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Home , Mexican miracle, Mexican Revolution

2010 , , and Celebration in Mexico: 1810, 1910, and 2010

by Brian Stauffer and Salvador Salinas

On the night of Sep- Organized by Associate Professor of Latin American History Susan tember 15, 1810, a priest Deans-Smith with the help of Gail Sanders, Program Coordinator of the of Spanish descent, Father Mexican Center of LLILAS, the program includes five panel discussions Miguel , rang the and several speakers. A Web site (http://www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/ bells of the parish church llilas/centers-and-programs/mexico/mexico2010.php) designed by at Dolores, , LANIC Content Director Kent Norsworthy, provides up-to-date informa- calling for the inhabitants tion about the Many Mexicos events as well as links to the many other of to overthrow events related to the Mexican bicentenary and centenary celebrations their colonial rulers. Within taking place in Austin. Cosponsored by the Mexican Center at LLILAS, a month, Hidalgo stood at the History Department, and the Consulate General of Mexico in Aus- the gates of as tin, Many Mexicos represents a truly binational undertaking. It brings head of an army of 60,000 together numerous world-class scholars from the U.S., the UK, and peasantO soldiers drawn from the of central Mexico. Although Mexico, the latter traveling with the crucial support of the Mexican Hidalgo and his army would suffer defeat when victory seemed at Consulate in Austin, to take stock of the gains of recent scholarship hand, this movement began Mexico’s long struggle for independence. on Independence, the Revolution, and other pivotal moments in the It was a watershed, but Mexico would not become free until 1821, country’s historical development. UT provides an ideal setting for such under Augustín Iturbide. events. The university boasts a world-class faculty of Latin American Two hundred years after Hidalgo’s revolt, scholars continue to debate specialists across a number of disciplines, making it a leading insti- the meaning of Mexican independence. This year, 2010, the University tution in the production of knowledge about the region. The Nettie of Texas at Austin is hosting an unprecedented number of events to Lee Benson Latin American Collection stands as one of the world’s commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of Mexico’s independence premier research libraries for the study of Mexico and movement and the centennial of the of 1910. more generally. Other resources for research on Mexico can be found

llilas portal 4 at the Harry Ransom Center, whose yearlong exhibit, ¡Viva! Mexico’s indigenous made up over half of the insurgent armies. This Independence, features a collection of rare documents and art from more popular, indigenous movement, led by José , another Mexican history. priest, and Vicente , was less coherent and articulate than But why spend an entire year commemorating Mexico’s indepen- that of the creoles, but it proved crucial to the weakening of Spain’s dence and revolution? As Prof. Mauricio Tenorio explained in his talk, grip on her valuable colony. The final push did not come until 1821, celebrating history is as much about the present and future as it is about when a royalist general, Augustín Iturbide, struck a deal with Guerrero the past. The Mexican government, for example, uses the celebrations and switched sides. Spain’s colonial rule came to an end, and Mexico to construct a narrative of its own legitimacy and achievements and emerged as an independent state. ensure the continuity of its rule. Recent scholarship on Mexico, on the But emancipation did not usher in an era of peace and prosperity. other hand, has often worked to deconstruct such narratives, unearth- In fact, the war unleashed forces that would divide Mexico for decades ing the many and diverse Mexicos that underlie the homogenized after victory. A fundamental rift remained between those who favored narrative of the government.1 the egalitarian, progressive vision of Hidalgo and Morelos on the one At UT, the commemoration of 1810 and 1910 provides an oppor- hand, and those who subscribed to Iturbide’s monarchist, pro-clerical tunity for scholars to assess the achievements of the field of Mexican project. The new country faced other problems, as well. The economy studies, to revisit its central questions, and to suggest directions for was devastated. Indians remained oppressed. Elites could not agree future research. Indeed, the Many Mexicos program of events reflects on the future of the nation. The church jealously guarded its power the field’s most pressing concerns, including the role of indigenous and wealth. Civil wars and foreign invasions continually hindered the people and the church in Mexican political history, the economic impacts emergence of a viable Mexican nation-state. Only with the triumph of Independence and Revolution, and of the Liberal Party of Benito Juárez in Mexico’s place in the global capitalist 1867 would one group become powerful system. The panels challenge scholars to enough to rule Mexico. Now Mexicans consider the common threads underlying could build a representative democ- the 1810 and 1910 insurrections and to racy, free market economy, and bend probe the spaces between and beyond the church to the will of the state. those watershed events. Audience mem- Practice, however, would not match bers at Héctor Aguilar Camín’s talk, for ideal Liberal theory. Porfirio Díaz rose example, pressed him to relate his the- to the Mexican presidency in 1876 sis on the continuity of political culture and would rule the country for the before and after Independence to the next thirty-five years. Democracy lan- current narco-wars. Certainly, the Many guished as Díaz manipulated elections Mexicos events foster a lively dialog about and installed his cronies in positions of the meaning of the Mexican past—a dialog that continues to reshape power. The church regained some authority. Capitalist development the conventional narrative of Independence and the Revolution. favored foreign investors over Mexican entrepreneurs. The rich gob- The Mexican Independence movement grew out of a complex set bled up the best lands. Factory workers met police batons when they of domestic and international crises, the most important of which attempted to organize. Mexico achieved a degree of modernization and stemmed from Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808. The Napoleonic traded its natural resources with the world, but at a heavy price. crisis, in turn, unleashed a larger political debate within the Spanish Díaz had shrewdly manipulated the contending political factions for empire about the relative benefits of and republicanism, decades, but the old dictator lost his touch by his eighth election. In and about the place of the American colonies in the larger system. In 1908, he told an American journalist, , that Mexico Mexico and other parts of Latin America, various constituencies clam- was ready for democracy; he would not run for reelection; and he ored for the return of the deposed King Ferdinand VII, the creation of welcomed the participation of opposition groups in the elections of a constitutional monarchy, or outright independence. Independence 1910. His words opened the lid on a pressure cooker whose contents didn’t become a widely favored solution until the second decade of had been stewing for a generation. Francisco Madero, a Coahui- the nineteenth century, and even then, it meant different things to lan landowner, spearheaded the democratic opening through the different people. Anti-Reelectionist Party. He toured the nation, giving speeches to In Mexico, as Eric Van Young noted in his talk, two distinct move- sympathetic crowds gathered in the country’s public squares. He pledged ments drove the war against Spain. At the top, Mexicans of Spanish to end absolute rule by one man and sweetheart deals with foreign inves- descent, or creoles, had a nationalist vision for Mexico. They resented tors. Representative democracy, a free press, restoration of village lands, Spain’s control over the colony’s natural resources, especially its lucrative and clean elections would solve Mexico’s dilemmas. These promises fell silver trade monopoly, and Spanish domination of political positions. upon sympathetic ears in the cities, towns, and villages. Middle-class Mexican-born elites were shut out of the governance of their own land. professionals, landless farmers, and factory workers all could gain from Meanwhile, the masses of indigenous peasants of central Mexico had Madero’s program. Díaz, however, met the rising expectations with force. grievances of their own. For some, a quarrel with a local priest sparked He slammed the lid on the simmering pressure cooker as quickly as their indignation; for others, the arrival of insurgent armies presented he had opened it. Madero was jailed, the Anti-Reelectionist Party was an opportunity to get even with a local Spanish authority. All told, repressed, the election was rigged, and Díaz won again.

llilas portal 5 On September 16, 1910, Mexico City held powerful and bloated army, mobilized farmers PRI’s golden age. Urban and rural workers lavish ceremonies commemorating the one clamoring for land, urban workers demanding largely remained supportive of the regime, hundredth anniversary since Father Hidalgo control in the factories, the but politicians increasingly prioritized revolted against Spain. Díaz wanted to show resisting secularization of state and society, and investment and over income the world Mexico’s progress, but outside the U.S. pressure not to implement the reforms redistribution and equality. The indigenous capital, in the towns and countryside, unrest of the 1917 Constitution. Land was distrib- populations remained second-class citizens. stirred. Madero had jumped bail and fled to uted selectively and in the regions where the Above all, the PRI dominated elections through Texas. He issued a manifesto on November rural movement was strongest—Morelos, the cooptation and patronage. The official party 20, 1910, calling for Mexicans to rise up and -Tlaxcala Valley, and areas of Chihua- ruled the national and state congresses, gov- overthrow the Díaz . hua. The only thing about the ernorships, and the all-powerful presidency. Insurgents in and Morelos, includ- regime by the late was its anticlerical In 1968, a student movement that sought to ing the charismatic figures and project to break the power of the church. In democratize the system encountered repres- , responded to Madero’s call. 1926, the church-state conflict erupted when sion at the Tlaltelolco massacre, in which Within six months, Díaz resigned the presi- government hostility led the church to suspend hundreds of students were gunned down dency after a decisive rebel victory at the battle religious services such as baptisms, marriages, by Federal soldiers. Following this tragedy, of Ciudad Juárez. The aging dictator’s words funerals, and Masses. Some seventy thousand repeated economic crises in the 1970s and as he boarded a ship to France from the port Mexicans perished in the religious war that 1980s began a long decline of the PRI’s legiti- of proved prophetic: “Madero has came to be known as the Cristiada. Three years macy and claim as the official embodiment unleashed a tiger; let us see if he can control later, the conflict ended in a stalemate between of the Revolution. Poorly armed Indians in him.” Open elections and democracy, Madero the church and state, with Catholicism losing the highlands of , calling themselves thought, would solve Mexico’s problems. He its legal authority but retaining influence over Zapatistas, turned the official narrative on its was wrong. The Zapatistas in Morelos refused to Mexicans’ hearts and minds. head in 1994, when they rebelled against the lay down their arms until lands were returned to Church-state relations thawed into the North American Free Trade Agreement and the the pueblos, industrial workers began to strike 1930s, while the Great Depression exposed failure of the regime to continue distributing and halt production at unprecedented rates, and Mexico’s need to fulfill the promises of the land. For the first time in seventy years, the the church and remained hostile to Revolution. Lázaro Cárdenas assumed the opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) won the new regime. A new round of revolutionary presidency in 1934 and allied with workers the presidency in 2000, bringing an end to the violence began in 1913 when the army deposed and farmers to carry out rapid reforms. He dis- PRI’s long domination of Mexican politics. and shot Madero. Mexicans united to overthrow tributed some forty-four million acres of land The PAN’s socially conservative, free mar- the military dictatorship a year later. to eight hundred thousand recipients. Urban ket program has steered Mexico far from the As in France and Russia, once the revolu- workers gained unprecedented labor rights vision of revolutionary leaders like Zapata tionaries achieved victory, they started fighting and won backing from the government in dis- and Cárdenas, and the rise of powerful drug among themselves. Who would rule Mexico? putes with management.Alumn Economici nationalismSpotli ghcartelst has exposed cracks in the strong state What reforms would be carried out? What reached its apogee in 1938 when Cárdenas built by the PRI after 1940. But the myths role would workers and farmers play in a new expropriated American and British oil firms. and memories of the Revolution continue to economy? And the church? The old landlords? The maneuver was supported by Mexicans inform Mexican politics and culture in com- Where did they fit into this picture? Revolution- of all political stripes: at no point before or plicated ways. Scholars will have their hands ary armies swept in and out of Mexico City as since has the nation been so united behind full for decades to come exploring the road to these questions remained unsolved. The uncer- the government. Through these popular mea- 2010. While this year’s centennial events have tainty culminated in major battles between sures, official party membership mushroomed presented a perfect opportunity to appraise the Zapatistas and Villistas on one hand, and to more than four million constituents, making Mexico’s recurrent social upheavals, it is still forces of Álvaro Obregón and Venustiano it the most powerful organization to emerge too early to predict how 2010 will be remem- Carranza (the moderate Constitutionalists) from the Revolution. Urban and rural work- bered by future generations. on the other. Carranza and Obregón, the most ers, the army, and the middle class formed talented general of the war, prevailed in 1915 the backbone of what came to be the Partido Brian Stauffer and Salvador Salinas are doctoral when Villa suffered major defeats in battles Revoluciónario Institucional (PRI). candidates in the UT Department of History. of the Bajío. The Constitutionalists assumed Historians consider 1940 and Mexico’s power in Mexico City and in 1917 wrote the entrance into the Second World War on the Note most progressive constitution in the Americas side of the Allies as the end of the revolution- 1.The title Many Mexicos was inspired by to that point, promising workers power in the ary era. For the next three decades, during historian Lesley Byrd Simpson’s classic work of factories, farmers land, and Mexicans control the so-called , the country the same name, which alerted its readers to the over their natural resources. experienced rapid urbanization, industrializa- complexity and heterogeneity of Mexico, both Reform began slowly in the 1920s. Mexi- tion, economic growth, and unprecedented in terms of its environments and peoples. Lesley co’s presidents Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco political stability. Only recently have historians Byrd Simpson, Many Mexicos (New York: Elías Calles juggled the diverse interests of a begun to probe the myths and realities of the Putnam, 1941). ✹

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