The Pueblos of Morelos in Post- Revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1940
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The Dissertation Committee for Salvador Salinas III certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Zapatistas and Their World: The Pueblos of Morelos in Post- revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1940 Committee: ________________________________ Matthew Butler, Supervisor ________________________________ Jonathan Brown ________________________________ Seth Garfield ________________________________ Virginia Garrard-Burnett _________________________________ Samuel Brunk The Zapatistas and Their World: The Pueblos of Morelos in Post- revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1940 by Salvador Salinas III, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2014 To my parents The haciendas lie abandoned; semi-tropical growth burst from a thousand crannies, wreathing these monuments of a dead past in a wilderness of flowers. Green lizards dart through the deserted chapels. The bells which summoned to toil and to worship are silent. The peons are free. But they are not contented. -Ernest Gruening on Morelos, Mexico and its Heritage, New York: Appleton Century Croft, 1928, 162. Acknowledgments First I would like to thank my parents, Linda and Salvador Salinas, for their unwavering support during my graduate studies; to them I dedicate this dissertation. At the University of Texas at Austin, I am greatly indebted to my academic advisor, Dr. Matthew Butler, who for the past six years has provided insightful and constructive feedback on all of my academic work and written many letters of support on my behalf. I am also grateful for my dissertation committee members, Professor Jonathan Brown, Professor Seth Garfield, Professor Virginia Garrard-Burnett, and Professor Samuel Brunk, who all read and provided insightful feedback on this dissertation. In particular, Professor Jonathan Brown has supported my candidacy by writing many letters of reference on my behalf and allowing me to serve as a teaching assistant in his classes. I would also like to thank Professor Ann Twinam, who read and commented on earlier versions of this dissertation’s fourth chapter, when it was still in the form of a research paper. At Harvard University, I am indebted to Professor John Womack, Jr. for reading and commenting on a draft of this dissertation’s fifth chapter and for allowing me to ask him questions on the intellectual formation of his dissertation on revolutionary Morelos. I also thank Professor Ben Fallaw of Colby College for reading and commenting on a draft of this dissertation’s fifth chapter. At the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Anthropología Social in Mexico City, I owe a big thanks to Professor Antonio Escobar Ohmstede, who allowed me to speak with him on several occasions regarding the research for chapter three of this dissertation. Finally, as a master’s student at Oxford University, I thank Professor Alan Knight for serving as my academic advisor and for reading several drafts of this project when it was still in the form of a master’s thesis. Despite all the help and support I received during the research and writing of this dissertation, all the errors contained within the text are mine alone. v The research and writing of this dissertation would not have been possible without the funding provided by several institutions. At the University of Texas, the College of Liberal Arts, the History Department, the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, and the Mexican Center funded my numerous research trips to Mexico over the past six years and also provided funding that allowed me to write this dissertation in Austin, Texas. The American Historical Association and the Latin American Centre at Oxford University also provided me with summer research funds. The staffs of the archives and libraries consulted for this dissertation, especially the staff of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin, were all very helpful while I was gathering primary and secondary sources. Finally, I am thankful to numerous friends, colleagues, and family members for their support during the research and writing of this dissertation. As an undergraduate at Appalachian State University, I am indebted to Professor Jeffrey Bortz, who sparked my interest in Mexican history and encouraged me to pursue a PhD in Latin American history. To my uncle, Dr. Rogelio Rey Bosch, I owe a special thanks for introducing me to Professor Miguel León-Portilla, Professor Jean Meyer, and Lic. Valentín López González. León-Portilla was kind enough to answer my general questions about Mexican history, and Jean Meyer gave me insight into Mexican politics in the 1920s. The late López González provided me with invaluable knowledge of Morelos in the 1920s, and he generously donated a collection of his work to the Latin American Centre at Oxford University. I would also like to thank the Salinas family for the hospitality they have always given me on my trips to Mexico. Additionally, my friends Felipe Cruz, Steven Knauss, and Derek Polston never hesitated to provide the moral support I needed to finish this study. Finally, my love and partner, América Gonzales, was always there to provide me with encouraging words during the most challenging phases of this research project. vi Indeed, without the support of the above individuals and institutions, the research and writing of this dissertation would not have been possible. vii The Zapatistas and Their World: The Pueblos of Morelos in Post- revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1940 by Salvador Salinas III, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 SUPERVISOR: Matthew Butler Studies on the state of Morelos and its role in the Mexican Revolution (1910- 1920) have tended to focus on the origins of the conflict or the fighting itself rather than the outcomes of the insurgency led by Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919). This dissertation, instead, analyzes the aftermath of the revolution in Morelos by providing a new political and environmental history of the state in the 1920s and 1930s. It argues that previous conceptualizations of the region’s villages as being motivated by either moral or economic factors are by themselves insufficient to explain the diversity of pueblos, or rural communities, in Morelos. Rather, this study uses Mexico’s historically-rooted, liberal concept of village sovereignty to integrate moral, economic, and cultural interpretations of village behaviors in post-revolutionary Morelos. The idea of what it meant to be a sovereign village, however, evolved in the 1920s and 1930s to include new political and institutional ties to centralized government in Mexico City. Rural engagement with the post-revolutionary state in fact strengthened local control over elections, natural resources, and primary schools vis-à-vis old elites now in retreat during viii this period. Villagers, meanwhile, constantly dialogued with national authorities over the aims of federal state-building policies and negotiated the terms of the region’s loyalty to Mexico City. ix Table of Contents Introduction: Reinterpreting the Role of the Pueblos of Morelos in Post-revolutionary Mexican History 1 Historiography ............................................................................................................................. 3 The Idea of the Sovereign Pueblo and its Antecedents ..............................................................14 Research Findings ......................................................................................................................18 A Note on Sources ......................................................................................................................23 Chapter I: Pueblo Politics and the Rise of the Post-Revolutionary State ..................................................26 Obregonismo & Traditional Chieftainship, 1920-1924 ..............................................................28 Electoral Upheaval, 1925-1926 ..................................................................................................37 Callismo & the Rise of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario, 1927-1934 .................................48 Cardenismo & the Renegotiation of Pueblo Loyalty, 1934-1940 ...............................................58 Chapter II: Land Reform and Pueblo Revival ..........................................................................................70 Land Petitions .............................................................................................................................73 Ejidal Assemblies and Municipal Governments .........................................................................87 The Politics of Deforestation ......................................................................................................98 The Second Phase of the Agrarian Reform ..............................................................................106 Chapter III: Irrigation Waters, Rice, and the Pueblos’ Green Revolution ..............................................114 The Hydrology of Post-revolutionary Morelos ........................................................................118 The Rice Boom .........................................................................................................................125 Federal Water Juntas ................................................................................................................131