Fanaticos, Exiles and the Mexico-U.S. Border: Episodes of Mexican State Reconstruction, 1923-1929 Julian Dodson
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 6-23-2015 Fanaticos, Exiles and the Mexico-U.S. Border: Episodes of Mexican State Reconstruction, 1923-1929 Julian Dodson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Recommended Citation Dodson, Julian. "Fanaticos, Exiles and the Mexico-U.S. Border: Episodes of Mexican State Reconstruction, 1923-1929." (2015). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/23 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Julian Frank Dodson Candidate History Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Linda B. Hall, Chairperson Judy Bieber Elizabeth Q. Hutchison Samuel Truett Jürgen Buchenau i “Fanaticos, Exiles and the Mexico-United States Border: Episodes of Mexican State Reconstruction, 1923-1929” by JULIAN FRANK DODSON BA, History, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University MA, History, University of North Carolina-Charlotte DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy History May 9, 2015 The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the generous support of the Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico for the financial assistance required to perform preliminary research for the early stages of this project. The LAII’s Field Research Grant allowed me to spend a total of six months over three Summers for pre-dissertation research, and the focus of the present project has been improved greatly as a result. I would also like to thank the LAII for awarding a PhD Dissertation Fellowship for the writing and revising of the dissertation. The History Department at the University of New Mexico has also provided generous financial support for further research in the form of the Dorothy Woodward Memorial PhD Fellowship for the 2011-2012 academic year. The in-country research performed during that period has been invaluable to the completion of this dissertation. I would like to thank my Dissertation Committee Chair and mentor, Dr. Linda B. Hall for her support throughout the process and her perpetually open door and generous nature. This dissertation could not have been completed without the support, advice, and endless letters of recommendation provided by Linda, Dr. Elizabeth Hutchison, Dr. Samuel Truett, Dr. Judy Bieber, and Dr Jürgen Buchenau. I am eternally grateful to the staff of the Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco Elías Calles y Fernando Torreblanca. Amalia Torreblanca and Norma Mereles have always made me feel welcome and helped me find exactly what I needed to complete my work. To Guadalupe Bracho Loaeza, Edgar Medina Luna, and the entire staff of archivists at the FAPECFT, I owe a sincere debt of gratitude for all of their assistance and wonderful conversations during the course of my research. I would like to thank Dr. Ignacio Almada iii Bay at El Colegio de Sonora for advising me to have a look at the collection of the Dirreción General de Investigaciones Sociales at the Archivo General de la Nacion, the documentary collection that yeilded the bulk of the archival sources for this project. I would also like to thank the staff at the AGN, the Centro de Estudios de Historia de Mexico, Groupo CARSO, and the Archivo Histórico Genaro Estrada at the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, for all of their kind help in locating the collections I needed to complete my research. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, best friend, and colleague, Becky Ellis, for her patience with the writing process and her critique of various portions of this dissertation. It may have stung, but the project is certainly better for it. Likewise, I offer thanks to Jordan Biro, Bryan Turo, Brandon Morgan, Shawn Austin, Chris Steinke, Colin Snider, and Scott Crago for reading portions of my work and offering their valuable time and feedback. iv FANATICOS, EXILES AND THE MEXICO-UNITED STATES BORDER: EPISODES OF MEXICAN STATE RECONSTRUCTION, 1923-1929 by Julian Frank Dodson BACHELOR OF ARTS, NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURAL & TECHNICAL STATE UNIVERSITY MASTER OF ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA-CHARLOTTE DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO ABSTRACT “Fanaticos, Exiles and the Mexico-United States Border: Episodes of Mexican State Reconstruction, 1923-1929,” examines the major challenges to state reconstruction in Mexico in the wake of its decade of revolutionary violence, 1910-1920. The Mexican state, since the beginning of the revolution, found that the best way to deal with political dissent was to exile its malcontents. By the 1920s, this practice had conjured the necessity for an expanding external surveillance apparatus, as it also created the conditions by which dangerous alliances could be made between Catholic dissidents, and the more politically ambitious exiles from both before and after the revolution. The 1920s witnessed the de la Huerta and Cristero rebellions, but also smaller rebellions along the border that well-connected exiles led and funded. For those exiles that had been in the United States for almost a decade, the significance of the Cristero rebellion of 1926 was tremendous. It generated three years of social, military, and political instability, and many of the most dangerous exiles were determined to take advantage of the chaos. The fledgling revolutionary state faced internal and external threats throughout the decade of the 1920s. This project seeks to understand how it survived in this tumultuous period and v why the counterrevolutionaries across the border failed to affect political change in Mexico over the course of the decade. The Calles government’s focus on defending its border, utilizing a network of consular officials and confidential agents, held the most dangerous counterrevolutionaries at bay long enough to move forward with the reconstruction of the Mexican state. As such, these agents on the border became tools of state reconstruction by way of defending the nation from exile threats. My work highlights the importance of the Mexican exile community in the United States, in fueling these conflagrations with money, arms, and ammunition, but also the significance of the Mexican agencies developed to protect the border. vi Table of Contents INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................1 The State, Sovereignty, and Exiles................................................................................17 Borderlands Considered.................................................................................................29 The Methodology of Researching Espionage................................................................35 Organization ..................................................................................................................38 CHAPTER 1 THE CONFIDENTIAL DEPARTMENT: ITS ORGANIZATION AND PROFESSIONALIZATION IN THE WAKE OF THE DE LA HUERTA REBELLION....................................................................................................................47 Spies and Espionage in the Days of Don Porfirio Díaz................................................50 The Confidential Department: Professionalization, Theory, and Praxis ......................55 Bureaucratic and Administrative Maladies ..................................................................62 Inter-agency and Jurisdictional Disputes......................................................................67 Espionage and Counterespionage: Spy vs. Spy............................................................73 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................77 CHAPTER 2 DELAHUERTISMO IN EXILE: THE EARLY YEARS, 1924-1926...80 The De la Huerta Rebellion ..........................................................................................82 Delahuertismo and the Case of “Chaparreras” .............................................................95 De la Huerta and the Yaqui Rebellion of 1926...........................................................101 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................117 CHAPTER 3 THE REVOLT OF THE LOSERS: GENERAL ENRIQUE ESTRADA’S FAILED REBELLION ON THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER ........................................................................................................................119 The Arrest ...................................................................................................................131 Militant Catholics and General Estrada’s Conspiracy................................................142 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................153 CHAPTER 4 CATHOLIC EXILES AND CONSPIRATORIAL NETWORKS ....156 The North American Clergy and the Knights of Columbus.......................................179 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................192 CHAPTER 5 CATHOLIC