MEXICO: from EMPIRE to REVOLUTION HISTORY by Charles Merewether, Collections Curator, Getty Research Institute
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MEXICO: FROM EMPIRE TO REVOLUTION HISTORY By Charles Merewether, Collections Curator, Getty Research Institute REVOLUTION The Revolution Unfolds (1910/1911) As preparations for the national centenary celebrations progress, Porfirio Díaz’ regime begins to falter. Many of Díaz’s opponents strongly support the moderate Francisco Madero and a new government, and the jailing of Madero on the eve of the 1910 presidential election and allegations of widespread electoral fraud after Díaz’s subsequent victory lead to massive public protest in the streets of Mexico City. Throughout the countryside the economy turns from bad to worse, as Mexico’s dependence on the international market and on U.S. interests becomes all too evident. The independence from foreign control gained one hundred years before, and again in the 1860s, appears insubstantial as the vast U.S. land holdings in Mexico expose the rural working class’ lack of control over their own survival. A failure of food crops in the Northern states leads to famine and food riots, and there is an economic downturn in the timber, agricultural and mining industries. Throughout 1910 regional revolts against the Díaz regime spread across the country. Nevertheless, the centenary celebrations are held and the flag of Guadalupe is carried through the streets as the symbol of independence. As it flutters in the wind self-determination seems once again to elude the Mexican people. The desire to oust Díaz from office, in combination with the catalyst of popular discontent in the North, unites different leaders in temporary support of Madero, who has escaped to San Antonio, Texas after being bailed out of prison by his family. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosí in mid-October. In it he denounces the election as fraudulent, the Díaz presidency as illegal, and declares himself the legitimate president. His promise of agrarian reform attracts the support of peasants throughout Mexico and mobilizes workers and the middle-class. Madero declares November 20th the day for the Republic to rise up in arms against Diaz’s regime, and in that month rebel armies begin to form. The abuses of Díaz’ regime and control over the land by the hacendados (hacienda owners) and the presence of American interests are acutely felt in the North, especially Chihuahua, and the region becomes one of the key centers for the emergent revolutionary movement. Pascual Orozco, a muleteer and the son of a village storekeeper in Chihuahua, gains the support of Abraham González, governor of the state, and becomes the leader of the rebel movement. Governor González also forges an alliance with the young Francisco (Pancho) Villa from the state of Durango, who has gained a reputation as a powerful bandit chief, horseman and leader of a strong guerilla army. González introduces him to Madero, and Villa and González decide to join forces, recognizing that they come from opposite ends of the social spectrum and can reinforce one another's support. On Feb. 14th, 1911 Madero crosses into Mexico near Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua to head the anti-Díaz forces. At around the same time, José Garibaldi arrives in Chihuahua to become one of Madero’s commanding officers. A photographer from El Paso, Jim A. Alexander, captures a portrait of him. General Victoriano Huerta, who has already served in military campaigns for Díaz against the Maya in Yucatán, is now dispatched to Chihuahua to meet the rebel forces. From this time on, photography in Mexico will be transformed. Local and foreign photographers begin to set up agencies in Mexico City, producing images that will become part of the daily news coverage locally and throughout the world. The idea of the “photo opportunity” will become critical to raising consciousness and support for the events and protagonists involved. The End of the Porfiriato: Ciudad Juárez (1911) By April the Revolution against the Porfiriato has spread across Mexico into eighteen states, and the area around Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua becomes a flash point. Because it is the official port of entry from the United States the control of the city is of strategic importance, and U.S. president William Howard Taft sends 20,000 troops to watch the border. Residents of El Paso, Texas watch the battle raging between Mexican Federal troops and rebels in Juárez from their rooftops and the U.S. side of the Río Bravo (Rio Grande). News of impending border battles often precedes the actual fighting, and railroads run special excursions to accommodate the spectators. W. H. Horne, who had come from the East coast to recover from tuberculosis, buys a camera and begins to photograph the conflict. He and other local photographers seize the opportunity of selling postcards as a business. Horne will later write a letter to his family in which he expresses his hope that U.S. troops from the northern states will once again come down to the border for the sake of his business. Agustín Víctor Casasola, who has worked as a journalist for the Mexican daily press and as official photographer for Porfirio Díaz, photographs Federal soldiers with their loved ones prior to their departure to Ciudad Juárez to reinforce the army against the insurgent forces. Although principally a studio photographer Casasola also travels to Juárez, following the Maderista movement. Upon arrival he takes a famous photograph of Pancho Villa with his staff. The clear differences between Villa’s group and that of Francisco Madero or that of the governor of Chihuahua Abraham González are indicative of how broad the alliances being drawn against Díaz are. On April 7th, 1911 Madero advances on Ciudad Juárez, with Villa and Pascual Orozco commanding the rebel troops. The possibility of a siege of the city leads Díaz to strike a truce for two weeks. Fearful that a border skirmish will bring the U.S. into the war, Madero orders Orozco and Villa to withdraw their advance on the Federal garrison. Defying him, they attack. The insurgents fight from the ditches, using 1860s rifles against the modern machineguns of the Federal troops. Nevertheless the Federal forces under General Juan Navarro surrender, and Ciudad Juárez is handed over to Madero on May 10th. The revolutionary leadership forms a coalition in which Governor González strongly supports Madero. The coalition includes Madero’s brother Raúl, Orozco, Venustiano Carranza (governor of Coahuila), and José Garibaldi. On May 17th in Ciudad Juárez, Madero and Díaz’s representatives jointly sign a peace treaty that demands Díaz’s resignation in exchange for armistice. In the years to follow the photographic coverage of the Mexican Revolution as it unfolds is extraordinary. Thousands of images capture a country at war. With smaller cameras and improved methods of printing and circulation, photo-reportage becomes the most dramatic and immediate way to chronicle events and individual lives. Never before, and possibly never since, has a country been the subject of such scrutiny or fascination. It is a turning point, too, for Mexican photography. Prior to the Revolution, Europeans and Americans had taken much of the photography of the country. Now local photographers begin to emerge, opening studios and agencies and traveling across the country to document events. At the same time, because U.S. economic and political interests are seen to be at risk, American photographers are sent to cover the front line and course of the Revolution, just as photographers had come from France in the 1860s when French interests were at stake. Traveling across the border by train, many photographers come and go without setting up studios, leaving behind little evidence of their work, and many photographs of the era do not offer any specific information as to the occasion on which they were taken and remain anonymous, unsigned, and undated. Here we attempt to reconstruct the specificity of those images from internal and external evidence, and to create a narrative from what is only a small portion of a vast and dispersed archive of images. Madero’s Return (1911) On May 25th, 1911 Porfirio Díaz officially steps down from the presidency before a massive public audience in Mexico City, ending a 35-year regime, and flees into exile in Paris. Francisco Madero names Mexican Ambassador to the United States Francisco León de la Barra interim president until new elections Mexico: Empire to Revolution, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/digital/mexico/, © 2002, J. Paul Getty Trust 2 can be held. De la Barra, who had been secretary of foreign relations under Díaz, appoints a cabinet of Díaz supporters instead of revolutionaries. On June 7th Madero returns in triumph to Mexico City. He is accom- panied by José María Pino Suárez. The two met in the Yucatán during the Madero’s 1911 political campaign and joined forces in Ciudad Juárez. Suárez is soon to become Madero’s vice-President. D.W. Hoffman, a photographer about whom little is known, captures Madero’s arrival while the French photographer Felix Miret, who produced some of the most extensive coverage of the Centenary of 1910, captures images of the welcoming crowds, standing on the trolley cars and the statue of Charles IV. There are celebrations in the streets for days. Both Pascual Orozco and Emiliano Zapata, a former stable master and rebel leader from Morelos, come to express their support. On June 12th, the young Mexican photographer Antonio Garduño captures Madero’s triumphant entry into the city of Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos, just south of the capital, to rally support for his election. The image is to become iconic. Such images show us the ecstatic response to the end of the Porfiriato, as people move along the dusty streets on foot and horse with their hats, guns and flags raised in the air.