition centers in areas north of the Mayas. Our
knowledge of the history of the Valley of Mexico between AD 650 and 900 is imprecise, but a
high incidence of movement and migration characterized the waning decades of the Classic
period, when aggressive city-states—Cholula, Xochicalco, and El Tajín—vied for control, but
none succeeded in bringing about unity and order.
The Post-Classic era began about AD 900 and lasted until the Spanish conquest in the
early sixteenth century. New states had significant commercial interests, as evidenced by
the expansion of market systems. In fact, a key feature of the Post-Classic was the increase
of long-distance exchange and the overall economic integration of Mesoamerica. An ex-
ample of the first, if not the latter, was the far distant regional center at Paquimé/Casas
Grandes in northwest Mexico (with links to the US Southwest), where Mesoamerican fea-
tures and artifacts were manifest. New technology could be seen in cotton quilted armor
and the bow and arrow but, in general, technological innovation slowed. Although metal-
lurgy was introduced, its use was limited. The inhabitants fashioned gold and silver into
beautiful jewelry, and used copper in the manufacture of various tools and to cover the tips
of arrow shafts.
In an even more striking change during the Post-Classic, the militaristic propensities of
the Late Classic continued to grow, enhancing the prestige of warriors and fostering the con-
quest of tribute-paying subjects. Human sacrifice proliferated as both elites and commoners
became convinced that only the offering of massive and sustained quantities of the life force
of blood to the gods could prevent cosmic disaster.
Another change occurred in the Post-Classic and proved to be a boon for later historians.
For this period we have more written records in which individuals appear with more clar-
ity. But although there are now pegs upon which to drape our historical fabric, accounts are
manifestly shot through with myths; thus, some details vary with the telling, and many ver-
sions are vague and fragmentary at best.
29
T H E T O LT E C S
The great city of Teotihuachan, situated in the northeastern part of the valley of Mexico, had
served as a buffer between “civilized” Mexico and the nomadic peoples of the north. With the
fall of that stronghold, however, vigorous warriors from the arid lands beyond breached the
frontier. The northern tribes, consisting of many diverse groups, were known by the generic
term Chichimecs, a designation that later came to be construed by Spaniards as peoples lacking
the culture of settled society and thus “barbaric.” Some of these groups were hunter-gathers,
but according to legend the more agricultural Tolteca-Chichimeca from southern Zacatecas
swept into the central valley at the beginning of the tenth century led by Mixcoatl (Cloud
Serpent), a skilled warrior who swiftly scattered his demoralized opponents. After establishing
his capital at Culhuacan and successfully extending his power, the resourceful Mixcoatl was as-
sassinated by his brother, who seized leadership for himself. Mixcoatl’s pregnant wife fled into
exile, where she died upon giving birth to a son. The boy received the name Ce Acatl Topiltzin
(Ce Acatl meaning “One Reed,” the year of his birth, perhaps AD 947), and he would become
the cultural hero of foremost proportions in ancient Mexico. He became a devotee of the an-
cient god Quetzalcoatl and later, as a high priest of the cult, he assumed the name of his deity.
It is important to note, however, that our knowledge of Toltec history derives primarily
from Aztec post-conquest accounts in which Tula figures prominently in their origin myths.
The legend of Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl comes from these sources and includes the idea that
this priest-god was of fair complexion and bearded, that he abhorred human sacrifice, and
that he had left cross-like signs along his journey of exile. Many scholars question the reliabil-
ity of these stories recorded after the conquest by Aztec elites, working with Spanish priests.
Their interpretations served to explain the conquest as preordained by a Christian god.
The legend asserts that upon reaching manhood, Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl killed in single
combat his uncle, Mixcoatl’s assassin, and made himself lord of the Toltecs. Topiltzin-
Quetzalcoatl eventually removed his capital some fifty miles northwest of the present
Mexico City to an area of obsidian deposits. There, around AD 968, he founded the splendid
city of Tula (Tollan), the most important urban center in the long interim between the fall
of Teotihuacan and the later rise of Aztec Tenochtitlan. The Toltecs continued to incorporate
northern nomads and gradually absorbed more urban Mesoamerican characteristics. From
their new capital they played a key role in the obsidian trade, used for making blades and
other tools, and asserted power over the surrounding area. Although their limited hegemony
lasted only about two centuries, their prestige was such that the name “Toltec” pervaded the
consciousness of the land for five hundred years.
Less extensive in area and population (40–60,000) than Teotihuacan, Tula was certainly
more grandiose than its ruins today indicate. The brilliant plumage of exotic birds decked palace
interiors, sheets of gold, jewels, and rare seashells lined various salons. Residents’ ears were
soothed by the sweet singing of pet birds. This version of paradise on earth was embellished in
the retelling over the centuries; it accounts, in part, for the curiously persistent Toltec mystique.
The honeyed tradition notwithstanding, all was not peace and light at Tula. Two reli-
gious traditions evolved in the period of Toltec rule, emblematic of conflict in Mesoameri-
can society. The ancestral supreme deity of the Toltecs was the fearsome and unpredictable
Times of Trouble 31
Tezcatlipoca or Smoking Mirror because of his association with obsidian, as well as the night
sky and fate. His adherents resented the exaltation of the foreign god Quetzalcoatl (associ-
ated with knowledge and creativity) introduced by Topiltzin. The deity-impersonator priests
of Tezcatlipoca bided their time, conspiring against the heresy.
They sought by various deceits to discredit the high priest of Quetzalcoatl. According to
one account, Tezcatlipoca, in disguise, gained entrance to the house of Topiltzin, who was
ill. At first the ruler refused an offer of “medicine,” which was, in fact, the strong drink of
pulque, made from undistilled cactus juice. Finally persuaded to take a sip, the innocent
Topiltzin found it pleasing and asked for more. At length inebriated by five cupfuls, the lord
of Tula awoke the next morning on a mat beside his sister. Having broken his priestly vows
and disgraced himself by the sins of drunkenness and incest, he prepared to go into exile
after almost twenty years of enlightened rule.
The reign of Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl at Tula thus came to a close, but he does not disap-
pear from history. He and his followers dispersed to the south, some remaining in the holy
city of Cholula and others continuing on to Maya areas around 987. One legend relates that
Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl coasted down a river to the sea in a raft of serpents, after which he
flashed into the heavens to become the morning star.
Another account had more serious, actually ominous, implications. When Topiltzin and
his partisans left Tula for their long odyssey, they marked their way by shooting arrows
through saplings, leaving signs that resembled crosses. Later he sent word that he would
return from where the sun rose to take back his rightful throne in the year Ce Acatl, which
recurred cyclically. By some accounts, he was of fair complexion and bearded. All of this
would be of immense significance when, five centuries later, the Spaniards appeared on the
eastern horizon. The year was 1519—and Ce Acatl.
Meanwhile, with the success of the militant Tezcatlipoca faction at Tula, a new order of
things evolved. While the reputation of the Toltecs as great architects was secure (the Aztecs
The ingenuous Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl is deceived by the

crafty Tezcatlipoca.
Giant stone warriors at Tula were manifestations of the militaristic spirit that came to dominate the Toltecs.
Times of Trouble 33
named them Toltecs, meaning “Artificers”), a new and grotesque image of them was revealed
in later works. Themes of death and destruction are evident in the Chacmools—reclining
human figures with basins on their stomachs to receive human hearts—and a “serpent wall”
that shows rattlesnakes devouring human skeletons. Towering statues of impassive warrior
figures, sixteen to eighteen feet tall, appeared on top of temples, and friezes symbolized the
military orders of the jaguar and eagle, the latter shown devouring human hearts. Tula nour-
ished two traditions that persisted until the coming of the Spaniards—an excess of human
sacrifice and the forceful conquest of other states. Yet many questions persist about the size
and nature of the alleged Toltec “empire.”
From the late eleventh century to 1156, drought and famine struck the Toltecs. Wars
and internal social conflict further weakened the state until, in desperation, the people even
turned to the worship of their enemies’ alien deities. Evidence of fire throughout the site
may explain the onset of the Toltec diaspora, with people spreading in many directions.
The collapse of Tula was significant for Mexico: once again the northern buffer zone between
the sedentary peoples of the valley and the northern semi-nomads remained unguarded.
Not long after, new groups descended upon this wonder of the Post-Classic world and sub-
jected Tula to brutal desecration.
THE ZAPOTECS AND MIXTECS
To the south, following the abandonment of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, the Zapotecs remained
a vigorous culture with many important centers including their capital at Zaachila. Mitla,
built at roughly the same time as Tula, was a comparatively small religious and military
base. What one sees there, however, is a jewel of Mexican architecture. Surrounding a modest
courtyard are white temples with walls of marvelous design—thousands of small pieces of
cut stone, fitted together with a precision requiring no mortar, form mosaics of dazzling geo-
metric patterns. Opening off the patios are subterranean passages leading to crypts. A lthough
the site occupies an exposed area, set apart some distance is the hill fortress, a grim reminder
of the intense warfare that had overtaken Post-Classic Mexico.
To the areas west and north of the Zapotecs were a remarkable people who inhabited the
mountainous regions, the Mixtecs, or “Cloud People.” The Mixtecs were certainly influenced
by the Toltecs, some of whom apparently infiltrated after the fall of Tula. By the thirteenth
century the Mixtecs penetrated eastward into Zapotec territories, and, primarily by marrying
into the Zapotec royalty, they eventually came to dominate their neighbors. At times they
occupied many of the Zapotec sites, including Monte Alban and Mitla.
Mixtec artistic achievements are extraordinary in the exquisite decoration of their temple
complexes. Among the treasures they gave us is the richest collection extant of picture c ódices,
for example the Selden Codex. These pictographic books are executed in brilliant colors
on deerskin (the books of the Maya and others were made of both deer skin and vegetable
fiber). They offer valuable historical sources that chronicle centuries of conquering dynas-
ties, genealogies, and warfare. Following the appearance of metallurgy around AD 1000, the
Mixtecs became, in addition, the foremost jewelers in Mexico, fashioning delicate pieces in
gold and silver.
A palace at Mitla.
Detail of the palace showing the intricate geometric designs formed by precision stone cutting.
Times of Trouble 35
T H E P O S T- C L A S S I C M AYA
Coincident with the final disintegration of the Maya Classic period by around AD 900,
a rising Maya cultural phenomenon appeared on the peninsula of Yucatán. That pen-
insula is a limestone shelf, flat with some rolling, brush-covered hills, a land without
surface rivers. With its thin soil and dependence for water on the cenotes, the sinkholes
created by the collapse of underground caverns, it seems an unlikely location for an
agricultural people. Maya groups had inhabited Yucatán for many centuries BC, but their
achievements had not matched those of the southern Maya who flourished during the
Classic era.
Beginning in the tenth century, the ancestral Yucatec Maya culture was transformed by
outside influences of peoples stigmatized as “foreigners.” Some of the newcomers were
undoubtedly refugees from the deserted Classic areas. The invigorating force that gave im-
pulse to the new hybrid style in Yucatán appears to have been Toltec, but the nature of
the relationship between Tula and the dominant early Post-Classic center of Chichen Itza
is still disputed. One explanation holds that the banished Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl and his
followers actually made it to Chichen Itza in 987 and imposed Toltec rule. Others believe
that the northern attributes may have been brought earlier by coastal Putun and Chontal
Maya invaders who had been heavily influenced by non-Maya cultures of the Gulf coast and
central Mexico.
This unusual ceramic vessel, created in the Classic A Mixtec vase from Zaachila. Representations of
Period, is in the form of a stylized monkey wear- death were and still are common and are often
ing a startled expression. treated lightly.
Zapotec bat god (Dios Murciélago).
From about 900 to 1150, Chichen Itza allied with the cities of Mayapan and Uxmal,
although it dominated the alliance as a result of its successes in trade and military exploits.
Warfare and human sacrifice were common, but whether they actually increased as a result
of central Mexican influence is unknown. Certainly these practices were already widespread
among the Yucatecan Mayas’ neighbors to the south in the Late Classic. The art and archi-
tecture of Chichen Itza evoke the militant spirit of Tula with warrior motifs, images of the
Feathered Serpent, the forest of columns, and Chacmools. Among the monuments of Post-
Classic Maya centers, those of Chichen Itza are the most widely known. Like the sculptures,
they are esthetically less pleasing than works of the Classic Maya. Uxmal, however, has struc-
tures of great beauty. Many consider its Palace of the Governor to be the most elegant of
prehispanic architecture.
Times of Trouble 37
During the period of Toltec influence, curious Chacmool figures appeared at Chichen Itza.
Mesoamerican influence promoted the inclusion of Quetzalcoatl (called “Kukulcan” by

the Maya) in the pantheon of local deities. Among the most important were the fire god
Itzamna, the rain god Chac, and the gods of corn and the sun. Into the great Sacred Cenote,
a well measuring some two hundred feet across at the mouth, victims (although infrequently
the virgins so dear to modern tradition) were cast, along with jewels and other valuables,
to appease the rain god. Although ritual practices remained strong, religious elites began to
lose political and cultural influence to rising merchants engaging in a wider variety of com-
modity trading.
By the end of the eleventh century, Chichen Itza fell from dominance, due in part to en-
vironmental factors. Eventually in the twelfth century, Mayapan, in the interior north of the
Yucatán peninsula, rose to fill the void. A mercantile emphasis characterized this shift, over-
shadowing esthetic endeavors undertaken in earlier Mayan cities. A new area of burgeoning
trade (e.g. salt, cacao, cotton) in Caribbean and Gulf coast areas commenced and persisted
until the arrival of the Spaniards. Mayapan fell around 1450, after suffering drought, plagues,
and hurricanes. Over time, environmental factors and warfare compromised agrarian
A great ball court in the Maya style at Chichen Itza. Scores

were seldom made by knocking the ball through the high
ring. This city had six ball courts, one of which, the largest in
Mesoamerica, measures 480 by 120 feet.
sustainability and political stability in the absence of new technologies, but changes varied
across time and region from Yucatán to the south.
Elsewhere, in the highland Maya areas of Guatemala, other groups had established king-
doms. Their Quiche and Cakchiquel warriors would pose a formidable challenge to con-
quering Spaniards in the sixteenth century. The newest interlopers in Maya areas might well
have been seen as the latest variation on an older, cyclical pattern of conquest. At any rate,
arriving Spaniards found few vestiges of former Maya grandeur, but rather decentralized
polities and villages in which merchants still traded and commoners continued their fa-
miliar traditions of maize cultivation, family rituals, and community life. When we refer to
the collapse of Maya “civilization,” we must remember that Mayas number some 7 million
people today.
Times of Trouble 39
Detail of the carved stone ring.
A heavily padded Maya ball player is portrayed in this graceful sculpture from Jaina.
A reconstruction of Chichen Itza shows the broad thoroughfare leading from the Temple of Kukulcan to the
Sacred Cenote (well).
The Temple of Kukulcan, also known as “El Castillo.”

Times of Trouble 41
Despite their amazing skills, the Maya architects never developed the true arch; however, a corbeled vault of
the type pictured here served much the same purpose. This is the magnificent Palace of the Governor at Uxmal,
measuring more than 320 feet in length and 25 feet in height.
Blomster, Jeffrey, ed. After Monte Albán: Transformation and Negotiation in Oaxaca, Mexico. Boulder: Univer-
sity Press of Colorado, 2008.
Byland, Bruce E., and John M.D. Pohl. In the Realm of Eight Deer: The Archeology of Mixtec Codices. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
Diehl, Richard A. Tula: The Toltec Capital of Ancient Mexico. London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1983.
Flannery, Kent V., and Joyce Marcus. The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for
Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
Flannery, Kent V., and Joyce Marcus, eds. The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec
Civilizations. New York: Academic Press, 1983.
Fox, John W. Maya Postclassic State Formation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Kelemen, Pál. Art of the Americas, Ancient and Hispanic. New York: Crowell, 1969.
López Austin, Alfredo. The Myth of Quetzalcoatl: Religion, Rulership, and History in the Nahua World. Trans-
lated by Ruth Davidson with Guilhem Olivier. Boulder: University Press of Colorado 2015.
Masson, Marilyn, and Carlos Peraza Lope. Kukulcan’s Realm: Urban Life at Ancient Mayapán. Boulder:
University Press of Colorado, 2014.
Mastache, A. G., Robert Cobean, and Dan Healan. Ancient Tollan: Tula and the Toltec Heartland. Boulder:
Minnis, Paul E., and Michael E. Whalen, eds. Ancient Paquimé and the Casas Grandes World. Tucson: Uni-
versity of Arizona Press, 2015.
Monaghan, John. The Covenants of Earth and Rain: Exchange, Sacrifice, and Revelation in Mixtec Sociality.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
Robertson, Donald. Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period. Norman: University of Okla-
homa Press, 1994.
Sabloff, Jeremy. Archaeology Matters: Action Archaeology in the Modern World. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast
Press, 2008.
Sanders, William T., Jeffrey R. Parsons, and Robert S. Santley. The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the
Evolution of a Civilization. New York: Academic Press, 1979.
Schroeder, Susan. Chimalpahin and the Kingdom of Chalco. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991.
Sharer, Robert J. Daily Life in Maya Civilization. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Smith, Michael E., and Frances F. Berdan, eds. The Postclassic Mesoamerican World. Salt Lake City: University
of Utah Press, 2003.
Spores, Ronald. The Mixtecs in Ancient and Colonial Times. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.
Thompson, J. Eric S. The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966.
CHA PTER 4
THE RISE OF THE AZTECS
T he high Valley of Anahuac—the Indian name for the Valley of Mexico, meaning “near
the water”—was a compelling lure to wandering peoples seeking a more abundant life.
With its equable climate and system of interconnecting lakes bordered by forests full of
wild game, it was especially attractive to the nomads of the arid north. Because of its central
location, the valley had been, from ancient times, a corridor through which tribes of diverse
cultures passed—and sometimes remained. This cultural mélange produced a rich environ-
ment for the exchange of ideas and skills. Moreover, traders and merchants introduced exotic
products from the coasts and other regions, thereby adding to the variety of life. At the same
time, frequently hostile alien groups periodically upset the lake country with violence. In
the twelfth century, new city-states developed in the Valley of Mexico, interacting with each
other, sometimes peacefully, sometimes aggressively. Throughout Mesoamerica, the links
between polities multiplied in shifting relationships of exchange and political domination.
In this network, central Mexico occupied the most influential position.
AZTEC PREDECESSORS
With the power vacuum created by the collapse of Tula in the twelfth century, several
groups of Nahuatl-speaking Chichimecs entered the valley from the north. By the early
thirteenth century the valley teemed with activity and became increasingly crowded. It
was an age of anxiety and tension. The first invader groups quickly staked out their claims,
and later arrivals found little available space. The early Chichimecs settled in the proxim-
ity of established towns populated by remnants of Toltec refugees whose culture retained
more complex Mesoamerican features. The phenomenon so familiar in history occurred:
the recently arrived hunter-gatherers gradually adopted the more advanced ways of their
sedentary neighbors.
Most prominent of the early invader chieftains was Xolotl (Divine Dog), who arrived
with his people in 1244. These Chichimecs established themselves at Tenayuca and came to
dominate this northern part of the valley through aggressive warfare based on the use of the
43
bow and arrow. Under Xolotl (1244–1304), the crude northerners adopted features of the
surrounding sedentary towns, imitating their dwellings, clothing, and agricultural practices.
In 1246, they conquered the prestigious city of Colhuacan, and Xolotl married his son No-
paltzin (Revered Prickly Pear) to a princess of the vanquished Toltecs. As their standing grew,
their Nahuatl language was becoming the lingua franca of the valley.
The Tepanecs, other invaders who had arrived in the valley in 1230, recognized Xolotl as
overlord. For their service as mercenaries, the Tepanecs received land grants enabling them to
extend their influence from their capital of Atzcapotzalco on the western side of Lake Texcoco.
The key figure of Tepanec expansion was Tezozomoc who made Atzcapotzalco the most pow-
erful center in the valley in the fourteenth century. Employing deceit, dynastic marriages, vio-
lence, and treachery, this tyrant expanded Tepanec territory with the conquests of Tenayuca,
Colhuacan, Xochimilco, and Cuauhnahuac (now Cuernavaca). Tezozomoc vanquished the
city of Texcoco in the early 15fifteenth century and brutally skewered its ruler Ixtilzochitl with
spears in full view of his young son, Nezahualcoyotl (Hungry Coyote), who was concealed in
a tree. Through the politics of terror, the Tepanecs broadened their sovereignty in the valley.
THE AZTEC RISE TO POWER
The irruption of the Chichimecs from the arid north included one group that engages our
attention above all others. While they called themselves the Mexica (pronounced “May-
sheeka”), they have become more commonly known as the Aztecs. No tribe of record had
more humble beginnings and rose to such heights in so short a time. Over the long view
of prehispanic Mexico, they must be regarded as upstarts, latecomers on the scene. The last
of the important nomadic groups to enter the valley, they began to acquire some notoriety
about two hundred years prior to the Spanish conquest, but their rise to great power oc-
curred less than a century before the advent of Cortés in 1519.
The origins of the Aztecs are apparently found on an island they called Aztlan, some-
where to the northwest of the valley, from which many tribes wandered southward. Histori-
cal accounts for the first decades following their departure from Aztlan, evidently in AD 1111,
are fragmentary and unreliable for, once secure, the Aztecs destroyed all the records and
reconstructed their history with accounts favorable to themselves. Like other Nahua groups
who entered the valley before them, the Aztecs eventually evolved official histories linking
their migration stories with marriages that established (however spuriously) their presti-
gious Toltec connections.
The Aztecs’ great search for the promised land logically enough led them toward the
verdant intermontane basin of Anahuac, but they arrived there only after many decades of
wandering. Somewhere along the way they came to conceive of themselves as a messianic
people, the chosen of the gods. They pressed on, inspired by visions of their imperial destiny
and by the persistent twitterings of their strange hummingbird god. Their supreme deity was
Huitzilopochtli (hummingbird on the left), god of war who slew his sister Coyolxauhqui
after she killed their mother, Coatlicue. He then proceeded to devour Coatlicue’s heart.
At length these nomads made their way into the Valley of Mexico, where they found a
cold reception. To begin with, other groups had already carved up all the lands into various
The Rise of the Aztecs 45
city-states, and perceived the Aztecs as unwelcome squatters, a boorish, uncouth lot, dis-
posed to all sorts of vulgarities. Held in disdain, the more refined farming residents of the
valley encouraged the newcomers to keep moving. It seems as if the Aztecs purposely sought
to anger others with some repugnant habits (which included gruesome human sacrifices)
and their outrageous practice of stealing their neighbors’ wives. But however much the in-
terlopers repulsed the farming peoples of the valley, they also learned (sometimes the hard
way) to entertain a healthy respect for them. The Aztecs were a young, vigorous people,
hungry and ambitious. They were also superb warriors, whose fighting abilities did not go
unnoticed by the ruling warlords of the valley. Consequently, it was as allies exploiting the
tenuous balance of power in Anahuac that the Aztecs first achieved recognition.
From the 1270s to the year 1319 the Aztecs maintained a precarious existence, occupying
the hill of Chapultepec (now a park in Mexico City). They continued in their aggressive ways,
and the leaders of some of the principal towns decided to deal with them once and for all.
They drove the intruders from Chapultepec and sacrificed the Aztec chief and his daughter.
The survivors escaped by concealing themselves in the rushes along the lakeshore until it
was safe to come out.
Now subject to Coxcox (Pheasant), the ruler of Colhuacan, the Aztecs received some
land to settle. But what land! They found themselves living in a gully acrawl with rattle-
snakes, no doubt to the amusement of their enemies. But, according to legend, the Aztecs
liked rattlesnake meat, and they devoured the vipers with gusto. Still, it was not the prom-
ised land, and the restless Aztecs bided their time. Their chance came when Coxcox agreed
to give them their liberty and better land in exchange for assistance in a war against the town
of Xochimilco. Aztec leaders delivered to the shocked Coxcox proof of their deeds—sacks
containing 8,000 ears cut from the slain Xochimilcas.
Although the king of Colhuacan hastily gave them their freedom, the Aztecs did not go
away. They asked the Colhua lord for his daughter, who would be made the Aztec queen
and would be treated as a goddess. Coxcox unwittingly agreed, whereupon the Aztecs, in a
move calculated to assert independence from their overlords, sacrificed and flayed the prin-
cess. When her father attended the banquet in his honor, he was horrified to find that the
entertainment included a priest-dancer dressed in the skin of his daughter. Having finally
had enough, Coxcox raised an army that scattered the Aztecs, who took refuge once more
among the reeds of the lake.
Again the Aztecs showed their adaptability and turned the situation to their advantage.
They found that in the marshy edges of the lake no one bothered them, for the place was
considered unsuitable for dwelling. It was, however, a region abundant in waterfowl, fish,
and other edible creatures. Furthermore, it was of some strategic placement, located at a
point where three kingdoms merged. Huddled in those swamps, the dogged Aztecs drew
on their resources and, finding strength and unity in adversity, they stiffened their resolve.
Unmolested, in about 1325 the Aztecs occupied a small isle, counseled by the proph-
ecy of Huitzilopochtli that attributed significance to a place where an eagle with a serpent
in its beak perched on a cactus. They began to acquire, through trade, the materials they
needed to enlarge their foothold, and they dredged the lake bottom to form more surface
soil. From such inauspicious beginnings, and with considerable ingenuity and great labor,
The founding of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, as depicted in the Codex Mendoza.
they eventually created the great city of Tenochtitlan. From that island redoubt they later
built connecting causeways, which could easily be defended, to the mainland. It was an in-
spired defensive concept, flawed only by the eventual dependence on mainland Chapultepec
for drinking water. Aqueducts conveying water could be cut.
Meanwhile the furious activity of the Aztecs and the development of the island came to
the attention of Tezozomoc, the Tepanec strongman of Anahuac, who brought them under
his sway and used them in their traditional role of mercenaries. Tezozomoc made unrea-
sonable demands of tribute from the Aztecs, and even humiliated them, but he was astute
enough not to push them too far. Gradually he accepted them as minor partners and even-
tually allowed Tenochtitlan to establish a royal dynasty. In 1377, the young Acamapichtli
became ruler of the Aztecs. By the time Tezozomoc finally died, in 1426, the Aztecs, his apt
disciples, were flourishing.
About this time the Aztecs elected as their leader Itzcoatl (Obsidian Snake), whose ener-
getic rule led to Aztec independence and the expansion of trade. Following a power struggle
in 1428, Tenochtitlan allied itself with the altepetl (city states) of Texcoco and the weaker
Tlacopan against the Tepanecs. This Triple Alliance would soon control central Mexico. Iz-
coatl’s reign firmly established Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, and Tezcatlipoca as the su-
preme Mexica deities.
THE AZTEC EMPIRE
Although the feverish drive of the Aztecs ultimately carried them to dominance of the al-
liance, Texcoco maintained its position of equality for some time. To considerable extent
Texcoco’s strength was owing to the brilliance of Nezahualcoyotl (Hungry Coyote, ruled
1418–72), one of the most remarkable figures in the history of Mexico. While so many are
remembered for their military exploits, the illustrious Nezahualcoyotl commands attention
for his cultural refinement. A man of his times, he steadily increased his influence through
military force, but he had esthetic sensibilities as well. Renowned for his philosophical verse,
this “poet king of Texcoco” embodied the talents of a wise legislator and a principled judge.
In addition, he was an engineer who was instrumental in the construction of a great aque-
duct, which brought water to Tenochtitlan from the mainland, and of a long dike across the
lake. A scholar and bibliophile, his Texcoco, “the Athens of Anahuac,” had libraries housing
thousands of manuscripts, which tragically Spaniards later destroyed. The city, with its gar-
dens, royal baths, and beautiful temples represented the finest expression of culture in an age
otherwise marred by cruelty, intrigue, and almost constant warfare. When Nezahualcoyotl
died, in 1472, his son Nezahualpilli, who had many of his father’s qualities, became ruler of
Texcoco. But the city came increasingly under the influence of Tenochtitlan.
After Itzcoatl died, in 1440, his nephew, Moctezuma I (Moctezuma Ilhuicamina) became
sovereign of the Aztecs. Even before taking power, Moctezuma had become a prominent
general, and during his reign of twenty-eight years he launched his armies to smashing victo-
ries as the Aztec dominions were extended to the south and northeast. Beyond this explosive
growth of territory and tribute, the Aztec state took on more formal characteristics and began
to achieve remarkable cohesion. At the same time, a genuine Aztec art style evolved as one
manifestation of the extension of imperial ambitions.
A population explosion fueled by in-migration of other groups had begun in the valley
in the mid-fourteenth century, leading to an intensification of agriculture. This expansion
was followed by plagues and floods in the middle of the fifteenth century that produced
catastrophic famine. After several years of near-starvation, during which increasing resort
to human sacrifice failed to placate the gods, Aztec rulers promoted chinampa agriculture
and sought to expand their control over fertile lands. Moctezuma I’s successor, Axaya-
catl (1469–81), conquered new provinces, gaining control of transport routes and towns
Principal Lake Cities in the Valley of Mexico during the Aztec Period
required to pay tribute. A brave leader who fought furiously alongside his common sol-
diers, Axayacatl lost a leg in one of his battles. He successfully brought neighboring Tlate-
lolco with its great marketplace under Mexica control, but failed to conquer the Tarascan
empire to the west, forcing him to build border fortifications to keep the enemy at bay. He
was succeeded by his brother Tizoc, whose lack of military success was accompanied by a
loss of tributaries.
Under the leadership of of Tizoc’s successor Ahuitzotl, the great warrior king, from 1487
to 1502, the Aztecs conquered the valley of Oaxaca and pushed far down the Pacific coast
to Soconusco. In the first year of his reign, Ahuitzotl oversaw the dedication of an impres-
sive new temple erected to honor the god Huitzilopochtli. In a ceremony lasting four days
sacrificial victims taken during campaigns were formed in four columns, each stretching
This sculpture of a female deity is reflected in an Aztec obsidian mirror with a wooden frame.
three miles. By some estimates, as many as twenty thousand human hearts were torn out
to please the god. Prominent guests, selected from allies and tributary towns, were invited
to be impressed (and intimidated) by the might and glory of Tenochtitlan. In the frenzy of
this ghastly pageant, exhaustion finally overcame the priests. The militant reign of Ahuitzotl,
with its pageants of political terror, closed in 1502 when he accidentally struck his head on
a stone lintel while trying to escape a flood.1
By this time, the Aztec yoke included several hundred city-states or ethnic kingdoms
with varied arrangements in tribute obligations. While a city-state, or altepetl, acquiesced
to Aztec tutelage in a material sense, its inhabitants retained a sense of cultural or ethnic
distinctiveness, grounded in their singular tribal migration history and leadership. Recent
study has suggested that the impressive expansion of Aztec hegemony in the first half
of the fifteenth century was masterminded by Tlacaelel, who advised his brother Moct-
ezuma I and succeeding rulers. Depicted in native histories written after the conquest
as brave, but also cunning, unscrupulous, and brutal, Tlacaelel served as a strategist for
building Aztec political power and military dominance through the expansion of warfare
and human sacrifice.
1 In 2007, Mexican archaeologists reported the possible discovery of Ahuitzotl’s tomb in the Templo Mayor
complex, under a stone monolith representing the Aztec earth deity, Tlaltecuhtli, symbol of the Aztec life
and death cycle. Such a significant find would be the first of its kind since Aztec kings were believed to have
been cremated. The discovery revealed many exquisite offerings fit for a king. Subsequent excavations in the
Templo Mayor have uncovered sacrificial stones and mass burials, but not that of Ahuitzotl.
A fine example of Aztec stone sculpture.
The central basin of Mexico was firmly under Aztec control, but in some areas of the
center and south where the Aztecs had won military victories, for example, in Oaxaca, re-
bellions by Mixtec and Zapotec city-states erupted frequently. Even closer to home, several
mountainous zones to the east and south harbored independent states—most notably that
of Tlaxcala. And to the west, the Tarascans never succumbed to Aztec domination.
The Tarascan empire comprised a score of city-states in the modern state of Michoacán,
with its capital at Tzinztuntzan on Lake Pátzcuaro. By trading with areas along the Pacific
coast and becoming highly militarized, the Tarascans built a strong state capable of resisting
the Aztecs. After Axayacatl’s army was soundly defeated in 1479 by a large Tarascan force
relying heavily on archery and some copper weapons, the Aztecs pulled back from frontal
assaults on the Tarascan empire.
The independent state of Tlaxcala was founded by one of the early Chichimec tribes in
the region east of the mountains lining the Valley of Mexico. At various times the Tlaxca-
lans were allies of the Aztecs, but the relationship became increasingly hostile as Tlaxcala
forged a confederacy with several other city-states and strengthened its army with mercenary
soldiers from areas defeated by the Aztecs. In addition to preserving autonomy, the Tlaxca-
lans wanted to keep the Aztecs from taking over their trade in salt, cotton, and other items
with the Gulf coast. The Aztecs seem to have been content to try to keep the Tlaxcalans iso-
lated and to engage them in periodic low-intensity warfare designed to wear them down and
to obtain sacrificial victims.
Known as “Flower Wars,” these battles, also practiced with other hostile states, came to
form the main basis of the relationship between Aztecs and Tlaxcalans. A culture of war was
not new to Mesoamerica, but the Aztecs had taken it to unprecedented levels. Warfare had two
main purposes: to increase the number of tribute-payers and to obtain captives for sacrifice.
Neither objective would be served by killing large numbers of foes in battle. As the Aztecs’
hold on key areas intensified, Flower Wars with recalcitrant city-states provided the opportu-
nity for the revered class of warriors to gain experience and to show their superiority. Military
orders such as the jaguar and eagle knights accumulated prestige in these ritualized battles and
obtained brave prisoners to be offered to the gods. Although these ceremonial engagements
took place by invitation, the contests between Tlaxcalans and Aztecs only fed their enmity—a
fact that would have ominous consequences with the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519.
In 1502 the ill-starred Moctezuma II was elected to succeed Ahuitzotl. He reigned as
the most absolute of Aztec lords, governing with great authority and enjoying the deference
due a demigod. Educated to be a high priest, he later proved his valor on the field of battle.
Under his reign, further expansion of the empire was hindered by the Tarascans on the west
while the vast, sparsely populated north promised little reward. And, in the Maya lowlands
to the south a weakly developed market system meant that tribute would be difficult to
exact. Moctezuma II tried with limited success to wipe out pockets of resistance in moun-
tainous areas and to consolidate control within the empire, but social unrest and internal
conflicts may have been eroding the loose bonds holding the realm together. Nevertheless,
in the bustling, well-organized metropolis of Tenochtitlan where commerce and artistic en-
deavors flourished, the emperor lived in splendor for seventeen years. Then, quite suddenly,
the Aztec world was turned upside down.
Berdan, Frances F., et al. Aztec Imperial Strategies. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1993.
Caso, Alfonso. The Aztecs: People of the Sun. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958.
Clendinnen, Inga. Aztecs: An Interpretation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Durán, Fray Diego. The Aztecs: The History of the Indians of New Spain. Translated, with notes, by Doris
Heyden and Fernando Horcasitas. New York Orion Press, 1964.
Gillespie, Susan D. The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexican History. Tucson: University of
Arizona Press, 1989.
Hassig, Ross. “Aztec and Spanish Conquest in Mesoamerica.” In War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States
and Indigenous Warfare, edited by R. Brian Ferguson and Neil L. Whitehead, 83–102. Santa Fe, NM:
School of American Research, 1992.
Hodge, Mary G., and Michael E. Smith, eds. Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm. Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1993.
León Portilla, Miguel. The Aztec Image of Self and Society: An Introduction to Nahua Culture, edited by José
Jorge Klor de Alva. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992.
Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo. The Great Temple of the Aztecs. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988.
Padden, Robert C. The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico, 1503–
1541. New York: Harper Collins, 1988.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Translated by Arthur
J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, 13 parts. Salt Lake City and Santa Fe, NM: University of Utah
Press and School of American Research, 1950–82.
Schroeder, Susan. “The Mexico that Spain Encountered.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael
C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, 45–72. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
. Tlacaelel Remembered: Mastermind of the Aztec Empire. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
2016.
Smith, Michael E. The Aztecs, 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
CHA PTER 5
AZTEC SOCIETY AND CULTURE
I t is one of the paradoxes of history that violence and artistic development are entirely com-
patible within the same society; brutality coexists with refinement and justice. Aztec soci-
ety offers a good case in point. We have seen the emergence of a state committed to a policy
of war and a cosmovision that demanded blood sacrifice; it is also true that Aztec society
and culture embodied some remarkably enlightened codes of conduct and justice, sensitive
accomplishments in the arts, an orderly administration, and behavior that was uniquely
puritanical in outlook. In many respects it constituted civilization of the highest order.
AZTEC RELIGION
The mutually reinforcing relationship between Aztec cosmology and imperial policy bears
examination. Aztec ideology certainly incorporated long-standing aspects of Mesoamerican
religions, but it is probable that fifteenth-century rulers added political considerations re-
casting migration history and myth in order to facilitate and legitimate their conquests. The
Aztec rationale for human sacrifice had its origin in a cosmic view that encompassed the
demands of their god Huitzilopochtli, lord of the sun and god of war, as well as a myth of
solar struggle. They believed that the sun and earth had been destroyed in a cataclysm and
recreated four times and that, in their age of the fifth sun, final destruction was imminent.
That fate was, understandably, to be avoided as long as possible, and the Aztecs believed that
special intervention through Huitzilopochtli would serve their interests.
Furthermore, the Aztecs accepted the view of a natural cycle: the sun, along with the rain,
nourished the plant life that sustained human life; therefore humans should give sustenance
to the sun and rain gods. Ancient deities had sacrificed themselves to the sun, and mere
mortals could hardly decline the same honor. The highest expression of piety was the giving
of life itself, and captured warriors, women, children, and slaves were the most valuable of
these gifts. In practice, the ritual offering to the sun god involved the removal of a palpitat-
ing human heart for presentation to Huitzilopochtli. Without such expressions of reverence,
53
A temple is burned in this Indian painting, signifying the end of a fifty-two-year cycle. From the Codex
Telleriano-Remensis.
Aztecs feared that the sun might not rise to make its way across the sky. Of course, the need
for sacrificial blood served militant expansionism.
Human sacrifice was not the sole preserve of Mesoamericans as many ancient cultures
of the Old World had also practiced it earlier. Sacrifice was to the Aztecs a solemn, and nec-
essary, religious ceremony for the purpose of providing the nourishment and renewal that
enabled the gods to maintain balance in the cosmos. The offering itself became a living god
in the performance of the rite. Likewise, occasional indulgence in ritual cannibalism as a
means of acquiring the attributes of the enemy was not an Aztec novelty.1
1 Frank Lestringant, Cannibals (Berkeley, CA, 1997), examines the universality of sacrifice and cannibalism in
real and symbolic forms, including the Eucharist. The extent to which cannibalism was practiced is a topic
that continues to excite debate among scholars. The argument that it satisfied a dietary need for protein has
Aztec Society and Culture 55
Aztec New Fire Ceremony from the Codex Borbonicus.
These rituals followed strictly prescribed procedures in a complex ceremonial system.

The most familiar sacrificial ceremony took place atop a high temple, where the victim was
spread-eagled over a stone, his back arched. While his limbs were held by four assistants,
the priest went in under the rib cage with an obsidian knife to remove the heart. There were
variations, according to the god to be honored. Those dispatched for the god of fertility were
bound and shot full of arrows, the falling drops of blood symbolizing the falling of spring
rain. Those honoring the fire god were drugged and then placed in fire. Metaphors of warfare
and sacrifice pervaded Aztec thought.
The Aztecs perceived themselves as living in an insecure world, in a conflict between
order and chaos, at the mercy of the elements and at the edge of doom. Natural calamities
in their fragile universe were occasioned by the gods’ displeasure. Most Mesoamericans be-
lieved themselves surrounded by strange and harmful forces: as human beings were at one
with nature, a person could suddenly be transformed into a hawk, a coyote, a fish, or even a
tree or a rock. The souls of the dead could haunt or inspire the living. Since individuals were
at the mercy of the gods, their best safeguard was to take no chances and adhere to carefully
prescribed rules and rituals.
Huitzilopochtli was the predominant god, but many others were paid homage. The an-
cient deities of Tlaloc (rain) Tezcatlipoca (the favorite of the warriors), and Quetzalcoatl
(revered by the intellectual priests) represent only a few of the more prominent gods wor-
shipped for their special benefactions. Favored gods of conquered peoples were readily incor-
porated into a swelling Aztec pantheon of deities. Among these was Tlazolteotl, the deity of
filth, who represented a set of beliefs and ritual practices that linked the earth, fertility, sexual
been discredited, but at least one historian asserts that it constituted an efficient and practical way of dispos-
ing of the bodies of sacrificial victims. Shawn W. Miller, An Environmental History of Latin America (New York,
2007), 36-40.
The goddess Tlazolteotl is shown here giving birth to the

god of maize.
relations, waste (excrement), uncleanliness, and indulgence. She could give absolution for
sexual transgressions but more importantly served to moderate excess and prevent disease.
There was a version of afterlife, but it was not the same for all. Mothers who died in
childbirth went to a special heaven. Warriors who fell in battle or who were sacrificed by the
enemy went to a paradise with perfumed clouds, to accompany the sun in its daily passage;
or they could find a new life as a hummingbird, destined to spend eternity among fragrant
blossoms, but most went to Mictlan, which required the soul to take an arduous journey
through nine downward levels. In the Aztec sacred cosmos, the home served a place of power
in which women’s roles in childbirth were comparable to men’s as warriors.
Intense spirituality pervaded Tenochtitlan, and religious observances occurred daily from
birth to death. They had many holy days during which celebrations, both solemn and joyful,
took place. Some festivities included singing and dancing, along with children parading
in garlands of flowers. Ritual activities included feasting, fasting, bloodletting, and human
sacrifice—all part of Aztec beliefs that conjoined life and death in a continuous cycle. It is
difficult for modern observers to understand how the elaborate ritual complex reconciled
the patterns of daily life with the violence of bloodshed implicated in Aztec beliefs.
AZTEC SOCIETY
While Aztecs were nomadic and relatively few in number, their social structure was simple;
the majority were peasants or warriors, and the handful of priests and war leaders enjoyed
comparatively few perquisites. Following the settlement of Tenochtitlan, however, a rapidly
expanding population, a diversified economy, and the organizational demands of the impe-
rial system led to a more complex class structure.
Naturally, the royal family was the most noble of all, and it was a large group. While the
supreme ruler or emperor had one principal wife, he had many others as well. The numerous
royal offspring proliferated greatly. It is said that Nezahualpilli of Texcoco had two thousand
wives and 144 children. Moctezuma II, with one thousand women, once had one hundred
fifty pregnant at the same time. The Aztec system of polygyny applied only to the noble
class. It has been argued that the incorporation of women from other polities, whether as
slaves, concubines, or wives, was an important factor in creating a more flexible society that
attenuated the development of a rigid class structure. At the same time, the lived experience
of these women has been shown to have been fraught with tension, jealousy, and concern
over the fate of their children. Kings were chosen from the royal family but, in the complex
polygynous system, the heir apparent was not fixed and could be a son, brother, nephew,
or other male relative of the previous king. Noblewomen enjoyed varying degrees of status
and respect, related to their importance in forging political alliances and strengthening royal
legitimacy. Although they were increasingly denied leadership roles as the empire expanded,
Aztec women of all classes should be viewed through the lens of a complementary gender
system in which male and female roles were appreciated as different but essential to the
functioning of society, and wherein women had property and other legal rights.
In addition to royal families, others of noble status (pipiltin) could include high priests,
prominent military officers, and influential government leaders such as judges and tax col-
lectors. Sons of nobles enjoyed an advantageous position to achieve their fathers’ rank, but
nobility (outside of the royal family) was not an inherited right. One had to distinguish
oneself in service in order to enjoy the privileges of the aristocracy. Considerable variation
in wealth and prestige among the nobility could be observed in the range of luxuries they
enjoyed, for example, in clothing, jewelry, housing, foodstuffs, and servants. In the late Aztec
period, an elite class with landed estates, a kind of incipient feudal aristocracy, was appar-
ently in the process of formation.
Able-bodied males were expected to bear arms. As Inga Clendinnen made clear: “To be
born a male in Tenochtitlan was to be designated a warrior. . . . What compelled the Mexican
imagination were the men who were prepared to play the end game, to accept and embrace
that final ritual of violent death.”2 Distinction in battle was one way in which a commoner
might rise to high status. In order to achieve the cherished rank of warrior, a youth had to
take a prisoner. If he succeeded in capturing or killing four of the enemy, he was entitled to
share in the booty. Perhaps more important, he was allowed to dress in the distinctive adorn-
ments of the military elite. Conceivably, he could become a member of the prestigious mili-
tary orders—the Eagle Knights or Jaguar Knights—and thus enjoy the luxuries of noble status.
Another avenue for mobility came through trade. The merchants of Tenochtitlan ranged
far and wide. The long-distance traders, the pochteca, organized and led caravans as far as
Central America, often passing through hostile country. The pochteca were as brave as they
were shrewd and often depended on both their wits and courage to evade dangers. Some
2 Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation (New York, 1991), 112, 149.

of them knew foreign languages and customs and served as diplomats and spies for the
Aztec militarists. The pochteca imported to the capital exotic and profitable goods, includ-
ing slaves displayed in the markets along with many tribute commodities demanded by the
Aztecs. They lived in their own district and formed a separate group altogether. They had
their own guild-like associations, their special deity, and their own courts. Within their sec-
tion of the city they frequently gave sumptuous banquets and enjoyed other luxuries. Not of
the nobility, they nevertheless carried influence and commanded respect.
Along with the ruling nobility, priests, scholars, artists, and scribes enjoyed high status
as part of an educated elite that nurtured literary traditions within the altepetl. They kept
historical annals, genealogies of rulers, writings on philosophy and astronomy, and trib-
ute records in their pictorial books. The sacerdotal life began with training young boys (or
girls destined to be priestesses) in a monastery school, or calmecac. Priests were expected
to lead exemplary lives, and they spent long hours in prayer, fasting, and penance. Most of
the priests led modest lives of service; those who advanced through the hierarchy, however,
enjoyed the status of nobles and many of its perquisites. Aside from routine religious duties,
each priest had a specialty, such as music, painting, teaching, dancing, or assisting at sacrifi-
cial rites. Some priests were also warriors. Priests were the guardians of morality, and some
of their admonitions are not unlike scriptural injunctions, such as a man who looks too
curiously on a woman commits adultery with his eyes.
The great majority of the people (about 90 percent) formed the class of commoners
(macehualtin). These farmers, laborers, minor craftsmen, servants, vendors, and petty func-
tionaries of an altepetl were organized into ward districts or rural villages called calpollis
(barrios to the Spaniards). Each of these subunits consisted of several households and had a
temple dedicated to its patron deity and a school. It was a close-knit organization with loyal-
ties much like those of an extended family. Each calpolli had lands apportioned to family
heads who could use fields but did not own them. Members of the calpolli worked together,
played together and, in times of war in the absence of a standing army, were called up to
fight together as a unit. The people elected a veteran warrior who served as military com-
mander of the district and was responsible for their welfare and good order. A new class of
landless peasants (mayeques) emerged as nobles required increased labor for their expanded
landholdings.
At the bottom of the socioeconomic scale were the slaves. Aztec slavery differed from the
slave system most familiar to us, inasmuch as slaves had certain rights and bondage was not
passed from parent to child. Some, in fact, served as slaves only for a specified term, either
in payment of a debt or as punishment for a crime. In bad times people sometimes sold
themselves or their children into slavery to avoid starvation. Some slaves were favored as con-
cubines, and all slaves could intermarry with free persons. Little stigma was attached to some
conditions of slavery; the mother of the emperor Itzcoatl, in fact, had been a slave. In a differ-
ent category were those captured in war and destined for sacrifice. The class of slaves may have
been growing at the time of the Spanish conquest, another sign of the widening social gap.
Aztec society’s concern with education was singular for its time. After a period of regi-
mented home schooling, instruction was compulsory for children in order to make them
productive and worthy members of society. Two main types of schools existed. Children of
the nobility usually attended the calmecac, run by the scholarly priests, in preparation for
the priesthood or some high office in the state. Occasionally a talented son of a commoner
gained entrance. In a vigorous intellectual regimen, young boys studied religion, astronomy,
philosophy, history, poetry, rhetoric, oratory, singing, and dancing, among other disciplines.
History was passed on by oral traditions committed to memory. Picture writing depicted
certain dramatic scenes that gave continuity and jogged the memory, but the fine details were
transmitted from one generation to another by the retelling.
Most children attended one of the commoners’ telpochcallis. Laypersons gave both boys
and girls practical instruction in basic subjects. Here, fifteen-year-old boys learned the rudi-
ments of warfare, and those who went on to excel in the profession of arms could do well
for themselves; others had to be content with learning trades or lesser skills. Girls were in-
structed in the responsibilities of the household and motherhood. It should be noted that
although Aztec society increasingly rewarded military skill, women maintained valued com-
plementary roles, not only domestic but also in agriculture, trade, and religion. The highest
political and religious offices were restricted to men, but most deities had androgynous
characteristics, in recognition of the vital female contribution to fertility and the sustenance
of the universe.
Women played key roles in the performance of routines that upheld society as well as
in the transmission of values, teaching moderation and frugality. They exercised religious
power as healers and midwives. In addition to making food and clothing for their families,
they sold produce in the markets. Their weaving skills were especially valuable as the textiles
they wove from maguey fibers and cotton constituted a massive part of the tribute collected
by Aztec officials. Women could own property, and males and females inherited equally
from their fathers and mothers.3
In the home, parents imposed strict discipline. The birth of a child occasioned celebra-
tion and florid speeches. Babies received gifts according to gender: for females, there were
weaving tools, cooking utensils, and brooms, while males were given bows and arrows and
farming implements. A child was named in hopeful anticipation of its character—the boys
usually given names indicating military prowess and the girls’ names denoting beauty and
delicacy, such as Rain Flower or Water Bird. In the home children learned not only proper
deportment but also how to perform daily tasks. When children were young some indiscre-
tions were tolerated, but by the age of eight they were considered to be responsible and
infractions brought harsh punishment. Although parents were ordinarily tender and loving,
wayward children were castigated by whippings, scratching with thorns, or being forced to
inhale the smoke of a fire into which chile peppers had been placed. It is reasonable to sup-
pose that most children behaved themselves. Girls worked in the household until they were
sixteen to eighteen, when they married; boys took mates in their early twenties. Marriage was
sacred and monogamy was the rule, at least for commoners.
A morally rigorous aspect of Aztec society derives from how they conceptualized the sacred.
Because alcohol and drugs provided paths for opening an individual up to the supernatural,
3 For more on women, see the articles by Louise Burkhart and Susan Kellogg in Indian Women of Early Mexico,
eds. Susan Schroeder et al. (Norman, OK, 1997).
Prehispanic Mexican women ground their corn with stone mano and metate and made tortillas much as many do
today. From the Florentine Codex.
ritual control of intoxicants such as pulque was deemed necessary to avoid dangerous dis-
plays of sacred power. Drunkenness could be a capital offense, although older people were
allowed to become inebriated. Sexual activity and physical prowess also provided other ve-
hicles of the sacred and, like alcohol and drugs, entailed strictly prescribed behaviors.
Aztec society demanded moral conformity, and violators of the code, as well as criminal
offenders, were dealt with firmly. For minor offenses punishment was correspondingly light,
as in the case of petty theft, which called for restitution of the property. But since personal
dignity was highly prized, any public humiliation, such as the cutting of one’s hair, was
a great insult to pride. Several offenses, including murder, perjury, rape, abortion, incest,
fraudulent business practices, grand larceny, and treason, could bring the death penalty. This
may seem unduly harsh, but the legal codes were designed to forestall the conversion of
individual wrongdoing into general social disorder.
The Aztec legal system was complex, with multiple levels and arenas of jurisdiction that
served different constituencies. The legalistic society had need for many judicial officials to
prepare the multitude of carefully documented lawsuits. Judges in the great marketplaces
maintained fairness in business transactions and settled disputes. Selected for their integ-
rity and virtue, judges had great authority and could arrest even the highest dignitaries, for
before the law all were equal. Expected to be absolutely impartial, if a judge accepted a bribe
or favored a noble over a plebeian, he could be executed.
Duty and responsibility, as well as danger, increased with one’s rank, and they imposed
special restraints. Because self-control was considered a mark of good breeding and nobil-
ity, the upper classes were subject to standards different from those of the lower classes. In
contrast to most systems, where the upper classes have a favored position before the law,
Aztec aristocrats were dealt with more harshly than plebeians. An offense that might bring
a whipping or public humiliation for a commoner could mean death for a noble. A salient
example of justice for the wayward nobility may be observed in the notorious case of one
of Nezahualpilli’s wives (a daughter of Mexica ruler Axayacatl) who was unfaithful. She and
three of her lovers were publicly executed.
Aztec medical practices were generally on a par with those in Europe and, in some re-
spects, superior. Doctors knew how to set broken bones and dislocations and to treat dental
cavities. They even performed brain operations. Like their European counterparts, Aztec
healers attributed disease to both supernatural and natural causes. Also like Europeans,
they practiced bleeding as a treatment, but their most common, and often effective, cures
were plants and herbs, delivered through a bewildering variety of brews, powders, poultices,
purges, and pastes. Years after the conquest, a Spanish physician cataloged some fifteen hun-
dred different plants whose medicinal properties were utilized by the Indians. The conquer-
ors adopted native medicines, many of which are still popular in rural Mexico today.
Because Aztec society was largely agricultural in character, the daily routine of most people
directly involved the growing of food. Aside from the many chinampas that ringed the island
city, producing up to seven harvests annually, there were extensive plantings along the shores
of the lakes. The diet remained much as it had been for centuries, with a base of corn, beans,
chile, and squash. It also included a wide variety of other vegetables and melons, cactus fruit,
and amaranth, in addition to many fruits imported from tropical regions. Commoners ate
some meat, but the nobles, who liked to hunt for sport, consumed more and of a greater vari-
ety, for example, venison, peccary, pheasant, and turkey. A special treat was the small hairless
dog fattened for the table. Cacao from the tropics was made into a chocolate drink, and trad-
ers brought avocados and many other exotic delicacies. Fish was a favorite when available.
AZTEC POLITICAL HEGEMONY
The limited resources of the valley did not suffice to meet the needs of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco,
Tlacopan (the allied altepetl that made up the Triple Alliance), and other valley communi-
ties. Moreover, there was an increasing demand for luxuries from other provinces. To satisfy
the necessities and desires for both raw materials and consumer goods, Aztec realms were
extended. The so-called Aztec empire was really a loose coalition of over 500 subject city-
states or altepetl that paid tribute to the imperial center. The Aztecs used marriage alliances
to bolster the network of tribute obligations and discourage revolt, but they did not impose
their own political system in conquered areas. Rather, the collection of tribute, which kept
the valley culture prosperous, was their main concern.
Tributes included a wide variety of commodities, among them cacao, cotton textiles,
feathers, precious stones, jaguar skins, eagles, shells, dyes, cloth, gold, silver, sandals, and
corn and other foodstuffs, as well as jewelry. Imperial ambassadors were stationed in tribu-
tary towns to steward and collect goods. Towns conquered by the Aztecs had to provide sol-
diers and slaves and to recognize the imperial courts of appeal. But they were also allowed
considerable autonomy. If the conquered peoples agreed to submit to Aztec sovereignty, the
Aztecs did not much interfere with their internal affairs and their customs, respecting their
local deities, religious practices, and traditions.
A girl has been put to death for drunkenness and a thief has been executed by stoning. Adulterers are shown
wrapped together in a sheet and then stoned to death. From the Codex Mendoza.
An older woman is legally allowed to partake of the intoxicant ocli (pulque). From the Codex Mendoza.
Aztec political organization rested lightly on tributary towns, provided they were cooper-
ative. In fact, it may be said that the Aztecs’ policy of relative autonomy for subject provinces
was a weakness in their political system. The subject peoples continued to be foreigners
within the empire, which remained a conglomeration of tributaries with many different lan-
guages, customs, and religions. The provinces paid tribute under duress, but their primary
allegiance was to their altepetl, or local polity. Thus, the empire lacked genuine unity and
was honeycombed with discontent, a circumstance that would be fatal in the years ahead.
After the death of Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco in 1472, the Triple Alliance had little sig-
nificance, and Tenochtitlan gathered to itself almost all the power and most of the tribute.
Aztec justice was strict, and it often imposed the harsher

punishment on high officials. Here an erring functionary
is being strangled. From the Florentine Codex.
Consultation with other rulers became superfluous, and the emperor came to be elected
from among the royal family by an increasingly elite group of military men with royal lin-
eage. Surrounded by a small circle of military advisors, the monarch, whose selection was
also seen as divinely ordained, grew even more powerful by the sixteenth century.
A Z T E C A R T, M U S I C , A N D L I T E R AT U R E
The Aztecs borrowed much of their art from others and put their own stamp on it. The
Mixtecs exerted strong influence on Aztec gold and silver work, pottery, and pictographs.
We have few examples of Aztec murals, but we do have beautiful painted manuscripts and
pictorial maps, many rendered after the conquest. An outstanding example is the Mapa de
Cuauhtinchan No. 2, from the 1540s, with its hundreds of images that shed light on sacred
knowledge, origin myths, ethnic and power relationships, and acculturation. Not only es-
thetically appealing, writing with pictures was vital to the persistence of community, ethnic
identity, and solidarity after the conquest.
Aztec ceramic work was good but not superior. They did excel, however, in stone sculp-
ture. “Aztec carvers created one of the world’s strongest sculptural traditions with power-
ful conceptions that both impress and intimidate.”4 Monumental in size and weight, Aztec
stones adorned ritual precincts to commemorate victories and conquests, to hold sacrifi-
cial blood, and to represent mythical-historical events. For the Aztecs, the religious images
sculpted in stone were both animate and divine.
4 Elizabeth Hill Boone, The Aztec World (Washington, DC, 1994), 131.
This fearsome image of the goddess Coatlicue, mother of Huitzilopochtli, stands over eight feet high.
The artisans who made the gold and silver jewelry were also superb craftsmen. It is
therefore lamentable that almost all of their work was either lost or destroyed during the
Spanish conquest, for the conquerors valued raw gold but all too often did not appreci-
ate the fine workmanship. Equally impressive was the art of the lapidarists; from pre-
cious jadeite, turquoise, and other stones they fashioned fine jewelry and mosaics. Most
unusual were the artists who worked with feathers. The Aztecs put great value on the long
green plumes of the quetzal bird that lived in the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala,
but the feathers of many other birds, too, were woven into mosaics of wonderful patterns
A realistic stone sculpture of an Aztec Eagle Knight. His helmet is shaped like an eagle’s head; knights of the
orders of the Jaguar and Coyote were adorned with distinctive costumes, headgear, and insignia.
and colors. Only rare examples remain, the most spectacular being the great headdress
of Moctezuma II.
Poetry and song constituted artistic expressions that connected people with the gods.
Aztec music was composed primarily for ceremonial purposes, and accompanied by danc-
ing. Instruments consisted of flutes, whistles, rasps, rattles, trumpets, conch shells, and
drums vital for providing rhythm. Musicians were highly regarded because of their accom-
paniment in the religious rituals. Powerful lords were patrons to composers who created
Musicians played impor-

tant roles in religious and
civic observances. From
the Florentine Codex.
Careless musicians
were sometimes
punished by death.
ballads recounting the nobles’ military exploits. As no written form for recording music
had developed, musicians had to memorize a wide repertoire for the many ceremonies that
often went on for hours and could include variations. At the same time, as Robert Stevenson
points out, “Imperfectly executed rituals were thought to offend rather than appease the
gods, and therefore errors in the performance of the ritual music—such as missed drum
beats—carried the death penalty.”5
5 Robert Stevenson, Music in Mexico: A Historical Survey (New York, 1971), 18.
Aztec lyrics were often eloquent, moving, and sentimental. Flowers served as a key
metaphor for the Aztecs in relationship to fertility, birth, and sexuality. In this verse
praising a goddess, the poet likened the blooming of a golden flower to the beginning of
life itself:
The yellow flower has opened,
Our mother has opened like a flower.
She came from Our Place of Beginning . . .
Butterfly of Obsidian. . . .6
Like the short life of a bloom, however, life on earth was also fleeting. Poets sometimes
addressed themselves to the proper role of artists and appealed to the public at large to
assume a responsible and dignified posture. Like poets the world over, they often waxed
philosophical and examined the meaning of life:
Truly do we live on earth?
Not forever on earth; only a little while here.
Although it be jade, it will be broken,
Although it be gold, it is crushed,
Although it be quetzal feather, it is torn asunder.
Not forever on earth; only a little while here.7
THE CITY OF TENOCHTITLAN
Aztec architecture, like Aztec art, borrowed much from other Mesoamerican civilizations.
Buildings were basically elaborations of forms that went all the way back to Teotihuacan.
But while many pre-Aztec structures survive in amazingly good condition, Tenochtitlan
was thought to have been completely demolished by the Spaniards. However, excava-
tions since 1978 have revealed important archaeological findings, including parts of the
Templo Mayor (main temple) and monumental sculptures like the magnificent disk of
the dismembered Coyolxauhqui. We do have, moreover, enough descriptions of Tenoch-
titlan from both native and Spanish contemporary accounts to appreciate what the city
looked like.
By the time Moctezuma II was elevated to power in 1502, the island capital of Tenochtit-
lan was a most impressive city. With the estimate of 150,000 to 200,000 residents accepted
by most scholars, the Aztec capital was one of the largest cities in the world. Only four
cities of Europe—Paris, Venice, Milan, and Naples—had populations of 100,000 or more
at the time. Seville, had a population in 1520 of around 40,000; and by 1580, when it was
the largest city in Spain, it had only slightly over 100,000. The amazement of the Spanish
conquerors at their first sight of Tenochtitlan is therefore understandable. Cortés wrote of
6 Quoted in Frances Gillmor, Flute of the Smoking Mirror: A Portrait of Nezahualcoyotl, Poet-King of the Aztecs
(Albuquerque, NM, 1949), 23.
7 Quoted in Miguel León Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind, trans. Jack
Emory Davis (Norman, OK, 1963), 7.
The center of Tenochtitlan, reconstructed by Ignacio Marquina from descriptions of Spanish conquerors and
surviving Aztec monuments.
“the magnificence, the strange and marvelous things of this great city,” which itself was “so
remarkable as not to be believed.”8 In the Valley of Mexico, an area of some three thousand
square miles, there were about fifty different cities by the second decade of the sixteenth
century. If we take into account “greater” Tenochtitlan, with its many satellite communities
on the lakeshores, the area surely held one of the heaviest concentrations of population in
the world at the time.
By the early sixteenth century the island comprised about five square miles, densely set-
tled, and occupied much of the present center of Mexico City. It was a metropolis swarming
with activity. Some sixty thousand people gathered daily in its buzzing marketplaces, the most
important of which was Tlatelolco, to barter for foodstuffs, cloth, and utilitarian wares. Cacao
beans and cotton textiles served as forms of currency. The core of the city, corresponding to
the extensive plaza of today (the Zócalo), had the Templo Mayor, a great double pyramid
dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, along with the royal palaces and other large struc-
tures. Adjacent to the main complex, in 2017 archaeologists uncovered the base of a massive
circular temple dedicated to the wind god. Built at the end of the fifteenth century, it towered
over a ball court where neck vertebrae have been found, presumably the remains of sacrificial
victims who may have been defeated competitors. To the shock of conquering Spaniards,
the royal center boasted a giant stone rack, the tzompantli, that displayed many thousands of
human skulls.
8 Hernán Cortés, Hernán Cortés: Letters from Mexico, trans. and ed. A. R. Pagden, introd. J. H. Elliott (New York,
1971), 101-2.
A ceramic foot juggler from Oaxaca, ca. AD 300.
From that central precinct enclosing about 125 acres, the city extended out to the
residences of the nobles,often of two stories and containing as many as fifty rooms and
patios. Beyond were districts with the modest adobe dwellings of the commoners. The city
was interlaced with stone-edged canals, which served as thoroughfares for thousands of
canoes carrying people and goods. Paralleling the canals were streets for pedestrians. The
Aztecs loved flowers that along with trees and other plants decorated many luxurious gar-
dens. Aside from the royal botanical garden that displayed almost all species of plant life
in the empire, zoos housed practically all the animals and snakes of the country, as well
as a large aviary full of all varieties of domestic birds. Large ponds were maintained for
swans, ducks, and egrets. Moctezuma’s snakes, eagles, and jaguars lived in cages, report-
edly consuming 500 turkeys daily. Hundreds of people labored daily to maintain these
gardens and zoos.
Five shallow lakes interconnected to form a network—two freshwater lakes in the south
drained into the brackish water of Lake Texcoco. Three long causeways joined the major
island city to the shores: one stretched southward to Ixtapalapa, branching off with a road
to Coyoacan; another causeway went west to Tlacopan, with an offshoot to Chapultepec;
and a third made a connection to the north with Tepeyacac. These broad thoroughfares,
twenty-five to thirty feet wide, were cut at intervals by drawbridges. Within the city itself
many canals were spanned by stout bridges across which, according to Cortés, ten horsemen
could ride abreast.
Compared to other cities in the world at the time, Tenochtitlan was remarkably clean.
There was good drainage, and night soil and garbage were hauled away in canoes. A crew of a
thousand men swept and washed down public streets every day. Cleanliness was considered
essential, and people bathed often, many once a day. Owing at least in part to good sanita-
tion and clean air, Aztec society was healthy.
An Aztec foot juggler, from the Florentine Codex. Also

shown are a hunchback and a dwarf, for whom the Indi-
ans had affection.
MOCTEZUMA II
Moctezuma II reigned over a territory roughly the size of Italy. His domains included the
modern states of Mexico, Morelos, Puebla, Hidalgo, most of Veracruz, much of Oaxaca and
Guerrero, as well as the coast of Chiapas. They contained scores of “provinces,” stretching
from arid highlands to the sweltering tropics. If, as some authorities believe, all of Mexico
had a population approaching 30 million,9 it was more populous than any country in
Europe. France, the largest, had about 20 million, and Spain, 10 million at most.
With his immense authority, prestige, and luxurious style of life, Moctezuma II wielded
enormous power. Hundreds of nobles and three thousand servants attended him in his huge
9 Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, The Indian Population of Central Mexico, 1531-1610 (Berkeley, CA,
1960); Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the
Spanish Conquest (Berkeley, CA, 1963).
palace. Each day he was presented with a choice of a hundred different dishes, although he
ate sparingly, taking his meals behind a screen. For his pleasure he had an unlimited number
of women and he was entertained by the antics of dwarfs, jesters, tumblers, acrobats, musi-
cians, and dancers. No one dared look him in the face or touch him, and it was forbidden to
turn one’s back on him. Moctezuma was indeed the epitome of royalty, held as semi-divine,
exalted far above any of the earliest Aztec rulers. Nevertheless, he came to be portrayed in
the aftermath of conquest as a tragic figure, undone by historical forces beyond his control.
Before the Spanish arrived, Moctezuma was known for his bravery and successful military
campaigns into Mixtec and Maya areas. In addition, his deep knowledge of Mexican history and
respect for tradition factored into his successful rule. Yet these same issues would play a role in
the collapse of the Aztec state. Aside from his religious convictions, Moctezuma was pensive and
sensitive; he was also an amateur “wizard” who made use of astrology, perhaps as a means of
lifting the shadow of historical inevitability. Or did he truly believe, as the pervasive myth claims,
that the great Quetzalcoatl would return, as he had promised, to take back his rightful throne?
Just when Moctezuma learned of the presence of white men in the New World is not entirely
clear. It is no doubt true that word of the Spaniards, who had been in the Caribbean for several
years, drifted to the mainland. Perhaps he was not yet unduly concerned. Cuba, in fact, lay
dangerously near—but it was not part of the Aztec world. Moctezuma’s agents almost certainly
informed him that Spaniards had landed on the Yucatán Peninsula in 1517 and that others
the following year were making their way up the Gulf coast. Indians reported seeing “towers or
small mountains floating on the waves of the sea.” Meanwhile, strange phenomena, construed
by the emperor’s priests as evil portents, had occurred, if we are to believe self-interested post-
conquest sources. Lightning, unaccompanied by thunder, “like a blow from the sun,” damaged
a temple. A strange bird was found with “a mirror in its head,” in which Moctezuma saw a host
of foreign warriors. In 1517 a comet appeared “like a flaming ear of corn . . . it seemed to bleed
fire, drop by drop, like a wound in the sky.”10 Then, in the spring of 1519 (the Aztec year Ce
Acatl), the emperor received a courier bearing ominous paintings—they depicted the encamp-
ment on Aztec shores of strangers, bearded white men with crosses.
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PA RT
2
COLLIDING WORLDS
CHA PTER 6
THE SPANISH INVASION
L et us try for a moment to imagine,” the late Ramón Iglesia wrote, “the astonishment of
the inhabitants of a small island called Guanahani one morning when they beheld three
shapes out there in the water, three immense hulks, out of which issued several . . . beings . . .
of light complexion, their faces covered with hair, and their bodies . . . covered with fabrics
of diverse pattern and color.”1 We might surmise that, in 1492, the natives of the Caribbean
fancied Columbus and his men to be exceedingly strange beings. The invaders were also sur-
prised but even more disappointed, for they found little sign of the precious metals, valuable
spices, and other wealth they had sought, and no indication of the fabulous Asian kingdoms
they had anticipated. The native inhabitants, whom they nonetheless called “Indians,” were
swiftly relegated to the status of “others,” less worthy of respect.
S PA N I S H L E G A C I E S A N D C A R I B B E A N T R I A L S
Later voyages to the “New World” (or the “Indies”) dampened even the most optimistic spirits.
Consequently, the Caribbean islands attracted relatively few settlers as expeditions were financed
with borrowed capital that could not easily be paid back in the absence of profitable trade goods.
Columbus, who was happier sailing about than governing waspish colonists, let administrative
matters slide, thus giving the Spanish crown a pretext for removing him as governor of Santo
Domingo, the name of the New World colony, and revoking the generous terms earlier granted
him. Ultimately, the great discoverer was sent back to the mother country in chains.
Royal officials then took charge, but the bickering continued. Nearby islands were ex-
plored, some were settled, and Indians were put to work washing the streams for gold, which
provided lucrative income for a few in the early years. Beyond that, and small profits from
agriculture, there seemed little opportunity. Others began to explore elsewhere—up to the
coast of Florida, to Central America, and down to South America.
1 Ramón Iglesia, Columbus, Cortés and Other Essays, trans. and ed. Lesley B. Simpson (Berkeley, CA, 1969), 8.
75
76 colliding worlds
A New Yorker cartoon from 2006 reimagines the scene described by Ramón Iglesia.
Who were these Spaniards who came to conquer? Their own past embodied a history
of conquest. Under the control of the Roman empire from the first to the fifth centuries AD,
Iberia underwent subsequent invasions by Visigoths and then Muslims, who arrived from
north Africa in the eighth century. Over a period of nearly eight centuries Iberians reclaimed
lands from the Muslims, but the kingdoms that emerged were diverse in cultural and linguis-
tic traditions. At the dawn of the age of expansion, a single Spanish monarchy had not yet
coalesced to unite the various Iberian kingdoms (except for Portugal, an independent polity
since the twelfth century). The largest of these, Castile, provided much of the initiative that
bound the future Spain loosely together by the sixteenth century, and it was from Castile
that the New World ventures would be launched. Queen Isabel of Castile, strengthened by
her marriage to King Fernando of Aragón in 1469, worked vigorously to mold judicial and
administrative institutions intended to counter the power of both the nobility and a strong
tradition of municipal autonomy. Tensions between the monarchy, the nobility, and the
The Spanish Invasion 77
towns would persist for some time in the peninsula while in the Americas the crown more
rapidly curtailed the entitlements and autonomy of its early emissaries.
But even in the New World this was not an easy task. Spanish conquistadors were strongly
influenced by the legacies of the Reconquista (Reconquest) of the peninsula from the Muslims,
which had only recently been finalized in 1492 with the defeat of the rulers of Granada. The
Reconquista had fostered a quasi-medieval cultural legacy in which military conquest, religious
crusading, and the accumulation of booty and property were inextricably linked and mutually
reinforcing. The legacy found expression in the New World, especially in the religious justifica-
tion for military conquest and the strong role that would be played by the Roman Catholic
Church in advancing the goals of the Spanish crown. Tales of chivalry and dreams of prizes to
be won also traveled to the Americas in the minds of adventurers, but they were tempered by a
changing economic milieu. By the end of the fifteenth century, the inroads made by mercantile
capitalism meant that these aspiring conquistadors had to seek private funds to finance their
expeditions. The need to recoup their investments provided even greater incentive for them to
claim the customary material and political rewards from the monarchy they served.
In the peninsula privilege was reserved for the nobility, who comprised about 10 percent
of the population; but only a small segment of this class held noble titles or great wealth.
Most of the nobility consisted of untitled caballeros and hidalgos. Commoners made up the
other major social subdivision, but they were also diverse in terms of income and status.
The majority were peasants who worked for the nobility in agriculture and stock-raising,
although some possessed their own land. The commoner group also included professionals,
clerics, artisans, and merchants. People of all classes lived in and identified with towns and
cities because civilized (politically ordered) living was exclusively urban. Society was also
categorized in terms of religion: Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Where religious tolerance
had once existed under Muslim rule, however, it disappeared at the turn of the sixteenthth
century, when the Catholic monarchs expelled Jews (1492) and Muslims (1502) who re-
fused to convert to Christianity.
The Castilian monarchy’s efforts to consolidate power rested on a narrow agricultural
economic base, with production concentrated in grain, sheep, olive oil, and wine. Economic
contraction, in turn, led to a more concerted search for guaranteed income via government
and other bonds, which led to even less investment in productive enterprises and continu-
ing contraction. The overall economic and social milieu encouraged the untitled nobility
and even commoners to look elsewhere for social advancement, and their pretensions were
fueled both by the past—the cultural heritage of the Reconquista—and the future—the po-
tential offered by the New World “discoveries.” Although frequently led by minor nobles,
the majority of conquistadors were commoners among whom skilled artisans like carpen-
ters, stonemasons, and blacksmiths proved crucial assets in the logistics of conquest. The
tensions between their ambitions, economic difficulties in Spain, and the slowly evolving
bureaucracy of the crown dominated the early colony in Mexico.
From the Caribbean, the crown conducted the first experiments in imposing and inventing
systems and institutions. The seat of royal government was on the island of Santo Domingo,
but the larger island of Cuba held out more promise. Conquered in 1511, Cuba proved disap-
pointing. But the royal government sanctioned the implementation of an institution called
78 colliding worlds
encomienda that rewarded conquerors with the labor of subjected groups. At least in the Indies
they had natives working their modest farms or, if they were lucky, mining for gold. However,
one of the tragic consequences of the European occupation of the islands was a catastrophic
loss of life among the Indians, partly because of fatigue and mistreatment but mostly because
of their vulnerability to diseases to which they had no previous exposure or immunity. Epi-
demics of smallpox, measles, and other illnesses spread quickly among the natives, causing
widespread death. With the great decline in the Indian population, a labor shortage ensued,
prompting Spaniards to initiate what became a massive world trade in African slaves.
Governor Diego Velázquez of Cuba sent out an expedition in 1517 for the purpose of
trading and finding other Indians to be enslaved. Under the command of Francisco Hernán-
dez de Córdoba, the party of three ships sailed west and touched the coast of Yucatán,
thought at first to be an island. Further exploration revealed the existence of cultures more
organized than those of the Caribbean, with people dressed in cotton fabric who tilled pros-
perous fields and lived in stone houses. In their brief contact with the natives the Spaniards
heard of gold and silver in the land, and they also saw the first signs of human sacrifices.
After a cautious initial reception, the Spaniards were attacked by a large, fierce army of war-
riors; in the ensuing battle 50 of the Europeans were killed.
Despite the ferocity of the Yucatec warriors, the tantalizing references to gold fired the
Spaniards’ cupidity and Governor Velázquez prepared to pursue the encouraging prospects.
In 1518 he dispatched his nephew, Juan de Grijalva, with four ships and two hundred eager
men to investigate further. After five months, the expedition returned home with some small
gold objects and stories of a wealthy lake kingdom in the interior dominated by a great
lord—Moctezuma of the Aztecs. Believing his nephew to have acted too cautiously and sens-
ing the potential for riches and power, Velázquez commissioned the bolder, thirty-four-year-
old Fernando2 Cortés to undertake this venture.
FERNANDO CORTÉS
Cortés was a native of the arid province of Extremadura, the region from which so many of
the prominent conquistadors came. Born in 1485 into an old, honorable family of slender
means, the frail boy grew into a robust youth, often into mischief. Not much interested in
the law career his family wished for him, he chose to seek his fortune in the Spanish Indies
by preparing to sail with a large fleet. An amorous adventure frustrated his plans however:
he fell off a wall outside a bedroom and narrowly escaped death from a wrathful husband.
Injured and ill, he missed the sailing. Later, when he did catch a ship to the New World, it
was 1504, and Cortés was nineteen.
After accompanying Velázquez in the conquest of Cuba in 1511, Cortés settled there in
Santiago de Baracoa, where he raised livestock. His Indian servants mined enough gold for
him to enter into a trading partnership. With an official position in local government, Cortés
was a secure and respected member of the community. Had it not been for the indecision
of the governor’s nephew, Fernando Cortés would likely have ended his days in obscurity.
2 Cortés’s first name is often shown as Hernán or Hernando, but he seems to have preferred Fernando.
Cortés began recruiting a company of men following the pattern of earlier expeditions
from Spain, as a group of investors in the Yucatán enterprise. They contributed money, sup-
plies, weapons, and skills as an investment on future returns. Velázquez became apprehen-
sive about Cortés’s ambitions and canceled the expedition. He ordered the arrest of his
aspiring rival. Alerted to the danger, Cortés addressed his men, promised them riches and
glory, and then prepared to sail immediately. At muster, he counted five hundred fifty men,
perhaps one hundred of whom were sailors, along with several Cuban natives and some Af-
ricans. The soldiers were divided into eleven companies, each with a captain, and put aboard
eleven small vessels. Sixteen scarce and expensive horses were put on board, as well as some
small cannon. All of this had put Cortés and his men heavily in debt. But on February 18,
1519, they set sail as adventurers, to gamble on the potentially lucrative outcome.
THE INITIAL RECEPTION
After weathering stormy seas, the ships put in at the island of Cozumel, where friendly na-
tives told them of two white men who lived in nearby Yucatán. Cortés made contact with
one of them, Jerónimo de Aguilar, a survivor of a shipwreck in 1511 en route from Panama
to Santo Domingo. The other was thoroughly assimilated into Indian society, but Aguilar
was overjoyed to be among his own again. His knowledge of the native language and local
customs would be of great assistance to the Spaniards in the months ahead.
Later, at Potonchan (Tabasco), the local natives resisted Cortés’s overtures for peace and
attacked with abandon. After a bloody contest, Cortés took the city by force. In this and
other fights the Spaniards suffered many wounded and several men were killed. The Indi-
ans, on the other hand, lost two hundred men. Little gold was found, but the natives said
that people to the west had great amounts of it. After lecturing the Indians on their need for
salvation through Christianity and describing the magnificence of the king of Spain, Cortés
accepted a gift of twenty young maidens and continued up the Gulf coast.
When they got near the present city of Veracruz, the Spaniards met people who spoke a
tongue foreign to Aguilar. However, one of Cortés’s young maidens, baptized Marina, was
able to communicate with them. Her role as a cultural intermediary in the conquest proved
to be of great significance. Doña Marina, as she became known to her contemporaries (and
Malinche to Mexicans who consider her part in the conquest as treasonous) became Cor-
tés’s interpreter and adviser. More than that, she was later his mistress and bore him a son.
As a small child she had been given to or stolen by merchants who sold her to people of
the south, and consequently she knew not only her native Nahuatl but one of the Maya
languages as well. She communicated with the Indians, passing on the words in Maya to
Aguilar, who then translated into Spanish for Cortés.
Realizing that the Indians would report to Moctezuma, Cortés had his men perform a
mock battle to impress them. He then asked the local chief to send greetings to Moctezuma
and to tell the Indian ruler that the Spaniards desired to travel to his great city. Although
Tenochtitlan lay two hundred miles into the interior, swift runners quickly relayed the report
to Moctezuma, who had already received drawings of their ships. The emperor’s reaction is
not known, but early Spanish accounts propagated the myth that he feared that Quetzalcoatl,
80 colliding worlds
The chapel-de-fer, or “kettle-hat,” was a helmet A halberd of the type used by the conquistadores.
popular with the Spanish infantry.
A warhorse of the sixteenth century was some-

An elaborate Spanish stirrup of the seventeenth times fitted with a chamfron, like the one shown
century. here.
Fernando Cortés (1485–1547)

dressed in the half armor used
in battle. Full armor was not
as heavy as one might think,
but it did make the wearer very
warm. Most Spaniards eventually
adopted use of Indian layered-
cotton protection.
82 colliding worlds
or his emissaries, had returned to take the throne. For the moment, the Aztec king sent word
that he rejoiced in the coming of the strangers. He sent rich presents but declined to meet
with Cortés because he was ill and could not make the long journey. Moreover, it was out of
the question for Cortés to come to see him because the trip through rugged mountains and
deserts was too rigorous. Beyond these hardships, the Spaniards would have to pass through
dangerous enemy territories. In this fashion Moctezuma wished Cortés well, as if to dismiss
him—all of which disheartened the Spanish captain not one bit. He replied by message that
he would not think of missing the opportunity of greeting the great emperor to deliver a
message from his king.
Meanwhile, Cortés was well aware of his own tenuous legal position. Spaniards were not
allowed to go off exploring on their own but only with official permission. Since Cortés had
ignored the revocation of the governor’s commission to him, he was dangerously close to
treason. Thus, following another precedent from his homeland that allowed towns limited
autonomy, he sought to clothe his actions with a veneer of legality.
With that in mind, he founded a settlement called La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (today
Veracruz), according to established ceremony, in the king’s name, with the procedure duly
noted by witnesses. Cortés appointed town councilmen and other appropriate municipal
officials and resigned his leadership. The officials of Veracruz then proceeded to elect him
captain and justicia mayor with authority in military matters, pending royal orders to the
contrary. Then on June 20, 1519, the council sent a petition to the Spanish crown (the only
known original Spanish document to survive from that pivotal year), requesting recognition
for the town of Veracruz and new titles for Cortés. They asked the king to give Cortés the
right to grant encomiendas to his company, as well as to block Velázquez from seeking profit
from the expedition he had tried to thwart.
To gain the loyalty and goodwill of his men, Cortés turned over to them all the supplies
and equipment, which, he said, had put him seven thousand ducats in debt. In keeping with
the generosity of the moment, the men agreed that, after the king’s share of 20 percent—the
quinto—was deducted, their captain would receive one-fifth of the remaining spoils.
THE TOTONACS AND A MUTINY SUPPRESSED
Pushing on to the Totonac city of Cempoala, the Spaniards were enthusiastically greeted by
citizens bearing flowers and fruit. The obese ruler, who had sent regrets that he was too heavy
to travel to meet them, complained of Aztec tyranny and gave Cortés a detailed description
of Tenochtitlan. He suggested an alliance of the Spaniards with the victims of the oppressors.
Cortés agreed to stand by the Totonacs and told them to send word to potential allies
to be prepared. Cortés then directed other Indian towns to stop tribute payments to the
Aztecs. His army, strengthened by the arrival of a ship from Cuba bearing sixty Spaniards
and nine horses, Cortés made plans to press inland. In order to maintain a coastal base,
a fortress and houses were built at Veracruz, to be staffed by the ill, wounded, and older
men. Cortés wrote the king, telling of his progress to date, assuring him of his devotion,
and sending most of the treasure accumulated to that point. He added that he needed
help, requesting financial assistance. The town council wrote another letter to the king,
asking that the election of Cortés be confirmed. A ship with the letters, treasure, and two
delegates sailed for Spain in late July 1519.
Anticipating the dangers and hardships that lay ahead, some men, especially the followers
of Cuban governor Velázquez, plotted mutiny. Cortés learned of the conspiracy and, after a
trial and confessions, he hanged two of the leaders and severely punished others. Nonetheless
he knew he must maintain discipline and prevent mutiny under stressful conditions. Cortés
was regarded as fearless by his men with whom he shared all the fatigues, privations, wounds,
fevers, and narrow escapes from death and sacrifice. He now arranged to give the weak-hearted
no alternative and the disloyal no opportunity to desert. Alleging the unseaworthiness of the
ships, he instructed loyal pilots to strip the vessels and then scuttle them as quietly and quickly
as possible. His audacity brought the army close to mutiny, and some no doubt questioned his
sanity; but by this bold stroke he cut off all means of retreat. There was now no question of the
Spaniards’ course—they would have to conquer the mighty Mexica or die in the attempt. So
Cortés led his men and indigenous allies into the heart of the Aztec empire.
THE TLAXCALANS AND REPORTS TO MOCTEZUMA
Moctezuma’s depiction of the hardships before the Spaniards was only slightly exaggerated,
for the march upcountry would take them some two hundred miles, on a rough and twist-
ing path, from the steamy tropics to the chilling highlands, where they would find the Aztec
capital above seventy-five hundred feet. Aside from the wild terrain, there was indeed danger
from enemies—both those hostile to the Aztecs and those who acted under the orders of the
wily emperor himself.
Leaving one hundred fifty men and two horses at Veracruz, Cortés departed the city in the
middle of August with four hundred troops, hundreds of Cempoalan allies, the remaining
horses, and three cannon. As they pushed inland the Spaniards were well received by towns
subject to Moctezuma, for the emperor had ordered them to be friendly. Cortés sent some
of the Cempoalans ahead to make amicable contact with the Tlaxcalans, known to have an
adversarial relationship with the Aztecs. But the Tlaxcalans, aware of the communications
between Cortés and Moctezuma, were suspicious and engaged in several skirmishes with the
intruders, killing two of their horses. The word now spread that the beasts were mortal, a loss
of psychological advantage for the invaders.
Meanwhile, noble envoys from Moctezuma arrived to reaffirm the emperor’s friendship
and willingness to pay a yearly tribute to the king of Spain, provided Cortés halted his ascent
to the interior. In case appeasement would not work, Moctezuma also ordered his agents to
sacrifice captives whose blood the “gods” might wish to drink.
The European animals with Cortés at first terrified the natives. Later descriptions com-
pared horses to deer and also depicted beasts who snorted and bellowed as their muzzles
spilled over with foam. Although Cortés seems to have utilized war dogs little in battle, the
swift greyhounds and huge mastiffs, which weighed as much as 200 pounds, intimidated the
natives, one of whom recorded that
their dogs are enormous, with flat ears and long, dangling tongues. The color of their eyes is a
burning yellow; their eyes flash fire and shoot off sparks. Their bellies are hollow, their flanks
84 colliding worlds
long and narrow. They are tireless and very powerful. They bound here and there, panting, with
their tongues hanging out. And they are spotted, like a jaguar. . . . They raised their muzzles high;
they lifted their muzzles to the wind. They raced on before with saliva dripping from their jaws.3
Receiving descriptions of all these strange and unnerving things, the emperor summoned
priests to call on the supernatural to stop the Spaniards. And finally, when these strate-
gies failed to halt the Spaniards’ advance, he commanded his people to offer gifts to the
strangers. Surrounded by warriors who counseled resistance, Moctezuma had not ruled out
force, but his gifts to Cortés suggest another explanation. Gift exchanges between rulers were
customary gestures of reciprocity. But, the particular precious items sent to Cortés—feather
headdresses, other ceremonial clothing, and weaponry—symbolically signaled another in-
tention: to sacrifice the recipient.
As much as Cortés had tried to manipulate Indian rivalries and the discontent of tributar-
ies, he still did not fully understand the complexities of native governance. Quite aware of the
precariousness of the Spaniards’ situation, he must have breathed a sigh of relief when the
Tlaxcalans finally pledged their support. What he did not know was how close Xicotencatl,
the commander of the Tlaxcalan forces, had come to convince the other nobles to oppose the
newcomers. This would not be the first or the last time that the Spaniards would be saved by a
fortuitous political decision in a factionalized situation over which they had no control.
THE CHOLULA MASSACRE
Moctezuma, who had been kept abreast of these developments by his agents, warily waited
to see what the Spaniards would do next. His seeming reluctance to attack the invaders
stemmed in part from military and logistical weakness. It was now late September 1519, a
few months short of the harvest necessary to sustain the imperial economy and provide food
to supply large armies and of the dry season that could make roads passable.
At this point Cortés chose to proceed with his Indian supporters to Cholula, a former Tlax-
calan ally only recently brought into the Aztecan orbit. Cortés may have been manipulated by
Tlaxcalan and Cempoalan allies into attacking the Cholulans, who initially received him in
friendship. A Spanish version of the story holds that the Cholulans secretly planned to bottle up
the Spaniards in the city and attack them. Warned either by Tlaxcalan allies or by Doña Marina,
allegedly informed of the plot by a Cholulan woman, the Spanish captain now moved to an
unprovoked preemptive strike. He gave a prearranged signal to his men, who were poised for
the attack, and the guns raked the main plaza, cutting down the unsuspecting citizens. Cortés
gave orders to spare women and children, but in the ensuing five-hour battle some six thousand
Cholulan warriors were killed. Much of the ancient holy city was burned and then put to the
sack by the Spaniards’ Indian allies, who richly savored the defeat of their old enemies.
Whatever the reasons for Cortés’s decision to attack, certainly the massacre at Cholula
was a turning point, for Moctezuma, stunned at the Spaniards’ prescience, now seemed to
have despaired of stopping them from entering Tenochtitlan.
3 Miguel León Portilla, ed., The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, trans. Lysander
Kemp (Boston, MA, 1972), ix, 31, 41.
The Cholula massacre as depicted by a sixteenth-century Indian artist in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala.
I N T O T H E VA L L E Y O F A N A H U A C
The emperor reluctantly invited Cortés to an audience. The Spanish commander and his
men made their way toward the valley, observed by incredulous natives, one of whom later
preserved the striking impression made by the aliens.
They came in battle array, as conquerors, and the dust rose in whirlwinds on the roads; their
spears glinted in the sun, and their pennons fluttered like bats. They made a loud clamor as
they marched, for their coats of mail and their weapons clashed and rattled. Some of them
were dressed in glistening iron from head to foot; they terrified everyone who saw them.4
The Spaniards climbed to the high pass between the spectacular volcanic peaks of Popo-
catepetl and Iztaccihuatl. As they began the descent into the valley, they saw laid out in the
distance before them the grand prospect of the lake cities. In that breathless moment, viewing
one of the most awe-inspiring sights humans have ever seen, the soldiers experienced a tense
excitement from the drama of the occasion and all that it promised but also a chilling realiza-
tion of the audacity of their scheme. None was more alive to the peril than the captain.
4 Ibid., 41.
86 colliding worlds
Route of Cortés
As the army moved toward the lake, an embassy of prominent lords, including the
young Cacama, lord of Texcoco, approached to escort the Spaniards, expressing Moctezu-
ma’s regrets that he was unable to be there because of illness. Cacama announced that the
Spaniards’ way would be resisted and blocked, a threat that now rang hollow since there
had been no serious military opposition on the part of the Aztecs. Whether or not the em-
peror was demoralized by prophecies he decided to face Cortés in the stronghold where he
might contain the Spaniards.
On November 8, 1519, Indians of the valley flocked to observe the entrance of the new-
comers, who descended on Ixtapalapa, which anchored the longest causeway. From that
beautiful city the Spaniards could look straight down the thoroughfare to where the red
and white towers of Tenochtitlan rose out of the water and the torches of the temples shim-
mered on the lake. Proceeding down the causeway, the Spanish force of about four hundred,
with their six thousand native allies, moved through throngs of the curious who lined the
way with their canoes. At length the party crossed the bridge that gave access to the city and
there, under a canopy of green, gold, and silver and attended by a splendid retinue, was the
lord of the Aztec empire. Moctezuma leaned on the arms of two nephews. Clothed in gor-
geous finery, the fifty-two-year-old emperor was of dignified mien, with longish hair, a sparse
moustache and chin whiskers. As he walked forward, servants placed mantles on the ground
so that the royal sandals did not touch the earth. Following him was a magnificent proces-
sion of two hundred courtiers.
The bearded captain, dressed in shiny armor and bright European fabrics, dismounted
and strode forth to embrace Moctezuma; but the nobles restrained him, signifying that the
emperor’s person was not to be touched. Instead, the leaders saluted each other and ex-
changed gifts. Then Moctezuma courteously received Cortés and offered the Spaniards pala-
tial accommodations.
A TEST OF WILLS
By incredible good fortune, having made their way into the Mexica stronghold, the Span-
iards spent several days wandering about the city, taking in the marvelous sights, much like
any tourists in a foreign land. They admired the palaces with their cedar-lined chambers, the
gardens, and the canals. Other scenes had quite the opposite effect: they were aghast at the
great rack festooned with human skulls, and the priests, their long hair matted with dried
blood, were repulsive to them. The visitors were properly fascinated by the zoo, as Bernal
Díaz del Castillo noted, but as for “the infernal noise when the lions and tigers roared, and
the jackals and foxes howled, and the serpents hissed, it was horrible to listen to and it
seemed like a hell.”5
Moctezuma and his nobles visited their guests’ quarters often to see to their needs. This
attention and gracious hospitality notwithstanding, the peril of the situation was not lost
on Cortés, who realized that they were in fact trapped—if Moctezuma chose to make it so.
Outside their luxurious palace the Spaniards were surrounded by a multitude of Indians
who could rise on signal to ensnare them. The Spanish soldiers manifested their anxiety
to Cortés, who considered making Moctezuma a hostage. Cortés himself reported that he
accused Moctezuma of preparing to massacre the Spaniards in Tenochtitlan and made him
a prisoner. The emperor would continue to rule his people and would be treated with the
greatest respect. Meantime he was to counsel calm and patience among his people because
any outbreak of hostilities would result in his death. Whether or when Cortés took Mocte-
zuma prisoner is not certain, but the emperor continued to interact with the Spaniards while
also meeting with his advisors and worshiping at the great temple. In circumstances of un-
predictability, he counseled peace and continued to treat with Cortés who presented himself
as a powerful friend should nearby city-states defect from their alliance with Tenochtitlan.
Many in the high Aztec nobility of warrior and priests did not share Moctezuma’s ap-
proach of generosity and hospitality to the Spaniards. They were incensed at Cortés’s de-
mands that human sacrifice cease and pagan idols be smashed, to be replaced by crosses
and images of the Virgin Mary. After some six months, outraged priests roused the populace
and joined the warriors in calling for an armed offensive against the Spaniards. Moctezuma
advised Cortés, with the greatest urgency, to leave the city. The pleased ruler told Cortés that
the Spaniards could leave immediately—he had received word that a fleet of eleven ships
stood off the shore at Veracruz.
T H E N A R VÁ E Z E X P E D I T I O N
In Cuba, Diego Velázquez seethed with anger against Cortés and grew more bitter with news
of his protégé’s success. To Velázquez, Cortés’s deeds represented a blatant act of rebellion.
He assembled a large force to pursue the rebel captain and arrest him. Under the command
of Pánfilo de Narváez, the expedition included not only a sizable complement of foot sol-
diers but also eighty horses.
5 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, 1517-1521, trans. A. P. Maudslay, intro.
Irving Leonard (New York, NY, 1958), 213.
88 colliding worlds
Making port at Veracruz, Narváez ordered two soldiers and a priest to the garrison, now
under the command of the capable Gonzalo de Sandoval, to demand submission. Sandoval
arrested the three of them and sent them off to Cortés. Narváez then landed his troops and
proceeded instead to Cempoala, where the Totonacs, assuming the newcomers to be associ-
ates of Cortés, lavished gifts and provisions on them. Narváez convinced the Cempoalans
and agents of Moctezuma that Cortés and his men were traitors. He assured them that, after
Cortés was taken, all Spaniards would leave the country and the emperor would again rule
as before. Moctezuma, unknown to Cortés, responded with presents and encouragement to
Narváez, shrewdly exploiting the quarrel between the two Spanish forces. For the first time
since the strangers arrived, the besieged ruler found himself in a favorable position. With
good fortune, the white men might kill each other off.
A crossbow with windlass of the type used in the conquest. Because of its devastating force, popes forbade its
use against Christians; but it was used very effectively in wars against Muslims and natives of the New World.
A wheel-lock pistol of the sixteenth century. This one belonged to Charles V.

On first learning of the large Spanish expedition on the coast, Cortés had a sense of
foreboding—it was an army roughly twice as large as his own. After failing to win Narváez to
his side, Cortés mustered his followers. He told them that Narváez and his men had dishon-
ored them by insults and were trying to steal what they had won with their sweat and blood.
The captain selected some volunteers to accompany him to Veracruz and asked Moctezuma
to assure the safety of the Spaniards left behind. Leaving Pedro de Alvarado in command of
about eighty men in the city, Cortés departed for the coast with the same number. In Cholula
he was joined by one hundred twenty of his men who had been settling a town on the lower
Gulf coast.
In a rapid march Cortés soon put his men on the outskirts of Cempoala, arriving under
cover of darkness. He attacked suddenly, at midnight during a driving rainstorm, and in the
confusion and darkness he gained the advantage. It appears that many of the newcomers
were less than anxious to resist Cortés. After a frenzied skirmish, Narváez took a pike in the
eye and surrendered.
The swift and decisive action of Cortés, against a much larger force, served to enhance
his prestige among the Indians as well as with the men of Narváez. Using diplomatic skill
and bribery, Cortés now showed generosity to the defeated soldiers, most of whom he had
known in Cuba. They were eager enough to join him when they were promised their share of
the spoils. But as Cortés set out for the return to Tenochtitlan, a battered messenger brought
news of disaster—the Aztecs had risen up and Alvarado and his companions were pinned
down in their quarters.
T H E S PA N I A R D S B E S E I G E D A N D T H E N I G H T O F S O R R O W
Alvarado gave permission to the nobles of Tenochtitlan to celebrate an important festival,

that of Toxcatl in honor of Huitzilopochtli. The Spaniard agreed to the singing and dancing,
but there was to be no human sacrifice. There are conflicting versions of the tragedy that
subsequently occurred. We assume, in any event, that the reduced Spanish garrison was edgy,
especially since Narváez had sent provocative messages to the Aztecs, inciting them to rebel
against the men of Cortés.
According to Alvarado, he was informed that the ceremonial dance to the war god was a
prelude to an attack on the Spaniards, who were to be sacrificed. Therefore, he determined
to strike first. Others have maintained that he simply overreacted to rumors without basis
in fact or, more unlikely, that Cortés had sanctioned such an attack, reminiscent of Cholula,
before he left the city. Whatever the truth, during the festivities the Spaniards blocked the
four exits from the square, drew their swords, and rushed the celebrants. There followed a
wild and bloody scene in which the Indians, caught unarmed and without escape, had little
chance. In a short time thousands of Aztec nobles, the cream of the warriors, fell under Span-
ish steel. After the Spaniards retreated to their quarters, they were besieged by a multitude of
grief-stricken and enraged Indians.
Cortés reacted swiftly with forced marches to the valley in order to lift the siege. Approach-
ing Tenochtitlan, he found a strangely silent city, showing little sign of activity. He fired a
cannon and was heartened to hear a return boom. He entered Tenochtitlan unopposed with
90 colliding worlds
about one thousand soldiers, one hundred cavalrymen, and two thousand Tlaxcalan war-
riors. Although he gained the palace without difficulty, it soon became clear that the Aztecs
had simply allowed him to walk into a trap.
The Spaniards preferred fighting in wide open spaces where they could deploy their
guns to advantage and charge their horses into enemy ranks. Confined in the city, hemmed
in by buildings that afforded protection to the natives, they were less effective. The Aztecs
made repeated assaults on the Spanish position, finally resorting to what resembled suicide
squads. The cannon put shot into them at close range, while the harquebuses, falconets, and
crossbows took a frightful toll—and still fresh relays came. After twenty-three days and with
food supplies and munitions dwindling, Cortés persuaded Moctezuma, who was still held
hostage, to urge the Aztecs to desist. The ruler mounted the rooftop to draw attention and
began to speak. He was struck down and died three days later.
There are two versions of his death. The Spanish version is that he was stoned, per-
haps accidentally, by his own people. But it is more likely that Moctezuma was strangled or
stabbed to death by Spaniards. Because of his failure to effectively oppose the Spanish inva-
sion, Moctezuma has been viewed in Mexican histories as too indecisive. We cannot know
what motivated the emperor, but he had not shied from battle before.
Surrounded by tens of thousands of their adversaries, after failing in negotiations with the
Aztec ruling class and his men badly mauled from the fighting, Cortés decided to make a break
for it that night, June 30, 1520. The chosen avenue for escape was the Tlacopan (Tacuba) cause-
way which, though said to have been two miles long, was the shortest of them. The Aztecs had
removed the bridges spanning the gaps in the causeways, so Cortés ordered the construction
of a portable bridge, which was to be carried by forty Tlaxcalan warriors. The treasure acquired
earlier from Moctezuma was divided, with each man allowed to take what he wished for his
share. Some foolishly weighted themselves down with precious metals and jewelry, which later
hampered their movements and contributed to their capture or death.
Sandoval, who had returned to Tenochtitlan with Cortés, was put in charge of the lead
columns, while Alvarado was given command of the rear guard which included most of the
Narváez force. Cortés elected to lead a flying squad of one hundred men, ready to shift to any
weak point. At midnight they stole quietly out of the palace, the horses’ hooves wrapped in
cloth to muffle their movements. A pitch-black sky and light rain helped obscure the figures
but made the footing treacherous. It was early in the morning of July 1, 1520, the Noche
Triste, or “Night of Sorrow,” as it came to be known in Spanish history.
Moving carefully over the causeway, the Spaniards were able to place their bridge over the
first channel and cross. According to one version of their flight, an old woman drawing water
from a canal suddenly spotted them and cried out, but it is more likely that sentries sounded
the alarm with blasts on their conch shells. The Aztecs came pouring out of the darkness.
Thousands of warriors fell on the escapees, and some Spaniards in the rear retreated only to
be killed later. Other Indians flanked the causeway in their canoes and shot into the mass.
The Spanish formations broke as each man tried to save himself.
With great effort the bridge was thrown across the second breach, but under the strain
of fleeing cavalry and foot soldiers, the bridge collapsed, throwing into confusion and panic
those who followed. Cortés and his cohorts raced for the mainland, forced to swim the
remaining breaks in the causeway. The unit in gravest danger was the rear guard, for it was
taking the brunt of the Aztec charge. Alvarado’s mare had fallen under him and he now
stumbled over the masses of the dead choking the breaches and crossed on the bodies. As
the enemy closed, Alvarado, who was a powerful athlete, sprinted toward the last open chan-
nel, placed the point of his lance, and, according to legend, made a tremendous vault that
carried him over to safety.
In that terrifying night, the most drastic reversal of Spanish arms in the conquests of the New
World, at least four hundred fifty of Cortés’s men died6 and more than four thousand of the
steadfast Indian allies fell. Forty-six of the horses lay sprawled along the littered causeway. The
survivors gained the mainland, where, according to tradition, Fernando Cortés was so moved
by the disaster that he sat under a great tree and wept. He soon learned of another calamity—a
convoy of Spaniards and their allies traveling from Veracruz to join him had been captured at
Zultepec in western Tlaxcala. Powerless to rescue them, he discovered their fate months later.7
T H E S PA N I A R D S R E G R O U P
As the Spaniards and their allies retreated north (the most strategic route) to go around the
lake to get to Tlaxcala, they received help from some towns but also fought several battles, in
which more Spaniards and Tlaxcalans lost their lives. Uncertainty prevailed when the survi-
vors (about four hundred fifty Spaniards with twenty horses) reached the Tlaxcalan strong-
hold after five days; there they were allowed to nurse their wounds and regroup. They were
aided by at least three factors. (1) Although Tlaxcalan support was by no means assured even
though they had incurred more enmity from the Aztecs, Cortés secured it by promising them
spoils of a war along with exemption from tribute. (2) It was the rainy season and the Aztec
farmer-soldiers could not be called up in numbers great enough to mount a major offensive.
(3) Furthermore, the Aztec leadership was in disarray, with factions competing for power.
Many in the top warrior class had perished in the fighting, and Cuitlahuac, Moctezuma’s
brother, died of smallpox soon after being raised to the throne.
So along with the promise of indigenous fighters, the Spaniards had a silent, deadly,
and totally unexpected ally in the land: one of Narváez’s men came to Mexico infected with
smallpox, which spread quickly with devastating consequences to the Indians. Tens of thou-
sands of Spanish allies and foes, including many nobles, were carried off by the disease.
Some have questioned whether Spaniards may have infected with syphilis by natives because
a virulent form of it appeared in Europe soon after the conquest, although similar types
of spirochetes were already present there. In any event, Europeans were not decimated by
New World diseases. The dwindling Aztec leadership selected a nephew of Moctezuma, the
eighteen-year-old Cuauhtemoc, as the new ruler. Official mourning ceremonies for their lost
6 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who was present, wrote that on the Night of Sorrow and in the next five days, dur-
ing which the Aztecs pursued them, over 860 Spaniards died. Ibid., 321.
7 After the Aztec fall of Tenochtitlan, his men discovered that fifteen Spaniards and perhaps several hundred
allies (including fifty women and ten children) had been ritually sacrificed and eaten over a period of
months, stark evidence that not everyone had capitulated to the Spanish advance. Their resistance turned
out to have been futile as the town and its people were then destroyed.
92 colliding worlds
Cuauhtemoc (1502?-1525), the last Aztec emperor, as he appeared to a post-conquest Indian artist.
kings slowed preparations for dispatching the Spaniards once and for all. In the interim,
Cortés was laying plans for a return to Tenochtitlan. He would assault it by water as well as
by land. To that end he set carpenters to work constructing launches in sections that could
be carried from Tlaxcala across the mountains by native porters and assembled on the lake
shore. The vessels would be fitted for both sails and oars.
T H E FA L L O F T E N O C H T I T L A N
Cortés was well aware that for his strategy to work it was crucial to attract allies in the cities
adjoining the lake. Fortuitous events aided him in negotiating a pact with Iztlilxochitl, a son of
Nezahualpilli who had begun a rebellion against the ruler of Texcoco; together they took this
city without bloodshed. After making his headquarters there in December 1520, over the next
few months Cortés and his allies succeeded in winning the support of the surrounding area
through the use of diplomacy and force. By April, reinforced by new arrivals from Veracruz, he
counted nine hundred Spaniards, of whom eighty-six had horses, a hundred and eighteen car-
ried crossbows and harquebuses, and all were armed with swords and daggers. Some wielded
pikes and halberds, most had shields, and many wore some form of protective armor. There
were fifteen bronze cannon and three heavy guns of cast iron. Supporting the Spaniards were
native legions numbering many thousands of warriors. Cortés now dispatched Juan de San-
doval to Tlaxcala to escort the launches. Sections of the thirteen vessels were carried over the
mountains by 8,000 porters, while another two thousand bore provisions. The long procession,
stretching out almost six miles, arrived at the Spanish camp at Texcoco without grave incident.
The small Spanish fleet was crucial to their strategy, for if the causeways could be com-
manded, all transportation and communication to the island could be cut off. Moreover,
the Aztecs could be prevented from attacking the Spaniards from their canoes. Cortés chose
to command the fleet in person. Those fighting on land were assigned to three command-
ers, each of whom was to secure a causeway. On May 10, 1521, they began the siege, and
with help from favorable winds they overpowered hundreds of Aztec canoes. Spanish boats
penetrated canals on the edges of the city, after which the attackers set fire to many houses.
With the success of the operation on water, Alvarado and Cristóbal de Olid charged down
the causeways to engage the defenders of the barricades and bridges.
Furious fighting continued for weeks, for although the attackers were able to penetrate sec-
tions of the city, they could not easily hold positions. They were assailed by warriors who rained
arrows and stones on them from the flat rooftops while others engaged them in hand-to-hand
combat. The advantages of horse and cannon were greatly reduced in the close street fighting.
Cortés concluded, to his regret, that he must level the city. Accordingly, his men began the sys-
tematic destruction of the great temples and palaces that afforded his adversaries protection.
Early on, the aqueducts had been cut and the launches swept the lake to prevent water,
food, and reinforcements from reaching the besieged defenders. Still, in the face of heavy
casualties, disease, and a lack of food and drinking water, the Aztecs held out, resigned to the
warrior’s death. Attempts to effect a truce failed. Finally, in a last concerted offensive, the Span-
iards and their native allies overran the Aztec position. In the savage finale Cortés and Alvarado
backed the survivors to the wall, and Tenochtitlan fell on August 13, 1521.
An Aztec Jaguar Knight dressed for battle, wearing

a pelt and wielding an obsidian-edged war club. A mounted Spaniard in full armor.
94 colliding worlds
Taken by Cortés, Cuauhtemoc then touched the dagger in his adversary’s belt and spoke:
“I have done everything in my power to defend myself and my people, and everything that
it was my duty to do, to avoid the pass in which I now find myself. You may do with me
whatever you wish, so kill me, for that will be best.”8
When the tumult subsided and the dust settled, there remained a scene of desolation:
the beautiful metropolis effectively smashed, the gardens flattened, and the canals filled with
rubble. The destruction of one of history’s grandest cities was accompanied by bravery and
suffering on both sides. Aside from their superior weapons and armor, the Spaniards derived
great advantage from some 200,000 Indian allies, their horses, the spread of smallpox, and
a favorable psychological atmosphere. They benefited enormously from their deployment of
native allies in tactics of all-out warfare that ignored the traditional ceremonial formalities
of Aztec combat.
Brilliant as it was in certain respects, Aztec civilization thrived on militarism; therefore,
the character of its fall was consistent with its rise. And it was poetically apt that its last great
warrior-king was Cuauhtemoc, whose name translates as “Falling Eagle” or, in another sense,
“Setting Sun.”
Bassett, Molly H. The Fate of Earthly Things: Aztec Gods and God-Bodies. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2015.
Brian, Amber, Bradley Benton, and Pablo García Loaeza, eds. The Native Conquistador: Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s
Account of the Conquest of New Spain. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015.
Cerwin, Herbert. Bernal Díaz, Historian of the Conquest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Chance, John K. Conquest of the Sierra: Spaniards and Indians in Colonial Oaxaca. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1989.
Cook, Noble David, and W. George Lovell, eds. Secret Judgments of God: Old World Diseases and Colonial
Spanish America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Cortés, Hernán. Hernán Cortés: Letters from Mexico. Translated and edited by A. R. Pagden, with an intro-
duction by J. H. Elliott. New York: Orion Press, 1971.
Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Ecological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1972.
Cypess, Sandra. La Malinche in Mexican Literature from History to Myth. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1991.
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, 1517-1521. Translated by A. P.
Maudslay with an introduction by Irving Leonard. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1958.
. The History of the Conquest of New Spain. Edited by David Carrasco. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 2008.
Elliot, John H. Imperial Spain, 1469-1716. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962.
Gardiner, C. Harvey. The Constant Captain: Gonzalo de Sandoval. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1961.
. Naval Power in the Conquest of Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1956.
Hassig, Ross. Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1988.
8 Quoted in Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary (Berkeley, CA, 1964), 292.
. “The Collision of Two Worlds.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael C. Meyer and
William H. Beezley, 73-106. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
. Mexico and the Spanish Conquest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.
Iglesia, Ramón. Columbus, Cortés and Other Essays. Translated and edited by Lesley B. Simpson. Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1969.
Kamen, Henry. Philip of Spain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
Karttunen, Frances. Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univer-
sity Press, 1994.
León Portilla, Miguel, ed. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Translated by Ly-
sander Kemp. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1972.
Liss, Peggy. Isabel, the Queen: Life and Times. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
López de Gómara, Francisco. Cortés: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1964.
Lynch. John. Spain, 1516-1598: From Nation State to World Empire. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1992.
Matthew, Laura E., and Michel R. Oudijk, eds. Indian Conquistadores: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of
Mesoamerica. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.
Nader, Helen. “The Spain that Encountered Mexico.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael C.
Meyer and William H. Beezley, 11-44. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
Padden, Robert C. The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico, 1503-
1541. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Parker, Geoffrey. Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.
Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico. New York: Bantam Books, 1967.
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“La Conquista de México.” Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.
Schwartz, Stuart, ed. Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico. New York:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000.
Schwaller, John F., with Helen Nader. The First Letter from New Spain: The Lost Petition of Cortés and his
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Todorov, Tzvetzan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
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. Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2006.
CHA PTER 7
THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW SPAIN
T he conquerors withdrew to nearby Coyoacan, leaving the Aztecs to remove their dead.
The Spaniards decided to build a new city over the ruins of Tenochtitlan, and soon
armies of native laborers under the direction of not only Spanish architects and artisans but
also indigenous elites, laid the foundations for the splendid city of Mexico. Many continu-
ities in the lived experience of prehispanic daily life persisted as new features were added. Try
as they would, Spanish officials and Franciscan friars could not completely erase indigenous
influences as material and cultural exchanges evolved. New civic and religious rituals often
showed traces of indigenous celebratory practices.
I N D I A N S L AV E R Y A N D T H E E N C O M I E N D A S Y S T E M
For Spaniards, the conquest had been the result of a great effort by individual adventurers
who received no pay for their work. Many had gone into debt to outfit themselves for the en-
terprise; all had suffered hardships and had seen companions die horrible deaths; almost all
had been wounded. But the treasure for which they had endured so much proved to be a pit-
tance. Some of the survivors of the Noche Triste had escaped with a few valuable objects, but
the bulk of the riches had been lost in the lake waters.1 Of the spoils, a horseman received
as his share only about a hundred gold pesos, one-fifth of the cost of a horse. Foot soldiers,
who constituted the bulk of the army, received even less. As the mood of his companions
grew uglier, Cortés relented and allowed the torture of Cuauhtémoc and other lords, hoping
thereby to learn the location of any remaining hoard of riches. The royal feet of the nobles
were oiled and held over fire. Despite their agonies, they gave no information, for there was
no cache—or at least none has ever been found.
How, then, were the conquerors to be rewarded? Invariably the first answer to this ques-
tion came in the form of human bodies. Indians were initially often brutally enslaved and
1 In 1981, several feet underground in Mexico City a crude gold bar was found. Quite possibly it was dropped
on the retreat.
96
The Settlement of New Spain 97
forced to perform labor in appallingly inhumane tasks. The Aztecs, of course, had slaves, so
the practice was not new to their subject populations, although the Spanish rationale was
different (and would be challenged by legal scholars). Cortés saw that Aztec practices pro-
vided other avenues to wealth, and he moved to secure the tribute rolls of the Aztec empire,
which contained paintings identifying the subject towns along with the kinds and amounts
of tribute paid to Tenochtitlan. There were 370 such towns, each having yielded to the Aztec
emperor one-third of its production. Thus, the Spanish captain acquired knowledge of the
population, the geography, and the economy—not to mention the tribute that the conquer-
ors could now enjoy. In order to calm his irate soldiers, Cortés agreed, with some misgivings,
to distribute the Indian towns to them as rewards.
There was a precedent for this practice; in the Caribbean Islands, Spaniards had been
granted native villages for their profit. As originally conceived, this system, the encomienda,
was seen as the best solution for all concerned. The individual deserving Spaniard (the en-
comendero) received the tribute of the Indians, as well as their free labor, in return for which
the natives were commended to the encomendero’s care. He was to see to their conversion
to Christianity, to ensure good order in the village, and in all ways to be responsible for
their welfare. Theoretically it was thought that this system could better acculturate, control,
and protect the Indians. What happened in practice was quite another matter as the system,
subjected to every imaginable abuse, kept the Indians in a state of bondage, although not
chattel slavery. Indians were overworked, separated from their families, cheated, and physi-
cally maltreated. The encomienda in early decades was responsible for creating economic
and social tragedies that persisted in one guise or another into modern times.
The tremendous loss of Indian lives, attributable at least in part to slavery and the enco-
mienda, offered grim warnings. Moreover, the Spanish crown wanted the tribute for itself
and thus sought to maintain direct control over the Indians to retain them as royal vassals.
Yet because the crown did not have the fiscal resources to compensate those who had won
extensive territories and millions of people for Spain, the king acceded the awarding of in-
digenous labor and tribute through the encomienda. Nonetheless, he was never at ease with
the arrangement and from the first sought the means to bring all Indian towns under royal
control. The struggle between the crown and the individuals who held encomiendas domi-
nated much of the suxteenth century.
THE SPREAD OF CONQUEST
Even before the fall of Tenochtitlan, Cortés had sent small parties to explore the land’s re-
sources. They returned with information on sources of gold and silver and reported on the
location of natural ports and timber for the construction of ships. Once he had secured the
valley, Cortés lost no time in dispatching expeditions in all directions to bring other inhab-
itants in the country under Spanish control. He was impelled to do so for various reasons:
to gather more information about the people and the land, to satisfy a consuming interest
in the existence of a strait through the continent to Asia, and to dominate as much territory
as possible before rivals staked their claims. His time was short, for the crown had ordered
an agent to take over the government and to arrest him. By August 1521 Cristóbal de Tapia
98 colliding worlds
had arrived, but he was intimidated by partisans of Cortés and withdrew. The conqueror
meanwhile sent the king word of his defeat of the Aztecs, after which Cortés was forgiven
his insubordination.
During the course of the next several years Spanish forces under many different lieuten-
ants overran Mexico, parts of Central America, and a piece of what is now the southwestern
United States. In doing this, they had a particular advantage. Just as in the earlier conquest
of the Aztecs, they were able to recruit indigenous co-conquerors who accompanied them
in the thousands. Among these were Tlaxcalans, Purépecha, and Otomí who were crucial
to the planting of new colonies; for their services they received special privileges. The use
of different ethnic groups in military conquest had also been a feature of late prehispanic
expansion, but these multi-directional flows of migration increased under Spanish rule. Al-
though the conquest of the Mexica-Aztecs had taken a relatively short time, the Spaniards
An early map of “Temixitan” (Tenochtitlan). Probably drawn at the request of Cortés, it appeared in the Latin
edition of his Second Letter, printed in Nuremburg in 1524. In order to ingratiate himself. Cortés wrote five long
letters to the king in which he related the progress of the conquest.
soon discovered that bringing under their sway the entire land was a vastly more difficult
enterprise, not least because of the geographical features that characterized Mexico.
They were already familiar with the southern part of Mexico’s land mass, which stretched
along the eastern coast from the flat lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula to Veracruz. They
had made the climb from the coast to the valleys of Puebla-Tlaxcala and then up through
the peaks to the southeast of Tenochtitlan and down into the central Valley of Mexico. Much
of Mexico’s terrain is, in fact, mountainous. The explorers who ventured northward sailed
along the Pacific coast as far as modern-day British Columbia or followed a central plateau
(altiplano) bordered by the Sierra Madre Occidental on the west and the Sierra Madre Orien-
tal on the east. Both chains stretch to the current Mexican border with the United States. On
their coastal sides they drop sharply down to relatively narrow Pacific and Caribbean plains,
respectively. Much of north central and northwest Mexico is semi-arid, and the precipitous
canyons of the Sierra Madre Occidental do not offer inviting human habitats.
The Spaniards who undertook the campaigns into southern territories similarly encoun-
tered highly broken terrain consisting of mountains and valleys. The manifold variations
in elevation explain why Mexico experiences so much climatic differentiation, even though
two-thirds of its land mass lies in tropical latitudes. Southern coastal areas, on both the
Caribbean and Pacific sides, experience hot and humid weather, tropical rain forest in some
areas, and occasional hurricanes; but between these coasts rise the highest mountains and
valleys, where the climate becomes cooler as altitude increases. The basin floor of the Valley
of Mexico lies within a comfortable temperate zone, while the mountains that surround it
have a colder climate. Latitude and altitude (and the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific)
also influence rainfall patterns in the annual cycle of wet (warm) and dry (cool) seasons.
Compared to the north, southern Mexico receives greater amounts of precipitation with less
annual variability. This is why indigenous peoples formed the most concentrated sedentary
communities in central and southern Mexico.
In moving out from the center (the Valley of Mexico), Spaniards encountered difficult
terrain and diverse ecosystems with considerable climatic variations in temperature and rain-
fall, factors that influenced their efforts at conquest. Where they found more mobile peoples
whose agriculture was circumscribed by aridity or other climatic factors (as in the north),
they tended to have trouble subduing them. Highly centralized states strongly dependent
on a dominant capital are vulnerable, tending to disintegrate quickly when the center falls.
Hence, the collapse of the imperial capital of Tenochtitlan was tantamount to the surrender
of almost all towns under the city’s control, and much of central Mexico automatically fell to
the invaders. There were many other areas of Mexico, however, outside the Aztec pale. Some
threw in with the Spaniards early, and some came around as the Spaniards gained in reputa-
tion. But other groups that had successfully resisted the Aztecs rejected Spanish overlordship
as well. While none could command forces comparable to those of the Aztecs, their more
fragmented political structure made conquest difficult. Fighting the loosely organized indig-
enous groups of Mexico presented the same frustrations and vexing problems that confront
those dealing with guerrilla tactics in modern warfare.
Cortés was eager to plant settlements with a view to legitimizing his actions. In 1521
he sent Gonzalo de Sandoval to Coatzacoalcos (later called Puerto México but now known
100 colliding worlds
also by its Indian name) to settle that region and establish better communications with the
islands. The same year Luis Marín departed for Oaxaca, where he encountered little success
in his attempt to pacify the Zapotecs in hill country. He was more fortunate farther south
in Chiapas, remaining until 1524 to establish a town; however, in 1527, the Chiapanecos
rebelled, and the territory had to be reconquered by Diego de Mazariegos.
The governor of Jamaica, Francisco de Garay, had earlier been granted a royal commis-
sion to govern the Pánuco region north of Veracruz on the Gulf coast. Hoping to prevent
what they considered an incursion, Cortés and Alvarado used force and diplomacy to con-
vince Garay to withdraw. Meanwhile Cristóbal de Olid, one of Cortés’s closest friends and
confidants, was sent to western Mexico in 1522. After a cordial reception in Michoacán, he
explored the Pacific coast, but in Colima he was stiffly opposed and forced to pull back.
Aware that expeditions from Panama were pushing northward up into Central America,
Cortés moved to seize control first. Rumors circulated of cities rivaling Tenochtitlan in size
and wealth, and in late 1523 Alvarado was ordered into the Maya territory of Guatemala,
accompanied by Nahua, Zapotec, and Mixtec allies who stayed on, imprinting their own
Mesoamerican influences. After some arduous campaigns, he drove into El Salvador and
conquered that region as well. For Alvarado’s brilliant, though bloody, accomplishments, a
grateful Spanish king appointed him governor and captain general of the lands he had won.
Principal Explorations and Conquests in the Sixteenth Century

Shortly after Alvarado’s departure from Mexico, Olid set sail to secure Honduras, stop-
ping by Cuba for provisions. At this point Olid threw off loyalty to his captain and made
common cause with the enemy, Governor Velázquez. When Cortés learned that Honduras
was to be taken in the name of Olid and Velázquez, he was furious. He dispatched a punitive
expedition, then decided to go down himself. It was the most costly decision the conqueror
ever made.
Departing Mexico with a party of Spaniards mostly mounted, along with many Indian
allies, musicians, tumblers, acrobats, and some young Spanish noblemen, Cortés headed
to the Gulf coast and then cut southward across unknown country. The journey took them
through Tabasco, Campeche, and the base of Yucatán. Because they were not following
native trade routes, they encountered few settlements and had to survive off the wilder-
ness. Great numbers of porters collapsed from exhaustion, and many of the horses perished.
Indians and Spaniards alike contracted fevers and dysentery, and all suffered from near star-
vation. Though lacking the drama of the Aztec conquest, the Honduras march exceeded the
earlier enterprise in sheer hardship. For months the expedition cut its way through thick
jungles, waded in swamps, and crossed swollen rivers. Once, within a distance of fifty miles,
the Spaniards were forced to build fifty bridges, one of which, by Cortés’s account, required
a thousand trees. During this disastrous march a tragic episode occurred. Cuauhtémoc and
The flamboyant Pedro de Alvarado (1485–1541), Cortés’s

lieutenant and the conqueror of Guatemala.
several other native lords had been taken along as hostages lest, in the absence of Cortés
from Mexico, they encourage a native rebellion. When they allegedly attempted to foment
an uprising among the Indians on the expedition, all, including Cuauhtémoc, were summar-
ily tried and hanged.
At last Cortés and his men stumbled into Honduras, only to find that all had been in
vain, for the advance punitive party had beheaded the rebel Olid and returned to Mexico.
After spending some time trying to establish a settlement in his name, the captain set about
returning, this time wisely traveling by sea. The nineteen-month venture was a remarkable
feat of exploration and endurance but a fiasco in all else.
CORTÉS IS DISCREDITED
Before departing for Honduras, Cortés had entrusted the government to the hands of royal
treasury officials, with Alonso de Estrada in charge. Estrada was an honorable judge, but he
found it difficult to govern the various factions that had formed and finally lost control. Be-
cause the expedition to Honduras remained out of contact for so long, the rumor spread in
Mexico that Cortés and the others had perished. Encouraged by word of Cortés’s death, vari-
ous factions moved to dispossess his followers of their encomiendas and other privileges,
which were then handed over to supporters of corrupt treasury officials. A time of anarchy
for all, Indians were especially maltreated.
The usurping governors ordered funeral ceremonies for Cortés and his men and then
granted permission for the “widows” to remarry. When one of the wives, Juana Ruiz de
Marcilla, criticized the action and heaped scorn on the officials, she was given one hundred
lashes in public. Cortés later paid her great honors, carrying her on his horse and addressing
her as “Doña.” Most detrimental for the captain (irreparably damaging, as it turned out)
were the accusations made against him in dispatches sent to Spain, in which he was charged
with having hidden Aztec treasure for himself, misusing crown funds, and cheating the royal
treasury in other respects. The reports also cast doubt on his loyalty to the king. The dra-
matic news that Cortés was alive caused his men to rise up and seize the usurpers, who were
thrown in cages and put on public display. Cortés’s return to Mexico had a calming effect on
political strife, but his reputation was not so easily restored.
The charges against the conqueror were never substantiated, but they planted seeds of
suspicion. Moreover, the allegations provided a convenient pretext for which the crown may
well have been thankful. At precisely the time Cortés was campaigning against the Aztecs,
Emperor Charles V, the king of Spain, faced a revolt of his nobles at home; and although
he was able to prevail, he retained a distrust of the fractious Spanish nobility. Thus, Charles
viewed with some concern the concentration of so much prestige and power in the hands
of a budding aristocracy in the New World, especially since these “nobles” were rough ad-
venturers and far distant from his royal armies in Europe. Crown policy had been to ease
explorers and conquerors from political power but, for the sake of appearances, the crown
sought pretexts to void earlier signed agreements. Hence, Columbus’s maladministration of
Española had given the crown an excuse to replace him. And now the accusations against
Cortés would serve the same purpose.
Charles V (1500–58), king of Spain and Holy Roman Em-

peror, reigned during the decades of the Spanish conquests
of the New World.
Receiving word of the defeat of the Aztecs, the king had appointed the conqueror as
governor and captain general of New Spain in 1522. As an administrator, Cortés, in addi-
tion to moving energetically to explore the land and seek ports for further discoveries, began
to develop the economy. He undertook the search for mines, introduced European plants
and livestock, and promoted commerce. His active encouragement of marriages between his
lieutenants and daughters or widows of Indian nobles strengthened Spanish claims to in-
digenous wealth. He issued ordinances to implement in the colony, sought ecclesiastics and
educators, and in many respects acted as an enlightened governor should. While he probably
commanded sufficient respect and fear among both Spaniards and Indians to seize the land
as his own, the evidence is that he remained stoutly loyal to his sovereign. The king and his
council did not, however, ignore the allegations made against the conqueror by enemies
both at court and in Mexico, and they decided to suspend him for the time being at least.
Royal officials were sent to supplant Cortés’s authority. Growing increasingly frustrated and
disgusted, he resolved to lay his case before the king in person.
With a grand retinue of Indian nobles, exotic Mexican plants and animals, and rich gifts
for Charles V, Cortés arrived in Spain in 1528. His entrance caused a great sensation, and he
was received with considerable fanfare. Charles V, pleased with his gifts and charmed by the
conqueror’s gallant manner, was satisfied that most of the rumors of misconduct were false
or exaggerated. He allowed Cortés to choose for his encomiendas twenty-two towns, and the
captain proceeded to select some of the richest settlements in the land. He received 23,000
Indians in encomienda, was confirmed as captain general, along with the grand title of the
Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca. Nonetheless, he was not confirmed as governor of New Spain,
and he took this slight as a special rebuke.
T H E A D M I N I S T R AT I O N O F N E W S PA I N
Prior to the settlement of Mexico, there were few Spaniards in the Indies. The territories
under Spanish control were small and required little attention from Spain. Ferdinand and
Isabella appointed counselors for matters pertaining to the New World and turned their full
attention to more pressing matters in Europe. In 1503, shortly before her death, Isabella cre-
ated the Casa de Contratación, a house of trade to deal with affairs of the Indies, especially
with regard to commerce, shipping, and emigration to the colonies. Juan Rodríguez de Fon-
seca, the bishop of Burgos, was given prime authority for making overseas policy.
The situation changed considerably, however, following the conquest of Mexico, with its
extensive lands and millions of people. Shortly thereafter Central America was penetrated,
and early reports on Peru and other South American lands promised even more far-flung
colonies. Affairs in the New World now clearly required a more broadly organized adminis-
tration. Consequently, in 1524 Charles V created a supreme body called the Council of the
Indies. This committee, composed of able, high-ranking Spaniards, would oversee all aspects
of the colonies, both counseling the king and acting on his behalf.
Earlier, in 1511, the crown created in Santo Domingo a court of appeals so that matters of
justice could be handled in the Indies instead of being referred to Spain. But the three judges
of that body, called the audiencia, came to have broader duties. Traditionally, audiencias in
Spain were courts of justice only, but in the New World they assumed executive and legisla-
tive functions as well. The judges (oidores) in Santo Domingo were the most powerful indi-
viduals in the Indies. The lack of good government in New Spain moved the crown in 1527
to establish a similar court in Mexico. Four experienced judges in Spain were appointed, but
two died before taking office. The president of the audiencia was Nuño de Guzmán, a lawyer
from a noble family with powerful connections.
Guzmán joined the two surviving judges in Mexico in early 1529. The rule of these three
judges proved to be blatantly abusive and corrupt. As an adherent of Governor Velázquez of
Cuba, Guzmán was a dedicated enemy of Cortés and, with the conqueror absent in Spain,
the audiencia moved against his followers. Once again their encomiendas were taken, and
some were removed from official positions. It was a time of graft, corruption, and injustice
for Indians and Spaniards alike.
Meanwhile, a bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, had arrived in Mexico City. Although he bore
the title “Protector of the Indians,” the judges refused to recognize his authority and pre-
vented the Indians from seeking help from him or any other clergyman. Angered by the
chaos and iniquities engendered by the misrule, Zumárraga bravely preached a sermon
condemning the oidores, which brought threats against his life. All correspondence criti-
cal of the government was intercepted before it reached Spain, until the bishop traveled to
Veracruz and entrusted a letter to the crown to a faithful sailor who smuggled the message
aboard a departing vessel. As it became clear to Guzmán that his days were numbered and
fearing imminent arrest by royal agents, he set off in late 1529 for the west of Mexico, hoping
to regain the royal confidence by a spectacular conquest of new territories.
Guzmán invaded Michoacán with a large force of Spaniards and thousands of native
auxiliaries. He cut a bloody path through the west, burning villages, murdering chiefs, en-
slaving the Indians, and abusing them in every manner. One of the most brutal incidents
saw the Tarascan king dragged behind a horse until he was almost senseless and then burned
alive. The soldiers pressed north, lured by tales of a bountiful island ruled by attractive Ama-
zons, tales fabricated by the natives to induce their tormentors to move on. Quite aside from
his depredations, Guzmán explored and conquered a large area, all the way up to southern
Sonora. Altogether he founded five cities.
Juan de Zumárraga (1468–1548), a Franciscan, was the

first bishop and archbishop of Mexico.
The extensive western region was isolated from central Mexico and was later created as
the separate administrative territory of New Galicia, over which its conqueror was appointed
governor. But Guzmán’s apparently psychopathic behavior caught up with him at length.
After his long odyssey, notable for its duration no less than its savagery, Guzmán was ordered
in 1533 to appear before a new audiencia to answer charges. In 1538 he was sent to Spain,
where he spent the next two decades of his life as a virtual prisoner of the court.
While Guzmán was terrorizing the hinterlands of the west, the southeast region of Yu-
catán, the area first sighted in 1517 by Spaniards from Cuba, remained outside Spanish
control. Its conquest had been unsuccessfully attempted in 1527 by Francisco de Montejo,
an early companion of Cortés. The enterprise went badly because of unfavorable terrain and
a lack of local provisions, but mostly because of the indomitable resistance of the Maya, as
well as Spaniards’ failure to understand Maya political institutions. After nine years of stale-
mate in Yucatán, the conquest was renewed in 1537, and Montejo’s son and nephew, both
of whom were also named Francisco, brought most of the region under Spanish control by
1542, when the city of Mérida was founded. In 1547 a serious insurrection broke out, and
many Spanish settlers were killed before calm was restored. After two decades of conflict, the
conquest of Yucatán was finally effected.
After the fiasco of the first audiencia, the king and the Council of the Indies were more
circumspect in their choice of oidores. They chose wisely in the appointment of Sebastián
Ramírez de Fuenleal, who had served as both president of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo
and bishop of that island. A man of the highest integrity and proven abilities, he stood
in contrast to his predecessor in Mexico. He was joined in Mexico City by fellow judges
of uniformly high quality, including Vasco de Quiroga, who would distinguish himself
later in other undertakings. Within five years (1530–35) these learned magistrates wrought
significant changes in the troubled colony. Bringing to bear the full weight and authority
of the crown and maintaining a busy schedule, they proceeded to correct many abuses.
A semblance of order was restored, and ordinances designed to improve the conditions
of the Indians were passed, despite the failure of most encomenderos to obey. The crown
also moved to eliminate any threat from the powerful Cortés. Under investigation for enco-
mienda abuses, he was deprived of various properties and privileges. Cortés remained the
most prestigious individual in New Spain, but in 1535 even that status was challenged with
the arrival of a viceroy.
The king and the Council of the Indies had decided by 1528 that New Spain needed a
ruler who would personify the dignity and authority of the crown and offset Cortés’s influ-
ence. Such a person would have to be a great nobleman, jealous of his honor and above
staining his name with acts of avarice and injustice, one whose competence and loyalty to
the king were beyond question. After all, he would literally be a “vice-king.” Cortés, who
aspired to the post, had neither the desirable lineage nor the administrative experience for
the high honor. Furthermore the very qualities that brought him success as a conqueror—
audacity, independence of thought, and imagination—were anathema to the centralized
bureaucracy of an absolute monarch.
The appointment went to Don Antonio de Mendoza, the count of Tendilla, and he
proved to be an excellent choice. An able ambassador to Rome, Mendoza was scion of one
of Spain’s most distinguished families and related to the royal house itself. He received his
commission as viceroy in 1530, but the press of personal affairs prevented his arrival in
Mexico until 1535. The viceroy’s charge was to observe all matters of consequence affecting
the colony except judicial affairs, which would continue as the province of the audiencia. He
had special orders to increase crown revenues and to ensure good treatment of the Indians.
He was also vice-patron of the church and responsible for the defense of New Spain. Allow-
ing the viceroy a good salary as well as perquisites that included a palace and a personal
guard, the crown purposely sought to enhance the prestige of the office.
Don Antonio de Mendoza (1492?-1552) served as first

viceroy in New Spain, from 1535 to 1550.
I N S E A R C H O F FA B L E D C I T I E S
During the 1520s and 1530s many fantastic tales circulated about wondrous lands in the
New World. Among the more intriguing was the so-called Northern Mystery, which embraced
not only the persistent myth of the Amazons but also stories of the Seven (Golden) Cities
of Cíbola. Speculation about fabulously rich kingdoms in other parts of the New World was
rife, and it is not strange that men were ready to believe them. Had not the first rumors of
Tenochtitlan and the dazzling Inca empire (conquered in the early 1530s) appeared just
as fanciful?
Pánfilo de Narváez, the one-eyed casualty of Veracruz, commanded a fleet to Florida
in 1528, hoping to discover the fabled lands of Apalachee. After an overland expedition,
Narváez failed to make contact with his supply ships, and he and his men tried to reach
Mexico by sailing makeshift boats down the Gulf coast. Most of them perished, but a few
made the Texas coastline. In the end only four survived: Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, two
other Spaniards, and Esteban, a black slave. For years they wandered among the Indians of
the present-day Southwest of the United States, sometimes as slaves, sometimes as respected
medicine men. In 1536, after many travails, they reached the northern Mexican outpost of
Culiacan, where they were received with astonishment by their fellow countrymen.
Having spent so much time in the north, they were plied with questions when they re-
turned to Mexico about the Seven Cities, of which they had heard vaguely. These tales caused
excitement, and prominent men scrambled for the privilege of undertaking the great search.
Perhaps just as important were the accounts told by Aztecs about their homeland Aztlan,
somewhere in the north, giving rise to the idea that a great city, comparable to Tenochtitlan,
existed to the north. The viceroy sensed an opportunity for an expedition that might over-
shadow the achievements of Cortés, so of course he kept the rights for himself. But he took
the precaution of sending an advance party, guided by Esteban, under the command of a
Franciscan friar named Marcos de Niza. Pushing ahead of the main party, Esteban met an
ironic end, for, having survived so long among the northern tribes, he apparently angered
some Indians, who killed him.
Distraught by this news, Marcos de Niza proceeded with extreme caution. He reportedly
viewed from a distance one of the Zuni villages in New Mexico, which he later related as
larger than Tenochtitlan. Moreover—so he said—local chiefs told him that the city he saw
was the smallest of the seven. In kindness to the friar, it must be said that sometimes, toward
sunset, the fading light in that part of the country casts a rosy glow, and there may have
been pieces of reflective quartz stuck in the adobe walls of the two-story dwellings he saw
from afar; so it is possible that he imagined he saw something truly marvelous. In any case,
Spaniards and Nahuas in Mexico wanted to believe in the existence of such cities, and prepa-
rations were eagerly made for the adventure. Those who had missed the earlier conquests
would now have their chance.
Mendoza chose his friend, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, the governor of New Gali-
cia, to lead the well-equipped expedition. In 1540, 336 Spaniards, with hundreds of Indian
allies and about 1,000 horses and swine, moved out with high expectations. When they saw
the mud village at the end of a grueling march, they vented their frustration by slaughtering
Route of Coronado’s Expedition, 1540–42
Zunis unwilling to cooperate with them during a time of ritual celebration. From other
Pueblo Indians, they learned of “the Land of Quivira,” some distance away but even more
wonderful than the legendary cities of Cíbola. Their hopes raised, off they went.
The natives whose villages were being destroyed soon found that the best way to get
rid of the unwelcome intruders was to tell them that, while they had no wealth, there were
abundant riches más allá—farther on. Relying on such information, the Spaniards wandered
aimlessly for months, finally reaching the vicinity of Wichita, Kansas. Now greatly disheart-
ened, having seen only a few villages scattered over a vast prairie and some “shaggy cows”
(buffalo), the miserable survivors dragged themselves back to Mexico. Still the organization
of natives in pueblos, supported by the myth of Aztlan, fueled the possibility of further ex-
ploration. In 1542 a party commanded by Juan Rodríguez de Cabrillo sailed up along the
shoreline of California. Seeing little to interest them, Spaniards would not settle California
for several centuries. That same year Mendoza dispatched Ruy López de Villalobos to the
Philippines (named for prince Philip), but the expedition failed to return to Mexico.
The Vázquez de Coronado mission occasioned serious problems of another sort. When
the expedition left western Mexico a good number of Spaniards who had settled New Gali-
cia went along, leaving the frontier sparsely occupied by Christians and militarily weak-
ened. Conscious of the situation, the Indians, who harbored resentments going back to the
cruelty of Nuño de Guzmán, were roused by their shamans to rebel. The ensuing Mixtón
War (1540–41) was the most serious revolt prior to Mexico’s struggle for independence.
The whole frontier was aflame. Natives attacked isolated Spanish ranches and then fortified
themselves on well-stocked hilltops called peñoles, from which they could not be dislodged.
When the governor of New Galicia failed to subdue the rebels, he turned for assistance
to Pedro de Alvarado, who had sailed up from Guatemala on his way to explore the Pacific.
Courageous to a fault, Alvarado rashly ignored the advice to wait for reinforcements. A furi-
ous counterattack by the Indians produced a panicked Spanish retreat, during which a horse
fell on Alvarado, crushing him. The great rebellion ended only after the viceroy himself took
the field at the head of a strong army, comprised primarily of central Mexican Indian allies.
Nonetheless, frontier wars in the north continued over the next three centuries.
THE LAST YEARS OF CORTÉS
Meanwhile Cortés, having been excluded from the search for the “Northern Mystery” and
feeling insulted by his treatment from the viceroy and the audiencia, returned to Spain in
1540 to put his grievances once again before the king. Charles V was abroad, however, and
crown representatives gave the marqués a cool reception. The crisis of instability appeared to
have been resolved in the colony, and with the royal bureaucracy entrenched and function-
ing well, government officials saw no need to humor the conqueror. Cortés spent his last
years in frustration. He was about to return to New Spain when, in 1547, he fell ill. Shortly
thereafter, at age sixty-two he died in a village outside Seville. In 1556 his bones were depos-
ited in Mexico, according to his wishes.
Though the last two decades of Cortés’s life were fraught with disappointment, there is
no greater example of a legend about the rise to fame and fortune in the history of the New
World. Notwithstanding his diverse talents, without the aid of indigenous allies and disease,
he would never have gained immortality as one of the greatest military figures of the ages.
He married into one of Spain’s most noble families, was awarded a high title himself, and
became one of the richest men in the Spanish empire. As a symbol of Spain’s might and the
exploitation of indigenous peoples, his image later became tarnished, first with Mexico’s in-
dependence from Spain and later with the revolution of 1910, which aspired to rehabilitate
the indigenous past. The image of destroyer displaced that of heroic leader.
Few of his fellow conquerors attained Cortés’s status and wealth in the colonial period,
but many established themselves as part of New Spain’s upper class. When the immediate
wealth they had hoped to carry home to support a life of leisure did not materialize, they
comforted themselves by acquiring native labor and property locally. For most of them, the
new lifestyle represented a significant step up from their modest origins.
S TA B I L I T Y U N D E R V I C E R O Y M E N D O Z A
Despite the reversals of the ill-fated Coronado expedition and the costly Mixtón War, by
1542 the colonial government was closer to achieving stability and order. The viceroy had
begun to review information from indigenous accounts of their past, for example in the case
of the Purépecha in Michoacán, to sort out the interethnic rivalries. There was good cause
for optimism, for Mendoza was a firm and capable viceroy and the audiencia he worked
with was responsible. Bishop Zumárraga was an energetic and positive complement to civil
government. Yet there was brewing in Spain a reform movement that was destined to in-
flame passions once again. Bartolomé de Las Casas, a powerful Dominican friar and an
indefatigable lobbyist on behalf of Indian liberties, went to Spain from Guatemala where
he had observed the worst atrocities against Indians. He successfully convinced the crown to
introduce legislation aimed at curtailing abuses of the natives, whose numbers had declined
drastically. He was appointed the Bishop of Chiapas, where he became an icon for indig-
enous liberty centuries later.
The New Laws of 1542–43 called for, among other things, the freedom of natives who
had been unjustly enslaved and the easing of labor requirements. Most threatening from
the standpoint of the Spanish conquerors, the laws eroded the encomienda system, for en-
comiendas awarded to conquerors and first settlers were to revert to the crown on the death
of the original encomendero. News of the provision caused a great outcry among the enco-
menderos, who remonstrated bitterly that they would have nothing to leave their children.
Surely, they insisted, the king could not be so ungrateful to those who had won and settled
lands larger than Spain itself.
The continuance of the encomienda system was regarded in Mexico, even by many royal
officials, as vital to the maintenance of the colony’s prosperity, for without it, it was feared,
many Spaniards would leave. In fact, most ecclesiastics also favored its retention, seeing it as
the best instrument for control of the Indians. Furthermore, tribute and labor helped sup-
port various charities, educational facilities, and religious institutions. Many Spaniards held
that natives under crown control were abused more by royal agents than by encomende-
ros. When an official investigator, Francisco Tello de Sandoval, was sent from Spain to help
implement the New Laws, he found widespread opposition in the colony.
Tello de Sandoval and Viceroy Mendoza, assessing the situation and fearing a general
revolt, exercised the prerogative of withholding the laws. Under the circumstances, they
probably chose wisely: when the viceroy in Peru insisted on imposing the ordinances, a seri-
ous insurrection ensued, which took his life and embroiled the colony in civil war for years.
Finally, giving way to the outraged encomenderos, the crown modified the laws in 1545 by
removing the offending limitation to the encomiendas.
Although the crown had retreated, it still intended to reform the encomienda system.
In 1549 it ordered that encomenderos could no longer avail themselves of the free labor of
their Indians but would have to be content with their tributes only. In the same year there
was a flurry of excitement when a small group of Spaniards plotted to overthrow the govern-
ment. They were tried, found guilty, and summarily hanged.
By 1550, as Mendoza’s rule of nearly fifteen years came to a close, the colony was well im-
planted and thriving. In the crown’s view Mendoza was the ideal administrator. His dreams
of extending Spanish realms into rich areas (that did not exist) were unrealized, but his
contributions in other respects were impressive. The part played by Mendoza was of cru-
cial importance because, as the first viceroy, he established patterns that would be followed
by his successors. He left a growing economy and a capital that had already assumed the
appearance of a beautiful city distinguished for its cultural life. He established order and
stability; he founded schools, hospitals, and charitable foundations; he attempted to foster
religion and justice. Because of his government, royal authority began to be stamped on New
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PA RT
3
LIVING IN THE VICEROYALTY
CHA PTER 8
THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM ENTRENCHED
T H E P O L I T I C A L A D M I N I S T R AT I O N O F N E W S PA I N
“Do little and do it slowly” had been Viceroy Mendoza’s stated philosophy of administra-
tion. It was an attitude less than acceptable to reformers but consistent with royal wishes.
The sixteenth-century viceroys, facing many crucial situations, were allowed considerable lat-
itude, but their successors in the seventeenth century were reined in by later kings and their
councils. Yet given the difficulty of communication and the time lapse between a request
for instructions and the response from Spain, a certain amount of autonomy was implicit.
Correspondence between colonial officials and the crown was necessarily slow because for
much of the colonial period ships sailed only once a year between Mexico and Spain. It was
common for authorities in New Spain to wait many months for guidance. Consequently,
high officials often made important rulings on their own, pending royal approval. When a
crown order seemed contrary to the best interests of the local situation, a viceroy sometimes
noted, in all deference, Obedezco pero no cumplo (I obey but do not execute). The process of
government was further bogged down by the endless detailed reports, requiring action, sent
to Spain by officials, clergymen, and private subjects.
Colonial policy of the Hapsburgs was ponderous and inefficient. But sluggish as the
bureaucracy was, the crown concerned itself less with competence than with loyalty. Unable
to micromanage a far-flung empire, the Hapsburgs were willing to relinquish considerable
control to local elites who could keep the peace in the crown’s name. The preoccupation
with conformance and fidelity also manifested itself in the system of checks and balances.
Officials were encouraged to comment on and criticize the performance of others. The vice-
roy was the most powerful individual, but as the judges of the audiencia reported directly to
the king and the Council of the Indies and were often at odds with the viceroy, they were a
restraint on the viceroy’s actions. Moreover, treasury officials and various other bureaucrats,
as well as clergymen, members of town councils, and private individuals, contributed their
complaints. As a result, the crown was exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion on the opera-
tion of colonial administration.
115
116 living in the viceroyalty
To ascertain the true state of affairs, the crown occasionally sent a royal inspector (visitador)
to make an on-the-spot investigation (visita). The crown visitador had great authority on ar-
rival; he usually assumed rule of the colony for the tenure of his inspection which could
take weeks or months. The visita was sometimes undertaken in response to a specific set of
charges emanating from the colony, but in other instances it was more routine in nature. In
some instances the visitador traveled incognito, taking officials by surprise, before adequate
cover-ups could be arranged. At other times the imminent arrival of the inspector became
known in time for precautionary measures on the part of local officials. Visitadores, usually
men trained in the law, were responsible for correcting abuses and instituting reforms. An-
other mechanism for judging the performance of the viceroy and other high functionaries
was a judicial review, or trial, known as a (juicio de) residencia. A residencia usually came at
the end of an official’s term of office. Notice of an impending review was made public so that
all within the official’s jurisdiction with grievances could bring charges.
The admirable institutions of the visita and the residencia were models that might well
profit all governments. Unfortunately, like so much in Spanish administration, there existed
a wide breach between theory and practice. Witnesses were sometimes bribed or intimidated,
perjury and obfuscation were common, and judges were occasionally bought. Furthermore,
despite the long lists of allegations posted—and testimony that often convincingly estab-
lished the official’s guilt—relatively few were punished in accordance with their crimes. In
the early years of Spanish rule in western Mexico, Spanish colonists flagrantly defied laws in
their bloody, internecine battles. Heavily reliant on the allegiance of far-removed colonial
officials, the crown frequently winked at their greed and misdeeds.
Various restrictions were imposed on officials with a view to averting corruption. They
were forbidden to hold encomiendas or to participate in commercial activities as well as
other undertakings that presented a conflict of interest. Although certainly one finds many
officials of integrity, the infractions were numerous. In essence, a weak Hapsburg state gov-
erned informally through mechanisms that rewarded New Spain’s elites by allowing them to
exploit Indians and maximize profits. The crown was satisfied as long as they kept the peace
and remitted a modicum of returns to the imperial government. Corruption was furthered
by the introduction in the sixteenthth century of the sale of public office. At first limited
to local appointments, the practice was extended in the seventeenth century to include the
highest positions, including treasury officials, oidores, and even viceroys.
Of the sixty-two viceroys who served in New Spain, almost all came from the high no-
bility and were born in Spain. Men born in the New World could attain this highest office
(Mexico had three in the seventeenth century), but as sons of high nobles serving as viceroys
themselves, they were not identified as locals. Most viceroys proved reasonably good rulers;
a few were truly outstanding. The colony was fortunate that the first viceroys, Mendoza
(1535–50) and Luis de Velasco (1550–64), were capable administrators who set New Spain
on firm footing. Thereafter, the quality of their service fluctuated, and many seventeenth-
century viceroys proved less talented. Palace intrigues and corruption reached a high point
under the administration of the Duque de Alburquerque during the first decade of the eigh-
teenth century. Easily bribed, he collaborated with contraband traders to enhance his per-
sonal finances and liberally rewarded his partisans. Only after he left office did the crown
The Imperial System Entrenched 117
indict him for misconduct and force him to pay an enormous fine. His successors in the
eighteenth century proved to be more trustworthy and effective representatives of the king.
It is more difficult to assess the character of the oidores of the audiencias. As the func-
tions of the courts expanded, more judges were added. With the settlement of western lands,
the new audiencia Nueva Galicia was created in 1548. It usually had four or five oidores,
while the Audiencia of Mexico counted ten by the late eighteenth century, plus other lawyers.
Since the appointments of judges were for life, they developed strong local ties, prompting
speculation as to their impartiality.
The same cannot be said for the provincial officials. As new territories were colonized
and towns founded, it became impossible to govern outlying provinces from the capital.
The crown formalized subdivisions of administration and created many smaller adminis-
trative districts within the audiencia jurisdictions. Such districts were administered by of-
ficials known variously as corregidores, alcaldes mayores, or gobernadores, whose territories of
jurisdiction were called corregimientos, alcaldías mayores, or gobiernos. Since few differences
existed among the duties of these officials, a brief discussion of the position of corregidor
serves to describe the others as well. Corregidores were responsible for the good order of
their districts, but their judicial and legislative responsibilities were limited as they were
subject to higher authorities in all matters. In the early years of the system these positions
often went to conquerors or their sons, or other early settlers, as a form of pension in lieu of
encomiendas. As can be imagined, most appointees had little or no training for administra-
tive posts and were poorly paid. It came to be accepted that these provincial officials would
supplement their salaries where they could—which usually meant cheating the natives or
other l ower-class groups.
Luis de Velasco I (1511–64), the second viceroy of New

Spain, served until his death. He continued the prudent
policies established by his predecessor Mendoza.
Most notorious were corregidores de indios, whose responsibility it was to administer

Indian towns. The natives had been gathered into new villages to facilitate their conversion,
taxation, and acculturation; and the corregidor de indios was charged with the good order
of those under his jurisdiction in those towns paying tribute to the crown rather than to in-
dividual encomenderos. These Spanish supervisors, or their agents, collected the king’s trib-
utes in the “crown towns” and supposedly guaranteed justice. In fact, they numbered among
the greatest enemies of the Indians, defrauding them in a variety of ways, often in collusion
with the native governors. In addition to forcing Indians to produce cloth, which they then
sold at a profit, corregidores acted as petty traders, compelling natives to buy goods from
them at elevated prices. These practices were known as the repartimiento de mercancías.
Distinct from the royal authorities were those in municipal government. Beginning with
the founding of Veracruz in 1519 by Cortés, as Spanish towns were established, a town coun-
cil was immediately formed. In the earliest years Cortés simply appointed many local admin-
istrators, but it became customary for them to be elected annually. The municipal council,
called the cabildo (or ayuntamiento), consisted of members known as regidores. These council-
men numbered anywhere from four or five in smaller communities up to fifteen in late colo-
nial Mexico City. A council usually had two senior officials, called alcaldes ordinarios, who had
some judicial powers and more importance than the regidores who were simply councilors.
The cabildos were responsible for such purely local matters as defending the town, keep-
ing the peace, controlling prices, allocating lots, cleaning streets, and seeing to drainage,
water supplies, public food, and a multitude of other concerns. Generally speaking, the ca-
bildos of the various towns represented the interests of the local elites, frequently in conflict
with the wishes of the crown.
Positions in the cabildos were awarded to the highest bidders, even though consider-
ation was supposed to be given to those with the best credentials. Such posts were cherished
because of the distinction they offered in the community, not to mention the opportunities
for making profits on the side. As a result, membership in the cabildos came under the con-
trol of certain families who held proprietary interest in them for generations. Since the seats
were often sold in perpetuity, they were passed on from father to son. By the late colonial
period fifteen regidores in Mexico City owned their positions. Cabildos tended to be com-
posed largely of elite criollos (Mexican-born Spaniards).
Administration of Indian towns was modeled after that of the Spanish communities,
but practices varied widely. In areas where an Indian nobility existed before contact, regi-
dores were commonly chosen from among them. Indian towns also had a local governor
(gobernador) who oversaw the activities of the cabildo and aided it in collecting tribute, ap-
portioning village lands, and dispensing justice. Native leaders had to engage in a delicate
balancing act in order to satisfy the demands of the local Spanish officials or clergymen
without alienating their fellow Indians. Failure to maintain this balance could result in their
removal by Spanish authorities or violence against them by local villagers. As time went on,
in most parts of central and southern Mexico hereditary leaders found their political and/or
economic privileges eroded in some measure.
The degree to which indigenous communities preserved some autonomy and main-
tained ethnic distinctiveness is a topic that has attracted the attention of many scholars
of the colonial period, some of whom have benefited from the survival of native language
documents in Nahuatl and other Indian languages, to study Indian cabildos, land tenure, re-
ligious beliefs, and cultural practices. Outcomes were tremendously mixed, but indigenous
peoples devised many ways to defend themselves and to perpetuate pre-conquest hierarchies
and ways of life throughout the colonial period. Some Nahua communities created “primor-
dial” titles, which recorded collective visions of their evolving histories and attempted to
substantiate their claims to land. Sometimes they could ignore the new demands by feign-
ing ignorance or by bribing officials, but many more learned how to maneuver in the Span-
ish world of institutions. Indigenous intellectuals in central and southern Mexico created
written texts in their own languages and made other visual representations to establish the
claims of the communities. In their interactions with colonial officials and institutions, they
frequently exercised an effective role in the reformulation of community politics and prac-
tices that preserved traditions and afforded some autonomy, for example, in matters of taxa-
tion and land tenure, into the eighteenth century. In other areas where Indians had not lived
in permanent pueblos before the conquest, Spanish civil and religious officials congregated
them in villages and exerted strong influence over their government. Although it was not
uncommon to find outsiders and individuals of mixed race occupying the position of gov-
ernor after a couple of generations, even these communities found means of resistance and
incorporated new mechanisms to strengthen ethnic vitality and religious traditions.
D I S T U R B A N C E S D U R I N G T H E “ C O L O N I A L S I E S TA ”
By the middle of the sixteenth century, the Spanish imperial system had been established
and the bureaucracy spread its net. Even though order was steadily imposed, the next two
and a half centuries cannot accurately be depicted as a “colonial siesta.” Challenges to Span-
ish hegemony came from both outside and inside New Spain. Internal contestation ema-
nated from all levels of society.
Even elites plotted rebellion when their interests were threatened, as an episode of the
1560s demonstrates. Anticipating the eventual loss of their encomiendas, a group of young
criollos in Mexico City began to talk loosely of assassinating oidores and other high offi-
cials, throwing off allegiance to the crown, and making Martín Cortés king of Mexico. Don
Martín was the only legitimate son of the conqueror and his heir. Because his active role
in the conspiracy could not be proven, Martín escaped the fate of its leaders, whose heads
were cut off and displayed on pikes. For most of the colonial period, however, the upper
classes sought redress or influence through cooperation with the royal officials or through
the courts. At least until the middle of the eighteenth century, they tended to enjoy consider-
able autonomy as long as they could maintain local order and furnish the crown its share
of colonial profits. They forged a political culture in which they used extravagant public cer-
emonies to reinforce allegiances to empire and church, quite strikingly in the self-designated
“very noble and very loyal city” of Puebla de los Angeles. But local elites also choreographed
these rituals to vie for power among themselves.
Intra-elite squabbles occasionally resulted in violence. For example, in 1624, bitter
animosities among viceregal, audiencia, and religious authorities, which reflected rivalries
between Mexican- and Spanish-born Spaniards (peninsulares or gachupines), set against a

background of bad harvests and rising food prices, eventually erupted in mob violence from
the lower classes, who supported the archbishop in the elite dispute. More than seventy
people died in the upheaval, and the viceroy was recalled to Spain.
Popular urban protests continued to manifest themselves over food shortages, prices,
or taxation in Mexico City and provincial capitals. In 1692, a crisis brought on by severe
food shortages, the result of crop failures, was exacerbated by the rumor that authorities
had connived to corner the grain market to their profit. The resentment of the Indians and
mestizos—persons of mixed Spanish and Indian blood—burst into destructive riots during
the celebration of Corpus Christi in which the viceregal palace was burned and looted (see
cover image). Other government buildings were destroyed, along with 280 shops and stalls,
before the viceroy’s troops finally restored order through harsh measures.
Authorities had to contend with various natural calamities over which they had little
control, for example earthquakes, epidemics, and crop failures. Especially destructive were
the many floods that plagued the capital in the colonial period. The Aztecs had carefully
managed the lake ecosystem not only for agriculture (for example with chinampas) and pas-
ture, but also for transport of foodstuffs and other goods. They controlled flooding through
a system of dikes (causeways) and canals. This arrangement did not suit the Spaniards’ con-
struction plans and commercial endeavors; for them the answer was to dry up the lakes by
draining them. The demands of an early modern economy and new ideas of property own-
ership were paramount. The solution called the desagüe required a massive investment of
back-breaking native labor, supervised by European engineers and natives with knowledge
of the wetland environment. Many solutions were tried over the next centuries in the ongo-
ing attempt to carry water out of the valley, producing an environmental calamity. Over time,
structures built in unstable, marshy foundations have experienced sinking, and Mexico City
still faces chronic flooding and a shortage of fresh water.
Although urban riots were not a daily occurrence, violence was. For the growing numbers
of mixed-race and marginalized peoples, poverty could serve as a powerful motivation for
petty theft. Racial and gender tensions frequently erupted in domestic abuses, crimes of pas-
sion, and personal violence. In the colonial Mexican countryside, insecurities, tensions, and
resistance to exploitation were also vented in personal violence, witchcraft, village riots, and
even rebellions in peripheral areas.
E X PA N S I O N I N T O N O R T H E R N M E X I C O
Violent resistance to Spanish intrusion was the primary response of the nomadic and semi-
sedentary indigenous groups in northern Mexico. While much of central and southern Mexico
was under Spanish control by the middle of the sixteenth century, the wide expanses of the
north remained unsettled by the newcomers. Interest in the northern frontiers had quick-
ened, however, with the discovery of silver ore in the 1540s, setting off a rush into the Zacate-
cas region. Within a few years mining camps appeared in many locations, but Chichimec
warriors made supplying the camps difficult and dangerous. The long distances between
Spanish settlements and the isolated mining camps offered the Indians ample opportunity to
strike the mule trains. For half a century the indomitable northern tribes resisted the Spanish
advance, and the fighting subsided only in the last decade of the sixteenth century when Vice-
roy Luis de Velasco II, with the help of missionary clergy and indigenous allies from central
Mexico who established colonies, inaugurated a policy of conciliation. In return for annual
supplies of cattle and clothing, many of the natives were persuaded to put down their arms.
Although some Franciscans had preceded them, in the seventeenth century the Jesuits
forged northward, following Spanish explorers and miners like Francisco de Ibarra into the
northwestern areas of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua that became known as Nueva Viz-
caya (New Biscay). Eventually they pushed all the way to Baja California and Arizona. Their
attempts to resettle semi-sedentary Indians in permanent mission villages invariably met
with rebellion, either within a generation or two or later in the colonial period.
In many of these cases Indians, for example the Yaquis, did settle in mission towns where,
despite a reduction in their numbers due to epidemic disease, they used innovative strategies
of resistance and accommodation to persist as discrete ethnic groups. Others, like many of
the Tarahumaras, chose flight into remote mountainous areas where they eluded incorpora-
tion into the Spanish realm for much of the colonial period.
In the 1570s the viceroy commissioned several expeditions to settle northeast Mexico,
resulting in the 1577 founding of Saltillo (Coahuila), which became an important trading
outpost. Finding little mineral wealth and dispersed, non-sedentary Indians who put up a te-
nacious resistance, the settlers ruthlessly turned to enslaving bands of natives who were forced
to work on Spanish ranches. Another solution proved more effective when the viceroy pro-
moted the establishment of a Tlaxcalan colony, San Esteban, adjacent to Saltillo in 1591. The
Tlaxcalans received land grants and special privileges, serving as military allies to Spaniards;
they were also intended to help settle and acculturate hostile Indians. Other such colonies
were established later around Spanish centers like Monterrey which was founded in 1596.
In the 1590s the viceroy also sent out more expeditions to the far north earlier traversed
by Vázquez de Coronado. Following the march of Juan de Oñate in 1598, an outpost was
established and Franciscan friars worked to convert the sedentary Indians at San Juan, Taos,
and other pueblos. In 1609, two years after the English colonized Jamestown, the northern
capital was planted at Santa Fe. Nevertheless, the extensive region of New Mexico remained
sparsely populated by Europeans, other than some friars, a few soldiers, and a scattering
of miners, traders, and ranchers, along with various officials. The outpost served to assert a
tenuous hold on the land in the face of French expansion from the east.
While the Spanish endeavored to colonize and conquer new lands in what today is
Mexico, they never left behind the idea of finding a direct route to the markets of Asia, brim-
ming with spices, textiles, and porcelains. Mexico, uniquely positioned between the Atlantic
and Pacific, proved an advantageous place from which the new empire could connect to
Asia. Moreover, despite the Spanish desire for gold, the discovery of vast silver mines across
North and South America positioned them for trading success with the Chinese; controlling
the largest trading economy in the early modern period, China’s economy had been silver-
based since the mid-fourteenth century. The Spanish made various early attempts to find a
western passage to Asia, first in 1519 when the crown sent Ferdinand Magellan who sailed
across the Atlantic to the shores of Brazil (territory claimed by the Portuguese) and then
down the coast. After a year of calamities, his ships found the passage at the tip of South
America that became the Strait of Magellan and reached the Philippines in March 1521.
In 1543 the viceroy of New Spain dispatched Ruy López de Villalobos who sailed from
Acapulco to the islands he named las Islas Filipinas after the Spanish king.
It was the difficulty of returning to Mexico directly across the Pacific that delayed Spanish
efforts to establish a colonial presence in Asia. This changed in 1565 with the expedition of
Miguel López de Legazpi and the friar Andrés de Urdaneta. Sailing straight west from Aca-
pulco to the Philippines was a relatively easy journey of about three months. In the summer
of 1568, Urdaneta set out to find a satisfactory route back to mainland New Spain across the
Pacific. By following the easterly prevailing winds and currents he took his ship further north
before dropping down to sail along the California coast to arrive in Acapulco in just over four
months. Although Villalobos had claimed the islands, they were not under Spanish control.
While Urdaneta was sailing east, Legazpi and his soldiers explored and fought for Spanish
dominance, ending in the conquest of Maynila, the “Place of the Water Lilies,” designated
by Legazpi as the capital of the Spanish Philippines in 1570. With a colonial foothold and
a direct route of return, Spaniards wasted no time in launching the famous Manila galleons,
making one voyage a year (almost every year from 1571 to 1812), consisting of one to four
ships. Vast amounts of Mexican silver reached Asia in payment for such prized goods as
The Pacific port of Acapulco in a 1671 Dutch engraving.

Chinese silks and porcelain, Indonesian spices, and Indian cottons. In addition to commodi-
ties, sailors, merchants, and bureaucrats arrived in mainland New Spain on the ships, along
with eight thousand Asian slaves (principally from the Philippines and regions of India).
The China trade piqued new interest in the coast of California, where the galleons first
sighted the mainland of North America. In the 1590s Sebastián Vizcaíno explored the coast-
line with indifferent success. In 1602 another expedition under his command produced a
commendable chart of California waters, and Vizcaíno founded the port of Monterey, but
there was still no compelling reason to make a serious attempt to colonize California.
R I VA L S I N T H E N E W W O R L D
A growing concern of Spanish authorities was the encroachment of foreigners on the fringes
of New Spain, by both land and sea. A French force led by the Chevalier de La Salle jour-
neyed southward from Canada in the 1680s into the region of Texas where, it was rumored,
a settlement was planted. In response, Spaniards began to occupy Texas, and in 1698 a Span-
ish fort was established on the Gulf coast at Pensacola (Florida).
A more serious threat was posed by foreigners on the seas. North European powers had
never accepted the pope’s division of the New World, which gave most of it to Spain; espe-
cially following the growth of Protestantism, they challenged Spain’s hegemony. Pirates,
often with the blessings of their sovereigns, aggressively attacked Spanish property. French
interlopers were cruising the eastern coastline of South America little more than a decade
after Columbus’s first voyage. The ship sent by Cortés carrying Aztec treasure to Charles V
had been seized by French corsairs when it was in sight of Iberian shores. Later the French
moved closer to the source, attacking Spanish ships in American waters and looting ports.
Along the Gulf coast, from Yucatán to Tampico, French filibusterers raided with little opposi-
tion. In 1561 they sacked the town of Campeche and a decade later seized valuable treasures
from a Franciscan convent in Yucatán.
Somewhat later the English, too, appeared off Mexican shores. In 1567 John Hawkins
sailed boldly into the port of Veracruz under pretext of repairing his ships, but he actually
planned to sell his cargo of black slaves in defiance of laws that forbade Spanish trade with
foreigners. Hawkins was trapped by an incoming Spanish fleet bearing a new viceroy. Despite
a gentleman’s agreement for a truce, the viceroy brought his ships to bear and peppered the
English vessels, allowing only two of Hawkins’s nine ships to escape. The captured English
corsairs were given sentences at labor, and later some were tried and burned by the Inquisi-
tion, not for piracy but for heresy. The defeat of Hawkins amounted to a great feather in the
viceroy’s cap, but the Spaniards would pay dearly for it, as Hawkins’s cousin Francis Drake
escaped on one of the English ships. Before long El Draque took his vengeance, becoming the
terror of the Spanish Indies, raiding with considerable success in both the Caribbean and the
Pacific, and driving the Spaniards to distraction.
From the middle of the sixteenth century until the end of the eighteenth, English and
French corsairs attacked the coasts of Yucatán and Campeche many times, though the re-
wards were often modest. Some of the small, isolated ports were so poorly defended that
they could be taken by a handful of pirates. In Pacific waters both the English and Dutch
were active, the most successful of them Thomas Cavendish, who captured a richly laden
Manila galleon.
The most vicious attack, however, occurred not at sea but on land. In 1683, after laying
careful plans, a Frenchman known as “Lorenzillo” led a force of about 1,000 ruffians of
mixed nationalities to the strongly fortified port of Veracruz and infiltrated the city under
cover of night. More than six thousand local citizens were rounded up, held inside the
churches, and denied food and water for three days and nights. Many were horribly tortured,
and most of the females, of all ages, were raped. The pirates carried off about one million
dollars worth of loot.
By the end of the seventeenth century the viceroyalty of New Spain stretched out over a
vast expanse of territory. It embraced all land on the mainland north of Panama, extending
up to New Mexico, the islands of the Caribbean, and even the Philippines. Ostensibly all
these far-flung regions were under the control of the viceroy; in actual practice, his authority
was nominal for the more remote areas were effectively beyond his reach. Central America,
A Spanish shield of the seventeenth century.

the islands of the Caribbean, and the Philippines had their own audiencias, which were for
all intents and purposes autonomous.
Spain itself, after boasting the richest and most powerful empire in the world during
the sixteenth century, lost predominance in the early decades of the seventeenth century.
But the Spanish empire remained intact and relatively prosperous, thanks to an administra-
tive system that relied less on a rational bureaucracy in the modern sense than on informal
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Ruiz Medrano, Ethelia, and Susan Kellogg, eds. Negotiation within Domination: New Spain’s Indian Pueblos
Confront the Spanish State. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010.
Seijas, Tatiana. Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indios. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2014.
Tavárez, David. The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline and Dissent in Colonial Mexico. Stanford,
Terraciano, Kevin. The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca: Nudzahui History, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries.
Stanford, CA: University of California Press, 2001.
Townsend, Camilla, ed. Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley.
Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.
Wade, Maria F. Missions, Missionaries, and Native Americans: Long-Term Processes and Daily Practices. Gaines-
ville: University Press of Florida, 2009.
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homa Press, 2003.
CHA PTER 9
THE COLONIAL ECONOMY
S PA I N ’ S E C O N O M I C P O L I C I E S
Mexico, as the colony of New Spain, existed for the benefit of the mother country. At least
that was the view of the Spanish crown’s economic advisers. Like other European colonial
powers, Spain subscribed to the economic philosophy of mercantilism, which held that the
purpose of a colony was to make the mother country stronger and more self-sufficient. If a
colony did not return such advantages to the mother country, it could be more of a liability
than an asset. There were other considerations, both religious and strategic, but profit was
no doubt the primary consideration.
Spain’s colonial economic policies were protectionist in the extreme, which meant that
the economy in New Spain was restricted by limitations imposed by the imperial system.
Thus, the natural growth of industry and commerce was significantly impeded because man-
ufacturers and merchants in Spain were protected from the competition of those in the
colony. In accord with the classic pattern, the Spanish Indies were to supply Spain with raw
products, which could be made into finished goods in the mother country and sold back to
the colonists at a profit. In the case of Mexico, silver would become the main export to Spain,
where it promoted inflation and Spanish imperial wars.
In the early years of the colony, whites lived parasitically off many Indians and a substan-
tial number of Africans, but the picture changed considerably after a time. The importance
of the encomiendas in the overall economy of New Spain did not last long, for not many
of those who came after the conquerors received grants of Indian village labor. Within a
short time the encomenderos formed but a small minority of the Spaniards in Mexico. Of
perhaps eight hundred first-generation encomenderos, their numbers dropped to just over
five hundred by the mid-sixteenth century, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
there were only about fifty left in central Mexico. Most of the encomienda towns reverted to
the crown for lack of legitimate heirs.
In all events, even in the sixteenth century the majority of the encomenderos had en-
comiendas that offered only modest incomes. It is true, however, that the more prominent
127
conquerors had large numbers of tributaries, and such men were prosperous, especially if
they diversified their interests. The wealthiest of all was Fernando Cortés, who had many
rich towns. He also held real estate and engaged in commercial transactions in New Spain
as well as in other colonies; he raised blooded horses and other stock and experimented
with the production of silk; and he had interests in mining, shipbuilding, sugar processing,
and farming.
Meanwhile many more Spaniards poured into the colony and, contrary to the view often
held, most of them had to work as officials, clergymen, merchants, artisans, miners, ranch-
ers, lawyers, physicians, teachers, or sailors. Despite official attempts to encourage Spanish
farmers and laborers to emigrate to America, almost none did. As a consequence, the neces-
sary physical labor was performed by Indians, blacks, and those of mixed races. It has often
been noted that the true wealth discovered by the Spaniards consisted of the millions of na-
tives whose labor kept the colonies functioning. In the years following the conquest a good
number of Indians were slaves, either because they were already in that category in their own
societies or because they were enslaved by Spaniards for continued resistance to Spanish
authority. Slaves were often worked to the point of exhaustion and usually had short lives.
Owing to the bitter protests of Spaniards of conscience—most notably the Dominican friar
Bartolomé de Las Casas—Indian slavery was finally abolished in the 1550s, but it persisted
long after in New Spain’s far north.
The percentage of Indians who were truly chattels was relatively small; those assigned to
encomiendas constituted a far greater number in the early period. In addition to the tribute
owed to their encomenderos, Indians were required to contribute labor under a regulated
system. Often the encomendero rented the services of his Indians to merchants and others,
who drove them mercilessly. In 1549 the labor obligation was abolished, and labor in lieu
of tribute was forbidden. Without slaves and forced labor, who would carry out the neces-
sary tasks of labor? The policymakers in Spain reasoned that if Indians were paid a fair wage
for their work and if they were treated humanely, they would volunteer. But few among the
dwindling number of Indians stepped forward to assume the burden.
Consequently, the crown decreed a system of forced labor called the repartimiento, or
cuatequil (the Nahuatl name for a similar structure employed by the Aztecs to extract labor).
Under this system each adult male Indian had to contribute about forty-five days of labor a
year, usually a week at a time at various intervals. Only a small percentage of the men from
any village were to be absent simultaneously, and the head of a family was to have time
free to cultivate his own fields. Provisions stipulated that each laborer would be paid for his
work and treated with consideration. In practice, however, Indians were mistreated, forced
to work excessive hours, and cheated of their pay. Labor drafts often took entire villages away
from their own fields at planting or harvest times. Laws in the early seventeenth century de-
creed the abolition of repartimiento, but it persisted, especially in the northern and southern
fringes of New Spain, until the end of the colonial period.
In central Mexico, the frequent labor shortages caused by Indian population decline
were met with a variety of labor practices that included repartimiento, black slavery, share-
cropping, and wage labor. Wage labor sometimes turned into debt peonage when money or
goods were advanced to individuals by an employer and not repaid quickly. In some cases,
The Colonial Economy 129
A Spanish overseer directs Indian laborers on a sugar plantation in this painting by the modern muralist Diego
Rivera (1886–1957).
employers could hold these workers in perpetual servitude by continuing to advance credit,
but the system could also work to the advantage of laborers who could accumulate debt and
resources and then move on to another place. The degree of force that employers could exert
varied according to time, place, and the available labor pool, but coercive debt peonage was
probably not widespread in the colonial period.
One onerous labor practice was a carryover from prehispanic times, when everything that
had to be moved was transported on the backs of porter or tamemes. Despite a legal limit
of fifty pounds for each load, it was not uncommon for tamemes to be forced to carry twice
that weight over mountain passes. Prominent Spaniards arriving at Veracruz were conveyed
to the capital two hundred miles distant in sedan chairs carried by Indians. So many carriers
succumbed to fatigue that a royal decree ordered the increased use of mules and horses and
the opening of roads for carts. But the sight of men bent under staggering loads remained
familiar.
MINING
The lands of the Spanish Indies belonged to the Spanish sovereigns personally, but their
subjects were allowed to exploit the land at the pleasure of the rulers. The royal quinto (fifth)
of American riches applied to Indian treasure, precious metals and jewels, and the sale of
slaves, to cite a few examples. The crown was, therefore, no less anxious to promote the
search for gold and silver than the most avaricious colonist. The search for precious minerals
continued unabated and ultimately succeeded. It was silver, however, not gold, that provided
the great wealth of colonial Mexico. By the early 1530s silver was being mined in various lo-
cations, but not until a quarter-century after the fall of Tenochtitlan was a great strike made.
Between 1546 and 1548 the fabulous silver deposits of Zacatecas were revealed, and within
a few years more rich mines operated in Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Pachuca, and other
sites. Later silver strikes in Parral and Chihuahua spurred settlement in the far north during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The great wealth of the mines dramatically transformed the economy of the colony.
Mining camps, some of which became the important cities we see today, sprouted in many
locations in northern Mexico. By the early years of the seventeenth century Zacatecas had
become the third largest city in the colony, surpassed only by the capital and Puebla. A
few miners became very wealthy and lived in ostentation. Other entrepreneurs made their
fortunes by supplying those who flocked to the mining camps seeking silver. Commerce
was profitable for merchants who risked taking their goods over the dangerous trails, past
unsubdued Indians. Others established stores and provided diverse services for the miners.
Equally prosperous farmers furnished the food that was so much in demand in the barren
north. At first cattle and sheep were driven north in herds, but eventually ranchers saw the
wisdom of establishing ranches in the vicinity of the mines; this was the genesis of the great
livestock spreads of northern Mexico.
Until the late eighteenth century when Guanajuato became the chief producer, most
silver was mined in Zacatecas and areas further north, where no large sedentary Indian pop-
ulations existed. Even so, Spaniards first tried to enslave local Indians or force them to work
in repartimiento. Conditions were onerous far underground in the dark, damp shafts with
the danger of floods or explosions. Workers climbed up crude ladders to haul out the heavy
ores. Some succumbed to early death and others tried to flee. In this situation, miners turned
to recruiting Indians from western and central Mexico with promises of pay and exemption
from tribute, prompting an inflow of free native laborers, along with Africans and mixed-
race peoples, that continued throughout the colonial period. Pay was probably the best in
the early years of wage labor and often included ore sharing. The mines at Zacatecas thrived,
generating a third of Mexico’s silver with some five thousand laborers at the height of pro-
duction in the seventeenth century. These workers built the city center where Spaniards lived,
at the same time creating their own communities around the outskirts. Many of these barrios
knit together people who had ethnic and linguistic affiliations, and some were multi-ethnic.
At least in the case of Zacatecas, over time they created municipal and religious institutions
that afforded them a measure of autonomy and civic pride. The evolution of mining towns,
their conditions, and their interethnic relationships varied across time and space with the
mix of free and coerced labor.
Silver proved to be a blessing and a curse for the Spanish. While they valued gold above
silver, the vast silver mines across their colonial possessions fed the dominant Asian mar-
kets, filtered through European exchanges or sent directly across the Pacific on the Manila
galleons. New Spain was the nexus between the Atlantic and Pacific economies, and silver
allowed for the importation of diverse luxury goods as well as more mundane commodi-
ties. Moreover, silver apparently stimulated Mexico’s internal economy because so much of
it—perhaps half—was used to buy goods produced in New Spain. While the viceroyalty of
New Spain had a thriving economy based on silver exports, this same commodity proved to
be the bane of the Spanish on the peninsula. Unregulated flows of bullion through the royal
treasury at first created a boom economy in the sixteenth century, but the bubble burst by the
end of the century leaving Spain with soaring inflation and falling silver receipts. Through
the mixed use of smelting and mercury amalgamation processes, mining output fluctuated
throughout the colonial period. From the seventeenth century on, less silver apparently
reached the coffers of the crown as it was increasingly employed in the local economy, used
to purchase European or Asian trade goods, or siphoned off in contraband trade.
Indian tamemes were the traditional bearers of cargo, trans-

porting goods to all corners of the colony. From the Flo-
rentine Codex.
A G R I C U LT U R E A N D R A N C H I N G
Although mining was the most salient enterprise, agriculture remained the basic occupation
in all parts of New Spain. It was, of course, absolutely essential for the sustenance of the
colony, and most agricultural production went to domestic consumption. To the variety of
foods native on the land, the Spaniards introduced an assortment of plant life—citrus and
other fruits, wheat, sugarcane, and many edibles to enrich the colonial diet. Early Spanish
settlers were given, in addition to town lots for residences, small garden plots outside of
town for their own needs, to be cultivated by Indian farmers. The natives had their own per-
sonal lands, held privately or in common, to provide food for themselves.
Colonists were allowed to grow what they wished as long as their production did not con-
flict with interests in Spain. Often, they ended up having to pay inflated prices for imported
necessities that could easily have been grown in Mexico. Wine and olive oil, for example, were
not luxuries but staples. They were considered essential to the traditional Spanish table, and
wine was necessary for Catholic mass. Yet so great were the profits to producers and middle-
men in Spain that the growing of vines and olive trees was largely forbidden in the colonies.
One significant exception occurred in the far north, where the crown allowed the develop-
ment of a wine industry at Parras (in modern-day Coahuila). In this area, where the soils were
favorable and water was available, descendants of the conquistador Francisco de Urdiñola,
Jesuits, and Tlaxcalan colonists produced wine primarily for a limited and isolated northern
market. As a supplemental beverage, beer was brewed in Mexico as early as 1544.
A panoramic view of a silver-mining operation.

Export crops constituted an important part of royal income. Hides were an early impor-
tant export. Essential to the booming textile industry in Europe were good dyes, and Mexico
produced one of the best with the native product cochineal. This red dye was of consider-
able value and convenient for export because of its compact nature. It was extracted from
tiny insects found in the nopal cactus, which was soon planted in extensive tracts. Another
profitable dye was the blue extracted from the indigo plant. Cacao, the source of a prized
beverage in the pre-conquest period (while it also served a form of currency), eventually
caught the fancy of Europeans, providing yet another valuable export for Spain. Both vanilla
and henequen constituted additional products of some importance. After Cortés introduced
sugar in 1524, plantations and mills flourished in the warmer climes of the colony. Com-
paratively modest Mexican exports of sugar added to the diversity of New Spain’s economy.
Black slaves commonly toiled in sugar and indigo production.
Most agricultural produce was consumed locally, and the staple crops were corn and
wheat. Indians continued to produce corn for subsistence and for the market, but eventually
Spanish haciendas (agricultural estates) supplied the bulk of maize consumed in urban areas.
They also produced large quantities of wheat in the areas of Puebla and the Bajío (Guanajuato
and Querétaro). At the same time, Indians could also be required to plant fruits, vegetables,
and grains introduced by the Spaniards.
The Spanish introduction of livestock had the most far-reaching implications for indig-
enous peoples. They were most likely to raise chickens, pigs, and sheep for themselves; and
their communities often owned at least a few head of cattle. While animals introduced more
protein into the Indian diet, in the predominantly unfenced terrain, they also caused great
harm to Indian crops. The ranching industry developed throughout Mexico, but the largest
This graceful aqueduct at Querétaro was built between 1729 and 1739. With seventy-four arches, it is eighty-five
feet high at one point and carried water to the city over a distance of five miles.
livestock spreads evolved in the north, where the land was marginal for cultivation. The
stockmen’s guild, the mesta, branded and regulated multiplying herds.
Travelers reported seeing herds of as many as one hundred fifty thousand head, and in the
region of Zacatecas more than two million sheep grazed in summer pastures. Even though
beef was inexpensive, colonists consumed much more of the costlier mutton. Sheep thrived
better in the north than cattle, and their wool brought very good returns on investments.
Large Mexican estates are usually associated with the vast haciendas of the north, but
in central and southern Mexico, important, though smaller, landholdings engaged in the
growing of sugar, henequen, and other agricultural products. The conquerors were often
rewarded with tracts of land consisting of twenty to a hundred acres, and many were able to
add to their holdings. Thus, the acquisition of large estates began in earnest in the late six-
teeenth century, especially after the devastating epidemic of the 1570s that took thousands
of Indian lives and facilitated the claiming of their lands. Individuals with the capital neces-
sary for an enterprise appealing to royal interests either received land outright or purchased
it at a low price. Large acreage was necessary for cattle and sheep to forage. One entrepreneur
of the northern frontier began putting together parcels in 1583, and by his death, in 1618,
the family estates stretched over 11,626,850 acres. In many instances hacienda owners ac-
quired land from Indians, by either purchase, fraud, or coercion.
While it is traditional to assume that a large percentage of Indian lands were lost to
the Spaniards, in fact, the natives retained sufficient ancestral holdings at least until the
population began to rebound at the mid-seventeenth century. After that, land and water
disputes multiplied between Indian towns and between Indian towns and Spanish haci-
endas. Indigenous litigants learned to use the courts and not infrequently succeeded in
retaining water rights through compromises which assigned hours or days to contending
parties during which they could access shared water. Although there were regional varia-
tions, haciendas and villages coexisted in a kind of synergy that allowed Spaniards to profit
modestly in a chronically weak domestic market and Indian villages to preserve some
autonomy and land.
The new agricultural systems that emanated from what has been called the “ Columbian
exchange” of plants and animals produced varying effects throughout the colony. On the
one hand, the introduction of livestock like cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens and
new plant species (including vegetables and fruits) increased the amount of food and the
general caloric intake of all groups. On the other hand, the imports could have negative
effects on Mexican ecosystems. Livestock were particularly invasive as they proliferated
in ungrazed grasslands and overran Indian fields and commons. Erosion and damage
from overgrazing and the transhumance of sheep were already apparent by the end of the
16th century. In the Valle de Mezquital, north of Mexico City, desert vegetation quickly
took over from the grasslands that had supported what has been termed a “plague” of
sheep. Reduction in pasturelands curbed the raising of livestock for a time in the sev-
enteenth century, but production climbed again in the eighteenth to supply the mines
and growing urban populations with meat and leather. Furthermore, silver production
required great quantities of charcoal for smelting, resulting in the almost total deforesta-
tion of mining areas.
INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE
With industry so closely regulated to prevent competition with Spain, Mexico made little
in the way of manufactured goods. What they produced was mainly for internal consump-
tion. Mining of silver and the cultivation of dyestuffs, cochineal and indigo, provided for a
healthy export economy. But an export economy cannot exist without an internal economy
to feed, clothe, and entertain the labor force. Internally, all manner of meat, vegetables, and
grains were sold in the markets, tobacco and alcohol were locally produced, while textile
production made up the majority of the true manufacturing. Iron working and ceramics
(talavera) constituted small segments of manufacturing, while the processing of sugar and
cacao made these raw material ready for sale. Most luxury goods were imported through
Spanish merchants, although olive oil and wine were the main items of Spanish origin. Mer-
chants in the colony imported expensive fabrics, porcelains, and spices from China, India,
and northern Europe.
The crown instituted all manner of regulations to restrict manufacturing in the colonies,
in order to prop up a failing Spanish economy that had little in the way of a manufacturing
base. Wine and olive oil could not be legally produced in the colonies, although some enter-
prising monks in northern missions planted vineyards. Textile producers on the peninsula,
especially of wool and silk, often lamented their small market share in New Spain even
though the crown forbade production of fine cloth there. But cheaper, better quality materi-
als imported from Asian and European markets fed the demand of the silver-rich viceroyalty
in New Spain regardless.
Still many products for everyday use came out of small industries in Mexico. Cotton and
woolen cloth was manufactured in obrajes, the textile mills that existed in various locations,
especially Mexico City, Puebla, and Querétaro. Since few could afford imported finery, local
mills proliferated, with more than eighty by 1571. Until the eighteenth century, when the
powered mills of Europe flooded the markets with cheap cloth, Mexican obrajes employed
thousands of workers to meet the growing demand for textiles. Conditions in the obrajes
varied, but in some cases workers were virtually imprisoned in sweatshops.
Other manufactured items were produced by the many artisans in the colony, among
them tailors, blacksmiths, cobblers, candle makers, and goldsmiths. Guilds, or gremios, ex-
isted or each of these crafts. Well established by the late sixteenth century, the guilds fixed
the quality of goods and influenced prices. Non-Spaniards could join the gremios, but only
whites could attain the rank of master. In a more positive sense, the gremios protected of
their members, making provisions for those who suffered accidents and illness, and ex-
tended help to widows. They actively promoted religious celebrations and philanthropic
undertakings for the community. Eventually about one hundred guilds existed in Mexico
City. A professional merchants’ guild, the Consulado, was established in the capital in 1592.
It functioned to arbitrate commercial disputes, to protect the interests of merchants, to es-
tablish rules of business conduct, and to foster the interests of the community.
The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade), located in the city of Seville which served
as the official entrepôt for all traffic with the Indies, supervised the imperial commercial
system. As in industry, the institution imposed tight controls on commerce in order to ben-
efit the crown above all. Everything and everyone going to or coming from the colonies
theoretically passed through officials who checked all papers with care. Of course, the closed
system encouraged contraband exchanges that cannot be measured with any precision. Trad-
ers in the city of Seville sent to the colonies a wide variety of goods—expensive fabrics, hats,
wax for candles, wine, liquors, vinegar, olive oil, paper, steel and iron implements, fruit pre-
serves, and other items. Trade in Asian merchandise, theoretically controlled by officials in
Seville, in practical terms was managed from New Spain. This trade proved especially lucra-
tive for the great Mexico City silver merchants, who also served as brokers in the exchanges
of Peruvian silver and Asian goods.
All products destined for the Spanish Indies were required to go on Spanish ships
with Spanish crews to facilitate the collection of duties, inspection of goods, and the
The city of Puebla was (and is) famous for its excellent ceramic products. Pots and tiles are richly decorated and
glazed in the styles known as majolica and talavera. Above right, A typical seventeenth-century Puebla bowl. Above
left, Mudejar influence is evident in this vase. Right, This flowerpot is of a Chinese type.
enforcement of legal restrictions. Cargoes were channeled through the two official ports
of entry: Veracruz for the Atlantic and Acapulco for the Pacific. Local officials exercised a
great deal of control over these processes and often used that to the benefit of merchants,
accounting for part of the contraband trade. For example, in the early eighteenth century,
the top official in Acapulco frequentlyregistered large quantities of goods arriving on the
galleons as “gifts” from merchants in Manila to their counterparts in mainland New Spain
to elide the fact that the local merchants were forbidden to import from the Asian mar-
kets. Ships sailing to and from the New World went in annual convoys, once a year in the
Pacific and up to four times a year in the Atlantic. Because of pirates, the convoys traveled
with armed escort vessels in the Atlantic. An increase in the number of ships and frequency
of the voyages from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries responded to the growing
economy of New Spain.
The arrival of the fleet in Veracruz and the galleons in Acapulco were momentous events
marked by large fairs visited by merchants from across New Spain and beyond. In Veracruz,
the prevalence of yellow fever and malaria discouraged any sizable permanent population,
but when the fleet arrived tents bristled on the beach almost overnight, as great numbers
of buyers came to negotiate in the colorful trade fair that ensued. In some years the cargoes
were taken to Mexico City to avoid the pestilential airs of the port. Eventually the fair relo-
cated inland to the higher, more salubrious climate of Jalapa, which had the added advan-
tage of being a safer depository for silver destined for Spain.
Once a year the Manila galleon arrived to Acapulco, usually in January. The ships were
laden with rich luxuries including silks, cottons, porcelains, furniture, spices, perfumes, in-
cense, and other goods destined to be sold at a large fair that brought many to this Pacific-
coast port. This fair created a cottage industry to support the increased population and the
provisioning of the ships for the return voyage to Manila. Officials attempted to control
prices, made sure that the silver that left the port city was certified, and supervised the inspec-
tion and provision of the ships. Moreover, they contracted with local elites to provide food
from their haciendas, arranged extra lodgings for the influx of merchants, and organized
the transport of people and goods to Mexico City and beyond. The government officials
often relied on the repartimiento obligations of indigenous communities who negotiated
payment in specie and goods. For a few months a year, Acapulco served as the center of
commerce in New Spain, allowing for the development of a local economy to support the
importation of goods destined for markets across the viceroyalty.
In the capital, a diverse population, ethnically and economically, met to buy locally
produced goods and luxury merchandise imported from Asia and Europe. While the major-
ity of the population could not afford to partake of the luxury goods to a great extent, the
market was sufficiently strong to increase imports throughout the colonial period. The main
plaza of Mexico City was the commercial hub with multiple markets always crowded with
shoppers—serving poor, middling, and elite consumer populations. (See the cover image.)
On the lower end of the scale, the Baratillo market was a space to buy secondhand and il-
legally procured items, often held up as an example of vice in the capital. After 1703, the
Parian market, named after a similar one in Manila, was the place to go to see and buy Asian
imports. Villages throughout Mexico had their own small public markets with few imported
Loading merchandise onto a Spanish galleon in Manila.
Muleteers (arrieros) were a familiar sight on the roads of New Spain.

goods; Indians were limited consumers of Spanish goods. They continued to weave their
own cloth and produce utilitarian wares, prompting the forced sale of goods practiced so
venally by the corregidores.
T H E R E S U LT S O F S PA I N ’ S P O L I C I E S
In addition to its profits through mining and agricultural exports, the Spanish crown real-
ized revenues through retention for itself of monopolies on such items as mercury, gunpow-
der, salt, pulque, and, in the eighteenth century, tobacco. The crown’s quinto was eventually
reduced to a tenth, but it still constituted a substantial source of royal income. As the enco-
mienda system withered away, more Indian villages came under the crown, to whom tribute
was paid. Although tribute in the early years was rendered in kind, Spaniards increasingly
demanded it in coinage as a way of forcing the Indian economy into the marketplace. In-
dians then had to sell their produce or their labor to get cash. But for the most part, under
Hapsburg rule, villages had some latitude to reconstitute hybrid communities of their own
making. The king’s treasury also benefited from the sale of licenses, offices, and land and
from the various taxes paid by the colonists. Altogether there were about sixty different taxes,
of which the most detested was the alcabala, a sales tax payable on almost everything sold. At
first only 2 percent of the item’s value, the alcabala went as high as 14 percent during Spain’s
wars of the eighteenth century, although colonial subjects had become adept at avoiding
payment of this tax. The almojarifazgo was a tax of 7.5 percent on all imports and exports,
so the crown was paid twice for goods moving between Spain and its colonies, for a total
income of 15 percent.
Despite the reduction in the labor force that resulted from the Indian demographic
decline, production of silver apparently did not drop drastically in the seventeenth cen-
tury. Nor did the excessive and arbitrary economic controls of the Hapsburgs necessar-
ily stifle local incentive and growth. A greater share of royal revenues remained in the
colony, and population revival after 1630 contributed to a rise in craft production as well
as more regional specialization in agriculture and manufacturing. According to most eco-
nomic historians, a growing transoceanic trade with Europe and Asia in the end did not
foster a profound capitalist transformation in New Spain’s primarily agrarian economy,
where domestic relations of production changed little and an oligarchy controlled limited
markets.1 Nonetheless, by the last decades of the seventeenth century, change was in the
offing with a modest expansion in mining, agricultural production, and commerce. In the
next century, the Spanish Bourbon kings would take advantage of this transitional phase
as a base for transforming the colonial economy.
1 In contrast, the historian John Tutino has argued that the economic development of the Bajío region was
crucial to the development of global capitalism in the early modern period. John Tutino, Making a New
World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America (Durham, NC, 2011).
A piece-of-eight minted in Mexico in 1609. Such coins were used mainly for trading with Spain for manufactured
goods or purchase of Asian spices and silks carried by the Manila galleon.
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C HA PTER 10
THE COLONIAL CHURCH
A traveler in colonial Mexico approaching the outskirts of a town first saw in the distance
a bell tower rising over all other structures. Before long he would hear the tolling of
bells resounding over town and countryside. In the streets priests, friars, and nuns mingled
prominently in the crowds. If the physical presence of the church was everywhere, in other
ways, too, it was the most pervasive of colonial institutions, and none left its imprint more
deeply on the culture.
C H U R C H O R G A N I Z AT I O N
Because of its expulsion of the Muslims in Spain and its “discovery” of the New World, the
Spanish crown was granted extraordinary privileges by the papacy. In effect, through the
royal patronage (patronato real) Spanish kings headed the Roman Catholic Church in their
domains. While this conferred great power and prestige, it also imposed many responsibili-
ties. And, significantly, it meant that the church became an arm of the state.
Church organization consisted of two distinct branches—the secular clergy and the reg-
ular clergy. The secular group consisted of priests who served under their bishops. The regu-
lars were missionaries under the separate authority of the superiors of their various orders;
the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and others. Fueled by a desire for status and
wealth, the Spanish conquest was also legally justified by its Christian mission—the saving
of souls. And most Spanish conquerors were devout in their religious observances, confess-
ing their sins and praying frequently, especially in times of danger. Cortés demonstrated
his pious fervor in his adamant insistence, even in threatening circumstances, that Indians
cast down their idols, forbear from human sacrifices, and abandon their old gods. His zeal
more than once jeopardized the safety of the Spaniards, and he had to be restrained by his
own priests.
In 1527 the Dominican Julián Garcés arrived in Tlaxcala to assume his duties as the first
bishop in the land. That same year another bishopric was created for the city of Mexico,
and the following year Juan de Zumárraga, a Franciscan friar, arrived as bishop. With the
142
The Colonial Church 143
Typical fortress-like construction is apparent in this sixteenth-century Dominican monastery at Tepoztlán, More-
los. There are some striking Renaissance details in this important structure.
additional title “Protector of the Indians,” Zumárraga not only established the form of the
early secular church but also took an active part in alleviating the sufferings of the Indians, a
policy that brought him into conflict with encomenderos and Spanish officials. A Christian
humanist and wise administrator, Zumárraga served as a stabilizing factor in the early years
of the colony. He was elevated to archbishop of Mexico shortly before his death in 1548.
An event of considerable significance was said to have occurred in 1531. According to
tradition, a newly converted Indian by the name of Juan Diego beheld a vision of the Virgin,
who commanded him to have a temple built in her honor.1 After this legend was popular-
ized in the mid-seventeenth century, first criollos and later many Indians embraced the devo-
tion of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The latter occurred when the church undertook a deliberate
1 Despite controversy regarding his existence, Juan Diego became Mexico’s first Indian saint on July 30, 2002.
Stafford Poole, The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico (Stanford, CA, 2006).
evangelization campaign in the eighteenth century that emphasized the Virgin’s indigenous,
dark-skinned features. Since modern times, Guadalupe has become a symbol of liberation
and of cultural fusion, not only in Mexico but in all of Latin America. The shrine to Guada-
lupe at Tepeyac in the northern part of Mexico City attracts many thousands of pilgrims each
year on December 12.
As the Spaniards spread out over the land, new bishoprics emerged: seven were estab-
lished in the sixteenth century, one in the seventeenth century, and two in the eighteenth.
They were staffed by large numbers of priests who ministered to the needs of all segments
of society.
THE RELIGIOUS CONQUEST
Meanwhile the evangelizing work of the regular orders had begun. In 1521 Cortés requested
that missionaries be sent, and in 1523 three lay brothers arrived, the most remarkable of
whom was Pedro de Gante. The following year twelve Franciscan friars landed at Veracruz
and walked barefoot to the capital. One of them, lame and tattered, was Father Toribio
de Benavente, who was given the affectionate name of Motolinía, “the Poor Little One,”
by Indians. He became one of the most renowned churchmen in Mexico’s history. As
monasteries were built to accommodate their activities, other Franciscans traveled to the
colony. Friars of the Dominican order arrived in 1525. Distinguished for their intellectual
discipline, the Dominicans had long been powerful in Spain, where they were associated
with the I nquisition. In the colonies, Dominicans like Las Casas campaigned for more just
treatment of Indians.
The Augustinians reached Mexico in 1533 and proceeded to construct some of the finest
monasteries in the land. All of these orders flourished early: by 1559 there were thirty Fran-
ciscan houses with 380 religious; 210 Dominicans labored out of forty houses; and 212
Augustinians had forty houses. Other orders, including those of nuns, had convents as well.
The fruit of their activity is astounding; Motolinía claimed (no doubt with considerable
exaggeration) that as early as 1537 some 9 million Indians had been baptized, 4 million of
them by the Franciscans alone.
Founded years after the conquest, the Jesuits entered Mexico only in 1571, when other
religious groups were well established in the center and the south. In their first years they
occupied themselves with educating the sons of Spaniards and soon won the reputation
of being superior teachers. But they also taught Indian children, and within a few years
they undertook the task of converting natives on the northern frontiers. After establishing
their first missions in Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua, later Jesuits, such as Fathers Eu-
sebio Francisco Kino and Juan Manuel de Salvatierra, carried their evangelization efforts to
Sonora, Arizona, and Baja California. In addition to teaching Indians the Christian doctrine,
by resettling them in villages, missionaries hoped to get them to adopt Spanish agriculture,
animal husbandry, and crafts. Eventually missions could sell their surplus production to
local markets, and the congregated Indians could be drafted for repartimiento labor. Fran-
ciscans continued this work in New Mexico, Texas, and California until after the end of the
colonial period.
The Virgin of Guadalupe as protectress of Mexican children in twentieth-century barrio art, Ciudad Juárez.
Throughout Mexico, then, the clergy took up the challenge of conversion and undertook
initial efforts in any given region with great dedication and zeal as priests learned local lan-
guages and often faced hostility. The clergy’s efforts to train selected young native men in
Spanish and Christian doctrine meant that early the church was able to produce confessional
manuals and other religious writings in Indian languages, predominately Nahuatl and Maya.
Native elites also staffed the offices that assisted the clergy, and were key to the fashioning
of local Catholicisms that were unique to individual and cultural references in catechisms
and ritual performances. Over time local religions blended and layered the Christian and the
native. One manifestation of this phenomenon was the conflation of the Catholic patron saint
with a local deity. In particular, Saint James (Santiago) and the Virgin Mary came to have pow-
erful connotations as protectors of Indians. At the same time, Christian images (for example,
the Crucifixion) could easily be misconstrued by the natives as they sought to place them in fa-
miliar contexts. These images became living sources of solace and healing for many over time.
In churches and in religious celebrations, native ritual, myth, and history continued to
be layered with Catholic themes and motifs. By the end of the colonial period, indigenous
peoples did not always distinguish between what was native and imported in their local
religion. But for many of them, the ability to borrow and blend had served as protection
and resistance against the complete eradication of their cultures. Some local pre-conquest
devotional practices were kept alive primarily through oral transmission but also by pictorial
texts created by native communities to substantiate their claims regarding hierarchies and
land tenure. Many practices overtly Christian in symbol ironically served to bolster indig-
enous identity and local community autonomy. In diverse local ways, Indians became de-
voutly attached to their churches and to the miraculous images and shrines they claimed as
their own. Even when devotional practices or cults seemed to transcend Catholic orthodoxy,
officials were wont to turn a blind eye if these did not stray too far from sanctioned beliefs.
Indians were more likely to adopt those introductions by the clergy that could enhance
their material conditions, such as tools and additions to the diet. Local fiestas or feast-day
celebrations were especially popular, as they liberated Indians from their labors and were as-
sociated with feasts that enabled them to consume more of their own production. Religious
plays, music, and dancing served as evangelical tools and often accompanied these festivals.
Accustomed to public ritual, indigenous people modified and adapted ceremonies such as
those of Corpus Christi, Todos Santos, and Holy Week.
Indian cofradías, created to promote particular religious devotions, also served the pur-
pose of enabling Indians to manage their own economic resources. Although cofradía hold-
ings varied widely, they commonly included some livestock and perhaps small properties
that were rented out. In some places, they functioned as credit institutions, lending modest
amounts to members. Conflicts between parish priests and cofradías over control of these re-
sources erupted frequently. Many priests complained that Indians used cofradía assets for un-
authorized purposes and that the fiestas they sponsored were too extravagant and libertine.
RELIGIOUS DISPUTES AND COLONIAL PIETY
From the beginning, clergymen in Mexico became embroiled in bitter disputes. Ecclesiastics
and encomenderos competed for control of the Indians, while friars and priests tried to pro-
tect the natives from the abuses of Spaniards. The clerics construed them as bad Christians
who corrupted Indian morals in addition to mistreating them physically and exacting ex-
orbitant tributes. Spanish civilians, in turn, regarded many of the ecclesiastics as hypocrites
who were guilty of the same crimes of which they accused others. Within the church itself
there were other quarrels over evangelical methods and territorial jurisdiction. On occasion
the disputes ended in violence.
An anonymous Mexican artist of the early eighteenth cen-

tury rendered this St. Michael.
Some acrimonious disputes between ecclesiastical and civil authorities involved not only
lesser figures in the provinces but even archbishops and viceroys. One of the most notori-
ous and scandalous episodes took place in the 1640s between the Jesuits and the bishop of
Puebla, Juan de Palafox, who also held a number of high civil posts and served briefly as
viceroy. This contest involving the wealth and power of the Jesuits became a cause célèbre
in which several important people were excommunicated and a Jesuit school was almost
burned. For the moment the Jesuits were victorious and the powerful bishop was withdrawn.
Eventually, however, the secular arm of the church gained the upper hand in Mexico, as the
crown consciously strove to weaken the influence of the regular orders.
Finally, some clergymen felt discriminated against because of the social circumstances
of their birth. As in the civil bureaucracy, most of the higher positions were denied to those
of Spanish blood born in Mexico. Yet, by the seventeenth century the majority of Mexican
clerics were criollos. Nearly all elite families provided at least one son or daughter to some
branch of the church, along with the income to support him or her. For some women, life as
a nun provided a desired alternative to marriage as well as a means to devote themselves to
God and perhaps even acquire an education. Since most Spaniards were faithful Catholics,
they also left pious bequests to the church. Thus, the church became wealthy, the owner
of extensive rural and urban properties (which it rented out) throughout Mexico. In the
absence of banks, the church became a major lending institution, extending credit to elites.
In addition, a good deal of church wealth went into the construction of opulent places of
The eighteenth-century baroque Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Ocotlán, Tlaxcala.
worship, but it was also used to finance the colony’s only social services: the charitable insti-
tutions such as hospitals, schools, and orphanages that were run by the various orders and
cathedral chapters.
The good works of the church must be measured against the personal behavior of clerics.
In general, the regular orders were regarded as more dedicated—primarily because they were
better educated—than the secular clergy. Reports accused priests of taking mistresses, imbib-
ing to excess, gambling, soliciting in the confessional, and engaging in commerce. Others
were charged with exacting excessively high fees for the sacraments and subjecting Indians to
harsh punishments. As the primary agents of social control, at least until the eighteenth cen-
tury, parish priests and missionaries were expected to use or condone corporal punishment
to compel the obedience of their charges. And although the majority of priests observed
their vows, lived modestly, and worked to foster improvements in the physical plant of their
domains, charitable activities were less in evidence. They customarily extracted resources
from their parishioners, serving to benefit not only the church but often themselves.
By the seventeenth century, the humility and simplicity evident in earlier decades yielded
to a more material and increasingly profane mode of behavior that may be attributed to
a decline in interest as the novelty of the crusading spirit wore thin and routine set in.
Then, too, in a practical sense the challenge was less in terms of numbers, for the Indian
population had declined drastically. The humanistic efforts of the early church to provide
education and social services to Indians gradually gave way to less zealous, more avaricious
priests who, along with corregidores, conspired to extract resources from the natives. Still,
Detail of San Francisco Acatepec. The tiles are green, yellow,

and blue, bordered by red brick.
The tiled domes of Iglesia del Carmen in Mexico City.

some priests played a broker role, defending their flocks out of either common interests or
altruism. And on the fringes of New Spain, missionaries conscientiously persisted in their
evangelical labors, often among hostile non-sedentary groups of Indians.
Throughout the colonial period, the organized church continued to provide a vocation and
income for thousands of Mexican clerics. At no time, however, did they constitute more than a
fraction of a percent of the total population. Perhaps more than half lived in Mexico City and
other sizeable cities like Puebla and Valladolid. Several convents for Indian nuns were estab-
lished in the middle colonial period, and in the 18teenth century, Indian males could be admit-
ted to the priesthood. At the end of the colonial era, there were about two thousand nuns and
slightly over seven thousand priests (of whom about 40 percent belonged to the regular orders).
THE INQUISITION
Religious affairs assumed a more somber cast in 1571 with the formal entrance of the Holy
Office of the Inquisition. With its roots in the Middle Ages, the Inquisition was employed
in Spain when Ferdinand and Isabella were striving to achieve political and cultural unity in
the state. These “Catholic kings” saw conformity as essential, equated Christianity with the
very soul of Spain, and viewed heresy astreason. The crown forced Jews to convert or leave,
along with the remaining Islamic peoples, and later on Protestants were forbidden in Span-
ish realms. The Inquisition functioned essentially to maintain the purity of the faith and to
preserve religious orthodoxy. Since proper morality was so inseparable from correct religious
behavior, the Inquisition’s broader mandate became the enforcement of social conformity.
Although emigrants to the New World were screened with care, some heretics slipped by.
Particularly suspect were conversos, or New Christians, that is, those of Jewish origins who
had converted to Christianity; and the Inquisition endeavored to root out “crypto-Jews” in
New Spain. Some unfortunate Protestant corsairs underwent trial for heresy. Moreover, the
Inquisition tried many colonists, including clergymen and even persons in high official posi-
tions, for purely moral offenses.
The Inquisition also exercised control over printed matter that entered the colony, con-
cerned primarily with works that dealt with liberal, “dangerous” ideas, which it was feared
would corrupt and lead astray the unsophisticated Indians as well as Spaniards. However,
many prohibited writings, including those of the eighteenth-century French and English
Enlightenments, found their way into the private libraries of educated people, among whom
were a good number of clergymen.
Before the formal establishment of the Inquisition, bishops had exercised inquisitorial
powers and their jurisdiction included Indians charged with false worship. The most notori-
ous case involved Don Carlos of Texcoco, who was accused of idolatry, though his outspoken
statements allegedly contained political and social overtones. Bishop Zumárraga found the
noble guilty and, in 1539, had him burned at the stake. This and other examples of excessive
zeal, along with the realization that conversion would not occur overnight, helped convince
the crown that the conquered peoples should not be tried as heretics. Instead, after 1570, sus-
picion of idolatry was to be investigated by local clerics under diocesan organization, and royal
officials would administer suitable punishments, often corporal but short of the death penalty.
The Inquisition headquarters in Mexico City.
The great majority of Inquisition cases involved more mundane aspects of the lives of
the non-Indian population. Thousands of cases investigated the misappropriation of super-
natural power through the fraudulent manipulation of Christianity or practices of magic,
witchcraft, and superstition. Another large portion pertained to sexual transgressions such
as bigamy, solicitation in the confessional, cohabitation, fornication, and sodomy. In indig-
enous villages, as in Spanish towns, local rivalries often played into accusations of heretical
behavior. For historians, Inquisition cases provide rich information about social and ethnic
relationships, popular beliefs, and petty rivalries. For example, cases of blasphemy reveal
a great deal about masculinity and the social structures of male authority. Accounts from
Inquisition records also show that folk customs from Indian and African religions as well
as local religion in Spain were often manifest in the popular piety of diverse ethnic groups.
In trying to correct popular and traditional practices, the Inquisition applied a range of
punishments (including floggings, fines, and forms of public humiliation), but as the colo-
nial period progressed, Inquisition officials often threw out charges and lightened penalties
The frontispiece of a treatise against heresy printed in Spain in 1519. Much of colonial publishing dealt with
religious subjects.
Baroque façade of the Jesuit seminary of San Javier, Tepotzotlán.
through confession and penitence. The reach of the Inquisition was not all pervasive and
was often tempered by local relationships and conditions. Well-educated high Inquisition
officials, both civil and religious, tended toward moderation in imposing punishments.
Those who paid the extreme penalty had been convicted, in most cases, of the serious
crime of heresy, often compounded by “obstinancy”—that is, the refusal to recant. The rela-
tively few prisoners sentenced to burning at the stake were often strangled first. The solem-
nity of official proceedings notwithstanding, autos da fé assumed a carnival spirit for which
elaborate preparations were made. People came from near and far to jeer at the parade of
those who carried candles and wore penitential garb with pointed hoods, as well as to regard
the special ceremony reserved for those consigned to the stake. From the reviewing stand the
viceroy, bishops, and other high dignitaries, with their ladies, viewed the macabre spectacle.
Carved wooden mask used in a dance celebrating

the Christian victory over the Moors.
The first auto da fé in the colony took place in 1574. Sixty-three prisoners had been
judged, of whom five were burned and most others flogged. Eight more autos occurred in
the next twenty years. But perhaps the most sensational proceeding involving crypto-Jews
concerned Don Luis de Carvajal, the colonizer and governor of Nuevo León, who was ac-
cused in 1590 of harboring relatives who practiced Jewish rites. Over the next fifty years
some members of his family were incarcerated or burned at the stake. The high point of
autos da fé occurred between 1646 and 1649, when 216 people were tried for heresy.
The Inquisition became in later times, less concerned with spiritual matters. As an instru-
ment of royal policy, it served in the eighteenth century to check dissident political elements.
Both of the liberal priests who led the struggle for independence from Spain in the early
nineteenth century were tried by the Inquisition before being turned over to secular authori-
ties for execution. The tribunal persisted almost to the end of the colonial period and was
not abolished until 1820.
Although the Inquisition affected relatively few people living in the colony, the Catholic
church in its many branches exercised enormous influence over most inhabitants. The church
touched the lives of those in New Spain from baptism to burial. Altogether some 12,000
churches were built in the colony during the three centuries of Spanish rule. To the Spaniards
the church was a link with the mother country, a familiar and comforting association that
made them feel less alien in the New World. It has been argued that considerations of honor
and piety motivated them to support the church lavishly “almost to the point of their own
economic suicide.”2 A deep spirituality also inspired local Catholicisms in Indian communi-
ties. Indians engaged in the solemn ceremonies that connected them with whatever sense
of the cosmic they had evolved; the tolling of chimes and tinkling of bells, the incense, and
the burning candles could arouse a sense of reverence and awe. Outside the churches, native
peoples savored the singing, dancing, eating, and drinking of the fiestas with their noisy and
colorful displays of fireworks and pageantry. Above all, “local religious practices sought to
explain and domesticate Spanish colonial rule. Indians sought access to the Spaniards’ spiri-
tual knowledge and power in order to fortify the connection between the sacred and profane
in ways that responded to the overshadowing importance of natural forces in their lives.”3
Studies of Indian peoples have increasingly downplayed the role of the Catholic church as
an oppressive cultural monolith, highlighting instead how popular Catholicism bolstered
the persistence of indigenous identity and community formation.
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S. Hoberman and Susan M. Socolow, 19–48. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Boone, Elizabeth Hill, Louise M. Burkhart, and David Tavárez, eds. Painted Words: Nahua Catholicism,
Politics, and Memory in the Atzaqualco Pictorial Catechism. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection, 2017.
Brading, D. A. Mexican Phoenix, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition across Five Centuries. New York:
Brescia, Michael M. “Liturgical Expressions of Episcopal Power: Juan de Palafox y Mendoza and the Tri-
dentine Reform in Colonial Mexico.” The Catholic Historical Review 90/3 (2004): 497–518.
Bristol, Joan Cameron. Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches: Afro-Mexican Ritual Practice in the Seventeenth
Century. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007.
Burkhart, Louise M. Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature. Austin: Univer-
sity of Texas Press, 2001.
Cervantes, Fernando. The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1994.
Christensen, Mark. Nahua and Maya Catholicisms: Texts and Religion in Colonial Central Mexico and Yucatan.
Chuchiak IV, John F., ed. The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–1820: A Documentary History. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
Clendinnen, Inga. “Disciplining the Indians: Franciscan Ideology and Missionary Violence in Yucatán.”
Past and Present 94 (1982): 27–48.
Curcio-Nagy, Linda A. “Faith and Morals in Colonial Mexico.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by
Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, 143–74. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
2 Arnold J. Bauer, “The Colonial Economy,” in The Countryside in Colonial Latin America, eds. Louisa S. Hober-
man and Susan M. Socolow (Albuquerque, NM, 1996), 46.
3 William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford, CA,
1996), 62.
Deeds, Susan M. Defiance and Deference in Colonial Mexico: Indians under Spanish Rule in Nueva Vizcaya.
Díaz, Mónica. Indigenous Writings from the Convent: Negotiating Ethnic Autonomy in Colonial Mexico. Tucson:
Farriss, Nancy. Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico, 1759–1821. London, UK: University of London
Press, 1968.
Greenleaf, Richard E. The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1969.
________. Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition, 1536–1543. Washington, DC: Academy of American
Franciscan History, 1961.
Gruzinski, Serge. Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands: Indian Power and Colonial Society, 1520–1800. Stan-
ford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.
Hackel, Steven W. Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian–Spanish Relations in Colonial Cali-
fornia, 1769–1850. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Hanke, Lewis. Bartolomé de Las Casas: Bookman, Scholar, and Propagandist. Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press, 1952.
Hordes, Stanley M. “The Inquisition as Economic and Political Agent: The Campaign of the Mexican Holy
Office against the Crypto-Jews in the Mid-Seventeenth Century.” The Americas 39/1 (1982): 22–38.
Hu-Dehart, Evelyn. Missionaries, Miners and Indians: Spanish Contact with the Yaqui Nation of Northwestern
New Spain, 1533–1820. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1981.
Jackson, Robert H. Frontiers of Evangelization: Indians in the Sierra Gorda and Chiquitos Missions. Norman:
Lavrin, Asunción. Brides of Christ: Conventual Life in Colonial Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2008.
________. “The Role of the Nunneries in the Economy of New Spain in the Eighteenth Century.” Hispanic
American Historical Review 46/4 (1966): 371–93.
Lopes Don, Patricia. Bonfires of Culture: Franciscans, Indigenous Leaders, and Inquisition in Early Mexico,
1524–1540. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
Mann, Kristin Dutcher. The Power of Song: Music and Dance in the Mission Communities of Northern New
Spain, 1590–1810. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.
Megged, Amos. Exporting the Catholic Reformation: Local Religion in Early-Colonial Mexico. Leiden, Nether-
lands: E. J. Brill, 1996.
________. Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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C HA PTER 11
COLONIAL SOCIETY
Race, Ethnicity, Class, Gender, and Identity
T o understand the structuring of society in New Spain requires us to take into consider-
ation concepts of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and lineage. Race refers to dividing
people into groups based on biological and genetic factors while ethnicity signifies people
who share cultural traits. In Spain, the term raza was used, but by the sixteenth century it
came to be identified with purity of blood (limpieza de sangre) relating to religion. Those who
had unblemished old Christian lineage (free of Jewish or Muslim blood) possessed limp-
ieza de sangre. It is important to note that this designation was predicated on maintaining
control over Spanish women’s bodies to procreate within this lineage group. These concepts
could be challenged in New Spain where the mixing of different biological groups or races
complicated the hierarchical ordering of society by creating multiple ethnic identities, based
on cultural and economic factors.
The fact that few conquistadors took their wives to Mexico meant that from the begin-
ning they mixed freely with female natives and later with black slave women producing
children of mixed blood (mestizos or mulatos). But those who were theoretically mestizo
did not constitute a uniform category. The children of Spanish and native parents could
be distinguished by whether their ethnicity (cultural traits) derived from the Spanish or
Indian parent. Early on, those who were raised in the household of the Spanish father took
on predominantly Spanish characteristics and could even be considered criollos (Span-
iards born in New Spain). But since many of the unions between Spaniards and Indians
were fleeting (often the result of rape), their children assumed cultural identities that were
primarily indigenous. The offspring of Spanish-African unions were mulatos, but they
had lower status juridically because black blood was often associated with slavery in early
modern Europe. Blood was seen as a means through which moral and spiritual qualities
were passed on.
Later unions of the mixed children themselves resulted in additional distinctions
making for a confusing system of categorization with scores of racial and ethnic designa-
tions. Eventually mixed-race groups were lumped together in the catch-all classification of
castas. In a rapidly changing milieu, however, racial and ethnic identities did not remain
158
Colonial Society 159
static, and the social hierarchy evolved through changing legal rationales as well as lived
experience. Factors such as kinship, place of residence, and occupation could facilitate the
ability of individuals to sidestep norms and stereotypes. Initially, Spanish authorities tried
to order society by establishing separate legal codes for Spaniards and Indians, but this
division was untenable in light of widespread mestizaje (racial mixing). Over time purity
of blood became more linked to the modern idea of race, related to observable physical
features like skin color as well as traits perceived to be inherent in them. At the same time,
social categorization often deviated from the laws that tried to fine-tune it with fixed labels,
as individuals and groups found ways to maneuver in fluctuating economic and cultural
experiences. And even in a gender system which required that social ordering be transmit-
ted through marriage and family, placing a particular burden on women, sexuality did not
always adhere to prescribed norms. The following sections convey some of the distinctions
within organizing categories as well as the fluidity that characterized New Spain’s society in
the evolution of classes.
S PA N I A R D S
The elite of society in the post-conquest colony consisted of the more than two thousand
Spaniards in Mexico in 1521. As the conquerors and first settlers, they were lords of the land,
yet few were born with the proverbial silver spoon in the mouth. While a considerable
number of conquerors were hidalgos from the nobility, more often than not they had little
wealth. Their options were limited because their pretensions to hidalgo status prevented
them from taking employment deemed unworthy of their class. A career in law might enable
one to find a place in the royal bureaucracy, but it required a university education. Alterna-
tives lay in the church or the army. Owing to the long history of warfare in Spain, by the early
modern period a warrior could attain social standing. In the colonial world a military oc-
cupation continued to be honorable, but one’s social status also depended on other factors.
Elites developed a system of honor in which attitudes regarding occupation, lineage, and
behavior were prescribed and adjusted to ensure their superior social status. Of course, the
majority of the conquerors came from the working class, and many of them had trades. In
the early post-conquest period, barely literate tailors, carpenters, masons, cobblers, seamen,
and the like found themselves part of an aspiring aristocracy.
The heyday of the conquerors and their unfettered access to Indian labor and other
rewards were short-lived. Soon the colony was invaded by a different type of Spaniard,
educated and well connected in the mother country. Royal officials with legal training en-
tered to look after the crown’s interests, and private lawyers arrived to involve themselves
with the interminable lawsuits that arose. Cultured men of the church were expected to
set a higher moral and intellectual tone. Most of these newcomers had a more elevated
social status than the conquerors, and they were favored at the royal court. Spanish im-
migrants were not of one mind or loyalty as they brought with them their regional and
local customs and prejudices. For example, many Basques who were instrumental in the
colonization of northern Mexico saw themselves as ethnically distinct from and even
superior to other Spaniards.
With the phasing out of conquest society, the remainder of the colonial period would
be dominated in circles of influence by men sent from the Spanish peninsula—the penin-
sulares, or gachupines, as they were sometimes derisively called by those born in Mexico.
The peninsulares held the best positions in the civil and ecclesiastical hierarchies for much
of the colonial period. They also were found, along with criollos, in the most lucrative occu-
pations as miners, merchants (especially long-distance traders), and landowners; but as time
wore on, emigrant Spaniards of modest means attained those levels only through wealthy
relatives or marriage into influential criollo families. Other later arriving Spaniards did not
easily acquire the economic means to rise in social status. It is estimated that during the
three centuries of colonial rule between two hundred fifty thousand and three hundred
thousand Spaniards entered Mexico, but their numbers were never large at any one time.
CRIOLLOS
The second level of potential privilege accrued to those of Spanish blood born in Mexico.
These criollos were by physical appearance indistinguishable from the peninsulares, but the
mere fact of their New World birth prejudiced their status. It was commonly held by those
born in Europe that America’s environment was somehow detrimental, that the climate was
enervating and corrosive, and that Spaniards born in Mexico might even be tainted by Indian
blood. They were also deemed to be potentially less loyal to the mother country.
The criollos, despite their secondary rank, actually occupied a relatively favorable posi-
tion in the society of New Spain; merely by virtue of their light skin they were considered
superior to the darker masses below them. They could rise to respectable levels in church
organization and to lower- and middle-rank posts in the royal bureaucracy, and they came
to dominate local government in the cabildos. In fact, during the seventeenth and early eigh-
teenth centuries some criollos succeeded in attaining the highest offices of both church and
government, and eventually a number also held high military rank. Nevertheless, distance
from the power centers in Spain and the less prestigious academic degrees of the colony
prevented their having equal opportunity.
Year Whites Comments
1521 2,329 peninsulares
1529 8,000 peninsulares
1560 20,211 peninsulares and criollos
1570 57,000 peninsulares and criollos
1646 114,000–125,000 mostly criollos
1770 more than 750,000 mostly criollos
1793 1,095,000 70,000 of these were peninsulares
WHITE POPULATION OF NEW SPAIN

Still, criollos made up the largest segment of New Spain’s economic elite as hacendados,
or owners of large agricultural estates, miners, and merchants. Their dominance in the ca-
bildos abetted their economic pursuits. The special social prestige attached to landholding
also helped to confer upon criollos a prominent place in the social hierarchy. Despite their
superior numbers, that prominence would be eroded in the latter decades of the eighteenth
century, with fateful results.
M E S T I Z O S A N D C A S TA S
During the conquest some friendly caciques gifted women to the Spaniards, and other native
females either joined the conquerors by choice or were taken forcibly. These women cooked
for their men, nursed their wounds, carried their belongings, and shared their beds. Many
such liaisons were fleeting, but others ripened into long, comfortable arrangements. In the
early, hopeful years the conquerors visualized advantageous marriages with Spanish women.
But when, as happened in most cases, circumstances prevented their returning to Spain in
desirable style, they remained in Mexico, where their relative positions were sounder. Other
Spaniards already had wives in Spain or in the Caribbean and, although by law they were
obligated to send for them, by one pretext or another many avoided doing so. In 1551, ac-
cording to the bishop of Mexico, there were 500 married Spaniards in his diocese whose
wives languished outside the colony. Meantime most of these men took native partners, and
some even remarried, thereby risking trial for bigamy.
In the early post-conquest years, crown and church encouraged unmarried Spaniards to
wed Indian noblewomen and to legitimize their illegitimate children. Such marriages served
the interests of both groups since they provided Spaniards peaceful access to Indian lands
and also allowed segments of the indigenous nobility to retain oversight of their property
and to benefit from it. The most noteworthy, but certainly not the only, example of such
liaisons was a daughter and principal heir of Moctezuma, who before 1525 wedded three
times; the second and third were her marriages to the last two Aztec emperors. After she
converted to Christianity and took the name Isabel, Cortés arranged her fourth marriage
(she was just seventeen years old) to a conquistador and granted her the largest encomienda
in the Valley of Mexico. When her husband died shortly thereafter, Doña Isabel lived in
Cortés’ household where she had a daughter with him. In her fifth marriage to a Spanish
associate of Cortés, she gave birth to a son, just before her husband died. In 1532, she was
wed for the sixth time to another conquistador. This marriage lasted until her death in 1551
and produced five more children. All her children inherited parts of her holdings and some
made advantageous marriages, including her out-of-wedlock daughter who married Juan de
Tolosa, the discoverer of rich silver deposits in Zacatecas.
As the numbers of Spanish women arriving in Mexico with their fathers, brothers, and
uncles slowly increased, the situation changed. By midcentury, there were also a number
of mestizo daughters of conquistadors of marriageable age, and after that time, few Span-
iards or criollos married Indian women. Financial considerations were important factors in
marriage; a woman of property had a decided advantage, often to the exclusion of certain
other qualities. A widow of an encomendero, for example, seldom remained unmarried very
long. If she happened to be an Indian or mestiza, she might well be more attractive to a
poor Spaniard than a penniless Spanish woman. If an encomendero died leaving no son or
widow to inherit his Indian villages, the encomienda passed to his eldest daughter. If single,
she was required to marry within a year in order to keep the encomienda. As time went on,
however, it was much less likely that non-Spanish women would possess such high status.
The proportion of mestizos and other mixed-blood castas increased rapidly in Mexico, sur-
passing the number of Spaniards in the seventeenth century. It is difficult to generalize about
their status, which varied according to time and place, influenced by such factors as physical
characteristics, gender, the ability to acquire skills or property, and cultural identity. The mes-
tizo children who were legitimized by their conquistador fathers fared the best in terms of rank.
To take a notable case, Don Martín Cortés was the son of the captain and Doña Marina.
Technically he was a mestizo, but such was the standing of his father that he was considered
to be a Spaniard. Fernando Cortés took his mestizo son with him to Spain, where Martín was
made a knight of the prestigious Order of Santiago and a page to the prince (later Philip II).
Pedro de Alvarado’s mestizo daughter also had high social status; she married a cousin of the
duke of Alburquerque, one of Spain’s most powerful nobles.
The majority of the mestizos, however, could not aspire to high status. A high percentage
were illegitimate (not infrequently the result of rape) and the term mestizo was synonymous
with bastard for much of the colonial period. Informal liaisons between Spanish men and
casta or Indian women continued to be commonplace. Mexico (as elsewhere in Spanish
America) had a high rate of illegitimate births across all racial groups in urban areas. At the
same time, Indians in rural zones had the highest ratio of legitimate births.
Castas (along with some poor Spaniards) could be found in a wide variety of occupa-
tions, working as domestic servants, apprentices, artisans, petty entrepreneurs and traders,
muleteers, and common laborers. Being lower on the social scale did not necessarily trans-
late into deference. In fact, the record is replete with examples of individuals who challenged
their subordination by protesting unfair treatment in the courts; by occasionally attempting
to “pass” to a different ethnic category in asserting a corresponding occupational or cultural
identity; by verbally and physically abusing superiors; by calling on magic to bring retribu-
tion against oppressors; or by migrating to other regions.
INDIANS
Central Mexico alone (roughly equal to the size of France) may have had a pre-conquest
population as high as 25 million, and for many decades the Indians of Mexico vastly out-
numbered all other racial groups in New Spain. Then their numbers declined catastrophi-
cally. Waves of devastating epidemics swept over the land, and after a century of Spanish
occupation, during which many died from overwork and maltreatment, only about a mil-
lion natives remained. From their lowest number around 1630 the indigenous population
began to increase slowly. By the end of the colonial period the Indians were still the largest
ethnic group, but not by so vast a percentage.
As a conquered people the natives were exploited by the victors. At first Spaniards used
the Indian nobility to do their bidding, and noble caciques could maintain higher status
Year Indians Plague Years Comments
1519 25,200,000
1520 smallpox
1529 measles
1532 16,800,000
matlazáhuatl (typhus?); Indian deaths est.

1545
800,000
1548 6,300,000
1568 2,650,000
1576 matlazáhuatl; Indian deaths est. 2,000,000
1580 1,900,000
1595 1,375,000
1605 1,075,000
1625–50 1,000,000 lowest point of Indian population
INDIAN POPULATION OF CENTRAL MEXICO: CONTACT TO MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Sources: Figures to the year 1605 are based on the research of Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah: The Indian Population
of Central Mexico, 1531–1610 (Berkeley, 1960), and The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Con-
quest (Berkeley, 1963). Their counts, especially those prior to 1568, are considered much too high by some scholars.
within indigenous societies at least for a time. For the most part, however, the Spaniards saw
the Indians as an inferior people. Some enlightened ecclesiastics and a few royal officials
pleaded the Indian cause; they appealed to Christian ethics, emphasized the natives’ positive
qualities, and pressed for humane treatment. All too many Spaniards, however, considered
Indians to be lazy, disposed to vices, devious, and backward. They were deemed gente sin
razón (people without reason) as opposed to non-Indian gente de razón (people with reason).
Legally Spain considered Indians to be minors and wards of crown and church, com-
mending their care and supervision to clergymen and officials. Yet, because of their tute-
lary status, the Indians were, at least in some respects, protected and given consideration.
The crown and the church showed concern for the Indians’ welfare, and laws were passed
for their benefit. The flexibility of the Spanish legal system allowed Indians to pursue
litigation as a way to defend their interests. They filed lawsuits, and a surprisingly large
number were settled in the Indians’ favor in the General Indian Court (Juzgado General de
Indios) or in other tribunals. Indigenous leaders mastered Spanish legal concepts and vo-
cabularies, using them to advance their interests related to land, labor, native hierarchies,
and local governance.
Ultimately, however, the colony’s welfare depended upon the labor of the Indians, so
they were forced to serve the interests of the Spaniards. But they hardly did so with total ac-
quiescence. The responses of native peoples to Spanish colonialism were so varied as to defy
categorization, but whether the response was aggressive or accommodative, the intent was to
preserve familiar structures and to maintain whatever balance was necessary for living in har-
mony with the natural world and for assuring an adequate material subsistence. We know,
for example, that Nahua peoples resisted linguistic and other forms of acculturation for gen-
erations while asserting their rights to ancestral lands through fabricated “titles” that would
have resonance in the Spanish legal system. In central western Mexico, indigenous heirs of
the Tarascan empire strengthened communal sovereignty over time. In general, indigenous
groups in central and southern Mexico succeeded in using the courts to protect substantial
portions of their land. They were less effective in resisting recruitment of their labor and
the variety of means devised by Spaniards for extracting resources from their communities.
Corregidores or alcaldes mayores collected tribute through Indian middlemen, forced sales
of unwanted merchandise on Indian communities, and exacted graft payments. At the same
time, their links to market systems gave rise to class divisions within indigenous villages.
Despite the constant drain on Indian economies, local Indian leaders consistently sought
ways to keep control of their own resources and production. Sometimes they were able to do
this through cofradías (confraternities dedicated to the cult of a saint), which owned property
and livestock. In addition to keeping some of their foodstuffs in the community, cofradías
Eighteenth-century “casta paintings” depicted the many combinations of mixed race marriages and their chil-
dren. This one, from an anonymous artist, is entitled Español e india, mestizo.
served as a source of local credit. Indian villages exercised varying degrees of control over the
caja de comunidad (community chest) that supported local government. Imposed by Span-
iards, both of these “broker” institutions provided pathways for indigenous communities to
devise inventive strategies for manipulating local assets. The degree to which these were suc-
cessful often depended upon the relative power of the local priest and how easily he could
call upon Spanish coercive power to thwart unwelcome indigenous initiatives.
In peripheral areas, more aggressive resistance was initially the response of less sedentary
peoples to Spanish intrusion. Some, like the Apaches in the north, adopted the Spanish
horse and preyed upon Spanish cattle to successfully avoid subjugation. Eventual defeat and
resettlement in pueblos followed for most semi-sedentary northern Indians, but even then,
they chose flight and other evasive tactics such as foot-dragging, false deference, sabotage,
pilfering, gossip, and slander to resist total incorporation. Rebellion continued to be an
option, either for resisting the early stages of incorporation when their worlds were turned
upside down (the case of the Tepehuanes and Tarahumaras of Durango and Chihuahua in
the 17th century) or for peoples who found the accommodations they had worked out with
their oppressors for generations to have been violated.
No widespread rebellion affected Mexico in the colonial period, and aggressive resis-
tance in more densely populated Indian areas was mostly restricted to single village riots,
which increased as the eighteenth century progressed, and burgeoning Indian populations
put new strains on resources, including land and water. These protests were often directed
against the excessive demands of individual Spanish officials or priests. Some villagers strug-
gled to maintain cohesive communities, remaining in the pueblos where they cultivated
small plots of land and retained many traditional linguistic and cultural practices. Growing
numbers, however, left to find work in Spanish haciendas and mines. In some cases, they
found advantageous situations under the protection of their patrones (bosses), but the loss
of communal ties and the failure to substitute compensatory social relationships could also
result in despair and alcoholism.
In varying degrees, then, indigenous communities and peoples survived conquest and epi-
demic disease and went on to conserve features of their cultural patrimony by deliberately and
selectively taking from European techniques and beliefs what could be most usefully adapted
to indigenous ways. Of course, the effectiveness of resistance could be thwarted when native
populations declined drastically, when natural resources were valuable enough to bring heavy
Spanish might to bear, or when indigenous middlemen sided with their exploiters.
A F R I C A N S A N D M U L AT O S
During the conquest half a dozen blacks fought with the Spanish forces. In the Caribbean an
expanding sugar economy resulted in the importation of large numbers of African slaves, and
eventually many were taken to Mexico. At first most slaves were personal servants imported
by prominent men, who often had three or four in their household staffs. Less fortunate
were those slaves assigned to hard labor, especially in the mines. As a consequence of the de-
clining Indian population, one hundred twenty thousand or more slaves entered Mexico be-
tween 1519 and 1650. But blacks were expensive, while natives cost little. Accordingly, slaves
from Africa used for labor were put where they could produce returns justifying their high
purchase price. In the early years of silver mining, they made up perhaps as much as a third
of the labor force. Later they labored extensively in the tropical sugar-producing regions and
in obrajes. Considered more reliable than Indians, blacks were often trained for important
skilled positions and sometimes put in charge of native workers as overseers in mining op-
erations, small factories, and ranches. In the latter capacity, they were sometimes accused of
exploiting the Indians. Other blacks became accomplished artisans, bringing their masters
good profits. It was not uncommon for the slave to be given a share of the profits, which
eventually allowed him or her to purchase freedom. And despite often arbitrary and unjust
treatment of slaves, owners not infrequently manumitted them, especially domestic slaves,
women, and children, in their wills.
Afro-mestizos or mulatos, offspring of the union of Spaniards and blacks, could also im-
prove their circumstances, both because they were Hispanicized and because their Spanish
fathers could ease the way for them by making sure they were free. Otherwise, the mulato
would inherit the status of his or her mother according to law and would be a slave if she
were one. Nonetheless, by the late sixteenth century many free blacks and mulatos popu-
lated the colony. At least one historian has argued that in the early colonial period, a sig-
nificant number of those labeled mulato were actually Afro-indigenous; in northern Mexico
they were usually designated as coyotes or lobos.
Approximately two hundred thousand Africans entered Mexico during the colonial
period. It appears that by around 1560 there were almost as many blacks as whites in New
Spain. Especially in urban areas, elites enhanced their social prestige by having a retinue of
black and mulato slaves engaged in domestic service and craft production. Slaves were often
rented out to other Spaniards. The importation of slaves diminished at mid-seventeenth
century, when the official slave trade to New Spain ended. Recent research on slavery in
New Spain has revealed a remarkably rich composite picture of African experiences. Despite
constraints on their freedom and the perception that they were naturally rebellious, promis-
cuous, and prone to producing harm through witchcraft, most Afro-Mexicans cast them-
selves as loyal subjects of the crown and faithful Catholics. Slaves and free Afro-Mexicans
established families and kinship ties through marriages to partners within and outside of
their ethnic groups, and they fashioned social networks that reinforced a distinctive cultural
identity. They used institutions created by Spaniards—for example, free black militias and
religious confraternities—to acquire status and honor. Their interactions with other groups
varied across urban and rural landscapes, but their contacts with natives and castas were by
and large harmonious.
From the early years of Spanish occupation, black slaves in Mexico had frequently run
away from their masters, sometimes joining Indians in isolated regions. Apprehension that
blacks would incite a general rebellion abounded, but most fears seem to have originated
from the belief that they had special witchcraft powers. Few slave insurrections occurred, al-
though both slaves and free blacks were often accused of inciting natives to raid ranches and
assault mule trains in remote areas. In response, runaway slaves (maroons, or cimarrones)
were hunted down by bounty hunters and punished with floggings, castration, or hanging if
they had committed serious crimes.
Around the beginning of the seventeenth century the threat of black resistance centered
in the eastern region, especially near Veracruz. There an elderly slave named Yanga had held
out in the mountains for thirty years. In 1609 the viceroy sent an army of 600 men against
Yanga, whose camp had 80 men and some women and children. The viceroy’s soldiers were
given some lessons in guerrilla maneuvers by Yanga and, when the skirmishing finally ended
in a standoff, the government agreed to treat with the black rebel. It was an extraordinary
concession on the part of royal authority, and Yanga’s struggle was one of the most successful
instances of black resistance in the New World. He and his followers remained free by agree-
ing to cause no more trouble and to help track down other runaways. Not long afterward an
independent black town, San Lorenzo de los Negros, was founded near modern Córdoba.
Through manumission and the purchase of freedom by slaves themselves, black slav-
ery declined considerably over generations, particularly as the indigenous population
rebounded in the seventeenth century making up a larger percentage of the labor pool.
Although toward the end of the colonial period there were more than half a million Afro-
Mexicans, only around ten thousand would be considered blacks by Spanish authorities due
to mestizaje. Of those, perhaps only six thousand or so were slaves by 1800, mainly congre-
gated in the environs of Veracruz and Acapulco. By far the majority of Afro-Mexicans had
become integrated into the larger casta segment of society.
OTHER GROUPS
Crown policies severely restricted the flow of foreigners into the Mexican colony, but this
hardly put a damper on desire of many Europeans to make the journey. During the union
of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns (1580–1640), a substantial number of Portuguese
crossed the Atlantic to New Spain. Included in their ranks were some converted and crypto-
Jews. The Spanish relied heavily on the Portuguese who controlled the international slave
trade, an economic relationship that lasted long after the union of the crowns dissolved.
Other Europeans—Italian, French, German, English, and Greek—also went to New Spain;
those who were Catholic usually fared better than Protestants. Many were merchants, par-
ticipating in the lucrative Atlantic and Pacific trading routes where silver was exchanged for
all manner of luxury goods, but some were specialists and scientists invited by royal officials.
Asians in the Spanish colonies were collectively labeled as chinos, although this Spanish
legal category hardly represented the diversity of populations coming from regions of India,
China, Japan, the Southeast Asian islands. They entered New Spain through the port city of
Acapulco, usually on the Manila galleons; it has been estimated that at least fifty thousand
chinos came to the colony, predominantly in the seventeenth century. They mainly settled in
Mexico City, Puebla, and Veracruz as well as several areas of the west coast (including Guer-
rero and Michoacán). While most came as individuals, as sailors on the galleons, merchants,
government officials, laborers, or servants, one extraordinary visit was chronicled in the writ-
ings of Chimalpahin. In 1610, in a period of open foreign relations, a diplomatic mission
of Japanese officials left for New Spain to negotiate trade relations, investigate mining, and
promote peaceful dealings. This was followed by an even larger embassy of 150 Japanese
who traveled through New Spain en route to Europe in 1614.
Chinos, from many parts of Asia, found work as artisans, musicians, craftsmen, butchers,
tailors, and coachmen; they were most likely to be merchants or barbers. The Parian market
in the central plaza of Mexico City was home to the largest concentration of Asian merchants
in the colony, selling imported goods to the residents of the capital. As barbers, they not only
cut hair and shaved faces, but also performed medical services like bloodletting and basic
dentistry. Spanish peninsular barbers fought against the growing influence of the chinos in
this industry, as they came to dominate these services.
Beyond the influence of the many Asians who journeyed to the shores of Mexico, luxury
products such as silks, porcelains, and spices transformed consumption patterns in cities
like Mexico City, Puebla, and Guadalajara where local artisans produced furniture, talavera,
and paintings with an Asian esthetic. For example, the famous biombos (folding screens) that
depict the conquest of Tenochtitlan and an early map of Mexico City were a Japanese art
form adapted to and painted in the colonial context. Initially, biombos were some of the
first art objects imported into New Spain while other Japanese-produced screens were given
as gifts during the embassies described above. Eventually, the biombo was adapted by art-
ists in New Spain, who created works of art inspired by Asian forms for a colonial audience.
Not all Asians came to Mexico voluntarily, with approximately 8,000 imported as slaves
before the practice was outlawed in 1700. Transported first to the Philippines by Portu-
guese, Chinese, and Malay vessels, they became part of the cargo of the Manila galleons
on the journey from Manila to Acapulco. They hailed from diverse places: the Philippines,
Timor, Burma, Ceylon, India, and even Africa having been transported across the Indian
Ocean. Those from the Philippines, the only Spanish colony in Asia, were categorized as
indios chinos, a special designation that gave them a legal position closer to indigenous peo-
ples rather than other chinos. This was especially significant in the late seventeenth-century
debates about the abolition of indigenous slavery in the Spanish empire, which ended the
practice of enslaving Asians on the basis of their indigenous status (although not all Asian
slaves were in fact indios chinos).
A biombo, created in New Spain and located in the Museo Franz Mayer, depicts a map of Mexico City at the end
of the seventeenth century.
The most famous of the Asian slaves was Catarina de San Juan; originally from the west
coast of India, she was sold into slavery in the markets of Manila in the early the seventeenth
century. Arriving in Acapulco in 1619, she made her way to Puebla as the property of a Por-
tuguese slave merchant. There as a domestic servant, owned by her masters, she lived in an
urban environment where she was afforded some freedoms, particularly to attend church
where she found her calling. Granted her freedom upon the death of her masters she desired
to become a beata, or laywoman of the church. Stymied by the priest she worked for who
forced her into marriage, she finally was able to take vows once widowed. Her conversion
to Christianity and the obstacles she overcame to practice her faith led her to be seen as
a popular saint, still revered today in the city of Puebla. She is better known as the china
poblana, although this association has little to do with the real Catarina. Developed in the
late nineteenth century, an elite, nationalist fashion trend that mixed different ethnic ele-
ments (embroidered blouses, distinctive skirts, and fancy shawls) adopted Catarina and her
“Mughal” background to promote the Mexican fashion trend.
Racial diversity in Mexico was well advanced before the close of the sixteenth century.
White remained the color of privilege, but the number of castas far outstripped the Euro-
pean population before the eighteenth century. Since even the criollo sector was not free of
race mixture, money could sometimes buy status regardless of color. And although elites
endeavored to maintain a race-based hierarchy, there was a substantial divide between how
people were categorized and how they understood themselves. The racially mixed castas
The only extant image of Catarina San Juan from the sev-
enteenth century.
Contemporary chinas poblanas from the Festival de la China Poblana, Puebla, Mexico, 2013.
habitually contested the boundaries of their subordination creating a popular culture that
transcended ethnic divisions, as they simultaneously reinforced and challenged colonial
prescriptive norms.
W O M E N A N D FA M I LY
The power to negotiate was not a solely male preserve despite the constraints of the Span-
ish Catholic patriarchal system through which men theoretically exercised control over the
sexuality, reproductive capacities, labor power, and public conduct of women. The ideal
woman was chaste, pious, and submissive, living under the supervision and protection of
her father or husband. However, we should note that such a prescriptive behavior code
varied across ethnic and class lines. While women of status who defied these norms stained
the honor and threatened the racial purity of the family, the promiscuous sexual behavior of
men was seen as a natural component of male virility and authority (machismo). Domestic
abuse was a result of patriarchal and honor codes and its predominance in daily life has
been documented.
In spite of the arbitrariness of this system, Spanish women could inherit from their fa-
thers, and they enjoyed control over property they owned before they married. For elite fami-
lies, carefully arranged marriages were crucial to enhancing status and wealth. Widows and
unmarried older women not infrequently administered estates and businesses. Some women
elected not to marry, choosing instead the religious vocation of the convent. Life as a nun was
not as constraining as one might guess. Many elite Spanish nuns enjoyed material comforts
in convents, attended by their servants. Although most chose the profession for primarily
spiritual reasons, others elected conventual life for the possibilities it offered for education,
self-expression in the arts, escape from worldly danger, or belonging to a supportive com-
munity. In some cases, nuns contributed to the economic support of the convent by making
candies and other confections. Other Spanish women transgressed the norms by engaging in
informal liaisons, but they often did so in the hope of securing a promise of marriage.
Lower-class casta women were even less easily held to the rules, not surprisingly because
they were often objects of men’s sexual advances. Their virginity did not command the same
respect as that of elite women. Unmarried mestizas and mulatas—frequently single heads of
households—worked as street vendors, maids, cooks, washerwomen, midwives; a significant
number, along with indigenous women, sold produce in their own stalls in the markets. By
the eighteenth century, increasing numbers of rural Indian women were migrating to Mexico
City to seek domestic work.
Rural indigenous women were more likely to be married and engaged in performing
agricultural labor, domestic chores, and perhaps a skill like weaving or potting. Although
Indian women had held significant religious and political positions in earlier pre-contact
societies, those who came under the more stratified organization of imperial rule found
their roles circumscribed even before Spanish contact. At contact, Indian women throughout
Mexico performed crucial social and economic functions that paralleled and complemented
those of men. Complementary gender relations defied Catholic patriarchal norms during
much of the colonial period and worked to moderate sociocultural change. The tendency
of native societies to recognize and even venerate women’s contributions to shared duties
was eroded by the late colonial period, resulting in diminished legal status, but not always
economic power.
Across the ethnic spectrum, women typically engaged in contesting and negotiating their
status through a variety of channels including the church, the courts, and petty witchcraft.
Moreover, their activities contributed importantly to the maintenance of families—the criti-
cal social unit in all sectors of society. Families were a site for the transmission of cultural
values and a supportive base for forging political and social connections. Extended families
and godparents (compadres) constituted networks that could provide access to advantageous
marriages and economic influence for elites, as well as a safety net for the lower classes. In
the final analysis, the complexities of the intersections of race, class, and gender determined
the lived experiences of women and men in colonial society.
P O P U L AT I O N F I G U R E S
Tenochtitlan had a population of perhaps 200,000 at the advent of the Spaniards, but the
Christian city that arose on its ruins began with far fewer people. In 1560 Mexico City had
about eight thousand Spaniards. By 1574 there were around 15,000 Spaniards, in addition
to a large Indian population and significant numbers of blacks and mixed bloods. By 1810
Mexico City had more than 150,000 souls; the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, it
still had a much smaller population than that boasted by the Aztec capital at the time of
the conquest.
Population figures for the colony as a whole are especially suspect because of the diffi-
culty of counting people in so many isolated villages and spaces. Some generalizations can
be made. From its nadir of about one million at the mid-seventeenth century, the Indian
population of central Mexico began to recuperate and probably tripled by the end of the
colonial period despite continued cycles of epidemic disease. In southern Mexico (especially
in Oaxaca and in Maya areas), the indigenous population also continued to constitute the
largest segment, while in the north some indigenous groups disappeared altogether and the
rest were outnumbered by non-Indians.
Castas rapidly increased in numbers after the mid-seventeenth century to compose
nearly a third of the total at the end of the eighteenth. As noted earlier, few pure blacks
remained, although many Afro-Mexicans could be counted within the mestizo sector. Analy-
ses of a major census undertaken in 1793 suggest that a substantial number of mestizos
claimed criollo status. At independence in 1821, almost exactly three hundred years after the
conquest, the total population of Mexico had reached 6 million. What is striking is that the
population had nearly doubled since the mid-eighteenth century. In 1821, about 60 percent
were Indians, mixed races made up nearly a fourth, blacks less than one percent, and Span-
iards (predominantly criollos) between 15 and 20 percent. Of course, regional variations in
those proportions were striking, with marked differences between rural and urban areas and
between central-southern Mexico and the north.
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C HA PTER 12
CULTURE AND DAILY LIFE

IN NEW SPAIN
E D U C AT I O N
When Don Antonio de Mendoza arrived in Mexico fourteen years after the fall of Tenochtit-
lan, he was greeted by, among others, an Indian boy who recited in classic Latin. The amused
viceroy soon learned that the energetic friars had begun to Hispanicize the natives through
education. It was a plan encouraged by both crown and church for, quite aside from senti-
ments of altruism, there were practical considerations. The sincere design to Christianize
the conquered people was best achieved through their understanding Spanish; moreover, it
hastened their assimilation of Spanish ways.
In Spain a broad educational system was not seen as a responsibility of the state. Educa-
tion was, rather, an individual concern, usually involving only those of the privileged class,
while instruction itself was the province of the church. Only on the university level did the
crown evince strong interest, primarily to prepare young men for careers in the bureaucracy.
The church was equally concerned with higher education in order to instruct clergymen,
who would in turn run the schools in the colonies, as in Spain.
One is struck by the cultural vitality in the early years of a conquest society that was
in so many ways both turbulent and rustic. The impulse to refinement came from learned
clergymen primarily because educated laymen were usually involved in government, law, or
other professional interests. Therefore the intellectual and cultural attainments of the Span-
ish colony are attributable primarily to the religious orders.
The first prominent educator in Spanish Mexico was Pedro de Gante, a Franciscan lay
brother and illegitimate relative of Charles V. By 1524 he was teaching Indian boys, and later
he founded the famous school of San José, where under his direction hundreds of native
youths received primary instruction and adults were taught trades. While the children were
drilled in Latin, music, and other academic subjects, the elders became the colony’s masons,
carpenters, blacksmiths, painters, and sculptors. Gante put their skills to good use, person-
ally supervising the building of one hundred chapels and churches.
176
Culture and Daily Life in New Spain 177
The school of Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco was founded in 1536 by Viceroy Mendoza and
Bishop Zumárraga. With such powerful patrons it became the outstanding Indian school
and aimed at the higher instruction for the sons of nobles, through whom it was thought
Spanish culture would more easily be passed on to commoners. Aside from the fundamen-
tals of reading and writing, courses were offered in Latin, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, as
well as music and native medicine. Taught by learned humanists, the youths received excel-
lent European instruction, and they in turn aided the friars in schools and church.
The most appealing figure in early education was Vasco de Quiroga, whose practical ap-
proach to education was distinct. A man of varied interests, Quiroga was a humanist, lawyer,
and a judge in the second audiencia. But his fame rests on his personal crusade to benefit
the conquered peoples. Using his own capital, the aging lawyer established his first hospital-
school of Santa Fé in 1531-32, on the outskirts of Mexico City. Shortly thereafter he moved
to Michoacán, near Lake Pátzcuaro in the area of the old Tarascan kingdom. There, in the
region so troubled since the depredations of Nuño de Guzmán and by the continued savage
in-fighting among Spaniards, the benevolence of Quiroga (Tata Vasco) aimed to inspire trust
from the natives. Intrigued by Thomas More’s Utopia, Quiroga attempted, with considerable
success, to create an ideal society in the New World. He formed communities in which the
Indians received training not only in religion but also in practical arts and crafts as well as
in the rudiments of self-government. Each person worked six hours a day, sharing and con-
tributing equally to the common welfare. Appointed bishop of Michoacán in 1537, Quiroga
continued to lead a productive life until he was nearly ninety. With his death the utopian vil-
lages declined, but he had established some fine traditions that persisted, and descendants
of his specialized artisans ply their crafts still.
Other Indian schools included the Jesuit San Gregorio Magno that trained Nahuas from
1586 to 1767. Concern for abandoned or orphaned mestizos led to the opening in 1547 of
the orphanage school of San Juan de Letrán. But in the end the attempts to educate young
The Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco.

Indians and mestizos were limited in scope. What had begun on such an auspicious note fell
largely into neglect and apathy set in. After several decades of association with their conquer-
ors, many of the natives grasped the language and customs of the Spaniards, and the danger
of large-scale rebellion seemed past. Educating Indians and mestizos was not given priority
until later in the colonial period.
The early education of Indians fell mostly to the Franciscans while the Jesuits and Au-
gustinians predominated in instructing criollos. Though many Spanish conquerors were
uncultured, their sons inherited a social position that called for some measure of refine-
ment. Consequently, tutors schooled young children at home, and primary schools existed
in Spanish communities of any size. Religious orders established a number of secondary
schools (colegios). The most prestigious of such schools was the elite Jesuit Colegio de San
Pedro y San Pablo, founded in 1576 and supported by profits from efficient Jesuit haciendas.
Its graduates were equal, and sometimes superior, to those of the University of Mexico. An
Augustinian institution, established a year earlier by the prominent intellectual Alonso de la
Veracruz, also provided superior studies. In addition excellent seminaries for training priests
maintained a high level of scholarship, among them San Ildefonso and Tepotzotlán, both of
which belonged to the Jesuits.
The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico was created in 1553 at the petition of Vice-
roy Mendoza and Bishop Zumárraga, making it the first university to function in the New
World. Founded with the aim of educating criollos for the clergy and other professions, the
university modeled itself on the Spanish University of Salamanca, with which it was sup-
posed to be equal in rights and privileges. With an excellent faculty, it would produce many
of New Spain’s leading literary figures, scientists, lawyers, medical doctors, and theologians.
During the colonial period the university granted around 30,000 bachelors’ degrees and over
1,000 masters’ and doctorates. Late in the colonial period, in 1791, another university was
founded in Guadalajara.
Females enjoyed fewer opportunities for education. As early as 1534 nuns created schools
for girls. Indian girls, under the tutelage of Gante, were taught mainly how to be good wives
in the Spanish manner. In 1548 the Caridad school was established for orphaned mestizas,
and in the late sixteenth century schools were founded for young criolla women.
S C H O L A R S H I P A N D L I T E R AT U R E
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of scholarship in the colony began not long after the
conquest with the diligent studies made by friars, among whom were a number of non-
Spanish Europeans educated in France, Flanders, or other countries. Their inquiries into the
nature of the native peoples and the land were truly phenomenal.
Cortés described the conquest itself in his famous letters to the king which have been
translated into several languages and appear in many editions. A more popular account,
however, remains the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, written by Bernal
Díaz del Castillo, a footsoldier in Cortés’s army. Díaz later moved to Guatemala, where he
wrote his richly detailed, personalized account years after the events. He has left us a work
that, with its simple prose and graphic descriptions, has become a classic of its kind.
Especially noteworthy are scholarly studies of the Indians: Motolinía’s Historia de los
indios; the Spanish judge Alonso de Zorita’s Breve y sumaria relación de los señores de la
Nueva España; and the magisterial Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (Floren-
tine Codex) by Father Bernardino de Sahagún, a compendium of Aztec life that forms
a basis for our knowledge of Nahua peoples, but with the primary aim of gathering
knowledge useful for conversion. Anticipating modern anthropological practice, Sahagún
worked with native informants to record their history in Náhuatl and Spanish. Many other
important works of the sixteenth century, including church histories, offer eloquent testi-
mony to the evangelical zeal, intellectual curiosity, industry, and painstaking scholarship
of these early historians.
Although the scholarly studies of the sixteenth century were outstanding, valuable
works appeared later as well. In the early seventeenth century, Chimalpahin, descended
from Nahua royalty and educated by Franciscans, wrote detailed accounts of the pre-contact
period as well as annals of Mexico City’s daily religious and cultural life in his own time.
A significant eighteenth-century work is the Historia antigua de México by the celebrated Jesuit
Francisco Javier de Clavijero, a native-born Mexican considered to be the founder of modern
Mexican historiography. Another erudite Jesuit was Francisco Javier Alegre, accomplished in
many fields but best known for his history of the Jesuits in New Spain.
No matter what their motives, clergymen preserved Indian histories, customs, and lan-
guages. They created dictionaries and grammars so that Indians could read and write in
their own languages. Many of the friars became proficient in three or four native tongues.
There were fewer scholars of note in other disciplines, although some excelled in studies of
the flora, fauna, and medicines of Mexico. The crown occasionally sponsored research: in
1571 the royal cosmographer was ordered to take a census, study eclipses, and undertake
both a general and a natural history. The towering figure in scientific thought was Carlos
de Sigüenza y Góngora, a criollo of universal renown during the seventeenth century. He
Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645-1700) was an eminent

scholar of wide-ranging scientific and historical interests.
studied to be a Jesuit at Tepotzotlán but was expelled for an infraction of the strict rules.
Poet, historian, mathematician, astronomer, and antiquarian, he exemplifies the scientific
curiosity that would flourish especially toward the end of the colonial period.
Leaving aside chronicles of the conquest, literary achievements in New Spain began with
the Dialogues of Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, who extolled the beauty of Mexico City and
the quality of the university. The brightest literary light of all, however, and holding first
place in the hearts of Mexicans, was a woman, Sor (Sister) Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–95).
Apparently of high but illegitimate birth, Sor Juana grew from a child prodigy who amazed
intellectuals at the viceregal court into a beautiful, graceful young woman with astonishing
talents. An early exponent of women’s rights, she lamented the disdain with which female
efforts were greeted and the subordinate position of women generally. Her disenchantment
was well expressed in one of her poems:
Hombres necios que acusáis Ah stupid men, unreasonable

a la mujer sin razón, In blaming woman’s nature,
sin ver que sois la ocasión Oblivious that your acts incite
de lo mismo que culpáis; The very faults you censure.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido, Which has the greater sin when burned
en una pasión errada: By the same lawless fever:
la que cae de rogada She who is amorously deceived,
o el que ruega de caído? Or he, the sly deceiver?
¿O cuál es más de culpar, Or which deserves the sterner blame,
aunque cualquiera mal haga: Though each will be a sinner:
la que peca por la paga, She who becomes a whore for pay,
o el que paga por pecar?1 Or he who pays to win her?
At the age of eighteen she stunned her admirers by ignoring favorable prospects of mar-
riage and her privileged position at court when she entered a convent. She devoted the rest
of her life to contemplation, intellectual exercises, correspondence with Spanish writers, and
the writing of prose and lyric poetry, surpassed by only a few in the “Golden Age” Spanish-
speaking world. Sor Juana, the first great poet in the New World, composed passionate,
almost erotic, love poems of great beauty.
Late in the colonial period, however, Mexico produced another major literary figure
in José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi. His satirical El Periquillo Sarniento (translated as The
Mangy Parrot) [1816], a picaresque depiction of life in early nineteenth-century Mexico, is
widely considered to be the first true novel written in Spanish in Latin America.
Mexico City had a printing press by 1537-39. In the latter year the first book was printed
in the colony, a religious tract written in both Nahuatl and Spanish by Bishop Zumárraga.
Before the century was out, about 220 books had been produced in the capital, although
1 Chicano Literature: Text and Context, trans. Robert Graves, eds. Joseph Sommers and Antonia Castañeda Shu-
lar (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1972), 10-11.
no other Mexican city had a press until a century later. Scholars estimate that during the co-
lonial period some fifteen thousand volumes were printed in Mexico, among them books
in at least nine different Indian languages. In addition to many religious studies, pub-
lications included dictionaries, grammars, accounts of navigation, descriptions of natu-
ral phenomena like earthquakes, and works on medicine, methods of teaching reading,
and simple arithmetic. In the second half of the sixteenth century at least twelve liturgical
books containing music were published; in the same period only fourteen came out of
presses in Spain.
Despite the theoretical threat of censorship, books were available in considerable variety,
and some large and excellent private libraries existed in New Spain. When Vasco de Quiroga
died in 1565, he had accumulated more than six hundred volumes, and in her convent Sor
Juana was surrounded by four thousand of her own books. By the seventeenth century the
College of Discalced Carmelites had twelve thousand volumes. Probably the finest library in
the New World, however, at least by the eighteenth century, was the one originally started by
Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza in Puebla.
The literate public without means, however, had limited reading material, for there were
no public libraries and, until late in the colonial period, no newspapers. Communication
within the colony was, for the general populace, mainly rumor, gossip, and the information
brought by travelers. In early times official announcements emanated from the public square
by a town crier, following the ringing of church bells, drum beats, or the blast of trumpets.
Eventually broadsides could be found tacked up in public places. The curious were drawn to
such places no more by official pronouncements than by the graffiti that showed up mysteri-
ously. These pasquines offered a way of venting displeasure with government or excoriating
personal enemies. Usually in rhyme, they were witty, sarcastic, and frequently risqué. No
one was safe from these lettered shafts, and the more prominent the victim, the sweeter the
vengeance. Although illegal, they could no more be prevented than the scrawls that decorate
our public walls today.
News from Spain and other parts of Europe came with the annual fleet, at which time
enterprising printers published sheets with the “latest” information. For domestic events of
high interest, such as a pirate attack in Campeche or a destructive earthquake in Oaxaca, a
special sheet might be run off. Sigüenza y Góngora published a periodical, Mercurio Volante,
beginning in 1693. It was not until 1805, however, that a daily newspaper—the Diario de
México—was offered to the public.
MUSIC
Music was performed formally in the viceregal court and before bishops and wealthy, cul-
tured ladies and gentlemen of various occupations. Elegies were composed to mourn the
deaths and celebrate the lives of kings and viceroys. In the early eighteenth century Manuel
Zumaya wrote the New World’s first opera, La Parténope, staged in 1711.
More importantly music composed a vital part of life for everyone in the colony. Music
had been important to the Aztecs, especially for ritual ceremonies, and musicians held
a respectable status in the Indian community. Spanish clergymen soon found that the
Indians’ love of music offered an expedient through which the natives could be attracted
to Christianity. They staged religious plays in Nahuatl in which music had a place. How-
ever, the indigenous interpretations in these performances played into the creation of
hybrid forms of Christianity. At the same time, the singing of the mass connected music
to the Spaniards’ religion. Natives enjoyed performing, not only because of the enjoy-
ment and the prestige involved but also because performers were, at least part of the time,
exempt from paying tribute. By 1576 about 10,000 Indians sang at services, and although
most were men, women also participated later in the colonial period, especially in the
northern missions.
In the beginning, Indians sang a cappella or accompanied by native instruments, but
organs were later introduced from Spain. Before long the variety of European instruments ar-
rived, and local musicians became familiar with sackbuts, clarinets, rebecs, violas, bassoons,
lutes, guitars, cornets, and so forth. Indians quickly learned to make such instruments, and
even the great organs. Native artists also reproduced choir books, complete with illuminated
letters. In addition, Spanish masters encouraged Indians to compose music, which they did
with considerable skill.
The church discouraged some Indian music identified with paganism, replete with the
“obscene motions and lewd gestures” of native dances. To complicate matters, uninhibited
dancing found new life with the introduction by black slaves of dances from the Carib-
bean. Clerical admonitions notwithstanding, provocative dances like the sarabunda and the
chacona continued to be popular. In the eighteenth century the Inquisition protested the
jarabe gatuno, “so indecent, lewd, and disgraceful, and provocative, that words cannot en-
compass the evil of it. The verses and the accompanying actions, movements, and gestures,
shoot the poison of lust directly into the eyes, ears, and senses.”2
Yet the church did not discourage all forms of frivolous amusement. Enjoying sen-
sational popularity was the villancico. Originally a type of traditional Spanish Christmas
carol usually sung in church, the villancico developed in Mexico as a popular song for
festive occasions. In the seventeenth century it emerged, like the contemporary baroque
taste in art, as an exuberant display of lightheartedness. Felicitous lyrics celebrated not
only saints’ days but also the rites of spring and the emotions of profane love in startlingly
modern form.
ARCHITECTURE
Creative expression in colonial Mexico was achieved in architecture through European styles
and by Indian laborers and craftsmen. The Catholic church dominated building projects
designed to evangelize, glorify God, and provide solace as well as preparation for salvation.
Naturally enough, Spaniards tried to create buildings in the colony similar to those in Spain,
and in the early years an essentially Gothic medieval style predominated. It was, neverthe-
less, modified in Mexico: churches assumed a fortresslike appearance because of the threats
2 Robert Stevenson, Music in Mexico: A Historical Survey (New York, 1971), 184.
of Indian attacks; the danger of earthquakes called for buildings with thick walls, often sup-
ported by great flying buttresses; and the humid tropics required provision for better venti-
lation. The apocalyptic views of the Franciscans are also evident in the defensive elements.
As the sixteenth century progressed, Renaissance styles, plateresque and mannerist, were
the norm. Moreover, architecture in Mexico took on a distinctively local character because
building materials in the colony offered more color. In wide use were the red, porous tezon-
tle pumice, the local whitish limestone, and a green stone found in Oaxaca. As the bright
Puebla (poblano) style emerged, polychrome Talavera tiles came to be used extensively and in
some cases dominated the façades of buildings. Indian influence crept in as native craftsmen
insinuated their motifs in carvings and paintings. And because even the large churches could
not accommodate the great crowds of Indian worshipers, broad courtyards and “open-air
chapels” became a familiar sight.
The first century of architecture in Mexico saw a mestizaje of styles, in which Gothic,
Renaissance, and mudéjar (Moorish) features merged and led to forms loosely described
as baroque. The intricate plasterwork of the plateresque resembled the art of silversmiths.
Monasteries of the friars had a simplicity that contrasted with the massive, richly ornate
cathedrals. The great cathedrals stand out by virtue of sheer bulk, but those of Mexico City
and Puebla, designed by the same architect and competing in excellence, are especially note-
worthy structures. Begun in 1563, the cathedral of Mexico City occupied teams of crafts-
men for a century and even then was not completed until the late colonial period. That of
Puebla, considered by many the finer of the two, was laid out around 1575 and dedicated in
1649. Its dome provided more light to accent the interior ornamentation, a pattern widely
copied throughout New Spain. Other features of the evolving Mexican baroque included the
distinctive retablo (altarpiece) façades with twisted columns and brightly colored stone and
plaster work.
Civil architecture fared less well over the centuries. We know that splendid buildings
arose—palaces of the viceroy and bishops, offices of the audiencia and ayuntamiento,
and various other government structures. But some were destroyed, and the original
forms of others were altered by later constructions. It is sad, too, that the Renaissance
mansions of the conquerors have almost all disappeared, although we gain some appre-
ciation of their elegance from the residence of Francisco de Montejo in Mérida and the
modified palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca. The monumental palace of the Condes de San
Mateo de Valparaíso in Mexico City has an impressive central courtyard framed by four
huge, lowered arches.
The Mexican baroque has been called an art of paradox by the late Mexican cultural
critic, Carlos Fuentes—a “criollo” style that fuses elements of the Old World and the New
and represents continuous cultural negotiation between Indian artisans and clergy through-
out the colonial period. As it developed, it gave way to what some have called “ultra”
baroque—that is, a style dominated by a profusion of decorative effects. Surfaces were en-
crusted with decoration, and façades and altarpieces were choked with riotous detail. The
baroque gloriously celebrated the optimism and prosperity of criollo society. The many
baroque churches still seen today continue to awe the visitor with their splendor and abun-
dance of ornamentation.
The church and convent of San Agustín, Hidalgo.
Perhaps the excesses of the baroque ultimately exhausted the senses and led to a reac-
tion. The severe, formal neoclassic represented a sober turn, devoid of the color and fantasy
that have generally characterized Mexican art from the marvelous Maya façades to the bril-
liant murals of the twentieth century.
S C U L P T U R E A N D PA I N T I N G
Sculpture was, to a great extent, an adjunct to architecture. Sculptors, many of whom were In-
dians and mestizos, rendered in stone and plaster the incredibly complex designs of ceilings
and façades, and they carved wooden altarpieces, images of saints, and other adornments
that contributed to the grandeur of the art of New Spain. Most of these artists remain anony-
mous, but one prominent sculptor deserves mention. Manuel Tolsá, a Spaniard, created the
admirable equestrian statue of Charles IV affectionately known as “the Caballito.” Promi-
nently on display in Mexico City today in front of the National Art Museum, it is regarded as
one of the finest works of its kind in the world.
The first European painter in Mexico was a companion of Cortés who painted his captain
at prayer. With the construction of churches and monasteries, friars and Indians trained in
Gante’s school painted tempura murals on their walls. Good examples of these early efforts
have been preserved at Acolman, Cuernavaca, and Actopan. Also to the first decades belong
the post-conquest codices, painted, with official encouragement, by Indian artists. The codi-
ces that survive have not only invaluable historical importance but genuine artistic qualities
as well. For the most part, however, native painters shed earlier artistic traditions as they were
pressed into studios for training in the realism of the Spanish school.
Painting advanced in quality with the arrival in 1566 of the Flemish master Simón
Pereyns. He gathered around him a talented group of criollo artists who painted canvases
in the Spanish manner. European mannerist and baroque styles evolved in the second cen-
tury of colonial rule. One of the best-known of seventeenth-century painters is Cristóbal de
Villalpando, whose brilliantly colored and shadowed paintings of religious themes grace
churches throughout Mexico. Some of the canvases, such as those in the sacristy of the Ca-
thedral of Mexico, cover entire walls. Although Villalpando was influenced by Peter Paul
Rubens, many of his compositions have inventive features. Luis Juárez also painted many
images for convents and monasteries.
Cathedral of Mexico.
In the seventeenth century more opportunities opened for the studio artist who prospered
through rich patrons. The prominent and wealthy adorned their residences with paintings,
and portraits were in great demand. One may weigh the skills of those portraitists in the paint-
ings of the viceroys, most of whom stare down from the walls with grim and baleful counte-
nance. Many such portraits by Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez and his brother Juan were produced
at the end of the seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century painters like Miguel Cabrera
prospered, satisfying the egos of the silver barons and others who sought to be preserved for
posterity (see his portrait of Sor Juana in the color section of this book). Elites also coveted
Asian art, for example in the imported porcelain vases and in the ceramics produced in the
colony that used Chinese motifs. Especially eye-catching were imported lacquered chests and
desks with mother-of-pearl inlays. Spaniards also emulated the Japanese practice of painting
on folding screens (biombos), commissioning both religious and pastoral scenes.
The most originally Mexican category of painting can be seen in the casta paintings that
depicted the myriad of hybrid racial classifications that resulted from mestizaje. They typically
show a male from one ethnic group with a female partner from a differing ethnicity, and their
racially blended offspring, with a label that states these categories (see illustration in the color
photo section of this book). In addition to the fluidity of the sistema de castas depicted in these
images, the proliferation of casta paintings also reveals an ongoing, deep-seated concern by
elites with behavioral prescriptions regarding marriage and interracial relations.
A water tower at Teoloyucan, with its flared buttresses, one of the many remaining monuments to colonial artisans.
Second-story façade of the sixteenth-century residence of

Francisco de Montejo in Mérida, Yucatán.
Currents of change in Spain at the end of the eighteenth century prompted the estab-
lishment of the Art Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. It was dedicated in 1785 to train
artists in new styles consonant with the neoclassic turn, but its early years witnessed conflict
between art administrators in the colony and in Spain over hierarchies and styles.
D A I LY L I F E
The poverty, exploitation, injustices, and general misery of the lower classes notwithstanding,
colonial life was not a scene of unrelieved tragedy. Religious festivals and public spectacles
honoring Spanish rulers provided welcome diversions for many. Colonial elites intended to
use ritual performances to inculcate the correct forms of religious observance and to dem-
onstrate to subordinates their proper place in the social hierarchy. Nonetheless, popular cel-
ebrations had a way of taking on a life of their own. They often fostered unruly behavior and
veiled forms of social protest, and occasionally they became the sites of riots—for example,
the 1692 tumult in Mexico City that took place during the celebration of Corpus Christi.
Even in less agitated moments, the viceregal capital offered a variety of diversions.
Visitors to Mexico City who recorded their impressions usually commented on its fine
buildings and broad, straight avenues. In the seventeenth century, travelers asserted that
everything one could desire was available, including abundant supplies of foods that were
both delicious and inexpensive. Daily more than one thousand boats and three thousand
mules carried in provisions from outlying provinces. Foreigners remarked on the excellence
of the city’s construction, laid out in a grid pattern with plazas, fountains, and sidewalks. An
Englishman living in Mexico City in 1625 estimated that the capital had fifteen thousand
coaches, some trimmed with gold, silver, and Chinese silk.
Color, of which Mexicans have always been especially fond, was what struck the foreign-
er’s eye. Color was everywhere, from the flower gardens and blossoming trees, to the textured
hues of walls, to the kaleidoscope of the great open markets where bright exotic fruits and
vegetables vied with polychrome tiles and pottery, brilliant native textiles, and jewelry. An
astonishing variety of goods abounded in the marketplace, where thousands of people gath-
ered to bargain and exchange gossip. A motley population thronged the streets, their rich skin
tones adding to the mosaic of color. Dark habits of the ecclesiastics heightened the bright
sashes of university students and the dress of criollo dandies who paraded in plumed, scarlet
taffeta hats, ruffled laces, and velvet capes. A dignified worthy clothed in severe ebony might
be accompanied by black slaves attired in blue or yellow breeches, with white silk stockings.
Both men and women wore jewels in the street, and it was not uncommon to see hat-
bands set with pearls and diamonds. Occasionally the procession of the viceroy or arch-
bishop with his retinues passed, causing a mild sensation. Women, who were just as fashion
conscious as men, flaunted exquisite cloths from Asia and the richest textiles from Europe.
Wealthy ladies frequently observed modesty by making their way through the streets in
veiled palanquins, sedan chairs borne by slaves. Visitors were especially taken by beautiful
mulata women wearing expensive silks and sparkling gems, despite sumptuary laws that
were passed from time to time to prevent them from dressing like whites. Women of various
classes applied rouge and eye makeup.
Beneath all the finery and cosmetics, however, were people who aged quickly and who
enjoyed fewer of the beauty aids available to serve the vanities of our times. In close con-
versation with a colonist one would become aware of a strong musty odor, a smile marred
by missing or rotting teeth, and a face scarred and pitted. At least on social occasions some
were considerate: a strong perfume might disguise the infrequency of bathing, and offensive
breath could be tamed by chewing cloves or licorice.
Among the more unfortunate elements of society were the many vagabonds who roamed
the colony. They lounged around city streets, living by their wits and making a general nui-
sance of themselves in both urban and provincial areas. These pícaros, so charmingly pre-
sented in literature, were a threat to the colonial order, much to the dismay of the authorities.
Vagabonds came from all racial groups. Many suffered from disease, poverty, and official
neglect. Dressed in filthy rags, syphilitic victims displayed open sores, grotesque tumors,
and maimed limbs. The blind joined other indigents outside churches to collect alms. The
church made modest attempts to provide care for them and regularly dispensed food and
small sums of money. In the countryside vagabonds often lived illegally in Indian villages,
forcing villagers to support them and sometimes seizing their women.
All these social types, elegant and rustic, were part of daily scenes in streets that were
alternately muddy or dusty, depending on the season. Cursing mule drivers prodded their
braying beasts along, stirring up clouds of dust or making quagmires, while other herders
pushed swine, sheep, or turkeys through the crowds. Peddlers hawked their wares, Indian
servant women carried jugs of water from the public fountains, and tamemes bent under the
loads that almost obscured them. Eventually some streets had cobblestones, but gutters re-
mained like open sewers, strewn with garbage and an occasional dead dog. If color delighted
the eye, stench assailed the nostril. But such aromas and unsanitary conditions were, after
all, not much different from those in other parts of the world at the time. The filth did pose
a serious health problem, however, and the government moved to keep the capital cleaner.
The pigs that ran loose in the streets and scavenged for food were relied upon less fully after
an ordinance of 1598 provided for twelve teams of two Indians, with mule carts, to collect
refuse from city streets every day. Public buildings, including storehouses and jails, had to
be cleaned every four months. There was little improvement in sanitary conditions through-
out the colonial period, however, and swine, mongrel dogs, and vultures continued to be
counted on to help keep streets clean, at least until they themselves fouled them.
At the center of elite social life was the viceregal court, although bishops and wealthy
laymen often rivaled the court in extravagant entertainment. For the cultured elite there were
the latest plays, music, and literature from Spain and clever conversation in the salons. Some
recitals and performances were private, but a great many appealed to the general public. Danc-
ing enjoyed popularity with all, from the formal balls of the wealthy to the more spontane-
ous, often earthy, dances of the lower classes. Irreverent and worldly theatrical performances
and puppet shows, mostly performed by itinerant troupes on urban streets or in rural towns,
attracted people from all classes. Bullfighting, introduced shortly after the conquest, found
wide favor with all segments of society. An archbishop in the early seventeenth century was
such an aficionado that he had his own private bullring on the grounds of the archiepiscopal
Late seventeenth-century ceramic fountain from Puebla suggesting Chinese influence.

A Puebla vase decorated in Chinese style, late seven- Flower pot of the style commonly used in the halls
teenth century. and patios of colonial houses.
Tiles from Puebla were commonly used on building façades.
palace. The more intellectual enjoyed chess, and all classes played cards. Almost everyone was
addicted to the vice of gambling as they waged at dice, cards, horse races, cockfighting, or any
contest available for betting purposes. Primarily men indulged in such diversions, but new
arrivals to the colony were shocked to see criolla women of presumed high social standing
dealing cards with males. For the aristocrats there were jousting and other games played on
horseback, and they rode to the hunt with their greyhounds and falcons.
Leisure time was abundant for many urban dwellers; colonists enjoyed multiple holi-
days, with dozens of religious festivals annually. Individuals celebrated their saints’ days, and
towns had their special saints to be honored as well. Colonial Mexicans enjoyed holy days
to the fullest. Solemn religious rites, processions, and sometimes penance were followed
by fireworks, feasting, singing, dancing, and no small amount of drinking—which in turn
often led to fighting. Gentlemen might settle accounts of honor with a duel; the lower classes
would more likely find satisfaction informally and immediately with knives or machetes.
A favorite—and healthier—diversion at parties (during which daughters were watched by
hawk-eyed chaperones) involved the throwing of eggshells filled with confetti or of hollow
wax balls containing perfume water. All of this was conducted with great merriment and a
consuming interest in sweetmeats and the opposite sex. A cherished ritual of the elite youth
manifested itself in the daily paseo, in which the young men gathered around five o’clock in
Mexico City’s Alameda Park. These popinjays arrived in fancy carriages or perhaps mounted
on purebred horses, attended by black slaves suitably dressed to display their young masters’
elegance. Young ladies arrived in much the same fashion, for the same purpose.
Other events demanded celebration. The birth of a royal child, a royal marriage, the coro-
nation of a new king, the arrival of a new viceroy or archbishop, or a great victory over one of
Spain’s enemies, called for constructing triumphal arches and merrymaking. The most glori-
ous of spectacles were the mascaradas, often planned far in advance and summoning the most
creative talents to assure sensational (and sometimes bizarre) effects. The essential part of the
show was the grand parade, in which place in the procession reflected the colonial social hier-
archy. It might lead off with Indian caciques decked out in traditional native garb, followed by
dignitaries of the church in their rich vestments, high royal officials mounted on superb horses
with silver trappings, and university faculty members in their gaudy robes. Parades boasted
decorated floats, clowns, acrobats, jugglers, and musicians. Some individuals were masked
(from which the ceremonies took their names), wearing costumes representing mythical or
historical figures, while others personified Pride, Greed, Lust, or perhaps one of the virtues.
Sometimes the mascarada was sponsored, at great cost, by a wealthy individual and other
times by the state, but the organizers aimed to surpass previous extravaganzas. No expense or
labor was spared—even to the extent of importing camels and ostriches for the parade, to the
great delight of the spectators. In the eighteenth century Mexico City officials, increasingly
alarmed by the profanity and disorder of these spectacles, began to severely curtail celebra-
tions. Public ritual no longer served the interests of state authority and social control.
The impression should not be left that colonial society witnessed a continual round of
parties and sport. The foregoing observations of colonists at play pertain mostly to large
centers like Mexico City and Puebla. Smaller towns had similar amusements but on a scale
less grand and carried off with less flair. Occasions such as saints’ days in small communities
called for celebrations and processions that were simple but lively, and the custom of the
paseo—which has persisted into modern times—saw the gathering of young people of more
humble aspect in village plazas. Local celebrations might consist of little more than a mass
followed by fireworks and drinking to stupefaction.
Life in the colony also had its grim aspects. Domestic violence was common and sometimes
deadly when jealousy was involved. Women who did not conform to their proscribed roles or
took lovers could be dragged out of their homes and publicly humiliated by having their faces
The picturesque Alameda Park in the center of Mexico City was first laid out in 1593 during the rule of Viceroy
Luis de Velasco. Over the years, its tree-lined pathways and fountains became a haven for small vendors, but in
2012 it was refurbished with additional flower gardens and fences to keep out the petty sellers and to gentrify it
as a place for people to meet and stroll.
cut or being whipped in flagrant cases of female immorality. City streets at night were the pre-
serve of men, and they seldom went out without arms or companions to defend themselves
against frequent assaults and theft. Rural brigandage was a plague to all. In the sixteeenth cen-
tury there were almost no inns, and Indian villages were required to furnish food and lodging
for itinerant peddlers and traders. Later on, crude lodgings and taverns served wayfarers.
A traveler might expect to see criminals hanged by the roadside and left as a warning to
others. Death by hanging was decreed for some crimes, and for especially serious offenses, such
as treason, the body of the culprit was drawn and quartered, with the head and limbs promi-
nently and gruesomely displayed. Mutilation of limbs, the severing of a hand or foot, the crush-
ing of a foot in a diabolical device known as “the boot,” and other tortures were employed on
occasion. Officials also administered floggings of one hundred to two hundred lashes, but sen-
tences to terms of hard labor were more frequent. Those of high social position, however, usu-
ally avoided humiliating and cruel punishment, escaping with fines or sometimes jail sentences.
A greater danger to New Spain than crime was disease. Epidemic diseases like smallpox
and measles persisted in cycles throughout the colonial period, with higher morality for
indigenous peoples. Other virulent epidemics took their toll on all groups. Matlazahuatl,
variously identified as typhus or plague, appeared in the sixteenth century, followed by cycles
in the seventeenth and the particularly devastating pandemic of the late 1730s which was
most lethal among groups who lived in the least sanitary conditions. Yellow fever, which
infested the port cities like Veracruz, similarly affected all groups. Inhabitants of New Spain
also experienced illnesses still common today, for example, digestive disorders, heart failure,
kidney stones, rheumatism, venereal disease, and gout.
Effective treatment for such diseases as smallpox and measles would have to wait until
vaccines were developed much later. Inoculation with the smallpox virus was first used in
Mexico during the 1779-80 epidemic, along with traditional measures like quarantine and
special hospitals. To treat other, less lethal maladies, throughout the colonial period medical
practices combined European methods and a variety of regional indigenous remedies. Eu-
ropean medicine did not advance much in the early modern period beyond an understand-
ing of anatomy, and bleeding and purging continued to be standard cures. For this reason,
indigenous herbal remedies often proved more effective. Administered by local healers, over
time indigenous and mixed-race women became the primary practitioners, often doubling
as midwives. The latter served as the primary attendants in childbirth long after the medical
establishment began to modernize methods of delivery in the eighteenth century.
Crown officials established hospitals from the early sixteenth-century in Mexico City;
by 1580 there were six of them, established to treat different ethnic groups, as well as an
asylum for the insane. Given the rudimentary state of Spanish medical practice, these hos-
pitals and others established later throughout the viceroyalty were widely seen as places
where the extremely ill went to die. Before the seventeenth century, when a professorship of
surgery and anatomy was established at the university, “surgeons” as they called themselves
consisted primarily of barbers (a good number of whom were Asians). The crown also es-
tablished an examination board, the Protomedicato, to license physicians, surgeons, phar-
macists, and phlebotomists, but oversight was lax until the late eighteenth century when
medical practices began to modernize. As the dying looked to religious rituals for comfort,
people in New Spain learned to live with death, maintaining contact with their departed
relatives through ceremonies and offerings on the Día de los Muertos (All Soul’s Day).
Far from being the vulgar backwater peninsular Spaniards supposed, New Spain had a vi-
brant and diverse cultural life, especially in the larger cities. Scholarship and learning advanced
primarily through the clergy with support from viceregal and church officials. At the same time
a rich patchwork of popular culture and popular piety evolved throughout the viceroyalty, often
linking people of diverse ethnic groups. By 1700 it had a uniquely Mexican character, with
customs and traditions so firmly impressed on society that the patterns are still evident today.
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PA RT
4
REFORM AND REACTION
The Move to Independence
C HA PTER 13
THE BOURBONS RESTRUCTURE

NEW SPAIN
E A R LY B O U R B O N R E F O R M S
The nadir of Spain’s fortunes by the late seventeenth century was nowhere better exemplified
than in the person of the king himself. Inheriting the throne in 1665 at age four, Charles II
was feeble in mind as well as body and was even in maturity clearly incompetent to rule.
This wretched king, called in all kindness El Hechizado, “the Bewitched,” sought desperately
in off moments to hang himself with his bedclothes. While exorcists tried to drive out his
devil, advisers made policy of sorts.
Charles was the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs, and there was justifiable concern over
the matter of succession. Despite two marriages, the king did not sire an heir. Who, then,
would rule the Spanish Empire after his anticipated early demise? Then, as now, there was
considerable intermarriage among the various royal families of Europe, and relatives floated
their pretensions to the Spanish throne. In the end the Austrian and French factions emerged
as the two strongest claimants and their diplomats maneuvered for years. Finally, as Charles
II’s days grew short, he named as his successor Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV of
France. The line of Spanish Bourbons began in 1700 with the rule of Philip V (1701–46). The
Austrian party and its allies contested Philip’s crowning during the long War of the Spanish
Succession (1701–13), but the final outcome saw the Bourbons established in Spain.
Philip inherited a debilitated Spain, wracked by foreign wars and internal revolts. Even
as he was forced to devote resources to the ongoing war, the new king began to take mea-
sures to put Spain on a firmer administrative and financial footing. He applied many of the
administrative policies that other Bourbons had used in France, and his centralization of
authority proved effective in some areas. An immediate concern was the strengthening of
the Spanish army and navy. Philip undertook a program of rehabilitation with some success.
He then turned to the internal economy in which productivity had languished for much
of the previous century, at least until the 1670s when agricultural yields and commerce
showed modest growth.Heavily indebted to foreigners, much of Spain’s trade with the colo-
nies was in the hands of non-Spanish merchants. Furthermore, silver remittances to the
197
198 reform and reaction
Charles II (1661–1700). The death of this unfortunate king, the last Spanish Hapsburg, precipitated the War of
the Spanish Succession.
metropolis from New Spain had declined throughout the seventeenth century, despite the
fact that the colony’s mining economy had begun to bounce back after 1670.
As his government began to bring some order to Spain, Philip also looked to his colo-
nies with an eye to improving their economies for the financial benefit of the empire and
as compensation for Spain’s territorial losses in Europe. As one of his first measures, he
The Bourbons Restructure New Spain 199
appointed the Duque de Alburquerque as viceroy of New Spain. Entrusted with the task of
dislodging the networks of patronage and clientelism that dominated the silver trade, the
viceroy quickly ran afoul of local commercial interests. When they subverted his efforts, he
acquiesced and became involved in contraband trade himself.
Philip’s efforts in opening up trade experienced more success. In 1702 a royal decree al-
lowed two ships a year, instead of one, to sail from Manila to Acapulco. The volume of Asian
trade carried by the Manila galleons has yet to be determined by scholars, but this route was a
valuable conduit for silver that complemented the transfer of silver pesos to Asia via Europe,
highlighting New Spain’s importance in both the Atlantic and Pacific. The antiquated trad-
ing system was further improved in 1717 when the official port for the New World trade for-
mally moved from Seville to Cádiz, which had better facilities. This was an important break
in the monopoly of vested interests. In 1740 the crown suspended the fleet system, which
had operated so inefficiently for two centuries. With the threat of piracy having subsided and
smuggling rampant, there seemed little point in restricting both merchants and consumers.
In case of war, however, privateers could freely attack Spanish shipping and, in fact, the fleets
were revived later, sailing off and on until their final abolition in 1789. Although these co-
lonial economic reforms were modest enough, along with other changes they signaled the
Bourbon interest in economic development that would benefit the imperial state.
SHIFTS IN THE COLONIAL ECONOMY
In the second half of the century, the pace of change accelerated. Following the relatively
calm reign of Ferdinand VI (1746–59), Spain had a dramatic resurgence under one of its
greatest sovereigns, Charles III (1759–88). A devotee of the Enlightenment philosophies
then current in Europe, Charles not only introduced important reforms within Spain but
also moved to restructure the colonies. To that end, in 1765 he dispatched to New Spain
José de Gálvez with the powers of visitor general. Gálvez energetically undertook a long tour
of the colony, and over the next five years he compiled important information that led to
the formulation of several new policy initiatives in New Spain. The Bourbons determined
to extract more wealth from the colony by stimulating mining production, creating a loyal
but efficient bureaucracy to collect taxes, and appropriating a share of the church’s immense
assets in money and rural and urban properties.
Charles’ attempts to expand trade and increase revenues produced mixed results. The
tax structure was modified to make collection more efficient and, by 1780, New Spain was
exporting more silver to the metropolis. New ports opened in Mexico, and the crown sanc-
tioned trade between the colonies, but efforts to break the merchant monopolies in Mexico
and Cádiz met with formidable resistance. In the end, vested interests defeated the reform
party in Charles’ government that tried to reduce Spain’s dependence on foreign merchants,
bankers, and manufacturers.
Nonetheless, Spain did profit from the rise in silver production, collecting about 250,000
silver pesos between 1760 and 1810. This had a negative impact in New Spain, however,
by reducing liquidity and disrupting commerce in the internal economy. The silver boom
was partially attributable to royal policies but probably derived more from improved
management, stable or declining labor costs that resulted from greater exploitation of work-
ers, the discovery of new lodes (especially in Guanajuato), and a rise in the value of silver.
Mining output increased at an annual average of nearly two percent throughout the century,
although this growth came in spurts (with peaks in the 1770s and 1790s) and alternated
with periods of stagnation. Mexico alone produced about as much silver as the rest of the
world. Between 1690 and 1822 Mexico minted over 1.5 billion pesos in silver and some 60
million in gold.
By the late colonial period there were about three thousand mines in the colony, al-
though most had been abandoned and many of those being worked were small operations.
In 1774, thirty-five sizable mining camps existed, of which only a few produced most of the
silver. Mines could be worked with increased efficiency because of blasting techniques and
better mechanisms for draining water that permitted deeper mine shafts. The great Valen-
ciana (Guanajuato) reached into the earth some two thousand feet, deeper than any other
mine in the world. The continuing use of smelting, however, caused considerable deforesta-
tion through the production of charcoal.
Important as precious metals were, however, the general production of the colony in-
creased considerably in other ways, too. Always profitable, cochineal dye was the second
most valuable export during the eighteenth century. Produced primarily in Oaxaca, as
many as thirty thousand Indians labored in the industry. Another important commod-
ity was sugar; by 1774 the town of Córdoba (Veracruz) alone had more than fifty sugar
mills, employing mostly black slaves. Toward the close of the century the colony pro-
duced around twenty-five thousand tons of sugar annually, of which some two-thirds
were exported. The city of Puebla was a manufacturing center of note, specializing in both
textiles and ceramics. It sent more than a million pounds of cloth a year to the capital and
in 1793 had forty-six shops producing pottery and glass. Eventually, cheap contraband
textiles and falling wages in Mexico stunted the manufacture of cloth. A lucrative crop by
the late eighteenth century was tobacco; Mexico City and Querétaro each had factories
employing about 7,000 workers. The many other export commodities included hemp,
cacao, vanilla, and hides. Few manufactured goods were exported from the colony but
rather circulated internally; 93 percent of exports consisted of silver, cochineal, and vari-
ous agricultural products.
By the second half of the eighteenth century New Spain had become by far the most
prosperous of Spain’s holdings. Around 1800 the port of Veracruz had a trade in excess
of 30 million pesos annually. By 1810 New Spain contributed nearly three-fourths of the
profits from all the Spanish American colonies. Phenomenal demographic growth tripled
the size of Mexico’s population between 1700 and 1821, increasing the potential of the
internal market. But this transformation did not result in positive economic growth for
all sectors. Wages lagged and prices rose. The need to boost production of staple crops
put pressure on the land, and larger owners began to encroach upon the tracts of weaker
owners in some areas. More workers were employed in the production of goods for Mexi-
can consumption—in agriculture, ranching, minor industry, and local commerce—than in
export commodities. The following table indicates how the main economic sectors contrib-
uted to overall production.
Source Value in Pesos Percentage
Agriculture 106,285,000 56
Manufactures 55,386,000 29
Mining 28,451,000 15
VALUE OF NEW SPAIN’S ANNUAL PRODUCTION, CA. 1810

Source: David A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763–1810 (Cambridge,
1971), 18.
Royal income derived from Mexican taxes, duties, and monopolies increased steadily
over the eighteenth century by more than two percent each year. In the last three decades of
colonial rule royal receipts rose even higher as the Spanish crown exacted hefty voluntary
and forced loans from individuals and institutions in the colony to pay for its involvement
in European conflicts. Although the Bourbon reforms channeled more capital to the metrop-
olis, the gains were limited by persistent mercantilist structures in trade and manufacture.
Spain itself never moved beyond a primarily agrarian economy and narrow tax base.
R E F O R M O F C O L O N I A L A D M I N I S T R AT I O N
International rivalries among colonial powers in the eighteenth century led to wars that
were fought in various theaters, including the New World. The power of Great Britain and
its expanding colonies in North America was perceived in Madrid as a threat to the Span-
ish Indies, and not without reason. Thus, in 1762, during the Seven Years’ War, Charles III
authorized a professional standing army for New Spain. The troops were few in number,
but the addition of various militia groups, including a number if free blacks, brought the
armed forces in 1810 up to roughly thirty-three thousand, of whom no more than a third
were regular soldiers.
During his inspection tour José de Gálvez became acutely conscious of the defenseless
northern borders. Spanish settlement had pushed northward slowly during the seventeenth
century, but even by the mid-eighteenth century, Spaniards had barely penetrated Arizona
and Texas with a handful of missions and even fewer presidios. Problems with hostile
Indians—especially Comanches and Apaches who had become more mobile and aggressive
with Spanish horses and firepower—inhibited colonization. Franciscans under Fray Junípero
Serra began founding missions in California in 1769,1 but in general the northern lands re-
mained sparsely settled and vulnerable to encroachments by other powers. Even though the
French threat to Texas ended in 1762 when Spain acquired Louisiana from France, British
expansion presented a menace, as did the appearance of Russian ships in California waters.
One result of the increasing international tensions was that viceroys and other high offi-
cials appointed in the last decades of the colonial period were often men with military training
1 Pope Francis canonized Serra in September 2015 in spite of protests from California Indians that the Fran-
ciscan had severely mistreated their forbears in his zeal to extirpate indigenous culture. Serra is the first
Catholic saint to be canonized on US soil.
and experience. But even they were too far removed from the distant north to render effective
defense of the frontiers. Therefore Gálvez planned an independent military government for
the north. After he returned to Spain and was appointed to the powerful post of minister of
the Indies, he created, in 1776, the position of commandant general of the Provincias Internas
(Interior Provinces). The new territorial organization of the commandancy general embraced
the present north Mexican states as well as Texas, greater New Mexico, and California. The
commandant general oversaw the military and political administration of this large area, and
in the early years he was independent of the viceroy, reporting directly to the king. His main
goals were to increase Spain’s military presence in order to stem foreign incursions and to bring
frontier Indian groups under Spanish control. Despite considerable bureaucratic wrangling,
the second goal was partially achieved in the 1780s when the commandant and his officers
succeeded in using diplomacy and gifts (“peace by purchase”) to fashion temporary alliances
with Comanches, Navajos, Utes, and Apaches. Relative peace with Indians and the failure of
a serious European threat to materialize facilitated modest settlement of the borderlands. Yet
the culture that evolved in the north, where warfare and violence persisted, displayed social
and gendered features that distinguished it from central and southern Mexico.
The bureaucracy of the colony, seen by the crown as inefficient and corrupt, also came
under the careful scrutiny of Gálvez, and he did effect some profound changes for New
Spain’s administration. Since the first decades of settlement, alcaldes mayores and corregi-
dores had been notorious as the worst tormentors of the Indians. Their inadequate salaries
had always encouraged extralegal commercial activities, and by the early eighteenth century
Interior Provinces (Late Eighteenth Century)

these officials received no salaries at all. Instead, they were expected to engage in business
ventures. In effect, they were petty merchants who lived by purchasing the products and
labor of the natives cheaply and forcing them to buy, at inflated prices, goods that they
neither needed nor wanted. Gálvez proposed that such officials be replaced by others called
intendants and their lieutenants or subdelegados. In 1786 Charles III agreed to the appoint-
ment of twelve intendants and over a hundred subdelegados to replace some two hundred
governors, alcaldes mayores, and corregidores in Mexico.
Implicit in the reforms decreed by the Bourbons were centralization and the imposition
of unity, order, and efficiency. And paramount to the reorganization was the firm and effective
management of crown revenues. The intendants sent to New Spain were charged with control-
ling royal monopolies, collecting taxes, improving royal roads for transporting commodities,
and overseeing the whole range of treasury interests in the colony, including suppression of
smuggling. More than that, however, they had broad responsibilities to improve general ad-
ministration in their districts, called “intendancies,” including such matters as justice, public
facilities, and defense. Peninsulares would now be the exclusive candidates for the positions
of intendant and audiencia judge, and for the most part they were experienced, educated, and
capable administrators. They enjoyed considerable prestige and had ample authority in their
large districts. The same could not be said for the subdelegados who, unlike the intendants,
did not receive adequate pay and resorted to the tactics of extortion that had been employed
by the corregidores. Indians, therefore, did not find the change to be beneficial, but more
importantly, the creation of the new offices engendered the resentment of both the oidores
and the viceroys, many of whom saw their own authority circumscribed as a consequence.
CHURCH REFORMS
If the Catholic church had always functioned as an administrative complement to the state,
the Bourbons determined that it must do so more as an underling than as a privileged as-
sociate. The change in policy was not an attack on the spiritual power of the church. Rather
the crown was concerned about the extent to which the various branches of the church had
come to monopolize control of land and property in Mexico.
Above all, it was the Jesuits who stuck in the monarch’s craw. The Society of Jesus had
distinguished itself in various ways, especially in educating and missionizing, but it had
also grown powerful and wealthy. The Jesuits were also believed, unfairly in the case of New
Spain, to be too closely aligned with the pope and susceptible to political intrigue against
monarchies. For these reasons, the Portuguese and French kings had expelled the Jesuits
from their realms at mid-century.
In 1766 the Jesuits were accused of fomenting a popular riot against Spain’s prime minis-
ter. The following year, without warning, the crown suddenly expelled them from all Spanish
kingdoms. Sealed orders were opened throughout the Spanish empire on the same day in
1767, ordering the expulsion of the Jesuits forthwith and decreeing the confiscation of their
properties. Colonists were stunned by this bold move of the crown. Initial shock gave way to
outrage on the part of many criollos who had been educated in Jesuit colegios, and in a half-
dozen communities violent demonstrations by criollos and Indians protested the action.
New Spain was notably affected by the expulsion. The crown took over Jesuit assets,
reported to be worth some 10 million pesos. The Jesuits had maintained the best schools in
the colony, with twenty-three colegios and many seminaries staffed by distinguished facul-
ties. Their graduates, especially those of San Ildefonso, were some of the most prominent
men in Mexico, including audiencia judges. Bourbon decrees targeted not only the Jesuits,
but also eroded some of the powers of the Inquisition and, perhaps more significantly, the
authority (both temporal and moral) of local parish priests. Reforms imposed on nunneries
sought to impose tighter regulations on nuns, especially those who had chosen this life for
reasons other than spiritual and lived in separate, sometimes lavish quarters.
In a broader attempt to wrest functions of social control from the clergy and to impose
orthodoxy on popular religiosity, the crown imposed restrictions on the frequency of public
celebrations and the lavish spending on public ritual. Church leadership also attempted to
stem the “baroque” excesses of religious and cultural practices, calling for a reformed piety
that downplayed ritual in favor of Christian contemplation and emphasized individual mo-
rality as a requisite for salvation as well as simplicity in art, music, and architecture. None-
theless, peoples of all classes clung to familiar devotional practices that filled sacred spaces
with lavish ornamentation, performances, and pomp.
Other more secular efforts aimed to promote godliness, virtue, cleanliness, and frugal-
ity as a means of curbing public disorder. Crown officials implemented measures to clean
up the city streets by beautifying them and clearing them of prostitutes, vagabonds, and
animals. In part, this was a measure to improve health and sanitation. Royal authorities
took aim at another health hazard by ordering that the dead be buried in public cemeteries
rather than in churches (in ceremonies deemed too ostentatious). Efforts at moral reform
also included limiting the number of lower-class drinking establishments and discouraging
popular pastimes like bullfighting, gambling, and street theater.
THE EFFECTS OF BOURBON REFORMS
A confluence of factors brought about significant change in the colony of New Spain by the
time of the death of Charles III, in 1788. Still, change is not necessarily progress, and it is
necessary to consider who actually benefited from the “reforms.” On the whole, the eco-
nomic reforms stimulated increased production in the colony, but they did not constitute
a profound capitalist transformation, and draining the colony of silver was a detriment to
the internal economy. Market demand grew along with demographic recuperation as the
Indian population doubled in the eighteenth century while non-Indian numbers tripled.
At the same time, rural working people experienced a drop in real wages and incomes as
the century progressed. In addition, the crown gave itself certain monopolies that inevitably
hurt some elites. The king’s exclusive control over tobacco, for instance, took great sums of
money out of private hands and displaced a large number of individuals involved in its pro-
duction and marketing. But the monopoly was an important part of the imperial policy of
restructuring since these new crown revenues went to the support of the professional army.
The pulque monopoly also put local merchants out of business, while the surtax imposed
on this drink of the plebeian class outraged the populace.
Political reforms were equally mixed blessings. What had been envisioned as a more
centralized, tighter colonial administration became in the end an expanded bureaucracy
in which the number of highly paid officials quadrupled. Furthermore, almost all the in-
tendants were Spaniards, and they replaced many criollos who were persons of importance
in their localities and who had come to regard the positions as their preserve. The result
increased resentment on the part of criollos against the peninsulares. The commandancy
general brought slightly better administration to the borderlands without, however, effecting
any profound change. Throughout the colony power, like wealth, was redistributed, creating
new vested interest groups. As the prerogatives of the viceroys and audiencia judges dimin-
ished, the intendants and tax collectors assumed considerable influence. One administrative
reform may have countered the effects of excluding criollos from high political office. The
creation of new local militias to repel foreign threats and control local disturbances provided
an opportunity for Mexican-born Spaniards to acquire prestige and power.
In summary, the Bourbons were successful in extracting more resources from the colony
of New Spain, but they were unable to capitalize on them. Although Bourbon Spain wished
to create a modern nation-state, it did not have the will or means to make the necessary
changes in modes of production and labor relations. Nor did it help that Spain squandered
much of its new wealth in European political and military machinations. In the end, debts
would bankrupt the treasuries of both Spain and New Spain. Charles III was succeeded by a
son lacking in wisdom; political affairs on the European continent would ultimately engulf
The Mining College (Colegio de Minería), designed by Manuel Tolsá, was constructed at great cost between 1797
and 1813. One of Mexico’s handsomest colonial buildings, it has 238 rooms, thirteen stairways, eleven foun-
tains, and seven courtyards. Its grandeur is an indication of the importance of silver mining in the late Spanish
period.
Spain; and these and other events would foster a growing disenchantment among the colo-
nists in New Spain. Since the royal intent was to benefit Spain, not the colonists, tradition-
bound monarchs of the eighteenth century saw no plausible benefits in social reform. Quite
to the contrary: the year following the death of Charles III the French masses rose up in the
name of social justice, beheaded their king, and went on the rampage. The shudder that
passed through the royal courts of Europe was felt in Madrid as well.
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C HA PTER 14
SOCIETY AND STRESS IN

THE LATE COLONIAL PERIOD
D I S T R I B U T I O N O F W E A LT H
Wealthy colonials seemed even less attuned to the tensions of the late colonial period as
they accumulated greater riches. A disproportionate number of the wealthiest were penin-
sulares who had made good in America, but there were many prosperous criollos as well.
Great fortunes were made in mining, such as those of the counts of Regla, Valenciana, and
Bassoco. From his origins as a poor immigrant from Spain, Pedro Romero de Terreros, the
future Conde de Regla, began as an apprentice to his merchant uncle. He used family con-
nections to build up capital and invest in mining, hitting the bonanza with Real del Monte
in Pachuca, eventually becoming the wealthiest man in the colony, perhaps even the world,
at the time. His other investments included land and the production of pulque; he founded
the Monte de Piedad, Mexico’s national pawnshop; and he was a generous benefactor of the
church. In the late eighteenth century Valenciana sometimes took a net profit of more than
a million pesos annually, quite aside from his millions tied up in land and various other in-
terests. Bassoco, elevated to count only in 1811 after a gift to the government of two hundred
thousand pesos, accumulated assets worth some 3 million pesos.
These mining barons, along with some wealthy ranchers and merchants, frequently
made generous gifts to the crown, which in gratitude conferred on the donors cherished
titles of nobility—usually that of conde, less often that of marqués. Some prominent men
had to be content with knighthood in one of the prestigious military orders. During the
eighteenth century about fifty titles of nobility were granted to residents of New Spain, most
of them after 1750.
But while these titles appealed to the vanity of the recipients, many of the rich were more
genuinely philanthropic. They contributed large sums of money to religious organizations,
funded charities, and financed the construction of schools, hospitals, and ornate churches.
They also sponsored festivals and cultural events for the enjoyment of the community. In
times of pestilence the rich often paid for medicines, and when famine struck they distrib-
uted large supplies of grain and other foods. Unfortunately these gestures often amounted
208
Society and Stress in the Late Colonial Period 209
to little more than tokens, for some catastrophes were overwhelming. A subsistence crisis in
1785–86 resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths due to starvation and disease.
Among the most powerful men of Mexico were a number of rich hacendados in the
north. As missionaries, miners, and soldiers penetrated the frontier, most of the Indians were
gradually pushed back and land came into the possession of wealthy and influential ranch-
ers. Much of the northeast region consisted of semi-desert and could be acquired at low cost;
in 1731 the marqués de Aguayo purchased 222,000 acres in Coahuila from the crown for a
paltry two hundred fifty pesos. Within four decades his family controlled over 14.5 million
Considered the most complete example of Mexican baroque is the exquisite church of Santa Prisca in Taxco.
Built between 1751 and 1759, its cost was underwritten by the mining baron Don José de la Borda.
acres, some of which were patrolled by the marqués’s private cavalry to protect the livestock
from marauding Indians. The Sánchez Navarro family also amassed huge holdings. Aside
from running sheep, cattle, and horses, they engaged in mining, agriculture, and commerce.
Their latifundio, eventually covering an area almost as large as the country of Portugal, was
the largest ranch in Spanish America.
The increased prosperity of some was reflected not only in ornate religious edifices but
also in the many impressive public buildings. In Mexico City today one can still see enough
of them, along with private mansions, to appreciate the grandeur of the capital in the late co-
lonial era. The spectacular House of Tiles, covered on the exterior and the interior with tiles
said to have been brought expressly from China, is a modern landmark. Once the residence
of the Conde del Valle de Orizaba, it is today a restaurant.
The colony, and especially the capital, benefited from the improvements made by one
of the greatest viceroys, the second count of Revillagigedo (1789–94). Among his many
innovations were the paving and lighting of streets intended to reduce accidents and
crime. He is remembered also for having ordered an important census, for improving the
postal service, and for sponsoring scientific and artistic projects. To promote public order,
he mandated that city officials restrict unauthorized gatherings and street performances
of music and dance. Although these efforts did not succeed in eradicating popular cus-
toms, they did serve to reinforce racial hierarchies and draw spatial boundaries between
social groups.
The aristocracy of the eighteenth century differed from its counterpart of the two pre-
ceding centuries primarily in the matter of style rather than attitude. Later aristocrats were
The magnificent colonial residence, rising four stories, is a good example of baroque architectural style. Built in
the eighteenth century for the Count of San Mateo de Valparaíso, it was later used as a palace by Emperor Agustín
I (Iturbide). Subsequently it served as a hotel and today it is beautifully maintained by a bank.
A rural scene of a hacendado and his foreman.
A spirited mount and fine clothing typify this scene of rural landowners in the early nineteenth century. The
Mexicans’ equestrian skill and love of fine horses have long been known.
wealthier and more cosmopolitan. Some had studied and traveled in Europe. They ad-
opted continental fashions, the women appearing on festive occasions in expensive gowns
and elaborate coiffures, the men in knee breeches, tricorn hats, and, on formal occasions,
powdered wigs. To some extent Mexican high society had, like that of Spain, become
“Frenchified” through tastes acquired with the Bourbon accession. Also in imitation of
European styles were the fancy dress balls and salons in which the elite discoursed on the
new philosophies emanating from France and England and conversed about art, literature,
music and, inevitably, the economy and politics. Poetry was read and scientific papers
were presented. Gossip and expressions of horror at the vulgarities of the masses spiced
these displays.
In rural New Spain, where Indians predominated, new tensions appeared. Many of the
natives in remote areas, and particularly in southern Mexico, had scarcely been acculturated
into Spanish society, but in the rural communities conflicts escalated between indigenous
and nonindigenous peoples. Village riots had long been commonplace, but they took on
new urgency at the end of the eighteenth century as outsiders expanded their political and
economic influence in predominantly Indian villages.
This imposing residence, built in 1528, had been altered by the counts of Santiago de Calimaya by 1770. Today
it is the Museum of the City of Mexico.
The Casa de Alfeñique (“Sugar-candy House”), an eighteenth-century showplace in Puebla, a city of many co-
lonial treasures.
SOCIAL UNREST
The proliferation of wars during the eighteenth century, far from the shores of Mexico, occa-
sioned little more than casual notice, enlivened perhaps by the personal account of a Span-
ish veteran. But interest increased with the successful revolt of the English colonists to the
north and the outbreak of the French revolution. Later came news of the alarming success of
black slaves who overthrew their French masters in Haiti and declared their independence.
Informed criollos could hardly fail to observe that in both hemispheric revolts, colonial
populations smaller than Mexico’s had thrown over imperial powers greater than Spain. But
criollos also recognized that their own society was far more heterogeneous than either the
United States or Haiti.
The opulence if the rich stood in glaring contrast to the majority who lived in more
modest conditions, if not poverty. Indians and castas comprised five-sixths of the total popu-
lation, but these groups were far from homogeneous. Castas constituted a particularly diverse
lot because racial and ethnic hierarchies were not rigidly fixed in practice. Their individual
occupational, physical, and cultural circumstances could generate flexibility or immobility in
the social system. By the same token, this was true for Indians and Spaniards; class divisions
existed within these categories. Most indigenous peoples still had tribute or labor obligations.
A portrait of an aristocratic lady by Miguel Cabrera (1695–1768).

As a whole, the lower classes suffered periodic epidemics and famines, especially in the
the worst years between 1779 and 1784. Prices shot up and remained high; the rate of infla-
tion increased. Wages stagnated and fell behind the price increases of basic commodities. To
make matters worse, a prolonged wage-price squeeze ran from 1782 to 1816 and probably
played a role in late colonial popular uprisings.
Indigenous peoples who still lived in villages sought to preserve community solidarity.
When their numbers dropped after conquest, their lands became more vulnerable to sale,
rental, or other forms of appropriation by outsiders. Demographic recuperation created
new tensions by the mid-eighteenth century, and land values rose. Pueblos increasingly
came into conflict with each other and with neighboring estates over access to land and
water. Local grievances over land and the payment of taxes (tribute, tithe, and other ecclesi-
astical duties) frequently erupted in violence, although it was usually confined to the village
level. Food shortages and rising prices after 1808 aggravated local tensions, but indigenous
protest centered primarily on the defense of local community resources and identity. By this
time, the demographic recovery among Indians most likely had slowed due to increased
pressures on land.
Scarcity of land could drive Indians to seek work outside their pueblos. A considerable
number were attracted to the expanding economy of the Bajío region (parts of Guanajuato,
Querétaro, Michoacán, and Jalisco). The cities of this fertile wheat-producing area also
boasted a sizable textile industry and some of the richest silver mines. But even there subsis-
tence crises and inflated prices limited opportunities toward the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury, and indigenous miners, hacienda workers, and artisans found their wages insufficient
to meet their needs and obligations.
A typical scene along a provincial road.

Lower-end castas also suffered from the economic vagaries of the late eighteenth century,
which included rising unemployment and inflation. Along with blacks and Indians, many
casta groups shared the indignities of poverty and discrimination. Together this underclass
nursed resentments against the privileged Spanish colonists. Because they were so dispersed,
their occasional violent protests did not represent a cohesive threat before the nineteenth
century. Some of the disaffected harbored a vague hope that the Spanish king would inter-
vene to punish their local oppressors. They were occasionally attracted by messiahs who
wandered the countryside, making millenarian prophecies of a better future and often ex-
torting money from community funds. Popular ideology in Indian communities drew on a
mixture of indigenous and imposed traditions, but it clearly differentiated between Indians
and outsiders in ethnic and cultural terms. In the face of new changes that threatened rural
community values, collective anxieties multiplied to produce more protest and violence,
still quite localized.
Criollo grievances, on the other hand, lent themselves to more coordinated expression
through local societies and literary clubs established in the eighteenth century to discuss
economic innovations that might boost colonial economic production as well as other en-
lightened ideas of the day. Criollos, in theory, held a secondary position. The peninsulares,
or gachupines, had enjoyed special privileges and occupied favored positions in church and
state. There was a certain logic in this, as peninsulares tended to have more education and
administrative experience. Beyond that, an official with strong ties to the mother country
tended to be more loyal to the interests of Spain. Few criollos, on the other hand, had ever
seen Spain; and by birth, education, cultural milieu, property, and familial relationships
they naturally identified strongly with New Spain. As officials, they might succumb to the
temptation of favoring their countrymen, perhaps at the expense of royal interests.
Still, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the crown appointed some crio-
llos to high office, and others were able to purchase posts put up for bidding. A number even
served as judges in the audiencias as well as in other powerful positions. By 1769 at least
eight of the twelve members of the Audiencia of Mexico were criollos. They were even more
successful in obtaining rank in the church. This promising state of affairs came under some
change during the reign of Charles III, who agreed with Gálvez that the colonists’ participa-
tion in government should be restricted. As a result the number of criollos in the audiencia
of the capital had declined by 1780 to only four of sixteen, and later there were even fewer.
Criollos could, however, secure rank in the military; by the close of the eighteenth century of
a total of 361 officers in the regular regiments 227 were criollos, and in the militia they held
338 commissions of 624 officer positions.
The distinctions they perceived between the gachupines and themselves became increas-
ingly galling to the criollos. Far from accepting the stigma of congenital inferiority that Span-
iards had placed on them, however, the criollos asserted their self-worth more vocally in the
eighteenth century. Charges of colonial degeneracy supported by some of the pseudosci-
entific theories of European naturalists were energetically refuted by criollo patriots in the
Gaceta de Literatura, as well as by the historian and collector Lorenzo Boturini in his 1746
book Idea de una historia general de la América Septentrional which extolled the native past and
criollo patriotism. Criollos also drew on the work of the exiled Jesuit Father Clavijero, who
accurately described New Spain’s geography, flora, and fauna and highlighted the region’s
positive characteristics and achievements. There was reason for pride in their land; foreign
travelers had affirmed that Mexico City compared favorably with Spanish cities, even Madrid.
One immediately noticeable difference expressed itself in the language, now losing its
Castilian lisp and enriched by Indian words and diminutives. The Mexican diet was distinc-
tive; the architecture of Spain had been modified; customs and dress had acquired their own
traits. The Mexican ambience had influenced literature, art, and music. The people, the land-
scape, the flora, and the fauna were not a replica of Spain. What was originally Spanish had
been altered, and while the Spaniards showed disdain for the corruption of Spanish culture,
the native-born began to celebrate their homeland. Shunning the socially tainted designa-
tion of criollo, they considered themselves americanos or mexicanos and took to satirizing the
inequities and absurdities of colonial policies in verse and song.
Despite the grumbling, only the most radical of colonists entertained serious consider-
ation of rebellion against Spain. Others complained about the imposition of new taxes and
the administrative changes that burdened them. But while some criollos had been hurt by
royal economic policies, others had prospered and, all things considered, the native-born
Spaniards were better off than ever before. Most still felt a personal relationship to the mon-
archy and most were devoted to the church which, in addition to attending to their spiritual
needs, had been lending them money.
What the criollos really wanted was to be on an equal footing with the peninsulares or,
better yet, somehow to replace them altogether. Socially elevated by virtue of complexion
and lineage, most criollos wanted to maintain the racial hierarchy. Their attitudes toward
the lower masses were no less critical than the peninsulares’ opinion of the criollos. In no
way did the criollos advocate social equality for those below them. As the visiting German
scientist Alexander von Humboldt observed in the late colonial period, “In America, the
skin, more or less white, is what dictates the class that an individual occupies in society. A
white, even if he rides barefoot on horseback, considers himself a member of the nobility of
the country.”1 Rebellion evoked the specters of anarchy and race war in which the colored
masses, who made little distinction between gachupín and criollo, might rise against all
white persons.
C H U R C H A N D S TAT E
Crown policies that had aimed to diminish the traditional power, wealth, and prestige of
the church did not always sit well with criollos, and many were particularly rankled by the
crown’s expulsion of the Jesuits—those teachers and defenders of their patria chica (local
world). In the end, some criollos benefited from the opportunity to acquire former Jesuit
properties, but many more would be affected negatively by the Act of Consolidation of 1804.
After the expulsion of the Jesuits, the crown continued to complain about the extensive
urban and rural properties held by branches of the church. Royal officials claimed these hold-
ings were not being used to their potential, thus obstructing government efforts to stimulate
1 Quoted in Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston, MA, 1967), 55–56.
the economy. Therefore, in 1804 the crown required the church to call in all the loans it had
made using charitable funds. Royal officials would receive the principal and pay interest on
it. Many of these loans had been made to criollos in the form of mortgages, and most colo-
nists were hard-pressed to come up with the cash to pay them off. The Act of Consolidation
represented a serious threat to the interests of a substantial portion of the Mexican elite since
about half of the colony’s available capital was tied up in these loans. Nonetheless, several
million pesos were collected within a few years, financial structures were debilitated, and
some criollos were reduced to financial ruin.
The act, although intended to solve liquidity problems, also severely constrained the
activities of the church and embittered many clerics in the process. In particular, the lower
echelon of parish priests became alienated as their perquisites were threatened, and they
communicated their disillusionment with crown policies to their flocks. Another source of
disenchantment for the masses lay in the church hierarchy’s cooperation with Bourbon offi-
cials in curtailing popular religious celebrations and devotions, at a time when the devotion
to the Virgin of Guadalupe flourished as a form of popular religious nationalism.
C O N S P I R A C I E S I N N E W S PA I N A N D C O N F U S I O N I N S PA I N
Resistance to Spanish domination took many forms throughout the colonial period. Most
often it transpired through small acts of defiance, but a number of rebellions and conspiracies
challenged Spanish rule before the outbreak of insurgency in 1810. Some posed serious threats
to Spain’s hegemony, while others were trivial affairs. At least in a few there was mention of
independence, but such movements were considered aberrations and slightly insane by the
general populace. Most of the disturbances found their origins in local grievances and lacked
broad support. However, some of the Indian rebellions attracted numerous ardent followers—
with violent and bloody consequences. Examples of native rebellions that occurred many gen-
erations after contact are rare, but they did occur. In the northern province of New Mexico, the
Pueblo Revolt of 1680 drove out the Spaniards for more than a decade; Tzeltal Mayas shook
the colonial system in Chiapas in 1712; the Yaqui Rebellion of 1740 slowed Spanish expansion
in Sonora; and a Maya insurrection led by Jacinto Canek threatened Yucatán in 1761. In each
of these cases, discontent spilled outside the village to encompass larger ethnic groups when
Indians saw their way of life overwhelmingly threatened. The excesses and abuses of elites had
violated the many accommodations they had already made to colonial rule. Messianic leader-
ship that drew on native and Christian beliefs also played a role in these revolts.
Grievances abounded in the last decades of the eighteenth century, but sporadic and
localized late colonial protests by castas and Indians did not yet provide the catalyst for
widespread rebellion. Neither were criollos ready for a complete break with Spain.
In 1794, the popular Viceroy Revillagigedo was replaced by the vain, corrupt marqués de
Branciforte. His appointment aroused anger, ventilated in September in wall posters appear-
ing in the capital. The messages acclaimed the ideals of the French revolution, and rumors
of a plot spread throughout the city. In at least two cases, different configurations of penin-
sulares and criollos did, in fact, plot to overthrow Spanish rule, but few colonists entertained
radically liberal designs.
María Luisa of Parma, the queen of Spain, painted by Goya. At age fourteen she married her cousin, who became
Charles IV.
Ultimately the deterioration of Spain’s position in Europe brought on a crisis. At the

death of his father, in 1788, Charles IV had become king, and he quickly lent weight to
the commonplace that great men seldom beget sons of their equal. He was inept and had
little apparent interest in ruling the empire. His subjects grew weary of him and impatiently
awaited the succession of Prince Ferdinand. The queen also tired of him and found solace in
the intimate company of a handsome provincial guardsman named Manuel de Godoy. The
clever, ambitious Godoy maneuvered himself at the age of twenty-five into the rank of prime
minister. He then proceeded to make a series of unwise alliances, which finally encouraged
the invasion of Spain in 1808 by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte. When Madrid fell to
the French army, Charles IV and his son became prisoners, and shortly thereafter the king
abdicated in favor of the prince, making Ferdinand VII a king without a throne. Napoleon
appointed his own brother Joseph to rule over Spain, while much of the country resisted.
Some Spanish patriots formed a government in exile in the fortified city of Cádiz.
When news of the king’s capture and the occupation of Spain by the French reached New
Spain, confusion reigned as to who was to rule the colony. Joseph Bonaparte as sovereign was
unthinkable, but what was the logical alternative? Although a few saw the situation as a golden
opportunity to gain independence, the majority of the colonists advocated the formation of a
caretaker government to run affairs in the name of Ferdinand VII until such time as the king
was released. The viceroy seemed the obvious person to assume rule in Mexico, but the audi-
encia insisted on sharing power. Eventually, in cities throughout the Spanish American colo-
nies, the cabildos asserted their own claims. They argued that historically, when a legitimate
ruler was lacking, provisional bodies, or juntas, formed to manage local affairs. Following such
a bold proclamation, several members of the cabildo of Mexico City were arrested.
Viceroy José de Iturrigaray had shrewdly assessed the developments, looking for a com-
promise that would please the criollos while keeping New Spain under Spanish control.
When he signaled he would allow criollos to form an assembly, Spaniards from the audiencia
and the heavily peninsular merchant guild decided to act. On the evening of August 15, 1808,
a small band of Spaniards forcibly removed the viceroy from his palace and packed him off
to Veracruz to await passage to Spain, where he was later imprisoned. The peninsulares also
arrested half a dozen prominent criollo leaders. Replacing Iturrigaray was Pedro Garibay, a
senile field marshal in his eightieth year who had to contend with various militant factions.
The instability of government in 1809 only added to the anxieties arising from a threat-
ening economic picture. Insufficient rain fell that summer, and the resulting shortage of corn
caused prices in some areas to triple their normal level. The consequences were far-reaching,
affecting, for example, mining production, since there was too little food for draft animals,
and workers had to be laid off. Interrupted commerce with the occupied mother country fur-
ther dislocated the Mexican economy. Taken altogether, it was a time of confusion and stress.
Among the more sophisticated criollos in Mexico City the mood remained conservative.
They might question the traditional order, but rebellion against the crown was a painful
and perhaps frightening thought since it evoked the possibility of mob rule. Attitudes in
the provinces were somewhat different. More isolated from ritual and pomp, more inde-
pendent, and more closely identified with the land, criollos in smaller communities had a
more fully developed sense of the patria chica where they wanted to run their own affairs.
Provincial criollos, often under the auspices of the new intendants, had already been meet-
ing to discuss ways to modernize the economy and expand production and trade. They un-
dertook scientific surveys of local resources and adopted some new technologies. Along with
these innovations, they could not help but be aware of the notions of freedom and equality
espoused not only by the northern European Enlightenment and the French revolution.
Even in Spain where the French occupation had undermined centralized authority, a revital-
ized political vocabulary included terms like liberty and representation. The destabilization
The great central plaza of Mexico City, popularly known as the Zócalo. It is bordered by the cathedral, the vice-
regal (now the national) palace, the cabildo quarters, and other public buildings. See also the cover photo for
this book.
of hierarchical chains of command in Spain and Mexico made local government officials,
including indigenous cabildos, more conscious of the possibilities and pitfalls of political
change. Royal officials closely watched their gatherings suspecting that they were conspirato-
rial. One plot, which included clergymen, military officers, and Indian groups, came to light
in Valladolid in 1809. Although the principals were imprisoned for a time, most surfaced in
the vanguard of the insurrection that was to follow shortly.
In 1810 important cities of southern Spain fell to French troops, compromising without
question the sovereignty of the nation. In that same year it also came to the attention of
royal authorities in Mexico City that a conspiracy had formed in Querétaro. Its ringleaders
included an aging, dissident priest named Hidalgo. Once again the government dispatched
troops to deal with yet another provincial incident.
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Yetman, David. Conflict in Colonial Sonora: Indians, Priests, and Settlers. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2012.
C HA PTER 15
THE WARS FOR INDEPENDENCE
H I D A L G O A N D E A R LY S U C C E S S
Born in 1753 to a moderately well-to-do criollo family, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla spent his
first 12 years on the Hacienda de San Diego Corralejo in Guanajuato, where his father served
the owner as mayordomo (resident manager). Encouraged by his father, the boy moved with
his older brother, José Joaquín, to Valladolid (today Morelia) and matriculated at the Jesuit
Colegio of San Francisco Javier. The brothers had been at their studies only two years when
shocking news reached the city: King Charles III of Spain had banished the Jesuits from
Spain and all Spanish possessions in the New World. Left without teachers, the boys had
to interrupt their schooling, but within a year they had enrolled in the diocesan Colegio of
San Nicolás Obispo, also in Valladolid and one of the nineteen colegios and seminaries in
Mexico that prepared students for degrees eventually to be awarded by the Royal and Pontifi-
cal University in Mexico City. Young Miguel Hidalgo steeped himself in rhetoric, Latin, and
theology and found time to study Indian languages. Upon receiving his bachelor’s in 1774,
he immediately began preparations for the priesthood. The bishop celebrated his sacrament
of ordination in the fall of 1778.
Enthusiastic and self-assured, the twenty-eight-year-old priest returned to Valladolid to teach
at the Colegio of San Nicolás Obispo, where he eventually became rector. But he was scarcely
exemplary from the church’s point of view. Before the turn of the century the Holy Office of the
Inquisition had been apprised, by rumor and fact, of a curate whose orthodoxy was suspect,
who questioned priestly celibacy, who read prohibited books, who indulged in gambling and
enjoyed dancing, who challenged the infallibility of the Pope, who doubted the veracity of the
virgin birth, who dared to suggest that fornication out of wedlock was not a sin, who referred to
the Spanish king as a tyrant, and who had mistresses with whom he fathered several children.
Hidalgo was hailed before the Inquisition in 1800, but nothing could be proved.
Hidalgo’s future fortunes and misfortunes were cast when, in 1803, he accepted the
curacy of the small parish of Dolores, in present-day Guanajuato. Devoting minimal time
to the spiritual needs of his parishioners, Father Hidalgo concerned himself primarily with
improving their economic potential. He introduced new industries in Dolores: tile making,
224
The Wars for Independence 225
tanning, carpentry, wool weaving, beekeeping, silk growing, and wine making. He preferred
to spend his spare time reading and engaging his fellow criollos in informed debate. A few
years after his arrival in Dolores, Hidalgo’s path crossed that of Ignacio Allende, a thirty-five-
year-old firebrand and a captain in the Queen’s Cavalry Regiment in nearby Guanajuato.
Allende took the priest into his confidence and introduced him to a coterie of friends among
whom were Juan de Aldama, also a military man; Miguel Domínguez, a former corregidor of
Querétaro; and his wife, Doña Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, remembered in Mexican history
as La Corregidora. The most celebrated female of the independence struggles, Josefa Ortiz de
Domínguez was certainly not the only woman who played a role. Many others participated
in planning activities and carried messages between rebels, and some were imprisoned for
their activities. La Corregidora herself spent several years in jail. And countless women of all
classes would provide food and supplies for combatants in the wars to come.
The group had organized a “literary club,” as had others in cities throughout New Spain.
In their meetings, they discussed ideas coming from Europe, especially those related to im-
proving local economies. The club of Hidalgo and Allende attracted individuals across the
Bajío, a region that covers the modern-day states of Querétaro, Guanajuato, and part of
Michoacán and San Luis Potosí. Agriculture, mining, and incipient industry had expanded
exponentially in the eighteenth century. However, a prolonged drought at the end of the first
decade of the nineteenth century had slowed agricultural growth. High inflation had driven
up prices since 1780 with no corresponding increase in wages, creating a large oppressed
indigenous and casta labor force.
For many progressive thinkers in the Bajío, reform alone would not be sufficient to fix
the problems. They began to plot the separation of New Spain from the mother country
and set the date of December 8, 1810 for an uprising. Although the conspirators were
all admonished to hold their tongues, Marino Galván, a postal clerk, leaked the news to
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811). One of the most re-

nowned individuals in nineteenth-century Mexican history,
Father Hidalgo provided the initial spark for the indepen-
dence movement.
his superior who, in turn, informed the audiencia in Mexico City. The forewarned Span-
ish authorities moved on September 13, when they searched the house of Epigmenio
González in Querétaro, found bountiful arms and ammunition, and ordered the arrest
of the panic-stricken owner. The events of the next few days are known to every Mexican
schoolchild, for they are repeated every September 16 amid a wide array of Independence
Day celebrations.
Doña Josefa entrusted Ignacio Pérez with the task of carrying the news of the arrest to
Ignacio Allende in San Miguel. Not finding him at home, the messenger relayed the news
to Juan de Aldama, who immediately set out to inform Father Hidalgo in Dolores. When,
about two o’clock on the morning of September 16, he arrived at the priest’s house, Aldama
found Allende there also. The three realized that orders for their own arrest had probably
been issued and decided to strike out for independence at once. Hidalgo rang the church
bells, summoning his parishioners to mass earlier than usual that morning. Assembled at
the little church in Dolores, the Indians and mestizos, including a group of prisoners re-
leased from the local jail, listened to Hidalgo explain their plight and call them to action.
The exact words of this most famous of all Mexican speeches are not known or, rather, they
are reproduced in almost as many variations as there are historians to reproduce them. But
the essential spirit of the message is this:
My children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free your-
selves? Will you recover the lands stolen 300 years ago from your forefathers by the hated
Spaniards? We must act at once. . . . Will you not defend your religion and your rights as
true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the
gachupines!
The immediate response to the Grito de Dolores was enthusiastic in areas of the Bajío.
With Hidalgo at their head, the diverse band of poorly armed Indians and mestizos struck
out for San Miguel, picking up hundreds of recruits along the way. When they stopped for a
rest about noon at the hamlet of Atotonilco, Hidalgo entered the local church and emerged
carrying a banner of the Virgin de Guadalupe. The devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe as
the patron of all New Spain had expanded in the eighteenth century, especially into Indian
communities. This emblem may have attracted Indians and poor castas to the revolt, but
their economic circumstances were most compelling.
By dusk Hidalgo’s band had taken San Miguel without difficulty, for the local militia
joined the rebels. The day’s dramatic events should have ended with the imprisonment of
the local Spanish populace, but as night fell the unpredicted happened. Hidalgo’s army,
composed primarily of rural Indians but also castas, many of whom were skilled laborers,
craftsmen, and muleteers, became a mob. They moved through the streets with their clubs,
slings, machetes, bows and arrows, lances, and occasional firearms, pillaging the towns. Hi-
dalgo could not reason with them, and only Ignacio Allende, racing through the streets
on horseback and warning prompt retribution, succeeding containing the passions of the
crowd. By morning, chaos had begun to subside, but the problem would prove recurrent
during the next few months. From San Miguel the rebels moved on Celaya, and after taking
the town the mob again subjected the gachupín population to pillage. Celaya was merely
a rehearsal for a major encounter at Guanajuato, where the rebel army would be seriously
opposed for the first time.
Hidalgo asked the intendant of Guanajuato, Juan Antonio de Riaño, to surrender the
city, and he offered full protection to the Spanish citizenry in return. But the news from San
Miguel and Celaya had already reached Guanajuato, and Riaño knew that Hidalgo could
give no such assurance. He decided to make a stand and congregated the Spanish population
in the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, the public granary. Although his people were greatly out-
numbered, he believed they could hold out until reinforcements from Mexico City arrived.
Shortly before noon on September 28 Hidalgo began his approach to Guanajuato. He
was joined by hundreds of workers from the surrounding silver mines. As the first wave of
foot soldiers rushed the improvised fortress, Riaño gave the order to open fire. Hundreds of
rebels were cut down by the intendant’s artillery. The attackers, led by Juan José Martínez
(known affectionately by his nickname El Pípila), then gathered up a bunch of soft pine
torches used in the mines and laid them at the foot of the granary’s wooden gate. They set
fire to them and, as the gate was consumed, a few Indians charged through into the central
patio. They were quickly followed by hundreds, perhaps even a thousand. Within the hour
most of the refugees were dead. They were stripped, and their naked bodies dragged uncer-
emoniously through the streets to the nearby cemetery of Belén, where they were buried in
makeshift graves.
An eyewitness to the events of that day was eighteen-year-old Lucas Alamán, later one of
Mexico’s most renowned conservative statesmen and historians. In his multivolume history
of Mexico he recollected the following:
This pillage was more merciless than would have been expected of a foreign army. The mis-
erable scene of that sad night was lighted by torches. All that could be heard was the pound-
ing by which doors were opened and the ferocious howls of the rabble when the doors gave
way. They dashed in in triumph to rob commercial products, furniture, everyday clothing,
and all manner of things. The women fled terrorized to the houses of neighbors, climbing
along the roof tops without yet knowing if that afternoon they had lost a father or husband
at the granary. . . . The plaza and the streets were littered with broken pieces of furniture and
other things robbed from the stores, of liquor spilled after the masses had drunk themselves
into a stupor.1
It took a day and a half to restore order. The casualty figures were tremendous: over 500
Spaniards and 2,000 rebels, largely Indians, were killed. Hidalgo and Allende now felt strong
enough to split their army into two striking forces, and within a month they had captured
Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, and Valladolid. By late October Hidalgo had martialed an army
of about eighty thousand marching on Mexico City. The anticipated battle took place on
October 30 at the Monte de las Cruces, and there Hidalgo proved that sheer numbers could
overcome a small, well-equipped, and disciplined professional army. The Spaniards were
forced to retreat back into the city, and as Hidalgo camped on the hills overlooking the capi-
tal, he pondered what to do next.
1 Lucas Alamán, Historia de México Vol. I (Mexico City, Mexico, 1942), 403–4.
A decisive strike at the capital might have ended the Wars for Independence after only a
month and a half of fighting. But Hidalgo had taken heavy losses at Las Cruces, he was short
on ammunition, and he was uneasy about turning his undisciplined forces loose on Mexico
City. Over Allende’s objections he decided to order a retreat rather than follow up his vic-
tory. Moving northwest toward Guadalajara, many of the rebel troops began to desert. At the
same time Spanish forces under General Félix Calleja started to regroup. Guadalajara fell to
the insurgents unopposed, but in January 1811 the royalist troops from the south caught up
with the rebels. Again Hidalgo and Allende had the numerical superiority, but royal troops
under the disciplined General Calleja routed the rebel army.
Hidalgo, Allende, and a number of other leaders, recognizing the futility of trying to
regroup their forces, moved northward, hoping to obtain relief in Coahuila and Texas. But
their days were numbered. In March 1811, near the scorched desert town of Monclova (Coa-
huila), they were ambushed by a Spanish detachment. Captured by Governor Manuel Sal-
cedo of Texas, the rebels were marched in chains to Chihuahua, where Allende and the
other non-clerical leaders were immediately executed as traitors. Hidalgo, because he was
a priest, underwent a trial by the Inquisition. Finding him guilty of heresy and treason, the
court defrocked him and turned him over to the secular arm for execution. At dawn on July
31 the firing squad did its job. Hidalgo’s corpse was decapitated and his head, fastened to a
pole, was displayed on the charred wall of the granary in Guanajuato as an object lesson to
potential rebels.
Meanwhile important events were taking place outside of Mexico, where other Spanish
American colonies had declared independence. In Spain, the juntas ruling in the name of
the king had formed a body called the Cortes de Cádiz to address the needs of governance
until Ferdinand VII resumed power. Delegates arrived in Cádiz from all over Spain and from
Spanish America, including representatives from Mexico. For the next two years, they worked
to produce Spain’s first liberal constitution, designed to prevent arbitrary rule, abolish noble
privilege, and create a limited monarchy with parliamentary features. The Constitution of
1812 offered representation (although not equal citizenship) to the colonies. The idea ap-
pealed to those criollos who did not desire a complete break with the metropolis.
MORELOS AND THE DECLINE OF REBEL FORTUNES
With the death of Hidalgo the rebel leadership was assumed by another parish priest, José
María Morelos y Pavón, a mestizo. But by this time sympathy for the cause of independence
had waned considerably. Many wealthy criollos had become alarmed at the radical twist
the revolution seemed to be taking within Mexico, and still looked to a solution that would
conserve ties with Spain. Some criollos favored the elimination of their Spanish rivals but
not at the expense of being swept up in some kind of social revolution. They recognized that
to the downtrodden Indians and mestizos their white skin, if not their social position, was
indistinguishable from that of the gachupines.
When the mantle of insurgent leadership fell to Morelos, he knew full well that he could
not count on much criollo support. Unlike his predecessor, he trained a small but effective
army that relied primarily on guerrilla tactics to keep the enemy off guard. Dividing his
José María Morelos (1765–1815). With Hidalgo’s execu-

tion in 1811, Morelos assumed the leadership of the in-
dependence movement. Although a strong supporter of
Hidalgo, he had very different ideas about how to wage a
war and how to constitute a new nation.
attention almost equally between military and political matters, he devised a strategy that
called for the encirclement of Mexico City. By the spring of 1813 the circle was completed,
isolating the capital from both coasts. Morelos then called for a congress to meet in Chil-
pancingo (Guerrero) to discuss plans for the nation once the Spaniards were driven out.
Some of the conservative criollos were still unsure of the direction in which Morelos
wished to move, but his speech to the delegates at Chilpancingo cleared the air. Morelos
invoked the names of the ancient emperors Moctezuma and Cuauhtémoc and implored
the delegates to avenge the shameful disgrace of the last three centuries. The congress
formally declared independence and agreed upon a series of principles that should be
incorporated into a new constitution: sovereignty should reside in the people, and male
suffrage should be universal; slavery and all caste systems should be abolished; govern-
ment monopolies should be abolished and replaced by a 5 percent income tax; all ju-
dicial torture should end. Many of these provisions went far beyond those of Spain’s
Constitution of 1812. The nineteeenth-century liberalism of the delegates was tempered
only by their insistence that Roman Catholicism should be made the official religion of
the new state.
But while the delegates at Chilpancingo engaged in political debate, General Calleja
and his Spanish army assumed a new military offensive. In six months’ time the Spaniards
broke the circle around Mexico City and captured Valladolid, Oaxaca, Cuernavaca, Cuautla,
Taxco, and even Chilpancingo itself. The delegates hurriedly packed their bags and moved
to the more secure environs of Apatzingán, where they promulgated the constitution they
had already largely agreed upon. But what the constitution promised Mexicans on paper the
viceroy’s army denied them on the field of battle. Meanwhile, in 1814 King Ferdinand VII
abolished the 1812 constitution as soon as he was restored to power. In the fall of 1815,
Morelos was captured by an enemy detachment and escorted to Mexico City, where he was
tried for treason and, like Hidalgo before him, shorn of his religious vestments and executed
by a firing squad.
For the next five years the independence movement consisted of little more than sporadic
guerrilla fighting. A number of independent bands, inadequately supplied and without any
meaningful coordination or even a common vision for the future of Mexico, operated in
isolated mountain pockets and the heavily foliaged areas of the coast. The Spanish army
was unprepared to conduct an effective counterinsurgency campaign, and the rebels’ lack
of organization proved to be a strength. Not even the viceroy’s newly introduced “flying
brigades” (cuerpos volantes) could match the mobility of guerrillas conducting hit-and-run
warfare. While never able to capture major cities or to turn back the viceregal army, the two
most effective independence leaders, Guadalupe Victoria (with two thousand ragged troops
in the mountains of Puebla and Veracruz) and Vicente Guerrero (with one thousand men
in Oaxaca), seemed themselves invulnerable to defeat. While guerrilla bands of two hun-
dred to three hundred insurgents proliferated and began dominating more and more of the
Territory under Insurgent Control, 1811–13

countryside, the chore of the counterinsurgency army became increasingly difficult, and de-
moralized troops began to defect. Nevertheless, in 1819 the Spanish viceroy in Mexico City,
Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, reported to the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, that the situation was so
well under control that he anticipated no further need for reinforcements.
ITURBIDE AND THE PLAN DE IGUALA
King Ferdinand VII was not concerned only with events in Mexico. He found himself facing
insurrection in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America as well. To quell all of
these movements, he assembled a powerful fighting force for service in the Americas. In
1820, with these troops facing defeat in many of the colonies, a military revolt in Spain
forced the king to restore the Constitution of 1812. When the conservative criollos in New
Spain learned that King Ferdinand had accepted the constitution, many for the first time de-
cided to cast their lot with the revolution for independence. Ironically, a conservative colony
would thus gain independence from a temporarily liberal mother country.
Of the numerous defections from the cause of Spain to that of an independent Mexico
the most significant was that of Agustín de Iturbide. Born in Valladolid of conservative Span-
ish parents in 1783, Iturbide early displayed an interest in pursuing a military career. He
entered the army at the age of fourteen and soon received a royal commission as a lieutenant
in the infantry regiment of Valladolid. When Father Hidalgo issued his Grito de Dolores in
1810, Lieutenant Iturbide decided to support the crown in its fight against the rabble that
followed the banner of Guadalupe. For almost a decade he fought against the insurgents and
on several occasions distinguished himself in the zeal with which he persecuted the enemy.
In the fall of 1820 Viceroy Apodaca invited Iturbide, by then a colonel, to discuss plans
for a new offensive against Vicente Guerrero. Iturbide was placed in charge of 2,500 men and
left Mexico City for the south in late November. After a few indecisive skirmishes, he asked
Guerrero to a meeting during which he proposed to make peace—not war. Iturbide’s price
for the treason he was contemplating was to dictate the terms of independence. But Guer-
rero was not easily convinced of either Iturbide’s sincerity or his ideas for an independent
Mexico. A series of conferences had to be held before the guerrilla warrior and the new con-
vert could issue, on February 24, 1821, their Plan de Iguala.2 To attract conservative support,
it praised the Spanish endeavor in New Spain and held out Spain as the most Catholic, holy,
heroic, and magnanimous of nations. But after three hundred years of tutelage it was time
for Mexico to strike out on its own. The plan contained twenty-three articles but only three
major guarantees: first, the independent Mexican nation would be organized as a constitu-
tional monarchy, and the crown would be offered to King Ferdinand or some other appro-
priate European prince; second, the Roman Catholic religion would be given a monopoly on
the spiritual life of the country, and its clergymen would retain all the rights and privileges
they currently enjoyed; and third criollos and peninsulares would be treated equally in the
new state while caste distinctions would be abolished. To uphold the promises, a new army,
2 In Mexican history revolutionary movements are almost always preceded by a plan that outlines the prin-
ciples to be embraced. These pronunciamientos have been described as part petition and part rebellion, de-
signed to intimidate those in power and attract a wide base of a support.
the Ejército de las Tres Garantías (the Army of the Three Guarantees) would be placed di-
rectly under Iturbide’s command.
In the Plan de Iguala, Iturbide played his cards with consummate skill. The proposal was
imaginative in its conception. Mexicans were weary of a decade of war. The liberal Constitu-
tion of Apatzingán had failed to attract sufficient support, and it was clear that to succeed
the movement needed help from the conservatives. With liberalism temporarily manifesting
itself in the mother country, the timing was perfect. In seeking to reconcile the interests of
opposing factions, the plan changed the nature of the fight for independence. Instead of
urging death to the gachupines, Iturbide curried their favor. He recognized and capitalized
upon the fact that both liberals, who favored the establishment of a republic, and conserva-
tives, who preferred an absolute monarchy, could compromise on this plan as it held out the
best hope for independence, something that both groups wanted most.
Within several weeks the broadly based plan began to yield its first dividends as con-
verts began to arrive. Military contingents throughout the country joined the Army of the
Three Guarantees, priests urged cooperation from the pulpits, Masonic lodges pledged sup-
port, and thousands of drifters again took up the cause. But, most importantly, the com-
munity of Spaniards, some fifty thousand strong, found promise in the Plan de Iguala and
pledged support. When Guanajuato, Puebla, Durango, Oaxaca, Querétaro, and Zacatecas all
fell to the insurgents, Viceroy Apodaca tendered his resignation. His replacement, Juan de
O’Donojú, realizing that New Spain was irrevocably lost, signed a treaty that, for the most
part, accepted the terms of the Plan de Iguala. The highest-ranking Spanish official in New
Spain had thus recognized Mexican independence. But Iturbide, thinking of the future, in-
corporated into the Treaty of Córdoba one important modification. If no suitable European
monarch could be persuaded to accept the Mexican crown, a Mexican congress could choose
a Mexican emperor instead. The commander of the Army of the Three Guarantees had begun
to feather his own nest.
T H E E F F E C T S O F T H E WA R S F O R I N D E P E N D E N C E
Iturbide’s triumphal entry into Mexico City in September 1821 marked the end of eleven
years of war. The Gaceta Imperial de México proclaimed theatrically that not even Rome in its
days of grandeur had ever witnessed such an exultant spectacle. Upon receiving gold keys
to the city the commander-in-chief explained that they would be used to lock the doors of
irreligion, disunion, and despotism and open the gateway to general happiness. But the first
door Iturbide opened in Mexico City was that of the great cathedral on the central plaza. Ce-
menting his future relationship with the archbishop, he received communion and listened
to a Te Deum offered in his honor.
From the campaigns, Mexico acquired not only its share of heroes and traitors but also
a legacy of political violence and economic devastation. The wars exerted an incalculable
influence on Mexico’s future. The army had converted the dream of independence into
reality and was by no means ready to step aside to allow civilians to control the nation’s
destiny. For a full century the Mexican military would be very much involved in the politi-
cal processes of government and would bargain with opposing factions for a share of the
nation’s wealth. The military clique would constitute a ready instrument for unscrupulous
politicians to use for their own purposes. More important yet, the basic issues separating
different segments of society had not been resolved. Competing groups had cooperated
long enough to achieve a common end but, once independence was achieved, the alli-
ance cobbled together by the Plan de Iguala proved transitory. For some the revolution
was simply anticolonial in nature and therefore it was over; others wanted its momentum
to be carried into the arena of political and economic reform. The internal struggles be-
tween liberals and conservatives, between republicans and monarchists, between federal-
ists and centralists, and between anticlericals and proponents of clerical privilege would
consume the energies of the neophyte nation for decades and draw many non-elites into
their armed conflicts.
If in 1821 it was difficult to predict the instability that was about to ensue, the roots
of discord could be traced back into the colonial past for criollos, castas, and indigenous
groups. The armies of the independence period consisted of Indians (more than half) and
castas (just under a fourth). Although their goals were different from those of the elites, the
rural masses had been active in the fighting, in pursuit of materially improving their lives
and resolving their local grievances over the preservation of their communities and tradi-
tions, culturally mixed as they were by the end of the colonial period. Their participation
garnered them little advantage as their concerns were ignored and their privations increased
after independence. They could take little solace in the fact that the politically articulate
groups in Mexico City demonstrated precious little ability to govern even themselves.
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Archer, Christon I. The Birth of Modern Mexico, 1780–1824. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources,
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C HA PTER 16
THE FIRST MEXICAN EMPIRE
P O M P A N D C I R C U M S TA N C E
In the best of circumstances nation building is a precarious business, but how does one create
a nation out of a newly independent state when the economy is in shambles and the political
atmosphere is pervaded by acrimony and mistrust? How does one fashion a set of national con-
tours when ideological fissures and profound regional and ethnic differences tear at the heart
of the body politic? These questions obsessed many Latin American leaders in the nineteenth
century, but binding nationalisms would be long in coming. For his part, the self-important
Iturbide was less concerned with building a nation than with becoming its sovereign.
As provided by the Plan de Iguala, Iturbide named a provisional junta to govern the coun-
try. This junta, completely dominated by conservative criollo interests, in turn named him
to serve as its presiding officer. The first order of business was to select a five-man regency to
exercise executive functions until an emperor could be designated. The junta chose Iturbide as
one of the five and awarded him a new military title, Generalísimo de Tierra y Mar (Supreme
General of Land and Sea), as well as a salary of one hundred twenty thousand pesos annually.
Meanwhile, an independent congress, also dominated by conservatives, debated Mexico’s
future. Although a small recalcitrant group tried to muster sympathy for a republic, Iturbide’s
conservative cohorts controlled the organizational proceedings. While they beat back all at-
tempts at republicanism, they began to waver on a series of economic and military issues.
When the congress, though divided, decided to cut back on the size of the Army of the Three
Guarantees and decreed that no member of the regency could simultaneously hold military
office, Iturbide realized that his ranks were being thinned and that time was no longer on his
side. If he failed to act decisively, the crown he wanted so desperately might be denied him.
On the evening of May 18 the generalísimo staged a dramatic demonstration in his own
behalf. Troops were ordered out of the barracks and into the streets. Firing muskets and rock-
ets into the air and shouting “Viva Agustín I, Emperor of Mexico!” they enticed other soldiers
to join them. As the frenzy grew in the downtown business district, thousands of civilians ac-
companied the mob on its way to Iturbide’s residence. Once there, the multitudes demanded
235
that their favorite declare himself emperor at once. Iturbide told friends who were in his
home at the time that although he wanted to go out on his balcony and turn them down, he
yielded for the sake of the public good.
Despite his feigned deference, the following morning Iturbide appeared personally
before the congress and, with his mob shouting in the galleries, the intimidated body named
him constitutional emperor of Mexico. In his oath of office he swore before God and the
Holy Evangels to uphold and defend the Roman Catholic religion at the exclusion of all
others and to enforce all laws and decrees promulgated by the congress that chose him.
With the throne thus occupied, the congress set to work, not on the conspicuous de-
mands of the Mexican nation but on defining proper etiquette and protocol in an obvious
attempt to emulate the greatest imperial regime the world had ever known. In June the
congress refined the organizational structure of the monarchy, declaring it to be heredi-
tary and assigning titles of nobility to his immediate family. May 19, the day of Iturbide’s
proclamation, was declared a national holiday, as were his birthday and the birthdays of
his children.
The greatest preparations of all were made for the official coronation ceremonies in July.
Although several liberal deputies argued that kissing of the hand and bending of the knee were
repugnant to the dignity of free peoples, their voices were lost to the monarchist majority. The
efforts were all based on a French model, and the congress hired a French baroness who had
designed the costumes for Napoleon Bonaparte some twenty-two years before. The congress
authorized a new Mexican order, the Knights of Guadalupe, to participate in the coronation.
In preparation, jewelry was borrowed, thrones were erected, banners and flags were hung from
church towers, and teams of workers were engaged to scour the streets. The citizenry of the
capital was being prepared for the most pretentious spectacle ever to occur in Mexico City.
At 8:00 A.M. on Sunday, July 21, 1822, amid the din of artillery salvos and the clamor of
several military bands, the imperial cortège worked its way along a carpeted and flower-strewn
path to the provisional palace, and the royal family was escorted to the central cathedral by an
honor guard recently designated by the congress. At the door the emperor and empress were
met by two bishops, who blessed them with holy water and led them to the two thrones placed
on the altar. The bishop of Guadalajara then celebrated high mass and consecrated the em-
peror and empress with sacred oil. With tremendous solemnity the president of the congress
placed the crown on Iturbide’s head and he, in turn, placed a slightly smaller one on the head
of the empress. The bishop then intoned Vivat Imperator in aeternum.
While the outer trappings of the empire were pretentious to an absurd degree, they were
not entirely without purpose and meaning. Iturbide’s understanding of Mexico’s past, while
by no means profound, was acute enough. He realized that the entire governmental system
of the colonial period had been predicated upon loyalty to the king and the crown. Indepen-
dence obviously undercut the personal loyalty that bound Mexican society together, but the
emperor wanted to capitalize upon the time-tested tradition. While he became emperor in
name, in fact he became a caudillo, a charismatic military leader with a personal following.
The congress had given him the legal base he considered vital; the ostentation that engulfed
his person helped to reinforce the mystique of his indispensability and to blur the distinc-
tions between the man and the office. Iturbide worked hard to identify the new state with his
own person and, for a while, seemed to be succeeding.
The First Mexican Empire 237
Agustín de Iturbide (1783–1824). Changing allegiance

from the Spanish to the insurgent cause, Iturbide success-
fully concluded the fight for independence and had himself
named emperor of Mexico.
P R O B L E M S FA C I N G T H E N E W E M P I R E
The empire was huge. Embracing much of the old viceroyalty of New Spain, it stretched in
the north to California and the present-day southwest of the United States, and the south
included all of Central America with the exception of Panama. Long subject to what they
considered the autocratic rule of Guatemala, Central Americans were divided about whether
to unite with the Mexican empire. Iturbide sent in an army of six hundred men to ensure
their adhesion to the empire, but the connection remained tenuous.
A more serious problem occurred with the neighbor to the north. The new regime quite
naturally wished to secure the official recognition of the United States, an independent re-
public for nearly fifty years. The cultivation of harmonious relations was deemed vital to the
security of Mexico’s northern provinces and important for commercial ties. Areas that be-
longed to Spain in earlier periods, Florida and Louisiana, now belonged to the United States
giving it control in the southeast areas bordering the Gulf of Mexico except for Texas which
could be threatened by US expansionist tendencies. The Mexican monarch also hoped for
a loan of $10 million to help his new government meet its obligations. President James
Monroe was reluctant to recognize a monarchy in the Americas.
Iturbide took the lead when he dispatched Manuel Zozaya as minister to Washington.
Reception of the Mexican would, in effect, recognize the Mexican regime. With mixed emo-
tions the US president urged the Congress to authorize recognition in December of 1822.
Not wishing to impair relations with Mexico from the beginning and feeling the push of
those US interests promoting trade, in January 1823 Monroe appointed Joel Poinsett as
minister to Mexico, despite the diplomat’s serious reservations about the Mexican regime.
But all was not well in Mexico City. The showy imperial façade rested on vulnerable socio-
economic foundations. Mexico’s colonial economy had depended heavily on silver, but the
wars for independence had exacted a high toll on the mines. During the years of internecine
strife mine workers left their jobs to join the fight, mine owners and operators were killed,
machinery was damaged, and many of the mines were flooded. Without sufficient bullion
reaching the mints, coinage slowed. Over $26 million had been minted in 1809; in 1821, less
than $6 million. Unemployment was rampant in the mining centers, and the situation was
aggravated by jobless soldiers mustered out shortly after the military campaigns ended.
The impact of the wars on Mexico’s agricultural output was similar. Both Spanish troops
and insurgents destroyed fields, commandeered crops, and killed off cattle and sheep that
might have benefited the enemy. Many a hacendado was killed and haciendas burned.
Mexico was a rural country at the time of independence, but thousands in Mexico City (pop-
ulation (one hundred fifty-five thousand,) Puebla (sixty thousand), Guadalajara (fifty thou-
sand), and other cities suffered as the price of agricultural products rose steadily in 1822.
The average citizen in the city felt the impact of the economic decline, and the government
did too as the fiscal system collapsed. In an attempt to make the cause of independence even
more popular, the congress lowered many old taxes, such as those on pulque and tobacco,
and eliminated others altogether. But commerce and the revenues to be derived stagnated as
trade with Spain ended and free trade with new areas faltered in taking up the slack.
To ensure loyalty, soldiers and bureaucrats had to be paid and officers promoted, but the de-
pleted revenues could not begin to cover the extravagant expenses of the imperial regime. Month
after month expenses exceeded income. Virtually nobody was willing to invest in the shaky econ-
omy or loan money to the government. Available capital had remained largely in the hands of
the Spaniards, and most of them began to depart soon after independence. The few moneylend-
ers around proposed interest rates nothing short of exorbitant. In response to the growing crisis,
the congress decreed a forced loan on ecclesiastical properties, but this measure was no more
than a temporary expedient. Several issues of paper currency, not backed by hard reserves and
not trusted by anyone, caused more problems than they solved; as the wheels of the economy
ground into ominous stagnation, Mexicans became more and more critical of their new regime.
Criticism was leveled at the emperor from many quarters: from disgruntled veterans
who found no employment, from deputies in the congress who really never accommodated
themselves to the concept of monarchy, and from a number of courageous journalists who
exposed the burlesque aspects of Mexico’s empire. Sensitive to criticism, in the summer the
emperor suppressed several liberal newspapers that espoused republican ideals and even
one conservative one that favored monarchy but argued that the throne should be offered to
a European prince. With the newspaper suppressions a group of liberals in the congress, led
by Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, an accomplished orator, and Carlos María de Bustamante,
began to conspire. Through a government spy who infiltrated congressional circles Iturbide
was able to secure an accurate list of his leading enemies and, on August 20, 1822, had them
all arrested. The congress protested, and even some of Iturbide’s staunchest supporters in
the legislative body defended their arrested colleagues. The opposing positions were irrec-
oncilable, and the debates in the fall were heated; their substance was less significant than
the fact that they demonstrated a steadily growing majority against the emperor and the
imperial concept itself. Even Guadalupe Victoria, Iturbide’s erstwhile ally, denounced him
The First Mexican Empire 239
as a tyrant. On October 31 Iturbide became the first Mexican chief executive to dissolve the
legislative branch of government. The precedent, once established, would be repeated many
times before the nineteenth century ran its course.
The reaction in both Mexico City and the provinces was resolute. The antimonarchists
found their ranks swelling, and a specific plot crystalized in Veracruz. The self-proclaimed
leader was Iturbide’s commander in the port city, Antonio López de Santa Anna. Although
it is possible that Santa Anna had been schooled in the virtues of republicanism by Carlos
María de Bustamante, whom he had met and befriended a few years before, his decision to
lead a revolt against the monarchy seems to have had a more fundamental root. As com-
mander of Veracruz, Santa Anna had been assigned the task of driving the last remaining
Spanish troops from San Juan de Ulloa, the harbor fortress they still held. But Iturbide
believed that Santa Anna had not pursued the enemy forcefully enough. As a result he
ordered Santa Anna to Mexico City where he could be closely observed. But Santa Anna
would countenance no such move. On December 1, 1822, at the head of some 400 troops,
he rode through the streets of Veracruz proclaiming a republic. A few days later he formally
launched his revolt under the Plan de Veracruz. Within a month Vicente Guerrero, Nicolás
Bravo, and Guadalupe Victoria had joined the movement, enhancing its prestige. Iturbide
recognized the seriousness of the problem; it was one thing for deputies in the congress
to attack the regime with words and quite another for army officers to attack it with arms
and ammunition.
Placing José Antonio Echáverri, the captain general of Veracruz, in charge of the imperial cam-
paigns, Iturbide felt that he had little to fear. Echáverri and Santa Anna had been at each other’s
throats for months over the most expeditious means for driving the Spaniards out of San Juan de
Ulloa. But Echáverri decided to give the emperor a little of his own medicine. Much as Iturbide
had made common cause with Vicente Guerrero when dispatched to engage him, Echáverri
joined Santa Anna. On February 1, 1823, Echáverri and thirty-three cohorts proclaimed the Plan
de Casa Mata. Santa Anna, not having encountered much military success in recent months and
realizing that the Plan de Casa Mata was not inconsistent with his own Plan de Veracruz, ac-
cepted the new pronunciamiento. Two anti-imperial movements now became one.
One military contingent after another swore allegiance to the Plan de Casa Mata. One
province after another fell to the insurgents, and they began marching on Mexico City. They
did not have to take the capital by force, however. Realizing that his experiment with mon-
archy had ended in failure, Iturbide abdicated his throne in the middle of February 1823,
some 10 months after coming to office, and accepted a generous pension that would have
enabled him to live comfortably. In his resignation address he stated he did not desire to
have his name become a pretext for civil war and he made his plans to go into European
exile. The rebel army marched into Mexico City unopposed.
AN ASSESSMENT
The first Mexican empire had been a dismal failure. In conception it had merely substituted a new
criollo oligarchy for the old gachupín oligarchy and indeed had satisfied many Mexicans hostile
to the innovations of nineteenth-century liberalism. The royal household, with all of its gaudy
trappings, underscored that little had changed since New Spain won control of its own destiny.
With the advantage of historical hindsight, the revolt, fought under the banner of the
Plan de Casa Mata, is laden with irony. The entire antimonarchy fight was made in the name
of the congress, which Iturbide had emasculated from the day it accepted his oath of office.
One would have thought that at best legislative supremacy, and at worst legislative equality,
would have been the political dictum of the nineteenth century. In fact, just the opposite was
true. Few practical lessons in nation building derived from the empire. Administrative and
legislative experience was still in short supply. The Mexican elite did not yet consider the fact
that successful leadership in the wars for independence was by no means synonymous with
statesmanship. In the period following the empire Mexico would once again turn to military
heroes who had emerged from the campaigns with more than life-sized stature.
But in at least one respect the collapse of the empire marked the beginning of a new day. It
brought to power for the first time the criollo middle class, which had early supported the in-
dependence movement only to be outflanked by the conservatives after the 1820 liberal revolt
in Spain. These criollos were not social revolutionaries in any sense although some nineteenth-
century liberal philosophy enabled indigenous communities to adapt its principles to defend
their lands and cabildos. While on occasion criollos attacked entrenched interests, their objec-
tives were political, not social. In all innocence they seemed to believe that the docility of the
lower classes had no bounds and that the poor would endure their privations forever.
As Mexico prepared to embark upon its second experiment as an independent nation,
only one major question had been answered. The monarchists had been so thoroughly dis-
credited that virtually nobody, at least for a while, harbored serious notions about reviv-
ing the concept. Mexico would be organized as a republic; the nature of that republic now
became the issue at stake. It would provoke violent debate, near anarchy, and finally civil war.
Anna, Timothy E. Forging Mexico, 1821–1835. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
. The Mexican Empire of Iturbide. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
Beezley, William H. and Colin MacLachlan. Mexico’s Crucial Century, 1810–1910. Lincoln: University of
Brading, D. A. The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State, 1492–1866. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Henderson, Timothy J. The Mexican Wars for Independence. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009.
Lewis, III, William Francis. “Xavier Mina and Fray Servando Mier: Romantic Liberals of the Nineteenth
Century.” New Mexico Historical Review 44/2 (1969): 119–36.
Lombardi, John V. The Political Ideology of Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, Propagandist for Independence. Cuer-
navaca, Mexico: Centro Intercultural de Documentación, 1968.
Poinsett, Joel R. Notes on Mexico Made in the Autumn of 1822, Accompanied by an Historical Sketch of the
Revolution. New York: Praeger, 1969.
Robertson, William S. Iturbide of Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1952.
Seijas, Tatiana, and Jake Frederick. Spanish Dollars and Sister Republics: The Money That Made Mexico and the
United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Tenenbaum, Barbara. “Taxation and Tyranny: Public Finances during the Iturbide Regime.” In The Inde-
pendence of Mexico and the Creation of the New Nation, edited by Jaime E. Rodríguez O., 201–14. Los
Angeles, CA: UCLA Latin American Center, 1989.
Villoro, Luis. “The Ideological Currents of the Epoch of Independence.” In Major Trends in Mexican Philosophy,
edited by Mario de la Cueva, et al., 185–219. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.
PA RT
5
THE TRIALS OF NATIONHOOD
C HA PTER 17
THE EARLY MEXICAN REPUBLIC
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1824
With the collapse of the empire, a three-man junta governed Mexico provisionally. All
three—Nicolás Bravo, Guadalupe Victoria, and Pedro Celestino Negrete—were military
men. The precedent of miscasting soldiers as statesmen was now well established. The first
order of business was to call elections for delegates to a constitutional congress that would
be charged with framing the new charter. The constituent body met for the first time on
November 27, 1823, and their focus narrowed to a question that on the surface seemed
simple enough: should the new republic be federalist, with more autonomy for the states, or
centralist, giving more authority to the central government?
Although there were some exceptions to the general alignment of forces, the centralists
found their strength among the clergy, the hacendados, and the army officers, while the
federalist firebrands attracted support from those liberal criollos and mestizos who drew on
nineteeenth-century liberal ideas from French and American revolutions as well as the US
Constitution and the liberal Spanish document of 1812. They emphasized the importance
of a secular state and equality before the law without ethnic distinction. The chief spokes-
men for the federalists were Miguel Ramos Arizpe from Coahuila and Valentín Gómez Farías
from Zacatecas. Fray Servando Teresa de Mier and Carlos María de Bustamante championed
the centralist cause. When Ramos Arizpe presented the body with a working paper modeled
closely after the US constitution, Fray Servando, an iconoclast who once questioned the
authenticity of the Virgin of Guadalupe, responded with an eloquent speech. He observed
that the experience of the northern neighbor had been entirely different from that of Mexico,
and, while a federal system might well be suited to the needs of the United States, it could
not work in Mexico for it would weaken the country just when strength from union was
required. Speaking of the thirteen colonies to the north, Fray Servando argued:
They were already separate and independent one from another. They federalized themselves
in union against the oppression of England; to federalize ourselves, now united, is to divide
243
244 the trials of nationhood
ourselves and to bring upon us the very evils they sought to remedy with their federa-
tion. . .We are like children barely out of diapers or like slaves who have just unshackled
their chains. . . . We might say that nature itself has decreed our centralization.1
Fray Servando’s arguments, although highly prescient, failed to persuade. Ramos Arizpe
and his federalist cohorts also drew upon the lessons of history but interpreted them quite
differently. Centralism they equated with despotism. As examples they pointed to the 300
years of colonial rule and the ten months of monarchy, which were also centralistic and
authoritarian. They preferred the dispersion of powers inherent in the federal structure and
argued that such a system harmonized more closely with Mexico’s recently won liberties. A
would-be dictator could be thwarted in his nefarious attempts to subject the people only if
the states and localities enjoyed a respectable measure of independent power. Arizpe’s plea
carried the day.
Under the Constitution of 1824 the Estados Unidos Mexicanos were organized as a
federal republic composed of nineteen states and four territories. In the separation-of-
powers clause delineating governmental authority into the executive, legislative, and ju-
dicial branches, the philosophical influence of Montesquieu and the practical influence
of the US Constitution of 1787 stand out. The legislature was made bicameral, the upper
house designated as the Senate and the lower house as the Chamber of Deputies. Each
state was represented by two senators and one deputy for every eighty thousand inhabit-
ants. In at least one respect the federal system established in 1824 went beyond its US
model and gave the states even greater power than those to the north: both the president
and the vice-president were to be elected not by popular vote but by the state legislatures,
for a term of four years.
More importantly, however, the autonomy of states in a highly federal system meant that
local politics would play a major role in determining the nature of citizenship and political
participation, even who could vote. States devised different frameworks to solve local prob-
lems. In addition to ideas of equality before the law, European liberalism promoted an end
to the power of corporate bodies in favor of privatization, posing a threat to the church and
Indian pueblos whose lands were owned by the community as a whole. However, liberal
principles did not form a coherent ideology in Mexico but rather were interpreted in diverse
ways as forms of popular liberalism. In this milieu, many indigenous communities worked
to mold local government and corporatist relationships to fit their idea of liberal citizenship.
While the federalists won on major points of governmental organization, in an impor-
tant sense they gave up as much as they gained. The centralists regrouped and scored at least
three victories of their own. First and foremost, the Catholic church retained its 300-year mo-
nopoly on Mexico’s spiritual life. Not surprisingly, many Mexicans saw the church as an in-
stitution capable of maintaining order. Moreover, the church held considerable sway among
the popular classes, both urban and rural, through its devotional and charitable societies.
At the local level, the organizational structures of these societies and parishes ordered daily
life and often tended to group people of similar class or occupational status together. Even
1 Quoted in Antología del pensamiento social y político de América Latina (Washington, DC, 1964), 242–43.
The Early Mexican Republic 245
though racial distinctions in Mexico had theoretically been abolished in 1822, indigenous
peoples continued to invoke their Indian identity when it served their community interests.
In addition, the president of the country was granted extraordinary powers in times of
emergency, powers that could convert him into a dictator while at the same time investing
him with the sanction of law. The word emergency in the nineteenth century came to be in-
terpreted rather loosely. Finally, the constitution guaranteed members of the clergy and the
military their special fueros. This time-worn Spanish institution exempted clergymen and
military personnel from having to stand trial in civil courts, even if they were charged with
the violation of civil law.
The Mexican Republic in 1824

THE VICTORIA PRESIDENCY
In Mexico’s first presidential election the state legislatures chose as president Guadalupe
Victoria and as vice president Nicolás Bravo. The new president, a man of goodwill, was
honest and unassuming. He had proven his courage on the battlefield but was not a par-
ticularly talented leader. In a mood of compromise he invited several conservatives to serve
in the cabinet. They accepted not for purposes of reconciliation but to secure a power base
within the government. The president sought to be impartial, but his attempts at fairness
degenerated into indecision. Those in whom he placed trust took advantage of him. Unpre-
pared by education or temperament, he proved unable to deal with the immense problems
he faced.
The debates of the empire and over the nature of the new republic had bequeathed an in-
tensely political atmosphere, pervaded by mistrust, self-righteousness, and rancor. While ex-
aggerated jealousies magnified trifles, basic ideological cleavages emerged as well and began
to manifest themselves in a unique manner. Both of the major political factions identified
themselves and their efforts with a branch of freemasonry. The federalists attached them-
selves to the York Rite Masons (Yorquinos) and the centralists to the Scottish Rite (Escoseses).
The Masonic lodges served as political affiliations for elites, in lieu of a formal political party
structure. The upper classes were divided over the type of political system best suited to guar-
antee order while offering some form of representative government, nor could they agree
on which policies would benefit the economy. Nevertheless, they all tended to distrust the
masses. Eventually the ideas they espoused in their respective Masonic movements would
become the basis for liberal and conservative parties.
One of the more unfortunate incidents to occur during the Victoria presidency was
the execution of the former emperor, Agustín de Iturbide. Taking up residence first in Italy
and later in England, the exiled monarch heard rumors that the restored Spanish king,
Ferdinand VII, was about to undertake a reconquest of Mexico. Early in 1824 he offered
his services to the republican government. He had defeated the Spanish army once and
was prepared to do battle again in the name of Mexican independence. Congress turned
down his good offer and, in fact, passed legislation stipulating that should he dare return
to Mexico he would be considered a traitor and would face immediate execution. Impatient
and imprudent as ever, Iturbide did not wait for an answer. On May 11, 1824, he left Eng-
land with his family and retainers for the Mexico. Disembarking at Soto la Marina, north of
Tampico, he was soon recognized by the local military commander. The Tamaulipas state
legislature met in hurried session and decreed that it must enforce the order of treason
handed down by the national congress the month before. On July 19, 1824, standing before
a firing squad, Iturbide made a final speech, protesting his innocence and proclaiming his
love for the fatherland.
The Victoria administration scored high marks in foreign policy. Not only was Mexico’s
independence formally recognized by most of Europe, but several treaties of amity and com-
merce were concluded as well. A treaty with the United States pledged both countries to
accept the Sabine River as the eastern boundary of Texas, thus ostensibly settling the bound-
ary question. International problems were addressed more easily than domestic issues.
The new nation’s financial situation steadily worsened. Late colonial fiscal policies of the
Bourbons had diminished Mexico’s capital and monetary reserves, and the early federalist
model deprived the national government of sufficient resources and tax authority. Crio-
llos were hard pressed to implement an institutional infrastructure to move the economy
forward. Citizens long accustomed to hard specie were reluctant to accept paper money.
Domestic commerce, already vulnerable to banditry, burned bridges, and unsafe roads, suf-
fered as a result. The president, not concerned that a large standing army could be a menace
to civil liberties, to any hope of future civilian governments, and to a healthy economy, kept
over 50,000 men under arms at all times. The new government assumed all national debts
from the late colonial period and the monarchy (over 76 million pesos) and sought to sup-
port itself by means of import taxes, sales taxes, and new government monopolies. Rampant
smuggling largely circumvented import duties; sales taxes were largely avoided by failure to
report transactions; and monopolies, after collection expenses, brought in little cash. Not
only were the revenues insufficient to pay installments on the debt, but they were unequal
to the day-to-day costs of government. Yet the deficit was less significant than the fact that
the entire fiscal structure was unsound. The government sought loans from England and
received small amounts. These minor infusions of foreign capital did not suffice to stimulate
the economy but did mark the first step of Mexican economic dependency.
While efforts to heal the breach between rival factions foundered, the political and eco-
nomic pressures merged in 1827 and expressed themselves in an armed revolt against Presi-
dent Victoria. The leader of the insurrection was none other than Vice President Nicolás
Bravo, who drew upon the Scottish Rite lodges for support. The Yorquinos rallied around the
president, and ultimately the revolt was suppressed by Generals Santa Anna and Guerrero.
But the precedent of the military coup had been set.
Guadalupe Victoria (1785–1843). Mexico’s first president,

Victoria found his term disrupted by the internal chaos
that came to dominate the country’s political life in the
first half of the nineteenth century.
D O M E S T I C T U R M O I L A N D A S PA N I S H I N VA S I O N
Passions had not yet subsided when new presidential elections were held in September 1828.
The candidate of the liberal faction, Vicente Guerrero, another hero of the wars, was opposed
by conservative Manuel Gómez Pedraza, an accomplished scholar who had served in the
Victoria cabinet as secretary of war. The election results showed that Gómez Pedraza carried
ten of the nineteen state legislatures, but the liberals, feeling little obligation to pay homage
to the constitution, charged that he had used his influence with the army to intimidate the
legislators. Rather than turn the government over to their enemies, the liberals opted instead
for revolution. Once again they found their champion in Antonio López de Santa Anna, but
on this occasion the odds were strongly against him. Through persuasion and deception he
gradually won others over to the liberal cause. When Juan Alvarez rose up in Acapulco and
Lorenzo de Zavala in the environs of Mexico City, the government army had to disperse its
forces and the rebels made such headway that the president-elect, already disgusted with
partisan abuse, announced that he was giving up the fight. As a result the defeated candidate,
Vicente Guerrero, became president and Anastasio Bustamante, a compromise conservative,
vice president. Santa Anna, for his efforts, received a division generalship, the highest mili-
tary rank in the country.
The second president of Mexico is best known for two episodes of his short term. In Sep-
tember 1829, he signed a bill abolishing African slavery, a measure accepted without protest
except in Texas, where the institution of slavery had actually been encouraged by previous
Mexican legislation. The second event dealt with the expulsion of Spaniards from Mexico,
a process that had begun earlier. Many Spaniards had been exempted from the initial laws
calling for their exodus, but the congress now decided to enforce the removal of all penin-
sulares. Word had come that Spain, which had not yet recognized Mexican independence,
planned a reconquest of Mexico. The Spanish timing seemed to be excellent. The same day
that the congress named Guerrero president it decreed the enforcement of a law, passed
under the previous administration, expelling almost all remaining Spaniards from Mexico.
The country was rent with factionalism and considerably weakened.
The Spanish expedition of some 3,000 troops left Havana, Cuba (one of the few remain-
ing Spanish possessions in the Americas), in July 1829 under the command of General
Isidro Barradas. Landing on the coast of Tamaulipas at the height of summer, the Spaniards
were exhausted and demoralized by intense heat, yellow fever, and an acute scarcity of water.
To their amazement, however, they found that Tampico had been evacuated in anticipation
of a much larger expedition, and they took the forfeited prize.
President Guerrero decided to place government operations in the hands of the man
who had ostensibly saved the nation several times, the new division general, Antonio López
de Santa Anna. On August 21 Santa Anna attacked Tampico but was repulsed by Barradas’s
well-entrenched forces. However, the Spaniards had not established any sure line of supply,
and Santa Anna opted for a long siege which, he reasoned, would take its toll. As inadequate
provisions and yellow fever taxed Spanish resistance, General Barradas decided to surrender.
By October most of the Spanish troops were on their way home. The attempted reconquest
was Spain’s last Mexican hurrah. It touched off a series of reprisals against the few remaining
Spaniards in the country, and they began leaving hurriedly.
Santa Anna had saved the nation again. By 1830 few in the country could rival his
popularity. Honorific but unremunerative titles began to flow in from all corners of the
republic: Vencedor de Tampico (Victor of Tampico), Salvador del País (Savior of the Country),
and Benemérito de la Patria (Benefactor of the Fatherland). How his titles and popularity
would serve him was not yet clear.
T H E F E D E R A L I S T- C E N T R A L I S T S T R U G G L E C O N T I N U E S
With the Spanish threat removed, the Mexican liberals and conservatives now resumed their
quarrels. When President Guerrero refused to relinquish the extraordinary powers congress
gave him to cope with the threat, Vice President Bustamante posed as the champion of
constitutionalism. For the second time in Mexico’s brief republican history a conservative
vice president led an armed revolt against a liberal president. But where Nicolás Bravo had
failed, Bustamante, largely because of his influence with the army, succeeded.
With Bustamante in the presidential office, the conservatives took power for the first
time since the overthrow of the empire. But their promises would be largely unredeemed.
Their support for the church as the vehicle for maintaining control over indigenous people
and reducing civil strife was particularly distasteful to liberals who looked to Enlightenment
ideas to modernize the country, emphasizing the importance of education. Although the
conservatives cut back on the size of the army and renegotiated the English loan, Bustamante
was no more able to bring about stability and progress than had his liberal predecessors.
And he compounded his shortcomings by giving his fellow Mexicans their first real lessons
in military dictatorship.
Grossly intemperate repression targeted Yorquinos. Bustamante suppressed freedom of
the press and only those presses upholding the government were allowed to roll. The federal
legislature and the judiciary were badgered into acquiescence. Political corruption reached
new heights. But the incident that occasioned the greatest public outrage was the capture
and execution of the former president, Vicente Guerrero. After his ouster by the Bustamante
army, Guerrero gradually made his way to Acapulco, where he accepted passage on the
Colombo, a ship flying the Italian flag. But Captain Picaluga, a Genoese citizen, had agreed to
sell Guerrero to the government for $50,000. As soon as the former president boarded the
Colombo, he was bound hand and foot and turned over to federal authorities. He was subse-
quently tried, convicted of treason, and on January 14, 1831, executed.
The execution had a sobering effect as Mexicans began to tally up. Of the five outstanding
leaders of the wars of independence, four—Miguel Hidalgo, José María Morelos, Agustín de
Iturbide, and now Vicente Guerrero—had died before the firing squad. Only Guadalupe Vic-
toria escaped this fate. The word traitor had come to be used too easily and the charge invari-
ably carried the supreme penalty. As a nation, Mexico was unsure of itself. It had struggled
since independence. National, state, and local governments dealt with disorder and insol-
vency. At the local level in the countryside, daily life resonated with traditional agricultural
and market cycles, as indigenous communities interpreted notions of liberty within their
own frameworks. In cities, indigenous barrios used church institutions to preserve traditions
that supported their interests. In general, however, the social structure had not changed in
any meaningful way. Executing Vicente Guerrero might have satiated the political vengeance
of a few but did nothing to stem devastating epidemics, to repair pitted roads, or to nurture
a national healing process. Abolishing the caste system scarcely abolished poverty. Emanci-
pating the slaves did not eliminate malnutrition and illiteracy. It seemed time for a change
of direction. Santa Anna marshaled his forces once again, overthrew the Bustamante govern-
ment, and then returned to his estates in Veracruz.
Archer, Christon I. “Fashioning a New Nation.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael C. Meyer
and William H. Beezley, 285–318. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
Arrom, Silvia Marina. “Popular Politics in Mexico City: The Parián Riot, 1828.” Hispanic American Histori-
cal Review 68/2 (1988): 245–68.
Caplan, Karen D. Indigenous Citizens: Local Liberalism in Early National Oaxaca and Yucatán. Stanford, CA:
Costeloe, Michael P. Bonds and Bondholders: British Investors and Mexico’s Foreign Debt, 1824–1888. West-
port, CT: Praeger, 2003.
Flores Caballero, Romeo. Counterrevolution: The Role of the Spaniards in the Independence of Mexico. Lincoln:
Fowler, Will. Mexico in the Age of Proposals, 1821–1853. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Green, Stanley. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823–1832. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1987.
Guardino, Peter. The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750–1850. Durham, NC: Duke
Hale, Charles A. Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821–1853. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1968.
O’Hara, Matthew D. A Flock Divided: Race, Religion, and Politics in Mexico, 1749–1857. Durham, NC: Duke
Rippy, J. Fred. Joel R. Poinsett, Versatile American. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1935.
Salvucci, Richard J. Politics, Markets, and Mexico’s “London Debt,” 1823–1887. New York: Cambridge Uni-
Sims, Harold Dana. The Expulsion of Mexico’s Spaniards, 1821–1836. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pitts-
burgh Press, 1990.
Weber, David J. The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest under Mexico. Albuquerque: Uni-
CHA PTER 18
SANTA ANNA, THE CENTRALIZED

STATE, AND THE WAR WITH
THE UNITED STATES
T he myths surrounding Antonio López de Santa Anna have made him a caricature that
deeply colors our understanding of the 1830s through the mid-1850s in Mexico. He
has been depicted as a charismatic but unprincipled leader who epitomizes the nineteenth-
century Latin American caudillo—unscrupulous, deceptive, ruthless, profiteering, and op-
portunistic, with a magnetism that attracted loyal and zealous followers. These attributes
are in part true, but they are not the whole story. During the period, the presidency changed
hands many times, and Santa Anna himself occupied the presidency on several occasions.
Even when he was out of the presidency, he exercised powerful influence on the country still
struggling to achieve political stability and economic growth. Santa Anna is perhaps best, if
not accurately, remembered for Mexico’s loss of Texas to secession and other northern ter-
ritories in the US war with Mexico.
S A N TA A N N A : T H E C O N S U M M AT E A R B I T E R
Antonio López de Santa Anna Pérez de Lebrón was born on February 21, 1794 to a criollo
landholding family in Veracruz, where he went to school until he was sixteen and decided
to join the royalist army. He supported the crown against the insurgents and won special
commendation for his actions until 1821. Then, like many of his criollo comrades, Santa
Anna followed Iturbide’s lead and switched allegiance.
The highlights of Santa Anna’s career in the period immediately following independence
have already been touched upon. In 1823, under the banner of the Plan de Casa Mata, he led
the republican forces against the empire and contributed in no small way to the overthrow
of Iturbide. When Mexico’s first vice president, conservative Nicolás Bravo, proclaimed a
revolt against President Victoria, Santa Anna took the lead in suppressing the movement
and, following the next presidential election, saw to it that the defeated liberal candidate,
Vicente Guerrero, was installed in office. In 1829, when Spain tried to bring its former colony
back into the fold, it was Santa Anna again who defeated the Spanish forces at Tampico to
251
save the infant republic. In 1832, when the Bustamante dictatorship became intolerable, he
overthrew it. On the surface, at least, his career seemed to constitute an unbroken chain of
victories in the defense of Mexican liberalism. However, he considered himself and the army
to be above politics, dedicated to lending military service to the patria in times of crisis.
Nonetheless, capitalizing on his popularity, liberals urged him to run for president in
1833, and he won by a huge majority. The vice presidency went to Valentín Gómez Farías, a
man of intellectual distinction and a politician whose liberal credentials were undisputed.
In a move that suggests he truly was not interested in political power, Santa Anna did not
take up the post as president. He preferred to return to his hacienda, Manga de Clavo in
Veracruz, to oversee the administration of his estates. By all accounts he was a paternalistic
hacendado who helped those who worked for him, inspiring their loyalty. In much the same
way his populist charisma commanded respect from soldiers. The army was a privileged
institution under Santa Anna, but it also came to represent a kind of populist nationalism
because its campaigns endeavored to preserve national sovereignty.
Santa Anna’s departure left the presidency in the hands of Gómez Farías, who began
to sponsor a number of reforms aimed at two entrenched institutions: the army and the
church. To curtail the inordinate influence of the army, the reform measures reduced the size
of the military and legislated the abolition of the military fueros; army officers would now
have to stand trial in civil courts. The clerical reforms were more wide-ranging. Congress
advised clergymen to limit their directives and admonitions from the pulpit to spiritual mat-
ters. Then, under the prodding of Gómez Farías and his liberal theoreticians José María Luis
Mora and Lorenzo de Zavala, congress voted to secularize education. It closed down the Uni-
versity of Mexico with its faculty of priests and declared that all future clerical appointments
would be made by the government rather than by the papacy. The mandatory payment of
the tithe was declared illegal. In addition, the congress enacted legislation permitting nuns,
priests, and lay brothers to forswear their vows. In one final measure the remaining Francis-
can missions in northern Mexico were secularized and their funds and property sequestered.
The response from the vested interests was almost predictable. To the rallying cry of
Religión y Fueros, the church, the army, and other conservative groups banded together and
called for the overthrow of the government. Although the conservatives prevailed upon
Santa Anna to lead the revolt, he demurred and in the summer of 1833 fought against the
insurgents, finally claiming victory in Guanajuato. With a devastating cholera epidemic now
in full force, Santa Anna once again returned to Veracruz. However, he warned Gómez Farías
to restrain congressional demands that were inciting conservatives to take military action
once again.
When that did not happen, Santa Anna decided to intervene believing that only he could
control the machinations of conservative elites and clergymen to stir up unrest among the
mass of Catholic faithful. In the spring of 1834 with overwhelming popular backing, he
resumed the presidency, removed Gómez Farías, closed down congress, and rescinded the
reform package. Once again he took up the guise of pacifier and arbiter, seeing himself as the
only force capable of preventing a destructive religious war and restoring order to the nation.
After achieving this goal, he returned to Manga del Clavo while a new conservative congress
enacted legislation, including the abolition of the Constitution of 1824.
Santa Anna, the Centralized State, and the War with the United States 253
General Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794–1876). The

dominant figure of the first half of the nineteenth century;
Santa Anna actually served in the presidency on many dif-
ferent occasions. A master politician, nobody understood
Mexico’s political dynamics better.
Whether or not Santa Anna had become a committed centralist, he saw that the federalist
constitution had not achieved lasting stability. During another period of his absenteeism,
the congress promulgated a new charter. Consisting of seven main parts, it is remembered in
Mexico’s constitutional evolution as the Siete Leyes, or the Constitution of 1836. To ensure
centralist organization, the states of the old federal republic were transformed into military
departments governed by political bosses handpicked by the president himself. The presi-
dential term was extended from four years to eight, although no president under the consti-
tution would serve that long.
Santa Anna’s acquiescence in abolishing the federal republic and replacing it with a cen-
tralist state precipitated a series of interrelated events that were to dominate his life and
his country for the next twelve years. The switch to centralism was well received by some,
as the concept of federalism had already lost much of its appeal, but secessionist attempts
occurred in New Mexico and Yucatán. In 1847 after years of unrest Maya campesinos initi-
ated what came to be known as the Caste War of Yucatán. Calling for tax relief and an end
to land encroachments, debt peonage, required military service, and threats to community
autonomy by the Yucatecan elites, they controlled half of the Yucatecan peninsula by 1848,
in a conflict that would continue. But the most serious opposition by far came from the
northern province of Texas which, in turn, provoked a disastrous war with the United States.
DISCONTENT IN TEXAS
Throughout the colonial period Texas was one of the northern provinces of New Spain. It
was sparsely populated, and the Franciscan missionaries who penetrated the area found the
Indian population unreceptive to settlement in missions. At the beginning of the eighteenth
century the Texas territory had fewer than three thousand sedentary colonists and, one hun-
dred years later, only seven thousand. Because the Spanish crown wanted to populate and
colonize the territory, in 1821, just prior to the winning of Mexican independence, the com-
mandant general in Monterrey granted Moses Austin, an American pioneer, permission to
settle some 300 Catholic families in Texas. Austin died, and Mexico became independent
before the project could be initiated; but Austin’s son, Stephen F. Austin, took up the idea,
had the concession confirmed by the new Mexican government, and began the colonization
at once. The new agreement authorized Stephen Austin to bring in as many as three hun-
dred families the first year provided that they were of good moral character, would profess
the Roman Catholic religion, and agreed to abide by Mexican law. No maximum was set on
future immigration into Texas, and, in fact, other concessionaires received similar grants.
A tremendous influx of Americans into Texas ensued. The land was practically free—only
ten cents an acre as opposed to $1.25 an acre for inferior land in the United States. Each
male colonist over 21 years of age could to purchase 640 acres for himself, 320 acres for his
wife, 160 acres for each child and, significantly, an additional 80 acres for each slave that
he brought with him. As a further enticement the colonists received a seven-year exemption
from the payment of Mexican taxes. By 1827 there were twelve thousand US citizens living
in Texas, outnumbering the Mexican population by some five thousand. By 1835 the im-
migrant population had reached thirty thousand, while the Mexican population had barely
passed seventy eight hundred.
The Mexican government originally believed that immigrants from the United States
could be integrated into the Mexican community and passed a number of laws to foster this
integration. In addition to the requirement that the colonists be Roman Catholic, all official
transactions were to be concluded in the Spanish language, no foreigners would be allowed
to settle within sixty miles of the national boundary, and foreigners who married Mexican
citizens could be eligible for extra land. All governmental efforts to encourage peaceful inte-
gration failed, however, as tensions rose between the Mexicans, always more and more in the
minority, and the Anglo immigrants. The colonists who came were not, by and large, Roman
Catholics; furthermore, a number of them were fugitives from US justice. Political, religious,
and cultural conflict did not take long to surface.
One major grievance of the Texans was that the province was appended politically to the
state of Coahuila, which had nine times its population. Texans were easily outvoted by the
Coahuilans on issues they considered crucial. All appellate courts sat far away in Saltillo,
and the time and expense involved in carrying out an appeal completely discouraged the
use of the judicial machinery. But the Mexicans had serious grievances as well. A number
of filibustering expeditions from the United States, like that of Tennessean James Long,
prompted genuine fear that the US government was bent on securing the Texas territory for
itself. Although Long’s army was subsequently defeated by the Mexicans, clamor in the US
Congress and in the American press for changing the boundary or for acquiring much or all
of Texas through a new treaty or by stealth excited apprehensions in Mexico City.
As Mexican politicians began to realize that their problems in Texas were getting out
of hand, they passed laws to prevent a further weakening of Mexican control. Because
slavery was not important anywhere else in the republic, President Guerrero’s emancipation
proclamation of 1829 clearly targeted Texas. Although manumission was not immediately
enforced, it was hoped that the decree itself would make Mexico less attractive to colonists
from the US South and would thus arrest future immigration. The colonization law of April
6, 1830, went further by prohibiting all future immigration into Texas from the United States
and called for the strengthening of Mexican garrisons, the improvement of economic ties
between Texas and the rest of Mexico by the establishment of a new coastal trade, and the
encouragement of increased Mexican colonization.
Texans considered these measures repressive, but the last straw for them came with the
news from Mexico City that the federal Constitution of 1824 had been annulled. The cen-
tralist tendencies of the new regime meant that, instead of having a greater voice in the
management of local affairs, the Texans would have no voice at all. As the Texas leaders
began to debate their future course of action, they received encouragement for succession,
not only from US expansionists who argued theatrically that the Texans should detach them-
selves from the yoke of dictatorship, but also from a number of Mexican liberals opposed to
everything Santa Anna stood for. Among the latter, the most active was Lorenzo de Zavala,
a leader of the Constitutional Congress of 1823–24, a founder of the York Rite lodges, and
most recently a Mexican minister to France. When Santa Anna invoked extraordinary govern-
mental powers, Zavala advised the Texans that the dictator had forfeited all claims to obedi-
ence. The Texans needed little prompting, however; they declared independence, choosing
David Burnet as president of the Lone Star Republic and Zavala as vice president.
THE WAR FOR TEXAS INDEPENDENCE
It was time for Santa Anna to take the field again. In the winter of 1835 he moved north
at the head of some 6,000 troops. But because of innumerable difficulties during the long
trek, not until early March 1836 did he reach the outskirts of San Antonio de Béxar (today
San Antonio) and found that the Texans, under the command of William Barrett Travis,
had taken refuge in the old Franciscan mission of the Alamo. Among them were such Texas
patriots as Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, as well as Mexicans who opted for independence.
The essentials of what happened on March 6 are known to every schoolchild both north
and south of the Rio Grande (called the “Río Bravo” in Mexico), though the distortions of
nationalism have taken their toll on the history in both countries.
For several days prior to March 6, 1836, Santa Anna had laid siege to the Alamo. The
high, stout walls seemed impregnable, and the defenders were not about to surrender to
the greatly superior Mexican force. On the late afternoon of March 5 the Texans might have
heard a bugle, but most assuredly they did not recognize the sounds coming over the walls
as the degüello, a battle call used since the time of the Spanish wars against the Moors to
signal that the engagement to follow was to be to the death, with no quarter to be shown the
enemy. The order had come directly from Santa Anna, and he planned to enforce it.
The next morning the Mexican commander threw waves of soldiers against the adobe
fortress. Hundreds were cut down by heavy artillery, but after the first hour the numerical
superiority of the attackers began to tell. Several breaches opened in the wall, and the fight-
ing continued inside. The defenders were killed nearly to the last man, including five who
were executed as prisoners after the fighting had ended. The high toll on both sides under-
scored that a peaceful settlement was impossible.
While the battle of the Alamo is famous in the military annals and folklore of the Texas
Revolution, a much more significant episode took place several weeks later. General José
Urrea engaged a force of Texans under the command of Colonel James W. Fannin at the
small town of Goliad. Surrounded and outnumbered, Fannin surrendered in the belief that
he and his men would be afforded the recognized rights of prisoners of war. General Urrea
wrote to Santa Anna urging clemency for Fannin and the other prisoners, then moved on to
another engagement, leaving the Texas prisoners in the charge of Lieutenant Colonel Nicolás
de la Portilla. Using the national law of piracy as his authority, Santa Anna sent his reply to
Portilla on March 23, stating that the prisoners should be treated as pirates and executed.
Nicolás de la Portilla recorded the next two days in his diary as he faced the conflict between
his military duty and his moral principles. On March 26, conflicting orders from Urrea and
Santa Anna reached him—the latter instructing him to execute all the prisoners immediately.
What a cruel contrast in these opposite instructions! I spent a restless night.

March 27. At daybreak I decided to carry out the orders of the general-in-chief because
I considered them superior. I assembled the whole garrison and ordered the prisoners, who
were still sleeping, to be awakened. There were [365]. . . . The prisoners were divided into
three groups and each was placed in charge of an adequate guard. . . . I gave instructions to
these officers to carry out the orders of the supreme government and the general-in-chief.
This was immediately done.1
During the month following the battles of the Alamo and Goliad, the Texas army re-
organized. Although Santa Anna could take heart from the early military campaigns, and
although he had Sam Houston and the Texans on the run, his victories proved to be costly
ones. The excesses committed by his troops in both engagements, but especially the execu-
tion of the prisoners at Goliad, crystalized opposition to Mexico in the United States and
fueled the aspirations of those proponents of Manifest Destiny who believed the United
States was destined by providence to expand across the continent. Supplies and volunteers,
especially from the Midwest, began to pour into Texas, and by the third week in April Hous-
ton caught Santa Anna’s troops off guard near the San Jacinto River on April 21. Within half
an hour the Mexican army was routed, and Santa Anna himself fled for safety. Two days later
he was captured by one of Houston’s patrols.
T H E L O N E S TA R R E P U B L I C
As a prisoner Santa Anna signed two treaties, one public and one private, with Texas President
David Burnet. In the public treaty he agreed that he would not again take up arms against
the movement for Texas independence nor would he try to persuade his fellow Mexicans to
do so. All hostilities between Mexico and Texas were to cease immediately, and the Mexican
army would be withdrawn across the Rio Grande. Prisoners of war in equal numbers would
1 Quoted in The Mexican Side of the Texas Revolution, trans. and ed. by Carlos E. Castañeda, (Dallas, TX, 1928), 236.
be exchanged. From the Mexican point of view, the secret agreement, later made public, was
much more controversial. In return for his own release and transportation to Veracruz, Santa
Anna agreed to prepare the Mexican cabinet to receive a peace mission from Texas so that the
independence of the Lone Star Republic could be formally recognized.
When he returned to Mexico City, Santa Anna discovered that the treaties had prompted
outrage from the intellectual community, the liberals, and many ardent nationalists. On
the defensive, he offered the excuse that he had made the promises as an individual and
that they were not binding on the government. The legislature responded by enacting a law
stipulating that any agreement reached by a Mexican president while held prisoner should
be considered null and void. No peace commission from Texas was to be received, and no
recognition would be extended.
Texas remained independent as the Lone Star Republic from 1836 to 1845. On the surface
it would appear preposterous that without the direct support of the United States, Texas should
have been able to retain this independent status in the face of greatly superior Mexican re-
sources and manpower. But Mexico, diverted by other internal problems and political tensions,
could not focus solely on Texas. Furthermore, the United States moved quickly to recognize the
independence of Texas in March 1837. Although a good deal of sympathy for immediate an-
nexation existed in both Texas and the US Congress, calmer heads prevailed for eight years. Not
only did many congressmen believe that annexation would provoke war with Mexico, but the
Santa Anna as a prisoner of Sam Houston. The Mexican victory at the Alamo was offset by Santa Anna’s defeat
and capture following the battle of San Jacinto.
matter became inexorably entangled in the slavery issue. If Texas entered the Union it would
come in as a slave state, and, as a result, annexation was vociferously opposed in New England.
In 1844, however, James K. Polk won the presidency on a platform that included annexation.
After the election but prior to Polk’s inauguration, President John Tyler had an annexation
measure introduced as a joint resolution of Congress. It passed both houses in early 1845, set-
ting the stage for a major conflict, and Mexico was clearly being swept into the vortex of war.
T H E P R E L U D E T O WA R
As soon as the joint resolution annexing Texas passed the US Congress, diplomatic relations
ceased and both countries began preparing for war. The Mexican government sought to ne-
gotiate a new loan, the proceeds of which would be directed into the war effort if, indeed, the
conflict occurred. It also authorized the formation of a new voluntary civilian militia to rein-
force regular army units. President Polk ordered army troops into the border region and dis-
patched naval vessels to the Mexican coast. But he asked the Mexican president, José Joaquín
Herrera, to receive a special envoy in Mexico City, and Herrera agreed to receive John Slidell.
The specific issue Slidell was asked to negotiate was a boundary dispute in Texas.
Throughout the colonial period the western boundary of Texas had been the Nueces River.
The Austin family’s grants also recognized the Nueces as the western boundary of Texas.
Yet despite thousands of Spanish colonial documents, Mexican documents, and all reliable
maps, in December 1836 the congress of the Republic of Texas claimed the Rio Grande as
the western boundary. The Texans based their claim on two flimsy grounds. First, during the
period of Texas colonization the Mexican government had allowed some US immigrants to
settle in the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. It was all Mexico, so it really
did not matter. Second, and even more important for the Texas argument, when Santa Anna
agreed to withdraw his troops following his stunning defeat at San Jacinto, he ordered them
back across the Rio Grande, tacit admission, so the Texans cried, that the western boundary
was indeed the Rio Grande. At stake were not merely the one hundred fifty miles between
the Nueces and the Rio Grande where they entered the Gulf of Mexico. The Rio Grande
meandered not north but northwest, and the Texans claimed it to its source. Thousands and
thousands of square miles of territory, indeed, half of New Mexico and Colorado, fell within
the claim. When Texas entered the union as the twenty-eighth state, the Polk administration
decided to support the Texan pretensions. Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos belonged to the
United States as well as San Antonio, Nacogdoches, and Galveston.
The American president wanted still more. Slidell also carried secret instructions to secure
California and the rest of New Mexico. Five million dollars was deemed a fair price for the New
Mexico territory and $25 million, or even more, for California. But diplomatic secrets had a
way of leaking out, even in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Mexican press, learning
the true nature of the Slidell mission, appealed to Mexican nationalism; newspapers, circulars,
and broadsides threatened rebellion if the president negotiated with the ignominious Yankee
pirates. Discussions ended in the midst of fighting between liberals and conservatives.
When Slidell returned to Washington, President Polk held a special cabinet meeting
to weigh war feeling. Influential voices, led by Henry Clay, cautioned against war, but the
United States–Texas Border Dispute
president had already made up his mind. Nonetheless, Secretary of the Navy George Ban-
croft and Secretary of State James Buchanan would not vote for a declaration of war unless
the United States was attacked by Mexico. By a strange quirk of history, hostilities began that
very day. Polk had already ordered General Zachary Taylor into the disputed territory be-
tween the Nueces and the Rio Grande. The Mexican commander ordered him to withdraw,
but instead Taylor penetrated all the way to the Rio Grande. While the cabinet was meeting,
a skirmish broke out between Taylor’s dragoons and Mexican cavalry. On the evening of May
9 Taylor reported to Washington that sixteen of his men had been killed or wounded. Polk
now had the perfect excuse. He went before the Congress and delivered a provocative war
message that bore little resemblance to the truth.
We have tried every effort at reconciliation. The cup of forbearance had been exhausted even
before the recent information from the frontier of the Del Norte. But now, after reiterated
menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory,
and shed American blood on American soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities exist, and
that the two nations are now at war.2
2 Quoted in Armin Rappaport, ed., The War with Mexico: Why Did It Happen? (Chicago, IL, 1964), 6.
Despite objections from the Illinois representative, Abraham Lincoln, the declaration
of war was stampeded through Congress. How different things looked from Mexico City:
not only had the Americans taken Texas, but they had changed the traditional boundary to
double its size. When the Mexicans sought to defend themselves against the additional en-
croachment, the Yankees cried that Mexico had invaded the United States! Mexico resolved
to fiercely resist overt US claims to territory as well as implied assertions of racial superior-
ity. In the still factionalized political milieu, the army overthrew the current president and
invited Santa Anna back from his most recent sojourn in Veracruz. The general who had
fought the Spanish in 1829, the Texans in 1836, and the French in 1838 would lead his
fellow countrymen against the Americans in 1846.
T H E C O U R S E O F T H E WA R
Because President Polk, despite a good deal of opposition, moved more decisively than the
ephemeral governments in Mexico City, Mexico from the outset was on the defensive. The
American strategy called for a three-pronged offensive. The Army of the West would occupy
New Mexico and California; the Army of the Center would be sent into northern Mexico;
and the Army of Occupation would carry the battle to Mexico City. General Stephen W.
Kearny, commanding the Army of the West, got underway first. Leaving Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas, with some fifteen hundred men in June of 1846, he began the nine hundred–mile
trek toward Santa Fe. Governor Manuel Armijo, not a favorite in the Mexican history text-
books, either accepted a bribe or feared to make a stand. He ordered his three thousand
troops to evacuate the town shortly before the Americans arrived on August 19. New Mexico
had fallen without the firing of a single shot.
Kearny then divided his army into three. One contingent, under Colonel Sterling Price,
continued the occupation of Santa Fe; a second, under Alexander Doniphan, was dispatched
directly south to Chihuahua; Kearny himself led the third west to California. California was
almost a repeat of New Mexico. By the time Kearny arrived it was already in American hands,
having fallen to Naval Commodore John D. Sloat and Colonel John C. Frémont with little
opposition from Mexican Californios who believed that the central government had not and
could not protect their interests. Doniphan, on the other hand, had to engage the enemy
in Chihuahua. The major battle, fought on the outskirts of Chihuahua City, was an artillery
duel. Doniphan won the battle, and by February 1847 Chihuahua came under American
control. Chihuahuenses were treated to the spectacle of American troops bathing in public
fountains, cutting down boulevard shade trees for firewood, and singing “Yankee Doodle”
in the main plaza.
The campaign of Zachary Taylor’s Army of the Center encountered more difficulty.
Taylor’s force, some 6,000 strong, moved on Monterrey in August 1846. By September they
were in sight of the city but were blocked off by the seven thousand Mexicans soldiers guard-
ing the entrance. Three days of fierce battle took place in the middle of the month. Both
sides sustained heavy losses before the Mexican commander sent up the white flag and
surrendered the city. By this time Santa Anna had raised an army of about 20,000 men and
was training them in San Luis Potosí. The hard march to Saltillo was disastrous. Insufficient
U.S. Invasion, 1846–48
food and water supplies and an unusually harsh winter not only weakened the men but
prompted thousands of desertions along the way. Preliminary fighting on February 21 saw
Santa Anna force Taylor to pull in his perimeters. The following morning Santa Anna bra-
zenly demanded that Taylor surrender. “Tell Santa Anna to go to Hell,” Taylor barked to an
aide; but the message actually sent observed proper military niceties and read, “In reply to
your note of this date summoning me to surrender my forces at discretion, I beg leave to say
that I decline acceding to your request.”3
The battle of Buena Vista began in earnest later in the day. Santa Anna’s assaults on
Taylor’s well-fortified positions did a good deal of damage, but all were repulsed. Evening
found a stalemate. Santa Anna could have attacked again the following morning but in-
stead gathered up a few war trophies—some few flags and three cannon—and carried them
back to Mexico City as proof of his victory. In reality, northeast Mexico had been lost to the
invaders.
3 Quoted in Charles L. Dufour, The Mexican War: A Compact History, 1846–1848 (New York, NY, 1968), 172.
The major US offensive, and in the end more crucial regarding the pretensions of those
Americans who championed the annexation of more Mexican territory, however, was waged
by General Winfield Scott’s Army of Occupation. As Mexico refused to abandon the fight,
the United States resolved to carry the battle to Mexico’s heartland and to the capital itself.
Making his amphibious landing on March 9, 1847, slightly to the south of the harbor of
Veracruz, General Scott and his ten thousand men established their beachhead unopposed.
Veracruz, for centuries an object of foreign invasion and attack, was a walled city currently
garrisoned by four thousand troops. Scott decided to avoid the fortress of San Juan de Ulloa
with its twelve hundred soldiers. By ordering his troops to surround the city and attack
from the rear, he not only neutralized the harbor fortress but also cut off the city’s source of
land supplies and all avenues of exit. Militarily sound, but morally questionable, the plan
of attack called for a heavy mortar bombardment of the city that resulted in the deaths of
hundreds of innocent civilians. For the next forty-eight hours Scott devastated the city and
refused all entreaties of foreign consuls to allow women, children, and other noncombatants
to evacuate. He would countenance no manner of truce not accompanied by unconditional
surrender.
With military and medical supplies diminished, hundreds of civilian corpses building
up in the streets, fires gutting buildings, hospitals destroyed, and the frightening specter of a
yellow-fever epidemic mounting, Veracruz surrendered on March 27. Sixty-seven Americans
had been killed or wounded, while the toll of Mexican dead within the city numbered be-
tween one thousand and fifteen hundred. Civilian deaths outnumbered military casualties
almost two to one.
Santa Anna had reached Mexico City when news of the loss of Veracruz arrived. He set
out to block General Scott’s expected advance on the capital. His troops engaged Scott’s force
The US Navy’s bombardment of Veracruz resulted in extremely high civilian casualties.

in mid-April and suffered defeat at the mountain pass of Cerro Gordo, some twenty miles
east of Jalapa. Santa Anna himself barely escaped capture. He wanted to make one more
stand, at Puebla, but the citizenry there refused to cooperate. Scott took the city unopposed.
By this time, US newspapers reported not only the devastation, but also accounts of the
excesses that has taken place in the northern campaigns. US troops had killed indiscrimi-
nately, raped Mexican women, and burned down villages.
Mexico City braced for an imminent attack as the federal district came under martial law
and began conscripting a civilian work force to help in the defense preparations. The major
preliminary engagements in the capital were fought on the outskirts, where the Americans
proved superior in leadership, armament, and tactics. At Churubusco, however, the Mexi-
cans had their finest hour. Fighting bravely, they refused to yield ground to the larger and
better-equipped fighting force. Finally intense hand-to-hand combat wore down the Mexi-
cans. On August 20, Santa Anna agreed to negotiate a surrender and used the respite to shore
up his defenses within the city itself. When the armistice expired without positive result,
Santa Anna was in a position to do battle again.
On the morning of September 7, Scott’s cavalry charged Mexican positions at Molina del
Rey, and the infantry moved in behind. It was the bloodiest single encounter of the war as the
Mexicans suffered over two thousand casualties and the Americans over seven hundred. When
the position fell only one fortified site remained in the city—Chapultepec Castle. Located at
the crest of a two hundred–foot hill and surrounded by a thick stone wall, the castle was de-
fended by some one thousand troops and the cadets of the military academy. After a furious
artillery barrage failed to dislodge the defenders, Scott ordered that the castle be stormed on
the morning of September 13. The Mexican land mines failed to explode, and the attackers
were able to breach the walls with pickaxes and crowbars. Using scaling ladders, the Ameri-
cans poured over the top and initiated the bitter hand-to-hand combat. The last defenders
were the cadets—the Niños Héroes—and because dignity proscribed surrender, many died.
The battle of Chapultepec left the United States nominally in control of Mexico City, but
the capital’s hostile citizens made life difficult for the victors, carrying out acts of sabotage
and rudimentary guerrilla attacks. The anti-war faction in the United States pushed Polk
to end the war. He sent Nicholas Tryst with instructions to press for more territory, but the
envoy defied his instructions, recognizing that many Americans were skeptical about the
benefits of prolonging the conflict that had claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and
twice as many Mexicans, including civilians.
T H E T R E AT Y O F G U A D A L U P E H I D A L G O A N D T H E A F T E R M AT H O F WA R
After a series of difficult negotiations, the treaty ending the war was signed on February 2, 1848,
at the village of Guadalupe Hidalgo, just outside of Mexico City. The treaty confirmed US title
to Texas and ceded the huge California and New Mexico territories as well. In return Mexico
was to retain everything south of the Rio Grande. The United States agreed to make a cash pay-
ment of $15 million to the Mexican government and to assume $3.25 million in claims that
US citizens had against that government. For a total of $18.25 million—less than one year’s
budget—Mexico’s territory was reduced by half. Because of Mexican insistence, the United
States did obligate itself to protect the property of Mexican citizens who, through no fault
of their own, suddenly found themselves residing in the United States. During the next fifty
years they would learn that US courts had little interest in enforcing the solemn protections
promised by the treaty. Mexicans in New Mexico, Texas, and California who had aided the US
armies were rewarded with a persistent onslaught on their lands. Although this did not prevent
the growth of vibrant Mexican-American cultural communities throughout the southwest, the
aftermath of the war gave rise to a racist anti-immigrant debate that persists to this day.
When the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it did more than annex
half of Mexico. The war and its treaty left a legacy of hostility that would not be easily over-
come. While many Mexican intellectuals had not been hesitant to praise the United States,
its culture, and its institutions prior to 1846, such commendations became increasingly in-
frequent in the second half of the nineteenth century. Ironically, from the middle of the
sixteenth century, Mexican expeditions had been seeking the Gran Quivira in the north, and
finally it was found, at Sutter’s Fort, but a few months too late. The gold of California would
not make Mexican fortunes or pay its share of Mexico’s industrial revolution.
The war reinforced the worst stereotypes that each country held about the other, and
these stereotypes in turn contributed to the development of deep-seated prejudices. US his-
torians rationalized, justified, and even commended the decision to wage the war as well as
the prosecution of it, on grounds ranging from regenerating a backward people to fulfilling
a preordained destiny. The US war with Mexico yielded a virulent Yankeephobia. The fears
and hatred of the United States ran deep, and nationalist sentiments were disseminated and
popularized in the traditional Mexican corrido, the folk song of the common people, as well
as in intellectual condemnations of Yankee imperialism. The Niños Héroes came to symbol-
ize all that was best in the Mexican people, especially the young cadet Juan Escutia, who re-
putedly wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and threw himself over the battlements rather
than surrender to the enemy. Every September 13 pilgrimages are made to the monument
erected in honor of the boy cadets at the entrance to Chapultepec Park.
The treaty signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo left a stunned Mexico, but the national tragedy did
not heal old rifts despite the unifying patriotism of the war. In 1853, Santa Anna once again
occupied the presidency and Mexico found itself in difficult economic straits. The president de-
cided that the treasury (and his own office) could be saved only by selling some more of Mexico
to the “Colossus of the North.” The United States wanted the Mesilla Valley (today southern
New Mexico and Arizona) as it offered the best location for building a railroad to newly ac-
quired California. Santa Anna agreed to sell and negotiated what is known in US history as the
Gadsden Purchase. For $10 million he alienated thirty thousand square miles of territory but,
more importantly, alienated the liberal opposition so thoroughly that they would be rid of him
for the last time. The liberal Revolution of Ayutla initiated a movement which mattered more
than personalities and politicians who aimed to set the country on a new course.
FURTHER TROUBLES
The United States was not Mexico’s only foreign problem, for between the Texas secession
and the war with the United States, Mexico became involved in a war with France. During
the unremitting series of revolts and counter revolts since independence, the property of for-
eign nationals often suffered damage. Foreign governments then submitted claims in behalf
of their own citizens. Among the numerous French claims were those of a French pastry cook
whose delicacies were appropriated and consumed by a group of hungry Mexican soldiers
in 1828. In ridicule of the event that followed, Mexican journalists immediately dubbed the
episode the “Pastry War.”
Conflicting property evaluations, rapid changes in the Mexican government, and the
always near-bankrupt state of the Mexican treasury prevented resolution of the French
claims for years. In early 1838 the French king, Louis Philippe, demanded payment of
$600,000. When Mexico did not comply, Louis Philippe ordered a blockade of the port
of Veracruz with a French fleet of twenty-six vessels and over four thousand men. Mexican
attempts to negotiate what they believed to be fair compensation ultimately failed, and
the government dispatched one thousand men to reinforce the twelve hundred stationed
at the venerable, moss-mottled fortress of San Juan de Ulloa in the harbor of Veracruz.
The French initiated their bombardment on the afternoon of November 27, rending
a portion of the fortress walls, exploding supplies of ammunition inside, and forcing the
Mexican troops to abandon their first line of defense. Proclaiming that honor demanded he
take up the challenge once again, Santa Anna offered his services and the Mexican congress
declared war on France.
26
24
22
20
18
Millions of pesos
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846
Income Expenditures
Income and Expenditures, 1839–46

Source: Wilfrid H. Calicott Church and State in Maxico,1822–1857 (Durham, N. C., 1926) 160–161.
Santa Anna arrived at Veracruz on December 4; the following morning some three thou-
sand French troops made a landing. In the street fighting that ensued Santa Anna led his
troops personally and drove the French back toward the coast. In one of the assaults the
Mexican commander had his horse shot out from under him and was severely wounded
in the left leg. A few days later it was amputated below the knee. The French, however, had
been driven back to their ships and, rather than prolong the venture, they agreed to accept
the amount of $600,000, earlier offered by the Mexican government.
The Mexicans could take some heart from having defeated the legions of King Louis
Philippe, but there was little time for rejoicing. The liberal-conservative struggle continued un-
abated. Larger and larger armies (a standing army of 90,000 by 1855) as well as a huge civilian
bureaucracy drained the treasury, while industry and commerce stagnated. Successive govern-
ments tried every imaginable expedient to replenish the coffers. They recalled old currencies
and issued new ones; made forced loans on businesses and on nunneries and other ecclesiasti-
cal corporations; obtained voluntary loans from private money lenders called agiotistas; con-
fiscated properties; levied new taxes on carriages, coach wheels, all internal trade, and even on
dogs, pulque shops, and the gutters of houses; raised old taxes on real estate and imports; and
sold lucrative mining concessions to the British. In addition, the government declared a head
tax of one and one-half pesos annually on all males between the ages of sixteen and sixty. The
average annual government deficit between 1839 and 1846 was 12.7 million pesos.
T H E L E G A C Y O F S A N TA A N N A
Santa Anna has the distinction of being the Mexican leader who has inspired the most po-
lemic. For most, he is remembered as a vainglorious and opportunistic despot and traitor,
responsible for the loss of half of Mexico’s territory. This assessment has elements of truth, but
it obscures the circumstances in which he lived. His resort to authoritarianism was, in part, a
reflection of the failure of civilian republican rule to foster peace and development in the new
nation. Whether federalist or centralist, liberal or conservative, Mexico’s elites struggled to
govern in the first decades after independence. Frequent revolts and shifts in power, motivated
by ideology or personal ambition, provided the backdrop for Santa Anna’s path to power.
His economic base in Veracruz allowed him to cultivate supporters and to provide for
his troops at times. He profited through flagrant bribery and corruption. But his personal
aggrandizement was not wholly materialistic. Evidence shows that he truly saw himself as
a courageous patriot dedicated to protecting Mexican sovereignty, as the savior of Mexico,
above the political fray. This belief did not keep him from manipulating military and po-
litical circumstances when it suited his larger goals. An early supporter of liberal causes, he
came to trust that only centralism could impose order in Mexico. He used his growing popu-
larity to invoke extraordinary powers, in effect making him a dictator.
Even allowing for the exaggerations of his critics, a cult-like devotion to Santa Anna
developed. Designated “His Most Serene Highness,” he arranged for gala balls and ban-
quets to be staged in his honor. Santa Anna’s saint’s day became a national holiday; friends
and favor-seekers brought him gifts. Favored journalists lavished praise on him in eulogistic
editorials.
An 1845 lithograph depicting a one-legged Santa Anna standing on Manga de Clavo built on extortions of
various kinds.
Perhaps the most bizarre episode of his regime occurred in the fall of 1842. Santa Anna
ordered the disinterment of his amputated leg from its quiet repose on his hacienda of
Manga de Clavo. The mummified member was transported to Mexico City and, after an im-
pressive procession through the streets of the capital in which the presidential bodyguard,
the army, and the cadets from the Chapultepec Military Academy all participated, it was
taken to the cemetery of Santa Fe, where it was placed in a specially designed urn and set
atop a huge stone pillar. The ceremony was typically Santanesque. Conducted at the site of
the shrine, his entire cabinet, the diplomatic corps, and the congress stood in praise as his
shattered leg was offered to the fatherland.
In a political atmosphere charged with mistrust, revolts and counter-revolts had become
accepted as inevitable concomitants of the social order. In Yucatán’s Caste War elites drove
Maya rebels into remote areas. Although not all Mayas supported the Caste War while some
non-Mayas did, the conflict took on a racial character as Mayas called for an end to ethnic
discrimination. Maya leaders historically had made alliances with whites, but when these
elites refused, a tenacious group of Maya warriors established a stronghold in today’s Quin-
tana Roo. There, they maintained an independent Maya state until the end of the nineteenth
century. Drawing on vibrant Maya cultural traditions and a millenarian cult of the Talking
Cross, they established a viable agricultural economy and carried on trade with neighboring
British Honduras.
Elsewhere in Mexico some material improvements had been recorded, at least in the
larger cities. One modernizing official notable for his efforts to rebuild Mexico’s economy
during Santa Anna’s tenure was fiscal conservative Lucas Alamán. Active in trying to boost
the mining and textile industries, he also founded Mexico’s first development bank, and he
served as minister of industry from 1842 to 1846. The textile industry developed rapidly
during the 1840s and 1850s but economic retrogression was more noteworthy. Roads were
in disrepair, mines were still abandoned, fertile agricultural fields lay vacant, industrializa-
tion was a vague hope for the future, foreign trade was largely absent and the national debt
was growing.
In the end, the greatest misfortune of the age of Santa Anna was the loss of Texas and the
war with the United States, neither of which can be attributed to Santa Anna alone. Mexican
elites failed to build a nation with strong institutions and a sound economy. A weak, fac-
tionalized nation invited, but certainly did not justify, the aggression by its northern neigh-
bor. Catastrophes wrought by US expansion contributed more to Mexico’s impoverishment,
its lack of self-esteem, and general demoralization than any other event of the nineteenth
century.
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Craib, Raymond B. Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes. Durham,
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1997.
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Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
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(1957): 153–73.
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Wang, 2007.
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Turner Company, 1928.
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of Missouri Press, 1973.
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1972.
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C HA PTER 19
SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN THE FIRST

HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
I t is ironic, yet understandable, that historians seeking to learn how a people lived often
rely upon the accounts of foreign travelers. That which is commonplace to a local inhabit-
ant is often colorful or unique to a foreigner. The young Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville
related to the citizens of the United States much that they did not know about themselves,
and a series of perceptive visitors to Mexico during the first half of the nineteenth century
did the same for its people. While their analyses often reflected their own prejudices, their
commentaries are invaluable. One has only to disregard their chauvinism and naiveté about
the world to read these accounts to gain insights into the past.
P O P U L AT I O N
The Mexican wars for independence, although small in comparison with other world conflicts,
nevertheless took their toll. Accurate casualty figures do not exist, but reliable estimates suggest
that a half a million deaths, or about one-twelfth of Mexico’s population, is not an exaggeration.
The battles left tens of thousands of orphans, widows, disabled, and infirm. The dislocations
occasioned by war were not quickly overcome. Impending engagements caused civilians to flee,
shopkeepers to close their doors, mothers to pull their children out of school, and those who
could afford it to hoard supplies. Many who left a town or city did not return, and families were
permanently separated. Several years after the wars ended, visitors to Veracruz reported deso-
late, grass-grown streets and a generally ruinous appearance. Mexico’s rate of population growth,
which was rapid prior to 1810, leveled off dramatically for the next twenty years.
Although recovery was slow, change in the prevailing social structure was even slower. Read-
ing the accounts of travelers from the late colonial period and comparing them to accounts in
the nineteenth century, one is struck by how little conditions actually changed. To be sure, the
gachupines disappeared from the top of the social structure, but the criollos simply stepped into
the vacuum. The population grew from 4.5 million in 1800 to over 7.5 million fifty years later,
but the social categories of that population remained amazingly static. In spite of the fact that
republican government eliminated the racial category indio (Indian) from civil jurisprudence (as
all Mexicans became citizens and equal under the law), classifying Indians as different continued
to dominate nineteenth-century thinking and practice in religious and civil life.
270
Society and Culture in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century 271
5
Millions
1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850
Mexican Population Growth, 1800–50

Source: Howard Cine, Mexico: Revolution to Evolution, 1940–1960 (New York, 1936), 336.
INDIAN PUEBLOS
Mexico was a rural country in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Indians, making up
over a third of the population, lived for the most part in thousands of tiny villages. Although
these pueblos varied physically from one climate to another, they presented a uniform cul-
tural pattern. Pueblos were the most tradition-bound unit in Mexican society. In south and
central Mexico the huts were made of split reeds covered with thatched roofs. In the north
adobe was more common, but in both cases dogs, pigs, and chickens shared the quarters
with the family. In 1850 Carl Sartorius, a German natural scientist traveling in Mexico, drew
a composite interior from the many Indian dwellings he had seen.
Inside the hut, upon a floor of earth just as nature formed it, burns day and night the sacred
fire of the domestic hearth. Near it, stands the metate and metapile, a flat and cylindrical
stone for crushing the maize, and the earthen pots and dishes, a large water pitcher, a drink-
ing cup and a dipper of gourd shell constitute the whole wealth of the Indian’s cottage, a
few rude carvings, representing the saints, the decoration. Neither table nor benches cumber
the room within, mats of rushes or palm leaves answer for both seat and table. They serve as
beds too for their rest at night, and for their final rest in the grave.1
Only the larger Indian towns had churches; practically none had schools and Spanish was
rarely spoken. Medical care, as it existed, was entrusted to the hands of the local curandero. The
1 Carl Sartorius, Mexico about 1850 (Stuttgart, Germany, 1961), 69.

Indian agriculturalist lived largely outside the monetary economy. His own garden provided
his daily needs—corn, beans, chile, and, occasionally, in some areas, squash and a few other
vegetables and fruits. The craftsman sometimes had money pass through his hands as he could
sell his wares at a neighboring market. But he was scarcely better off than the farmer in the next
dwelling because, if his money did not vanish in momentary extravagance, he could become
prey to the unscrupulous gambler, pulque vendor, or highwayman as he returned to the pueblo.
Women in the Indian village did much more than care for her house. Even when preg-
nant, she often worked in the field and shared in the physical labor as well as performed
all the expected domestic functions. Foreign travelers frequently commented on the heavy
loads of firewood the Indian women carried to the hut. Because daily life was difficult,
Indian women’s contributions were an integral and respected part of the whole apparatus
of survival. In a largely patriarchal rural society, women could exert influence as healers,
midwives, and selling in the local markets. Women enjoyed a reputation of frugality, and
from the village tradition, for practical as well as metaphorical considerations, a phrase
was born: Donde las mujeres comen, las hormigas lloran (Where women eat, the ants cry).
RURAL TOWNS
The larger rural towns of from one thousand to perhaps thirty-five hundred housed primarily
mestizos and Indians who had become more acculturated to the Mexican way of life. Spanish
was the language of the street and the home. Market day, sometimes weekly and sometimes
biweekly, attracted Indians by the hundreds from the surrounding pueblos to sell their produce.
The plazas would be filled with vendors trafficking in cloth, clothing, pottery, cutlery, trinkets,
earthenware, and blankets and with Indian women bent over charcoal fires preparing food for
passersby. The day’s work finished, the evening hours might be given over to gambling, cards,
dancing, and perhaps wagering at the local cockfight. The towns generally had one or two pul-
querías where hours could be idled away sipping the fermented juice of the century plant, the
maguey. For those who found the local shop too unclean or the stench too unbearable, itiner-
ant vendors with full jars on their heads made house calls. Invariably, the church was the most
prominent architectural structure in the town. Adorned with a respectable number of saints and
a few paintings, the gilded altar stood out in crass contrast to the impoverished surroundings.
If life in the rural towns was somewhat easier than in the Indian pueblo, it still left much
to be desired. Streets of dirt caused dust in the dry season and awful quagmires during the
rains. The schools, in those few towns that had them, featured the crudest of facilities, and
the teachers were often only slightly more literate than those who sat at their feet. The one-
story houses were constructed of adobe or stone and usually left unpainted. Travelers found
no hotels, inns, or public restaurants; they might find lodging for the night in the town hall
or in the house of a relatively affluent resident who took pity on them. Joel Poinsett, a man
who enjoyed his comforts, expressed dismay at the facilities he found in a small Veracruz
town as he was working his way to Mexico City in 1822.
We supped on our cold provisions, and stretched ourselves out on the landlady’s bed, which
did not prove a bed of rest. It consisted only of canes laid lengthways, and covered with a
blanket. This, and even the smell of raw meat, might have been endured, but we were visited
The village of Chalco, southeast of Mexico City, looked much as it had during the colonial period until the
railroad passed through during the second half of the nineteenth century.
by such swarms of fleas, sancudos, and musquitos [sic] that we rejoiced when we saw the
light of day beaming through the cane enclosure that constituted the walls of the hut.2
The poor males in the towns had one concern that did not trouble those in the Indian
village: like their counterparts in the larger cities, they were subject to the dreaded leva.
A system of forced conscription directed at the uneducated masses (the Indians in the vil-
lages were generally excluded simply because they did not speak Spanish), the leva was used
by local commanders to fill their military quotas. Troublemakers, vagabonds, and prisoners
were taken first. As the demands of the wars for independence, and then the civil wars, con-
tinued in the first half of the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of illiterate males were
picked up off the streets and pressed into long periods of service without even being allowed
to return home to say good-bye to wives, children, and parents.
Both in the Indian village and in the small rural town, inhabitants resisted outside
influence in their affairs and defended community land and water rights. Contact with the
outside world was limited to the occasional traveler passing through and sometimes the
skirmishing various factions in liberal-conservative struggles. Ideologies from the top had
little influence except when they might be molded to local purposes.
2 Joel R. Poinsett, Notes on Mexico Made in the Autumn of 1822, Accompanied by an Historical Sketch of the
Revolution (New York, NY, 1969), 23–24.
PROVINCIAL CITIES
One had to visit the larger provincial cities, generally the state capitals, to find evidence
of the amenities of wealth and a sense of nationalism. Ranging in population from seven
thousand or eight thousand to seventy-one thousand (Puebla in 1852), these cities were well
laid out in the classic Spanish pattern. The main streets, paved and well lighted, led into the
central plaza surrounded on four sides by the main cathedral, the state or municipal office
buildings, and several rows of good shops, generally under a stone arcade. In addition to an
impressive selection of native products from many parts of the country, the shops stocked
foreign merchandise, and a sizable merchant class thrived. Mexican cities boasted a bullring,
a theater, traveling sideshows with tightrope walkers and jugglers, bookstores, and a wide
array of public and religious festivals. Unlike in the pueblo or the rural town, many criollos
could be found in the better residential areas. A few provincial aristocrats led lives of plenty,
but they were exceptions even among the criollo population. A modest number of schools
educated only the wealthy. In 1842, for example, about thirteen hundred schools operated
in all of Mexico. Total enrollment amounted to only sixty thousand, or less than one percent
of the population. Barely a third of the schools were free.
Most of the state capitals grew rapidly in the first half of the nineteenth century. Aguas-
calientes doubled in population, and Mérida tripled. Veracruz and Guanajuato were
almost alone in declining, the former because of constant warfare and heavy bombard-
ments from naval vessels in the harbor and troops on the shore. The latter suffered from
the generally depressed character of the surrounding mines. By mid-century Puebla and
Guadalajara competed for second place on the nation’s population rosters, with Puebla
holding a slight lead.
A nineteenth-century woodcut depicting the central plaza of Mérida, Yucatán, about 1850.
M E X I C O C I T Y: T H E R I C H A N D T H E P O O R
Mexico City comprised a world unto itself, where all of the richest and many of the poorest in the
country seemed to congregate. The focal point of the entire nation, it exerted an influence on the
country quite out of proportion to its size or its political prominence as the national capital. From
a population of 137,000 at the turn of the century, it grew to 160,000 at the time of indepen-
dence and to 170,000 by 1852. Its wide, relatively clean streets (better lighted than those in New
York or Philadelphia) were crowded with expensive imported carriages, a status symbol among
the rich. The main cathedral on the central plaza, the zócalo, could certainly rival any in Europe.
The very bustle of the city set it apart from any other place in the republic. Street urchins hawked
newspapers and pamphlets, scribes sitting on the sidewalks penned out messages for the illiter-
ate, gentlemen on horseback paraded their finest mounts, and foreign artists gathered on park
benches to sketch Chapultepec Castle or the snow-covered volcanoes of Popocatépetl and Iztac-
cíhuatl. In addition to numerous primary and secondary schools (again reserved largely for the
affluent), Mexico City housed the university, a school of mines, the Art Academy of San Carlos,
a well-endowed botanical garden, libraries, museums, and a surprising number of public parks.
By the middle of the century a thriving opera was an integral part of the city’s cultural life. The lit-
eracy rate, for both men and women, rose modestly during the first half of the nineteenth century.
The Mexico City aristocracy, like their counterparts throughout the world, enjoyed their
amenities and displayed their wealth conspicuously. Many of the homes were truly luxu-
rious, usually enclosed by high walls for security and privacy. Interior walls boasted fine
imported tapestries. Aristocratic women, whether attending the theater, the opera, or even
a high mass, displayed a flair for the sometimes revealing clothes designed by their favor-
ite French modiste; and the men, while not outdoing their wives in fanciful dress, prided
themselves on their ability to duplicate the latest fashions from Paris or London. Marriages
among elite families facilitated their accumulation of wealth.
The urban aristocracy, secular and religious, looked good and lived well despite the political chaos that engulfed
Mexico after independence.
Describing a ball she attended in 1840, the wife of the Spanish minister to Mexico City
noted the female costume:
One, for example, would have a scarlet satin petticoat, and over it a pink satin robe, trimmed
with scarlet ribbons to match. Another, a short rich blue satin dress, beneath which ap-
peared a handsome purple satin petticoat. . . . All had diamonds and pearls . . . I did not see
one without earrings, necklace, and broach.3
But even middle- and upper-class women joined their poorer sisters in patronizing
pawnshops (including the Monte de Piedad, which had been established in the colonial
period by the Conde de Regla), where they hocked clothes and utensils for needed cash as
part of a flourishing small credit system.
The poorest of the heavily indigent Indian population was concentrated in the Mexico
City districts of Santiago Tlatelolco and San Juan Tenochtitlán, but they spilled over into
other areas of the capital. When the upper class filed out of the theater or left the opera, they
could not fail to see the léperos. Described variously in the literature as beggars, vagabonds,
panhandlers, riffraff, and outcasts, thousands of them could be seen in the streets of Mexico
City every day. Although there were undoubtedly some fakers and reprobates among them,
most were genuinely wretched in physical appearance: distressed children with bloated bel-
lies, men and women crippled by war or accident or serious genetic deformities, and men
and women of all ages were found pitiably inebriated. Writers and reformers decried the
degeneracy of the latter as a threat to the future of the nation.
Not unknown in the colonial period, the léperos became institutionally endemic in the
first half of the nineteenth century. No foreign traveler to Mexico City failed to notice them.
In 1822, for example, Joel Poinsett callously recorded:
In front of the churches and in the neighborhood of them we saw an unusual number of
beggars, and they openly exposed their disgusting sores and deformities to excite our com-
passion. I observed one among them wrapped in a large white sheet, who, as soon as he per-
ceived that he had attracted my attention, advanced towards me, and unfolding his cover-
ing, disclosed his person perfectly naked and covered from head to heel with ulcers. . . . No
city in Italy contains so many miserable beggars, and no town in the world so many blind.4
Life for the urban poor who worked rather than begged offered few material rewards. Domes-
tic service, though remuneration was small, was highly sought by both sexes because it gener-
ally offered a clean room in which to sleep and food enough to sustain oneself. Professional
washerwomen plied their laundering service at public fountains. In the streets the most vis-
ible employee was the cargador, a direct descendant of the tameme of the colonial period and
nothing more than a human beast of burden. In the cities, and between the cities, the sight
described by Edward Tayloe, Joel Poinsett’s private secretary, described a common sight.
There are no carts or drays for the transportation of goods, so that everything is carried upon
the backs of these poor creatures, who are enabled to carry a load of 300 lbs. by means of
3 Fanny Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico: The Letters of Fanny Calderón de la Barca, ed. Howard T. Fisher and
Marion Hall Fisher (Garden City, NY, 1970), 132–33.
4 Poinsett, Notes on Mexico, 73.
The cargadores, a legacy of the colonial tamemes, carried everything on their backs.
a leather band or strap, the cargador leaning forward at an angle of about 45°, the burden
resting on the back supported by this strap. With so heavy a load they travel great distances,
moving in a brisk walk or trot.5
But the cargador carrying supplies into the city or delivering on his back an imported
French piano had little to complain about in comparison to his counterpart who was drafted
from the city to work in the mines. Employed to bring the ore out of the deep shafts and
paid by the pound, the cargadores often carried extremely heavy loads on their backs as they
worked their way up ladders. Accidents were frequent; the widows might sometimes receive
a small share of the last load as compensation.
Indians and mestizos, whether they lived in a small village or in Mexico City, constituted Mex-
ico’s labor force: farmers, servants, day laborers, cargadores, vendors, military recruits, craftsmen,
and errand boys. Women worked as domestic servants, spinners in the textile mills, food prepar-
ers, waitresses, and vendors on the streets and in the marketplaces. They suffered a short, social
leash. If they committed no crime but in some way transgressed anticipated norms of female
behavior, a magistrate could send them to a casa de depósito, a protective institution designed to
teach fallen women how to behave. The situation of the male worker could be worse. If accused
of a crime, the word of the employer was generally taken and the worker had no recourse. Held
in filthy prisons, often without formal charges, the father who stole a loaf of bread was confined
a common cell with the convicted murderer, the young boy with the hardened criminal, and
the physically challenged with the mentally insane. If Mexican politicians in the first half of the
nineteenth century did little to change the fabric of society, it was not because the intelligentsia
failed to urge a new course of action. And it was this talented group of Mexican writers, musicians,
artists, and scholars that made Mexico City so different from the remainder of the republic.
5 Edward Thornton Tayloe, Mexico, 1825–1828: The Journal and Correspondence of Edward Thornton Tayloe,
ed. C. Harvey Gardiner (Chapel Hill, NC, 1959), 50–51.
INTELLECTUALS AND ARTISTS
The prime literary current in Mexico, as in all of Latin America, in the period following
independence was romanticism. Intensely concerned with freedom and individualism, the
Mexican romantics, in both prose and poetry, set out to explore the meaning of their newly
won independence and to foster a distinctive culture. They turned their backs on Spain and
sought to define a new form of national artistic expression. But to understand and convey
nascent nationalism they had to understand their Mexico, and thus they began writing with
great emotion and sentimentality about the indigenous heritage, the physical environment,
the wars of conquest and, of course, the recent movement for independence.
In 1836, young novelists, poets, and dramatists began meeting in the newly formed Academia
de San Juan de Letrán, and for the next twenty years the academy midwifed the birth of Mexican
national literature. Of the early romantic coterie who met there regularly, only two left indelible
impressions on the romantic movement itself: Fernando Calderón (1809–49) and Ignacio Rodrí-
guez Galván (1816–42). Calderón, a sometime soldier and liberal politician, experimented with
lyric poetry, then turned to drama, both comedy and tragedy. His amusing satirical plays, some
with veiled criticism of the Santa Anna dictatorship, were performed on the leading stages of
Mexico in the 1840s and 1850s. Rodríguez Galván penned patriotic verse and described the Mexi-
can landscape but, most important, lamented the Spanish injustices against the Indian popula-
tions. In the process he won his position as Mexico’s foremost lyrical poet of the first half of the
nineteenth century. His Profecía de Guatimoc (1839) has been called the masterpiece of Mexican
romanticism, expressing passion, sentimentality, and an anti-Spanish, pro-Indian orientation.
Mexican music, like its literature, rejected its Spanish parentage in the early post-
independence years. Nowhere is this more graphically illustrated than in the decision of José
Mariano Elízaga (1786–1842), Mexico’s most famous composer of the second quarter of
the nineteenth century, to drop the title “Don” (signifying the Spanish gentleman) from his
name. After independence, the composer informed the Mexican populace that henceforth he
preferred to be called simply Citizen Elízaga. By sheer chance he was the piano tutor to Anna
María Huarte, who subsequently married Agustín de Iturbide. With the defeat of the Span-
ish and the establishment of the empire, Iturbide brought him to Mexico City. His original
compositions were all designed for use in the churches, but the liturgy was much too radical
for the conservative, Spanish-thinking hierarchy. Citizen Elízaga did encounter success in
another venture. In 1824 he founded Mexico’s first philharmonic society, and the following
year this group initiated Mexico’s first national conservatory, the Academia de Música.
The Mexican artistic community strove for a type of new nationalistic expression as well.
Scarcely had the new republican government of Guadalupe Victoria been established when Pedro
Patiño Ixtolinque, the general director of the Art Academy of San Carlos and Mexico’s most famous
sculptor, set to work on a monument honoring Father Morelos. An early American visitor to the
academy was impressed with its facilities but, displaying a common anti-Catholic bias, also found
fault: “Connected with this academy is a disgusting sort of work shop, where gods and saints are
manufactured in wood and stone for the churches in town and country.”6 Although the young re-
public housed a few artists of unusual talent such as the costumbrista painter José Agustín Arrieta,
the three decades following independence were not particularly distinguished years for Mexican art.
6 Ibid., 58.
Of all the great Mexican historians of the post-independence years, only one, Lucas Alamán
(1792–1853), did not allow an anti-Spanish bias to spoil his historical scholarship; but he
was no less partisan than his ideological foes. A criollo aristocrat, a convinced monarchist,
and a firsthand witness to the excesses committed by Hidalgo’s Indian army in Guanajuato,
he came to the defense of the Spanish crown. His five-volume Historia de México (1849–52)
indicates clearly that he considered Cortés the conveyer of civilization and religion and the
founder of the Mexican nation. Spain’s imperial system in the New World was benevolent
and progressive. The wars for independence, according to Alamán, had to be viewed in two
stages. The early stage, that of Father Hidalgo, he censured as an insane attack on property and
civilization itself. But the conservative conclusion of the independence movement by Iturbide
could be rationalized. The mother country, defying all true Hispanic values, had turned dis-
turbingly liberal with King Ferdinand’s acceptance of the Constitution of 1812. The leader-
ship of the independence movement in the colonies actually defended traditionally Hispanic
values but in a manner so savage that it set the country on the wrong course.
But Lucas Alamán stands almost alone in the historiography of the 1830s and 1840s. His con-
temporaries Carlos María de Bustamante, Lorenzo de Zavala, and José María Luis Mora viewed
history quite differently—as a struggle against three centuries of Spanish tyranny. The Black
Legend, stressing the avarice, inhumanity, and bigotry of the Spaniards, is not difficult to spot. The
independence movement was a repudiation of Spain, and the three histories mirroring this rejec-
tion contributed in their own way to the cultural disavowal of the Hispanic part of the Mexican
spirit. Spain’s attempted reconquest in 1829 strongly reinforced this pervasive anti-Hispanism.
Intellectuals and artists began to define Mexico in terms of what it was not, without
consensus about what the nation could or should be. But their ideas were taking shape in
popular forms like almanacs. Published in the late colonial period to remind people of holy
days and print images of important political and religious figures, their content began to
change after independence. Not only did they highlight independence heroes and profile
other civic leaders, but they also provided bits of everyday information and sections on
religion, science, geography, literature, and history. In his almanacs, Fernández de Lizardi
introduced illustrations by the engraver José María Torreblanca, who used El Mono Vano,
“the vain monkey,” to mock bad politicians (monkeys were a prevalent image for satirizing
all kinds of evils). Other almanacs printed the political predictions of impending upheav-
als by the fictitious prophet Madre Matiana (a colonial visionary allegedly conducted to
hell by the Virgin Mary to witness scenes of God’s future wrath). Her “predictions” lasted
throughout the century as a platform for debating nationhood, religion, roles of women,
and popular culture.
Also contributing to the development of shared popular memories were the figures of the
lotería, in both the national lottery and a board game that had origins in the colonial period.
Lottery cards of personages, places, and objects represented familiar aspects of material and
religious culture, sometimes local and sometimes national. In the absence of anything that
could be yet defined as national identity, popular images in almanacs and lotería “mocked
social pretensions of different stereotypical individuals and promoted pleasurable pride
about national geography, monuments, and emblems.”7
7 William H. Beezley, Mexican National Identity: Memory, Innuendo, and Popular Culture (Tucson, 2008), 49.
Arrom, Sylvia Marina. Containing the Poor: The Mexico City Poor House, 1774–1881. Durham, NC: Duke
. The Women of Mexico City. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.
Beezley, William H. Mexican National Identity: Memory, Innuendo, and Popular Culture. Tucson: University
Brushwood, John S. Mexico in Its Novel: A Nation’s Search for Identity. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966.
Calderón de la Barca, Fanny. Life in Mexico: The Letters of Fanny Calderón de la Barca. Edited by Howard T.
Fisher and Marion Hall Fisher. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970.
Cueva, Marío de la, et al. Major Trends in Mexican Philosophy. Translated by A. Robert Caponigri. Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.
Francois, Marie Eileen. A Culture of Everyday Credit: Housekeeping, Pawnbroking, and Government in Mexico
City, 1750–1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
Gilmore, N. Ray. “The Condition of the Poor in Mexico, 1834.” Hispanic American Historical Review 37/2
(1957): 213–26.
González, Deena. Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820–1880. New York:
Green, Stanley C. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823–1832. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pitts-
burgh Press, 1987.
Guardino, Peter. The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750–1850. Durham, NC: Duke
Hale, Charles A. Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821–1853. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.
O’Hara, Matthew D. “Miserables and Citizens: Indians, Legal Pluralism, and Religious Practice in Early
Republican Mexico.” In Religious Culture in Modern Mexico, edited by Martin Austin Nesvig, 14–34.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
Olivera, Ruth R., and Liliane Crete. Life in Mexico under Santa Anna, 1822–1855. Norman: University of
Penyak, Lee M. “Safe Harbors and Compulsory Custody: Casas de Depósito in Mexico, 1750–1865.” His-
Poinsett, Joel R. Notes on Mexico Made in the Autumn of 1822, Accompanied by an Historical Sketch of the
Revolution. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1969.
Ramos, Raúl A. Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821–1861. Durham, NC: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Sartorius, Carl. Mexico about 1850. Stuttgart, Germany: F. A. Brockhaus Komm, 1961.
Shaw, Frederick J. “The Artisan in Mexico City (1824–1853).” In Labor and Laborers through Mexican His-
tory, edited by Elsa Cecilia Frost, Michael C. Meyer, and Josefina Zoraida Vásquez, 399–418. Mexico
City, Mexico and Tucson: El Colegio de México and University of Arizona Press, 1979.
Tayloe, Edward Thornton. Mexico, 1825–1828: The Journal and Correspondence of Edward Thornton Tayloe.
Edited by C. Harvey Gardiner. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.
Ward, Henry G. Mexico in 1827. 2 vols. London, UK: Colburn, 1828.
Warren, Richard A. Vagrants and Citizens: Politics and the Masses in Mexico City from Colony to Republic. Wilm-
ington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001.
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PA RT
6
LIBERALS AND
CONSERVATIVES SEARCH FOR
SOMETHING BETTER
C HA PTER 20
THE REFORM AND THE FRENCH

INTERVENTION
T H E R E V O L U T I O N O F AY U T L A
The Revolution of Ayutla, the armed movement that ousted Santa Anna from power in 1855,
brought together some of the most original and creative minds in Mexico. Far from being
ivory tower scholars, this group of writers and intellectuals syncretized their own creative
work with a spirit of public service, a sense of social consciousness, and a profound desire
to see Mexico emerge at last from its long night of political instability and warfare. They
sought to reevaluate the Mexican national conscience and redefine national goals. Secularly
oriented and antimilitarist, they deeply mistrusted the church hierarchy and had little use
for the ambitious, self-serving Mexican army.
Influenced by the European Enlightenment and French philosophy, attorney Melchor
Ocampo practiced law, began farming scientifically, cataloged flora and fauna, studied
Indian languages, and collected one of the best private libraries in Mexico. He also made
the decision to enter politics. In the 1840s and 1850s he served as governor of Michoacán
and as a congressman in the national legislature. Shortly after the war with the United
States he won acclaim when he became involved in a virtual death struggle with the
clergy of Michoacán. The issue—the refusal of a local curate to bury the body of a penni-
less campesino because the widow could not pay the sacramental fees—became a cause
célèbre, used effectively by Ocampo to demonstrate the ineptitude and decadence of the
ecclesiastical effort.
Other liberals took up the cause of denouncing corruption in both church and state.
Among them were Santos Degollado, who also served briefly as governor of Michoacán,
and Guillermo Prieto, the son of a Mexico City baker who edited El Siglo XIX and popular-
ized the anti-Santa Anna cause. The government persecuted both, forcing them into jail
or exile.
But the real leader of the young, socially motivated intellectuals and the personification
of Mexican history in the two decades following mid-century was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec
283
284 l i b e r a l s a n d c o n s e r va t i v e s s e a r c h f o r s o m e t h i n g b e t t e r
Indian from the state of Oaxaca. Born on March 21, 1806, in the mountain village of San
Pablo Guelatao, Juárez was orphaned at the age of three and raised by an uncle. Only a
handful of the one hundred fifty villagers knew any Spanish, and Juárez had learned but
a few words when, at the age of twelve, he left his adobe home in the Zapotec village and
walked forty-one miles to the state capital. An older sister working as a cook in Oaxaca City
found employment for the boy in the home of a Franciscan lay brother who was a part-time
bookbinder. In return for daily chores in the house and helping in the bindery, the Francis-
can paid Juárez’s tuition so that he could begin his schooling. At his benefactor’s insistence
he entered the seminary in Oaxaca but quickly realized that the priesthood was not his
calling. He opted instead for the law and worked his way through law school, graduating
in 1831.
That year he entered political life on the Oaxaca city council and subsequently served in
the state legislature. But he did not abandon his career as a barrister and defended, without
fee, groups of poor villagers, challenging the exorbitant rates charged by the clergy for the
sacraments or protesting the arbitrary dictates of the local hacendado class. These activities
convinced him that only structural alteration of the system could effect the changes he envi-
sioned, and his liberalism strengthened.
When war broke out between Mexico and the United States, Juárez, a delegate in the na-
tional congress in Mexico City, was recalled to his home state to serve a term as provisional
governor. Later, the defeated and disgraced Santa Anna sought refuge in Oaxaca, but Gov-
erñor Juárez let him know he was not welcome there. In 1848 Oaxaqueños elected Juárez to
a full term as constitutional governor. The Juárez governorship was far from revolutionary,
but he did give the state a genuine lesson in energetic, honest, and sound management. Not
only did he preside over the construction of fifty new rural schools and encourage female
attendance, but he also sought to open the state up to world trade by rehabilitating the aban-
doned Pacific port of Huatulco. Even more amazing for mid-nineteenth-century Mexico,
he reduced the huge state bureaucracy and pushed economic improvements while making
regular payments on the state debt.
When Santa Anna returned to power for the last time, he moved to deal with the liberal
threat. Juárez was arrested and then exiled to New Orleans. When he arrived in the Louisiana
city, he met other Mexicans of his ilk who had taken refuge there. José María Mata and Pon-
ciano Arriaga were active members of a revolutionary clique led by Melchor Ocampo. Juárez
joined the exiles in plotting to overthrow the dictatorship when they decided to cast their
lot with an old guerrilla chieftain, Juan Alvarez, then leading an antigovernment rebellion in
the state of Guerrero. In 1854, the Plan de Ayutla put forth a statement of liberal principles
and a long list of grievances against Santa Anna. In Jalisco, Santos Degollado gathered a
formidable rebel army around him. Santiago Vidaurri in Nuevo León and Manuel Doblado
in Guanajuato pronounced against the dictatorship and joined the Ayutla movement. The
exiles in New Orleans helped with arms and ammunition, and in the early summer of 1855
they sent Juárez to Acapulco to join Alvarez as a political aide. With a wide base of support,
in August 1853 the liberals forced Santa Anna, whose popularity was at its lowest ebb, to
resign and go into exile for the last time.
The Reform and the French Intervention 285
T H E R E F O R M L AW S
In the new government, Juan Alvarez became provisional president; Ignacio Comonfort,
secretary of war; Melchor Ocampo, secretary of the treasury; Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, secre-
tary of development; and Benito Juárez, secretary of justice. The provisional presidency of
Alvarez marks the beginning of a period in Mexican history remembered as the Reform. For
the first time since the Gómez Farías administration in 1833 the liberals set themselves in
earnest to the task of destroying the sustaining structures of the conservative state in order to
create a modern, democratic, secular, and capitalist nation.
The first significant piece of legislation to emerge from the Reform bore the name of the
secretary of justice. Ley Juárez abolished the military and ecclesiastical fueros, the special
dispensations exempting soldiers and clerics from having to stand trial in civil courts. Ley
Juárez did not, as sometimes contended, abolish all military and ecclesiastical courts; rather,
it placed stringent restrictions on their jurisdictions. The ecclesiastical and military courts
had competency only in cases involving the alleged transgression of canon or military law.
If, on the other hand, a cleric or a soldier were charged with a violation of civil or criminal
law, he would be required to stand trial in a state or federal court. Ley Juárez thus became an
important milestone in an ongoing battle to secure the concept of equality before the law.
Ley Juárez invoked the fury of the church and conservatives generally. But it also exposed
a schism in the ranks of the liberals. The moderates (moderados) favored backing down,
while the more staunch liberals (puros) refused. Before the month was out President Alvarez
and most of the cabinet had resigned. The presidency devolved on Ignacio Comonfort, who
was more of a compromiser than a firebrand.
In June 1856 President Comonfort’s secretary of the treasury, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada,
drafted an important new law that the radicals hoped would weaken the church and the
Ignacio Comonfort (1812-63). A bureaucrat of minor im-

portance for most of his life and subsequently a colonel
in the militia, Comonfort was thrust into the presidency
in 1855 and found himself caught in the endless liberal-
conservative struggle.
moderates hoped would increase national revenue. Ley Lerdo prohibited ecclesiastical and
civil institutions from owning or administering real property not directly used in day-to-day
operations. The Roman Catholic Church could retain its church buildings, monasteries, and
seminaries. Local and state units of government would keep their meeting halls, jails, and
schools. But both had to divest themselves of other urban and rural property. The massive
holdings the church had gradually acquired through the centuries were to be put up for sale
at public auction.
Ley Lerdo indicates that neither the puros nor the moderados of the nineteenth century
envisioned a social revolution. The liberals wanted to encourage economic entrepreneurship
and protect private property. The lands were not to be distributed to the landless campesino
but were to be sold. Only the wealthy or at least those in a position secure enough to obtain
credit were able to buy. In practice, the enforcement of Ley Lerdo worked to the detriment of
the rural masses because it removed the long-standing legal recognition of the Indian com-
munities’ rights to own property collectively. The mandate for individual ownership of land
meant that many communities could lose their corporate lands (ejidos). Ley Lerdo failed to
create a new class of small peasant landowners and ultimately abetted the transfer of land
to hacendados and some upwardly mobile rancheros. In the chaotic years that followed the
implementation of Ley Lerdo, the liberal governments did not profit greatly from the break-
up and sale of the corporate civil or ecclesiastical properties.
The reformers had not yet finished. In January 1857 President Comonfort signed into
law a statute giving the powers of registry to the state, thus depriving the church of an im-
portant source of revenue. All births, marriages, adoptions, and deaths were henceforth to
be registered by civil functionaries; and cemeteries were placed under the control of a de-
partment of hygiene. The church sustained another blow a few months later when the Ley
Iglesias prohibited the church from charging high fees for administering the sacraments. The
poor were to receive their sacramental blessings at no cost, and those who could afford to
pay would be charged modestly.
The internal tensions provoked by the reform laws were in full evidence when, as provided
by the Plan de Ayutla, delegates met to draft a new constitution. Because the conservatives
had opposed the Revolution of Ayutla, they were largely unrepresented in the constitutional
assembly. Debates took place between moderados and puros.
The federal Constitution of 1857 in many ways was modeled after its ancestor of 1824.
The major difference in political structure was provided by an article setting up a unicam-
eral national legislature. For purposes of economy and efficiency, the framers of the docu-
ment believed that a single house was sufficient, but the main reason for switching from
two houses to one was neither of these. It would be better, many believed, to have one strong
house, instead of two weak ones, as a legislative bulwark against dictatorship. Mexican his-
tory showed as well that a strong national government was mandatory if the country were to
escape the perils of exaggerated regionalism. The reform liberals were not nearly so federalist
as some have believed.
The Constitution of 1857 represented much more of a liberal victory than its federal pre-
decessor of 1824. The constitution incorporated the Ley Juárez, Ley Lerdo, and Ley Iglesias,
and also emphasized individual liberty and the inviolability of property rights. The first 34
articles of the document spelled out in detail equality before the law and freedom of speech,
of the press, of petition, of assembly, of the mails, and of education. It further abolished
slavery, other compulsory service, and all titles of nobility and guaranteed the rights to carry
arms, to have bail, and of habeas corpus.
The articles that prompted the most heated debate touched upon the religious issue. The
church hierarchy responded by issuing decree after decree in an attempt to nullify the new
constitution. They sought a Catholic republic that protected their interests. Catholics who
purchased church property could be threatened with excommunication, along with those
who swore allegiance to the objectionable articles of the constitution. Bishop Clemente de
Jesús Munguía of Michoacán and Archbishop Lázaro de la Garza of Mexico City specified
that the faithful could not accept, among other articles, those which provided for freedom of
education, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and, of course, Ley
Juárez and Ley Lerdo. Pope Pius IX actually backed these positions, declaring the constitu-
tion to be null and void.
The strong reaction of the church created a real quandary for Mexicans. If they did not
swear allegiance to the constitution, they would be considered traitors to the state; if they
did, they would be heretics in the eyes of the church. The dilemma was not merely theoreti-
cal, however. Civil servants who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the constitution lost
their jobs; soldiers who took it were not treated in Catholic hospitals; if they died, they did
not receive the last rites nor were they buried in consecrated ground. Priests who offered the
sacraments to communicants who had not forsworn the constitution were suspended. By
pitting brother against brother and father against son, the reform laws and the constitution
divided Mexican society into two hostile and completely uncompromising camps and led
to yet another civil war.
THE WAR OF THE REFORM
The War of the Reform, the civil conflict that engulfed Mexico from 1858 to 1861, repre-
sented the culmination of the ideological disputations, the shuffling of constitutions, the
church–state controversies, and the minor civil wars that had shattered the peace periodi-
cally since independence. The war began, as most Mexican wars, with a new plan, this time
the Plan de Tacubaya, proclaimed by conservative general Félix Zuloaga. Emboldened by
promises of clerical and military support, Zuloaga promptly dissolved the congress and ar-
rested Benito Juárez, the chief liberal spokesman within the Comonfort government. Re-
cently elected chief justice of the Mexican Supreme Court, Juárez was next in line for the
presidency should a vacancy occur in the top office. Finding himself caught between two
extremes and not totally comfortable with some of the constitutional provisions, President
Comonfort resigned. When the army declared Zuloaga as the new president, Juárez man-
aged to escape north to Querétaro, where his liberal cohorts proclaimed him president.
Once again, Mexico plunged into a most passionate and bloody civil war.
The opposing sides in the three-year war defy the simple classification historians have
traditionally given. It was not Indians versus whites and rural versus urban. While it is true
that the clergy and the army generally supported the Zuloaga government in Mexico City, the
Indian masses fell into both camps. The relative autonomy granted under federalism made
the liberal cause attractive to indigenous peoples who worked to preserve communal cus-
toms. At the same time, the Ley Lerdo could break up their ejido lands, a reason to support
conservatives. Recent studies have emphasized another explanation regarding rural indig-
enous and peasant participation in the nineteenth-century wars. Not isolated from national
politics, they participated in ways best suited to preserve their communities. Many found
that abstract liberal principals did not guarantee their protection. On the other hand, where
the church took a flexible approach to their religiosity, it offered support for community
institutions and practices such as cofradías and celebrations that bound people together. As
a result a popular, conservative grassroots politics emerged in many areas of the countryside.
In Querétaro, for example, the cacique Tomás Mejía led troops for the conservatives. This
popular conservatism was not universal in rural areas and others who saw the church as
greedy and exploitative threw their lot in with fellow Indian Benito Juárez.
The liberals eventually succeeded in establishing their capital in Veracruz, where they
could control the customs receipts and obtain military supplies from the outside world.
From there Juárez and his government issued manifestos damning the enemy, enticing
support, seeking the recognition of foreign governments, and outlining military strategy.
At the same time in Mexico City, the Zuloaga administration declared the reform laws
null and void, swore allegiance to the Holy See, took communion in public, and planned
military campaigns.
For the first two years of the war the liberals had a hard time holding their own. The con-
servative army, better trained, equipped, and led, won most of the major engagements and
held the most populous states of central Mexico. But when, in the early spring of 1859, Gen-
eral Miguel Miramón attempted to dislodge the liberals from Veracruz, he was beaten back.
The fighting throughout the republic was vicious, and noncombatants experienced wanton
depredation by overzealous commanders of both armies. The conservatives shot captured
prisoners in the name of holy religion, and the liberals did the same in defense of freedom
and democratic government, sometimes desecrating churches and executing priests.
The intensity of the military campaigns manifested itself in the political arena as well.
The Juárez government issued a series of decrees from Veracruz that made the earlier Reform
Laws seem innocuous by comparison. The liberals who had felt short-changed by the con-
stitution would now be satisfied. The decrees made births and marriages civil ceremonies,
secularized all cemeteries, outlawed monastic orders,, nationalized all church properties and
assets, curtailed the number of official religious holidays, limited religious processions in
the streets, and mean-spirited local ordinances even restricted the ringing of church bells.
But most importantly, church and state were separated. The reforms tried to rivet together a
society in which the church would be indisputably subordinate to the state.
By 1860 the tide of the battle had turned in favor of the liberals. Juárez found two excel-
lent field commanders in Ignacio Zaragoza and Jesús González Ortega, while the enemy
unwittingly aided the liberal cause by bickering among themselves. In August, Zaragoza and
González Ortega combined their forces at Silao to hand General Miramón his first serious
defeat. The final battle occurred three days before Christmas when González Ortega crushed
Miramón’s army of eight thousand at the little town of San Miguel Calpulalpan. The newly
victorious army, some twenty-five thousand strong, entered Mexico City to a tumultuous
welcome on New Year’s Day. Juárez arrived ten days later, but victory was no panacea.
DISCONTENT
The desolation left in the wake of the civil conflict showed on the landscape dotted with
burned haciendas and mills, potted roads, unrepaired bridges, neglected fields, and sacked
Benito Juárez (1806-72). The presidential terms of Mexico’s most noteworthy politician of the mid-nineteenth
century were disrupted by civil wars and foreign interventions.
villages. But more importantly, it inscribed the minds and bodies of tens of thousands of
exhausted, crippled, and aggrieved Mexicans. Soldiers slowly drifted back home, frequently
encountering destruction and no work. Bandits continued to infest the highways. Frustration
set in quickly. Only the national government could be expected to smooth the transition,
but the tired nation was to have no relief. The liberal victory in 1861 proved to be but a brief
respite from the ravages of war. The armies would soon begin marching again, but on this
occasion one would wear foreign uniforms.
Although Juárez won the presidential elections held in March 1861, the liberals diverged
on many issues, especially on what type of punishment should be meted out to their erst-
while foes. Some favored harsh retribution to make their enemies pay for the ravages they
had propagated, but the president opted instead for a more conciliatory policy, to allow op-
position in the open forum of the congress. Nonetheless, congressional bickering in his own
party, coupled with pressure from the opposition, prompted several cabinet resignations
and kept the administration in a constant state of turmoil. On one occasion a congressional
vote taken to demand Juárez’s resignation lost by a single vote.
TROUBLED FINANCES AND FOREIGN INTERVENTION
In the final analysis, however, economic rather than political difficulties precipitated the next
war. Juárez inherited a bankrupt treasury and an army, a corps of civil servants, and a police
force that had not been paid. The income from the sale of church property had been consider-
ably less than expected. Commerce stagnated, and most of the customs receipts were already
pledged. The nation’s woefully inadequate transportation system conveyed merchandise by
pack mules, oxen, and human cargadores. Transportation was slow, costly, and inefficient.
In the spring of 1861 the monthly deficit amounted to $400,000, and practically no
currency circulated. Worst of all, Mexico’s European creditors began clamoring for the re-
payment of debts, some half a century old. Fully sensitive to the dangers his action might
portend, Juárez declared a two-year moratorium on the payment of Mexico’s foreign debt.
Although he took care to stress that his action did not repudiate but simply suspended pay-
ment time of stress, the outcry in Europe was predictable. The large majority of the English,
French, and Spanish claims were quite legitimate, for foreign citizens had suffered outrages
and losses of life and property.
On October 31, 1861, representatives of Queen Isabella II of Spain, Queen Victoria of
Great Britain, and Emperor Napoleon III of France affixed their signatures to the Convention
of London. The three nations agreed upon a joint occupation of the Mexican coasts to collect
their claims. They envisioned a plan to occupy the customhouse at Veracruz and apply all
customs receipts on the debt. Although England and Spain were apparently sincere in the
pledge not to seek special advantage in Mexico, France had other designs. French Emperor
Napoleon III had embarked upon an aggressive foreign policy in Africa and Indochina and,
in a French rendering of manifest destiny, also looked to the Americas as a place where
France might implant “civilization” among its Latin cousins. The Mexican imbroglio and
overtures from Catholic conservatives presented him with an opportunity to achieve that
goal while currying favor with a strong Catholic element in France.
Porfirio Díaz as a young man. Later to serve as presi-

dent of Mexico for a third of a century, Díaz was cata-
pulted to national fame because of his role in the
victory over the French of May 5, 1862.
Some six thousand Spanish troops actually landed in Veracruz first, followed by 700
British marines and two thousand French troops early the next month. As soon as it became
obvious that the French harbored notions of conquest, the queens of Spain and Great Brit-
ain decided to order their respective troops home.
THE FRENCH INTERVENTION
Within a month after the Spanish and British withdrawal the French army, reinforced with
an additional forty-five hundred troops, began to march inland on its war of occupation.
Arrogant and overconfident, the invading commander, General Charles Latrille, had already
informed his superior in Paris, “We are so superior to the Mexicans in race, organization,
morality, and devoted sentiments, that I beg your excellency to inform the Emperor that as
the head of 6,000 soldiers I am already master of Mexico.”1 But en route to Mexico City he
discovered that Puebla was not going to be an easy prize. President Juárez had assigned the
defense of the city to General Ignacio Zaragoza. Encountering unexpected opposition on
the morning of May 5, 1862, Latrille attacked recklessly, and within two hours the French
had expended half of their ammunition. The French troops, many weakened by the afflic-
tion that sometimes smites the foreign visitor to the Mexican countryside, did not acquit
1 Quoted in Paul Vanderwood, “Betterment for Whom? The Reform Period: 1855–1875,” in The Oxford His-
tory of Mexico, eds. Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley (New York, NY, 2010), 358.
themselves well. General Zaragoza, on the other hand, managed his troops with rare aplomb.
In a decisive maneuver, young Brigadier General Porfirio Díaz, commanding the Second Bri-
gade, repelled a determined French assault on Zaragoza’s right flank. The dejected invaders
retreated to lick their wounds in Orizaba. May 5—Cinco de Mayo—would be added to the
national calendar of holidays in honor of the Mexican victory.
Not all Mexicans rejoiced at the news of the French defeat. Not only did many conservative
monarchists and just as many church officials succor the recuperating French army but priests
used their pulpits to urge their communicants to collaborate with the enemy against the god-
less government. On August 30, 1862, President Juárez ordered that clerics who excited disre-
spect for the law would be punished by imprisonment or deportation. He also forbade priests
from wearing their vestments or any other distinguishing garment outside of the churches.
Upon hearing of the disaster at Puebla, Napoleon, with a sizable reservoir of manpower
to draw upon, ordered some thirty thousand reinforcements. It took fully a year before the
French army was prepared to march again. Once more they encountered their heaviest re-
sistance at Puebla, but after a siege of nearly two months, the Mexican defenders under the
command of General Jesús González Ortega were forced to turn the city over to the French.
President Juárez realized that the fall of Puebla opened the doors to Mexico City. With the
support of congress at the end of May, Juárez, his cabinet, and what was left of his army
withdrew for San Luis Potosí, and the French army entered the Mexican capital unopposed.
THE NEW GOVERNMENT
Much of Mexico’s conservative leadership was less concerned with their country’s recent
loss of sovereignty than with how the conservatives might profit from the demise of Benito
Juárez and his liberal government. On June 16, 1863, the French commander selected a pro-
visional government consisting of thirty-five conservatives. Napoleon III, having conferred
with numerous conservative Mexican émigrés, had decided that if a monarchy was good for
France, it would be good for Mexico as well. The French ruler chose the Austrian archduke,
Ferdinand Maximilian of Hapsburg, to be emperor. In October 1863 a delegation of Mexi-
can conservatives visited Maximilian at Miramar, his magnificent palace on a promontory
overlooking the Adriatic near Trieste, and offered him the crown. Maximilian accepted only
on the condition that his emperorship be approved by the Mexican people themselves. As
strange as his stipulation must have sounded to the conservative monarchists, they agreed to
indulge Maximilian in this folly. The plebiscite, held under the auspices of the French army,
was a farce; when Maximilian was informed that the Mexican people had voted overwhelm-
ingly in his favor, he accepted the throne.
Before leaving for Mexico, Maximilian entered into an agreement with his benefactor,
Napoleon III. The Convention of Miramar pledged the new Mexican emperor to pay all ex-
penses incurred by the French troops during their fight for control of the country. Maximilian
also agreed to pay the salaries of the French troops, twenty thousand of whom were to remain
in Mexico until the end of 1867, and to assume responsibility for payment of all the claims.
In return Napoleon gave Maximilian full command over the French expeditionary force
in Mexico. The new emperor, by signing the Convention of Miramar, had tripled Mexico’s
foreign debt before even setting foot on Mexican soil. But Maximilian was eager to begin a
new life in a new world with his wife Charlotte, who would be known in Mexico as Carlota.
T H E A R R I VA L O F T H E M O N A R C H S
Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph and Marie Charlotte Amélie Léopoldine arrived in Veracruz
aboard the Austrian frigate Novara at the end of May 1864. He was thirty-two years old and
she only twenty-four when they set out to mount the imperial throne. Descended from
Hapsburg and Bourbon royal lines, they were products of European education at its best,
schooled in the etiquette of court life, and accustomed to the niceties, proprieties, and ex-
travagances of Viennese aristocratic society. Their first glimpse of Mexico came as a shock as
they encountered a sweltering, humid Veracruz where malaria and yellow fever were ram-
pant and sanitation was nonexistent.
Traditionally liberal, the Veracruzanos refused to come out of their whitewashed adobe
houses to greet their new monarchs. By the time the small royal party reached the railroad
station to begin the tedious journey, Carlota was in tears. As the train wound its way toward
Mexico City, the weather cooled and the scenery improved. When the railroad tracks ended,
the royal party made the rest of the trip by stage coach. As they neared Mexico City on June
12, they transferred to Maximillian’s ornate Viennese carriage and stopped to hear mass
at the Basílica de Guadalupe. Maximilian had been advised that it would be wise to curry
Indian and church support by paying homage to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
A mass was celebrated for Maximilian and grande dame Carlota when they reached Mexico City after the difficult
journey from Veracruz.
Because the national palace was deemed unsuitable, the royal family established their
magnificent imperial court at Chapultepec Castle, built originally for the Spanish viceroys at
the end of the eighteenth century. But unlike Agustín I, Mexico’s first emperor, Maximilian
made himself accessible to the people. Once a week he opened the palace to his subjects, and
in many small ways he tried hard for acceptance. To acquaint himself with Mexico’s problems
he toured the provinces and, on occasion, even donned the regional costume and ate the local
food. Upon his return he shocked his conservative friends by suggesting that many priests
he had met could profit from some basic lessons in Christian charity. Believing that mag-
nanimity would serve him well and win him converts, Maximilian declared a free press and
proclaimed a general amnesty for all political prisoners serving terms of less than ten years.
The emperor was pleased with the first few months of his reign, especially when dip-
lomatic recognition began to come in from Europe. In the summer he wrote his younger
brother an enthusiastic letter.
I found the country far better than I expected . . . and the people far more advanced than
supposed at home. Our reception was cordial and sincere, free from all pretence and from
that nauseating official servility which one very often finds in Europe on such occasions. The
country is very beautiful, tropically luxuriant in the coast lands. . . . The so-called entertain-
ments of Europe, such as evening receptions, the gossip of teaparties, etc., etc., of hideous
memories, are quite unknown here, and we shall take good care not to introduce them.2
INTERNAL DIVISIONS AND EXTERNAL INTERFERENCE
But Maximilian’s position was scarcely as idyllic as he imagined. His first serious prob-
lem, strangely enough, came from his conservative supporters rather than from the liberals
who had been driven out of Mexico City to make room for him. The conservatives, led by
Juan Almonte and Archbishop Pelagio Antonio de Labastida, naturally expected that the
emperor would immediately set about to suspend the reform laws and return the church
properties seized by Benito Juárez. Yet Maximilian’s political inclinations tended to the
liberal side on the question of the relationship between church and state. Hoping to at-
tract some liberal support to his government, he refused to return church lands. These
anti-clerical measures did not persuade liberals whose patriotism demanded overthrow of
a monarchy supported by foreign arms and headed by a foreigner. By attempting to find a
middle ground between the liberals and the conservatives, Maximilian succeeded only in
alienating both.
When Juárez withdrew from Mexico City before the French onslaught, he established his
government first in San Luis Potosí and then in Chihuahua. But French troops sent by Mar-
shal François Bazaine pushed his small loyal army north until they found refuge in El Paso
del Norte (today Ciudad Juárez) on the US border. Guerrilla warfare conducted throughout
the country kept the French army from controlling territory for sustained periods, although
French troops won a number of battles. In 1865, Bazaine defeated Porfirio Díaz in Oaxaca
2 Quoted in Egon Corti, Maximilian and Charlotte of Mexico, vol. 2 (New York, NY, 1928), 431–32.
and temporarily secured that pivotal southern state. In October 1865 Maximilian’s French
advisers informed him, incorrectly, that Juárez had finally given up the fight and had fled the
country, seeking refuge in the United States. Following flawed advice, the emperor issued a
controversial and extremely significant decree. The death penalty was made mandatory for
all captured Juaristas still bearing arms, to be carried out without appeal within 24 hours
of capture. In signing the decree he had not only prompted a war of unparalleled ferocity
but, in effect, also signed his own death warrant. Juárez had not abandoned the country
and repeatedly promised his supporters that he had no intention of giving up the fight. He
realized, however, that he needed substantial help and eventually heeded the advice of his
cabinet that he seek it north of the Rio Grande.
The government of Abraham Lincoln had been more than casually interested in France’s
Mexican venture from the outset. In 1823 President Monroe had intoned his famous doc-
trine declaring that the American continents were henceforth not to be considered as sub-
jects for future colonization by European powers; any attempt to do so would be viewed
as an unfriendly act toward the United States. In the years subsequent to its promulgation
the Monroe Doctrine was frequently disregarded by various countries in western Europe
but never so blatantly as in 1862 and 1863 when the French intervened. Napoleon III had
chosen his time well; six months prior to the signing of the Convention of London the shots
fired at Fort Sumter had initiated the Civil War in the United States. Convulsed with severe
difficulties, the government in Washington was able to do little but issue a few mild protests.
The Union hardly wanted to push France into an alliance with the Confederacy. When it
came time to consider recognition of the Mexican empire, however, the Lincoln adminis-
tration refused. Washington considered the Juárez government in exile to be the legitimate
representative of the Mexican people.
As the fortunes of the North improved and those of the Confederacy declined, Juárez
embarked upon an all-out campaign to secure assistance from the United States. He charged
the head of the Mexican legation in Washington, Matías Romero, a young but forceful diplo-
mat, with the task of securing some implementation of a resolution, passed in 1864 by the
US House of Representatives, that condemned the French intervention. At approximately the
same time he dispatched an entire team of secret agents to the United States to secure finan-
cial and military aid and to begin recruiting American soldiers of fortune. Romero opened
discussions with representatives of the Lincoln administration, but progress was impeded by
Lincoln’s assassination and the necessity of opening a new round of negotiations with the
government of Andrew Johnson.
The end of the Civil War brought about a major change in US policy. The North had
more than nine hundred thousand men under arms when Lee surrendered to Grant at Ap-
pomattox. No longer fearful of offending the French, Secretary of State William Seward
began applying pressure to Napoleon III. At the same time the US government, prompted
by Romero, closed its eyes to violations of neutrality legislation and allowed Juarista agents
to purchase arms and ammunition in California for shipment to west coast Mexican ports
under republican control. Juárez’s agents were also allowed to pass back and forth across the
international line without hindrance from customs officials or border patrols. Some three
thousand Union veterans, attracted by good pay and a promised land bonus, joined the
Juarista army. Influenced by these developments as well as a new threat to French security in
Europe from Otto von Bismarck, Napoleon made his belated decision to begin withdrawing
his foreign legion in November 1866.
The gradual withdrawal of the French troops into early 1867 left Maximilian in an im-
possible position. To no avail he sent a series of envoys to Paris to convince Napoleon that
he should honor the commitment he had made in the Convention of Miramar. Maximil-
ian then toyed with the idea of abdicating his throne, but Carlota appealed to his sense of
Hapsburg dignity and convinced him that he must stay on. She had earlier encouraged him
to adopt the two-year-old grandson of Agustín de Iturbide as his heir to the throne. The tod-
dler quickly became not only the “last prince of the Mexican empire,” but also a pawn in a
custody battle. Carlota now traveled to Europe herself, but her appeals to Napoleon and the
pope were rejected. Pius IX could not have been happy that Maximilian had taken no steps
to restore the church lands in Mexico. A distraught Carlota soon lost her mind.
T H E R E P U B L I C A N V I C T O R Y A N D T H E A F T E R M AT H
Spurred on by the fortuitous combination of events in Europe and America, Juárez and his
republican army assumed the offensive in the spring of 1866. General Luis Terrazas cap-
tured Chihuahua City, while General Mariano Escobedo shattered a strong French column
between Matamoros and Monterrey. Before the end of the year the republicans reoccupied
much of Mexico. With the French army pulling out of Mexico, the treasury empty, and Car-
lota sick in Europe, Maximilian reluctantly decided to make one last stand. Mexico’s second
empire collapsed in the colonial city of Querétaro. Maximilian took command of a few
thousand Mexican imperial troops but quickly found himself surrounded by a republican
army four times as strong. After nearly one hundred days, Maximilian could no longer with-
stand the republican siege of Querétaro. Although careful plans had been laid for the em-
peror’s escape, he preferred the solemn dignity of surrender on May 15.
Juárez immediately decided Maximilian’s fate; the emperor would be tried by court-
martial, and the state would request the death penalty. Despite a rain of pleas for clemency
from European monarchs, Latin American presidents, and delegations of tearful, supplicat-
ing women, Juárez remained adamant. Thirteen accusations were leveled against Maximil-
ian, including violation of Mexico’s sovereignty; but the most important was that he had
signed the infamous decree of October 1865 resulting in the death of innumerable Mexican
citizens. The chief defense attorneys, Mariano Riva Palacio and Rafael Martínez de la Torre,
ardently denied the competence of the court to sit on the case and argued that the leniency
shown to Jefferson Davis in the United States after the Civil War should serve as a precedent.
The verdict, however, was based more on political considerations than on legal ones. Juárez
believed that use of executive clemency, at the end of the War of the Reform, had caused
Mexico to pay a terrible price. He wanted to demonstrate to the world that Mexico’s existence
as an independent nation would not be left to chance or to the goodwill of foreign heads of
state. By one vote, the court voted for the death penalty. The final appeal to President Juárez
was rejected in the interest of assuring public peace.
A contemporary woodcut depicting the execution of Maximilian and two of his Mexican generals, Tomás Mejía
and Miguel Miramón, on the Hill of the Bells outside Querétaro.
On the morning of June 19, after receiving the last sacrament, his executioners led Maxi-
milian to the Hill of the Bells on the outskirts of Querétaro. There they shot him along
with several Mexican conservative officers.Édouard Manet’s striking images of the execution,
painted in the late 1860s, served as powerful criticism of France’s ill-fated imperial adven-
ture. As tragic and senseless as the event might have appeared from abroad, fifty thousand
Mexicans had just as surely lost their lives fighting the French.
The price of the French Intervention, however, cannot be assessed solely in terms of the
lives lost. The attempt to tamper with Mexico’s sovereignty had ended in dismal failure, and,
as a result, Mexican nationalism and self-esteem began to grow perceptibly for the first time.
The United States had helped in a small way, but it had been Mexicans who drove out the
French. The republican victory was, at least in part, a vindication of the Constitution of 1857
and the principles it had espoused. The clerical party had been defeated, and although the
country had not seen the last of its major church–state struggles, the church and its defend-
ers in the future would seek more modest goals. The conservatives were discredited, at least
for the time, because liberalism in the popular mind became identified with moral authority
and independence from foreign aggression.
On the other hand, the intervention had left Mexican commerce, industry, and agricul-
ture in a quagmire. Education had suffered immeasurably, and the treasury was still empty.
The years without a single, central authority reinforced tendencies toward localism, however
patriotic, parts of southern Mexico in Tabasco and Yucatán remained outside of the national
fold. A strong nation state had yet to emerge from the political instability and lack of eco-
nomic growth during much of the nineteenth century.
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Roeder, Ralph. Juárez and His Mexico. 2 vols. New York: Viking Press, 1947.
Rugeley, Terry. The River People in Flood Time: The Civil Wars in Tabasco, Spoilers of Empire. Stanford, CA:
Scholes, Walter V. Mexican Politics during the Juárez Regime, 1855–1872. Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 1957.
Schoonover, Thomas D. Dollars over Dominion: The Triumph of Liberalism in Mexican–United States Relations,
1861–1867. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.
. Mexican Lobby: Matías Romero in Washington, 1861–1867. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
1986.
Sinkin, Richard N. The Mexican Reform, 1855–1876: A Study in Liberal Nation Building. Austin, TX: Institute
of Latin American Studies, 1979.
Smart, Charles Allen. Viva Juárez! London, UK: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964.
Smith, Benjamin T. The Roots of Conservatism in Mexico: Catholicism, Society, and Politics in the Mixteca Baja,
Vanderwood, Paul. “Betterment for Whom? The Reform Period: 1855–1875.” In The Oxford History of
Press, rev. 2010.
CHA PTER 21
THE RESTORED REPUBLIC:

NASCENT MODERNIZATION
M odern Mexican history begins with the liberal victory of 1867.1 In a very real sense
the republic became a nation. Concerned with the growth of political democracy in
Mexico, Juárez and his republican cohorts would try for a decade to consolidate their victory
by implementing the letter and spirit of the Constitution of 1857 and, at the same time,
by setting Mexico on the path of modernization. The sailing was far from smooth, but the
political process showed signs of maturation. The scars from the recent wars of the reform
and the intervention were deep; liberals set out to inaugurate a new era of peace and mate-
rial progress. Mexicans had to overcome the deeply engrained suspicion that differences of
opinion, ideology, and practical politics should inevitably be settled by force rather than
by reason. And while all antagonisms did not dissipate during the restoration, bellicosity
became less of a reflex action. More important, this nine-year period established the guide-
lines for the profound changes that would occur in Mexico during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century.
JUÁREZ’S THIRD TERM
In marked contrast to Maximilian’s entrance into Mexico City in his ornate European car-
riage in 1864, Juárez entered the capital on July 15, 1867, in a stark black coach. Cheers
welled up from the thousands who lined the streets. His reception was triumphant, but
although Juárez enjoyed the display of camaraderie and goodwill, he recognized that it was
no time to rest on past laurels. He immediately called for presidential elections, announcing
himself as a candidate for a third term. Under the circumstances, few knowledgeable politi-
cians believed that a third term was excessive. Most of the first two had been spent on the run
with virtually no chance of implementing a progressive program. While preparing himself
for the elections, the president undertook an important political reform. In order to manifest
1 Daniel Cosío Villegas, ed. Historia moderna de México, 9 vols. (Mexico City, Mexico, 1955–72). The first three
volumes treat the restored republic.
300
The Restored Republic 301
the primacy of civilian over military rule, he reduced the size of the Mexican army from sixty
thousand to twenty thousand men.
In October Juárez won the presidential election and late in the year took office for a third
term. He had to face a situation not unlike that which he had encountered in 1861 when he
returned to office following the liberal victory in the War of the Reform. The administration
had to enunciate a policy toward the conservatives who had supported the French-imposed
monarchy. During the fight against the empire, the decrees issued from the Juarista head-
quarters concerning French sympathizers had been harsh indeed. The no-nonsense policy
was reaffirmed in Querétaro with the trial and execution of Maximilian. But by late 1867 few
liberals were still crying for revenge, and it seemed time to adopt a more conciliatory policy.
In a gesture of goodwill Juárez set free many political prisoners and reduced the sentences
of others.
E C O N O M I C A N D E D U C AT I O N A L R E F O R M S
The new administration wisely directed its energies into two main fields: a revamping of the
economy and a restructuring of the educational foundations of the country. Juárez named
Matías Romero, who had served his exiled government so effectively in Washington, as sec-
retary of the treasury. Romero formulated a plan for economic development that called for
the improvement of transportation facilities and the fuller exploitation of natural resources
through the attraction of foreign capital. He believed that Mexico’s economic future rested
largely on the revitalization of the mining industry rather than upon industrialization. The
key to increased mineral production required a major revision of Mexico’s tax and tariff
structure. Despite much congressional opposition, through hard work and thrift Secretary
Romero succeeded in bringing some order out of the economic chaos by 1872, but the divi-
dends he expected in the form of substantial capital investment would wait for several years.
While tariff and tax revision were important, other factors still discouraged the potential
investor. Political instability, minor rebellions, the presence of private armies and groups of
bandits for whom lawlessness had become a way of life, all dissuaded foreign capitalists seek-
ing lucrative investment fields. Travel on Mexico’s roads and shipment of merchandise were
precarious. One of the answers was found in a relatively new concept of public security. Prior
to the French intervention, Benito Juárez had authorized the establishment of a rural police
force, the rurales, modeled in some ways on the Spanish guardia civil. But jurisdiction over
the security guard was divided between two government departments: war and interior. The
overlapping and often confusing jurisdictions undermined the effectiveness of the organiza-
tion, and it did not amount to much. After the overthrow of the empire, however, Juárez’s
congress authorized an increased budget for the rurales and, in 1869, placed them under the
sole jurisdiction of the Department of Interior. With more adequate funds and with the orga-
nizational problem resolved, the rurales began to play a major peace-keeping role. Patrolling
the roads, assisting the army, guarding special shipments of bullion and merchandise, and
policing local elections, they contributed to the stabilization of life in the countryside.
Without question the most important economic development to occur during the
early years of the restoration was the completion of the Mexico City-Veracruz railroad. The
302 liberals and conservatives s e a r c h f o r s o m e t h i n g b e t t e r
enterprise had begun in 1837, and short segments of a couple of kilometers had been com-
pleted periodically since that time. But in 1860, when the United States had over thirty thou-
sand miles of track in operation, Mexico had barely 150 miles. The stage between Mexico
City and Guadalajara (a distance of some 425 miles) often took more than a week even if
it was not mired in the mud or assaulted by bandits. To be sure, construction in the rugged
terrain between the Mexican capital and Veracruz on the gulf was an engineering nightmare,
for the roadbed had to rise from sea level to over 9,000 feet and had to be built across huge
canyons and precipices.
During the period of the empire the concession rights were held by the Imperial Mexican
Railway Company, a corporation registered in London. The British engineers who worked
for Maximilian made considerable progress in laying portions of the roadbed, but by 1866
the company was almost bankrupt and all work stopped. Upon the restoration of the re-
public Juárez exempted the company from the forfeiture legislation that applied to all who
had supported Maximilian on the condition that construction be resumed. Realizing that
the company was broke, Juárez also agreed to pay it an annual subsidy of 560,000 pesos for
twenty-five years. The agreement reached by the government and the company produced
considerable bombast in the Mexican congress. Among the leading stockholders was Anto-
nio Escandón, a conservative who had been a member of the Mexican delegation that visited
Miramar in October 1863. Cries of governmental favoritism to traitors emanated from the
congress, but Juárez believed that the railroad was more important than partisan politics and
went ahead with his plans.
In an attempt to soothe passions the company was renamed the Ferrocarril Mexicano
(Mexican Railroad Company). The British engineers did a noteworthy job of construction,
digging endless tunnels and breaching the Barranca de Metlac, a chasm 900 feet across and
375 feet deep. Gradually the company closed the gaps, tied all the rails, and finished the
job December 20, 1872. The line was officially inaugurated on January 1 of the following
year. Archbishop Pelagio Antonio de Labastida formally blessed the new project at the Bue-
naventura station in Mexico City. Church endorsement of a liberal government enterprise a
decade before would have been unthinkable, but Juárez had been actively mending relations
with the church, recognizing that its pervasive cultural influence among the masses fueled
popular politics. The successful completion of the railroad whetted the appetite, encourag-
ing other entrepreneurs to contemplate the desirability, indeed the necessity, of constructing
other major lines.
Education, too, began to move in a new direction with the restoration of the republic.
In the fall of 1867 Juárez appointed a five-man commission to reorganize the entire edu-
cational structure of the country. The committee was headed by Gabino Barreda, a medical
doctor who had studied in France and become a devotee of the positivist philosophy of
Auguste Comte. While positivism would not become the official state doctrine in Mexico for
another fifteen years, its roots most definitely can be found in Barreda’s educational values.
Congress adopted the curriculum recommended by the committee in late 1867, establishing
the National Preparatory School to serve as a model; it placed heavy emphasis on arithmetic,
the rudiments of physics and chemistry, and practical mechanics in the primary schools and
Spanning the Metlac Ravine was an engineering achievement of major proportions.
further emphasis on mathematics and the natural sciences in the secondary schools. The arts
and the humanities, while not entirely ignored, were subordinated to an understanding of
the physical world.
More important to Juárez than the curriculum itself was the fact that primary educa-
tion in Mexico was made free and obligatory for the first time. All towns with a population
of over five hundred would have one school for boys and one for girls. Two more schools
were to be built for every additional two thousand inhabitants. But, as had been the case in
Mexico since the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, theory and practice, the law and the reality,
seldom merged. Universal primary education remained mostly a liberal dream, despite the
establishment of some girls’ schools.
Juárez and his Secretary of Foreign Relations Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada took special care
to cultivate friendly diplomatic relations with Mexico’s neighbors and with the powers of
Europe, most of which had recognized the empire of Maximilian. In his first address to
the congress in 1867 the president acknowledged the sympathy and support of the United
States. William Seward’s visit to Mexico in 1869 further cemented the relationship, and the
two countries agreed to lay claims, accumulated since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
before a mixed claims commission. Gradually relations with Europe resumed as well.
D I V I S I O N A M O N G T H E L I B E R A L S A N D T H E D E AT H O F J U Á R E Z
Juárez’s third term was his best, and in the presidential elections of 1871 he decided, against
the advice of many friends, to seek a fourth. The one-time pillar of constitutional liberal-
ism had become prey to the nineteenth-century Latin American political myth of indis-
pensability. The election of 1871 was one of the most hotly contested of the nineteenth
century as two former supporters ran against him: Porfirio Díaz, who had won his military
laurels in the wars against the French, and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, the brother of the
author of Ley Lerdo. The election occasioned a three-way split in the undisciplined liberal
party—Juaristas, Porfiristas, and Lerdistas. Juárez still enjoyed a wide base of popular sup-
port and had most of the federal bureaucracy working in his behalf. Lerdo counted on the
strong backing of the professional classes and many of the socially prominent and wealthy,
while Díaz was supported by some of the military outcasts from the conservative party and
many veterans who felt their service had been ignored. Both the Lerdistas and the Porfiristas
attacked the concept of continuous reelection as a violation of the republican principles
Juárez had always espoused.
When the ballots were counted after the June election, none of the three candidates re-
ceived the requisite majority of the votes. The choice, according to the Constitution of 1857,
thus fell upon the congress. The Juaristas had done well in the congressional elections and
dominated that body when it convened in the early fall, eventually securing the election of
A caricature by Santiago Hernández of Juárez and his op-

position. Entitled “Little Fingers,” it illustrates how the op-
position whittled away at Juárez’s power.
Juárez. Of the two defeated candidates, Díaz accepted the decision with less grace. On No-
vember 8, 1871, he proclaimed himself in revolt against the Juárez regime.
The Plan de la Noria proclaimed that indefinite reelection of the chief executive repu-
diated the principles of the Revolution of Ayutla and endangered the country’s national
institutions. No officeholder who exercised national jurisdiction of any kind in the year
preceding presidential elections should be eligible to run for that high position. Those who
accept the plan, Díaz proclaimed, “will fight for the cause of the people and the people will
be the only victors. The Constitution of 1857 will be our banner and less government and
more liberty our program.”2 But Díaz’s fellow citizens were not yet ready for another armed
insurrection, and Díaz was disappointed at the lack of interest his plan generated. While a
few local caciques declared for the movement, Díaz had not struck a responsive chord. The
army he put in the field was quickly defeated by the federals.
The revolt of La Noria had fallen apart when, on July 19, 1872, Juárez suffered a coronary
seizure and died in office. Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, the chief justice of the Supreme Court,
became acting president and scheduled new elections for October. Lerdo enjoyed a reputa-
tion for keen intelligence, great oratorical and administrative ability, and unquestionable
republican sympathies. He decided to run against Porfirio Díaz in the elections and defeated
him easily. Since Díaz’s revolution against Juárez had been predicated almost entirely on the
principle of no reelection, the caudillo from Oaxaca accepted the outcome.
LERDO’S PRESIDENCY
President Lerdo believed that the foundation of Mexico’s future progress rested heavily on
the establishment of peace. The material progress he envisioned could not be achieved with-
out order, and order was impossible without firm executive control. The national govern-
ment had to curb disruptive localism and weaken the army. Mexican liberalism underwent
a significant change as it became increasingly elitist and no longer antithetical to centralism
and dictatorship. When political disputes occurred in the states or indigenous communities
resisted assaults on their autonomy, Lerdo did not hesitate to intervene with federal forces.
Lerdo wisely retained many Juaristas in his government and, in seeking his goals, followed
the same general policies that had been formulated by his famous predecessor. He used the
rurales to patrol and protect the Mexico City-Veracruz railroad. To foster communications de-
velopment he let railroad contracts for the construction of a new line north from Mexico City
to the US border. A company made up of both Mexican and British investors, the Central Rail-
road of Mexico, obtained the concession. A US concern, headed by Emile la Sere of New Or-
leans, received promise of a subsidy of 12,500 pesos for each mile of track it laid down across
the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. And, finally, the government encouraged feeder lines to connect
with the recently completed Ferrocarril Mexicano and negotiated other contracts for the con-
struction of telegraph lines. Lerdo’s goal—to connect all of the state capitals to Mexico City
by telegraph—was not reached, but he did add over sixteen hundred miles of telegraph line.
2 Quoted in Historia documental de México, vol. 2, eds. Ernesto de la Torre Villar, et al. (Mexico City, Mexico,
1964), 361.
Pilgrimages were made to Juárez’s tomb in Mexico City long after his death in 1872.
In the field of education Lerdo furthered the efforts of his predecessor. Augmented fed-
eral and local funds resulted in a sharp increase in school construction but only a gradual
increase in school enrollment. Between 1870 and 1874 the number of schools in Mexico
almost doubled, but even in the latter year the 349,000 students represented only one of
nineteen school-age children. And years of tradition had established another pattern that
was difficult to break; of these only 77,000 were female.
With school construction growing much more rapidly than enrollment, many school
seats remained empty. Availability of classroom space was not itself the answer. An available
school seat did not mean that a competent teacher would be found or that a poor father
would sacrifice the meager supplement to the family income that three or four small chil-
dren working in the fields, shining shoes, or selling newspapers might provide.
The Lerdo administration made progress in other areas. The government added France
to the list of European countries that had restored diplomatic relations. Secretary of the
Treasury Romero continued his work on tariff revision and was able to codify his efforts.
Lerdo also broke ground on one important political reform. The unicameral national legis-
lature provided by the Constitution of 1857 had been under attack for years. The president
proposed that a second house be added, and the legislative branch responded to the request
in 1875. A Senate was added to the Chamber of Deputies, bringing the legislature back to
the formula that had been first tested in 1824. Lerdo wanted the second, more elite body
because he believed that it could be useful to him in his centralization efforts.
Lerdo’s administration made progress but he did not emerge from the Mexican presi-
dency unscathed. The enemies mounted, the press assailed him mercilessly, and prominent
politicians of both parties spoke out strongly against him. When Lerdo announced that he
planned to seek reelection in 1876, Porfirio Díaz perceived that history was finally on his
side. In March 1876, five years after his unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Benito Juárez
under the Plan de la Noria, Díaz issued the Plan de Tuxtepec, charging that Lerdo had re-
peatedly violated the sovereignty of the states and the municipalities, sacrificed Mexico’s best
interests in negotiating the railroad contracts, reduced the right of suffrage to a farce, and
squandered public funds. But, most importantly, the plan established no reelection of the
president and the governors of the states as the supreme law of the land. Effective suffrage
and no reelection were to be the guiding principles of the Mexican political process.
The Revolution of Tuxtepec was decided in one battle as soldiers in a score of states
flocked to the new banner. The opposing forces met on November 16 at Tecoac in the state
Schools Students enrolled

9 450
8 400
7 350
6 300
Thousands
Thousands
5 250
4 200
3 150
2 100
1 50
1844 1857 1870 1874 1844 1857 1870 1874
Schools and Student Enrollment, 1844–74

Source: Daniel Cosío Villegas, ed., Historia moderna de México, Vol. 3: La República restaurada, La vida social, by Luis Gonzálezy
González et al. (Mexico, 1957), 643, 692–694.
of Tlaxcala; Díaz, reinforced by cohort Manuel González, carried the day. President Lerdo
made his way to Acapulco where a steamer waited to carry him to the United States. Porfirio
Díaz occupied Mexico City on November 21, 1876; he would control the country, directly or
indirectly, for the next third of a century.
Careful examination of the restored republic reveals it as a critical transition between the
demise of the empire and the establishment of the Díaz dictatorship. For the first time in Mex-
ican history the administrations in power seemed to pull the country together rather than to
drive it apart. All of the major changes generally attributed to Díaz and his successive cabinets
in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth have their base
in the years 1867–76: tax and tariff reform; increased public security, especially in the rural
areas; recognition of the need to attract foreign capital; the improvement of transportation
and communication facilities; the cultivation of better relations abroad; a slightly less antago-
nistic relationship between church and state; and increased centralism disguised as federal-
ism. Juárez and Lerdo, especially the former, laid the foundations, and Porfirio Díaz would
construct the edifice. But modern Mexico did begin in 1867. Díaz’s subsequent accomplish-
ments were possible because his two predecessors in the presidential chair had paved the way.
Acuña, Rodolfo F. Sonoran Strongman: Ignacio Pesqueira and His Times. Tucson: University of Arizona Press,
1974.
Bazant, Jan. Alienation of Church Wealth in Mexico: Social and Economic Aspects of the Liberal Revolution,
Caplan, Karen D. Indigenous Citizens: Local Liberalism in Early National Oaxaca and Yucatán. Stanford, CA:
Chassen-López, Francie. From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca: The View from the South, Mexico, 1867–1911.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
Glick, Edward B. Straddling the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1959.
Knapp, Frank A. The Life of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada: A Study of Influence and Obscurity. Austin: University
Mallon, Florencia E. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru. Berkeley: University
Scholes, Walter V. Mexican Politics during the Juárez Regime, 1855–1872. Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 1957.
Sinkin, Richard N. The Mexican Reform, 1855–1876: A Study in Liberal Nation Building. Austin, TX: Institute
of Latin American Studies, 1979.
Smart, Charles Allen. Viva Juárez! London, UK: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964.
Thomson, Guy P. C., with David G. LaFrance. Patriotism, Politics, and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth-
Century Mexico: Juan Francisco Lucas and the Puebla Sierra. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999.
Vanderwood, Paul. “Genesis of the Rurales: Mexico’s Early Struggle for Public Security.” Hispanic American
Weeks, Charles A. The Juárez Myth in Mexico. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987.
C HA PTER 22
SOCIETY AND CULTURE

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
RURAL LIFE
Mexico remained overwhelmingly rural in the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s, and life for the av-
erage citizen changed little. Those who resided in the Indian pueblo or the mestizo village
lived much like their parents or their grandparents. In terms of earning power, standard of
living, diet, life expectancy, and education, the life of rural Mexicans during the empire and
the restored republic closely mirrored the past. In many cases, however, communities did
engage with national changes, often through a popular politics oriented toward molding the
new to fit the old.
The gap separating brown and white Mexico, poor and rich Mexico, was not bridged in
the middle of the century. It might even have grown more pronounced. Writer Francisco
Pimentel described the dichotomy of Mexican worlds in 1865:
The white is the proprietor; the Indian the worker. The white is rich; the Indian poor and
miserable. The descendants of the Spaniards have within their reach all of the knowledge of
the century and all of the scientific discoveries; the Indian is completely unaware of it. The
white dresses like a Parisian fashion plate and uses the richest of fabrics; the Indian runs
around almost naked. The white lives in the cities in magnificent houses; the Indian is iso-
lated in the country, his house a miserable hut. They are two different peoples in the same
land; but worse, to a degree they are enemies.1
Foreign travelers to Mexico found the main roads slightly improved over a generation
earlier, but most others were still an abomination. Scarcely a visitor to the country failed to
note the banditry that plagued the highways. The wife of Prince Salm-Salm, one of Maximil-
ian’s confidants, described the anxieties of passengers of the stagecoach from Veracruz to
Mexico City:
1 Quoted in Luis González y González, et al., Historia moderna de México, vol. 3: La república restaurada, La vida
social, ed. Daniel Cosío Villegas (Mexico City, Mexico, 1957), 151.
309
It occurs very frequently that the diligence is attacked and plundered by robbers, and many
horrible adventures of that kind are recorded, furnishing the passengers not very reassuring
matter for conversation, and keeping them in a continual excitement. . . . The coachman
does not even attempt to escape or resist; it is his policy to remain neutral, for if he acted
otherwise it would not only be in vain, but cost him his life—a bullet from behind some
bush would end his career on the next journey. . . .2
Overnight lodging in the larger towns, while generally not elegant, had improved since
the early post-independence years. But accommodations were still lacking in rural areas.
William Marshall Anderson, a U.S. citizen who visited Mexico during the empire, found in
one southern village “no shelter nor place to rest but a miserable grass covered shanty, no
bigger or better than my sheep pen.” As he moved north the architecture changed but not
the amenities. “Unplastered stone walls and a dirt floor constitute the comfort and elegance
of our accommodation.”3
By the 1850s and 1860s rural Mexicans were certainly long accustomed to violent dep-
redations including theft and rape. French troops reportedly comported themselves even
worse than their American predecessors of 1846–48. Already active in popular politics that
sought to strengthen their communities, indigenous and mixed-race campesinos began to
express proto-nationalist sentiments. In Oaxaca and other areas, some communities devel-
oped new collective identities that mixed elements of popular liberalism or conservatism,
folk Catholicism, traditional customs and communal rights, and the acceptance of new
ideas about property and commercial agriculture.
The social consequences of war did not end with the expulsion of the French. When
President Juárez cut back on the size of the Mexican army, tens of thousands of former
soldiers faced an uncertain future. Not a few of them formed bands and took out their frus-
trations on rural villages or hacienda complexes. The newspapers of the period were filled
with stories of brigandage and plunder that the newly formed rurales could only contain
in part.
P O P U L AT I O N A N D S O C I A L P R O B L E M S
As might be expected during a period of foreign war and domestic turmoil, the population
of Mexico grew slowly during the middle of the nineteenth century. Some of the state capi-
tals even lost inhabitants, and northern Mexico still supported a scanty population. From
a figure of 7,860,000 in 1856, the census countered only 8,743,000 Mexicans in 1874. The
slow rate of growth cannot be attributed to a low birth rate. To the contrary, the birth rate
remained consistent overall, but war casualties and a high infant mortality rate kept the
population down.
2 Princess Felix Salm-Salm, Ten Years of My Life, vol. 1 (London, UK, 1876), 183–85.
3 William Marshall Anderson, An American in Maximilian’s Mexico, 1865–1866: The Diaries of William Marshall
Anderson, ed. Ramón Eduardo Ruiz (San Marino, CA, 1959), 15, 80.
Society and Culture in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century 311
Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila, hardly grew at all in the 1860s and 1870s, but it was one of the more charming
provincial capitals of the north.
Policymakers during both the empire and the restored republic wished to open up new
lands, and some even spoke of the need to encourage the development of a new class of in-
dependent farmers by encouraging European immigration. New legislation in the 1850s and
1860s sought to do this while averting the earlier disastrous experience in Texas. Nonetheless,
religious intolerance, political instability, and much administrative mismanagement all miti-
gated against a successful program. The three thousand immigrants from western Europe, the
United States, and China who began to arrive annually during the restoration did not even
offset the emigration of Mexicans to the United States. In 1876 only about twenty-five thou-
sand people in Mexico were foreign-born and almost all resided in the larger cities.
Mexico City’s population grew to two hundred thousand during the restored republic,
and the capital experienced some remarkable physical transformations. Without question
the most notable was the construction of an impressive new thoroughfare that connected
Chapultepec Castle to the heart of the city. The project initiated under Maximilian, who had
named it the Calzada de la Emperatriz in honor of Carlota, did not reach completion until
the period of the restored republic. Benito Juárez changed the name, most appropriately, to
the Paseo de la Reforma, still today an impressive boulevard.
Growth and change in Mexico City also accelerated social problems. Prostitution had
long been accepted as a necessary evil in Mexico, but when the women of the street began
openly soliciting clients at the entrance to the main cathedral and the hundreds of smaller
churches, a public uproar followed. Those who called for moral reform pointed to the bur-
geoning rate of venereal disease and the perversion of the young and innocent. As the nine-
teenth century progressed, public discourse shifted to emphasize the moral and physical
health of the nation. Its advocates increasingly connected childbirth and reproduction with
The turbulence of the French Intervention and the restoration made it inevitable that soldiers would be found
congregating in Mexico City.
the nation. The mother-child bond was essential to the healthy political and religious re-
production of the state. New laws aimed to increase regulation of medical care and prostitu-
tion. Legislation also targeted alcoholism and vagrancy deemed to lead to degeneracy. More
oversight governed drinking places, calling for separation between elite and popular spaces.
The Roman Catholic Church had always made alms giving a virtue, and by the middle
of the nineteenth century mendicancy had become a prominent feature of larger towns and
cities, with beggars numbering in the thousands in Mexico City. Men and women pleading
for assistance—the disabled, the blind, alcoholics, even abandoned children—were found
everywhere in the capital. When ignored on the streets or in the churches, they moved from
door to door in both residential and business zones. Government attempts to curb mendi-
cancy included the establishment of new charitable institutions and hospitals for the poor,
but these efforts accomplished little. Nevertheless, some Catholic lay organizations like the
Ladies of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, established in 1863, did attain more success in their
efforts to assist the poor through welfare programs and schools. These activities provided an
outlet for religious social sensibilities among those, especially women, who defied anticleri-
cal reforms. These groups represented an emerging social Catholicism that would expand
services to the needy.
THE THREE CLASSES
The lot of the urban working class at midcentury was only slightly better than that of the un-
employed. Job security was nonexistent, the worker being completely subject to the whims
of the employer. While the industrial revolution had scarcely touched Mexico, the capital did
have its share of factories producing textiles, soap, cigarettes, flour, and alcoholic beverages.
The thousands working in these small industries enjoyed but few protective laws. Legislation
regulating child labor, safety precautions, and other working conditions was scant; and of-
ficials seldom enforced those laws on the books. Slightly better off were people who worked
for themselves, the tens of thousands of street vendors each with a distinctive call, hawking
tortillas, sweet bread, fruit, flowers, water, ice, candy, pottery, straw baskets, tamales, pulque,
roasted corn, milk, ice cream, rosaries, crucifixes, pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and an
endless variety of other goods. But their diet was grossly deficient and their life expectancy
short; most were illiterate and lived in primitive housing on the outskirts of Mexico City.
For the illiterate city dweller or the recent immigrant from the countryside, domestic
service provided an opportunity to work. As a generation earlier, the maids, gardeners, door-
keepers, valets, stable masters, chambermaids, and nannies did relatively well. They received
up to fifteen pesos a month without food, or four pesos with room and board. But they were
at least assured a clean room in which to live and, despite long hours, tolerable working
conditions in a relatively safe residential district of the capital.
The still tiny middle class—composed of shopkeepers, merchants, small independent
entrepreneurs, professional men, government officials, and other white-collar workers—
lived comfortably but without amenities. The houses (often rooms above their stores)
were small but adequately furnished with locally made products. Tiles or straw mats cov-
ered the floor; rugs were unusual. Because of a grossly inadequate water supply system, few
smaller homes had private baths. Public bathing facilities were scarce and inconvenient
enough that neither daily nor weekly bathing was common; the trade in cheap perfumes
and colognes prospered.
The district of Tacubaya, at the western end of the city contained most of the palatial
residences of the wealthy families. A genuine showplace, an English visitor in the 1860s de-
scribed it as a district where “all the men with heavy purses build villas and country houses,
Growing from a poor Indian community to the most fashionable suburb of Mexico City, by 1850 Tacubaya often
housed Mexican presidents, cabinet ministers, bishops, and all of the wealthiest residents of the capital, both
Mexican and foreign. At midcentury its population stood at five thousand, but vacationers swelled the count to
sixty-five hundred during the summer months.
to which they retire in the summer months. . . . It is really a very pretty place.”4 Students
or professors from the Art Academy of San Carlos frequently decorated the façades of the
houses. Elegant patios, marble staircases, carved doors, crystal chandeliers, gold candela-
bra, imported pianos and carpets, rosewood furniture, and old Spanish paintings could be
found in every aristocratic home. Most also had private chapels with the patron saints of the
family’s members represented. The real marks of distinction, however, were the resplendent
private baths, decorated with imported French fixtures. Many of these aristocratic homes
required twenty or twenty-five servants to keep them going. Some of the affluent required
fewer but hired more in unabashed ostentation.
Women who visited Mexico in the 1860s and 1870s often commented upon the general
ignorance of the ladies of the genteel aristocracy they found there. One wonders just how
much the ladies of Europe knew about Mexican women of any class. Most daughters of
upper and middle class families went to school or received tutoring. The vast majority of
women had little access to the educational system.
S O C I A L A M U S E M E N T S A N D C U LT U R A L A C H I E V E M E N T S
Some everyday diversions cut across class lines. Members of the lower, middle, and upper
strata could be seen enjoying the promenades around the Alameda, the great central park
in the downtown business district, which was equipped with hydrogen gas lamps in 1873.
Everyone enjoyed the free concerts staged in the bandstands of the public parks, and all
partook of secular or religious fiestas. Public fairs and touring circuses from Europe or the
United States also attracted all elements of society, as did games of dice played outdoors. But
the greatest social leveler of all was the bullfight, a spectacle where the cabinet minister could
converse with his shoeshine boy and the aristocrat from Tacubaya could debate the awarding
of ears and tails with his gardener.
The bullfight was introduced in Mexico in the early sixteenth century and quickly became
a cultural institution. The main ring used in Mexico City in the middle of the century was
the Plaza del Paseo Nuevo. Built in 1851 at a cost of almost one hundred thousand pesos, it
seated ten thousand and filled to capacity each time a fight was held. To be sure, the more af-
fluent sat in the shade and the masses in the sun, the rich drank cognac and the poor pulque;
but they all saw the same show. Toreros Bernardo Gaviño, Pablo Mendoza, and Ignacio Gadea
were the rage of the era. But not all of the performances demonstrated skill and, after one par-
ticularly bad fight in 1867 during which several horses were killed and blood filled the ring,
the press began a concerted campaign for abolition of the sport. Emphasizing the brutality
of the spectacle, the opponents succeeded in having the congress pass legislation outlawing
bullfighting in the Federal District. Despite the outcry from the owners of the bullrings, the
raisers of fighting stock, the performers, and the thousands of fans bullfighting ceased until
1874 when a new ring was dedicated in Tlalnepantla, just outside the Federal District. The
placards announcing the Sunday spectacles were plastered all over the walls of the capital.
4 J. F. Elton, With the French in Mexico (London, UK, 1867), 37–38.

A Sunday bullfight at the Plaza de Toros de San Pablo, near Mexico City.
The arts did not necessarily mirror popular culture but they tended toward more social
awareness in the mid-nineteenth century. Focused neither in the complete rejection of the
Spanish past nor in profound social transformation, intellectuals did advocate a path for
mexicanidad, instilling pride in the nation through the establishment of a new, stronger,
secular, more developed, and progressive Mexico.
In literature the romantic novel was not superseded but did assume a distinctly new
flavor. The new novel, while no less moralistic than the old, took an instructive tone. To a
generation that had witnessed many civil wars and two foreign wars, the cultural orientation
was historical, and the historical novel lent itself perfectly to the goals of the new intelligen-
tsia. Armies, and especially foreign ones, marching through poor native villages, raping and
looting on their way, provided an abundance of subject matter for historical novelists like
Juan A. Mateos, Ireneo Paz, and Vicente Riva Palacio. These writers evoked compassion in
the reader not because the Indians and mestizos were poor but because they were Mexican
and subject to abuse.
The literary giant of the period was Ignacio Manuel Altamirano (1834–95). Born to
Indian parents in Tixtla, Guerrero, he went to school first in the pueblo and later in Mexico
City; but his education was interrupted by the wars of the reform and the French Inter-
vention. Elected to congress in 1861 he voiced radical opinions. After the expulsion of the
French he edited several literary journals and then turned his attention to the novel, a literary
form he believed should be didactic. In 1869 and 1871 he published two widely acclaimed
short novels, Clemencia and La Navidad en las montañas (translated as Christmas in the Moun-
tains). Set in Guadalajara during the French Intervention, Clemencia propounded the ideal of
patriotism through the characterization of an officer in the republican army. More profound
in social content, La Navidad en las montañas attacked forced conscription (the leva), urged
the development of a new educational system, and denounced the clergy for its failure to
meet the real needs of Mexicans. At the same time, Altamirano believed the church had a
role to play in alleviating rural poverty. The importance of cultivating social Christianity
and progressive roles for priests was also addressed in Juan Díaz Covarrubias’s 1858 novel
Gil Gómez, el insurgente.
As emperor, Maximilian underwrote the production costs of an opera by Melesio Morales,
Mexico’s foremost midcentury composer, but not even the fine arts could escape the intense
partiality of the age. The old Art Academy of San Carlos, subsequently changed to the Na-
tional Academy, was redesignated the Imperial Academy by Maximilian. Dedicated Juarista
liberals in the academy could not serve Maximilian in good conscience, and many resigned
their posts. After the French were expelled, the academy became the National School of Fine
Arts. Music of social awareness followed on the heels of Maximilian’s defeat with Aniceto
Ortega’s two most famous marches, both completed in 1867, that celebrated the defeat of
the invader. They were appropriately entitled Marcha Zaragoza and Marcha Republicana.
Two key figures dominated Mexican art in the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s: Pelegrín Clavé
(1810–80) and Juan Cordero (1824–84). Clavé, a Spaniard by birth, taught at the academy
for almost twenty years. He was a portrait painter of the first class; his fine depiction of
Benito Juárez, hanging today in the Chapultepec Museum of History. Cordero, much like
the historical novelists of the period, infused his painting with historical and philosophi-
cal themes that taught a message. In 1874 he completed a mural in the main staircase
of the National Preparatory School entitled Triumph and Study over Ignorance and Sloth.
It depicted Mexican progress in terms of science, industry, and commerce. This trilogy,
Gabino Barreda (1818–81). Barreda, who founded the Na-

tional Preparatory School in 1867, also introduced Mexico
to the positivism of Auguste Comte and in the process
provided the philosophical underpinnings for Mexican
cientificismo. In good positivist fashion, the curriculum he in-
troduced at the school subordinated the arts to the sciences.
he believed, would destroy ignorance and greed. A more scientific visual culture can also
be seen in the maps and atlases of Antonio García Cubas, who combined older carto-
graphic methods with new technologies to illustrate precise geographical coordinates. His
Carta general de la República Mexicana, drawn in 1857, was the first published map of the
Mexican nation-state. The innovations in visual culture also reflected the emergence of
the positivist creed in Mexico, expounded by Gabino Barreda, the director of the National
Preparatory School.
Nowhere is the midcentury culture of a new Mexico better illustrated than in the field
of philosophy, and seldom can the beginning of a philosophical movement be so accu-
rately pinpointed as Mexican positivism. On September 16, 1867, in an Independence Day
celebration in Guanajuato, Gabino Barreda delivered an eloquent speech subsequently
known as the “Civic Oration.” As a student of Auguste Comte, Barreda had read and ob-
served widely. He interpreted Mexican history as a struggle between a negative spirit (rep-
resented most recently by the alliance of the conservative and the French) and a positivist
spirit (embodied by the liberal republican forces). The combative phase of the struggle had
ended with the execution of Maximilian, and the country was now prepared to embark
upon the constructive phase. Barreda was optimistic. Mexico’s material regeneration could
be achieved through the most prudent application of scientific knowledge and the scientific
method. He ended his speech by coining a new slogan for the new Mexico: “Liberty, Order,
and Progress.” Within a short time, however, Mexican liberals would sense that liberty was
not an equal partner in the positivist trinity. It would be sacrificed, almost meticulously,
to order and progress. The liberal party would split asunder over the positivist issue, and
the moderates, who placed their faith in order and progress, would gain the upper hand.
Championing a gradualist approach to positivist dogma, they would be the harbingers of
Mexican modernity.
Altamirano, Ignacio Manuel. Christmas in the Mountains. Translated by Harvey L. Johnson. Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 1961.
Anderson, William Marshall. An American in Maximilian’s Mexico, 1865–1866: The Diaries of William Marshall
Anderson. Edited by Ramón Eduardo Ruiz. San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Publications, 1959.
Arrom, Silvia Marina. Containing the Poor: The Mexico City Poor House, 1774–1881. Durham, NC: Duke
Carrera, Magali M. Traveling from New Spain to Mexico: Mexican Mapping Practices of the Nineteenth Century.
Elton, J. F. With the French in Mexico. London, UK: Chapman & Hall, 1867.
Jaffary, Nora E. Reproduction and Its Discontents in Mexico: Childbirth and Conception from 1750 to 1905.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Hale, Charles A. The Transformation of Liberalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
McCrea, Heather. Diseased Relations: Epidemics, Public Health, and State Building in Yucatán, Mexico, 1847–
1924. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2011.
Nesvig, Martin A., ed., Religious Culture in Modern Mexico. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
Pedelty, Mark. Musical Ritual in Mexico City: From the Aztec to NAFTA. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.
Rugeley, Terry. Of Wonders and Wise Men: Religion and Popular Cultures in Southeast Mexico, 1800–1876.
Salm-Salm, Princess Felix. Ten Years of My Life. 2 vols. London, UK: Richard Bentley & Son, 1876.
Toner, Deborah. Alcohol and Nationhood in Nineteenth Century Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 2015.
Wasserman, Mark. Everyday Life and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2000.
Wilson, Robert A. Mexico: Its Peasants and Its Priests. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856.
Zea, Leopoldo. The Latin American Mind. Translated by James H. Abbott and Lowell Dunham. Norman:
. Positivism in Mexico. Translated by Josephine H. Schulte. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974.
1,500 Years of Mexican Art History
A Concise Visual Tour
D istinguished for its strength, dynamism, and creativity, the Mexican art endeavor has long
commanded world attention and acclaim. Centuries before that first colossal encounter
between the European and American worlds, ancient Mexican architects were designing mas-
sive pyramids and laying out imposing cities, replete with temples, palaces, plazas, and ball
courts. As these structures integrated the supernatural, transformed the physical landscape,
and altered the surrounding skyline, talented artists and master sculptors were summoned to
decorate the walls with paintings, fill the niches with statues, and inspire the masses. In the
process they left their indelible aesthetic touch in the form of murals and sculptured figures
fashioned with equal skill from materials as dissimilar as soft clay and hard stone.
The sixteenth century witnessed not only Spain’s physical conquest but an artistic invasion
as well. New forms and new styles resting on an absolutely different ethic came to dominate
creative output. For three full centuries Spanish colonial art and architecture proved a faithful
handmaiden to a distinctive Hispanic culture. Just as in the mother country, colonial art and
architecture came to the service of the Roman Catholic religion. The most extravagant exem-
plars of colonial architecture are found in the countless churches and cathedrals that adorned
city plazas and dotted the Mexican countryside from the rain forests of the south to the deserts
of the far north. Few colonial structures could compete with them in either quality or scale. In
the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it was the awe-inspiring but austere classic style
that dominated church architecture, giving way in the later seventeenth century to the baroque
with its easily recognizable sculptured facades and proliferation of ornamentation, and ulti-
mately yielding to an elaborate extension of the baroque known as Churrigueresque.
Although New Spain’s viceregal and ecclesiastical authorities sat for portraits, most paint-
ing examined religious themes. Baroque painting of the seventeenth century featured the lives
of saints and a militant, triumphant church, first on altarpieces and then in enormous free-
standing canvases. Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649–1714) excelled in this genre with com-
missioned works of brilliant pictorial vitality in the cathedrals of Mexico City and Puebla.
His painting of Mexico City’s plaza mayor near the turn of the eighteenth century (the cover
image for this book) departs from religious expression to portray the enormous square with
its cathedral (left) and the viceregal palace (top), exposing the damage to its façade from the
1692 revolt. The painting depicts bustling commercial activity in the plebeian Baratillo market
stalls (center) and the upscale Parián with imported merchandise from Asia (below). Over a
thousand figures embody novohispanos of all social, ethnic and occupational groups includ-
ing clerics, soldiers, men on horseback, children, indigenous women selling pulque and food,
buyers, and beggars. The juxtaposition of the viceroy in his carriage and the Indian tameme
lugging a heavy bundle through the gathering of wealthy women and men in their finery (bot-
tom) conveys stark class difference. Yet Villalpando’s ordering of space reveals no conflict in
this detailed panorama of daily intermingling.
Colonial sculpture differed from its pre-Columbian predecessor as it was regularly carved
from wood embellished with polychrome. The devotional statuary (called santos or bultos),
in concert with the religious paintings, clearly served the purposes of Spain’s evangelical mis-
sion and most often found its permanent home in the magnificent churches and convents of
the viceroyalty. Another expression, unique to Mexico, is the category of casta paintings that
depicted the offspring of a multitude of racial mixtures.
With Mexico’s independence from Spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century, art
assumed a distinctly secular tone for the first time. Although a number of independence heroes
were captured with oil on canvas, a changing nineteenth-century artistic imagination gradu-
ally expanded to embrace a much larger and diverse Mexican universe. No longer preoccupied
with religious expression, a new genre known as costumbrista interpreted everyday life and
customs, documenting the intrinsic vitality of an urban street scene or the elation of a local
fiesta. The costumbristas shared the stage with Mexico’s nineteenth-century landscape artists,
best exemplified by José María Velasco. These painters found their inspiration in the majesty
of a towering volcano, or the freshness of a river flowing bank to bank. Attentive always to
the subtleties of light and color, the landscape painters detailed panoramic images of Mexico’s
incredibly rich and varied topography. As the country moved hesitantly from the incessant
chaos of the early nineteenth century to become a more stable and modern polity, the artistic
community participated in the important transition to modernity. The artists of the late nine-
teenth century made it their task to reach an international audience in the effort to offset the
negative Mexican image too often held by influential foreign nationals.
It was with Mexico’s twentieth-century social revolution that the rich artistic heritage
of the centuries culminated in a muralist renaissance. Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s
the revolutionary muralists, enjoying generous government patronage, brought their genius to
the walls of public buildings where they could interpret and disseminate the lessons of Mexico’s
revolutionary ideal. Flanked by a coterie of gifted artistic compatriots, the three giants of the
movement were Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. While
Orozco attended Mexico’s well-known San Carlos Academy, Rivera and Siqueiros studied
painting in Europe.
A quintessential expression of the art of social protest, the Mexican muralists accentuated
the grandeur of Mexico’s Indian past, criticized the excesses of the conquest, and found ample
opportunity to censure corruption or betrayal of revolutionary ideals. While emphasizing con-
tent over form, their technique was superb. Even today art critics look in vain to find a more
momentous example of public art in the twentieth century, for it changed the way Mexicans
looked at themselves and how the outside world viewed Mexico. Yet other Mexican artists,
like Rufino Tamayo, who earned international acclaim, broke tradition with the muralists and
turned to more universal representations.
Pre-Columbian Classic Period
The north courtyard of the palace in the magnificent city of Palenque dates from the seventh century A.D.
Maya architects designed it not only to be aesthetically pleasing but to withstand the ravages of time.
The death mask of Pacal. Hanab Pacal ruled at Palenque from 615 to 683 A.D. His death
mask, fashioned improbably of jade mosaic, was found in Palenque’s Temple of Inscriptions
and today is included in the rich collection of the National Museum of Anthropology.
Anthropomorphic female figurine from
Nayarit, Classic Period. Prior to the conquest
many indigenous peoples of western Mexico
buried the dead, accompanied by decorative
offerings, in underground tombs. Finely pol-
ished and then protected with lacquer, this
beautiful ceramic work of a female giving birth
was uncovered in one of these tumbas de tiro
in central western Mexico.
Cacaxtla Mural. Flourishing from around 700

A.D. to 950 A.D., the fortified city of Cacaxtla
in what is now Tlaxcala encapsulates much
of the depth and diversity of pre-Columbian
architecture, painting, and statuary. The mural
pictured here portrays a figure adorned in
eagle regalia and standing on the omnipres-
ent religious symbol of ancient Mexico, the
feathered serpent.
Colonial
Cathedral of Oaxaca. Located on Oaxaca City’s main plaza (the zócalo) the cathedral’s massive fortified
walls and twin bell towers are reminiscent of sixteenth-century churches, but the facade with its exquisitely
carved figures and bas-relief columns clearly identify it as baroque. Utilizing local limestone of a greenish
yellow tone, construction began in the sixteenth century but took over a century to complete.
One of Mexico’s most unique churches, Santa María de Tonantzintla in the state of Puebla,
features the extensive use of ceramic tile. Completed in the eighteenth century, the sim-
ple beauty and symmetry of the tiled exterior stands in stark contrast to the interior,
which encompasses a veritable explosion of the Mexican Churrigueresque.
Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Miguel Cabrera (1695–1768), the most prolific and
distinguished Mexican artist of the colonial period, devoted much of his distinguished
career to producing works to adorn church altars and sacristies; but he also left this
stunning portrait of the most renowned lady of the colonial church, Sor Juana Inés de la
Cruz.
Casta painting by Miguel Cabrera De chino cambujo y d’India, Loba, 1763. Late in his
career Cabrera moved beyond religious art to test his considerable talent in casta
painting. This unique genre, with no European model upon which to build, captured
the centrality of mestizaje to Mexican colonial life by depicting parents of different
races with beautiful children showing unmistakable indebtedness to both.
Nineteenth Century
José Agustín Arrieta, La Sorpresa, 1850. Born in Puebla and trained in Mexico City, Arrieta delighted in street
and market scenes. This oil on canvas open air market is one of his most famous and now has its home in
the National Museum of History.
(Opposite page, bottom) Luis Coto, La Colegiata de Guadalupe, 1859. Landscape painter Luis Coto found a
way to contrast the old traditional Mexico and the new modern Mexico. On the northern edge of Mexico
City at Tepeyac Hill, where the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego in 1531, he painted the seventeenth-century
Guadalupe Collegiate Church behind a new locomotive pulling carriages.
Salvador Murillo, EI Puente de Chiquihuite, 1875. In an area of Mexico long remembered for its
oxcarts and mule trains, landscape painter Murillo found the modernization symbolism of a long
bridge and steam engine pulling a train too much to resist in this oil on canvas painted at the
end of the Restored Republic.
José María Velasco, The Valley of Mexico from the Cerro de Tepeyac, 1894. Combining minute foreground
detail and a broad panoramic vision, Velasco was Mexico’s master nineteenth-century landscape artist.
Here, the towering twin volcanoes of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl dominate the skyline of the high
valley of Mexico.
Twentieth Century
Diego Rivera from Día de los

Muertos, 1923–24. Decorating the
Court of the Fiestas at Mexico’s
Ministry of Education, Rivera’s Day
of the Dead mural celebrates the
unique festival with raucous music
and drinking. No kings, no vice-
roys, no bishops, no presidents or
generals are to be found but rather
a coterie of everyday Mexicans of
different colors, different social
classes, dead and alive, brought
together by culture and tradition
and joined in solidarity.
José Clemente Orozco, Zapata, 1930. Orozco’s Zapata, arguably his most
celebrated work, was painted eleven years after the assassination of the
famous Mexican revolutionary. Silhouetted in a doorway, a pensive and char-
ismatic Zapata and two of his soldiers witness the utter despair of two
peones.
David Alfaro Siqueiros from the Tormento de Cuauhtémoc, 1951. The imagery of this mural in
Mexico City’s Place of Fine Arts is so powerful and intense that it leaves little doubt about
Siqueiros’s understanding of what happened to Aztec chieftain Cuauhtémoc while a captive of
the Spaniards during the conquest.
Diego Rivera, Paisaje Zapatista, 1915. Rivera symbol-

ically evoked the power of the peasant revolution
in this painting that predated Orozco’s rendering of
Zapata. The abstract landscape illustrates the influ-
ence of cubism as Rivera applied it to unmistakably
Mexican material culture.
Rufino Tamayo, Dos Figuras en Rojo, 1973. Distancing himself from the muralists, the Oaxacan painter Tamayo
abstained from using art as a political statement and drew on Mexican folk art and pre-Columbian motifs to
produce works rich in color and texture that became more abstract over time. Here, we see a man and a
woman rendered ambiguously in both their interior and exterior forms.
PA RT
7
THE MODERNIZATION
OF MEXICO
C HA PTER 23
THE PORFIRIATO
Order and Progress
Porfirio Díaz directed the course of the Mexican nation for a third of a century during a
fascinating and vital period of the entire western world. Innovation characterized the era—
in technology, political and economic systems, social values, and artistic expression. Otto
von Bismarck transformed the German states into a nation. William Gladstone introduced
England to a new kind of liberalism. The leading powers of Europe partitioned Africa unto
themselves. The United States emerged as a world power, and Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico,
and the Philippines—the last remnants of its once-glorious empire. Russia experienced a
revolution that, though abortive, presaged things to come in 1917. Pope Leo XIII enunciated
Rerum Novarum, proclaiming that employees should be treated more as men than as tools.
Thomas Hardy and Thomas Mann revolutionized the world of fiction, while Renoir and
Monet did the same for art. But even in a world of profound change, Porfirio Díaz’s Mexico
must be considered remarkable.
MEXICO IN 1876
When Díaz assumed control of Mexico in 1876, except in a few of the larger cities, the coun-
try had scarcely been touched by the scientific, technological, and industrial revolutions
of the nineteenth century. While much of western Europe and the United States had been
transformed in the last fifty years, Mexico had languished, less out of inertia than because of
the intermittent political chaos and economic losses.
Although the period of the restoration had pointed Mexico in a new direction, plans for
change had only been partially implemented. In 1876 Díaz inherited an empty treasury, a
long list of foreign debts, and a huge bureaucratic corps whose salaries were in arrears. Mexi-
co’s credit rating abroad was abominable, and its politics had become somewhat of a joke in
Europe. The value of Mexican imports consistently exceeded the value of exports, presenting
a serious balance-of-payments problem and making it virtually impossible to secure sorely
needed infusions of foreign capital. The Mexican affluent, knowing the precarious nature of
the political process, would not invest their own resources to any large degree. Because of
321
322 the modernization of mexico
graft, ineptitude, and mismanagement, public services languished. The mail, if it arrived at
all, came inexcusably late.
Mining had never really recovered from the chaotic days of the wars for independence.
A small number of mines operated inefficiently without benefit of technological improve-
ments, and no coordinated efforts at new geological exploration had been undertaken. The
economic situation of agriculture was much the same. Modern reapers and threshers and
newly developed chemical fertilizers remained oddities. Practically nothing had been done
to improve the breeding of stock animals.
When Díaz came to the presidency the iron horse had just started to compete with the
oxcart, the mule train, and the coach. Telegraph construction had barely begun. The dock
facilities on both coasts were in sad disrepair, and many of the most important harbors
were silted with sand. Veracruz was so unsafe for shipping that some favored abandoning it
altogether. The rurales had not yet been able to contain banditry and rural violence. A tre-
mendously high infant mortality rate testified to the lack of modern sanitation and health
facilities even as the last quarter of the nineteenth century began. Yellow fever plagued the
tropical areas of the Gulf coast, particularly in the immediate environs of Veracruz.
Mexico City had a special health problem. Situated in a broad valley, it was surrounded
by mountains and a series of lakes, almost all of which were at a higher elevation than
the city. Heavy rains invariably brought flooding. In addition to extensive property damage
(floods often caused adobe walls to crumble), the waters then stagnated in low-lying areas
for weeks and months. Gastrointestinal and typhus disease frequently followed on the heels
of a serious flood. Projects to provide an adequate drainage system for the city had been pro-
posed since the early colonial period. The height of the surrounding mountains, however,
thwarted proposals for a foolproof system of drainage canals and dikes, and the projects
initiated from time to time could not produce lasting results.
ORDER AND PROGRESS UNDER DÍAZ
If progress were to displace stagnation, Díaz believed it would be necessary first to change
Mexico’s image drastically and to remove the stigma popularly associated with Mexican poli-
tics. Only if the potential investors from the United States and Europe became convinced that
stability was supplanting turbulence could they be expected to offer their dollars and pounds
sterling, for profit, to quickly vitalize the manufacturing, mining, and agricultural sectors of
the Mexican economy. The task, then, as Díaz perceived it, was first to establish the rule of
law. He was fully prepared to accept the positivist dictum of order and progress, in that order.
Díaz acceded to power with acknowledged liberal credentials and personal integrity.
Born to a family of modest means in the city of Oaxaca in 1830, he tried studying first for
the priesthood and then for the law. But he eventually opted for a career in the army. Join-
ing the Oaxaca National Guard in 1856, he fought under the liberal banner during the War
of the Reform. With the liberal victory promotions came with startling rapidity, and by the
time of his history-making defeat of the French in Puebla on May 5, 1862, he was a thirty-
two-year-old brigadier general. During the period of the empire he won additional military
fame championing the cause of liberal republicanism as a guerrilla fighter against the French
The Porfiriato 323
army. Not even his abortive revolt of La Noria against Benito Juárez or his successful revolt
of Tuxtepec against Lerdo de Tejada, both fought in defense of the liberal principle of no re-
election, tarnished his liberal reputation.
During his first term, which lasted until 1880, Díaz faced a number of insurrections.
Agrarian rebellions protesting seizure of village lands flared in many states, but not all the
revolts had agrarian roots. Some were prompted by Díaz’s failure to reward supporters or
by his heavy-handed appointments at the state level. But the most serious were a number of
revolts launched along the US border in support of exiled president Lerdo de Tejada. These
military movements not only threatened the success of Díaz’s pacification program but also
damaged his efforts to cultivate more friendly relations with his northern neighbor. He did
not hesitate to meet force with force. Rebel leaders not shot down on the field of battle were
disposed of shortly after their capture. Characteristic of Díaz’s attitude toward those who
would disrupt the national peace was his reaction to a revolt in Veracruz during his first
year in office. When Governor Luis Mier y Terán asked for instructions concerning captured
rebels in that state, Díaz reportedly telegraphed him, Mátalos en caliente (Kill them on the
spot). Such lessons were not lost on potential revolutionaries elsewhere. Less tranquil than
often portrayed in the post-1880 period, violent disruptions gradually abated. Yet violence
did shatter peace as often as in the past. Over 800 corpsmen had been added to the rurales
to curb brigandage. Order beckoned, along with progress.
Within a couple of years of his assumption of the presidency Díaz had been recognized
by most of western Europe and Latin America, but the United States held out pending the
satisfactory resolution of several outstanding problems. To overcome one obstacle, Díaz in
1876 agreed to terms that would satisfy US claimants over damages to their properties in
Mexico. The Hayes administration had one further grievance. Groups of Mexican bandits
and Indians occasionally crossed the border, attacked settlements in the United States, and
drove herds of cattle back into Mexico. The Mexican government, in the name of national
sovereignty, refused to grant permission to US forces to cross over into Mexico in pursuit.
In the summer of 1877 border depredations brought the two nations almost to the brink of
war. While Díaz would not permit American troops to enter Mexican territory, at this crucial
junction, he dispatched additional troops of his own to the border region to prevent further
encroachments. Tensions gradually subsided, and President Hayes authorized recognition of
the Díaz regime in the spring of 1877.
During his first administration Díaz also began to put Mexico’s economic house in order.
As a symbolic gesture he reduced his own salary and then ordered similar reductions for
other government employees. Thousands of useless bureaucrats were eliminated from the
rolls altogether. In addition, the administration attacked a problem endemic since the co-
lonial period—smuggling. To stem the annual loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in
import and export duties along the US border and in Mexico’s leading ports, Díaz decreed
heavy sentences for individuals and companies trafficking in smuggled goods. To stimulate
legal commerce with the United States the Mexican government opened three new consul-
ates along the Texas border, at Rio Grande City, Laredo, and Eagle Pass.
As Díaz’s first term drew to a close, several states urged that the no reelection law be
amended so that Díaz could be eligible to serve another term. But Díaz preferred the law
as it was; it provided that neither the president nor the state governors were eligible for im-
mediate reelection but could serve again after the lapse of an intervening term. He dutifully
retired from office. By voluntarily stepping aside Díaz could give further substance to the
growing conviction abroad that Mexico had begun to mature politically. As the term ended,
Díaz threw his support behind 47-year-old Manuel González, an imposing military man
who had rendered yeoman service in the fight against Lerdo and who currently served as
secretary of war. González won the election with a large majority.
THE GONZÁLEZ PRESIDENCY
The González presidency generated controversy. The new president wanted to follow the
patterns established by Díaz and, in fact, even brought his predecessor into the government
for a short time as head of the Department of Development. Revenues increased, but so
did expenditures as the administration plunged headlong into further development. Mod-
ernization was expensive. Railroad construction continued, but the US companies required
large subsidies from the government—as high as $9,500 for each kilometer of track laid.
The government also fostered new steamship lines and established the first cable service in
the country. But González had overextended spending and found himself without sufficient
funds to meet government obligations.
Stories of graft and corruption began filling the press, and political pamphlets denounc-
ing the regime circulated on the streets of Mexico City. They charged the president and his
cabinet with a variety of personal and public improprieties, including negotiating illegal
contracts and receiving rebates, selling government properties to administration favorites for
practically nothing, stealing from the treasury at a fantastic rate, and sexual misconduct. The
public turned against the president.
Some of these charges may have been exaggerated, but González had directed legal
changes that allowed for the government to appropriate lands it deemed were not being
used. These newly public lands could be sold to private investors. Not surprisingly, brib-
ery and misappropriation of indigenous lands ensued. González should be given credit for
encouraging the developmental process that had begun timidly with the restoration of the
republic. His efforts to stimulate railway construction and to make lands available for the ex-
pansion of commercial agriculture established a base from which Porfirio Díaz could readily
implement his modernization program.
THE RETURN OF DÍAZ
Díaz used his four years out of office to build a new political machine. He served for a brief
time in the González cabinet and for slightly over a year in the governorship of his native
state of Oaxaca. His understanding of local Oaxacan politics served to condition his think-
ing about the means to deal with rural villagers in pursuing his goals. Although he was not
adverse to using force, he realized the efficacy of negotiating across interest groups to strike
a balance that would further elite interests without gratuitous violence. He also inserted
himself more firmly into elite circles through marriage. His first wife, Delfina Ortega, had
The Porfiriato 325
died in 1880; the following year he married Carmen Romero Rubio, the daughter of Manuel
Romero Rubio, a Lerdista statesman and cabinet member. She was eighteen; Díaz had just
celebrated his fifty-first birthday. When they traveled to the United States on their honey-
moon as Mexico’s representatives to the New Orleans World’s Fair, newspapermen often
mistook her for his daughter. The well-bred, sensitive, and perfectly-prepared-to-be-a-first-
lady Señora Díaz began to educate her husband in the social graces, and within a couple of
years Díaz was much more the polished gentleman when he ran for the presidency in 1884.
In September Díaz swept to victory. From this time forward he would not feel the need to
step out of office after completing each term and would remain in the presidency continu-
ously until 1911. The conditions that greeted him in 1884 were a far cry from those of 1876.
F O U N D AT I O N S O F M O D E R N I Z AT I O N
Returning with renewed vigor, Porfirio Díaz had a plan for consolidating his political posi-
tion and stabilizing the country. Mexico entered a period of sustained economic growth the
likes of which it had never before experienced. As Mexico entered the modern age, steam,
water, and electric power began to replace animal and human muscle. A number of new hy-
draulic- and hydroelectric-generating stations were built as the modernization process tied
itself to the new machines it supported. The telephone arrived amid amazement and wonder
in the 1880s. The Department of Communications and Public Works supervised and coor-
dinated the installation of the wireless telegraph and submarine cables. A hundred miles of
electric tramway connected the heart of Mexico City to the suburbs.
A major breakthrough in health and sanitation occurred when Díaz hired the British firm
of S. Pearson and Son, Ltd., to bring modern technology to the drainage problem of Mexico
City. For 16 million pesos the English engineers and contractors, with the experience of the
Blackwell Tunnel under the Thames and the East River Tunnel in New York behind them,
successfully completed a thirty-mile canal and a six-mile tunnel that relieved the Mexican
capital of the threat of constant flooding and resultant property damage and disease. At ap-
proximately the same time the face of the country transformed to bolster the nation’s own
self-respect and its image abroad. A public building spree changed the contours of boule-
vards, parks, and public buildings. Monuments and statues were dedicated to the world’s
leading statesmen, intellectuals, and military figures. A new penitentiary costing 2.5 million
pesos opened in 1900 and a 3-million-peso post office in 1907. A new asylum for the insane,
a new municipal palace, and a new Department of Foreign Relations were dedicated prior
to the centennial celebrations of 1910. The white marble National Theater, however, missed
the centennial target date, and the heavy structure began to sink into the spongy subsoil of
Mexico City before it could be finished. Each time a new project was completed, the govern-
ment staged an elaborate, formal dedication to which foreign diplomats, dignitaries, and
businessmen received special presidential invitations. Their impressions of Mexico, relayed
to colleagues back home, would help effect the change of image.
Mexico’s own adaptation of positivism provided the philosophical underpinning of the
regime. The científicos, as those who followed in the footsteps of Gabino Barreda came to be
known, were not all orthodox Comteans. Some blended Comte with John Stuart Mill, and
others added a large dose of Herbert Spencer. Many científicos harbored a profound disdain
for the rural illiterate masses, whom they blamed for Mexico’s failure to progress after inde-
pendence. The idea that Mexico’s future lay solely with criollo elites would only be reinforced
as the processes of modernization widened the gulf between wealthy, forward-looking capi-
talists and poor laborers, believed to be mired in tradition and in need of firm control.
The president and his científico advisers realized first of all that they needed to under-
take a series of structural reforms to place Mexico’s economic house in order, and they were
fortunate to find an economic genius in their midst. José Ives Limantour, soon renowned in
European financial circles, was the son of a French émigré. A man of many talents, he was a
scholar, an accomplished jurist, and a dedicated linguist. First as subsecretary and then sec-
retary of the treasury, he applied the best positivist thought of the day to the reorganization
of the country’s finances which offered a fertile field for his talents. For Limantour, Mexico’s
future depended upon its economic regeneration. Gradually, during the 1880s and 1890s
Secretary Limantour lowered or eliminated the duties on many imports and permitted spe-
cial tariff exemptions for economically depressed areas of the country. He also negotiated a
series of loans at favorable rates of interest.
As significant as any of the individual reforms was Limantour’s decision to overhaul
the nation’s administrative machinery so that the reforms could be properly implemented.
While it would be foolhardy to suggest that all graft and corruption were eliminated, Liman-
tour did improve the situation markedly, at least at the lower echelons of government. The
dividends were startling. In 1890 Mexico paid the last installment of the debt to the United
States, growing out of the mixed claims settlement. Four years later Mexico not only had bal-
anced its budget for the first time in history but actually showed revenues running slightly
ahead of expenditures. This economic surplus allowed Díaz to reward his followers and
José Limantour (1854–1935). An advocate of positivism,

Limantour, as secretary of the treasury, brought order and
reason to Porfirian finances. Able and attentive to detail, he
was the epitome of the Porfirian statesman who would rein-
vent Mexican society.
The Porfiriato 327
build political and social networks among Mexican elites who supported him. When he left
office in 1911 the treasury had about 70 million pesos in cash reserves. Beyond all expecta-
tions, he had succeeded in reassuring the outside world that Mexico had not only turned the
corner but also deserved international dignity and respect.
The image abroad did change. As Limantour applied his skills to the reorganization of
the treasury and the country met its foreign obligations on a regular basis, Mexico opened
diplomatic relations with all of Europe and signed new treaties of friendship, commerce,
and navigation with Great Britain, France, Norway, Ecuador, and Japan. For the first time
Mexico began to participate actively in international conferences. Limantour’s friend and
proponent of Mexican liberalism, Emilio Rabasa, served as a diplomat and enjoyed a dis-
tinguished career as a politician and constitutional lawyer. Foreign heads of state lavished
their praise on the Díaz regime, by the late 1880s and early 1890s, bestowing medals and
decorations on the president.
THE RAILROAD BOOM
Díaz was fully prepared to take advantage of the good economic indicators and the new
reputation he had so assiduously cultivated. His government embarked upon a multifac-
eted program to modernize the transportation and mining sectors of the economy. To ac-
complish this he turned to foreign investment and technology in the 1880s. The Mexican
Central Railroad Company, backed by a group of Boston investors, received the concession
Porfirio Díaz (1830–1915). As soldier, rebel, statesman, and

president, Díaz compelled respect and dominated his coun-
try as no previous figure in the nineteenth century.
to construct the major line north from Mexico City to El Paso, Texas. Work began from both
terminal points, and the 1,224-mile project was completed in an amazingly short four-year
period. The Central was soon flanked by two other new lines to its east and west. In 1888 the
Mexican National Railroad Company, originally chartered under the laws of Colorado but
subsequently purchased by a group of French and English entrepreneurs, successfully com-
pleted a new narrow-gauge line between Mexico City and Laredo, Texas, a distance of eight
hundred miles and the shortest route from the Mexican capital to the US border. Shortly
after the turn of the century it was converted to standard gauge. Finally the Sonora Railroad
Company, headed by Thomas Nickerson, built the line between Guaymas, on the Pacific
Ocean, and Nogales, Arizona. By 1890 the total trackage of these three major companies
approached two thousand miles.
Efforts to connect the country from east to west did not proceed so smoothly. After earlier
attempts to build a line across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec languished, in 1894 Chandos S.
Stanhope completed a line, but the construction work and terminal facilities were grossly in-
adequate. Díaz then turned o S. Pearson and Son, Ltd., the famous British concern. Sir Weet-
man Dickinson Pearson drove an especially hard bargain, and the completed line proved to
be one of the most costly in Mexican history. In 1907 trains ran regularly between Puerto
México on the Gulf coast and Salina Cruz on the Pacific. With the Panama Canal already
under construction, the Tehuantepec Railroad would soon be rendered obsolete.
Numerous lesser lines were undertaken in the 1880s and 1890s. A line in the south con-
nected Mexico City with Guatemala, and short feeder lines linked most of the state capitals
with the major trunks running between Mexico City and the US border. By the end of the
The arrival of the daily train triggered a burst of activity in hundreds of Mexican towns. This scene was captured
by American photographer Sumner W. Matteson in the station of Amecameca in 1907.
The Porfiriato 329
Díaz regime railroads interlaced the entire country; from about four hundred miles of track
in 1876, Mexico in 1911 could boast fifteen thousand. Approximately 80 percent of the
capital outlay came from the United States. In 1908, however, under the constant prodding
of Limantour, the Díaz government purchased the controlling interest in the major lines.
These achievements did not come easily. Mexico’s lack of requisite managerial skills and
an overall developmental culture meant that years passed before the railroads were smooth-
running operations; but ultimately they would contribute to the tremendous economic
transformation of the country. As the cities were linked to the outlying areas, raw materi-
als could be shipped to industries and finished goods distributed to a greatly expanded
domestic market. As products could be quickly transported to population centers and the
leading ports, new agricultural lands, specializing in commercial agriculture, were opened,
and land values increased as campesinos were dispossessed of their lands.1 Mexico’s textile
industry, for example, relied primarily upon imported cotton at the beginning of the Díaz
period; but with the opening of new lands in the north, near the railroad lines, cotton pro-
duction by 1910 not only doubled but made the country almost self-sufficient. When the
railroad arrived in Morelos the sugar planters began importing new machinery and setting
up new mills to expand production. The larger market for locally produced products drove
the costs down and, at least theoretically, widened the base of consumer use. Communities
isolated by geography and centuries of tradition gradually came into greater contact with
one another.
Nothing symbolized the Porfirian modernization program more graphically than the
railroads. The discourse of development as expressed by writers, artists, and politicians found
its center in the railroads, emblematic of material progress and technological advances. They
also engendered notions of modern citizenry and national identity. At the same time, this
powerful engine of modernity invited criticism of the costs and dislocations it wrought on
laborers and campesinos.
T H E R E V I VA L O F M I N I N G
The railroads offered a means to many ends, not least among them the revival of Mexico’s
potentially wealthy mining industry. The railroads, of course, provided the only practical
and economical means of transporting massive shipments of ore. Equally important, the
Díaz-controlled legislature passed a new mining code in 1884. In order to appeal to the
foreign investor the code made no mention of traditional Hispanic jurisprudence reserving
ownership of the subsoil for the nation. Further, the proprietor of the surface was explicitly
granted ownership of all bituminous and other mineral fuels. Several years after enactment
of the mining code, the government revised mining tax laws, exempting certain minerals
altogether and lowering the tax rates on others. US and European investors recognized the
potential for great profits and entered Mexico in increasing numbers in the 1880s and 1890s.
1 One perceptive analysis of some fifty-five agrarian protests during the early Porfiriato indicates that over
more than 90 percent occurred at a distance of less than forty kilometers from a new or projected railroad
line. See John Coatsworth, “Railroads, Landholding, and Agrarian Protest in the Early Porfiriato,” Hispanic
American Historical Review 54/1 (1974): 55–57
The new miners introduced modern machinery and new processes of extracting the metal
from the ore, producing a radical transformation of the entire industry.
Between 1880 and 1890 foreigners initiated three large mining developments in Mexico:
Sierra Mojada in Coahuila; Batopilas in Chihuahua; and El Boleo in Santa Rosalía, Baja
California. Within a few years the Sierra Mojada region yielded a thousand tons of silver and
lead per week, and Batopilas had made a fortune for its owners. El Boleo, under French and
German ownership, proved to be one of the richest copper mining areas in North America.
The introduction of the cyanide process, which made it profitable to extract metal from
ores containing only a few ounces of metal to the ton, revolutionized the mining of gold and
silver. Largely because of new explorations and the adoption of modern mining techniques,
the value of gold production rose from about 1.5 million pesos in 1877 to over 40 million
pesos in 1908. Silver production followed a similar pattern, rising from 24.8 million pesos
in 1877 to over 85 million pesos in 1908.
Some of the foreign investment came in the form of huge conglomerates. The Guggen-
heim interests, for example, spread out over much of Mexico and entered numerous interre-
lated mining activities. They owned the American Smelting and Refining Company, based in
Monterrey but with large plants in Chihuahua, Durango, and San Luis Potosí. Daniel Gug-
genheim and his six brothers owned or controlled the Aguascalientes Metal Company, the
Colonel William Greene’s town of Cananea, Sonora, was the hub of Mexico’s copper production and a symbol
of the foreign domination of the country’s natural resources.
The Porfiriato 331
Guggenheim Exploration Company, and the Mexican Exploration Company. In addition,

the Guggenheims acquired many already proven mines, such as the Tecolote silver mines
and the Esperanza gold mine, as well as new mines in Durango, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and
Zacatecas. By 1902 Guggenheim investments in northern Mexico totaled some $12 million.
Other foreign investors came to Mexico with practically nothing and built multimillion-
dollar businesses. Perhaps the best example is Colonel William Greene, the copper king
of Sonora. In 1898 Greene obtained an option on a Sonoran copper mine for forty-seven
thousand pesos from the widow of Ignacio Pesqueira, a former governor of the state. Greene
sold stocks for his mining venture on Wall Street, and within a few years his Cananea Con-
solidated Copper Company became one of the largest copper companies in the world, op-
erating eight large smelting furnaces and employing thirty-five hundred men. With some of
the profits Greene became a lumber factor and a rancher; one of his ranches grazed some
40,000 head of cattle. The employment opportunities offered by mining and agricultural
enterprises located near the Mexico-US border gave rise to the increased mobility of laborers
as they crossed back and forth.
OIL FIELDS AND OTHER INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES
American and British investors engaged in a spirited competition for the exploitation of
Mexico’s oil. The first wells were sunk in areas where surface seepages clearly indicated the
presence of petroleum reserves, but after the turn of the century systematic geological explo-
ration began in earnest. The American interests were led by Edward L. Doheny, an American
who had successfully developed oil fields in California; he now purchased over six hundred
thousand acres of potentially rich oil lands around Tampico and Tuxpan. Within a short
time his Mexican Petroleum Company brought forth Mexico’s first commercially feasible
gusher, El Ebano.
The British answer to Doheny was Sir Weetman Dickinson Pearson, who had worked on the
drainage of Mexico City, the modernization of the Veracruz harbor, the reconstruction of the
Tehuantepec Railroad, and the building of the terminal facilities at Puerto México and Salina
Cruz. Enjoying cordial relations with Díaz, Pearson eventually obtained drilling concessions
in Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, and Tabasco. Progress came slowly at first to Pear-
son’s El Aguila Company, but a dramatic hit brought forth the Potrero del Llano, number 4, a
gusher that, when successfully capped, produced more than 100 million barrels in eight years.
Doheny’s Mexican Petroleum Company and Pearson’s El Aguila Company, whose board of di-
rectors included Porfirio Díaz, Jr., dominated the petroleum industry in the early twentieth cen-
tury and within a few years made Mexico one of the largest petroleum producers in the world.
It would be an exaggeration to suggest that Mexico experienced a profound industrial
revolution during the Díaz years, but the industrial process did make itself felt. In 1902 the
industrial census listed fifty-five hundred manufacturing industries. The volume of manu-
factured goods doubled during the Porfiriato. The process began in Monterrey, Nuevo León,
where, in addition to the huge Guggenheim interests, other American, French, German, and
British investors backed industrial enterprises. Attracted by excellent transportation facilities
and by the progressive policies of Governor Bernardo Reyes, which included tax exemptions
for industries, foreign and domestic capital funneled into Mexico’s first important steel firm,
the Compañía Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey. Within a few years the company
produced pig iron, steel rails, beams, and bars; and by 1911 it put out over sixty thousand
tons of steel annually. Monterrey was soon dubbed the Pittsburgh of Mexico.
In 1890 José Schneider, a Mexican of German extraction, founded the Cervecería Cuauh-
témoc which quickly became the largest and most important brewery in the country. Among
its products was Carta Blanca, the number-one selling beer in Mexico. By 1900 it produced
bottles for its products, other kinds of glassware, bottle caps, and packing cartons for both
local use and national consumption.
Other industrial concerns based in Monterrey constructed new cement, textile, cigarette,
cigar, soap, brick, and furniture factories, as well as flour mills and a large bottled-water
plant. Capital investment in the city grew steadily throughout the Díaz regime but most
dramatically during the first decade of the new century, when it rose from under 30 million
to over 55 million pesos. Smaller fledgling textile and paper mills, cement factories, leather
works, and soap, shoe, explosives, and tile manufacturers located themselves in other areas
of the country; but by 1910 Monterrey was without question the industrial capital of Mexico.
The improvement of harbor and dock facilities during the Porfiriato opened Mexico up
to world commerce on a grander scale than ever before. Millions of pesos spent on Veracruz
transformed it markedly, although Tampico, located at the mouth of the Panuco River, ri-
valed its status as chief port. After US engineers supervised the dredging of the harbor and
the modernizing of dock facilities, this northern city grew rapidly as a business and commer-
cial center and challenged Veracruz in volume handled. Similar improvements were made in
the harbors of Mazatlán, Manzanillo, Puerto México, and Salina Cruz. By the turn of the cen-
tury the number of serviceable ports had increased to ten on the Gulf coast and fourteen on
the Pacific side. Partially because of the improvements in port facilities and partially because
of Limantour’s reforms in the tariff structure, Mexico’s foreign trade (exports and imports)
increased from about 50 million pesos in 1876 to nearly 488 million pesos in 1910.
Although many of the trappings of traditional society still persisted, the Mexico of the
first decade of the twentieth century was a far cry from that of 1876. Improved public services
and modern transportation and communication facilities crisscrossed the country, opening
it to new ideas and influences. The economy boomed, and dynamism permeated the atmo-
sphere. Technology in general and mechanization in particular made tremendous strides.
Foreign travelers for the first time marveled more than they criticized, for peace and growth
allowed them the luxury of contemplating the many natural beauties Mexico had to offer.
Mexico’s foreign credit rating became firmly established throughout the world. But perhaps
the most important product of the modernization process was that Mexicans, especially
urban Mexicans, began to view themselves differently. A new consumer culture started to
alter urban lifestyles. Self-confidence replaced the stigma occasioned by the decades of in-
ternecine strife. For a third of a decade Mexicans saw no major civil wars, no major liberal-
conservative struggles, and no major church-state controversies. Mexico was assuming its
rightful position in the twentieth-century world. Few yet questioned the costs the transfor-
mation had exacted because the material dividends seemed so self-evident. But the price
paid was great, and the rapid modernization contained seeds of self-destruction.
The Porfiriato 333
300
250
200
Millions of pesos
150
Import
100 figures
not
available
50
0
1877 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910
Exports Imports
Growth of Foreign Trade, 1877–1910

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C HA PTER 24
THE COSTS OF MODERNIZATION
D I C TAT O R S H I P B Y F O R C E
Modernization came to Mexico during the Díaz regime not simply as the result of positivist
theory and careful economic planning. The peace that made it all possible was in part at-
tributable to brute force, but also to Díaz’s ability to create networks of political and social
power that discouraged opposition. Díaz maintained himself in power from 1876 to 1911
by a combination of adroit political maneuvering, intimidation, and, whenever necessary,
callous use of the federal army and the rurales. He was the consummate bully.
Throughout the thirty-four years the dictator maintained the sham of democracy. The
government held elections periodically at the local, state, and national levels; but they were
invariably manipulated in favor of those candidates from local family oligarchies who held
official favor. The press throughout the epoch was tightly censored; journalists who dared
to oppose the regime on any substantive matter found themselves in jail or exile, while
recalcitrant editors found their newspapers closed down. Filomeno Mata, the editor of the
Diario del Hogar, suffered imprisonment over thirty times for his anti-reelectionist cam-
paigns. While a few persistent critics were killed, the large majority of journalists opted to
self-censor their criticisms.
The dictator played political opponents against one another or bought them off. He
regularly shifted potentially ambitious generals or regimental commanders from one mili-
tary zone to another to assure that they would be unable to cultivate a power base. State gov-
ernors were invited to assume the same position in other states or to become congressmen,
cabinet secretaries, or diplomats to remove their influence at home. Not even members of
the Díaz family were immune. When the dictator’s nephew, Félix Díaz, decided to run for
the governorship of Oaxaca against Don Porfirio’s wishes, he shortly found himself on a ship
bound for Chile, where he took up a diplomatic post. Most influential Mexicans cooperated
with the regime in order to receive political favors and lucrative economic concessions. Díaz
himself never accumulated a personal fortune, but many of his civilian and military support-
ers in high positions had ample opportunity for graft. The científico advisers, for example,
335
always seemed to know in advance the route of a new boulevard or railroad line; the prop-
erty could thus be bought up at a low price and sold back to the government for a profit.
When Díaz needed to use force it was provided by the army and the rurales. He recog-
nized the need for professionalizing the army and, although he did not invite foreign mili-
tary missions into the country, he did send military observers to West Point and to the French
officer’s school at St. Cyr. The recently reorganized Colegio Militar de Chapultepec provided
formal instruction for the officer corps and made use of the most current European training
manuals. By the turn of the century about half of the active officers (but few of the generals)
were graduates of the Chapultepec academy. The cadets, resplendent in snappy uniforms,
were highlighted at the frequent military parades during which Díaz took the opportunity
to display the latest armament obtained from France or Germany. Such spectacles masked
Díaz’s failure to provide education for the rank-and-file and imbue them with moral virtue
and patriotic zeal. Usually conscripted by force, their behavior frequently mimicked that of
the bandits or criminals they were supposed to suppress. Agents of order were crucial to the
modernizing project, but they enjoyed little of its benefits and a reputation of ill repute.
The rurales, Díaz’s praetorian guard, also constituted an important enforcement tool for
the Pax Porfiriana. The dictator strengthened the corps considerably, not simply to curtail
brigandage in the rural areas but to serve as a counterpoise to the army itself. By the end
of the regime the strength of the rurales had been increased to over twenty-seven hundred
men. While the force was not large, the dictator used it to good advantage. In addition to its
To reinforce the desired image, the rurales were always featured during military parades. Sumner Matteson pho-
tographed this salute to President Díaz on May 5, 1907.
The Costs of Modernization 337
original patrolling functions, Díaz had rural corpsmen guard ore shipments from the mines,
support local police forces, escort prisoners, enforce unpopular court decisions, and guard
public payrolls and buildings. Research has shown that the rurales were neither as harsh nor
as efficient as conventionally thought, but Díaz used their exaggerated reputation for cru-
elty and excess. The myth served his purposes well, for the rurales were feared by brigands,
marauders, political opponents, and recalcitrant villagers. When trouble flared it was often
more prudent to send in the nearest corps than to allow a distinguished federal general the
chance to enhance his reputation.
Díaz used the military not only to force compliance with the dictates of Mexico City
but to administer the country as well. By the mid-1880s it was not unusual for military of-
ficers, most often generals of unquestionable loyalty, to dominate the state governorships
and to be well represented among the three hundred jefes políticos (local political bosses).
In 1900, although relative peace had already been achieved, Díaz was still spending almost
one-fourth of the total budget on the military establishment. He believed it was worth it
because the modernization process was so intertwined with his concept of enforced peace.
Díaz’s científico advisers have been labeled racist for their conscientious denigration of
the Indian population. But the generalization has certain flaws, for it presupposes a mono-
lithic philosophical framework within the científico community. José Limantour was less
a follower of Comte than of Darwin. He adapted notions of natural selection and survival
of the fittest to Mexican reality as he understood it and emerged from his introspection
calling for an aristocratic elite to reorder society. He expected little or no help from the
Indian population. Francisco Bulnes, a prolific historian and apologist for científico rule,
The federal artillery corps, well trained and well equipped, was the pride of the Díaz army.
was more openly racist. Five million (white) Argentines, he argued, were worth more than
14 million Mexicans. He characterized the Mexican Indian as sullenly intractable and hope-
lessly inferior, not because of innate corruption of his genes but because his grossly deficient
diet sapped his mental, moral, and physical vitality. Less biologically oriented was Justo
Sierra, the most famous científico of all. Cofounder of the conservative newspaper La Liber-
tad, author of Evolución política del pueblo mexicano, secretary of education during part of the
Porfiriato, and first rector of the national university, Sierra argued forcefully that social and
cultural forces, not biological ones, had shaped the Indian’s inferior position. And unlike
Limantour and Bulnes, Sierra asserted the Indian’s educability. But the schools built during
the Porfiriato, even when the Department of Education was in Justo Sierra’s hands, existed
primarily in the cities, not in the rural areas where they might serve the Indian and mestizo
population. At the end of the Porfiriato Mexico still had 2 million Indians speaking no Span-
ish. They had been left aside.
THE HACENDADOS
Mexico greeted the twentieth century still a predominantly rural country, and the rural peas-
antry bore most of the costs of modernization. The payment was exacted in fear of the rura-
les, intimidation by local hacendados, constant badgering by jefes políticos and municipal
officials, exploitation by foreign entrepreneurs, and, most important, seizure of private and
communal lands by government-supported land sharks.
Haciendas dotted the rural areas along with indigenous and mixed villages. The number
of large landholdings, more predominant in the north where livestock raising suited the
environment, had increased in the nineteenth century. Railroad construction began to push
land values up, but exaggerated land concentration proliferated after the enactment a new
land law in 1883. This law, designed to encourage foreign colonization of rural Mexico,
authorized land companies to survey public lands for the purpose of subdivision and settle-
ment. For their efforts the companies received up to one-third of the land surveyed and the
privilege of purchasing the remaining two-thirds at bargain prices. If the private owners or
traditional ejidos could not prove ownership through legal title, their land was considered
public and subject to denunciation by the companies.
The process that ensued was predictable. Few rural Mexicans in the north could prove legal
title. All they knew for sure was that they had lived and worked the same plot for their entire
lives, and their parents and grandparents had done the same. Their boundary line ran from
a certain tree to a certain stream to the crest of a hill. The central and southern Indians and
campesinos who could produce documents, some dating back to the colonial period, were
convinced by the speculators and their lawyers that the papers had not been properly signed,
notarized, stamped, or registered. Not even those communal ejidos that could produce titles
of indisputable legality were immune. The Constitution of 1857 with its reform laws was once
again applied to the detriment of the ejidos, and with greater vigor than ever before.
Within five years after the land law became operative, land companies had obtained pos-
session of over 68 million acres of rural land and by 1894 one-fifth of the total land mass of
Mexico. Not yet completely satisfied, the companies received a favorable modification of the
law in 1894, and by the early twentieth century most of the villages in rural Mexico had lost
their ejidos and some 134 million acres of the best land had passed into the hands of a few
hundred fantastically wealthy families. Over one-half of all rural Mexicans lived and worked
on the haciendas by 1910.
The Mexican census of 1910 listed 8,245 haciendas in the republic, but a few landlords,
often tied together by a marriage network of family elites, individually owned ten, fifteen,
or even twenty of them. Though varied in size, haciendas of forty to fifty thousand acres
were not at all uncommon. Fifteen of the richest Mexican hacendados owned haciendas
totaling more than three hundred thousand acres each. The state of Chihuahua affords a
classic example of how the hacienda system operated and brought wealth and prestige to
one extended family. Throughout the Díaz regime the fortunes of that north central Mexican
state were guided by the Terrazas-Creel clan. Don Luis Terrazas, the founder of the dynasty,
had served as governor prior to the French intervention and fought with Juárez against the
French in the 1860s. His land acquisitions began shortly thereafter, when he obtained the
estate of Don Pablo Martínez del Río, a French sympathizer. In the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s,
in and out of the gubernatorial chair, he acquired additional haciendas, profiting immensely
from the land laws of the Díaz government. By the early twentieth century Terrazas owned
some fifty haciendas and smaller ranches totaling a fantastic 7 million acres. Don Luis was
the largest hacendado in Mexico and perhaps in all of Latin America; his holdings were eight
times the size of the legendary King Ranch in Texas. He owned five hundred thousand head
of cattle, two hundred twenty-five thousand sheep, twenty-five thousand horses, five thou-
sand mules, and some of the best fighting bulls in the western hemisphere. Encinillas, north-
west of Chihuahua City, was the largest of his haciendas, extending to some 1,300,000 acres
and employing some two thousand campesinos. San Miguel de Babícora contained over
eight hundred fifty thousand acres, while San Luis and Hormigas were over seven hundred
thousand acres each.
The wealth and power of the Terrazas family cannot be judged in terms of landholding
and its related activities alone. Don Luis also owned textile mills, granaries, railroads, tele-
phone companies, candle factories, sugar mills, meatpacking plants, and several Chihuahua
mines. Each of his twelve children married well. Daughter Angela Terrazas married her first
cousin, Enrique Creel, the son of an American consul in Chihuahua and a man of wealth,
erudition, and prestige. Enrique Creel served several times in the state governorship and was
Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations in 1910–11. Creel’s own haciendas totaled more than
1,700,000 acres. One of the founders and directors of the Banco Minero de Chihuahua, he
was a partner, furthermore, in many of his father-in-law’s enterprises and directed or owned
iron and steel mills, breweries, granaries, and a coal company. Two of Luis Terrazas’s sons
Alberto and Juan each had haciendas totaling over six hundred thousand acres, while his
son-in-law Federico Sisniega held some two hundred sixty thousand acres and was a director
of the Banco Nacional de Chihuahua.
It is virtually impossible to calculate the extent of either the fortune or the power wielded
by the Terrazas-Creel clan. Luis Terrazas himself probably did not know how much he
owned. He surely did know, however, that the value of rural land in Chihuahua rose from
about $.30 per acre in 1879 to about $9.88 per acre in 1908. Had he been able to liquidate
only his personal, nonurban landholdings on the eve of the Mexican revolution, he would
have carried over $69 million to the bank.
One can be certain that little of major importance occurred in Chihuahua without the
approval of patriarch Don Luis Terrazas. During the Díaz regime members of the extended
family sat for a total of sixty-six terms in the state legislature and twenty-two terms in the
national congress. Because residency requirements were loosely defined, Enrique Creel and
Juan Terrazas became national senators from other Mexican states. Municipal and regional
officialdom bore either the Terrazas-Creel names or their stamp of approval.
A handful of powerful sugar families dominating the state of Morelos—the García Pi-
mentels, the Amors, the Torre y Miers, and a few others—had to increase production by
expanding into new lands to be able to fund the purchase of expensive new machinery. As
no public lands were available, they completely encircled small ranches and even villages,
thereby choking off infusions of economic lifeblood. Some towns stagnated, while others
vanished from the map altogether. The town fathers of Cuautla could not even find sufficient
land for a new cemetery and were reduced to burying children in a neighboring village.
The circumstances through which land was privatized throughout Mexico were complex
and varied. Although outsiders appropriated much communal land, not all communities
shared land in an egalitarian fashion, and internal conflicts frequently played into the hands
of hacendados and merchants. For example, in the vanilla-producing lands of Papantla in
Veracruz, wealthier Totonac Indians benefited from state privatization schemes to the detri-
ment of other, less affluent members of their communities, who rebelled against them and
were repressed. In other cases, Indian communities that developed ideologies of popular
liberalism or conservatism to successfully defend their autonomy and lands earlier in the
nineteenth century, found their claims increasingly denied. In the Huasteca area of San Luis
Potosí, campesinos found allies in the clergy and developed strategies that mixed anarchist
and socialist ideas with traditional communal values, to oppose privatization. Their resis-
tance led to the Huastecan Peasant War, 1879–84, which was eventually suppressed by the
federal army.
THE CAMPESINOS
The millions of rural Mexicans who found themselves in dying villages or subsisting as
campesinos on the nation’s haciendas were worse off financially than their rural ances-
tors a century before. The average daily wage for an agricultural worker remained almost
steady throughout the nineteenth century—about thirty-five centavos. But in the same one
hundred-year period the price of corn and chile more than doubled, and beans cost six times
more in 1910 than in 1800. In terms of purchasing power correlated with the price of corn
or cheap cloth, the Mexican campesino during the Díaz regime was twelve times poorer than
the US farm laborer.
Working conditions varied considerably from region to region and even from hacienda
to hacienda, but they were generally poor. Campesinos often availed themselves of the tal-
ents of a scribe to spell out their gamut of complaints. While it was not uncommon for
the campesino to be allotted a couple of furrows to plant a little corn and chile and on
occasion to receive a small ration of food from the hacienda, he worked from sunrise to
sunset, often seven days a week, raising crops or tending cattle. Sometimes he was allowed
to cut firewood free; on other occasions he paid for the right. The scant wages he received
most often were not paid in currency but in certificates or metal discs redeemable only at the
local tienda de raya, an all-purpose company store located on the hacienda complex. Credit
was extended liberally, but the prices, set by the hacendado or the mayordomo (overseer),
were invariably several times higher than those in a nearby village. For the hacendado the
situation was ideal. The taxes on his land were negligible; his labor was, in effect, free, for
all the wages that went out came back to him through the tienda de raya with a handsome
profit. The campesino found himself in a state of perpetual debt, and by law he was bound
to remain on the hacienda so long as he owed a single centavo. Debts could be passed on to
the children. Should an occasional obdurate campesino escape, except in situations of labor
shortage, he had scarcely any place to go. Many states had laws making it illegal to hire an
indebted campesino.
The bookkeeping procedures in the tienda de raya always seemed to work to the disad-
vantage of the illiterate campesino. Goods charged against his account were more expensive
than they would have been had he been able to pay cash. And other items were often debited
to his account. Charges for a marriage ceremony or a funeral often exceeded the monthly
wage. Management added fines for real or imagined crimes on the hacienda, in addition to
forced contributions for fiestas and interest on previous debts
Stories of corporal punishment of the campesino (petty theft could bring two hundred
lashes) and sexual violation of the young women on the haciendas abound. Conditions
on the henequen haciendas of Yucatán may have been the worst in the republic. While the
rebellious Mayas of the Cross in the eastern Yucatán peninsula maintained a more autono-
mous but politically fragmented existence, the henequen hacendados worked their Maya
campesinos like slaves. Many of the campesinos in Yucatán were deportees from other parts
of Mexico (some were Yaqui Indians from Sonora who violently and continuously resisted
the expropriation of their lands, and others were convicted criminals) forced to work in
chains, while flogging was not uncommon. Little evidence exists to show that such horrific
physical maltreatment was widespread throughout Mexico. However, campesino families
were everywhere subject to the personal whims of the hacendado or the mayordomo, and
hacienda records and correspondence to local, state, and even national officials reveal that
complaints targeted intolerable working conditions, and dishonest record keeping in the
tienda de raya.
The record of these complaints offers ample evidence that campesinos did not acquiesce
to exploitative conditions without protest and that they were sometimes able to negotiate
better terms. In the surrounding villages, Indians and campesinos employed a range of tac-
tics to preserve varying levels of autonomy and slow the privatization of their lands. In some
cases, they made deals with political and economic elites to produce crops for commercial
market; in others, they used legal maneuvers and forms of petty resistance to evade compli-
ance with official dictates. The early Díaz administration showed more inclination to negoti-
ate these strategies, but by 1900 a more entrenched authoritarian regime had become less
responsive to local cultures and, in fact, worked to reinvent community traditions to serve
modernization. Yet these effects did not eradicate a developing campesino consciousness in
many areas of Mexico.
The dichotomies of nineteenth-century Mexican life, especially those of wealth and
poverty, stood out prominently on the hacienda. The main hacienda house was sump-
tuous, externally and internally. But the hacendado would seldom spend more than a
few months a year there. Most often he had other haciendas and inevitably businesses
to manage in the cities, and then he had to visit his children in their fine European or
US boarding schools. The hacienda provided, in addition to its income, a summer vaca-
tion home, a change of pace, and social status. Extended families could be comfortably
accommodated, and young boys, donned in charro costume and mounted on carefully
bred and well-groomed horses, could fancy themselves country squires. Birthdays, saints’
days, and feast days were reason enough to move the family from the state capital to
the hacienda for an outing; on special occasions, like an eighteenth birthday or a wed-
ding, entire train cars could be reserved to carry guests, musicians, local dignitaries, and
domestics.
Life for the campesinos who worked for the hacendado presents a starkly different pic-
ture. Because mayordomos administered “justice” on the hacienda, the campesino had no
genuine judicial rights or legal recourse. If a mayordomo overreacted in punishment of some
real or imagined offense, he was accountable to nobody. Within a mile of the grand haci-
enda house, campesinos lived in miserable, one-room, floorless, windowless adobe shacks.
For a couple of centavos the rural, illiterate Mexicans could hire a scribe to scratch out a few lines to a relative
or friend.
Water had to be carried in daily, often from long distances. Where they had been allotted in-
dividual plots, campesinos could only attend to them after sunset, when the important work
of the day had been completed. Twice a day a few minutes would be set aside to consume
some tortillas wrapped around beans and chile, washed down with a few gulps of black
coffee or pulque. Protein in the form of meat, fish, or fowl, even on the cattle haciendas,
was a luxury reserved for a few special occasions during the year. Infant mortality on many
haciendas exceeded 25 percent.
Local fiestas on haciendas and in nearby villages provided diversions. An amateur bull-
fight could be staged in the hacienda corral, and resident aficionados would try their hand
with a half-grown fighting bull that somehow looked bigger as it got closer. Gatherings of
friends might feature singing, dancing and especially corridos that narrated misfortunes,
popularized bandits, or satirized elites. When accompanied by mezcal or pulque these en-
tertainments could erupt in violence and injuries.
Porfirio Díaz had developed his country at the expense of his countrymen. The great
material benefits of the age of modernization seldom filtered down to the people. Their lives
were not in the least changed because the new National Theater was built in Mexico City or
because José Limantour was able to borrow money in London or Paris at 4 percent. In fact,
for the masses at the bottom the cost of modernization had been too great. Moreover, even
many who had benefitted from economic expansion became increasingly frustrated by its
exclusionary character.
In 1907, photographer Sumner Matteson was surprised to find burros, horses, mules, and people sharing quar-
ters in this pulque hacienda, where the stench of animals was rivaled only by the stench of fermenting pulque.
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2004.
CHA PTER 25
SOCIETY AND CULTURE

DURING THE PORFIRIATO
T he changes in Mexican society and culture during the Porfiriato paralleled those in the
political and economic realms. Most noteworthy perhaps was the fact that a middle class
began to grow and view Mexico differently. For the first time Mexico had shown its potential
and had begun to catch up with a rapidly changing world. The nation’s achievements in
technology and culture went on display around the globe at world fairs and expositions in
Europe and the United States.
P O P U L AT I O N
The stability of the Porfiriato resulted in Mexico’s first period of prolonged population
growth. In the absence of war and its social dislocations and with modest gains recorded
in health and sanitation, the population grew from 8,743,000 in 1874 to 15,160,000 in
1910. From 1810 to 1874 the average annual population growth had been about 43,000,
but during the Díaz era population increased at an average of 180,000 per year. Mexico City
and the state capitals grew even more rapidly than the population at large, increasing some
88.5 percent during the epoch. From a population of 200,000 in 1874, Mexico City in 1910
was home to 471,066 Mexicans.
Railroad development, mining activities, and port improvements caused a number of
tiny villages to burgeon into towns and cities. Torreón, at the intersection of the Mexican
Central Railroad and the International Railroad (running from Eagle Pass, Texas, to Du-
rango), jumped from fewer than 2,000 inhabitants in 1876 to over 43,000 in 1910; Sabinas,
Coahuila, from 788 to 14,555; and Nuevo Laredo from 1,283 to almost 9,000. The two port
terminuses of the Tehuantepec Railroad recorded similar gains. Puerto México had only 267
inhabitants in 1884 but reached 6,616 by 1910, while Salina Cruz grew from 738 in 1900
to almost 6,000 total some ten years later. Colonel Greene’s copper town of Cananea hardly
existed at the beginning of the Porfiriato. From a population of about 100 in 1876, it cata-
pulted to almost 15,000 in 1910.
345
100
90
80
70
60
Thousands
50
40
30
20
10
1870 1910 1869 1910 1878 1910 1881 1910 1872 1910 1872 1910
Chihuahua Durango Mérida Monterrey Morelia Puebla
Population of Selected Mexican Cities during the Porfiriato

Source: Keith A. Davies, “Tendencias demográficas urbanas durante el siglo xix en México,” Historia Mexicana 21 (1972): 481–524:
John Barrett, Mexico: A General Sketch (Washington, D.C., 1911), 53.
URBAN IMPROVMENTS
The rapid growth of towns and cities throughout the republic was accompanied by an obvious
dynamism in society. Travelers marveled at the amount of construction going on everywhere.
In the Oaxacan capital (known as the Emerald City), officials and elites developed tourism,
sports, and leisure activities; used urban planning and architecture to beautify and socially
order the city; and implemented reforms in sanitation and social hygiene. The Catholic church
supported Porfirian modernization and moral reform in Oaxaca City, illustrating how the Díaz
regime’s efforts to court the church had paid off. And in many areas the church revitalized its
hold over indigenous peoples and women through new devotional associations and practices.
By 1910 all the state capitals had electricity and most had tramways. Weekly newspapers
became dailies, potable water systems and sewage systems were extended, hospitals were
constructed, and new hotels sprang up to cater to the increasing tourist trade. Even small,
out-of-the-way towns improved their facilities. The transportation system in Mexico City
was excellent, with first-, second-, and third-class streetcars and cabs carrying passengers
throughout the city. Streetcars sometimes baffled the uninitiated. One caught the eye of an
Irish visitor during the late Porfiriato.
A curious feature of the streets is the electric tramway hearse. Frequently one sees a funeral
consisting of a number of cars on the rails; first comes an open one like a long low truck
with a black catafalque covering, under which reposes the coffin and the wreaths; the next
346
Society and Culture during the Porfiriato 347
may be another piled up with wreaths and crosses, and then follows car after car with the
mourners. This of course stops all the tramway traffic for the time being.1
Another sign of progress could be seen in the fire prevention program put in place in
Mexico City during the last half of the nineteenth century. Engineers applied new tech-
nologies and experts trained fire-fighting brigades. Regulations enforced new zoning and
construction laws as officials oversaw the removal of wooden sidewalks. A fire insurance
program developed along with new medical treatments for burn victims.
A most dramatic change occurred in the field of law and order. Scarcely a traveler in the
late nineteenth century failed to comment upon the relative absence of obvious crime and
political upheaval. New criminal codes were enacted as lower-class behavior became increas-
ingly associated with criminality. Municipal authorities endeavored to clean up the streets by
removing street peddlers, beggars, prostitutes, and homeless people from the public eye. Re-
formers advocated the building of modem prisons, hospitals, orphanages, and trade schools.
The changing face of urban Mexico was accompanied by a not-too-subtle modification
of the value structure. Porfirio Díaz recoiled at English and US suggestions that the time-
honored tradition of the Mexican bullfight amounted to nothing more than a cruel and
barbarous spectacle. It was the epitome of a clash of values. The phenomenon has been per-
fectly captured by historian William Beezley, who wrote that while most Mexicans saw “the
ballet of cape and animal,” foreigners “saw only blood and sand.” Díaz ultimately placed a
higher premium on international respect than on preserving this part of Mexico’s Hispanic
heritage and, although he later reversed himself, during his first administration prohibited
bullfighting in the Federal District, Zacatecas, and Veracruz, areas where tourists would be
most likely to witness the Sunday event. An American import soon offered itself as a substi-
tute. Abner Doubleday’s baseball made its Mexican debut in the 1880s and had caught on
beyond anyone’s expectations by the turn of the century. Not a few Mexican traditionalists
lamented the exchange of the bat, the ball, and the baggy pants for the cape, the sword, and
the suit of lights.2
GENDER AND CLASS
The Porfiriato also witnessed changes in the roles of women as a select few began to enter
professions hitherto regarded as the sole preserve of men. The medical school in Mexico City
graduated its first female doctor in 1887, and by the turn of the century others had followed.
In the 1890s and early 1900s women began to make significant inroads into dentistry, law,
pharmacy, higher education, and journalism. A new commercial school for women was
inaugurated in 1903, and shortly thereafter its classes were filled. More women entered the
ranks of factory workers. In this changing gender milieu, Porfirian authorities turned their
attention to the need to control women’s public conduct. In the eyes of reformers, female
workers who interacted with others on the street were corrupting influences and not far from
1 Mary Barton, Impressions of Mexico with Brush and Pen (London, UK, 1911), 45–46.
2 These themes are developed in William H. Beezley, Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian
Mexico (Lincoln, NE, 1987), 13–25.
prostitutes in terms of morality. Female heads of households rejected these suspicions and
asserted their rights to support their families, as well as their rights to possess honor.
Many rural migrants to Mexico City of course did not find industrial jobs, and women
in particular often worked as live-in maids while their children ended up in orphanages
where they could be adopted to provide personal services to the middle and upper classes.
Although the higher social strata conceived of their own children as needing nurture and
protection, they did not have the same view of family life for the poor.
Women also left the confines of home more frequently to participate in charitable activi-
ties. Interestingly, the liberal anticlerical laws of the Reforma had provided new opportunities
for Catholic women who now joined church-sanctioned lay associations and became more
active participants in public society. In one extraordinary instance, far from the nation’s capital
in the state of Oaxaca, a woman achieved high economic and political status. Juana Catarina
Romero defied patriarchal norms as she progressed from her early origins as a poor mestiza
cigarette vendor to become a powerful cacica (political leader) and economic entrepreneur in
Tehuantepec. Juana Cata used her wits and her contacts, including Porfirio Díaz, to educate
herself; develop economic pursuits in textiles, commercial agriculture, and sugar refining; and
support philanthropic endeavors in education, cultural activities, and public health.
The burgeoning of consumer culture during the Porfiriato also drew women to Mexico City’s
central district to shop in the new department stores that appeared in the late nineteenth cen-
tury: Puerto de Liverpool and Palacio de Hierro. These French-inspired retail stores took their
Life for the peon on the hacienda was bad; living in a city slum was even worse. But nowhere was it more difficult
than in the mines.
place alongside the modern buildings that were changing the physical landscape of the capital.
They made ample use of newspaper advertising and catalogs to attract shoppers, both female
and male, from the emerging middle class, known as the gente decente (decent class). Their cul-
ture of consumption, rather than wealth, helped to define their identities as modern citizens.
French influence also manifested itself in the tobacco company El Buen Tono, founded
by Ernesto Pugibet. The manufacture of cheap, machine-rolled cigarettes exploded as adver-
tising appealed to Mexican men of different classes. One gimmick employed an elegantly
dressed fellow, Electric Man; as he walked the streets his coat lit up with electric lights an-
nouncing a particular brand of cigarettes. Varying price levels targeted class distinctions
among the broad base of consumers and modern marketing techniques contributed to the
formation of collective identities based on the brand they chose. Pugibet also built model
housing for his employees, a far cry from the wretched conditions of most urban workers.
For most Mexicans, improvements would have to wait. Old problems persisted. There
was certainly more crime and alcoholism than foreign visitors saw in the tourist zones of
the cities. The léperos and cargadores continued to attract their attention. Although most
visitors were not aware of the working conditions in the factories throughout the republic,
the plight of the urban laborer had changed little, but there were many more of them, in-
cluding women. A few employers initiated modest reform early in the twentieth century. The
Cervecería Cuauhtémoc in Monterrey, a Mexican-owned and Mexican-managed enterprise,
was the first major industrial concern to adopt the nine-hour day. Few other Mexican indus-
tries, however, and practically none owned by foreigners, followed suit. Even at the end of
the Porfiriato the workweek for the large majority of urban laborers was seven days and the
workday eleven or even twelve hours. Pensions were almost unknown, as was compensation
for accidents suffered on the job.
The diet of the lower classes—day laborers, rank-and-file soldiers, beggars, domestics,
street vendors, and the unemployed—remained barely adequate. Corn, beans, chile, and
pulque still constituted the staples; meat was almost totally absent. The grossly deficient diet
and unsanitary living conditions made the masses susceptible to a wide array of debilitating
diseases, and the large majority passed their entire lives without a single visit to a qualified
doctor. Life expectancy remained constant—about thirty years. Infant mortality remained
unacceptably high, averaging 30 percent for most of the Porfiriato. A Protestant missionary
in Díaz’s Mexico recalled his impressions.
I used to ask, “How many of you, fathers and mothers, have children in heaven?” Usually
all hands would promptly go up, while the replies came, “Tengo cinco.” “Tengo ocho.” . . .
Deplorable ignorance as to proper sanitary conditions in the home and the care of children
is responsible for a large proportion of this death harvest among the little ones. Children’s
diseases, as measles and scarlet fever, carry multitudes away.3
The lower-class barrios of Mexico City—La Merced, La Palma, and Nonoalco—had no

indoor plumbing and only one public bathhouse per fifteen thousand people. Garbage col-
lection was sporadic at best. Only the completion of Mexico City’s drainage canal registered
3 Alden Buell Case, Thirty Years with the Mexicans: In Peace and Revolution (New York, NY, 1917), 61–62.
Modernization occurred at the expense of the poor, in both urban and rural settings.
a positive impact on the lower-class neighborhoods as the masses at least escaped the rav-
ages of seasonal flooding.
Consumption of pulque and other alcoholic beverages among the lower classes did not
increase during the Porfiriato, but the public and private outcry against alcohol did. Because
officials unempirically linked alcoholism to robberies, sex crimes, child abandonment, and
mendicancy, morality campaigns took form throughout the country. The Catholic press ini-
tiated a journalistic campaign, and state and local governments enacted legislation to curtail
the use of alcoholic beverages. But limiting the hours of pulquerías and restricting new
openings seemed to do little good, so laws tried to make these spaces as uncomfortable as
possible—no windows, no chairs, no music, and, most important, no women. Sensational
crime stories became best sellers for newspapers and served as morality tales to encourage
proper behavior, but also to draw the line between “virtuous” elites and the “degenerate and
deviant” poor, who were considered most likely to become serial killers, rapists, and thieves.
In response a penny press emerged to satirize such negative portrayals of working-class men
and their masculinity. Using vernacular street talk, the penny press expressed the demand for
working-class citizenship and contributed to the formation of working-class consciousness.
José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913), Mexico’s most famous printmaker, parodies a fashionable lady during
the Porfiriato.
At the same time, the middle class was expanding as the earning power of skilled arti-
sans, government bureaucrats, scribes, clergymen, low-ranking army officers, and profes-
sional men had increased modestly. The booming economy made it possible for many a
small businessman and neighborhood merchant to move his family from the drab room
above the store or from his parents’ residence into a larger and more comfortable apartment
or house. The extension of water and sewage facilities provided many the luxury of indoor
plumbing for the first time in their lives. The middle-class diet included meat and soup sev-
eral times a week.
With middle-class status, creating the proper impression became important. It was not
unusual for the monthly wage or monthly profit to be idled away on a single night of enter-
tainment for friends. While the middle-class wife was beginning to break out of the home,
she generally resigned herself to her husband’s marital infidelity and prerogatives as head of
the family. Laws still protected the moral order of families and a gender order that favored
males. Studies of courtship and marriage promises across rural landscapes reveal a literate
culture of passionate love-letter writing. Such letters turned up in judicial cases in which
young women sought, often futilely, to hold letter writers faithful to their promises of mar-
riage. One study examines how hearts, eyes, and souls constitute a kind of “sentimental
anatomy” in these passionate letters.4
4 William E. French, The Heart in a Glass Jar: Love Letters, Bodies, and the Law in Mexico. (Lincoln, 2015).
Families taught middle-class children to make class distinctions based upon outward ap-
pearances. If a well-dressed person appeared at the door, they were expected to report to their
parents Allí está un señor; but if the caller was dressed poorly, the proper announcement was
Allí está un hombre.5 Although only recently sprung from the lower class themselves, many
members of the middle class assumed a moral superiority over the downtrodden.
While the poor lived in deteriorating conditions and a new, small middle class emerged
in the cities, the rich became more convinced than ever that civilization itself rested upon
the pillar of private property. The pinnacle of social acceptance during the Porfiriato was to
be invited, for monthly dues of seven hundred pesos, to enjoy the amenities of the Jockey
Club in Mexico City. Located in the Casa de Azulejos, the most opulent mansion in the
capital, one could enjoy a sumptuous dinner there, spend an hour at the baccarat table, and
hope to see cabinet ministers, governors, military zone commanders, or perhaps even Don
Porfirio and Doña Carmen themselves.
One measure of aristocratic success was to see how French one could become in taste and
manners. The advantages of a French education and a French governess for aristocratic chil-
dren were beyond debate. Beautiful Spanish colonial furniture was stored away, and modern
French furniture adorned the houses. When Mexican composer Gustavo E. Campa wrote an
opera based on the life of Nezahualcoyótl, “the Poet King of Texcoco,” he entitled it not El
Rey Poeta but Le Roi Pòete and prepared the libretto in French. Membership in the Sociedad
Filarmónica y Dramática Francesa assured one of brushing elbows with the most Frenchified
members of Mexican society at a concert or a ball. The Paseo de la Reforma was redecorated to
look like the Champs Elysées, while architectural design aped fin-de-siècle Paris. When Mexican
millionaire Antonio Escandón donated a statue of Columbus to adorn the fashionable
avenue, he commissioned the Parisian sculptor Charles Cordier to do the work. Having no
notion of the revolution that would soon engulf Mexico, the aristocracy blissfully celebrated
Bastille Day, July 14, with almost as much enthusiasm as their own independence day.
French cuisine reigned supreme in the capital. The best and most expensive restaurants
were the Fonda de Recamier and the Maison Doreé. Between the Consommé Brunoise Royale
and the Tournedos au Cèpes, one could sip imported French wine and listen to the orchestra
play “Bon Aimée,” “Amoureuse,” “Rendezvous,” or some other tune everyone knew to be à la
mode. For the athletic there was also membership in the French Polo Club and for the more
sedate a season ticket to the French comic opera. Those who had pretensions to both music
and athletics adopted the cancan, a French import that took Mexico by storm in the 1880s.
C U LT U R A L A N D I N T E L L E C T U A L L I F E
Literary expression during the Porfiriato found nineteenth-century romanticism yielding

first to realism and almost simultaneously to modernism. The realists of the period hoped
that the enforced stability of the Porfiriato would encourage the development of the arts.
Not a socially conscious group, the realists viewed the poor not as oppressed but rather as
lazy and shiftless.
5 Jesús Silva Herzog, Una vida en la vida de México (Mexico City, 1972), 9.
José López Portillo y Rojas (1850–1923) typified the realist genre. Born to a promi-
nent Guadalajara family, he studied law and traveled widely in Europe, imbibing the French
spirit, before dedicating himself to literature. In his novel Nieves (1887) López Portillo rec-
ognized that an occasional hacendado might brutalize a campesino, but he found no fault
with the system that conditioned the relationship or anything reprehensible in a society that
tolerated it. His solution was a simplistic one. It was all a matter of volition. The poor of
Mexico simply had no desire to improve themselves.
The modernist writers of the Porfiriato showed themselves to be stylistically innova-
tive and concerned with refinements in the language. Projecting a new kind of imagery, the
modernists favored a symbolic revolt not against Porfirian society but against nineteenth-
century culture. The best and most versatile of the modernist fiction writers was Amado
Nervo (1870–1919). At the turn of the century he moved to Paris—for Mexicans a cultural
mecca—where he met the founder of the Latin American modernist movement, the Nica-
raguan poet Rubén Darío. Before his literary career ended, Nervo had written more than
30 volumes—novels, poetry, short stories, plays, essays, and criticism. The theme of his first
novel, El bachiller (1895), was sensational and even horrifying. A young priest, tempted by
physical love, castrates himself to avoid seduction. In this and other works Nervo showed
himself a perceptive amateur psychologist. His insight into the motivations of the protago-
nists he created and his appreciation of the conflicts between the material and the spiritual
captivated his readers.
The Art Academy of San Carlos continued to dominate the artistic community, but it was
poorly supported by the government. The future giants of Mexican art—Diego Rivera and
José Clemente Orozco—studied at the academy and began perfecting the techniques that
would win them world acclaim two decades hence. While teachers placed heavy emphasis
upon copying European models, a few of the students began to break with tradition and
experiment with Mexican themes.
Díaz and his científico advisers, in art as in so many other areas, continued to show
preference for all things foreign. To celebrate the centennial of Mexico’s independence, the
government constructed a new building to house a Spanish art display and provided a sub-
vention of 35,000 pesos for the show. When the Mexican artists at the academy protested
that they wanted to put on a national art show to coincide with the celebrations, they re-
ceived little assistance from the government. Those who saw their exhibition probably un-
derstood why the regime chose not to support it. It was youthful, exuberant, and iconoclastic
in both technique and theme. Gerardo Murillo, who changed his name to Dr. Atl, a Náhuatl
word meaning “water,” had experimented with wax, resin, and oil to depict scandalous
bacchanals, while other young artists developed Indianist themes. Many of Mexico’s most
promising artists exhibited there for the first time, departing from staid European models.
Slums and brothels decorated canvases, and somber Indian faces depicted the stark reality
of Mexican life. This was not the impression of the stable, conservative, white, progressive
Mexico that Díaz wanted portrayed.
In either case, the images being projected from the national stage had little connection
to how people were entertaining themselves at the local level at popular performances
of religious and civic themes. These celebrations certainly embodied aspects of local and
regional culture, but over the nineteenth century they acquired a more national character
in their representations of patriotic figures as well as political and ethnic stereotypes. An
important popular source for learning about the outside world (other regional cultures
and the life of the big city) could be found in the itinerant puppet theater that enjoyed
increasing popularity after independence. Puppeteers traveled throughout Mexico, intro-
ducing marionettes who used regional and rural twists to elucidate features of Mexican
history, culture, and civic duty through humor and irony. One of the most popular was
Vale Coyote, whose bag of tricks showed the popular classes how to survive in the world
of their “betters.” Puppet performances and popular fiestas blended local and national
elements, encouraging people to think about how they defined themselves in relation to
other Mexicans.6
In another new development, state and local officials began to place bandstands in
community plazas where musical groups, that had accompanied military forces earlier, per-
formed at patriotic and religious celebrations. Implicitly, their mission was to instill civic
virtue and nationalistic pride. The tradition became firmly established in Oaxaca where
bands offered recreational Sunday matinees, playing romantic and heroic melodies along
with regional tunes.
While a sense of collective national identity was evolving for the masses, Mexican schol-
ars were examining how the nation had developed from pre-Columbian times. Some turned
to organizing prehispanic artifacts that had been collected in various institutions since the
late colonial period. A national Mexican museum had been established in 1825 to house
collections related to history, archaeology, and natural history. In 1906, Secretary of Public
Education Justo Sierra relocated the natural history materials; the other collections became
part of the renamed National Museum of Archaeology, History, and Ethnography. Profes-
sional archaeology in Mexico was in its infancy, as most nineteenth-century forays into
antiquity had been undertaken by foreigners who appropriated artifacts for their home mu-
seums. The Porfirian government took steps to protect this patrimony and assert control
over ancient ruins, initiating the reconstruction of Teotihuacan. Symbolically connecting
the present to advanced civilizations and empires of antiquity (imitating other nations who
looked to their Greek and Roman pasts) served to enhance Mexican prestige in the world.
To be sure, this project had nothing to do with contemporary Indians viewed as a vulgar li-
ability that needed to be hidden from visiting foreign dignitaries.
Perhaps the greatest historian of the epoch was Joaquín García Icazbalceta (1825–94),
who collected and edited several monumental series of colonial documents and prepared
a bibliography of the sixteenth century—Bibliografía mexicana del siglo XVI—listing and an-
notating all of the books published in Mexico between 1539 and 1600. But his most distin-
guished work was a four-volume biography of the first bishop and archbishop of Mexico,
Fray Juan de Zumárraga.
Justo Sierra (1848–1912) set himself to the task of attempting a new interpretive synthe-
sis of Mexican history. The result would occupy a unique niche in Mexican historiography.
6 William H. Beezley, Mexican National Identity: Memory, Innuendo, and Popular Culture (Tucson, AZ, 2008),
98–145.
México: Su evolución social was published at the turn of the century and shows Sierra as an
eclectic. Unlike the historians who preceded him, Sierra, from a new perspective, could view
Mexican history with optimism. The chaotic and unseemly events of the early nineteenth
century had been, for him, necessary steps in the progress of humankind. In Sierra’s analysis
of his contemporary Mexico, even Díaz did not emerge completely unscathed. While Sierra
could not overlook the authoritarianism of the regime, on balance he found it to be simply
a step in Mexico’s evolutionary process toward liberty.
During the three and one-half decades of peace and economic growth a younger genera-
tion of liberal intellectuals gradually emerged. As they began to expose some of the obvious
shortcomings of the regime, many experienced harsh retribution. Despite harassment, intimi-
dation, and incarceration, these young intellectuals were not easily dissuaded from their goals
and contributed in no small way to the outbreak of revolutionary activity in Mexico in 1910.
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gary: University of Calgary Press, 2003.
Alexander, Anna Rose. City on Fire: Technology, Social Change, and Hazards of Progress in Mexico City, 1860–
1912. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press, 2016.
Barrett, John. Mexico: A General Sketch. Washington, DC: Pan American Union, 1911.
Barton, Mary. Impressions of Mexico with Brush and Pen. London, UK: Methuen, 1911.
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. Mexican National Identity: Memory, Innuendo, and Popular Culture. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 2008.
Blum, Ann S. Domestic Economies: Family, Work, and Welfare in Mexico City, 1884–1943. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 2009.
Bueno, Christina. The Pursuit of Ruin: Archaeology, History, and the Making of Modern Mexico. Albuquerque:
Buffington, Robert. A Sentimental Education for the Working Man: The Mexico City Penny Press, 1900–1910.
Buffington, Robert, and Pablo Piccato, eds. True Stories of Crime in Modern Mexico. Albuquerque: University
Bunker, Steven B. Creating Mexican Consumer Culture in the Age of Porfirio Díaz, 1876–1911. Albuquerque:
Case, Alden Buell. Thirty Years with the Mexicans: In Peace and Revolution. New York: Flemming H. Revel
Company, 1917.
Charlot, Jean. The Mexican Mural Renaissance, 1920–1925. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967.
Chassen-López, Francie R. “A Patron of Progress: Juana Catarina Romero, the Nineteenth-Century Cacica
of Tehuantepec.” Hispanic American Historical Review, 88/3 (2008), 393–426.
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cisation of Popular Culture.” Journal of Latin American Studies, 22/3 (1990), 497–526.
Esposito, Matthew D. Funerals, Festivals, and Cultural Politics in Porfirian Mexico. Albuquerque: University
Fowler-Salamini, Heather, and Mary Kay Vaughan, eds. Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850–1990:
Creating Spaces, Shaping Transition. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.
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PA RT
8
THE REVOLUTION OF 1910
C HA PTER 26
MADERO AND THE LIBERAL

INDICTMENT OF THE PORFIRIATO
THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP
The opening of the twentieth century found Mexico a far different place from what it had
been only twenty-five years earlier. It would be sheer folly to gainsay the tremendous mate-
rial benefits that had accrued in the industrial, commercial, and mining fields. At the same
time, it is easily argued that the successes of modernization created the environment for
discontent and that, in the revolutionary aftermath, the economic achievements of the Por-
firiato were ignored for decades. Porfirian capitalism shunned the masses and scarcely began
to create a broad base of consumers; the economic surplus generated by the dynamic econ-
omy had been largely appropriated by the few. A system that perpetuated itself for the sake
of order and economic progress, and atrophied in the process, became less and less palat-
able to an increasing number of young, socially aware Mexicans. The federal Constitution
of 1857, with its theoretical guarantees, had been violated incessantly. Elections at all levels
of government were a farce. The administration of justice in rural Mexico was a euphemism
for the capricious whims of the local jefe político. Freedom of the press did not exist, and
the restrictions of the Reform limiting the participatory role of the clergy were not enforced.
To those who were concerned with the longevity of the regime, Don Porfirio became “Don
Perpetuo,” while those more concerned with the brutality dubbed him “Porfiriopoxtli.” The
científicos continued to be loyal apologists for the dictatorship, but a younger generation
of intellectual activists, embracing a new faith and unwilling to be intimidated by the arro-
gance of the científicos, began to question the dictatorship.
One of the first to speak out for reform was Wistano Luis Orozco, a jurist from Guadala-
jara who addressed social, not political, issues. In 1895 he wrote a volume criticizing the Díaz
land laws and the land companies that profited from them. Arguing that the concentration of
landownership was detrimental to both the rural peasantry and the progress of agriculture, he
called for the government to break up and sell all public lands and begin buying up some of
the huge haciendas for the same purpose. Not propagandizing for revolution, he believed the
reforms he envisioned could be effected from within the administration. In San Luis Potosí,
359
360 the revolution of 1910
Camilo Arriaga, a mining engineer by profession, rejected the positivist doctrine and by the
turn of the century counted himself in the small anti-Díaz camp. A typical nineteenth-century
liberal, Arriaga moved into the opposition fold because of Díaz’s modus vivendi with the
Roman Catholic Church. In late 1900 he called for the organization of liberal clubs through-
out Mexico and summoned a national liberal convention to meet in San Luis Potosí in 1901.
The least timid members of the liberal movement in the early twentieth century were the
Flores Magón brothers—Jesús, Ricardo, and Enrique. In August of 1900 the brothers began pub-
lication of Regeneración, a Mexico City weekly. Not yet ready to preach the injustice of private
land ownership, through its columns they supported the nascent liberal movement in San Luis
Potosí and decried the excesses of Porfirismo. But when they attacked a local jefe político in
Oaxaca in the columns of Regeneración, the brothers were arrested in the late spring of 1901 and
confined to Belén prison for a year. Their arrest served to invigorate the liberal movement as free-
dom of the press and suppression of the jefes políticos became new causes the liberals could add
to their militant anticlericalism. By the time the Flores Magón brothers were released Camilo
Arriaga had been arrested, as had other leaders of the liberal cause. The brothers renewed their
attacks, in the columns of El Hijo de Ahuizote. Two more arrests convinced them to leave Mexico
in 1904 and revitalize their attack on the Díaz regime from exile in the United States.
From San Antonio, Texas, the Flores Magón brothers and Arriaga, who joined them
shortly, began soliciting funds from liberals to reinstitute Regeneración. Former subscribers
and liberal clubs throughout Mexico made small contributions, and an unexpected benefac-
tor was found in Francisco I. Madero, son of a wealthy Coahuila hacendado. The first issue of
the newly revived tabloid came off the press in the fall of 1904. The Regeneración published
from San Antonio took a more militant and belligerent tone attacking Díaz and proposing
Cartoon from El Hijo de Ahuizote titled “The Governors Praying for Díaz Support.”
Madero and the Liberal Indictment of the porfiriato 361
The great grandson of Enrique Flores Magón has revived the original location of where the protest publication
was published. Today, the Casa de El Hijo de Ahuizote, which houses part of the Flores Magón archive, serves as
a cultural center in Mexico City.
Photo of the modern façade of the Casa de El Hijo de

Ahuizote.
more radical changes. In reaction, Díaz authorized an assassination attempt on the Flores
Magón brothers; it failed, but prompted the liberals in exile to move away from the border
to St. Louis, Missouri where they resumed publication of Regeneración in 1905 and organized
a revolutionary junta. Local St. Louis authorities soon arrested the Flores Magón brothers,
charging them with violating US neutrality laws. Although they were released, Ricardo’s sub-
sequent activities in other parts of the United States landed him in jail several times, and he
died in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1922.
In the summer of 1906 the junta in St. Louis published its Liberal Plan. Part of it re-
hashed of nineteenth-century liberal concerns, calling for freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, suppression of the jefes políticos, the complete secularization of education, and the
nationalization of all church property. But the Liberal Plan of 1906 heralded a new age of
liberalism. Socially oriented measures included the abolition of the death penalty (except
for treason), educational reform in favor of the poor, and prison reform emphasizing re-
habilitation rather than punishment. More revolutionary yet was the call for a nationwide
eight-hour workday and a six-day workweek, the abolition of the tienda de raya, the pay-
ment of all workers in legal tender, and the prohibition of child labor. The plan did not
overlook the rural areas of Mexico, advocating a state takeover of all uncultivated lands to be
redistributed to those who would work them. To enable the small farmer to take advantage
of this move, an agricultural credit bank would be established to provide low-interest loans.
And, finally, special emphasis would be placed on restoring the ejido lands seized illegally
from the Indian communities.
Treatment of the Mexican liberal party. A print by José Guadalupe Posada.

The discontent over the political abuses of the Díaz dictatorship had been gradually
transmuted into a new gospel of social reform. Articulated by middle-class reformers, the
new rhetoric resonated not only with the urban working class that had expanded with mod-
ernization but also with the popular liberalism that had evolved in rural villages after the
defeat of the French. Even Porfirio Diaz had used indigenous and campesino aspirations
for “liberty” and autonomy to build his own base of support. His later indifference to com-
munity traditions and “folk” liberalism had not made them disappear, however, and local
cultures still harbored the hybrid civil and religious belief systems that could nurture defi-
ance to alien impositions. How the new social thought would mesh with traditional values
was not yet apparent, but copies of Regeneración smuggled into Mexico were being read by
the reform-minded middle classes and labor organizers.
LABOR UNREST
On June 1, 1906, the Mexican workers at Colonel William Greene’s Cananea Consolidated
Copper Company went out on strike. Young socialist activists in Cananea, Sonora—Manuel
Diéguez, Estéban Calderón, and Francisco Ibarra—had been in correspondence with the
exiles, had formed an affiliate liberal club in Cananea, and had agitated the workers, distrib-
uting copies of Regeneración. The grievances of the miners at Cananea were manifold. The
company paid less than their US counterparts for performing the same jobs and consigned
qualified Mexican laborers to undesirable posts, while staffing the technical and managerial
positions with US personnel. The workers elected a delegation to negotiate these matters,
and salary and hours, with management. When Colonel Greene refused to arbitrate, the
activists decided to stop all company operations.
The violence began in the company lumberyard. Disgruntled but unarmed work-
ers attempted to force their way through a locked gate, and the resident manager ordered
high-pressure water hoses turned on them. When the gate finally buckled and the workers
swarmed into the yard, they were greeted with several volleys of rifle fire. During the chaos
of the next hour several dozen Mexicans and two US managers were slain. The remaining
workers retreated, leaving the lumberyard in flames. In this explosive atmosphere, Colonel
Greene informed Governor Rafael Izábal of the danger and telephoned friends across the
border in Arizona to raise a volunteer force in his behalf. When the governor was apprised
that the rurales could not arrive until late the next day, he gave permission for 275 Arizona
Rangers to cross the border to patrol the streets of Cananea. To veil the violation of Mexico’s
neutrality, Izábal did not allow the Rangers to enter the country as a force. They crossed over
individually and were subsequently sworn in as Mexican volunteers.
The situation in Cananea was still tense when the American force arrived, together with
Governor Izábal. While no major military engagements ensued, the Rangers and the workers
did exchange fire on several occasions, and deaths resulted on both sides. Late in the day a
detachment of rurales arrived under the command of Colonel Emilio Kosterlitzky. “Justice”
was quick for those workers Kosterlitzky considered ringleaders: he rounded them up and
hanged them from trees. The workers, threatened with induction into the army, returned
to their jobs. Nonetheless, the strike focused attention on the Díaz policy of protecting
Mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters supported the miners’ demands by demonstrating in Cananea.
foreigners at the expense of Mexicans. US troops had been allowed to cross into Mexican
territory and kill Mexicans to guard the interests of an American mining magnate.
The discontent of the miners at Cananea proved not to be an isolated phenomenon.
Liberal leaders among textile workers in Veracruz organized the Gran Círculo de Obreros
Libres and began seeking affiliate clubs in neighboring states. The last six months of 1906
witnessed the most intense labor conflict of the entire Porfiriato, with several textile strikes.
The major showdown occurred in January 1907 in the Río Blanco textile mills near Orizaba.
Working conditions there were nothing short of horrendous, with a common workday of
twelve hours, grossly inadequate wages, and a policy requiring workers to pay for the normal
depreciation of the machinery they used. Children of eight and nine years of age performed
physically demanding work. All strikes and affiliation with the Gran Círculo were illegal.
The abuses seemed so patent that the workers agreed to lay their complaints directly before
President Díaz for his arbitration. The dictator heard the complaints, but then supported the
textile owners on almost every count. On Sunday, January 6, the workers held a mass meet-
ing and decided to strike the following day.
The trouble set in at the grocery counter of the tienda de raya. Several wives of striking
workers were refused credit for food. Insults led to pushing and shoving, then fisticuffs,
and finally shooting. The enraged strikers put the tienda de raya to flame, and the local jefe
político ordered in the rurales and the federal troops who fired point-blank into the crowd
and killed several women and children along with numerous workers. By the end of the
confrontation, the dead numbered more than one hundred.
Again, law and order reigned at the expense of personal liberty and social justice. Further-
more, Díaz’s resort to brutal repression took place at a time when real wages were falling and
natural and other disasters had resulted in food shortages. The Mexican silver peso lost value
as major nations switched to a gold standard and the export economy suffered from its close
ties to the US economy during the financial panic of 1907.
HEIGHTENED POLITICAL ACTIVITY
Despite the liberal indictment and the suppression of the nascent labor movement, most
Mexican politicians believed that change could be effected through the political process.
Díaz reinforced this position in early 1908 when he granted an interview to the US journal-
ist James Creelman.
No matter what my friends and supporters say, I retire when my presidential term of office
ends, and I shall not serve again. I shall be eighty years old then. I have waited patiently for
the day when the people of the Mexican Republic should be prepared to choose and change
their government at every election without danger of armed revolution and without injury
to the national credit or interference with the national progress. I believe that day has come.
I welcome an opposition party in the Mexican Republic.1
Díaz’s bombshell that he did not plan to seek reelection in the upcoming presidential
elections of 1910 ushered in a rash of political activity and intellectual ferment. The Yu-
catecan sociologist Andrés Molina Enríquez, a positivist but not a Porfirista, published Los
grandes problemas nacionales (The Great National Problems). A brilliant analysis of contem-
porary Mexican society, the work called for a penetrating program of reform, especially in
the rural areas. Molina Enríquez feared that agrarian discontent could be manipulated by
radicals or anarchists if reforms were not undertaken.
A still more influential book, La sucesión presidencial en 1910 (The Presidential Succession
in 1910), came from the pen of Francisco I. Madero. Unlike Molina Enríquez, Madero held
that Mexico’s problems were primarily political in nature, deriving from military dictator-
ship. He urged Mexicans to take Díaz at his word and to form an opposition party, an
anti-reelectionist party dedicated to the principles of effective suffrage and no reelection.
Madero’s book affirmed that the desired change could be effected through the ballot box
and, together with the Creelman interview, it set into motion the political forces that would
ultimately lead to the conflagration in the fall of 1910.
Within the administration itself various factions began to vie for the mantle of succes-
sion. The followers of General Bernardo Reyes, the capable and energetic former governor
of Nuevo León and secretary of war, pushed their hero as a logical successor to Díaz. Other
científicos, led by José Limantour, supported the current government of Díaz and Ramón
Corral, his vice president and a former governor of Sonora, and it was not long before Reyes
was sent off to Europe with a contrived assignment that was tantamount to political exile.
1 Quoted in Frederick Starr, Mexico and the United States: A Story of Revolution, Intervention and War (Chicago,
IL, 1914), 253.
MADERO AND THE ANTI-REELECTIONIST CAUSE
The political opposition to Díaz in the 1910 presidential elections would come, at any rate,
from outside the official party as Francisco I. Madero dedicated himself to the anti-reelectionist
cause. Born in Coahuila in 1873 to a family of wealth and prestige, young Madero received
the best education that money could provide. The family had garnered a fortune in mining,
land speculation, cattle, and banking; Madero’s father was happy to send his teenage son to
Paris and then to Berkeley, California, for proper grooming. Upon his return to Coahuila,
Madero assumed the administration of several family haciendas. He not only observed the
gross social inequities firsthand but took time to ponder the pathetic written complaints
that detailed stories of physical abuse by mayordomos and tales of poverty that left children
without shelter or food, of sickness without the possibility of medical care, of military con-
scription as a means of punishment, and of incarceration without the formalities of law. Re-
alizing that his family haciendas were simply a microcosm of rural Mexico, Madero became
convinced that the only solution was democracy. Though Madero had initially contributed
to the cause of the Flores Magón brothers, he became estranged from them as they grew
more radical.
To foment anti-reelectionism and test the political winds, Madero toured Mexico in
the last half of 1909. During the summer and early fall he made public appearances
throughout the country to build a revolutionary network. In the winter, Madero, his
close confidants, and his wife continued their political tours to Querétaro, Guadalajara,
Manzanillo, Mazatlán, and the northern states of Sonora and Chihuahua. Exploiting re-
sentment over a generational gap, Madero offered himself as an energetic, capable, and
articulate young leader in stark contrast to a tiring and decrepit regime—not a member
of Díaz’s cabinet was under sixty, and many of the state governors were in their seven-
ties. Especially well received in Chihuahua, Madero held several meetings with Abraham
González, an ardent foe of the dictatorship and president of the Centro Anti-reeleccionista
Benito Juárez.
Anti-reelectionists held their convention in April 1910 with broad geographical repre-
sentation. The 120 delegates in attendance, following the lead of Abraham González and
his Chihuahua colleagues, officially nominated Madero for the presidency. The convention
chose as his running mate Dr. Francisco Vásquez Gómez, a distinguished physician but a
lukewarm liberal at best.
The philosophy of the anti-reelectionist party came out gradually during the campaign
that carried the candidate to twenty-two of the twenty-seven Mexican states. Mexican presi-
dents, Madero argued, should serve only a single term, focusing not on the next election
but on the next generation. Political reform, predicated upon free and honest elections,
was basic to the entire program. Social benefits might then accrue, but democracy was the
one imperative. During a campaign speech in San Luis Potosí, Madero was interrupted by
a question voiced from the audience asking why he did not break up his own haciendas.
Madero’s answer epitomized his philosophy. The Mexican people, he responded, did not
want bread; they wanted liberty. Not long thereafter, the Díaz administration began arresting
anti-reelectionist leaders, including Madero himself.
On election day, June 21, 1910, with Madero in prison in San Luis Potosí and thousands
of his anti-reelectionist colleagues in jails throughout the republic, Díaz and Ramón Corral
declared an overwhelming victory for still another term. His family arranged for Madero’s
release on bail with the proviso that he confine himself to the city of San Luis Potosí. He
remained in the city for several months, but in early October, he managed to board a north-
bound train in disguise and escaped to the United States.
THE LAST HURRAH
Soon after the election Díaz began preparations for his final extravaganza. In September he
would celebrate his eightieth birthday and Mexico the 100th anniversary of its declaration of
independence. Pageants and commemoration celebrated the Díaz regime. The government
unveiled a soaring column capped by a gold angel on the Paseo de la Reforma in honor of
the independence movement along with an equally impressive monument to the Niños
Héroes at the entrance to Chapultepec Park. Distinguished guests from abroad had their
expenses paid to partake of the festivities at gala balls in their honor where imported French
champagne flowed like water. Flags waved everywhere, parades crowded the streets, fireworks
lit up the night skies, and mariachis (folk musicians) strolled the downtown avenues. For-
eign governments took part as well. The American colony sent Díaz and the Mexican people
a statue of its own independence hero, George Washington, and the Italians—not to be
outdone—sent one of Giuseppe Garibaldi. The Third French Republic returned the keys to
the city of Mexico that had been ingloriously sequestered by the army of Napoleon III a half-
century before. King Alfonso XIII demonstrated the lasting fraternity of the Spanish people
by returning the uniform of José María Morelos.
The lavish displays of civic virtue demanded that beggars be pushed off of the streets
of the capital city so that the guests would receive the proper impressions of a prosperous
Mexico. The cost of the celebrations exceeded the entire educational budget for the year
1910. While the champagne flowed for a few, tens of thousands suffered from malnutrition.
While visitors rode in shiny new motorcars on well-paved streets in the center of the city,
mud and filth engulfed barrios of the working poor and unemployed. In September 1910
Mexico appeared to many to be enjoying its finest hour. A mask for the millions living in
poverty, this showy façade would be short-lived.
THE PLAN DE SAN LUIS POTOSÍ
For years Francisco Madero had resisted the prodding of liberals who exhorted that Díaz
must be overthrown by force. But when he escaped from San Luis Potosí and made his way
north to the sanctuary of the US border, he realized that it was no longer possible to unseat
the dictator by constitutional means. In the middle of October 1910, he began drafting a
revolutionary plan in San Antonio, Texas. To avoid any possible international complications
with the United States, he dated the plan October 5, his last day on Mexican soil, and called
it the Plan de San Luis Potosí.
Aquiles Serdán and his family in Puebla. A print by Fernando Castro Pacheco.
Peoples, in their constant efforts for the triumph of the ideals of liberty and justice, find it
necessary at certain historical moments to make the greatest sacrifices. Our beloved father-
land has reached one of those moments.
. . . this violent and illegal system can no longer exist. . . . I declare the last election ille-
gal and accordingly the republic, being without rulers, I assume the provisional presidency
of the republic until the people designate their rulers pursuant to the law. . . .
I have designated Sunday, the 20th day of next November, for all the towns in the re-
public to rise in arms after 6 o’clock P.M.2
The Plan de San Luis Potosí, like La sucesión presidencial en 1910 before it, reflected pri-
marily political concerns with a few vague and ill conceived references to Mexico’s social
maladies. Yet the boldness of the statement and the self-confidence it projected struck a
responsive chord. The leaders who had previously worked for the anti-reelectionist party
began preparing for November 20. The revolution actually began two days prematurely in
the town of Puebla. There the local liberal leader, Aquiles Serdán, had stored arms and am-
munition in his home. An informant notified the police, and Serdán and his family became
the first martyrs of the new cause. Madero himself crossed over into Mexico on the evening
of November 19, but, when his expected rebel army failed to rendezvous, he crossed back
into the United States without firing a shot. It was not yet clear that the masses would rally
to the cry of ¡Viva la Revolución!
2 The text of the plan can be found in Isidro Fabela, ed., Documentos históricos de la revolución mexicana, vol. 6
(Mexico City, Mexico, 1960–73), 69–76.
The Mexican guerrilla at the beginning of the revolution

would soon be immortalized in legend and song.
T H E R I S E O F R E B E L A R M I E S A N D T H E R E S I G N AT I O N O F D Í A Z
Local corridos record the names of the many who took up arms everywhere on the stipulated
day. But nowhere did the sparks fly as in Chihuahua. Town after town responded on Novem-
ber 20 and 21. Among them, Toribio Ortega marched on Cuchillo Parado, Guillermo Baca on
Hidalgo del Parral, Pancho Villa on San Andrés, and Pascual Orozco on San Isidro and Miñaca.
The rebel forces did not constitute armies, but neither were they merely campesino
mobs. They included rank-and-file campesinos, servants, shopkeepers, mechanics, beggars,
miners, federal army deserters, lawyers, US soldiers of fortune including African Americans,
young and old, bandits and idealists, students and teachers, engineers and day laborers, the
bored and the overworked, the aggrieved and the adventuresome. Some were attracted by
commitment to the cause and some by the promise of spoils; some joined impulsively and
others with careful forethought. Some preferred Flores Magón radicalism and some Madero
liberalism; many had heard of neither. Even among the politically astute some viewed the
November movement as a fight against hacendados, others decided to offer their lives to
oppose local jefes políticos, while still others saw the revolution as a chance to recapture
Mexico from the foreign capitalists. But they all shared the conviction that Díaz symbolizedf
all of Mexico’s ills and that any change would be better. Thus, they were willing to strap
cartridge belts on their chests; find, buy, or steal rifles somewhere; and become guerrilleros.
Indifferently armed, without uniforms, with no notion of military discipline, the disparate
rebel bands lived off the land and attacked local authorities and small federal outposts in
tiny pueblos. They enjoyed a dormant but fortuitous asset—the cooperation of much of
rural Mexico. Madero’s communications network began to inform him that his recent efforts
had not been in vain.
The Díaz regime dispatched army units and corps of rurales on scattered missions in
Mexico’s ten military zones, and slowly they began to curtail the spread of the rebellion.
Only in Chihuahua did Madero’s movement continue to grow. The military leadership there
had devolved upon Pascual Orozco, Jr., a tall, gaunt mule skinner whose business had suf-
fered because he did not enjoy the favor of the Terrazas-Creel machine. Working with Abra-
ham González, the leader of the anti-reelectionists in the state, Orozco began recruitment in
the Guerrero district. González supplied some modest funds and a few weapons. By Novem-
ber 20, Orozco had attracted about 40 men to the cause. During the next two weeks, striking
rapidly from the almost inaccessible sierras of western Chihuahua, he garnered more victo-
ries. Pancho Villa, José de la Luz Blanco, and other local leaders placed themselves under his
command; and the Orozco army increased twentyfold. On January 2, 1911, the Chihuahua
rebels ambushed and almost totally destroyed a large federal convoy sent to pursue them.
Now cocksure, Orozco stripped the dead soldiers of their uniforms, wrapped up the articles
of clothing, and sent them to Don Porfirio with a graphically descriptive taunt: Ahí te van las
hojas; mándame más tamales (Here are the wrappers; send me some more tamales).
Soon the insurrection began to bear fruit in Sonora, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Veracruz, Zacate-
cas, Puebla, Guerrero, and Morelos. In Baja California the Flores Magón brothers and their
followers had the government on the run. Picking their own ground and their own time of
battle, small rebel contingents throughout the country kept the uncoordinated and poorly
supplied federals constantly off balance. The rebels, on the other hand, moved in smaller
units, lived off the land, and generally enjoyed the sympathy and cooperation of the local
populace. They found it easier to smuggle in ammunition from the United States than fed-
eral commanders did to requisition it from Mexico City.
In the late spring of 1911 Orozco and Villa convinced Madero (who had no military ex-
pertise) that the northern rebels should expend all their energy on capturing Ciudad Juárez,
the border city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. By early May, with the most
seasoned rebel troops congregated on the outskirts of the city and ready to attack, Madero
suddenly changed his mind. Fearing that stray rebel shells might fall on El Paso and thus oc-
casion US intervention, he ordered a retreat which was promptly ignored by Orozco. Thou-
sands of El Paso residents climbed to their rooftops to watch the proceedings and cheer on
their favorites. On the morning of May 10, the rebels’ superior numbers and fire power over-
came the federal resistance. Low on ammunition and completely encircled by the enemy,
General Juan Navarro decided to surrender and hoisted a white flag over the federal barracks.
Madero did not know whether to be grateful, angry, or embarrassed. Against his order
Orozco had handed him an important city, an official port of entry from the United States,
and a provisional capital. When a few days later the provisional president named his cabinet,
Orozco’s name was curiously absent. A showdown took place on May 13 during a meeting
of the new provisional government. Revolvers in hand to emphasize their point, Orozco and
Villa burst into the room with a series of demands that highlighted their frustrations with
Madero’s failure to reward his rebel followers and appoint men who would more forcefully
advance their goals.
The battle of Ciudad Juárez (May 1911) proved to be the decisive engagement for control of the north.
Momentarily defused, the confrontation had significance that no one present could
have foreseen. Though only five months old, the revolutionary coalition was already fall-
ing apart. The military’s challenge to the civilian leadership would be repeated regularly
for the next chaotic decade. But more important yet, the affair portended an age of bitter
factionalism that exacerbated personal rivalries, turned Mexican against Mexican, extended
the war, exacted a tremendously high toll of life, and increased the pain and anguish for
hundreds of thousands.
Meanwhile, rebels throughout the country took heart and redoubled their efforts, taking
control of town after town. Business fell victim to the trauma of uncertainty, and the press
became increasingly outspoken in criticism of the regime. Federal troops began deserting to
the revolution en masse. Díaz reluctantly agreed to dispatch a team of negotiators to meet
with Madero and his staff. The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez provided that Díaz and Vice President
Corral would resign before the month was out. Francisco León de la Barra, the secretary of
foreign relations and an experienced diplomat, would assume the interim presidency until
new elections could be held. Don Porfirio signed his resignation and submitted it to the
congress on May 25, 1911. On his way to Veracruz and ultimate exile, Porfirio Díaz reput-
edly told Victoriano Huerta, the commander of his military escort, “Madero has unleashed
a tiger. Now let’s see if he can control it.” The remark, both prophetic and reflective of Díaz’s
keen perception of his fellow countrymen, augured ominous consequences.
Díaz had indeed been overthrown, but the revolution had scarcely triumphed. It had
barely yet begun. The conviviality and jubilee of the next few days soon gave way to acri-
monious debate as Mexicans began to ask themselves what, exactly, they had won. Their
The revolutionary leadership following the capture of Ciudad Juárez. The coalition would soon fall apart.
answers, of course, were predicated upon what had motivated them to join the movement at
the outset. As the dictator sailed away into European exile, the one bond that had held them
together vanished from sight.
THE INTERIM PRESIDENCY AND DIVISION WITHIN THE REBEL RANKS
The interim presidency of León de la Barra (May to November 1911), whose cabinet included
many Porfiristas, alienated many of Madero’s radical supporters, including the Flores Magón
brothers. Emiliano Zapata in Morelos adopted a cautious wait-and-see attitude. Orozco in
Chihuahua still bristled from his recent encounter with Madero. Unaware that the rum-
blings within his ranks were serious, in early June, Madero left the north for Mexico City. His
seven hundred–mile journey by train was truly triumphant as thousands of enthusiastic ad-
mirers greeted him at large and small stations along the way. His reception in the capital was
no less spectacular, as recorded by Edith O’Shaughnessy, the wife of the US chargé d’affaires
in the Mexico City embassy.
There was a great noise of vivas, mingling with shouts of all kinds, tramping of feet, and
blowing of motor horns. I could just get a glimpse of a pale, dark-bearded man bowing to
the right and left. . . . People came from far and near, in all sorts of conveyances or on foot,
just to see him, to hear his voice, even to touch his garments for help and healing. . . .3
Among those there to greet Madero and talk to him was the most famous revolutionary
of all—Emiliano Zapata. Like Orozco in the north, Zapata had never been a campesino.
His family had passed on a little land to him, and he supplemented his modest income as
a muleteer, a horse trainer, and a stable master. Elected in 1909 to local office, Zapata repre-
sented the villagers of Anenecuilco, Morelos, who had managed to hold onto their lands as
independent campesinos. Eager to help them avoid the fate of campesinos, Zapata decided
3 Edith O’Shaughnessy, Diplomatic Days (New York, NY, 1917), 53.

Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919). Although Zapata played only

a minor role in the fight again Díaz, his stature as a revolu-
tionary grew steadily until his assassination in 1919.
to link his predominantly agrarian cause with the larger rebel movement and began recruit-
ing an insurgent army.
His military contributions to the overthrow of the Díaz dictatorship were minor, but he
had scored several victories over the federal forces by the time Díaz submitted his resignation
in May 1911. Now, Zapata wanted to talk to Madero about the one matter that concerned
him most—the land problem in Morelos. To Zapata the overthrow of Díaz had genuine
meaning only if land were immediately restored to the pueblos. In a dramatic encounter
Zapata, with a large sombrero on his head and his carbine in his hand, gestured to the gold
watch Madero sported on his vest and then made his point.
Look, Señor Madero, if I, taking advantage of being armed, steal your watch and keep it, and
then we meet again sometime and you are armed, wouldn’t you have the right to demand
that I return it?
Of course, General, and you would also have the right to ask that I pay you for the use
I had of it.
Well, this is exactly what has happened to us in Morelos where some of the hacendados
have forcibly taken over the village lands. My soldiers, the armed peasants, demand that
I tell you respectfully that they want their lands returned immediately.4
4 Quoted in Gildardo Magaña, Emiliano Zapata y el agrarismo en México, vol. 1 (Mexico City, Mexico, 1934–52), 160.
With characteristic caution Madero made no immediate commitment, but when he trav-
eled to Morelos shortly thereafter, he insisted that Zapata demobilize his army as a prerequi-
site to reducing tensions in the state. Zapata detected something absurd in the request. The
revolutionaries had won; yet while the federal army remained intact, the victorious rebels
were asked to disband. To show good faith the southern rebel reluctantly agreed. His acqui-
escence was for naught as interim President León de la Barra sent federal troops into the
state to enforce the demobilization order. Madero was furious, but the tenuous peace had
already been shattered. With the state of Morelos again in revolt by August, Madero, perhaps
through no fault of his own, could add Zapata’s name to his growing list of enemies.
The campaign for the 1911 presidential elections took place in a tense political atmo-
sphere. Madero’s party met in Mexico City in August and nominated him by acclamation.
But the vice presidential pick divided the convention. Madero decided to dump his 1910
running mate, Francisco Vásquez Gómez, in favor of a Yucatecan lawyer and journalist, José
María Pino Suárez. The convention gave Madero his choice, but Vásquez Gómez and his fol-
lowers would never reconcile themselves to their sudden political demise. The opposition
candidate around whom many of the old regime could rally, albeit without enthusiasm, was
General Bernardo Reyes. By early fall the election was in full swing and the debate heated. In
the aftermath of a physical attack by Madero supporters on Reyes at a Mexico City rally, and
Reyes, perhaps realizing that his campaign stood little chance of victory anyway, withdrew
from the race and went into a self-imposed exile in San Antonio, Texas. Another powerful
enemy was on the list.
The election took place without further incident on October 1, 1911. Only minor candi-
dates opposed Madero, and he swept to an overwhelming victory. Madero’s faith in democ-
racy would soon be put to the test and, while his faith would remain unshaken, democracy
would fall victim to the rancor and passion of the day.
DISAPPOINTING REFORMS
Bursting with optimistic idealism, Madero approached his presidential challenge with all
the fresh enthusiasm of the novice, and his first priority was to restore order. Madero the
president, unlike Madero the revolutionary, found himself quickly besieged with demands
from all sides. Only when established in the presidential office did he begin to realize fully
that the revolution had profoundly different meanings to different groups of Mexicans. The
spurious alliance began to break up irretrievably. Of the disparate elements he had previ-
ously counted in his ranks, those of nineteenth-century liberal persuasion, interested in po-
litical reform and the growth of democracy, supported him while both the aristocratic elite
he displaced and the social revolutionaries he embraced became increasingly hostile. The
press began to assail him mercilessly but, in the best democratic tradition, he gave it full rein
and stoically accepted the barbed criticism and cruel satires.
Although he could defy anyone to show him where he had ever promised sweeping
reform, he did, nevertheless, embark upon a meager and imperfect program to restructure
the prevailing social order. Though unwilling to accede to Zapata’s urgent demand that
land be immediately restored to the villages, the president appointed the National Agrarian
Francisco I. Madero (1873–1913). President of Mexico in the crucial period following the overthrow of Díaz,
Madero had a faith in democracy that proved ill-suited to the political realities of the day.
Commission, under the chairmanship of his conservative cousin Rafael Hernández, to study
the land question. Hernández urged that the government begin purchasing a few private
estates for subdivision and sale to the small farmer. But only 10 million pesos were allo-
cated to the project, and the hacendados demanded such high prices for the land that even
this modest plan was soon abandoned in favor of restoring some ejido lands that had been
seized illegally during the late Porfiriato. The burden of proof, however, fell on the villages,
and few village leaders could overcome the bewildering legal arguments thrown in their
faces by the hacendados’ lawyers. A handful of cases were settled in favor of the villages, but
progress on the agrarian question was meager.
In the area of labor reform, late in 1912 the congress authorized the formation of the De-
partment of Labor but placed it, too, under the jurisdiction of conservative Hernández with
a paltry budget of forty-six thousand pesos. After a convention with government officials
in Mexico City, a group of textile factory owners promised to initiate a ten-hour day; but in
practice the working schedules did not change. Nonetheless, labor organizers no longer felt
so intimidated. Encouraged by the possibilities of revolutionary change, a group of radi-
cals under the leadership of Juan Francisco Moncaleano, a Spanish anarchist, founded the
Casa del Obrero Mundial. Not properly a union, the Casa served as a place where labor
leaders could meet, exchange views, and, through their official newspaper, Luz, disseminate
propaganda favorable to the cause. Madero caught between business interests and labor
demands feared labor strikes and, although no labor massacres on the scale of Cananea and
Río Blanco were recorded, government troops and local police authorities dispersed striking
workers on a number of occasions. Hernández interpreted the strikes as inspired by agitators
rather than intolerable conditions and had Moncaleano expelled from the country. How-
ever, strikes continued, and labor unrest began to disrupt the Mexican economy once again.
In the field of education the social reformers were again disappointed. Although Madero
had promised to broaden the educational base during the presidential campaign, the annual
budget for 1911–12 allocated only 7.8 percent for educational programs, as opposed to 7.2
percent during the last year of the Porfiriato. The new president did manage to build some
fifty new schools and to initiate a modest program of school lunches for the underprivileged.
His education program failed to deliver a dramatic increase in expenditures or a project for
revising the científico curriculum.
In sum, the liberals of the twentieth-century stripe felt swindled by Madero as the admin-
istration failed at both the national and state levels. The disappointed began to realize that
reform would proceed at a slow and gradual pace. Meanwhile another more menacing factor
diverted Madero’s attention and energies. A series of revolts broke out against him before he
even had a chance to make himself comfortable in the presidential chair. The revolution’s
lack of ideological cohesion had begun to exact a terrible toll and in the process imperiled
the administration itself.
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Cockcroft, James D. Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution, 1900–1913. Austin: University of Texas
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Press, 1965.
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C HA PTER 27
REVOLTS AND DICTATORSHIP

OBSTRUCT THE DEMOCRATIC
OVERTURE
R E V O LT S A G A I N S T T H E N E W G O V E R N M E N T
Emiliano Zapata was the first to pronounce against the new regime. In November 1911 the
Zapatistas promulgated their famous Plan de Ayala, in which Zapata’s goals were further de-
veloped and articulated by Otilio Montaño, a schoolteacher from Ayala. After withdrawing
recognition of Madero and recognizing Chihuahuan Pascual Orozco as titular head of the
rebellion, the plan spelled out its program of agrarian reform.
The lands, woods, and water that the landlords, científicos, or bosses have usurped . . . will
be immediately restored to the villages or citizens who hold the corresponding titles to
them. . . . The usurpers who believe they have a right to those properties may present their
claims to special courts that will be established on the triumph of the Revolution. Because
the great majority of Mexicans own nothing more than the land they walk on, and are un-
able to improve their social condition in any way . . . because lands, woods, and water are
monopolized in a few hands . . . one-third of these properties will be expropriated, with
prior indemnification, so that the villages and citizens of Mexico may obtain ejidos, town-
sites, and fields.1
The armed conflict began immediately and quickly spread from Morelos to the neigh-
boring states of Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Mexico, and even into the Federal District. Made-
ro’s federal commanders could not contain the spread of the rebellion, as the Zapatista army
continued to grow. By early 1912 Zapata had disrupted railroad and telegraph service and
taken over a number of towns; he had repeatedly defeated the federals and had the govern-
ment on the run.
At approximately the same time General Bernardo Reyes launched a second movement
in the north in December 1911. Madero’s fear that General Reyes still enjoyed a wide base
of support among the army proved unfounded as few northern Mexicans wanted a return
1 The entire plan is quoted in Jesús Silva Herzog, Breve historia de la revolución mexicana vol. 1 (Mexico City,
Mexico, 1962), 240–46.
378
Revolts and Dictatorship Obstruct the Democratic Overture 379
to the past. Realizing that his sluggish revolution was not garnering sufficient support, on
Christmas Day Reyes surrendered to a detachment of rurales. The commander of Mexico’s
third military zone, General Jerónimo Treviño, sent him first to prison in Monterrey and
then had him transferred to the Prisión Militar de Santiago Tlaltelolco in Mexico City to
await trial for treason.
At the end of the year a third revolt broke out against Madero in Chihuahua. Emilio
Vásquez Gómez, believing that he and his brother Francisco had been unfairly treated in
the last elections, launched his movement calling for Madero’s ouster from office. At the end
of January Madero was shocked to learn that the Vasquistas had captured Ciudad Juárez.
The president knew full well the significance of this border city where his own revolt had
triumphed. Realizing the popularity that Pascual Orozco enjoyed in the north, Madero com-
missioned the Chihuahua commander to take charge of the government campaigns. For the
rank and file of the Vásquez Gómez army Orozco—not Madero—had been responsible for
the overthrow of Díaz. Orozco had recruited the troops and led them in battle. He was the
symbol of Chihuahua manhood and living proof that a poor, indifferently educated north-
erner could humble a professional army trained in the big city. The Vasquistas, not wishing
to fight Orozco, agreed to meet with him. In the simple, folksy idiom of the north, Orozco
made an impassioned speech calling for national unity and persuaded the rebel army to lay
down arms without firing another shot.
A few months later the most serious antigovernment movement broke out in the north,
by the same man who had just called for national unity and saved Madero from the Vas-
quista offensive. Pascual Orozco drew on a mixed base of rebel support, including many
who called for social change. It also enjoyed the conservative financial support of the
Terrazas clique in Chihuahua, who believed they could control the movement once it
triumphed.
The Plan Orozquista, dated March 25, 1912, was the most comprehensive call for reform
yet voiced from Mexican soil. It caustically attacked Madero for failing to abide by his own
principles as set forth in the Plan de San Luis Potosí, citing state and local government
corruption, nepotism, and favoritism. Not only had Madero’s cousin, Rafael Hernández,
been awarded the critical cabinet position of secretary of development but his uncle, Ernesto
Madero, had been made secretary of the treasury; a relative by marriage, José González Salas,
served as secretary of war; brother Gustavo Madero and four other members of the family
were in the congress; brother Raúl Madero received a series of government-supported mili-
tary assignments; another relative was on the Supreme Court; two were in the postal service;
and yet another was an undersecretary in the cabinet. Government army uniforms came
from cotton cloth manufactured in Madero mills, while ammunition was purchased from
cousin José Aguilar’s munitions plant in Monterrey.
The Plan Orozquista embraced social reform, drawing its inspiration from the Liberal
Plan of 1906. It called for a ten-hour workday, restrictions on child labor, improved work-
ing conditions, higher wages, and the immediate suppression of the tiendas de raya. Antici-
pating the surge of economic nationalism that would sweep over Mexico in the next two
decades, it proposed the immediate nationalization of the railroads. Agrarian reform also
figured prominently. Persons who had resided on their land for twenty years were to be given
title to it, while all lands illegally seized from the peasantry were to be returned. All lands
owned by the government were to be distributed, and, most important, land owned by the
hacendados, but not regularly cultivated, would be expropriated.
With alarming speed Orozco amassed a large army—some eight thousand strong—and
began marching south to Mexico City. Capturing federally held towns along the way the
rebels prepared themselves for a major showdown. The anticipated battle occurred at Rel-
lano, close to the Chihuahua–Durango border. Madero’s secretary of war, José González
Salas, opted to command the government forces personally, only to be humiliated by Oro-
zco’s untrained rebels. As the federals retreated in disarray, González Salas, fearful of public
rebuke, committed suicide. With panic growing in Mexico City, Madero named Victoriano
Huerta to head a new government offensive which he launched in late May 1912. By sheer
chance the artillery duel once again occurred on the fields of Rellano, but with different re-
sults on this occasion. Not only was Huerta a better field commander than his predecessor,
but the Orozquistas were handicapped by lack of ammunition. Huerta pushed them back to
the north and in the process temporarily saved the teetering Madero government.
Madero had no time for rejoicing for in early October 1912 a fifth serious rebellion broke
out against him. This time Félix Díaz, the nephew of Don Porfirio, called an army together
in Veracruz. Clearly counterrevolutionary in orientation, the Felicista movement comprised
many disgruntled supporters of the former dictator. Félix Díaz appealed to the army and
suggested that Madero had trampled on its honor by passing over many competent career
officers and placing self-made revolutionary generals in charge of key garrisons. Only the
troops stationed in Veracruz came to Díaz’s support; other army units isolated the rebels in
Veracruz, forcing them to surrender. A hastily conceived court-martial found Díaz guilty of
treason and sentenced him to death, but a compassionate Madero commuted the sentence
to imprisonment. Díaz was taken under arms to the capital and placed in the Federal District
penitentiary. Madero’s generosity was in no way reciprocated. Within two months Félix Díaz
in one Mexico City prison had established contact with Bernardo Reyes in another, and the
two were plotting to overthrow the government. This sixth rebellion would succeed, and
Madero would lose not only his office but, a victim of his own ideals, his life as well.
THE OVERTHROW OF MADERO
Planned for several months, the military coup that began in Mexico City on February 9,
1913, drastically altered the course of the Mexican revolution. The capital had thus far been
spared the ravages of the war that had engulfed much of the nation since November 1910.
Now Mexico City residents would be given practical instruction in the full destructive sig-
nificance of civil war. Early in the morning of February 9, General Manuel Mondragón, sup-
ported by several artillery regiments and military cadets, released Bernardo Reyes and Félix
Díaz from their respective prisons and marched on the National Palace. Reyes, sporting a
fancy military uniform and mounted on a white horse, led the charge and was felled by one
of the first machine gun blasts. The rebel leadership then devolved on Félix Díaz. When loyal
government troops repulsed the assault on the National Palace, Díaz led his troops west-
ward across the city and installed his army in the Ciudadela, an old and well-fortified army
arsenal. Madero, disregarding the advice of several confidants, named General Victoriano
Huerta to command his troops. It proved to be a momentous decision.
For the next ten days—the Decena Trágica—Mexico City became a labyrinth of barri-
cades, improvised fortifications, and trenches. Artillery fire exchanged between the rebels in
the Ciudadela and the government troops in the National Palace destroyed buildings and
set fires. As commercial establishments closed their doors for the duration, consumer goods
became scarce and people panicked. Downtown streets were strewn with burning cars, run-
away horses, and abandoned artillery pieces. Live electric wires dangled precariously from
their poles. Looters broke store windows and carried off wares with complete impunity. On
one occasion an artillery barrage opened a breach in the wall of the Belén prison and hun-
dreds of inmates scurried through the opening to freedom. A few surveyed the chaos outside
and decided to remain.
With neither side able to gain a clear military advantage, civilian casualties mounted
into the thousands and bodies began to bloat in the streets. Foreign residents sought the
sanctuary of embassies, but not all made it in time. Most traffic came to a halt as only ambu-
lances, military vehicles, and diplomatic automobiles, identified by special flags, moved on
the streets. On February 17, after nine days of constant fighting, Madero summoned Huerta
and asked when the fighting could be expected to cease. Huerta assured him that peace
would be restored to the beleaguered city the following day. The residents of the capital
were awakened early on the morning of February 18 by the sounds of artillery and machine
gun fire, just as they had been for the previous nine days. But in the afternoon the clamor
of war stopped. Huerta had decided to change sides. He withdrew recognition of the federal
government and dispatched General Aureliano Blanquet to the National Palace to arrest the
president. Blanquet encountered Madero in one of the patios and, with revolver in hand,
proclaimed, “You are my prisoner, Mr. President.” Madero retorted, “You are a traitor.” But
Blanquet simply reaffirmed, “You are my prisoner.”2 Within a half-hour Vice President Pino
Suárez, Madero’s brother Gustavo, and most of the cabinet had been arrested as well.
The agreement according to which Huerta joined the rebels is known as the Pact of the
Embassy because the final negotiations were conducted under the aegis of the American
ambassador in Mexico City, Henry Lane Wilson. A typical diplomat of the age of dollar di-
plomacy, Wilson saw his role as protector of US business interests. Throughout the Madero
presidency he had meddled shamelessly in Mexico’s internal affairs, and during the Decena
Trágica he played an active part in charting the course of events. The German ambassador to
Mexico, Admiral Paul von Hintz, recorded the daily events of the 1912–1914 period, along
with the activities of Wilson and other schemers. On one occasion, in concert with the Brit-
ish, German, and Spanish ministers, the American ambassador even demanded Madero’s
resignation, alleging as his reason the tremendous damage to foreign property in Mexico
City. After being rebuffed by the Mexican president, Wilson changed his tactics and worked
actively to bring Huerta and Díaz to an accord. On the evening of February 18 the two gener-
als met with Wilson at the American embassy and hammered out the pact that justified the
coup and made Victoriano Huerta provisional president.
2 Quoted in Michael C. Meyer, Huerta: A Political Portrait (Lincoln, NE, 1972), 57.
A federal machine gun nest awaits the rebel advance.
In the city of Mexico, at nine-thirty in the evening on February 18, 1913, General Félix Díaz
and Victoriano Huerta met in conference. . . . General Huerta stated that because of the un-
bearable situation created by the government of Mr. Madero, he had, in order to prevent the
further shedding of blood and to safeguard national unity, placed the said Madero, several
members of his cabinet, and various other persons under arrest. . . . General Díaz stated
that his only reason for raising the standard of revolt was a desire on his part to protect
the national welfare, and in that light he was ready to make any sacrifice that would prove
beneficial to the country. . . . From this time forward the former chief executive is not to be
recognized. The elements represented by Generals Díaz and Huerta are united in opposing
all efforts to restore him to power. . . . Generals Díaz and Huerta will do all in their power to
enable the latter to assume . . . the provisional presidency.3
Wishing to cloak his assumption of power in some semblance of legality, Huerta first
secured the official resignations of Madero and Pino Suárez and then convened a special eve-
ning session of the congress. The resignations were accepted by the legislative body with only
five dissenting votes, and the presidency legally passed to the next in line, Secretary of Foreign
Relations Pedro Lascuráin. Sworn into office at 10:24 P.M., Lascuráin immediately appointed
General Huerta as secretary of interior and at 11:20 P.M. submitted his own resignation. The
Constitution of 1857 provided that in the absence of a president, a vice-president, and a
secretary of foreign relations, the office passed to the secretary of interior. Huerta, clad in a
3 The Pact of the Embassy has been translated and included in its entirety in ibid., 235–36.
formal black tuxedo, was sworn into office shortly before midnight. Madero-style democracy
had ended in derision as Mexico had its third president in one day.
Another political charade followed soon after. On the evening of February 21, 1913,
Francisco Madero and José María Pino Suárez were transferred from the National Palace,
where they had been held prisoners since the day of their arrest, to the Federal District peni-
tentiary. The capital city newspapers the following day blared an improbable tale. A group
of Madero’s supporters attacked the convoy escorting the prisoners, attempted to free them,
and during the ensuing melee both the former president and vice president were killed. Vir-
tually no one believed this official version, but few Mexicans knew what really happened.
Madero and Pino Suárez had been taken to the penitentiary under the guard of Francisco
Cárdenas, a major in the rurales. When the convoy reached the prison, Cárdenas ordered
the captives out of the cars and, by prearranged signal, the spotlights high on the wall were
turned off. The hapless men were then shot point-blank. To this day, no one has been able
to ascertain who ordered the assassinations, although suspicion fell on Huerta.
H U E R TA
Victoriano Huerta was born of a Huichol Indian mother and a mestizo father in a small
Jalisco village. Attending a poor local school run by the parish priest, he learned to read and
write and showed some natural talent for science and mathematics. As a teenager he served
as an aide to a career general who used his influence in Mexico City to have Huerta accepted
at the National Military Academy. Despite his mediocre educational background, he did well
as a cadet and received his commission in 1876 as a second lieutenant assigned to the army
corps of engineers.
Huerta’s prerevolutionary career coincided almost exactly with the Díaz dictatorship,
and he became an effective agent of Don Porfirio’s system of enforced peace. During the
thirty-four-year Porfiriato, Huerta fought in the north against the Yaqui, in the south against
the Maya, and in the central part of the country against other Mexicans unhappy with the au-
tocratic regime. Encountering much success on the field of battle, he rose rapidly in the ranks
and by the turn of the century became a brigadier-general. National prominence and some
notoriety engulfed him for the first time in the summer of 1911 when interim President León
de la Barra dispatched him to Morelos to enforce the demobilization of the Zapatista troops.
When Bernardo Reyes and Félix Díaz planned the military coup of February 1913, their
emissaries approached Huerta and solicited his support. He refused the invitation, however,
not out of loyalty to the Madero administration but rather because he wanted the leader-
ship for himself. When Bernardo Reyes died during the first major encounter, the situation
changed. Huerta dallied for a week and, having determined that he would be able to control
Félix Díaz, made his decision to change sides. Within a few days federal generals and state
governors began to pledge support for the new regime. A group of talented statesmen and in-
tellectuals accepted cabinet portfolios. Sanitation workers started to scour the bloodstained
streets of the capital and to attack a 10-day backlog of garbage. Red Cross units tried to iden-
tify hundreds of decaying corpses, and electricians repaired wires dangling dangerously from
their poles. Restoring order, however, did not proceed well everywhere.
R E B E L L I O N A N D M I L I TA R I Z AT I O N
The first genuinely ominous sign came from the northeast where Coahuila governor Venustiano
Carranza, an ardent Madero supporter, announced his decision not to recognize the new regime.
Carranza issued a circular telegram to other state governors exhorting them to follow his good
example. Within a few weeks he found support in Chihuahua and Sonora. Pancho Villa assumed
military leadership of the anti-Huerta movement in Chihuahua, while Alvaro Obregón, a man
of considerable military talent, took charge of the antigovernment operations in neighboring
Sonora. The alliance of the northern revolutionaries, and their formal pronouncement of defec-
tion, was sealed in late March when representatives from the three states affixed their signatures
to the Plan de Guadalupe. After withdrawing recognition of the Huerta government, the plan
named Venustiano Carranza as “First Chief” of the Constitutionalist Army and provided that he,
or someone designated by him, would occupy the interim presidency upon Huerta’s defeat. An
exclusively political document, the plan embodied no program of social reform.
In southern Mexico Huerta encountered an implacable enemy of a different sort. Emiliano
Zapata angrily rejected Huerta’s invitation to pledge support of the government. In fact, the
southern rebel arrested and subsequently executed the federal peace commissioners sent to
garner his allegiance. Zapata, declared himself in rebellion because he saw no hope that the
federal government under Huerta would begin to restore the village lands in Morelos. Not trust-
ing the Constitutionalist dedication to agrarian reform either, Zapata never allied himself with
the anti-Huerta movement in the north. But by forcing the government to divert some of its war
effort from the north to the south, Zapata placed additional military pressure on the new regime.
Facing rebellion in the north and in Morelos, Huerta announced brazenly to the congress
that he would reestablish peace with the federal army of fifty thousand troops, at any cost.
Nonetheless, in March and April the Constitutionalists scored impressive victories in Sonora
and Chihuahua, while in the south Emiliano Zapata had done the same. The psychology of
the civil war changed drastically in May when First Chief Carranza, in a singularly intem-
perate decree, announced that federal soldiers who fell into rebel hands would be executed
summarily. Huerta responded that he would militarize Mexico to the teeth.
Factories and stores not related to the war effort were required to close on Sundays
so that civilian employees could be given military training. Railroads left civilian passen-
gers and freight standing in the stations so that military personnel and hardware could be
shipped to where it was needed. The National Arms Factory, the National Artillery Work-
shops, and the National Power Factory received new equipment to increase their productive
capacities. Scarcely a week passed without a showy military parade or public display of the
latest military equipment, along with Huerta sporting his favorite dress uniforms replete
with ribbons covering the left side of his jacket and medals draped from his neck. In the
late summer of 1913 school after school found its governing regulations changed to provide
for the mandatory wearing of military uniforms. Training in the military arts and sciences
was added to the curricula. Most importantly, the president decreed constant increases in
the size of the federal army—from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand to two hundred
thousand and finally to a two hundred fifty thousand, or about twelve times the number of
troops available to Porfirio Díaz when the revolution broke out.
Modern technology is brought to warfare. In one of the first military uses of aircraft, Huerta employed eighty-
horsepower planes similar to these in reconnaissance and bombing raids against the Villistas in the north.
When small pay increases failed to attract enlistees in large numbers, Huerta fell back on
a time-honored tradition—the leva, a system of forced conscription directed exclusively at the
indigent masses. Thousands of them were picked up off the streets of the barrios in the large
cities and from the surrounding countryside and sent into the field. The crowds emerging from
a bullfight or staggering out of a cantina closing its doors for the night were favorite targets, as
were criminals in jail for minor offenses. Not surprisingly, the leva caused a steady decline in
the quality of the federal army. The lack of adequate training meant no esprit de corps, no disci-
pline, and tremendously high desertion rates. In the fall of 1913, entire units of new recruits to
turned themselves and their equipment over to the enemy without firing a single shot.
The civil war took a tremendous toll in1913 and 1914. The population of a village could
double to triple overnight as a large military unit moved in to camp. Because there was no
advance notice, a week’s stay could deplete stores of food, supplies, and other basic necessi-
ties, thus aggravating the obscenities of war. When the troops withdrew, they left villages on
the verge of starvation. The receipts a local merchant might receive as the troops emptied his
store were scarcely worth the paper they were hastily scrawled on.
With his military position deteriorating, Huerta became increasingly impetuous, egotisti-
cal, and dictatorial. Recognizing the potential value of a controlled press, Huerta initiated an
extensive policy of censorship, removing, exiling, and jailing editors who adopted hostile at-
titudes. A vast network of secret agents and spies reported on the activities of real and poten-
tial enemies, and by the fall of 1913 the jail cells in Mexico City and many of the state capitals
bulged with political prisoners. The most reprehensible facet of the Huerta dictatorship was
its unbridled use of political assassination. After the senseless slaying of Madero and Pino
Suárez, the regime targeted Maderista governor Abraham González and many army officers,
congressmen, professional men, and petty bureaucrats who manifested their discontent.
In the most celebrated case of all, Senator Belisario Domínguez from Chiapas, an out-
spoken critic of the regime, ignored the good counsel of friends in the senate, and asked for
the floor to read a prepared statement.
Peace, cost what it may, Mr. Victoriano Huerta had said. Fellow Senators, have you studied
the terrible meaning of those words . . . ? The national assembly has the duty of deposing
Mr. Victoriano Huerta from the presidency. He is the one against whom our brothers in
the north protest with so much reason. . . . You will tell me, gentlemen, that the attempt
is dangerous; for Mr. Victoriano Huerta is a bloody and ferocious soldier who assassinates
without hesitation anyone who is an obstacle to his wishes; this does not matter gentlemen!
The country exacts from you the fulfillment of a duty, even with risk, indeed the assurance,
that you are to lose your lives.4
Two weeks later Belisario Domínguez died from an assassin’s bullet. The morally out-
raged senate passed a resolution requesting full information from the president and resolv-
ing to remain in permanent session. Two days later Huerta responded by dissolving both
houses of the legislature and arresting the majority of the congressmen.
E C O N O M I C P R O B L E M S A N D F O R E I G N R E L AT I O N S
The war Huerta was fighting against the Constitutionalists in the north and the Zapatistas
in the south could not be supported by an empty treasury. By relying on the leva to fill the
ranks of the federal army, Huerta depleted the work force in both the cities and the country-
side. With no pickers, cotton rotted in the fields, coffee beans fell off the trees, and sugarcane
remained unharvested on the large plantations. Mines closed operations; cattlemen in the
north lost thousands of head to the rebels; and fruit growers, realizing their perishable prod-
ucts were extremely vulnerable to transportation delays, cut back production. As food and
manufactured goods became scarce, a black market began to flourish in the larger cities, and
the entire economic structure of the country suffered. In response, the government expedi-
ently issued paper money without adequate hard reserves to back it up. The new paper issue
depreciated almost as soon as it rolled off the press. Not to be outdone, the Constitutional-
ists and the Zapatistas issued their own currency, as did a number of states and large mining
and industrial concerns. Late in 1913 at least twenty-five different kinds of paper currency
circulated, making it impossible to ascertain fluctuating exchange rates. Counterfeiters had a
field day while bankers and tax collectors became paralyzed.
In addition to his military and economic problems, Huerta faced one other dilemma.
The United States not only refused to recognize his regime but adopted a frankly hostile
attitude toward him. Woodrow Wilson came to the US presidency almost simultaneously
with Victoriano Huerta’s rise to power. While the American ambassador to Mexico, Henry
Lane Wilson, urged recognition, President Wilson and his newly appointed secretary of state,
William Jennings Bryan, both with an abiding faith in the concept of the democratic state,
refused. To the White House, Huerta, who came to power by forcefully ejecting the previous
regime, represented all that was wrong with Latin America. Unprepared by temperament
or training to understand the complexities of the Mexican revolution, President Wilson de-
cided to apply his own standards of political ethics to the situation.
Demonstrating little faith in the reports received from Ambassador Wilson, the presi-
dent and the secretary of state decided to dispatch special agents to Mexico to report on the
nature of the growing conflict. They first sent William Bayard Hale. Speaking no Spanish,
Hale relied heavily on the US business community for his information, but he managed
4 Quoted in Ibid., 137–38.

Together with several other kinds of scrip, this twenty-peso note from Chihuahua state was used by the Consti-
tutionalists in late 1913 and early 1914.
interviews with several high-level Mexican officials as well. Although most informants fa-
vored early recognition of the regime, Hale capitulated to President Wilson’s sense of moral
rectitude, characterizing Huerta as “an ape-like man, of almost pure Indian blood. He may
be said to subsist on alcohol. Drunk or only half drunk (he is never sober) he never loses a
certain shrewdness.”5 By playing into President Wilson’s moral diplomacy, Hale sealed the
fate of Ambassador Wilson who was recalled and replaced by John Lind, a former governor
of Minnesota and a longtime friend of Secretary Bryan.
If there was ever any hope for a reconciliation between the United States and Mexico in
the late summer and fall of 1913, Lind’s reports to Washington eliminated it. Speaking no
more Spanish than Hale and being even less conversant with Mexican politics, his dispatches
were haughty, bellicose, inaccurate, and often laden with anti-Catholic and anti-Indian slurs.
His characterization of the Mexican cabinet (“a worse pack of wolves never infested any com-
munity”) reveals more about Lind than about Huerta’s advisers. Given President Wilson’s
insistence that Huerta had to go, there were only two genuine avenues open: Wilson could
intervene militarily in Mexico, or he could intervene indirectly by channeling US aid to the
Constitutionalists in the north. He chose the second alternative first, and, when that did not
work, he opted for military intervention.
DOMESTIC REFORMS
Amazingly, despite the military, economic, and diplomatic pressures the regime faced,
Huerta and his advisers found some time for domestic programs. The enemies of the dic-
tatorship labeled them counterrevolutionary, an attempt to reincarnate the age of Díaz.
But examination of the regime’s social programs reveals that they were anything but that.
While Porfirio Díaz had never allocated over 7.2 percent of his budget for education and
Madero had raised the percentage slightly to 7.8 percent, Huerta projected a 9.9 percent
5 Quoted in Larry D. Hill, Emissaries to a Revolution: Woodrow Wilson’s Executive Agents in Mexico (Baton Rouge,
LA, 1973), 31.
allocation for educational services. Still inadequate, Huerta did manage the construction of
one hundred thirty-one new rural schools with seats for some ten thousand new students.
Secretary of Education Nemesio García Naranjo initiated a new curriculum at the National
Preparatory School. Breaking sharply with the positivist tradition of Gabino Barreda, García
Naranjo made more room for the study of literature, history, and philosophy. He did not
abandon the sciences but argued persuasively that the other branches of learning should not
be sacrificed to them. By creating a reasonable balance between the arts and the sciences, the
secretary struck an important first blow at the científico philosophy of education.
The anticientífico posture of the regime manifested itself in Indian policy as well. Admin-
istration spokesman Jorge Vera Estañol early championed indigenismo arguing that national
unity was impossible when millions of Indians were estranged from the rest of the population
by language, customs, diet, and life expectancy. He advocated, without sufficient funding, a
rural education program intended to bring the Indian into the mainstream of national life.
The regime initiated a modest agrarian reform program by distributing free seed to
anyone who asked for it and by expanding the activities of the agricultural school in Mexico
City. Of greater practical significance Huerta authorized the restoration of 78 ejidos to the
Yaqui and Mayo Indians of Sonora. He instructed Eduardo Tamariz, Mexico’s secretary of
agriculture, to begin studying the problem of land redistribution. Tamariz could find noth-
ing in the Constitution of 1857 that authorized the expropriation of land, so he found his
solution in the taxation provisions of the constitution. If taxes were increased on the large
haciendas, the land would be less valuable for speculative purposes and hacendados would
have to consider sale. Without congressional authorization, Huerta went ahead on his own
and decreed an increase in land taxes.
In the areas of labor, church policy, and foreign relations the Huerta regime also departed
from the models of the Porfiriato. Not a social revolution, Huerta’s programs were not coun-
terrevolutionary either, according to Huerta’s principal biographer, Michael Meyer. While
it is true that Huerta’s abuse of political power can justifiably be likened to Don Porfirio’s
authoritarianism, nevertheless, in the larger social sense both Huerta and his advisers recog-
nized that the days of Díaz had passed
U S I N T E R V E N T I O N A N D T H E FA L L O F H U E R TA
By the spring of 1914 Huerta, losing his wars on both the military and the economic fronts,
faced a steadily deteriorating relationship with the United States. Early in 1914 President
Wilson beefed up the American fleet stationed off Mexican waters. In April a seemingly
insignificant event augured the most serious US-Mexico dispute since the war of the mid-
nineteenth century. Captain Ralph T. Earle of the USS Dolphin, stationed off the coast of
Tampico, ordered a small landing party to go ashore, ostensibly for supplies. Still in govern-
ment hands, Tampico had been attacked by Constitutionalists several days before and the
federal forces awaited a more concerted assault. When US sailors wandered into a restricted
dock area, the government ordered their arrest on the spot.
Within an hour orders came for the sailors’ release, accompanied by an official apol-
ogy. But Rear Admiral Henry T. Mayo, commander of the naval forces off Tampico, con-
sidered the apology insufficient and demanded more. Since the boat carrying the sailors to
shore allegedly flew the American flag, Mayo insisted that the Mexican government hoist
the American flag at some prominent place on shore and present a twenty-one-gun salute
to it. President Wilson considered the demands reasonable and prepared himself to make
the incident a casus belli should Huerta not publicly recant in exactly the manner prescribed.
Huerta’s secretary of foreign relations insisted that the small landing craft had not carried
the flag but agreed to the salute on the condition that the United States return the salute to
the Mexican flag. The White House considered the rejoinder impertinent, for both President
Wilson and Secretary of State Bryan realized that a US salute to the Mexican flag could be
considered tantamount to recognizing the Huerta regime.
With neither side knowing exactly what to do next, the stalemate broke when the US consul
in Veracruz wired Washington that a German ship, the Ypiranga, would arrive in that port on
April 21 with a large shipment of arms for Huerta. President Wilson gave immediate orders for
a naval occupation of Veracruz. The marines took the city but Mexican casualties mounted into
the hundreds, including many noncombatants of both sexes. An indignant public outcry arose
from Mexico City. Congressmen denounced the United States, and mobs looted American-
owned businesses, tore down the statue of George Washington, and threatened tourists. Mexi-
can newspapers urged retaliation against the “Pigs of Yanquilandia.” In Monterrey the US flag
was ripped from the consulate and burned on the spot. But in the capital, the Stars and Stripes
flag was tied to the tail of a donkey and used to sweep clean the streets of the central plaza.
President Wilson’s attempt to rid Mexico of a dictator almost backfired. Venustiano Car-
ranza and the majority of his Constitutionalists, the supposed beneficiaries of the Veracruz
intervention, expressed their strong disapproval of the blatant violation of Mexican sov-
ereignty. Huerta, however, could not capitalize upon their displeasure, and his call for all
Mexicans to lay aside internal differences and present a united front went unheeded. Even
the initial indignation expressed in Mexico City soon dissipated as the US troops, despite
rumors to the contrary, did not march on Mexico City as they had in 1847.
As Huerta called in his troops to make a show of force against the Americans, the Con-
stitutionalists in the north and the Zapatistas in the south quickly moved into the military
vacuums. By the early summer, with Pancho Villa’s capture of Zacatecas, Huerta’s military
position had become untenable. The continued occupation of Veracruz meant that revenues
from the customhouse were stopped before they reached the federal treasury. Recognizing
that the diplomatic, economic, and military pressures had all conspired to his disadvantage,
Huerta resigned on July 8, 1914. In his statement of resignation he placed the prime respon-
sibility for what had happened to Mexico on the Puritan who resided in the White House.
Woodrow Wilson bears much of the responsibility for Huerta’s overthrow. He meddled
shamelessly in Mexico’s internal affairs and, without the semblance of a threat to US se-
curity, shed innocent Mexican blood to effectuate the foreign policy objectives he deemed
opportune. Nonetheless, Wilson cannot be held accountable for the larger calamity that
had struck the Mexican nation. Not all Mexico’s domestic ills were orphans of US bullets as
Mexicans had not yet agreed on the meaning of their revolution. Francisco Madero’s well-
meaning but ineffectual experiment with democracy had failed when he had urged caution
and moderation on the burning social issues of the day. Huerta’s dictatorship failed as well.
While he was not unwilling to give the social reformers the chance to institute change, many
Mexicans could no longer bring themselves to accommodate another brutal dictatorship
US Navy “bluejackets” engage Mexican defenders at Veracruz in April 1914.
that exalted order at the expense of liberty. The number of options still open were gradually
being reduced, but the better day had not yet dawned.
Blaisdell, Lowell L. “Henry Lane Wilson and the Overthrow of Madero.” Southwestern Social Science Quar-
terly 43/2 (1962): 126–35.
Buchenau, Jürgen, and William Beezley, eds. State Governors in the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1952: Portraits
in Conflict, Courage, and Corruption. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.
Calvert, Peter. The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1914: The Diplomacy of the Anglo-American Conflict. New York:
Cumberland, Charles C. Mexican Revolution: The Constitutionalist Years. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972.
Grieb, Kenneth J. The United States and Huerta. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969.
Harris III, Charles H., and Louis R. Sadler. The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution. Albuquerque:
Hill, Larry D. Emissaries to a Revolution: Woodrow Wilson’s Executive Agents in Mexico. Baton Rouge: Louisi-
ana State University Press, 1973.
Katz, Friedrich. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Knight, Alan. The Mexican Revolution. Vol. 2: Counter Revolution and Reconstruction. New York: Cambridge
Meyer, Michael C. “The Arms of the Ypiranga.” Hispanic American Historical Review 50/3 (1970): 543–56.
. Huerta: A Political Portrait. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972.
Quirk, Robert E. An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz. New York: Norton, 1967.
Schuler, Freidrich E., ed. Murder and Counterrevolution in Mexico: The Eyewitness Account of German Ambas-
sador Paul von Hintze, 1912–1914. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015.
Vanderwood, Paul J. “The Picture Postcard as Historical Evidence: Veracruz: 1914.” The Americas 45/2
(1988): 201–26.
Wilson, Henry Lane. Diplomatic Episodes in Mexico, Belgium, and Chile. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Page, 1927.
C HA PTER 28
THE ILLUSORY QUEST FOR

A BETTER WAY
THE CONVENTION OF AGUASCALIENTES AND NEAR ANARCHY
The years following Victoriano Huerta’s ouster count as the most chaotic in Mexican revolu-
tionary history as the quarrels among erstwhile allies began. In 1914 First Chief Venustiano
Carranza allowed that a convention should be held to bring revolutionary factions together
and to determine who should be the provisional president of Mexico until national elections
could be scheduled. The Constitutionalist leadership selected the town of Aguascalientes in
neutral territory to host the convention and extended invitations to all the important revo-
lutionary groups, the number of delegates apportioned according to how many troops had
been deployed in the recent anti-Huerta campaigns.
The military delegates, in a wide array of uniforms and most carrying rifles with full
cartridge belts, began to arrive in Aguascalientes in early October. At one of the early
sessions Alvaro Obregón, the first chief’s official spokesman, presented the convention
with a Mexican flag inscribed with the words, “Military Convention of Aguascalientes.”
Each delegate placed his signature on the flag and swore allegiance to this assembly. The
impressive display of confraternity did not last for long, however. When the Zapatista
delegation arrived, a few days late, its leader, Paulino Martínez, asked to speak. In a de-
liberate affront to Carranza and Obregón, he recognized Villa and Zapata as the genuine
leaders of the revolution and argued that “effective suffrage and no-reelection” had no
meaning for the vast majority of Mexicans. The revolution had been fought for land and
liberty. The speech presaged a serious schism in the convention between Villistas and
Zapatistas, on the one hand, and Carrancistas and Obregonistas, on the other. Rather
than sectarian squabbles, the debates reflected fundamental differences on the direction
the revolution should take.
The vice chair of the Zapatista delegation, Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, spoke next.
A thirty-year-old socialist and a polished orator, he delineated future lines of combat.
391
I come here not to attack anyone but to evoke patriotism and to stimulate shame. I come
to excite the honor of all of the delegates to this assembly. . . . Perhaps it is necessary to
invoke respectable symbols [gesturing to the Convention flag], but I fear that the essence
of patriotism does not lie in the symbols, which are, after all, quite similar to the farces of
the church. . . . I believe that our word of honor is more valuable than all of the signatures
stamped on this flag. In the last analysis this flag represents nothing more than the triumph
of the clerical reaction championed by Iturbide. I will never sign this flag. . . . That which
we called Independence was not independence for the Indian, but independence for the
criollo, for the heirs of the conquerors who continue infamously to abuse and cheat the
oppressed Indian.1
Soto y Gama’s speech provoked continuous interruptions from supporters and foes.
Some of the delegates even pointed pistols in his direction. The acrimony occasioned by
the impassioned speech foretold the basic division between supporters of the politically
oriented plans of San Luis Potosí and Guadalupe and the agrarian Plan de Ayala.
When, against Carranza’s wishes, the convention chose Eulalio Gutiérrez as provisional
president of Mexico, the first chief, disavowed the action and, from Mexico City, ordered
his followers to withdraw. Some, including Alvaro Obregón, obeyed, while others made
common cause with the Zapatistas and Villistas. As Villa’s troops marched on the capital to
install Gutiérrez in the presidency, civil war again loomed large. Carranza withdrew his Con-
stitutionalist government to Veracruz. The US government had agreed to pull out its troops
just in time for Carranza to make the gulf port his provisional capital.
M U LT I P L E C I V I L WA R S
In early December 1914 Carranza’s two principal antagonists, Pancho Villa, “the Centaur
of the North,” and Emiliano Zapata, “the Attila of the South,” staged a dramatic meeting at
Xochimilco on the outskirts of Mexico City. While their followers had knotted the bonds of
intellectual camaraderie at the convention, the two leaders had never before met. The histo-
rian Robert Quirk has recreated the encounter from eyewitness accounts.
Villa and Zapata were a study in contrasts. Villa was tall and robust, weighing at least
180 pounds, with a florid complexion. He wore a tropical helmet after the English style. . . .
Zapata, in his physiognomy, was much more the Indian of the two. His skin was very dark,
and in comparison with Villa’s his face was thin with high cheek bones. He wore an im-
mense sombrero, which at times hid his eyes. . . .
The conference began haltingly . . . both were men of action and verbal intercourse left
them uneasy. . . . But then the conversation touched on Venustiano Carranza and suddenly,
like tinder, burst aflame. They poured out in a torrent of volubility their mutual hatred
for the First Chief. Villa pronounced his opinion of the middle class revolutionaries who
followed Carranza: “Those are men who have always slept on soft pillows. How could they
1 Quoted in Isidro Fabela, ed., Documentos históricos de la revolución mexicana, vol. 23 (Mexico City, Mexico,
1960-73), 181-82.
The Illusory Quest for a Better Way 393
Pancho Villa (left) and Emiliano Zapata (right) meet in Mexico City. The camaraderie was more apparent than
real.
ever be friends of the people, who have spent their whole lives in nothing but suffering?”
Zapata concurred: “On the contrary, they have always been the scourge of the people. . . .
Those cabrones! As soon as they see a little chance, well, they want to take advantage of it and
line their own pockets! Well, to hell with them!”2
These two great popular heroes of the revolution could not have been more differ-
ent in terms of temperament. Zapata was reserved and cautious but resolute, steadfast,
and fair in carrying out his promises, while the more physically dominant and intem-
perate Villa embodied a frontier code of fearlessness, honor, violence, and vengeance
in pursuing his objectives. Yet each man instinctively projected confidence, empathy,
and commitment to the aspirations of his followers in ways that inspired the fiercest
loyalty. Zapata more single-mindedly pursued agrarian reform, and Villa represented a
broader spectrum of social groups and interests. While both shared a profound disdain
for Carranza, their alliance produced no military cooperation against Carranza. The early
months of 1915 saw the Mexican Revolution degenerating into unmitigated anarchy.
Civil wars ravaged many states. Civilian casualties mounted as atrocities were committed
on all sides.
2 Robert E. Quirk, The Mexican Revolution, 1914-1915: The Convention of Aguascalientes (New York, NY, 1963),
135-38.
With his own conventionist coalition falling apart as well, provisional President Gutiér-
rez abandoned Mexico City and Obregón took the capital unopposed. Gutiérrez established
a new government in Nuevo León; Carranza, claiming national executive control as first
chief, continued to govern from Veracruz; the Zapatistas supported Roque González Garza as
president, while Pancho Villa ruled from Chihuahua. None of the governments recognized
the paper money, coinage, or legal contracts of the others.
The muddied political waters cleared somewhat in the most famous military engagement
of the revolution—the battle of Celaya—in April 1915. While Pancho Villa prepared to put
his slightly tarnished record of military victories on the line, Alvaro Obregón had immersed
himself in the battle reports from war-torn Europe. He had learned how to blunt a concerted
cavalry charge by encircling carefully laid out defensive positions with rolls of barbed wire. In
early April, when Villa attacked with a force estimated at twenty-five thousand men, Obregón
had planned his defenses with consummate skill. Villa launched a furious cavalry charge,
Obregón’s well-placed artillery and machine guns began cutting the attackers to pieces. Villa
was forced to retreat but in the middle of the month tried again to dislodge Obregón’s forces.
The second Villista offensive suffered even greater disaster. Villa threw his cavalry against
the barbed-wire entrenchments only to see wave after wave massacred. When it all ended,
thousands of bodies were strewn across the fields of Celaya and impaled on the barbed wire.
Obregón’s official report listed over four thousand Villistas dead, five thousand wounded,
and six thousand taken prisoner. He calculated his own losses at 138 dead and 227 wounded.
Pancho Villa (1878-1923). Never an “armchair general,” Villa often led his troops into battle. His famous Divi-
sion of the North, numbering some fifty thousand men, was the largest revolutionary force ever amassed in
America.
The battle of Celaya did not immediately destroy Villa’s capacity to make war, but it
did presage his ultimate defeat. By the summer and fall of 1915 First Chief Carranza had
gained the upper hand as both the Villistas in the north and the Zapatistas in the south
found themselves increasingly isolated and without national support. From the United
States, President Wilson threw official support behind the Constitutionalists. He extended
diplomatic recognition to the Carranza regime in October infuriating Pancho Villa, who had
courted the United States for years. Determined not to turn the other cheek, he began to take
his vengeance on private US civilians.
The first serious incident occurred at Santa Isabel (today General Trías), Chihuahua. On
January 9, 1916, at El Paso, Texas, a group of US mining engineers and technicians from
the Cusi Mining Company boarded a train for Mexico. Assured of a safe conduct from the
Constitutionalists, they set out to reopen the Cusihuiriachic silver mine. At the hamlet of
Santa Isabel, a band of Villistas stopped the train and boarded the car carrying the Ameri-
cans. The attackers dragged them off and murdered fifteen on the spot.
An even more controversial incident occurred exactly two months later. Early in the
morning of March 9, 1916, Villa dispatched 485 men across the border from Palomas, Chi-
huahua, and attacked the dreary, sun-baked adobe town of Columbus, New Mexico, where
Villa had been buying guns and ammunition. Apparently his retailers had not delivered
the last shipment paid for by Villistas. Villa’s motive has been much debated by historians;
certainly retaliation for the arms swindle is the simple answer. But others have seen it as an
attempt to expose Carranza as having sold out to the United States in return for diplomatic
recognition. If the incident prompted a US invasion and Carranza did nothing, he could be
revealed as having forfeited Mexican sovereignty.
One of the first shots stopped the large clock in the railroad station at 4:11 A.M. For the
next two hours the Villistas terrorized the town’s four hundred inhabitants. Shouting ¡Viva
Villa! and ¡Muerte a los Gringos!, they shot, burned, and looted. Troopers from the US Thir-
teenth Cavalry succeeded in driving them off by daybreak, but eighteen Americans had been
killed, many were wounded, and the town was burned beyond recognition.
Immediate clamor for US intervention first came from Senator Albert Bacon Fall of New
Mexico who called for a five hundred thousand men to occupy all of Mexico. President
Wilson rebuffed the request, but dispatched a small punitive expedition under the com-
mand of General John J. Pershing, an army man who years before had chased the Apache
chief, Geronimo, through the same northern Mexican desert. It took a week for Pershing to
organize his expedition, and that was more than enough time for Villa to cover his tracks.
Approximately six thousand US army troops wandered hot and thirsty through the rough
terrain in a futile effort to locate their prey. Little, if any, help could be expected from the
rural Mexicans, and as the Americans entered small pueblos they were often greeted with
shouts of ¡Viva Mexico, Viva Villa! As the expedition cut south into Mexico, First Chief Car-
ranza ordered Pershing to withdraw. Not yet ready to admit defeat, Pershing engaged a group
of Carrancista troops ordered to forestall his southward thrust. When hostilities began he
received orders to withdraw gradually to the north, but the expedition did not leave Mexico
until January 1917. By that time the United States had spent $130 million in its unsuccessful
attempt to catch and punish the Columbus raiders.
General Pershing’s cavalry expedition into northern Mexico may have hardened his troops for the upcoming war
in Europe, but his effort to capture Pancho Villa was in vain.
The failure of the Pershing punitive expedition notwithstanding, Villa got progressively
weaker and Carranza gradually consolidated his position in Mexico City. The first chief’s
advisers convinced him that the time had come to give some institutional basis to the revo-
lution that had engulfed the nation for almost six years. In an attempt to legitimize the
revolution he reluctantly agreed to convoke a congress to meet in Querétaro for the purpose
of drawing up a new constitution. Remembering how he had lost control of the Convention
of Aguascalientes, he vowed not to repeat the error in Querétaro. No individual or group
who had opposed the Constitutionalist movement would be eligible to participate; thus, no
Huertistas, Villistas, or Zapatistas were included among the delegates when the first session
convened in November 1916. First Chief Carranza quickly learned that the Constitutional-
ists themselves were scarcely in ideological agreement.
The delegates at Querétaro represented a new breed of Mexican politician and, in a sense,
constituted a new social elite. Unlike the Convention of Aguascalientes, military men consti-
tuted only 30 percent of the delegates. Over half had university educations and professional
titles. The large majority were young and middle class; because they had been denied mean-
ingful participation during the Porfiriato, many were politically ambitious.
With every intention of controlling the proceedings, Carranza submitted to the
Querétaro Congress a draft of a new constitution that differed little from the Constitu-
tion of 1857, although it contained a series of sections strengthening executive control.
Mexicali
BA
VERACRUZ
JA
Guanajuato QUERÉTARO
CA
LIF
OR
SONORA
NIA
GUANAJUATO Querétaro HIDALGO

CHIHUAHUA
NO
Hermosillo
RT
E
Chihuahua Pachuca
PUEBLA
BA
Morelia
JA
Mexico City
COAHUILA TLAXCALA
CA
MEXICO
LIF
D. F. Tlaxcala
OR
MICHOACÁN Toluca
SINALOA Monterrey
NIA
Puebla
Saltillo
SU
DURANGO Cuernavaca
NUEVO
R
Culiacán
LEÓN MORELOS
La Paz Durango
ZACATECAS
Ciudad
SAN LUIS Victoria
Zacatecas POTOSI TAMAULIPAS
AGUAS
PACIFIC
NAYARIT CALIENTES San Luis Potosí
OCEAN Aguascalientes
Mérida
Tepic GULF OF
Guadalajara MEXICO YUCATÁN
JALISCO Campeche QUINTANA

National Jalapa ROO
Capital Colima Ciudad Chetumal
The Illusory Quest for a Better Way

COLIMA
State CAMPECHE
TABASCO
Capitals VERACRUZ Villahermosa
Chilpancingo OAXACA
CHIAPAS
Oaxaca
Scale GUERRERO
Tuxtla Gutiérrez
0 100 200 300 Mi.
Mexico
397
It occasioned an inevitable split in the congress between those moderates who supported
Carranza and the radicals (called “Jacobins” by their opponents) who desired rapid social
reform.
The debates in Querétaro, focusing on everything from temperance to prison reform,
were acrimonious. After the first few votes had been taken, it was clear that the radicals
held the majority. Led by thirty-two-year-old Francisco Múgica, they succeeded in push-
ing through a number of anticlerical provisions and three extremely significant articles that
came to embody the fundamental orientation the revolution was to assume in the 1920s
and 1930s.
Intense anticlericalism surpassed that of the liberal-conservative struggles during
the nineteenth century. In addition to the old arguments, article after article limited the
powers of the church. Provisions declared marriage a civil ceremony; made priests ordi-
nary citizens, denied special legal status; banned public worship outside the confines of
the church; allowed state legislatures to determine the maximum number of priests within
state boundaries; required all priests in Mexico to be native-born; prohibited clergymen
from forming political parties; and mandated government approval for new church build-
ings. The anticlerical tenor of the Querétaro congress also surfaced in one of the three most
important articles.
Múgica’s committee on education drafted Article 3, and his proposal touched off pas-
sionate exchanges on the floor of the congress. Few took umbrage at the principle that pri-
mary education should be free and obligatory in the Mexican republic, but Múgica and his
radical also demanded that education should be secular. The lessons of history convinced
Múgica that the church was the implacable enemy of the Mexican people and an unrepen-
tantly anti-democratic institution. Despite concerted opposition from Félix Palavicini and
other Carranza supporters in the congress, when the final vote was taken, Francisco Múgica’s
Article 3 passed by a margin of almost two to one. With the radicals’ dominance well estab-
lished, two other major issues were resolved in their favor. The ensuing disputations on land
and labor left no doubt that a new age of liberalism had dawned.
Article 27 addressed Mexico’s endemic land problem and can be considered a direct
outgrowth of Díaz’s alienation of Mexico’s subsoil rights and his policy of allowing land
companies to appropriate traditionally communal lands. Even with the Zapatistas absent,
Article 27 required that lands seized illegally from the peasantry during the Porfiriato be re-
stored and provision be made for those communities that could not prove legal title. Equally
important, the private ownership of land was no longer considered to be an absolute right
but rather something of a privilege. If land did not serve a useful social function, it could be
appropriated by the state: “The nation shall at all times have the right to impose on private
property such limitations as the public interest may demand, as well as the right to regulate
the utilization of natural resources . . . in order to conserve them and to ensure a more equi-
table distribution of public wealth.” A special section of Article 27 deeply disturbed foreign
nationals who owned property in Mexico.
Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization have the right to acquire ownership of lands, wa-
ters . . . or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines or waters. The state may grant
the same right to foreigners, provided that they agree before the Department of Foreign Re-
lations to consider themselves as nationals in respect to such property, and bind themselves
not to invoke the protection of their government.3
The last, precedent-breaking article treated the labor question and sought to provide a
reasonable balance between labor and management. Article 123 provided for an eight-hour
workday, a six-day workweek, a minimum wage, and equal pay for equal work regardless of
sex or nationality. Most importantly, it gave both labor and capital the right to organize for
the defense of their respective interests and allowed workers the right to bargain collectively
and go on strike.
Not nearly as radical as many contemporary observers found it, the Constitution of 1917
soundly repudiated nineteenth-century laissez-faire liberalism. Although ideologically in-
debted to the Liberal Plan of 1906, the Plan Orozquista, and the Plan de Ayala, it was more
reformist than revolutionary. Even so, Carranza accepted it with great reluctance.
T H E C A R R A N Z A P R E S I D E N C Y, 1 9 1 7 - 1 9 2 0
Carranza handily won the special elections that were held in March 1917. On May 1st he
assumed the reins of a country far from pacified and economically distressed. The banking
structure had been shattered, in part because of the general chaos but also as a direct result
of the worthless paper money that had inundated the commercial markets. Mining suffered
enormous losses, with gold production declining some 80 percent between 1910 and 1916
and silver and copper production falling off 65 percent during the same period. Industrial
production fell off as well, and wages were depressed. The communication and transporta-
tion networks barely functioned. Agricultural shortages pushed food prices up, and the infla-
tion took a terrible toll on poor urbanites trying to live in a monetary economy.
Carranza had little intention of enforcing the Constitution of 1917, and he believed the
revolution to be over. In fact, it had scarcely begun. Under Article 27 Carranza distributed
only 450,000 acres of land, a paltry sum when one considers that many individual hacenda-
dos had more than this and Luis Terrazas alone owned in excess of 7 million acres. The land
Carranza did distribute had been taken away from his political enemies—this was neither
the spirit nor the intent of Article 27.
The record of the administration on labor was no better. Even before the new consti-
tution was enacted, Carranza used his army to put down a strike of workers in Veracruz
protesting payment of wages in worthless paper currency. When railroad workers declared
a strike in 1916, Carranza found it treasonous and arrested the leaders. Nonetheless, labor
continued to organize and in 1918, Luis Morones founded the first nationwide union, the
Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM). Earlier in the decade many workers
demonstrated that they did not need the federal government as their advocate; for example,
cotton textile workers in Puebla and Veracruz did not hesitate to challenge their bosses on
3 Quoted in Diario de los debates del Congreso Constituyente, 1916-1917 vol. II (Mexico City, Mexico, 1960), 1098.
Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920). The first chief of the Con-

stitutional Army assumed the presidency in 1917 but, despite
revolutionary rhetoric, moved slowly on the issues of social
reform. His timidity on these central issues ultimately cost him
popular support.
issues of wages and hours of work. They organized powerful unions that shaped the imple-
mentation of state labor codes with comprehensive protections for labor. Women also par-
ticipated as labor activists in Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
World War I complicated Carranza’s presidency. He hoped that the United States would
enter the conflagration early, thus distracting Washington from intervening in Mexican
affairs. But Mexico’s own position had to be carefully defined. Would the country follow
other Latin American nations in breaking diplomatic relations with Germany? While many
prominent Mexicans urged this course of action, others argued with understandable passion
that the United States had invaded Mexico on numerous occasions.
As Carranza considered the situation, on January 19, 1917, Germany’s ambassador pre-
sented him with the “Zimmerman telegram,” sent by the German foreign secretary, Arthur
Zimmerman. The cable was intercepted and decoded by the British, and then passed on
to the United States and eventually to the press, publishing it on March 1st. In this note
Zimmerman proposed that if Mexico would formally ally with Germany, on the success-
ful conclusion of the war Mexico would receive the territory in Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona that it had lost in the mid-nineteenth century. The intent was to forestall US entry
into the war by creating a diversionary front on the US southern border. Mexico’s compli-
cated relations with Germany, Japan, and the United States during this period have been
analyzed carefully by the historian Friedrich Katz, who concluded that Carranza, although
not averse to worrying the United States about a possible Mexican alliance with Germany,
rejected the Zimmerman proposal in April. Mexico maintained formal neutrality through-
out the war.
While the European conflict disquieted Mexico and resulted in some economic disloca-
tion, the slow pace of the reform program can be attributed in large measure to Carranza. Of
all the disillusioned groups of revolutionaries in Mexico, the Zapatistas were most dismayed.
The president sent thousands of federal troops into Morelos under trusted General Pablo
González. Conducting a competent campaign, González took a number of Zapatista towns,
but the guerrilla chieftain himself eluded capture. During the relentless fighting in Morelos—
perhaps the most terrible of the entire revolution—the government charged thousands of
innocent civilians with aiding Zapatistas and executed them. Entire towns were burned,
crops methodically destroyed, and cattle stolen. The Zapatistas responded in kind and on
one occasion blew up a Mexico City-Cuernavaca train, killing some four hundred passen-
gers, mostly civilians.
In March 1919 Zapata directed an open letter to Carranza. A passionate statement, it
helps to explain why Zapata had fought every Mexican head of state for a full decade. Zapata
addressed the letter not to the president whom he did not recognize, nor to the politician
whom he did not trust, but to Citizen Carranza.
As the citizen I am, as a man with a right to think and speak aloud, as a peasant fully aware
of the needs of the humble people, as a revolutionary and a leader of great numbers . . . I ad-
dress myself to you Citizen Carranza. . . . From the time your mind first generated the idea of
revolution . . . and you conceived the idea of naming yourself Chief . . . you turned the strug-
gle to your own advantage and that of your friends who helped you rise and then shared the
booty—riches, honors, businesses, banquets, sumptuous feasts, bacchanals, orgies. . . .
It never occurred to you that the Revolution was fought for the benefit of the great
masses, for the legions of the oppressed whom you motivated by your harangues. It was a
magnificent pretext and a brilliant recourse for you to oppress and deceive. . . .
In the agrarian matter you have given or rented our haciendas to your favorites. The old
landholdings . . . have been taken over by new landlords . . . and the people mocked in
their hopes.
EMILIANO ZAPATA4
Carranza finally chose deception to end his problem with Zapata. With help from
General Pablo González, he formulated a daring plot to kill the unbending revolutionary.
Colonel Jesús Guajardo, one of González’s subordinates in the Morelos campaigns, wrote
to Zapata that he wanted to mutiny and to turn himself, some five hundred men, and all of
their arms and ammunition over to the Zapatistas. Zapata demanded proof of Guarjardo’s
sincerity, for tricks had been played in the past, and asked that several former Zapatistas,
who had previously defected to the federal cause, be tried by court-martial and executed.
Colonel Guajardo agreed and carried out the order. Zapata began to be convinced when
he heard from his own network of spies that Guajardo had captured the town of Jonacate-
pec in the name of the Zapatistas. He then agreed to meet the defecting federal officer, on
April 10, 1919, at the Hacienda de Chinameca in his home territory. With only a few men
accompanying him, Zapata rode into the hacienda in the early afternoon. A young eyewit-
ness later described what happened.
4 Quoted in Isidro Fabela, ed., Documentos históricos de la revolución mexicana, vol. 23 (Mexico City, Mexico,
1960-73), 305-10.
Ten of us followed him just as he ordered. The rest of the people stayed [outside the walls]
under the trees, confidently resting in the shade with their carbines stacked. Having formed
ranks, [Guajardo’s] guard looked ready to do him honors. Three times the bugle sounded
the honor call; and as the last note died away, as the General in Chief reached the threshold
of the door . . . at point blank, without giving him time even to draw his pistols, the soldiers
who were presenting arms fired two volleys, and our unforgettable General Zapata fell never
to rise again.5
Rid of his most implacable adversary, Carranza would also die by the bullet. In 1920,
when the president attempted to name his own successor, Alvaro Obregón allied himself
with fellow Sonorans Adolfo de la Huerta and Plutarco Eliás Calles and declared himself in
revolt. Under a new revolutionary banner, the Plan de Agua Prieta, an army of northerners
began marching on Mexico City. In May, Carranza fled the capital and, on his way into exile,
was assassinated by one of his own guards in the village of Tlaxcalantongo.
The Carranza presidency confronted an economy in shambles and a country still po-
litically factionalized. Although most scholars credit him with building a victorious revo-
lutionary coalition and mounting a vigorous defense of Mexican sovereignty against the
United States, they also characterize him as a ruthless opportunist with little empathy
for the social goals or the populist politics of the revolution. Carranza’s sympathies lay
with the middle classes. Unable to prevent the enactment of the progressive articles of
the Constitution of 1917 in the areas of educational, labor, and land reform, during his
presidency he undermined them at every turn. He reduced the federal budget for educa-
tion, tried to crush labor union organization, and shunned land reform except to use
it to punish his enemies (for example, in confiscating lands from his political rivals in
Coahuila, the Madero family). Against his intransigence, his shrewd Sonoran enemies
drew the strength and insight that would bring them to power and assure them a popular
base of support.
Á LVA R O O B R E G Ó N , 1 9 2 0 - 1 9 2 4
With the election of Álvaro Obregón to a four-year presidential term in 1920, Mexican politi-
cians set to work on implementing the constitution that had been drafted and promulgated
at Querétaro in 1917. The war-torn country was closer to peace than it had been for a decade.
Zapata had been killed, and, just a few weeks before Obregón assumed the high office, even
the indomitable Pancho Villa had accepted a peace offering from the federal government—
the hacienda of Canutillo in Durango. The rigorous defender of the poor swallowed his
pride to settle down or perhaps to bide his time before the next tempest.
With the support of fellow Sonorans de la Huerta and Calles (together the three became
known as the Sonoran triangle or dynasty), in the ministries of finance and interior, Obregón
immediately turned his attention to the pressing problems of national reconstruction.
5 Quoted in John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York, NY, 1968), 326.
55
50
45
40
Millions of pesos 35
30
25
20
15
10
1909–10 1911–12 1913–14 1918–19 1922–23

Díaz Madero Huerta Carranza Obregón
Federal Expenditures for Education

Source: Celerino Cano, “Análisis de la Acción Educativa,” in Mexico, 50 Años de Revolución, vol. 4: La Cultura (Mexico, 1962), 36.
Álvaro Obregón (1880-1928). President of Mexico from

1920 to 1924, Obregón is shown here recovering from the
amputation of his right arm following the battle of Santa
Rosa (1915).
A powerful and persuasive orator, he enjoyed a wide base of popular support. Far from
radical, he did embrace social reform. Unfortunately, the beginning of his administration
coincided with the post–World War I economic slump, resulting in widespread hunger and
privation. Prices of gold, silver, copper, zinc, henequen, and cattle were depressed. Unem-
ployment was rampant in these industries, and the government’s foreign exchange from
these products fell off drastically. Only the price and demand for oil remained stable, and
by 1921 Mexico was producing 193 million barrels, making it the world’s third largest pro-
ducer of petroleum. Oil reserves, even with an inadequate taxation structure, sustained the
administration and enabled the president to embark upon a modest implementation of the
Constitution of 1917.
Beginning with Article 3 Obregón named José Vasconcelos, one of Mexico’s most illus-
trious men of letters, to be secretary of education. Educated in Mexico City, Vasconcelos re-
ceived his law degree at the age of twenty-three. Late in the Porfiriato his antipositivist views
led him to join the Ateneo de la Juventud, and he shortly distinguished himself as one of the
most brilliant minds in Mexico. An enthusiastic supporter of Francisco Madero, he became
a Constitutionalist at the time of Huerta’s coup. Vasconcelos briefly served as rector of the
National University and then accepted the portfolio of education.
Vasconcelos championed a broad spectrum of educational endeavors and became the
patron of the rural school. With dramatically increased federal funds placed at his dis-
posal, he sent dedicated teachers into hundreds of hamlets with a basic curriculum: read-
ing, writing, arithmetic, geography, and Mexican history. Vasconcelos strove to inspire the
teachers with a deep sense of national mission in the midst of intellectual debate over
how to craft a cultural nationalism that would bring together so many diverse peoples,
languages, traditions, and isolated areas. Some of the villages were a two- or three-days’
ride by horseback from the nearest railroad station, most lacked electricity, and few ame-
nities of the comfortable life were to be found. In addition, the new teachers were not
always welcomed with open arms. They often encountered deep hostility from villagers
who did not want to change their traditional ways wholesale; this was especially true in
indigenous communities that had remained more isolated. Urban revolutionaries had
little understanding of the embeddedness of popular Catholicism in the glue that held
communities together.
Vasconcelos’s plan did not aspire to segregate the Indians but through education to
incorporate them into the mainstream of mestizo society. This initiative did not mean
an erasure of the ancient past and folklore, but rather to bring them to the service of
the state in creating a hegemonic culture capable of unifying the nation. While the past
would be praised and symbolized artistically, the contemporary Indian would disappear.
Vasconcelos’s early, rather utopian (if not racist) thinking envisioned a future raza cós-
mica, a hybrid race, that would unite humanity. In his memoirs he described the process
as follows:
I also set up auxiliary and provisional departments, to supervise teachers who would follow
closely the methods of the Catholic missionaries of the Colony among Indians who still
do not know Spanish. . . . Deliberately, I insisted that the Indian Department should have
no other purpose than to prepare the native to enter the common school by giving him the
fundamental tools in Spanish, since I proposed to go contrary to the North American Prot-
estant practice of approaching the problem of teaching the native as something special and
separate from the rest of the population.6
Vasconcelos oversaw the construction of over one thousand rural schools between 1920
and 1924, more than had been constructed during the previous fifty years. To support the new
endeavor, he began a program of public libraries. Almost two thousand libraries had been
established by 1924, most of them stocked with books designed to reinforce the humanist
tradition of Mexico’s new intelligentsia. Government presses printed millions of primary
readers for both the schools and the libraries. A library set for a typical rural school consisted
of about fifty books packed in special crates that could be transported on muleback.
Vasconcelos believed in the utility of informal education as well and employed some of
Mexico’s leading artists—Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros—
to begin ornamenting the walls of public buildings with murals. Designed for the people
rather than for the art critics, the murals embodied largely anthropological and historical
themes that sought to instruct the literate and illiterate alike in the truths that Mexico’s lead-
ers wished to inculcate. However, Vasconcelos became increasingly critical of the polemical,
Marxist nature of the often massive wall paintings in government buildings.
Article 3 of the constitution had stipulated, of course, that education should be secular
and free, but President Obregón found it impossible to eliminate all church schools because
the state had neither the funds nor the teachers to educate all the children in Mexico. Forced
to allow Catholic school with some restrictions, Obregón encouraged the work of Protestant
missionaries in Mexico. He openly endorsed the work of the YMCA (Asociación Cristiana
de Jóvenes) and even supported its activities with state funds. The church naturally opposed
this new development but, with a few exceptions, open hostilities were avoided. Few realized
in the early 1920s that church–state relations were undergoing a lull before a terrible storm.
Obregón’s labor policy favored Luis Morones and the newly formed Confederación Re-
gional Obrera Mexicana (CROM). Because labor development had been so long stifled at
the national level, Obregón leaned in the opposite direction to support CROM’s leader, Luis
Morones who worked to establish a balance between labor and capital rather than attack
the structure of the capitalist system. These modest goals produced a mutually supportive
relationship between the government and CROM. In turn, for labor support, the administra-
tion financed the CROM’s national labor conventions and provided free railroad passes for
anyone who wished to attend. Blessed with not only government benevolence but also an
increasingly emboldened working class, membership in the union rose steadily from 50,000
in 1920 to an estimated 1.2 million in 1924.
Other developing unions did not fare so well, however. Two radical labor groups, the
Communist Federation of the Mexican Proletariat and the anarchist-led Industrial Workers
6 José Vasconcelos, A Mexican Ulysses: An Autobiography, trans. William Rex Crawford (Bloomington,
IN, 1963), 152.
of the World, tried unsuccessfully to gain a foothold in the labor movement. Obregón ex-
pelled a number of foreign labor leaders from the country and declared strikes of the radical
unions illegal. He was equally obdurate with the conservative Roman Catholic union move-
ment. Many Mexican labor leaders, however, had expected more support from Obregón.
When asked to intervene in labor’s behalf, the president time after time responded that
the issue in dispute should be resolved at the state or local level. In states with progressive
governors and militant workers, labor did not fare too badly. The federal government had
limited power.
On the matter of agrarian reform Obregón again showed himself as a compromiser. He
was aware that the Mexican economy, for better or for worse, was still tied to the hacienda
system and that a rapid redistribution of land would result in reduced agricultural produc-
tivity. The rural population would produce enough to feed itself but not enough to feed the
nonagrarian sector of the society. Even though he recognized the abject poverty of many
rural areas, he decided not to declare all-out war on the hacendados of the republic. By
the time his term expired in 1924, he had distributed only 3 million acres to 624 villages,
primarily in areas where the government had strong political enemies. The land went to the
communal ejidos rather than outright to individuals, but the number of villagers directly
benefiting numbered one hundred thirty thousand. The radical agrarianists, such as Antonio
Díaz Soto y Gama, believed that the president’s agrarian logic was faulty. Luis Terrazas alone
still owned as much land as the total distributed by the administration. Obregón had failed
to strike while the agrarian iron was hot. Although he had distributed nine times the amount
of land reallocated by distributed by Carranza, seven years after the adoption of the constitu-
tion, Article 27 had not yet benefited the majority of rural Mexicans.
Why had Obregón not moved faster in the agrarian field? His reservations were confirmed
in part by the agrarian situation in Michoacán, where radical governor Francisco Múgica at-
tempted to forge alliances with campesinos by arming them and encouraging their attempts
to occupy ejido lands. His agrarian and anticlerical policies produced chaos when he ran afoul
of local politics and patronage networks, resulting in his removal by Obregón. In explaining
his more moderate course, the president declared before congress, “We must not destroy the
big estates before creating the small one. . . . I am of the opinion that we must act cautiously.”7
Furthermore, in his attempt to reestablish political stability he faced the specter of possible US
intervention to protect the interests of its citizens owning property in Mexico. The fears were
not idle ones, as US troops had been in Mexico twice since the revolution began, once in Vera-
cruz and two years later in the north in the futile attempt to capture Pancho Villa.
R E L AT I O N S W I T H T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S
Obregón’s presidential term coincided with the Republican administration of Warren

G. Harding in the United States. Supported by big business, Harding had won the presidency
by a landslide and sought to encourage private enterprise, both at home and abroad. Of all
7 Quoted in Eyler N. Simpson, The Ejido: Mexico’s Way Out (Chapel Hill, NC, 1937), 87-88.
the corporate enterprises that dominated the Republican convention of 1920, none rivaled
the oil interests of Harry F. Sinclair, Edward L. Doheny, and Jake Hammon. Within a couple
of years the extent of petroleum influence in Harding’s administration would be exposed to
the world in the Teapot Dome scandal.
For several years, through powerful lobby groups such as the National Association for the
Protection of American Rights in Mexico and the Oil Producer’s Association, under the chair-
manship of Edward Doheny, American businessmen had been urging the US government to
become more active in the defense of their Mexican interests. Often working through Secretary
of Interior Albert Bacon Fall (later arrested in the Teapot Dome scandal), they presented their
case to the American president. Their Mexican oil properties, they contended, were about to
be seized out from under them by Article 27 and, accordingly, the United States should not
recognize the Obregón regime. When Secretary Fall wrote, “So long as I have anything to do
with the Mexican question, no government of Mexico will be recognized, with my consent,
which does not first enter into a written agreement promising to protect American citizens
and their property rights in Mexico,”8 President Harding was willing to be persuaded. The
United States did not recognize Obregón during the first three years of his administration.
Although Obregón needed the oil revenues, he could not buckle under US pressure;
it would have been political suicide. The apparent impasse was averted by the Mexican
Supreme Court. When, in September 1921, the Texas Company challenged the retroactive
application of Article 27 in the Mexican courts, the Supreme Court handed down a deci-
sion propounding the doctrine of “positive acts.” The oil lands could not be seized under
Article 27 if the company in question had performed some “positive act” (such as erecting
drilling equipment) to remove oil from the soil prior to May 1, 1917, the date on which the
constitution went into effect. If the company had not engaged in such a “positive act” prior
to May 1, 1917, or if the concession had been granted after that date, Article 27 could be
invoked at the pleasure of the state. Commissioners from both countries met in the summer
of 1923 on Bucareli Street in Mexico City at the interior ministry. Under the terms of the
agreements they reached, the Mexican government in essence agreed to uphold the doctrine
of “positive acts” in its future relations with all the oil companies, and the Harding adminis-
tration promised, in return, to extend diplomatic recognition. In addition, the two countries
agreed to establish a mixed claims commission to adjudicate the claims US citizens had
brought against Mexico for damages suffered during the revolution.
POLITICAL TENSIONS AND REBELLION
At about the same time that the commissioners of the two countries formulated the Bucareli
agreements, an extraordinary event occurred in Parral, Chihuahua. The retired General
Pancho Villa had just traveled from Canutillo to the little village of Río Florido to partici-
pate in the christening of an old comrade’s baby son. After the ceremony Villa went on to
Parral, where he spent the night before returning to his famous hacienda. Early the following
8 Quoted in John W. F. Dulles, Yesterday in Mexico: A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-1936 (Austin, 1961), 159.
morning, surrounded by his bodyguards, he began the return trip to Canutillo. As his Dodge
touring car turned onto Calle Gabino Barreda, eight men armed with repeating rifles burst
out of a corner house and peppered the automobile. Within seconds Villa and several of his
companions were dead.
Responsibility for assassinations in Mexico has never been an easy fix. Some contempo-
raries considered the murder to have been a personal affair in which a group of aggrieved
citizens took vengeance for prior Villista depredations. But most believed that the murder
was politically motivated, as Mexican politics had begun to heat up once again during the
summer of 1923 and Villa had threatened to come out of retirement.
The assassination of Villa tended to exacerbate an already tense political atmosphere.
The nationalists were unhappy with the Bucareli agreements. Obregón, they contended, had
truckled to the American oilmen and their White House representatives. The time was ap-
proaching when a decision had to be made concerning the presidential succession of 1924,
and Obregón chose to support his fellow Sonoran and secretary of interior, Plutarco Elías
Calles. This choice touched off political violence.
The revolt that began in Mexico in late 1923 combined the antagonisms of various inter-
est groups. Many conservatives, including a number of wealthy hacendados and Catholic
leaders, feared that Plutarco Calles was too radical. They were joined by military men, dis-
gruntled at Obregón’s reduction of the federal army. But the rebellion was not simply an
alliance of conservatives as many ardent nationalists, unhappy with the Bucareli agreements,
pledged their support of the new movement, as did a number of labor leaders who had not
been included within the ranks of the CROM. The opposition coalesced around that other
leading figure from Sonora, Adolfo de la Huerta.
Despite the wide base of opposition, Obregón had his own sources of strength. Those
unions under CROM control supported him unabashedly, as did a number of campesino
organizations. Although some key army garrisons went over to the rebel side, many signifi-
cant ones remained loyal to the government. But, most importantly, the recent diplomatic
recognition by the United States provided Obregón’s government not only with moral sup-
port but also an ample supply of war matériel. The fighting itself lasted only a few months;
but it was a grueling episode for those who thought the days of violence had passed, and the
toll of lives was tremendous. Some seven thousand Mexicans died before the rebels of de la
Huerta admitted their defeat.
As he neared the end of his term, Álvaro Obregón had at great cost asserted the domi-
nance of the national government. Yet for many, the pace of social reform had been too slow.
Obregón’s cautious pragmatism had promoted some of the revolutionary goals, but not a
few intellectuals, politicians, and journalists criticized the gradual nature of the process to
implement the changes promised in the Constitution of 1917. Now they waited to see if
Plutarco Elías Calles would be any different.
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Vasconcelos, José. A Mexican Ulysses: An Autobiography. Translated by William Rex Crawford. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1963.
Welsome, Eileen. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing’s Hunt for Pancho Villa. Lincoln: University of Ne-
braska Press, 2007.
Wilkie, James W. The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change since 1910. Berkeley: Uni-
C HA PTER 29
SOCIETY AND CULTURE

DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY YEARS
T H E I M PA C T O F T H E R E V O L U T I O N O N T H E M A S S E S
The rapid changes in the presidential chair, the heated debates in Aguascalientes and Queré-
taro, and the redounding phrases of the Constitution of 1917 had less significance for the
Mexican masses than the violence of the first revolutionary decade that most dominated
their lives. For every prominent death—Francisco Madero, José María Pino Suárez, Pascual
Orozco, Emiliano Zapata, or Venustiano Carranza—one hundred thousand nameless Mexi-
cans also died. By any standard the loss of life was tremendous. Although accurate statistics
were not recorded, moderate estimates calculate that between 1.5 and 2 million lost their
lives in those terrible ten years. In a country with a population of roughly 15 million in
1910, few families did not directly feel the pain as one in every eight Mexicans was killed.
Even Mexico’s high birthrate could not offset the carnage of war. The census takers in 1920
counted almost a million fewer Mexicans than they had found only a decade before.
Some marching armies had been equipped with small medical teams, and Pancho Villa
even fitted out a medical train on which battlefield operations could be performed. But medi-
cal care was generally so primitive that within a week after a major engagement deaths of
wounded often doubled or tripled losses sustained immediately on the battlefield. And in
more cases than one, both federals and rebels, enemy prisoners were executed rather than cared
for and fed. Civilian deaths rose into the hundreds of thousands as a result of indiscriminate ar-
tillery bombardments and, in some cases, the macabre policy of placing noncombatants before
firing squads in pursuit of some imperfectly conceived political or military goal.
It is axiomatic that war elicits not only the worst but often psychotic behavior in otherwise
normal human beings. In Mexico, the cumulative stress of exhaustion and constant exposure
to death produced atrocities during the first decade of the revolution and, on occasion, led to
behavior that can only be termed sadistic. The rape and inhumanity visited upon civilians by sol-
diers became legendary in the folklore of the revolution. One could pass off stories of mutilated
prisoners hanged from trees or telephone posts as exaggerations had not scores of eager photog-
raphers captured hundreds of horrifying scenes for posterity. Bodies with hands or legs or geni-
tals cut off were a grotesque caricature of a movement originally motivated by the highest ideals.
411
Execution without benefit of trial was common during the

violent decade of 1910–20. Bodies were left hanging for
weeks as object lessons.
Fratricidal horrors so outrageous and so cataclysmic exacted burning resentment and fear
in the civilian population. An approaching unit invariably meant trouble for poor, rural Mexi-
cans. The best that could be hoped for was a small band demanding a meal. But often the de-
mands were more outrageous the war did not lend itself to decency or compassion. In northern
Mexico tens of thousands of rural Mexicans joined their middle class and wealthy counterparts
in seeking the security of the United States. On a single day in October 1913 some eight thou-
sand refugees crossed the border from Piedras Negras, Coahuila, to Eagle Pass, Texas. While
the vast majority left the country with the idea of returning once the situation stabilized, most
remained in the United States where many contributed to invigorating Catholicism in the
southwest. In central and southern Mexico there was virtually no place to run, and the civilian
population had no choice but to keep their heads low and resign themselves to the worst. Two
months spent clearing a field and planting crops under a burning sun could be wiped out in
five minutes as an army of five hundred horsemen galloped through the carefully tilled rows of
corn and beans. Then they might stop at the one-room hut and confiscate the one milch cow
and four turkeys that held out some promise for a slightly less redundant diet in the six months
to follow. The documentary evidence from the period suggests forcefully that the excesses of
war cannot be attributed simply to one side or another. Both federals and rebels were guilty.
What was the impact of the early revolution on people’s lives? We can learn much from
the thousands of images captured not only by myth-making photographers like Agustín
Víctor Casasola and Manuel Ramos, but by the scores of others including many women,
that illustrate the human price of warfare. Other depictions jump from the pages of Luis
Society and Culture during the Revolutionary Years 413
González’s perceptive and beautifully written account of the Michoacán village of San José
de Gracia (population about 1,200 in 1910). By 1913, when violence engulfed the region
for the first time,
Don Gregorio Pulido had given up taking local products to Mexico City, for bands of revo-
lutionaries made the roads unsafe for travel. The San José area began to return to the old
practice of consuming its own products. Trade declined. . . . . . From 1913 on, increased pov-
erty was the rule. . . . Everything in San José shifted into reverse. The revolution did no favors
for the town or the surrounding rancherías. . . . Parties of rebels often came to visit their
friends in San José, either to rescue the girls from virginity, or to feast happily on the deli-
cious local cheeses and meats, or to add the fine horses of the region to their own. . . . They
summoned all the rich residents and told them how much money in gold coin each was to
contribute to the cause. In view of the rifles, no one protested.1
The feared “armies” did not look much like armies. Standard uniforms were unheard
of among the rebels, and weapons consisted of whatever could be found or appropriated.
Sometimes makeshift insignias identified rank but gave slight clue as to group affiliation.
Anonymity served rebel commanders well as it left them unconcerned with the niceties of
accountability, but it caused problems for the rural campesino wanting to respond correctly
to the question, “Are you a Huertista, a Villista, or a Carrancista?”
For Mexican women, the lived experience of the revolution brought changes, both un-
welcomed and appreciated, to their daily routines. With husbands, fathers, and sons serving
somewhere in the ranks, they were subjected to the terror and indignity of wanton assault.
But many did not mope or simply stay home to become the target of rape. Freeing them-
selves from the eternal task of grinding corn, thousands joined the revolution and served
the rebel armies in the capacity of spies and arms smugglers. So active were the women in
smuggling ammunition across the border in Ciudad Juárez that the US Customs Bureau had
to employ teams of female agents to search the undergarments of suspicious, heavy-looking
women returning from shopping sprees in El Paso.
A noteworthy role assumed by women was that of soldadera. The soldaderas were more
than camp followers. They provided feminine companionship, to be sure, but because nei-
ther the federal army nor the rebel armies provided commissary service, they foraged for food,
cooked, washed and, in the absence of more competent medical service, nursed the wounded
and buried the dead. Both sides depended upon them, and in 1912 a federal battalion actu-
ally threatened mutiny when the secretary of war ordered that the women could not be taken
along on a certain maneuver. The order was rescinded. Not infrequently, the soldaderas actu-
ally served in the ranks, sometimes with a baby slung in a rebozo or a young child clinging to
their skirts. Women holding officer ranks were not uncommon in the rebel armies.
The soldadera endured the hardships of the campaign without special consideration.
While the men were generally mounted, the women most often walked, carrying bedding,
pots and pans, food, firearms, ammunition, and children. Often the men would gallop on
ahead, engage the enemy in battle, and then rest. By the time the women caught up, they were
1 Luis González, San José de Gracia: Mexican Village in Transition (Austin, TX, 1974), 124–25.
ready to move again, and the soldadera would simply trudge on. Losing her special “Juan”
in battle, she had little choice but to take another, to prepare his favorite meal and share his
bed. Not a few gave birth in makeshift military camps and some even on the field of battle.
The hard life of the soldadera was a relative thing. A fascinating oral history of a Yaqui
woman from Sonora who was deported to Yucatán, cut her hands raw on the henequen
plants, and saw her babies die from lack of adequate care reveals that she did better as a
soldadera. She later recalled that “her personal misery decreased by impressive leaps and
Among the disparate revolutionary contingents in Mexico, the Yaqui Indians of Sonora figured prominently in
the campaigns of the northwest.
bounds. . . . At no point during the next several years did she view her life as anything but
a tremendous improvement after Yucatán.”2 In another twist on the powerful appeal of a
military vocation for women who wished to enjoy the satisfaction of becoming fully mas-
culine, Amelia Robles changed her gender to become Zapatista colonel Amelio Robles and
later received a veteran’s pension for service to the revolution.3
In contrast to such behaviors, public displays of chivalry persisted. One traveler to Mexico
City in 1918 was especially amused by the sign he found posted in the streetcar:
GENTLEMEN: When you see a lady standing on her feet you will not find it possible to remain
sitting with tranquility. Your education will forbid you to do so.
GENERAL MANAGER OF THE RAILWAYS4
In an oblique and unintended way the revolution contributed to the emancipation of

the Mexican woman. As the shortage of adult males in the cities contracted the labor supply,
women began to make some inroads into the labor force. At first their contributions con-
sisted of the simplest type of work in stores and factories, but once escaped from the confines
of the house they would not be persuaded easily to return. In Yucatán, Governor Salvador
Alvarado encouraged advances in women’s rights, and in 1916 he sponsored the Congreso
Femenino in Mérida, Yucatán. But even his support still defined women in terms of their
roles as wives, mothers, and educators and limited their full membership in public life. So
while it can be argued that the revolution opened up social spaces for women, it was in the
feminine role as educators/nurturers that women most readily found work in promoting
literacy, welfare, hygiene, and temperance. Similarly, female factory workers learned that
they would best be served by framing their demands for justice in wages and other benefits
in part by linking them to their roles as homemakers and family members.
The revolution, to be sure, had different meanings to different Mexicans during those
years of greatest violence. But a most recurrent theme was the fear of the leva, the institution
that snatched away the male population for service in the military. Edith O’Shaughnessy, the
wife of the US chargé in Mexico City, described the leva in her memoirs.
I was startled as I watched the faces of some conscripts marching to the station today. On
so many was impressed something desperate and despairing. They have a fear of . . . eter-
nal separation from their loved ones. They often have to be tied in the transport wagons.
There is no system about conscription here—the press gang takes any likely looking person.
Fathers of families, only sons of widows, as well as the unattached, are enrolled, besides
women to cook and grind in the powder mills.5
Foreigners also suffered, because the revolution was in part a reaction against Díaz’s
coddling of foreign interests, and not a few revolutionaries took out their wrath on the
2 Jane H. Kelly, “Preliminary Life History of Josefa (Chepa) Alvarez” (mimeographed, 1970), 16.
3 Gabriela Cano, “Unconcealable Realities of Desire: Amelio Robles’s (Transgender) Masculinity in the Mexi-
can Revolution,” in Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, ed. Jocelyn Olcott, et al.
(Durham, NC, 2006), 35–56.
4 Quoted in P. Harvey Middleton, Industrial Mexico: 1919 Facts and Figures (New York, NY, 1919), 6.
5 Edith O’Shaughnessy, A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico (New York, NY, 1916), 58.
Armies had to be fed, and the task of grinding corn for the daily supply of tortillas continued as it had for centuries.
A familiar sight between 1910 and 1920, the soldaderas experienced both the excitement and privations of life on
the military campaign.
foreign community. Cast in the role of exploiters, foreign oilmen and miners were forced
to pay not only taxes to the government but tribute to various groups of rebels and bribes
to local bandits. But other frugal and industrious foreigners, without the slightest claim
to exploitation, suffered racist terror. After a battle for control of Torreón in 1911, more
than two hundred peaceful Chinese residents were murdered simply because they were
Chinese. A few years later Villistas expelled Spanish citizens from Torreón and confiscated
their property. Colonies of US Mormons in Chihuahua and Sonora, after being terrorized
repeatedly, packed up those belongings they could carry and left their adopted home.
Some ramifications of the revolution on the US side of the border were horrific for M exican
Americans living there. The anonymous Plan de San Diego of 1915 called on Mexicans to
reconquer the southwest that had been lost in 1848 and kill all the Anglo men. Although
few ethnic Mexicans living in Texas had anything to do with the plan, perhaps authored
by Carrancistas, Texas Rangers and vigilantes used it as an excuse to launch a campaign
of racial terrorism, which killed thousands of Mexicans and confiscated their properties.
City dwellers, too, experienced the ravishments of war. Almost all of the larger cities in
the country hosted battles at some time between 1910 and 1920, and some witnessed three
or four devastating engagements. The sight of burning buildings, the sound of wailing ambu-
lances, and the nausea of mass burials brought home in tangible terms the most immediate
meaning of the revolution. Starvation reached major proportions in Mexico City, Guadala-
jara, and Puebla. The construction boom of the Porfiriato ended shortly after the outbreak of
TOTAL NUMBER OF ATTENDANCE

POPULATION PRIMARY SCHOOLS PRIMARY SCHOOLS
15 15 15
14 14 14
13 13 13
12 12 12
11 11 11
Hundred thousands
10 10 10
9 9 9
Thousands
Millions
8 8 8
7 7 7
6 6 6
5 5 5
4 4 4
3 3 3
2 2 2
1 1 1
1910 1920 1910 1920 1910 1920
The Violence Takes a Toll

hostilities. While a few unfinished public projects reached completion, for the most part those
workmen who could be spared from the ranks toiled to clear debris, repaired damaged struc-
tures, knocked down gutted buildings, and tried to put the railroad lines back in operation.
The early revolution took a terrible toll in education. Hundreds of schools were destroyed
and hundreds of others abandoned. In the Federal District alone the number of primary
schools in operation declined from 332 in 1910 to 270 in 1920. The story repeated itself in
city after city, town after town. Total primary school attendance in the country declined from
eight hundred eighty thousand to seven hundred forty thousand in the same ten-year period.
C U LT U R A L C R E AT I V I T Y
Warfare, however, did not extinguish creative spirit in Mexico. What is striking is how the tur-
moil of war and the collapse of old institutions engendered both social change and cultural
creativity. As we have seen, gender roles experienced transformations from the Porfiriato
through the early revolution. New public spaces opened for women not only in jobs and
consumer culture, but also in artistic endeavors. The life of Esperanza Iris offers a window
onto significant changes for women forged in the artistic world. She began her career as an
actress during the late Porfiriato as part of a theater tradition dating back to the late colonial
period that grew rapidly in the wake of waves of rural migrants arriving in Mexico City in the
late nineteenth century. Moreover, theater-going provided opportunities for women as spec-
tators to partake of the public life of the city, albeit in spaces segregated by class: elite audi-
ences enjoyed the large, posh theaters of the area west of the Zócalo (main plaza), while the
lower-classes were entertained in the carpas (tents), cantinas, and on the streets to the north
and east of the main plaza. Esperanza Iris rose through the popular venues to become one
of the divas of her generation, leveraging her popularity to open her own theater in 1918.
The Teatro Esperanza Iris (today it is called the Theater of the City), in the well-heeled
western zone on Donceles street, was her crowning glory as an actress and brought new
cultural influences from Europe to the capital city. The Bataclán was a dance revue, initially
performed at the Teatro Iris by a troupe of Parisian women in 1925, that introduced the
curvilinear Deco body and the concept of the New Woman to a Mexico emerging from the
ravages of the violent phase of the revolution. The New Woman was strong, opinionated,
sexual, and most of all visible in public spaces, providing an opening for the redefinition of
gender norms in a Mexican context that would flourish in the 1930s.
The early revolution spawned creativity in a multiplicity of cultural arenas. During the
last year of the Porfiriato a group of young thinkers had banded together to form the Ateneo
de la Juventud. Among its charter members was a small group that would come to domi-
nate early revolutionary thought: Antonio Caso, Alfonso Reyes, José Vasconcelos, and Martín
Luis Guzmán. Meeting fortnightly, the members of the Ateneo began to formulate a philo-
sophical assault on materialism in general and on positivism in particular. Impressed with
Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, but most especially with Henri Bergson’s mas-
terpiece L’Evolution créatrice (1907), they lashed out against the científicos and launched a
movement for ideological and educational reform.
By 1912 the members of the Ateneo began to give some practical application to their
antipositivist posture. Interested in moving into areas that Díaz had ignored, in December
1912 they founded a “people’s university,” the Universidad Popular Mexicana, and took
their message to the factories and shops in Mexico’s leading population centers. Mexico’s
future happiness, they preached, did not depend upon commercial or industrial growth
but rather upon social progress. The Universidad Popular Mexicana did not offer degrees;
rather, it tried to bring humanistic knowledge to those who would not otherwise receive it.
Stressing lessons in citizenship and patriotism as well as practical instruction in hygiene
and stenography, the ateneístas who constituted the faculty not only lectured but sponsored
weekend tours to art galleries, museums, and historical and archaeological sites. They all
served without pay.
The winds of change shook the literary and artistic communities as well. A new age in
the Mexican novel was born in 1915 when Mariano Azuela (1873–1952) wrote Los de abajo
(translated as The Underdogs). A classic in twentieth-century Mexican literature, Los de abajo
chronicles the life of Demetrio Macías to probe the meaning of the revolution. Historical
novels were not new in Mexico, but Azuela added new ingredients, relating the story not
in the sophisticated dialogue of the French school but in the colloquial language of the
Mexican masses. Avoiding the intrusion of secondary plots, Azuela tells the story of real
revolutionaries, not those who intellectualized the movement and coined its resounding
phrases. Demetrio Macías is caught up in the struggle without really knowing why, yet
when confronted with complex decisions, is able to make proper choices with amazing
spontaneity. Luis Cervantes, a middle-class federal deserter, joins Macías’s guerrilla band
and tries to articulate the revolutionary goals for him, but the uneducated Macías recog-
nizes the shallowness and hypocrisy of Cervantes’s explanations and the inherent oppor-
tunism in his actions.
The day-to-day dehumanizing realities of the revolution abound in the novel—pillage,
looting, burning, destruction, theft, and general debauchery. Illustrative of the passion the rev-
olution evoked is Azuela’s description of the battlefield after a struggle for control of Zacatecas:
“The three hundred-foot slope was literally covered with dead, their hair matted, their clothes
clotted with grime and blood. A host of ragged women, vultures of prey, ranged over the tepid
bodies of the dead, stripping one man bare, despoiling another, robbing from a third his
dearest possessions.”6 The novel ends where it began—at the Canyon of Juchipila. Demetrio
Macías, by this time a general, is killed where he first ambushed a federal convoy. The circle has
been completed, and nothing has really changed. After all the suffering and killing, the revo-
lution seems to be back where it began. While social programs have been shunted aside and
forgotten, the revolution has become almost self-perpetuating—it just goes on and on. Shortly
before he dies Demetrio’s wife asks him why he must continue fighting. He answers by toss-
ing a rock over a precipice and responding with a beautifully appropriate metaphor: Mira esa
piedra cómo ya no se para (Look at that rock—it just keeps rolling).
The harsh realities of the revolution provided fodder for witty corridos that spread news
about the fighting, praising and lampooning heroes and villains on both sides of the struggle.
Perhaps the most famous of these is an early version of La cucaracha. The chorus goes like this:
6 Mariano Azuela, The Underdogs, trans. E. Munguía (New York, NY, 1963), 80–81.
La cucaracha, la cucaracha The cockroach, the cockroach

Ya no puede caminar Now she cannot walk
Porque no tiene Because she hasn’t
Porque le falta Because she’s missing
Marijuana que fumar. Marijuana to smoke.
And in one of its many verses:

Todos se pelean la silla It’s a battle to the top
Que les deja mucha plata. To get the spoils of war.
En el norte Pancho Villa In the north, it’s Pancho Villa
Y en el sur ¡Viva Zapata! In the south, ¡Viva Zapata!
At the same time, musical styles were changing to reflect Mexican traditions. Manuel
Ponce (1882–1948), a talented young pianist and composer from Zacatecas introduced a
new nativist movement. Ponce decried that Mexican salons in 1910 should welcome only
foreign music. He urged the acceptance of the native folk tradition and created classical
music based on popular Mexican tunes. In an essay he attacked the stodgy salons.
Their doors remained resolutely closed to the canción mexicana until at last revolutionary can-
non in the north announced the imminent destruction of the old order. . . . Amid the smoke
and blood of battle were born the stirring revolutionary songs soon to be carried throughout
the length and breadth of the land. Adelita, Valentina, and La Cucaracha were typical revo-
lutionary songs soon popularized throughout the republic. Nationalism captured music at
last. Old songs, almost forgotten, but truly reflecting the national spirit, were revived, and
new melodies for new corridos were composed. Singers traveling about through the republic
spread far and wide the new nationalistic song; everywhere the idea gained impetus that the
republic should have its own musical art faithfully mirroring its own soul.7
Ponce was a major contributor to the movement he described. In 1912 and 1913 he
composed his canciones mexicanas, including the famous Estrellita. And at approximately the
same time he was training the individual destined to become the most illustrious name in
twentieth-century Mexican music—Carlos Chávez.
Of all the intellectual and artistic groups in the country, Mexican painters showed themselves
to be most restless. Having already embarrassed the Díaz regime at the centennial celebrations
of 1910, these recalcitrant artists continued to scandalize staid society during the first decade of
the revolution. When neither interim President León de la Barra nor Francisco Madero agreed to
remove the Porfirian director of the Art Academy of San Carlos, the artists took matters into their
own hands. Not only did they go out on strike demanding the resignation of the director but
on one occasion they pelted the poor soul with rotten tomatoes. The desired change came with
Victoriano Huerta, who named Alfredo Ramos Martínez, an impressionist, as director. Ramos
Martínez reformed the curriculum, deemphasizing the stifling classroom training in copying
and formal portrait work that strived for photographic precision. Instead he encouraged the
students to venture out into their Mexican world and paint what they saw and what they felt.
7 Quoted in Robert Stevenson, Music in Mexico: A Historical Survey (New York, NY, 1971), 233–34.
When the Constitutionalists came in, Ramos Martínez went out but his innovative ideas
were not to be overturned. The new director, Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo), was even less con-
ventional than his predecessor. Politically a loyal Carrancista but artistically a free spirit,
Dr. Atl wanted to convert the academy into a popular workshop for the development of
“spiritually authentic” arts and crafts independent from Western traditions.
The second decade of the twentieth century was still an experimental period for the
Mexican artist. Diego Rivera spent most of his time in France and Spain, dabbling with some
success in cubism. David Alfaro Siqueiros abandoned the brush for the gun and served in the
Carrancista army for several years, storing up penetrating impressions of camp life, battles,
and death, all of which he would later recreate. José Clemente Orozco spent much of his
time painting posters and sketching biting political cartoons and caricatures for Carrancista
newspapers. In different ways these three giants of twentieth-century Mexican art were pre-
paring themselves for an artistic renaissance and the most important development in Latin
American painting—the muralist movement of the 1920s and 1930s.
SOCIAL CHANGE
Even during the chaos of violence, certain unstructured social change occurred in Mexico.
Internal migrations took place, northerners and southerners came into more frequent con-
tact with one another, and distinct regional language patterns began to yield to a more ho-
mogeneous national tongue. Increased travel, even that occasioned by the leva, provided a
broader conception and a deeper appreciation of Mexico. Greater physical mobility brought
about by the war tended to increase mestizaje and began to incorporate previously isolated
zones. Thousands of Mexicans escaped obscurity and rose to positions of tremendous power
in the various armies. Even though they did not always exercise their newfound influence
with moderation, for them the revolution was an agent of social change.
By 1920 a new kind of revolutionary nationalism had begun to emerge. The dead heroes
had become martyrs to a young generation of Mexicans who did not always realize that
their favorite protagonists had been killed fighting one another. The heroes loomed larger
in death than in life, and their errors of judgment and human frailties could be overlooked.
Madero became a symbol of democracy, Orozco and Villa of Mexican manhood, Carranza
of law and justice, and Zapata of land for the humble. The newly developing revolutionary
nationalism had its antiheroes as well: Porfirio Díaz, who had caused the holocaust, and
Victoriano Huerta, the very incarnation of treachery and deceit.
In concrete terms, life for the great majority did not improve in the early years after the
revolution. In fact, because of the violence, it deteriorated in many ways. But the base of
power in the republic had shifted into new hands, and the country seemed to be on the
threshold of better times.
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PA RT
9
THE REVOLUTIONARY
AFTERMATH
C HA PTER 30
CALLES: SUPREME CHIEF OF AN

INSTITUTIONALIZED REVOLUTION
JEFE MÁXIMO, 1924-34
For a full decade beginning in 1924 Mexico found itself in the firm grip of General Plu-
tarco Elías Calles. Born in Guaymas, Sonora, in 1877 to a family whose fortune had de-
clined, Calles attended normal school in Hermosillo, did quite well in the classroom, and
upon graduation, became a primary school teacher in the public school system. His political
career began with the revolution, and he served in a number of minor political and military
capacities before becoming provisional governor of his home state in 1917. His loyal sup-
port of Obregón over a ten-year period won for him official endorsement for the presidency
in 1924 and, with labor and agrarian support, he carried the election easily.
CALLES’S DOMESTIC PROGRAM
Conservative elements in Mexico were far from elated by the election that year, for Calles en-
joyed a radical reputation. Landowners, both domestic and foreign, feared loss of property;
industrialists anticipated higher wages for their workers; and church leaders recognized the
new president as a confirmed anticleric. Calles soon let it be known that his domestic policy
would not be characterized by the compromise and caution so typical of his predecessor. He
not only was willing to ride the swelling tide of social revolution but sincerely believed, at
least at the outset, that its course was inevitable. The most strong-willed president since Díaz,
Calles had an abiding faith in his own political instinct. Outspoken but often eloquent in
public oratory, Calles was not tormented by scruple when treating with his enemies. As the
years passed he became more intent on controlling revolutionary factions and relied heavily
on the army to dispatch government foes. Political prisoners began filling the jails, and an
alarming number “committed suicide.”
425
426 the revolutionary aftermath
Calles inherited a more sound financial situation than had Obregón, and he built upon
it by establishing the Banco de México, implementing tax reforms, reducing the public debt,
and introducing infrastructural projects in road building and rural electrification. To build
popular support, he made gestures to campesinos and workers. He more than doubled the
amount of land that Obregón had distributed; the vast majority of these 8 million acres went
to communal ejidos. To further productivity, the administration initiated a series of irriga-
tion projects, established new agricultural schools, and began to extend agricultural credit to
the small farmer. Some of these reforms benefited Zapatistas in Morelos, and even the Maya
campesinos of the Caste War were finally lured into the national family as the last of the
rebellious villages accepted land titles from the government.
Calles’ labor policy continued to favor Luis Morones and the Confederación Regional Obrera
Mexicana (CROM), as a means of expanding political support; in fact, Morones was brought
into the cabinet as secretary of labor and quickly became the president’s most intimate confi-
dant. Other highly placed CROM officials served in the congress and in the state legislatures
and even held state governorships. CROM brought hundreds of independent unions under its
umbrella, and organized hundreds of new unions. By 1928 CROM membership had reached
1.8 million, and the parent organization had affiliates in most of the states. The influence of the
CROM became pervasive and its support of the government unabashed. The confederation even
prevented printers from typesetting anti-Calles publications. The president returned the favors
by supporting the CROM against employers and, more important, against other unions, in
particular, Communist unions. Communist recruitment in Mexico, supported by the publica-
tions El Machete and El Libertador made little headway during the revolutionary years, and Calles
suppressed a strike by Communist railway workers in 1926. Wages rose by about 30 percent.
But by 1928 many sincere labor leaders had begun to worry about Morones. He had become a
wealthy man, and most believed that his diamond rings, new automobiles, and vast holdings in
urban real estate had been acquired with union funds and through various extortion schemes.
In the area of education Calles had inherited a positive foundation for nation build-
ing from Obregón and Vasconcelos. In 1924 there were approximately one thousand feder-
ally supported rural schools in operation. Calles and his able secretaries of education, José
Manuel Puig Casauranc and Moisés Sáenz, continued the emphasis on rural education and
added two thousand rural schools. To facilitate the acculturation of the Indian, they placed
heavy emphasis on the teaching of Spanish and increased efforts to promote popular na-
tionalism, sometimes perceived as assaults on local autonomy and custom. The muralist
movement continued to flourish, serving as an educational tool for the non-literate masses
intended to teach Mexican history and promote political consciousness.
The government built a health and sanitation program almost from scratch. When the
revolution broke out in 1910, sanitation conditions in Mexico were hardly better than they
had been during the colonial period. The newly organized Department of Public Health
superintended the establishment of a sanitary code designed to ensure cleaner markets and
purer public milk supplies. For the first time in Mexican history, the government undertook
major vaccination campaigns and in 1926 alone inoculated over 5 million Mexicans against
smallpox. The Calles administration also began regular inspections of bakeries, butcher
shops, dairies, cantinas, and barber shops closing down those establishments that did not
meet prescribed sanitary standards and fining their owners.
Calles: Supreme Chief of an Institutionalized Revolution 427
A prosperous Luis Morones came to dominate the Mexi-

can labor movement under President Calles. At one time
considered a possible successor to Calles, charges of cor-
ruption put an end to his political ambitions.
R E L AT I O N S W I T H T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S
Relations with the United States still centered around oil. The Bucareli agreements notwith-
standing, US Ambassador James Sheffield sought further assurances that foreign property
interests would be protected. When Calles refused to go beyond the earlier promises, Shef-
field started to bombard the US State Department with red-scare dispatches. The coincidence
of the Mexican and Bolshevik revolutions troubled US observers, who tended to equate the
two despite the fact that no direct connection existed between them. Nonetheless, Sheffield
gradually convinced his superior, Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg, that a Bolshevik plot
was about to divest US citizens of their just property rights. In the summer of 1925 Secretary
Kellogg made a remarkable statement to the press.
The Government of Mexico is now on trial before the world. We have the greatest interest in
the stability, prosperity, and independence of Mexico. . . . But we cannot countenance viola-
tion of her obligations and failure to protect American citizens.1
In a terse rejoinder the Mexican president declared that his government was well aware
of its international obligations, but he rejected outright the inherent threat to Mexico’s sov-
ereignty in the secretary’s pronouncement. He would never allow any nation to create in
Mexico a privileged position for its nationals. To indicate that he would countenance no
tampering with Mexico’s sovereignty, Calles directed the legislature to enact a new petro-
leum law in December 1925. The legislation required all oil companies to apply to the
government for a confirmation of their concessions. To determine whether or not to grant
the confirmations, Mexico would apply the doctrine of “positive acts,” as had been provided
under the terms of the Bucareli agreements, but the concessions would be granted only for
a period of fifty years. As Calles began to enforce the new petroleum law, relations between
Mexico City and Washington almost reached the breaking point.
1 Quoted in David Bryn-Jones, Frank B. Kellogg: A Biography (New York, NY, 1937), 176.
In 1927 President Calvin Coolidge replaced Ambassador Sheffield in Mexico City with
an old friend from Amherst College, Dwight Morrow, a partner in the famous financial firm
of J. P. Morgan. Mexicans were, of course, convinced that the United States had sent yet an-
other representative of Wall Street to press the case for the oil companies. But Morrow turned
out to be a pleasant surprise. His first formal address in Mexico City presaged a more har-
monious diplomatic atmosphere: “It is my earnest hope,” he advised his Mexican audience,
“that we shall not fail to adjust outstanding questions with that dignity and mutual respect
which should mark the international relations of two sovereign and independent states.”2
From the outset Morrow demonstrated a genuine interest in everything Mexican. He and
his family lived in a Mexican-style house and shopped in the open marketplaces, marvel-
ing at native pottery and textiles. The ambassador visited the rural areas, taking special inter-
est in new schools and irrigation projects and inquiring generally about the progress of the
social revolution. He even began to study Spanish—not common for US ambassadors in the
1920s—and invited Charles Lindbergh to Mexico on a goodwill tour. In an unusually infor-
mal relationship, the president and the ambassador began having breakfast together and, in
this relaxed atmosphere, they set to work on the sticky diplomatic problems besetting the two
countries.
When the oil controversy first came up, Morrow did not warn that Mexico was on trial
before the world; rather, in soft, diplomatic language he told Calles that he believed the
issue should be settled in the Mexican courts and expected no special consideration for US
citizens. Calles was impressed and quite possibly used his influence to see that the courts
rendered a compromise decision. The Supreme Court ultimately held that the oil companies
did have to apply for new concessions from the government, that the doctrine of “positive
acts” would apply, but that the new permits would not expire at the end of fifty years. For the
first time Washington had formally recognized Mexico’s full legal sovereignty, even when the
interests of US citizens were involved.
T H E C R I S T E R O R E B E L L I O N A N D T H E A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F O B R E G Ó N
Calles’s most serious problem turned out to be not with the United States but rather with the
Roman Catholic Church. Much more anticlerical than Obregón, who had turned his back
on the anticlerical articles of the constitution, Calles decided to enforce them. Anticlerical-
ism had diverse promoters, ranging from radicals who saw the church as the main architect
of backwardness and lack of progress for the masses to moderates who hoped to reform the
church or harness its moral authority to revolutionary ends. Both positions could be found
among teachers and functionaries of the ministry of public education. The tensions building
through the early 1920s between the church and the government escalated after an interview
given to the press by the archbishop of Mexico, José Mora y del Río, in February 1926. React-
ing to the implementation of anticlerical provisions in a number of states, the archbishop
argued that Roman Catholics could not in conscience accept the constitution. Calles used
2 Quoted in David C. Bailey, Viva Cristo Rey: The Cristero Rebellion and the Church-State Conflict in Mexico
(Austin, TX, 1974), 176.
this declaration to strike with both fists. He first disbanded religious processions, then began
deporting foreign priests and nuns and closing church schools, monasteries, and convents.
He also decreed that all Mexican priests had to register with civil authorities. The response
of the church was both unique and unexpected. On July 31, 1926, the archbishop declared
a strike, and on the following day, for the first time since the arrival of the Spaniards four
centuries earlier, no masses were celebrated in Mexico.
The strike lasted for three full years; babies went unbaptized and the old died without
receiving the last rites. Not a peaceful strike, Calles became more intemperate, gross, and
even obscene in his denunciations of the clergy and the pope. Catholic leaders in Micho-
acán, Guanajuato, Puebla, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Nayarit, and especially in the backcountry
of Jalisco began organizing the masses to resist the godless government in Mexico City. To
the cry of ¡Viva Cristo Rey! Anacleto González Flores, René Capistrán Garza, and Enrique
Gorostieta led bands of Cristeros against government outposts. Sordid excesses took place
on both sides, and the motivations of combatants were not linked solely to religion but also
to perceived violations of local autonomy and agrarian struggles. The Catholic guerrillas
burned down the new government schools, murdered teachers, and covered their bodies
with crude banners marked VCR. In April 1927 the Cristeros dynamited a Mexico City–
Guadalajara train, killing more than one hundred innocent civilians. Not to be outdone, the
government troops tried to kill a priest for every dead teacher, encouraged children to throw
rocks through stained glass windows, looted churches, and took great pleasure in convert-
ing them into stables. Cristeros, or suspected Cristeros, were shot perversely without benefit
of trial, some swearing to the last moment that an enemy had painted ¡Viva Cristo Rey! on
their houses. The military superiority of the federal army gradually wore down the Cristeros,
but when Calles’s presidential term expired in 1928, the rebellion was not yet completely
suffocated. The conflict provoked the exodus of many Catholics to the United States where
they raised money and generated propaganda to support the Cristeros. At the same time they
came to constitute a significant bloc of US Catholics, especially in the Southwest.
The presidential election of 1928 and its immediate aftermath shocked the nation. The
Constitution of 1917 had recently been amended to provide for a six-year presidential term
and, with Alvaro Obregón specifically in mind, the possibility of reelection if it were not
immediate. As the electoral process began to unfold, Calles threw his support behind the
former president, no doubt thinking that Obregón would return the favor in 1934. Two
opposition candidates also entered the fray: General Francisco Serrano, a former secretary
of war, and General Arnulfo Gómez, a capable military man who had performed yeoman
service in quelling the de la Huerta rebellion of 1923. Both candidates concentrated their
efforts on Obregón and attacked the principle of reelectionism, but when they decided the
election of 1928 was not going to be fair, they rebelled against the government. Within two
months both opposition candidates had been captured and executed.
Obregón’s victory brought no relief, however, for he never assumed office. On the after-
noon of July 17, 1928, he attended a garden banquet in Mexico City’s plush district of San
Angel, along with many dignitaries who joined the new administration. While the guests
dined, a 26-year-old artist, José de León Toral, sketched caricatures of those sitting at the
head table. After showing some of his better drawings to several guests, he moved toward the
head table to show the president his work. As soon as Obregón nodded his approval, Toral
took a pistol from his pocket and fired five shots into the president-elect’s head. Some of the
irate guests beat young Toral almost beyond recognition. Several officials intent on investi-
gating the assassination stopped the hysterical mob. Toral refused to answer any questions,
even under torture. Only the threat of harm to his family elicited the desired information. In
subsequent weeks, a story of church-state conflict unfolded.
Toral’s deeply religious sentiments had led him into mysticism when the Cristero Rebel-
lion broke out. A few months prior to the assassination he had been introduced to a nun,
Sister Concepción Acevedo de la Llata, remembered in Mexican history simply as Madre
Conchita. When the church declared its strike she offered spiritual consolation to the faithful
in her own home. Toral and the young zealots who met regularly at Madre Conchita’s house
became increasingly militant as the rebellion grew more outrageous. They began manu-
facturing bombs and even discussed plans for killing Obregón. Finally Toral was chosen,
or assumed responsibility, for implementing a mission they all considered to be divinely
inspired. To make sure everything went as planned Toral began target practice in early July
with a pistol borrowed from one of Madre Conchita’s friends. Shortly after his confession,
Madre Conchita and a number of others were arrested as well.
With historical roots going back centuries, anticlericalism assumed gigantic proportions in the late 1920s and
1930s. Among the ardent advocates were women, long thought to be the “pious” gender.
The trial, conducted in November, offered a great public spectacle, the most sensational
judicial inquiry since the trial of Maximilian. In a gesture of unparalleled magnanimity Ob-
regón’s widow asked the court to show Toral mercy, but the state was in no mood to turn the
other cheek. The prosecuting attorney and the attorney general who testified in behalf of the
state were warmly applauded by the gallery. On the other hand, the defense attorney, Deme-
trio Sodi, was heckled, disparaged, and shouted down with cries of “Death to the Assassin!”
and “Death to the Prostitute Concha!” Jurors, fearful for their lives, came to the courtroom
armed with pistols. Taunts of mockery and threats of lynching interrupted the proceedings,
as did promises of reprisals to the jurors should they vote to acquit. The crowd became so
agitated during the summation by Attorney Sodi that he was unable to conclude his defense.
The jury did not deliberate long. Toral’s act, after all, had been witnessed by many; he im-
plicated Madre Conchita during his testimony, and her denials were unconvincing. Toral
got the death sentence, and Madre Conchita, because Mexican law forbade the execution of
women, received a prison sentence of twenty years.
T H E M A X I M AT O A N D T H E S H I F T T O T H E R I G H T
Obregón’s assassination created a political vacuum, and only Calles commanded sufficient
respect to fill it. He decided not to assume the presidential office himself but would control
the nation’s destiny as the power behind the scenes. The congress, charged with choosing
an interim president until new elections could be held, selected Calles’s man, Emilio Portes
Gil, a lawyer and former governor of Tamaulipas. Portes Gil proved to be the first of three
puppets to fill out Obregón’s term, but Calles, as “the Supreme Chief” (Jefe Máximo), clearly
called the shots. By the time the election of 1929 occurred, Calles had united revolution-
ary factions and many caciques in a new, widely based political party, the Partido Nacional
Revolucionario (PNR). Under his direction, the PNR began to fashion a grand myth that
celebrated a revolutionary family headed by the supreme “father.” The official party would
change its name on several occasions, but its attempts to control the Mexican political pro-
cess would remain intact for the next 70 years.
When the special election occurred, Calles and his newly organized PNR nominated Pas-
cual Ortiz Rubio for the presidency. The opposition candidate, running under the rubric of the
National Anti-Reelectionist party, was the more experienced and much better-known José Vas-
concelos. Vasconcelos directed his campaign against the Jefe Máximo rather than against Ortiz
Rubio, arguing that a vote for Ortiz Rubio amounted to a vote for Calles. When the govern-
ment announced the results, Ortiz Rubio was declared the winner by the unbelievable margin
of 1,948,848 to 110,979. He served only two years. Shortly after he attempted to oppose Calles
on several policy decisions, he picked up a morning newspaper to read that he had resigned.
On this occasion the Jefe Máximo picked General Abelardo Rodríguez, a man who had prof-
ited from his political position in Baja California, where he invested in several casinos.
Despite the musical chairs played in the presidential office, the years 1928–34 boasted ac-
complishments. Calles initiated the professionalization and depoliticization of the Mexican
army, a process completed under the puppets. Giving the military a major voice within the
PNR reduced the threat of anti-government insurrections and smoothed the way for cutting
military expenses. Equally important to political well-being and stability was the resolution of
the Cristero Rebellion. Ambassador Morrow played a major but unofficial role in the reconcili-
ation as he arranged a series of meetings between Calles, Portes Gil, and Father John Burke, a
prominent Catholic leader in the United States. In early June 1929 Father Burke convinced the
Mexican leaders that they should allow several exiled bishops to return to the country to par-
ticipate in the negotiations. By late June a compromise had been hammered out. The church
agreed that priests would have to register with the government and that religious instruction
would not be offered in their schools. The government declared publicly that it had no inten-
tion of destroying the integrity of the church and even allowed that religious instruction would
not be prohibited within the confines of the churches themselves. As a result, the hierarchy or-
dered the Cristeros to lay down their arms and the priests to resume religious services. The res-
olution of the church–state controversy at this level did not heal the ruptures that the Cristero
wars had exposed in so many local conflicts, where popular Catholicisms constituted a crucial
element of local identity. Popular religiosity in myriad forms would continue to shape politics
and national identity in ways that cannot always be defined as anti-modern or anti-state.
For most of the Maximato, the revolution shifted to the right as the economy stagnated
and the pace of social reform slowed, in part because of the onset of the Great Depression.
Adding to growing unemployment in Mexico, five hundred thousand Mexicans and Mexican
Americans were repatriated by the US government. Oil and metal exports lost markets, indus-
tries were paralyzed, and even government workers were fired. As federal revenues dropped
by 25 percent and wages declined, many politicians made accommodations with landowners
and businessmen. Others enriched themselves by dipping into the treasury; these new “mil-
lionaire socialists” sent capital out of the country and bought luxury homes, for example, in
the vacation resort of Cuernavaca along what became known as the “Street of Forty Thieves.”
Land redistribution slowed to a snail’s pace, and in at least one case was even reversed. The
Terrazas family had been forced to sell most of its huge landholdings during the Obregón
presidency but now was allowed to buy them back. The labor movement was abandoned as
the government withdrew its support of the CROM and increasingly suppressed strikes. Luis
Morones surely had profited at the public trough, but workers paid for his excesses.
The Great Depression had contributed to slowing the pace of social reform, but it cannot
explain the extent to which corruption and political repression had pervaded the revolution-
ary leadership.
This period [1928–34] . . . is most perplexing. If it were possible to discover what had taken
hold of the leadership of Mexico in those debased and clouded years, it would illumine
much of Mexican history. Here was a group of new men, most of whom had come from the
ranks of the Revolution and had risked their lives in a hundred battles for the redemption of
the people from poverty and serfdom. . . . and yet, at the first opportunity, each fell an easy
victim to pelf [ill-gotten money] and power. . . .3
Revolutionary principles seemed to have been totally discredited, but the last two years
of the Maximato saw glimmers of political redemption as the PNR began to articulate
3 Frank Tannenbaum, Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread (New York, NY, 1956), 69-70.
new reform programs for workers and campesinos. In his study of Calles, Jürgen Bu-
chenau has argued that Abelardo Rodríguez was not simply another puppet of the Jefe
Máximo. Calles’s declining health and popularity had rendered him less active, with the
result that Rodríguez’s administration saw the revival of populist trends in the educa-
tional, agrarian, and labor sectors, even before the social revolution found its greatest
protagonist in 1934.
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Bernstein, Marvin D. The Mexican Mining Industry, 1890-1950: A Study of the Interaction of Politics, Econom-
ics, and Technology. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1964.
Bortz, Jeffrey. “The Genesis of the Mexican Labor Relations System: Federal Labor Policy and the Textile
Industry, 1925–1940.” The Americas 52/1 (1995): 43-70.
Boyer, Christopher R. Becoming Campesinos: Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Struggle in Postrevolutionary Mi-
choacán, 1920-1935. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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Buchenau, Jürgen. Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2007.
Butler, Matthew. Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexico’s Cristero Rebellion, 1927-1929. New York
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2013.
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CHA PTER 31
CÁRDENAS AND THE ESSENCE

OF THE REVOLUTION
CÁRDENAS
The many Mexicans impatient with the progress of the revolution in 1934 could take heart
from the election of Lázaro Cárdenas to the presidency in that year. His revolutionary career
was typical of many who worked their way rapidly through the military ranks, ultimately
reaching the grade of brigadier general by the end of the first violent decade. But Cárdenas
was a civilian at heart. Not an imposing figure physically, he claimed attention as a pensive,
methodical man of principle and deep conviction. He had that special charismatic quality
of evoking passionate enthusiasm among many and strong dislike among some. And he was
no run-of-the-mill politician. Supporting first Obregón and then Calles, be became, in the
1920s, a dominant force in his home state of Michoacán. Cárdenas’s objectives were genu-
inely radical, but he would face serious opposition from powerful interests in implementing
lasting social reforms.
Cárdenas’ governorship in Michoacán from 1928 to 1932 offered Mexicans a preview
of what they might expect. The governor allowed himself to be confronted by the people
and listened more than he spoke. He actually made important policy decisions, not on the
advice of his confidants but on the direct information received from the public. During years
when the national government shirked its educational responsibilities, Cárdenas opened
one hundred new rural schools in Michoacán, inspected many classrooms personally, and
made sure that the teachers received their salaries on time. He also encouraged the growth
of labor and campesino organizations and even managed a modest redistribution of land at
the state level. Throughout it all he continued to live modestly.
As the presidential elections of 1934 approached, Calles decided to throw his support
behind Cárdenas, fully believing that the forty-year-old governor would follow his dic-
tates. With the official endorsement of the Jefe Máximo, Cárdenas carried the 1933 Partido
Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) convention and easily won the presidency in July 1934. Im-
mediately he broke with tradition as he cut his own salary in half and refused to move into the
presidential mansion in Chapultepec. Instead, he kept his own modest home. Cárdenas had
435
observed the six-year-old Maximato with some discomfort and once in office determined
that he was going to free himself of Calles’s domination, revitalize the revolution, and carry
it back to the left. Aware that Calles’s control over the puppets had rested heavily on army
support, the new chief executive assiduously began to cultivate promising junior officers.
Not only did he raise salaries and benefits, but he also supported internal reforms within the
military designed to educate and impose the idea of revolutionary citizenship on lower-class
recruits. The attempt to institutionalize the army in the service of revolutionary engagement
had mixed results. Although the army did not become a completely reliable ideological ally,
by 1935 Cárdenas became confident enough to remove Calles supporters from the cabinet
and other high governmental and military posts. When Calles discovered that he could not
manipulate this president, he spoke out vociferously against the administration. In the spring
of 1936 Cárdenas ordered the arrest of Calles and a few of his close supporters and sent them
into exile in the United States.
Throughout his administration, Cárdenas relied on shifting and heterogeneous coalitions
of ideological and opportunistic supporters at national and regional levels, but he also encoun-
tered subtle although tenacious resistance from business, church, and landowning interests that
stymied reforms and forced him to make deals with local caciques and tactical converts from
Callismo. He avoided militant confrontations except in the case of San Luis Potosí’s powerful
caudillo Saturino Cedillo. As Cedillo became more and more disaffected by and outspoken
against Cárdenas’s agrarian and oil policies, the president forced his hand; Cedillo withdrew rec-
ognition of the government and declared himself in open rebellion. Although the caudillo had
strong agrarian backing and the financial support of conservative interests, both domestic and
foreign, Cárdenas’s army remained loyal and quelled the rebellion within a matter of months.
Cárdenas continued to manifest populist tendencies and did his utmost to keep close
contact with the public. While cabinet secretaries and foreign dignitaries fidgeted fretfully in
the presidential waiting room, Cárdenas would receive delegaion of workers or campesinos
and patiently listen to their problems. A contemporary observer recounted that one morning
the president’s secretary laid before him a list of urgent matters and a telegram.
The list said: Bank reserves dangerously low. “Tell the Treasurer,” said Cárdenas. Agricultural
production falling. “Tell the Minister of Agriculture.” Railroads bankrupt. “Tell the Minister
of Communications.” Serious message from Washington. “Tell Foreign Affairs.” Then he
opened the telegram which read: My corn dried, my burro died, my sow was stolen, my
baby is sick. Signed, Pedro Juan, village of Huitzlipituzco. “Order the presidential train at
once,” said Cárdenas. “I am leaving for Huitzlipituzco.”1
The story is undoubtedly apocryphal; yet that it circulated in a sophisticated capital

indicates the reputation the president enjoyed. More deeply committed to social reform
than any previous Mexican head of state, Cárdenas worked to achieve his goals by build-
ing popular support through mass mobilizations of campesinos and workers in sometimes
tenuous alliances.
1 Quoted in Anita Brenner, The Wind That Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1942
(Austin, TX, 1971), 91.
Cárdenas and the Essence of the Revolution 437
DOMESTIC REFORMS
Agrarian reform more than anything else dominated the administration’s concern during
the first few years just as agriculture continued to be the main pillar of the economy. Since
the initiation of the land redistribution program some 26 million acres of land had been
parceled out, but the figure appeared more impressive on paper than in Mexico’s rural zones.
Millions of Mexican campesinos still owned no land at all and felt cheated by two decades of
revolutionary rhetoric. Cárdenas early made up his mind to fulfill twenty years of promises.
By the time his term expired he had distributed 49 million acres, about twice as much as all
his predecessors combined. By 1940 approximately one-third of the Mexican population
had received land under the agrarian reform program and about half of Mexico’s arable
land was held by twenty thousand ejidos. Large cattle haciendas on arid or semiarid land
remained relatively untouched by the redistribution program. Although Terrazas lands were
confiscated early, many were later returned.
The vast majority of the land distributed did not go to individuals or even heads of
households but rather to the communal ejidos or collectives. The land was held in common
by the communities, sometimes to be reapportioned to individuals for their use and some-
times to be worked by the community as a whole. The largest and most important of the
ejidos dating from the Cárdenas redistribution was the huge Laguna cotton ejido, some
8 million acres on the Coahuila–Durango border. The 30,000 families that worked the
Laguna collective cooperatively engaged primarily in the cultivation of long-staple cotton
but also grew large amounts of wheat, alfalfa, and maize for commercial sale. Most of the
families also held small individual plots on which they grew their own subsistence crops.
But the Laguna experiment consisted of much more than the mere redistribution of land.
Government-supported schools were established, social services in the area were extended,
and a modern ejido hospital was built in Torreón, in the center of the Laguna operation.
Modernized technologies and attempts to conserve water achieved mixed results at Laguna.
Paradoxically, in the long run, the management of water undermined redistribution and
culminated in contaminating water and favoring developers. Although the Laguna ejido was
the biggest single cooperative land venture initiated by Cárdenas, other large ejidos were
established in Yucatán, Baja California, Sonora, Chiapas, and Michoacán. These ventures
required large-scale financing, and for this reason the administration founded the Banco de
Crédito Ejidal. During the Cárdenas years this agrarian bank made loans available to some
thirty-five hundred ejidos.
The ejido was no economic or social panacea, however. A rapid population growth in rural
Mexico tended to offset early increases in production, and the Banco de Crédito Ejidal did not
possess sufficient capital to meet the continually growing demands. In addition, much favorit-
ism and some corruption circumscribed the distribution of ejido loans. The production of many
ejidos, even Laguna, which received adequate loans from the agrarian bank, declined. Cotton
production fell by almost nine thousand tons from 1936 to 1938, and henequen production
on the new Yucatecan ejidos dropped by forty-five thousand tons during the same period.
Was the ejido program then a failure? The economists answered yes, but Cárdenas had
embarked upon the ejido program to meet a social need. Critics harshly denounced coop-
erative agriculture, but they could not deny the fact that Cárdenas’ dedication to agrarian
Percentage of Land Distribution by Administration, 1915–40
reform diminished the power of the traditional hacienda complex in many parts of Mexico.
Millions of campesinos benefitted from land apportionments although sometimes insuf-
ficiently. The type of servitude that had bound hacendado and campesinos for centuries was
broken by 1940. Life in rural Mexico scarcely became idyllic as a result. Per capita income,
infant mortality, and indeed life expectancy lagged behind that of the cities; but the gap
in the quality of life between rural and urban Mexico began to decrease for the first time.
The government organized campesino leagues into the National Campesino Confederation
(CNS) making it the base of agrarian support in the official party. Cárdenas’s land reform
program fared best in areas that sustained large campesino mobilizations, especially in cases
where indigenous and mestizo campesinos had resisted land takeovers aggressively. In other
local situations, for example Yucatán and Puebla, landowners both Mexican and foreign,
worked with local officials to derail changes.
Land reform was the clarion call of the revolution, not only in the distribution of ejidal
property but also in the management of the montes, wilderness or forestlands. Montes were
communal properties, dating back to the colonial period, on which campesinos lived and
felled timber for charcoal production and wood for building supplies. Conflict over how best
to administer them came to a head in the 1930s as campesinos and politicians vied for con-
trol of the forests, both arguing that their position was for the good of the nation. Lázaro
Cárdenas, as part of his larger commitment to land reform, elevated the Department of For-
ests, Game, and Fisheries to a cabinet post. Under the direction of Miguel Ángel Quevedo,
the department took on an ambitious program of forestry management, education programs,
and the development of national parks and protected areas for the conservation of flora and
fauna. Scientists and forestry officials attempted to organize cooperatives of campesinos to
make better use of the economic potential of their forest lands while also encouraging the
use of conservation techniques to preserve the forests. This was often met with skepticism by
campesinos who feared that their rights to the land would be usurped. Some of the national
parks flourished while others encountered class and cultural resistance from developers and
local communities.
The relationship between the Cárdenas administration and the church was mixed.
The president was an anticleric; during his campaign, in the state of Tabasco, he declared
“Man should not put his hope in the supernatural. Every moment spent on one’s knees is
a moment stolen from humanity.”2 When the PNR met in 1933 to nominate Cárdenas for
the presidency, it adopted a platform that, among other things, called for the teaching of
socialist doctrine in the primary and secondary schools. A new curriculum had previously
been developed by the secretary of education, Narciso Bassols, one that incorporated sexual
education. Vociferous opposition from the church succeeded in getting the government to
back down somewhat on sex education but not on socialist ideals. No full-scale Cristero-like
revolt erupted, but smaller, local militant Catholic movements were active in thwarting im-
plementation of parts of the reform program. At the same time, the activities of Catholic lay
organizations gathered new steam in the area of socioeconomic welfare. Catholic women,
in particular, expanded their efforts to improve conditions for women and children, with an
emphasis on Catholic education and moral reform of families.
Cárdenas significantly increased federal expenditures for education and although more
Mexicans learned to read and write, population growth outpaced the educational budget,
foiling the attempt to decrease the overall illiteracy rate. The president believed that a social-
ist education program would serve to foment cultural nation building and to modernize
rural society. Beyond the basic curriculum, teachers were expected to help organize people
in the countryside in campesino leagues or trade unions and to offer practical training. Sci-
entific approaches to farming, for example, could provide material benefits. Women received
instruction to promote public health and raise their children as part of the revolutionary
family. The government also promoted Women’s Leagues for Social Struggle to encourage
civic and secular activism designed to create a multiethnic, multicultural nationalism based
on the promise of social justice and development. Civic patriotic fiestas competed with tra-
ditional religious celebrations. In response, indigenous and campesino communities, often
2 Quoted in Albert L. Michaels, “The Modification of the Anti-Clerical Nationalism of the Mexican Revolution
by General Lázaro Cárdenas and Its Relationship to the Church-State Detente in Mexico,” The Americas 26
(1969): 37.
Distributing more land than all of his predecessors combined, Cárdenas here assigns a land title to a group
of peasants.
with the backing of the church, resisted changes that threatened their local identities. At the
same time, they selectively appropriated new ideas and practices and engaged in interactions
with other social groups. To varying degrees, communities participated in shaping multicul-
tural nationalism.
While the church fought to foster social conservatism in patriarchal families, the state
worked to promote stable, healthy, and productive working families in a modern industrial
economy. Mexican law had begun to conceptualize childhood and adolescence as life stages
in need of nurture. The traditional gendered view that fathers worked to support the family
while full-time mothers guarded the moral education of their children had never worked for
most of the population. Debates on the role of the family resulted in legislation to curb child
labor and modernize adoption laws.
In this milieu, children came to play an important role in the development of national
identity. Long used to represent the symbolic hope of the nation in moral reform campaigns,
in general children were to be seen, not heard. But, under revolutionary reforms, they came
to occupy center stage, in what one historian has called the child-centered society of 1920s
and 1930s Mexico. Not merely symbols of the new nation, they emerged as citizens in their
own rights. While they might not have been old enough to exercise the responsibilities of
citizenship bestowed on adults, they could participate in the building of the nation-state
through the many state-sponsored campaigns of cultural nationalism. They became civic
beings rather than minor family members. Drawing inspiration from international and na-
tional conferences on the child, the government directed more spending to children’s rights
and education.
Beginning with the leadership of José Vasconcelos in the Ministry of Education under
Calles, art became a particular focus of children’s education. As the muralist movement was
central to defining the national esthetic, art education, beginning at the elementary level,
taught students across Mexico to draw and paint using revolutionary symbols and history
as the basis of the instruction. The children’s magazine Pulgarcito published the art work
of students and functioned as a pedagogical tool. Intended to serve all Mexican children,
the magazine paid lip service to indigenismo while focusing primarily on urban society.
Subsequent efforts to create cultural consciousness and involve children in nation building
included puppet theater, radio programming, and peer literacy initiatives.
To strengthen labor mobilization President Cárdenas chose a new vehicle. Annoyed at
the deep-seated corruption that had beset organized labor under Luis Morones, the president
supported Vicente Lombardo Toledano, a one-time CROM lieutenant, in his effort to form
a new national union. More intellectually oriented than Luis Morones, Lombardo Toledano
embraced the Marxist ideas of class struggle and aspired to unite all Mexican workers in a
trade union powerful enough to ensure their fight for collective bargaining and improved
standards of living. Lombardo Toledano succeeded in joining together some three thousand
unions and six hundred thousand workers to form what became in 1936 the Confederation
of Mexican Workers (CTM). The CTM made Lombardo Toledano its secretary-general, and
although Cárdenas did not give the secretary-general a government position, he pledged to
support his efforts although he forcefully opposed Toledano’s efforts to integrate campesino
organizations in the CTM. Within two years the membership had passed one million. Lom-
bardo Toledano went on to organize the Latin American Confederation of Workers and to
participate in anti-fascist popular front movements.
The CTM in its capacity as spokesman for Mexican workers engaged in many different
activities. It sponsored health and sanitation projects and organized a series of sports and
recreational programs. Most important, the union addressed the inequitable wage structure
of the country. A survey in 1930 had estimated that the minimum daily wage on which a
head of household might adequately support his family was four pesos and revealed, at
the same time, that the average minimum wage in Mexico was one peso, six centavos. As
Lombardo Toledano sought to rectify the wage structure in the country, he found himself
blocked at every step by both Mexican and foreign management. Only by concerted effort
did the CTM finally succeed in having a new minimum wage of three pesos, fifty centavos
adopted on a nationwide basis.
N AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N O F O I L C O M PA N I E S
Without question Cárdenas’ most dramatic encounter during his six-year presidential term
was the oil controversy with the United States, a matter that had ostensibly been resolved
by his predecessors. The dispute began, innocently enough, as a conflict between labor and
management within the petroleum industry. In 1936 Mexican workers struck for higher wages
and better working conditions. While the oil workers were paid quite well in comparison to
other Mexican laborers, the oil companies were extracting huge profits from the country and
refused to negotiate seriously with union representatives. Worse yet, company policies more
often than not demeaned the Mexican worker. To many, little had changed since the miners
struck Colonel Greene’s Cananea Consolidated Copper Company in 1906. As the strike in
the oil industry began to weaken the Mexican economy, President Cárdenas ordered that the
dispute be settled by an industrial arbitration board. The board examined the records of the
companies and the living conditions of the workers and issued a decision ordering an increase
in wages by one-third and an improved pension and welfare system. The companies, claiming
that the order meant an increase in operating costs of over $7 million, appealed the decision
to the Mexican Supreme Court, which ultimately upheld the original decision of the arbitra-
tion board. When the foreign-owned companies refused to obey the Supreme Court decision
in its entirety, President Cárdenas held that they had flagrantly defied the sovereignty of the
Mexican state and on March 18, 1938, signed a decree nationalizing the holdings of seventeen
oil companies that became the foundation of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX).
The nationalization decree became an immediate cause célèbre. Cárdenas received congratu-
latory telegrams from many other Latin American heads of state. Beginning in the Maximato,
Mexico had endeavored to cultivate better relations with other Latin American countries that
sometimes viewed Mexico (and not just the United States) as meddling in their affairs. In 1930,
Genaro Estrada, the foreign minister, established a major principle of Mexico’s foreign policy.
The Estrada Doctrine proclaimed the right to self-determination of all nations and argued
against the intervention of foreign governments in sovereign nations. These principles were
widely embraced throughout Latin America and allowed Latin American countries to challenge
the United States in Pan-American and Inter-American conferences. Cárdenas’s Foreign Minis-
ter Eduardo Hay continued to espouse non-interventionism while he fomented cultural diplo-
macy across the Americas and the world through cultural exchanges of art, music, and sports.
Nationalism also evoked the patriotism of the vast majority of Mexicans. In anticipation
of the compensation Mexico would have to pay for the expropriation, Mexicans lined up to
offer donations: school children offered their lunch money and women their jewels. Even
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the young son of the president, offered the contents of his piggy
bank to the cause. A few days after the decree was signed, a huge celebration was held in
Mexico City to honor the bold move for economic independence.
Cárdenas was reassured by the support he garnered, for he realized that the reaction
would be quite different in the United States. Many US newspapers expressed outrage, and
not a few politicians called for intervention to head off a Communist conspiracy on the very
borders of the United States. But there would be no intervention on this occasion, as Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt had come to the US presidency enunciating a new “Good Neighbor” policy
of nonintervention in Latin America, and he was sympathetic to Cárdenas’ social reform
program which resonated with his own New Deal. His ambassador to Mexico, Josephus
Daniels, did his utmost to ensure that the oil companies negotiated in good faith. The com-
pensation issue was fraught with difficulty as the companies, led by Standard Oil of New
Jersey, bombarded the US public with articles and pamphlets vilifying Cárdenas and label-
ing the expropriation as common theft. The negotiations over compensation paralleled and
perhaps benefited from those involving Mexican expropriations of land from US owners
that took place between 1927 and 1940. The diplomatic struggles in these cases, for ex-
ample, over properties of the Colorado Land Company in Baja California and others in the
Yaqui valley of Sonora, established guidelines used in the oil dispute. Eventually the rural
lands received compensation to the tune of just over $20 million dollars, but Mexico also got
some benefits in capital investments that followed. While the companies claimed the value
of their expropriated properties to be in the neighborhood of $200 million (and the British
companies claimed an additional $250 million), Cárdenas countered that, since the original
investment had been recovered several times and since the subsoil belonged to the Mexican
nation, a just figure for the American companies was $10 million. Ultimately a mixed claims
commission agreed upon a figure of almost $24 million, plus 3 percent interest effective
from the day of expropriation.
A C H A N G E I N O R I E N TAT I O N
Shortly after the expropriation Cárdenas decided to alter the structure of the PNR which
Calles had created in 1929. Realizing that Mexico was embarking upon difficult economic
times, the president wanted an even more broadly based national party and for that reason
established the Partido Revolucionario Mexicano (PRM), on a corporatist model that pro-
vided the umbrella for various sectors of society: military, labor, agrarian, and popular. The
party, and Cárdenas as its supreme leader, aspired to be the ultimate arbiter of social con-
flicts. As the official party was all-inclusive, it should encounter little opposition in state
or national elections. It used patriotic holidays and the media to inculcate the idea that it
represented the interests of all deserving Mexicans, who would enjoy solidarity and benefits
of membership in the revolutionary family.
Nonetheless, the federal government was not all powerful; it functioned through shift-
ing alliances with social sectors and regional power brokers to advance policies of economic
nationalism and expand programs to incorporate marginalized groups. Powerful opposition
from the church, industrialists (especially the Monterrey Group), landowners, and provin-
cial elites had at various times and in different places, blocked or blunted policies consid-
ered too radical and antithetical to their interests. Eventually many of these interests would
join the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN), founded in 1939 to oppose anti-clericalism.
Mexico’s “Women’s Workers’ Army” supports the Cárdenas oil expropriation decree during the May Day
celebration in 1938.
International anti-fascism at first hindered the PAN’s growth, as the Mexican government
moved to accept Spanish refugees fleeing from Francisco Franco’s fascist regime and to elimi-
nate Falangist pro-Nazi groups in Mexico. Cárdenas not only accepted thousands of Spanish
exiles, but also gave asylum to the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
In 1938 the leftist revolution began to lose some of its thrust and, in retrospect, the oil
expropriations climaxed the socialist and nationalist orientation of Cárdenas’ program. The
president’s last two years were characterized by economic difficulty. PEMEX, inheriting an-
tiquated machinery and a lack of trained technicians got off to a shaky start. The situation
worsened when Cárdenas learned that he could not buy spare parts for equipment in the
United States. As oil revenues declined, the national debt rose and rampant inflation set in.
Between 1935 and 1940 food prices alone rose by a staggering 49.39 percent.
The reform program was expensive, and cuts had to be made somewhere. Educational ini-
tiatives decelerated, and land redistribution slowed markedly after 1938 as Cárdenas imple-
mented agrarian reform primarily to garner political support. At the same time, he became
more and more sensitive to labor agitation and strikes. And even as US oil interests had lost
out in Mexico in a climate of economic nationalism, other US companies increased their
investments in Mexican mining, tourism, and industry, a harbinger of things to come after
1940. In evaluating the Cardenista presidency, historian Alan Knight has argued persuasively:
. . . Cardenismo was, in terms of its objectives, a genuinely radical movement, which prom-
ised substantial change . . . it also embodied substantial populist support. . . . [Yet] precisely
because of its radicalism, it faced severe resistance not only of an overt kind, but also of a
more surreptitious, covert, and successful kind, which led it to fudge, compromise, and re-
treat on several issues; and that, in consequence, its practical accomplishments were limited
and even these which were attained during 1934–40 ran the risk of being subverted in later
years by more conservative administrations. None of this, perhaps, is very new or surprising.
But the implication of the argument . . . is that Cárdenas—as a vehicle for radical reform—
was less powerful, less speedy, and less capable of following its proposed route across a hos-
tile terrain than is often supposed; that, in other words, it was more jalopy than juggernaut.3
In 1939 the recently formed PRM met to choose its presidential candidate. It was expected
that Cárdenas would throw his support to his longtime political ally Francisco Múgica, but
instead the president, believing it was time to change the orientation of the revolution, sup-
ported his secretary of war, Manuel Avila Camacho, scion of a powerful landowning family
in Puebla. Cárdenas’ support assured Avila Camacho of the nomination. Conservatives ral-
lied behind the PAN candidate, Juan Andreu Almazán, a wealthy Catholic landowner, but
Avila Camacho easily won the election.
T H E A D M I N I S T R AT I O N O F AV I L A C A M A C H O , 1 9 4 0 – 4 6
The Mexican citizenry knew little about Avila Camacho prior to the 1940 presidential cam-
paign; in fact, he was nicknamed “the Unknown Soldier.” Avila Camacho had joined the
revolution in 1914 and gradually worked his way up through the military ranks. His reputa-
tion in the army was one of a compromiser rather than a forceful leader. During the course
of the campaign, when asked about his feelings toward the church, he answered with the
words, Soy creyente (I am a believer). The candid response presaged things to come. It meant
specifically that anticlericalism was not going to be a focus of his administration, but more
generally it meant that neither would the implementation of Articles 3, 27, and 123 be con-
sidered the touchstone of social progress. With the war in Europe threatening the Mexican
economy, the leaders of the Partido Revolucionario Mexicano (PRM), like Avila Camacho,
felt it was time to change direction.
3 Alan Knight, “Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?” Journal of Latin American Studies 1 (1994), 79.
Because the president was determined to embark upon new programs, he began to
phase out some of the old. Land redistribution did not stop entirely, but the pace certainly
slowed. Whereas Cárdenas had distributed over 49 million acres, Avila Camacho parceled
out fewer than 12 million. In addition, because he favored small, private ownership, em-
phasis was no longer placed on distribution to the ejido but rather to the heads of indi-
vidual families.
Avila Camacho’s educational program also reflected a change of direction, placing
heightened emphasis on private initiative. Under the slogan “Each one teach one,” the
president and his secretary of education, Jaime Torres Bodet, had the congress enact a law
exhorting each literate Mexican to instruct one or more illiterates in the fundamentals of
reading and writing. The program began amid great fanfare with the president, his cabi-
net secretaries, and much of the federal and state bureaucracy setting aside an hour each
day to give practical reading instruction. Soon, however, the original enthusiasm lagged,
and the program slacked off. Obviously, private initiative was not going to achieve what
neither church nor state had been able to accomplish over centuries—the elimination of
illiteracy. Although the government did not wholly abandon its revolutionary ideology,
neither did it persecute the Catholic church as Mexicans became more adept at reconcil-
ing their religious beliefs with a secularizing society. Women had taken more active roles
in Catholic lay organizations, and new religious inclinations such as Pentecostalism took
root. Hybrid, homegrown spiritual movements fused religion with patriotic ideology. At
the same time, Catholic charitable activities had slowed, putting more pressure on govern-
ment social programs.
The president replaced Marxist labor leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano with the
more conservative Fidel Velásquez. Lombardo Toledano’s departing speech was caustic
and indicated his anger at the recent turn of events that suggested the victory of the
bourgeoisie over the working class. The press, for some time having portrayed Lombardo
Toledano as inordinately egotistical, pointed out that he had used the word I (Yo in
Spanish) sixty-four times in the farewell address and took the occasion to dub him “the
Yo-yo Champion.”
Under Velásquez’s leadership, government support of the Confederación de Trabajadores
de México (CTM) was held to a minimum. Rejecting what he judged to be Marxist domi-
nation of the confederation, Velásquez supported moderate elements within the union. Al-
though the new labor leader promoted small increases in wages, they did not keep pace with
the rapidly growing inflation that engulfed the Mexican economy. All areas of the country
were hit, but especially Mexico City. The entire philosophy of the union movement changed.
Velásquez did not even protest vigorously when the administration enacted measures limit-
ing the use of strikes. Displeased with the new leadership, in 1942 workers from the tex-
tile and building trades industries withdrew from the CTM, signaling that labor would not
completely acquiesce to state control. The most important potential benefit to accrue to the
workingman was the creation of a social security agency, the Instituto Mexicano de Seguro
Social (IMSS), in 1943; but the initial coverage was so limited that only a small percentage of
the workers fell under the program at this time. When Avila Camacho left office fewer than
250,000 workers participated.
W O R L D WA R I I
World War II broke out in Europe while Lázaro Cárdenas was in the last year of his term,
and the president left it to his successor to define Mexico’s position. After the Russo-German
nonaggression pact of 1939, both the Mexican left led by Lombardo Toledano and Múgica,
and the right, led by Almazán, adopted a pro-German position. But when in the summer
of 1941 Hitler broke his promises and ordered the German army toward Moscow and Len-
ingrad, the Mexican left could no longer support the Axis cause. President Avila Camacho
enunciated an unmistakably pro-Allied course of action, and only a few Mexican fascists and
neo-fascists failed to support him. One day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mexico
broke diplomatic relations with the Axis powers.
Most Mexicans were satisfied that breaking diplomatic relations was sufficient and that
the ultimate step of declaring war was unnecessary. The United States and Mexico appointed
members to a joint defense board, and Avila Camacho deported German, Italian, and
Japanese diplomats from Mexico. In March 1942, when the president participated in the
opening of the new Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City, he pointed to the stark cul-
tural contrast between free societies that valued books and the Nazis who burned them. But
Mexico would not have entered the war had not Germany forced its hand. On the night of
May 14 a German submarine operating in the Caribbean torpedoed and sank the Potrero de
Llano, a Mexican tanker that was fully lighted and properly identified. On May 24 a second
Mexican tanker, the Faja de Oro, was torpedoed. Thereupon the president went before the
congress and announced that, although Mexico had tried to avoid war, the country could
May Day demonstrators destroy a Nazi flag in front of a German-owned electric company.
no longer accept dishonor passively. He asked for and, without serious debate, received
his declaration of war. Furthermore, as wartime propaganda shows, Mexico’s involvement
provided an opportunity for the government to deemphasize revolutionary ideology in
favor of democratic idealism and to discourage opposition. Wartime cooperation with the
United States went a long way to repair ties in the previously strained relationship between
the two neighbors.
On September 16, 1942, on the 132nd anniversary of the Grito de Dolores, an amazing
and unprecedented display of camaraderie occurred on the balcony of the National Palace.
Six former presidents—Adolfo de la Huerta, Plutarco Elías Calles (invited to return from
the United States), Emilio Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, Abelardo Rodríguez, and Lázaro
Cárdenas—linked arms with Avila Camacho to indicate that past antagonisms had been
forgotten and that Mexico was fully united in time of war.
Secretary of Interior Miguel Alemán was charged with eliminating subversive activity
within the national boundaries. Once a stiff espionage act passed the congress, he began
seizing German, Italian, and Japanese properties including banks, drug firms, hardware
stores, and coffee plantations to prevent them from being used as bases of propaganda or
espionage. Intelligence and national security were delegated to the military, a move that
allayed officers’ dissatisfaction with cuts to the armed forces budget. The ideal of a profes-
sionalized, apolitical military gave way to a relationship in which an ethos of deference
to civilian government did not always eliminate military influence on the state. Alemán’s
secret service rooted out several Gestapo agents and other spies operating clandestine
Mexican nurses march in support of the war effort.

radio stations and relaying instructions to German submarines in the Atlantic. Japanese
immigrants to Mexico (who had been arriving as laborers since the late nineteenth cen-
tury), were spared some of the horrors of the mass incarceration that occurred in the
United States. However, over one hundred thousand were forced into internment camps
and lost their property as well as their individual liberty. They encountered marked hos-
tility in northern Mexico where anti-Asian prejudices had been responsible for attacks
on Chinese immigrants earlier in the century. In some southern states where Japanese
Mexicans had been integrated into communities, their neighbors defended them. But
many, not only first generation, were detained for periods and then released while others
were deported.
Mexico’s valuable oil fields and munitions factories were placed under strict military
control. Some modernization of the Mexican army occurred as it received military supplies
through the Lend-Lease p Velás rogram of the United States. The Avila Camacho administra-
tion also moved to provide a small military contingent for service with the Allies. The mem-
bers of the joint defense board decided that Air Force Squadron 201 should be prepared for
duty in the Far East. Approximately 300 Mexican aviators and support personnel received
their training in the United States and were assigned to the Fifth Air Corps in the Philippines.
Using the P47 Thunderbolt as its operating aircraft, Squadron 201 participated in bomb-
ing and strafing raids in the Philippines and Formosa in early 1945, and some Mexicans
lost their lives. After the war the squadron received commendations from General Douglas
MacArthur and a hero’s welcome upon return to Mexico.
More important than token military support, Mexico provided strategic war materials
for the Allied war effort. Zinc, copper, lead, mercury, graphite, and cadmium flowed into US
war plants and were transformed into military products. The increased demand for these
raw materials could have caused prices to soar, but the Mexican government instituted price
controls as further testimony to its cooperation.
The most unique, and ultimately the most controversial, contribution to the war
effort was the mutual decision made by Avila Camacho and Franklin D. Roosevelt to
allow Mexican laborers (braceros) to serve as agricultural workers in the United States.
The draft in the United States had depleted the workforce, and Mexicans picked up the
slack as they began to harvest major crops. The terms of the carefully spelled out agree-
ment authorized workers to receive free transportation to and from their homes, forbade
them from displacing US workers or to be used to suppress wages, set minimum wages
at 46 cents an hour (later raised to 57 cents), and authorized Mexican labor officials to
make periodic inspections to certify that the rules were being enforced. By the spring
of 1943, despite the opposition of organized labor in the United States, the program
expanded to include nonagricultural labor as well. When the war ended, approximately
three hundred thousand Mexicans had worked in twenty-five different states, some as far
north as Minnesota and Wisconsin. Problems arose in the program, for the regulations
were not always enforced and the workers encountered deep-seated prejudices in the
United States. Yet braceros often built networks of solidarity internally and sought trans-
national support, among other strategies that allowed them to define their own racial
and behavioral norms.
With thousands of men working as braceros in the United

States, Mexican women were called upon to serve the coun-
try by working in industry, in the fields, and at home.
I N D U S T R I A L I Z AT I O N
Although it would be an exaggeration to suggest that its support during World War II ma-
terially influenced the outcome, nevertheless Mexico made a more substantial contribution
than any other Latin American country. Moreover, the war was of singular importance for
Mexico’s internal development. It marked improved relations with the United States and
an acceleration of the country’s economic development even as agricultural production
declined.
Wartime shortages in the United States and Europe deprived Mexico of its normal sources
of imported manufactured goods and convinced even the doubters of the need for indus-
trialization. The goal was not simply to meet the demands of the domestic market but to
produce a surplus of manufactured goods for export to other Latin American countries. Even
during the last years of the Cárdenas administration, Mexican social scientists had begun to
argue the absurdity of dividing the same pie into smaller and smaller pieces. To provide a
better life for the vast majority of the people, it was imperative that the country’s economic
base be expanded through a major program of industrialization. The program not only
would provide additional employment for a rapidly growing population but also, through
increased productivity, generate wealth and improve the standard of living for the masses.
To foster industrial expansion the Avila Camacho administration established the Nacional
Financiera, a government-owned bank created primarily to provide loans to industry but also
to oversee the industrial process. In each year of the administration the favorable loans of the
Nacional Financiera increased dramatically, reaching a total of 286.8 million pesos by 1945.
In addition, other incentives, such as tax exemptions and tariff protection, persuaded
potential investors to take acceptable risks. With the CTM in the hands of Fidel Velásquez,
he readily pledged his support to the new industrialists. Native Mexican capital began to
pour into new industrial pursuits but, because the program was such an ambitious one, in
1944 the congress passed legislation allowing foreign participation in industrialization with
the proviso that Mexican capital own the controlling stock in any mixed corporation. Some
US investors jumped at the opportunity. The Export–Import Bank in the United States also
extended credits.
The new and often young industrialists took it upon themselves to educate Mexican poli-
ticians, and indeed the public, in the virtues of industrial growth. In 1942 they founded the
Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Transformación to develop an industrial consciousness
in the country and to convince policymakers that without industrialization the masses were
doomed to perpetual privation. During the Avila Camacho years industrialization domi-
nated the front pages of newspapers. The Cámara became an effective propaganda agency
and lobby, arguing that what was good for industry was good for the nation. Its initial goal
was to foster those industries that relied on Mexican raw materials, for example, cereal pro-
cessing, edible oil from agricultural products, sugar, alcohol, and the manufacture of fibers
and chemicals. The ultimate goal was to export manufactured goods.
The industrial push gathered momentum throughout the war years as a wide range of
old industries were expanded and new ones initiated. The textile, food-processing, chemical,
beer, and cement industries grew rapidly. Pig iron production increased from 99,200 metric
300
250
200
Millions of pesos
150
100
50
1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
Industrial Loans of the Nacional Financiera, 1940–45

Source: Sanford A. Mosk, Industrial Revolution in Mexico (Berkeley, 1950), 238.
tons in 1930 to 240,300 in 1946, and during the same period steel nearly doubled from
142,200 metric tons to 257,900. Electrical capacity rose by 20 percent, and the industrial
proletariat grew steadily in size.
As predicted, industrialization generated new wealth. The national income almost tri-
pled, from 6.4 billion pesos in 1940 to 18.6 billion in 1945. Per capita income jumped from
325 pesos the year Avila Camacho was inaugurated to 838 pesos during his last year in office.
As social critics quickly pointed out, however, increased per capita income for a growing
middle class did not necessarily mean a more equitable distribution of wealth or increased
earning power for the poor. Furthermore, tax exemptions for investors were part of a more
general weakness in the tax structure, which produced insufficient revenue.
The post-Cárdenas period had moved away from social justice economics. The agrarian
revolution languished. Productivity on most of the ejidos had not lived up to expectations,
and government planners decided not to experiment further with communal agriculture.
This certainly did nothing to alleviate social unrest in rural areas. The agrarian movement
led by Rubén Jaramillo in Morelos attracted supporters, but its efforts were increasingly met
by government repression.
For almost a decade the official party had gradually opened up. By 1946 it was no
longer dominated by intellectuals, agrarian reformers, and ardent defenders of the labor
movement. It now represented the business and industrial communities as well as econ-
omists and technicians. To symbolize the change without giving up the revolutionary
myth, in 1946 the party decided to change its name to the Partido Revolucionario Insti-
tucional/Party of the Institutionalized Revolution (PRI). The party was organized on a
corporatist structure of interest groups: campesinos, urban labor, and a more amorphous
sector of middle-class organizations. For a still relatively weak federal government to rule
through this single party, its leaders undertook frequent negotiations and crafted shifting
alliances not only with the constituent groups on a national level, but also with local,
regional, and state officials and interests. Although the old caudillismo had disappeared,
state leaders like Puebla governor Maximino Ávila Camacho (brother of the president)
could still exert influence on national decision making. The authoritarian tendencies of
local leaders could inhibit the implementation of national policies, but they could also
be used to carry them out.
The power of the state had increased under Cárdenas, but it did not become a Levia-
than that subordinated the popular classes and civil society. Agrarian and labor reforms
had delivered benefits to millions of Mexico’s campesinos and workers, explaining why
Cárdenas is still a national icon. In terms of economic nationalism, Cárdenas nationalized
the oil industry and completed the nationalization of the railways. His policies had pro-
vided an opening for industrialization and economic development, promoting a capitalist
bourgeoisie that even benefitted from state intervention. This trend continued vigorously
under Avila Camacho. Again, in Alan Knight’s words: “. . . the jalopy was hijacked by new
drivers; they returned the engine, took on new passengers and then drove it in quite a dif-
ferent direction.”4
4 Ibid., 107.
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Ashby, Joe C. Organized Labor and the Mexican Revolution under Cárdenas. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1967.
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DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998.
Becker, Marjorie. Setting the Virgin on Fire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán Peasants, and the Redemption of the
Mexican Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
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and William H. Beezley, 438–470. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
Blum, Ann S. Domestic Economies: Family, Work, and Welfare in Mexico City, 1884–1943. Lincoln: University
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Cline, Howard. Mexico: Revolution to Evolution, 1940–1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Cronon, E. David. Josephus Daniels in Mexico. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1942.
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Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
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García, Jerry. Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and US Hegemony, 1897–1945.
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Revolutionary State. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014.
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lenge of Rule since the Late Nineteenth Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.
Kiddle, Amelia M. Mexico’s Relations with Latin America during the Cárdenas Era. Albuquerque: University
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Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010.
Knight, Alan. “Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?” Journal of Latin American Studies 26/1 (1994): 73–107.
Loza, Mireya. Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom. Chapel
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Press, 1966.
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Modern Mexico, 1920–1950. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
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1997.
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CHA PTER 32
SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN THE

POSTREVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
D A I LY L I F E I N C O U N T R Y S I D E A N D C I T Y
Between 1920 and 1940 the lives of average Mexicans changed more rapidly than they had in
any previous twenty-year period. The population decline of the decade of violence stopped
and, with the greater political stability of the 1920s and 1930s, the number of people began
to climb rapidly. When Obregón came to office in 1920 the total population of the country
was slightly over 14 million, but when Cárdenas turned over the presidency to his suc-
cessor twenty years later the total had almost reached 20 million. Mexico was not yet an
urban country although the percentage of population living in communities with fewer than
twenty-five hundred people had slipped from about 70 percent in 1920 to some 65 percent
in 1940. By then cultural anthropologists found fewer Indians who spoke a native tongue
exclusively.
The new ejidatario in rural Mexico, unlike his campesino forefather, was no longer bound
to the hacienda. He could travel as freely as his pocketbook allowed. It was no longer neces-
sary to purchase daily necessities in the tienda de raya, but if he did shop in the ejido store,
he would likely find prices somewhat lower than those in the nearby community. The old
mayordomos, of course, were gone, and in most cases ejido officials were elected by the eji-
datarios themselves.
Thousands of families who had fled their villages in search of security during the early
revolution returned to find many things transformed. Hard-surface roads began to supplant
bumpy dirt pathways, and buses rolled over them with more or less regularity. Bicycles began
to push burros off the highways. Tractors challenged the ox-drawn plow. Gasoline engines,
rather than mules or horses, turned the mills that ground the corn, and gasoline pumps drew
the water from nearby streams. Electricity arrived even in some small towns.
The anthropologist George M. Foster recorded some of the major changes in Tzintzuntzan,
Michoacán, in the 1930s.
455
The first major cultural impact of modern times occurred . . . in the spring of 1931. General
Lázaro Cárdenas, then Governor of Michoacán, sent a Cultural Mission consisting of teach-
ers who specialized in plastic arts, social work, music, home economics, physical education,
and “small industries,” and a nurse-midwife and an agricultural engineer. . . . Most villagers
were reluctant to cooperate, to help find living quarters, and to aid staff members and rural
teachers. . . . In spite of such difficulties, however, the Mission had a big effect. A number of
the more progressive families agreed to whitewash their houses, to improve the appearance
of the village, and the present plaza, then a barren wasteland with a few houses, was cleaned
up, sidewalks were marked out, flowering jacaranda trees were planted, a fountain . . . was
built . . . and place was cleared for a bandstand. At the end of the first month there was
an open house exposition of arts, crafts, sports, and civic betterments, to which General
Cárdenas came as guest of honor. . . . Electricity was brought in from Pátzcuaro in 1938 and
running water . . . was installed about the same time. . . . In 1939 for the first time village
children had ready access to the full six years of primary schooling.1
The rural school in the 1920s and 1930s became a focal point of village life. Economic
and social activity centered on programs initiated by the rural teachers as the ministry of ed-
ucation tried to instill revolutionary nationalism. Schools challenged, although not always
successfully, the domination of the church over cultural life. Regional responses to new im-
positions varied as they provoked both dialogue and conflict between communities and
outsiders. Professional medical specialists gradually entered the countryside. Although some
villagers regarded them with suspicion, the outsiders frequently exchanged knowledge with
local healers and midwives. Life expectancy improved and the infant mortality rate dropped
from 222 deaths per thousand in 1920 to 125 twenty years later. But by no means did all of
the essentials of the good life come to rural Mexico between 1920 and 1940. Poverty contin-
ued to be the single most pervasive characteristic of rural life.
City life became more pleasant, at least for some, as the amenities of technology became
increasingly commonplace. Mexico’s first commercial radio station began transmission in
1923, and scores huddled around each neighbor lucky enough to own or have access to a
receiver. Two years later the department of education established its own radio station and
began beaming educational broadcasts to primary schools recently equipped with receivers.
Radionovelas, broadcasts of sporting events, and constant streams of music helped relieve the
tedium of daily life. The federal government initiated a new radio program in 1937 called
La Hora Nacional, intended to integrate listeners into the national mainstream through pro-
grams on Mexican culture, folklore, art, and music. Popular music flourished on the radio, in
dance halls like the Salón México, and in films with the rhythms and lyrics of mariachi and
ranchera music; even Afro-Caribbean introductions like the danzón and the bolero became
part of the canon of musical nationalism. Popular composer and lyricist Agustín Lara has
been called the “minstrel of the national soul;” his boleros evoked forbidden sensual plea-
sures and emotional intimacy. Despite the misogynist lyrics, his romanticizing of male sexu-
ality appealed to women of all classes in urban areas.
1 George M. Foster, Tzintzuntzan: Mexican Peasants in a Changing World (Boston, MA, 1967), 26–29.
Society and Culture in the Postrevolutionary Period 457
As Mexico left the era of the silent film and moved into the age of sound, Fernando de Fuentes’s Allá en el Rancho
Grande awoke world interest in the Mexican cinema.
Another revolution in popular culture occurred in film. By the mid-1930s the com-
mercial cinema had begun to challenge the bullfight for preeminence in entertainment.
Hollywood films dominated, but the Mexican film industry received support under Cárde-
nas to promote mexicanidad. The most interesting films relayed patriotic content depicting
the glories of the revolution, like Ezequiel Carrasco’s Viva México (1934) and Luis Lezama’s
El Cementerio de los Aguilas (1938). But the greatest commercial success was Fernando de
Fuentes’s musical Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936), starring Tito Guízar and Esther Fernández.
The extraordinary box office profits of this film led to a cinematographic genre of folk films,
soon to be dominated by two towering figures of popular culture, Jorge Negrete and Pedro
Infante. The melodramatic tropes of Golden Age cinema promoted an idealized Mexico and
sought to draw mass spectators to share laughter and tears.
Without question, the internal combustion engine most changed the lifestyle of the urban
areas. The motor car had arrived in Mexico shortly before the outbreak of hostilities in 1910,
but, because of the tremendous dislocations of that first revolutionary decade, it did not begin
to transform Mexican life until after 1920. By 1925, fifty-three thousand motor vehicles were di-
gesting 35 million gallons of gasoline annually; 15 years later the number of vehicles had tripled
and gasoline consumption had quadrupled. In the early 1920s the motor vehicle was still a
prestige symbol, carrying a select few to and from their offices or their families on an occasional
weekend outing. Later in the decade motor car racing became popular, and often left a toll of
people killed or injured. But by the 1930s, with a tremendous increase in the number of trucks
and buses, the internal combustion engine had transformed commercial life as well as disrupted
staid social patterns. Automobiles, trucks, and buses required an expanded highway network;
and Mexican engineers and day laborers completed several thousand miles of new, hard-surface
roads. Road building acquainted Mexicans with places beyond the bounds of the patria chica,
promoted tourism, revitalized local economies, and facilitated industrial development.
The growth of Mexico City was nothing short of spectacular. The high national rate of
population growth, coupled with an internal migration from rural to urban areas, gave
Mexico City, with nearly 1.8 million people in 1940, an increase of more than a million in
only two decades. The dramatic growth yielded its share of social problems as neither the
job market nor the school system could absorb the tremendous influx. The medical infra-
structure and public health initiatives were sorely tested as well, as syphilis reached epidemic
proportions in the national metropolis in the 1920s and the government sought to control
prostitution. Those fleeing to the capital in search of a better life often than not encountered
disappointment. Rapid growth in other cities also caused difficulties for tens of thousands of
recent arrivals. While Mexicans laughed with derision at the prohibition experiment in the
United States, alcoholic consumption rose sufficiently in Mexico in the 1920s to cause alarm
in the medical and scientific communities and to occasion anti-alcohol campaigns.
Demographic growth gave rise to another, more salutary change. Revolutionary govern-
ments, particularly in the 1930s, began to shape Mexico City to reflect the new ideological
landscape that was neither colonial nor Porfirian. A particular kind of Mexican modern style
developed in the capital city that merged international Deco with an idealized vision of an
indigenous rural past, both imagined through women’s bodies—the hypermodern, stream-
lined flapper or the voluptuous, exoticized native. The hybridity of Mexican Deco, in the way
it could adapt or reshape the cultural past, undergirded its nationalistic character. Revolu-
tionaries inherited the task of completing the Palace of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes),
begun in the Porfiriato to celebrate the centenary of Mexican independence, but not fin-
ished. Mexican architects complemented the imposing neoclassical exterior with a stunning
Deco interior, and the building was inaugurated in 1934. Deco architecture dominated the
1920s development of the Condesa neighborhood and its centerpiece, the Parque México
in central Mexico City, known today for its fresa (yuppie) nightlife and upscale apartments.
While the national theater and an upscale neighborhood were designed for elites, urban
development projects also targeted the working classes, especially the many women who mi-
grated to the capital after the war. Markets served as spaces of independence where women
could sell their wares, bargain for the best price, and contribute to the vitality of the city.
The traditional outdoor markets which represented an idealized indigenous past could be
reborn in permanent indoor markets, subject to sanitary regulations. In 1934, for example,
the Abelardo Rodríguez Market opened its doors. Built within the exterior walls of a convent
near the Zócalo, the functional Deco interior housed a theater, day-care center, and a school
for the children of the many women who worked there. Murals on interior walls, depicting a
peaceful countryside, assured patrons of the benefits won by the revolutionaries. To this day,
the market is a bustling space of commerce in the busy Centro Histórico, surrounded by an
informal economy that persists despite the many attempts to quash it.
Aspects of life were changing for Mexican women as we now know from recent rich
scholarship on women and gender relations in the period from 1920 to 1940. The revolu-
tion did not bring radical transformations for women, but it did accelerate a process begun
earlier by economic modernization in opening up more social spaces for them outside the
home. The revolution could be said to have modernized patriarchy as it redefined gender
roles under a paternalistic umbrella. For men, this meant reining in a masculinity based
Palacio de Bellas Artes after its renovation for the bicentennial.
on violence to create a self-disciplined, hard-working “revolutionary” man. For women, it

opened up more jobs in education and social services in roles that conformed to the ide-
alized feminine state of motherhood with its implied self-denial and nurturing instincts.
These mostly urban middle-class women could teach children and poor mothers how to
become modern citizens.
When women’s public aspirations went further than participating in the areas of educa-
tion and moral reform—for example, when they tried to assert equality in the workplace,
justice in wages or rents, or the right to vote—the revolutionary state was not so accommo-
dating. For the most part, union bosses were able to keep women in the least skilled factory
jobs, ejidatarios were male, and politicians worked to limit female suffrage. Images of the
“new” woman (primarily white and middle-class) in newspapers, advertising, and film pro-
moted domesticity, marriage, and motherhood. More negative stereotypes presented women
(especially poor indígenas) as abused and victimized—in need of education and moral
reform. The “chica moderna,” with bobbed hair, ready-to-wear dress, and stiletto shoes, was
still a controversial figure who threatened gender norms. Workplaces were still construed as
fraught with sexual danger.
The façade of the Abelardo Rodríguez public market near the Zócalo.
Nonetheless, more and more women entered the worlds of business, education, gov-
ernment service, and medicine. Between 1920 and 1924 only 223 Mexican women received
university degrees; ten years later the figure had doubled. By 1930 women participated
more actively in civic work than at any previous time, and hundreds of thousands had
successfully rebelled against family-arranged marriages. In some areas, women became
powerful voices in labor organizing. This was the case of female coffee sorters in Córdoba,
Veracruz, where women successfully balanced activism with work and family life to advo-
cate for their rights. Often, in order to gain traction, activist women couched their quest
for citizenship in the discourse of motherhood and family. This strategy along with the
revolutionary paternalism of men, including President Cárdenas, helped women get the
right to vote in a number of Mexican states, but full female suffrage would have to wait
until the 1950s.
While Mexicans were struggling to establish a new identity, immigration from the Middle
East and Asia challenged the limits of the ideal of mestizaje and questioned the definition
of what it meant to be Mexican. In the nineteenth century, Arab immigrants began to arrive
during the Porfiriato and came in increasingly numbers as the Ottoman empire fell. Initially
using Mexico as a stopover on the way to the United States, eventually Mexico became a
destination of choice for many Middle East immigrants who styled themselves as Lebanese,
rather than use the terms Turks or Arabs that acquired racist overtones in the Mexican con-
text. Overall the community thrived, establishing Arab-language schools, publications, and
organizations; today the Mexican-Lebanese Cultural Institute estimates that there are eight
hundred thousand Mexicans of Middle Eastern descent. As time went on, their children
identified as Mexican, but their influence is still felt in Mexico today with figures like Salma
Hayek and Carlos Slim who proudly proclaim their Middle Eastern heritage. More impor-
tantly, the taco al pastor, meat marinated in a spicy red sauce served with pineapple, onion,
and cilantro, is an adaptation of schwarma brought to Mexico City in the 1930s.
The history of Chinese and Japanese migration to Mexico dates to the colonial period,
as many crossed the Pacific with the Manila galleons, some against their will. In the nine-
teenth century, a new kind of immigration began with large numbers of Chinese who came
as laborers. They constituted a significant part of the labor force that built many of the
railroads running north to connect Mexico to markets in the United States. In the northern
borderlands, many Chinese immigrants settled, despite vociferous and sometimes violent
racism directed toward them by Mexicans. Mexicali, which to this day boasts a large Chinese-
Mexican population, attracted agricultural workers and merchants who became an impor-
tant part of building the agricultural base of the region.
Most Chinese immigrants in the early twentieth century were male; they sought to settle
permanently and many married Mexican spouses despite a law that stripped these women
of their Mexican citizenship. While the law was generally ignored, there were instances when
the state acted and expelled families; recent research has looked at the Mexican-Chinese
communities who resided in Hong Kong and Macau until they were repatriated to Mexico in
1960. Early Japanese immigrants went to Chiapas to work on coffee plantations; most settled
in the borderlands and became part of what it means to be Mexican in northwest Mexico
and the US southwest. Sushi Saga in Tucson, Arizona is owned by a Japanese-Mexican family
that migrated from Sonora. The menu boasts traditional Japanese sushi and Mexican tacos
with fusion rolls named after cities in Sonora.
C U LT U R A L N AT I O N A L I S M I N T H E A R T S
Mexican culture during the period 1920–40 came to the service of the revolution. The
artistic, literary, and scholarly communities, with an abiding faith in the new thrust of
Mexican life, supported revolutionary ideals by contributing their unique talents to awak-
ening consciousness in the new social order. The aim was to fashion a national citizen
and promote national solidarity among diverse sectors of the Mexican population. The
process is nowhere better illustrated than in the cultural achievements of Mexico’s most
famous painters.
The restlessness of Mexico’s artistic community had been apparent during the late Por-
firiato and the first revolutionary decade, but Mexican art came into its own and won world
acclaim after 1920. Secretary of Education José Vasconcelos commissioned leading artists to
fill the walls of public buildings with didactic murals, and Mexico’s artistic renaissance com-
bined European training and indigenous motifs in the service of the revolution. Art was no
longer directed to the privileged few who could afford to buy a canvas; it was for the public.
If Mexico was not yet able to provide a classroom and a seat for every child in the country,
some measure of popular education could be provided by a muralist movement carried out
on a scale grander than any the world had yet known.
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Head of an Indian. A detail from Rufino Tamayo’s Allegories of Music
and Song (1933).
Juan O’Gorman, Enemies of the Mexican People.

Coordinating his efforts with the artists’ union, the Syndicate of Technical Workers,
Painters, and Sculptors, Vasconcelos instructed the artist simply to paint Mexican subjects.
To be sure, youthful enthusiasm carried some astray; but giants such as Jean Charlot, Rufino
Tamayo, Juan O’Gorman, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Fernando Leal, and Roberto Montenegro
emerged in the process as well. In particular, two muralists began to dominate the movement.
That they are highlighted in these pages is not to diminish the magnitude of outstanding
works by the numerous talented artists and architects of the period. As John Lear illustrates,
many other artists’ collectives flourished as they interacted with labor organizations to place
the proletariat at the center of their work. They played a fundamental role in creating a new
national identity that blended influences of nationalism and internationalism.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Diego Rivera (1885–1957) became the most renowned
artist in the western hemisphere and one of the most imposing artists of the twentieth cen-
tury. A man of boundless talent and energy, he used the Indian as his basic motif. Rivera’s
realistic murals did not invite freedom of interpretation as he depicted humanistic messages
for the illiterate masses on the walls of the Agricultural School in Chapingo, the Cortés
Palace in Cuernavaca, the National Preparatory School, the Department of Education, and
the National Palace in Mexico City. The Spaniard during the colonial period and his criollo
offspring during the nineteenth century had enslaved the Indian and had kept him in abject
poverty. It was now time to integrate the Indian into the mainstream of society just as Rivera
was incorporating him into the mainstream of his murals. Although Rivera emphasized
content over form, he was without rival in technique. His symmetry was near perfect, but his
Details from Diego Rivera’s mural in the Agricultural School at Chapingo (1926–1927).
genius emerged even more clearly in his use of line and color. He invariably depicted Indians
in soft, gentle lines, with earthen red and brown tones, while the oppressors, white foreign-
ers and white Mexicans, were portrayed in sharp lines and harsh colors.
Rivera’s greatest masterpiece was composed at the Agricultural School in Chapingo. With
esthetic originality and flamboyance, Rivera spelled out his appreciation of the new revo-
lutionary ideology. Not only did his frescoes display the virtues of land redistribution, but
they offered lessons of sociopolitical reality. On one wall he portrayed bad government—
the campesinos betrayed by false politicians, fat capitalists, and mercenary priests. But the
opposite wall was one of revolutionary hope—a scene of agricultural cultivation, a rich
harvest, and a liberated peasantry. Nude female figures, and his own pregnant wife, repre-
sented the bounty of a productive earth. Just in case the humanist agrarian message might
be lost, he painted over the main stairway of the building, “Here it is taught to exploit the
land, not man.”
Diego Rivera’s The Billionaires (1928), a mural in Diego Rivera’s Awaiting the Harvest (1923), a fresco
the Department of Education, satirizes interna- in the Court of Labor, Department of Education.
tional capitalism.
Only slightly less famous than Rivera, but no less a genius, was José Clemente Orozco
(1883–1949). As the violent decade passed, Orozco abandoned his career as a biting politi-
cal caricaturist for mural art. Less a realist than Rivera, Orozco could be more forceful, expres-
sive, and passionate. He was willing to experiment with new techniques as well as themes.
His brutal and distorted Christs, grotesque depictions of God, and nude Madonnas pilloried
all religious piety and brought forth a storm of protest. While angry crowds mutilated some
of his frescoes, Vasconcelos did not interfere with Orozco’s freedom of expression although
the secretary was becoming increasingly anti-Marxist, even pro-fascist. Orozco’s scenes of
violence during the revolution bring to mind Francisco Goya’s Horrors of War, and he might
well have had the Spanish master in mind when he conceived them.
Orozco had his tender moments too. During the 1920s, when he could see the first
hesitant steps of social progress, some of his murals portray hope. His famous fresco Cortés
and Malinche shows two nude and carnal figures sitting over the figure of the old, prostrate
Mexico and represents the process of mestizaje, the biological and spiritual origin of the
Mexican people. But in the 1930s, even as the pace of social reform began to accelerate,
Orozco became increasingly disillusioned with the progress being made. After spending
several years in the United States, he went back to his native Jalisco, and in the Instituto
Cabañas in Guadalajara he decided to return to the theme of the conquest. The new Cortés
he portrayed was a powerful, violent conqueror in full armor and with sword in hand. The
only hope held out is that the spirit whispering in Cortés’s ear might convince him to use his
power and technology for good rather than for evil.
Also nationalistic, but less public, in her painting was Frida Kahlo (1907–54). Her mar-
riage at the age of twenty to Diego Rivera gave her access to the intellectual avant-garde, but
she easily earned recognition on her own as a painter who drew on the tradition of Mexican
religious folk art to self-referentially portray human suffering. Her struggle to understand na-
tional identity in post-revolutionary Mexico and her battle to overcome debilitating physical
impairments are stunningly depicted in the bloody and fragmented bodies of her subjects
and her self-portraits. Kahlo also encouraged her students to represent everyday life by paint-
ing objects of popular folk art. The ways in which her own production embraced mestizaje
and rejected traditional conceptions of gender (and especially of the self-abnegating Virgin
Mary) became more fully appreciated in the late 20th century, both in Mexico and abroad.
The painters were not alone in transforming a national art into a nationalistic one. The
literary community contributed as well with its novels of the revolution. Two of the best
came from the pen of Martín Luis Guzmán (1887–1976), who published El águila y la
serpiente (translated as The Eagle and the Serpent) in 1928 and La sombra del caudillo (The
Shadow of the Leader) the following year. The first constitutes a novelized personal memoir
of the young Guzmán, who left the comfortable life of a university student to join the revo-
lution and found himself a Villista. Captivated by Villa’s personality, yet always afraid of
his violence, Guzmán sketched the Centaur of the North most vividly in his discussion of
revolutionary justice.
This man wouldn’t exist if his pistol didn’t exist. . . . It isn’t merely an instrument of action
with him; it’s a fundamental part of his being, the axis of his work and his amusement, the
José Clemente Orozco’s Modern Migration of the Spirit (1933), from the fresco Quetzalcóatl and the Aspirations of
Mankind, was painted at Dartmouth College.
constant expression of his most intimate self, his soul given outward form. Between the
fleshy curve of his index finger and the rigid curve of the trigger there exists the relation that
comes from the contact of one being with another. When he fires, it isn’t the pistol that
shoots, it’s the man himself. Out of his very heart comes the ball as it leaves the sinister
barrel. The man and the pistol are the same thing.2
Villa did not turn out to be the ideal man Guzmán had hoped for. The intellectual simply
could not communicate with the people’s hero and ultimately took his leave. Guzmán never
abandoned his revolutionary faith, but he began to wonder whether the goals could be at-
tained without all the violence.
Guzmán’s disenchantment with the politics of the revolution became even more evi-
dent in La sombra del caudillo, a novel inspired by the presidential election of 1928, which
2 Martín Luis Guzmán, The Eagle and the Serpent, trans. Harriet de Onís (Garden City, NY, 1965), 210.
José Clemente Orozco’s fresco Cortés and Malinche.
saw opposition candidates Francisco Serrano and Arnulfo Gómez both dead by election
day. Mexico’s most powerful novel decrying dictatorship, La sombra del caudillo is written
with truculence and righteous indignation. But even here Guzmán does not give up on the
revolution. To the contrary, he directed passionate condemnation against Calles for having
betrayed the ideals of the movement.
In a less cynical vein, Nellie Campobello (1900–1986) used short narrative portraits
in Cartucho (1931) to portray the violence of the revolution but at the same time to honor
the people who sacrificed their lives for it. Cartucho is especially significant because it is the
only testimonial depiction by a woman to have been published in the immediate aftermath
of the revolution. In this work and in Las manos de mamá (1937), translated as My Mother’s
Hands, Campobello also highlights the changes provoked by the revolution for women and
indigenous peoples in the Mexican north of Pancho Villa.
The Indianist novel of the revolution reached its apex in 1935 with Gregorio López y
Fuentes’s El Indio. Without naming a single character or place, López y Fuentes is able to por-
tray the Indian, not as the noble savage, but as a man beset with social problems that society
can help to overcome. The plot is not intricate as the author was more interested in atmo-
sphere. He admirably succeeded not only in illustrating the wide chasm between Indian and
white society but also in making intelligible the deepest suspicions of whites harbored in
the Indian community. López y Fuentes received Mexico’s first National Prize for Literature
for this perceptive model.
The cultural nationalism focusing on the Indian was carried into the arena of music
by Carlos Chávez (1899–1978). After studying in Europe and the United States, in his
late twenties Chávez returned to Mexico to become director of the National Conserva-
tory of Music and to begin a brilliant career as a conductor, pianist, musical scholar, and
composer. His Sinfonía India (1935) and Xochipili-Macuilxochitl (1940) were scored for
pre-Columbian instruments, but realizing that not all performing orchestras would be
able to acquire such esoteric accouterments as strings of deer hooves, he made provision
for modern substitutes. But both rhythmically and melodically the compositions were
inspired by Mexico’s indigenous heritage, as well as other vernacular music and dance.
Chávez was fully integrated into overall efforts to promote cultural nationalism; he affili-
ated the conservatory with the Ministry of Public Education and collaborated on many
projects with other intellectuals, artists, and academics, even some of whom, like Aaron
Copland, he met in the United States and lured to visit Mexico. He sponsored Silvestre
Revueltas as the conductor of the conservatory orchestra, and encouraged his research
into vernacular music. Revueltas composed orchestral music and film scores, including
the suite for the film Redes (1936), on which he collaborated with American photographer
Paul Strand. A movie of social realism, the film focuses on the battles of a poor Veracruz
fishing community with big business and corrupt bosses. The magnificent score beautifully
evokes the aura of realism and inspires empathy for the downtrodden villagers. The mes-
sage of social injustice is startlingly rendered.
Also keenly interested in issues of social justice were the anthropologists who studied
indigenous communities. They aspired to cultural nationalism but in a way that diverged
from Vasconcelos’ ideas about assimilation. Vasconcelos was interested in accumulating a
record of cultural diversity as part of the nation’s patrimony but not in preserving discrete
Indian cultures and values. With the publication in 1922 of Manuel Gamio’s highly impor-
tant three-volume La población del valle de Teotihuacán, Mexican archaeologists, ethnologists,
and social anthropologists began to take a new look not only at antiquities but at contem-
porary Indian problems as well. Rejecting theories of racial inferiority and the anti-Indian
posture of many nineteenth-century intellectuals, they set out to depict the glories of the
Indian past, to restore Indian arts and crafts, and in general to revitalize contemporary
Indian cultures. Their efforts to valorize indigenous cultures (known as indigenismo) were
greatly facilitated in 1936 when the government established the Departamento Autónomo
de Asuntos Indígenas and three years later the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e His-
toria. No great historical work emerged from the period in the proliferation of biogra-
phies to venerate or disparage the many revolutionary leaders. Porfirio Díaz, of course was
demonized.
Despite the mediocre record of Mexican historians from 1920 to 1940, the country’s
overall cultural production was remarkable during those two decades. The revolutionary
state supported the movement for cultural nationalism through the patronage of popular
arts, mural painting, music, radio, and film; by renaming streets and other places for revolu-
tionary heroes and events; and through educational programs that tried to assimilate indig-
enous peoples and secularize local cultures. The degree to which these wide-ranging efforts
succeeded in fomenting nation building and shared popular memories varied, but they did
contribute to the formulation of one powerful and dynamic vision of Mexican national
identity. This revolutionary identity had not obliterated forms of Catholic nationalism, but
it captured the Mexican spirit and yielded a sense of national confidence and pride for many.
The artistic outpouring of the 1920s and 1930s was unequaled in Latin America.
Alfaro-Velcamp, Teresa. So far from Allah, So close to Mexico: Middle Eastern Immigrants in Modern Mexico.
Benjamin, Thomas. La Revolución: Mexico’s Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History. Austin: University
Bliss, Katherine. Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health and Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico
City. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
Buffington, Robert M. Criminal and Citizen in Modern Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
Campobello, Nellie. Cartucho and My Mother’s Hands. Translated by Doris Meyer and Irene Matthews.
Chang, Jason Oliver. “Racial Alterity in the Mestizo Nation.” Journal of Asian American Studies 14/3
(October 2011): 331–359.
Chew, Selfa. Uprooting Community: Japanese Mexicans, World War II, and the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Tucson:
Coffey, Mary K. How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture: Murals, Museums, and the Mexican State.
Craven, David. Diego Rivera as Epic Modernist. New York: G. K. Hall and Co., 1997.
Delpar, Helen. The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican: Cultural Relations between the United States and
Mexico, 1920–1935. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992.
. “Mexican Culture, 1920–45.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael C. Meyer and
William H. Beezley, 508–33. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
Folgarait, Leonard. Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940: Art of the New Order. New
. So Far from Heaven: David Alfaro Siqueiros’ The March of Humanity and Mexican Revolutionary Politics.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Foster, George M. Tzintzuntzan: Mexican Peasants in a Changing World. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and
Company, 1967.
Fowler-Salamini, Heather. Working Women, Entrepreneurs, and the Mexican Revolution: The Coffee Culture of
Córdoba, Veracruz. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013.
González, Fredy. “Chinese Dragon and Eagle of Anáhuac: The Local, National, and International Impli-
cations of the Ensenada Anti-Chinese Campaign of 1934.” Western Historical Quarterly 44/1 (Spring
2013): 49–68.
Guzmán, Martín Luis. The Eagle and the Serpent. Translated by Harriet de Onís. Garden City, NY: Double-
day, 1965.
Hayes, Joy Elizabeth. Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920–1950.
Hershfield, Joanne. Imagining La Chica Moderna: Women, Nation, and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917–1936.
Hershfield, Joanne, and David R. Maciel, eds. Mexico’s Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers.
Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999.
Hu-Dehart, Evelyn. “Racism and Anti-Chinese Persecution in Mexico.” Amerasia Journal 9/2 (1982), 1–28.
. “Voluntary Associations in a Predominantly Male Immigrant Community: The Chinese on the
Northern Mexican Frontier, 1880–1930.” In Voluntary Organizations in the Chinese Diaspora. Edited by
Khun Eng Kuah and Evelyn Hu-DeHart, 141–168. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006.
Indych-López, Anna. Muralism without Walls: Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros in the United States, 1927–1940.
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.
Krippner, James, ed. Paul Strand in Mexico. New York and Mexico City, Mexico: Aperture/Fundación Tele-
visa, 2010.
Lahr-Vivaz, Elena. Mexican Melodrama: Film and Nation from the Golden Age to the New Wave. Tucson: Uni-
Lear, John. Picturing the Proletariat: Artists and Labor in Revolutionary Mexico, 1908–1940. Austin: University
López, Rick. Crafting Mexico: Intellectuals, Artisans, and the State after the Revolution. Durham, NC: Duke
López y Fuentes, Gregorio. El Indio. New York: Ungar, 1961.
Macías-González, Víctor M., and Anne Rubenstein, eds. Masculinity and Sexuality in Modern Mexico. Albu-
Mora, Carl J. Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896–1980. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1982.
Olcott, Jocelyn, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano, eds. Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in
Modern Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
Reed, Alma. Orozco. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956.
Schiavone Camacho, Julia Maria. Chinese Mexicans: Transpacific Migration and the Search for a Homeland,
1910–1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
Sluis, Ageeth. Deco Body, Deco City: Female Spectacle and Modernity in Mexico City, 1900–1939. Lincoln:
Turner, Frederick C. The Dynamic of Mexican Nationalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1968.
Vaughan, Mary Kay. Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940.
Vaughan, Mary Kay, and Steven E. Lewis, eds. The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in
Mexico, 1920–1940. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
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Wood, Andrew Grant. Agustín Lara: A Cultural Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
PA RT
10
DEVELOPMENT AND DISSENT
UNDER A ONE-PARTY SYSTEM
C HA PTER 33
FROM REVOLUTION TO EVOLUTION
MIGUEL ALEMÁN, 1946–52
In January 1946, the official party for the first time endorsed a civilian, Miguel Alemán, as its
presidential candidate. Alemán’s administration represented a change in postrevolutionary
leadership. The new generation of cosmopolitan civilian officials did not come from a mili-
tary background but rather from the educated middle class. These technocrats (professionals
with specialized skills and advanced education), many of whom had attended the same
preparatory school and the National University, led the campaign to make Mexico a modern
industrialized state, advancing the “Mexican miracle” of the postwar years.
The new president reduced the military’s share of the budget to less than 10 percent of
the total for the first time in the twentieth century, and the generals accepted the decision,
in part because of the military’s new role in intelligence services. Over the years the military
share of the budget was gradually reduced from 70 percent in 1917 to 7 percent in 1952.
More successfully than its Latin American neighbors, Mexico curbed the problems of ram-
pant militarism although the army remained a powerful ally of the government.
With a healthy dollar reserve turned over to him by his predecessor, Alemán launched
an impressive number of public works projects designed both to provide jobs for a steadily
growing labor force and to meet a series of crucial developmental needs. Most important
was the construction of dams to control flooding, increase arable land acreage, and supply
ample power for the modernization impulse. The Morelos Dam on the Colorado River near
Mexicali worked agricultural wonders in the northwest as some seven hundred thousand
arid acres were reclaimed and converted into a rich truck-farming zone. In the northeast, in
cooperation with the US government, work commenced on the Falcón Dam in the lower
Rio Grande Valley. Completed in 1953, the year after Alemán left office, the Falcón project
yielded substantial agricultural benefits as well. The major project in the south was the har-
nessing of the Papaloapan River in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, and Oaxaca. Not only were
tens of thousands of acres added to the agricultural base of the nation, but a series of hydro-
electric stations contributed to the tripling of Mexico’s electrical output capacity by 1952.
473
474 development and dissent under a one-party system
Other large-scale public works centered on improving the communications network. In

addition to modernizing the railway system, Alemán completed Mexico’s segment of the
Pan-American Highway. This all-weather road made possible automobile travel between the
United States and Guatemala. Of equal importance commercially was the completion of
the Isthmian Highway, which connected Puerto México and Salina Cruz across Tehuantepec.
To cater to the tourist traffic, an increasingly important source of foreign exchange, Alemán
ordered the construction of a four-lane superhighway between the capital and the Pacific
resort town of Acapulco, soon to become a playground for the world’s rich. In total, paved
roads increased from about 2,500 miles in 1946 to over ten thousand by 1952.
Postwar Mexico was prosperous and booming for a growing middle class. Hundreds of
small factories, not only in Mexico City but in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Puebla, and San Luis
The main library at the National University of Mexico, University City.

From Revolution to Evolution 475
Potosí, took advantage of the cheap and abundant source of electric power and began to
transform the economy and the face of the nation. Low taxes and high rates of profit encour-
aged both Mexican and foreign capital to continue investing in the industrial sector of the
economy. Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) expanded its activities; new pipelines and refiner-
ies, coupled with accelerated drilling, made it possible for the state-owned corporation to
double its production between 1946 and 1952.
The most impressive construction project of all was the new University City built to house
the National University of Mexico. Dedicated in 1952, the campus of three square miles
stood out as one of the most modern in the world, boasting unparalleled architectural and
artistic achievements. The plans were conceived by leading artists such as Juan O’Gorman
(1905–82), the buildings designed by talented architects such as Félix Candela, and the walls
adorned with anthropological and historical murals by Rivera and Siqueiros. Alemán consid-
ered the university a monument to his own presidency, and the first thing visitors encoun-
tered when entering the campus in the 1960s was a huge statue of Alemán himself.
Relations between the United States and Mexico strengthened considerably in the Cold
War period. Accepting an invitation from President Truman, Alemán became the first Mexi-
can head of state to visit Washington. Truman also called upon the Mexican president
in Mexico City in 1947 and delighted his hosts by placing a wreath at the monument
of the Niños Héroes, the boy cadets who had fallen fighting US troops 100 years before.
A mural by José Chávez Morado at the Faculty of Science Building, University City.
Both congresses voted to return all trophies of war sequestered in the middle of the nine-
teenth century. The outward manifestations of goodwill had practical effects as well. The
United States was able to count on Mexican support in the cold war, and loans from the
Export–Import Bank flowed into Mexico at an accelerated pace. Trade relations became
more interdependent than ever before. National agencies and state governments promoted
tourism; in 1952 alone US travelers left hundreds of millions of dollars in the country. The
porous border between the two nations also facilitated the illegal entry of narcotics into
the United States. Not a new issue, bootlegging and smuggling had been common since the
nineteenth century and intensified after the revolution and included female traffickers.
The most famous, Lola la Chata, dealt marijuana, heroin, and morphine from the 1930s to
the 1950s until her final arrest in 1957. During much of her career she received protection
from government officials and police, a problem that would only intensify over time.
To some, Mexico seemed a model of health and prosperity. But behind the showy façade
Alemán had created, serious problems had begun to sap the vitality of the institutionalized
revolution. Mexico’s tax structure, the most regressive in Latin America, could not provide
sufficient funds for education. As an example, the library at the new University City, while a
marvel to gaze at, was embarrassingly short of books. Row after row of empty shelves sym-
bolized the building spree that failed to cope with basic issues and emphasized form over
content. Worse still, as new primary and secondary schools were built throughout the coun-
try, teachers’ salaries were so paltry that it was almost impossible to staff them with qualified
President Harry S. Truman visits the Pyramid of the Sun during his trip to Mexico City.
professionals. School attendance remained low. Of the 6 million schoolchildren in the age
bracket six to fourteen, fewer than 2.25 million attended classes on a regular basis. Despite
the emphasis successive administrations since 1920 had placed on rural education, the 1950
census revealed that only 5 percent of rural children finished the sixth grade.
Corruption beset the administration and many new millionaires emerged between 1946
and 1952. Alemán had built a reputation as something of a playboy in Hollywood who
engaged in dalliances with actresses, and then went on to amass a huge fortune as president.
The displays of sprawling mansions, yachts, and airplanes, paid for with bribes, demon-
strated that venality had sabotaged any remnants of an already stagnant reform program for
urban workers and the rural poor. Politicians built their new homes in older fashionable dis-
tricts like Tabubaya and in the new suburbs of Las Lomas de Chapultepec. Among the most
scandalous and venal politicians was Maximino Ávila Camacho, brother of the former presi-
dent. As governor of Puebla and then as a cabinet minister he became even more wealthy.
The contracts he divvied out for telecommunications and road building earned kickbacks of
at least 15 percent. According to his archenemy Lombardo Toledano, Maximino “. . . boasts
of twenty houses in the Chapultapec hills, twenty automobiles, and half a million pesos
worth of fine, pure-blooded, Arabian horses; he affirms in a loud voice that he has two hun-
dred silk suits with two hundred pairs of shoes.”1 Attendees compared his lavish parties with
Roman orgies. Greed and hedonism had become the order of the day.
During World War II, the Mexican government appropriated, from Allied and German
propaganda efforts within the country, the necessary skills to improve media technology.
This led to the diminishing influence of newspapers and radio programs produced directly
by the PRI as it handed out contracts to new media outlets in return for their loyal support.
The precedent set the course for the growth of privatized Mexican media empires such as
Emilio Azcárraga’s Televisa that monopolize television even today.
While PRI politicians continued to mouth revolutionary euphemisms, the industry-driven
economy widened socioeconomic inequalities. The labor movement was not crushed, but it
was intimidated. When in April 1950 Secretary of the Treasury Ramón Beteta exhorted the
increasingly powerful industrialists of Monterrey to keep their costs down so that Mexican
industry could become competitive, in effect he invited them to keep wages depressed. When
petroleum workers struck, the government dispatched troops to patrol the fields and sacked
50 union leaders. Despite John Maynard Keynes’s revolution in economic theory, the Mexican
worker was not yet to be confused with a consumer. Real wages had fallen after 1939 and did
not get back to the level of that year until 1968.
THE PRESIDENCY OF RUIZ CORTINES, 1952–58
When PRI officials met to choose Alemán’s successor, many believed it crucial to rekindle
confidence in the integrity of the party. In order to repudiate the rampant corruption of
the Alemán administration, they selected sixty-one-year-old Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, whose
1 Quoted in Stephen R. Niblo, Mexico in the 1940s: Modernity, Politics, and Corruption, (Wilmington, DE,
1999), 283.
personal honesty and devotion to service were impeccable. During his governorship of Ve-
racruz and tenure as secretary of interior under Alemán he had garnered a reputation for
party loyalty, efficiency, and integrity. With official party support he defeated his leading op-
ponent, Miguel Henríquez Guzmán, by a margin of almost five to one.
Ideologically much akin to his predecessor, the hard-working but unspectacular presi-
dent did not disappoint those who had urged a cleansing of bureaucratic corruption. He
announced in his inaugural speech that he would demand strict honesty and ordered all
public officials to make public their financial holdings. During the next several years he fired
a number of notorious grafters, but these measures hardly ended corruption. In an even
more significant political reform he pushed through the congress legislation fully enfran-
chising the Mexican woman in 1953. This long overdue measure culminated years of active
campaigning by women’s organizations throughout the country.
The Mexican economy remained dynamic during the Ruiz Cortines years as indus-
try continued to receive government support and, in turn, established an entire series
of new records for production. A devaluation of the peso in 1953 (to a rate of 12.50 to
the dollar) helped stabilize the economy and prompt new foreign investment.US capi-
tal, encouraged by the healthy economic indicators, poured into the country unhesitat-
ingly, and US visitors in the larger cities saw familiar signs advertising General Motors,
Dow Chemicals, Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Goodyear, John Deere, Ford, Proctor
and Gamble, Sears Roebuck, and other corporate giants that would not have dared to
invest their stockholders’ dollars in Mexico twenty years earlier. The new, mixed economy
seemed to be working.
Believing that Alemán had overtaxed the idea of public works, the new Mexican presi-
dent did not initiate many grandiose construction schemes, but he did see hundreds of
his predecessor’s projects through to completion. Whereas Alemán had built huge dams,
Ruiz Cortines sponsored smaller projects; whereas Alemán had built superhighways, Ruiz
Cortines paved two-lane roads to help farmers get their products to a suitable market.
For the first time since its foundation in 1943, the IMSS expanded its coverage suffi-
ciently to constitute an agency of genuine social importance and one that emphasized the
paternalism of state hegemony. Appointed by Ruiz Cortines as director, Antonio Ortiz Mena
not only obtained increased funding but moved the services into the countryside for the
first time. The number of IMSS-sponsored clinics rose from 42 to 226 and hospitals from 19
to 105. Public health improved but services were unequally distributed. Rural services did
not yet approximate urban ones, but a beginning was at least made as about one hundred
thousand rural persons received some kind of social security coverage for the first time. The
basic issue of low wages persisted. Although salaries did rise by an average of 5 percent a
year in the period from 1952 to 1958, many workers lost their increases to inflation, which
rose annually at a rate of 7.3 percent. Unionized workers in the steel industry had job secu-
rity, but suffered under corrupt union bosses. In general, social workers and welfare advo-
cates emphasized changes in daily practices and diet to improve nutrition and working-class
living standards. They tried to enlist wives and mothers to encourage new habits of work and
saving. These efforts could not overcome the basic problem of low salaries and had the effect
of reinforcing family hierarchy and paternalism.
Throughout his term of office Ruiz Cortines found himself caught up in a situation over
which he had no direct control. Mexico’s population was growing at a rate that began to
alarm not only social scientists but also his political advisers. When Lázaro Cárdenas came
to power the population of the country was only about 16 million. But by 1958 it had
doubled to more than 32 million. The population explosion was compounded by a con-
comitant trend toward urbanization. While the national growth rate had reached 3.1 percent
a year by 1955 (as opposed to 1.9 percent from 1930 to 1940), the growth rate of the major
cities approached 7 percent a year. The Federal District jumped from 3 million in 1952 to an
amazing 4.5 million only six years later.
Large-scale commercial agriculture expanded with the benefit of “green-revolution” tech-
nologies such as fertilizers, hybrid seeds, and insecticides, resulting in cheaper grain prices
that put small producers out of work. Drawn by unemployment and the lure of industry,
hundreds of thousands of rural Mexicans flocked to the cities in hope of a better life, but
few found it. The industrial revolution required skilled, not unskilled, labor. The need for
more jobs, schools, health services, sewage disposal plants, streets, and houses in the cities
was now taxing even the extraordinary postwar prosperity. Although by 1958, 1.5 million
Mexicans earned their living from industry, the laboring force grew faster than industry
could provide jobs. At precisely the time when the apparent thrust of the country was di-
rected toward modernization, Ruiz Cortines found it necessary to order the use of hand
labor rather than machinery on public works just to keep the new workforce occupied. Many
poor women from the countryside took exploitative jobs as domestic servants, while other
unemployed Mexicans tried to survive in a growing informal economy, selling handicrafts
and cheap goods on the streets.
Ruiz Cortines considered himself a custodian of the revolution as he announced repeat-
edly that he had full faith in revolutionary institutions. But surely his policies would have
repulsed the heroes of the 1910 movement. The postwar generation of Mexican politicians
had redefined priorities. The burdens of industrial development again fell most heavily on
those who were least able to bear them. By the 1950s, the modernizing authoritarian system
of politics had been set in place. The one-party state did not abandon the use of force but
increasingly relied on cooptation, offering incentives, and an adulatory media to impose
hegemony. The “soft” authoritarianism of the state would persist throughout the century,
abetted by a weak judicial system that discouraged punishment for political crimes commit-
ted by professional pistoleros (gunmen).
Mexican radicals were alienated by the new trends, especially by the government’s in-
creasing repression of popular protests from campesinos and workers, as well as by election
rigging. Discontented students, especially at the working-class Instituto Politécnico Nacional,
began to organize protests in 1956. In rural areas, the military sided with politicians and
landowners to put down resistance. More violence erupted in Morelos when the J aramillista
agrarians launched a revolt against the government in 1953. Zapatistas and other rural
peoples who had fought in the revolution continued to constitute an ardent base of sup-
port for the PRI despite having suffered economically from modernization policies. The PRI
had succeeded in manipulating the collective memories of rural communities to perpetuate
the image of Cárdenas as a revolutionary populist who had their interests at heart. The PRI
governments used negotiation, some compromise, and force to quell campesino mobiliza-
tions in an attempt to uphold order in areas of glaring economic inequalities. When efforts
by the Jaramillista leadership to form new campesino organizations and raise awareness of
injustices met with repression, these dissidents rebelled and were eventually crushed. As the
PRI institutionalized its authoritarianism in rural areas, it had the effect of creating counter-
hegemonic heroes and martyrs.
In another manifestation of discontent with the anti-revolutionary drift, the Mexican
anthropologist Eulalia Guzmán claimed to have found the bones of Cuauhtémoc in a small
Guerrero town in 1949. Her effort to counter the veneration of the remains of the conqueror
Cortés, buried in a Mexico City church, and to promote Mexico’s indigenous heritage, was
revealed as a hoax, but it symbolized the ongoing struggle over Mexican identity. Was Mexico
the nation of exploiters or of the virtuous Indians depicted by Diego Rivera?
The official party, the PRI, had pre-empted the political life of the country. Party nomina-
tion was tantamount to election at national and state levels, but municipal elections were
more often contested. Though the party itself was broadly based and incorporated many seg-
ments of society, its domination of the political process produced nothing less than a con-
tradiction in terms—a one-party democracy in which the leaders operated through regional
power brokers and frequently renegotiated alliances and redistributed patronage.
As Mexico’s distinguished political critic and respected scholar, Daniel Cosío Villegas,
pointed out in a brilliant analysis of what was happening to the Mexican revolution, the
shifts of the last decades had produced uneven effects despite economic growth.
Strictly speaking the only problem of great magnitude is the rate at which the population in-
crease may very well strain the country’s physical, human and economic resources, and that
if energetic measures are not taken, it may present a very serious problem. . . . The political
situation is decidedly less satisfactory. . . . The election [of the president, governors, and
local authorities] is far from popular, being decided by personalist forces that rarely or never
represent the genuine interests of large human groups. The economic and political power of
the president of the Republic is almost all-embracing and . . . it is impossible for one man to
know the special needs of each city or town and which person or persons are most suitable
to resolve them.2
Ruiz Cortines’s last message to the congress was atypical of Mexican politicians of the
twentieth century. The social imperfections of the system troubled him more than the
deficiencies of one-party rule or corruption. The Mexican masses, the outgoing president
conceded, had not benefited from the revolutionary process as much as he had antici-
pated. Illness, ignorance, and poverty had not been overcome. The desired balance be-
tween economic development and social justice had tipped in favor of the former. The
pace of the social movement had slowed and, since 1940, had almost ground to a halt.
Perhaps a moderate shift to the left could mute government critics and reinstill some faith
in revolutionary ideals.
2 Daniel Cosío Villegas, Change in Latin America: The Mexican and Cuban Revolutions (Lincoln, NE, 1961),
30–33.
Berger, Dina. The Development of Mexico’s Tourism Industry: Pyramids by Day, Martinis by Night. New York:
Palgrave MacMillan, 2006.
Berger, Dina, and Andrew Grant Wood, eds. Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist
Encounters. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
Brandenburg, Frank. The Making of Modern Mexico. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964.
Carey, Elaine. Women Drug Traffickers: Mules, Bosses, and Organized Crime. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2014.
Cohen, Deborah. Braceros, Migrants, Citizens, and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States. Chapel
Cosío Villegas, Daniel. Change in Latin America: The Mexican and Cuban Revolutions. Lincoln: University of
Dormady, Jason. Primitive Revolution: Restorationist Religion and the Idea of the Mexican Revolution,
Gillingham, Paul. Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico. Albuquerque: University
Gillingham, Paul, and Benjamin T. Smith, eds. Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1
938–1968.
López-Alonso, Moramay. Measuring Up: A History of Living Standards in Mexico, 1850–1950. Stanford, CA:
McCormick, Gladys I. The Logic of Compromise in Mexico: How the Countryside Was Key to the Emergence of
Authoritarianism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.
Middlebrook, Kevin J. The Paradox of Revolution: Labor, the State and Authoritarianism in Mexico. Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Mosk, Sanford A. Industrial Revolution in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950.
Newcomer, Daniel. Reconciling Modernity: Urban State Formation in 1940s León, Mexico. Lincoln: University
Niblo, Stephen R. Mexico in the 1940s: Modernity, Politics, and Corruption. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Re-
sources, 1999.
Padilla, Tanalís. Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata: The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of the Pax
Priista, 1940–1962. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
Quintana, Alejandro. Maximino Ávila Camacho and the One-Party State: The Taming of Caudillismo and
Caciquisimo in Post-Revolutionary Mexico. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
Ross, Stanley R., ed. Is the Mexican Revolution Dead? New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.
Schiavone Camacho, Julia Maria. Chinese Mexicans: Transpacific Migration and the Search for a Homeland,
1910–1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
Schuler, Friederich. “Mexico and the Outside World.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael C.
Meyer and William H. Beezley, 471–507. New York: Oxford University Press, rev. 2010.
Scott, Robert E. Mexican Government in Transition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1959.
Smith, Benjamin T. Pistoleros and Popular Movements: The Politics of State Formation in Postrevolutionary
Oaxaca. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
Tannenbaum, Frank. Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956.
CHA PTER 34
THE LULL AND THE STORM
A D O L F O L Ó P E Z M AT E O S , 1 9 5 8 – 6 4
The presidency of Adolfo López Mateos temporarily stayed growing criticism of the Partido
Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and social discontent, but disaffection would erupt and
then smolder in the next decade. The PRI nominee, López Mateos, the well-educated son of
a small-town dentist, won the presidency in 1958 with about 90 percent of the total vote.
His conservative, proclerical Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) rival, Luis H. Alvarez, did not
fulfill the hopes of his party in capitalizing on the fully enfranchised Mexican women’s vote,
thought to be influenced by the church. The women’s vote increased the total ballots cast but
scarcely changed the official party’s margin of victory.
President López Mateos presented a stark contrast to his sixty-seven-year-old predecessor.
Only forty-seven at the time of his election, he was dynamic, energetic, and personally at-
tractive. Having served as secretary of labor during the Ruiz Cortines administration, he had
won a reputation as a liberal for his management of labor disputes; only a few of the thir-
teen thousand cases he handled degenerated into strikes. He enjoyed the backing of Lázaro
Cárdenas and seemed to be just the right man at the right time. More intellectually ori-
ented than presidents of recent vintage, he indicated during the campaign that he planned to
nudge the country back in the direction of social reforms. Hundreds of thousands of young
Mexicans, disheartened with growing social inequality since the Second World War, identi-
fied with López Mateos, much as the youth of the United States would, a few years later,
identify with President John F. Kennedy.
Shortly after his inauguration the new president was asked to comment on his political
philosophy and he answered with the words, “I am left within the Constitution.” Mexican
Communists, and other radicals whom he judged to be left of the constitution, were not
treated with kid gloves. López Mateos removed Communist leadership from the teachers
and railroad unions and imprisoned Mexico’s internationally known muralist and Com-
munist David Alfaro Siqueiros on charges of “social dissolution,” an amorphous kind of
sedition. But just as local and foreign businessmen and industrialists sat back and relaxed,
482
The Lull and the Storm 483
thinking that they had an unexpected friend in the presidential chair, López Mateos also
began to demonstrate that he intended to depart from the overwhelming influence of his
predecessors’ conservative, business-oriented policies.
Land redistribution, almost abandoned in favor of commercial agricultural develop-
ment, was stepped up once again, on both an individual and a collective basis. During his
six-year term López Mateos parceled out some 30 million acres, more than any president
except Lázaro Cárdenas. He also cleared and opened up new agricultural lands in extreme
southern Mexico. State intervention in the economy accelerated from 1958 to 1964 as the
administration purchased controlling stock in a number of foreign industries. In 1962, for
example, the government gained control of the US and Canadian electric companies and,
not being able to divine a future in which energy would become a luxury, authorized huge,
wasteful electric signs proudly announcing La electricidad es nuestra (The electricity is ours).
At about the same time the government also purchased the motion picture industry, the
production and distribution of which had been largely under US domination. The president
pledged to keep the price of tickets low so that all people could avail themselves of this
medium of entertainment. Social welfare projects, most notably medical care and old age
pensions expanded, as did the Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social (IMSS) program for rural
Mexico. By 1964 public health campaigns had significantly reduced tuberculosis and polio
rates, while malaria was almost completely eliminated.
Even after the emphasis on agrarian reform pro- A major campaign to eradicate malaria in 1962
grams, life for workers on the maguey plantations and 1963 yielded positive results.
of Yucatán remained difficult.
Curious villages inspect the newly completed sewer system in the state of Chiapas.
Like his predecessors, López Mateos continued to skirt the issue of birth control. Despite
a maternal mortality rate 10 percent higher than that of the United States; as many as one
million Mexican babies were born in 1962 and almost 1.5 million in 1963. But he did rec-
ognize the tremendous dislocations occasioned by rapid urbanization and initiated modest
steps to accommodate the dramatically increasing population. For the first time in history
the government entered the housing business on a large scale. Low-cost housing projects
were initiated in the major industrial cities, many of which had become encircled with
shanty towns of indescribable misery and poverty. One of the largest housing developments
in Mexico City covered some 10 million square feet of a former slum, housed one hundred
thousand persons, and contained 13 schools, four clinics, and several nurseries. The rents
were modest: $6.00 a month for a one-bedroom apartment and $16.00 a month for a three-
bedroom unit. To complement public housing, the president also developed an incentive
program designed to encourage industry to stay away from the greater Mexico City environs.
In 1960, on the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution, Mexico’s urban population surpassed
its rural population for the first time.
López Mateos’s labor supporters reacted with shock in 1959 when the president used
federal troops to put down a major railroad strike. Arguing that the strike threatened to
paralyze the country, he arrested a number of leaders, including Demetrio Vallejo, the head
of the union. During the twentieth century, railroad workers had built a strong industrial
union. As the PRI moved to exert control by placing compliant bosses in union affiliates,
leftist reformers organized against them and called for walkouts. The first two strikes, with
Urban Urban Urban

29.3% 33.5% 50.7%
Rural Rural Rural

70.7% 66.5% 49.3%
1910 1930 1960
Urban–Rural Population Distribution

Source: Mexico, 1966: Facts, Figures and Trends (Mexico, Banco Nacional, 1968), 32.
substantial participation of female railway workers, achieved an increase in wages and medi-
cal benefits. Grassroots pressures ignited the third strike, prompting government reprisals.
Cold War politics had contributed to labeling labor activism as subversive or Communist.
To blunt the criticism of his labor suppression, López Mateos decided to implement an
almost forgotten article of the Constitution of 1917 that called for labor to share in the prof-
its with management. In 1962 a special commission, the Comisión Nacional para el Reparto
de Utilidades, was convoked to implement the profit-sharing plan. The formula agreed upon
was complicated, dependent upon the amount of capital investment and the size of the
labor force within each industry. But by 1964 many Mexican laborers earned an extra 5 to 10
percent a year under the profit-sharing law.
The educational policy of the López Mateos administration renewed the emphasis on the
rural school. By 1963 education had become the largest single item in the Mexican budget,
and the educational doubled the amount that allocated for national defense. While the rate
of illiteracy in Mexico had been cut from some 77 percent in 1910 to less than 38 percent in
1960, the population explosion in a real sense had nullified the results. In absolute numbers
there were more illiterates in 1960 (13,200,000) than there had been at the time of the Plan
de San Luis Potosí (11,658,000).
To attack illiteracy, the president and his secretary of education, Jaime Torres Bodet, who
had also served under Avila Camacho, launched a two-pronged assault. Through an inge-
nious system of prefabricated schools costing only $4,800 per unit, the number of rural
classrooms increased rapidly. The government furnished the building materials and the
technical assistance, and individual communities provided land and the actual labor. In
this way villages received a genuine stake in the educational process. López Mateos also
decided to initiate a system of free and compulsory textbooks. On this program he encoun-
tered opposition. Although a number of leading scholars participated in the preparation
of the books, they tended to reflect revolutionary myths. The Roman Catholic Church took
umbrage at the treatment afforded many of its efforts throughout Mexican history. The Na-
tional Union of Parents Association, a conservative organization supported by the PAN and
a number of leading clerics, led demonstrations against the books, insisting that their impo-
sition on a mandatory basis constituted a totalitarian act designed to standardize thought in
80
70
60
50
Percent 40
30
20
10
0
1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960
Illiteracy, 1910–60
Source: James W. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change since 1910 (Berkeley, 1967), 208.
In an attempt to reduce illiteracy, López Mateos revived the

idea of adult reading classes.
the Mexican republic. At the same time radical leftists opposed the textbooks because they
exalted revolutionary accomplishments and overlooked the shortcomings. López Mateos
was not intimidated, and the books were adopted throughout the country over the protests.
In 1964, the president inaugurated the new National Museum of Anthropology, an archi-
tectural marvel designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, to house the country’s rich archaeologi-
cal and ethnographic heritage. In the enormous structure, exhibition halls ringed by gardens
with outdoor exhibits surround a courtyard. This patio boasts a huge pond and a vast square
concrete umbrella supported by a single pillar that emits an artificial waterfall. A stunning
monument to Mexico’s indigenous cultures, it became Mexico’s most visited museum. In the
1960s, in addition to Ramírez Vázquez other great Mexican architects including Rafael Mi-
jeres, Félix Candela, and Mario Pani collaborated with the official party to create spaces and
public art that attempted to define mexicanidad and shape people’s behavior. They designed
space at the National University and for the Olympic games.
If Mexico’s rate of economic growth under López Mateos did not quite keep pace with
that under Miguel Alemán and Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, the economy remained strong. Brit-
ish and French capital poured into the new petrochemical division of Petróleos Mexicanos
(PEMEX). Private initiative constructed luxury hotels, and tourists came in droves to Acapulco
and the newly developed resort town of Puerto Vallarta, leaving behind millions of dollars
for government programs. By 1964 Mexico was self-sufficient in iron, steel, and oil. Local
capital no longer felt the need to seek investment fields elsewhere and, indeed, purchased
controlling stock in the Mexican telephone network. And in 1963 Mexican bonds were sold
on US and European markets for the first time since the Díaz regime. Nonetheless, sustained
economic growth continued to be unequally distributed.
T H E F O R E I G N P O L I C Y O F T H E L Ó P E Z M AT E O S A D M I N I S T R AT I O N
Mexico’s foreign policy from 1958 to 1964 paralleled the administration’s efforts to achieve
a balance between its revolutionary legacy and its place in the modernizing world. Coming
to the presidency only a few months before Fidel Castro’s July 26 revolution ousted rightest
Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, López Mateos occupied himself with defining the Mexican
position on the most crucial Latin American issue of the postwar period. Publicly he opted
for a policy of total nonintervention in Cuba’s internal affairs. Arguing the national sover-
eignty and juridical equality of all states, Mexico refused to condemn the Castro regime,
voted against Cuba’s expulsion from the Organization of American States, and remained
the only country in the Western Hemisphere to retain air service and diplomatic relations
with Cuba. The public stance served to appease the Mexican left and demonstrate indepen-
dence from the United States, while the government secretly aided US efforts to undermine
the Cuban regime through its intelligence agents and diplomatic personnel. When French
president Charles de Gaulle visited Mexico City in the spring of 1964 and received the honor
of being the first foreign head of state ever to speak from the presidential balcony overlook-
ing the Plaza de la Constitución (Zócalo), the two leaders congratulated one another on
escaping the tutelage of the superpowers. Mexico’s independent foreign posture was a theme
relayed in a series of trips that López Mateos and his close associates made to Yugoslavia,
Poland, Indonesia, India, Canada, and a number of African countries.
By his own reckoning, López Mateos’s greatest diplomatic victory concerned the final
resolution of a century-old boundary dispute with the United States—the Chamizal con-
troversy. At the end of the war with the United States the boundary had been set at the Rio
Grande. But because of the sandy texture of the soil, especially in the area of El Paso, the
river periodically shifted its bed. In 1864 it moved suddenly to the south, leaving some six
hundred acres of Mexican territory north of the river in the state of Texas. Mexico, of course,
claimed that this land, the Chamizal, was part of the national domain, but various arbitra-
tion commissions had been unable to reach an accord suitable to the US government. When
President John F. Kennedy visited Mexico City in 1962, he was informed that the Chamizal
continued to be a reminder of Yanqui imperialism and ordered the US ambassador, Thomas
Mann, to enter into new negotiations with the Mexican government for its final resolution.
In the summer of 1963 the United States agreed to return the disputed territory to Mexico,
to reimburse the El Paso residents for their lost property, and to share the costs of building a
new international bridge and a concrete-lined channel to eliminate possible future disputes.
An assassin’s bullet took John Kennedy’s life before he could sign the agreement, but
his successor, Lyndon Johnson, met López Mateos at the Chamizal in September 1964 and
formalized the arrangement. Once again, through adroit diplomacy the Mexican president
had retained the goodwill of the United States and pleased Mexican nationalists.
M O U N T I N G C R I T I C I S M O F T H E O N E - PA R T Y S Y S T E M
Criticism of the PRI’s monopoly on government continued to build during the López Mateos
administration. His election in 1958 with 90 percent of the total vote marked 30 consecutive
years of rule by the official party. The party not only had won every contest for the presidency
but also had captured all of the senatorial and gubernatorial races. The PRI had succeeded
in identifying itself with the revolution, and the revolution was practically synonymous with
the state. The PRI’s colors—red, white, and green—were identical to those on the national
flag; these colors animated its symbol on the ballot so that even illiterates could not miss
the connection between the party and the nation. In addition, the PRI was able to mobilize
bountiful resources to get its message across and to buy votes.
By the early 1960s an increasingly sophisticated electorate began to question the boss-
ism, favoritism, and corruption that had beset the PRI officialdom. A party without any
genuine opposition was accountable to nobody. A party that could embrace the leftist poli-
cies of Cárdenas and the business-oriented policies of Alemán was ideologically bankrupt.
How could it be expected to embark upon a meaningful redistribution of wealth designed
to close the still gigantic gap between rich and poor? Alienation was broadly based, but
teachers, in particular, mobilized and protested, calling for democracy and social justice.
Groups of university students and normal school students sympathetic to the Cuban revolu-
tion held demonstrations calling for the latter. Pablo González Casanova, a distinguished
Mexican social scientist, argued in his perceptive Democracy in Mexico: “Democracy exists to
the extent that the people share the income, culture, and power; anything else is democratic
folklore or rhetoric.”1
López Mateos responded by sponsoring an amendment to the constitution that altered
the electoral procedures in the Chamber of Deputies. To broaden the opposition in the
lower house of the legislature, his amendment provided that any party winning 2.5 percent
of the national vote was entitled to five congressmen whether or not the candidates actually
1 Pablo González Casanova, Democracy in Mexico (New York, NY, 1970), 194.
won their respective races. For every additional .5 percent of the vote these parties would
receive an additional congressman, up to a total of 20, each of whom would occupy a new
seat, not replace an elected congressman. Because of the new law the PAN received twenty
congressional seats in the 1964 elections and the Partido Popular Socialista (PPS), ten seats.
The electoral revision was a step in the right direction, but it did not end the debate on the
shortcomings of Mexican democracy.
THE COMING STORM
López Mateos is the most fondly remembered president of the post-war era. Like his con-
temporary in the United States, John F. Kennedy, part of his appeal undoubtedly lies in his
style and charisma. But when the occasion demanded it, he exerted forceful leadership. At
the same time he was no doctrinaire and appreciated the value of compromise. Yielding to
appeals and petitions, he made it a point to pardon muralist Siqueiros at the end of his term.
Almost as soon as he left office he suffered a severe stroke and lay in a coma for six years until
his death in 1970. He was eulogized as a nationalist who defended Mexican interests in the
world community and a humane statesman who appreciated the concerns of the powerless
masses at home. Yet new tensions lay just below the surface.
Mexico was not alone in the tumultuous world of the 1960s. Modernization in general,
and communications technology in particular, interlaced nations and dramatically shrank
the globe. Word of Martin Luther King’s assassination reached Angola only minutes after
it reached Atlanta, and Robert Kennedy’s assassination was known in São Paulo almost as
soon as it was known in San Francisco. By the end of the 1960s the entire literate world
knew that the United States had dropped a greater tonnage of bombs on Vietnam than the
total dropped on all fronts during World War II. Massive marches for peace, for civil rights,
and for the right of agricultural workers to organize were reported on the front pages of the
world’s press.
Mexicans in their living rooms, watching the evening news, saw the destruction of the
black ghetto in Washington, the burning of Watts, and riots in Tokyo, Prague, and Berlin;
they saw Parisian students pelting police on the Boulevard St. Michel and the senseless kill-
ing of students at Kent State University. While the late 1960s did not witness any worldwide
conspiracy of the young a youthful commonality of interest transcended national bor-
ders. The international pantheon of heroes, with a few national adaptations, included Che
Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Malcolm X, and Mao Zedong. Mexico was soon treated once again
to the spectacle of violence.
D Í A Z O R D A Z A N D P O L I T I C A L D I S C O N T E N T, 1 9 6 4 – 7 0
When the PRI leadership chose Gustavo Díaz Ordaz as the presidential candidate for 1964,
it badly misread the temper of the times. Díaz Ordaz had served as secretary of interior in
the López Mateos cabinet and was tinged with policy decisions that reform-minded groups
could not stomach. It had been he who applied the laws of “social dissolution” against
David Alfaro Siqueiros and other radicals. Born in Puebla, Díaz Ordaz was reputed to be
the most conservative official party candidate of the twentieth century. But after winning the
election by the customary official party margin, he pledged to carry out the policies initiated
by his predecessor.
The electoral reform law that provided for minority representation in the lower house
was interpreted to allow the seating of several minority parties in addition to the PAN—the
Partido Popular Socialista (PPS) and, although it did not quite reach 2.5 percent of the vote,
the Partido Auténtico de la Revolución Mexicana (PARM). But the PAN, the only genuine
opposition party, received an unfavorable ruling in the congressional elections. The congres-
sional seats they actually won from PRI candidates would now be subtracted from the total
of twenty they were allowed under the constitutional amendment. The decision represented
rejection of a democratizing tendency, and the trend continued with the sad and disappoint-
ing case of Carlos Madrazo.
Shortly after coming to office, President Díaz Ordaz appointed Madrazo, a reform-
minded liberal, to be president of the PRI. Championing a series of far-reaching innovations
designed to promote internal democratization of the party, increase rank-and-file participa-
tion, reduce the vast power of local and state bosses, and bring more women into the orga-
nization, he ran headlong into the vested interests. In the spring of 1965, when Madrazo
introduced new reforms designed to regularize nomination procedures at the local level,
the state political machines rose up in rebellion and convinced Díaz Ordaz to fire him.
Then, when PAN candidates won the mayoralties of Tijuana and Mexicali in Baja California
Norte, the government annulled the elections because of “irregularities.” Opposition leaders
charged that the PRI was stealing elections with total impunity.
An earlier manifestation of Díaz Ordaz’s refusal to tolerate dissent had occurred in 1964
when a physicians’ strike began in Mexico City. Although doctors, nurses, and other medi-
cal personnel in the state-run hospitals began their movement calling for salary increases,
improved working conditions, and educational opportunities, government intransigence led
them to expand their demands to larger issues of social justice for underprivileged Mexicans.
The doctors eventually accused the government of crass negligence that promoted hunger
and death. Díaz Ordaz had his intelligence agents infiltrate the movement and in January
1965 suppressed it with riot police and the firing of many medical workers.
T H E O LY M P I C G A M E S A N D T L AT E L O L C O
Discontent with the official party spread. Campus after campus exploded with strikes and
violence as local university issues merged with national political unrest. A massive strike at
the National University in the spring of 1966 resulted in the resignation of the rector. Federal
troops were dispatched to restore order on university campuses in Michoacán and Sonora.
A major showdown was about to ensue and the students picked their time carefully. Mexico
was planning its greatest extravaganza since the centennial celebrations of 1910.
The International Olympic Committee accepted Mexico’s bid to host the summer games
in 1968, making it the first Latin American and developing country to have this “honor.”
Athletes, trainers, representatives of the press, and hundreds of thousands of visitors from
the entire world would descend on Mexico and subject it to scrutiny. Construction of athletic
facilities, hotels, housing projects, tourist facilities, and a new modern subway system pre-
ceded the games. Despite budgetary uncertainty, construction workers on round-the-clock
shifts finished the major installations on time. To add a unique flavor to the international
sports spectacular, the government scheduled a simultaneous cultural Olympics, featuring
international art exhibitions, book displays, lectures, concerts, and plays. Administration
spolesmen fended off early charges from critics that the costs were exorbitant for a country
such as Mexico, arguing that not only would the visitors leave behind tens of millions of
dollars but the facilities themselves would be put to good use later. Mexican elites saw the
occasion as an opportunity to highlight the country’s prosperity and assert Mexican leader-
ship in the Third World, while attempting at the same time to efface “Indian” traits that they
believed made Mexico appear backwards to outsiders.
The trouble began almost innocently in July 1968 with a fight between the students of
two Mexico City schools, a college preparatory school and a nearby vocational school. The
principal of the high school called for police help, and the mayor of the Federal District,
General Alfonso Corona del Rosal, erred badly in sending out the granaderos, a despised para-
military riot force. The granaderos stopped the intramural fight but in the process politicized
a large portion of the student population in Mexico City. A few days later, as leftist students
gathered to celebrate the July 26 anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, they met the granade-
ros again, and on this occasion a full-scale street riot ensued. But nobody had yet been killed.
In August 1968 as city workers put the finishing touches on the various construction proj-
ects, tensions between the students and the government reached the breaking point. Huge
demonstrations took place the campuses of the National University and the National Poly-
technic Institute, and a National Student Strike Committee formed. A list of demands framed
in the language of civil liberties accentuated tensions; students insisted that all political pris-
oners be released, that the chief of police be fired, that the granaderos be disbanded, and that
the law of “social dissolution” be repealed. Secretary of Interior Luis Echeverría agreed to
enter into private discussions with the student leadership, but when the students demanded
that the dialogue be broadcast publicly on radio and television, negotiations broke down.
On August 27 the National Student Strike Committee brought together in the Zócalo an esti-
mated 500,000 people, the largest organized antigovernment demonstration in Mexican his-
tory. The rally lasted well into the night, and when the government moved tanks and armored
cars into the downtown area, violence and the first verified student death ensued.
Under pressure and with the Olympic games fast approaching, Díaz Ordaz took a hard
line. Refusing to address student concerns, he stepped up security. In the middle of September,
with the capital bedecked with Olympic flags and signs of welcome and the students occupy-
ing the campus of the National University, Díaz Ordaz ordered ten thousand army troops,
in full battle dress, to seize the campus. Some five hundred demonstrators were thrown into
jail, and the new rector of the university, Javier Barros Sierra, resigned in protest of the army
occupation of his campus. For two weeks, bands of disgruntled students and other demon-
strators not associated with the university roamed Mexico City streets, periodically seizing
and burning buses, barricading streets, and pillaging. The climax came on October 2, 1968,
at a place that will not be forgotten in Mexican history—Tlatelolco (the site of the ancient
Aztec marketplace).
Strike organizers called for still another outdoor rally at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas
in the district of Tlatelolco in order to criticize the government for its failure to comply
with their earlier demands. The rally was not large by recent standards, perhaps only 5,000,
including many women, children, and innocent spectators who lived nearby. The speeches
were emotional, but the demonstration was peaceful. At about 6:30 P.M., army and police
units arrived in tanks and armored vehicles. When the demonstrators failed to disband as
ordered, the granaderos moved in and began to disperse them with billy clubs and tear
gas. The government’s version of what happened, carried the next day in the Mexican press,
claimed that terrorists in nearby apartment buildings began firing on the police. Others
insisted that the police opened fire first and that only then did snipers (probably from the
government’s Olympic Battallion) in the buildings begin to shoot.
At any rate, when the army units uncovered their high-caliber machine guns and other
automatic weapons, thousands of innocent people were caught in the crossfire. Helicopters
dropped flares into the crowds and the troops, opting not to err on the side of safety, sprayed
indiscriminately from short range. Official government statistics admitted first eight, then
The Plaza de las Tres Culturas, a tourist attraction for thousands, became a battleground for hundreds in October
1968. Courtesy of James W. Wilkie.
Gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John

Carlos give a Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics in
Mexico City.
eighteen, and finally forty-three deaths; but few knowledgeable Mexicans accepted mortality
figures under three or four hundred and some have charged that the number was well over
a thousand. Ambulances wailed through the night as hospitals and clinics filled beyond
capacity with the wounded and dying. By the next morning, Mexico City jails held over two
thousand new prisoners. One has only to recall the trauma that engulfed the United States
after Kent State, a tragedy of much lesser proportion, to appreciate the anger and despair
that Mexicans felt as the story was gradually pieced together over the next few days. But
shock quickly gave way to recriminations as Carlos Madrazo attributed the killings to police
brutality. The decision had been a political one, and it greatly altered public perception of
the country’s leadership. In turn, as long as the PRI held power, the government blocked any
official investigation of the tragedy.
The Olympic Games themselves went off without violent protests from Mexicans al-
though black athletes from the United States raised their fists in symbolic support of the
Black Power movement.2 In 1968, activists served notice across the world—most famously
in Prague, Chicago, and Mexico City—that they would fight against racial, socioeconomic,
and political injustices.
In Mexico, Tlatelolco represented an explosion that followed thirty years during which
the PRI had steadily increased its repressive apparatus. Reflections on the massacre filled the
2 In his 2008 autobiography Silent Gesture, gold-medal winner Tommie Smith claimed the protest was a
“human rights” salute. Tommie Smith with David Steele, Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith
(Philadelphia, PA, 2007), 100.
pages of journalistic accounts and novels. Some activists who believed in peaceful protest to
promote change now, armed with Marxist-Leninist and New Left ideals, turned to violence
as they organized urban and campesino guerrilla units to carry out bombings and other ter-
rorist acts. The student movement failed to engender wide, popular support for democracy
and served to generate support for the government’s hard line. The PRI’s legitimacy was
being eroded, but its demise was not yet near.
The aftermath of Tlatelolco overshadowed other aspects of the Díaz Ordaz presidency.
Federal expenditure for education reached over 26 percent of the total budget, one of the
highest rates in the entire world. Urban renewal projects in the northern border cities catered
to the tourist trade, and tourists left record amounts of money in Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, No-
gales, Piedras Negras, and Matamoros. Mexico launched the Border Industrialization Program
in 1964 to encourage border development and job growth. Plants called m aquiladoras were
established along the border to assemble goods from materials imported from the United
States; finished products were then sent back across the border. Thousands of M exican work-
ers, predominantly women, found jobs, but they worked for abysmal pay in environmentally
poor conditions. In another economic trend, the Green Revolution, while increasing defor-
estation and other ecological damage, had boosted Mexican agricultural production in corn,
beans, and wheat since the late 1950s, primarily on the lands of private commercial produc-
ers. Government subsidies for consumers of corn and beans made production less profitable
for the large growers, many of whom turned to livestock raising and exporting beef. Others
began to produce exportable fruits. This meant that by 1970 Mexico was forced to import
staple foods. The economy continued to grow but showed signs of stress toward the end of
Díaz Ordaz’s term, with creeping inflation and a negative trade balance.
Mexico took the lead in international conferences, securing pledges that Latin America
should be declared a nuclear-free zone. Under other circumstances, Díaz Ordaz might have
been remembered for these accomplishments but, just as the administration of Richard M.
Nixon will be remembered less for finally extricating the United States from Vietnam than
for the shame of Watergate, the names of Díaz Ordaz and his successor will always be associ-
ated with the unpardonable tragedy at Tlatelolco.
Alegre, Robert. Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico: Gender, Class, and Memory. Lincoln: University of
Aviña, Alexander. Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside. New York:
Oxford University Press 2014.
Brewster, Claire, and Keith Brewster. Sport and Spectacle in Post-Revolutionary Mexico. New York:
Routledge, 2010.
Carey, Elaine. Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2005.
Castañeda, Luis M. Spectacular Mexico: Design, Propaganda, and the 1968 Olympics. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2014.
Eckstein, Susan. The Poverty of Revolution: The State and the Urban Poor in Mexico. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
González Casanova, Pablo. Democracy in Mexico. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
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Hundley, Norris, Jr. Dividing the Waters: A Century of Controversy between the United States and Mexico. Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1966.
Iber, Patrick. Neither Peace nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Joseph, Gilbert M., and Daniela Spenser, eds. In from the Cold: Latin America’s New Encounter with the Cold
War. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
Keller, Renata. Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution. New
Kurlansky, Mark. 1968: The Year That Rocked The World. New York: Random House Paperbacks, 2005.
Liss, Sheldon. A Century of Disagreement: The Chamizal Conflict, 1864–1964. Washington, DC: University
Press of Washington, DC, 1965.
Lomnitz, Larissa Adler. Networks and Marginality: Life in a Mexican Shantytown. New York: Academic
Press, 1977.
Muñoz, María L.O. Stand Up and Fight: Participatory Indigenismo, Populism, and Mobilization in Mexico,
Paz, Octavio. The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid. New York: Grove Press, 1972.
Pensado, Jaime M. Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Political Culture during the Long Sixties.
Poniatowska, Elena. Massacre in Mexico. New York: Viking Press, 1975.
Ross, Stanley, ed. Views across the Border. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978
Smith, Tommie, with David Steele. Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith. Philadelphia,
PA: Temple University Press, 2007.
Soto Laveaga, Gabriela, and Claudia Agostini. “Science and Public Health.” In A Companion to Mexican
History and Culture, edited by William H. Beezley, 561–74. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Williams, Edward J. The Rebirth of the Mexican Petroleum Industry. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1979.
C HA PTER 35
FAILURES OF DEVELOPMENT
IN THE ONE-PARTY STATE
LUIS ECHEVERRÍA, 1970–76
The political atmosphere had not returned to normal when Mexico held its 1970 presiden-
tial election. PRI candidate Luis Echeverría had been secretary of interior during the recent
Olympic trouble, and the Mexican left held him largely responsible for the government’s
overreaction. With a reputation for inflexibility and intolerance, he scarcely seemed the man
to foster an atmosphere of national consensus. Echeverría decided to campaign vigorously,
yet he failed to capture public imagination.
During the first year of his term, President Echeverría showed himself as a man of bound-
less energy; he put in long hours and demanded the same of those who surrounded him.
He nurtured himself on face-to-face dialogue with farmers in dusty villages and workers in
urban factories. Cultivating a populist image, he quickly began to counter his reputation by
ostensibly moving to the center and then to the left. He would sidestep regional and corpo-
rate power groups to directly address the needs of Mexico’s marginalized peoples. To the cha-
grin of the conservative business community, he began renewing initiatives in rural Mexico
and even announced that perhaps industrialization had to slow down. A major emphasis
was placed on extending the rural road system and rural electrification. Caught in the world-
wide inflation of the early 1970s, he tried to minimize its impact on the poor by ordering
rigid price controls of basic commodities; at the same time, luxury items were hit with a new
tax of 10 percent, and a 15 percent surtax was added to all bills in first-class restaurants and
night clubs. Echeverría even moderated his earlier lack of concern for family planning and
halfway through his administration gave a cautious endorsement to birth control. Although
Echeverría surprised his critics most when he released the majority of Mexico’s student pris-
oners from the Lecumberri prison in early 1971, he confirmed their perception of him when
he ordered a paramilitary group called Los Halcones to brutally repress a student demonstra-
tion on Corpus Christi Day in June 1971, leaving twenty-five dead and many others injured.
Violence wrought more violence as a series of bank robberies in the fall were traced
to revolutionaries of the Movimiento Armado Revolucionario (MAR). Other robberies
496
Failures of Development In the One-Party State 497
and political kidnappings followed: Jaime Castrejón, rector of the University of Guerrero,
and Julio Hirschfield, director of the nation’s airports, both fell into rebel hands. Terrance
Leonhardy, US consul general in Guadalajara, was kidnapped, as were the British honorary
consul, Anthony Duncan Williams; Fernando Aranguren, a wealthy Guadalajara business-
man; and Nadine Chaval, the daughter of the Belgian ambassador. A wealthy Monterrey
industrialist, Eugenio Garza Sada, was killed during a kidnapping attempt; and a train car-
rying tourists was assaulted in southern Sonora, resulting in the deaths of four travelers. In
the summer of 1974, President Echeverría’s father-in-law, Guadalupe Zuno Hernández, a
former governor of Jalisco, was captured and held for ransom by a group calling themselves
the Fuerzas Revolucionarias Armadas del Pueblo (FRAP).
In the mountains of Guerrero, the roots of the guerrilla movements were deep. Campesino
protests had long been suppressed by local caciques and later by federal military counter-
insurgency campaigns orchestrated by the PRI. In the wake of campesino massacres in the
1960s, campesinos took up arms in guerrilla movements to fight for control of their agricul-
tural production as well as democracy and social justice. The state terror that had spawned
these movements lashed out in greater fury as rebels robbed banks and kidnapped wealthy
elites for ransom to finance their movement. Campesinos carried out successive land inva-
sions. After the first head of the guerrilla movement, Genaro Vásquez, was killed in 1972,
Lucio Cabañas, a former schoolteacher, assumed the leadership. He took inspiration not
from Marxist revolutionaries, but from Emiliano Zapata. The eyes of the nation focused on
Cabañas when guerrillas under his command kidnapped Guerrero senator Rubén Figueroa,
at the time a candidate for governor. Ten thousand army troops were dispatched to Guerrero
to capture the guerrillas, but it took them over a year to do the job. In 1974, Cabañas and
twenty-seven of his men were killed in gun battles with the army. The government then
waged a campaign of excessive violence, using torture and murder to eliminate not only sus-
pected subversives, but all protest. That the state of Guerrero suffered more than any other
from coercion by state and federal powers would continue to be borne out, culminating
most horrendously in 2014.
As pressures continued to build against the authoritarian PRI, Echeverría attempted to
deflect criticism. He brought more young people into important positions in the govern-
ment than any previous head of state. Laws lowered the voting age to eighteen and reduced
the age for holding congressional office. Other administration programs should have been
well received by youth. Mexico granted diplomatic asylum to Hortensia Allende, widow of
the murdered Chilean president, and accepted other Chilean political refugees.
In 1972 the administration nationalized the tobacco and telephone industries. Echever-
ría’s foreign travels opened new avenues of trade and, by extension, sought to lessen de-
pendence upon the United States. He also sought to stimulate a Mexican pharmaceutical
industry through a program that supported the production of barbasco, a wild yam cultivated
by campesino farmers in Oaxaca and used in making steroid hormones for birth control.
This initiative had the potential to benefit the farmers, research scientists, and health care
though the results were mixed as the endeavor played out in the face of competing interests,
including transnational corporations that gained exclusive controls. Forest management in
Mexico had come under the direction of the PRI through corporations (paraestatales) in
which the government was the primary shareholder. Both corruption and mismanagement
hindered the efforts to conserve or develop resources, and benefits rarely redounded to rural
communities. In 1972, Echeverría launched a deforestation program, intended to clear over
fifteen hundred square miles for commercial agriculture, especially oriented to produce
beef for national and international markets. Mexico would continue to destroy woodlands
and other natural resources for development projects, often promising rural communities a
share, but depriving them of any control—and thus access to resources and markets. Rural
campesino associations and environmentalists rarely succeeded in opposing these projects.
In the end, Echeverría’s initiatives did little to curtail the alienation that had set in across
all sectors of Mexican society. To be sure, part of the problem could be attributed to the in-
flation rate, which topped 20 percent in both 1973 and 1974. But to ascribe the alienation
simply to the rate of inflation or even to the gradual demise of Mexico’s postwar economic
miracle would be to miss the point. In at least one sense some of the revolution’s suc-
cesses, rather than its shortcomings, contributed to the growing tensions in Mexican society
as rising expectations engendered by economic and social changes were not met.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the young, sophisticated generation of Mexican stu-
dents had absorbed an incredible amount of revolutionary rhetoric. A typical Sunday outing
in Mexico City could include a car or taxi ride by the Monument to the Revolution and then
on to Avenida 20 de Noviembre, where the bookstores carried posters not of Sophia Loren
and the Beatles but of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Then, on Avenida Francisco I.
Madero the walls would be plastered with billboards propagandizing the PRI. And on Sunday
every radio station in the country was required by law to carry “La Hora Nacional,” the pro-
gramming dinosaur created in the 1930s to help foster a national consciousness, but now
dedicated to emitting blatant pro-government propaganda. It combined musical and cultural
presentations with three- to four-minute orations on themes such as “The Pride of Being
Mexican,” “One Must Defend the Revolution,” and “The March of Revolutionary Progress.”
In a move to promote the culture of indigenismo, if not the self-determination of
Mexico’s indigenous population, in 1975 the government organized the First National Con-
gress of Indigenous Peoples. Actually a government initiative to showcase the organization
of an indigenous social movement in Mexico, the congress provided a platform for repre-
sentatives of the 3.5 million people who self-identified as belonging to an Indian group in
the 1970 census, about 10 percent of the total population. They succeeded in at least airing
their demands for self-determination and more local autonomy. Eventually, the creation
of the Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (CNPI) served as a vehicle for actual
indigenous engagement with the government on Indian policies and demands for greater
self-determination although it suffered from internal dissension.
Another powerful tool for winning hearts and minds had been growing since the 1950s.
Televisa emerged as the most powerful media conglomeration not only in Mexico, but in all
of Latin America. Its television programs, seen by more than 25 million viewers, promoted
modernity, consumer values, and, most of the time, the PRI. Nonetheless Mexicans, not only
students and intellectuals but also growing numbers of the Mexican middle classes, were not
easily taken in as they considered the social and economic realities of their country.
Luis Echeverría (b. 1922). The most active president since

Cárdenas, Echeverría was interested primarily in foreign
policy, but his energies were directed to the country’s seri-
ous economic woes.
The 1970s found Mexico suffering a large balance of payments deficit. The rate of industrial
growth had been impressive, but it had rested on the foundation of government protection.
Mexican industry was not cost-effective and not generally competitive in world markets. It was
unable to turn the balance of payments tide. The government frantically printed and borrowed
more money. With imports outstripping exports by almost $3.5 billion in 1975 alone, Echever-
ría, currying the global south for support in a bid for the secretary-generalship of the United
Nations, ordered his ambassador in the world organization to cast two votes equating Zionism
and racism. Since he had earlier made a speech comparing Yasser Arafat to Benito Juárez, the
result should not have surprised him. In early 1976 Jewish groups in the United States orga-
nized a tourist boycott of Mexico. Empty resort hotels dramatically testified that a substantial
proportion of Mexico’s tourist industry of $2.5 billion had been curtailed. Other factors, such
as shortages of electric power, steel, and transportation facilities, contributed to a decline in the
rate of economic growth. Echeverría had repeatedly lectured his citizenry on the need for de-
mocratization in Mexico and the value of a free press. As the economic situation deteriorated,
however, he found himself attacked on all sides. When criticism from Mexico’s largest daily
newspaper, Excélsior, became too severe, the administration removed its editor, Julio Scherer
García. By the summer of 1976, rumors were rampant that for the first time in 22 years Mexico
would have to devalue the peso. The president’s repeated assurances to the contrary did not
prevent the flight of huge amounts of pesos as wealthy Mexicans exchanged their currency for
dollars and investment in the United States and Europe. Capital flight in 1976 alone might
have topped $6 billion. Mexican pundits quickly coined a new pejorative to deride their unpa-
triotic countrymen. Sacadólares (dollar extractors) would enter the day-to-day parlance.
The decision to devaluate came in September, and the peso fell from 12.50 to 20.50 to
the dollar, a 60 percent devaluation. Once the initial shock subsided, Mexicans accepted the
devaluation stoically as they were assured that the resultant reduction of imports and growth
of exports would combine to shore up the economy. But Mexican policy makers had not
allowed the peso to float long enough to reach its true level. A month later a second devalua-
tion of an additional 40 percent was announced in Mexico City. Psychologically, the second
was more painful than the first, for it pointed up financial mismanagement of major propor-
tions. Emblematic of rampant government corruption, Echererría managed to leave office an
extraordinarily wealthy man.
With the country still in shock, a serious old problem surfaced once again. Thousands
of landless Sonora campesinos moved onto privately owned lands in the rich Yaqui Valley
and seized several hundred thousand acres from some eight hundred owners. Although the
land seizures were being adjudicated in the Mexican Supreme Court, Echeverría, with not
two weeks remaining in his presidential term, took matters into his own hands. He declared
the seizures legal and gave the campesinos two hundred fifty thousand acres for communal
development. The uproar could have been expected; Mexican industrialists and business-
men joined the former landowners in a huge protest strike. Using populist tactics, Echeverría
tried to paper over the failure of the PRI to reform the political system and cover up his own
repressive tactics.
The twelve years encompassed by the Díaz Ordaz and Echeverría administrations, 1 964–76,
highlighted troubles in Mexico’s post–World War II experience. Since the entrenchment of the
institutional revolution in the early 1940s, Mexican confidence had been bolstered repeatedly
by the country’s political stability and remarkable economic success. Mexico seemingly had
separated itself from the systemic problems of its neighbors to the south. But by 1975 and
1976, it was obvious to Mexicans and foreigners alike that the political system and economic
structure had proved themselves to be quite fragile. This fragility would be severely tested in
the years to come.
JOSÉ LÓPEZ PORTILLO, 1976–82
On December 1, 1976, José López Portillo, the presidential candidate of the Partido Revolu-
cionario Institucional (PRI), replaced Luis Echeverría in the Mexican presidency. While a few
Mexicans evidenced optimism on that inauguration day, the vast majority found little cause
for celebration, given the economic crisis and an anachronistic political system.
Prior to the famous Arab oil embargo in the early 1970s, the world gave too little atten-
tion to energy, conservation, or the influence of petroleum and petroleum by-products on
inflation and power politics. By the late 1970s and early 1980s these issues dominated the na-
tional and international press. In some circles it became archaic to speak of the First, Second,
and Third worlds. It seemed more appropriate to categorize nations as oil producers and oil
consumers and to formulate new conceptualizations of dependency and interdependency.
The large petroleum discoveries made in southeastern Mexico (primarily in the states
of Tabasco and Chiapas and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico) antedated the inauguration of
López Portillo, but their extent and influence grew markedly during his administration and
came to overshadow everything else. In 1980, López Portillo verified that proven reserves
topped 60 billion barrels, while probable reserves approached 200 billion.
From the outset, López Portillo followed a policy of gradual, not dramatic, daily increase
in oil production, resisting pressures from the United States to move faster. The economic
infrastructure was not prepared to digest suddenly huge infusions of foreign capital without
negative side effects. More importantly, it then seemed obvious that the price of petroleum in
the future was not going to decline. Oil production grew from about eight hundred thousand
barrels per day in 1976 to 2.3 million barrels a day in 1980. In 1981 Mexico became the
world’s fourth largest producer. The tripling of production during the administration did
not reveal the whole story of how petroleum influenced the Mexican economy. For two rea-
sons, Mexico’s earning of petrodollars rose much more rapidly than the increased production
figures would seem to suggest. First, a large percentage of the increase was destined for the
international, not the domestic, market. Even more important was the steadily spiraling price
of a barrel of crude. During the same period that production tripled, earnings from petroleum
sales increased twelvefold, from $500 million in 1976 to about $6 billion in 1980. Prospects
for a healthy and dynamic economy never looked better.
Mexican petroleum wealth had an incalculable impact on how the country viewed itself
and how it related to others in the international community. In an energy-hungry world,
petroleum production carried unusual international prestige. Mexico’s new oil muscle was
flexed repeatedly in its relations with the United States. In a dramatic but symbolic gesture,
López Portillo was one of the first Latin American heads of state to announce that his coun-
try could not support the Carter administration’s boycott of the Moscow Olympics. When
the United States and Mexico could not agree on the price of natural gas, the Mexican presi-
dent brazenly decided to burn off excess gas rather than sell to the United States at a figure
judged to be inequitable. Subsequently, the new administration of Ronald Reagan quickly
learned that outward manifestations of friendship and goodwill would not change Mexico’s
foreign policy, which supported the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. In 1981 Mexico
joined France in a declaration recognizing rebel guerrillas in El Salvador as a representative
political force. These incidents were less a new hostility than a reflection of the new petro-
leum equation in United States-Mexico relations.
Only the most naïve considered petroleum a panacea for Mexico’s sundry social and
economic problems, but few realized the dangers that petro-dependency portended for the
future. The first indications of trouble were faint and subtle. By the late 1970s, López Portillo
was faced with an unemployment rate of almost 25 percent and an underemployment rate of
nearly 50 percent of the country’s workforce. Petroleum was a capital-intensive, not a labor-
intensive, industry. With continuing increased production it could absorb perhaps 150,000
new workers each year, but by 1980, 800,000 Mexicans were entering the job market annu-
ally. Jobs would have to be created in other sectors of the economy.
Industry maintained healthy growth during the López Portillo administration but agri-
cultural production of grains, which had been insufficient for at least a decade, fell further
behind with the increase in population. Fearful that the newly found petrodollars could
all be expended on food imports, in March 1980 the president announced the formation
of Sistema Alimentario Mexicano (SAM), the Mexican Food System. SAM’s goals called for
agricultural growth of 4 percent a year and self-sufficiency in basic grains by 1985. A few
months after SAM was proclaimed, the World Bank approved a loan of $325 million, the
Mexican Oil Zones (Including Off-shore)
DAILY PETROLEUM PRODUCTION FOREIGN EARNINGS FROM PETROLEUM

(in millions of barrels) (in billions of dollars)
6.0 6.0
5.5 5.5
5.0 5.0
4.5 4.5
4.0 4.0
3.5 3.5
3.0 3.0
2.5 2.5
2.0 2.0
1.5 1.5
1.0 1.0
.5 .5
1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Growth of the Mexican Petroleum Industry

Between 1980 and 1982, Presidents José López Portillo and Ronald Reagan met on four occasions. The public
cordiality of the visits notwithstanding, the two countries found it difficult to agree on important issues such as
undocumented workers and the revolutionary turmoil in Central America.
largest loan that agency had ever made, to help implement the program. Increased agricul-
tural production not only promised to improve the standard of living in rural areas but, by
eliminating the need for huge food imports, would greatly ameliorate Mexico’s unfavorable
balance of trade. The goals were sound, but the success rate fell short of spectacular, as the
implementation of the plan was plagued by mismanagement and inefficiency. Several years
after López Portillo left office, Mexico still imported about 10 million tons of food annually,
and the crisis in the agricultural sector spurred increased immigration to the cities. Mexico’s
1980 census did reveal one promising trend. In the early postwar years, the percentage of
illiterates in Mexico constantly declined, but because of the population explosion, the abso-
lute number of illiterates rose. After 1970, however, Mexico experienced not only a decline
in the percentage of illiterates from 28 percent to 17.1 percent by 1980 but also a drop of
1.5 million in the absolute number of illiterates. The education efforts of all the postwar
administrations had finally made some headway.
THE ECONOMIC SLIDE BEGINS
López Portillo led Mexico on an unparalleled spending spree. Government construction,

public works, social welfare projects, and government subsidies of consumer goods all
meant an increased government participation in the economy. The number of state-owned
enterprises quadrupled during the Echeverría and López Portillo administrations. Although
national income was insufficient to cover the costs, Mexico’s vast petroleum reserves made
the international banking community willing, indeed eager, to extend large loans. Under-
standably, the interest rates were appallingly high and repayment would burden subsequent
administrations. Mexico’s massive deficit spending ressted on the supposition that continu-
ing rises in the price of oil would allow the country to generate new wealth and repay its
foreign obligations. But contrary to all expectations, petroleum prices did not rise. Because
of the world oil glut of the early 1980s, they began to decline.
In 1982, during the last year of his administration, López Portillo found himself in a
position even worse than that of Luis Echeverría in 1976. The Mexican rate of inflation
greatly exceeded that in the United States, and the peso was again overvalued in relation to
the dollar. As Mexican businessmen lost confidence in the economy, they began investing
abroad and opening new bank accounts in the United States. To stop the monetary flight,
in February the president ordered the Central Bank to stop buying and selling dollars and
to allow the peso to find its true worth. Within a few days, it had lost one-third of its former
value as it slipped from twenty-six to thirty-seven pesos to the dollar, and by summer of
1982 had sunk to one hundred pesos, marking the peso’s lowest value ever. Concomitant
price increases and tight currency controls created near panic in both business and govern-
ment circles. It was only the tip of the iceberg.
In the last analysis, López Portillo applied the brakes too late, after he had first tried to
squander Mexico into prosperity. The oil miracle had become the oil nightmare, and the
president came under severe fire for mishandling the economy and demonstrating a lack of
judgment and leadership. His response was unanticipated as he accused the country’s private
banks of looting, greed, and disloyalty for participating in the frenzied flight of Mexican
capital in the amount of $22 billion. He had found a perfect scapegoat. In September 1982,
without first soliciting any advice from his cabinet, the president dramatically nationalized
fifty-nine of the country’s banks. The nationalization of the banks did not prove to be an
economic elixir. Many of them were in bad financial shape and assuming their burden was
like putting chains on the national economy. The presidential action proved only that clear
thinking seldom accompanies clenched fists.
As López Portillo’s administration came to an end, Mexicans were incensed to learn that
the president, despite his pious incantations about others, had taken care of himself. Fail-
ing to keep one eye on history, he had constructed four large mansions for himself and his
family on prime land. The López Portillo compound was dubbed “Dog Hill,” a sarcastic
reminder of the president’s earlier remarks that he would defend the peso “like a dog.” As
he departed Mexico for an extended vacation in Europe, he left behind Mexico’s worst eco-
nomic crisis of the twentieth century.
Aviña, Alexander. Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside. New York:
Oxford University Press 2014.
Bailey, John. Governing Mexico: The Statecraft of Crisis Management. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Boyer, Christopher R. Political Landscapes: Forests, Conservation, and Community in Mexico. Durham, NC:
Brannon, Jeffrey, and Eric N. Baklanoff. Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico: The Political Econ-
omy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987.
Camp, Roderic Ai. Mexico’s Mandarins: Crafting a Power Elite for the 21st Century. Berkeley: University of
. Oxford Handbook of Mexican Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
. “The Time of the Technocrats and Deconstruction of the Revolution.” In The Oxford History of
Press, rev. 2010.
Centeno, Miguel A. Democracy within Reason: Technocratic Revolution in Mexico, 2nd ed. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
Domínguez, Jorge I., ed. Mexico’s Political Economy: Challenges at Home and Abroad. Beverly Hills, CA:
Sage, 1982.
González de Bustamante, Celeste. “Muy buenas noches:” Mexico, Television and the Cold War. Lincoln: Uni-
Grayson, George W. Mexico: From Corporatism to Pluralism? New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998.
Hellman, Judith Adler. Mexico in Crisis. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1983.
Kiddle, Amelia, and María L. O. Muñoz, eds. Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico: The Presidencies of Lázaro
Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010.
Levy, Daniel, and Gabriel Székely. Mexico: Paradoxes of Stability and Change. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1983.
Martínez, Oscar J. Troublesome Border. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988.
Muñoz, María L.O. Stand Up and Fight: Participatory Indigenismo, Populism, and Mobilization in Mexico,
Ochoa, Enrique. Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses of Food since 1910. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly
Resources, 2000.
Riding, Alan. Distant Neighbors: Portrait of the Mexicans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
Roxborough, Ian. Unions and Politics in Mexico: The Case of the Automobile Industry. New York: Cambridge
Schmidt, Samuel. The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991.
Shapira, Yoram. Mexican Foreign Policy under Echeverría. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1978.
Sherman, John W. “The Mexican ‘Miracle’ and Its Collapse.” In The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by
Soto Laveaga, Gabriela. Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill.
Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Teichman, Judith A. Policy-making in Mexico: From Boom to Crisis. Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin Book Pub-
lishers, 1988.
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CHA PTER 36
SOCIETY AND CULTURE

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM
I n the period after World War II, Mexico became more fully integrated into the international
community than ever before. The country’s charter membership in the United Nations at
the close of the world conflict symbolized an end to the exclusive concern for parochial mat-
ters and a more profound interest in great world issues. Mexican presidents traveled widely,
carrying Mexico’s message to Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. They were determined
to begin exerting leadership in the developing world. This new world outlook effected a
basic change in self-image. Many perceived that the problems faced by the nation—rapid
population growth, urbanization with its attendant social dislocations, persistent poverty,
serious pollution, and ecological imbalance—were not only Mexican but global. Through
science, technology, and economy the world had become increasingly interdependent,
and solutions to these problems were scarcely possible within the confines of the national
boundaries. Yet globalization of the world’s economies posed new dilemmas for Mexico.
P O P U L AT I O N
The social and cultural changes of the postwar years were every bit as dramatic as those that
had characterized the Porfiriato. The population growth was nothing short of fantastic, dou-
bling in the twenty-three-year period between 1940 and 1963 and continuing to burgeon in
geometric proportion. At the end of World War II, the population of the country numbered
some 22 million; by 1980 it had grown to more than 80 million.
As Mexico’s birth rate proliferated after the revolution, advocates of population control had
their ups and downs in the postwar period. They were crushed by the 1968 papal encyclical ban-
ning all methods of artificial contraception because they recognized the truth in the bad quip
that the rich get richer and the poor get children. During the presidential campaign of 1970,
Luis Echeverría, the father of eight, announced that Mexico did not need to limit family size.
In that same year, some six hundred thousand Mexican women underwent illegal abortions
and thirty-two thousand of them died. In 1972, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, the
506
Society and Culture: A New Internationalism 507
80
70
60
50
Millions
40
30
20
10
0
1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980
Council of Mexican Bishops performed a remarkable volte-face and issued a pastoral letter de-
claring that Mexican couples should in good conscience make responsible decisions about the
size of their families. The president agreed, and government-sponsored clinics began making
birth control information available to those who requested it. The program began in a small
way; the sell was very soft, but by 1980 López Portillo had earmarked over 500 million pesos
annually for the family planning program and some dividends had been recorded. A popula-
tion growth rate that had hovered between 3.2 and 3.4 percent during the 1970s began to drop,
and demographers were cautiously optimistic that the birth rate would continue to decline.
With women having fewer children, more entered the workforce. They also became
more active in pushing for their rights. The movement for women’s rights had built up
steam during the postwar years, with the full enfranchisement of women in 1955 just the
Posters such as this, with an unmistakable message, became increasingly

common in Mexican cities in the 1970s and 1980s. If conservative Catho-
lics were offended by the modest invitation to consider birth control, they
were surely shocked in 1997 when billboards in Mexico City brazenly urged
Mexicans to enlist condoms in the war against AIDS.
La familia pequeña vive mejor

decida la suya . . .
(The small family lives better
decide on yours . . . )
The Two-Child Family

beginning. More important was the feminist victory scored in 1974. While the equal rights
amendment languished in the United States, President Echeverría sent a bill to the congress
asking that Mexican men give women their full stake in society. The law that passed prom-
ised in theory women equal job opportunities, salaries, and legal standing. Beginning in
the 1970s, the feminist movement began seriously to challenge laws and social practices
denigrating the role of women. For the first time in its ninety-nine years, the prestigious
Mexican Academy of the Language admitted a woman, Dr. María del Carmen Millán. Shortly
thereafter Griselda Alvarez Ponce de León became governor of the state of Colima.
LEISURE AND SPORT
Mass communication, and most especially television, changed not only patterns of leisure
but the information level of the urban citizenry. By the mid-1960s, Mexican television was
no longer the sole preserve of the middle and upper classes. Television antennas sprouted
from the most decaying of urban slums and attested to the vastness of the audience. Televi-
sion sets proliferated in the next several decades and came to outnumber refrigerators and
showers in Mexican households. In the summer of 1969, millions of Mexicans watched in
amazement as Neil Armstrong took his first tentative steps on the surface of the moon. Since
the 1960s, more and more people had access to a television set, even if it had belonged
to a relative or neighbor, making soap operas (telenovelas), musicals, and traditional sport-
ing events viewing staples. Another source of entertainment was found in historietas (comic
books) directed to adults as well as children, which could be enjoyed even by those whose
reading ability was minimal. Often assuming the role of moral mentor, some were steeped
in history, others in romance, and still others in family tragedy. Capturing the full spectrum
of life’s delights, disappointments, and ironies, their appeal was extensive.
Sports constituted another major source of entertainment. Fútbol (soccer) has been at the
top of the list for most of the twentieth century, whether it is being played on homegrown
fields or in the stadiums around the country. Formal organization in soccer leagues and
teams lagged until the 1940s when the sport became professionalized. The two most popu-
lar teams, Club América in Mexico City and the Guadalajara Chivas, developed a friendly
national rivalry over the years. When Mexico’s largest stadium, the Estadio Azteca, opened in
1966 with a seating capacity of over eighty-seven thousand, it became the home for América
and also for the Mexican national team, called the Tricolor because it sports the three colors
of the Mexican flag: green, red, and white. A few years after the Azteca opened, Mexico
hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1970. Located at an altitude of seventy-two hundred feet, the
stadium poses a serious challenge to teams unaccustomed to the relative lack of oxygen.
Other sports, boosted by television coverage, grew in popularity after World War II and
helped to integrate Mexico into the modern world. Mexico professionalized boxing and
several of its athletes achieved international standing by the 1970s. Baseball, which had been
introduced in the nineteenth century, struggled to develop and sustain leagues in Mexico, but
many of its players realized success in US major league baseball. Fernando Valenzuela from
Sonora, one of the best pitchers of the 1980s, played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and won
the Rookie of the Year award in 1981. Some 100 Mexicans play in the major leagues today.
A minor sporting attraction of the 1930s became an enthralling spectacle in the postwar
period. The Mexican variant of professional wrestling, lucha libre, fascinated hundreds of
thousands. Unlike its American counterpart, almost all of the participants wore masks,
enhancing the aura of inscrutability. But even with concealed faces, it was nearly impossible
to confuse good and evil in these carefully choreographed physical melodramas. Heroes
(the técnicos) were pitted against villains (the rudos) in a metaphor of life’s constant struggles.
Like any classic melodrama, the emotions of the audience were shamelessly manipulated as
a series of behemoth scoundrels visited indignities on an equal number of long-suffering
heroes. Taunting the crowd with endless gimmicks, the rudos evoked profound passions,
while the técnicos inevitably emerged larger than life. It was no accident that the most
beloved luchadores of the post-World War II period adopted monikers linked to the church.
Young and old alike could applaud the heroics of El Angel Blanco or the icon El Santo, while
excoriating the outrageous and cheating tactics of the vicious Médico Asesino or the bully
Cavernario Galindo. But no match commanded more attention than the 1955 epic when, in
virtue triumphant, El Santo unmasked and shamed the Sombra Vengadora.
A celebrity of gigantic proportion, El Santo

commanded admiration and awe as much
for his wholesome image as for his prowess
in the ring.
Civic fiestas, with their colorful parades and musical performances, offered another
distraction for Mexicans throughout the country on national holidays, for example on
September 16 with the Grito de Dolores celebrating Mexican independence from Spain.
Historical commemoration ceremonies honored Benito Juárez and Emiliano Zapata in
order to reinforce the myths of revolutionary nationalism. Even more numerous were the
processions, pilgrimages, and fiestas marking the Catholic religious holidays that reemerged
after the 1930s when the church made accommodations with the government. Mexican Ca-
tholicism came in many packages, ranging from its socially progressive organizations that
emerged after Vatican II to the right-wing branches like Opus Dei and the Legionaries of
Christ, making it attractive to a broad range of the faithful in urban and rural areas.
In Mexico City, museums, with free admission on Sundays, combined leisure and learn-
ing. The monumental Museum of Anthropology offered a splendid display of Mexico’s
indigenous history and accomplishments. Covering twenty acres within Chapultepec
Park, the museum houses salons displaying artifacts from particular regions and cul-
tures, including those of Teotihuacan, the Olmecs, Toltecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Aztecs,
and Mayas. One of the highlights is the Aztec calendar, a twelve-foot, twenty-five-ton,
carved basalt slab from the fifteenth century. It numbers among the many treasures dis-
covered under the Zócalo and other areas during the construction of the first subway line.
An architectural and anthropological achievement of gigantic proportions, the new Museum of Anthropology in
Mexico City (above and on opposite page) became a prime tourist attraction in the 1970s.
In the 1940s, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) began to un-
dertake the colossal task of cataloguing and protecting well over 300,000 monuments
and sites considered part of Mexico’s prehispanic and historical patrimony. Over time,
INAH’s professional staff has developed hundreds of archaeological sites and museums
open to the public throughout the country. From 1978 to 1982, under the direction
of anthropologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, INAH stepped up efforts to excavate
the Templo Mayor (the main temple of the Aztecs). The Museum of the Templo Mayor
opened several years later to display the findings, including the magnificent mono-
lithic disk from the fifteenth century depicting a shattered Coyolxauhqui, the sister of
Huitzilopochtli. The recovery of the past, rather than an anachronistic endeavor, became
emblematic of Mexico’s technological modernity.
Nowhere was this connection more ironically displayed than in the planning for
Mexico City’s subway system. When work began in 1967, Mexico City’s metro signaled
One of the most modern subways in the world, the Mexico City system was running to capacity and beyond
within a few months of its completion. In 1990, more than five million Mexico City passengers were using the
eighty-seven miles of the metro’s double tracks every day. Plans to add an additional thirty-seven miles of track
were canceled because of financial exigencies.
a dramatic modernization of the cityscape. Making room for the metro entailed remov-
ing some familiar aspects of the urban landscape and introducing residents to the new
spaces of the network’s underground tunnels and stations. Planners adopted a picto-
graphic system to integrate the metro with pre-Columbian, colonial, and contemporary
features, as well as the use of color to distinguish different lines. They designed icons
to identify each metro station, connecting it with an existing historical, urban architec-
tural, or other relational feature. For example, the sign for Balderas station is a cannon
on display in the nearby library above ground, while the stop at the huge Merced market
is represented by a crate of apples. Chapultepec in nahuatl means hill of the grasshop-
per endowing that station with its image of a leaping insect. For those who could not
read, the symbols were manageable even though some required a stretch to make the
connection with the place.
FILM AND MUSIC
In the “golden age” of Mexican filmmaking from 1935 to the late 1950s, Mexicans eagerly
watched their leading actors and idols, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, María Félix, and the
stunningly beautiful Dolores del Río (who also had a successful Hollywood career), in
Dolores del Río dances with Fred

Astaire in the 1933 Hollywood film
Flying Down to Rio.
dramatic roles. Films with budgets subsidized by Hollywood, largely in the style of melo-
drama, entertained Mexican audiences while inculcating important lessons about mexicani-
dad, gender norms, and surviving in the growing cities.
Much of the early post-revolutionary filmmaking aimed at building a unified vision
of the nation that obscured differences of class and ideology while reinforcing patriarchy
and gender roles. The 1946 film Enamorada depicts the revolutionary education of an
upper-class woman as she learns to put the needs of the nation above her own, a reflec-
tion of the fear that if women were given the right to vote they would not support the
party, thus postponing women’s suffrage until the 50s. Films like María Candelaría (1943)
and Río Escondido (1947) both spin narratives about young women, one indigenous, the
other mestiza, in which their lives are sacrificed for the greater good. Moreover, both
films use rural Mexico to define a particular mexicanidad that reflects an indigenous ideal
rather than the reality of Indians’ contemporary lives. In the construction of mexicanidad,
as filmmakers sought to project a cohesive national identity, women’s lives were used as
narrative devices to warn moviegoers of danger if they did not move forward with the
revolutionary state.
While films of the Golden Age reflected the need to define a coherent national iden-
tity, they also served to teach moviegoers how to navigate an increasingly urban society.
Carlos Monsivais wrote: “In the neighborhood cinemas one acquires basic skills that
help to orient one in the city . . . the pleasure of joining the community. . . . During
María Candelaria, directed by Emilio Fernández, was the first Latin American film to win the top prize at the
Cannes Film Festival in 1946. Opposite page: Del Río as the tragic María Candelaria.
the period 1920–1960 cinemas multiply and are the center of . . . ‘neighborhood iden-
tity. . . .’”1 Nosotros los pobres (1947), which Monsivais described as the “apex of Mexican
melodrama,” presents a web of intrigue, deception, and thievery, reflecting the perceived
ills of modern life in the capital city, while an innocent young woman falls into pros-
titution in Aventurera (1950), finally redeeming herself and ending the film happily
married.
As the Golden Age of Mexican cinema waned in the late 1950s, some of these lessons
were presented in less dramatic, funnier movies. Cantinflas (Mariano Moreno) began his
career in the carpa (tent) theaters of the capital and rose to be one of the most famous co-
medians in Latin America through the 1940s. In the 1950s, he emerged as an international
movie star featured in Around the World in Eighty Days as Jean Passepartout, valet to David
Niven’s Phileas Fogg. In his films on Mexico, actually produced at Columbia Studios in
Hollywood, he navigated the perils of urban life in films like El bolero de Raquel (1957),
El analfabeto (1961), and El padrecito (1963). By the mid-1960s, Mexican disillusionment
with politics extended to cinema, where audiences became less willing to entertain melo-
dramatic films with strict lessons about identity, women’s roles, or the ills of urban life.
Moreover, Hollywood invested less in Mexican cinema as television came to replace movie
theaters for many.
1 Quoted in Elena Lahr-Vivaz, Mexican Melodrama: Film and Nation from the Golden Age to the New Wave
(Tucson, AZ, 2016), 17.
Cantinflas.
The Americanization of popular culture that increasingly pervaded Mexico after

World War II prompted criticism not only from postrevolutionary governments but also
from many Mexican intellectuals. But in a world tied ever closer together by the wonders
of technological change and mass media, cultural insularity was neither practical nor
attractive to most. These changes did not mean that all Mexican culture became deriva-
tive as many forms of peculiarly Mexican counterculture evolved in novels, comic books,
telenovelas, films, and cabaret performances that offered sharp political satire and social
criticism.
However, one foreign import, rock music, began to compete seriously with traditional
Mexican music forms in the 1960s and by the 1970s had become dominant among the
young. Rock bands slowly began to replace the trios and mariachi bands as Mexican youth’s
music of choice. After the 1969 Woodstock festival, Mexicans produced the Avándaro Music
Festival in the Valle de Bravo outside Mexico City in 1971, attracting over 200,000 rockeros.
The performance included the Who’s rock opera Tommy with a live band, legendary rock
accordionist Carlos Steward, and several actors, as well as Armando Nava and Los Dug Dugs
performing “Let’s Make It Now.” Throughout the day and evening, barbed criticisms of gov-
ernment repression and foul language erupted from the audience, prompting the shut-off
of a radio station broadcast. Some of the performers were subsequently hounded by the
government, forcing them underground.
The spectacle midwifed a new Latin rock genre known as la nueva onda and touched off
a new national debate. While purists viewed rocanrol as crassly imitative of the worst in US
hippie culture and the government saw it as subversive, others credited it as a significant
break with the cultural forms preferred by Mexico’s institutional revolution. In its wake,
groups such as Los Hitters and Los Johnny Jets enjoyed fleeting fame as well as a measure
Cantinflas made his international

debut in the film Around the World in
Eighty Days.
of financial success. For those who liked hard rock, few could compete with the Dug Dugs.
The 2012 film, Gimme the Power, features the band Molotov and offers a history of this
musical evolution, along with government attempts to censor it.
L I T E R AT U R E , A RT, A N D S C H O L A R S H I P
Mexico became a country of vibrant intellectual ferment in the half-century following World
War II. Mexico City was clearly the cultural capital of the country and by 1985 could boast
twenty daily newspapers and two hundred fifty periodicals. The television and film indus-
tries were based in the capital, as were the most outstanding art galleries and museums.
The cosmopolitan city served as the crucible for Mexico’s literary genius. Many famous
writers emerged throughout the postwar period, as new literary journals and magazines of
social protest provided the grist for healthy cultural debate.
The postwar years saw the demise of both indigenismo and the novel of the revolution
as Mexican writers began their quest for the universal. While nobody could question the
mexicanidad of Octavio Paz (1914–98), his writing revealed greater concern for ecumenical
matters than for the heroes and apostates of the great revolution. Born in Mexico City four
years after the revolution broke out, he was, by the 1950s, one of the most profound and
prolific members of the new intelligentsia. As with many of the great intellects of the postwar
period, it was often difficult to pinpoint where his philosophy ended and his literature began.
In essays, in drama, and, above all, in poetry, he sought to link the Mexican experience with
that of all humanity through the common denominators of suffering and tragedy. His most
penetrating work, El laberinto de la soledad (translated as The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950), is a
psychological study of the Mexican character but was conceived in the United States, where
Paz was able to observe Mexicans in a foreign milieu. Solitude for Paz was a condition that
Mexicans had to comprehend through their history to understand themselves:
Solitude—the feeling and knowledge that one is alone, alienated from the world and
oneself—is not an exclusively Mexican characteristic. All men, at some moment in their
lives, feel themselves to be alone. And they are. To live is to be separated from what we
were in order to approach what we are going to be in the mysterious future. Solitude is the
profoundest fact of the human condition.2
In the chapter “Sons of La Malinche.” Paz’s inquiry into the Mexican psyche presents a
brilliant analysis of variations on the verb chingar, perhaps the most versatile of Mexican
words, in its multiple meanings that range from failure to victim to violated.
Paz’s criticism of the revolution was far from mundane. In a work he called Posdata (1970)
and published in English under the title The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid, he decried the
intellectual paucity of the literary enterprise in Mexico, especially the failure of the intelligentsia
to relate the Mexican experience to the larger world. His career culminated in 1990 when he
won the Nobel Prize for Literature; eight years later, at the time of his death, he was remembered
by many as the greatest twentieth-century poet and essayist of the Spanish-speaking world.
While Octavio Paz broke out of the mold many considered properly Mexican, Juan José
Arreola (1918–2001) in a number of works turned his back on Mexican themes. Four years
younger than Paz, Arreola developed a sharp, biting satire of the bourgeois values of postwar
Mexican society. Culturally indebted to Bertolt Brecht and Albert Camus, he was sarcastic, irrever-
ent, hyperbolic, humorous to the point of cruelty, and blatantly sexist. Arreola jabbed mercilessly
at the pomposity and deceptions of his world. In one notably wicked short story, he invented a
plastic woman and advertised her as would befit the merchandising practices of the new Mexico.
Wherever the presence of woman is difficult, onerous, or prejudicial, whether in the bachelor’s
bedroom or in the concentration camp, the use of Plastisex is highly recommended. . . . We
will furnish you with the woman you have dreamed about all your life: she is manipulated
by automatic controls and is made of synthetic materials that reproduce at will the most
superficial or subtle characteristics of feminine beauty.
2 Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico, trans. Lysander Kemp (New York,
NY, 1961), 195.
Our Venuses are guaranteed to give perfect service for ten years—the average time
any wife lasts—except in cases where they are subjected to abnormal sadistic practices. . . .
Though submissive, the Plastisex is extremely vigorous, since she is equipped with an elec-
tric motor of one-half horse power. . . . Nude, she is simply unexcelled; pubescent or not, in
the flower of youth, or with autumn’s ripe opulence, according to the particular coloring of
each race or mixture of races.3
Perhaps the most creative of the postwar writers was novelist Carlos Fuentes
( 1928–2012). Born in 1928 to a middle-class family, Fuentes took a law degree at the Na-
tional University and then studied international law at Geneva. His most famous novel,
La región mas transparente (Where the Air Is Clear), published in 1958, is a cynical story
of disillusionment with the revolution. But it is scarcely a novel of the revolution in the
classic sense. While those familiar with the outlines of Mexican history in the twentieth
century might find it easier than others to comprehend, more than anything else it is a
Marxist critique of human nature and a creative condemnation of capitalism. The names
and the places are clearly Mexican, but the major themes—the abuses of power, the self-
serving opportunism of the bourgeoisie, the pointless existence of the nouveau riche, and
the tendency of the new society to accept all things foreign—clearly have an applicability
transcending Mexico.
Fuentes went on to become one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking
world. He was a catalyst, along with others like Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas
Llosa, of the Latin American literature boom of the 1960s and 70s. Politically engaged in
promoting social justice and human rights, he withdrew his support for the Cuban revolu-
tion when it became too authoritarian. Appointed Mexican ambassador to France in 1975,
he resigned in protest two years later when former president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who had
sent troops to fire on student protestors in 1968, was named ambassador to Spain. His
novels, short stories, plays, and essays are known for their cultural, political, and historical
insights about Mexico, as well as their exploration of universal themes of love, death, and
memory. When Fuentes died suddenly in 2012, the Mexican nation mourned the loss of a
public figure who commanded authority when he voiced their disappointments and dreams.
Fellow writer and political commentator Federico Reyes Héroles eulogized his friend as the
soul of the people:
“Alexis de Tocqueville used to say that the strength of a nation resides in the force of its
memories and the power of its dreams. But a nation’s memory, and its dreams, have to be
embodied in words. Only through words can we know ourselves, share, and exist in both
the individual and in the collective. But a word does not fall from a tree like a delicious fruit.
Words need engineers to set the foundation, architects to invent the form; and, perhaps the
most difficult to find, words need a soul that can feel both for itself and for others.”4
Many of Carlos Fuentes’ works have been translated into English, as well as other lan-
guages, and a number earned national and international prizes. Often mentioned as a
3 Juan José Arreola, Confabulario and Other Inventions, trans. George D. Shade (Austin, TX, 1974), 134–39.
4 Reforma, May 17, 2012, 25.
candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Fuentes never obtained it. The writer had his
critics in Mexico; both Octavio Paz and well-known contemporary historian Enrique Krauze
saw him as out of touch with the country, but many Mexicans regretted that he had been
overlooked for the most coveted award in literature.
Critiques of Mexican identity proliferated during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, exposing the
failure of the revolution to incorporate diverse ethnic groups and classes in a national project. Ca-
ciquismo, corruption, and moral decay pervade Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo (1955). Several novels
by Rosario Castellanos set in Chiapas, including Oficio de tinieblas (1962), and Los recuerdos del
porvenir (1963) by Elena Garro (the wife of Octavio Paz), continued to depict themes of violence
and ethnic injustice in rural Mexico but with the added dimension of gender oppression.
Perhaps, as Mary Kay Vaughan has suggested, we should look beyond the literary giants to
understand the 60s generation by examining the political, social, and artistic influences of the
postwar period on an individual life. In her revealing portrait of a young painter, she explores
several formative processes that Pepe Zúñiga shared with the “rebellious” or creative youth of
his era. One was the mid-century emphasis on children’s welfare through health campaigns,
churches, schools, textbooks, sports and especially radio shows, that fostered an ethos of work
and responsibility but also an appreciation for amusement and popular culture. In addition,
national and transnational mass media, cinema, music, and art exposed youth to a new cos-
mopolitanism in a period of economic growth and cultural dynamism. Pepe grew up in a
family that migrated from Oaxaca to Mexico City aspiring to achieve middle-class mobility,
but his growing humanist sensibility along with a longing for self-expression led him to reject
a traditional vocation and choose to study art at the La Esmeralda painting school, founded in
1942 by Rivera, Kahlo, and others. His experiences there led him to forums of criticism in the-
ater, museums, and art. He increasingly questioned his own identity and the anti-democratic
nature of the state. Freeing himself from restrictive social conventions after a time studying in
Paris (an experience that other students enjoyed in the many cross-cultural exchanges of the
period), he found his own artistic voice. Vaughan evocatively paints Pepe Zúñiga as emblem-
atic of the 60s rebels who advocated political and cultural democratization.5
The tragedy of Tlatelolco catalyzed a protracted national debate and spawned its own im-
pressive body of literature in the 1970s. Unified only in its recognition that the slaughter left
scars that would never wholly heal, Tlatelolco literature found expression in the essay, poetry,
short story, and novel. Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes dominated the outpouring of perceptive
political essays searching for accountability. Other searching or partially fictionalized responses
are epitomized by Carlos Monsiváis’s Días de guardar (1970), Arturo Azuela’s Manifestación de
silencios (1979), Elena Poniatowska’s La noche de Tlatelolco (1971), Luis Spota’s La plaza (1977),
Gonzalo Martre’s Los símbolos transparentes (1978), and Fernando del Paso’s Palinuro de México
(1977). No matter what the specific genre, the body of literature itself testified eloquently to the
fact that the Mexican intelligentsia insisted that such an untoward episode should be neither re-
peated nor forgotten. When Poniatowska was awarded the Xavier Villarrutia Literary Prize for La
noche de Tlatelolco, she would not accept it, insisting that the only persons worthy of a prize were
5 Mary Kay Vaughan, Portrait of a Young Painter: Pepe Zúñiga and Mexico City’s Rebel Generation (Durham,
NC, 2015).
those who had given their lives at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas that fateful October evening in
1968. Tlatelolco, in essence, became not only a backdrop, not only a focus of literary discourse,
but a major point of departure for much of the Mexican literature published in the period fol-
lowing the infamous events of 1968. The cultural outpouring combined with political pressure
to force the government to declare October 2, 1998, a national day of mourning and to order
flags flown at half staff. The modest concession took thirty years.
Shortly thereafter, in the presidency of Vicente Fox, the attorney general’s office made
an effort to bring to justice the officials responsible for killing dissidents at Tlatelolco and
in its aftermath. Secret security files were opened up, leading to revelations about the roles
of key players, including former president Luis Echeverría, who allegedly ordered paramili-
taries known as the Falcons (Los Halcones) to attack student marchers in Mexico City in
1971. At least twenty-five protesters were killed. Government prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo
Prieto charged Echeverría with genocide (defined as systematic crimes against the lives of
members of any national group); but for many, including the Mexican Supreme Court, this
tactic was too much of a stretch, and they lamented that the Fox government had not called
for the establishment of a truth commission to pursue the matter. Nonetheless, throughout
2004 and 2005, the Mexican public read the lurid details of state-sponsored violence. In
June 2006, Echeverría was arrested and charged with crimes related to the 1968 and 1971
killings, but a judge ruled that Mexico’s statute of limitations prevented his prosecution.
Political corruption, along with social and environmental concerns, began to displace
national identity as the most frequent motif in Mexican narratives of the late 20th century, as
evidenced in José Emilio Pacheco’s Morirás lejos (1967) and Las batallas en el desierto (1981).
The voices of women and gays also emerged more openly in works like Angeles Mastretta’s
Arráncame la vida (1985) Guadalupe Loaeza’s Las niñas bien (1987), and Luis Zapata’s El
vampiro de la colonia Roma (1979).
Mexican art in the postwar period also rejected—in fact, rebelled violently against—the
nationalistic indigenismo. Mexican art and photography had been summoned to the service
of the revolution in constructing a vision of national identity that bound the people to the
vision of the leaders as a unified whole. But the patriarchal revolutionary family fell into dis-
favor. Moving away from mythical allegories depicting cloud-covered volcanoes, pyramids,
and indigenous people in picturesque clothing, photographers like Tina Modotti, Manuel
Alvarez Bravo, Lola Alvarez Bravo, and Graciela Iturbide began to portray Mexico as Mexi-
cans making themselves through struggle. Modern visual culture was essential to both the
invention of and resistance to a revolutionary hegemonic order.
Although Mexican painters of the 1950s and 1960s never achieved the fame of the
great revolutionary muralists, some of the new experiments with abstract expressionism,
drip painting, and even op art were exciting to some and completely bewildering to others.
Remedios Varo was born in Spain but realized the greatest part of her surrealist painting in
Mexico during the 1950s. Most of her characters appear mystical and solitary, people and
cats with almond-shaped eyes, traveling in cosmically propelled vehicles through a world
of magic and imagination.Among the avant-garde was José Luis Cuevas (1934–2017), who
epitomized the rejection of traditional muralism when he stated that what he wanted for
his country’s art was “broad highways leading to the rest of the world rather than narrow
trails connecting one adobe village to another.”6 Many of his contemporaries agreed, and
the new generation, including Olga Costa, Jesús Reyes, Pedro Coronel, and Carrillo Gil,
executed paintings that could have been conceived anywhere in the western world. They
did not believe it necessary to capture the spirit of an idealized revolution, to reaffirm their
mexicanidad, or to instruct the masses. But it was Juan Soriano who depicted the movement
best, and in 1957 a distinguished jury of artists at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana gave him
the first prize ever awarded to Mexican abstract painting. Soriano later articulated his views
on the new Mexican art to Elena Poniatowska in a celebrated interview.
Siqueiros limits himself to one country—Mexico. And to one political idea. I’m interested
in ideas that are much broader. . . . Siqueiros . . . wants to create a strongly nationalistic art.
And I believe that his art is excellent because it expresses him. But I want, and have always
wanted to be universal. . . . Those murals are only tourist bait. They’re the same kind of
thing as those gigantic posters of the travel agencies: Visit Mexico. Furthermore those murals
reveal nothing. They’re a chronicle and not a poetic creation. Diego Rivera created a com-
pletely bureaucratic art. He made himself a propagandist of the victorious revolution. . . .
I reproach him for having completely prostituted the pictorial language, reducing it to little
more than a caricature, vulgarizing it. Because, don’t you see, the caricature is a creation of
the bourgeoisie. . . . I’m not concerned with my nationality. I can assure you I don’t carry it
like a chip on my shoulder, nor do I have to remind myself daily that I’m a Mexican.7
Another celebrated artist, Rufino Tamayo, did not completely abandon native motifs but
rendered them abstractly with surrealist influences (see his painting Dos figuras en rojo in the
color insert section of this book). In 1981, he founded the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporá-
neo, which houses his modern art collection. The Museo Rufino Tamayo in his birthplace of
Oaxaca holds his extensive pre-Columbian collection.
To the amusement of some and to the shock of others, Mexican painting turned icono-
clastic in the 1970s and 1980s, first reinterpreting Mexican popular culture motifs within a
more personal than national context. Later postmodern tendencies fused past and present
styles in often unconventional and innovative ways and media, including installation art.
Artistic impiety was epitomized by the sacrilegious work of Rolando de la Rosa. His 1988
art exhibit featured the face of Marilyn Monroe superimposed on the image of the Virgin of
Guadalupe and the face of actor Pedro Infante similarly substituted for that of Christ in his
rendition of the Last Supper. A generation or two earlier this type of mocking materialism
would have occasioned major outcries, but most viewers simply shrugged their shoulders.
Historical scholarship had not fared well in the two decades prior to World War II, for
historians often found it impossible to reconcile their faith in the revolution with docu-
mentary evidence available to them. But in the postwar years historical scholarship came
of age. Between 1940 and 1951, three important institutions—El Colegio de México, the
Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, and the Instituto de Historia of the National
University—were founded and devoted major effort to improving historical training. Reacting
6 José Luis Cuevas, “The Cactus Curtain,” Evergreen Review 2 (1959): 120.
7 Quoted in Elena Poniatowska, “Interview with Juan Soriano,” Evergreen Review 2 (1959): 144–49.
against the blatant partisanship of the prorevolutionary school that had emerged in the
1920s and 1930s, the new generation of historians was much more concerned with method-
ology, archival research, careful bibliographical preparation, and documentary publication.
The preparation of excellent regional histories and microhistories got a boost as the century
progressed by the opening of many new scholarly institutions in all of the Mexican states.
One of the most remarkable historical endeavors undertaken in Mexico in the post-
war era was the project of Daniel Cosío Villegas. In the late 1940s, he began work on an
ambitious, multivolume history of modern Mexico. Twenty-five years later the ninth and
final volume appeared, and the project had received acclaim as one of the most innova-
tive Latin American historical enterprises of the twentieth century. The Historia moderna de
México covers the years from the restoration of the republic in 1867 to the outbreak of the
revolution, with separate volumes treating the political, economic, social, and international
aspects of the period. Cosío planned the project with extreme care, founding in 1950 the
Seminar on Modern Mexican History at El Colegio de México. This workshop brought to-
gether talented researchers who, under Cosío’s direction, prepared extensive bibliographies;
compiled statistical data; searched out the major manuscripts, printed documentation, and
newspapers; and cooperated in the production of the finished volumes. Based on scientific
research, the main thesis that connected the work attributed the birth of modern Mexico to
the restored republic rather than to the Porfiriato or the revolution.
In the period from 1940 to 1982, Mexico’s identity as a modernizing and internation-
ally connected nation underwent chaotic shifts from the Mexican economic “miracle” to the
brutality of the state and its aftermath. The student challenge to patrimonial authoritarianism
was answered by the tragedy of Tlatelolco, effectively obliterating the government myths of
an imagined harmonious national community and a contented revolutionary family. While
state-controlled radio and television strengthened their national monopoly on the commer-
cial fabrication of culture, artistic performances and production, along with transnational mass
media and foreign influences, refashioned the official story. Debates over cultural authenticity
could not overshadow the creative efforts by Mexicans to understand and transform their lives.
Arreola, Juan José. Confabulario and Other Inventions. Translated by George D. Shade. Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1974.
Benjamin, Thomas. La Revolución: Mexico’s Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History. Austin: University
de Beer, Gabriella. Contemporary Mexican Women Writers: Five Voices. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
Cuevas, José Luis, “The Cactus Curtain.” Special issue, “Eye of Mexico,” Evergreen Review 2/7 (1959): 11–20.
Eagan, Linda. Carlos Monsiváis: Culture and Chronicle in Contemporary Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 2001.
Flaherty, George. Hotel Mexico: Dwelling on the ‘68 Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016
Florescano, Enrique. National Narratives in Mexico: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.
Fuentes, Carlos. The Death of Artemio Cruz. Translated by Sam Hileman. New York: Noonday Press, 1966.
. Where the Air Is Clear. Translated by Sam Hileman. New York: Ivan Obolensky, 1960.
Goldman, Shifra M. Contemporary Mexican Painting in a Time of Change. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.
Gutiérrez, Natividad. Nationalist Myths and Ethnic Identities: Indigenous Intellectuals and the Mexican State.
Hale, Charles A. “The Liberal Impulse: Daniel Cosío Villegas and the Historia moderna de México.” Hispanic
American Historical Review 54/3 (1974): 479–98.
Hall, Linda B. Dolores del Rio: Beauty in Light and Shade. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
Irwin, Robert McKee. Mexican Masculinities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Jorgensen, Beth E. The Writings of Elena Poniatowska: Emerging Dialogues. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
Joseph, Gilbert M., Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov, eds. Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture
in Mexico since 1940. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.
Lahr-Vivaz, Elena. Mexican Melodrama: Film and Nation from the Golden Age to the New Wave. Tucson: Uni-
Lerner, Jesse. The Maya of Modernism: Art, Architecture, and Film. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 2011.
Levi, Heather. The World of Lucha Libre. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008.
Lewis, Oscar. The Children of Sánchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family. New York: Vintage Books, 1961.
Lipp, Solomon. Leopoldo Zea: From Mexicanidad to a Philosophy of History. Waterloo, ON, Canada: Wilfrid
Laurier University Press, 1980.
Lomnitz-Adler, Claudio. Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism. Minneapolis: Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press, 2001.
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Press, 2009.
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Grove Press, 1961.
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PART
11
CRISIS AND CHANGE IN AN
ERA OF GLOBALIZATION
C HA PTER 37
THE NEO-LIBERAL STATE: A PATH TO

DEMOCRACY?
MIGUEL DE LA MADRID: FROM CRISIS TO CRISIS, 1982–88
When forty-seven-year-old Miguel de la Madrid was told that he had won the Mexican presi-
dency, he reportedly quipped to a friend, “Fraud, fraud!” If he did utter those words, one
could scarcely have blamed him. He faced the sobering prospect of inheriting the leadership
of a country beset with economic problems so serious that they threatened to disrupt the
social order. The ensuing months would set the country on a new path.
Educated at the National University of Mexico and subsequently at Harvard University,
Miguel de la Madrid’s rise to his country’s highest office was nothing short of meteoric.
Despite his relative youth, his formal education and previous experience in public adminis-
tration prepared him better for the tasks that lay ahead than most of his twentieth-century
predecessors. He had campaigned on a firm pledge of moral renovation, a promise to elimi-
nate the corruption so endemic in the Mexican public sector. During his first year in office,
revelations of corruption during the administration of López Portillo were carried in the
front pages of the press almost on a daily basis. Although President de la Madrid did not
prosecute his predecessor, he did strike out against other high-ranking government officials.
In one spectacular case, Jorge Díaz Serrano, the former director of Petróleos Mexicanos
(PEMEX), was indicted for embezzlement of $43 million. Díaz Serrano was convicted and
sentenced to a ten-year jail term.
Even more outrageous were the alleged crimes of Arturo Durazo, Mexico City’s chief of
police and a friend of López Portillo since childhood. “El Negro Durazo” was charged with
fifty murders, trafficking in drugs, and extortion of superlative proportions. His luxurious
residence in the coastal resort of Zihuatanejo was nicknamed “The Parthenon,” to which it
bore some resemblance. His palatial home near Mexico City came complete with its own
discotheque, modeled after New York City’s famous Studio 54. Weekend guests, flown to
the $2.5 million estate in police helicopters, marveled at Durazo’s string of race horses,
nineteen collector’s automobiles, casino, gymnasium, and cellar of vintage wines. Not even
the most shrewd businessmen, they opined, could have accumulated this kind of fortune
527
528 crisis and change in an era of globalization
on a government salary of $65 per week. But Durazo escaped prosecution by fleeing the
country prior to the order for his arrest; after legal delays, he was finally extradited in 1986
and subsequently convicted. The victories in the two cases were largely symbolic as Mexicans
knew that the battle against governmental malfeasance had scarcely been won. The country’s
comptroller general synopsized the issue perfectly when he stated that Mexican corruption
was like garbage: it had to be removed daily.
An equally persistent dilemma was the country’s deepening economic crisis. The peso
began to slip against the dollar in 1984 and then began a veritable plunge on the free
market. Many stood in disbelief as it plummeted from 150 to 200 and then to 380 to the
dollar during the summer of 1985, but the bottom had not been reached. By autumn 1986,
currency houses and money brokers along the United States-Mexico border were exchanging
the peso at an incredible 800 to 1. The year 1987 was even more catastrophic for the peso.
When the year opened it took 950 pesos to purchase a dollar, but by December the exchange
rate was an incredible 2,300 to 1. The relationship between the two countries’ currencies was
so out of kilter in the summer of 1987 that a US tourist could ride the Mexico City metro
over two thousand times for one dollar or make ten thousand calls on a pay phone for the
same amount.
Mexico’s foreign debt under Miguel de la Madrid grew in geometric proportion. Although
the president succeeded in arranging a rescheduling of payments on the debt, the pressure
on him was tremendous. Political parties, campesino groups, and labor unions of the left,
following the lead of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, urged him to repudiate the debt or at a minimum
to declare a unilateral moratorium on repayment. De la Madrid agreed that the interest rates
being paid on Mexico’s debt were excessive, but realized the necessity of rekindling some
Elected in July 1982, Miguel de la Madrid succeeded

López Portillo as president. He recognized that he
would face difficult times but could not have predicted
that the country was on the verge of economic collapse.
The Neo-Liberal State: A Path to Democracy? 529
degree of confidence in the world’s banking community and financial markets. He opted for
economic austerity, not repudiation.
Responding to pressures from the International Monetary Fund, de la Madrid not only
curtailed many new projects but also announced sweeping cuts in social spending, reduc-
tions in federal subsidies for foodstuffs and rents, the sale of inefficient and unprofitable
state-owned enterprises, and a freeze on federal employment. Using the considerable influ-
ence of the presidential office, he did his best to limit the size of wage increases in the labor
force and he eliminated thousands of federal jobs. The economic reforms began a process
that would subsequently burgeon under the rubric of neoliberalism, the economic and po-
litical philosophy stressing trade liberalization, privatization of state-owned enterprises, re-
ductions in social service spending, and economic deregulation. Under de la Madrid, Mexico
joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and sold off some seven hundred com-
panies, owned or partially owned by the government.
As the country struggled economically, suddenly tragedy struck during the morning rush
hour on September 19, 1985, as Mexico City paid the price of sitting at the juncture of
three of the earth’s tectonic plates. An earthquake registering in excess of 8 on the Richter
Scale devastated the capital, leaving as many as ten thousand dead, many more injured, and
damage estimated at $4 billion. Several hundred buildings collapsed and thousands were
damaged, leaving multitudes of people homeless, without food or water. When the de la
Madrid administration responded at a snail’s pace, Mexican citizens organized grassroots
organizations to dig themselves out of the disaster. International relief arrived, after initial
hesitancy on the part of the government to receive it. Nonetheless, many analysts believe
that the earthquake served as a catalyst for the emergence of an embryonic civil society in
Mexico. A plethora of groups began to advocate for democratic reforms to the bankrupt
In late 1987 when it took eleven thousand five hundred twenty-centavo pieces to buy one US dollar, Mexicans
simply refused to carry the hefty coin. Enterprising owners of hardware stores in Sonora devised an imaginative
solution. Not concerned about defacing national currency, they drilled holes in the middle of the coins and
found brisk business in the good-quality washers.
Damage in Mexico City was extensive, and the

clean-up task monumental, after the earthquake
of September 19, 1985.
political system, women’s and indigenous rights, affordable housing, and environmental
protections. Although most of these organizations and alliances did not sustain themselves
vigorously over time, civil society continued to organize at subsequent moments of crisis.
The last years of the de la Madrid administration saw Mexico slip deeper and deeper
into the economic morass. In addition to the collapse of the peso, inflation soared to un-
precedented heights. Official inflation rates, released by Mexico’s Central Bank, reported
63.7 percent in 1985, 105.7 percent in 1986, and 159 percent in 1987. The person on the
street swore that the actual figures were even higher. Increases in the cost of gasoline, corn,
wheat, and electricity led the assault on the consumer price index, but no product or ser-
vice emerged unscathed. The only thing that matched the rapid rise in prices was the rapid
growth of the foreign debt. When de la Madrid left office in December 1988, the Mexican
government owed foreigners a whopping $105 billion in outstanding debts.
U N I T E D S TAT E S - M E X I C O R E L AT I O N S
Two major problems defying easy solution dominated United States-Mexico relations in the
1970s and 1980s. Both of them concerned movement across the common border, and both
of them had national significance that transcended the international line that divides the
two countries.
Since the 1950s, the United States-Mexico border region has witnessed one of the most
profound demographic shifts in world history not conditioned by either war or epidemic
disease. The result of a high birthrate and massive northern migration in Mexico and the
equally telling Sunbelt phenomenon in the United States, the population soared on both
sides of the border. In 1940, only about 16 million persons occupied the four US and six
Mexican states that share the international line. At the beginning of 1990, the estimated pop-
ulation of the same ten states had risen to over 60 million. The dramatic swell has not only
dominated day-to-day human relations of the region but also drives international relations
as well. The border between the countries is permeable, and not only to people. Disease,
polluted water, contaminated air, and drugs, to cite but a few examples, refuse to respect
the artificial line drawn by nineteenth-century politicians to ratify the work of nineteenth-
century generals.
Of the major problems growing out of a common international boundary, the most pro-
tracted centers on the undocumented worker. Beginning in the 1970s unemployment, un-
deremployment, persistent poverty, and the undeniable lure of the United States prompted
hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers to cross the border illegally into the United
States each year in pursuit of gainful employment. The number of undocumented workers
in the United States continued to grow throughout the 1980s.
The undocumented worker phenomenon became an emotionally charged topic that pre-
cipitated much national and international debate. Everyone agreed that the United States
had the right to enforce its immigration laws and to regulate entries into the country. But
there was no consensus on precisely what should be done and how. US anti-immigrant
groups argued that Mexicans were a drain on US social services and that they took jobs away
from Americans by working for such low wages. A broad range of labor organizations in the
United States began calling for tighter controls, while an equally broad spectrum of employ-
ers, in both rural and urban areas, favored the maintenance of the status quo.
A solution of sorts was reached in 1986 when the US Congress passed the Immigra-
tion Reform and Control Act (the Simpson-Rodino Act). The main features of the legisla-
tion provided for a tighter enforcement of immigration policy, sanctions against those who
knowingly employed undocumented workers, and an amnesty for those workers who could
establish continued residence in the United States since 1982. But Simpson-Rodino did
not solve the undocumented worker problem because it addressed only those factors that
pulled the Mexican workers toward the United States, ignoring those that pushed them out
of Mexico. The undocumented continued to come, as there was no shortage of US employers
willing to offer work despite threatened sanctions. The fundamental problems remained. In
1989, Jorge Bustamante, Mexico’s leading border specialist, reported that earnings sent back
to Mexico by undocumented workers totaled $1.25 billion annually, making this source of
income the country’s third largest source of foreign exchange.
The second problem that plagued the generally good relations between Washington, DC
and Mexico City, and that contributed to a politically charged atmosphere, was the unremit-
ting flow of drugs across the United States-Mexico border. The smuggling of contraband
between the two countries certainly was nothing new. Arms and ammunition, automo-
biles, trucks, agricultural equipment, household items, and scores of other products had
long evaded the eyes, regulations, and taxing authority of the customs agents. What made
the problem so volatile in the late 1980s was the especially insidious nature of the illegal
cargo. The international drug traffic, both sides agreed, not only left its legacy of abuse and
dependence but also fostered an entire host of parasitic crimes, especially in the border
region. A uthorities from the two countries, however, agreed on little else. The public was
soon treated to the most bizarre misapplication of the theories of the Scottish economist
Adam Smith: US officials found the problem to be simply one of supply, while their Mexican
counterparts more accurately retorted that it was simply one of demand.
Following the murder of US Drug Enforcement Administrative agent Enrique Camarena
near Guadalajara, in 1986 and 1987 the US Congress held formal hearings on terrorism and
drugs. These hearings prompted the most intemperate statements on Mexico’s alleged lack
of cooperation on the drug issue despite indications to the contrary from the US ambassador
in Mexico City. By 1988, Mexico-bashing had become a favorite pastime of those who could
think of no other reasons for the US failure to win its much publicized war on drugs. In that
year, the US Senate failed to certify Mexico for economic assistance because it was not doing
enough to intercept the flow of drugs before they crossed the border.
As Mexico was about to enter the last decade of the twentieth century, a steadily increas-
ing number of its citizens had become disillusioned with pervasive corruption and with pol-
itics as usual. Nongovernmental organizations that coalesced after the disastrous earthquake
had introduced new actors into the political stage calling for electoral and social reforms.
At the same time, the shift to neoliberalism in the age of globalization had not reduced pov-
erty and social inequities. Some PRI activists began to call for major change even if they were
unsure where the path might lead. Together with fellow Mexicans of the opposition parties
they would have an answer sooner than anticipated.
T H E E L E C T I O N S O F 1 9 8 8 A N D O V E R T U R E S T O D E M O C R AT I Z AT I O N
The 1980s were a decade of democratization or redemocratization throughout much of

Latin America. In most of the region, this phenomenon meant replacing military dictator-
ships with civilian governments chosen in an open or a relatively open electoral process. In
Mexico, democratization was something different. The army had ceased to call the political
shots in Mexican politics decades earlier. Democratization in Mexico meant opening up the
political system, recognizing that it had systemic weaknesses, and making it more responsive
to the Mexican citizenry. The process was far from innocuous, for it meant that the influen-
tial political bosses in the country would have to share their power with others.
Not new to the 1980s, because of Mexico’s unique twentieth-century experience, one
political party had gained almost absolute electoral dominance. This official party, under
different names, had won every election for president and every election for the thirty-one
governorships since 1929. If an occasional member of an opposition party could be found
occupying a seat in the national congress, it was most likely because Mexico’s electoral law
permitted the seating of a limited number of defeated candidates based on the percentage
of votes cast for their respective parties in the last election. For most, presidential elections
meant little more than a meaningless ritual.
As the official party became synonymous with the government, and thus commanded
huge resources as well as incredible patronage, elections became a farce. In Mexico’s one-
party democracy, citizens, for all practical purposes, were denied the element of choice. The
most influential television news program in the country, Televisa’s Twenty-Four Hours, hosted
for almost three decades by newscaster Jacobo Zabludovsky, largely supported the Partido
Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and the government. Similarly, much of the print press
Jacobo Zabludovsky was Mexico’s lead newscaster for

almost 30 years. He died in Mexico City in 2015.
exhibited little independence. Excélsior, a newspaper that had been founded with the revolu-
tion in 1917, gradually lost public confidence for its timid approach to government criticism,
even when official scandals begged for full disclosure. Government control of the media was
most often achieved informally through bribes and threats, but some independent newspa-
pers emerged, including La Jornada, founded in 1984 by Carlos Payán.
In the 1980s, several opposition parties (conservative in the north and leftist in the
south), capitalizing on increasing dissatisfaction with the performance of the official party,
began to score some modest victories in state and local elections. With some regularity, the
official party overturned the electoral results and had its own candidates installed in office.
In this process, the PRI increasingly lost legitimacy. Even more significant were the prolif-
erating civil society groups—nongovernmental organizations that had turned away from
the Mexican state, especially after the 1985 earthquake, to deal with a host of political and
social issues. The growing challenges to the system were clearly evident in the presidential
elections of 1988.
The Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) and its presidential candidate, Manuel Clouthier,
a millionaire industrialist, articulated the conservative position. Clouthier ran on a platform
calling for a closer relationship with the United States, a more limited role for the govern-
ment in the economy, a more vigorous private sector and, of course, an end to electoral
fraud by the PRI. The leftist opposition came from Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the son of former
president Lázaro Cárdenas and a previous PRI governor of Michoacán. Cárdenas, who had
harbored presidential ambitions for some time, broke with the official party over the issue
of how presidential candidates were chosen as well as the question of the extent to which
Mexico would have to adhere to neoliberal economics. He ran on the ticket of the Corriente
Democrática, a coalition that temporarily united a broad spectrum of leftist parties. Cárde-
nas agreed with Clouthier on one platform plank—the need to bring an end to the PRI’s
electoral fraud—but differed sharply on other issues. He called for greater independence
from the United States and a move away from the PRI’s neoliberal policies.
The PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, epitomized the successful technocrat. He
had earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard University and in the de la Madrid cabi-
net was secretary of planning and budget. For the first time in recent memory, the press gave
extensive coverage to the opposition. Election day surprised even the most astute political
observers. The election was close enough for all three candidates to claim victory. Salinas
ultimately was declared the winner in an election most probably stolen from Cárdenas,
who appeared to be leading the vote count. A sudden computer crash stopped the vote tal-
lying for several days. When the result was announced, Salinas was declared the winner by
a narrow margin. The political stock of PRI had fallen so precipitously that Salinas barely
received a majority of the votes cast. The notion of a credible opposition was no longer a
whimsical delusion.
The democratizing process continued during the gubernatorial elections of 1989. In
an electoral result that shocked everyone, PAN candidate Ernesto Ruffo won the governor-
ship of Baja California Norte. In the first test of his pledge to fair elections, President Sali-
nas accepted the outcome. More change followed. In 1991 blatant electoral fraud cost PRI
candidates two additional governorships in the states of Guanajuato and San Luis Potosí.
100
100
90 89
85
80 72
60
Percentage
50
40
20
0
1958 1964 1970 1976 1982 1988
Lopez Diaz Eche– Lopez de la Salinas
Mateos Ordaz verria Portillo Madrid de Gortari
Mexican Presidential Elections, 1958–88: PRI Candidates’ Percentage of Votes
The Chihuahua governorship fell to PAN candidate Francisco Barrios, the former mayor of
Ciudad Juárez in 1992. The president even endorsed a series of political reforms long called
for by his political opposition. These included regulation of party finances, limits on cam-
paign expenditures, and greater access to news outlets by opposition parties. Mexican politi-
cal culture had begun a metamorphosis that would culminate in startling fashion in 2000.
SALINAS AND NEOLIBERALISM
The political education of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, like that of many recently elected heads
of state throughout the world, was grounded in a new vocabulary of neoliberal reform.
The Berlin Wall collapsed, as did the communist experiment in Eastern Europe. The Soviet
Union and Yugoslavia fell apart just as East and West Germany fell together. Fear of nuclear
apocalypse no longer dominated political discourse. And most surprising of all, formerly
socialist countries began to embrace what had previously been considered the capitalist
demon. With Mexico’s economic position so deteriorated, President Salinas decided that it
was time for Mexico, too, to begin marching to a new cadence.
Neoliberal policies, already underway, became the bedrock of the Salinas administra-
tion. Fundamentally an antisocialist doctrine, neo-liberalism championed the free market
by placing stringent limits on government regulation of economic forces. It enshrined com-
petition, favored free trade as the natural response to the new global economy, and argued
that corporations should be given greater independence. Government subsidies for food
and transportation should be severely restricted, and trade unions should be more modest
in their demands. In short, neoliberalism represented an unambiguous rejection of the solu-
tions Mexico had tested since 1917.
Salinas began to exorcise the ghosts of Mexico’s anticlerical past. The process culminated
in the president’s memorable audience with Pope John Paul II and, in 1992, with the res-
toration of diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Vatican. Those relations had been
severed for 130 years. Then came amendments to the Constitution of 1917 that legalized
public religious celebrations, allowed the church to own property again, permitted religious
schools, and welcomed foreign priests to preach on Mexican soil.
Nor were labor rights sacrosanct. During his second month in office, Salinas struck out
against the powerful oil workers’ union and arrested its leader, Joaquín Hernández Galicia,
better known by his pseudonym, La Quina. To labor’s outrage, the president answered that
La Quina and his two leading associates had been arrested because of fraud and corruption
in union activities, but some saw the dramatic move as an object lesson to other union lead-
ers who might demand more on the wage front than the government was willing to concede.
A few months later the president moved against the dock workers’ union in Veracruz. Not
yet finished, in January 1992 Salinas ordered the arrest of labor leader Agapito González
Cavazos, charging him with tax evasion. It seemed no accident that this arrest occurred only
one day before González Cavazos’s Union of Journeymen and Industrial Workers was sched-
uled to go on strike against thirty-three maquiladora plants owned mainly by US interests.
Early in the administration the president began mild criticism of the ejido system, the
sacred cow of agrarian reformers since the early 1920s. In one speech he had the temerity
to call the ejidos unproductive and ultimately concluded that they had been a failure. They
no longer represented the hope of a prosperous future for the nation’s campesinos; rather,
they were the cause of rural poverty. They explained why Mexico in the 1990s was not self-
sufficient in food production and why rural income was only one-third that of the remain-
der of the country.
Land redistribution, for Salinas, was a bankrupt solution to a problem with roots in
Mexico’s ancient past. Its importance as a mechanism to bring social justice to impoverished
campesinos had long been overshadowed by lack of agricultural productivity. New laws, un-
thinkable just a decade earlier, followed quickly. Challenging the sacrosanctity of Article 27
of the Constitution of 1917, they provided for the private ownership of lands formerly owned
by the ejidos. Not only did campesinos get title to their land, but for the first time in the
twentieth century, they could trade it, mortgage it, rent it, or even sell it.
All the changes were predicated on a neoliberal reassessment of the proper role of gov-
ernment in addressing society’s ills. As Mexico looked toward the twenty-first century, it was
clear that the state would exercise a more constricted role than it had in the past. Salinas
attributed much of Mexico’s economic dilemma to an exaggerated statism, which had seen
the government move into the private sector and acquire ownership and control of over one
thousand private companies. These the president began to privatize. By early 1992, over
85 percent of them had been sold back to the private sector. Among the economic giants
quickly purchased by consortia of private investors were BANAMEX (Banco Nacional de
México) and BANCOMER (Banco de Comercio), Mexico’s two largest banks, and TELMEX
(Teléfonos de México), the country’s only telephone company. The latter was bought by
Carlos Slim Helú, the son of Lebanese immigrants, initiating his climb to become Mexico’s
and eventually one of the world’s wealthiest men. Other investors grabbed up government
steel companies, hotels, sugar refineries, steel mills, and mines. Only a few government con-
cerns such as Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), considered crucial to national security, were
excluded from divestiture proceedings.
The shift to a free market economy enabled Salinas to lower Mexican inflation to a toler-
able 10 percent by 1993 and to reduce Mexico’s foreign debt by some $25 billion. But it also
served another purpose as an integral part of a calculated policy to foster a closer relation-
ship with the United States. From the outset Salinas believed that Mexico’s economic mal-
aise could best be addressed by the successful conclusion of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada. Salinas and his supporters argued
that the agreement would herald more capital investment and as a result more well-paying
jobs for Mexicans and a more powerful voice for Mexico in international diplomacy. Ulti-
mately this position carried the day. Aware that Europe would formally enter into its own
common market on January 1, 1993, President Salinas, President George H. W. Bush, and
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney believed that only a new, large, combined North
American market would be competitive. The three signed NAFTA just as Salinas reached the
midpoint of his presidential term and shortly before President Bush turned over the White
House to Bill Clinton. By the fall of 1993, free trade had become the centerpiece of the
Salinas administration. Nevertheless, opposition from labor unions and environmentalists
in the United States made passage by the US Congress a challenge, but NAFTA did pass in
November 1993.
To soften the impact of neoliberal restructuring, the Salinas administration implemented
anti-poverty programs. PRONASOL (National Solidarity Program, 1989) awarded funding
to communities for local projects, for example, to supply clean drinking water or pave roads,
as long as they paid some of the cost or contributed labor. Corruption and manipulation
of these funds for political ends meant that only about half of them actually reached their
intended destinations. PROCAMPO (1993) offered direct subsidies to farmers in an effort
to counter the same kinds of payments long enjoyed by US farmers. These programs did not
succeed in stemming widespread social discontent, as the country was shocked to learn on
the day NAFTA was due to go into effect.
On January 1, 1994, a serious antigovernment rebellion broke out in the southern state of
Chiapas. The rebels demanded agrarian and educational reforms as well as respect for indig-
enous rights. Led by a charismatic commander who called himself simply Sub-Comandante
Marcos, a Maya Indian army, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), attacked
army outposts and captured several towns including San Cristóbal de las Casas, the second
largest city in the state. President Salinas sent army troops, rocket-equipped aircraft, and
helicopter gun ships to engage the rebels; but ultimately negotiations conducted under the
auspices of Bishop Samuel Ruiz—not military might—restored a tenuous peace. The rebel-
lion focused national attention on an ethnic group and a region of the country unfulfilled
by the promises of the revolution. Subsequently in 1997, paramilitary troops massacred
forty-five people in the town of Acteal, mostly women and children, demonstrating that
local landowners had no problem ignoring the peace accords and would continue to repress
those demanding social justice and indigenous autonomy.
A still greater shock to the Mexican body politic and to the country’s self-image occurred
in March 1994. The attractive and energetic PRI candidate for president, Luis Donaldo
Colosio, campaigning on a platform to make his party more responsive to the people, was
assassinated during a campaign appearance in the border city of Tijuana. Conspiracy theo-
ries, reminiscent of those in the United States following on the heels of the assassination
of John F. Kennedy thirty years earlier, surfaced everywhere: in the press, in television com-
mentaries, in the classrooms, and in coffee shop conversation. While the evidence suggested
that a single, perhaps deranged, gunman, Mario Aburto Martínez, fired the shots, many
Sub-Comandante Marcos, leader of the Chiapas rebellion in early 1994, is wearing the mask that was the emblem
of the rebels. Symbolically the masks represented the faceless indigenous populations of Mexico, but in a more
practical sense they afforded the protections of anonymity.
believed that his actions were part of a wider, politically motivated plot hatched either by
the PRI old guard or “dinosaurs” who opposed reforms within the party, or by Salinas him-
self. A second political assassination a few months later was equally disquieting but initially
commanded less attention. José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the second highest ranking official
in the PRI and majority leader-elect in the senate, was shot to death outside a Mexico City
hotel. The murdered politician’s brother, Mario Ruiz Massieu, served as Mexico’s deputy at-
torney general, and President Salinas placed him in charge of the investigation. Ultimately it
would be this killing, not the Colosio assassination, that would carry public scandal to new
heights in the months and years ahead.
TRYING TO KEEP ON COURSE
To replace Colosio, the PRI chose Ernesto Zedillo, a career public official and like his prede-
cessor an economist educated in the Ivy League. His campaign speeches signaled that he too
would promote neo-liberal policies. A rising tide, he suggested, lifts all boats, a concept not
comforting to those without a boat. The election was close. The conservative PAN candidate
ran a better race than expected but the left, now organized in the Partido Revolutionario
Democrático (PRD), earned only 17 percent of the vote; Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas was unable
to capitalize on his 1988 popularity. Ernesto Zedillo came out ahead but for the second time
in a row the winner of the presidential sweepstakes barely garnered 50 percent of the popu-
lar vote. Rather than evidence of general public acclaim, the narrow victory suggested that
voters were looking for stability in the uncertain climate of economic difficulties, political
assassinations, and the insecurity provoked by the Chiapas uprising.
Zedillo’s first months in office coincided with a series of new pressures on the Mexican econ-
omy that saw the peso once again begin to slide rapidly against the dollar. It lost 46 percent of its
value between December 1994 and January 1995 and continued to fall for the next two months.
At the same time the Mexican bolsa (the stock market) collapsed in brisk trading. Businesses
closed down and banks began foreclosing on urban and rural properties. Even the state-owned
bus company, called Route 101, went into bankruptcy. Inflation, under control for several years,
began to rise once again. Interest rates soared, reaching a usurious 100 percent in some areas,
and hundreds of thousands lost jobs. Once again, Mexico implemented austerity measures.
Seeking to cast blame elsewhere, President Zedillo uncovered another mariner’s meta-
phor. He claimed that his administration had inherited a leaking boat from his predecessor.
A truculent Salinas fired back with his own broadside, charging the new administration with
gross mismanagement of the economy. The broad panorama of economic pressures com-
bined with the continuing insurgency in Chiapas had eroded investor confidence. A tainted
PRI gubernatorial “victory” in the state of Chiapas continued to subvert the appeal of Mexico’s
brand of democracy and reminded its citizens of the still desperate need for political reform.
Realizing the international implications of another Mexican economic collapse, US Presi-
dent Bill Clinton urged a $40 billion loan to rescue the Mexican peso. Political pressures in
the United States prompted a reduction to $20 billion, but once extended that sizable loan
guarantee, coupled with a series of difficult and unpopular economic reforms, slowed fur-
ther devaluations of the peso and helped Zedillo place his country on a stabilization path.
The vast majority of those who lost their jobs during the economic crisis found new ones as
inflation was reduced and the peso stabilized. In 1997 Mexico recorded a 7 percent rate of
economic growth. Zedillo opened Mexico’s natural gas sector to private investment and cre-
ated a private pension system. His program to alleviate poverty by providing cash payments
to families in exchange for regular school attendance, health clinic visits, and nutritional sup-
port achieved some successful and was emulated in subsequent administrations under the
title Oportunidades. The president also scored one additional victory, even though it proved
short-lived. By the late fall of 1995, utilizing a skillful combination of diplomacy and mili-
tary force, he persuaded the rebels in Chiapas to lay down their arms and work for political
solutions to their genuine grievances. Unfortunately, negotiations subsequently stalled.
In another political arena, the government accepted PAN victories in several guberna-
torial races. The conservative opposition captured the governorship of Guanajuato and a
second consecutive governorship in Baja California Norte. Faced with the reality that the PRI
monopoly was ending, the president worked hard to convince his fellow Mexicans of his
commitment to true democracy and the rule of law. Not initially successful in this daunting
task, nor in tallying notable breakthroughs in Mexico’s long war against the country’s drug
lords, he first tried reorganizing special police units designed to carry out the battle and then
created a new federal police force to do the same. However, the vast sums of money available
to the traffickers enabled them to infiltrate police organizations, bribe high officials, and
carry out their nefarious activities almost with impunity.
In many ways Zedillo’s biggest problem, the one that most eroded confidence in the
system and rendered consensus impossible, was a public scandal that made even the most
confirmed Mexican skeptic blush and turn away in disbelief.
T H E TA L E O F F O U R B R O T H E R S
The news of intrigue, corruption, big money, narcopolitics, and murder that began to surface in
February 1995 resulted in the arrest of the former president’s brother, Raúl Salinas de Gortari.
Charged with masterminding and paying $300,000 for the murder of José Francisco Ruiz Mas-
sieu in September 1994, he was sent to the high-security Almoloya prison to await trial.
As the melodrama was pieced together, the Mexican public learned that Ruiz Massieu
was the former brother-in-law of Carlos and Raúl Salinas de Gortari, having been married
to their sister Adriana. Could it be that the president’s brother ordered the assassination of
their former brother-in-law? Carlos Salinas protested his brother’s innocence, claimed that
the arrest of his brother was unjustified, and even staged a short hunger strike to drive home
his point. Few Mexicans found solace in the ex-president’s protestations, especially when they
learned that the first official he had placed in charge of the investigation, Mario Ruiz Massieu,
the slain politician’s brother, had not pursued the investigation vigorously and perhaps even
directed a cover-up. In March 1995 Ruiz Massieu fled to the United States, and although he
successfully resisted extradition to Mexico, investigations revealed he had accumulated mil-
lions of dollars during his term of office, with the proceeds coming largely from Mexican
drug lords. Ruiz Massieu committed suicide in his New Jersey apartment in September 1999.
The detailed investigation into the activities of Raúl Salinas alleged even greater miscon-
duct. In addition to the charge of murder, investigators uncovered evidence of his direct links
to both the Gulf coast and Pacific coast drug cartels. He also allegedly accepted huge payments
for arranging private access to the president. His corrupt activities earned him the sobriquet
Señor Diez Porciento (Mr. Ten Percent), the usual “commission” he charged for facilitating
the receipt of lucrative government contracts. President Salinas’s massive privatization of prof-
itable government-owned companies provided his brother with the opportunity to amass a
fortune amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars deposited in 48 different bank accounts.
The embarrassed former president felt the heat from the beginning and withdrew his
name from consideration for the directorship of the World Trade Organization, a prestigious
international position that most assuredly would have been his. In March 1995, he went into
self-imposed exile, living for short periods in the United States and Canada before taking
up a longer residence in Ireland. Political cartoonists in both Mexico and the United States
had a field day, and dolls depicting the former president, bald, big-eared, and in striped
prison clothes, were sold by outdoor vendors on almost every street corner of the capital.
T-shirts showing him waving good-bye to Mexico with his middle finger extended could not
be manufactured quickly enough to meet the eager demand. From the Zócalo to the Zona
Rosa street performers lampooned the former president, his presidency, the press that had
supported him, and the sycophants who had surrounded him.
Eventually, in the “trial of the century” of January 1999, Raúl Salinas was found guilty as
charged and given fifty years in prison. His conviction did not bring closure to the political
speculation about the tawdry episode, especially when an appeals court later reduced the
After capturing the mayoralty of Mexico City, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is mobbed by his supporters on election night.
Those supporters who anticipated that the triumph presaged a future presidential victory would be disappointed.
sentence to 27.5 years on a technicality. Mexicans could not rid themselves of the perception
that Carlos Salinas must have been implicated in some way.
Citizens had their first opportunity to register their collective displeasure in the summer
of 1997. Congressional elections and six gubernatorial contests were scheduled for July 6.
In addition, for the first time in history, Mexico City residents could vote for their mayor,
heretofore an appointive office. Two open governorships, in the central state of Querétaro
and the northern industrial state of Nuevo León, fell to opposition candidates, but that was
merely the tip of the iceberg. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, twice defeated as a left of center presi-
dential candidate running on the PRD ticket, won the mayoral election of Mexico City. Even
more startling, the PRI lost its congressional majority for the first time in seven decades. If
there was a new mandate, it came from neither the left nor the right. The vote was for change.
While the liberal PRD scored strongly in the capital election, the conservative PAN won the
two opposition governorships and a majority of the opposition congressional seats—an un-
equivocal rejection of the official party concept. Mexicans stood up to be counted and they
said to the dominant party, “Enough!”
When political cartoonists in the United States grew weary of lampooning Whitewater scandals, the fund-raising
imbroglios by both Democrats and Republicans, and alleged sexual improprieties in the Oval Office, they found
tempting targets in Mexico.
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Babb, Sarah. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
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Castañeda, Jorge G. The Mexican Shock: Its Meaning for the United States. New York: New Press, 1995.
Collier, George A. Basta: Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas. Oakland, CA: Institute for Food and
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C HA PTER 38
THE CHALLENGES OF
DEMOCRATIZATION
THE ELECTIONS OF 2000
As a result of the PRI debacle, Mexico’s first presidential election in the new millennium
defied Mexican political memory. President Zedillo kept his pledge to place Mexico on a
true democratic course, and he ultimately paved the way for the defeat of his own party.
Attention focused not on lackluster Francisco Labastida, the candidate of the PRI, or on
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the mayor of the Federal District and head of the PRD ticket, but
on the flamboyant Vicente Fox, running as the candidate of the conservative PAN. Fox, a
prosperous rancher, former chief executive of Coca-Cola de México, and popular governor
of the state of Guanajuato, ran an outstanding campaign. Often appearing at political events
wearing cowboy boots and an open shirt, the physically imposing six-foot-four Fox clearly
sought to break out of the stuffy mold carefully fashioned by generations of official party
candidates. His special chemistry with fellow Mexicans would ultimately pay huge politi-
cal dividends. Fox also benefited from another source of support. Over the previous several
years, the Catholic church had become increasingly active alongside civic groups arguing the
need for democratic reforms, thus strengthening its position as a legitimate moral voice in
the heated atmosphere of political corruption. Middle-class Mexicans who once would have
shied away from the proclerical PAN were no longer so put off by its ties to the church.
Throughout much of the campaign political pollsters had Fox and Labastida in a dead
heat, with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas running a distant third. In a nationally televised April
presidential debate Fox hit hard on seventy years of PRI incompetence, false promises, and
corruption; polls showed he won the debate in a landslide. From that time forward a Fox
presidential victory was no longer unthinkable.
In the months ahead Labastida’s talk of a “new PRI” seemed more and more a contradic-
tion of terms as he was incapable of divorcing himself from the unpopular policies, major
scandals, and minor shenanigans of his predecessors. Mexicans went to the polls in record
numbers on July 2, 2000, and handed the heretofore invincible PRI a stunning defeat. Those
anticipating charges of fraud, electoral intimidation, denial of access to ballots, or unfair
544
The Challenges of Democratization 545
counting of the vote in an attempt to overturn the results would have to await the US presi-
dential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore three months later. The Mexican presi-
dential election of 2000 was relatively clean and, unlike in the United States, the country
would not have to endure months of electoral uncertainty.
In his finest hour, President Ernesto Zedillo addressed the nation, acknowledging
the Fox victory and pledging a smooth transition. For the first time in seventy-one years
Mexico’s president would not represent the PRI, and the revolutionary myth-making ma-
nipulated by the official party would come to an end. Most historians agree that social
reform provisions of the Constitution of 1917 were implemented, intermittently and in
varying intensity, until 1940. These advances beg the question of whether social progress
would have occurred without the revolution. As progress waned, in order to garner support,
government rhetoric invoked patriotic revolutionary nationalism in memory, myth, and in-
vention as a hegemonic tool long after the 1930s to garner support. Most Mexicans viewed
it as a sham long before Salinas jettisoned the façade in 1988. As the twenty-first century
dawned, the reality that social priorities had languished in favor of economic development
could not be denied. Furthermore, authoritarian political corruption and mismanagement
had contributed to widening the gap between rich and poor and to denying social jus-
tice for all Mexicans. While jubilant mobs crowded the streets, the stilted distribution of
wealth manifested itself in the millions of illiterate; low wages and high unemployment;
inadequate housing; and insufficient medical care, especially in the rural areas. The indus-
trial and vehicular smog of the Federal District choked the Mexican capital and threatened
health problems of major consequences. One Mexico City suburb, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl,
with a population of more than 3 million, rivaled the largest slums in the world. Children
scavenged in huge garbage dumps, where the stench of despair hung in the air. In the rural
areas, a million campesinos still worked plots too small to sustain themselves and their
families. Well over half of all Mexicans had no access to running water in their places of
Fox (PAN)
Others 42.8%
5.0%
Cardenas (PRD)
16.5%
Labastida (PRI)
35.7%
The 2000 Mexican Presidential Election

residence. Real income declined in the 1980s and 1990s as inflation consistently outran
rises in the minimum wage. Poverty and malnutrition persisted despite increases in caloric
intake, a decline in infant mortality, and a rise in life expectancy. It was small consolation
that for some, opportunities for education and upward mobility had expanded, and more
people had access to higher education.
Inauguration day, December 1, 2000, found Mexicans basking in democratic legitimacy
for the first time in seven decades; and many were optimistic that the transition to democracy
would be accompanied by economic prosperity and social justice, just as Fox had pledged.
On that memorable day the president-elect conducted a bit of unofficial business prior to re-
ceiving the oath of office and donning the red, white, and green presidential sash. He visited
the Basilica of Guadalupe and joined thousands of other worshippers in paying homage to
Mexico’s famous patroness. This symbolic act may have annoyed some secularists, but it was
more emblematic of a state and a church having learned to live with each other despite their
disagreements on social issues.
Vicente Fox’s PAN had moved from the conservative, Catholic party of its origins. Fox’s
early actions showed how the PAN had shifted toward the center of the political spectrum.
Rumors that the new president might further limit already strict abortion rights or priva-
tize PEMEX proved to be unfounded. He refused to endorse the archbishop of Mexico’s
anti-abortion homily, which argued that even in the case of rape women must accept the
mysterious designs of God. Although personally opposed to abortion, the president coun-
tered that he would not introduce any new legislation to change Mexico’s abortion laws.
Similarly, when President George W. Bush suggested that US capitalists might want to invest
in Mexican petroleum, Fox rejected the idea politely. The nationalization of the oil industry
by Lázaro Cárdenas in 1938 was memorialized every year and still considered an epic event
in Mexico’s twentieth-century experience. PEMEX, which accounted for about a third of all
government revenues, was not yet for sale to foreign investors.
In another move to show that his administration would try to play the political middle,
Fox appointed cabinet members from the left and the right. His appointment of Carlos
Abascal—a staunch conservative, pro-industrialist, and Catholic heir to a Cristero family—as
secretary of labor was a concession to the right. At the same time he named Jorge Castañeda,
a leftist intellectual and long-time critic of US relations with Mexico, as secretary of foreign
relations. His appointment to Mexico’s top diplomatic post made it possible for Fox, at least
in the short run, to counter arguments that he might be too pro-American in his foreign
policy, even as he sought to enhance the new market-driven economy and to attract further
US investment.
THE FOX SEXENIO: A LOST OPPORTUNITY?
The optimism that accompanied Mexico’s transition to democracy in electoral terms slowly
eroded over the course of the Fox presidency because of his failure to deliver on campaign
promises, especially those related to economic reform. Some of these shortcomings can be at-
tributed to his own management style as well as ineptness at statecraft and building coalitions
in a situation where his own party did not have a legislative majority. But it was not all his
fault. The opposition to Fox was split between two ideologically divergent parties. Policy grid-
lock became evident early as the PRI and PRD sabotaged a number of his initiatives to reform
the tax structure and the energy sector. Political ineffectiveness became even more pronounced
when the PRI was the major winner in the congressional elections of 2003. Furthermore, the
PRI still controlled a majority of state and local governments as well as union and campesino
corporations, not to mention its ties with de facto powers in the media and business. Not
only did the tensions between the executive and the legislative branches fester and occasion-
ally flare over the next few years, but the PAN and the administration itself were wracked with
internal friction. Because of his attempts to build coalitions, Fox frequently found himself at
odds with his own party. And early investigations into irregularities in his campaign contribu-
tions from a group called Los Amigos de Fox, accused of illegally funneling money from US
donors, made Mexicans question the president’s commitment to fighting corruption.
Abruptly in January 2003, Jorge Castañeda resigned from the cabinet after having been
frustrated in his attempts to improve relations with the United States and to reach an accord
that would ensure fairer treatment for Mexican migrant laborers. Ironically, given his earlier
support for the Cuban Revolution, he had also unsettled Mexico’s close relationship with US
nemesis Fidel Castro. Castañeda was accused of pressuring Castro to make an early exit from
a March 2002 United Nations summit on financing for development held in Monterrey,
Mexico, in order to please the US delegation and President Bush. He also publicly criticized
Cuba for human rights violations and arranged for President Fox to meet with Cuban dis-
sidents on a visit to the island nation. Fox replaced Castañeda with his secretary of economy,
Luis Ernesto Derbez; and other cabinet shuffles and dismissals of high-level officials fol-
lowed in 2003. In May 2004, Fox scolded Energy Secretary Felipe Calderón for appearing to
launch a rival presidential bid, prompting Calderón to leave the government.
The controversies stirring the most gossip about the Fox administration had to do with
“Martita.” Fox married his former spokesperson, Marta Sahagún, exactly a year after taking
office. Like Hillary Clinton in the United States, the outspoken “Martita” stepped beyond
the bounds of activities considered appropriate for a presidential wife. In a move perhaps
more reminiscent of Argentina’s Eva Perón than Hillary Clinton, she created her own phil-
anthropic foundation, Vamos México, and collected millions from the country’s wealthy
for projects destined to help the less privileged. Rumors about her political aspirations to
succeed her husband as president circulated wildly in the press and made her the object of
much derision in political cartoons and rock songs. In 2004, speculation came to an end
after Vamos México was accused of siphoning off funds from the National Lottery. Fox’s own
chief of staff resigned, alleging that the first lady’s political ambitions were out of control and
that Fox was acting like the autocrats who preceded him. Even though the president finally
intervened and announced they would both go home at the end of his term, Marta Sahagún
continued to be a lightning rod. After being criticized for having spent too much public
money on her wardrobe, the well-heeled first lady donated her favorite outfits to charity.
Fox promised to boost Mexico’s annual economic growth to 7 percent. Gridlock and
mini-scandals helped subvert this effort, as did a slowdown in the world economy at the
beginning of his presidency. Annual economic growth was closer to 1 percent than 7, and
certainly less than the 5 percent registered annually between 1996 and 2000. The president’s
proposal to implement a value-added tax on food, medicine, schoolbooks, and educational

fees cost him the support of middle and lower sectors and certainly provided fodder for the
opposition parties, who charged him with ignoring the less privileged. And, in fact, the in-
equities in income distribution grew as the lower and middle sectors slipped while the top
monopolized modest economic growth.
Fox skirted the political problem of privatizing PEMEX, even though it was the most
highly taxed and indebted oil company in the world and unable to meet all of Mexico’s
natural gas and petrochemical needs; but he did push through reforms that allowed for
some private investment in electricity. Although export growth expanded modestly, in
2003 China replaced Mexico as the third largest exporter of goods to the United States.
The president’s pledges to boost employment also encountered difficulties as jobs in the
maquiladoras (also known as maquilas) and the Mexican manufacturing industry declined
or remained stable.
In the area of social services, Mexico was constrained by lending agencies but, even with
slightly higher social spending per capita under the Oportunidades program, the Fox ad-
ministration made few advances in human capital investment that might ultimately boost
productivity—in the areas of education, health, and job training. For many Mexicans, Fox’s
campaign promises to battle the stubborn causes of persistent poverty rang hollow as the
income gap widened. Attempts to orient the school curriculum toward science and technol-
ogy ran into trouble when it looked as if the curricular innovations would displace an em-
phasis on Mexico’s pre-Columbian past, the “pride” of the nation.
The contemporary predicaments of indigenous people were certainly nothing to boast
about. Mexico’s native populations, especially those in the south, counted among the most
impoverished groups in the nation. High infant mortality rates, low life expectancy, mal-
nutrition, and elevated rates of illiteracy pervaded Indian communities. But complicating
their escape from privation was the fact that they also had been victims of systematic racial
discrimination for five centuries. Government programs designed to assist had to be ever
mindful of cultural traditions and value systems now more than ever out of step with neo-
liberal plans for economic growth. In an effort to address the Indian problem throughout
the country, Fox named Xochitl Gálvez, an Otomí Indian and highly successful technical
consultant, to head the Office of Indian Affairs. The resources at her command were small,
however, and the subsequent dismantling of the National Indigenous Institute signaled that
the administration would put its efforts into integrating Indian cultures rather than bolster-
ing communal traditions and solidarity. This direction was also evident in the unfolding of
the Chiapas situation.
The Zapatistas had continued to attract national and international support for their aims
via the Internet, which transmitted the goals of the revolutionary indigenous committees
that formed in local communities. Articulated in their own voices and by spokesperson Mar-
cos’s poetic communiqués, these included rights to land, work, housing, food, health care,
and education, as well as local autonomy, democracy, justice, and peace. The cyber connec-
tion with the outside world had kept the revolt alive and discouraged the government from
taking heavy-handed measures to repress it. During his campaign, Fox had boldly asserted
that he would be able to resolve the Zapatista problem in fifteen minutes. To be sure, his first
efforts in freeing Zapatista prisoners from Mexican jails and reducing the military presence
in Chiapas indicated that he was sincere in his commitment to find a constructive solution.
He also sent to congress legislation proposed by the Zapatistas themselves to give indig-
enous peoples more control over their traditional lands and natural resources. To garner
support for the legislation, the Zapatistas undertook a march from Chiapas to Mexico City
in February and March 2001. They wore their marquee masks but, as previously agreed, left
their arms at home. Indigenous Zapatista leaders and Sub-Comandante Marcos, by this time
revealed to be former university professor Rafael Guillén, addressed a rally of thousands at
the Zócalo, demanding the “people who are the color of the earth” no longer be Mexico’s
forgotten masses.
They wanted to lay their grievances before congress, but many PRI and PAN congress-
men opposed giving them an official forum. After the president pressured legislators to
change their stance, Zapatista leaders, with their spokesperson Marcos conspicuously
absent, appeared on March 28 before a two-hour joint session of congress that was na-
tionally televised. Their chief spokesperson was a Maya Indian woman, Comandante
Esther. She enthralled the viewing audience as she argued fervently and persuasively for
the passage of an Indian rights bill. The impact of her impassioned plea on congress was
more difficult to determine as many Panistas and hard-liners from the PRI boycotted the
session. Ultimately an Indian rights bill passed congress and was incorporated into the
constitution, but it was a greatly watered-down version of Zapatista goals. From their
stronghold in Chiapas, the rebel leaders decried its failure to include the crucial measures
that would give Indians the tools to revive their communities and promote their eco-
nomic well-being. The Zapatista movement remained alive but marginalized throughout
the Fox administration.
Another popular protest arose in May 2006 when teachers in Oaxaca went on strike
demanding better pay as well as programs to help poor schoolchildren. They were sup-
ported by a grassroots organization called the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca
(APPO), which sponsored a number of massive protest marches against the government.
The unpopular PRI governor, Ulíses Ruiz, refused to heed their demands and in June
sent police to remove the protesters from their encampment in the center of Oaxaca City,
provoking a confrontation in which many people were injured and several killed. As the
struggle persisted with more repressive measures by Ruiz, many Mexicans demanded his
resignation. In October the Mexican Senate approved a resolution calling upon the gov-
ernor to step down to help restore law and order; he refused. The situation laid bare the
conundrum of a weak central power; had the PRI still held the presidency, the governor
would have been out in an instant. Nor could civil society fill the power gap. Eventually
the teachers ended the strike; but the state government continued to quash peaceful pro-
test. The impasse had further repercussions in discouraging the tourist economy, a key
source of income for one of Mexico’s most impoverished states. It also pointed up one of
the most serious obstacles to Mexican democracy: a weak system of the rule of law. In most
states, governors appoint prosecutors and judges, making it difficult to bring corrupt or
oppressive officials to justice. Fox had supported efforts to reform the judicial system, but
much remained to be done.
In reality, President Fox never galloped shoulder to shoulder with Sub-Comandante Marcos, but he did create a
political track which made possible the Zapatistas’ slow trot into Mexico City in March 2000.
M E X I C O A N D T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S I N T H E A G E O F T E R R O R I S M
On September 11, 2001, Vicente Fox and millions of his fellow Mexicans stood mesmerized
before television sets watching the horrific terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. With Mexico’s north-
ern neighbor no longer impervious to terrorist assault, the Mexican president was offered
his first opportunity to give tangible meaning to the friendship he had openly professed
since the day of his inauguration. Visibly moved, his response was quick and unambiguous.
His government expressed condolences, pledged solidarity, and categorically rejected all
forms of terrorism. In the days ahead he began actively cooperating with the United States
to strengthen border surveillance and bolster security at the American Embassy in Mexico.
To be sure, a few spokespersons for the Mexican left found in the unspeakable tragedy
an opportunity to berate US foreign policy even while huge plumes of smoke still billowed
from collapsed buildings and thousands were unaccounted for and presumed dead. But
the vast majority of Mexican citizens rejected outright the notion that the United States
somehow got what it deserved. Dozens of Mexicans were among the foreign nationals from
seventy-eight countries buried under the rubble at what came to be called Ground Zero.
Mexicans were less concerned with the nationality of the victims than with simple respect
for the sanctity of human life.
Whatever Fox’s sentiments may have been about supporting the ensuing war, polls
showed that over 70 percent of the Mexican population opposed an action seen as another
manifestation of US imperialism and a thinly veiled attempt by the Bush administration to
manage crucial Mideast oil reserves. As the United States pressured Mexico to support its po-
sition, the Fox administration assented to the demands of thousands of Mexican protesters,
and Mexican diplomats joined Chile, their hemispheric neighbor on the UN Security Coun-
cil, in objecting to the use of military force. Moral solidarity in the face of terrorism was one
thing; abandoning diplomacy for military might, and even greed, was another. Mexico, it
seems, had not lost its commitment to an independent foreign policy. Fox, however, was not
prepared to support former national security advisor and the current Mexican ambassador
to the United Nations Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, an important political ally in his contest for the
presidency. When the ambassador gave a speech in which he accused the United States of
arrogantly regarding Mexico as its “backyard,” Fox recalled and dismissed him.
In the final analysis, the September 11 tragedy and the subsequent war in Iraq adversely
affected Mexico’s relations with the United States. Antiterrorism measures and concerns
about the security of US borders put a damper on the immigration reforms contemplated
by the two presidents. When President George W. Bush hosted his Mexican counterpart at
the White House less than a week before the terrorist attacks, he called Mexico “our most
important foreign relation.” Yet Mexico quickly faded into the background (if not the back-
yard), and the Fox administration’s inability to achieve US commitments to immigration
reform was seen as another example of failed expectations and unfulfilled promises. None-
theless, Fox did not ignore the migrant issue as previous Mexican presidents had. The presi-
dent spoke out publicly for migrants’ rights, and Mexico established new consulates and
programs in the United States to aid them. During his administration, migrant earnings
sent back to Mexico, remittances, became Mexico’s second most important source of foreign
exchange after oil. Western Union developed programs to help workers convey these remit-
tances and worked with federal, state, and local officials in Mexico to implement economic
development projects across local communities in Zacatecas and four other Mexican states.
With estimates of illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States at more than ten million,
the immigration problem presented enormous complexities. Undocumented Mexicans lived
in every state, and the population burgeoned in the interior southeast and the western moun-
tain states, where the cost of living was lower. Opponents issued the familiar charges against
them; among the most vociferous were racists in vigilante groups like the Minutemen Project
formed on the Arizona border to detain illegal migrants and get them deported. Many other
observers countered that Mexican labor was vital to many US businesses. In 2005, the service
sector (especially hotels and restaurants) employed about a third of illegal immigrants, fol-
lowed by the construction industry, food processing, and farming. Furthermore, the average
family income of undocumented families was about 40 percent below that of legal immi-
grants. Enforcement of immigration laws was lax, prompting renewed calls for sanctions
against employers and a physical fence stretching along the 2,000-mile border. At the same
time, the living conditions of migrants were often substandard, if not abominable, and they
faced hazardous work situations and racist retaliation.
The availability of jobs in both the informal and formal economies, which perpetually seek
to cut costs, undoubtedly feeds illegal immigration. Experts argue that the situation depicted
in the film A Day without a Mexican, which comically highlights how the economy and law
enforcement would come to a standstill in California bereft of its Mexican population, is exag-
gerated. But pro-immigration advocates also believe that with cheap labor no longer available,
prices would rise for food, child care, and household maintenance. Businesses would have to
pay higher wages, and some would be forced to shut down. With illegal immigrants produc-
ing over $900 billion a year in goods and services, 9 percent of the overall US economy, it was
difficult to see how the immigration issue would be resolved in the foreseeable future.
Realistic solutions have been complicated by the fact that undocumented worker mytholo-
gies are nurtured by vested-interest groups. Contrary to popular opinion, undocumented work-
ers do not constitute an overwhelming drain on social services. The best evidence is that most of
them have federal and state taxes deducted from their wages but do not reap the benefits of the
tax system for fear of being detected and reported to immigration authorities; a good number
actually file tax returns. Equally evident is the myth that a great many displace US workers and
in a major way contribute to unemployment north of the international boundary. Undoubt-
edly, some US workers have been displaced, but a large majority of the undocumented fill posi-
tions that would remain vacant at wage levels falling below minimum scale.
Dangers to the migrants themselves are another problem, as revealed in the countless
human tragedies that occur each year. Crossing the border illegally immediately converts a
law-abiding citizen into a fugitive from justice with no protection from the varied forms of
human exploitation. The Mexicans, called coyotes, who contract with individual workers for
surreptitious entry and transportation to a job often maintain supportive ties with migrants,
but some have been known to collect their fees and deliver their human cargo to US im-
migration authorities. US employers have been known to set up two-week pay periods and,
after receiving thirteen days of labor from an entire work force, call in the border patrol, thus
relieving themselves of the need to meet the payroll. Vigilantes have sometimes physically
brutalized job seekers.
Unintended tragedies also abound as many undocumented workers have died in the
scorching heat of desert border crossings. This problem became more pronounced as the
Bush administration stepped up border security in the San Diego and El Paso areas, driving
much of the illegal traffic into the Arizona desert. When deaths approached as many as five
hundred per year, humanitarian groups like No Más Muertes organized in Arizona to place
water along the routes traveled by migrants. Anti-immigrant anger in the United States es-
calated in 2005 and 2006. By that time the Border Patrol had more than tripled in number
of agents since 1990. Rejecting a proposal by President Bush to give guest worker visas to
illegal immigrants who came to the United States before February 2004, the US House of
Representatives passed a draconian bill at the end of 2005 that criminalized illegal entry and
stipulated severe punishments for employers who hired undocumented workers. The Senate
did not follow suit, but Congress did pass the Secure Fence Act the next fall, providing fund-
ing to fence 700 miles of the border. Mexicans and other Latinos did not accept these cal-
lous actions quietly. In the spring of 2006, thousands of them organized protest marches in
Los Angeles and other large US cities. Local radio talk show hosts and Catholic churches
were instrumental in encouraging these efforts.
In another arena of cross-border tensions, the Fox administration made aggressive efforts
to combat drug trafficking, perpetually abetted by federal, state, and local officials and police
since the 1980s. During his administration, Fox jailed more top cartel leaders than any previ-
ous president, arrested nearly fifty thousand people on drug charges, destroyed numerous
clandestine landing strips, and eradicated thousands of poppy and marijuana fields. But the
administration’s efforts were thwarted not only by escapes of cartel leaders from prison but
by the seeming ease with which they could run cocaine operations from their jail cells. The
arrests of drug lords had the effect of prompting bloody battles between rival cartels, while
the supply of drugs to the United States and to growing numbers of Mexican consumers
did not diminish. Joaquín Guzmán (El Chapo), head of the Sinaloa cartel, escaped from a
maximum-security prison shortly after Fox took office. Osiel Cárdenas continued to protect
the Gulf cartel’s millions of dollars of interests after his incarceration by bribing officials and
police in northern Mexico.
In the war between the two cartels, kidnapping and deaths escalated, taking the lives of
more than one hundred soldiers and federal drug agents throughout Mexico. An all-out gang
war erupted on the streets of Nuevo Laredo in 2005, resulting in the bloody executions of
scores of people, including the police chief who had pledged to rid the force of police cor-
rupted by drug money or intimidated by threats. Meanwhile, the murders of several hundred
young women in Ciudad Juárez over the previous decade, widely thought to be connected
to police involved in protecting the drug industry, were not investigated forcefully. While
drug lords liberally spent money for social services in their home communities, grisly crimes
took the lives of innocent citizens as well as members of organized crime. Although Fox
put Nuevo Laredo under federal control, the government seemed to lack resources to force-
fully combat the drug problem. The president compared the explosion of killings to the Al
Capone era of the 1920s in the United States and noted that it takes years to get rid of orga-
nized crime in an industry worth billions of dollars.
D I L E M M A S O F D E M O C R AT I Z AT I O N
Inadequate efforts to fight the drug trade only contributed to Fox’s declining popularity.
Nor was the “lame duck president” immune to criticism for intemperate remarks. Mexicans
had been used to his shoot-from-the-hip speaking style since Fox’s days on the campaign
trail. But he shocked many when he stated to a meeting of Texas businessmen in May 2005
that Mexican immigrants in the United States were doing jobs that not even blacks wanted.
In November, at the Summit of the Americas in Argentina, he traded insults with South
American presidents and a war of words between Fox and Venezuelan populist president,
Hugo Chávez, resulted in the recalling of both countries’ ambassadors.
A more damaging embarrassment to the administration occurred earlier in 2005. Even
though the Fox administration had a strong record of supporting free and fair elections
throughout Mexico, the president could not distance himself from the machinations of the
PRI and the PAN to discredit the PRD mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador,
known by his initials as AMLO. The left-leaning mayor had garnered enormous popularity
in the Federal District for maintaining fiscal stability while conducting urban renewal and
providing needed social services to the poor and the elderly. As PRI and PAN congressmen
saw their parties’ hopes for the presidency in 2006 erode, they conspired to have the federal
government indict AMLO on a trumped-up charge. He was accused of approving a city proj-
ect to widen a road to a public hospital on a small piece of land acquired by his predecessor
but whose ownership was in litigation. This highly transparent manipulation was designed
to nip AMLO’s presidential aspirations in the bud. Since the Mexican constitution prevents
anyone under indictment from running for the presidency, AMLO’s political opponents
planned to have him waiting out the elections in jail.
Their efforts were foiled by the Mexican people, who saw the charges as a throwback to
“politics as usual.” In April 2005, just after the congressional vote to strip AMLO of the judi-
cial immunity he enjoyed as mayor, an estimated three hundred thousand outraged citizens
staged a protest in the Zócalo. The entire incident had the effect of discrediting the PAN and
the PRI, while boosting support for AMLO. To prevent chaos and further damage to his own
party, Fox dissuaded the attorney general’s office from prosecuting the mayor. As 2005 drew
to a close, the presidential election campaign was in full swing, with PRD candidate AMLO
leading the polls by a small margin. He was followed by the PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo
who, despite being tainted by political corruption himself, had won the nomination in a
contentious internal party struggle, and Felipe Calderón from the PAN.
The balance sheet on Mexico’s momentous political shift after 2000 has yet to be deter-
mined by history, but early analyses were not charitable as many characterized the Fox presi-
dency as a “lost sexenio” and an opportunity squandered. In the political realm, the first
opposition government in seventy years did score some successes in supporting electoral de-
mocracy, and Fox promoted measures to strengthen the judiciary and the rule of law, as well
as the independence of the federal electoral commission. He also provided the impetus for
a law in 2003 that made all federal executive branch agencies more transparent. The trans-
parency law constituted a significant step in the direction of creating a democracy in which
political appointees and government agencies could be held accountable for their actions.
Not surprisingly, the law was not vigorously enforced. In addition, because Mexico’s consti-
tution does not allow for reelection, elected officials feel little pressure to be accountable to
their constituencies. In defense of Fox, some argued that electoral democracy takes time to
mature, but Mexico’s ingrained political culture seemed hardly to have suffered even a lump
as authoritarian practices and clientelistic relationships persisted in all three major parties.
THE 2006 ELECTIONS AND THE PRESIDENCY OF FELIPE CALDERÓN

As it turned out, even the most imaginative Mexican minds did not anticipate the results
of the 2006 presidential election, held on July 2. Although the PRD’s AMLO had run sig-
nificantly ahead in the polls during the early months of the year, the PAN’s Felipe Calderón
narrowed the lead as the election drew near, while Roberto Madrazo of the PRI slipped
far behind, illustrating that his party’s mid-term congressional gains did not yet presage a
dramatic revival of the historically dominant party. More importantly, the election demon-
strated that the political transformation of 2000 was not an anomaly.
The leading contenders seemed to represent opposite poles on the political spectrum.
AMLO, who hailed from humble origins in Tabasco, had risen through the party ranks of
the PRI before becoming a key figure in the newly formed PRD. Building upon his record
as Mexico City mayor, he campaigned in a coalition of the PRD and several minor parties
called Por el Bién de Todos (For the Good of All). Following leadership trends in Brazil,
Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, he criticized neoliberal policies that had left many people
behind despite general economic growth, vowing instead to work to provide health care and
education for the poor, as well as initiate needed infrastructural changes. His support was
strongest in Mexico City and in the more indigenous areas of Mexico. The Harvard-educated
Calderón, son of a PAN founder from the state of Michoacán, advocated the continuation
of neoliberal policies as a means to develop human capital through a competitive economy
that would create more jobs and to overhaul the energy and tax sectors. Rallying support
from more middle-class voters outside the capital, especially in the north, he endeavored to
show himself as independent from the lame duck Fox.
The campaign heated up as the candidates traded insults, with Calderón contending that
AMLO’s performance as mayor demonstrated that he was irresponsible and that his prom-
ises to the poor smacked of a messianic complex (while also suggesting that AMLO looked
a lot like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela). Calderón’s support surged in the polls after the first
national televised presidential debate, in which AMLO declined to participate. Many ana-
lysts believed that this was a mistake; whether true or not, AMLO had clearly underestimated
his rival, and he delayed in mounting a more forceful critique of Calderón’s record and the
PAN’s negative attack ads. Especially damaging was the allegation that AMLO was “un peligro
para México” (a danger to Mexico).
On July 2, over 41 million Mexicans (60 percent of eligible voters) went to the polls. At
first, the results were too close to call; but on July 6, the Federal Electoral Commission de-
clared Calderón the winner, by less than a percentage point of the vote. Chaos threatened as
AMLO’s supporters took to the streets to cry fraud. AMLO urged his followers to undertake
a campaign of civil disobedience. PRD supporters turned out in the hundreds of thousands
to protest in Mexico City’s Zócalo, charging that big money and crooked politics had skewed
the result and that there was fraud in the tallying of votes (an accusation refuted by inter-
national election observers). They also criticized the Federal Electoral Commission for not
imposing sanctions on the PAN for overspending and other violations of campaign rules.
Following legal procedures, the coalition For the Good of All then presented formal
complaints before the Federal Electoral Court (Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la
Federación—TEPJF) that charged irregularities in specific voting districts and violations of
Others
6.56%
Madrazo
(PRI-PVEM) Calderón
22.23% (PAN)
35.89%
AMLO
(Convergencia)
35.33%
Presidential Election, 2006

2006
rules that regulated campaign ads and prohibited direct presidential influence in the elec-
tions. To the public, AMLO addressed his call for a total recount of votes.
Meanwhile, Calderón claimed victory and formed a transition team. Although the PAN
garnered more seats than any other party coalition in both the Chamber of Deputies and
the Senate, it did not win an absolute majority. In the Chamber of Deputies, the PRI’s votes
would be necessary to give either side a majority.
While the country awaited a decision from the electoral tribunal (by law, the court of
last appeal), thousands of PRD supporters set up camps along the main thoroughfare of the
Paseo de la Reforma and in the Zócalo to mount a systematic protest with daily rallies. When
it became apparent that the TEPJF would recount ballots in only a tenth of the voting pre-
cincts, AMLO intensified his attacks on Mexico’s flawed institutional structures and called for
a “national democratic convention” to produce a new governing charter that would provide
political, economic, and social justice for all Mexicans. On September 1, with the congres-
sional buildings surrounded by military and police barricades, PRD deputies and senators
took over the floor of the congressional session hall and prevented the president from deliv-
ering his last annual message in person.
On September 5, the court delivered a verdict, declaring Felipe Calderón Hinojosa the
president-elect of Mexico. The final count gave him a margin of 233,831 votes (just above a
half of a percentage point) over AMLO. The unanimous judicial decision recognized minor
voting irregularities and censured President Fox and the businessmen’s council for improper
conduct in the campaign, but ruled that none of these violations was sufficient to prevent
the free exercise of the vote.
Although the Calderón presidency began in a highly charged and polarized atmosphere,
the former federal deputy came to office with more political savvy about how to work with
the congress than any previous president. He was actually aided in this endeavor by AMLO’s
refusal to recognize his victory, which created deep ruptures within the leftist coalition and
initially retarded the active participation of the PRD in congress. As a result, the PRI, which
had earned the least number of congressional seats, moved quickly to fill the vacuum and
take over important leadership positions in congressional committees. As AMLO continued
to proclaim himself the “legitimate” president, he lost support in his own party and earned
the disapproval of more than 70 percent of the Mexican public.
Calderón had campaigned on free market principles as the ultimate solution for dealing
with poverty, but after tens of thousands of Mexicans tested his resolve in the early months
of his administration by protesting rising food prices, he supported a price cap for tortillas,
that most basic staple. The price of tortillas had risen 40 percent in just three months, in
contrast to a 4 percent increase in the minimum wage (still less than $5 a day). In other
early initiatives, Calderón raised the wages of the armed forces and police to lessen the lure
of bribery for these underpaid officers. At the same time, he capped the salaries of high-
level civil servants. Some Mexicans observed that his administration was not interested in
or effective at regulating the disproportionate profits made by Mexican billionaire Carlos
Slim Helú, whose company Telmex provided 80 percent of Mexico’s telephone land lines
and charged among the highest fees in the world. Slim and his family corporation also
dominated the Mexican market for mobile telephones and broadband connections, owned
Mexico’s Sanborns chain, and had investments in a variety of other infrastructural sectors. In
2008, they invested in the New York Times and Saks, Inc. Their wealth was estimated to be the
equivalent of 7 percent of Mexico’s annual economic output; Slim’s rank among the world’s
billionaires, according to Forbes Magazine, fluctuated between the first and third positions.
Slim’s near monopolies were not an isolated phenomenon; other private companies domi-
nated their markets, for example, in cement (CEMEX) and television (Televisa).
Carlos Slim Helú.

During his campaign, Calderón had pledged to implement judicial and energy reform;
his success in getting measures passed in these two areas involved political trade-offs be-
tween the left and the right. According to most analysts of the impediments to Mexican
democracy, the lack of a political structure and a culture that respects the rule of law is the
greatest problem. Many argued that Mexico was becoming more democratic in terms of
electoral competition and freedom of expression in the media, but comprehensive judicial
reforms were necessary to prosecute crimes resulting from flagrant abuses of power. Public
support for such reforms were buttressed by the unresolved situation in Oaxaca, where Gov-
ernor Ulíses Ruiz continued to exercise heavy-handed power with impunity, and by other
high-profile cases in which state and local officials sheltered criminals and flagrantly ignored
laws that protected freedom of speech and social activism in areas like environmental jus-
tice, municipal autonomy, and women’s rights.
It has been estimated that in Mexico as many as 75 percent of crimes are not reported
because of lack of trust in the authorities; when they are reported, more than 90 percent are
never resolved or punished. On the other hand, it is not unusual for one to be convicted
without any evidence, an abuse starkly portrayed in the prize-winning documentary Presunto
Culpable (Presumed Guilty), which was released in 2009 but did not get wide circulation
in Mexico until 2011. The dysfunctional justice system breeds impunity and does little to
stop narcoviolence. Mexico’s constitution embraces the concept of amparo, literally a writ of
protection that allows for an individual to file an injunction claiming a violation of her/his
constitutional guarantees. Intended to protect an individual against abuses of power, the
miscarriage of justice, or human rights abuses, in practice amparo has long favored elites
and more recently criminals in avoiding prosecution.
Beyond judicial abuse, corruption is a fact of life in Mexico ranging from petty to cor-
porate levels. Some estimates hold that Mexican households spend several billion dollars a
year on bribes, often to obtain services that should be free. According to the World Bank,
entrenched corruption costs Mexico 9 percent of its trillion-dollar GDP each year. The cor-
rupt corporate culture that requires payoffs is not a novelty in Mexico, but its excesses were
revealed to the world in a 2012 investigation by the New York Times into how Wal-Mart
had taken over much of the Mexican retail sales market. It turned out that Wal-Mart de
México was not the passive victim of a corrupt culture that insisted on bribes as the cost of
doing business, but rather an aggressive competitor that repeatedly offered payoffs totaling
some $25 million to subvert the law and circumvent regulatory safeguards. The company
obtained permits for at least 19 stores across Mexico in areas where construction was strictly
prohibited, some in environmentally fragile areas and others that infringed on archaeologi-
cal zones. Despite the evidence, Mexico’s federal anticorruption agency virtually absolved
Mexican officials and Wal-Mart.
An important step in the direction of reform was achieved in July 2008 when President
Calderón signed a constitutional amendment that requires prosecutors and defense lawyers
to argue their cases in court and discontinues the practice of judges making decisions based
on written statements from lawyers. The changes entail major retraining and restructuring of
the court system and will take years to implement. The amendment also reinforces the rights
of defendants by affirming the presumption of innocence.
In April 2008, President Calderón introduced his proposal for energy reform, unleash-
ing a flood of debate on its merits. Few people doubted that the oil issue needed to be ad-
dressed as Mexico’s reserves had been declining since the mid-1980s and were not expected
to last more than 10 years; furthermore, the administration of PEMEX was seen as grossly
inefficient. Because oil revenues funded about 40 percent of the federal government budget,
reforms were urgently needed. After months of hearings, public consultations with citizens,
and a takeover of congress by opponents that was orchestrated by AMLO, the three main
parties came together to pass a version of the original proposal in seven bills.
The changes gave PEMEX greater autonomy and budgetary control, as well as the right to
contract with private firms, but only in exploration and production activities; even in these
cases one-quarter of contracted work had to be done by domestic providers. Outside partici-
pation in transportation, storage, and refining was still prohibited, reflecting the lingering
vestige of economic nationalism that provoked the most debate. Mexican control of its most
valuable economic resource continued to be a hot political issue. Other reforms widened
the ministry of energy’s power to plan and regulate oil and gas and promoted projects for
sustainable and renewable energy.
Other economic and social reforms contemplated by the Calderón administration were
stymied by the world economic downturn in 2008, when Mexico’s close ties to the United
States became a greater liability. Manufacturing began to decline, exports decreased, and
Mexico experienced huge job losses in urban areas. The rural economy of corn produc-
ers continued to decline as food imports increased by 26 percent in 2008, contributing to
about half of Mexico’s growing trade deficit. The peso had lost nearly a quarter of its value
by the end of 2008, and Secretary of the Treasury Agustín Carstens predicted zero economic
growth for 2009. The prophecy turned out to be true when, in 2009, the economy shrank by
6p ercent. It began to recover in 2010, finally achieving gains of over 3 percent in annual
GDP growth rates by the end of Calderón’s term.
Internal crises in Mexico further slowed recovery. In 2009, Mexico experienced an influ-
enza epidemic that threatened to become a world pandemic. Quickly dubbed “swine flu,” it
is formally known as the H1N1 virus, a subvirus of influenza A that in the past was extremely
virulent—for example, in the 1918 influenza pandemic which killed millions of people
worldwide. Although scientists could not pinpoint the specific geographical origin of the
outbreak, the first cases were apparently reported in the state of Veracruz in February. When
the virus was first identified in the United States as having a mixture of pig, bird, and human
strains, it had already crossed the border. Although the epidemic spread around the world
beginning in April (reaching over 70 countries by early June), the World Health Organization
monitored the situation day by day and only officially categorized it as a global pandemic on
June 11, 2009, with the caveat that the decision reflected the global spread of the disease and
not an increase in its severity, which differed little from ordinary influenza outbreaks.
After Mexico experienced a relatively high number of deaths from the epidemic, primar-
ily because the cases were not identified as H1N1 until April and therefore not treated with
any flu vaccine, the Mexican government quickly put aggressive public health measures in
place in April and May. Officials closed down government operations, schools, museums,
libraries, and many private businesses like restaurants and bars. Public celebrations and
church services were also canceled. The metropolis of Mexico City eerily resembled a ghost
town; those people who ventured out onto the streets wore protective masks. Although
panic was largely avoided in Mexico as the epidemic evolved with less severe results and
the United States resisted the calls of some to close the border, other countries took more
drastic measures—for example, in China authorities quarantined all Mexicans who arrived
in the country, forcing the Mexican government to charter a plane to fetch them home. And
fears of catching the flu prompted many prospective tourists to cancel their flights and hotel
reservations for Mexico; by summer tourism had declined by 40 percent, a significant loss
since tourism accounted for 30 percent of Mexico’s foreign exchange.
Taking into consideration this crisis and the 2008 recession, the economy performed
reasonably well when compared to other nations. A competitive currency, foreign capital
investment, and durable goods exported to the United States helped Mexico weather the
storm, although the Cálderon government failed to achieve structural reforms in the econ-
omy, directed at creating jobs and alleviating poverty. In the final analysis, however, Felipe
Cálderon will not be remembered for his neoliberal economic legacy as it was completely
overshadowed by his failed strategy in the fight against organized crime and drug cartels.
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Call, Wendy. No Word for Welcome: The Mexican Village Faces the Global Economy. Lincoln: University of
Camp, Roderic Ai. The Metamorphosis of Leadership in a Democratic Mexico. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010.
. Mexico: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
. Politics in Mexico: The Democratic Consolidation. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Campos, Isaac. Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs. Chapel Hill: University
Castañeda, Jorge G. Ex Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants. New York: New Press, 2007.
Castañeda, Jorge G., and Robert A. Pastor. Limits to Friendship: The United States and Mexico. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
Driver, Alice. More or Less Dead: Femicide, Haunting, and the Ethics of Representation. Tucson: University of
Eisenstadt, Todd. Politics, Identity, and Mexico’s Indigenous Rights Movements. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2011.
Eiss, Paul. In the Name of El Pueblo: Place, Community, and the Politics of History in Yucatán. Durham, NC:
García-Gorena, Velma. Mothers and the Mexican Antinuclear Power Movement. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1999.
Haber, Stephen, et al. Mexico since 1980. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
James, Timothy M. Mexico’s Supreme Court: Between Liberal Individual and Revolutionary Social Rights,
Levy, Daniel, and Kathleen Bruhn. Mexico: The Struggle for Democratic Development. 2d ed. Berkeley:
Lyon, Sarah. Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair-Trade Markets. Boulder: University Press of
Colorado, 2010.
Pansters, Wil, ed. Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the
Centaur. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012.
Reynolds, Clark W., and Robert K. McCleery. “The Political Economy of Immigration Law: Impact of
Simpson-Rodino on the United States and Mexico.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 2/3 (1988): 117–31.
Rubio, Luis, and Susan Kaufman Purcell. Mexico under Fox. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 2004.
Sabet, Daniel M. Police Reform in Mexico City: Informal Politics and the Challenge of Institutional Change.
C HA PTER 39
PROBLEMS AND PROMISE
THE SPECTER OF THE BORDER
A bloody drug war defined Calderón’s presidency. It was not new, harking back decades to
the birth of Mexican drug cartels. In the twentieth century, PRI governments had essentially
offered the cartels protection as long as they did not disrupt the peace in Mexico and con-
centrated their efforts on shipping narcotics to the United States and Canada rather than
stimulating a consumer market within Mexico’s borders. The Mexican state closed its eyes to
the involvement of federal, state, and local politicians and police who could be bought off
by the drug traffickers.
Intensifying efforts begun by Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón decided to declare all-out war
on the Mexican drug cartels that had broken the unwritten agreement and were expanding
their markets in Mexico as well as in the United States, to the tune of $15 to $25 billion
(around 10 percent of Mexican GDP) in annual profits. In the decade since the end of the
twentieth century global consumption of both marijuana and cocaine had more than dou-
bled, while that of opiates had tripled. El Chapo had outlived his enemies and expanded the
operations of the Sinaloa cartel; while it was the largest, competition from others intensified.
The profits in cocaine alone could triple in value from the time of purchase in Colombia to
its wholesale value in the United States; retail sales could triple the price once again. Meth-
amphetamines also began to be manufactured on a large scale in Mexico, first with legal and
then illegal imports of chemicals from China.
President Calderón, working with US agencies (including the Drug Enforcement Admin-
istration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the CIA, and the FBI), de-
vised a strategy to go after the cartel leaders, to confiscate money, weapons, and drugs, but his
major innovation was to mobilize the army and the navy to combat the traffickers, in order
to bypass the problem of official and police involvement in protecting the trade. This effort
worried many Mexicans concerned about the abuse of power by the military, but more alarm-
ingly it unleashed a wave of violence among the cartels in which substitutes for the murdered
and imprisoned leaders vied for turf. Narcotraffickers themselves were the initial targets of
increasingly vicious murders, in which victims were decapitated among other brutalities. But
562
Problems and Promise 563
innocent victims increasingly got caught in the crossfire. Narcoviolence expanded at the street
level. By the end of Calderón’s presidency as many as sixty thousand people had died and
one hundred thousand had disappeared. Among the casualties were politicians, especially
mayors who refused to be bought off, and journalists who investigated and reported the
trade, often targeted by governors who were involved in the trade themselves.
Government attempts to smash the drug trade spurred a major fight between the Gulf
and Sinaloa cartels for control of northeast Mexico, and narco enclaves became even more
entrenched in Sinaloa, the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the lowlands in Michoacán and
Guerrero. The worst violence took place in Chihuahua (especially in Ciudad Juárez), Nuevo
León, Coahuila, and Durango. The Zetas, former army commandos, originally hired as as-
sassins by the Gulf cartel, split off and formed their own organization dedicated not only to
drug smuggling but also extortion, kidnapping, and human trafficking. When casino owners
in Monterrey refused to pay for protection in 2011, the Zetas set fire to the building, killing
fifty-two people, including elderly women who were playing bingo. The cartels found new
ways to transport drugs beyond hiding them in the billions of dollars of goods crossing the
border. They bought planes and dug underground tunnels that stretched under the border
from Mexico into Arizona and California. A growing arsenal of arms was easily purchased in
the United States, where gun controls were lax or nonexistent. Bribing Mexican officials was
old hat (even Mexico’s drug czar was revealed to be on the take in 2008), but now American
border patrol guards could also be bought.
The cartels doled out bribes to federal, state, and municipal authorities. Entire police
forces and prison security guards were on the payroll in many places. The drug business
means jobs and investment: cartel leaders spread their largesse to communities, building
public works, schools, and clinics. They gave money to the church. These self-made men
are celebrated in narco corridos and on narco blogs as machos and Robin Hoods. The latter
comparison misses the mark since the cartel leaders don’t rob the rich to pay the poor—drug
lords even “invest” in big business.
As violence escalated, citizens’ groups formed to protect their neighborhoods and com-
munities. In Cuernavaca, the torture and murder of the son of Mexican poet Javier Sicilia in
March 2011 prompted his father to found the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.
He organized caravans to tour the country and the United States to bring attention to the
plight of victims’ families, who were largely ignored by the government. The movement
blamed Calderón’s strategy for the worsening violence, charging that Mexico was on the
brink of social and moral collapse. The president met with victims and apologized for their
losses, but he refused to back down on the deployment of the military (also accused of
murder and rape in the morass of violence).
The elephant in the room, of course, is the United States—the source of about 35 million
drug users and an untold stockpile of arms. Acknowledging this problem, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama visited Mexico in 2009 to meet with officials.
They were also troubled by the fact that Mexican drugs are funneled through distribution
centers across US cities like Atlanta to move cocaine, marijuana, and cash. The Mérida Initia-
tive, already approved by the US Congress, was providing financial and military assistance to
Mexico’s efforts to thwart the drug trade. Obama promised more cooperation at the border
and in April named a border czar to oversee US activities to end the cartel violence (and to
reduce the flow of illegal immigration). But there was no change in the basic strategy to stem
the drug trade, which continued unabated throughout the rest of Calderón’s administration,
overshadowing other problems and initiatives. The weakness of the Mexican state was pal-
pable; it had no monopoly on violence, and the absence of a strong state, the prevalence of
corruption, and US market demand for drugs as well as the supply of weapons coalesced in
an intractable problem.
The other unsolved conundrum that linked Mexico and the United States was of even
longer standing. Illegal migration (including a growing number of women migrants) had
been on the rise at the time of Calderón’s election. NAFTA had become an important stimu-
lant because imports of cheap US commodities put local Mexican farmers out of business
and encouraged migration; remittances from across the border could crucially underpin
community survival. But a combination of new border surveillance techniques, the con-
struction of the seven hundred-mile fence, and the economic downturn in the United States
began to stem migration in August 2007; by the next year migration from the south had
dropped by 25 percent. Still, several million undocumented immigrants remained in the
United States, working primarily in service industries (over 50 percent) and in construction
and manufacturing (38 percent). However, the setbacks in the housing and service sectors in
the United States also meant a decline in employment opportunities for resident migrants
and precipitated a drop in remittances of nearly 4 percent in 2008, the first decline since
Mexico began tracking money flows in 1995.
The migrant stream slowed substantially by 2010, when fewer than one hundred thousand
border-crossers stayed in the United States, the lowest number since the 1950s. Evidence sug-
gests that by this time the Mexican economy was providing more employment and educational
opportunities in Mexico itself, where the birth rate had dropped. Drug violence on the border
posed another deterrent to migration, along with higher prices being charged by coyotes. The
border wall in Arizona and an expanded pool of border agents presented greater risks.
The economic slide and the growing volume of drug smuggling stimulated a nti-immigrant
sentiment in parts of the United States. The conflation of undocumented immigration with
terrorism and drug trafficking reached hysterical proportions in some areas. In Arizona, the
radically conservative, if not racist, governor and legislature pushed through Senate Bill 1070
in 2010, the strictest anti-immigrant legislation in recent history. The Arizona law required
that state law enforcement officers attempt to determine an individual’s immigration status
during a lawful stop, detention, or arrest when there was reasonable suspicion that an indi-
vidual was an illegal immigrant. It imposed penalties on those sheltering, hiring, and trans-
porting unregistered aliens. Critics of the legislation saw it as encouraging racial profiling
and staged protests demanding its repeal. Cities and convention organizers across the coun-
try called for boycotts of Arizona. But there was considerable support for tougher immigra-
tion laws nationwide in view of the failure of the federal government to take up immigration
reform after it stalled in the wake of 9/11. Other states enacted laws similar to SB1070. Legal
challenges over the constitutionality of the Arizona law and its compliance with civil rights
protections delayed its implementation, and eventually the US Supreme Court struck down
some of its provisions while upholding the statute that required immigration status checks
during law enforcement stops.
The border wall and surveillance cameras stretch endlessly across the landscape of southern Arizona, disrupting
the exchange of people, plants, and animals.
Although these legal battles did not move the US Congress to take action on immigra-
tion, another event did cause some of its members to rethink their stance on the Latino
population. In the 2012 federal elections, Democratic Party candidates, including Presi-
dent Barack Obama, defeated a substantial number of Republican contenders who ran on
anti-immigrant platforms. The Latino vote (10 percent of the electorate) turned out to be a
crucial factor, as Latinos/Hispanics voted overwhelmingly (71 percent) in favor of Obama.
Prior to the election, by executive order, the president had halted the deportation of as many
as a million illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Repub-
licans had repeatedly blocked passage of the Dream Act, which would have provided resi-
dency and a path to citizenship for immigrant children who arrived in the United States as
minors, graduated from US high schools, and lived in the country continuously for at least
five years prior to the bill’s enactment.
The Democrats’ appeal to immigrant and minority communities alarmed Republicans
who had supported mass deportations of Mexicans. Hispanics are the fastest-growing mi-
nority in the United States, estimated to grow to 132 million strong by 2050, making up
30 percent of the country’s population. For this reason, Republican Party leaders began to
talk about reaching out to this constituency, although they did not appear ready to consider
comprehensive immigration reform, leaving the issue unresolved. Barack Obama continued
to support enforcement of the border, deporting millions of new arrivals, despite the recog-
nition by many Americans that Mexican immigrants contributed more to the United States
than they took from it.
THE PRI REBORN IN THE 2012 ELECTIONS
The midterm Mexican congressional elections in 2009 favored the PRI, a reflection of
Calderón’s unpopularity over the drug war and a splintered PRD. The PRI was intent on a
comeback in 2012, and the party leaders had found their golden candidate in Enrique Peña
Nieto. First groomed to become the governor of the state of Mexico in 2005 at the age of
39, the physically attractive and youthful politician had served in several state government
positions before being elected governor. As governor, Peña Nieto had succeeded in carrying
out some of his promises to improve public transportation, build clinics, and expand the
state’s tax base. However, he ran into trouble when he sent police to crush those who op-
posed an expansion of Mexico City’s airport into the municipality of San Salvador Atenco in
2006, unleashing more civil unrest. The violent detention and imprisonment of protestors
provoked calls from Amnesty International and others to free innocent prisoners, punish
excessive police force including rape, and reduce excessive sentences. Peña Nieto was also
criticized for the high rate of femicides in the state of Mexico, and the sudden death of his
wife in 2006 provoked more concern. He remarried in 2010, this time to well-known televi-
sion soap opera actress Angela Rivera. In 2011, he became the official PRI candidate for the
presidency. Many Mexicans believed he was tutored by old party stalwarts, including Carlos
Salinas de Gortari.
The 2012 presidential campaign featured candidates from the three main parties plus
one from the New Alliance Party who ran to build the constituency of the powerful teacher’s
union leader, Esther Elba Gordillo. She had dominated educational policy in Mexico for
years, despite attempts to reform a flawed system that rewarded loyalty over merit. The PAN
tapped Josefina Vázquez Mota, the first woman to run on the ticket of a major political party.
She had served in the Calderón administration but did not have the support of the party’s
leadership; she campaigned on the slogan “Josefina Diferente” to distance herself from the
current administration. As a result of federal electoral laws, women had come to hold a quar-
ter of congressional seats, but only 6 percent of the country’s mayors were female. Political
analysts attribute this low number to a patriarchal culture and a lack of transparency in the
political process.
The PRD had mended some of its cracks but the left was still divided. After the popu-
lar PRD mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, withdrew his candidacy, the party selected
Andrés Manuel López Obrador. As the campaign got underway, AMLO, whose candidacy
suffered from memories of the aftermath of the 2006 elections, and Vázquez Mota were
running far behind Peña Nieto, who garnered a huge share of press and television coverage.
Rumor had it that PAN leaders had made a pact to support the PRI candidate. Supporters
of the PAN and PRD candidates staged rally after rally, targeting Peña Nieto’s record as gov-
ernor and poking fun at mistakes he had made in campaign speeches and interviews, sug-
gesting that he was ill prepared, poorly educated, and out of touch with Mexico’s problems.
Nonetheless, it looked as though he would steamroll into the presidency—that is, until the
Internet threw him a curve.
In May before the July 2012 elections, Peña Nieto held a campaign event at the Universi-
dad Iberoamericana, a private institution originally founded by Jesuits and whose students
were mostly middle class. Jesuit influence regarding social justice had resulted in politi-
cal resistance from the students on several occasions in the twentieth century. When he re-
sponded unsatisfactorily to students’ questions about the Atenco problem, they began to
heckle him. Pursued by students, he fled the campus but could not duck the student protest
movement that followed. Begun by 131 students, it became known as the Yo Soy 132 (I am
the 132nd) as students from more than a dozen universities in Mexico City and others in the
states joined. Rallies, organized on Facebook and Twitter, took place weekly and summoned
large crowds. Students demanded democratization of the media (that had overwhelmingly
favored Peña Nieto, apparently selling news coverage to the PRI) to guarantee the right to in-
formation and freedom of expression. As a group the students did not support any particular
candidate, but AMLO’s numbers began to rise in the polls. The movement called for reforms
to create secular, free, scientific, pluricultural, democratic, humanist, popular, critical, and
quality education, as well as health care for all. The students wanted a truly participatory
democracy and the removal of the army from public security. Yo Soy 132 spurred optimism
among students and others that civil society could bring pressure to change the political
system; some called it the “Mexican Spring,” placing it in the context of recent protest move-
ments in the Middle East and North Africa. The movement certainly raised consciousness
about the media monopolies, articulated broad public concern about human rights and the
way the drug wars were being waged, and offered support to those who wanted to modernize
and democratize the educational system.
The elections were held on July 1, 2012, with 63 percent of registered voters turning out
to cast their ballots. Peña Nieto won the presidency with 39.1 percent of the vote, followed
by López Obrador (32.43 percent) and Vázquez Mota (26.04 percent). López Obrador lost
by a much narrower margin than predicted, an illustration of media bias and the public
awareness generated by Yo Soy 132 regarding lack of transparency and democracy. AMLO
The 2012 student protesters used the internet, Facebook, and Twitter to organize their rallies where they wore
t-shirts and carried signs bearing the logo “Yo Soy 132.”
contested the results, charging that the Mexican media had treated his candidacy with in-
equality in relation to Peña Nieto. He presented considerable evidence of the means used to
buy votes for the PRI (most notoriously the distribution of supermarket debit cards as gifts).
The federal electoral court not only dismissed these allegations but actually ruled that AMLO
had surpassed campaign limits on spending, proving to many that the Federal Electoral In-
stitute had been compromised by legislative changes to its party membership. Protest rallies
continued through inauguration day on December 1, 2012. On a another note, with the
election of Miguel Angel Mancera as mayor who garnered 63 percent of the vote, the PRD
retained control of Mexico City, an endorsement of its leadership in promoting improved
public transportation, environmental initiatives to reduce pollution, beautification of the
cityscape, crime prevention, and sexual equality.
Meanwhile the new senators and deputies took their seats on September 1, 2012, with
the PRI in the majority (about 32 percent in both houses), followed by the PAN with just
over a quarter and the PRD just under a fifth. Minor parties claimed the remaining seats and
were expected to be an important factor in making alliances with the three major entities.
Three important developments followed. In November, the congress passed a labor reform
bill that weakened the power of the unions (although it did not include measures to im-
prove their transparency and accountability) by allowing for subcontracting, employment
trial periods, and hourly wages for temporary hires. The second event was the signing of the
Pacto por México—an informal agreement in which the major parties agreed to promote
reforms in the judicial system, national security, the education system, and the energy and
business sectors, with an emphasis on increasing competition within the latter two. It was
signed by all three party leaders, although the PRD representative stated that his support
did not reflect all sectors of his party. Many PRD members, including López Obrador, had
already formed a new party called MORENA (Movement for National Regeneration) to
reinvigorate the left.
The third major legislative development occurred on February 25, 2013, when the presi-
dent signed into law a sweeping educational reform that called for a system of uniform
standards for teacher hiring and promotion based on merit (for years teaching positions in
some states could be bought or inherited), as well as the first census ever of Mexican schools,
Others
5%
Vázquez Mota
(PAN) Peña Nieto
25.4% (PRI-PVEM)
38.2%
AMLO
(PRD-PT)
31.6%
Presidential Election, 2012

2012
teachers, and students. The law also extended the school day and implemented changes
intended to boost the quality of education and graduation rates. The congress thus theoreti-
cally fulfilled one of the planks of the Pact for Mexico, pitting itself against the powerful
teachers’ union of 1.5 million members. The union, headed by Elba Esther Gordillo for
more than twenty years, had just reelected her to another term in October 2012. On February
27, authorities arrested her and charged her with embezzling over one hundred fifty million
dollars from union funds. Mexicans were surprised by the arrest but not by the charges of
corruption. In exchange for union support, political leaders (both PRI and PAN) had looked
the other way for years while Gordillo had purchased an airplane, bought a luxurious home
on Coronado Island in the United States, deposited money in Swiss bank accounts, under-
gone a series of face lifts, and racked up an enormous credit card debt at Nieman-Marcus. A
2012 documentary, De panzazo (Barely Passing), had excoriated the educational system, and
the need for reform was widely recognized. The removal of “La Maestra,” or The Teacher,
signaled to many that the new government was serious about change, but others saw it as an
old tactic of the PRI to enhance its power.
IMPLEMENTING CHANGE IN TROUBLED TIMES
Enrique Peña Nieto had pledged to improve competitiveness and growth across the Mexican
economy. The country’s two trillion dollar economy had become the fifteenth largest in the
world (and the second in Latin America). Its trade under NAFTA had more than tripled and
accounted for about 35 percent of GDP. More than three-quarters of its exports, primarily
manufactured products, but also silver, fruits, vegetables, coffee, and cotton, went to the
United States. Mexico was the world’s eighth largest producer of oil, at nearly three million
barrels per day, but production had been falling and PEMEX was seen as bureaucracy-ridden
and inefficient. At the beginning of Peña Nieto’s term, Mexican officials estimated that the
economic reforms in the energy and telecommunications sectors could net 4 to 5 percent
annual growth for the country.
Optimism ran high. In the state of Guanajuato, for example, automobile manufacturers
and other multinationals employed many thousands of workers at pay rates higher than
those of the border maquiladoras. Most all of the major US automotive companies opened
up plants running along a corridor from Puebla to Zacatecas, eventually employing nearly a
million workers, an increase of 40 percent in the industry. Mexico had become the world’s
fourth largest car exporter, having attracted substantial foreign investment with fiscally con-
servative policies that cut debt and inflation.
Nonetheless, the economy as a whole did not pick up, registering just above one percent
GDP in 2013. In late 2013 and 2014, Peña Nieto pushed through a constitutional change to
further open up the oil sector to private investment, breaking up PEMEX’s state-run oil com-
pany’s seventy-six-year-old monopoly. The reform, opposed by over half of Mexicans who
saw it as a giveaway to foreigners, also included the gas and electricity sectors. The partial
privatization of energy began to take place in stages. Offshore oil assets first went on sale
in July 2015 but netted bids for only two out of fourteen available oil fields. By September
2015, Mexico’s GDP growth had risen slightly to 2.1 percent, a far cry from the glowing pre-
dictions made at the beginning of Peña Nieto’s term. Salaries were stagnant for many across
In a moment of optimism, Time Magazine featured the

new Mexican President Peña Nieto on the February 24,
2014 cover.
A very different image of Peña Nieto from a Novem-

ber 14 protest against the killing of the students.
diverse sectors. Since nearly a third of the government’s budget came from oil, the global
decline in oil prices was one factor explaining poor economic performance, but structural
issues such as low productivity, high inequality, a large informal sector employing over half
of the workforce, the weak rule of law, and corruption also played a role.
By late 2014, the Peña Nieto administration faced serious charges of corruption and extra-
judicial killings. On September 26, 2014, some one hundred students from the normal school
in Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero, tried to commandeer several buses in the nearby city
of Iguala to take them to Mexico City to participate in protests commemorating the Tlatelolco
massacre of 1968. In the past, such actions by students were commonplace and without repri-
sals, but this time an appalling tragedy ensued. The buses were attacked by gunfire from mu-
nicipal police. Some died on the buses and others were killed as they fled in terror. By dawn the
next morning, 43 students had disappeared, not to be found to this day. The initial investiga-
tion by Mexico’s attorney general attributed the disappearances to the actions of the mayor of
Iguala and his wife (both with connections to drug traffickers). The mayor was alleged to have
called in the local police who then turned the students over to a drug gang called the Guer-
reros Unidos. The heroin traffickers supposedly proceeded to kill the students at the edge of a
garbage dump where they burned the bodies and then dumped the ashes into a nearby river.
The official report quickly came under fire as more details emerged about the involvement
of other security forces (both state and federal). The search for the missing students turned up
many unrelated mass graves; these events triggered protests in Guerrero and across Mexico, as
well as international condemnation. In the following days, both the attorney general and the
governor of Guerrero were forced to resign. On several occasions, hundreds of thousands of
people marched in Mexico City in solidarity with the mostly poor rural families of the disap-
peared, demanding that their children be returned. They chanted: “The government took our
sons alive; now we want them back alive.” Federal officials resorted to the customary tactic
of planting provocateurs in the crowds to carry out acts of violence intended to discredit the
peaceful protests. When the arrests of local police and cartel members failed to assuage the
protesters, the Mexican government acceded to demands of parents and the public by al-
lowing the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American
States to send a commission of five world-recognized legal experts to investigate the case in
Hundreds of thousands participated in a series of marches in November and December of 2014 to protest the
disappearances and murders in Iguala on September 26, 2017.
March 2015. They spent many months in Mexico during which they faced interference in their
attempts to question federal and military officials, constant stonewalling, and intimidation.
Their five hundred-page report was presented on September 6, 2015. For six months
the experts had interviewed survivors, the abductees’ family members, many of the men
and women who had been detained in the case, police and legal officials, and others. They
conducted their own evidentiary or forensic examinations and studied the case files. The
report was inconclusive in that it did not solve the mystery of the missing 43 students, but
it did criticize the government investigations as flawed and, in effect, a cover up. But, it left
unanswered the question of federal involvement, in particular by the army which has a cre-
matorium at its nearby headquarters, the only facility in the area with the power to dispose
of the bodies in the way the state claims.
Many Mexicans received the report with what the writer Francisco Goldman has called
the folkloric cynicism that pervades the myriad unsolved cases of political murders. Still the
families of the missing, along with other human rights advocates, did not cease their pro-
tests, and the horrific affair continued to dog the president and members of his government.
In many ways, the Ayotzinapa case represents the untold number of Mexicans searching for
disappeared loved ones, despairing that social justice will ever be achieved in a climate of
entrenched institutional impunity. Ayotzinapa is just the tip of the iceberg. After the discov-
ery of many mass graves in the region of Iguala during the search for the forty-three, recently
others have been uncovered in Durango and other states. The 43 have become a symbol for
the many murdered and disappeared in the last decade.
Protesters erected this monument to the 43 on the Paseo de la Reforma and planted corn, beans, and other plants
as an example of a familiar refrain at protests, “They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
A month after the Ayotzinapa disappearances, Peña Nieto, whose popularity had sunk
to a historic low, faced another scandal. In November, the respected and prize-winning in-
vestigative reporter, Carmen Aristegui who also hosts a show on CNN en Español, broke the
story of a conflict of interest scandal in Peña Nietos’s inner circle. The report centered on a
seven-million dollar mansion (which became known as the Casa Blanca) in the luxurious
Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, purchased by first lady Angélica Rivera on credit from
a company owned by Juan Armando Hinojosa Cantú, which had received millions of dollars
in contracts from Peña Nieto when he was governor of the state of Mexico. The company
had also won a contract to build a high-speed train between Mexico City and Querétaro,
about 120 miles northwest of the capital. Rivera later returned the mansion, and a govern-
ment investigation subsequently found no wrongdoing by Peña Nieto or his wife, but the
president apologized for the incident and the rail contract was canceled. In the maelstrom
that followed, Aristegui was fired by MVS Communications because, she alleged, the owner
Joaquín Vargas was pressured by the government to do so in retaliation against her. From
other platforms, she continued to report on Peña Nieto, revealing that he had plagiarized
much of his master’s thesis.
The intimidation of a reporter was nothing new in Mexico. At least thirty-four journal-
ists, covering crime, drug trafficking, corruption, and human rights, were murdered between
1992 and 2017. Ninety percent of these murders which occurred throughout Mexico went
unsolved. One of the most dangerous places for journalists was the state of Veracruz where
Governor Javier Duarte had ties to cocaine trafficking. Rubén Espinosa, the thirteenth victim
of reporting on organized crime in Veracruz, was killed in the summer of 2015. After receiv-
ing repeated death threats, he had fled to hide in the apartment of his friend and social activ-
ist Nadia Vera, in Mexico City. She and three other women were shot in the head along with
him; their bodies showed signs of torture and sexual violence. Despite no resolution of this
case, Governor Duarte was later charged with embezzlement, drug trafficking, and murders
of journalists, but he along with governors from Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Quintana Roo, Du-
rango, and Coahuila accused of graft and corruption have yet to be prosecuted in mid-2017.
While corruption at the highest levels continued to be fueled by narco dollars and drug-
related crime including extortion rose, the homicide rate increased by 20 percent under Peña
Nieto whose promises to increase security had not been realized. Emblematic of the govern-
ment’s inability to rein in the cartels, El Chapo (Joaquín Guzmán), boss of the Sinaloa cartel
arrested in July 2015 for multi-million-dollar cocaine trafficking, escaped for the second time
from a maximum security prison, allegedly through a tunnel under his cell. Most Mexicans
actually surmised that he had walked out the front door of the prison. Recaptured by federal
police and marines in January 2016, he was finally extradited to the United States a year
later. The capture of El Chapo and other cartel kingpins did little to stop organized crime
and extrajudicial killings by the government. Cartels splintered and new leaders jockeyed
for control of drug production areas and trafficking routes. Violence spiked again; by the
middle of 2017 the number of homicides surpassed the previous high recorded during the
presidency of Calderón. In the quagmire of official collusion in the drug trade, only the
naive wondered why the more than 2 billion dollars spent on fighting the drug trade since
the Merida Initiative began in 2008 seemed to have had little influence in dismantling drug
organizations that had managed to move into extractive industries like mining, diversifying
even further. Nor did the visit of Pope Francis to Mexico in February 2016 do much to im-
prove Mexico’s image in the eyes of the world. As the pope addressed hundreds of thousands
in the Mexico City slum of Ecatepec, home to Mexicans who had little access to health care
and social services, newspapers reported that Mexico’s poverty rate had risen to just under
50 percent. The pontiff’s thinly veiled references to the government’s failure to help the poor
were matched on his visit to the border where he prayed for compassion for migrants, criti-
cizing the US government for turning a blind eye to the human tragedy of forced migration.
More trouble surfaced in the summer of 2016 as teachers’ strikes escalated in the state of
Oaxaca. Teachers and their supporters had protested across the country when the reforms were
proposed in 2013—in massive marches and the occupation of the Zócalo in Mexico City—but
the resistance had slowed in the intervening years. Resurfacing in 2016 Oaxaca, teachers’ pro-
tests over new certification requirements and low pay culminated in clashes with federal police
forces that left nine people dead. Although most Mexicans favored major changes in a system
riddled with favoritism and graft, in Oaxaca the strikes inspired sympathy from those who saw
the education reforms as another attempt by Mexico City to marginalize the poor and deprive
them of their rights and dignity.1 Once again international observers decried excessive force
and human rights violations directed at ethnic minorities and women. These actions seemed
to fit a pattern of civil and military oppression that plagued the Peña Nieto government.
Pope Francis, an Argentine who is the first Latin American pope, visited Mexico in February 2016. Here he greets
some of the many thousands who came to see him in Ecatepec in the State of Mexico.
1 See the assessment of Peña Nieto’s “flagship” educational policy by reporter Nina Lakhani, “’The help never
lasts’: Why has Mexico’s educational policy failed?” The Guardian, August 15, 2017.
Mexico City, however, provided the exception to the rule. Mexico’s federal constitution was
reformed in January of 2016 to allow for the emergence of Mexico City state (CDMX), an entity
with its own congress, constitution, local governments, and fiscal rules, effectively making it the
32nd state of Mexico’s federation. Up to this time, the official designation for Mexico City was
Distrito Federal/D.F. (Federal District), a territory that hosted Mexico’s federal administration
but lacked the political rights of other Mexican states. The new entity is more autonomous from
federal control. In the summer, elections were held in Mexico City to select sixty members of a
constituent assembly who, along with forty members appointed by the congress, the president,
and the mayor Miguel Mancera, debated and discussed provisions of a document drafted by ex-
perts. Approved in early 2017, the new constitution is scheduled to go into effect in September
2018. The charter reflects the social democratic orientation of Mexico City’s dominant parties,
the PRD and MORENA. Since the 1990s the leftist governments have legalized gay marriage,
abortion, recreational marijuana, among other progressive, but contentious, issues.
At the national level, if some still held out hope for change four years into the Peña
Nieto administration, the US election of Donald Trump in November 2016 threw another
curve ball at Mexico. Trump had campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform, accusing un-
documented Mexicans of rape and murder. He promised to build a “great wall” all along the
Mexico-US border, to be paid for by Mexico, and to renegotiate NAFTA. The Mexican gov-
ernment felt a brief respite in December when its offers for drilling in deep water oil fields
yielded contracts totally nearly 4 billion dollars. The privatization of telecommunications
had brought some new competition (for example, AT&T entered the market controlled by
Carlos Slim), but Televisa still dominated the television market.
By the time of Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, the Mexican peso had suffered
a devaluation from thirteeen pesos to the dollar in late 1914 to twenty pesos, given slow
economic development and less probability of foreign investment. Efforts to defuse the
“Trump” crisis before the US election had not paid off. Apparently on the advice of his fi-
nance minister, Luis Videgaray, Peña Nieto invited Trump to make a friendly visit to Mexico
in August 2016. Mexicans were appalled by the invitation to the northern bully that only suc-
ceeded in making their president less popular (with ratings below 25 percent) and pleasing
Trump’s xenophobic followers. While Peña Nieto seemed awkward and submissive during
the meeting, he continued to assert that Mexico would not pay for the wall although in
less forceful language than that of former president Vicente Fox who tweeted that Mexico
would not pay for the “f…ing” wall. As the war of words continued to escalate and Mexicans
became more outraged, the president sacked his finance minister but subsequently named
him as ambassador to the United States.
Trump’s threats to deport millions of undocumented migrants, build a wall, and scrap
NAFTA raised momentous concerns. If Mexico would not pay for the wall, Trump vowed to
stop the flow of remittances from the United States to Mexico (which exceeded oil revenues
in 2015) and to impose tariffs on Mexican imports in the United States. The costs of build-
ing a continuous wall (topographically unfeasible in some places) were estimated to fall
between ten and fifteen billion dollars.
The US president had attacked NAFTA for months during the campaign, alleging that it
was a disaster for “millions” of Americans who had lost their jobs when companies relocated
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox uses Twitter to confront the new president of the United States in 2017.
to Mexico. Even before he was inaugurated, he put pressure on Carrier and Ford to cancel
plans for new plants in Monterrey and San Luis Potosí although not all the manufacturers
he threatened actually acceded. Economists on both sides of the border agreed that NAFTA
had benefited consumers with lower prices, but Trump whipped up to a frenzy the issue of
job losses in the United States and ignored the degree to which NAFTA had harmed small
farmers in Mexico. How the deeply entwined Mexican, US, and Canadian manufacturing
economies would be unraveled remained to be seen, but projections for direct foreign in-
vestment in Mexico were slashed.
On the issue of undocumented migrants, Trump moved early in his administration to re-
verse policies of the Obama presidency. Although Obama had deported millions of migrants,
in 2012 he implemented DACA (the Dreamers’ Act), the measure allowing migrant children not
born in the United States (potentially 1.7 million) to remain, attend college, and obtain work
permits on a deferred basis if they had no criminal record. Furthermore, he had restricted depor-
tations to undocumented migrants with criminal records and recent border crossers. In spite of
the fact that the number of Mexican migrants had dropped significantly, a huge influx of Cen-
tral Americans fleeing violence in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador flooded the border
after 2014. They comprised primarily women and children, as well as unaccompanied minors
whose parents were desperate to keep their children from rising violence acoss Central America
that often included forced recruitment into gangs. Most requested political asylum allowing
them to remain while their cases were investigated, but most asylum requests were denied.
Although Trump vacillated on what he would do about Dreamers, he initially indicated
he would not deport them; their fate hung in the balance. However, he authorized ICE
While the Dreamers’ Act brought hope to undocumented youth in the United States, it caused frustration for
young people who recently returned or had been deported to Mexico. “Los Otros Dreamers” are organizing to
support large numbers of return migrants as they struggle to access education, social services, and find jobs in
their new country.
(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to step up raids on all migrants, regardless
of their time of residence or whether they had committed crimes. Sixty percent of the undocu-
mented had lived and worked in the United States for more than a decade and more than 30
percent owned their homes. Moreover, they paid their taxes; a 2016 study demonstrates that
undocumented workers contributed $11.74 billion in state and local tax revenue.2 This initial
move terrified many of the undocumented who feared the break-up of families. Some of them
crossed the border into Canada where they would have a better chance to avoid deportation.
Urban centers throughout the United States, including New York, San Francisco, Los An-
geles, Chicago, and Washington, DC, declared themselves to be “sanctuary” cities or coun-
ties where local law enforcement does not ask or report the immigration status of people
they come into contact with. They also typically refuse requests from federal immigration
authorities to detain undocumented immigrants apprehended for low-level offenses such
as driving without a license. In addition, churches of all denominations began organizing
to provide sanctuary although in this case they would not be sheltering Central Americans
who had arrived during the wars of the 1980s, but rather undocumented migrants already
contributing to their communities. The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations stepped up
efforts to help in March of 2017 by establishing “defense centers” for immigrants in the fifty
consulates across the United States.
2 Lisa Christensen Gee, et al., “Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions,” (Washington,
DC, 2017), 2.
In Mexico, officials and newspapers denounced the xenophobia of the Trump policies,
perhaps muting criticisms of Enrique Peña Nieto. Overall, however, the rebirth of the PRI
had not brought major improvements to Mexico in the areas of social, economic, and po-
litical reform, instead signaling a renewal of authoritarianism and growing social inequity.
In the mid-term elections of June 2015, the PRI barely retained its majority in the Chamber
of Deputies in coalition with the Green Party while MORENA scored the largest gains. The
elections, in which nearly half of the electorate voted, were marred by murders and violence
throughout the country and increased intervention by local cartels. The PRI lost gubernato-
rial elections in seven states while a few independent candidates won governorships. The
2015 elections begged the question of continued PRI dominance in 2018 although in 2017
the party narrowly won the governorship of the state of Mexico where high levels of poverty
and violence persisted.
As this book goes to press, Mexico’s 130 million people live in a time of economic un-
certainty with rising inflation. Many struggle below the poverty line, especially in rural areas.
Unemployment and underemployment remain high. The world Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) surveys its thirty-five member countries regarding
how satisfied citizens are with their lives. While Mexico falls near the bottom in income
per capita, low in gender inequality, and below the middle in social inequality, it ranks just
above the middle in life satisfaction. These statistics reflect hopefulness perhaps because
some conditions have changed for the better. More people receive health care, and envi-
ronmental groups work to promote sustainable development throughout the country. Civil
society groups persist in promoting democratic and social justice reforms. The cultural resil-
ience of Mexico’s evolving pluriethnic, multicultural society continues to offer testimony to
the idea that from tradition springs the passion for creativity.
Anderson, Jill, and Nin Solís. Los Otros Dreamers. Mexico City, Mexico: Jill Anderson & Nin Solis, 2014.
Bender, Steven W. Run for the Border: Vice and Virtue in the U.S.-Mexico Border Crossings. New York: New
York University Press, 2012.
Boullosa, Carmen, and Mike Wallace. A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the
“Mexican Drug War”. New York: OR Books, 2016.
Christensen Gee, Lisa, et al. “Undocumented Immigrant’ State & Local Tax Contributions.” Washington,
DC: The Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, 2017. Accessed March 14, 2017. http://www.itep
.org/immigration/.
Dear, Michael. Why Walls Won’t Work: Repairing the US-Mexico Divide. New York: Oxford University Press,
2013.
De Leon, Jason, with Michael Wells. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Berkeley:
Espinosa, David. Jesuit Student Groups, the Universidad Iberoamericana, and Political Resistance in Mexico,
Foley, Neil. Mexicans and the Making of America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
González de Bustamante, Celeste, and J. E. Relly. “Journalism in Times of Violence: Social Media Use by
U.S. and Mexican Journalists Working in Northern Mexico.” Digital Journalism 2/4 (2014): 507–523.
Hellman, Judith Adler. The World of Mexican Migrants: The Rock and the Hard Place. New York: New Press, 2008.
Hernández, Kelly Lytle. Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2010.
Hernández-León, Rubén. Metropolitan Migrants: The Migration of Urban Mexicans to the United States. Berkeley:
Holmes, Cameron W. Organized Crime in Mexico: Assessing the Threat to North American Economies. Lincoln:
Lakhani, Nina. “’The help that never comes’: Why has Mexico’s educational revolution failed?” The
Guardian, August 15, 2017. Accessed August 28, 2017. https:/www.the guardian.com/inequality.
Miller, Todd. Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security. San Francisco, CA:
City Lights Publishers, 2014.
Ochoa O’Leary, Ana, Colin Deeds, and Scott Whitefield, eds. Uncharted Terrains: New Directions in Border
Research Methodology, Ethics, and Practice. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2013.
Overmyer-Velázquez, Mark, ed. Beyond La Frontera: The History of México-U.S. Migration. New York: Oxford
Payan, Tony, Kathleen Staudt, and Z. Anthony Kruszewski. A War that Can’t be Won: Binational Perspectives
on the War on Drugs. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2013.
Regan, Margaret. The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands. Boston, MA:
Beacon Press, 2010.
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Deaths in the Arizona Desert: La vida no vale nada. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016.
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Media, and Provincial Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012.
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cas. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.
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C HA PTER 40
SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN AN

ERA OF CRISES AND GLOBAL
ENTANGLEMENTS
In the 1980s, called the lost decade by some, Mexico faced acute challenges with the debt
crisis and the 1985 earthquake. When the government failed to answer adequately after
the earthquake, civil society emerged in Mexico as a powerful force. Neighborhood associa-
tions, women’s groups, and other popular organizations stepped in to respond to grievances
and assist in the organization and rebuilding of communities. Emblematic of community
organizing was Superbarrio who dressed as a superhero and invigorated local residents and
groups to pressure the government to take action and to participate in renewal projects. Fol-
lowing the tragedy of the earthquake, political assassinations and corruption led to serious
divisions within the PRI. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and other leaders left the party to found
the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution). The Zapatista movement emerged in the
1990s to confront inequities in Chiapas as well as other indigenous areas and to protest
Salinas’s signing of NAFTA. Taken together, these developments signaled greater popular
participation as PRI hegemony declined. As the PRD took control in Mexico City, many saw
a democratic opening. Their dreams seemed to come true when the PRI lost the presidential
election to PAN’s Vicente Fox in 2000. However, economic issues outside of Mexico’s con-
trol, escalating drug wars, and other dark forces combined to create a new obstacle course
for the people. As always, they responded with the historical resilience that seems inbred in
the Mexican psyche.
Against the backdrop of killings, kidnappings, corruption, and drug cartels, Mexico City,
with its 21.2 million inhabitants, presented a contrast, one in which women, some indig-
enous, played an impressive role in commerce. As heads of 80 percent of street vendor or-
ganizations, they dominated the informal economic sector which produces nearly a quarter
of GDP. Their commercial associations solicit permissions from the government to sell mer-
chandise in street markets, supplied by wholesalers in the neighborhoods of Tepito and
La Merced. The largest of approximately one hundred street vendor organizations, with
six thousand members, is the Asociación Legítima Cívica Comercial founded in 1982, and
now run by Alejandra Barrios. In some cases, these associations have initiated self-produced
581
Superbarrio leads a protest in the Zócalo, after the 1985

earthquake.
housing developments. Street vendors are not immune from threats, corruption, and crime,
but they do have collective backing.
Less fortunate are Mexico City’s domestic workers who live with the families they work
for or spend several hours each day traveling to and from the sprawling state of Mexico which
surrounds the capital. Studies suggest that verbal, physical, and sexual abuse of domestic
workers is common, and many are accused of stealing or dismissed unfairly. Paid under the
table, they have no health benefits, and their low income perpetuates poverty. Attempts to
unionize to secure a minimum wage and health care benefits are still in their infancy.
Despite legislation that mandates gender parity in electoral candidacies (50 percent of
candidates from all parties in all federal and state elections must be women), gender in-
equality persisted in the political sphere where women hold 31.7 percent of political posts.
At the national level, they hold nearly 43 percent of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and
36.7 percent in the Senate. Women have far exceeded parity in the field of education.
Perhaps one of the most disheartening factors for Mexico is that almost 50 percent of
the population still falls into the poverty classification, earning less than fourteen dol-
lars per day due to Mexico’s poor infrastructure, inefficient bureaucracy, corruption, lack
of education, and a plethora of other factors. Twelve million people work in the black
market economy and have no social security or health benefits. Twenty-five percent of the
total adult population fall into the underemployed category while another 10 percent are
unemployed.
Society and Culture in an Era of Crises and Global Entanglements 583
P O P U L AT I O N
By 2017, the population of Mexico soared to 130 million, three-fourths of them urban
dwellers. With 9 million inhabitants in 1980, Mexico City’s greater metropolitan area had
swelled to over 21 million by 2015 and covered 779 square miles. Like a giant magnet, it
drew people from the countryside, adding hundreds of thousands to its population each
year. In the process, the capital became a bit less uniquely Mexican and more like New
York, Paris, or London. Those who enthusiastically approved of the changes argued that
the nation’s capital had at last become cosmopolitan; those who preferred the simplicity
and charm of earlier days suggested that, as each colonial structure was torn down (despite
140
120
100
80
Millions
60
40
20
0
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Rural
26.2%
Urban
73.8%
Urban-Rural Population Distribution, 2015

2015
protective legislation) to make room for a skyscraper or a freeway, and as cellular phones,
that quintessential yuppie symbol, rang during high mass at the main cathedral, the capital
had—alas!—ceased to be Mexican.
Since the 1980s, the sprawling capital city with one-fifth of Mexico’s total population
has numbered among the ten largest metropolitan areas on earth, and until recently had
the most acute traffic and smog problems in the Western Hemisphere. To relieve traffic con-
gestion on the main north-south thoroughfare of Avenida Insurgentes, the Federal District
government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador had inaugurated a rapid transit bus line in
2005. More Metrobus lines were added under Marcelo Ebrard and finally reached a total
of five. The subway and buses transport approximately 15 million people a day. In 2010,
Ebrard created a bike-sharing program called Ecobici, which expanded by 2015 to include
four hundred forty bicycle stations, six thousand bicycles and one hundred thousand users
making five thousand trips a day in an area of thirty-five square kilometers. The program not
only contributes to reducing pollution, but it also offers exercise and recreation. During the
years of PRD control, Mexico City has substantially decreased its greenhouse gas emissions
but pollution continues to be a problem. In 2016, city officials declared ozone alerts several
times and restricted the number of days automobiles could be driven. Nonetheless, in 2017,
more than 3.5 million automobiles traveled the crowded streets daily.
Over the years, huge working-class housing projects in Mexico City brought hundreds of
thousands together into closer proximity than they would have imagined possible. Crimes
Bicycle stands with Mexico City’s ecobicis can be accessed

in multiple sites around the central areas of the city.
On Sundays the capital’s major avenue, Paseo de la Re-

forma, is closed to vehicular traffic so that families of
cyclists can enjoy an outing. Here they circle around El
Ángel, the statue that commemorates Mexico’s indepen-
dence heroes and is also a main gathering place for pro-
testers and sports enthusiasts celebrating soccer victories.
averaged 242 robberies and thirteen murders a day in 1988, but under PRD management
crime rates declined. By 2010, the murder rate was down 26 percent and amounted to one-
fourth of that of Washington, DC. Despite the spiraling narco violence in other areas of
Mexico, Mexico City’s homicide rates have remained low, although kidnapping and extor-
tion continue to be a problem. Nationally, however, in 2016 Mexico’s homicides with fire-
arms escalated to a new high, attributable primarily to organized crime.
Despite the difficulties of modernization, Mexico City has continued to dominate the
entire country, with half of the country’s industries and over 70 percent of daily banking
transactions. Provincial Mexicans resent not only the exaggerated centralism emanating
from Mexico City but also what they believe to be the arrogant attitudes of those from the
nation’s capital. They have coined the derogatory epithet chilango to describe them. While
the provincial capitals were slightly more successful in retaining some of their local flavor,
they, too, fell victim to the homogeneity of technological proficiency conditioned by elec-
tronic circuitry, pocket calculators, cell phones, and computers. Guadalajara, Monterrey, and
Ciudad Juárez followed Mexico City along the path of seemingly uncontrollable pollution,
and even the citizens of León, Guanajuato, worried about their health in 1995 when tens of
thousands of birds migrating from Canada and the United States died after drinking con-
taminated water in a local reservoir. They had a right to be concerned as scientific tests soon
revealed that human sewage flowing into the reservoir had turned it into a huge incubator
for botulism bacteria.
1. Valley of Mexico 20.89
2. Guadalajara 4.80
3. Monterrey 4.48
4. Puebla 2.94
5. Toluca 2.12
6. Tijuana 1.84
7. León 1.77
8. Ciudad Juárez 1.39
9. Torreón 1.28
10. Querétaro 1.26
11. San Luís Potosí 1.13
12. Mérida 1.06
13. Aguascalientes 1.04
METROPOLITAN AREAS OF MEXICO WITH POPULATIONS OVER A MILLION (2015)*

*In millions, rounded.
Five years later, a much more sinister and callous ecological disaster was reported in
ichoacán. Loggers using chemical pesticides purposely killed 22 million migrating mon-
M
arch butterflies. They reasoned that if there were no butterflies there would be no reason to
continue setting aside a protected forest as the site of the annual butterfly migration.
Since the 1990s, Mexico has seen the proliferation of groups advocating environmental
reforms. The environmental movement is strongest in Mexico City and the border area, but
local communities throughout Mexico have mobilized to protect their forests and other
natural resources. Cuatro Ciénegas in northern Mexico, one of the world’s desert wetlands
regions with huge biological diversity, is a focus of environmental efforts because it is under
threat from stock breeders and tourists. Some of the worst environmental conditions exist in
the northern Mexico border cities. In 2009, fully 10 percent of the border population lacked
access to potable water and a third had no access to wastewater treatment. Air, water, and
soils are heavily contaminated by industrial pollution, pesticides, and raw sewage.
Lack of clean water plagues the entire country, but Mexico City in particular faces a whole
host of water issues. Always short of water, the city keeps drilling for more. The enormous
volume of water that is pumped up from the diminishing aquifers causes sinking on an
average of seven cm. per year. This problem is exacerbated by climate change. More heat
and drought produce greater evaporation and mounting demand for water. The dilemma
is whether to tap distant reservoirs at overwhelming costs or to further drain underground
aquifers and accelerate the city’s collapse. In the city’s historic center, one can become dizzy
just from looking at the tilting buildings with their slanted windows and doors that do not
fit their frames.
Mexico City has been forced to import about 40 percent of its water from outside the
valley, but it loses that much or more to leaking pipes and pilfering. The shortage of water
is most acutely felt in the sprawling slums outside the city where some people get tap water
only once a week and must have it brought in on trucks called pipas. They generally pay more
for water than middle class consumers who have running water most of the time, a lamen-
table inequity. The effects of pumping water from surrounding areas is nowhere more visible
than at Xochimilco on the southeastern edge of the city, all that remains of the Aztec canal
system. Farmers grow corn, chard, rosemary and flowers on shrinking chinampa wetlands.
On weekends, thousands of tourists picnic and party on brightly painted barges, or trajineras,
that ply the canals. In early 2017, a twenty-feet-deep hole opened in the canal bed, draining
even more water and causing more subsidence.
In addition, drainage problems are omnipresent and sewers often become blocked,
whereupon the city’s sewage divers go to work dredging up all manner of organic and in-
organic paraphernalia, despite the fact that rhirteen thousand metric tons of garbage are
collected daily from the streets. The city’s grand canal built to move wastewater in the late
nineteenth century is now inadequate to the task; thirty miles long and wide open, it stinks
of methane and sulphuric acid. Finding solutions for Mexico City’s environmental prob-
lems is a monumental task facing city planners, but a small contribution can be seen in the
On Avenida Chapultepec in Mexico City, a part of the ancient aqueduct is festooned with multi-tonal living
greenery, giving it the appearance of a postmodern, cuboid serpent.
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1980 1990 2000 2010 2015
All adults Adult males Adult females
Adult Literacy, 1980–2015
vertical gardens and eco-sculptures that have sprung up to help clean the air and beautify
the urban landscape.
One had to travel to a small village to escape the cacophony of big city sounds and to en-
counter some of the charm of an age now past, but there, behind the façade of what seemed
quaint to the foreign eye, the disabilities of underdevelopment remained stark. While the
great majority of rural children were in school by 2000, many of those schools had fewer
than six grades and only one teacher. They most often served the lowest-income children in
Mexico in facilities that lacked even the basic elements for classrooms such as blackboards,
desks, and lights. Although improvements have been made in the past decades, rural schools
still lack microscopes and computers and are unable to provide quality math and science
education; their dropout rates remain high. While Mexico’s overall adult literacy had grown
to 95 percent by 2015, indigenous literacy lagged behind. Anthropologists concerned with
preserving Indian languages applaud the fact that approximately 6.7 million Mexicans still
speak their native tongues.
LEISURE AND SPORT
Mexico City is going through a period of transformation. Political changes in the governance
of the city can be seen in massive construction projects, rebranding the city in the new sig-
nature pink, while tourist facilities multiply. The New York Times, with Carlos Slim as its
largest individual shareholder, named Mexico City the number one tourist destination of
2016, and tourists have taken notice. Open-top buses ferry tourists to the major museums,
public plazas, and other essential attractions. For example, one of these is themed for the
lucha libre, having added a night at the Arena de México to the schedule. Festivals, in gen-
eral, are ubiquitous throughout Mexico, held to celebrate an enormous variety of religious
and civic themes, ranging from saints’ days and the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) to
patriotic holidays inculcated by post-revolutionary leaders. In November 2016, a uniquely
Open-top tour buses are seen all over Mexico City.
The Day of the Dead parade was held on

October 29, 2016 in Mexico City, with set
pieces from Spectre prominently featured.
alien Día de los Muertos procession made its way through the major avenues of the capital
toward the Zócalo. The parade, designed to attract tourists, was inspired by the one featured
in the James Bond movie Spectre the year before. It drew mixed reactions from locals, but no
one could deny that this celebration, with the popular, elaborate, public altars to celebrate
the dead created each year by businesses, museums, and government offices, has become
exceedingly eclectic, mixing indigenous, Catholic, and modern traditions.
While much early Mexican rock was unashamedly derivative (one scholar aptly termed
it “Refried Elvis”), it eventually developed distinctive expressions that mixed pop music with
traditional forms like ranchera, banda, and norteña. Along with rocanrol came the disco, where
salsa and other Latin music coexisted with newer fads. The 2006 Avándaro festival included
groups like Café Tacuba, Jaguares, Maldita Vecindad, and Maná. A 2012 film, Hecho en México,
offers a cinematic mixture of original songs (folk, traditional, and popular), as well as insights
from the most iconic artists and performers of contemporary Mexico, including Alejandro
Fantastical creatures called alebrijes

scrape the treetops and glower over
passersby on the Day of the Dead in
Mexico City.
Fernández. Popular singers like Thalía, Luis Miguel, Paulina Rubio, Gloria Trevi and Julieta
Venegas are well-known outside of Mexico, in part because of their exposure to US audiences
in the expanding Spanish-language television networks. Univisión, which gets much of its
programming from Mexico’s Televisa, became the fifth largest television network in the United
States by 2006. The annual Latin Grammy Awards demonstrate the extent to which cultural
flows have crossed borders in both directions, bringing attention to many Mexican artists.
Lila Downs, the award-winning Mexican American singer/songwriter who has Zapotec
ancestry, incorporates indigenous Mexican influences into her music. Música norteña is also
highly prized across borders, popularized by such groups as Los Tucanes de Tijuana and
Los Tigres del Norte (especially known for narcocorridos). 2012 marked the death of Chavela
Vargas, a legend in Mexican music (even though she was actually born in Costa Rica). She
performed Mexican ranchera songs and other popular genres of Latin American music over
a seventy-year period. Her professional career was launched with the support of José Alfredo
Jiménez, perhaps the foremost singer/songwriter of Mexican ranchera music. His composi-
tions have been performed for generations by Chavela and many of the groups mentioned
above. Juan Gabriel, whose popular music crossed genres, died in 2016. Known to his many
fans as JuanGa and “El Divo de Juárez,” he was a songwriter and performer, the first popular
musician to have his own concert at the Palace of Fine Arts. He was an inspiration to many
as he played with gender and sexuality norms, refusing to give in to traditional ideas about
masculinity and heteronormative behaviors.
In the twenty-first century, Mexico is known the world over for its filmmakers and actors
even if big screen film production in Mexico itself has somewhat subsided. In 2010, Mexico
ranked fifth in the world in cinema attendance. Eight-screen multiplexes have squeezed out
many independent movie theaters, and there is a huge market for movie DVDs, primarily
pirated and sold in street stalls all over Mexico. After three decades of declining interest
on the part of producers or audiences, the 1990s saw a resurgence in Mexican film, known
internationally as the new wave, or the New Mexican Cinema. El Instituto Mexicano de Cin-
ematografía, (IMCINE), established in 1983, provided scant support for movies until the
early 1990s when a series of gifted directors began producing films that appealed to Mexican
and international audiences. Among them are Alfonso Arau (whose 1991 Como agua para
chocolate was an international success), Francisco Athié, Luis Mandoki, and the trio known
as the tres amigos—Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
While the world of film directing is remarkably male dominated in Mexico and around the
world, directors like Marisa Sistach, Maria Novarro, and Dana Rotberg also shaped the de-
velopment of the new wave.
The Tres Amigos offer testimony to both the success of the new wave in and beyond
Mexico and the limitations of the Mexican film industry. Cuarón and Iñárritu made their
names in Mexico directing films for a national audience using international techniques,
while del Toro is best known for his work in the horror genre. His first feature-length film
was Cronos (1993), a gory vampire narrative, now a cult classic of the category. Cuarón’s 2001
film Y tu mamá también and Amores Perros (2003) directed by Iñárritu flouted the Golden Age
focus on revolutionary-era mexicanidad. The first features a road trip by two college-aged
boys (played by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) that serves as a dual coming of age story
The tres amigos in 2007.
Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal at the Golden Globes

in 2017. Both actors got their start in telenovelas, were
an important part of the new wave cinema in the early
2000s, and now are international stars. Luna starred in
the recent Star Wars prequel Rogue One.
for the boys and for Mexico as it entered a new political chapter in 2000. The latter investi-
gates class difference in Mexico City through the stories of three people all brought together
in a car accident. After their initial successes in Mexico, Cuarón and Iñárritu made their way
to Hollywood where del Toro had a long-established career as a special effects make-up artist
in the horror genre. There they branched out to craft films in US and European contexts, for
example, Cuarón’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Gravity (2013), Iñár-
ritu’s Birdman (2014) and The Revenant (2015), along with del Toro’s films in the Hellboy
franchise. Mexicans proudly claim these films, made for international audiences, and cheer
when these directors win major awards for their work. For the first time in many years, in
2017 Cuarón returned to film a family drama set in Mexico City called Roma.
Movies and television for a Mexican market are still thriving, despite less support from
government agencies. A particular favorite was the 2013 Nosotros los Nobles that told the story
of a fresa (Mexican slang for superficial upper middle class “preppies”) family patriarch who
forces his children to do without his money and work for their keep. The popular comedy,
Nosotros los Nobles is one of the most

popular Mexican films of all time.
one of the highest grossing Mexican films of all time, launched the careers of its leads: Karla
Souza in Mexican films and a US television series, and Luis Gerardo Méndez who stars in
Club de Cuervos, Netflix’s first original series for the Mexican market. Streaming services are
growing in Mexico, with Netflix enlarging the catalog of original Mexican series and other
content that includes an expanding Korean selection for this growing immigrant population,
while Televisa launched BLIM in 2016 for the Latin American market. BLIM, despite provid-
ing the only access to a huge catalog of Televisa-produced telenovelas (the Latin American
version of US soap operas), has had little success against the bigger international providers.
Telenovelas filmed across Latin America continue to draw large audiences in Mexico. The
current First Lady of Mexico, Angélica Rivera, got her start as an actor in telenovelas; she is
often referred to as “la Gaviota” after her character in the 2007 Destilando amor set in the
tequila-producing region of Jalisco.
Televisa, the politically affiliated source of much criticism in the 2012 elections, domi-
nated Mexican television for decades, but finally got a rival of sorts when TV Azteca was
privatized in 1993. Since then cable television networks have moved into Mexico, making
US and other foreign programs and networks available, including CNN, BBC, HBO, and
even the NFL Network. Mexican children are treated not only to Disney productions but
also to Bob Esponja (Spongebob Squarepants) and Dora la Exploradora, while the rest of the
family watch Los Simpson. Some of the cable networks and both Televisa and Azteca fea-
ture reruns of American television series, but they also produce many original news, variety,
and sports shows, in addition to the most popular genre, telenovelas. The latter fall into
Angélica Rivera as the character “la Gaviota” in the telenovela Destilando amor, before she married Enrique
Peña Nieto.
several subgenres, including the historical romance, the teen drama, and the pop music
story. Perhaps the most popular is the working-class melodrama, which typically features a
poor young woman falling in love with a wealthy man whose haughty family spurns her.
Beginning in the 1990s, Televisa found a huge market for its telenovelas in Eastern Europe
and Asia. More recently telenovelas have aired social criticism, addressing themes of pov-
erty, political corruption, drug smuggling, and immigration. In addition, Mexico’s National
University and its Polytechnic Institute produce cultural and educational programs on their
own networks.
Sports continued to offer diversion, predominantly in soccer. Mexico has qualified con-
secutively since 1994 for the World Cup competition, making it one of six countries to do
so. The Mexico national team, along with Brazil and Germany. are the only nations to make
it out of the group stage over the last six world cups. In terms of success, Mexico reached the
quarter-finals in both the 1970 and 1986 world cups, both of which were staged on Mexican
soil. The Tricolor won the Olympic gold medal in 2012 (London) but disappointed its fans
in the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics. Top Mexican players recruited by Euro-
pean teams include Hugo Sánchez, Rafa Márquez, Guillermo Ochoa, and Javier Hernández
(Chicharito).
The Internet has been eagerly embraced in Mexico, which counted 60 million users by
2016. Video games are another source of entertainment; a recent study showed that nearly a
fourth of Mexicans spent half of their leisure time playing them. Internet cafes are found ev-
erywhere. By 2015, 80 percent of the population owned mobile phones while only 40 percent
possessed landlines. Rural areas, where few wired telephones exist, are better served by
A popular meme superimposed Guillermo Ochoa’s

face on the infamous Time Magazine cover after his per-
formance at the 2014 World Cup. Goalie Ochoa was
named “man of the match” in their semifinal loss to the
Dutch. Mexicans still lament the loss with the cry “no
era penal,” or “that was no penalty!”
cell phones, heavily used to link migrants with their families. Three-quarters of the mobile
phone market has been controlled by América Movil (Telcel in Mexico), the multinational
company owned by Carlos Slim Helú. As opposed to the high rates charged by his company
Telmex, América Movil offers relatively cheap fixed plans and has concentrated on attracting
customers en masse, but the new telecommunications reform has allowed competition from
AT&T and other providers. Mexico and the USA are closely linked by telephone. More than
90 percent of the international calls from Mexico go to the United States whereas roughly
13 percent of all US international calls go to Mexico. Cell-phone users are ubiquitous on the
streets, in restaurants, and more annoyingly in the audiences at public performances.
Yet, according to one newspaper commentator, as a means of communication the tele-
phone is very cold (muy frío) and not the most important. In an amusing 2007 editorial in
La Reforma, cultural critic Juan Villoro maintained that in Mexico the principal means of
communication is the comida, the main “midday” meal. Other forms of communication are
important only for arranging the comida, which is rarely served before 3:00 p.m., lasts at
least two hours, and often spills over into dinner and breakfast. The comida is only authentic
when performed in the company of others: it is the venue for conducting business most ef-
ficiently and certainly in the most civilized manner. According to Villoro, “The only way to
reach an agreement—either emotional or professional—involves sharing the table from the
aperitif (tequila) to the after-dinner liqueur. Phone calls and e-mails are simply attempts to
get to the moment when the dish of maguey worms means that we have begun to under-
stand each other. . . . In some exotic countries the main meal is considered a necessity or a
delight. In Mexico it’s virtually a legal act. We only know that someone is making a deal or
really cares for us if it happens when our mouths are deliciously full.”1
Mexicans are funny. As in humorous. Humor is central to daily interactions, cultural
expressions, and political critique. For example, the albur is a complicated form of word
play, pun, or double entendre that often has a sexual connotation and Mexicans, men and
women alike, constantly try to one-up each other with better albures. While these tend to
be a competition among friends, political jokes are a form of public resistance. Mexican
political scientist Samuel Schmidt demonstrates that these jokes often direct pointed attacks
at politicians and public figures, serving as an outlet for protest not always afforded by the
political establishment. One such joke during the Fox sexenio went:
In a message to the nation, Fox says, “Citizens, I have good news and bad news for you.”
“What’s the good news?”

“Our foreign debt has been settled.”
“And the bad news?”
“We have seventy-two hours to leave the country.”2
Jokes and political cartoons, while still common, have given way to a new generation of
memes and hashtags. For example, Mexicans took great pleasure in mocking the government
1 “El teléfono es muy frio,” La Reforma, June 1, 2007.

2 Quoted in Samuel Schmidt, Seriously Funny: Mexican Political Jokes as Social Resistance. trans. by Adam
Schmidt (Tucson, AZ, 2014), 206.
Two of the many memes that mocked the Mexican President and First Lady during their official visit to the
United Kingdom, March 2015. The first, “What kind of gel do these dudes use?” and the second, “Hey Liz: what’s
the name of the builder who gave you this palace?” (in reference to the Casa Blanca scandal).
when El Chapo escaped for a second time in 2015; many memes suggested that the mayor
of Mexico City should hire the workers who built the escape tunnel to fix the newest Mexico
City metro line that had been plagued with problems since its opening. Memes circulate
through Twitter and Facebook, finding their most popular targets in President Peña Nieto
and his wife, other Mexican politicians, and of course Donald Trump. It should also be
noted that piñata makers got a boon when they started crafting Trump effigies.
Their political humor notwithstanding, many Mexicans are also religious, as evidenced
by the mass turnouts for Pope Francis’s visit in 2016. After Vatican II, elements of the
church hierarchy and countless parish priests became more outspoken in favor of social
reform. Mexican Catholics are eclectic in their ties to the church, and some certainly chose
to ignore Mexican Archbishop Norberto Rivera Carrera’s warnings in 2007 about the sin
of abortion or same-sex marriage, for example. They could not overlook the scandal that
beset the Mexican church at the turn of the twenty-first century. Allegations began to sur-
face about the improprieties and sexual abuse perpetrated by Marcial Maciel Degollado
who had founded a Mexican order, the Legionaries of Christ, in 1941. While Maciel was
protected by Pope John Paul II, the charges were suppressed until they became so public in
2005 that Pope Benedict XVI ordered the priest to resign and offered a public apology from
the Vatican for his crimes. Not all Mexicans are Catholics of course. In the 2010 census,
83 percent of Mexicans self-identified as Catholic, about 12 percent as Protestant, Jewish,
or Islamic, and 5 percent as having no religion. Many who said they were Catholic did not
practice the religion, and thousands have left the church: at least 4 million people between
2000 and 2015.
Despite the anticlericalism embodied in revolutionary ideology, the faithful continued their pilgrimage to the
Basílica de Guadalupe in the postwar period. Today you can watch masses through the “Transmisiones en vivo”
from their webpage.
SCHOLARSHIP AND INTELLECTUAL ACTIVISM
It took a long time for professional, less polemical scholarship to reach the public, but
it finally did in dramatic fashion late in 1992. Mexico’s mandatory school textbooks un-
derwent a major revision. Porfirio Díaz emerged not as a despotic megalomaniac but as a
positive actor in the creation of modern Mexico. The revolutionary icons on the other hand,
especially Emiliano Zapata, surfaced as rather less heroic and not entirely free of warts. In
general harmony with the post-revolutionary political ethic, the textbooks no longer attrib-
uted Mexico’s serious national problems solely to the imperialistic United States. For the first
time, Mexican schoolchildren were allowed to read a reasonable and accurate accounting of
what happened on October 2, 1968, at Tlatelolco. They deserved to know. But the textbook
revisions were controversial as many recoiled at the thought that Mexican history should be
rewritten to harmonize with the contemporary political and economic proclivities. In the
most recent reincarnation of the idea that historical interpretation reflects the social milieu
of the writer, the Fox administration proposed new changes in school curriculum that de-
emphasized the study of Mexico’s past in favor of texts that would point Mexico in a more
modern, technological direction.
Contributing to the maturation of historical scholarship over time, beginning in 1949
Mexican historians came together with their US, Canadian, and European counterparts in
conferences held every four years to discuss the state of the field. In 2010, the thirteenth
meeting convened in Querétaro to exchange ideas during the bicentennial of Mexico’s revo-
lution for independence and the centennial of the Mexican revolution. Aspiring historians
submitted the fruits of their research to one another, tested new ideas, pinpointed lacunae,
and disputed the latest revisionist interpretations. The Mexican government had been pre-
paring for years to celebrate these centenaries, spending millions of dollars in revitalizing
historical places, staging pageantry, and subsidizing research and publication on these wa-
tersheds in Mexican history. The historical vision of the PAN governments did not match
the revolutionary ideology so long espoused by the PRI. Symbols of national identity were
fiercely contested along civil, religious, moral, and philosophical lines, confirming that no
one had a monopoly on defining lo mexicano in the twenty-first century.
In a move that facilitated access to original historical sources, in 2002 during the presi-
dency of Vicente Fox, a new transparency law changed the political landscape in Mexico. In
fact, social science scholars have argued that the Mexican law became a global model for
good government practice. For historians, it produced the opening of the collection of docu-
ments from the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS) that shed new light on post-World
War II Mexico, especially for the 1960s and 1970s. Colloquially known as the secret police,
the intelligence agency went through multiple iterations during the twentieth century, be-
coming what is today known as Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (CISEN).
Initially modeled after the FBI, the agents and their informants were deployed to spy on
Mexican citizens, a practice that was ramped up in the 1970s. Political analyst Sergio Aguayo,
who gained access to the collection before it officially opened to researchers in 2002, es-
timated that the one hundred twenty DFS agents in 1965 had swelled to approximately
three thousand in 1981, with ten thousand informants. The agency relied on journalists,
politicians, businessmen, and academics as informers, and collected substantial raw data
on Mexican citizens. Most of those surveilled were involved in a spectrum of reformist and
left-leaning political movements considered subversive by the government; they included
student activists, Communist party members, intellectuals, and indigenous rights activists.
The documents in this collection, available to researchers for twelve years, have been used to
write critically revealing historical studies.
In 2012, with the return of the PRI to the presidency, the transparency law was amended.
New regulations, under the guise of privacy protections, require that all CISEN documents
be redacted of personal information for seventy years. While it is not unusual for govern-
ments to establish a period of time before they release documents, reclassifying and redact-
ing documents that had been accessible for twelve years reminded many in Mexico of the
censorship of earlier PRI administrations. While researchers are allowed to see redacted ver-
sions, individual Mexican citizens can go to the National Archive to see their own files. In
late 2016, Elena Poniatowska did just this, consulting her file of one hundred eighty-three
pages that included reports on speeches she gave, protests she attended, and analysis of
her writings. She commented, “I never thought that going to a student protest was a sin.”
In 2017, the PRI intends to further restrict access to collections of sources critical to writ-
ing the history of post-World War II Mexico by enacting a new law governing archives. The
twelve-year window of transparency opened under the PAN may well collapse further as the
Elena Poniatowska, well known Mexican writer and

social critic, consulted her own DFS file at the National
Archive in November 2016.
PRI tries to obscure past missteps and rights violations. More alarming still, in June 2017,
Mexican media outlets reported that the Peña Nieto government was violating the law by
using sophisticated surveillance software to spy on prominent journalists and activists criti-
cal of the government.
Among the most widely read authors at the turn of the century were the cultural critics
Elena Poniatowska and Carlos Monsiváis, writing in the crónica style that crosses the borders
between fiction and nonfiction. Poniatowska has continued to focus on social and human
rights issues, especially those involving women and the poor, in her many novels and essays.
She has won several international literary awards, including Spain’s 2013 Cervantes award
for lifetime literary achievement, the fourth woman to do so. Monsiváis, who garnered Mex-
ico’s prestigious Juan Rulfo literary prize in 2006, has been described as a kind of “public
trickster” who brilliantly described urban popular culture and sought to empower his read-
ers through his critiques of official policies.
Carlos Monsiváis died in 2010, followed by Carlos Fuentes in 2012, and José Emilio
Pacheco in 2014, leaving few literary giants to compellingly carry on the tradition of po-
litical satire and cultural commentary. Elena Poniatowska continues to write on Mexico’s
twentieth century cultural legacy, penning biographies and memoirs about intellectuals, lit-
erary figures, and artists whom she knew, including her husband, the astronomer Guillermo
Haro. Also among the leading contemporary creative writers are the essayist and novelist
Juan Villoro and crime fiction writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II. Sub-Comandante Marcos once
again captured public attention in 2004 when he offered Taibo the opportunity to coauthor
a novel with him. Entitled Muertos incómodos, the novel was published in installments in the
leftist newspaper La Jornada as the authors alternated chapters in this crime novel featuring a
Zapatista detective and a cynical private investigator who expose injustices.
C U LT U R A L H Y B R I D I T I E S
US cultural influences overwhelmed Mexico in the postwar period, for better or worse. To
the chagrin of those who prize traditional Hispanic values, advertisements and commercials
assumed a distinct US flavor, and hundreds of Anglicisms invaded the language. Somehow
el jit, el jonron, el extra inin seemed more palatable than okay, bay-bay, chance, jipi, biznes, par-
quear, lonche, and Twittear. Nobody could explain why Mexican teenagers in Gap jeans began
calling up their suiti for a date. Linguistic syncretism bequeathed its share of amusing redun-
dancies, such as the cocktail lounge that displayed a sign reading “4:00–5:00, La Hora de
Happy Hour” and the tourist restaurant whose menu proudly advertised “Chile con Carne
with Meat.” Beer supplanted pulque as the favorite alcoholic drink of the lower classes,
while Scotch whisky took the place of cognac among the middle and upper classes, only to
be rivaled by a return to expensive tequila as a status symbol. For the first time, Halloween,
complete with plastic pumpkins and trick-or-treating, made inroads into Mexico’s tradi-
tional celebration of the Day of the Dead, and hand-carved folk toys lost favor to the latest
imported crazes.
American-style football did not really challenge the preeminence of soccer, but thou-
sands of Mexicans became enthralled with professional football, telecast to Mexico City on
Sundays. The January 1988 spectacular Superbowl XX, between the Osos de Chicago and
the Patriotas de Nueva Inglaterra especially captivated the Mexican sports fan. Mexican busi-
nessmen joined the Rotary and the Lions Club. Installment buying on Mexican versions of
Visa and MasterCard made possible an orgy of consumption and placed families in a new
kind of debt but gave them the opportunity to acquire furnishings and accoutrements for
the home that would have been unusual two decades before. Supermercados with plastic
packaging and individually priced items began to replace the traditional marketplace in all
the larger cities. Stocked with corn flakes, Campbell’s soup, Gatorade, Cap’n Crunch cereal,
and Coca-Cola, Mexican supermarkets were distinguished from their North American coun-
terparts only by the absence of huge parking lots. Upscale supermarkets emerged to offer
elites a variety of international products, and smaller stores catered to the growing Asian
market. Mexico’s Zona Rosa, after losing its cachet for the rich, is again an up and coming
neighborhood where many Koreans have established communities and one can find a
Korean grocery outlet or restaurant on every block, selling products like K-pop, imported
cosmetics, and bimimbap.
Multinational chains carpeted Mexico City. Residents and tourists alike could rent a car
from Avis, Hertz, Budget, or Thrifty; drive on Goodyear, Firestone, or Uniroyal tires to a
fast-food outlet called Burger King, KFC, Subway, or Pizza Hut. When the McDonald’s chain
opened its first restaurant on the southern edge of the sprawling capital in October 1985,
eight Mexico City policemen were kept busy for days directing traffic in front of the golden
Korean shops in the Zona Rosa.

arches. In 1992, in the most bizarre example of gastronomical entrepreneurship, one US

corporation decided it could think of nothing better than to offer Mexicans an example
of exquisite Mexican cuisine. Yes, Taco Bell opened its first Mexico City franchise, nearly
gagging Mexicans. By the 1980s, however, Mexican products were being distributed in the
United States. Pan Bimbo (originally a Mexican Wonder Bread clone) entered the US market
in 1984, producing, distributing, and selling bread, tortillas, and Mexican snack food. Any
US city of substantial Hispanic population today boasts supermarkets and tiendas that sell a
variety of Mexican labels.
In the twenty-first century, no foreign import to Mexico could rival Wal-Mart, which
operated over 1400 stores and restaurants. Having bought up several Mexican supermar-
ket chains, it became Mexico’s largest retailer and employer. Many Mexicans were outraged
when Wal-Mart, despite loud protests, opened a store in San Juan Teotihuacán, less than a
half-mile from the ancient “City of the Gods.” Local retailers who decried the desecration
that figuratively imposed Mickey Mouse on top of pyramids were forced out of business.
Costco and Starbucks number among hundreds of recent additions to foreign retailers.
In 2010 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
designated thirty-one Mexican locations on its list of World Heritage Sites and named a
number of Mexican cultural traditions and expressions as part of its project on the Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Mariachi music, a variety of indigenous cultural practices
and festivals, the Day of the Dead celebrations, and traditional Mexican cuisine appear on
the list. The latter includes farm production, preparation, and cooking techniques. Food is
ever-present in any Mexican city or village, with the smells of tacos, quesadillas, and grilled
meat wafting through the streets while refreshing drinks of hot atole for breakfast or freshly-
squeezed juice and fruit-flavored aguas can be purchased at corner stands.
Diversity and history abound in Mexican cuisine. The north is known for beef—grilled or
dried and salted—while seafood dominates the fare of Veracruz along the Gulf coast, as well
as Pacific port cities. Oaxaca and Puebla are known for mole, a sauce made of any number of
ground ingredients (the name comes from the Spanish word moler, to grind), most f amously
including chocolate, but also chilies, spices, fruits, and even flowers, combined in a dark, rich
sauce usually served with chicken or turkey. One must take care when ordering a m ichelada, a
drink that features additions to beer. In Mexico City, it simply consists of lime with a salted
rim, but in many places Worcestershire or hot sauce is added, while along the coast, shrimp
might complement the thirst-quenching concoction! The diversity of Mexican food has also
been recognized in the rarefied world of international haute cuisine. Mexican chef Mónica
Patiño has received recognition as one of the top chefs in the country with high-end restau-
rants that serve Mexican food with international influences, and more modest eateries that
serve the fresas and hipsters in affluent neighborhoods in Mexico City. Three Mexico City
establishments made the list of the Fifty Best Restaurants in the World in 2016.
Mexican cuisine has taken on a life of its own well beyond the confines of national bor-
ders. Tacos, burritos, and fajitas, in a myriad of styles and forms, have long been available
in places around the globe. Foreign chefs like Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless played a sig-
nificant role in popularizing high-end Mexican food—through cookbooks, television shows,
and restaurants—in the United States. But, in their search for an “authentic” cuisine, they
leave little space for a food culture that is constantly changing, within Mexico and beyond.
Upscale restaurants from San Francisco to Copenhagen feature creative dishes that use cacao,
cactus, prehispanic varieties of tomatoes, squash, and pumpkins, along with corn and chiles.
Cultural critic Gustavo Arellano argues that the hard-shelled taco (which got its start at the
Los Angeles cafe Cielito Lindo), Arizona-favorite Sonora Dogs, and the food trucks serving
Korean-Mexican fusion tacos are as Mexican as nopales, huitlacoche, and avocados.
Tequila, mezcal, and pulque, all made from the agave plant but processed differently,
have a long and storied history in Mexico. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, they were
produced largely for ritual consumption by elites. In the colonial period, the colonizers
imposed prohibitions designed to curb the lower classes from drinking so much; one such
attempt required that pulquerías have no more than three walls and no chairs to ensure that
no one got too comfortable and that officials could keep watch. During the nineteenth cen-
tury, snobby Porfirians agreed that such drinks were beneath their sophisticated tastes, but
this changed with the Mexican revolution. Tequila, made in the region of Jalisco and named
after the town, became symbolically linked with the idea of mexicanidad and ideals of social
A late 1960s José Cuervo tequila adver-

tisement for th United States market.
Note the image of pyramid of Chichen
Itza in the background.
justice. Pancho Villa, imagined as a hard-drinking revolutionary despite the fact that he was
a teetotaler, came to be associated with tequila, linking this alcoholic drink with a certain
kind of revolutionary masculinity. Amusingly, the 1999 edition of The New American Bar-
tender’s Guide, suggests that the original way to order a shot of tequila was to say “Tequila,
Pancho Villa style, please.”3 Exports of tequilas and Mexican beers, grew steadily throughout
the twentieth century; advertising campaigns in the United States elevated the minor Mexi-
can holiday of Cinco de Mayo to a day dedicated to selling these beverages.
Mexican spirits have risen in popularity in the twenty-first century. In fact, mezcal and
pulque have come back into fashion and are popular with fresas and hipsters alike. Bars in
Mexico City serve artisanal, small batch versions of tequila and mezcal, while pulquerías
that were once only found in working class barrios are now fashionable for middle class
Mexicans and foreigners. Tourists can visit the Museo del Tequila y El Mezcal (MUTEM),
built in 2010 as part of the refurbishment of the Plaza Garibaldi, famous for the mariachi
groups who gather there. And just as tequila became a transnational product in the twentieth
century, mezcalerías are popping up in major cities across the United States. The distribution
and sale of tequila and mezcal are fraught with contradictions as locally produced versions
from Jalisco, Oaxaca, and Durango struggle against large commercial enterprises. Dispute
over regulation speaks to the new-found popularity of mezcal in the last twenty years; while
tequila may epitomize mexicanidad for foreigners, Mexicans are finding their autonomous
niche by drinking mezcal. As the saying goes, “Para todo mal, mezcal; para todo bien,
tambien.” (For everything bad, [drink] mezcal; for everything good, [do] the same).
The concept of the “raza cósmica” promulgated by José Vasconcelos in the 1920s pro-
posing that the mestizos of Mexico combined the best of their indigenous and European
heritage, has persisted as the primary image of Mexican ethnicity. Mexican society is often
understood, by both Mexicans and foreigners, as largely homogeneous. However, this ig-
nores the more than a million Afro-Mexicans or the waves of European, Middle Eastern,
and Asian immigrants who began arriving in the nineteenth century. Today, it is difficult to
count the number of immigrants living in Mexico as few are officially registered as perma-
nent residents but rather extend their stay on generous tourist visas. For example, statistics
from 2009 claimed that just over 260,000 foreigners resided in Mexico, but unofficially most
sources agree that at least a million US citizens live or work in the country, not to mention
at least an equal number who have emigrated from other parts of the world, like the Koreans
mentioned above.
In 2015, for the first time the Mexican census included the category of Afro-Mexican.
News outlets reported that this simple act prompted 1.4 million Mexican citizens to self-
identify as being of African descent. While clearly not a discovery, it marked the first time
in Mexican history that this population was acknowledged as part of the national fabric.
Although scholars have devoted energy to understanding the populations of African descent
in the colonial period, as slaves and free blacks, in militias and cofradías, and as a significant
part of the labor force, these studies are absent for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
3 Quoted in Marie Sarita Gaytán, ¡Tequila! Distilling the Spirit of Mexico (Stanford, CA, 2014), 43.
Mexicans express their frustrations through graffiti throughout the country. In the first, the president is por-
trayed as Pinocchio, his nose grown long from too many lies (Mexico City); the second says, “Here we unleash
the battle” (Oaxaca City); and finally the third portrays an iconic Lázaro Cárdenas taking a stand against the
exorbitant rise in gas prices, called the “Gasolinazo,” implemented at the start of 2017 by the federal government.
Mid-twentieth-century ethnographies of Afro-Mexicans along the coasts tended to impose

ideas about blackness and African origins on populations that saw themselves as Mexican
and prefer to identify as moreno. Mexicanidad leaves little room for the African component
of this identity, but the UNESCO designation and activists who pushed for such a recogni-
tion in the federal census have brought the issue back into the nation’s consciousness.
The task of reconciling Mexico’s pluriethnic past in the twenty-first century became more
complicated as scientists compiled data from the Mexico Genome Diversity Project that
showed a stunning range of genetic diversity across the indigenous populations. One thing
was certain, however: mexicanidad could no longer be summed up in the homogeneous
myths of the revolution. The concepts of cultural hybridity and multiculturalism offered
better fits for explaining the co-existence of traditional and modern practices and interpreta-
tions of culture, as well as the Mexican diaspora to the United States. However disparate their
concepts of what it meant to be Mexican, the vision of the future for most was to create a
more just and prosperous nation.
This ideal, however, remained a figment of the imagination. Unfortunately, the fresh
experiments in democracy after 2000 have been frustrated by an entrenched legal and politi-
cal culture resistant to change, no matter the party affiliation, by global economic factors
beyond Mexico’s control, and by the drug trade. The future is scarcely predictable, but the
potential for overcoming these setbacks is vast as anyone familiar with the rich and complex
history of Mexico cannot fail to appreciate.
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by Mark Schafer, Jim Heinrich, Elissa Rashkin, and Isabel Arredondo. Plattsburgh, NY: Digital Com-
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Arellano, Gustavo. Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Boyer, Christopher. A Land between Waters: Environmental Histories of Modern Mexico. Tucson: University of
Bowen, Sarah. Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production. Berkeley: University of Califor-
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Chorba, Carrie C. Mexico, from Mestizo to Multicultural: National Identity and Recent Representations of the
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A PPEND I X
MEXICAN HEADS OF STATE
The Aztecs
Acamapichtli 1372–91
Huitzilíhuitl 1391–1417
Chimalpopoca 1417–27
Itzcóatl 1427–40
Moctezuma Ilhuicamina (Moctezuma I) 1440–68
Axayácatl 1468–81
Tizoc 1481–86
Ahuítzotl 1486–1502
Moctezuma Xocoyótzin (Moctezuma II) 1502–June 1520
Cuitláhuac June–October 1520
Cuauhtémoc October 1520–August 1521
Immediate Post-Conquest Period

Fernando Cortés 1521–24
Crown Officials 1524–26
Residencia Judges 1526–28
First Audiencia 1528–31
Second Audiencia 1531–35
Viceroys of the Colonial Period

Antonio de Mendoza 1535–50
Luis de Velasco (the elder) 1550–64
Source: Adapted from Richard E. Greenleaf and Michael C. Meyer, eds., Research in Mexican History: Topics,
Methodology, Sources and a Practical Guide to Field Research (Lincoln, 1973), 221–24; and David P. Henige, Colonial
Governors from the Fifteenth Century to the Present (Madison, 1970), 312–13.
609
610 appendix: mexican heads of state
Gastón de Peralta 1566–68

Martín Enríquez de Almanza 1568–80
Lorenzo Suárez de Mendoza 1580–83
Luis de Villanueva y Zapata 1582–83
Pedro Moya de Contreras 1584–85
Alvaro Manrique de Zúñiga 1585–90
Luis de Velasco (the younger) 1590–95
Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo 1595–1603
Juan Manuel de Mendoza y Luna 1603–07
Luis de Velasco (the younger) 1607–11
Fray Francisco García Guerra 1611–12
Diego Fernández de Córdoba 1612–21
Diego Carrillo de Mendoza y Pimentel 1621–24
Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio 1624–35
Lope Díaz de Armendáriz 1635–40
Diego López Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla 1640–42
Juan de Palafox y Mendoza 1642
García Sarmiento y Sotomayor 1642–48
Marcos de Torres y Rueda 1648–49
Matías de Peralta 1649–50
Luis Enríquez y Guzmán 1650–53
Francisco Fernández de la Cueva 1653–60
Juan de Leyva y de la Cerda 1660–64
Diego Osorio de Escobar y Llamas 1664
Antonio Sebastián de Toledo 1664–73
Pedro Nuño Colón de Portugal 1673
Fray Payo Enríquez de Rivera 1673–80
Tomás Antonio Manrique de la Cerda y Aragón 1680–86
Melchor Portocarrero Lasso de la Vega 1686–88
Gaspar de Sandoval Silva y Mendoza 1688–96
Juan de Ortega y Montañez 1696
José Sarmiento Valladares 1696–1701
Juan de Ortega y Montañez 1701
Francisco Fernández de la Cueva Enríquez 1701–11
Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva 1711–16
Baltasar de Zúñiga y Guzmán 1716–22
Juan de Acuña 1722–34
Juan Antonio Vizarrón y Eguiarreta 1734–40
Pedro de Castro y Figueroa 1740–41
Pedro Cebrián y Agustín 1742–46
Francisco de Güemes y Horcasitas 1746–55
(subsequently first Count Revillagigedo)
Appendix: Mexican Heads of State 611
Agustín Ahumada y Villalón 1755–60

Francisco Cajigal de la Vega 1760
Joaquín de Monserrat 1760–66
Carlos Francisco de Croix 1766–71
Antonio María de Bucareli 1771–79
Martín de Mayorga 1779–83
Matías de Gálvez 1783–84
Vicente de Herrera y Rivero 1784–85
Bernardo de Gálvez 1785–86
Eusebio Sánchez Pareja y Beleño 1786–87
Alonso Núñez de Haro y Peralta 1787
Manuel Antonio Flores 1787–89
Juan Vicente de Güemes Pacheco y Padilla 1789–94
(second Count Revillagigedo)
Miguel de la Grúa Talamanca y Branciforte 1794–98
Miguel José de Azanza 1798–1800
Félix Berenguer de Marquina 1800–1803
José de Iturrigaray 1803–08
Pedro Garibay 1808–09
Francisco Javier de Lizana y Beaumont 1809–10
Francisco Javier de Venegas 1810–13
Félix María Calleja del Rey 1813–16
Juan Ruiz de Apodaca 1816–21
Francisco Novella 1821
Juan O’Donojú did not assume office
Independence Period and Early Republic

Emperor Agustín de Iturbide 1822–23
Guadalupe Victoria (Félix Fernández) 1824–29
Vicente Guerrero 1829
José María Bocanegra (interim) 1829
Pedro Vélez, Luis Quintanar, and 1829
Lucas Alamán, triumvirate
Anastasio Bustamante 1830–32, 1837–39, and 1842
Melchor Múzquiz (interim) 1832
Manuel Gómez Pedraza 1833
Antonio López de Santa Anna variously from 1833 to 1855
Valentín Gómez Farías 1833, 1834, and 1847
Miguel Barragán 1835–36
José Justo Corro 1836–37
Nicolás Bravo variously from 1839 to 1846
Javier Echeverría 1841
Valentín Canalizo 1844
612 appendix: mexican heads of state
José Joaquín Herrera (interim) 1844, 1845, and 1848–51

Mariano Paredes Arrillaga 1846
Mariano Salas 1846
Pedro María Anaya 1847 and 1848
Manuel de la Peña y Peña 1847 and 1848
Mariano Arista 1851–53
Juan Bautista Ceballos (interim) 1853
Manuel María Lombardini 1853
Martín Carrera (interim) 1855
Rómulo Díaz de la Vega 1855
The Reform and the French Intervention

Juan Alvarez 1855
Ignacio Comonfort 1855–58
Liberal Government
Benito Juárez 1855–72
Conservative Government
Félix Zuloaga 1858 and 1859
Manuel Robles Pezuela 1858
Miguel Miramón 1859–60
Ignacio Pavón 1860
Conservative Junta 1860–64
Emperor Maximilian von Hapsburg 1864–67
Post-Reform Period
Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada 1872–76
Porfirio Díaz 1876–80 and 1884–1911
Juan N. Méndez 1876
Manuel González 1880–84
Revolutionary Period
Francisco León de la Barra (interim) 1911
Francisco I. Madero 1911–13
Pedro Lascuraín (interim) 1913
Victoriano Huerta (interim) 1913–14
Francisco S. Carbajal (interim) 1914
Venustiano Carranza 1914 and 1915–20
Eulalio Gutiérrez 1914
(interim, named by Convention)
Roque González Garza 1914
Francisco Lagos Cházaro 1915
Adolfo de la Huerta (interim) 1920
Appendix: Mexican Heads of State 613
Alvaro Obregón 1920–24

Plutarco Elías Calles 1924–28
Emilio Portes Gil (interim) 1928–30
Pascual Ortiz Rubio 1930–32
Abelardo L. Rodríguez (interim) 1932–34
Lázaro Cárdenas 1934–40
Post-Revolutionary Period
Manuel Avila Camacho 1940–46
Miguel Alemán Valdés 1946–52
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines 1952–58
Adolfo López Mateos 1958–64
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz 1964–70
Luis Echeverría Alvarez 1970–76
José López Portillo 1976–82
Miguel de la Madrid 1982–88
Carlos Salinas de Gortari 1988–94
Ernesto Zedillo 1994–2000
Vicente Fox 2000–2006
Felipe Calderón Hinojosa 2006–2012
Enrique Peña Nieto 2012–2018
SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS
W e gratefully acknowledge the following persons and institutions for the photographs
and illustrations in this book.
List of Abbreviations
AMNH American Museum of Natural History, New York
AIA Archaeological Institute of America, New York
ASHS Arizona State Historical Society, Tucson
BL Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
HRC Humanities Research Center, University of
Texas, Austin
HL Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California
IADB Interamerican Development Bank,
Washington, D.C.
INAH Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia
LC Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
MMA Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
MNA Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico
MNTC Mexican National Tourist Council, New York
NA National Archive, Washington, D.C.
NYPL New York Public Library
OAS Organization of American States,
Washington, D.C.
SMM Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul
UAL University of Arizona Library, Tucson
614
Sources of Illustrations 615
Chapter 1. p. 6, AMNH; 8, left—MMA, Michael C. Rockefeller Mem. Coll. of Primitive

Art, right—MNA; 9, LC. Chapter 2. p. 12, MMA, Rockefeller Coll; 15, above, AMNH; below,
left—AMNH, below, right—MMA, Rockefeller Coll; 17, MNTC; 18, AIA; 19, MNTC; 20,
MNA; 21, Leslie Hughes; 23, Jeffrey House; 25, MMA, Rockefeller Coll; 26, above left—AMNH,
above right—MNTC, below, MNA; 27, left—MNA, right—Dumbarton Oaks, Washington,
D.C. Chapter 3. p. 32, AIA; 34, above—NYPL, below—Alan Bates; 35, left—MMA, Rockefeller
Coll, right—MNTC; 36, CONACULTA-INAH-MEX; 37, 38, Leslie Hughes; 39, above—AIA,
below—Bradley Smith; 40, above—AMNH, below—MNTC; 41, Thomas Laging. Chapter 4.
p. 46, LC; 49, 50, AMNH. Chapter 5. 54, Biblioteca, MNA; 55, Foto Marburg/Art Resource, NY;
56, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.; 60, 62, 63, LC; 64, 65, MNA; 66, LC; 68, AMNH;
69, Bradley Smith. Chapter 6. p. 76, J.B. Handelsman; 80, above left—MMA, Rogers Fund,
1904, right—MMA, Gift William H. Riggs, 1913, below left— MMA, Gift Abraham Silberman,
1937, right—MMA, Rogers Fund, 1921; 81, Hospital de Jesús, México; 85, NYPL.; 88, above—
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, below—MMA, Gift William H. Riggs, 1913;
92, Biblioteca, MNA; 93, above—after a model in the John W. Higgins Armory, Worcester,
MA. Chapter 7. p. 98, MNTC; 101, Casa Popenoe, Antigua, Guatemala; 103, 105, from Justo
Sierra, Mexico, Its Social Revolution; 106, BL. Chapter 8. p. 122, LC; 124, MMA, Gift William
H. Riggs, 1913. Chapter 9. p. 129, Pan Amer. Development Foundation; 132, Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, London; 133, NA; 136, upper left—Philadelphia Museum of Art, upper right and
below—MMA, Gift Mrs. Robert W. de Forest, 1911; 138 top, Roger (New Zealand) Morris/
National Geographic Creative, below, from Carlos Nebel, Viaje pintoresco y arqueológico
sobre . . . la República Mexicana . . . 1839; 140, American Numismatic Society, N.Y. Chapter 10.
p. 143, LC; 145, Programa Nacional de Arte Popular; 147, LC; 148, Jeffrey House; 149, LC;
151, 152, Vicente Riva Palacios, México a través de los siglos, 1887–89; 153, CONACULTA-
INAH-MEX. Chapter 11. p. 164, CONACULTA-INAH-MEX; 168, Album/Art Resource, NY; 169,
ART Collection/Alamy Stock Photo; 170, www.correodelmaestro.com. Chapter 12. pp. 177,
179, from Justo Sierra, Mexico, Its Social Revolution, 1900; 184, LC; 185, BL; 186, MMA; 187,
Leslie Hughes; 189, 190, Hispanic Society of America, N.Y.; 192, from México y sus alrede-
dores, Editorial Valle de México, 1980. Chapter 13. p. 198, Bruckman Art Reference Bureau; 205,
from México y sus alrededores, Editorial Valle de México, 1980. Chapter 14. p. 209, OAS; 210,
LC; 211, from Carlos Nebel, Viaje pintoresco y arqueológico sobre . . . la República Mexicana . . . ,
1839; 212, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London; 214, The Brooklyn Museum; 215, BL; 219, MMA,
Bequest Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929; 221, BL. Chapter 15. p. 225, LC; 229, Bettmann Archive.
Chapter 16. p. 237, from Gobernantes de México, 1325–1911, Artes de México, No. 175, año XXI,
p. 59. Chapter 17. p. 247, from Justo Sierra, México, Its Social Revolution, 1900. Chapter 18.
p. 253, BL; 257, BL; 262, NA; 267, NYPL. Chapter 19. pp. 273, 274, from Vicente Riva Palacios,
México a través de los siglos, 1887–89; 275, 277, from B. Mayer, Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and
Republican, 1852. Chapter 20. p. 285, BL; 289, BL; 291, ASHS; 293, 297, from M. de los Torres,
El archiduque Maximiliano de Austria en México, 1867. Chapter 21. p. 303, HRC; 304, NYPL;
306, HL. Chapter 22. p. 311, Vicente Riva Palacios, México a través de los siglos, 1887–89; 312,
BL; 313, México y sus alrededores, Editorial Valle de México, 1980; 315, NYPL; 316, from Justo
616 sources of illustrations
Sierra, México, Its Social Revolution, 1900. Chapter 23. p. 326, HRC; 327, BL; 328, SMM; 330,
ASHS. Chapter 24. p. 336, SMM; 337, UAL; 342, HL; 343, SMM. Chapter 25. p. 348, ASHS; 350,
HRC. Chapter 26. p. 360, Hemeroteca Nacional de México; 361 top http://archivomagon.
net/category/sin-categoria/page/3/; 364, bottom, Catherine Tracy Goode BL; 369, UAL; 371,
HRC; 372, ASHS; p. 375, HRC. Chapter 27. p. 382, NA; 385, HL; 390, LC. Chapter 28. p. 393,
HRC; 394, 396, LC; 400, HRC; p. 403, HRC. Chapter 29. p. 412, ASHS; 414, LC; 416, above—
HL, below—HRC. Chapter 30. p. 427, NYPL; 430, Fideicomiso Archivos Calles y Torreblanca.
Chapter 31. pp. 440, 444, NA; pp. 447, 448, 450, NA. Chapter 32. p. 459. Daniel Sambraus/
Contributor/Getty Images; 460, Catherine Tracy Goode 462, LC; 463, Pan Amer. Development
Foundation; 464, LC; 466, Dartmouth College Museum, Hanover, NH; 467, National
Preparatory School, México. Chapter 33. pp. 474, 475, Editorial Photocolor Archives; 476, NA.
Chapter 34. p. 483, MNTC; 483, OAS; 486, MNTC; 492, James W. Wilkie; 493, https://commons
.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Carlos,_Tommie_Smith,_Peter_Norman_1968cr.jpg/Angelo
Cozzi (Mondadori Publishers). Chapter 35. p. 503, Diego Goldberg/Sygma. Chapter 36.
p. 509, Lourdes Grobet; 510, 511, MMTC; 512, MNTC; 513, RKO/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock; 514,
Films Mundiales Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; 515, Photo 12/Alamy Stock Photo; 516, Ed Clark/
Contributor/Getty Images; 517, World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo. Chapter 37.
p. 528, Secretaría de Información y Propaganda del Partido Revolucionario Institucional;
529, coin courtesy of Michael M. Brescia; 530, Alejandro Castañeda, México, D.F., 1985; 533,
Sergio Dorantes/Contributor/Getty Images; 538, Juan Miranda, Proceso; 541, Archive photos/
Daniel Aguilar/Reuters 542, Dan Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star. Chapter 38. p. 550, Proceso;
557, Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images. Chapter 39. p. 565, Beth Henson; 568, left—Celeste
González de Bustamante, right—Cristóbal Pereyra; 571, Tribune Content Agency LLC/Alamy
Stock Photo; 572, Catherine Tracy Goode 575, AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills; 577, Vicente
Fox Quesada; 578, frenys.com/post/10678152-tambien-de-este-lado-hay-suenos/. Chapter
40. p. 582, Photo by Sergio Dorantes/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images; 584, 585, 587, 589, 590,
Catherine Tracy Goode; 591, Photo by Nick Wall/WireImage; 592, Photo by Steve Granitz/
WireImage; 593, Warner Brothers; 594, http://www.televisa.com/home-entertainment/cata-
logs/telenovelas/contemporaneas-juveniles/026910/dvd-destilando-amor-televisa-home-
entertainment/; 598, aerialarchives.com/Alamy Stock Photo; 600, Berenice Fregoso/GDA/
El Universal/MÃ©xico/ASSOCIATED PRESS; 602, Catherine Tracy Goode 604, http://pzrser-
vices.typepad.com/vintageadvertising/2007/01/jose_cuervo_teq.html; Ashley Black.
C R E D I T S F O R I L L U S T R AT I O N S I N C O L O R I N S E R T, F O L L O W I N G P. XXX
Pre-Columbian Classic Period. (1) Palenque (North Courtyard of the Palace): Photo by
David Hixson. (2) Death Mask (Jade) of Pacal: SECRETARIA DE CULTURA-INAH-MEX:
Reproducción Autorizada por el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; Photo by
Ignacio Guevara/Raíces/INAH. (3) Anthropomorphic female figurine: SECRETARIA DE
CULTURA-INAH-MEX: Reproducción Autorizada por el Instituto Nacional de Antropología
e Historia; Photo by Marco Antonio Pacheco/Raíces/INAH. (4) Cacaxtla mural: Photo by
David Hixson. Colonial. (5) Cathedral of Oaxaca: Photo by David Hixson. (6) Santa María
Tonantzintla church exterior: Photo by Carlos García Calzada. (7) Santa María Tonantzintla
Sources of Illustrations 617
church interior: Photo by Carlos García Calzada. (8) Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by
Miguel Cabrera, ca.1750: SECRETARIA DE CULTURA-INAH-MEX: Reproducción Autorizada
por el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (9) Casta painting by Miguel Cabrera, De
chino cambujo y de india, loba, 1763: Photo by Camilo Garza (Museo de América, Madrid), oil
on canvas. Nineteenth Century. (10) José Agustín Arrieta, La sorpresa, 1850: SECRETARIA DE
CULTURA-INAH-MEX: Reproducción Autorizada por el Instituto Nacional de Antropología
e Historia, oil on canvas. (11) Salvador Murillo, El Puente de Chiquihuite, ca. 1875: Colección
Banco Nacional de México, oil on canvas. (12) Luis Coto, La Colegiata de Guadalupe, 1859:
REPRODUCCIÓN AUTORIZADA POR EL INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE BELLAS ARTES
Y LITERATURA, 2017, oil on canvas. (13) José María Velasco, The Valley of Mexico from the
Cerro del Tepeyac, 1894: REPRODUCCIÓN AUTORIZADA POR EL INSTITUTO NACIONAL
DE BELLAS ARTES Y LITERATURA, 2017, oil on canvas. Twentieth Century. (14) Diego
Rivera, from Día de los Muertos, 1923–24: Mural, Secretaría de Educación Pública; D.R. ©
2006 Banco de México, Fiduciario en el Fideicomiso relativo a los Museos Diego Rivera y
Frida Kahlo; Archivo Fotográfico CENIDIAP/INBA, Artists Rights Society. (15) José Clemente
Orozco, Zapata, 1930: Joseph Winterbotham Collection, “Photography © The Art Institute of
Chicago,” Artists Rights Society oil on canvas. (16) David Alfaro Siqueiros, from El tormento
de Cuauhtémoc, 1951: Mural, Palacio de Bellas Artes; CENIDIAP/INBA, Biblioteca de las Artes,
CENART (México), Artists Rights Society. (17) Diego Rivera, Paisaje zapatista, 1915: Museo
Nacional de Arte; D.R. © 2006 Banco de México, Fiduciario en el Fideicomiso relativo a
los Museos Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo; Archivo Fotográfico CENIDIAP/INBA, Artists Rights
Society. (18) Rufino Tamayo, Dos figuras en rojo,1973: Couple in Red © Phoenix Art Museum,
Arizona/Friends of Mexican Art/The Bridgeman Art Library; D.R. Rufino Tamayo/Herederos/
México/2017, Fundación Olga y Rufino Tamayo A.C.
INDEX
Page numbers followed by f indicate under Zapata, 393, 401 Alamo, 255–56
illustrations; page numbers followed See also land ownership and Albuquerque, 258
by m indicate maps; page numbers distribution Alburquerque, Duque de, 116–17, 199
followed by t indicate tables, charts, Agricultural School at Chapingo, albur, 596
or graphs. 463f, 464 alcabala, 139
agriculture alcaldes mayores, 117
A Aztecs, 47, 61 alcaldes ordinarios, 118
Abascal, Carlos, 546 Classic period, 13 alcohol use, 59–60, 349, 350, 458
abbreviations, 614–15 colonial era, 132–34, 200 alcoholic beverages, 604–5
Abelardo Rodríguez Market, 458, and drought in early 19th century, Aldama, Juan de, 225, 226
460f 225 alebrijes, 590f
abortion, 506, 546, 598 first half of 19th century, 272 Alegre, Francisco Javier, 179
Academia de Música, 278 Formative Period, 4t, 5–7 Alemán, Miguel, 448, 487, 488
Academia de San Juan de Letrán, 278 Green Revolution, 479, 494 institutional revolution
Acamapichtli, 47 impact of wars of independence (1946–52), 473–77
Acapulco, 122f, 137, 167, 199, 284 on, 238 relations with United States,
Acolman, 185 under López Portillo, 501, 503 475, 476
Act of Consolidation of 1804, 217 Maya, 22 Alfonso XIII (king of Spain), 367
Acteal massacre, 537–38 Mexican contribution to United Alhóndiga de Granaditas, 227
Actopan, 185 States, 449 Allá en el Rancho Grandé (de
Africans, 165–67 value of New Spain’s annual pro- Fuentes), 457, 457f
Afro-mestizos. See mulatos duction, 201t Allegories of Music and Song
Afro-Mexicans, 166, 167, 172, Aguascalientes, convention of, (Tamayo), 462f
605, 607 391–92 Allende, Hortensia, 497
agrarian reform, 379–80 Aguascalientes Metal Company, 330, Allende, Ignacio, 225–28
by administration, 438f 331 almanacs, 279
under Avila Camacho, 451–52 Aguayo, marqués de, 209–10 Almazán, Juan Andreu, 445
under Calles, 425, 432 Aguayo, Sergio, 599 almojarifazgo, 139
under Cárdenas, 437–38 Aguilar, Jerónimo de, 79 Almonte, Juan, 294
under Carranza, 402 Aguilar Zinser, Adolfo, 551 alms, 312
under Díaz, 323, 329n.1 Agustín I (emperor of Mexico). See Altamirano, Ignacio Manuel, 315
under Díaz Ordaz, 494 Iturbide, Agustín de altepetl, 47, 49, 58
under Huerta, 388 Ahuítzotl, 48–49, 51 Alvarado, Pedro de, 89, 93, 100–101,
under López Mateos, 483, 483f Air Force Squadron 201, 449 101f, 109, 162
under Obregón, 406 Alamán, Lucas, 227, 267–68, 279 Alvarado, Salvador, 415
Plan de Ayala, 378, 392 Alameda, 314 Alvarez, Juan, 248, 284, 285
Plan Orozquista, 379 Alameda Park, Mexico City, 191, 192f Alvarez Bravo, Lola, 521
618
Index 619
Alvarez Bravo, Manuel, 521 Army of the Three Guarantees, administration of, 445–46
Alvarez Ponce de León, Griselda, 508 232, 235 industrialization, 450–52
América Movil (Telcel), 596 Army of the West, 260 World War II, 447–49
American Smelting and Refining Around the World in Eighty Days Avila Camacho, Maximino, 452, 477
Company, 330 (film), 515, 517f Awaiting the Harvest (Rivera), 464f
AMLO. See López Obrador, Andrés Arráncame la vida (Mastretta), 521 Axayácatl, 47–48, 50, 61
Manuel Arreola, Juan José, 518–19 Ayotzinapa massacre, 572–73, 572f,
Amnesty International, 566 Arriaga, Camilo, 360 573f
Amor, sugar family, 340 Arriaga, Ponciano, 284 ayuntamientos, 118
amparo, 558 arrieros, 138f Ayutla Revolution. See Revolution of
Anáhuac, 44–45, 46, 85–86 Arrieta, José Agustín, 279 Ayutla
Anderson, William Marshall, 310 art Azcárraga, Emilio, 477
Anenecuilco, 372 between 1920–1940, 462f, 463–67 Aztecs, 16, 17, 33, 99
anti-reelectionist cause, 366–67 Aztec, 63–67 art, 63–67
anticlericalism, 398, 425, 428–29, colonial era, 184–87 Cholula massacre, 84
430f, 439–41, 445 cultural nationalism, 461–68 empire of, 3, 47–51, 86
Apaches, 165, 201, 202, 395 first half of 19th century, 278–79 legal system, 60–61
Apalachee, 107 Mayans, 14, 22, 25, 27f literature, 65–67
aqueducts, 46, 93, 133f mid-19th century, 316–17 music, 65–67, 181–82
Arab immigrants, 460–61 Mixtec, 33, 36 Night of Sorrow, 89–91
Arafat, Yasser, 499 muralism, 461–65 political hegemony, 61–63
Aragón, 76 Porfiriato, 353 predecessors, 43–44
Aranguren, Fernando, 497 revolution, 418–21 principal lake cities, 48m
Arau, Alfonso, 592 Toltec, 37 religion, 53–56
archaeology, 4–5, 7, 13, 22, 24m, 27 Art Academy of San Carlos, 187, rise to power, 44–47
Archaic period, 5t 275, 278, 314, 316, 353, 420 society, 56–61
architecture Artificers, 33 Spanish Conquest, 3, 44, 64, 70
Aztec, 67 Asia stone sculpture, 50f
baroque style, 210f immigration from, 167–68, 461 Toltec history accounts, 30
Classic period, 12–13 search for passage to, 121–22 Aztlán, 44, 107
colonial era, 182–84 Asians, 167–69 Azuela, Arturo, 520
Maya, 41f Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes Azuela, Mariano, 419
Olmec, 7, 8 (YMCA), 405
Porfiriato, 346, 352 Asociación Legítima Cívica B
Teotihuacan, 17, 18 Comercial, 581 Baca, Guillermo, 369
Toltec, 33, 36 Astaire, Fred, 513f Baja California, 121, 144, 330, 370,
water tower, 186f astronomy, 11 431, 437, 443
Zapotec, 33 Ateneo de la Juventud, 404, 418 Baja California Norte, 490, 534, 540
Argentina, 554, 555 atl-atl, 4 Bajío, 133, 139n.1, 215, 225
Aristegui, Carmen, 574 Atotonilco, 226 balance of payments, 499
aristocracy/elites, 214f Atzcapotzalco, 44 ball court, 13, 19, 21f, 38f, 39f
Aztec, 57, 59, 60–61 audiencia, 104–6, 109, 115, 119, 125 Banco de Comercio (BANCOMER),
Classic period, 13 assessment, 117 536
colonial era, 104, 119–20, 159, criollos in, 216, 220 Banco de Crédito Ejidal, 437
189–90 functions and powers, 104 Banco de México, 426
first half of 19th century, 275–76, reforms in, 203–5 Banco Nacional de México
275f Audiencia of Mexico, 117, 216 (BANAMEX), 536
Maya, 22 Augustinians, 142, 144, 178 Bancroft, George, 259
measure of success, 352 Austin, Moses, 254 bandstands, 354
mid-19th century, 314 Austin, Stephen E., 254 banks, 268, 448, 451, 504, 531, 536
wealth, 210–11 automobile, 455, 457 barbarians, 30
Arizona, 121, 144, 201, 264, 328, autos da fé, 153–54 baroque architecture, 183–84, 209f
400, 563, 564 Avándaro Music Festival, 516, 590 baroque style, 152f
Arizona Rangers, 363 Avenida Chapultepec, Mexico City, Barradas, Isidro, 248
Armijo, Manuel, 260 587f Barranca de Metlac, 302, 303f
armor, 81f, 93f Aventurera (film), 515 Barreda, Gabino, 302–3, 316f, 317,
Army of Occupation, 260, 262 Avenue of the Dead, 16 325, 388
Army of the Center, 260 Ávila Camacho, Manuel, 445–52 barrios, 20, 58
620 index
Barrios, Alejandra, 581 Brazil, 555 Maximato and shift to right, 431–33
Barrios, Francisco, 534–35 brigandage, 192 relations with United States,
baseball, 347, 508 Bryan, William Jennings, 386, 387, 427–28
Basílica de Guadalupe, 293, 598f 389 calmécac, 58, 59
Basques, 159 Bucareli agreements, 408, 427 calpollis, 58
Bassols, Narciso, 439 Buchanan, James, 259 Calzada de la Emperatriz, 311
bat god (carving), 36f Buchenau, Jürgen, 433 Cámara Nacional de la Industria de
Bataclán, 418 Buena Vista, battle of, 261 Transformación, 451
Batista, Fulgencio, 487 bullfighting, 189–90, 314, 315f, 343, Camareno, Enrique, 532
Batopilas, 330 347, 457 Campa, Gustavo E., 352
Bayless, Rick, 603 Bulnes, Francisco, 337–38 Campeche, 22, 27f, 101, 123
Bazaine, Marshal François, 294–95 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, campesinos, 340–43, 363, 369, 372,
beata, 169 Firearms and Explosives, 562 437–38, 497, 500
beer, 601, 605 Burke, John, 432 Campobello, Nellie, 467
Beezley, William, 347 Burnet, David, 255, 256 Canada, 123, 487, 537
beggars, 276 Bush, George H. W., 537 Cananea Consolidated Copper
Belén cemetery, 227 Bush, George W., 545, 546, 551 Company, 331, 363–64, 442
Belén prison, 360 Bustamante, Anastasio, 248 Cancuén, 25
Benavente, Toribio de. See Motolinía Bustamante, Carlos María de, 238, Candela, Félix, 475, 487
Benedict XVI (pope), 598 239, 243, 249, 250, 252, 279 Canek, Jacinto, 218
Benjamin Franklin Library, 447 Bustamante, Jorge, 532 cannibalism, 54–55n.1
Bergson, Henri, 418 Cantinflas (Mariano Moreno), 515,
Bernal, Gael García, 593 C 516f
Beteta, Ramón, 477 caballeros, 77 Canutillo, 402, 407
The Billionaires (Rivera), 464f Caballito, 185 Capistrán Garza, René, 429
biombos, 168, 168f, 186 Cabañas, Lucio, 497 Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc, 442, 534,
Birdman (film), 593 Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Núñez, 107 539, 541f, 542, 544, 581
birth control, 484, 496, 506–7, 507f cabildos, 118, 220 Cárdenas, Francisco, 383
Black Legend, 279 cable television, 594–95 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 435–36, 448,
black market economy, 582 Cabrera, Miguel, 186, 214 479, 534
blacks, 216 Cabrillo, Juan Rodríguez de, 108 domestic reforms, 437–42
colonial era, 128 Cacama, 86 governorship, 435
slavery, 128, 133, 182, 188, 191, 248 cacao, 7, 37, 61, 68, 133, 200 nationalization of oil companies,
See also Africans; Afro-Mexicans; Cacaxtla, 18 442–43, 546
mulatos cadets, 263 orientation of programs, 436,
Blanco, José de la Luz, 369, 370 Cádiz, 199, 220 443–45
Blanquet, Aureliano, 381 Café Tacuba, 590 photograph, 440f
BLIM, 594 caja de comunidad, 165 World War II, 448
Bob Esponjá (Spongebob Squarepants), Cakchiquel warriors, 38 Cárdenas, Osiel, 553
594 Calakmul, 25 cargadores, 276–77, 277f
bolero, 456 Calderón, Estéban, 363 Caribbean, 75, 124–25, 165, 231
bolsa, 539 Calderón, Felipe, 547 Carlota of Mexico (Marie Charlotte
Bonampak, 25 and 2009 congressional Amélie Léopoldine), 293, 293f,
Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon. See elections, 566 296, 311
Napoleon III drug war, 562–64 Carranza, Venustiano, 384, 389,
Borda, José de la, 209 economy, 557–59 391–92, 395, 396, 421
Border Industrialization energy reform, 559 federal expenditures for educa-
Program, 494 presidency of, 555–60 tion, 403f
border wall, 564, 565f, 576, 577f Calderón, Fernando, 278 opposition from Zapata, 400–402
Boturini, Lorenzo, 216 calendars, 22, 24 overthrow and assassination, 402
Bourbon monarchy, 139, 197–99, California, 108, 144, 237, 258, 260, photograph, 400f
218, 293 263, 264, 366, 563 presidency, 399–402
Bowie, Jim, 255 Calleja, Félix, 228, 229 Carrasco, Ezequiel, 457
boxing, 508 Calles, Plutarco Elías, 402, Carrier, 577
braceros, 449 408, 448 Carrillo Prieto, Ignacio, 521
Branciforte, marqués de, 218 Cristero rebellion and assassina- Carstens, Agustín, 559
Bravo, Nicolás, 239, 243, 246, 247, tion of Obregón, 428–31 Carta Blanca, 332
249, 251 domestic program, 425–26 cartels, drug wars, 553
Index 621
Carter, Jimmy, 501 Chac (rain god), 37 chinampas, 6, 61

Carvajal, Luis de, 154 Chacmools, 33, 37f Chinese immigrants, 461
carved stone ring, 39f Chalchihuites, 20 Chinese residents of Torreón, 417
carving, Mirror Bearer, 25f Chalco, 273f chinos, 167–68
Casa Blanca scandal, 574 Chamber of Deputies, 244, 307, cholera, 252
Casa de Alfeñique, 213f 488, 556, 582 Cholula, 17–18, 29
Casa de Azulejos, 352 chamfron, 79f Cholula massacre, 84, 85f
Casa de Contratación, 104, 135 Chamizal controversy, 487–88 Chontal Maya, 35
casa de depósito, 277 Champs Elysées, 352 Christian victory, carved wooden
Casa del Obrero Mundial, 375–76 chapel-de-fer (kettle hat), 80f mask, 154f
Casasola, Agustín Victor, 412 Chapultepec, 45–46, 69, 336 Christianity, 30, 77, 79, 88, 97,
Cascajal block, 8 Chapultepec Castle, 263, 294, 311 146, 316
casinos, 431 Chapultepec Military Academy, 267 Catarina de San Juan, 169
Caso, Antonio, 418 Chapultepec Museum, 316 music and, 182
casta paintings, 164f, 186 Chapultepec Park, 264, 367, 510 See also Roman Catholic church
Castañeda, Jorge, relations Charles II (king of Spain), 197, 198f Christmas in the Mountains,
with U.S., 547 Charles III (king of Spain), 199, 201, Altamirano, 315–16
castas, 158, 161–62, 167, 169–72, 203–6, 216, 224 church
214, 216 Charles IV (king of Spain), 185, 219, and state, 217–18
caste system, 229, 250 220 See also Roman Catholic Church
Caste War of Yucatán, 253, 267, 426 Charles V (Hapsburg emperor, Churubusco, 263
Castellanos, Rosario, 520 Charles I, king of Spain), 88, Cíbola, legendary cities of, 107–8
Castile, 76 102–3, 103f, 104, 109, 123, 176 cientificos, 325–26, 337, 338, 353,
Castrejón, Jaime, 497 Charlot, Jean, 463 359, 365, 418
Castro, Fidel, 487, 528, 547 Chata, Lola la, 476 cimarrones, 166
Castro Pacheco, Fernando, 368f Chaval, Nadine, 497 Cinco de Mayo, 292, 605
Catarina de San Juan, 169, 169f Chávez, Carlos, 420, 467–68 cinema. See filmmaking
Cathedral of Mexico, 185, 185f Chávez, Hugo, 554, 555 Citadel, the, 16
cathedrals, 182–83, 232, 274 Chávez Morado, José, 475f cities
Catholic Church. See Roman Chiapas, 3, 8, 22, 25, 64, 70, 100, between 1920–1940, 456–60
Catholic Church 218, 437 Classic period, 11–14
caudillo, 236, 251 antigovernment rebellion, 537, 539 first half of 19th century, 274
Cavendish, Thomas, 124 sewer system, 484f population distribution of, 492t
Ce Acatl Topiltzin. See chica moderna, 459 population growth of mid-20th
Topiltzin-Quetzalcóatl Chichén Itzá, 35–38, 38f, 40f century, 479
Ce Acatl (year), 30, 31, 71 Chichimecs, 30, 43–44, 50 during Porfiriato, 345, 346f
Cedillo, Saturnino, 436 Chihuahua, 130, 165, 260, 294, 563 post-World War II, 581–85
Celaya, 226–27, 394–95 anti-Huerta movement, 384 during revolution, 417
cell phones, 596 anti-Madero revolt, 379 ten largest, 586t
CEMEX, 557 colonial era, 121, 144 Ciudad Juárez, 294, 371f, 379, 535,
Cempoala, 82–84, 88 hacendado system in, 338–40 553, 563
cenotes, 35 Maximilian government in, 294 Ciudad Juárez, Treaty of, 371
censorship, 335, 385 mining in, 330, 331 Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, 545
centavo, 529f population growth, 346f Ciudadela, 380–81
centennial celebrations, 353, 367, 420 during revolution, 366, 369, 370 Civic Oration, Barreda, 317
Central America, 75, 98, 100, 104, war with United States and, 260 civil wars, 384–85, 392–95
124–25, 237, 577 Wars for Independence, 228 Classic period, 4t, 11–27, 35f
Central Bank, 504, 531 Chihuahua City, 296 cities of, 11–14
Central Railroad of Mexico, 305 chilangos, 585 major centers of, 16–21
centralism, 244, 253, 585 children Maya, 21–27
Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Aztec society, 58–59 Clavé, Pelegrín, 316
Nacional (CISEN), 599, 600 under Cárdenas, 440–41 Clavijero, Francisco Javier de, 179,
ceramics, 6, 6f, 12f, 19, 22, 27f, 63, Porfiriato, 348, 349, 352 216–17
66f, 136f, 189f, 190f Chile, 497, 551, 555 Clay, Henry, 258
ceremonial calendar, 22 Chilpancingo, 229 Clemencia (Altamirano), 315–16
Cerro Gordo, 263 Chimalpahin, 179 Clendinnen, Inga, 57
Cervantes, Luis, 419 China, 311, 548, 560, 562 climate, 99
Cervecería Cuauhtémoc, 332, 349 china poblana, 169, 170f Clinton, Bill, 537, 539
622 index
Clinton, Hillary, 547, 563 commerce, New Spain, 135–37, Constitutionalist Army, 384
Cloud People, 33 136f, 138f, 139. See also trade Constitutionalists, 384, 387f, 388,
Cloud Serpent, 30 communication 395
Clouthier, Manuel, 534 radio, 456 Convention of Aguascalientes,
Club América, 508 telephones, 557, 595–96 391–92, 396
Coahuila, 228, 254, 563 television, 594–95 Convention of London, 290, 295
Coahuila (Saltillo), 121, 311f communism, 405–6, 441, 443, Convention of Miramar, 292–93, 296
Coatlicue, 44, 64f 482, 535 conversos, 150
Coatzacoalcos, 99–100 Communist Federation of the convoys, 137
Coca-Cola, 478, 544 Mexican Proletariat, 405–6 Coolidge, Calvin, 428
cocaine, 553, 563 Comonfort, Ignacio, 285–87, 285f Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos
cochineal, 133, 200 compadres, 171 Indígenas (CNPI), 498
Codex Borbonicus, 55f Compañía Fundidora de Fierro y Copán, 25
Codex Mendoza, 46f, 62f Acero de Monterrey, 332 Copland, Aaron, 468
Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 54f Comte, Auguste, 302, 317, 325 Cordero, Juan, 316–17
códices, 33, 185 Confederación de Trabajadores de Cordier, Charles, 352
cofradías, 164–65 México (CTM), 441, 446, 451 Córdoba, 167, 200
coins, 140f Confederación Regional Obrera Córdoba, Francisco Hernández de, 78
Cold War, 475, 476 Mexicana (CROM), 399, 405, Córdoba, Treaty of, 232
Colegio de Minería, 205f 408, 426, 432, 441 Corona del Rosal, Alfonso, 491
Colegio de San Pedro y San Congreso Femenino, 415 Coronado. See Vázquez de
Pablo, 178 Congress Coronado, Francisco
Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, under Avila Comacho, 446 Coronel, Pedro, 522
177, 177f under Echeverría, 497, 498 Corpus Christi, 120, 146
Colegio Militar de Chapultepec, 336 first empire, 235–40 Corpus Christi Day demonstrations
Colhuacan, 45 under Fox, 547, 549 (1971), 496
Colima, 15f, 19, 100 under Juárez, 301 Corral, Ramón, 365, 367
College of Discalced Juárez in, 292 corregidores, 117–18
Carmelites, 181 under López Mateos, 488–89 corregidores de indios, 118
College of San Nicolás Obispo, 224 PRI, 533, 542, 565 corridos, 264
Colombo (ship), 249 women in, 566–67 corruption, 116–17, 488, 527–28,
colonial society conquistadores, 80f 558, 570
Africans, 165–67 conservatism Alemán administration, 476–77
Asians, 167–69 under Calles, 425 under Calles, 432
castas, 161–62, 164f early Mexican republic, 246, Cárdenas administration, 437
criollos, 160–61 249–50 colonial era, 102, 104, 116–17
Indians, 162–66 under Echeverría, 496 Díaz administration, 324, 326, 337
mestizos, 161–62 first empire, 235 early republic, 249
mulatos, 166 French Intervention, 290, 301 Echeverría administration, 500
population figures, 171–72 under Maximilian, 292–93 Fox administration, 544
racial diversity, 169–70 Reform Laws, 285–86 in literature, 521
racial groups, 158–59 restored republic, 300 Madero administration, 378–80
Spaniards, 159–60 under Santa Anna, 252, 266 under Peña Nieto, 571–75
women and family, 170–71 War of the Reform, 287–89 post 2000, 547, 558, 570–71
Colorado, 258 Constitution of 1812, 228, 231, Revolution of Ayutla, 283–84
Colorado Land Company, 443 243, 279 Ruiz Cortines administration, 478
Colorado River, 473 Constitution of 1824, 243–45, Salinas administration, 536,
Colosio, Luis Donaldo, 538 252, 255 540–41
Columbian exchange, 134 Constitution of 1836, 253 Santa Anna administration, 266
Columbus, Christopher, 75, 102, Constitution of 1857, 286–87, tale of four brothers, 540–42
123, 352 297, 300, 304, 307, 338, 359, corsairs, 150
Columbus (New Mexico), 395 382, 388 Cortés, Don Martín, 162
Comanches, 201, 202 Constitution of 1917, 396, 398–99, Cortés, Fernando (Hernán), 67–69,
Comandante Esther, 549 402, 429, 536, 545 78–79, 81f, 82–94, 128, 162
comic books, 508 Article 3, 398, 404, 405, 439 artistic portrayals, 465
comida, 596 Article 27, 398–99, 407, 536 conquest of New Spain, 97–102
Comisión Nacional para el Reparto Article 123, 399 discrediting of, 102–3
de Utilidades, 485 Constitution of Apatzingán, 232 explorations and conquests, 100m
Index 623
first meeting with Moctezuma, 89 cuerpos volantes, 230 de la Rosa, Rolando, 522
last years of, 109 Cuevas, José Luis, 521–22 de la Salle, Chevalier, 123
letters of, 178 Cuicuilco, 8, 9, 16 De panzazo (Barely Passing),
Night of Sorrow, 89–91 cuisine, 603–4 (documentary), 570
route of, 86m Cuitláhuac, 91 death penalty, 60, 192, 362, 363
Cortés, Martín, 119 Culhuacán, 44 debt crisis (1980s), 581
Cortés and Malinche (Orozco), culture debt peonage, 128–29, 253, 341
465, 467f cultural nationalism in the arts, Decena Trágica, 381, 384
Cortes de Cádiz, 228 461–68 Declaration of Independence, 367
Cortés Palace, 463 intelligentsia of revolution, 456, Deferred Action for Childhood
Cosío Villegas, Daniel, 480, 523 463–68 Arrivals (DACA; Dream Act),
Costa, Olga, 522 mid-19th century, 314–17 566, 577–78, 578f
cotton, 37, 135, 137, 329, 437 nationalism, 468 deforestation, 498
Council of Mexican Bishops, 507 Porfiriato, 352–55 Degollado, Santos, 283, 284
Council of the Indies, 104–6 See also intellectuals; society and degüello, 255
Coxcox, 45 culture del Paso, Fernando, 520
Coyoacán, 69 curandero, 271 del Río, Dolores, 513–14, 513f
Coyolxauhqui, 44, 67, 511–12 currency del Toro, Guillermo, 568, 591f,
Coyote Knight, 65 under Carranza, 399 592, 593
coyotes, 552 devaluation, 478 Democracy in Mexico (González
coyotes (mulatos), 166 devaluation under Echeverría, Casanova), 488
Cozumel, 79 499–500 democratization
credit cards, 602 first empire, 247 border issues, 562–66
Creel, Enrique, 339–40 under Huerta, 386 Calderón presidency, 555–60
Creelman, James, 365 during Porfiriato, 365 dilemmas of, 553–54
crime and punishment, 60–61, 62f, under Ruiz Cortines, 478 Fox presidency, 546–49
63f, 192, 277, 347, 349 under Zedillo, 539 overtures to, 533–35, 545
criollos, 118, 147, 158, 203, 216–17, Cusi Mining Company, 395 PRI in 2012 elections, 566–70
243, 247 Departamento Autónomo de
Lucas Alamán, 279 D Asuntos Indígenas, 468
conspiracy of, 218–20 DACA (Deferred Action for Department of Communications
and Constitution of 1824, 243 Childhood Arrivals; Dream and Public Works, 325
discontent, 216 Act), 566, 577–78, 578f Department of Development, 324
first empire, 246 daily life Department of Education, 338,
first half of 19th century, 270, 274 countryside and city from 456, 463
social position of, 160–61 1920–1940, 455–60 Department of Foreign Relations,
Wars for Independence, 225, New Spain, 187–93 325
228–29 dams, 473, 478 Department of Interior, 301
Cristero Rebellion, 428–31, 432, 439 dancing, 182, 189 Department of Labor, 375
Crockett, Davy, 255 Daniels, Josephus, 443 Department of Public Health, 426
CROM. See Confederación Regional danzantes, 23f Department of War, 301
Obrera Mexicana danzón, 456 Derbez, Luis Ernesto, 547
crónica, 601 Darío, Rubén, 353 desagüe, 120
Cronos (1993), 593 Darwin, Charles, 337 Destilando amor (telenovela), 594,
crossbow, 88f Davis, Jefferson, 296 594f
crypto-Jews, 150 Day of the Dead, 589–90, 589f, devaluation, peso, 478,
CTM. See Confederación de 590f, 601, 603 499–500, 504, 528, 529f,
Trabajadores de México A Day without a Mexican (film), 552 539, 559, 576
Cuarón, Alfonso, 568, 591f, de Gaulle, Charles, 487 Día de los Muertos (All Soul’s Day),
592, 593 de la Garza, Lázaro, 287 193
cuatequil, 128 de la Huerta, Adolfo, 402, 408, Día de los Muertos (Day of the
Cuatro Ciénegas, 586 429, 448 Dead), 589–90, 589f, 590f,
Cuauhnáhuac, 44 de la Madrid, Miguel, 528f 601, 603
Cuauhtémoc, 91, 92f, 94, 96, corruption, 527–28 Diario de México (periodical), 181
101–2, 229 economic crisis, 528–29, 531 Diario del Hogar (periodical), 335
Cuba, 77–78, 89, 104, 487, 528, 547 election by percentage of Días de guardar (Monsiváis), 520
Cuchillo Parado, 369 votes, 535t Díaz, Feliciano, 369
Cuernavaca, 185 presidency, 527–31 Díaz, Félix, 335, 380, 383
624 index
Díaz, Porfirio, 291f, 292, 294–95, Dominicans, 142, 143f, 144 colonial New Spain, 127–39, 140f
304–5, 307–8, 359, 363, 367, Doña Marina (Malinche), 79, 84 under de la Madrid, 528–29, 531
420, 421 Doniphan, Alexander, 260 under Echeverría, 499–500
demonization of, in historiography, Dora la Exploradora, 594 economic problems, 386–87
468 Dos Pilas, 25 under Fox, 547–48
depiction in Mexican textbooks, Doubleday, Abner, 347 income and expenditures, 265t
599 Dow Chemical, 478 under López Mateos, 483
dictatorship, 307–8, 335–38 Downs, Lila, 591 under López Portillo, 500–504
federal expenditures for educa- Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo), 353, 421 Mexican Republic, 247
tion, 403f Dream Act (Deferred Action for under Obregón, 404
foundations of modernization, Childhood Arrivals [DACA]), under Peña Nieto, 570–71
325–27 566, 577–78, 578f peso, 478, 539–40
industrial enterprises, 331–32 Drug Enforcement Administration, peso devaluation, 478, 499–500,
Mexico in 1876, 321–22 562 504, 528, 529f, 539, 559, 576
oil fields, 331 drug trafficking, 476 reforms by Juárez, 301–2
opposition to regime, 359–72 and Ayotzinapa massacre, 572 under Ruiz Cortines, 478
order and progress under, 322–24 border wall, 565f under Salinas de Gortari, 535–39
photograph, 327f and corruption under Peña Nieto, state of in 2012, 570–71
railroad boom, 327–29 574–75 under Zedillo, 539–40
resignation, 371 Mexico to United States, 562–64 ecosystem, Aztec management
revival of mining, 329–31 U.S.-Mexico border, 532 of, 120
Díaz, Porfirio, Jr., 331 drug war, 532, 540, 553, 562–64 education
Díaz Covarrubias, Juan, 316 border issues, 562–66 Article 3 of the Constitution of
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, 87, cartels, 553, 563 1917, 398
91n.6, 178 violence, 585 Aztec, 58–59
Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 519 Duarte, Javier, 574 under Calles, 426
and 1960s political upheaval, dueling, 191 under Cárdenas, 439–41, 445,
489–94 Dug Dugs, 516, 517 456, 463
achievements, 494 Durán, Gaspar, 369 colonial era, 176–78
election by percentage of votes, 535t Durango, 121, 144, 165, 232, 330, under Díaz Ordaz, 494
Olympic Games (1968), 491 331, 345, 346f, 563, 573 early 19th century, 272–73
Tlatelolco, 490–94 Durazo, Arturo, 527–28 federal expenditures by presi-
Díaz Serrano, Jorge, 527 dyes, 133, 200 dency, 403f
Díaz Soto y Gama, Antonio, during Institutional Revolution,
391–92, 406 446, 476–77
dictatorship under López Mateos, 485–86
Díaz, 307–8, 335–38 E under Obregón, 404–5
Santa Anna, 266–68 Eagle Knights, 57, 65f Porfiriato, 336
Diego, Juan, 143 Eagle Pass (Texas), 323, 345, 412 proposed reforms 2013, 569–70
Diéguez, Manuel, 363 Earle, Ralph T., 388 reforms by Juárez, 302–3
diet, lower classes, 349 earthquakes, 12, 120, 529, 530f, 581 in the Restored Republic, 306–7
Dirección Federal de Seguridad Ebrard, Marcelo, 567, 584 rural low-income children, 588
(DFS), 599–600 Ecatepec, Mexico City, 575, 575f rural school 1920s and 1930s, 456
disease, 78, 91, 94, 188, 192–93, 309, Echáverri, José Antonio, 239, 508 school number and attendance in
311, 322, 325, 349, 559–60 Echeverría, Luis, 491, 499f, 504, 521 1910 and 1920, 417f, 418
Doblado, Manuel, 284 economy, 499–500 social reformers, 376
doctrine of positive acts, 407, 427 election by percentage of votes, teachers’ strike, 575
Doheny, Edward L., 331, 407 535t Ejército de las Tres Garantías, 231–32
domestic reform family planning advocacy, 506 Ejército Zapatista de Liberación
Calles, 425–26 presidency of, 496–500 Nacional, 537
Cárdenas, 437–42 Ecobici, 584 ejidos
Huerta, 387–88 ecological disaster, 586 between 1920–40, 455
López Mateos, 482–87 economy, 127–39, 140f under Avila Camacho, 446
domestic violence, in colonial era, Bourbon reforms, 197–206 under Calles, 426
191–92 under Calderón, 557–59 under Cárdenas, 437–38, 455
domestic workers, 582 under Calles, 426, 432 under Huerta, 388
Domínguez, Belisario, 385–86 under Cárdenas, 441, 445 Liberal Plan, 362
Domínguez, Josefa Ortiz de, 225 under Castilian monarchy, 76–78 under Madero, 375
Index 625
under Obregón, 406 Enemies of the Mexican People Federal District, 263, 314, 347, 378,
during Porfiriato, 338 (O’Gorman), 462f 380, 383, 418, 479, 491, 544,
Reform and, 286 energy reform, 558 545, 554, 576
under Salinas, 536 England/Great Britain Federal Electoral Court, 555
El Aguila Company, 331 colonial era, 123–24, 201, 212 Federal Electoral Institute, 568
El analfabeto (film), 515 early Mexican republic, 246, 249 federalism, 243, 244, 246, 247,
El Angel Blanco, 509 French Intervention, 290, 291 249–50, 253
El bachiller (Nervo), 353 mining concessions sold to, 266 Felicista movement, 380
El Boleo, 330 petroleum interests, 331, 487 Félix, María, 513
El bolero de Raquel (film), 515 Porfiriato, 321, 325, 328 feminism, 508
El Buen Toro, 349 Enlightenment, 150, 199, 220, 283 feminism/women’s rights, 558
El Castillo (Temple of Kukulcán), entertainment Ferdinand V (king of Aragón), 76,
40f colonial, 189–91 103–4, 150
El Chapo (Joaquín Guzmán), 553, mid-19th century, 314–17 Ferdinand VI (king of Spain), 199
562, 574, 597 Porfiriato, 352–54 Ferdinand VII (king of Spain), 220,
El Colegio de México, 522, 523 sports, 508–9 229, 231, 246, 279
El Draque (Francis Drake), 123 See also culture; society and culture Fernández, Alejandro, 591
El Hechizado, 197 environment, 494, 531, 558, 569, Fernández, Emilio, 514
El Hijo de Ahuizote (periodical), 584, 586 Fernández, Esther, 457
360, 361f epidemic disease, 172 Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquin,
El Instituto Mexicano de equestrian clothing and skill, 211f 180
Cinematografía (IMCINE), 592 Escandón, Antonio, 302, 352 Ferrocarril Mexicano, 302,
El laberinto de la soledad (The Escobedo, Mariano, 296 303f, 305
Labyrinth of Solitude) (Paz), 518 Escuela Nacional de Antropología e festivals, 603
El Libertador (periodical), 426 Historia, 522 fiestas, 510
El Machete (periodical), 426 Español e india, mestizo (painting), FIFA World cup, 508
El Mono Vano (Torreblanca), 279 164f fifty-two year-cycle, 54f
El Niño, 99 Espinosa, Rubén, 574 Figueroa, Rubén, 497
El padrecito (film), 515 Estadio Azteca, 508 filmmaking, 457, 513–15, 517f,
El Paso del Norte, 294 Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 244 592–94
El Paso (Texas), 370, 395, 413 Esteban (slave), 107 fleet system, 137, 181, 199
El Periquillo Sarniento (Fernández Estrada, Alonso de, 102 floating garden, 6
de Lizardi), 180 Estrada, Genaro, 442 Florentine Codex, 60f, 63f, 66f,
El Pípila, 227 Estrada Doctrine, 442 70f, 131f
El Salvador, 100, 501, 577 Evolución politica del pueblo mexicano, Flores Magón brothers, 360, 361f,
El Santo, 509, 509f Sierra, 338 362, 366, 370
El Siglo XIX (periodical), 283 excavations, 13, 49n.1, 67 Florida, 237
El Tajín, 18, 20f, 29 Excélsior (periodical), 499, 534 Flower Wars, 51
El vampiro de la colonia Roma Export-Import Bank, 451, 476 flying brigades, 230
(Zapata), 521 extra-judicial killings, under Peña Flying Down to Rio, 513f
elections, 335 Nieto, 571–73 foot juggler, 69f, 70f
presidential (1871), 304–5 Extremadura, 78 foot-warmers, 15f
year 1988, 533–35 football (US), 601–2
year 1994, 539 F For the Good of All (Por el Bién de
year 2000, 544–45, 545t, 581 Fabela, Isidro, 368n.2 Todos), 555
year 2006, 555–60, 560t fabled cities, search for, 107–9 Ford, 478, 577
year 2012, 566–70, 569t Facebook, 597–98 foreign debt, 247, 268, 284, 290,
year 2015, 579 Faja de Oro (tanker), 447 293, 321, 326, 426, 445, 504,
elite. See aristocracy/elites Falcón Dam, Rio Grande 528–29, 531, 537
Elízaga, José Mariano, 278 Valley, 473 foreign relations
Emerald City, 346 Fall, Albert Bacon, 407 under Alemán, 475–76
Enamorada (film), 514 family under Calderón, 554
encomienda, 78 Aztec, 57–59 under Calles, 427–28
Cortes and, 102, 103, 106 colonial era, 170–71 under Cárdenas, 442–43
decline of, 127–28, 139 family planning, 496, 506–7, 507f under Fox, 547
description, 97 Fannin, James W., 256 under Huerta, 386–87
encomenderos, 127 fashion, New Spain, 188 under López Mateos, 487–88
New Laws and, 110 Feathered Serpent, 14, 16 under López Portillo, 501
626 index
foreign relations (continued) Gamio, Manuel, 468 Goodyear, 478

Mexico-U.S., in 1970s and 1980s, Gante, Pedro de, 144, 176, 178 Gordillo, Elba Esther, 566, 570
531–32 Garay, Francisco de, 100 Gore, Al, 545
under Obregón, 406–7 Garcés, Julián, 142 Gorostieta, Enrique, 429
during Porfiriato, 332, 333 García Bernal, Gael, 592 Goya, Francisco, 219, 465
Formative period, 4t, 5–7, 5–9 García Cubas, Antonio, 317 graffiti, 606f
Foster, George M., 455–56 García Icazbalceta, Joaquín, 354 Gran Círculo de Obreros Libres, 364
Fox, Vicente, 521, 544–45, 546, García Márquez, Gabriel, 519 Gran Quivira, 264
550–51, 550f, 556, 581 García Naranjo, Nemesio, 388 Granada, 77
lost sexenio, 546–49, 554 García Pimentel (sugar family), 340 granaderos (paramilitary riot force),
PEMEX, 548 Gardea, Guadalupe, 369 491
presidency, 546–49 Garibay, Pedro, 220 Gravity (film), 593
President Bush and, 551 Garro, Elena, 520 Great Depression, 432
relations with U.S., 547 Garza Sada, Eugenio, 497 The Great National Problems (Molina
transparency law, 599–600 Gavino, Bernardo, 314 Enríquez), 365
and Trump’s border wall proposal, General Agreement on Tariffs and Green Party, 579
576, 577f Trade, 529 Green Revolution, 479, 494
Zapatista problem, 548–49 General Indian Court (Juzgado Greene, William, 330f, 331, 345,
France, 123–24, 211–12, 255, General de Indios), 163 363–64, 442
264–66, 336 General Motors, 478 greenhouse gas emissions, 584
diplomatic relations during Lerdo General Trías, 395 gremios, 135
administration, 307 Generalísimo de Tierra y Mar, 235 Grijalva, Juan de, 78
intervention in 1860s, 290–97 genetics, 607 Grito de Dolores, 226, 231, 448, 510
See also Bourbon monarchy gente de razón, 163 Guadalajara, 178, 238, 274, 302,
Francis (pope), 201n.1, 575, 575f, 598 gente decente, 349 359, 366, 417, 474
Franciscans, 96, 142, 144, 178 gente sin razón, 163 Guadalajara Chivas, 508
Franco, Francisco, 444 geography, 98–100, 317 Guadalupe, Virgin of, 143–44, 145f,
free trade, 536, 557 Germany, 336, 400 218, 226, 293, 313
Frémont, John C., 260 Geronimo, 395 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of,
French cuisine, 352 Gil, Carrillo, 522 263–64
French Intervention, 290–97, 312f Gil Gómez: el insurgente (Díaz Guajardo, Jesús, 401
arrival of Maximilian and Carlota, Covarrubias), 316 Guanahaní, 75
293–94 Gimme the Power (documentary), 517 Guanajuato, 130, 133, 215, 232,
new government under, 292–93 Gladstone, William, 321 252, 274, 284, 570
price of, 297 global capitalism, 139n.1 Guatemala, 21, 38, 64, 100, 237,
republican victory and aftermath, globalization, 506 328, 577
296–98 gobernadores, 117 Guaymas, 328, 425
French philosophy, 283 Godoy, Manuel de, 219–20 Guerrero, 8, 70, 497, 572
French Polo Club, 352 gold and gold mining, 64, 75, 78, Guerrero, Vicente, 230, 231, 239,
French Revolution, 213, 218, 220 79, 97, 130, 330 247–49, 251, 254
Fuentes, Carlos, 183, 519–20, 601 Golden Cities, 107–8 Guerrero (Chilpancingo), 229
Fuentes, Fernando de, 457, 457f Goldman, Francisco, 573 Guerreros Unidos, 572
fueros, 245, 285 Goliad, 256 guerrillas, 369f, 429, 494, 497, 501
Fuerzas Revolucionarias Armadas del Gómez, Arnulfo, 429, 467 guerrilleros, 369
Pueblo (FRAP), 497 Gómez Farías, Valentin, 243, 252, 285 Guevara, Che, 489
fútbol, 508 Gómez Pedraza, Manuel, 248 Guggenheim, Daniel, 330–31, 333
González, Abraham, 366, 370, 385 Guggenheim Exploration
G González, Epigmenio, 226 Company, 331
Gabriel, Juan, 591 González, Manuel, 308, 324, 408 guilds, 135
Gaceta de Literatura (periodical), 216 González, Pablo, 401 Guillén, Rafael, 549. See also Marcos,
Gaceta Imperial de México, 232 González Casanova, Pablo, 488 Sub-Comandante
gachupines, 160, 216 González Cavazos, Agapito, 536 Guízar, Tito, 457, 457f
Gadea, Ignacio, 314 González Flores, Anacleto, 429 Gulf cartel, 563
Gadsden Purchase, 264 González Garza, Roque, 394 Gutiérrez, Eulalio, 392, 394, 404
Galván, Marino, 225–26 González Iñárritu, Alejandro, 568, Guzmán, Eulalia, 480
Gálvez, José de, 199, 201–2, 216 591f, 592, 593 Guzmán, Joaquín. See El Chapo
Gálvez, Xochitl, 548 González Ortega, Jesús, 288–89, 292 Guzmán, Martín Luis, 418, 465–67
gambling, 190 González Salas, José, 379 Guzmán, Nuño de, 104–5, 109, 177
Index 627
H Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel, 221, Maya and, 13, 29, 36

hacendados, 161, 211f, 338–40 224–28, 225f, 226m, 249, 367 Post-classic period, 29
Carranza and, 399 hidalgos, 77, 159 Spaniards’ reaction to, 78, 89,
Huerta and, 388 hieroglyphic writing, 4, 7, 14, 22–24 91n.7, 94
Madero and, 375 Hill of the Bells, 297, 297f in Teotihuacan, 17, 19
Obregón and, 406 Hinojosa Cantú, Juan Armando, 574 Toltecs and, 33, 36
Plan Orozquista, 379 Hirschfield, Julio, 497 Humboldt, Alexander von, 217
during Porfiriato, 338–40 Historia antigua de México Hummingbird on the Left
Reform and, 284, 286 (Clavijero), 179 (Huitzilopochtli), 44
Hacienda de Chinameca, 401 Historia de México (Alamán), 278 humor, 596–97, 597f
Hacienda de San Diego Corralejo, 224 Historia moderna de México (Cosío Hungry Coyote, 47
haciendas, 133–34 Villegas), 523
Haiti, 213 Historia verdadera de la conquista I
halberd, 80f de la Nueva España (Díaz del Ibarra, Francisco de, 121, 363
Hale, William Bayard, 386–87 Castillo), 178 ICE (Immigration and Customs
Halloween, 601 historical scholarship, 599 Enforcement), 577–78
hallucinogenic mushrooms, 60 historietas, 508 Idea de una historia general de la
Hammon, Jake, 407 historiography América Septentrional (Boturini),
Hapsburg monarchy, 115, 116, 139, between 1920–1940, 468 216
197, 292, 293 colonial era, 179 idolatry, 150–51
Harding, Warren G., 406–7 first half of 19th century, 279 Iglesia, Ramón, 75
Hardy, Thomas, 321 during Porfiriato, 354–55 Iglesia del Carmen (Mexico City), 149f
Haro, Guillermo, 601 since 1949, 600 Iguala, 572
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of transparency law, 600–01 illiteracy, 439, 446, 455, 485–86,
Azkaban (film), 593 Hitler, Adolf, 447 486f, 486t, 503, 548. See also
Harvard University, 527, 534, 555 Hitters, Los, 516 literacy
Havana, Cuba, 248 Ho Chi Minh, 489 illustration sources, 614–15
Hawkins, John, 123 Holy See, 288 immigration
Hay, Eduardo, 442 Holy Week, 146 Asia, 449, 461
Hayek, Selma, 461 homosexuality, 598 border wall, 565f
Hayes, Rutherford B., 323 Honduras, 21, 101, 267, 577 to Mexico, 605, 607
Head of an Indian (Siqueiros), 462f H1N1 virus, 559–60 Middle East, 460–61
heads of state, Mexican, 609–13 Horrors of War (Goya), 465 Texas, 254, 311
health and medical care hospitals, 193, 346, 347, 437 U.S. responses to Mexican immi-
between 1920–1940, 458 House of Tiles, 210 grants, 551–52, 564–66
Aztec, 61 housing developments, 484 Immigration and Customs
under Calles, 426 Houston, Sam, 256, 257f Enforcement (ICE), 577–78
colonial era, 192–93 Huarte, Anna María, 278 Immigration Reform and Control
first half of 19th century, 271 Huasteca, 340 Act, 532
under López Mateos, 483 Huastecan Peasant war, 340 Imperial Academy, 316
physicians’ strike (1964), 490 Huatulco, 284 imperial system
under Ruiz Cortines, 478 Huerta, Victoriano, 371, 374, 380, disturbances during “colonial si-
since 2000, 548, 555, 559–60 383–84, 396, 420, 421 esta,” 119–20
Hecho en México (film), 590–91 domestic reforms, 387–88 expansion into Northern Mexico,
Hellboy (film series), 593 economic problems and foreign 120–23
henequen, 133, 134 relations, 386–87 political administration of New
Henríquez Guzmán, Miguel, 478 federal expenditures for educa- Spain, 115–20
heresy, 152f, 153 tion, 403f IMSS. See Instituto Mexicano de
Hermosillo, 371, 425 overthrow of Madero, 380–83 Seguro Social
Hernández, Javier (Chicharito), 595 rebellion and militarization, Independence Day, 226, 317
Hernández, Rafael, 375 384–86 India, 487
Hernández, Santiago, 304 U.S. intervention and fall of, Indians, 75, 159, 271–72, 277
heroin, 476 388–90 Catholicism, 155
Herrera, Cástulo, 369, 370 Huitzilopochtli, 44, 45, 47, 48, 53, discrimination, 548
Herrera, José Joaquín, 258 55, 64f, 68, 84, 89 indigenismo, 388, 463–67
Hidalgo del Parral, 369 human sacrifices indigenous rights, 531, 537,
Hidalgo (state), 70 Aztecs, 45, 53–56 548–49
Hidalgo y Costilla, José Joaquin, 224 Classic period, 13 Inquisition, 150
628 index
Indians, (continued) International Olympic Committee, Juárez, Benito, 283–84, 289f,

and intendancies, 203 490 292, 294–96, 304f, 307, 308,
mining, 130–31 International Railroad, 345 499, 510
music, 181–82 Internet, 595 death of, 305
population in Central Mexico, 163t internment camps, 449 economic and educational re-
Pre-Columbian, 3–71 Iris, Esperanza, 418 forms, 301–4
slavery, 96–97, 128, 129f Isabel (daughter of Moctezuma), 161 French intervention, 291
social unrest, 212, 215 Isabella II (queen), 290 third term, 300–301
standing in colonial society, Isabella of Castile (queen), 76, tomb of, 306f
162–66 103–4, 150 War of the Reform, 287–89
indigenismo, 441 Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 305 Juárez, Luis, 185
indios chinos, 168 Iturbide, Agustín de, 231–32, Juaristas, 295, 304–5
Indonesia, 487 235–40, 237f, 249, 278, 279, 294 judicial reforms proposed by Fox
Industrial Workers of the World, background and early career of, and Calderón, 549, 558
405–6 231–32 juntas, 220
industry and manufacturing execution, 246, 249 justicia mayor, 82
under Alemán, 477 grandson of, 296 Juzgado General de Indios (General
under Avila Camacho, 450–52 palace of, 210f Indian Court), 163
colonial era, 135–37, 136f, Iturbide, Graciela, 521
138f, 139 Iturrigaray, José de, 220 K
under Echeverría, 496 Itzamná, 37 Kahlo, Frida, 465
under López Portillo, 501, 503 Itzcóatl, 47, 58 Kansas, 260
Porfiriato, 331–32 Ixtapalapa, 86 Kant, Immanuel, 418
under Ruiz Cortines, 478 Izábal, Rafael, 363 Katz, Friedrich, 400
infant mortality rates, 310, 343, 349, Iztaccíhuatl, 85 Kearny, Stephen W., 260
438, 456, 546, 548 Iztlilxochitl, 92 Kellogg, Frank B., 427
Infante, Pedro, 457, 513, 522 Kennedy, Diana, 603
inflation, 225, 445, 446, 496, Kennedy, John F., 482, 488, 489, 538
498, 500, 504, 531, 537, Kennedy, Robert, 489
539–40, 546 J Kent State University, 489, 493
influenza, 559–60 J. P. Morgan, 428 kettle-hat, 80f
inheritance laws, 59, 170 jade, 7, 19, 22 Keynes, John Maynard, 477
Inquisition, Holy Office of the, Jaguar Knights, 57, 65, 93f King, Martin Luther, 489
150–54, 204, 224 Jaguares, 590 King Ranch (Texas), 339
insane asylums, 193, 325 Jaina, 27f, 39f Kino, Eusebio Francisco, 144
Instituto de Historia of the National Jalapa, 137 Knight, Alan, 445, 452
University, 522 Jalisco, 19, 215, 284, 604 Knights of Guadalupe, 236
Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social Japan, 400 Korean markets, 602, 602f
(IMSS), 446, 478, 483 Japanese Kosterlitzky, Emilio, 363
Instituto Nacional de Antropología immigration, 449 Krauze, Enrique, 520
e Historia, 468 in New Spain, 167, 168 Kukulcán, 37
Instituto Politécnico Nacional, 479 jarabe gatuno, 182
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Jaramillistas, 453, 479 L
Humanity, 603 Jefe Máximo, 425, 431–33, 436 La Corregidora, 225
intellectuals jefes políticos, 337, 360 La Esmeralda painting school, 520
between 1920–1940, 461, 463–68 Jesuits, 144, 178, 203–4, 217 La Hora Nacional (radio program),
during early revolution, 418–21 as educators, 177–78 456
first half of 19th century, 278–79 San Javier seminary, 152f La Jornada (periodical), 534, 601
Mayan, 22 jewelry, 64–65 La Libertad (periodical), 338
during Porfiriato, 352–55 Jews, 77, 150, 154, 499, 598 La Maestra (The Teacher), removal
Revolution of Ayutla, 283 Jockey Club, 352 of, 570
intelligence and national security, John Deere, 478 La Merced, 581
448–49 John Paul II (pope), 536, 598 La Navidad en las montañas,
intendants, 203 Johnny Jets, Los, 516 Altamirano, 315–16
Inter-American Commission on Johnson, Lyndon, 488 La noche de Tlatelolco (Poniatowska),
Human Rights, 572–73 José Cuervo tequila, 604f 520
Interior Provinces, 198m, 202 journalism, 574 La Noria, revolt of, 305
International Monetary Fund, 529 Juana Inés de la Cruz, 180 La Partenope (opera), 181
Index 629
La plaza (Spota), 520 latifundio, 210 Porfiriato, 352–53

La Quemada, 20 Latin American Confederation of post World War II, 518–21, 602
La Reforma, 596 Workers, 441 livestock, 133–34
La región mas transparente (Where the Latin Grammy Awards, 591 Lizardi, José Joaquín Fernández de,
Air Is Clear) (Fuentes), 519 Latrille, Charles, 291 279
la Sere, Emile, 305 Leal, Fernando, 463 Loaeza, Guadalupe, 521
La sucesión presidencial en 1910 Lear, John, 463 loans, 237, 238, 258, 266, 326, 450,
(Madero), 365, 368 Lee, Robert E., 295 501, 503, 539
La Venta, 7 legal system. See crime and lobos (mulatos), 166
La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, 82 punishment Lombardo Toledano, Vicente, 441–
Labastida, Francisco, 544 Legionaries of Christ, 598 42, 446, 447, 477
Labastida, Pelagio Antonio de, Leo XIII (pope), 321 Lone Star Republic, 256–58
294, 302 León de la Barra, Francisco, 371–74, Long, James, 254
labor 383, 420 López de Legazpi, Miguel, 122
under Calles, 426 Leonhardy, Terrance, 497 López Mateos, Adolfo
under Cárdenas, 441–42 léperos, 276 and 1960s social upheaval, 488–89
under Carranza, 399–400 Lerdistas, 304 domestic policy, 482–87
under Díaz, 339–43 Lerdo de Tejada, Miguel, 285–86 economy, 483
under López Mateos, 482, 484–85 Lerdo de Tejada, Sebastián, 303–8, education policy, 485–86, 486f
under Madero, 375–76 323 election by percentage of votes, 535t
during Mexican Miracle, 446, 477 leva, 273, 316, 385, 386, 415 foreign policy, 487–88
under Obregón, 405–6 Ley Iglesias, 286, 287 housing policy, 484
under Peña Nieto, 569 Ley Juárez, 285–87 and one-party system, 488–89
under Porfiriato, 363–65 Ley Lerdo, 286–88, 304 López Obrador, Andrés Manuel
under Salinas de Gortari, 536 Lezama, Luis, 457 (AMLO), 554, 555–56, 567–68,
unions and de la Madrid, 529 Liberal Plan of 1906, 362, 379, 399 584
unrest among miners, 363–65 liberalism, 310 López Portillo, José, 500–504, 503f
See also encomienda; repartimien- anti-reelectionist cause, 366–67 economy, 503–4
to; slavery under Calles, 408 election by percentage of votes, 535t
Ladies of Charity of St. Vincent de Constitution of 1857, 286–87 family planning under, 507
Paul, 312 early republic, 248 relations with United States, 501
Laguna cotton ejido, 437 first empire, 239–40 López Portillo y Rojas, José, 353
Lake Texcoco, 69 French Intervention, 297, 301 López y Fuentes, Gregorio, 467
land ownership and distribution under Juárez, 304–5 Lorenzillo, 124
under Avila Camacho, 446 labor unrest, 363–65 Los Amigos de Fox, 547
under Calles, 433 under Madero, 379 Los Angeles Dodgers, 508
under Cárdenas, 437–39, 445 under Maximilian, 294 Los Halcones, 496, 521
colonial period, 132, 208–10, mid-19th century, 317 Los Hitters, 516
215, 217 during Porfiriato, 359–60, 362–63 Los Johnny Jets, 516
Constitution of 1917, 399 Reform Laws, 285–86 “Los Otros Dreamers,” 578
distribution by administration, 438f Revolution of Ayutla and, 283–84 Los recuerdos del porvenir (Garro), 520
under Echeverría, 496, 500 War of the Reform, 287–89 Los símbolos transparentes
during Porfiriato, 338–43, 359– Lienzo de Tlaxcala, 85f (Martre), 520
60, 362 life expectancy, 349, 438, 546, 548 Los Simpson, 595
Reforma period, 286, 295 Limantour, José Ives, 326–27, 326f, Los Tigres del Norte, 591
under Salinas de Gortari, 536 329, 337, 338, 343, 365 lottery, 279
See also agrarian reform limpieza de sangre, 158 Louis Philippe (king of France),
language, 217, 455. See also Nahuatl Lincoln, Abraham, 260, 295 265, 266
language Lind, John, 387 Louis XIV (king of France), 197
Lara, Agustín, 456 Lindbergh, Charles, 428 Louisiana, 201, 237
Laredo (Texas), 323 Lions Club, 602 lucha libre, 509
Las batallas en el desierto (Pacheco), literacy rates, 275, 548 Luna, Diego, 592f, 593
521 literature, 517–21 Luz (periodical), 376
Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 110, Aztec, 65–67
128, 144 early revolutionary, 419 M
Las niñas bien (Loaeza), 521 Mexico 1920–1940, 466–67 macehualtin, 58
Lascuráin, Pedro, 382 mid-19th century, 315–16 machismo, 170
Late Formative period, 6, 8 New Spain, 177–81 Macías, Demetrio, 419
630 index
Maciel Degollado, Marcial, 598 mascaradas, 191 Mexican Petroleum Company, 331
Madero, Francisco I., 360, 365, 367– Masons, 246, 247, 249 Mexican positivism, 317
68, 369, 371, 404, 411, 420, 498 Mastretta, Angeles, 521 Mexican Railroad Company, 302, 303f
anti-reelectionist cause, 366–67 Mata, José María, 284 Mexican Republic (1824–1833),
federal expenditures for educa- Mateos, Juan A., 315 243–50, 245m
tion, 403f matlazáhuatl, 192 Constitution of 1824, 243–45
overthrow of, 380–83 Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo, 511 domestic turmoil, 248–49
photograph, 375f Matteson, Sumner, 336f, 343f federalist-centralist struggle,
revolts against his government, Maximato, 431–33, 436, 442 249–50
378–80 Maximilian Joseph, Ferdinand, 292– Victoria presidency, 246–47
Madero, Gustavo, 379 96, 293f, 297, 297f, 301 Mexican Revolution, 339, 380–81,
Madero, Raúl, 379 May Day celebration, 444f, 447f 386, 393–94, 604
Madrazo, Carlos, 490, 493 Maya, 71 assessment at mid-20th century,
Madrazo, Roberto, 554–56 Maya Indians, 13–14, 21–27, 172 480
Madre Conchita, 430–31 architecture, 41f assessment in 1930s, 432
Madre Matiana, 279 ball player, 39f beginning of, 368, 369f
Magellan, Ferdinand, 121–22 calendar, 24 culture during, 418–21
maize, 4, 5, 7, 22, 38, 56f, 60f, 133 Caste War of Yucatán, 253, 267, 426 division within rebel ranks,
malaria, 137, 483, 483f decline of Classic centers, 27 372–74
Malcolm X, 489 deities, 24 impact on masses, 411–18
Maldita Vecindad, 590 Post-Classic, 35–38, 35f–41f rise of rebel armies, 369–72
Malinche, 79 Mayapán, 36, 37–38 shift to the left, 443–45
Maná, 590 Mayas of the Cross, 341 shift to the right, 431–33
Mancera, Miguel Angel, 569, 576 mayeques, 58 Mexican Spring (Yo Soy 132), 567,
Mandoki, Luis, 592 Mayo, Henry T., 388 568f
Manet, Édouard, 297 Mayo Indians, 388 mexicanidad, 3, 487, 604, 605
Manga de Clavo, 252, 267, 267f Mazariegos, Diego de, 100 Mexico, 397m
The Mangy Parrot (El Periquillo Mazatlán, 332 air pollution, 584
Sarniento) (Fernández de McDonald’s, 602–3 foreign relations troubles, 264–65
Lizardi), 180 Mejía, Tomás, 288, 297f heads of state, 609–13
Manifest Destiny, 256, 290 memes, 597–98 income and expenditures, 265t
Manifestación de silencios (Azuela), 520 Mendoza, Antonio de, 106, 106f, periods in pre-Columbian, 5t
Manila galleons, 122–23, 137, 109–11, 116, 176–78 population growth in early 19th
138f, 199 Mendoza, Pablo, 314 century, 270, 271t
Mann, Thomas, 488 mercantilism, 127 populations of metropolitan
mannerist style, 183 Mercurio Volante (periodical), 181 areas, 586t
mano (tool), 60f Mérida, 105, 346f pre-agricultural and proto-
Manzanillo, 332 Mérida, Yucatán, 274, 274f agricultural, 3–5
Mao Zedong, 489 Mérida Initiative, 563–64, 575 relations with U.S. in 1970s and
Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2, 63 Mesilla Valley, 264 1980s, 531–32
maquiladoras, 494, 548 Mesoamerican culture, 4, 11 U.S. cultural influences, 601–3
Marcos, Sub-Comandante (Rafael mesta, 134 See also New Spain
Guillén), 537, 538f, 549, 550f mestizaje, 159, 183 México: Su evolución social (Sierra),
María Candelaría (film), 514, 514f mestizos, 158, 161–62, 243, 277 354–55
María Luisa of Parma, 219f metate (grinding stone), 60f Mexico City, 120, 135–37, 585f, 587f
mariachi music, 456, 603 Metlac Ravine, 302, 303f Alameda Park, 192f
marijuana, 476 Mexica, 44, 47 Ayotzinapa massacre protests, 572
Marín, Luis, 100 Mexican Academy of the Language, book production in, 180–81
Marina. See Doña Marina 508 central plaza, 221f
(Malinche) Mexican Central Railroad Company, cuisine, 603
Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, 103 327–28, 345 as cultural capital, 517
Márquez, Rafa, 595 Mexican Communists, 482–83 in early 2000s, 583–85
Marquina, Ignacio, 68 Mexican Deco, 458 earthquake (1985), 529, 530f
marriage, 59, 61, 164f, 398 Mexican empire, first, 235–40 environmental issues, 586–88
Martínez, Juan José, 227 Mexican Exploration Company, 331 health problems, 322
Martínez, Mario Aburto, 538–39 Mexican Food System, 501 Inquisition headquarters, 151f
Martínez de la Torre, Rafael, 296 Mexican Miracle, 473 Iglesia del Carmen, 149f
Martre, Gonzalo, 520 Mexican National Railroad mayors, 542, 567–69
Marxism, 497 Company, 328 modernization, 325
Index 631
museums, 510–12 Wars for Independence, 232–33 Mora, José María Luis, 252, 279
Paseo de la Reforma, 311, 352 World War II, 448–49 Mora y del Rio, José, 428
under Peña Nieto, 576 Mill, John Stuart, 325 Morales, Melesio, 316
physicians’ strike (1964), 490 Millan, María del Carmen, 508 More, Thomas, 177
population, 311 mining, 322 Morelia, 346f
population (1810), 171 copper, 330–31 Morelos, 8, 18, 340, 479
population at time of indepen- labor unrest, 363–65 Morelos y Pavón, José María, 226m,
dence, 238 New Spain, 130–31, 200 228–30, 229f, 249
population growth 1920–1940, 458 revival of in Porfiriato, 329–31 MORENA (Movement for National
postwar population, 583–85 silver, 130–31, 330–31 Regeneration), 569, 576, 579
rich and poor in 19th century, value of New Spain’s annual pro- Moreno, Mariano. See Cantinflas
275–77, 275f duction, 201t Morirás lejos (Pacheco), 521
subway system, 512–13, 512f Mining College (Colegio de Mormons, 417
transportation, 584f Minería), 205f Morones, Luis, 405, 426, 427f, 441
transportation system, 346–47 Miramón, Miguel, 289, 297f morphine, 476
at turn of 21st century, 581–82 Mirror Bearer (carving), 25f Morrow, Dwight, 428, 432
during US invasion of Mexico, 263 Mitla, 21, 33, 34f mortality rates, 546. See also infant
water issues, 586–87 Mixcóatl, 30 mortality rates
Mexico City state (CDMX), 576 Mixtecs, 21, 33, 35f, 50, 71, 100 Moscow Olympics, 501
Mexico City-Veracruz railroad, Mixtlan, 56 motion picture industry, 483
301–2, 305 Mixtón War, 109 Motolinía, 144, 179
Mexico Genome Diversity Project, 607 Moctezuma, 161 Movement for Peace with Justice and
Meyer, Michael, 388 Moctezuma I (Moctezuma Dignity, 563
mezcal, 604, 605 Ilhuicamina), 47, 49, 78, 79, movies. See filmmaking
mezcalerías, 605 82–84, 86–90, 229 Movimiento Armado Revolucionario
michelada, 603 Moctezuma II, 51, 57, 65, 67, 70–71 (MAR), 496
Michoacán, 104, 215, 283, 437, 586 moderados, 285–86 mudéjar, 183
middle class, 313, 351–52, 452, Modern Migration of the Spirit Muertos incómodos (Sub-Comandante
474–75, 544, 548, 555 (Orozco), 466f Marcos and Taibo), 601
Middle Formative period, 7 modernization Múgica, Francisco, 398, 406, 445, 447
midwives, 193 campesinos, 340–43 mulatos, 158, 166
Mier, Fray Servando Teresa de, 238, hacendados, 338–40 Mulroney, Brian, 537
243–44 Porfiriato, 325–31, 335–38 multinational chains, 602–3
Mier y Terán, Luis, 323 urban improvements, 346–47 Munguía, Clemente de Jesús, 287
migration Modotti, Tina, 521 murals, 441
Mexico to United States, 432, 449, mole, 603 murder rate, under Peña Nieto,
531–32 Molina del Rey, 263 574–75
migrants, dangers of crossing bor- Molina Enríquez, Andrés, 365 Murillo, Gerardo (Dr. Atl), 353, 421
der, 552–53 Molotov (band), 517 Museo del Tequila y El Mezcal
migrants in the U.S., 551–52, monarch butterflies, 586 (MUTEM), 605
564–66 monasteries, 143f, 144, 183, 185 Museo Tamayo Arte
rural to urban, 479, 503 Monclova, 228 Contemporáneo, 522
Miguel, Luis, 591 Mondragón, Manuel, 380 Museum of Anthropology, 510–11,
Mijeres, Rafael, 487 monopolies, 199, 201, 203, 204, 510f, 511f
Milan, 67 229, 247, 537, 557 Museum of the City of Mexico, 212f
military Monroe, James, 237, 295 Museum of the Templo Mayor,
under Aléman, 473 Monroe, Marilyn, 522 511–12
under Avila Camacho, 448–49 Monroe Doctrine, 295 museums, 510–12
under Calderón, 552, 557, 563 Monsiváis, Carlos, 514–15, 520, 601 music, 15f, 66f, 516–17
under Calles, 431–32 Montaño, Otilio, 378 Aztec, 65–67
under Cárdenas, 435 Monte Albán, 11, 13, 16, 20–21, 22, contemporary pop, 590–91, 591f,
colonial era, 201–2, 216 23f, 33 592f
under Díaz, 336–37 Monte de Piedad, 208, 276 New Spain, 181–82
early republic, 245, 249 Montejo, Francisco de, 105, 183, 187f nineteenth century, 278, 316
first half of 19th century, 273 Montenegro, Roberto, 463 postrevolutionary, 467–68
paramilitary forces, 496 Monterrey, 121, 346f ranchera, 456
Reform Laws, 285 Monterrey Group, 443 revolution, 419–20, 456
under Santa Anna, 252 Monument to the Revolution, 498 Muslims, 76, 77, 142, 598
at Tlateloco strike, 491 Moors. See Muslims MVS Communications, 574
632 index
N natural gas, 501, 548 social unrest, 213–17

Nacional Financiera, 450, 451f Nava, Armando, 516 Spain’s economic policies,
NAFTA. See North American Free Navajos, 202 127–30
Trade Agreement Navarro, Juan, 370 value of annual production, 201t
Nahuas, 100, 107. See also Aztecs; Nayarit, 19 See also colonial society
Mexica Negrete, Jorge, 457 New Woman, 418
Nahuatl language, 44, 79, 119, 145, Negrete, Pedro Celestino, 243 New York Times, 557, 588
180, 182 neoclassic architecture, 184 Nezahualcóyotl, 47, 62, 352
Napoleon Bonaparte (emperor of neoliberalism, 532, 534–39, Nezahualpilli, 47, 57, 61
the French), 220, 236 535–39, 548, 555 Nicaragua, 501
Napoleon III (emperor of France), Nervo, Amado, 353 Nickerson, Thomas, 328
290, 292, 296, 367 New Alliance Party, 551 Nieves (López Portillo), 353
narcocorridos, 591 New Biscay (Nueva Vizcaya), 121 Night of Sorrow, 89–91
Narváez, Pánfilo de, 87–89, 107 New Deal, 443 nineteenth century
National Academy, 316 New Fire ceremony, 55f Indian pueblos, 271–72
National Agrarian Commission, New Galicia, 108, 109 intellectuals and artists, 278–79
374–75, 388 New Laws (1542–43), 110 population, 270, 271t
National Arms Factory, 384 New Mexican Cinema, 592 provincial cities, 274
National Artillery Workshops, 384 New Mexico, 121, 124, 144, 263, rich and poor in Mexico City,
National Association for the 264, 395, 400 275–77, 275f
Protection of American Rights New Orleans World’s Fair, 325 rural life in mid-, 309–10
in Mexico, 407 New Spain (colonial era) rural towns, 272–73
National Campesino Confederation administration of, 103–6, 109, Niños Héroes, 263, 264, 367
(CNS), 438 115–20 Nixon, Richard M., 494
National Congress of Indigenous agriculture and ranching, 132–34 Niza, Marcos de, 107
Peoples, 498 annual production, value of, 201t No Más Muertes, 552–53
National Conservatory of Music, 467 architecture, 182–84 Nobel Prize, 518
national identity, 3, 604, 605 Bourbon reforms, 197–206 Noche Triste, 90, 96. See also Night
National Indigenous Institute, 548 church and state, 217–18 of Sorrow
National Institute of Anthropology church reforms, 203–4 nongovernmental organizations
and History (INAH), 511 culture and daily life, 176–93 (NGOs), 532, 534, 549
National Lottery, 548 daily life, 187–93 Nopaltzin, 44
National Military Academy, 383 disease, 192–93 North American Free Trade
National Museum of Anthropology, distribution of wealth, 208–12 Agreement (NAFTA), 537, 564,
486–87 economic policies, 139, 199–201 570, 576–77, 581
National Museum of Archaeology, education, 176–78 Nosotros los Nobles (film), 593f, 594
History, and Ethnography, 354 effects of Bourbon reforms, 204–6 Nosotros los pobres (film), 515
National Palace, 380, 381, 383, 463 entertainment, 189–91 Novara (Austrian frigate), 293
National Polytechnic Institute, 491 Indian slavery and encomienda Novarro, Maria, 592
National Power Factory, 384 system, 96–97 Nueces river, 258, 259
National Preparatory School, 302–3, indigenous responses to colonial Nueva Galicia, 117
317, 388, 463 rule, 118–20 nueva onda, 516
National Prize for Literature, 467 industry and commerce, 135–37, Nueva Vizcaya (New Biscay), 121
National School of Fine Arts, 316 136f, 138f, 139 Nuevo Laredo, 553
National Student Strike Committee, labor, 127–30, 129f, 130–31 Nuevo León, 154, 284, 400, 563
491 medicine, 193 nuns, 144, 147, 150
National Theater, 325, 343 mining, 130–31
National Union of Parents music, 181–82 O
Association, 485–86 piracy and rivals, 123–24 Oaxaca, 4, 8, 9, 20, 23f, 33, 48–50,
National University of Mexico, 475, 476 reform of colonial administration, 66f, 70, 172, 183, 232, 284,
Tlatelolco strike, 490–94 201–3 294–95, 322, 354, 575, 603
University City, 474f, 475f, 476 religious administration, 142–55 Obama, Barack, 563, 565–66, 577
nationalism, 404, 421, 444, 465, 468 resistance to Spanish domination, obrajes, 135, 166
nationalization 218–21 Obregón, Alvaro, 384, 391, 394,
banks, 504 scholarship and literature, 177–81 402, 403f
oil companies, 442–43 sculpture and painting, 184–87 agrarian reform, 406
telephone and tobacco industries, settlement of, 96–111 assassination, 428–31
497 social stratification, 158–59 domestic reforms, 402, 404–6
Index 633
federal expenditures for Porfiriato, 353 Partido Revolucionario Mexicano

education, 403f post-World War II, 521–22 (PRM), 443, 445
labor policy, 405–6 during revolution, 420–21 paseo, 191
oil dispute, 406–7 See also art Paseo del la Reforma, Mexico City,
photograph, 403f Palace of Fine Arts, 458, 459f 556, 573f, 585f
political tensions and rebellion, 408 Palace of the Governor, Uxmal, 41f pasquines, 181
relations with United States, 406–7 Palacio de Bellas Artes, 458, 459f Pastry War, 265
obsidian, 7, 12, 47, 49f Palacio de Hierro, 348 Patiño, Mónica, 603
Ocampo, Melchor, 283–85 Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, 147, 181 Patiño Ixtolinque, Pedro, 278
Ochoa, Guillermo, 595, 595f Palavicini, Félix, 398 patria chica, 332
O’Donojú, Juan de, 232 Palenque, 25, 26f pawnshops, 276
Oficio de tinieblas (Castellanos), 520 Palinuro de México (del Paso), 520 Payán, Carlos, 534
O’Gorman, Juan, 462f, 463 PAN. See Partido de Acción Nacional Paz, Ireneo, 317
oidores, 104, 105, 116–17, 119 Pan-American Highway, 474 Paz, Octavio, 518, 520
oil. See petroleum Pan Bimbo, 603 peace by purchase, 202
Oil Producer’s Association, 407 Panama, 100, 124, 237 Pearson, Weetman Dickinson,
Olid, Cristóbal de, 93, 100, 101 Panama Canal, 328 328, 331
ollama, 19, 21f Pani, Mario, 487 Pedro Páramo (Rulfo), 520
Olmec Pánuco, 100 PEMEX. See Petroleos Mexicanos
culture and influence, 7–9, 20 Paris, 67, 343 Peña Nieto, Enrique, 571f
“The Wrestler,” 8f PARM. See Partido Auténtico de la elected president, 567–69
Olympic Games (1968), 490–94 Revolusión Mexicana governor of State of Mexico, 566
Olympic Games (2012), 595 Parque México, 458 in graffiti, 606f
Olympic Games (2016), 595 Parral, 130 memes about, 597–98, 597f
Oñate, Juan de, 121 Parras, 132 presidency, 570–79
one-party system, 488–89 Partido Auténtico de la Revolusión transparency law violations, 601
open-air chapels, 183 Mexicana (PARM), 490 and Donald Trump, 576
opera, 181, 316, 352 Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN), peninsulares, 160, 216, 218
Oportunidades, 540 443, 444, 482, 534, 546, 547 Pentagon, 550–51
Opus Dei, 510 drug trafficking policy, 553 peones, 348f
Order of Santiago, 162 elections of 2000, 544–45 Pepsi-Cola, 478
Organisation for Economic elections of 2006, 555–60 Pereyns, Simón, 185
Cooperation and Development electoral reform in 1960s, 490 Perón, Eva, 547
(OECD), 579 gubernatorial victories, 540 Pershing Expedition, 395, 396f, 400
Organization of American States, historical vision, 599 Peru, 110
487, 572–73 internal dissension, 544 peso devaluation, 478, 499–500,
Orizaba, 292, 364 transparency law, 600–601 504, 528, 529f, 539, 559
Orozco, José Clemente, 353, 405, Partido Nacional Revolucionario Pesqueira, Ignacio, 331
421, 465 (PNR), 431, 435, 439, 443 Petén, 22
Orozco, Pascual, 369, 370, Partido Popular Socialista Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), 442,
378–80, 411 (PPS), 489 444, 475, 487, 527, 537, 546,
Orozco, Wistano Luis, 359 Partido Revolucionario Democrático 548, 559
Ortega, Aniceto, 316 (PRD), 534, 539, 542, 547, petroleum
Ortega, Toribio, 369 554–55, 567, 576, 581 Arab embargo, 500
Ortiz de Domínguez, Josefa, 225 Partido Revolucionario Institucional under Calderón, 555, 559
Ortiz Mena, Antonio, 478 (PRI), 452, 473, 477, 479–80, under Calles, 427–28
Ortiz Rubio, Pascual, 431, 448 482, 500, 532, 533, 534, 547, England/Great Britain interests, 331
O’Shaughnessy, Edith, 415 549, 554, 566, 579 under Fox, 546
in 1980s, 581 growth of industry, 502t
P assassination of candidate, 538–40 under López Mateos, 487
Pacheco, José Emilio, 521, 601 elections of 2000, 544, 545 under López Portillo, 500–501,
Pachuca, 130, 208 during López Mateos administra- 502m, 502t
Pact of the Embassy, 381 tion, 488–89 nationalization, 442–43
Pacto por México, 569 loss of congressional majority, under Obregón, 406–7, 537
painting 542, 566 oil zones, 502m
between 1920–1940, 463–67 percentage of votes (1958–88), 535f under Peña Nieto, 570–71
colonial era, 185–87 Televisa and, 498 during Porfiriato, 331
mid-19th century, 316–17 transparency law, 600–601 U.S. interests, 442
634 index
Philip of Anjou, 197 Mexico’s metropolitan areas, 586t Puebla, 4, 18, 130, 133, 135, 183,
Philip II (king of Spain), 162 mid-19th century, 310–12 232, 438
Philip V (king of Spain), 197–99 Porfiriato, 345, 346f Catarina de San Juan, 169
Philippines, 108, 122, 125, 321, 449 post-World War II, 479, 506–8, ceramics, 136f, 190f
photography, 412 531, 545, 583–85, 583t, 586t cuisine, 603
physicians’ strike (1964), 490 urban-rural distribution, 492t population at time of indepen-
Picaluga, Captain, 249 whites in New Spain, 160t dence, 238
pícaros, 188 populism, 436, 500 population growth, 346f
Piedras Negras, 25, 412, 494 Por el Bién de Todos (For the Good Puebla de los Angeles, 119
pig iron, 451–52 of All), 555 Pueblo Revolt of 1680, 218
Pimentel, Francisco, 309 Porfiriato, 321–32, 359, 388, 404, pueblos, 119, 165, 215, 271–72,
Pino Suárez, José María, 374, 383, 418, 458, 461 369, 373
385, 411 porters, 130 Puerto de Liverpool, 348
pistol, 88f Portes Gil, Emilio, 431, 432, 448 Puerto México, 99–100, 331, 332
Pius IX (pope), 287, 296 Portilla, Nicolás de la, 256 Pugibet, Ernesto, 349
plagues, 192 Portuguese, in New Spain, 167 Puig Casauranc, José Manuel, 426
Plan de Aqua Prieta, 402 Posada, José Guadalupe, 351f, 362f Pulgarcito (periodical), 441
Plan de Ayala, 378, 392, 399 Posdata (Paz), 518 Pulido, Gregorio, 413
Plan de Ayutla, 284 positivism, 302–3, 317, 325–26, 360 pulque, 60, 62f, 204, 272,
Plan de Casa Mata, 240, 251 Post-Classic era, 4t, 29, 35–38, 343f, 349, 350, 601,
Plan de Guadalupe, 384 35f–41f 604, 605
Plan de Iguala, 231–33, 235 Potonchán, 79 pulquerías, 272, 605
Plan de la Noria, 305, 307 Potrero de Llano (tanker), 447 Purépecha, 110
Plan de San Diego, 417 Potrero del Llano, 331 purity of blood, 158
Plan de San Luis Potosí, 367–68, 485 pottery, 190f. See also ceramics puros, 285, 286
Plan de Tacubaya, 287 poverty, 216 Pyramid of Niches, 18, 20f
Plan de Tuxtepec, 307 between 1920–1940, 455–56 Pyramid of the Sun, 16, 17f
Plan de Veracruz, 239 campesinos, 340–43 pyramids, 26f
Plan Orozquista, 379, 399 colonial era, 120, 187, 188, 214–16
Plaza de la Constitución, 487 in early 21st century, 582 Q
Plaza de las Tres Culturas, 492, under Echeverría, 496 Queen’s Cavalry Regiment, 225
492f, 521 first half of 19th century, 276–77 Querétaro, 133, 135, 215, 221, 232,
Plaza de Toros de San Pablo, 315f mid-19th century, 315 288, 296, 297, 599
Plaza del Paseo Nuevo, 314 during Porfiriato, 348–52 quetzal bird, 64
Plaza Garibaldi, 605 since World War II, 484, 531, 546 Quetzalcóatl, 14, 17, 18f, 30–31, 37,
Pleistocene, 4 pre-agricultural period, 3 47, 55, 71, 79
pluriethnic society, 607 Pre-Classic period, 4t, 5–9 Quevedo, Miguel Ángel, 439
pochteca, 57–58 The Presidential Succession in 1910, Quiché, 38
poetry, 65–67, 180, 278 Madero, 365 Quintana Roo, 22, 267
Poinsett, Joel, 237, 272–73, 276 Presunto Culpable (Presumed Guilty) quinto real, 82, 130, 139
polio, 483 (documentary), 558 Quirk, Robert, 392–93
political cartoons, 596–97 PRI. See Partido Revolucionario Quiroga, Vasco de, 105, 177, 181
Polk, James K., 258–60, 263 Institucional Quivira, 108
polygyny, 57 Price, Sterling, 260
Ponce, Manuel, 420 Prieto, Guillermo, 283 R
Poniatowska, Elena, 520–21, 600, privatization, 529, 536–37, 546, Rabasa, Emilio, 327
600f, 601 548, 576 railroad strikes (1959), 484–85
Popocatépetl, 85 PROCAMPO, 537 railroads, 345
Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Procter and Gamble, 478 Guaymas-Nogales, 328
Oaxaca (APPO), 549 Profecía de Guatimoc (Rodríguez under Lerdo, 305
population Galván), 278 Mexico City-El Paso, 328
colonial society, 171–72 PRONASOL (National Solidarity Mexico City-Guatemala, 328
growth, 1800–1850, 270, 271t Program), 537 Mexico City-Laredo, 328
Indian, in central Mexico, 163t pronunciamientos, 231n.2, 239 Mexico City-Veracruz, 301–2, 305
loss during revolution of 1910, prostitution, 311, 312, 347, 458 during Porfiriato, 327–29
411, 417f Protestantism, 405, 446, 598 Ramírez de Fuenleal, Sebastián, 105
Mexico City, 238, 311 Protomedicato, 193 Ramos, Manuel, 412
Mexico City 1920–1940, 458 Provincias Internas, 198m, 202 Ramos Arizpe, Miguel, 243, 244
Index 635
rancheros, 286 Reyes Héroles, Federico, 519 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 443, 449
ranching, 132–34 Riaño, Juan Antonio de, 227 Rotary Club, 602
raza cósmica, 404–5, 605 Rio Bravo (Rio Grande), 255 Rotberg, Dana, 592
Reagan, Ronald, 501, 503f Río Escondido (film), 514 Rubens, Peter Paul, 185
Real del Monte, 208 Rio Grande, 255, 258, 259, 263 Rubio, Paulina, 591
rebellions Riva Palacio, Mariano, 296 Ruffo, Ernesto, 534
colonial, 119–20, 218 Riva Palacio, Vicente, 315 Ruiz, Samuel, 537
Zapatista in Chiapas, 537, 539, Rivera, Angélica, 566, 574, 594, 594f Ruiz, Ulises, 549, 558
540, 548–49 Rivera, Diego, 128, 353, 421, 463– Ruiz Cortines, Adolfo, 487
Reconquista, 77 65, 463f, 464f presidency of, 477–79
Reform Laws, 285–86, 288, 294 Rivera Carrera, Norberto, 598 Ruiz de Apodaca, Juan, 231, 232
reforms Robles, Amelia, 415 Ruiz de Marcilla, Juana, 102
Bourbon, 197–206 rocanrol, 516 Ruiz Massieu, José Francisco,
under Cárdenas, 437–42 rock music, 590–91 539, 540
under Huerta, 387–88 Rodríguez, Abelardo, 431, 433, 448 Ruiz Massieu, Mario, 539
La Reforma, 285–90 Rodríguez de Fonseca, Juan, 104 Rulfo, Juan, 520
under Obregón, 402–6 Rodríguez Galván, Ignacio, 278 rural life
refugees, 412 Rodríguez Juárez, Juan, 186 between 1920–1940, 456–57
Regeneración (periodical), 360, 362 Rodríguez Juárez, Nicolás, 186 under Calderón, 439
regidores, 118 Roma (film), 593 under Cárdenas, 435
Regla, Conde de, 208 Roman Catholic church education in, 435
religion colonial period, 142–55 first half of 19th century, 272–73
Aztec, 53–56 La Reforma, 283–94 mid-19th century, 309–10
Castilian monarchy, 77 Roman Catholic Church, 77, 229, population distribution, 492t
Classic societies, 11, 14 236, 244–45, 254, 287, 310, during Porfiriato, 348–50
colonial period, 142–57 360, 485, 544, 598 under Ruiz Cortines, 479
Mayan, 24, 37 Afro-Mexicans, 166 rurales, 336–37
music, 181–82 alms, 312
popular, 404 architecture, 182–83 S
post-Classic, 29 under Avila Camacho, 445–46 S. Pearson and Son, Ltd., 325
Teotihuacan, 17 Bourbon reforms, 203–4 Sabinas, 345
Toltec, 30–33 under Calles, 428–29 Sabine River, 246
See also Roman Catholic Church under Cárdenas, 439–41 Sacred Cenote, 37, 40f
religious holidays, 510 colonial period, 142–55 Sáenz, Moisés, 426
remittances, 551, 564, 576 in early 2000s, 598 Sahagún, Bernardino de, 179
repartimiento, 128, 137 under Fox, 546 Sahagún, Marta, 547
repartimiento de mercancías, 118 French Intervention, 290 St. James, 146
Rerum Novarum (papal encyclical), Inquisition, 150–54 St. Louis (Missouri), 362
321 La Reforma, 283–94 St. Michael, 147f
residencia (juicio de), 116 organization, 142–44 Saks, Inc., 557
Restored Republic, 300–308, 307t, Porfiriato, 346, 350 Salazar, Cervantes de, 180
311, 321 religious conquest, 144–46 Salcedo, Manuel, 228
Revillagigedo, count of, 210, 218 religious disputes and colonial Salina Cruz, 331, 332
Revolution of 1910 piety, 146–48, 150 Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 534,
assessment at mid-century, 480 religious holidays, 510 535f, 566
assessment in 1930s, 432 under Salinas, 536 corruption, 540, 541
harsh realities of, 419–20 Santa Anna, 252 economy, 536–37
impact on people, 411–18 Texas, 254 neoliberal policies, 536
intelligentsia of, 461, 463–68 and textbooks, 485 presidency, 535–39, 545
social change, 421 See also Francis (pope) rebellion, 537
Revolution of Ayutla, 264, 283–84, Roman Catholicism, 231 Salinas de Gortari, Raúl, 540–41
286 Roman Empire, 11 Salm-Salm, Princess, 309–10
Revolution of Tuxtepec, 307–8 romanticism, 278 Salón México, 456
Revueltas, Silvestre, 468 Romero, Juana Catarina, 348 Saltillo (Coahuila), 121, 311f
Reyes, Alfonso, 418 Romero, Matías, 295, 301, 307 Salvatierra, Juan Manuel de, 144
Reyes, Bernardo, 331, 365, 374, Romero de Terreros, Pedro, 208 same-sex marriage, 598
378–80, 383 Romero Rubio, Carmen, 325 San Agustin, church and convent
Reyes, Jesús, 522 Romero Rubio, Manuel, 325 of, 184f
636 index
San Antonio de Béxar (San Antonio, Santo Tomás, 369 Sister Concepción Acevedo de la
Texas), 255 Sartorius, Carl, 271 Llata. See Madre Conchita
San Antonio (Texas), 360 Scherer García, Julio, 499 slavery
San Cristóbal de las Casas, 537 Schmidt, Samuel, 596 Asian, 123, 168–69
San Diego (California), 552 Schneider, José, 332 Aztec, 58
San Esteban, 121 scholarship black, 78, 128, 133, 200,
San Francisco Acatepec, 149f contemporary, 599–601 248, 250
San Gregorio Magno school, 177 New Spain, 177–81 Haiti, 213
San Ildefonso, 178, 204 schools. See education Indian, 96–97, 128, 129f
San Jacinto River, 256 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 418 sugar industry, 165–66
San José de Gracia, 413 Scott, Winfield, 262–63 Slidell, John, 258
San Juan de Letrán school, 177 Scottish Rite (Escoseses) Masons, Slim Helú, Carlos, 461, 537, 557,
San Juan de Ulloa, 239, 262, 265 246, 247 557f, 576, 588, 596
San Lorenzo, 7 sculpture, 184–85 Sloat, John D., 260
San Lorenzo de los Negros, 167 Sears Roebuck, 478 smallpox, 78, 91, 94, 192, 193
San Luis Potosí, 130, 227, 260, 294, Selden Codex, 33 Smith, Adam, 532
330, 340, 367–68, 436 Seminar on Modern Mexican Smoking Mirror, 31
San Mateo de Valparaíso, count History, 523 soap operas, 508, 594
of, 183 Senate, 307, 582 soccer, 508, 595
San Miguel Calpulalpan, 289 Senate Bill 1070 (SB1070), 564 social classes
San Pablo Guelatao, 284 September 11 terrorist attacks, mid-19th century, 314
Sánchez, Hugo, 595 550–51 Porfiriato, 347–52
Sánchez Navarro family, 210 Serdán, Aquiles, 368, 368f social justice, 468
sanctuary cities, 578 Serra, Fray Junípero, 201 social problems
Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Serrano, Francisco, 429, 467 in eighteenth century, 213–17
Ocotlán, 148f Seven Cities of Cíbola, 107–8 mid-19th century, 310–12
Sandinista Revolution, Seven Years’ War, 201 social security, 446, 478, 483
Nicaragua, 501 Seville, 199 socialism, 439, 444
Sandinistas, 501 Seward, William, 295, 303 Sociedad Filarmónica y Dramática
Sandoval, Gonzalo de, 88, 90, 92, sharecropping, 128 Francesa, 352
99–100 Sheffield, James, 427, 428 society and culture
sanitation Sicilia, Javier, 563 artists, 462f, 463–67
Aztec society, 69 Sierra, Justo, 338, 354–55 Aztec, 56–61
under Calles, 426 Sierra Madre Occidental, 99, 563 colonial, 158–72
colonial era, 188–89 Sierra Madre Oriental, 99 daily life from 1920–1940,
during Porfiriato, 322, 325, Sierra Mojada, 330 455–60
345, 346 Siete Leyes, 253 intelligentsia of revolution, 461,
Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 239, Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, 463–68
247–50, 253f, 255–69, 257f, 179–80, 179f, 181 literature, 466–67
267f, 283, 284 Silao, 289 See also chapters with this title
legacy of, 266–68 silk, 135 Society of Jesus. See Jesuits
and Lone Star Republic, 256, 257 silver, 199–200 Sodi, Demetrio, 431
political beliefs, 251–53 Bourbon reforms, 204 soldaderas, 413–15, 416f
prelude to war, 258, 260 colonial economy, 120–23, 127, Sombra Vengadora, 509
Treaty of Guadalupe 135–37, 139 Sonora, 104, 144, 218, 328, 331,
Hidalgo, 264 and first Mexican empire, 238 341, 363, 365, 366, 370, 384,
U.S.-Mexican War, 260–63 mining, 130–31, 132f, 330–31 437, 443, 500
war for Texas independence, production decline, 399 Sonora Railroad Company, 328
255, 256 Simpson-Rodino Act, 532 Sonoran dynasty, 402
Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, 177, 177f Sinaloa, 121, 144 Soriano, Juan, 522
Santa Fe (New Mexico), 121, 177, Sinaloa cartel, 563, 574 Spain
258, 260, 267 Sinclair, Harry F., 407 attempted reconquest of Mexico,
Santa Isabel, 395 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 405, 421, 246, 248
Santa Prisca church (Taxco), 209f 462f, 463, 482 decline of empire, 197–99
Santiago, 146 Sisniega, Federico, 339 French Intervention and, 290–1
Santiago de Baracoa, 78 Sistach, Marisa, 592 French invasion of, 220
Santiago de Calimaya, 212 Sistema Alimentario Mexicano Morelos’ uniform returned by, 367
Santo Domingo, 75, 77, 104 (SAM), 501 Portuguese union with, 167
Index 637
Spaniards, 248 Constitution of 1917 and, 399 teachers’ strike (2016), 575
armor, 93f under Díaz Ordaz, 490 Teapot Dome scandal, 407
Black Legend, 279 under Fox, 549 Teatro Esperanza Iris, 418
standing in colonial society, under López Mateos, 482, 484–85 technocrats, 473
159–60 under Madero, 376 technology, 455, 457, 474, 489, 548
Spanish Civil War, 444 under Obregón, 406 Tehuacán, 4, 371
Spanish Conquest, 3, 38, 44, 64, 71, during Porfiriato, 363–65 Tehuantepec, 348, 474
75–94 teachers’ strike (2016), 575 Tehuantepec Railroad, 328, 331, 345
Cholula massacre, 84, 85f student demonstrations, 488–94, Telcel, 596
Cortés, 78–79, 81f 496–98, 567 telenovelas, 508, 594
Cortés and Moctezuma, 87 Sub-Comandante Marcos, 537, 538f, telephones, 557, 595–96
fall of Tenochtitlán, 92–94 549, 550f, 601 Televisa, 477, 498, 533, 557, 591,
Indian allies, 98 subdelegados, 203 594, 595
initial reception of natives to subway, 491, 512–13, 512f television, 594–95
Spaniards, 79, 82 suffrage, 229, 307, 459, 482, 507–8 Tello de Sandoval, Francisco, 110
mutiny by followers of Veláza- sugar, 133–35, 165–66, 200, 329, 340 TELMEX (Teléfonos de México),
quez, 83 Summit of the Americas, 554 536–37, 596
Narváez expedition, 87–89 Superbarrio, 581, 582f telpochcallis, 59
Night of Sorrow, 89–91 Superbowl XX, 602 Temixtitan, 98f
reconquest of Tenochtitlán, 92–94 supermercados (supermarkets), 602 Témoris, 369
route of Cortés, 86f Supreme Court, 287, 305, 379, 407, Temple of Kukulcán, 40f
Spanish legacies and Caribbean 428, 442, 500, 521 Temple of Quetzalcóatl, 16, 17, 18f
trials, 75–77 surveillance, government, 599–600 Temple of the Inscriptions,
spread of conquest, 97–102, Sutter’s Fort, 264 Palenque, 26f
120–23 swine flu, 559 Temple of the Sun, Palenque, 26f
Tlaxcalans, 83–84 Syndicate of Technical Workers, temple-pyramids, 26f
Totonacs, 82–83 Painters, and Sculptors, 463 temples, decoration, 33, 34f
Spanish Empire, 121–25 syphilis, 91, 458 Templo Mayor complex, 49n.1,
spear thrower, 4 511–12
Spectre (film), 590 T Templo Mayor temple, 67, 68
Spencer, Herbert, 326 Tabasco, 7, 22, 79, 101, 439 Tenayuca, 43–44
sports, 508–9, 601–2 Taco Bell, 603 Tennessee, 254
Spota, Luis, 520 Tacuba causeway, 90 Tenochtitlán, 45–47, 46f, 57,
Standard Oil, 428, 443 Tacubaya, 313, 313f 61, 68f, 79, 86, 87, 89–90,
Stanhope, Chandos S., 328 Taibo, Paco Ignacio, II, 601 100, 130
steel, 332 Talking Cross, 267 as center of Aztec power, 62–63
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 66 Tamariz, Eduardo, 388 city of, 67–69
Steward, Carlos, 516 Tamaulipas, 246, 248, 331, 400, 431 early map, 98f
stirrup, 80f Tamayo, Rufino, 462f, 463, 522 fall of, 92–94
stone heads, 7, 9f tamemes, 130, 131f, 277 religious observances, 56
stone sculpture Tampico, 123, 246, 248, 331, 332, 388 Teoloyucan, water tower, 186f
Aztec, 50f Tapia, Cristóbal de, 97–98 teosinte, 4
Aztec Eagle Knight, 65f Tarahumaras, 165 Teotihuacán, 9, 11, 13, 21–22, 67
stone slabs, 23f Tarascans, 48, 50 reconstruction of, 354
“The Wrestler,” 8 taxes, 215 and successors, 16–20
stone warriors, Tula, 32f under Calles, 426 Temple of Quetzalcóatl, 18f
Strait of Magellan, 122 colonial era, 199, 201, 203, 204 Tepanecs, 44
Street of Forty Thieves, 432 early republic, 247 Tepehuanes, 165
street vendors, 581–82 first empire, 238 Tepexpan Man, 4
stress (in the colonial period) under Fox, 547, 548 Tepeyácac, 69
church and state, 217–18 under Huerta, 388 Tepito, 581
conspiracies in New Spain and under Juárez, 301, 308 Tepotzotlán, 178
confusion in Spain, 218–21 land, 388 Tepoztlán, Dominican monastery, 143f
social unrest, 213–17 post World War II, 449, 452 tequila, 604–5, 604f
strikes under Santa Anna, 253, 254, 266 Terrazas, Angela, 339
under Avila Camacho, 446 value-added, 548 Terrazas, Luis, 296, 339–40, 406, 437
under Cárdenas, 445 Tayloe, Edward, 276–77 Terrazas-Creel machine, 370
under Carranza, 399 Taylor, Zachary, 259–61 terrorism, 550–53
638 index
Texas, 123, 144, 201, 228, 237, 246, Toxcatl, 89 Tzintzuntzan, 455–56
253–55, 311, 323, 339, 345, trade, 476 tzompantli, 68
360, 400 Asians, 168
discontent prior to war for Aztecs, 57–58, 61 U
independence, 253–54 Bourbon reforms, 197–98 The Underdogs (Azuela), 419
Lone Star Republic, 256–58 under Calderón, 554, 559 undocumented immigrants, 577–78
as twenty-eighth state, 258 coins for, 140f unemployment, 238, 404, 501, 531,
US-Texas border dispute, 259f colonial era, 135–37, 136f, 138f, 539, 579, 582
war for independence, 255–56 139 UNESCO (United Nations
Texas Company, 407 under Echeverría, 497 Educational, Scientific and
Texas Rangers, 417 elites, 7–8 Cultural Organization), 603
Texcoco, 44, 47, 57, 61–62, 68, 92 Formative period, 5 Union of Journeymen and Industrial
textbooks, 599 under Fox, 545, 548 Workers, 536
textile industry under Juárez, 284 unions, 405–6, 441–42, 446, 463,
colonial era, 133, 135 under López Portillo, 503 482–85, 536, 569
Formative period, 6 Maya, 21–22 United Nations, 499, 506, 551
Porfiriato, 329, 332 Mayapan, 37 United States, 237, 311, 400
Tezcatlipoca, 31, 31f, 47, 55 NAFTA, 537 bombardment of Veracruz, 262f
Tezozómoc, 44, 46–47 Olmecs, 7–8 border issues, 531–32, 551–53,
Thalia, 591 under Peña Nieto, 570 562–66
The Revenant (film), 593 during Porfiriato, 332, 333f cultural influences on Mexico,
theater, Porfiriato, 353–54 under Salinas, 536–37 601–3
tienda de raya, 341, 364 Toltecs, 30, 36 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
Tijuana, 490, 494 transparency law, 599–601 263–64
Tikal, 24–25 transportation illegal immigration issue, 551–52
tiles, Puebla, 190f Mexico City, 346–47, 455, 584, intervention in Mexico, 388–90,
Tizoc, 48 584f 395
Tlacaélel, 49 motor car, 457 invasion of Mexico, 261f
Tlacopan, 47, 69 Pan-American Highway, 474 investment in Mexico, 478
Tlalnepantla, 314 Travis, William Barrett, 255 Mexican relations under Trump,
Tláloc, 14, 16, 18f, 55, 68 Treaty of Ciudad Juárez, 371 576–79
Tlaltecuhtli, 49n.1 Treaty of Córdoba, 232 Obregón’s relations with, 406–7
Tlatelolco, 48, 68 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, peso–dollar exchange rate, 528
Tlatelolco strike and massacre, 490–94 263–64 petroleum interests, 442
in literature, 520–21 Tres Amigos, 591f, 592–93 political cartoonists, 528f, 541
in textbooks, 599 Trevi, Gloria, 591 relations during Juárez adminis-
Tlatilco, 6, 6f Treviño, Jerónimo, 379 tration, 303–4
Tlaxcala, 50–51, 91, 92, 99, 121, 142, Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial relations with Alemán, 475, 476
148f, 308, 364, 378 de la Federación (TEPJF), relations with Calles, 427–28
Tlaxcalan Indians, 83–84, 90, 98, 132 555–56 relations with Cárdenas, 442–43
Tlaxcalantongo, 402 tribute (Indian), 61, 62, 118, 128 relations with Fox, 546–49, 547
Tlazolteótl (deity of filth), 55–56, 56f Tricolor (soccer team), 508, 595 relations with López Mateos,
tobacco, 139, 200, 204, 238, 497 Triple Alliance, 61–63 487–88
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 270 Triumph and Study over Ignorance and relations with López Portillo, 501
Todos Santos, 146 Sloth (Cordero mural), 316–17 relations with Mexico after 9/11,
Tollan, 30 Trotsky, Leon, 444 550–53
Tolosa, Juan de, 161 Truman, Harry S, 475, 476f relations with Mexico in 1970s
Tolsá, Manuel, 185, 205 Trump, Donald, 576–79, 598 and 1980s, 531–32
Toltecs, 30–33, 32f, 35–38, 43, 44 Tryst, Nicholas, 263 sanctuary cities, 578
Topiltzin, 30–31 tuberculosis, 483 Texas independence, 256–58
Topiltzin-Quetzalcóatl, 30–31, 31f, 35 Tula, 30–31, 32f, 33, 35 US-Texas border dispute, 259f
Toral, José de León, 430–31 Tutino, John, 139n.1 war with Mexico, 258–64
Torre y Mier, sugar family, 340 Tuxpan, 331 wartime shortages, 450
Torreblanca, José María, 279 TV Azteca, 594 World War I, 400
Torres Bodet, Jaime, 485 Twenty-Four Hours, Televisa, 533 World War II, 447–49
torture, 14, 124, 192, 229 Twitter, 597–98 Universidad Iberoamericana, 567
Totonac Indians, 82–83, 88, 340 Tyler, John, 258 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
tourism, 346–47, 349, 476, 487, 491, typhus, 192 México, 527. See also National
494, 499, 549, 560, 588–89 Tzeltal Mayas, 218 University of Mexico
Index 639
Universidad Popular Mexicana, 419 first half of 19th century, 270, under de la Madrid, 529
University City, 474f, 476 272–74 under Ruiz Cortines, 478
University of Mexico (Royal and petroleum, 331 Wal-Mart, 558, 603
Pontifical), 178, 224 during Porfiriato, 322–23, 331, 332 wall. See border wall
Urdaneta, Andrés de, 122 as port of entry, 137 War of Spanish Succession, 197
Urdiñola, Francisco de, 132 railroad to, 301–2, 305 War of the Reform, 287–89, 296,
Urrea, José, 256 revolt, 323 301, 322
Urretia, Aureliano, 388 Santa Anna and, 251 Warfare, modern technology, 385f
U.S. Drug Enforcement War of the Reform, 288 Warrior, Colima figure, 15f
Administation, 532 Wars for Independence, 230 Wars for Independence, 228, 230m,
U.S. Navy “bluejackets,” 390f Veracruz, Alonso de la, 178 232–33, 270, 273, 279, 322
USS Dolphin, 388 Victoria, Guadalupe, 230, 238–39, Hidalgo, 224–28
Utes, 202 243, 246–47, 247f, 249, 278 Morelos and rebel decline, 228–31
Utopia (More), 177 Victoria (queen of Great Britain), 290 Washington, George, 367, 389
Uxmal, 36, 41f Vidaurri, Santiago, 284 water supply, 586–87
Videgaray, Luis, 576 water tower, 186f
V video games, 595 Watergate, 494
vaccination, 193, 426 Vietnam War, 489 wealth, distribution of, 208–12,
vagabonds, 188, 276 Villa, Pancho, 369, 370, 384, 389, 275–77, 275f, 343, 452, 488,
Vale Coyote, 354 411, 498, 605 545, 548
Valenciana, 200, 208 assassination, 407–8 wheat, 133
Valenzuela, Fernando, 508 battle photograph, 394f, 396f wheel-lock pistol, 88f
Valladolid, 221, 224, 227 civil wars, 392–95 wheels, 12
Valle de Bravo, 516 Obregón, 406 whisky, 601
Valle de Mezquital, 134 peace agreement, 402 whistle, Maya culture, 27f
Vallejo, Demetrio, 484 photograph with Zapata, 393f Williams, Anthony Duncan, 497
Valley of Anáhuac, 85–86 Villalobos, Ruy López de, 108, 122 Wilson, Henry Lane, 381, 386
Valley of Mexico, 16, 29, 48m Villalpando, Cristóbal de, 185 Wilson, Woodrow, 386–87, 388,
Valley of Oaxaca, 9 villancico, 182 389, 395
Vamos México, 547 Villistas, 391, 394–95, 396 women and gender
Vanderwood, Paul, 291n.1 Villoro, Juan, 596 anticlericalism, 430f
vanilla, 133, 200, 340 violence Aztec, 59
Vargas, Chavela, 591 drug-related, 553, 562–64 under Cárdenas, 440–41, 444f,
Vargas, Joaquín, 574 hangings, 412f 465, 467
Vargas Llosa, Mario, 519 impact of revolution on masses, colonial society, 170–71
Varo, Remedios, 521 411–18 contributions during war, 450f
Vasconcelos, José, 404–5, 418, 441, during Mexican revolution, domestic violence, 191–92
461, 605 411–13 during early revolution, 416f, 418
Vásquez Gómez, Emilio, 379 political, 538 education 1920–1940, 460
Vásquez Gómez, Francisco, population effects, 417f in electoral politics, 582
366, 374 soldaderas, 413–15 fashion in New Spain, 188
Vatican II, 598 Tlatelolco, 490–94 femicides, 553, 566
Vázquez, Pedro Ramírez, 486 Virgin Mary, 87, 146, 279 first half of 19th century, 272,
Vázquez de Coronado, Francisco, Virgin of Guadalupe, 143–44, 145f, 275–76, 279
107–8, 108m, 121 218, 226, 293, 313, 522 during Institutional Revolution,
Vázquez Mota, Josefina, 566–67 Visigoths, 76 478
Velasco, Luis de, I, 116, 117f visitadores, 116 limpieza de sangre, 158, 159
Velasco, Luis de, II, 121 ¡Viva Cristo Rey!, 429 in maquiladoras, 494
Velásquez, Fidel, 446 Vizcaíno, Sebastian, 123 Mexican nurses and war effort, 448f
Velázquez, Diego, 78, 79, 82, 83, von Bismarck, Otto, 296, 321 migrants, 565
87, 101 in politics, 482, 566–67
Venegas, Julieta, 591 W Porfiriato, 347–48, 350
Vera, Nadia, 574 wages, 200, 446, 531, 545 in post-WWII workforce, 507–8
Vera Estañol, Jorge, 388 under Alemán, 477 rights, 21st century, 531, 558
Veracruz, 7, 12f, 20f, 70, 79, 82, 89, under Avila Camacho, 449 social classes, 314
99, 118, 124, 167, 220, 239, under Calderón, 552 society during 1920–1940, 458–60
262, 262f, 265–66 under Calles, 425 soldaderas, 413–15
colonial era, 124 under Cárdenas, 442, 459 suffrage, 478
Felicista movement, 380 colonial era, 128–30, 204, 215 women’s rights, 507–8
640 index
Women’s Workers’ Army, 444f Yankeephobia, 264 depiction in Mexican textbooks,

World Bank, 501, 503 Yaqui Indians, 121, 388, 414–15, 599
World Cup, 595 414f photograph with Pancho Villa, 393f
World Health Organization, 559 Yaqui Rebellion of 1740, 218 Zapata, Luis, 521
World Heritage Sites, 603 Yaxchilán, 25 Zapatistas, 389, 391, 396, 398, 426,
World Trade Center, 550–51 yellow fever, 137, 192–93, 248, 479, 581
World Trade Organization, 541 262, 293, 322 Zapotecs, 20–21, 33, 50, 100
World War I, 400–401 YMCA (Asociación Cristiana de Zaragoza, Ignacio, 288–89, 291, 292
World War II, 447–49, 447–50 Jóvenes), 405 Zavala, Lorenzo de, 248, 252,
“The Wrestler,” 8f Yo Soy 132, 567–68, 568f 255, 279
wrestling, 509 York Rite (Yorquinos) Masons, 246, Zedillo, Ernesto, 539–40, 545
writing 247, 249 zero cipher, 12
Aztec, 58, 59, 63 Ypiranga (ship), 389 Zetas, 563
hieroglyphic, 4, 14, 22–24 Yucatán, 21, 22, 37, 79, 101, 105, Zimmerman, Arthur, 400
Mayan, 22–24 218, 437, 438 Zimmerman telegram, 400–401
Olmec, 8 Yucatán Peninsula, 27, 71, 99, Zionism, 499
253, 341 Zócalo, 68, 221f, 275, 487, 491, 556,
X Yucatec Maya, 35–36 575, 582f
Xavier Villarrutia Literary Prize, Yucatec warriors, 78 Zona Rosa, 602, 602f
520–21 Yugoslavia, 487 Zorita, Alonso de, 179
Xicoténcatl, 84 Zozaya, Manuel, 237
Xochicalco, 18, 29 Z Zuloaga, Félix, 287, 288
Xochimilco, 44, 45 Zaachila, 35f Zultepec, 91
Xólotl (Spirit Dog), 43–44 Zabludovsky, Jacobo, 533, 533f Zumárraga, Juan de, 104, 105f, 110,
Zacatecas, 20, 120, 130–31, 142–43, 150, 177, 180, 354
Y 227, 232 Zumaya, Manuel, 181
Y tu mamá también and Amores Perros Zapata, Emiliano, 372–74, 373f, Zúñiga, Pepe, 520
(film), 593 378–79, 384, 392–95, Zunis, 108
Yanga, 167 400–402, 411, 497, 498, 510 Zuno Hernández, Guadalupe, 497

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THE COURSE OF MEXICAN HISTORY

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Deeds, Susan M., author. | Meyer, Michael C. | Sherman, William L.

maps and c har ts ix

chapter 1 The First Mexicans 3

chapter 6 The Spanish Invasion 75

chapter 8 The Imperial System Entrenched 115

PA R T I V REFORM AND REACTION: THE MOVE TO

chapter 13 The Bourbons Restructure New Spain 197

c h a p t e r 17 The Early Mexican Republic 2 4 3

c h a p t e r 20 The Reform and the French Intervention 283

c h a p t e r 23 The Porfiriato: Order and Progress 321

PA R T V I I I THE REVOLUTION OF 1910 357

c h a p t e r 26 M adero and the Liberal Indictment of

c h a p t e r 30 Calles: Supreme Chief of an Institutionalized

PA R T X I CRISIS AND CHANGE IN AN ERA OF

chapter 37 The Neo-Liberal State: A Path to Democracy? 527

appendix: mexican heads of state 609

color plates foll ow 318

Periods in Pre-Columbian Mexico 5

Urban–Rural Population Distribution 485

Updates to pre-Columbian chapters including recent discoveries at the pyramids of

THE FIRST MEXICANS

40,000–7000 BC Pre-Agricultural: Nomadic hunters and food gatherers.

PERIODS IN PRE-COLUMBIAN MEXICO

Ceramic figurine of a dancer from Tlatilco, near Mexico

Genderless “pudgy babies” like this hollow ce-

RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY

MESOAMERICA’S GOLDEN AGE:

THE FLOWERING OF CITIES

A bearded musician sings and keeps rhythm with

TEOTIHUACAN AND ITS SUCCESSORS

Carved stone images of the rain god Tlaloc

The Pyramid of Niches, El Tajín, state of Veracruz.

Incised on stone slabs, curious figures who seem to be danc-

Principal Archaeological Sites

of the world. Coincidentally in 2012, another archaeological discovery in a remote corner of

In dark hardwood, this unusual carving known as

Although central Mexican pyramids are usually

A superb stucco head with an elegant

RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY

The ingenuous Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl is deceived by the

THE ZAPOTECS AND MIXTECS

Zapotec bat god (Dios Murciélago).

Mesoamerican influence promoted the inclusion of Quetzalcoatl (called “Kukulcan” by

A great ball court in the Maya style at Chichen Itza. Scores

Detail of the carved stone ring.

The Temple of Kukulcan, also known as “El Castillo.”

RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY

THE RISE OF THE AZTECS

THE AZTEC RISE TO POWER

THE AZTEC EMPIRE

A fine example of Aztec stone sculpture.

RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY

AZTEC SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Aztec New Fire Ceremony from the Codex Borbonicus.

These rituals followed strictly prescribed procedures in a complex ceremonial system.

The goddess Tlazolteotl is shown here giving birth to the