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Copyright by Emily Rose Kinney 2016 The Dissertation Committee for Emily Rose Kinney Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: American Emigrants: Confederate, Socialist and Mormon Colonies in Mexico Committee: Erika Bsumek, Supervisor Matthew Butler Jonathan Brown James Cox American Emigrants: Confederate, Socialist and Mormon Colonies in Mexico by Emily Rose Kinney, 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 May 2016 American Emigrants: Confederate, Socialist and Mormon Colonies in Mexico Emily Rose Kinney, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Erika Bsumek This dissertation discusses three different colonization schemes of Americans in Mexico—Confederates in the wake of the US Civil War and Reconstruction who refused to live under the Union government, a group of who tried to establish a utopian society, and Mormons who sought refuge from prosecution in the United States from anti- polygamy laws. In many ways, each of these groups were a far cry from the Mexican government’s ideal of colonists, but each also benefitted from the idea that Anglo- Americans were particularly well suited to the “exploitation” of natural resources and the development of an industrial capitalist economy. The Mexican government, particularly under Porfirio Díaz’s regime, was willing to grant certain freedoms to these groups that it denied to others. Thus, while millions of people across the world looked to the United States for political and economic freedoms, dissidents in the United States often turned to Mexico for the same reason. The assumptions about white Americans also worked in the colonists’ favor on a personal level. Most of these colonists had very little capital and brought nothing to invest in Mexico besides their labor. Nonetheless, they actively sought and established relationships with the Mexican elite—attending parties and hosting iv gatherings with some of the richest people in the region. Despite their status as privileged white American colonists, all three groups engaged in some form of justifying their presence in Mexico. The colonists were all aware that their presence in the nation was contentious. Through varying methods, all performed Mexicanidad, or Mexican identity, to prove their belonging in Mexico. v Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................8 A Note on Translation and Transcription .....................................................19 Chapter 1: Mexican, Indian, Spanish, White-- Confederates and the Navigation of Race in Tuxpan, Veracruz.............................................................................20 The Tuxpan Settlement.................................................................................29 Racializing Mexicans, Racializing Southerners ...........................................48 Mexicans as Laborers ...................................................................................55 Mexicans as Neighbors.................................................................................62 Loss of a Confederate Community ...............................................................72 Chapter 2: Utopia and Empire— The Contradictions of a Socialist Colony in Topolobampo, Sinaloa ..................................................................................77 Economic Development in Mexico ..............................................................83 Support for a Socialist Colony......................................................................95 Weaving the Two Together: Mexico as a Blank Slate ...............................107 From Hopeful Vision to Painful Reality.....................................................116 Chapter 3: Dancing at Haciendas in Rags— Networks across Class and Race in Topolobampo, Sinaloa ................................................................................128 Performing Mexicanidad ............................................................................133 Building Networks with Locals ..................................................................141 Festering Bitterness.....................................................................................155 The End of the Colony................................................................................174 Chapter 4: Barbarians or Civilizers— Mormon Colonies in Chihuahua.............181 Founding the Mormon Colonies .................................................................187 Mormon Colonists, the Mexican Government, and the Mexico City Press194 Mormons in the Desert with Mexicans.......................................................220 Identity and Networks in the Revolution....................................................233 vi Conclusion ...........................................................................................................242 Bibliography ........................................................................................................247 vii Introduction In 1880, Samuel Brannan, once the richest man in California, had lost all his wealth. In the previous few years his poor investments, contentious divorce and severe drinking problem had left him deeply in debt. However, some twenty years earlier he had lent over thirty thousand dollars worth of aid to the Mexican government. The country’s president at the time, Benito Juarez, headed a government in exile while Mexico was occupied by French troops. Brannan had gone so far as to fund an entire military unit that the Juarez government raised in California—providing uniforms, horses, weapons, and 16,000 rounds of ammunition. In 1880, the loan was still almost entirely unpaid, and Brannan saw the opportunity to remake his fortune. Brannan requested that if the Mexican government couldn’t repay the loan in cash, he would accept land grants, mining rights and colonization contracts in the state of Sonora instead. Brannan spent most of 1880 and 1881 in Mexico City successfully petitioning President Porfirio Díaz’s government for forty leagues of land in Sonora, which came with the condition that he survey and settle the land with colonists.1 Despite his success, Brannan recognized that his plans were extremely contentious in Mexico. Many Mexicans were concerned that Brannan’s plan to colonize Sonora with American settlers could only lead to “another Texas.” They feared that the colonists would either declare their independence or would provide the United States with an excuse to invade Mexico and annex its territory. One newspaper in Mexico City, 1 Newell G. Bringhurst, “Samuel Brannan and His Forgotten Final Years,” Southern California Quarterly 79, no. 2 (1997): 139–60; Reva Scott, Samuel Brannan and the Golden Fleece, a Biography (New York: The Macmillan company, 1944). 8 La Patria, wrote “It is history, it is the memory of the past, the facts…the painful memory of ’47 [the Mexican American War]” that made them oppose Brannan’s land grants. They thought this “peaceful invasion” was the first step to an armed invasion and the loss of Mexico’s independence.2 Brannan recognized these fears and worked to dispel them. He consistently wrote in Mexican and American newspapers that he had no intentions of turning Sonora to the hands of the United States. He assured Mexicans that he and his colonists would be loyal Mexicans and “sustain her government, for her interests will be our interests…We go to Sonora as the friends of Mexico.” As for the United States, “there can be no advantage in annexing foreign peoples.” Any fears on that account, he assured his readers, were not worthwhile. Moreover, he claimed that “we carry with us all the elements of the most advanced American civilization,” which could only be to the benefit of Mexico.3 Brannan’s private letters told a radically different story. He often wrote explicitly to his friend and business partner, J.C. Little, about his expectations for Mexico: “This is my lucky year, and before another President takes his seat, Sonora will belong to the U. States and will be where we want to be, ‘under our own vine and fig tree.’” He claimed that “the advance of Empire is South” and the latent wealth of Mexico—its agricultural and mineral potential—would quickly fall to the US empire. “We commenced the work 2 La Patria, August 24, 1881. “The peaceful conquest”—or “la conquista pacifica”—and similar variations was a commonly used term, particularly in the conservative press, to describe US investment and colonization in Mexico in the latter half of the 19th century. Conservatives strenuously opposed the process and claimed that it was likely a precursor to armed invasion and annexation. Many historians have continued the use of the term to describe the way that US investment subverted Mexico’s economic goals to those of the United States. See: Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Culture of Empire: American Writers, Mexico, and Mexican Immigrants, 1880-1930 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004). 3 The Two Republics, October 10, 1880. 9 in ‘46 [with the Mexican American War] and we will live to see it consummated.”4 Brannan planned to turn northern Mexico