La historia de Mexico - The history of Mexico
With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world and the second most populous country in Latin America. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
The federal government of Mexico is the national government of the United Mexican States, the central government established by its constitution to share sovereignty over the republic with the governments of the 31 individual Mexican states and one Federal District,
Red, white, and green are the colors of the national liberation army in Mexico. The central emblem is the Mexican coat of arms, based on the Aztec symbol for Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), the center of the Aztec empire. It recalls the legend of an eagle sitting on a cactus while devouring a serpent that signaled to the Aztecs where to found their city, Tenochtitlan. While the meaning of the colors has changed over time, these three colors were adopted by Mexico following independence from Spain during the country's War of Independence, and subsequent First Mexican Empire. The form of the coat of arms was most recently revised in 1968, but the overall design has been used since 1821, when the First National Flag was created.
1) Prehistory and pre-Columbian civilizations & The Spanish conquest
In pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before first contact with Europeans.
As this is an extensive section there is a separate post, so please go to the the following link
"History of Mesoamericas cultures (Aztecs, Mayas, etc...)" at
http://themesoamericancivilization.blogspot.com
2) New Spain
With Tenochtitlan in ruins, the victorious Cortés first settled himself in Coyoacán on the lake shore at the southern edge of Lake Texcoco. He created the ayuntamiento or town council of the Spanish capital there, so that he could choose where the city would finally be. No one but Cortés wanted to rebuild the Aztec site. Most of the other conquistadors wanted the new city to be closer to the mountains, pastures and groves they would need for supplies, for example in Tacuba or in Coyoacán. Some accounts state that the Aztec islet was chosen because its location was strategic, allowing for rapid communication by boat to communities on the shorelines. However, the decision was Cortés’s alone. The Spanish found Tenochtitlan hard to say and eventually adopted the city's secondary name "Mixico". This name comes from Mexitli, an alternative name for the god Huitzilopochtli; "co" was a suffix meaning place, so Mixico means place of Huitzilopochtli. The pronunciation of this term was modified over time to its current form, Mexico city.
The viceroyalty of New Spain was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521. New Spain was the name that the Spanish gave to the area that today is central and southern Mexico, and the capital city of the Viceroyalty was Mexico City. In 1535, King Charles V named Don Antonio de Mendoza as the first Viceroy of New Spain. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 opened up the vast territories of South America to further conquests, the Crown established an independent Viceroyalty of Peru there in 1540. The Viceroyalty of New Spain's territory included what is the Bay Islands (until 1643), Cayman Islands (until 1670), Central America (as far as the southern border of Costa Rica until 1821), Cuba, Florida, Hispaniola (including Haiti until 1697), Jamaica (until 1655) Mariana Islands, Mexico, Philippines, Puerto Rico, nearly all of the southwest United States (including all or parts of the modern-day U.S. states of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida).
European settlement and institutional life was built on the Mesoamerican heartland of the Aztec Empire in Central Mexico. The South (Oaxaca, Michoacan, Yucatán, and Central America) was also in the region of dense indigenous settlement of Mesoamerica, but in the absence of exploitable resources of interest to Europeans, the South attracted few Europeans, while the indigenous presence remained strong. The North was outside region of complex indigenous populations, but with the discovery of silver in the region of nomadic and hostile northern indigenous groups, the Spanish sought to conquer or pacify those peoples in order to exploit the mines and develop enterprises to supply them. Since much of northern New Spain attracted few Europeans and had a sparse indigenous population, the Spanish crown and later the Republic of Mexico did not effectively exert sovereignty of the region, leaving it vulnerable to the expansionism of the United States in the nineteenth century.
In Mexico city the conquistadors decided to build their church on the site of the Templo Mayor of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan to consolidate Spanish power over the newly conquered domain. Hernán Cortés and the other conquistadors used the stones from the destroyed temple of the Aztec god of war Huitzilopochtli, principal deity of the Aztecs, to build the church. The central roof was ridged with intricate carvings done by Juan Salcedo Espinosa and gilded by Francisco de Zumaya and Andrés de la Concha. The main door was probably of Renaissance style. The choir area had 48 seats made of ayacahuite wood crafted by Adrian Suster and Juan Montaño. However, this church was soon considered inadequate for the growing importance of the capital of New Spain. In 1544, ecclesiastical authorities in Valladolid ordered the creation of new and more sumptuous cathedral. In 1552, an agreement was reached whereby the cost of the new cathedral would be shared by the Spanish crown, encomenderos and the Indians under the direct authority of the archbishop of New Spain. The cathedral was begun by being built around the existing church in 1573. When enough of the cathedral was built to house basic functions, the original church was demolished to enable construction to continue.
Unlike Brazil or Peru, Mexico had easy contact with both the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. In 1571, the city of Manila became the capital of the Spanish East Indies, with trade soon beginning via the Manila-Acapulco Galleons. The Manila-Acapulco trade route shipped products such as silk, spices, silver, porcelain and gold to the Americas from Asia. Products brought from East Asia were sent to Acapulco then overland to Veracruz México, and then shipped to Spain aboard the West Indies Fleets. Later they were traded across Europe. Some isolated attacks on these shipments took place in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea by British and Dutch pirates and privateers. One such act of piracy was led by Francis Drake in 1586, and another by Thomas Cavendish in 1587. In one episode, the cities of Huatulco (Oaxaca) and Barra de Navidad in Jalisco Province of México were sacked. However, these maritime routes, both across the Pacific and the Atlantic were successful in the defensive and logistical role they played in the history of the Spanish Empire. For over three centuries the Spanish Navy escorted the galleon convoys which sailed around the world.
During the three centuries of colonial rule, less than 700,000 Spaniards, most of them men, settled in Mexico. The settlers intermarried with indigenous women, fathering the mixed race (mestizo) descendents who today constitute the majority of Mexico's population.
As time went on, a caste system developed where society was divided based on race, wealth, and where one was born. The main divisions were as follows:
Peninsular – a European born in Spain;
Criollo (fem. criolla) – a White person with Spanish or European descent born in the Americas;
Mestizo (fem. mestiza) – a person of mixed White European and Amerindian ancestry;
Pardo (fem. parda) – a person of mixed white European, Native American Indian and African Black ancestry;
Indio (fem. India) – a person who is a pure native of, or indigenous to, the Americas;
Mulato (fem. mulata) – a person of mixed White European and Black African ancestry;
Zambo – a person of mixed Black African and Native American Indian Ancestry;
Negro (fem. negra) – a person of African descent. Persons of mixed race were collectively referred to as castas.
In theory, criollo status could also be attained by people of mixed origin who consistently had intermarried with the white race. Such cases might include the offspring of a castizo (3/4 Spanish and 1/4 Indian) parent and one Peninsular or criollo parent. This one-eighth rule, also in theory, did not apply to African admixture.
A person's legal racial classification in colonial Spanish America was closely tied to social status, wealth, culture and language use. Wealthy people paid to change or obscure their actual ancestry. Many indigenous people left their traditional villages and sought to be counted as mestizos to avoid tribute payments to the Spanish. Many indigenous people, and sometimes those with partial African descent, were classified as mestizo if they spoke Spanish and lived as mestizos.
The population of New Spain was divided into four main groups, or classes. The group a person belonged to was determined by two things: racial background and place of birth. The most powerful group was the Spaniards or 'Peninsulares', people born in Spain and sent across the Atlantic to rule the colony. Only Spaniards could hold high-level jobs (as the viceroy) in the colonial government . Members of the second group, called creoles, were people of Spanish background who had been born in Mexico rather than Spain. Many creoles were prosperous landowners and merchants. The third group, the mestizos, had a much lower position in colonial society. The word mestizo means "mixed." A person was a mestizo if some of his ancestors were Spanish and some were Indians. The mestizos were looked down upon by both the Spaniards and the creoles, who held the racist belief that people of pure European background were superior to everyone else.
Indigenous groups were protected from the Inquisition (the Roman Catholic court designed to combat heresy), paid head taxes, and could not own property as individuals but were the primary beneficiaries of social services in health and education. Mestizos were under the same obligations as whites but were not considered for most of the jobs in the Spanish administration. These jobs were held only by peninsulares. Poor whites and mestizos often competed with native people for the same jobs. The only unifying force in a society that was divided by race and privilege was the Roman Catholic Church. The clergy provided education and social services to the rich and the destitute alike, and clergy also functioned as a buffer in social conflicts.
A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found that the majority of the current Mexican population (~93%) is mixed race to some degree, the study found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of the average Mexican-Mestizo was predominately European (64.9%), followed by Native American (30.8%), and African (4.2%). The European ancestry was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7 - 95%) and Native American ancestry increased in the centre and south-east (37 - 50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0 - 8.8%)
The concept of nobility in Mexico was not political but rather a very conservative Spanish social one, based on proving the worthiness of the family, not the individual. For an individual to receive a noble title, he would have to prove his family's bloodline as well as their loyalty to God and king for a number of generations prior. Such a quest was costly but once a title was secured the costs did not stop there. Nobles in New Spain had to continually reinforce their devotion to both God and king. To show their piety, most nobles donated temporal goods to the Roman Catholic Church, by building churches, funding missionary activities and charities. Sometimes nobles would also hold religious office or give one or more children (usually daughters) to a religious vocation but this was relatively rare. Demonstrating loyalty to king meant paying taxes to maintain their titles, sometimes purchasing military rank as well.
The most important royal official was the viceroy, who had a host of responsibilities ranging from general administration (particularly tax collection and construction of public works) and internal and external defense to support of the church and protection of the native population.
Education was encouraged by the Crown from the very beginning, and Mexico boasts the first primary school (Texcoco, 1523), first university, the University of Mexico(1551) and the first printing press (1524) of the Americas. Indigenous languages were studied mainly by the religious orders during the first centuries, and became official languages in the so-called Republic of Indians, only to be outlawed and ignored after independence by the prevailing Spanish-speaking creoles.
Mexico produced important cultural achievements during the colonial period, like the literature of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Ruiz de Alarcón, as well as cathedrals, civil monuments, forts and colonial cities such as Puebla, Mexico City, Querétaro, Zacatecas and others, today part of Unesco's World Heritage.
The syncretism between indigenous and Spanish cultures gave way in New Spain to many of nowadays Mexican staple and world-famous cultural traits like tequila (first distilled in the 16th century), mariachi (18th), jarabe (17th), charros - a traditional horseman from Mexico - (17th) and the highly prized Mexican cuisine, fruit of the mixture of European and indigenous ingredients and techniques. Many of these things which are typically associated with Mexico have their origins in Jalisco. These include mariachis, rodeos called charreadas and jaripeos, dresses with wide skirts decorated with ribbons, the Mexican Hat Dance, tequila, and the wide brimmed sombrero hat.
Founded in 1531 as a Spanish settlement, Puebla de los Angeles quickly rose to the status of Mexico’s second-most important city. Its location on the main route between the viceregal capital and the port of Veracruz, in a fertile basin with a dense indigenous population, largely not held in encomienda, made Puebla a destination for many later arriving Spaniards. If there had been significant mineral wealth in Puebla, it could have been even more prominent a center for New Spain, but its first century established its importance. It became the seat of the richest diocese in New Spain in its first century, with the seat of the first diocese, formerly in Tlaxcala, moved there in 1543. Bishop Juan de Palafox asserted the income from the diocese of Puebla as being twice that of the archbishopic of Mexico, due to the tithe income derived from agriculture. In its first hundred years, Puebla was prosperous from wheat farming and other agriculture, as the ample tithe income indicates, plus manufacturing woolen cloth for the domestic market. Merchants, manufacturers, and artisans were important to the city’s economic fortunes, but its early prosperity was followed by stagnation and decline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Puebla built a significant manufacturing sector, mainly in textile production in workshops (obrajes), supplying New Spain and markets as far away as Guatemala and Peru.
Unlike the Portuguese Crown's support for the slave trade, los Reyes Católicos opposed the introduction of slavery to Castile and Aragon on religious grounds. When Columbus returned with slaves, they ordered many of the survivors to be returned to their Caribbean homelands. However in keeping with the legal and moral doctrine of the time it was believed that slavery could be justified if it was the result of Just War, and at the time it was assumed that the enslavement of Africans could be justified if they were prisioner of wars. In 1521 the African population in New Spain did not exceed the dozen and by 1570 there were about 20 000; in 1646 amounted to more than 35,000, but the population declined and by 1810 were about 10 000 individuals distributed mainly in coastal and tropical areas. They were intended for crops such as sugar cane. Labor for the mines in the north of Mexico were worked by black slave labor.
The black Africans were subject of independent African kings. Europeans visited Africa as traders, not as sovereign Kings and they saw that it was not their responsibility if the Africans governors took prisoners after a war and enslaved them. What was only required, hypocritically from the Spanish monarchy, was that slaves came only from "just wars" between African kingdoms, not that they were just captured and traded as slaves. Obviously at the African ports none was very interested in finding out what was the reason for which those people had become slaves. Under this rationale argument black slavery remained acceptable until the s. XVIII not only in Spain, but in any other country of the Old World. The Spaniards chiefly purchased the slaves from the Portuguese and British traders in Africa. They did not engage directly in the trade and overall imported fewer slaves to the New World than did the Portuguese, British or French.
The encomienda system of forced or tenured labour, begun in 1503, sometimes amounted to slavery, though it was not full chattel slavery. The " encomienda" led to abuses and even in some cases to disguised slavery. These behaviors were reported by real Spanish humanists as Fray Montesinos and Fray Bartolome de las Casas.
King Ferdinand was outraged by the abuses against the Indians; he pleaded ignorance, and to help remedy the situation commissioned a group of theologians and academics to come up with solution. The Friars formed a nucleus that pressured Spain to defend the aboriginal American Indians from becoming serfs or slaves of the new colonists. The Leyes de Burgos ("Laws of Burgos"), promulgated on 27 December 1512 in Burgos, Kingdom of Castile (Spain), was the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spaniards in the Americas, particularly with regards to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas ('native Caribbean Indians'). They forbade the maltreatment of the indigenous people and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism. The document also prohibited the use of any form of punishment by the encomenderos, reserving it for officials established in each town for the implementation of the laws. It also ordered that the Indians be catechized. The 'encomienda' in the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Philippines was established as a right granted by the King in favor of a Spanish national. The Spanish right holder (encomenderos) receives "la encomienda" in order to perceive what the indigenous should give to the crown (for instance: labor work). In return, the encomenderos had to look after the welfare of the Indians in spiritual and earthly terms, ensuring its life protection as well as their Christian indoctrination (evangelization). Alto there was an obligation for the trustees of fair treatment: The indians should have a work and fair retribution. However, there were abuses by the trustees and the system often resulted in forms of forced labor.
In 1515 more than half of Spaniards were not in charge of any Indian but 11% of all Spaniards received 44% of the total of the indians.
The first royal judicial body established in New Spain in 1527 was the audiencia of Mexico City. The audiencia consisted of four judges, who also held executive and legislative powers. The crown, however, was aware of the need to create a post that would carry the weight of royal authority beyond local allegiances. In 1535 control of the bureaucracy was handed over to Antonio de Mendoza, who was named the first viceroy of New Spain (1535-50). His duties were extensive but excluded judicial matters entrusted to the audiencia .
Viceregal power was characterized by a certain amount of independence from royal control, mainly because of distance and difficult communications with the mother country. Viceroys were notorious for applying orders with discretion, using the maxim "I obey but do not comply." In addition, viceroys and audiencias were in conflict most of the time, with the latter not responsible to the viceroy but reporting directly to the crown.
From 1530 the early administrative functions of the encomenderos over the indigenous population (protection and Christianization) were taken over by new state-appointed officials called corregidores de indios (governors of Indians). In the Americas a corregidor was often called an alcalde mayor. They were charged at the provincial level with the administration of justice, control of commercial relations between native Americans and Spaniards, and the collection of the tribute tax.
In the years following the conquest of Central Mexico by Hernán Cortés, New Spain had been governed by a military government, generally with the objectives of maximizing personal economic gains by the Spanish conquistadors. Hoping to establish a more orderly government, to reduce the authority of Cortés, and secure the authority of the Spanish crown in the New World, on December 13, 1527 the metropolitan government of Charles V in Burgos named the Real Audiencia de México to take over the government of the colony. This Audiencia consisted of a president and four oidores (judges). Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán was named president, formerly he was the governor of Pánuco. Guzmán's rule as a governor of Pánuco was stern against Spanish rivals and brutal against the Indians. He stroke down harshly against Cortés's supporters in Pánuco, accusing some of them of disloyalty to the Crown by backing Cortés's claim to the title of viceroy. Some were stripped of their property; others were tried and executed.
The instructions given to the Audiencia included a recommendation for good treatment of the indigenous people and a directive that the investigation into the conduct of Cortés and his associates. Most of these associates had participated in the government in the proceeding few years while Cortés was in Honduras, with a lot of in-fighting among themselves and injustices to the population, both Spanish and Indigenous. Cortés himself was now in Spain, where he was defending his conduct and appealing his loss of authority to Charles. Cortés had some success with his appeal, being named Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca and receiving some other honors.
Nevertheless, Guzmán was now in charge in New Spain. Among his official acts was placing plaques bearing the royal coat of arms on the principal buildings of the capital, to stress that sovereignty resided in the king, not in Cortés. He had Pedro de Alvarado arrested for questioning the loyalty of Gonzalo de Salazar. There was already some animosity between Cortés and Guzmán, because the former had been reluctant to recognize the latter as governor of Pánuco. The later events made the two enemies. In 1530, upon Hernán Cortés' return to New Spain, Nuño de Guzmán decided to abandon his position as President of the Real Audiencia and organized a military expedition to the northwest of Mexico, this first expedition was intended to confirm the rumors of the existence of a territory further north, and if so, found settlements.
This campaign was composed of 500 Spaniards, 10,000 auxiliary natives from the Valley of Mexico and later, 10,000 from Michoacán, an 8 expedition that resulted in great damage to the natives of the the Chichimec land and the current states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Aguascalientes and part of Sinaloa, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Durango, and that is still remembered as one of the most brutal episodes of the conquest of Mexico.
Over a six-year period Guzmán, who was brutal even by the standards of the day, killed, tortured, and enslaved thousands of Indians. Typically, he attacked an Indian village, stole the maize and other food, razed and burned the dwellings, and tortured the native leaders to gather information on what riches could be stolen there, or from nearby populations. For the most part, these riches did not exist.
His violent expeditions into Chichimec lands were a main cause of the Mixtón rebellion that took place some time later. The campaign started with the torture and execution of the Purépecha cazonci Tangáxuan II, a powerful indigenous ally of the Spanish Crown. Tangáxuan gave Guzmán presents of gold and silver and supplied him with soldiers and provisions. Nevertheless, Guzmán had him arrested and tortured, to get him to reveal the location of hidden stores of gold. Presumably there was no more gold, because Tangáxuan did not reveal it under torture. Guzmán had him dragged by a horse and then burned alive.
In 1531 (probably January), one of Guzmán's captains, Cristóbal de Oñate, founded a small town near Nochistlán to which the name "Guadalajara" was given.
Reports of Guzmán's treatment of the Indigenous had reached Mexico City and Spain, and, at Bishop Juan de Zumárraga's request the Crown sent Diego Pérez de la Torre to investigate. Guzmán was arrested in 1536. He was held a prisoner for more than a year and then sent to Spain in fetters. He was released from the Castle of Torrejón prison in 1538. In 1539 he returned to his position as royal contino bodyguard - court records show him on the payroll every year from 1539 to 1561 (in 1561 as "deceased"). In posteriority and partly in his own time Nuño de Guzmán achieved a reputation as the worst villain of the conquistadors. His contemporary Bernal Díaz del Castillo, one of Cortés' loyal supporters, described him in the following terms: "... In all the provinces of New Spain there was not an other man more foul and evil than [Guzmán] of Pánuco". His biographer Santana describes his personality as characterized by "cruelty of the highest order, ambition without limit, a refined hypocrisy, great immorality, ingratitude without equal, and a fierce hatred for Cortés".
The Mixtón War was fought from 1540 until 1542 between the Caxcanes and other semi-nomadic Indigenous people of the area of north western Mexico against Spanish invaders, including their Aztec and Tlaxcalan allies. The war was named after Mixtón, a hill in the southern part of Zacatecas state in Mexico which served as an Indigenous stronghold.Although other indigenous groups also fought against the Spanish in the Mixtón War, the Caxcanes were the “heart and soul” of the resistance. The Caxcanes lived in the northern part of the present-day Mexican state of Jalisco, in southern Zacatecas, and Aquascalientes. They are often considered part of the Chichimeca, a generic term used by the Spaniards and Aztecs for all the nomadic and semi-nomadic Native Americans living in the deserts of northern Mexico.
The Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza called upon the experienced conquistador Pedro de Alvarado to assist in putting down the revolt. Alvarado declined to await reinforcements and attacked Mixton in June 1541 with four hundred Spaniards and an unknown number of Indian allies. He was met there by an estimated 15,000 Indians under Tenamaztle and Don Diego, a Zacateco Indian. The first attack of the Spanish was repulsed with ten Spaniards and many Indian allies killed. Subsequent attacks by Alvarado were also unsuccessful and on June 24 he was crushed when a horse fell on him. He subsequently died on July 4.
In early 1542 the stronghold of Mixtón fell to the Spaniards and the rebellion was over. Victory in the Mixtón War enabled the Spanish to control the region in which Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico’s second largest city, was located. It also opened up Spanish access to the deserts of the north in which Spanish explorers would search for and find rich silver deposits.
After their defeat the Caxcanes were absorbed into Spanish society and lost their identity as a distinct people. They would later serve as auxiliaries to Spanish soldiers in their continued advance northward. Spanish expansion after the Mixtón War would lead to the longer and even more bloody Chichimeca war. The Caxcan possibly survive today, at least in folk festivals, as the Tastuane Indians. Annual fiestas of the Tastuan in towns such as Moyahua de Estrada, Zacatecas commemorate the Mixtón War.
The Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico, founded in 1536, was the first European school of higher learning in the Americas and was established by the Franciscans with the intention, as is generally accepted, of preparing Native American boys for eventual ordination to the Catholic priesthood. The original purpose of the colegio was to educate a male indigenous priesthood, and so pupils were selected from the most prestigious families of the Aztec ruling class. These young men were taught to be literate in Nahuatl, Spanish and Latin, and received instruction in Latin in music, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, and indigenous medicine. The establishment of such a school to train young men for the priesthood was highly controversial, with opposition especially coming from Dominican friars and articulated by the head of that order, Fray Domingo Betanzos. Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún wrote a strong defense of the capacity of the Indians, countering the opinions of those who doubted the Indians' ability not only to learn Latin grammar, but to speak, and compose in it.
Among the teachers were notable scholars and grammarians such as Franciscans Andrés de Olmos, Alonso de Molina and Bernardino de Sahagún, all of whom have made important contributions to the study of both the Classical Nahuatl language and the ethnography and anthropology of Mesoamerica. The training of elite young men enormously aided the Franciscans in their efforts to evangelize the Indians and to record indigenous history and culture in texts that remain fundamental to our understanding of Nahua culture. Students trained in the colegio were important contributors to the work of Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún in the creation of his monumental twelve-volume General History of the Things of New Spain, often referred to as the Florentine Codex. Spanish judge Alonso de Zorita, author of Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: the Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain was aided by the translations of Pablo Nazareno, a former pupil at the colegio. One student educated at the colegio was Nahua botanist Martín de la Cruz, who wrote the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, an illustrated herbal.
Towards 1540 or even earlier, the Franciscans who were in contact with the students began to think that the fundamental objective -forming future priests- was no longer feasible. There is very little data about it; nevertheless, the letter of fray Juan de Zumárraga to Carlos I, written on April 17, 1540, is the document that takes us to the knowledge of this fact and the one of its relation like a sign with the decay of our educative institution in question. What makes him doubt of the Indians is not the lack of academic results, since he recognizes them as "the best grammarians", but rather he has noticed that the students are not so propitious to celibacy, necessarily required to exercise the priesthood, as they are to marriage. Zumárraga did not explain why; despite this it is possible to arrive at provisional answers.
In any event, the colegio soon ceased to function in that capacity and no student there was ever ordained priest; in fact Indians were banned from ordination to the priesthood in 1555, along with mestizos and blacks. In the seventeenth century when Franciscan Augustín de Vetancurt was writing, the colegio was a complete ruin.
In the bull Sublimus Dei (1537),
Pope Paul III forbade "unjust" kinds of enslavement relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas (called Indians of the West and the
South) and all other people.
In 1544 the Emperor promulgated the New Laws abolishing the encomienda. The New Laws prohibited slavery, even in cases of just war.Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, an ally of the encomenderos, was both unable and unwilling to enforce these laws in the face of rigorous opposition from the holders of the encomienda grants. When news reached Mexico of the civil war that had broken out in Peru over similar reforms, thought to undermine the rigorous encomienda system, he had the laws suspended. Finally, in 1545, the Spanish Kind stated that one of the rule of the New laws stating that the encomienda system would no longer be hereditary was revoked (chapter 30). The other points from all other chapters applied the same, for instance:
- Good treatment and handle of the Indians.
- That there was no cause or reason to make slaves, not even because of war or rebellion, so slavery was definitely forbidden.
- That existing slaves were freed, if not showing the full legal right to keep them in that state.
- End the bad habit of making the Indians serving as porters (porters), without his own will and without retribution.
- That royal officials (Viceroy downward) were not entitled to the charge of Indians, like any religious orders, hospitals, communal works or brotherhoods.
-Etc.
The cocoliztli (in Spanish, disease, evil) was a disease that affected the natives of New Spain, after the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. Between 1519 and 1600, the indigenous population of Mexico went from between 15 and 30 million to two million. This demographic collapse was the consequence, to a large extent, of a series of epidemics of various diseases, including smallpox, measles and cocoliztli, which was believed to be a viral hemorrhagic fever of unknown origin. A 2018 paper by Vågene et al. reported the finding of Salmonella enterica in remains of individuals from a mass grave in Teposcolula-Yucundaa, Oaxaca linked by historical and archaeological evidence with the 1545 Cocoliztli epidemic. The authors suggest that S. enterica Paratyphi C be "considered a strong candidate for the epidemic population decline during the 1545 cocoliztli outbreak at Teposcolula-Yucundaa". According to Acuña Soto, Stahle, Therrell, Gómez Chávez and Cleaveland (2005), between 1540 and 1625 there was a severe drought in North America and Mesoamerica, the worst in the last 1000 years. It is believed that it started in the center of Mexico and, later, it spread to the United States and Canada. However, the epidemics of 1545 and 1576 occurred "during short episodes" of rainfall. It is believed that cocoliztli was a hemorrhagic fever transmitted by rodents. The climatic conditions propitiated the contact between humans and rodents (that look for food during the droughts and proliferate during the rains).
The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico (in Spanish: Real y Pontificia Universidad de México) modeled on the University of Salamanca, was founded on 21 September 1551 by Royal Decree signed by Charles I of Spain, in Valladolid, Spain. It is generally considered the first university officially founded in North America and second in the Americas (preceded by the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, chartered on May 12 of the same year). After the Mexican War of Independence it was renamed University of Mexico. When Mexican liberals were in power at intervals in the nineteenth century, it was closed, since liberals sought to put education in the hands of the state rather than the Roman Catholic Church. In 1910 during the regime of Porfirio Díaz, the university was revived under Justo Sierra. Traditionally, the National Autonomous University of Mexico is a public university, considered the institutional heir of the earlier Pontifical University of Mexico (there is also a modern one established in 1982 ), but under state rather than church control. At first this university had few students. The prestige of its graduates was very great. The graduates were religious, professionals and academics of theology, law and medicine. Knowledge was grouped for study according to the Middle Ages: in trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and in quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy). The study language was Latin. Afterwards, students could enter five faculties: Theology, Canon Law, Civil Law, Medicine and Arts. They trained clerics, lawyers and doctors. Due to the denomination of "pontifical" and in order to the academic degrees could be granted, it was necessary that the "magister scholarum" granted them on behalf of the Pope.
Luís de Velasco (1511-1564) was the second viceroy of New Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In early 1564, Velasco commissioned Miguel López de Legazpi and Andrés de Urdaneta to lead an expedition across the Pacific to the Spice Islands, where Ferdinand Magellan and Ruy López de Villalobos had landed in 1521 and 1543. Velasco died in 1564. At his death, it was found that instead of enriching himself in office, he had gone into debt out of his concern for the poor and the Indians. After the death of Velasco, a conspiracy to obtain independence from Spain was discovered. Some personalities of high position, including some close relatives of Hernán Cortés — Martín, Don Martín Cortés y de Zuñiga, and Luis (his sons, and half-brothers of each other) — were involved in this plot, which was made known to Peralta while he was still in Veracruz, that is before he had entered Mexico City to take up his office officially. A local judge of the Real Audiencia of México had sentenced the conspirators to death, but Gastón de Peralta, the new viceroy, personally reviewed the cases of each of the prisoners and suspended the death penalty for Luis and Martín Cortés. They were sent back to Spain to be dealt with by the Council of the Indies.
Viceroy Don Martín Enríquez de Almanza (1510-1583) brought medical attention to the unprotected and helped those in critical conditions. He established hospitals in the city to treat the victims of a terrible epidemic (thought to be chicken pox or varicella) that left 3,000 people dead. He published regulations in which the social protection of the Indians was guaranteed against their Spanish patrons, and a fair salary was assured for those who worked as peasants and farmers. King Philip II of Spain received outstanding comments about this viceroy, and he was aware of the obvious improvements made during his administration. In recognition of his labor, he was designated viceroy of Peru, Peru being a richer colony. He was succeeded by Lorenzo Suárez de Mendoza (1518-1583), an honest and upright man. one of his major concerns was ending widespread vice and administrative corruption, which had reached enormous proportions. Suárez de Mendoza was a man of letters, a writer of merit. He received praise for his novel El pastor de Filida. He participated in the war and conquest of Tunis, where he was taken by his father, who accompanied the emperor. He was patron and protector of the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares.
In 1586 Pedro Moya de Contrateras became viceroy. He was in 1571 the first inquisitor general of New Spain (and thus the first inquisitor general in the New World). He established the Tribunal del Santo Oficio in Mexico City in 1571. As inquisitor general he required people of New Spain, from the oidores (members of the Audiencia), nobles and religious to the most humble members of society, to solemnly swear to defend the Catholic faith and persecute heretics "as rabid dogs and wolves, infectors of spirits and destroyers of the vineyard of Our Lord." He celebrated the first auto-da-fé in New Spain in 1571.
When Holy Office of the Inquisition had been established in New Spain in 1571, it exercised no jurisdiction over Indians, except for material printed in indigenous languages. The full force of the Inquisition would be felt on non-Indian populations, such as the “Negro,” “mulatto” and even certain segments of the European. Historian Luis González Obregón estimates that 51 death sentences were carried out in the 235–242 years that the tribunal was officially in operation. Prior to the establishment of the Inquisition there was an inquisitorial prosecutions except when Franciscan Juan de Zumárraga became the first Bishop of Mexico in 1535 and exercised inquisitorial powers as bishop. Bishop Zumárraga's inquisitorial prosecutions was that of Nahua lord of Texcoco, who took the name of Carlos upon baptism and known in the historical literature as Don Carlos Ometochtzin. Don Carlos was likely a nephew of Nezahualcoyotl. Zumárraga accused this lord of reverting to worship of the old gods and following a trial with indigenous witnesses and Don Carlos's own testimony, the Texcocan lord was declared guilty. He burned at the stake on 30 November 1539. When the Council of the Indies in Spain learned of Don Carlos’s execution, they reprimanded Zumárraga, sent a visitador, an inspector-auditor, to New Spain to take away the bishop’s inquisitorial powers, and left him in a state of some humiliation until his death in 1548. In a letter of 22 November 1540, Francisco de Nava, bishop of Seville, explained to Zumárraga that while he understood that he had executed Don Carlos “in the belief that burning would put fear into others and make an example of him,” the Indians, he suggested, “might be more persuaded with love than with rigor.”
The last years of Bishop Zumárraga's life were devoted to carrying out the numerous works he had undertaken for the welfare of his diocese. Among the chief of these should be mentioned: the school for Indian girls; the famous Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco; the introduction of the first printing press into the New World (1539) ; the foundation of various hospitals, especially those of Mexico and Vera Cruz; the impetus he gave to industries, agriculture, and manufactures, for which he brought trained mechanics and labourers from Spain; and the printing of many books. Bishop Zumarraga is also credited with chocolate becoming a popular drink among Europeans. A community of nuns in Oaxaca, after encountering a recipe of cocoa mixed with sugar, prepared it for the bishop. Prior to this, ground cocoa had not found a role in European diets.
On October 18, 1586, Sir Francis Drake , an english pirate and navigator, took the Manila galleon Santa Ana. On August 6, 1587, the port of Huatulco (Oaxaca) fell to English corsair Thomas Cavendish, and on September 3, 1587 he sacked Navidad (Jalisco). Cavendish also captured the Manila galleon Santa Ana off Baja California on November 15, 1587. Each Manila galleon was loaded with a year's worth of treasure from the Philippines en route to Acapulco for ultimate delivery to Spain. Viceroy Manrique de Zúñiga (1525-1604) included the establishment of a militia of volunteers to defend Pacific ports and the arming of Spanish ships to fight the pirates at sea.
Manrique took important steps toward ending the long-running Chichimeca War on New Spain's northern frontiers which threatened communications with silver mines near the city of Zacatecas. The Spanish policy of defeating and enslaving the Chichimecas had been unsuccessful. Manrique, following the advice of Churchmen, implemented a new approach to the war. He removed many Spanish soldiers from the frontier as they were considered more a provocation than a remedy. He opened negotiations with Chichimeca leaders and promised them food, clothing, land, priests, and tools to encourage them through “gentle persuasion” to settle down (the policy was called 'peace by purchase'). He forbade military operations to seek out and capture and kill hostile Indians. The results were favorable. By 1590, he declared the roads to Zacatecas safe (for the first time in 40 years) and the war slowly wound down.
In 1588 Manrique was involved in a jurisdictional dispute with the Audiencia de Guadalajara. This newly founded Audiencia had been functioning independently of the Audiencia of Mexico City, and virtually independently of the viceroy. Manrique's attempts to asserts his authority were viewed as arbitrary, and were met with considerable hostility. Allegations against him of tyranny, cupidity, nepotism, censorship of letters from New Spain to Spain, and other abuses were made against him with the Council of the Indies. The majority of the charges were false or exaggerated, but the colony seemed to be on the verge of civil war. The bishop of Puebla, Pedro Romanos, was named visitador (royal inspector) to deal with the crisis. Romanos was an enemy of Manrique, because of their opposite sides in the earlier secular-regular conflict. He worked passionately to oppose the viceroy, and seized his property. This seizure was subsequently lifted by the Council of the Indies, but that ruling was ignored in New Spain, and the viceroy was consigned to poverty. Manrique continued as viceroy until January, 1590, when his successor, Luis de Velasco, marqués de Salinas arrived in Mexico City to take over the administration. Manrique was forced to remain a few more years in New Spain, as the subject of a lawsuit. He was still destitute, and also ill. He was finally able to return to Spain and seek restitution, but he died shortly after reaching Madrid, impoverished and bitter.
In 1597 pirates attacked the port of Campeche, taking over the center of the town and terrorizing the inhabitants. Viceroy De Zúñiga y Acevedo ordered increased protection for the ports. He also moved the town of Veracruz from its old site to its present location, which was more secure.
Luis de Velasco (1534-1617) received in 1589 the appointment as the new viceroy of New Spain. In 1591 he obtained the pacification of the Chichimeca tribes that had been in constant revolt and outside of Spanish control. The chiefs had asked the Spanish to supply food. Velasco accepted, and a peace treaty was signed. To introduce the Chichimecas to the customs of the colony, 400 Tlaxcalteca families were sent to live with them. The Franciscans also founded four colonies among the Chichimecas, with their center at Zacatecas. In return, Velasco reduced the taxes that had been levied on the Indians and charged the Real Hacienda to supply lawyers to represent the tribes and ease their entry into the society of the colony.
He promoted industry in New Spain, particularly spinning and weaving. He inaugurated the Paseo de la Alameda in Mexico City, and improved the fortifications of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz. In 1607 he took up a project to dig the Huehuetoca canal, for flood control. Heretofore during the rainy season, year after year, Mexico City had been flooded. In February 1609 a royal edict arrived in Mexico prohibiting once again the enslavement of the Indians. Velasco hijo rigorously enforced this decree against the encomenderos and the mineowners. Like his father, this viceroy was known as a defender of the Indians.
In 1609 Guatemala area became a captaincy general, when the governor and Audiencia president was also granted the title of captain general to deal with foreign threats to the area from the Caribbean, granting the area autonomy in administrative and military matters. Around the same time Habsburg Spain created other captaincies general in Puerto Rico (1580), Cuba (1607) and Yucatán (1617).
Governor Philippines Rodrigo de Vivero ship San Francisco was shipwrecked on the coast of Japan in 1609. Rodrigo de Vivero remained in Japan for 9 months, and took the opportunity to negotiate the first treaty of exchanges between Japan and New Spain, involving offering extraterritorial privileges for a Spanish shipyard and a Naval base in the eastern Japan in exchange for transpacific trade and Mexican silver mining technology. Luis de Velasco was involved in the establishment in this trade and diplomatic relations with Japan. He received in 1610 the embassy of Franciscan father Luis Sotelo and trader Tanaka Shōsuke, which had sailed from Japan on the Japanese sailship San Buena Ventura, and agreed to send an ambassador to Japan in the person of the famous explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno, with the added mission of exploring the "gold and silver islands" which were thought to be east of the Japanese isles. Luis de Velasco confiscated the Japanese ship, fearful that the Japanese would further master the technique of trans-oceanic voyages.
Vizcaíno sailed from Acapulco in the San Bernardo on March 22, 1611 with the emissaries from Japan, arriving in Uraga on June 16 of that year. From there he traveled to Edo to meet the second Shogun Hidetada, and thence to Sumpa to meet with ex-Shogun Ieyasu. Vizcaíno, having lost his ship, sailed from Japan October 28, 1613 on board the Japanese galleon San Juan Bautista which was built by the Date Masamune, a legendary warrior and leader in the Tōhoku region.. The objective of the Japanese embassy was both to discuss trade agreements with the Spanish crown in Madrid, and to meet with the Pope in Rome. They arrived back at Acapulco on January 25, 1614. He was accompanied by Hasekura Tsunenaga, designated as the Japanese ambassador to Spain, and about 140 other Japanese. The embassy remained two months in Acapulco and entered Mexico City on 24 March, where it was received with great ceremony. The ultimate mission for the embassy was to go on to Europe and so that the fleet left for Europe on the San Jose on 10 June. Hasekura had to leave the largest parts of the Japanese group behind, who were to wait in Acapulco for the return of the embassy. It is unknown whether Tanaka Shosuke continued with Hasekura to Europe, or stayed in Mexico waiting for the return of Hasekura, or returned to Japan in October 1614.
The fleet arrived safely finally, after some dangers and storms, to the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 5 October, where the Duke of Medina Sidonia was advised of the arrival. He sent carriages to honor them and accommodate the Ambassador and his gentlemen. The Japanese embassy met with King Philip III in Madrid on 30 January 1615. Hasekura remitted to the King a letter from Date Masamune, as well as offer for a treaty. The King responded that he would do what he could to accommodate these requests. Hasekura was baptized on 17 February by the king's personal chaplain, and renamed Felipe Francisco Hasekura. The baptism ceremony was to have been conducted by the Archbishop of Toledo, Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, though he was too ill to actually carry this out, and the Duke of Lerma – the main administrator of Phillip III's rule and the de facto ruler of Spain – was designated as Hasekura's godfather. The embassy stayed eight months in Spain before leaving the country for Italy. After traveling across Spain, the embassy sailed on the Mediterranean aboard three Spanish frigates towards Italy. Due to bad weather, they had to stay for a few days in the French harbour of Saint-Tropez, where they were received by the local nobility, and made quite a sensation on the populace. The visit of Hasekura Tsunenaga to Saint-Tropez in 1615 is the first recorded instance of France–Japan relations. The Japanese Embassy went on to Italy where they were able to meet with Pope Paul V in Rome in November 1615. Hasekura remitted to the Pope two gilded letters, one in Japanese and one in Latin, containing a request for a trade treaty between Japan and Mexico and the dispatch of Christian missionaries to Japan. These letters are still visible in the Vatican archives. The Pope agreed to the dispatch of missionaries, but left the decision for trade to the King of Spain.
For the second time in Spain, Hasekura met again with the King, who declined to sign a trade agreement, on the ground that the Japanese Embassy did not appear to be an official embassy from the ruler of Japan Tokugawa Ieyasu, who, on the contrary, had promulgated an edict in January 1614 ordering the expulsion of all missionaries from Japan, and started the persecution of the Christian faith in Japan.
The embassy left Seville for Mexico in June 1617 after a period of two years spent in Europe, but some of the Japanese remained in Spain in a town near Seville (Coria del Río), where their descendants to this day still use the surname Japón.
Although Hasekura's embassy was cordially received in Europe, it happened at a time when Japan was moving toward the suppression of Christianity. Hasekura returned to Japan in 1620. By the time Hasekura came back, Japan had changed quite drastically: an effort to eradicate Christianity had been under way since 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu had died in 1616 and been replaced by his more xenophobic son Tokugawa Hidetada, and Japan was moving towards the "Sakoku" policy of isolation. When the Tokugawa government banned Christianity, Masamune had to obey the law. However, some sources suggest that Masamune's eldest daughter, Iroha, was a Christian. What became of Hasekura is unknown and accounts of his last years are numerous. Contemporary Christian commentators could only rely on hearsay, with some rumours stating that he abandoned Christianity, others that he was martyred for his faith, and others that he practiced Christianity in secret. The fate of his descendants and servants, who were later executed for being Christians, would suggest that Hasekura remained strongly Christian himself, and transmitted his faith to the members of his family.
In 1616, the drainage system for the Valley of Mexico, long under construction but suspended since 1614, was restarted. King Philip III had chosen the Dutch hydrographer Adrian Boot to investigate the drainage project and take charge of operations. Boot had been in charge of numerous drainage projects in France. He traveled to Mexico City (at a salary of 100 ducats a month) and reviewed the work already done. His opinion was that it would not serve to drain the lakes, but that it could be used to divert the Cuautitlán river, the major cause of the nearly annual floods. Engineer Enrico Martínez offered to complete the diversion with 300 men and 100,000 pesos, but work was delayed pending approval of the king.
On November 16, 1616 another, particularly bloody, Indian insurrection broke out, this time among the Tepehuanes and neighboring tribes in the north. It was led by a cacique claiming to be the Son of the Sun and God of Heaven and Earth. The rebels quickly killed some Jesuit missionaries and 200 Spaniards and mestizos of various ages and both sexes. The governor of Durango, with aid sent by the viceroy, raised a militia. After three months of intense fighting, the rebels were largely defeated. Also in 1616, a drought led to crop failure and famine in New Spain. In 1620 a fire destroyed a large part of Veracruz.
On March 7, 1623 the viceroy Marquis of Gelves ordered work on the drainage system of the Valley of Mexico to cease, because he considered it costly and unlikely to be effective. He also ordered the destruction of the dike that diverted the Río Cuautitlán from entering the lakes around Mexico City. However, the next rainy season led again to large floods, many lost lives and much damage. This caused a considerable loss of the viceroy's prestige.
On December 15, 1628 Dutch Admiral Piet Hein captured a Spanish fleet in the straits between Florida and the Bahamas. This fleet was transporting 12 million pesos (mostly gold) and much merchandise from New Spain to the mother country. Later in his administration, Dutch corsairs occupied the city of Campeche (April 17, 1633), but were driven out by 200 militiamen under the command of Captain Francisco Maldonado. However they returned August 12, under Jean de Fors, and sacked the city. To protect against Indian incursions from the north, viceroy Rodrigo Pacheco established the presidio of Cerralvo in the New Kingdom of León y Castilla (present day Nuevo León).
In 1629 Mexico city suffered its worse flooding in recorded history. The Río Aculhuacán broke through its dikes, flooding the entire city from 1 to 2 meters deep. Transportation was by canoe, and many families left the city permanently. The rains continued, and the flood waters did not recede. Probably 30,000 persons died, and it was feared that the capital might disappear completely. Parts of the city remained flooded for four years. On May 19, 1630, the viceroy Rodrigo Pacheco ordered the capital to be moved to Tacubaya, nearby but on higher ground, pending an open discussion in the guilds of the city. The guilds were opposed, resolving instead to restart the engineering works. By the end of the year, the engineer Enrico Martínez had restarted the work. By 1632 the Huehuetoca canal had finally been completed and the Calzada de San Cristóbal, atop a wall surrounding the city that served as a dike, had been renovated.
On the night of October 31 to November 1, 1631, the Galleon Nuestra Señora del Juncal sank in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in 1631 shortly after sailing from the port of Veracruz with 300 people on board. During a devastating storm the nao was opened by the bow and went to sink. Only 39 of the 300 crew members were saved. Thus ends the tragic history of the fleet of New Spain of 1630-1631, the largest expedition of the era that was to arrive on the Peninsula. In addition to the "Nuestra Señora del Juncal" shipwrecked the other flagship, the "Santa Teresa", and one of the 11 merchant ships, the nao "San Antonio". The rest could return, battered, to the Mexican coast. In the guts of the galleon were hidden 1,077,840 pesos - the largest cargo of those years - that the Spanish Crown waited to straighten out the costly war in the Netherlands. No wonder the desolation of the Viceroy of New Spain, the Marquis of Cerralbo after receiving the news: "The richest fleet that has left the New World has been lost," he wrote.
On April 22, 1639 a bull of Pope Urban VIII prohibited slavery in Latin America. Philip IV banned slavery of the Indians in New Spain, but permitted the continuation of black slavery. Escaped black slaves (cimarrones) took refuge in the mountains, particularly in the current state of Veracruz. During the period 1580-1640 when Spain and Portugal were ruled by the same monarch and Portuguese slave traders had access to Spanish markets, African slaves were imported in large numbers to New Spain.
In 1680 25,000 Pueblo Indians in 24 pueblos of New Mexico rose against the Spanish and known as the Pueblo Revolt or Popé's Revolt (after the name of the leader). The Indians killed all the Europeans they encountered, among them colonists, soldiers and missionaries. Twenty-one Franciscan missionaries were killed on 10 August 1680. The Indians mounted a surprise attack on Santa Fe, capital of the province. When this failed, they besieged the town for ten days. The Spanish who were able to escape made their way to Paso del Norte (now Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua), where they took refuge. Not until 12 years later did the Spaniards successfully reconquer the area. The viceroy Tomas de la Cerda repopulated the town of Santa Fe with 300 Spanish and mestizo families, giving it the title of city (ciudad), the highest title for a settlement. In 1681 he sent a force of cavalry to Nueva Vizcaya, New Spain to pursue the rebel Indians, but they refused to give battle. He also enlarged the garrisons of the region.
In 1683 the pirate Lorencillo (Laurens de Graaf) with 800 men attacked Veracruz. Insufficiently garrisoned, the port fell. The inhabitants were shut up in the churches while the pirates sacked the city. They held it from 17 May to 23 May 1683. When Spanish forces arrived at Veracruz to do battle, the pirates quickly took to the sea. They left with enormous quantities of merchandise and 1,500 hostages. The booty was subsequently estimated at 7 million pesos. After leaving Veracruz, the pirates went on to attack Campeche and Yucatán.
On 22 May 1683, Antonio Benavides, marques de San Vicente disembarked at Veracruz. Better known subsequently as the impostor El Tapado, he claimed to be visitador general (royal inspector) and governor of New Spain appointed by Queen Regent Mariana of Austria. He was arrested at Cuetlaxcoapa (Puebla), accused of being one of Lorencillo's pirates. From there he was taken to Mexico City in chains. On 12 July 1684 he was conducted to the scaffold, but when he appeared there was an eclipse of the sun. Although the people viewed this as Heaven's displeasure at the execution of an innocent, he was executed anyway.
In 1685, Laurens de Graaf sacked the city of Campeche and the surrounding haciendas for over thirty days, killing about a third of the area’s population. This prompted far more extensive fortification with numerous forts and a wall around the city that measured 2,560 meters in an irregular polygon shape. Most of the forts survive but only 500 meters of the original wall remains.
Sister (Spanish: Sor) Juana Inés de la Cruz, O.S.H. (English: Joan Agnes of the Cross) (12 November 1651 – 17 April 1695), was a self-taught scholar and poet of the Baroque school, and Hieronymite nun of New Spain, known in her lifetime as "The Tenth Muse." Although she lived in a colonial era when Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire, she is considered today both a Mexican writer and a contributor to the Spanish Golden Age, and she stands at the beginning of the history of Mexican literature in the Spanish language. His most notable works are Amor es más laberinto and Los empeños de una casa.
The Los empeños de una casa, the only drama of the literary production of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. It was first performed on October 4, 1683. The story revolves around two couples who love each other but for a twist of fate can not be still together. It is often considered as a masterpiece of Sor Juana' verses and even of the entire novohispana literature. The handling of the intrigue, the representation of the complicated system of marital relationships and the vicissitudes of urban life make this book a rare work in colonial Spanish America theather pieces.
Amor es más laberinto was premiered on January 11, 1689. The book argument takes a very familiar theme in Greek mythology: Theseus, hero of the island of Crete after fighting the Minotaur awakens the love for him of Ariadne and Phaedra. Theseus is conceived by Sor Juana as the archetypal hero Baroque. The triumph over the Minotaur is not with aim to boast himself, but for recognizing his humility.
In 1692 there was a severe drought, causing a shortage of food. The natives attributed this disaster to the earlier appearance of a comet, but more importantly there was no maize in the capital and many people were hungry. On 8 June 1692 a crowd gathered in front of the viceregal palace, which they set on fire. They threw stones and set the archives on fire. Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora was able to save most of the documents, at the risk of his life. Some nearby houses and shops were also burned. Sigüenza wrote a lengthy and vivid account of the riot, published as "Letter of Don Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora to Admiral Pez Recounting the Incidents of the Corn Riot in Mexico City, June 8, 1692.". Sigüenza is remembered as one of the first great intellectuals born in the Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. He was a creole patriot, exalting New Spain over Old. A polymath and writer, he held many colonial government and academic positions.
A ship arrived in Veracruz on March 6, 1701 carrying the news of the death of King Charles II of Spain on November 1, 1700. Charles II left no heir. The War of the Spanish Succession, between Spain and France on the one hand and Austria, England and Holland on the other, began, to determine his successor. Viceroy Sarmiento y Valladares was publicly known as a supporter of the Habsburg claims to the Spanish throne, but the Bourbons were in control there. The viceroy was removed from office and ordered to return to Spain. Bishop Juan Ortega y Montañés was once again named interim viceroy.
The Bourbons introduced their “Reforms”: The new Bourbon kings kept close ties with France and used many Frenchmen as advisors. Though French innovations in politics and social manners never fully replaced Spanish laws and traditions, they became an important model in both areas. As a result, there was an influx of French goods, ideas and books, which helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment throughout the Spanish world. In a sense, all things French came into fashion during the subsequent century, and gave rise to a new type of person, the “afrancesado”, who welcomed this new influence.
The year 1736 was disastrous for New Spain. Strong north winds uprooted trees and toppled weathercocks and crosses on the buildings. A comet appeared, provoking panic in the population, who feared it portended great disasters. In October a fearful epidemic of matlazáhuatl (perhaps yellow fever or smallpox) broke out in the vicinity of Mexico City. Viceroy Vizarrón y Eguiarreta tried to mitigate the effects of the epidemic, which was said to have taken the lives of two-thirds of the Indian population of the capital. It certainly killed tens of thousands of people, mostly Indians, in many cities and villages. To combat the plague, he ordered many public buildings converted into hospital
In 1737 a religious prophet appeared among the Guaima and Pima Indians. This was Agustín Ascuchul, who claimed that the god Moctezuma had appeared to him and named him his prophet. He called on the Indians to follow him to a new place, to worship the god. More than 5,000 Indians abandoned their homes to follow the prophet. The governor of Sonora, Juan Bautista de Anza, interpreted this as a rebellion. He soon suppressed it and hung the prophet.
On July 1, 1743, the British Admiral George Anson captured the China treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga off the Philippines, en route from Manila for New Spain. The merchandise and the 1,318,843 pesos of silver ingots it was carrying were taken. Anson sold his prize for £400,000 in China. The viceroy was accused of perfidy in the affair, but of course nothing came of that.
In 1751 it started the construction of the Church of Santa Prisca in the city of Taxco de Alarcón.
The church was built between 1751 and 1758 by José de la Borda (ca. 1700–1778), who had made a great fortune in the silver mines surrounding the town. Despite his wealth, however, the opulence of the church nearly bankrupted him.
In January, 1762, after the accession of Charles III to the Spanish throne, Spain was again at war with England (the Seven Years' War). Havana fell to the English on August 13, 1762, and Veracruz was under imminent threat of a landing. Montserrat strengthened the fortifications at Veracruz and made sure they were well supplied. He raised more troops and ensured that they were organized and trained to fight effectively. To guard the trade merchandise, he organized two companies of grenadiers, of Negroes and Mulattoes. The population dubbed these "Los Morenos" (the dark-skinned ones). The merchants of Veracruz formed another company and paid their salaries, arms and equipment. Other battalions and regiments were raised in the provinces, including battalions in Valladolid, León, Puebla and Oaxaca. Cavalry and militia were also raised in the large cities. Spanish America barely had an operational military before the Bourbon reforms, and what it did have was inconsistent and scattered. The Bourbons created a more organized militia and first used men deployed straight from Spain as officers, but soon this broke down, as locals took most positions. The hierarchy of the military was racially based. Militias were often created along race lines, with militias for whites, blacks and mixed race people. Almost all the higher officers were Spanish-born, with Criollos occupying the secondary levels of command.
A peace ending the Seven Years' War was signed at Paris on February 10, 1763. Spain received Louisiana and regained Havana and Manila, but ceded Florida to England, as well as the right of settlement and timber-harvesting in Belize.
Charles III continued the bourbon reforms and initiated the difficult process of the by changing the complex administrative system of the former ruling family, the Habsburgs. Corregidores were replaced with a French institution, the intendant. The intendancies had the desired effect of further decentralizing the administration at the expense of viceroys, captains general and governors, since intendants were directly responsible to the Crown, not to the former, and were granted large powers in economic and political matters. The intendancy system proved to be efficient in most areas and led to an increase in revenue collection. Intendency seats were mainly based in large cities and successful mining centers. Almost all of the new intendants were Peninsulares, that is people who were born in Spain, exacerbating the conflict between Peninsulares and Criollos, who wished to retain some control of local administration. Charles III and Charles IV also reversed the advances Criollos had made in the high courts (audiencias). Under the Habsburgs, the Crown had sold audiencia positions to Criollos. The Bourbon kings ended this policy. By 1807, “only twelve out of ninety-nine [audiencia] judges were creoles.” . With regards to the economy, collection of taxes was also more efficient under the intendancy system.
The Bourbons also made the government more secular. The political role of the Church was diminished, though never removed completely. Unlike the Habsburgs, who often selected churchmen to fill political offices, the Bourbons preferred to appoint career military officers.
In June 1767 Viceroy Francisco de Croix followed the order to expel the Jesuits from New Spain and to confiscate the property of the Company. Troops were used to remove the Jesuits from their monasteries and colleges; they were allowed to leave with scarcely the clothes on their backs. They were escorted to Veracruz and deported to Italy. Among the Jesuits expelled were Fathers Andrés Cavo, Francisco Javier Clavijero and Francisco Javier Alegre, distinguished scholars. The College of San Ildefonso was closed. These measures provoked a rebellion, especially in the cities of Guanajuato, Pátzcuaro, Valladolid and Uruapan. The viceroy and the visitador dealt severely with the rebels, hanging the leaders. In ordering the expulsion, the viceroy gave the following justification:
[It is done] for motives known to the royal conscience of the sovereign, and which have to be acknowledged by the vassals of His Majesty, who have been born to obey and not to mix in the high affairs of government.
At this time the conflicts between Criollos and Peninsulares were first noted. (Criollos were Europeans born in New Spain, and Peninsulares were Europeans born in Iberia.) The disturbances at the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits led to some murders of Peninsulares and to the destruction of images of the king ("Muerte al Rey" was shouted for the very first time). Viceroy de Croix was aware of this, and included information about it in a secret report to King Charles III.
It took until 1768 for the Royal order to reach the Jesuit missions in the south of the Philippines, but by the end of the year, the Jesuits had been dispossessed throughout the Spanish dominions.
The secular clergy and the remaining regular clergy, fearing possible royal action against them, began to speak against the regime in sermons and other public acts. The viceroy took this seriously enough that he warned of punishments for those religious who got mixed up in affairs of government. His censorship reached the level of suppressing the "Diario Literario", published by Mexican Priest José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez, even though it contained only literary and scientific articles (May 15, 1768). Alzate attained a high reputation as a zoologist and botanist. The natural sciences, physics, astronomy and mathematics were for him subjects that deserved great attention. He conducted several scientific experiments, and wrote numerous articles that were published in science journals.
De Croix established the lottery in 1769, which brought considerable income to the treasury. In 1770 he increased efforts to teach Spanish to the Indians, with the construction of special schools for this purpose.
On January 17, 1774, the liberal government of Charles III established for fist time the free trade between New Spain, Peru, and the recently created Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada. Bucareli had promoted this measure with the ministers of the government. He repaired Fort San Diego in Acapulco, to guard the port and the new commerce with South America. In 1779 free trade between Spain and the Indies took effect.
Viceroy Bucareli y Ursua convened a meeting of mineowners on May 3, 1774, which developed regulations to govern the industry. In July 1776, Bucareli granted the mineowners the right to form a trade association to manage the industry (the Mining Tribunal), and granted tax breaks to the mineowners, already very rich. One rich mineowner, Pedro Romero de Terreros, who had already lent 400,000 pesos to the previous viceroy, lent another 800,000 to Bucareli. Romero de Terreros also donated a ship of 80 guns to the navy. Baron Alexander von Humboldt asserted that Mexican miners were among the best paid in the world. On February 25, 1775, the viceroy inaugurated the Monte de Piedad (government pawn shop, modeled on the one in Madrid) to give assistance to the poor. He also founded several hospital in Mexico city. An able administrator, he improved the public treasury, commerce, and the monetary system. Mexican historians consider him one of the most outstanding viceroys.
In 1779 there was an epidemic of smallpox that spread to many cities of the colony and caused many deaths. Viceroy Mayorga spent considerable sums to aid the sick and dying. He offered his resignation (the first of several times), but it was not accepted. In January 1780, the indigenous community of Izúcar, (Puebla), rose in rebellion because of mistreatment. Captains José Antonio de Urízar and Tomás Pontón were sent to suppress the rebellion. A large number of captured rebels were sent to Havana to serve as sailors in the fleet. Mayorga did much to improve the capital, paving many streets with stones and cleaning the waterways and aqueducts in an effort to prevent another epidemic.
In 1783 Viceroy Gálvez y Gallardo was able to dedicate himself to improving the capital. During his brief administration, he worked to clean the waterways and drain the lake surround Mexico City, built bridges and a sewage system, and paved the streets of La Palma, Monterilla and San Francisco with cobblestones. He divided Mexico City into four quarters, and improved the police service. He approved the San Carlos academy of fine arts founded by his predecessor, and continued work on it. He dedicated 15,000 pesos annual for this project.
Viceroy Vicente de Güemes ordered plans be created for the principal cities, stimulated the establishment of factories, and continued the work on the drainage system of Mexico City. He removed stray animals from the streets. He ordered that no building be constructed without a license from the authorities. He continued the cobblestone paving of the streets outside of the city center of Mexico city.As a reaction to the French Revolution, he prohibited the importation of books and periodicals expressing the new ideas. Spain's war with France was very expensive, and Güemes Padilla sent three million pesos to the mother country, in addition to the usual remittances. He initiated excavations in the Plaza de Armas in Mexico City, during which the Aztec calendar stone was discovered (1790). (This was part of a project to level the streets.). Although King Charles IV was the nominal ruler of Spain, his queen, Maria Louisa of Parma, and her lover, Manuel de Godoy, held most of the power. Godoy was not in agreement with Güemes Padilla's reforms and lack of territorial ambitions in the Pacific Northwest. Godoy replaced him as soon as he could.
Viceroy Grua Talamanca de Carini is known in Mexico as corrupt and inept, and one of the worst governors in the history of New Spain. This was in high contrast to his predecessor. As the agent of a corrupt prime minister, Grúa was chiefly concerned with obtaining money for him, and for himself. Using the war between Spain and Revolutionary France as a pretext, he confiscated all of the property of the French residents of New Spain and Louisiana—not a small amount. He sold the property, keeping a portion for himself.
During this time the Inquisition became less concerned about heretics and Protestants, and more concerned to suppress the revolutionary political and other ideas of the French revolutionaries. On August 9, 1795 an auto-de-fe was held. One of the condemned was Esteban Morel, a French man of science, professor of medicine and collaborator in the Gaceta de México. He was formally accused of heresy, deism and materialism. The same tribunal of the Inquisition brought proceedings against Juan Lauset and other Frenchmen, accusing them of having expressed feelings against the Spanish.
When Spain, now at peace with France, declared war on Britain on October 5, 1797, Grúa confiscated the property of Britons living in the colony, for his own benefit.
To flatter King Charles IV and Godoy, the viceroy commissioned the Spanish architect and sculptor Manuel Tolsá (1757-1816) to construct a grand equestrian statue of the king. The first stone in the pedestal was laid July 18, 1796, and the statue was completed in 1803. This statue, now known as El Caballito, is still a landmark in Mexico City.
In 1799 a conspiracy was discovered. Pedro de la Portilla, a Criollo employee in the tax collectors' office, met with about twenty youths in the Alley of the Gachupines (Spurs) in Mexico City. The meeting discussed the situation Criollos found themselves in relation to Peninsulares. Those present agreed to rise in arms to rid the country of the Gachupines (Criollos were Europeans born in the New World, and Peninsulares were
Europeans born in Iberia. Gachupines became an insulting term for
Peninsulares.) For this purpose, they assembled a number of old cutlasses. As this was almost their only armament, the conspiracy became known as the Conspiracy of the Machetes. The conspirators intended to free prisoners, and with them take the viceroy hostage, proclaim the independence of Mexico, and declare war on Spain. To accomplish this, they were counting on 1,000 pesos of silver, two pistols, and some 50 cutlasses and machetes to initiate a popular uprising under the patronage of the Virgin of Guadalupe. At the second meeting, Isidoro Francisco de Aguirre, a cousin of Portilla, became alarmed at the preparations, and went to the authorities to denounce the conspiracy (November 10, 1799). Azanza gave orders that they be arrested, but without revealing the motives of their conspiracy in order to avoid excitement among the populace. All the conspirators were apprehended and spent many years in prison. The trial was long, and did not reach a verdict. Some of them died in prison. Portilla himself lived to see the independence of Mexico.
On January 1, 1801, Indio Mariano began an insurrection in the mountains of Tepic. Mariano, who had many followers, was trying to reestablish the Aztec empire. The rebels fought under a banner displaying the colors of the Virgin of Guadalupe. When Fernando Abascal, president of the Audiencia of Guadalajara, took notice of the rebellion, he sent Captain Salvador Hidalgo (or Fidalgo) of the navy and Captain Leonardo Pintado of the militia against them. The rebels were defeated. Many prisoners were taken, and many other Indians were forced up into the mountains, but Mariano escaped. He was never captured by the Spanish. His followers who were taken prisoner were transferred to Guadalajara, but most were soon released.
In 1808 Napoleon's French invaded Spain. As the French forces approached Madrid, the royal family decided to flee to New Spain. This idea, however, was poorly received by the Spanish populace. On March 17, 1808 a riot broke out at Aranjuez. The hated Godoy was apprehended by the crowd, humiliated, stripped of his honors, and nearly killed. The mob, loyal to Prince Ferdinand (later King Ferdinand VII), forced Charles to abdicate in his son's behalf. Ferdinand then had Godoy arrested. But in May, all three — Godoy, Ferdinand and Charles — were enticed across the French border, where Napoleon took them prisoner. Napoleon forced the abdication of both Ferdinand and Charles in favor of himself. He then named his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain.
On July 19, 1808, councilmen Juan Francisco Azcárate y Ledesma and Francisco Primo de Verdad y Ramos presented a plan to form a provisional, autonomous government of New Spain, with viceroy Iturrigaray at its head. The justification for this was that the mother country was now occupied by foreign troops, and the royal family was being held prisoner. The plan was accepted by the viceroy and the Cabildo, but not by the Audiencia. On September 1, 1808, Melchor de Talamantes, a Peruvian priest and the intellectual leader of the Criollo party, delivered two tracts to the Cabildo, in favor of separation from Spain and of the convoking of a Mexican congress. His premises were that all ties to Spain had now been broken; that regional laws had to be made, independently of the mother country; that the Audiencia could not speak in behalf of the king; and that the king having disappeared, sovereignty was now vested in the people. Iturrigaray was strongly inclined towards the party of the Criollos and held in great suspicion by the Spanish party. He had received Criollo petitions for a congress and disrecognition of the Spanish junta. He had ordered 40,000 pesos sent to the Consulado of Veracruz, notoriously liberal in outlook. He had nominated Criollos to high positions in the administration. And most importantly, he had mobilized the regiment of dragoons from Aguascalientes, stationed in Jalapa. This regiment was under the command of Colonel Ignacio Obregón, an intimate friend of the viceroy. Iturrigaray was on the point of resigning when, on September 15, 1808 was arrested. The viceroy was deposed by the Audiencia. An inventory of the viceroy's valuables was ordered, and the total came to more than one million pesos. This was considered evidence that the viceroy had taken advantage of the situation for his personal enrichment.on September 21, 1808, Iturrigaray was sent as a prisoner to Spain. He was brought to trial in Cádiz for disloyalty. The charges were not proven and he was freed under the amnesty granted by the Cortes in 1810.
Two days after viceroy Francisco Venegas took office, Jesuist Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla delivered the Grito de Dolores (the Cry from Dolores) and rose in rebellion. As a priest, Hidalgo served in a church in Dolores, Mexico. Although Hidalgo was educated as a priest in the traditional way, he did not advocate or live the lifestyle expected of 18th-century Mexican priests. Instead, his studies of Enlightenment-era ideas caused him to challenge traditional political and religious views. He lived with a woman named María Manuela Herrera, fathering two daughters out of wedlock with her, and later fathered three other children with a woman named Josefa Quintana. In the Grito de Dolores (Cry, or Shout, of Dolores), he called the people of his parish to leave their homes and join with him in a rebellion against the current government, in the name of their King.
Venegas recognized that this rebellion was not a minor disturbance. He quickly had recourse to the army to suppress the rebels. The capital was left without a garrison in order to increase the number of troops in the field. He ordered the clergy to preach against them. With the fall of Celaya (September 21), Guanajuato (September 28), Zacatecas (October 7) and Valladolid (October 17) to the rebels, Venegas began to refer to them as insurgentes, the name by which they are still known in Mexico.
Hidalgo and Allende, a captain of the Spanish Army in Mexico, marched their little army through towns where the angry rebels killed all the Spaniards they found. Along the way they adopted the standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe as their symbol and protector. Hidalgo's approval of the violent sacking and looting by his forces alienated the group most vital to any independence movement: middle-class and wealthy creoles like himself. Poor peasants and Indians only had the power to burn, pillage and destroy: they could not create a new identity for Mexico, one that would allow Mexicans to psychologically break from Spain and craft a national conscience for themselves.
Trujillo knew the insurgents were now marching in the direction of the capital, from Tepetongo to Toluca, so he moved to occupy the latter place.Venegas was now greatly alarmed. He raised a battalion of volunteers, which he stationed at Paseo de Bucareli, on the western edge of the city. However, in a moment of apparent indecision, Father Hidalgo, after a series of triumphs and within striking distance of the poorly defended capital, ordered a retreat toward Vallodalid. The reason for this has never been adequately explained.
After the retreat of the insurgents, Venegas recovered from his surprise, and began decisive action against them.r the principal rebel leaders — Hidalgo, Allende, Juan Aldama, Jiménez and Abasolo — were taken prisoner at the Wells of Baján (Norias de Baján) near Monclava, Coahuila, on 21 March 1811. Hidalgo was turned over to the bishop of Durango, Francisco Gabriel de Olivares, for an official defrocking and excommunication on 27 July 1811. He was then found guilty of treason by a military court and executed by firing squad on 30 July at 7:00 in the morning. Before his execution, he thanked his gaolers, two soldiers, Ortega and Melchor, for their humane treatment. His body, along with the bodies of Allende, Aldama and José Mariano Jiménez were decapitated, and the heads were put on display on the four corners of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato. The heads remained there for ten years until the end of the Mexican War of Independence to serve as a warning to other insurgents.
Venegas now believed the insurrection over, but then came the news of the activities of Ignacio López Rayón in the center of the country and the victories of Father José María Morelos in the south. Guerrillas roamed freely around the country. Royalist troops shot prisoners immediately. The slightest suspicion of collaboration with the insurgents was grounds for arrest and imprisonment.
The Cádiz Cortes blamed Venegas for his arbitrary measures, believing that they impeded the pacification of the country. The Audiencia of Mexico and the Spanish party in New Spain accused him of a lack of energy in suppressing the rebellion. He was relieved of his post September 16, 1812
Meanwhile in Spain, Ferdinand VII had returned to the throne. He abrogated the Spanish Constitution on May 14, 1814, and reestablished government institutions as they had been in 1808. By a decree of July 21, 1814, he reestablished the Inquisition (it was abolished by the Constitution). On May 19, 1816 he authorized the Jesuits to return to Mexico, who had been expelled in the late eighteenth century.
Mexican Independence
Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu was a Mexican army general and politician. In his teens, Iturbide entered the royalist army, having been accepted as a criollo. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the provincial regiment. In 1806, he was promoted to full lieutenant. After the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla offered Agustín de Iturbide the rank of general in the insurgent forces. Agustín rejected the offer, as he repudiated the atrocities the widely untrained Insurgent army committed against Spanish civilians, choosing instead to fight for the royalist forces. He quickly grew in popularity amongst the royalists, whilst becoming a feared foe for the Insurgents.
From 1810 to 1820, Iturbide had fought against those who sought to overturn the Spanish monarchy and Bourbon dynasty's right to rule New Spain and replace that regime with an independent government. In this, he was solidly aligned with the Creole class. However, events in Spain caused problems for this class, as the very monarchy they were fighting for was in serious trouble. The 1812 Cadiz Constitution, that was reinstated in Spain in 1820 after the successful Riego Revolt, established a constitutional monarchy, which greatly limited Ferdinand VII's powers. There was serious concern in Mexico that the Bourbons would be forced to abandon Spain altogether. This led to the disintegration of viceregal authority in Mexico City and a political vacuum developed that the Mexican nobility sought to fill, seeking limited representation and autonomy for themselves within the empire. An idea arose among this class that if Mexico became independent or autonomous, and if Ferdinand were deposed, he could become king of Mexico.
Iturbide was convinced that independence for Mexico was the only way to protect the country from a republican tide. He decided to become the leader of the Criollo independence movement. However, in order to succeed, he would need to put together a very unlikely coalition of Mexican liberal insurgents, landed nobility, and the Church. For this goal, he penned The Plan of Iguala, which held itself up on Three Guarantees: Freedom (from Spain), Religion (with Roman Catholicism being the only accepted religion in the new country) and Union (with all inhabitants of México to be regarded as equals).
Iturbide and two other insurgent leader, Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria, announced the plan on 24 February 1821. Essentially, the idea was to bring Ferdinand VII to Mexico City to rule. If he did not come to Mexico, another member of the Bourbon royal family would be chosen to rule there. If no European ruler would come to rule México, the nation would have the right to elect a ruler amongst its own people. The promise of the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church was offered to the clergy, who were frightened by anti-clerical policies of Spanish Liberalism. The offer of equality between Criollos and the Spanish-born Peninsulares assured the latter that they and their property would be safe in the new state.
Viceroy O'Donojú used his influence to withdraw Spanish troops from the country with a minimum of bloodshed, by means of reasonable surrender terms. He approved the promotion of Novella, the previous (acting) viceroy, to field marshal. On September 13, 1821 O'Donojú met with Novella and Iturbide at the Hacienda de la Patera, near the Villa de Guadalupe, smoothing over the difficulties and arranging the details of the transfer of power. Novella ordered Spanish troops to leave Mexico City.
Iturbide marched into Mexico City on 27 September 1821, his own birthday, with the Army of the Three Guarantees. The army was received by a jubilant populace who had erected arches of triumph and decorated houses and themselves with the tri-color (red, white, and green) of this army. Cries of "¡Viva Iturbide I!" were heard first on that day. The following day, Mexico was declared an independent empire. In much less than a year, Iturbide had bloodlessly achieved what 11 years of bloody war could not.
On October 3, 1821, the Captaincy General of Guatemala (formed of Chiapas, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras) proclaimed its independence from Spain and its incorporation into the Mexican Empire. This region had been formally subject to New Spain throughout the colonial period, but as a practical matter was administered separately. All but Chiapas soon separated from Mexico.
Ferdinand VII had regained the upper hand against the liberals in Spain and increased his influence outside the country. He even had credible plans for the reconquest of the old colony. For these reasons, no European noble would accept the offer of a Mexican crown. Inside Mexico itself, there was no noble family that the populace would accept as royalty. Then Iturbide was announced as the Constitutional Emperor of the new nation.
The republican minority was not happy with Iturbide as emperor. While the Catholic clergy supported him, Iturbide's coronation dashed republican hopes. The strongest opposition to Iturbide's reign came from the congress. A significant number of this congress supported republican ideas explained by the fact that a number of these members also belonged to Masonic lodges, which were introduced to Mexico in the 1780s and they found a voice when Manuel Cordorniu founded the newspaper El Sol, essentially becoming the in-house publication for the Scottish Rite lodge in their struggle against Iturbide.
To combat the resistance, Iturbide closed down the congress on 31 October 1822, and created a new junta to legislate in its place, answering only to him. He persecuted his enemies, arresting and jailing a score of former members of the congress, but this did not bring peace. During this time, Mexico suffered as an independent country. Ferdinand's resurgence as a ruler in Spain meant that no European nation was willing to recognize Mexico's independence and most broke off economic ties with the new state. Mexico was also under the threat of reconquest by Spain. Iturbide's economic policies were draining resources as well. To increase his popularity, he abolished a number of colonial-era taxes. However, he still insisted on a large and very well paid army and lived extravagantly himself. The elite turned against him when he imposed a 40% property tax on them.
General Santa Anna publicly announced his opposition to Iturbide in December 1822 with the support of Colonel José Antonio Echavarri and other military officers.In addition to opposition to Emperor Agustín I within what is now Mexico, much of the area now known as Central America declared its opposition to Mexico City's rule. In 1823, authorities in what are now El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras convened a Congress to declare themselves independent from Mexico and Spain as the United Provinces of Central America. Santa Anna's army marched toward Mexico City, winning small victories along the way. Many of the military leaders that Iturbide appointed later turned on him upon contacting Santa Anna's forces. The two leaders met on 1 February 1823 to sign Santa Anna's plan which called for the reinstatement of congress, Iturbide's abdication and his exile.
On 11 May 1823, the ex-emperor boarded the British ship Rawlins en route to Livorno, Italy (then part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany) accompanied by his wife, children, and some servants. After his departure, the situation in Mexico continued to worsen. Reports of a probable further Spanish attempt to retake Mexico reached Iturbide in England. He writes in his memories that he was very worried about the future of the nation he had liberated.
He continued to receive reports from Mexico as well as advice from supporters that if he returned he would be hailed as a liberator and a potential leader against the Spanish invasion. Iturbide sent word to congress in Mexico City on 13 February 1824 offering his services in the event of Spanish attack. Congress never replied. More conservative political factions in Mexico finally convinced Iturbide to return. Congress had previously declared him a traitor and "outside of the law," to be killed if he ever returned to Mexico. Iturbide was unaware of this second part, though some authors contest it. Iturbide returned to Mexico on 14 July 1824, accompanied by his wife, two children, and a chaplain. He landed at the port of Soto la Marina on the coast of Nuevo Santander (the modern-day state of Tamaulipas). They were initially greeted enthusiastically, but soon they were arrested by General Felipe de la Garza, the local military commander. He notoriously wavered in his resolve to detain Iturbide, at first receiving him warmly, then arresting him and, on the way to his trial, de la Garza gave Iturbide command over the military escort that accompanied them, requesting that Iturbide presented himself to the nearby village of Padilla. Iturbide gave his word of honor and did as was bid, surrendering himself to authorities. The local legislature held a trial and sentenced Iturbide to death. When a local priest administered last rites, Iturbide said, "Mexicans! In the very act of my death, I recommend to you the love to the fatherland, and the observance to our religion, for it shall lead you to glory. I die having come here to help you, and I die merrily, for I die amongst you. I die with honor, not as a traitor; I do not leave this stain on my children and my legacy. I am not a traitor, no." He was executed by firing squad on 19 July 1824. Three bullets hit him, one of which delivered the fatal blow.
The aftermath of his execution was met with indignation by the people of México in general, and with relief by his adversaries in congress who had always feared the return of Iturbide. The sentiment of those horrified by the execution was compiled by novelist Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari in "El cadalso de Padilla": "Done is the dark crime, for which we will doubtlessly be called Parricides"
While Iturbide's reign lasted less than a year, it was the result of and further defined the struggle between republican and traditional ideals, not only in Mexico, but also in Europe. For a number of Mexican autonomists, a constitutionally sanctioned monarchy seemed a logical solution to the problem of creating a new state as it seemed to be a compromise between those who pushed for a representative form of government and those who wished to keep Mexico's monarchist traditions.
Traditionalists favored 27 September to celebrate when Iturbide rode into Mexico, but more liberal politicians favored 16 September to celebrate Father Hidalgo's call for rebellion against Spain.In modern-day Mexico, the liberalist tendency has dominated, to the extent that the conservative movements are academically and politically almost ignored. When they are treated, it is with a strong partisan slant. This is true of much of the writing about Iturbide, being portrayed as a "traitor" of 19th century Mexico. Many an author, including Timothy E. Anna, consider that a historical injustice has been committed against Iturbide, as his enemies had the privilege of writing history.
Another legacy that Iturbide left to Mexico was its modern flag, creating the flag known today. The three colors of red, white and green originally represented the three guarantees of the Plan of Iguala: Freedom, Religion and Union. In the place of the Spanish emblem for Mexico, he resurrected the old Tenochtitlan symbol for Mexico City, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus holding a snake in its beak. With it he hoped to link the upcoming Mexican Empire with the old Aztec one.
Iturbide is also mentioned in the Himno Nacional Mexicano, the national anthem for the country. The stanza translates as follows: "If to battle against the foreign host, the warrior trumpet invokes us, Mexicans, the Sacred flag of Iturbide bravely follow. Let the conquered banners serve as a carpet to the brave steeds, may the laurels of triumph bring shade to the brow of the brave Captain."
Mexican Republic
The First Federal Republic of Mexico (Spanish: Primera República Federal de México) was established on 4 October 1824, after the overthrow of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide.
However, most of the population largely ignored it. When Guadalupe Victoria was followed in office by Vicente Guerrero, who won the electoral but lost the popular vote, the Conservative Party saw an opportunity to seize control and led a coup under Anastasio Bustamante, who served as president from 1830 to 1832, and again from 1837 to 1841.
This coup set the pattern for Mexican politics during the 19th Century. Many governments rose and fell during a period of instability caused by factors including 1) the control of the economic system by the large landowners, 2) the struggle over the status of Mexico's northern territories, which issued in a devastating defeat at the end of the Mexican–American War; and 3) the gulf in wealth and power between the Spanish-descended elite and the mixed-race majority.
The main political parties during this era were the Conservatives (favoring the Catholic Church, the landowners, and a monarchy) and the Liberals (favoring secular government, the landless majority, and a republic).
In 1829, Spain made a final attempt to retake Mexico in Tampico with an invading force of 2,600 soldiers. Santa Anna marched against the Barradas Expedition with a much smaller force and defeated the Spaniards, many of whom were suffering from yellow fever. The defeat of the Spanish army not only increased Santa Anna’s popularity but also consolidated the independence of the new Mexican republic. Santa Anna was declared a hero. From then on, he styled himself "The Victor of Tampico" and "The Savior of the Motherland". His main act of self-promotion was to call himself "The Napoleon of the West".
In March 1833, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was elected as President and Valentín Gómez Farías as Vice-President of Mexico. They alternated leadership of the executive branch due to the frequent absences of Santa Anna. These were sometimes so that he could personally combat military uprisings, and sometimes to "restore his failing health.".
While Vice President Gómez Farías was at the head of government, he implemented reform measures affecting the interests of both the army and the Catholic Church. A law was proposed to expand the militias controlled by the States, which would relieve the federal budget. This law, and a discussion about disposal of church property by the States, led to the rebellions of Escalda and Durán in support of "Religion and privileges.". Congress ordered creation of primary schools, schools for secular education of primary school teachers, and schools for women and girls. The property of the California missions was seized. On 17 December 1833, Congress issued a decree that authorized the government to fill parish vacancies. the Bishop of Monterrey, José María de Jesús Belaunzarán y Ureña, announced he was willing to pay the fines and suffer exile before enforcing the new law. The Congress had also passed in June the famous Ley del Caso (Case Law) that ordered opponents of the reformist regime into exile.
Santa Anna took the side that defended the interests of the Church. On 12 March 1834 he sent a long letter to Gómez Farías expressing dissatisfaction with the directives and agreements that the government had made.
On 16 May, in Xalapa and Coatepec, Santa Anna was proclaimed "protector of the Catholic religion." On 23 May, in Oaxaca, he was proclaimed "sustainer of religion and freedom of the country". Finally, on 25 May in the town of Cuernavaca, Ignacio Echeverria and Jose Mariano Campos proclaimed the Plan of Cuernavaca, containing five articles that demanded:
- Repeal the Ley del Caso and do not tolerate the influence of Masonic lodges.
- Declare void the laws passed by Congress and the local legislatures.
- Request the protection of President Santa Anna to fulfill the plan, and recognize it as the only authority.
- Remove from office the deputies and officials who carried out enforcement of the reform laws and decrees.
- Provide military force to support the president in implementing the plan.
Antonio López de Santa Anna suspended the 1824 Constitution and replaced it with the Siete Leyes in 1835, a radical amendment that institutionalized the centralized form of government.
Several states openly rebelled against these changes. Northern Coahuila y Tejas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Yucatán, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas all disapproved. Civil war quickly spread across the Mexican states and three new governments declared independence: the Republic of Texas, the Republic of the Rio Grande and the Republic of Yucatán.
Santa Anna marched north to bring Texas back under Mexican control by a show of brute merciless force. His expedition posed challenges of manpower, logistics, supply, and strategy far beyond what he was prepared for, and it ended in disaster. To fund, organize, and equip his army he relied, as he often did, on forcing wealthy men to provide loans. He recruited hastily, sweeping up many derelicts and ex-convicts, as well as Indians who could not understand Spanish commands. His army expected tropical weather and suffered from the cold as well as shortages of traditional foods. Stretching a supply line far longer than ever before, he lacked enough horses, mules, cattle, and wagons, and thus had too little food and feed. The medical facilities were minimal. Morale sank as soldiers realized there were not enough chaplains to properly bury their bodies. Indians attacked stragglers; water sources were polluted and many men became sick. Because of his weak staff system Santa Anna was oblivious to the challenges, and was totally confident that a show of force and a few massacres (as at the Alamo and Goliad) would have the rebels begging for mercy.
On 6 March 1836, at the Battle of the Alamo, Santa Anna's forces killed 189 Texian defenders and later executed more than 342 Texian prisoners including James Walker Fannin at the Goliad Massacre (27 March 1836) in a manner similar to the executions he witnessed of Mexican rebels in the 1810s as a young soldier.
However, the defeat at the Alamo did serve to buy time for General Sam Houston and his Texas forces. During the siege of the Alamo, the Texas Navy had more time to plunder the Gulf of Mexico which led to the Texian Army gaining more weapons and ammunition. Despite Sam Houston's lack of ability to maintain strict control of the Texian Army, they were able to defeat Santa Anna's much larger army at the Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836, with the Texans shouting "Remember Goliad, Remember the Alamo!" The day after the battle, a small Texan force led by James Sylvester captured Santa Anna. They found the general dressed in a dragoon private's uniform and hiding in a marsh.
Acting Texas president David G. Burnet and Santa Anna signed the Treaties of Velasco, stating that "in his official character as chief of the Mexican nation, he acknowledged the full, entire, and perfect Independence of the Republic of Texas." In exchange, Burnet and the Texas government guaranteed Santa Anna's safety and transport to Veracruz. In Mexico City, however, a new government declared that Santa Anna was no longer president and that the treaty he made with Texas was null and void.
In 1838, Santa Anna had a chance for redemption from the loss of Texas. After Mexico rejected French demands for financial compensation for losses suffered by French citizens, France sent forces that landed in Veracruz in the Pastry War. The Mexican government gave Santa Anna control of the army and ordered him to defend the nation by any means necessary. He engaged the French at Veracruz. During the Mexican retreat after a failed assault, Santa Anna was hit in the leg and hand by cannon fire. His shattered ankle required amputation of much of his leg, which he ordered buried with full military honors. Despite Mexico's final capitulation to French demands, Santa Anna used his war service to re-enter Mexican politics as a hero. He never allowed Mexico to forget him and his sacrifice in defending the fatherland.
Soon after, as Anastasio Bustamante's presidency turned chaotic, supporters asked Santa Anna to take control of the provisional government. Santa Anna became president for the fifth time, taking over a nation with an empty treasury. Santa Anna's rule this time was more dictatorial than during his first administration. Anti-Santanista newspapers were banned and dissidents jailed. In 1842, he directed a military expedition into Texas, which resulted in no gain, but persuaded more Texans of the potential benefits of annexation by the more powerful United States. Santa Anna was unable to control the congressional elections of 1842. The new congress was composed of men of principles who vigorously opposed the autocratic leader. Trying to restore the treasury, Santa Anna raised taxes, but this aroused resistance. Several Mexican states stopped dealing with the central government, and Yucatán and Laredo declared themselves independent republics. With resentment growing, Santa Anna stepped down from power. Fearing for his life, he tried to elude capture, but in January 1845 he was apprehended by a group of Indians near Xico, Veracruz. They turned him over to authorities, and Santa Anna was imprisoned. His life was spared, but the dictator was exiled to Cuba.
In response to a Mexican massacre of an American army detachment in disputed territory, the U.S. Congress declared war on May 13, 1846; Mexico followed suit on 23 May. Santa Anna wrote to Mexico City saying he had no aspirations to the presidency, but would eagerly use his military experience to fight off the foreign invasion of Mexico as he had in the past. President Valentín Gómez Farías was desperate enough to accept the offer and allowed Santa Anna to return. Meanwhile, Santa Anna had secretly been dealing with representatives of the United States, pledging that if he were allowed back in Mexico through the U.S. naval blockades, he would work to sell all contested territory to the United States at a reasonable price. Once back in Mexico at the head of an army, Santa Anna reneged on both of these agreements. Santa Anna declared himself president again and unsuccessfully tried to fight off the United States invasion. The Mexican–American War took place in two theatres: the western (aimed at California) and Central Mexico (aimed at capturing Mexico City) campaigns.
The war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which stipulated that a) Mexico must sell its northern territories to the United States for US $15 million; b) the United States would give full citizenship and voting rights, and protect the property rights of Mexicans living in the ceded territories; and c) the United States would assume $3.25 million in debt owed by Mexico to Americans. The war was Mexico's first encounter with a modern well-organized and well-equipped army. The primary reason for Mexico's defeat was its problematic internal situation, which led to a lack of unity and organization for a successful defense.
In 1848, Santa Anna went into exile in Kingston, Jamaica, and two years later, moved to Turbaco, Colombia. In April 1853, he was invited back by rebellious conservatives with whom he succeeded in re-taking the government. This administration was no more successful than his earlier ones. He funneled government funds to his own pockets, sold more territory to the United States (see Gadsden Purchase), and declared himself dictator-for-life with the title "Most Serene Highness". The Plan of Ayutla of 1854 removed Santa Anna from power.
Despite his generous payoffs to the military for loyalty, by 1855 even conservative allies had seen enough of Santa Anna. That year a group of liberals led by Benito Juárez and Ignacio Comonfort overthrew Santa Anna, and he fled back to Cuba. As the extent of his corruption became known, he was tried in absentia for treason; all his estates were confiscated by the government.
In 1874 he took advantage of a general amnesty and returned to Mexico. Crippled and almost blind from cataracts, he was ignored by the Mexican government at the anniversary of the Battle of Churubusco. Two years later, Santa Anna died in Mexico City on 21 June 1876 and was buried in Panteón del Tepeyac Cemetery.
Colonel Ignacio Comonfort became president in 1855 after a revolt based in Ayutla overthrew Santa Anna. Comonfort was a moderate liberal who tried to maintain an uncertain coalition, but the moderate liberals and the radical liberals were unable to resolve their sharp differences. During his presidency, the Constitution of 1857 was drafted creating the Second Federal Republic of Mexico. The new constitution restricted some of the Catholic Church's traditional privileges, land holdings, revenues and control over education. The constitution was unacceptable to the clergy and the conservatives, and they plotted a revolt. With the "Plan of Tacubaya" in December 1857, Comonfort tried to regain the popular support from the growing conservative pro-clerical movement. The liberals failed, however, as conservative General Félix Zuloaga succeeded in a coup in the capital in January, 1858. The revolt led to the War of Reform (December 1857 to January 1861), which grew increasingly bloody as it progressed and polarized the nation's politics. Many Moderates, convinced that the Church's political power had to be curbed, came over to the side of the Liberals. For some time, the Liberals and Conservatives simultaneously administered separate governments, the Conservatives from Mexico City and the Liberals from Veracruz. The war ended with a Liberal victory, and liberal President Benito Juárez moved his administration to Mexico City.
French intervention and the Second Mexican Empire
In March 1861, free-mason Benito Juárez was elected President in his own right under the Constitution of 1857. However, the Liberals' celebrations of 1861 were short-lived. The war had severely damaged Mexico's infrastructure and crippled its economy.Spain, Britain and France, angry over unpaid Mexican debts, sent a joint expeditionary force that seized the Veracruz customs house in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew after realizing that the French Emperor Napoleon III intended to overthrow the Juárez government and establish a Second Mexican Empire with the support of the remnants of the Conservative side in the Reform War. Thus began the French intervention in Mexico in 1862.
Mexican forces under Ignacio Zaragoza won an initial victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo (5 May). The Battle of Puebla was an inspirational event for wartime Mexico, and it provided a stunning revelation to the rest of the world which had largely expected a rapid victory for French arms. Slowed by their loss at Puebla, the French forces retreated and regrouped, and the invasion continued after Napoleon III determinedly sent additional troops to Mexico. The French were eventually victorious, winning the Second Battle of Puebla on 17 May 1863 and pushing on to Mexico City.
French troops under François Achille Bazaine entered Mexico City on 7 June 1863. The main army entered the city three days later led by General Forey. General Almonte was appointed the provisional President of Mexico on 16 June, by the Superior Junta (which had been appointed by Forey). The Superior Junta with its 35 members met on 21 June, and proclaimed a Catholic Empire on 10 July. The crown was offered to Maximilian von Habsburg, a younger brother of the Emperor of Austria, following pressures by Napoleon. Maximilian accepted the crown on 3 October, at the hands of the Comisión Mexicana, sent by the Superior Junta. He was proclaimed Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico on 20 April 1864 with the backing of Napoleon III and a group of Mexican conservatives.
One of Maximilian's first acts as Emperor was to restrict working hours and abolish child labour. He cancelled all debts for peasants over 10 pesos, restored communal property and forbade all forms of corporal punishment. He also broke the monopoly of the Hacienda stores and decreed that henceforth peons could no longer be bought and sold for the price of their debt.
Maximilian commissioned a grand avenue linking the city center with his imperial residence. The project was originally named Paseo de la Emperatriz and it was modeled after the great boulevards of Europe, such as the Ringstrasse in Vienna and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. After her return to Europe and Maximilian's subsequent execution, the restored Juárez government renamed the Paseo in honor of the Reform War.
To the dismay of his conservative allies, Maximilian upheld several liberal policies proposed by the Juárez administration – such as land reforms, religious freedom, and extending the right to vote beyond the landholding class. At first, Maximilian offered Juárez an amnesty if he would swear allegiance to the crown, even offering the post as Prime Minister, which Juárez refused. Later, Maximilian ordered all captured followers of Juárez to be shot, in response to the Republican practice of executing anyone who was a supporter of the Empire. In the end, it proved to be a tactical mistake that only exacerbated opposition to his regime.
The government of the United States was sympathetic to Juárez, refusing to recognize Maximilian, and opposed the French invasion as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, but was distracted by the American Civil War. Following the end of the war, US President Andrew Johnson demanded the French evacuate Mexico and imposed a naval blockade in February 1866.
The prospect of a US invasion to reinstate Juárez caused a large number of Maximilian's loyal adherents to abandon the cause and leave the capital. Nevertheless, by 1866, the imminence of Maximilian's abdication seemed apparent to almost everyone outside Mexico. In late 1866 Napoleon III withdrew his troops in the face of Mexican resistance and U.S. opposition under the Monroe Doctrine, as well as increasing his military contingent at home to face the ever growing Prussian military and Bismarck.
His wife Carlota travelled to Europe, seeking assistance for her husband's regime in Paris and Vienna and, finally, in Rome from Pope Pius IX. Meanwhile Maximilian allowed his followers to determine whether or not he abdicated. Faithful generals such as Miguel Miramón, Leonardo Márquez, and Tomás Mejía vowed to raise an army that would challenge the invading Republicans. Maximilian fought on with his army of 8,000 Mexican loyalists.
The loyalists were betrayed by Colonel Miguel López who was bribed by the Republicans to open a gate and lead a raiding party through with the agreement that Maximilian would be allowed to escape. The city fell on 15 May 1867 and Maximilian was captured the next morning after the failure of an attempt to escape through Republican lines.
Following a court-martial, he was sentenced to death. Many of the crowned heads of Europe and other prominent figures (including the eminent liberals Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi) sent telegrams and letters to Mexico pleading desperately for the Emperor's life to be spared. Although he liked Maximilian on a personal level, Juárez refused to commute the sentence in view of the Mexicans who had been killed fighting against Maximilian's forces, and because he believed it was necessary to send a message that Mexico would not tolerate any government imposed by foreign powers. The sentence was carried out in the Cerro de las Campanas on the morning of 19 June 1867, when Maximilian, along with Generals Miramón and Mejía, were executed by a firing squad. He spoke only in Spanish and gave his executioners a portion of gold not to shoot him in the head so that his mother could see his face. His last words were, "I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!". Generals Miramón and Mejía were shot after him. Both died shouting, "Long live the Emperor."
The empire had collapsed after only three years. Carlota who was seeking assistance for her husband in Paris and had already manifested symptoms of paranoia, suffered a profound cognitive and emotional collapse, and never returned to Mexico. Her brother Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, had her examined by alienists (psychiatrists), who pronounced her insane. She spent the rest of her life in seclusion, first at Miramar Castle near Trieste, Italy, and then at the Castle of Bouchout in Meise, Belgium.
After his execution, Maximilian's body was embalmed and displayed in Mexico. Early the following year, the Austrian admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff was sent to Mexico aboard SMS Novara to take the former emperor's body back to Austria. After arriving in Trieste, the coffin was taken to Vienna and buried in the Imperial Crypt on 18 January 1868.
As Carlota 's illness progressed, her paranoia faded. She remained deeply in love with her husband. After his death, she cherished all of the surviving possessions they had enjoyed in common. The bias of the historiography of the time makes it difficult to assess to what extent she suffered from alleged mental conditions such as psychosis, paranoia and monomania.
Maximilian has been praised by some historians for his liberal reforms, his genuine desire to help the people of Mexico, his refusal to desert his loyal followers, and his personal bravery during the siege of Querétaro. However, other researchers consider him short-sighted in political and military affairs, and unwilling to restore democracy in Mexico even during the imminent collapse of the Second Mexican Empire.
After the victory, the Conservative party was so thoroughly discredited by its alliance with the invading French troops that it effectively ceased to exist, and the Liberal party was almost unchallenged as a political force during the first years of the "restored republic".
Juárez was controversially re-elected President in 1867 and 1871, using the office of the presidency to ensure electoral success and suppressing revolts by opponents such as Porfirio Díaz. The republic was restored, President Juárez was returned to power in the national capital, yet there was little change in policy given that Maximilian had upheld most of Juárez's liberal reforms.
In 1871, however, Juárez was re-elected to yet another term as president in spite of a constitutional prohibition of re-elections, provoking one of the losing candidates, Porfirio Díaz (a Liberal general and a hero of the French war, but increasingly conservative in outlook) to launch a rebellion against the president. Supported by conservative factions within the Liberal party, the attempted revolt (the so-called Plan de la Noria) was already at the point of defeat when Juárez died in office on 19 July 1872, making it a moot point. Díaz ran against interim president Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, lost the election, and retired to his hacienda in Oaxaca
Benito Juárez died of a heart attack on 18 July 1872 while reading a newspaper at his desk in the National Palace in Mexico City. A great number of cities, towns, streets, institutions, and other things are named after Benito Juárez, including the former El Paso del Norte, now called Ciudad Juárez; see Juárez (disambiguation) for a partial list. Mexico City International Airport is better known in Mexico by its first official name Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez, or internationally often as Mexico City Juárez.
The Porfiriato (1876–1910)
In 1876, Lerdo was reelected, defeating Porfirio Díaz. Díaz rebelled against the government with the proclamation of the Plan de Tuxtepec, in which he opposed reelection, in 1876. Díaz managed to overthrow Lerdo, who fled the country, and was named president. Díaz became the new president. Thus began a period of more than 30 years (1876–1911) during which Díaz was Mexico's strong man. He was legally elected president eight times, turning over power only once, from 1880 to 1884, to a trusted ally, General Manuel Gonzailez. He justified his stay in office by claiming that Mexico was not yet ready to govern itself; only he knew what was best for his country and he enforced his belief with a strong hand. "Order and Progress" were the watchwords of his rule.
This period of relative prosperity and peace is known as the Porfiriato. He remained in power by rigging elections and censoring the press. Possible rivals were destroyed, and popular generals were moved to new areas so they could not build a permanent base of support.
Díaz's presidency was characterized by promotion of industry and development of infrastructure by opening the country to foreign investmen. During this period, the country's infrastructure was greatly improved, thanks to increased foreign investment from Britain and the U.S., and a strong, stable central government. Increased tax revenues and better administration brought dramatic improvements in public safety, public health, railways, mining, industry, foreign trade, and national finances. He modernized the army and suppressed some banditry.
The Mexican Revolution (1910–1929)
The modernization and progress in cities during the Porfiriato came at the expense of the rising working class and the peasantry. Farmers and peasants both complained of oppression and exploitation. The economy took a great leap during the Porfiriato, as he encouraged the construction of factories, roads, dams, industries and better farms. This resulted in the rise of an urban proletariat and the influx of foreign capital (principally from the United States and Great Britain).
Helpless and angry small farmers and landless peasants saw no hope for themselves and their families under a Díaz regime, and came to the conclusion that a change of leadership would be the only route that offered any hope for themselves and their country. More than 95% of Mexico's land was owned by less than 5% of the population. This vastly unequal distribution of land—and, therefore, wealth—had plagued Mexico for many years, to the anger and dismay of the working classes.
In 1910 Francisco I. Madero, a young man from a wealthy family in the northern state of Coahuila, stated that he would be running against Díaz for the presidency in the next election. To ensure Madero did not win, Díaz had him thrown in jail, then declared himself the winner. Madero soon escaped and fled for a short period to San Antonio, Texas. On October 5, 1910, Madero issued a "letter from jail" called the Plan de San Luis Potosí, with its main slogan Sufragio Efectivo, No re-elección ("free suffrage and no re-election"). It declared the Díaz regime illegal and called for revolt against Díaz, starting on November 20. Though Madero's letter was not a plan for major socioeconomic revolution, it offered the hope of change for many disadvantaged Mexicans. Madero's vague promises of agrarian reforms attracted many peasants throughout Mexico. He received the support from them that he needed to remove Díaz from power and raised an army consisting mostly of ordinary farmers, miners, and other working-class Mexicans, along with much of the country's Indian population. Madero's army fought Díaz's forces with some success, and he attracted the forces of other rebel leaders like Pancho Villa, Ricardo Flores Magón, Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza, and they eventually joined together to fight Díaz.
Zapata was positioned as a central leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos. Cooperating with a number of other peasant leaders he formed the Liberation Army of the South of which he soon became the undisputed leader. Zapata joined Madero's campaign against President Diaz. When Zapata's army captured Cuautla after a six-day battle on May 19, 1911, it became clear that Diaz would not hold on to power for long. With the support of Pancho Villa, Pascual Orozco, Emiliano Zapata, and rebellious peasants, Madero overthrew Díaz in May 1911 at the Battle of Ciudad Juárez. A provisional government was formed under Francisco León de la Barra. Under Madero, some new land reforms were carried out and elections were to be ensured. It stated that Díaz would abdicate his rule and be replaced by Madero. Insisting on a new election, Madero won overwhelmingly in late 1911. Some supporters criticized him for appearing weak by not assuming the presidency and failing to pass immediate reforms, but Madero established a liberal democracy and received support from the United States and popular leaders such as Orozco, Villa and Zapata.
Madero was a weak leader and quickly lost much of his support while in power. He angered both the more radical revolutionists and the conservative counter-revolutionists, including the unpopular Congress elected during Díaz's rule. His refusal to enact land reforms caused a break with Zapata. Then Zapata and Otilio Montaño Sánchez, a former school teacher, fled to the mountains of southwest Puebla. There they formed the most radical reform plan in Mexico; the Plan de Ayala (Plan of Ayala). The plan declared Madero a traitor, named one of Madero's military commanders Pascual Orozco head of the Revolution, and outlined a plan for true land reform. The Plan of Ayala called for all lands stolen under Díaz to be immediately returned: there was considerable land fraud under the old dictator, so a great deal of territory was involved. It also stated that large plantations owned by a single person or family should have one-third of their land nationalized and would then be required to give it to poor farmers. It also argued that if any large plantation owner resisted this action, they should have the other two-thirds confiscated as well. The Plan of Ayala also invoked the name of Benito Juárez, one of Mexico's great leaders, and compared the taking of land from the wealthy to Juarez's actions when he took land from the church in the 1860s.
Zapata was partly influenced by an anarchist from Oaxaca named Ricardo Flores Magón. The influence of Flores Magón on Zapata can be seen in the Zapatistas' Plan de Ayala, but even more noticeably in their slogan (this slogan was never used by Zapata) "Tierra y libertad" or "land and liberty"
When Orozco started a counterrebellion against Madero, Villa gathered his mounted cavalry troops and fought alongside General Victoriano Huerta to support Madero. However, Huerta viewed Villa as an ambitious competitor and later accused Villa of stealing a horse and insubordination; he then had Villa sentenced to execution in an attempt to dispose of him. Reportedly, Villa was in front of a firing squad waiting to be shot when a telegram from President Madero was received commuting his sentence to imprisonment, from which Villa later escaped after serving only a brief period in jail.
Orozco's forces known as the Orozquistas and Colorados (Red Flaggers) smashed Madero's army during several engagements. Seeing the potential danger that Orozco posed to his regime, Madero sent general Victoriano Huerta out of retirement to stop Orozco's Rebellion. Huerta's troops defeated the orozquistas in Conejos, Rellano and Bachimba finally seizing Ciudad Juárez. After being wounded in Ojinaga, Orozco was forced to flee to the United States.
Madero's time as leader was short-lived and was ended by a coup d'état in 1913 led by Gen. Victoriano Huerta. Following Huerta's coup, Madero was forced to resign. He and vice president José María Pino Suárez were both shot dead less than a week later by two army officers who were transporting them to a penitentiary.
After crushing the Orozco rebellion, Victoriano Huerta, with the federal army he commanded, held the majority of military power in Mexico. Huerta saw an opportunity to make himself the dictator of Mexico, and he began to conspire with men such as Bernardo Reyes, Félix Díaz (nephew of Porfirio Díaz), and the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, which resulted in La decena trágica (the "Ten Tragic Days").After the culminattion of the ten-day siege of La Ciudadela (La decena tragica) Madero accepted Huerta's "protection" from the Diaz/Reyes forces, only to be betrayed by Huerta and arrested. Madero's brother and advisor Gustavo A. Madero was kidnapped off the street, tortured, and killed. Following Huerta's coup d'état on 18 February 1913, Madero was forced to resign. After a 45-minute term of office, Pedro Lascuráin was replaced by Huerta, who took over the presidency later that day. Following his enforced resignation, Madero and his Vice-President José María Pino Suárez were kept under guard in the National Palace. On the evening of 22 February they were told that they were to be transferred to the main city penitentiary, where they would be safer. At 11:15pm reporters waiting outside the National Palace saw two cars containing Madero and Suárez emerge from the main gate under a heavy escort commanded by Captain Francisco Cardenas, an officer of the rurales. The journalists on foot were outdistanced by the motor vehicles, which were driven towards the penitentiary. The correspondent for the New York World was approaching the prison when he heard a volley of shots. Behind the building he found the two cars with the bodies of Madero and Suárez nearby, surrounded by soldiers and gendarmes. Captain Cardenas subsequently told reporters that the cars and their escort had been fired on by a group, as they neared the penitentiary. The two prisoners had leapt from the vehicles and ran towards their presumed rescuers. They had however been killed in the cross-fire.
Venustiano Carranza, a politician and rancher from Coahuila, was at the forefront of opposition to Huerta, and organized his own rebel army, called the Constitutionalists, with the secret support of the United States. On March 26, 1913, Carranza issued the Plan de Guadalupe, which refused to recognize Huerta as president and called for war between the two factions. Leaders such as Villa, Zapata, Carranza and Álvaro Obregón led the fight against Huerta. In April 1914, U.S. opposition to Huerta had reached its peak when American forces seized and occupied the port of Veracruz, resulting in the death of 170 Mexican soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. In late July the situation worsened for Huerta, and after his army suffered several defeats, he stepped down and fled to Puerto México.
In the winter of 1914 Villa's and Zapata's troops entered and occupied Mexico City. In 1915 Villa took part in two of the most important battles of the revolution, that together are known as Battle of Celaya, which occurred from April 6–7 and from April 13–15. He attacked the forces of General Obregón but was badly defeated in what became one of the bloodiest battles of the revolution, with thousands dead. With his forces' defeat of Villa, Carranza seized power.
A short time later the United States recognized Carranza as president of Mexico. Carranza, hostile to Zapata, constituted himself as the leader of Mexico, but Villa allied with Zapata against Carranza and Obregón. Dismayed with the alliance with Villa, Zapata focused his energies on rebuilding society in Morelos which he now controlled, instituting the land reforms of the Plan de Ayala.
On March 9, 1916, Villa crossed the U.S.–Mexico border and raided Columbus, New Mexico, in order to exact revenge on an American arms dealer who sold ammunition to Villa that he used in the Battle of Celaya and which turned out to be useless. During this attack, 18 Americans died but 90 of Villa's men were killed by U.S. troops and civilians who repelled the attack.
During his presidency Carranza relied on his personal secretary and close aide, Hermila Galindo de Topete, to rally and secure support for him. Through her efforts he was able to gain the support of women, workers and peasants. Carranza rewarded her efforts by lobbying for women's equality. He helped change and reform the legal status of women in Mexico.
In September 1916, Carranza convoked a Constitutional Convention, to be held in Querétaro, Querétaro. However, when the Constitutional Convention met in December 1916, it contained only 85 conservatives and centrists close to Carranza's brand of liberalism, a group known as the bloque renovador ("renewal faction"). Against them were 132 more radical delegates who insisted that land reform be embodied in the new constitution. The radicals also moved much further than Carranza approved on labor relations. In February 1917, they drafted Article 123 of the Constitution. The radicals also established more radical reform of the relationship of church and state than that favored by Carranza. Articles 3 and 130 were heavily anticlerical: the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico was denied recognition as a legal entity; priests were denied various rights and subject to public registration; religious education was forbidden; public religious ritual outside of the churches was banned; and all churches became the property of the nation.
On 19 January 1917, a secret message (the Zimmermann Telegram) was sent from the German foreign minister to Mexico proposing joint military action against the United States if war broke out. The offer included material aid to Mexico to assist in the reclamation of territory lost during the Mexican–American War, specifically the American states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Carranza consulted with his generals about this, and was told Mexico was certain to be defeated by its much more powerful neighbor. Zimmermann's message was intercepted and published, and outraged American opinion, leading to a declaration of war in early April. Carranza then formally rejected the offer, and the threat of war with the U.S. eased.
The new constitution was proclaimed on 5 February 1917 and Carranza became the constitutional President of Mexico. Carranza, however, brought very little change and those who wanted to see a new, liberal Mexico after the revolution were disappointed. Mexico was in desperate stress in 1917. The revolutionary fighting had decimated the economy, destroyed the nation's food supply, and led to widespread disease. Carranza remained lukewarm about the anti-clerical Articles 3 and 130 of the Mexican Constitution, both of which he had opposed at the Constitutional Convention. He proposed a constitutional amendment to mollify these constitutional provisions, but his proposal was rejected by the state legislatures and 2/3 of the Mexican Congress.
As Carranza consolidated his power and won over Villa, Zapata initiated guerrilla warfare against the Carrancistas, who in turn invaded Morelos, employing once again scorched earth tactics to oust the Zapatista rebels. Zapata once again retook Morelos in 1917 and held most of the state against Carranza's troops until he was killed in an ambush in 1919.
Even though Villa's forces were badly depleted by his loss at Celaya, he continued his fight against the Carranza government. Finally, in 1920, Obregón—who had defeated him at Celaya—finally reached an agreement with Villa, who "hung up his guns" and retired to his farm. In exchange for his retirement, Villa was given a 25,000 acre hacienda in Canutillo, just outside of Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, by the national government. This was in addition to the Quinta Luz estate that he owned with his wife, María Luz Corral de Villa, in Chihuahua, Chihuahua. The last remaining 200 guerrillas and veterans of Villa's milita who still maintained a loyalty to him could reside with him in his new hacienda as well and the Mexican government also granted them a pension that totalled 500,000 gold pesos.
Carranza determined not to run for re-election in 1920. His natural successor was Álvaro Obregón, the heroic Carrancista general. Carranza, however, felt that Mexico should have a president who was not a general, and therefore endorsed Ignacio Bonillas, an obscure diplomat, for the presidency. Obregón supporters were repressed and killed and Obregón himself decided that Carranza would never leave the office peacefully. Carranza set out towards Veracruz to regroup but was betrayed and he died in Tlaxcalantongo in the Sierra Norte de Puebla mountains while being attacked by the forces of General Rodolfo Herrero, supporter of Carranza's former allies and local chieftain, on 21 May 1920 while he was sleeping. Today Carranza is remembered as one of the “Big Four” of the Revolution, along with Zapata, Villa and Obregón.
On Friday, 20 July 1923, Villa was killed while visiting Parral. Usually accompanied by his entourage of Dorados (his bodyguards) Pancho Villa frequently made trips from his ranch to Parral for banking and other errands. This day, however, Villa had gone into the town without them, taking only a few associates with him. He went to pick up a consignment of gold from the local bank with which to pay his Canutillo ranch staff. While driving back through the city in his black 1919 Dodge roadster, Villa passed by a school and a pumpkinseed vendor ran toward Villa's car and shouted Viva Villa! – a signal for a group of seven riflemen who then appeared in the middle of the road and fired over 40 shots into the automobile. In the fusillade of shots, nine Dumdum bullets hit Villa in the head and upper chest, killing him instantly. Most historians attribute Villa's death to a well planned conspiracy, most likely initiated by Plutarco Elías Calles and Joaquin Amaro with at least tacit approval of the then president of Mexico, Obregon. At the time, a state legislator from Durango, Jesus Salas Barraza, whom Villa once whipped during a quarrel over a woman, claimed sole responsibility for the plot.
The Cristero War (1926–1929)
Many leaders and members of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico were highly critical of the 1917 constitution. They especially criticized Article 3, which forbade religious instruction in schools, and Article 130, which adopted an extreme form of separation of church and state, including a series of restrictions on priests and ministers of all religions to hold public office, canvass on behalf of political parties or candidates, or to inherit from persons other than close blood relatives, etc
The most serious diplomatic incident occurred in 1923, when Ernesto Filippi, the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico, conducted an open air religious service in spite of the fact that it was illegal to hold a religious service outside a church. The government invoked Article 33 of the constitution and expelled Filippi from Mexico. Obregón effectively applied the secularist laws emanating from the constitution, only in areas where Catholic sentiment was weakest. This uneasy "truce" between the government and the Church ended with the 1924 hand-picked succession of an atheist, Plutarco Elías Calles. Mexican Jacobins, supported by Calles's central government, went beyond mere anticlericalism and engaged in secular antireligious campaigns to eradicate what they called "superstition" and "fanaticism", including desecration of religious objects, persecution, and murder of the clergy and anticlerical legislation.
Calles applied the anti-clerical laws stringently throughout the country and added his own anti-clerical legislation. In June 1926, he signed the "Law for Reforming the Penal Code", known unofficially as the "Calles Law". This provided specific penalties for priests and individuals who violated the provisions of the 1917 Constitution. For instance, wearing clerical garb in public (i.e., outside Church buildings) earned a fine of $500 Mexican pesos ($250 U.S. dollars per the historical exchange rate); a priest who criticized the government could be imprisoned for five years. In the same year 1926, Calles was awarded a medal of merit from the head of Mexico's Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for his actions against the Catholics.
In response to these measures, Catholic organizations began to intensify their resistance. The most important of these groups was the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty, founded in 1924. This was joined by the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth (founded 1913) and the Popular Union, a Catholic political party founded in 1925. On July 11, 1926, Catholic bishops voted to suspend all public worship in response to the Calles Law with the suspension taking effect on August 1, 1926. On July 14, 1926, they endorsed plans for an economic boycott against the government, which was particularly effective in west-central Mexico (the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, and Zacatecas). Catholics in these areas stopped attending movies and plays and using public transportation, and Catholic teachers stopped teaching in secular schools.
On August 3, 1926, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, some 400 armed Catholics shut themselves up in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They exchanged gunfire with federal troops and surrendered when they ran out of ammunition. According to U.S. consular sources, this battle resulted in 18 dead and 40 wounded. The following day, in Sahuayo, Michoacán, 240 government soldiers stormed the parish church. The priest and his vicar were killed in the ensuing violence.
The formal rebellion began on January 1, 1927, with a manifesto sent by Garza on New Year's Day, titled A la Nación (To the Nation). This declared that "the hour of battle has sounded" and "the hour of victory belongs to God". With the declaration, the state of Jalisco, which had seemed to be quiet since the Guadalajara church uprising, exploded.
On February 23, 1927, the Cristeros defeated federal troops for the first time at San Francisco del Rincón, Guanajuato, followed by another victory at San Julián, Jalisco. However, they quickly began to lose in the face of superior federal forces, and retreated into remote areas, constantly fleeing federal soldiers. Most of the leadership of the revolt in the state of Jalisco was forced to flee to the United States, although Victoriano Ramírez and Fr. Reyes Vega remained.
In April 1927, the leader of the civilian wing of the Cristiada, Anacleto González Flores, was captured, tortured, and killed. The media and government declared victory and plans were made for a re-education campaign in the areas that had rebelled. As if to prove that the rebellion was not extinguished, and to avenge the death of González Flores, Fr. Reyes Vega led a raid against a train carrying a shipment of money for the Bank of Mexico on April 19, 1927. The raid was a success, but Reyes Vega's brother was killed in the fighting.
The "concentration" policy, rather than suppressing the revolt, gave it new life, as thousands of men began to aid and join the rebels in resentment of the cruel treatment of the Federation. When the rains came the peasants were allowed to return to the harvest, and there was now more support than ever for the Cristeros. By August 1927, they had consolidated their movement and were constantly attacking federal troops garrisoned in their towns. Soon they would be joined by Enrique Gorostieta, a retired general hired by the National League for Religious Liberty. Although Gorostieta was himself a liberal and a skeptic, he would eventually wear a cross around his neck and speak openly of his reliance on God.
On June 21, 1927, the first brigade of female Cristeros known as the Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc was formed in Zapopan. The brigade began with 17 women but soon grew to 135 members. Its mission was to obtain money, weapons, provisions, and information for the combatant men while also caring for the wounded. By March 1928, some 10,000 women were involved in the struggle with many smuggling weapons into combat zones by carrying them in carts filled with grain or cement. By the end of the war, they numbered some 25,000.
Obregón remained in close contact with President Calles, whom he had installed as his successor, and was a frequent guest of Calles at Chapultepec Castle. This prompted fears that Obregón was intending to follow in the footsteps of Porfirio Díaz and that Calles was merely a puppet figure.
In October 1927, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Whitney Morrow, initiated a series of breakfast meetings with President Calles at which the two would discuss a range of issues, from the religious uprising to oil and irrigation. This earned him the nickname "the ham and eggs diplomat" in U.S. papers. Morrow wanted the conflict to end both for regional security and to help find a solution to the oil problem in the United States. He was aided in his efforts by Fr. John J. Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference.
Obregón won the 1928 Mexican presidential election, but months before assuming the presidency.Two weeks after his election, Obregón was assassinated by a Catholic radical, José de León Toral, an event that gravely damaged the peace process. To avoid a political vacuum after Obregon death, Calles named himself Jefe Máximo, the political chieftain of Mexico and Emilio Portes Gil was appointed temporary president, although in reality he was little more than a puppet of Calles. The following year, Calles founded the PNR, or Partido Nacional Revolucionario, the predecessor of today's Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
Morrow managed to bring the parties to agreement on June 21, 1929. His office drafted a pact called the arreglos (agreement) that allowed worship to resume in Mexico and granted three concessions to the Catholics: only priests who were named by hierarchical superiors would be required to register, religious instruction in the churches (but not in the schools) would be permitted, and all citizens, including the clergy, would be allowed to make petitions to reform the laws. But the most important part of the agreement was that the church would recover the right to use its properties, and priests recovered their rights to live on such property. Legally speaking, the church was not allowed to own real estate, and its former facilities remained federal property. However, the church effectively took control over the properties. It was a convenient arrangement for both parties, and the church ostensibly ended its support for the rebels. Calles, however, did not abide by the terms of the truce; he had approximately five hundred Cristero leaders and 5,000 other Cristeros shot, frequently in their homes in front of their wives and children. Particularly offensive to Catholics after the supposed truce was Calles's insistence on a complete state monopoly on education, suppressing all Catholic education and introducing "socialist" education in its place, saying: "We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth." The persecution continued as Calles maintained control under his Maximato and did not relent until 1940, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho, a practicing Catholic, took office
On June 27, 1929, the church bells rang in Mexico for the first time in almost three years. The war had claimed the lives of some 90,000 people: 56,882 on the federal side, 30,000 Cristeros, and numerous civilians and Cristeros who were killed in anticlerical raids after the war ended.
Regarding this period, recent President Vicente Fox stated, "After 1917, Mexico was led by anti-Catholic Freemasons who tried to evoke the anticlerical spirit of popular indigenous President Benito Juárez of the 1800s. But the military dictators of the 1920s were a lot more savage than Juárez."
The effects of the war on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 40 priests were killed. There were 4,500 priests serving the people before the rebellion, but by 1934 there were only 334 licensed by the government to serve 15 million people. The rest had been eliminated by emigration, expulsion and assassination. By 1935, 17 states had no priests at all. Nowadays The Catholic Church is the world's largest Christian church, and its largest religious grouping. The 2010 census reported that Mexico had some 101,456,786 Catholics among the population aged five and above, which equates to around 91% of the total population, making it the second largest Roman Catholic country in the world after Brazil. The country is divided into 18 Ecclesiastical provinces, containing a total of 90 dioceses.
Calles was denounced by Pope Pius XI in the encyclical Iniquis Afflictisque (On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico) as being "unjust", for a "hateful" attitude and for the "ferocity" of the war which he waged against the Church.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) (1929–2000)
In 1929, the National Mexican Party (PNM) was formed by the president, General Plutarco Elías Calles. The PNM convinced most of the remaining revolutionary generals to hand over their personal armies to the Mexican Army; the party's foundation is thus considered by some the end of the Revolution. Later renamed the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), the new party ruled Mexico for the rest of the 20th century.
President Lázaro Cárdenas came to power in 1934 and transformed Mexico. Cárdenas managed to unite the different forces in the PRI and set the rules that allowed his party to rule unchallenged for decades to come without internal fights.
On the evening of March 18, 1938, Cárdenas nationalized Mexico's petroleum reserves and expropriated the equipment of the foreign oil companies in Mexico. The announcement inspired a spontaneous six-hour parade in Mexico City; it was followed by a national fund-raising campaign to compensate the companies.
Cárdenas sought to actively help the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War, but those efforts were largely thwarted by the administration of US President FDR Roosevelt. After the war ended with the defeat of the loyalist Republicans, Cárdenas gave specific instructions to his ambassador and envoys in Europe to give safe haven and protection to all exiles, including Republican President Manuel Azaña, actively sought for deportation by the victorious Nationalists and by the Vichy French. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were successful in persuading the Lázaro Cárdenas government to give the Trotskys political asylum in Mexico, and Trotsky and Sedova arrived in Mexico in January 1937.
Russian exile Leon Trotsky was welcomed in 1937 into Mexico by Cárdenas, reportedly to counter accusations that Cárdenas was a Stalinist. Trotsky was earlier forced into exile outside the Soviet Union in February 1929 because of his criticism of Joseph Stalin's government. For eight years, Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, wandered among several countries under surveillance, and later under a death sentence due to Trotsky's persistent political activity against Stalin from exile.
From January 1937 to April 1939, the couple lived at Frida Kahlo's family home called “La Casa Azul” (The Blue House), which is located in the Coyoacán borough of Mexico City. However, by 1939, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky had a falling-out. Some stories state that it was over ideology and Diego’s criticism of Trotsky’s writing and others state that Trotsky had had an affair with Frida, or a combination of both. The Trotskys then moved to the house on Viena Street in the same borough in April 1939, not far from The Blue House.
While Mexico had an active Communist movement at that time, like elsewhere it was divided between those who supported Stalin and those who opposed Stalin. On 24 May 1940, a failed attempt on Trotsky's life was led by NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich and Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. Robert Sheldon Harte, a young assistant and bodyguard of Trotsky, was abducted and later murdered, but the other guards defeated the attackers. Pablo Neruda is also accused of conspiring in the plot, in helping David Alfaro Siqueiros to escape to Chile. However, Neruda denied this and claimed that he had issued the Chilean visa on the orders of Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho.
In 1955 Lázaro Cárdenas was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize, which was later renamed for Lenin as part of de-Stalinization.
Manuel Ávila Camacho served as the President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946.He was also responsible, on 18 January 1946, for renaming what had been the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM) to the name it carries today, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Ávila Camacho put an end to rational education. Conflicts with the United States, that existed in the decades before his presidential term, were resolved. Especially in the early years of World War II Mexican-US relations were excellent. Ávila was a professed Catholic, which was a change from his predecessors in the first half of the twentieth century who had been strongly anticlerical.
From 1946 to 1952 the President of Mexico was Miguel Alemán Valdés. As president, Alemán pursued industrial development, increasing the extension of the nation's rail network, improving highways, and constructing a number of major schools. Also his administration constructed a new campus for the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM).Rampant political corruption and crony capitalism would mark his administration, and this would shape the relationship of politics and big business in Mexico until the present day. His successful economic policy led to talks about the “Mexican miracle”, but only a small elite benefited from economic growth. His administration took an anti-communist stance and supported the United States during the Cold War.
Adolfo Tomás Ruiz Cortines was President of Mexico from 1952 to 1958, representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He was one of the oldest presidents of Mexico, perhaps best remembered for granting women the right to vote in presidential elections and stimulating the Mexican economy.
Adolfo López Mateos was a Mexican politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who served as President of Mexico from 1958 to 1964. As president, he nationalized electric companies, created the National Commission for Free Textbooks (1959) and promoted the creation of prominent museums such as the Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Declaring his political philosophy to be “left within the Constitution,” López Mateos was the first left-wing politician to hold the presidency since Lázaro Cárdenas.
The 1968 Summer Olympics held in Mexico City, Mexico, in October 1968 were the first Olympic Games to be staged in Latin America and the first to be staged in a Spanish-speaking country.
The Mexican government invested a massive $150 million in preparation for the 1968 Olympics to be hosted in Mexico City. That amount was equal to roughly $7.5 billion by today's terms. The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as The Night of Tlatelolco (from a book title by the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska), was a killing of an estimated 30 to 300 students and civilians by military and police on October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The events are considered part of the Mexican Dirty War, when the government used its forces to suppress political opposition. The massacre occurred 10 days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
1970 FIFA World Cup Held from 31 May to 21 June in Mexico, was the first World Cup tournament staged in North America. Both the Brazilian team that were crowned champions of the 1970 World Cup and the tournament itself have become regarded as among the very finest in the history of the FIFA World Cup.
Luis Echeverría served as President of Mexico from 1970 to 1976. As president he embarked on a far-reaching program of populist political and economic reform, nationalizing the mining and electrical industries, redistributing private land in the states of Sinaloa and Sonora to peasants, imposing limits on foreign investment, and extending Mexico's patrimonial waters to 370 kilometres (230 mi). Echeverría has been accused of irresponsible government spending, increasing inflation, and cronyism, which was symbolized by appointing his good friend and eventual successor José López Portillo as Finance Minister, as well as devaluations of the peso, from 12.50 MXP per dollar in 1954 to 20 per dollar in late 1976. During his period in office, the country's external debt soared from $6 billion in 1970 to $20 billion in 1976.
José Guillermo Abel López Portillo y Pacheco served as the 51st President of Mexico from 1976 to 1982. When López Portillo entered office, Mexico was in the midst of an economic crisis. López Portillo undertook an ambitious program to promote Mexico's economic development with revenues stemming from the discovery of new petroleum reserves in the states of Veracruz and Tabasco by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the country's publicly owned oil company. One of his last actions as president, announced during his annual State of the Nation address on September 1, 1982, was to order the nationalization of the country's banking system.During his presidential term his critics accused him of corruption and nepotism.
Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado served as the 52nd President of Mexico from 1982 to 1988.During his presidency, de la Madrid introduced neoliberal economic reforms that encouraged foreign investment, widespread privatisation of outdated state-run industries, and reduction of tariffs, a process that continued under his successors, and which immediately caught the attention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international observers. His administration's mishandling of the infamous 1985 earthquake in Mexico City damaged his popularity because of his initial refusal of international aid. It placed Mexico's delicate path to economic recovery in an even more precarious situation, as the destruction also extended to other parts of the country
The 1985 Mexico City earthquake was a magnitude 8.1 earthquake that struck some states of Mexico and Mexico City on the early morning of 19 September 1985 at around 7:19 am (CST), caused the deaths of at least 10,000 people and serious damage to the Greater Mexico City Area.
One of the famous images of the event was the live broadcast of Hoy Mismo, a news program in the Televisa television network, when the earthquake struck. In the video, movement can be seen, especially in the lights above the newscasters. The three newscasters were María Victoria Llamas (substituting for Guillermo Ochoa), Lourdes Guerrero and Juan Dosal. As the movement began Llamas reports grabbing the underside of the desk, and whispering quickly to Guzmán that she hoped no one could see how scared she was.The last image broadcast from that studio was that of Lourdes Guerrero stating "... it's still shaking a little (sigue temblando un poquitito), but we must take it calmly. We will wait just a second so we can keep talking." Then the image disappeared.
At the time of the earthquake, Mexico was in its fifth year of a foreign debt crisis, and a contracting economy causing serious political problems for the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Much of the PRI's authoritarian nature was tolerated because the country had seen four decades of economic expansion of six percent or better. When this disappeared, the PRI's power base began to shrink. Its reputation was damaged further when the government seemed to be deliberately downplaying the number of earthquake victims.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari served as President of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Carlos Salinas became presidential candidate in a difficult time for the PRI which for the first time was faced by significant opposition from the left (National Democratic Front) and from the right (National Action Party, PAN). The candidate of the PAN was Manuel Clouthier. The Ministry of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación), through its Federal Electoral Commission, was the institution in charge of the electoral process, and installed a modern computing system to count the votes. On July 6, 1988, the day of the elections, the system "crashed," and when it was finally restored, Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner. Even though the elections are extremely controversial, and some declare that Salinas won legally, the expression se cayó el sistema (the system crashed, lit. "the system fell down") became a colloquial euphemism for electoral fraud. During a television interview in September 2005, Miguel de la Madrid acknowledged that the PRI lost the 1988 elections.
Salinas conducted a constitutional reform; thereby he reformed the Clerical Laws which had forbidden religious ministers from voting, and established a new relationship between State and Church, which had been severely damaged during the Cristero War. The new laws also allowed churches to own their own buildings (which had been nationalized). Moreover the constitutional reform put an end to land redistribution. At the end of Salinas’ presidential term, several politically motivated assassinations occurred. The victims were: Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, PRI Presidential Candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu.
The anticlerical articles were substantially reformed in 1992, removing much of the anticlerical matter by granting all religious groups legal status, conceding them limited property rights, and lifting restrictions on the number of priests in the country. Article 27 was also greatly amended by ending land redistribution, permitting peasants to rent or sell ejido or communal land, and permitting both foreigners and corporations to buy land in Mexico. Still, however, the constitution still does not accord full religious freedom as recognized by the various human rights declarations and conventions; specifically, outdoor worship is still prohibited and only allowed in exceptional circumstances generally requiring governmental permission, religious organizations are not permitted to own print or electronic media outlets, governmental permission is required to broadcast religious ceremonies, and ministers are prohibited from being political candidates or holding public office:
Salinas negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the United States and Canada. Critics say that NAFTA has had mixed results for Mexico: while there has been huge increase in commerce and foreign investment, this hasn't been at all the case for employment and salaries, resulting thus in worse distribution of wealth. Salinas also renegotiated Mexico’s foreign debt. Mexico also reestablished diplomatic relations with the Vatican. Moreover Mexico became member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The First Ibero-American Summit was held and the Chapultepec Peace Accords, a peace agreement for El Salvador, were signed.
The economic bubble gave Mexico a prosperity not seen in a generation. This period of rapid growth coupled with low inflation prompted some political thinkers and the media to state that Mexico was on the verge of becoming a "First World nation." In fact, it was the first of the "newly industrialized nations" to be admitted into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in May 1994. It was known that the peso was overvalued, but the extent of the Mexican economy's vulnerability was either not well known or downplayed by both the Salinas de Gortari administration and the media. This vulnerability was further aggravated by several unexpected events and macroeconomic mistakes made in the last year of his administration.
In keeping with the PRI election-year tradition, Salinas launched a spending spree to finance popular projects, which translated into a historically high deficit. This budget deficit was coupled with a current account deficit, fueled by excessive consumer spending as allowed by the overvalued peso. In order to finance this deficit, the Salinas administration issued tesobonos, an attractive debt instrument that insured payment in dollars instead of pesos.
International perceptions of Mexico's political risk began to shift however, when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation declared war on the Mexican government and began a violent insurrection in Chiapas. Investors further questioned Mexico's political uncertainties and stability when PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated while campaigning in Tijuana in March 1994, and began setting higher risk premia on Mexican financial assets. The higher risk premia initially had no effect on the peso's value due to Mexico's fixed exchange rate regime. Mexico's central bank deviated from standard central banking policy when supporting a fixed exchange rate. Normally, a country's central bank would allow its monetary base to decrease and its interest rates to rise. Rather, Mexico purchased treasury bills to support its monetary base in an effort to prevent rising interest rates, motivated by the political pressures of an election year.Consistent with the macroeconomic trilemma in which a country with a fixed exchange rate and free flow of financial capital sacrifices its monetary policy autonomy, the central bank's interventions to raise the value of the peso by purchasing pesos with dollars against increasing downward market pressure caused Mexico's money supply to contract (whereas without an exchange rate peg, the currency would have instead been allowed to depreciate). The central bank's foreign exchange reserves began depleting as a result of its continuous purchases of pesos until it ran out of U.S. dollars completely in December 1994.
On December 20, 1994, newly inaugurated President Ernesto Zedillo announced the Mexican central bank's devaluation of the peso between 13 and 15 percent.
The United States intervened rapidly to stem the economic crisis, first by buying pesos in the open market, and then by granting assistance in the form of $50 billion in loan guarantees. The peso stabilized at 6 pesos per dollar. By 1996, the economy was growing, and in 1997, Mexico repaid, ahead of schedule, all U.S. Treasury loans.
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a revolutionary leftist political and militant group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. The ideology of the Zapatista movement, Zapatismo, synthesizes traditional Mayan practices with elements of libertarian socialism, anarchism, and Marxism. The historical influence of Mexican Anarchists and various Latin American socialists is apparent in Zapatismo, with the positions of Subcomandante Marcos also adding a distinct Marxist element to the movement. A Zapatista slogan is in harmony with the concept of mutual aid: "For everyone, everything. For us, nothing" (Para todos todo, para nosotros nada).
Emphasizing the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize the tax system and labor laws, integrate with the U.S. economy, and allow private investment in the energy sector, Vicente Fox Quesada, the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), was elected the 69th president of Mexico on 2 July 2000, ending PRI's 71-year-long control of the office. Though Fox's victory was due in part to popular discontent with decades of unchallenged PRI hegemony, also, Fox's opponent, president Zedillo, conceded defeat on the night of the election—a first in Mexican history
During his campaign for president, Vicente Fox became well known for his unique cowboy style and popular charisma. As speaker, Fox usually gathered big crowds in early years of his presidency. At six foot five, President Fox easily stood out in most crowds, and is believed to be one of the tallest presidents in Mexican history. After his inauguration, President Fox usually only wore suits for formal occasions, opting to wear his signature boots and jeans throughout his many visits around Mexico.
President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (PAN) took office after one of the most hotly contested elections in recent Mexican history; Calderón won by such a small margin (.56% or 233,831 votes.) that the runner-up, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) contested the results.
Despite imposing a cap on salaries of high-ranking public servants, Calderón ordered a raise on the salaries of the Federal Police and the Mexican armed forces on his first day as president.
Calderón's government also ordered massive raids on drug cartels upon assuming office in December 2006 in response to an increasingly deadly spate of violence in his home state of Michoacán. The decision to intensify drug enforcement operations has led to an ongoing conflict between the federal government and the Mexican drug cartels.
On July 1, 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto was elected president of Mexico with 38% of the vote. He is a former governor of the state of Mexico and a member of the PRI. His election returned the PRI to power after 12 years of PAN rule. He was officially sworn into office on December 1, 2012.
Some famous Mexicans
Diego Rivera (1886-1957): His mother was a Converso, whose ancestors were forced to convert from Judaism to Catholicism. Speaking about himself, Rivera wrote in 1935: "My Jewishness is the dominant element in my life". But he was an atheist all his life. Maria Vorobieff-Stebelska gave birth to a daughter named Marika in 1918 or 1919 when Rivera was married to Angelina. As an adult, he married Angelina Beloff in 1911, and she gave birth to a son, Diego (1916–1918). In 1922 he joined the Mexican Communist Party. His murals, subsequently painted in fresco only, dealt with Mexican society and reflected the country's 1910 Revolution. Rivera developed his own native style based on large, simplified figures and bold colors with an Aztec influence clearly present in murals.He married his second wife, Guadalupe Marín, in June 1922, with whom he had two daughters: Ruth and Guadalupe. He was still married when he met art student Frida Kahlo. Leon Trotsky lived with Rivera and Kahlo for several months while exiled in Mexico. Frida and Rivera married on August 21, 1929 when he was 42 and she was 22. Their mutual infidelities and his violent temper led to divorce in 1939, but they remarried December 8, 1940 in San Francisco. Rivera later married Emma Hurtado, his agent since 1946, on July 29, 1955, one year after Kahlo's death. Between 1932 and 1933, he completed a famous series of twenty-seven fresco panels entitled Detroit Industry on the walls of an inner court at the Detroit Institute of Arts. During the McCarthyism of the 1950s, a large sign was placed in the courtyard defending the artistic merit of the murals while attacking his politics as "detestable". His mural "Man at the Crossroads", begun in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, was removed after a furor erupted in the press over a portrait of Vladimir Lenin it contained. When Diego refused to remove Lenin from the painting, Diego was ordered to leave. One of Diego's assistants managed to take a few pictures of the work so Diego was able to later recreate it. In December 1933, Rivera returned to Mexico, and he repainted Man at the Crossroads in 1934 in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. This surviving version was called Man, Controller of the Universe. On June 5, 1940, invited again by Pflueger, Rivera returned for the last time to the United States to paint a ten-panel mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. Pan American Unity was completed November 29, 1940.
Agustín Lara (1897 - 1970): He was a Mexican singer, actor and songwriter. Lara’s first musical composition was Marucha, written in honor of one of his first loves. In 1927 he already was working in cabarets. He subsequently moved to Puebla, but returned to Mexico City in 1928. Lara’s first tour, to Cuba in 1933, was a failure because of political turmoil on the island. Later, more successful tours in South America, as well as such new compositions as Solamente Una Vez (composed in Buenos Aires and dedicated to José Mojica), Veracruz, Tropicana, and Pecadora increased his fame. By the beginning of the 1940s, Lara was well known in Spain. In 1965, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, gave him a house in Granada to show his appreciation of Lara’s songs with Spanish themes, such as Toledo, Cuerdas de mi Guitarra, Granada, Seville and Madrid. He received additional honors and decorations from around the world. By the time of his death, Lara had written more than 700 songs.
Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón (1907-1954): She was a Mexican painter who is best known for her self-portraits. Kahlo's father, Guillermo Kahlo was born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo in 1871, in Pforzheim, Germany. Kahlo's mother, Matilde Calderón y González, was a devout Roman Catholic of mixed Amerindian and Spanish ancestry. Kahlo contracted polio at age six, which left her right leg thinner than the left; she disguised this later in life by wearing long, colorful skirts. On September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus that collided with a trolley car. She suffered serious injuries as a result of the accident, including a broken spinal column. The accident left her in a great deal of pain, and she spent three months recovering in a full body cast. Although she recovered from her injuries and eventually regained her ability to walk, she had relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life. The pain was intense and often left her confined to a hospital or bedridden for months at a time. She had as many as 35 operations as a result of the accident, mainly on her back, her right leg, and her right foot. Kahlo created at least 140 paintings, along with dozens of drawings and studies. Of her paintings, 55 are self-portraits which often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. She insisted, "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."
Diego Rivera had a great influence on Frida's painting style. Frida had always admired Diego and his work. She first approached Diego in the Public Ministry of Education, where he had been working on a mural in 1927. Active communists, Kahlo and and her husband Rivera befriended Leon Trotsky during the late 1930s, after he fled Norway to Mexico to receive political asylum from the Soviet Union, where he was expelled and sentenced to death during Joseph Stalin's leadership. During 1937, Trotsky lived initially with Rivera and then at Kahlo's home (where he and Kahlo had an affair). Trotsky and his wife then relocated to another house in Coyoacán where, in 1940, he was assassinated. Both Kahlo and Rivera broke with Trotskyism and openly became supporters of Stalin in 1939. Aside from the 1939 acquisition by the Louvre, Kahlo's work was not widely acclaimed until decades after her death. Often she was remembered only as Diego Rivera's wife. It was not until the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s, when the artistic style in Mexico known as Neomexicanismo began, that she became well-known to the public.
Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes (1911-1993), Cantinflas. He was a Mexican comic film actor, producer, and screenwriter. Before starting his professional life in entertainment, he explored a number of possible careers, such as medicine and professional boxing, before joining the entertainment world as a dancer. By 1930 he was involved in Mexico City's carpa (travelling tent) circuit, performing in succession with the Ofelia, Sotelo of Azcapotzalco, and finally the Valentina carpa, where he met his future wife. He married Valentina Ivanova Zubareff , of Russian ethnicity, on October 27, 1936, and remained with her until her death in January 1966. A son was born to Moreno in 1961 by another woman; the child was adopted by Valentina Ivanova and was named Mario Arturo Moreno Ivanova, causing some references to erroneously refer to him as "Cantinflas' adopted son". Among the things that endeared him to his public was his comic use of language in his films; his characters (all of which were really variations of the main "Cantinflas" persona but cast in different social roles and circumstances) would strike up a normal conversation and then complicate it to the point where no one understood what they were talking about. The Cantinflas character was particularly adept at obfuscating the conversation when he owed somebody money, was courting an attractive young woman, or was trying to talk his way out of trouble with authorities, whom he managed to humiliate without their even being able to tell. This manner of talking became known as Cantinflada, and it became common parlance for Spanish speakers to say "¡estás cantinfleando!" (loosely translated as you're pulling a "Cantinflas!" or you're "Cantinflassing!") whenever someone became hard to understand in conversation. The Real Academia Española officially included the verb, cantinflear, cantinflas and cantinflada in its dictionary in 1992.His contributions to the Roman Catholic Church and orphanages made him a folk hero in Mexico.
Octavio Paz (1914-1998): Mexican poet-diplomat and writer. Paz was introduced to literature early in his life through the influence of his grandfather's library, filled with classic Mexican and European literature. During the 1920s, he discovered the European poets Gerardo Diego, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Antonio Machado, Spanish writers who had a great influence on his early writings. In 1937, Paz abandoned his law studies and left for Yucatán to work at a school in Mérida for sons of peasants and workers. There, he began working on the first of his long, ambitious poems, "Entre la piedra y la flor" ("Between the Stone and the Flower") (1941, revised in 1976), influenced by T. S. Eliot, which describes the situation of the Mexican peasant under the greedy landlords of the day. In 1937, Paz was invited to the Second International Writers Congress in Defense of Culture in Spain during the country's civil war, showing his solidarity with the Republican side, but after learning of the murder of one of his friends by the Republicans themselves he became gradually disillusioned His early poetry was influenced by Marxism, surrealism, and existentialism, as well as religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. His poem, "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone"), written in 1957, was praised as a "magnificent" example of surrealist poetry in the presentation speech of his Nobel Prize. His later poetry dealt with love and eroticism, the nature of time, and Buddhism. In 1990, he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In his magazines Plural and Vuelta, he exposed the violations of human rights in the communist regimes, including Castro's Cuba. This brought him much animosity from sectors of the Latin American left. In the prologue to Volume IX of his complete works, Paz stated that from the time when he abandoned communist dogma, the mistrust of many in the Mexican intelligentsia started to transform into an intense and open enmity. Nonetheless, Paz always considered himself a man of the left; the democratic, "liberal" left, not the dogmatic and illiberal one. Paz has been critical of most aspects of the Zapatista uprising. He spoke broadly in favor of a "military solution" to the uprising of January 1994, and hoped that the "army would soon restore order in the region".
Anthony Quinn (1915-2001): He was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including La Strada, The Guns of Navarone, Lawrence of Arabia, Zorba the Greek, Guns for San Sebastian, The Message and Lion of the Desert. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice: for Viva Zapata! in 1952 and Lust for Life in 1956. His father, Francisco (Frank) Quinn, was also born in Mexico, to an Irish immigrant father from County Cork and a Mexican mother. Frank Quinn rode with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, then later moved to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of City Terrace and became an assistant cameraman at a movie studio.Quinn grew up first in El Paso, Texas, and later the Boyle Heights and the Echo Park areas of Los Angeles, California.
Roberto Gómez Bolaños (1929 - 2014) more commonly known by his pseudonym Chespirito, was a Mexican screenwriter, actor, comedian, film director, television director, playwright, songwriter, and author internationally known for writing, directing, and starring in the Chespirito, El Chapulín Colorado, and El Chavo del Ocho television series.
Carlos Slim Helú (born January 28, 1940) is a Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Slim was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1940 to Maronite Catholic parents. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world,. The position was regained by Bill Gates in 2014 before Slim reclaimed the position again on July 15, 2014. Known as the "Warren Buffett of Mexico", Slim has extensive holdings in a considerable number of Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso, SA de CV, have amassed interests in the fields of communications, real estate, airlines, media, technology, retailing, and finance. Presently, Slim is the chairman and chief executive of telecommunications companies Telmex and América Móvil.
Carlos Santana (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican and American musician who first became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock and Latin American music. He learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana, the city on Mexico's border with California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but later joined his family in San Francisco.
Fher Olvera (born 1959): He is the secondary guitarist, composer, and lead singer for the Mexican rock band Maná. Maná has earned four Grammy Awards, seven Latin Grammy Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards Latin America, six Premios Juventud awards, fourteen Billboard Latin Music Awards and fifteen Premios Lo Nuestro awards. The band established what would become the template for many other popular Spanish-speaking rock music groups.
Salma Hayek (born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American film actress, director and producer of Lebanese origin. She began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela Teresa and went on to star in the film El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley) for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. In 1991 Hayek moved to Hollywood and came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as Desperado (1995), Dogma (1999), and Wild Wild West (1999).
Ariadna Thalia Sodi Miranda (born August 26, 1971), known mononymously as Thalía, is a Mexican singer, songwriter, published author, actress and entrepreneur, who has sung in various languages including Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and Filipino. She is recognized as the most successful female solo Mexican singer by Latin media conglomerates such as Univision, Televisa, and Azteca, while she is often referred to as the "Queen of Latin Pop" by the media internationally, mainly because of her legacy within the Latin pop music scene of the last 25 years. As a solo artist, she has sold over 40 million records worldwide, being considered one of the best-selling Latin musicians of all time. Apart from her success as a recording artist, Thalía has also had a successful career in acting, as she starred in a variety of soap operas (known as telenovelas) that have aired in over 180 countries. During the decade of the 1990s, she was converted into a television icon and was publicly referred to as the "Queen of telenovelas" by the mass media around the world.
The federal government of Mexico is the national government of the United Mexican States, the central government established by its constitution to share sovereignty over the republic with the governments of the 31 individual Mexican states and one Federal District,
Red, white, and green are the colors of the national liberation army in Mexico. The central emblem is the Mexican coat of arms, based on the Aztec symbol for Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), the center of the Aztec empire. It recalls the legend of an eagle sitting on a cactus while devouring a serpent that signaled to the Aztecs where to found their city, Tenochtitlan. While the meaning of the colors has changed over time, these three colors were adopted by Mexico following independence from Spain during the country's War of Independence, and subsequent First Mexican Empire. The form of the coat of arms was most recently revised in 1968, but the overall design has been used since 1821, when the First National Flag was created.
1) Prehistory and pre-Columbian civilizations & The Spanish conquest
In pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before first contact with Europeans.
As this is an extensive section there is a separate post, so please go to the the following link
"History of Mesoamericas cultures (Aztecs, Mayas, etc...)" at
http://themesoamericancivilization.blogspot.com
2) New Spain
With Tenochtitlan in ruins, the victorious Cortés first settled himself in Coyoacán on the lake shore at the southern edge of Lake Texcoco. He created the ayuntamiento or town council of the Spanish capital there, so that he could choose where the city would finally be. No one but Cortés wanted to rebuild the Aztec site. Most of the other conquistadors wanted the new city to be closer to the mountains, pastures and groves they would need for supplies, for example in Tacuba or in Coyoacán. Some accounts state that the Aztec islet was chosen because its location was strategic, allowing for rapid communication by boat to communities on the shorelines. However, the decision was Cortés’s alone. The Spanish found Tenochtitlan hard to say and eventually adopted the city's secondary name "Mixico". This name comes from Mexitli, an alternative name for the god Huitzilopochtli; "co" was a suffix meaning place, so Mixico means place of Huitzilopochtli. The pronunciation of this term was modified over time to its current form, Mexico city.
The viceroyalty of New Spain was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521. New Spain was the name that the Spanish gave to the area that today is central and southern Mexico, and the capital city of the Viceroyalty was Mexico City. In 1535, King Charles V named Don Antonio de Mendoza as the first Viceroy of New Spain. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 opened up the vast territories of South America to further conquests, the Crown established an independent Viceroyalty of Peru there in 1540. The Viceroyalty of New Spain's territory included what is the Bay Islands (until 1643), Cayman Islands (until 1670), Central America (as far as the southern border of Costa Rica until 1821), Cuba, Florida, Hispaniola (including Haiti until 1697), Jamaica (until 1655) Mariana Islands, Mexico, Philippines, Puerto Rico, nearly all of the southwest United States (including all or parts of the modern-day U.S. states of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida).
European settlement and institutional life was built on the Mesoamerican heartland of the Aztec Empire in Central Mexico. The South (Oaxaca, Michoacan, Yucatán, and Central America) was also in the region of dense indigenous settlement of Mesoamerica, but in the absence of exploitable resources of interest to Europeans, the South attracted few Europeans, while the indigenous presence remained strong. The North was outside region of complex indigenous populations, but with the discovery of silver in the region of nomadic and hostile northern indigenous groups, the Spanish sought to conquer or pacify those peoples in order to exploit the mines and develop enterprises to supply them. Since much of northern New Spain attracted few Europeans and had a sparse indigenous population, the Spanish crown and later the Republic of Mexico did not effectively exert sovereignty of the region, leaving it vulnerable to the expansionism of the United States in the nineteenth century.
In Mexico city the conquistadors decided to build their church on the site of the Templo Mayor of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan to consolidate Spanish power over the newly conquered domain. Hernán Cortés and the other conquistadors used the stones from the destroyed temple of the Aztec god of war Huitzilopochtli, principal deity of the Aztecs, to build the church. The central roof was ridged with intricate carvings done by Juan Salcedo Espinosa and gilded by Francisco de Zumaya and Andrés de la Concha. The main door was probably of Renaissance style. The choir area had 48 seats made of ayacahuite wood crafted by Adrian Suster and Juan Montaño. However, this church was soon considered inadequate for the growing importance of the capital of New Spain. In 1544, ecclesiastical authorities in Valladolid ordered the creation of new and more sumptuous cathedral. In 1552, an agreement was reached whereby the cost of the new cathedral would be shared by the Spanish crown, encomenderos and the Indians under the direct authority of the archbishop of New Spain. The cathedral was begun by being built around the existing church in 1573. When enough of the cathedral was built to house basic functions, the original church was demolished to enable construction to continue.
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| Fundación de México – Tenochtitlán by Roberto Cueva del Río (1986) |
Unlike Brazil or Peru, Mexico had easy contact with both the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. In 1571, the city of Manila became the capital of the Spanish East Indies, with trade soon beginning via the Manila-Acapulco Galleons. The Manila-Acapulco trade route shipped products such as silk, spices, silver, porcelain and gold to the Americas from Asia. Products brought from East Asia were sent to Acapulco then overland to Veracruz México, and then shipped to Spain aboard the West Indies Fleets. Later they were traded across Europe. Some isolated attacks on these shipments took place in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea by British and Dutch pirates and privateers. One such act of piracy was led by Francis Drake in 1586, and another by Thomas Cavendish in 1587. In one episode, the cities of Huatulco (Oaxaca) and Barra de Navidad in Jalisco Province of México were sacked. However, these maritime routes, both across the Pacific and the Atlantic were successful in the defensive and logistical role they played in the history of the Spanish Empire. For over three centuries the Spanish Navy escorted the galleon convoys which sailed around the world.
During the three centuries of colonial rule, less than 700,000 Spaniards, most of them men, settled in Mexico. The settlers intermarried with indigenous women, fathering the mixed race (mestizo) descendents who today constitute the majority of Mexico's population.
As time went on, a caste system developed where society was divided based on race, wealth, and where one was born. The main divisions were as follows:
Peninsular – a European born in Spain;
Criollo (fem. criolla) – a White person with Spanish or European descent born in the Americas;
Mestizo (fem. mestiza) – a person of mixed White European and Amerindian ancestry;
Pardo (fem. parda) – a person of mixed white European, Native American Indian and African Black ancestry;
Indio (fem. India) – a person who is a pure native of, or indigenous to, the Americas;
Mulato (fem. mulata) – a person of mixed White European and Black African ancestry;
Zambo – a person of mixed Black African and Native American Indian Ancestry;
Negro (fem. negra) – a person of African descent. Persons of mixed race were collectively referred to as castas.
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| Casta system in the Spanish Empire |
In theory, criollo status could also be attained by people of mixed origin who consistently had intermarried with the white race. Such cases might include the offspring of a castizo (3/4 Spanish and 1/4 Indian) parent and one Peninsular or criollo parent. This one-eighth rule, also in theory, did not apply to African admixture.
A person's legal racial classification in colonial Spanish America was closely tied to social status, wealth, culture and language use. Wealthy people paid to change or obscure their actual ancestry. Many indigenous people left their traditional villages and sought to be counted as mestizos to avoid tribute payments to the Spanish. Many indigenous people, and sometimes those with partial African descent, were classified as mestizo if they spoke Spanish and lived as mestizos.
The population of New Spain was divided into four main groups, or classes. The group a person belonged to was determined by two things: racial background and place of birth. The most powerful group was the Spaniards or 'Peninsulares', people born in Spain and sent across the Atlantic to rule the colony. Only Spaniards could hold high-level jobs (as the viceroy) in the colonial government . Members of the second group, called creoles, were people of Spanish background who had been born in Mexico rather than Spain. Many creoles were prosperous landowners and merchants. The third group, the mestizos, had a much lower position in colonial society. The word mestizo means "mixed." A person was a mestizo if some of his ancestors were Spanish and some were Indians. The mestizos were looked down upon by both the Spaniards and the creoles, who held the racist belief that people of pure European background were superior to everyone else.
Indigenous groups were protected from the Inquisition (the Roman Catholic court designed to combat heresy), paid head taxes, and could not own property as individuals but were the primary beneficiaries of social services in health and education. Mestizos were under the same obligations as whites but were not considered for most of the jobs in the Spanish administration. These jobs were held only by peninsulares. Poor whites and mestizos often competed with native people for the same jobs. The only unifying force in a society that was divided by race and privilege was the Roman Catholic Church. The clergy provided education and social services to the rich and the destitute alike, and clergy also functioned as a buffer in social conflicts.
A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found that the majority of the current Mexican population (~93%) is mixed race to some degree, the study found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of the average Mexican-Mestizo was predominately European (64.9%), followed by Native American (30.8%), and African (4.2%). The European ancestry was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7 - 95%) and Native American ancestry increased in the centre and south-east (37 - 50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0 - 8.8%)
The concept of nobility in Mexico was not political but rather a very conservative Spanish social one, based on proving the worthiness of the family, not the individual. For an individual to receive a noble title, he would have to prove his family's bloodline as well as their loyalty to God and king for a number of generations prior. Such a quest was costly but once a title was secured the costs did not stop there. Nobles in New Spain had to continually reinforce their devotion to both God and king. To show their piety, most nobles donated temporal goods to the Roman Catholic Church, by building churches, funding missionary activities and charities. Sometimes nobles would also hold religious office or give one or more children (usually daughters) to a religious vocation but this was relatively rare. Demonstrating loyalty to king meant paying taxes to maintain their titles, sometimes purchasing military rank as well.
The most important royal official was the viceroy, who had a host of responsibilities ranging from general administration (particularly tax collection and construction of public works) and internal and external defense to support of the church and protection of the native population.
Education was encouraged by the Crown from the very beginning, and Mexico boasts the first primary school (Texcoco, 1523), first university, the University of Mexico(1551) and the first printing press (1524) of the Americas. Indigenous languages were studied mainly by the religious orders during the first centuries, and became official languages in the so-called Republic of Indians, only to be outlawed and ignored after independence by the prevailing Spanish-speaking creoles.
Mexico produced important cultural achievements during the colonial period, like the literature of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Ruiz de Alarcón, as well as cathedrals, civil monuments, forts and colonial cities such as Puebla, Mexico City, Querétaro, Zacatecas and others, today part of Unesco's World Heritage.
The syncretism between indigenous and Spanish cultures gave way in New Spain to many of nowadays Mexican staple and world-famous cultural traits like tequila (first distilled in the 16th century), mariachi (18th), jarabe (17th), charros - a traditional horseman from Mexico - (17th) and the highly prized Mexican cuisine, fruit of the mixture of European and indigenous ingredients and techniques. Many of these things which are typically associated with Mexico have their origins in Jalisco. These include mariachis, rodeos called charreadas and jaripeos, dresses with wide skirts decorated with ribbons, the Mexican Hat Dance, tequila, and the wide brimmed sombrero hat.
Founded in 1531 as a Spanish settlement, Puebla de los Angeles quickly rose to the status of Mexico’s second-most important city. Its location on the main route between the viceregal capital and the port of Veracruz, in a fertile basin with a dense indigenous population, largely not held in encomienda, made Puebla a destination for many later arriving Spaniards. If there had been significant mineral wealth in Puebla, it could have been even more prominent a center for New Spain, but its first century established its importance. It became the seat of the richest diocese in New Spain in its first century, with the seat of the first diocese, formerly in Tlaxcala, moved there in 1543. Bishop Juan de Palafox asserted the income from the diocese of Puebla as being twice that of the archbishopic of Mexico, due to the tithe income derived from agriculture. In its first hundred years, Puebla was prosperous from wheat farming and other agriculture, as the ample tithe income indicates, plus manufacturing woolen cloth for the domestic market. Merchants, manufacturers, and artisans were important to the city’s economic fortunes, but its early prosperity was followed by stagnation and decline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Puebla built a significant manufacturing sector, mainly in textile production in workshops (obrajes), supplying New Spain and markets as far away as Guatemala and Peru.
Unlike the Portuguese Crown's support for the slave trade, los Reyes Católicos opposed the introduction of slavery to Castile and Aragon on religious grounds. When Columbus returned with slaves, they ordered many of the survivors to be returned to their Caribbean homelands. However in keeping with the legal and moral doctrine of the time it was believed that slavery could be justified if it was the result of Just War, and at the time it was assumed that the enslavement of Africans could be justified if they were prisioner of wars. In 1521 the African population in New Spain did not exceed the dozen and by 1570 there were about 20 000; in 1646 amounted to more than 35,000, but the population declined and by 1810 were about 10 000 individuals distributed mainly in coastal and tropical areas. They were intended for crops such as sugar cane. Labor for the mines in the north of Mexico were worked by black slave labor.
The black Africans were subject of independent African kings. Europeans visited Africa as traders, not as sovereign Kings and they saw that it was not their responsibility if the Africans governors took prisoners after a war and enslaved them. What was only required, hypocritically from the Spanish monarchy, was that slaves came only from "just wars" between African kingdoms, not that they were just captured and traded as slaves. Obviously at the African ports none was very interested in finding out what was the reason for which those people had become slaves. Under this rationale argument black slavery remained acceptable until the s. XVIII not only in Spain, but in any other country of the Old World. The Spaniards chiefly purchased the slaves from the Portuguese and British traders in Africa. They did not engage directly in the trade and overall imported fewer slaves to the New World than did the Portuguese, British or French.
The encomienda system of forced or tenured labour, begun in 1503, sometimes amounted to slavery, though it was not full chattel slavery. The " encomienda" led to abuses and even in some cases to disguised slavery. These behaviors were reported by real Spanish humanists as Fray Montesinos and Fray Bartolome de las Casas.
King Ferdinand was outraged by the abuses against the Indians; he pleaded ignorance, and to help remedy the situation commissioned a group of theologians and academics to come up with solution. The Friars formed a nucleus that pressured Spain to defend the aboriginal American Indians from becoming serfs or slaves of the new colonists. The Leyes de Burgos ("Laws of Burgos"), promulgated on 27 December 1512 in Burgos, Kingdom of Castile (Spain), was the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spaniards in the Americas, particularly with regards to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas ('native Caribbean Indians'). They forbade the maltreatment of the indigenous people and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism. The document also prohibited the use of any form of punishment by the encomenderos, reserving it for officials established in each town for the implementation of the laws. It also ordered that the Indians be catechized. The 'encomienda' in the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Philippines was established as a right granted by the King in favor of a Spanish national. The Spanish right holder (encomenderos) receives "la encomienda" in order to perceive what the indigenous should give to the crown (for instance: labor work). In return, the encomenderos had to look after the welfare of the Indians in spiritual and earthly terms, ensuring its life protection as well as their Christian indoctrination (evangelization). Alto there was an obligation for the trustees of fair treatment: The indians should have a work and fair retribution. However, there were abuses by the trustees and the system often resulted in forms of forced labor.
In 1515 more than half of Spaniards were not in charge of any Indian but 11% of all Spaniards received 44% of the total of the indians.
The first royal judicial body established in New Spain in 1527 was the audiencia of Mexico City. The audiencia consisted of four judges, who also held executive and legislative powers. The crown, however, was aware of the need to create a post that would carry the weight of royal authority beyond local allegiances. In 1535 control of the bureaucracy was handed over to Antonio de Mendoza, who was named the first viceroy of New Spain (1535-50). His duties were extensive but excluded judicial matters entrusted to the audiencia .
Viceregal power was characterized by a certain amount of independence from royal control, mainly because of distance and difficult communications with the mother country. Viceroys were notorious for applying orders with discretion, using the maxim "I obey but do not comply." In addition, viceroys and audiencias were in conflict most of the time, with the latter not responsible to the viceroy but reporting directly to the crown.
From 1530 the early administrative functions of the encomenderos over the indigenous population (protection and Christianization) were taken over by new state-appointed officials called corregidores de indios (governors of Indians). In the Americas a corregidor was often called an alcalde mayor. They were charged at the provincial level with the administration of justice, control of commercial relations between native Americans and Spaniards, and the collection of the tribute tax.
In the years following the conquest of Central Mexico by Hernán Cortés, New Spain had been governed by a military government, generally with the objectives of maximizing personal economic gains by the Spanish conquistadors. Hoping to establish a more orderly government, to reduce the authority of Cortés, and secure the authority of the Spanish crown in the New World, on December 13, 1527 the metropolitan government of Charles V in Burgos named the Real Audiencia de México to take over the government of the colony. This Audiencia consisted of a president and four oidores (judges). Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán was named president, formerly he was the governor of Pánuco. Guzmán's rule as a governor of Pánuco was stern against Spanish rivals and brutal against the Indians. He stroke down harshly against Cortés's supporters in Pánuco, accusing some of them of disloyalty to the Crown by backing Cortés's claim to the title of viceroy. Some were stripped of their property; others were tried and executed.
The instructions given to the Audiencia included a recommendation for good treatment of the indigenous people and a directive that the investigation into the conduct of Cortés and his associates. Most of these associates had participated in the government in the proceeding few years while Cortés was in Honduras, with a lot of in-fighting among themselves and injustices to the population, both Spanish and Indigenous. Cortés himself was now in Spain, where he was defending his conduct and appealing his loss of authority to Charles. Cortés had some success with his appeal, being named Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca and receiving some other honors.
Nevertheless, Guzmán was now in charge in New Spain. Among his official acts was placing plaques bearing the royal coat of arms on the principal buildings of the capital, to stress that sovereignty resided in the king, not in Cortés. He had Pedro de Alvarado arrested for questioning the loyalty of Gonzalo de Salazar. There was already some animosity between Cortés and Guzmán, because the former had been reluctant to recognize the latter as governor of Pánuco. The later events made the two enemies. In 1530, upon Hernán Cortés' return to New Spain, Nuño de Guzmán decided to abandon his position as President of the Real Audiencia and organized a military expedition to the northwest of Mexico, this first expedition was intended to confirm the rumors of the existence of a territory further north, and if so, found settlements.
This campaign was composed of 500 Spaniards, 10,000 auxiliary natives from the Valley of Mexico and later, 10,000 from Michoacán, an 8 expedition that resulted in great damage to the natives of the the Chichimec land and the current states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Aguascalientes and part of Sinaloa, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Durango, and that is still remembered as one of the most brutal episodes of the conquest of Mexico.
Over a six-year period Guzmán, who was brutal even by the standards of the day, killed, tortured, and enslaved thousands of Indians. Typically, he attacked an Indian village, stole the maize and other food, razed and burned the dwellings, and tortured the native leaders to gather information on what riches could be stolen there, or from nearby populations. For the most part, these riches did not exist.
His violent expeditions into Chichimec lands were a main cause of the Mixtón rebellion that took place some time later. The campaign started with the torture and execution of the Purépecha cazonci Tangáxuan II, a powerful indigenous ally of the Spanish Crown. Tangáxuan gave Guzmán presents of gold and silver and supplied him with soldiers and provisions. Nevertheless, Guzmán had him arrested and tortured, to get him to reveal the location of hidden stores of gold. Presumably there was no more gold, because Tangáxuan did not reveal it under torture. Guzmán had him dragged by a horse and then burned alive.
In 1531 (probably January), one of Guzmán's captains, Cristóbal de Oñate, founded a small town near Nochistlán to which the name "Guadalajara" was given.
Reports of Guzmán's treatment of the Indigenous had reached Mexico City and Spain, and, at Bishop Juan de Zumárraga's request the Crown sent Diego Pérez de la Torre to investigate. Guzmán was arrested in 1536. He was held a prisoner for more than a year and then sent to Spain in fetters. He was released from the Castle of Torrejón prison in 1538. In 1539 he returned to his position as royal contino bodyguard - court records show him on the payroll every year from 1539 to 1561 (in 1561 as "deceased"). In posteriority and partly in his own time Nuño de Guzmán achieved a reputation as the worst villain of the conquistadors. His contemporary Bernal Díaz del Castillo, one of Cortés' loyal supporters, described him in the following terms: "... In all the provinces of New Spain there was not an other man more foul and evil than [Guzmán] of Pánuco". His biographer Santana describes his personality as characterized by "cruelty of the highest order, ambition without limit, a refined hypocrisy, great immorality, ingratitude without equal, and a fierce hatred for Cortés".
The Mixtón War was fought from 1540 until 1542 between the Caxcanes and other semi-nomadic Indigenous people of the area of north western Mexico against Spanish invaders, including their Aztec and Tlaxcalan allies. The war was named after Mixtón, a hill in the southern part of Zacatecas state in Mexico which served as an Indigenous stronghold.Although other indigenous groups also fought against the Spanish in the Mixtón War, the Caxcanes were the “heart and soul” of the resistance. The Caxcanes lived in the northern part of the present-day Mexican state of Jalisco, in southern Zacatecas, and Aquascalientes. They are often considered part of the Chichimeca, a generic term used by the Spaniards and Aztecs for all the nomadic and semi-nomadic Native Americans living in the deserts of northern Mexico.
The Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza called upon the experienced conquistador Pedro de Alvarado to assist in putting down the revolt. Alvarado declined to await reinforcements and attacked Mixton in June 1541 with four hundred Spaniards and an unknown number of Indian allies. He was met there by an estimated 15,000 Indians under Tenamaztle and Don Diego, a Zacateco Indian. The first attack of the Spanish was repulsed with ten Spaniards and many Indian allies killed. Subsequent attacks by Alvarado were also unsuccessful and on June 24 he was crushed when a horse fell on him. He subsequently died on July 4.
In early 1542 the stronghold of Mixtón fell to the Spaniards and the rebellion was over. Victory in the Mixtón War enabled the Spanish to control the region in which Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico’s second largest city, was located. It also opened up Spanish access to the deserts of the north in which Spanish explorers would search for and find rich silver deposits.
After their defeat the Caxcanes were absorbed into Spanish society and lost their identity as a distinct people. They would later serve as auxiliaries to Spanish soldiers in their continued advance northward. Spanish expansion after the Mixtón War would lead to the longer and even more bloody Chichimeca war. The Caxcan possibly survive today, at least in folk festivals, as the Tastuane Indians. Annual fiestas of the Tastuan in towns such as Moyahua de Estrada, Zacatecas commemorate the Mixtón War.
The Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico, founded in 1536, was the first European school of higher learning in the Americas and was established by the Franciscans with the intention, as is generally accepted, of preparing Native American boys for eventual ordination to the Catholic priesthood. The original purpose of the colegio was to educate a male indigenous priesthood, and so pupils were selected from the most prestigious families of the Aztec ruling class. These young men were taught to be literate in Nahuatl, Spanish and Latin, and received instruction in Latin in music, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, and indigenous medicine. The establishment of such a school to train young men for the priesthood was highly controversial, with opposition especially coming from Dominican friars and articulated by the head of that order, Fray Domingo Betanzos. Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún wrote a strong defense of the capacity of the Indians, countering the opinions of those who doubted the Indians' ability not only to learn Latin grammar, but to speak, and compose in it.
Among the teachers were notable scholars and grammarians such as Franciscans Andrés de Olmos, Alonso de Molina and Bernardino de Sahagún, all of whom have made important contributions to the study of both the Classical Nahuatl language and the ethnography and anthropology of Mesoamerica. The training of elite young men enormously aided the Franciscans in their efforts to evangelize the Indians and to record indigenous history and culture in texts that remain fundamental to our understanding of Nahua culture. Students trained in the colegio were important contributors to the work of Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún in the creation of his monumental twelve-volume General History of the Things of New Spain, often referred to as the Florentine Codex. Spanish judge Alonso de Zorita, author of Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: the Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain was aided by the translations of Pablo Nazareno, a former pupil at the colegio. One student educated at the colegio was Nahua botanist Martín de la Cruz, who wrote the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, an illustrated herbal.
Towards 1540 or even earlier, the Franciscans who were in contact with the students began to think that the fundamental objective -forming future priests- was no longer feasible. There is very little data about it; nevertheless, the letter of fray Juan de Zumárraga to Carlos I, written on April 17, 1540, is the document that takes us to the knowledge of this fact and the one of its relation like a sign with the decay of our educative institution in question. What makes him doubt of the Indians is not the lack of academic results, since he recognizes them as "the best grammarians", but rather he has noticed that the students are not so propitious to celibacy, necessarily required to exercise the priesthood, as they are to marriage. Zumárraga did not explain why; despite this it is possible to arrive at provisional answers.
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| Tlatilulco, the well-known "twin city of Tenochtitlán" erected in the 10th century and which today is an archaeological site located in Mexico City where was located the Colegio de Santa Cruz. The church of Santiago still exists, together with part of the conventual buildings (now a library), visible to the right of the church. |
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| New Spain 1537 |
In 1544 the Emperor promulgated the New Laws abolishing the encomienda. The New Laws prohibited slavery, even in cases of just war.Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, an ally of the encomenderos, was both unable and unwilling to enforce these laws in the face of rigorous opposition from the holders of the encomienda grants. When news reached Mexico of the civil war that had broken out in Peru over similar reforms, thought to undermine the rigorous encomienda system, he had the laws suspended. Finally, in 1545, the Spanish Kind stated that one of the rule of the New laws stating that the encomienda system would no longer be hereditary was revoked (chapter 30). The other points from all other chapters applied the same, for instance:
- Good treatment and handle of the Indians.
- That there was no cause or reason to make slaves, not even because of war or rebellion, so slavery was definitely forbidden.
- That existing slaves were freed, if not showing the full legal right to keep them in that state.
- End the bad habit of making the Indians serving as porters (porters), without his own will and without retribution.
- That royal officials (Viceroy downward) were not entitled to the charge of Indians, like any religious orders, hospitals, communal works or brotherhoods.
-Etc.
The cocoliztli (in Spanish, disease, evil) was a disease that affected the natives of New Spain, after the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. Between 1519 and 1600, the indigenous population of Mexico went from between 15 and 30 million to two million. This demographic collapse was the consequence, to a large extent, of a series of epidemics of various diseases, including smallpox, measles and cocoliztli, which was believed to be a viral hemorrhagic fever of unknown origin. A 2018 paper by Vågene et al. reported the finding of Salmonella enterica in remains of individuals from a mass grave in Teposcolula-Yucundaa, Oaxaca linked by historical and archaeological evidence with the 1545 Cocoliztli epidemic. The authors suggest that S. enterica Paratyphi C be "considered a strong candidate for the epidemic population decline during the 1545 cocoliztli outbreak at Teposcolula-Yucundaa". According to Acuña Soto, Stahle, Therrell, Gómez Chávez and Cleaveland (2005), between 1540 and 1625 there was a severe drought in North America and Mesoamerica, the worst in the last 1000 years. It is believed that it started in the center of Mexico and, later, it spread to the United States and Canada. However, the epidemics of 1545 and 1576 occurred "during short episodes" of rainfall. It is believed that cocoliztli was a hemorrhagic fever transmitted by rodents. The climatic conditions propitiated the contact between humans and rodents (that look for food during the droughts and proliferate during the rains).
The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico (in Spanish: Real y Pontificia Universidad de México) modeled on the University of Salamanca, was founded on 21 September 1551 by Royal Decree signed by Charles I of Spain, in Valladolid, Spain. It is generally considered the first university officially founded in North America and second in the Americas (preceded by the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, chartered on May 12 of the same year). After the Mexican War of Independence it was renamed University of Mexico. When Mexican liberals were in power at intervals in the nineteenth century, it was closed, since liberals sought to put education in the hands of the state rather than the Roman Catholic Church. In 1910 during the regime of Porfirio Díaz, the university was revived under Justo Sierra. Traditionally, the National Autonomous University of Mexico is a public university, considered the institutional heir of the earlier Pontifical University of Mexico (there is also a modern one established in 1982 ), but under state rather than church control. At first this university had few students. The prestige of its graduates was very great. The graduates were religious, professionals and academics of theology, law and medicine. Knowledge was grouped for study according to the Middle Ages: in trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and in quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy). The study language was Latin. Afterwards, students could enter five faculties: Theology, Canon Law, Civil Law, Medicine and Arts. They trained clerics, lawyers and doctors. Due to the denomination of "pontifical" and in order to the academic degrees could be granted, it was necessary that the "magister scholarum" granted them on behalf of the Pope.
Luís de Velasco (1511-1564) was the second viceroy of New Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In early 1564, Velasco commissioned Miguel López de Legazpi and Andrés de Urdaneta to lead an expedition across the Pacific to the Spice Islands, where Ferdinand Magellan and Ruy López de Villalobos had landed in 1521 and 1543. Velasco died in 1564. At his death, it was found that instead of enriching himself in office, he had gone into debt out of his concern for the poor and the Indians. After the death of Velasco, a conspiracy to obtain independence from Spain was discovered. Some personalities of high position, including some close relatives of Hernán Cortés — Martín, Don Martín Cortés y de Zuñiga, and Luis (his sons, and half-brothers of each other) — were involved in this plot, which was made known to Peralta while he was still in Veracruz, that is before he had entered Mexico City to take up his office officially. A local judge of the Real Audiencia of México had sentenced the conspirators to death, but Gastón de Peralta, the new viceroy, personally reviewed the cases of each of the prisoners and suspended the death penalty for Luis and Martín Cortés. They were sent back to Spain to be dealt with by the Council of the Indies.
Viceroy Don Martín Enríquez de Almanza (1510-1583) brought medical attention to the unprotected and helped those in critical conditions. He established hospitals in the city to treat the victims of a terrible epidemic (thought to be chicken pox or varicella) that left 3,000 people dead. He published regulations in which the social protection of the Indians was guaranteed against their Spanish patrons, and a fair salary was assured for those who worked as peasants and farmers. King Philip II of Spain received outstanding comments about this viceroy, and he was aware of the obvious improvements made during his administration. In recognition of his labor, he was designated viceroy of Peru, Peru being a richer colony. He was succeeded by Lorenzo Suárez de Mendoza (1518-1583), an honest and upright man. one of his major concerns was ending widespread vice and administrative corruption, which had reached enormous proportions. Suárez de Mendoza was a man of letters, a writer of merit. He received praise for his novel El pastor de Filida. He participated in the war and conquest of Tunis, where he was taken by his father, who accompanied the emperor. He was patron and protector of the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares.
In 1586 Pedro Moya de Contrateras became viceroy. He was in 1571 the first inquisitor general of New Spain (and thus the first inquisitor general in the New World). He established the Tribunal del Santo Oficio in Mexico City in 1571. As inquisitor general he required people of New Spain, from the oidores (members of the Audiencia), nobles and religious to the most humble members of society, to solemnly swear to defend the Catholic faith and persecute heretics "as rabid dogs and wolves, infectors of spirits and destroyers of the vineyard of Our Lord." He celebrated the first auto-da-fé in New Spain in 1571.
When Holy Office of the Inquisition had been established in New Spain in 1571, it exercised no jurisdiction over Indians, except for material printed in indigenous languages. The full force of the Inquisition would be felt on non-Indian populations, such as the “Negro,” “mulatto” and even certain segments of the European. Historian Luis González Obregón estimates that 51 death sentences were carried out in the 235–242 years that the tribunal was officially in operation. Prior to the establishment of the Inquisition there was an inquisitorial prosecutions except when Franciscan Juan de Zumárraga became the first Bishop of Mexico in 1535 and exercised inquisitorial powers as bishop. Bishop Zumárraga's inquisitorial prosecutions was that of Nahua lord of Texcoco, who took the name of Carlos upon baptism and known in the historical literature as Don Carlos Ometochtzin. Don Carlos was likely a nephew of Nezahualcoyotl. Zumárraga accused this lord of reverting to worship of the old gods and following a trial with indigenous witnesses and Don Carlos's own testimony, the Texcocan lord was declared guilty. He burned at the stake on 30 November 1539. When the Council of the Indies in Spain learned of Don Carlos’s execution, they reprimanded Zumárraga, sent a visitador, an inspector-auditor, to New Spain to take away the bishop’s inquisitorial powers, and left him in a state of some humiliation until his death in 1548. In a letter of 22 November 1540, Francisco de Nava, bishop of Seville, explained to Zumárraga that while he understood that he had executed Don Carlos “in the belief that burning would put fear into others and make an example of him,” the Indians, he suggested, “might be more persuaded with love than with rigor.”
The last years of Bishop Zumárraga's life were devoted to carrying out the numerous works he had undertaken for the welfare of his diocese. Among the chief of these should be mentioned: the school for Indian girls; the famous Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco; the introduction of the first printing press into the New World (1539) ; the foundation of various hospitals, especially those of Mexico and Vera Cruz; the impetus he gave to industries, agriculture, and manufactures, for which he brought trained mechanics and labourers from Spain; and the printing of many books. Bishop Zumarraga is also credited with chocolate becoming a popular drink among Europeans. A community of nuns in Oaxaca, after encountering a recipe of cocoa mixed with sugar, prepared it for the bishop. Prior to this, ground cocoa had not found a role in European diets.
On October 18, 1586, Sir Francis Drake , an english pirate and navigator, took the Manila galleon Santa Ana. On August 6, 1587, the port of Huatulco (Oaxaca) fell to English corsair Thomas Cavendish, and on September 3, 1587 he sacked Navidad (Jalisco). Cavendish also captured the Manila galleon Santa Ana off Baja California on November 15, 1587. Each Manila galleon was loaded with a year's worth of treasure from the Philippines en route to Acapulco for ultimate delivery to Spain. Viceroy Manrique de Zúñiga (1525-1604) included the establishment of a militia of volunteers to defend Pacific ports and the arming of Spanish ships to fight the pirates at sea.
Manrique took important steps toward ending the long-running Chichimeca War on New Spain's northern frontiers which threatened communications with silver mines near the city of Zacatecas. The Spanish policy of defeating and enslaving the Chichimecas had been unsuccessful. Manrique, following the advice of Churchmen, implemented a new approach to the war. He removed many Spanish soldiers from the frontier as they were considered more a provocation than a remedy. He opened negotiations with Chichimeca leaders and promised them food, clothing, land, priests, and tools to encourage them through “gentle persuasion” to settle down (the policy was called 'peace by purchase'). He forbade military operations to seek out and capture and kill hostile Indians. The results were favorable. By 1590, he declared the roads to Zacatecas safe (for the first time in 40 years) and the war slowly wound down.
In 1588 Manrique was involved in a jurisdictional dispute with the Audiencia de Guadalajara. This newly founded Audiencia had been functioning independently of the Audiencia of Mexico City, and virtually independently of the viceroy. Manrique's attempts to asserts his authority were viewed as arbitrary, and were met with considerable hostility. Allegations against him of tyranny, cupidity, nepotism, censorship of letters from New Spain to Spain, and other abuses were made against him with the Council of the Indies. The majority of the charges were false or exaggerated, but the colony seemed to be on the verge of civil war. The bishop of Puebla, Pedro Romanos, was named visitador (royal inspector) to deal with the crisis. Romanos was an enemy of Manrique, because of their opposite sides in the earlier secular-regular conflict. He worked passionately to oppose the viceroy, and seized his property. This seizure was subsequently lifted by the Council of the Indies, but that ruling was ignored in New Spain, and the viceroy was consigned to poverty. Manrique continued as viceroy until January, 1590, when his successor, Luis de Velasco, marqués de Salinas arrived in Mexico City to take over the administration. Manrique was forced to remain a few more years in New Spain, as the subject of a lawsuit. He was still destitute, and also ill. He was finally able to return to Spain and seek restitution, but he died shortly after reaching Madrid, impoverished and bitter.
In 1597 pirates attacked the port of Campeche, taking over the center of the town and terrorizing the inhabitants. Viceroy De Zúñiga y Acevedo ordered increased protection for the ports. He also moved the town of Veracruz from its old site to its present location, which was more secure.
Luis de Velasco (1534-1617) received in 1589 the appointment as the new viceroy of New Spain. In 1591 he obtained the pacification of the Chichimeca tribes that had been in constant revolt and outside of Spanish control. The chiefs had asked the Spanish to supply food. Velasco accepted, and a peace treaty was signed. To introduce the Chichimecas to the customs of the colony, 400 Tlaxcalteca families were sent to live with them. The Franciscans also founded four colonies among the Chichimecas, with their center at Zacatecas. In return, Velasco reduced the taxes that had been levied on the Indians and charged the Real Hacienda to supply lawyers to represent the tribes and ease their entry into the society of the colony.
He promoted industry in New Spain, particularly spinning and weaving. He inaugurated the Paseo de la Alameda in Mexico City, and improved the fortifications of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz. In 1607 he took up a project to dig the Huehuetoca canal, for flood control. Heretofore during the rainy season, year after year, Mexico City had been flooded. In February 1609 a royal edict arrived in Mexico prohibiting once again the enslavement of the Indians. Velasco hijo rigorously enforced this decree against the encomenderos and the mineowners. Like his father, this viceroy was known as a defender of the Indians.
In 1609 Guatemala area became a captaincy general, when the governor and Audiencia president was also granted the title of captain general to deal with foreign threats to the area from the Caribbean, granting the area autonomy in administrative and military matters. Around the same time Habsburg Spain created other captaincies general in Puerto Rico (1580), Cuba (1607) and Yucatán (1617).
Governor Philippines Rodrigo de Vivero ship San Francisco was shipwrecked on the coast of Japan in 1609. Rodrigo de Vivero remained in Japan for 9 months, and took the opportunity to negotiate the first treaty of exchanges between Japan and New Spain, involving offering extraterritorial privileges for a Spanish shipyard and a Naval base in the eastern Japan in exchange for transpacific trade and Mexican silver mining technology. Luis de Velasco was involved in the establishment in this trade and diplomatic relations with Japan. He received in 1610 the embassy of Franciscan father Luis Sotelo and trader Tanaka Shōsuke, which had sailed from Japan on the Japanese sailship San Buena Ventura, and agreed to send an ambassador to Japan in the person of the famous explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno, with the added mission of exploring the "gold and silver islands" which were thought to be east of the Japanese isles. Luis de Velasco confiscated the Japanese ship, fearful that the Japanese would further master the technique of trans-oceanic voyages.
Vizcaíno sailed from Acapulco in the San Bernardo on March 22, 1611 with the emissaries from Japan, arriving in Uraga on June 16 of that year. From there he traveled to Edo to meet the second Shogun Hidetada, and thence to Sumpa to meet with ex-Shogun Ieyasu. Vizcaíno, having lost his ship, sailed from Japan October 28, 1613 on board the Japanese galleon San Juan Bautista which was built by the Date Masamune, a legendary warrior and leader in the Tōhoku region.. The objective of the Japanese embassy was both to discuss trade agreements with the Spanish crown in Madrid, and to meet with the Pope in Rome. They arrived back at Acapulco on January 25, 1614. He was accompanied by Hasekura Tsunenaga, designated as the Japanese ambassador to Spain, and about 140 other Japanese. The embassy remained two months in Acapulco and entered Mexico City on 24 March, where it was received with great ceremony. The ultimate mission for the embassy was to go on to Europe and so that the fleet left for Europe on the San Jose on 10 June. Hasekura had to leave the largest parts of the Japanese group behind, who were to wait in Acapulco for the return of the embassy. It is unknown whether Tanaka Shosuke continued with Hasekura to Europe, or stayed in Mexico waiting for the return of Hasekura, or returned to Japan in October 1614.
The fleet arrived safely finally, after some dangers and storms, to the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 5 October, where the Duke of Medina Sidonia was advised of the arrival. He sent carriages to honor them and accommodate the Ambassador and his gentlemen. The Japanese embassy met with King Philip III in Madrid on 30 January 1615. Hasekura remitted to the King a letter from Date Masamune, as well as offer for a treaty. The King responded that he would do what he could to accommodate these requests. Hasekura was baptized on 17 February by the king's personal chaplain, and renamed Felipe Francisco Hasekura. The baptism ceremony was to have been conducted by the Archbishop of Toledo, Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, though he was too ill to actually carry this out, and the Duke of Lerma – the main administrator of Phillip III's rule and the de facto ruler of Spain – was designated as Hasekura's godfather. The embassy stayed eight months in Spain before leaving the country for Italy. After traveling across Spain, the embassy sailed on the Mediterranean aboard three Spanish frigates towards Italy. Due to bad weather, they had to stay for a few days in the French harbour of Saint-Tropez, where they were received by the local nobility, and made quite a sensation on the populace. The visit of Hasekura Tsunenaga to Saint-Tropez in 1615 is the first recorded instance of France–Japan relations. The Japanese Embassy went on to Italy where they were able to meet with Pope Paul V in Rome in November 1615. Hasekura remitted to the Pope two gilded letters, one in Japanese and one in Latin, containing a request for a trade treaty between Japan and Mexico and the dispatch of Christian missionaries to Japan. These letters are still visible in the Vatican archives. The Pope agreed to the dispatch of missionaries, but left the decision for trade to the King of Spain.
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| Hasekura Tsunenaga in Rome |
The embassy left Seville for Mexico in June 1617 after a period of two years spent in Europe, but some of the Japanese remained in Spain in a town near Seville (Coria del Río), where their descendants to this day still use the surname Japón.
Although Hasekura's embassy was cordially received in Europe, it happened at a time when Japan was moving toward the suppression of Christianity. Hasekura returned to Japan in 1620. By the time Hasekura came back, Japan had changed quite drastically: an effort to eradicate Christianity had been under way since 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu had died in 1616 and been replaced by his more xenophobic son Tokugawa Hidetada, and Japan was moving towards the "Sakoku" policy of isolation. When the Tokugawa government banned Christianity, Masamune had to obey the law. However, some sources suggest that Masamune's eldest daughter, Iroha, was a Christian. What became of Hasekura is unknown and accounts of his last years are numerous. Contemporary Christian commentators could only rely on hearsay, with some rumours stating that he abandoned Christianity, others that he was martyred for his faith, and others that he practiced Christianity in secret. The fate of his descendants and servants, who were later executed for being Christians, would suggest that Hasekura remained strongly Christian himself, and transmitted his faith to the members of his family.
In 1616, the drainage system for the Valley of Mexico, long under construction but suspended since 1614, was restarted. King Philip III had chosen the Dutch hydrographer Adrian Boot to investigate the drainage project and take charge of operations. Boot had been in charge of numerous drainage projects in France. He traveled to Mexico City (at a salary of 100 ducats a month) and reviewed the work already done. His opinion was that it would not serve to drain the lakes, but that it could be used to divert the Cuautitlán river, the major cause of the nearly annual floods. Engineer Enrico Martínez offered to complete the diversion with 300 men and 100,000 pesos, but work was delayed pending approval of the king.
On November 16, 1616 another, particularly bloody, Indian insurrection broke out, this time among the Tepehuanes and neighboring tribes in the north. It was led by a cacique claiming to be the Son of the Sun and God of Heaven and Earth. The rebels quickly killed some Jesuit missionaries and 200 Spaniards and mestizos of various ages and both sexes. The governor of Durango, with aid sent by the viceroy, raised a militia. After three months of intense fighting, the rebels were largely defeated. Also in 1616, a drought led to crop failure and famine in New Spain. In 1620 a fire destroyed a large part of Veracruz.
On March 7, 1623 the viceroy Marquis of Gelves ordered work on the drainage system of the Valley of Mexico to cease, because he considered it costly and unlikely to be effective. He also ordered the destruction of the dike that diverted the Río Cuautitlán from entering the lakes around Mexico City. However, the next rainy season led again to large floods, many lost lives and much damage. This caused a considerable loss of the viceroy's prestige.
On December 15, 1628 Dutch Admiral Piet Hein captured a Spanish fleet in the straits between Florida and the Bahamas. This fleet was transporting 12 million pesos (mostly gold) and much merchandise from New Spain to the mother country. Later in his administration, Dutch corsairs occupied the city of Campeche (April 17, 1633), but were driven out by 200 militiamen under the command of Captain Francisco Maldonado. However they returned August 12, under Jean de Fors, and sacked the city. To protect against Indian incursions from the north, viceroy Rodrigo Pacheco established the presidio of Cerralvo in the New Kingdom of León y Castilla (present day Nuevo León).
In 1629 Mexico city suffered its worse flooding in recorded history. The Río Aculhuacán broke through its dikes, flooding the entire city from 1 to 2 meters deep. Transportation was by canoe, and many families left the city permanently. The rains continued, and the flood waters did not recede. Probably 30,000 persons died, and it was feared that the capital might disappear completely. Parts of the city remained flooded for four years. On May 19, 1630, the viceroy Rodrigo Pacheco ordered the capital to be moved to Tacubaya, nearby but on higher ground, pending an open discussion in the guilds of the city. The guilds were opposed, resolving instead to restart the engineering works. By the end of the year, the engineer Enrico Martínez had restarted the work. By 1632 the Huehuetoca canal had finally been completed and the Calzada de San Cristóbal, atop a wall surrounding the city that served as a dike, had been renovated.
On the night of October 31 to November 1, 1631, the Galleon Nuestra Señora del Juncal sank in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in 1631 shortly after sailing from the port of Veracruz with 300 people on board. During a devastating storm the nao was opened by the bow and went to sink. Only 39 of the 300 crew members were saved. Thus ends the tragic history of the fleet of New Spain of 1630-1631, the largest expedition of the era that was to arrive on the Peninsula. In addition to the "Nuestra Señora del Juncal" shipwrecked the other flagship, the "Santa Teresa", and one of the 11 merchant ships, the nao "San Antonio". The rest could return, battered, to the Mexican coast. In the guts of the galleon were hidden 1,077,840 pesos - the largest cargo of those years - that the Spanish Crown waited to straighten out the costly war in the Netherlands. No wonder the desolation of the Viceroy of New Spain, the Marquis of Cerralbo after receiving the news: "The richest fleet that has left the New World has been lost," he wrote.
On April 22, 1639 a bull of Pope Urban VIII prohibited slavery in Latin America. Philip IV banned slavery of the Indians in New Spain, but permitted the continuation of black slavery. Escaped black slaves (cimarrones) took refuge in the mountains, particularly in the current state of Veracruz. During the period 1580-1640 when Spain and Portugal were ruled by the same monarch and Portuguese slave traders had access to Spanish markets, African slaves were imported in large numbers to New Spain.
In 1680 25,000 Pueblo Indians in 24 pueblos of New Mexico rose against the Spanish and known as the Pueblo Revolt or Popé's Revolt (after the name of the leader). The Indians killed all the Europeans they encountered, among them colonists, soldiers and missionaries. Twenty-one Franciscan missionaries were killed on 10 August 1680. The Indians mounted a surprise attack on Santa Fe, capital of the province. When this failed, they besieged the town for ten days. The Spanish who were able to escape made their way to Paso del Norte (now Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua), where they took refuge. Not until 12 years later did the Spaniards successfully reconquer the area. The viceroy Tomas de la Cerda repopulated the town of Santa Fe with 300 Spanish and mestizo families, giving it the title of city (ciudad), the highest title for a settlement. In 1681 he sent a force of cavalry to Nueva Vizcaya, New Spain to pursue the rebel Indians, but they refused to give battle. He also enlarged the garrisons of the region.
In 1683 the pirate Lorencillo (Laurens de Graaf) with 800 men attacked Veracruz. Insufficiently garrisoned, the port fell. The inhabitants were shut up in the churches while the pirates sacked the city. They held it from 17 May to 23 May 1683. When Spanish forces arrived at Veracruz to do battle, the pirates quickly took to the sea. They left with enormous quantities of merchandise and 1,500 hostages. The booty was subsequently estimated at 7 million pesos. After leaving Veracruz, the pirates went on to attack Campeche and Yucatán.
On 22 May 1683, Antonio Benavides, marques de San Vicente disembarked at Veracruz. Better known subsequently as the impostor El Tapado, he claimed to be visitador general (royal inspector) and governor of New Spain appointed by Queen Regent Mariana of Austria. He was arrested at Cuetlaxcoapa (Puebla), accused of being one of Lorencillo's pirates. From there he was taken to Mexico City in chains. On 12 July 1684 he was conducted to the scaffold, but when he appeared there was an eclipse of the sun. Although the people viewed this as Heaven's displeasure at the execution of an innocent, he was executed anyway.
In 1685, Laurens de Graaf sacked the city of Campeche and the surrounding haciendas for over thirty days, killing about a third of the area’s population. This prompted far more extensive fortification with numerous forts and a wall around the city that measured 2,560 meters in an irregular polygon shape. Most of the forts survive but only 500 meters of the original wall remains.
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| Pirate Laurens de Graaf |
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| Juana Inés de la Cruz |
Amor es más laberinto was premiered on January 11, 1689. The book argument takes a very familiar theme in Greek mythology: Theseus, hero of the island of Crete after fighting the Minotaur awakens the love for him of Ariadne and Phaedra. Theseus is conceived by Sor Juana as the archetypal hero Baroque. The triumph over the Minotaur is not with aim to boast himself, but for recognizing his humility.
In 1692 there was a severe drought, causing a shortage of food. The natives attributed this disaster to the earlier appearance of a comet, but more importantly there was no maize in the capital and many people were hungry. On 8 June 1692 a crowd gathered in front of the viceregal palace, which they set on fire. They threw stones and set the archives on fire. Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora was able to save most of the documents, at the risk of his life. Some nearby houses and shops were also burned. Sigüenza wrote a lengthy and vivid account of the riot, published as "Letter of Don Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora to Admiral Pez Recounting the Incidents of the Corn Riot in Mexico City, June 8, 1692.". Sigüenza is remembered as one of the first great intellectuals born in the Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. He was a creole patriot, exalting New Spain over Old. A polymath and writer, he held many colonial government and academic positions.
A ship arrived in Veracruz on March 6, 1701 carrying the news of the death of King Charles II of Spain on November 1, 1700. Charles II left no heir. The War of the Spanish Succession, between Spain and France on the one hand and Austria, England and Holland on the other, began, to determine his successor. Viceroy Sarmiento y Valladares was publicly known as a supporter of the Habsburg claims to the Spanish throne, but the Bourbons were in control there. The viceroy was removed from office and ordered to return to Spain. Bishop Juan Ortega y Montañés was once again named interim viceroy.
The Bourbons introduced their “Reforms”: The new Bourbon kings kept close ties with France and used many Frenchmen as advisors. Though French innovations in politics and social manners never fully replaced Spanish laws and traditions, they became an important model in both areas. As a result, there was an influx of French goods, ideas and books, which helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment throughout the Spanish world. In a sense, all things French came into fashion during the subsequent century, and gave rise to a new type of person, the “afrancesado”, who welcomed this new influence.
The year 1736 was disastrous for New Spain. Strong north winds uprooted trees and toppled weathercocks and crosses on the buildings. A comet appeared, provoking panic in the population, who feared it portended great disasters. In October a fearful epidemic of matlazáhuatl (perhaps yellow fever or smallpox) broke out in the vicinity of Mexico City. Viceroy Vizarrón y Eguiarreta tried to mitigate the effects of the epidemic, which was said to have taken the lives of two-thirds of the Indian population of the capital. It certainly killed tens of thousands of people, mostly Indians, in many cities and villages. To combat the plague, he ordered many public buildings converted into hospital
In 1737 a religious prophet appeared among the Guaima and Pima Indians. This was Agustín Ascuchul, who claimed that the god Moctezuma had appeared to him and named him his prophet. He called on the Indians to follow him to a new place, to worship the god. More than 5,000 Indians abandoned their homes to follow the prophet. The governor of Sonora, Juan Bautista de Anza, interpreted this as a rebellion. He soon suppressed it and hung the prophet.
On July 1, 1743, the British Admiral George Anson captured the China treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga off the Philippines, en route from Manila for New Spain. The merchandise and the 1,318,843 pesos of silver ingots it was carrying were taken. Anson sold his prize for £400,000 in China. The viceroy was accused of perfidy in the affair, but of course nothing came of that.
In 1751 it started the construction of the Church of Santa Prisca in the city of Taxco de Alarcón.
The church was built between 1751 and 1758 by José de la Borda (ca. 1700–1778), who had made a great fortune in the silver mines surrounding the town. Despite his wealth, however, the opulence of the church nearly bankrupted him.
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| Church of Santa Prisca |
A peace ending the Seven Years' War was signed at Paris on February 10, 1763. Spain received Louisiana and regained Havana and Manila, but ceded Florida to England, as well as the right of settlement and timber-harvesting in Belize.
Charles III continued the bourbon reforms and initiated the difficult process of the by changing the complex administrative system of the former ruling family, the Habsburgs. Corregidores were replaced with a French institution, the intendant. The intendancies had the desired effect of further decentralizing the administration at the expense of viceroys, captains general and governors, since intendants were directly responsible to the Crown, not to the former, and were granted large powers in economic and political matters. The intendancy system proved to be efficient in most areas and led to an increase in revenue collection. Intendency seats were mainly based in large cities and successful mining centers. Almost all of the new intendants were Peninsulares, that is people who were born in Spain, exacerbating the conflict between Peninsulares and Criollos, who wished to retain some control of local administration. Charles III and Charles IV also reversed the advances Criollos had made in the high courts (audiencias). Under the Habsburgs, the Crown had sold audiencia positions to Criollos. The Bourbon kings ended this policy. By 1807, “only twelve out of ninety-nine [audiencia] judges were creoles.” . With regards to the economy, collection of taxes was also more efficient under the intendancy system.
The King also decided to suppress the Society of
Jesus.The Jesuits controlled to a large extent the education of youths in many countries; among its members were the confessors of kings and princes; it exerted a powerful political influence
in the civil administration of Catholic countries. The Jesuits were, in
fact, at the height of their power and their fame.While they bent all
their energies towards Christianizing the natives and teaching them the
useful arts of civilization, they did not forget the interests of science and learning. Whatever would further human knowledge in their observation, they noted and chronicled.
The correspondence of Bernardo Tanucci, the anti-clerical
minister of Charles III in Naples contain all the ideas which from time
to time guided Spanish policy.
Don Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Conde de Aranda, President of the Council of Castile also informed that Jesuits had the monopoly of the king confessors , have defended the legitimacy of the regicide, had tried to settle a theocratic state in Paraguay without having the authority of the king, had accumulated great wealth, refused to pay taxes for their land, etc. Charles conducted his government through Count Aranda, a reader of Voltaire, and other liberals.
Charles III minister Campomanes feared that the Society of Jesus was
behind the Mutiny of Esquilache that took place in Madrid with aim to to subdue the throne. So there
was not chance for peace as long as the Jesuits were present in the Spanish Empire.
This is probably the main reason for the expulsion, they fear of the
King to lose his power.
At a council
meeting of January 29, 1767, the expulsion of the Society of Jesus was
settled. Secret orders, which were to be opened at midnight between the
first and second of April, 1767, were sent to the magistrates of every
town where a Jesuit resided. The plan worked smoothly. That morning, near 3000 Jesuits were marched to the coast, where they were
deported, first to the Papal States, and ultimately to Corsica, which
was a dependency of Genoa (though soon to be passed to France).
In June 1767 Viceroy Francisco de Croix followed the order to expel the Jesuits from New Spain and to confiscate the property of the Company. Troops were used to remove the Jesuits from their monasteries and colleges; they were allowed to leave with scarcely the clothes on their backs. They were escorted to Veracruz and deported to Italy. Among the Jesuits expelled were Fathers Andrés Cavo, Francisco Javier Clavijero and Francisco Javier Alegre, distinguished scholars. The College of San Ildefonso was closed. These measures provoked a rebellion, especially in the cities of Guanajuato, Pátzcuaro, Valladolid and Uruapan. The viceroy and the visitador dealt severely with the rebels, hanging the leaders. In ordering the expulsion, the viceroy gave the following justification:
[It is done] for motives known to the royal conscience of the sovereign, and which have to be acknowledged by the vassals of His Majesty, who have been born to obey and not to mix in the high affairs of government.
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| Expulsion of the Jesuits |
It took until 1768 for the Royal order to reach the Jesuit missions in the south of the Philippines, but by the end of the year, the Jesuits had been dispossessed throughout the Spanish dominions.
Because they had major rivals in the other orders of the
church, their dismissal was greeted with covert approval. The Jesuit missions
in Baja California were turned over to the Franciscans and the missions in Alta
California which would otherwise have been Jesuit institutions were founded by
the Franciscans. The Jesuits had been instrumental
in the missionary work carried out in the Americas and the Philippines. The
suppression of the order had longstanding economic effects in the Americas,
particularly those areas where they had their missions or reductions — outlying
areas dominated by indigenous peoples such as Paraguay and Chiloé Archipelago.
In Mexico, the Jesuits had been active in evangelizing the
Indians on the northern frontier, but their main activity was in educating
creole elites, many of whom themselves became Jesuits. Of the 678 Jesuits
expelled from Mexico, 75% were Mexican-born. There were protests in Mexico at
the exile of so many Jesuit members of elite families, but the Jesuits
themselves obeyed the order. Since the Jesuits had owned extensive landed
estates in Mexico, which supported both their evangelization of the indigenous
as well as their education mission to creole elites, the properties were a
source of wealth for the crown. The crown auctioned them off, benefiting the
treasury, and the creole purchasers gained productive well-run properties. Many
American-born Spanish (creole) families were outraged at the crown's actions,
regarding it as a "despotic act." One of the Mexican Jesuits who
lived out his life in Italian exile was Francisco Javier Clavijero, who wrote
an important history of Mexico with emphasis on the indigenous peoples.
With the expulsion of the Jesuits it was destroyed what had
been built for centuries: the educational system was dismantled, libraries were
looted, production farms disappeared, and indigenous missions were abandoned.
For Alfonso Alfaro, contemporary historian and director of the Research Institute of the Arts of Mexico, the wound which meant the suppression of the Society of Jesus in society is far from being closed. "If you want to preserve, reconstruct or to found a nation, you cannot expel those who over two centuries had built an entire social, educational, scientific and technological scaffolding, and educated alike the marginalized classes (indigenous) and the highest class within the colonial social pyramid".
De Croix established the lottery in 1769, which brought considerable income to the treasury. In 1770 he increased efforts to teach Spanish to the Indians, with the construction of special schools for this purpose.
On January 17, 1774, the liberal government of Charles III established for fist time the free trade between New Spain, Peru, and the recently created Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada. Bucareli had promoted this measure with the ministers of the government. He repaired Fort San Diego in Acapulco, to guard the port and the new commerce with South America. In 1779 free trade between Spain and the Indies took effect.
Viceroy Bucareli y Ursua convened a meeting of mineowners on May 3, 1774, which developed regulations to govern the industry. In July 1776, Bucareli granted the mineowners the right to form a trade association to manage the industry (the Mining Tribunal), and granted tax breaks to the mineowners, already very rich. One rich mineowner, Pedro Romero de Terreros, who had already lent 400,000 pesos to the previous viceroy, lent another 800,000 to Bucareli. Romero de Terreros also donated a ship of 80 guns to the navy. Baron Alexander von Humboldt asserted that Mexican miners were among the best paid in the world. On February 25, 1775, the viceroy inaugurated the Monte de Piedad (government pawn shop, modeled on the one in Madrid) to give assistance to the poor. He also founded several hospital in Mexico city. An able administrator, he improved the public treasury, commerce, and the monetary system. Mexican historians consider him one of the most outstanding viceroys.
In 1778 King Charles
III established the “Decree of Free Trade,” which allowed the Spanish American
ports to trade directly with each other and with most ports in Spain.
Therefore, “commerce would no longer be restricted to four colonial ports
(Veracruz, Cartagena, Lima/Callao, and Panama)" This new commercial
relationship stimulated the colonial economy, especially that of Chile. The
economic reforms were also directed primarily at the mining and trade sectors.
Miners were given fueros and were allowed to organize themselves into a guild.
In 1779 there was an epidemic of smallpox that spread to many cities of the colony and caused many deaths. Viceroy Mayorga spent considerable sums to aid the sick and dying. He offered his resignation (the first of several times), but it was not accepted. In January 1780, the indigenous community of Izúcar, (Puebla), rose in rebellion because of mistreatment. Captains José Antonio de Urízar and Tomás Pontón were sent to suppress the rebellion. A large number of captured rebels were sent to Havana to serve as sailors in the fleet. Mayorga did much to improve the capital, paving many streets with stones and cleaning the waterways and aqueducts in an effort to prevent another epidemic.
In 1783 Viceroy Gálvez y Gallardo was able to dedicate himself to improving the capital. During his brief administration, he worked to clean the waterways and drain the lake surround Mexico City, built bridges and a sewage system, and paved the streets of La Palma, Monterilla and San Francisco with cobblestones. He divided Mexico City into four quarters, and improved the police service. He approved the San Carlos academy of fine arts founded by his predecessor, and continued work on it. He dedicated 15,000 pesos annual for this project.
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| San Carlos academy of fine arts |
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| The Aztec calendar stone |
During this time the Inquisition became less concerned about heretics and Protestants, and more concerned to suppress the revolutionary political and other ideas of the French revolutionaries. On August 9, 1795 an auto-de-fe was held. One of the condemned was Esteban Morel, a French man of science, professor of medicine and collaborator in the Gaceta de México. He was formally accused of heresy, deism and materialism. The same tribunal of the Inquisition brought proceedings against Juan Lauset and other Frenchmen, accusing them of having expressed feelings against the Spanish.
When Spain, now at peace with France, declared war on Britain on October 5, 1797, Grúa confiscated the property of Britons living in the colony, for his own benefit.
To flatter King Charles IV and Godoy, the viceroy commissioned the Spanish architect and sculptor Manuel Tolsá (1757-1816) to construct a grand equestrian statue of the king. The first stone in the pedestal was laid July 18, 1796, and the statue was completed in 1803. This statue, now known as El Caballito, is still a landmark in Mexico City.
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| El Caballito |
On January 1, 1801, Indio Mariano began an insurrection in the mountains of Tepic. Mariano, who had many followers, was trying to reestablish the Aztec empire. The rebels fought under a banner displaying the colors of the Virgin of Guadalupe. When Fernando Abascal, president of the Audiencia of Guadalajara, took notice of the rebellion, he sent Captain Salvador Hidalgo (or Fidalgo) of the navy and Captain Leonardo Pintado of the militia against them. The rebels were defeated. Many prisoners were taken, and many other Indians were forced up into the mountains, but Mariano escaped. He was never captured by the Spanish. His followers who were taken prisoner were transferred to Guadalajara, but most were soon released.
In 1808 Napoleon's French invaded Spain. As the French forces approached Madrid, the royal family decided to flee to New Spain. This idea, however, was poorly received by the Spanish populace. On March 17, 1808 a riot broke out at Aranjuez. The hated Godoy was apprehended by the crowd, humiliated, stripped of his honors, and nearly killed. The mob, loyal to Prince Ferdinand (later King Ferdinand VII), forced Charles to abdicate in his son's behalf. Ferdinand then had Godoy arrested. But in May, all three — Godoy, Ferdinand and Charles — were enticed across the French border, where Napoleon took them prisoner. Napoleon forced the abdication of both Ferdinand and Charles in favor of himself. He then named his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain.
On July 19, 1808, councilmen Juan Francisco Azcárate y Ledesma and Francisco Primo de Verdad y Ramos presented a plan to form a provisional, autonomous government of New Spain, with viceroy Iturrigaray at its head. The justification for this was that the mother country was now occupied by foreign troops, and the royal family was being held prisoner. The plan was accepted by the viceroy and the Cabildo, but not by the Audiencia. On September 1, 1808, Melchor de Talamantes, a Peruvian priest and the intellectual leader of the Criollo party, delivered two tracts to the Cabildo, in favor of separation from Spain and of the convoking of a Mexican congress. His premises were that all ties to Spain had now been broken; that regional laws had to be made, independently of the mother country; that the Audiencia could not speak in behalf of the king; and that the king having disappeared, sovereignty was now vested in the people. Iturrigaray was strongly inclined towards the party of the Criollos and held in great suspicion by the Spanish party. He had received Criollo petitions for a congress and disrecognition of the Spanish junta. He had ordered 40,000 pesos sent to the Consulado of Veracruz, notoriously liberal in outlook. He had nominated Criollos to high positions in the administration. And most importantly, he had mobilized the regiment of dragoons from Aguascalientes, stationed in Jalapa. This regiment was under the command of Colonel Ignacio Obregón, an intimate friend of the viceroy. Iturrigaray was on the point of resigning when, on September 15, 1808 was arrested. The viceroy was deposed by the Audiencia. An inventory of the viceroy's valuables was ordered, and the total came to more than one million pesos. This was considered evidence that the viceroy had taken advantage of the situation for his personal enrichment.on September 21, 1808, Iturrigaray was sent as a prisoner to Spain. He was brought to trial in Cádiz for disloyalty. The charges were not proven and he was freed under the amnesty granted by the Cortes in 1810.
Two days after viceroy Francisco Venegas took office, Jesuist Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla delivered the Grito de Dolores (the Cry from Dolores) and rose in rebellion. As a priest, Hidalgo served in a church in Dolores, Mexico. Although Hidalgo was educated as a priest in the traditional way, he did not advocate or live the lifestyle expected of 18th-century Mexican priests. Instead, his studies of Enlightenment-era ideas caused him to challenge traditional political and religious views. He lived with a woman named María Manuela Herrera, fathering two daughters out of wedlock with her, and later fathered three other children with a woman named Josefa Quintana. In the Grito de Dolores (Cry, or Shout, of Dolores), he called the people of his parish to leave their homes and join with him in a rebellion against the current government, in the name of their King.
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| Padre Hidalgo |
Hidalgo and Allende, a captain of the Spanish Army in Mexico, marched their little army through towns where the angry rebels killed all the Spaniards they found. Along the way they adopted the standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe as their symbol and protector. Hidalgo's approval of the violent sacking and looting by his forces alienated the group most vital to any independence movement: middle-class and wealthy creoles like himself. Poor peasants and Indians only had the power to burn, pillage and destroy: they could not create a new identity for Mexico, one that would allow Mexicans to psychologically break from Spain and craft a national conscience for themselves.
Trujillo knew the insurgents were now marching in the direction of the capital, from Tepetongo to Toluca, so he moved to occupy the latter place.Venegas was now greatly alarmed. He raised a battalion of volunteers, which he stationed at Paseo de Bucareli, on the western edge of the city. However, in a moment of apparent indecision, Father Hidalgo, after a series of triumphs and within striking distance of the poorly defended capital, ordered a retreat toward Vallodalid. The reason for this has never been adequately explained.
After the retreat of the insurgents, Venegas recovered from his surprise, and began decisive action against them.r the principal rebel leaders — Hidalgo, Allende, Juan Aldama, Jiménez and Abasolo — were taken prisoner at the Wells of Baján (Norias de Baján) near Monclava, Coahuila, on 21 March 1811. Hidalgo was turned over to the bishop of Durango, Francisco Gabriel de Olivares, for an official defrocking and excommunication on 27 July 1811. He was then found guilty of treason by a military court and executed by firing squad on 30 July at 7:00 in the morning. Before his execution, he thanked his gaolers, two soldiers, Ortega and Melchor, for their humane treatment. His body, along with the bodies of Allende, Aldama and José Mariano Jiménez were decapitated, and the heads were put on display on the four corners of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato. The heads remained there for ten years until the end of the Mexican War of Independence to serve as a warning to other insurgents.
Venegas now believed the insurrection over, but then came the news of the activities of Ignacio López Rayón in the center of the country and the victories of Father José María Morelos in the south. Guerrillas roamed freely around the country. Royalist troops shot prisoners immediately. The slightest suspicion of collaboration with the insurgents was grounds for arrest and imprisonment.
The Cádiz Cortes blamed Venegas for his arbitrary measures, believing that they impeded the pacification of the country. The Audiencia of Mexico and the Spanish party in New Spain accused him of a lack of energy in suppressing the rebellion. He was relieved of his post September 16, 1812
Meanwhile in Spain, Ferdinand VII had returned to the throne. He abrogated the Spanish Constitution on May 14, 1814, and reestablished government institutions as they had been in 1808. By a decree of July 21, 1814, he reestablished the Inquisition (it was abolished by the Constitution). On May 19, 1816 he authorized the Jesuits to return to Mexico, who had been expelled in the late eighteenth century.
Mexican Independence
Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu was a Mexican army general and politician. In his teens, Iturbide entered the royalist army, having been accepted as a criollo. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the provincial regiment. In 1806, he was promoted to full lieutenant. After the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla offered Agustín de Iturbide the rank of general in the insurgent forces. Agustín rejected the offer, as he repudiated the atrocities the widely untrained Insurgent army committed against Spanish civilians, choosing instead to fight for the royalist forces. He quickly grew in popularity amongst the royalists, whilst becoming a feared foe for the Insurgents.
From 1810 to 1820, Iturbide had fought against those who sought to overturn the Spanish monarchy and Bourbon dynasty's right to rule New Spain and replace that regime with an independent government. In this, he was solidly aligned with the Creole class. However, events in Spain caused problems for this class, as the very monarchy they were fighting for was in serious trouble. The 1812 Cadiz Constitution, that was reinstated in Spain in 1820 after the successful Riego Revolt, established a constitutional monarchy, which greatly limited Ferdinand VII's powers. There was serious concern in Mexico that the Bourbons would be forced to abandon Spain altogether. This led to the disintegration of viceregal authority in Mexico City and a political vacuum developed that the Mexican nobility sought to fill, seeking limited representation and autonomy for themselves within the empire. An idea arose among this class that if Mexico became independent or autonomous, and if Ferdinand were deposed, he could become king of Mexico.
Iturbide was convinced that independence for Mexico was the only way to protect the country from a republican tide. He decided to become the leader of the Criollo independence movement. However, in order to succeed, he would need to put together a very unlikely coalition of Mexican liberal insurgents, landed nobility, and the Church. For this goal, he penned The Plan of Iguala, which held itself up on Three Guarantees: Freedom (from Spain), Religion (with Roman Catholicism being the only accepted religion in the new country) and Union (with all inhabitants of México to be regarded as equals).
Iturbide and two other insurgent leader, Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria, announced the plan on 24 February 1821. Essentially, the idea was to bring Ferdinand VII to Mexico City to rule. If he did not come to Mexico, another member of the Bourbon royal family would be chosen to rule there. If no European ruler would come to rule México, the nation would have the right to elect a ruler amongst its own people. The promise of the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church was offered to the clergy, who were frightened by anti-clerical policies of Spanish Liberalism. The offer of equality between Criollos and the Spanish-born Peninsulares assured the latter that they and their property would be safe in the new state.
Viceroy O'Donojú used his influence to withdraw Spanish troops from the country with a minimum of bloodshed, by means of reasonable surrender terms. He approved the promotion of Novella, the previous (acting) viceroy, to field marshal. On September 13, 1821 O'Donojú met with Novella and Iturbide at the Hacienda de la Patera, near the Villa de Guadalupe, smoothing over the difficulties and arranging the details of the transfer of power. Novella ordered Spanish troops to leave Mexico City.
Iturbide marched into Mexico City on 27 September 1821, his own birthday, with the Army of the Three Guarantees. The army was received by a jubilant populace who had erected arches of triumph and decorated houses and themselves with the tri-color (red, white, and green) of this army. Cries of "¡Viva Iturbide I!" were heard first on that day. The following day, Mexico was declared an independent empire. In much less than a year, Iturbide had bloodlessly achieved what 11 years of bloody war could not.
On October 3, 1821, the Captaincy General of Guatemala (formed of Chiapas, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras) proclaimed its independence from Spain and its incorporation into the Mexican Empire. This region had been formally subject to New Spain throughout the colonial period, but as a practical matter was administered separately. All but Chiapas soon separated from Mexico.
Ferdinand VII had regained the upper hand against the liberals in Spain and increased his influence outside the country. He even had credible plans for the reconquest of the old colony. For these reasons, no European noble would accept the offer of a Mexican crown. Inside Mexico itself, there was no noble family that the populace would accept as royalty. Then Iturbide was announced as the Constitutional Emperor of the new nation.
The republican minority was not happy with Iturbide as emperor. While the Catholic clergy supported him, Iturbide's coronation dashed republican hopes. The strongest opposition to Iturbide's reign came from the congress. A significant number of this congress supported republican ideas explained by the fact that a number of these members also belonged to Masonic lodges, which were introduced to Mexico in the 1780s and they found a voice when Manuel Cordorniu founded the newspaper El Sol, essentially becoming the in-house publication for the Scottish Rite lodge in their struggle against Iturbide.
To combat the resistance, Iturbide closed down the congress on 31 October 1822, and created a new junta to legislate in its place, answering only to him. He persecuted his enemies, arresting and jailing a score of former members of the congress, but this did not bring peace. During this time, Mexico suffered as an independent country. Ferdinand's resurgence as a ruler in Spain meant that no European nation was willing to recognize Mexico's independence and most broke off economic ties with the new state. Mexico was also under the threat of reconquest by Spain. Iturbide's economic policies were draining resources as well. To increase his popularity, he abolished a number of colonial-era taxes. However, he still insisted on a large and very well paid army and lived extravagantly himself. The elite turned against him when he imposed a 40% property tax on them.
General Santa Anna publicly announced his opposition to Iturbide in December 1822 with the support of Colonel José Antonio Echavarri and other military officers.In addition to opposition to Emperor Agustín I within what is now Mexico, much of the area now known as Central America declared its opposition to Mexico City's rule. In 1823, authorities in what are now El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras convened a Congress to declare themselves independent from Mexico and Spain as the United Provinces of Central America. Santa Anna's army marched toward Mexico City, winning small victories along the way. Many of the military leaders that Iturbide appointed later turned on him upon contacting Santa Anna's forces. The two leaders met on 1 February 1823 to sign Santa Anna's plan which called for the reinstatement of congress, Iturbide's abdication and his exile.
On 11 May 1823, the ex-emperor boarded the British ship Rawlins en route to Livorno, Italy (then part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany) accompanied by his wife, children, and some servants. After his departure, the situation in Mexico continued to worsen. Reports of a probable further Spanish attempt to retake Mexico reached Iturbide in England. He writes in his memories that he was very worried about the future of the nation he had liberated.
He continued to receive reports from Mexico as well as advice from supporters that if he returned he would be hailed as a liberator and a potential leader against the Spanish invasion. Iturbide sent word to congress in Mexico City on 13 February 1824 offering his services in the event of Spanish attack. Congress never replied. More conservative political factions in Mexico finally convinced Iturbide to return. Congress had previously declared him a traitor and "outside of the law," to be killed if he ever returned to Mexico. Iturbide was unaware of this second part, though some authors contest it. Iturbide returned to Mexico on 14 July 1824, accompanied by his wife, two children, and a chaplain. He landed at the port of Soto la Marina on the coast of Nuevo Santander (the modern-day state of Tamaulipas). They were initially greeted enthusiastically, but soon they were arrested by General Felipe de la Garza, the local military commander. He notoriously wavered in his resolve to detain Iturbide, at first receiving him warmly, then arresting him and, on the way to his trial, de la Garza gave Iturbide command over the military escort that accompanied them, requesting that Iturbide presented himself to the nearby village of Padilla. Iturbide gave his word of honor and did as was bid, surrendering himself to authorities. The local legislature held a trial and sentenced Iturbide to death. When a local priest administered last rites, Iturbide said, "Mexicans! In the very act of my death, I recommend to you the love to the fatherland, and the observance to our religion, for it shall lead you to glory. I die having come here to help you, and I die merrily, for I die amongst you. I die with honor, not as a traitor; I do not leave this stain on my children and my legacy. I am not a traitor, no." He was executed by firing squad on 19 July 1824. Three bullets hit him, one of which delivered the fatal blow.
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| Fusilamiento de Iturbide |
While Iturbide's reign lasted less than a year, it was the result of and further defined the struggle between republican and traditional ideals, not only in Mexico, but also in Europe. For a number of Mexican autonomists, a constitutionally sanctioned monarchy seemed a logical solution to the problem of creating a new state as it seemed to be a compromise between those who pushed for a representative form of government and those who wished to keep Mexico's monarchist traditions.
Traditionalists favored 27 September to celebrate when Iturbide rode into Mexico, but more liberal politicians favored 16 September to celebrate Father Hidalgo's call for rebellion against Spain.In modern-day Mexico, the liberalist tendency has dominated, to the extent that the conservative movements are academically and politically almost ignored. When they are treated, it is with a strong partisan slant. This is true of much of the writing about Iturbide, being portrayed as a "traitor" of 19th century Mexico. Many an author, including Timothy E. Anna, consider that a historical injustice has been committed against Iturbide, as his enemies had the privilege of writing history.
Another legacy that Iturbide left to Mexico was its modern flag, creating the flag known today. The three colors of red, white and green originally represented the three guarantees of the Plan of Iguala: Freedom, Religion and Union. In the place of the Spanish emblem for Mexico, he resurrected the old Tenochtitlan symbol for Mexico City, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus holding a snake in its beak. With it he hoped to link the upcoming Mexican Empire with the old Aztec one.
Iturbide is also mentioned in the Himno Nacional Mexicano, the national anthem for the country. The stanza translates as follows: "If to battle against the foreign host, the warrior trumpet invokes us, Mexicans, the Sacred flag of Iturbide bravely follow. Let the conquered banners serve as a carpet to the brave steeds, may the laurels of triumph bring shade to the brow of the brave Captain."
Mexican Republic
The First Federal Republic of Mexico (Spanish: Primera República Federal de México) was established on 4 October 1824, after the overthrow of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide.
However, most of the population largely ignored it. When Guadalupe Victoria was followed in office by Vicente Guerrero, who won the electoral but lost the popular vote, the Conservative Party saw an opportunity to seize control and led a coup under Anastasio Bustamante, who served as president from 1830 to 1832, and again from 1837 to 1841.
This coup set the pattern for Mexican politics during the 19th Century. Many governments rose and fell during a period of instability caused by factors including 1) the control of the economic system by the large landowners, 2) the struggle over the status of Mexico's northern territories, which issued in a devastating defeat at the end of the Mexican–American War; and 3) the gulf in wealth and power between the Spanish-descended elite and the mixed-race majority.
The main political parties during this era were the Conservatives (favoring the Catholic Church, the landowners, and a monarchy) and the Liberals (favoring secular government, the landless majority, and a republic).
In 1829, Spain made a final attempt to retake Mexico in Tampico with an invading force of 2,600 soldiers. Santa Anna marched against the Barradas Expedition with a much smaller force and defeated the Spaniards, many of whom were suffering from yellow fever. The defeat of the Spanish army not only increased Santa Anna’s popularity but also consolidated the independence of the new Mexican republic. Santa Anna was declared a hero. From then on, he styled himself "The Victor of Tampico" and "The Savior of the Motherland". His main act of self-promotion was to call himself "The Napoleon of the West".
In March 1833, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was elected as President and Valentín Gómez Farías as Vice-President of Mexico. They alternated leadership of the executive branch due to the frequent absences of Santa Anna. These were sometimes so that he could personally combat military uprisings, and sometimes to "restore his failing health.".
While Vice President Gómez Farías was at the head of government, he implemented reform measures affecting the interests of both the army and the Catholic Church. A law was proposed to expand the militias controlled by the States, which would relieve the federal budget. This law, and a discussion about disposal of church property by the States, led to the rebellions of Escalda and Durán in support of "Religion and privileges.". Congress ordered creation of primary schools, schools for secular education of primary school teachers, and schools for women and girls. The property of the California missions was seized. On 17 December 1833, Congress issued a decree that authorized the government to fill parish vacancies. the Bishop of Monterrey, José María de Jesús Belaunzarán y Ureña, announced he was willing to pay the fines and suffer exile before enforcing the new law. The Congress had also passed in June the famous Ley del Caso (Case Law) that ordered opponents of the reformist regime into exile.
Santa Anna took the side that defended the interests of the Church. On 12 March 1834 he sent a long letter to Gómez Farías expressing dissatisfaction with the directives and agreements that the government had made.
On 16 May, in Xalapa and Coatepec, Santa Anna was proclaimed "protector of the Catholic religion." On 23 May, in Oaxaca, he was proclaimed "sustainer of religion and freedom of the country". Finally, on 25 May in the town of Cuernavaca, Ignacio Echeverria and Jose Mariano Campos proclaimed the Plan of Cuernavaca, containing five articles that demanded:
- Repeal the Ley del Caso and do not tolerate the influence of Masonic lodges.
- Declare void the laws passed by Congress and the local legislatures.
- Request the protection of President Santa Anna to fulfill the plan, and recognize it as the only authority.
- Remove from office the deputies and officials who carried out enforcement of the reform laws and decrees.
- Provide military force to support the president in implementing the plan.
Antonio López de Santa Anna suspended the 1824 Constitution and replaced it with the Siete Leyes in 1835, a radical amendment that institutionalized the centralized form of government.
Several states openly rebelled against these changes. Northern Coahuila y Tejas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Yucatán, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas all disapproved. Civil war quickly spread across the Mexican states and three new governments declared independence: the Republic of Texas, the Republic of the Rio Grande and the Republic of Yucatán.
Santa Anna marched north to bring Texas back under Mexican control by a show of brute merciless force. His expedition posed challenges of manpower, logistics, supply, and strategy far beyond what he was prepared for, and it ended in disaster. To fund, organize, and equip his army he relied, as he often did, on forcing wealthy men to provide loans. He recruited hastily, sweeping up many derelicts and ex-convicts, as well as Indians who could not understand Spanish commands. His army expected tropical weather and suffered from the cold as well as shortages of traditional foods. Stretching a supply line far longer than ever before, he lacked enough horses, mules, cattle, and wagons, and thus had too little food and feed. The medical facilities were minimal. Morale sank as soldiers realized there were not enough chaplains to properly bury their bodies. Indians attacked stragglers; water sources were polluted and many men became sick. Because of his weak staff system Santa Anna was oblivious to the challenges, and was totally confident that a show of force and a few massacres (as at the Alamo and Goliad) would have the rebels begging for mercy.
On 6 March 1836, at the Battle of the Alamo, Santa Anna's forces killed 189 Texian defenders and later executed more than 342 Texian prisoners including James Walker Fannin at the Goliad Massacre (27 March 1836) in a manner similar to the executions he witnessed of Mexican rebels in the 1810s as a young soldier.
However, the defeat at the Alamo did serve to buy time for General Sam Houston and his Texas forces. During the siege of the Alamo, the Texas Navy had more time to plunder the Gulf of Mexico which led to the Texian Army gaining more weapons and ammunition. Despite Sam Houston's lack of ability to maintain strict control of the Texian Army, they were able to defeat Santa Anna's much larger army at the Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836, with the Texans shouting "Remember Goliad, Remember the Alamo!" The day after the battle, a small Texan force led by James Sylvester captured Santa Anna. They found the general dressed in a dragoon private's uniform and hiding in a marsh.
Acting Texas president David G. Burnet and Santa Anna signed the Treaties of Velasco, stating that "in his official character as chief of the Mexican nation, he acknowledged the full, entire, and perfect Independence of the Republic of Texas." In exchange, Burnet and the Texas government guaranteed Santa Anna's safety and transport to Veracruz. In Mexico City, however, a new government declared that Santa Anna was no longer president and that the treaty he made with Texas was null and void.
In 1838, Santa Anna had a chance for redemption from the loss of Texas. After Mexico rejected French demands for financial compensation for losses suffered by French citizens, France sent forces that landed in Veracruz in the Pastry War. The Mexican government gave Santa Anna control of the army and ordered him to defend the nation by any means necessary. He engaged the French at Veracruz. During the Mexican retreat after a failed assault, Santa Anna was hit in the leg and hand by cannon fire. His shattered ankle required amputation of much of his leg, which he ordered buried with full military honors. Despite Mexico's final capitulation to French demands, Santa Anna used his war service to re-enter Mexican politics as a hero. He never allowed Mexico to forget him and his sacrifice in defending the fatherland.
Soon after, as Anastasio Bustamante's presidency turned chaotic, supporters asked Santa Anna to take control of the provisional government. Santa Anna became president for the fifth time, taking over a nation with an empty treasury. Santa Anna's rule this time was more dictatorial than during his first administration. Anti-Santanista newspapers were banned and dissidents jailed. In 1842, he directed a military expedition into Texas, which resulted in no gain, but persuaded more Texans of the potential benefits of annexation by the more powerful United States. Santa Anna was unable to control the congressional elections of 1842. The new congress was composed of men of principles who vigorously opposed the autocratic leader. Trying to restore the treasury, Santa Anna raised taxes, but this aroused resistance. Several Mexican states stopped dealing with the central government, and Yucatán and Laredo declared themselves independent republics. With resentment growing, Santa Anna stepped down from power. Fearing for his life, he tried to elude capture, but in January 1845 he was apprehended by a group of Indians near Xico, Veracruz. They turned him over to authorities, and Santa Anna was imprisoned. His life was spared, but the dictator was exiled to Cuba.
In response to a Mexican massacre of an American army detachment in disputed territory, the U.S. Congress declared war on May 13, 1846; Mexico followed suit on 23 May. Santa Anna wrote to Mexico City saying he had no aspirations to the presidency, but would eagerly use his military experience to fight off the foreign invasion of Mexico as he had in the past. President Valentín Gómez Farías was desperate enough to accept the offer and allowed Santa Anna to return. Meanwhile, Santa Anna had secretly been dealing with representatives of the United States, pledging that if he were allowed back in Mexico through the U.S. naval blockades, he would work to sell all contested territory to the United States at a reasonable price. Once back in Mexico at the head of an army, Santa Anna reneged on both of these agreements. Santa Anna declared himself president again and unsuccessfully tried to fight off the United States invasion. The Mexican–American War took place in two theatres: the western (aimed at California) and Central Mexico (aimed at capturing Mexico City) campaigns.
The war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which stipulated that a) Mexico must sell its northern territories to the United States for US $15 million; b) the United States would give full citizenship and voting rights, and protect the property rights of Mexicans living in the ceded territories; and c) the United States would assume $3.25 million in debt owed by Mexico to Americans. The war was Mexico's first encounter with a modern well-organized and well-equipped army. The primary reason for Mexico's defeat was its problematic internal situation, which led to a lack of unity and organization for a successful defense.
In 1848, Santa Anna went into exile in Kingston, Jamaica, and two years later, moved to Turbaco, Colombia. In April 1853, he was invited back by rebellious conservatives with whom he succeeded in re-taking the government. This administration was no more successful than his earlier ones. He funneled government funds to his own pockets, sold more territory to the United States (see Gadsden Purchase), and declared himself dictator-for-life with the title "Most Serene Highness". The Plan of Ayutla of 1854 removed Santa Anna from power.
Despite his generous payoffs to the military for loyalty, by 1855 even conservative allies had seen enough of Santa Anna. That year a group of liberals led by Benito Juárez and Ignacio Comonfort overthrew Santa Anna, and he fled back to Cuba. As the extent of his corruption became known, he was tried in absentia for treason; all his estates were confiscated by the government.
In 1874 he took advantage of a general amnesty and returned to Mexico. Crippled and almost blind from cataracts, he was ignored by the Mexican government at the anniversary of the Battle of Churubusco. Two years later, Santa Anna died in Mexico City on 21 June 1876 and was buried in Panteón del Tepeyac Cemetery.
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| Mexico City Cathedral, near mid 19th century |
French intervention and the Second Mexican Empire
In March 1861, free-mason Benito Juárez was elected President in his own right under the Constitution of 1857. However, the Liberals' celebrations of 1861 were short-lived. The war had severely damaged Mexico's infrastructure and crippled its economy.Spain, Britain and France, angry over unpaid Mexican debts, sent a joint expeditionary force that seized the Veracruz customs house in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew after realizing that the French Emperor Napoleon III intended to overthrow the Juárez government and establish a Second Mexican Empire with the support of the remnants of the Conservative side in the Reform War. Thus began the French intervention in Mexico in 1862.
Mexican forces under Ignacio Zaragoza won an initial victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo (5 May). The Battle of Puebla was an inspirational event for wartime Mexico, and it provided a stunning revelation to the rest of the world which had largely expected a rapid victory for French arms. Slowed by their loss at Puebla, the French forces retreated and regrouped, and the invasion continued after Napoleon III determinedly sent additional troops to Mexico. The French were eventually victorious, winning the Second Battle of Puebla on 17 May 1863 and pushing on to Mexico City.
French troops under François Achille Bazaine entered Mexico City on 7 June 1863. The main army entered the city three days later led by General Forey. General Almonte was appointed the provisional President of Mexico on 16 June, by the Superior Junta (which had been appointed by Forey). The Superior Junta with its 35 members met on 21 June, and proclaimed a Catholic Empire on 10 July. The crown was offered to Maximilian von Habsburg, a younger brother of the Emperor of Austria, following pressures by Napoleon. Maximilian accepted the crown on 3 October, at the hands of the Comisión Mexicana, sent by the Superior Junta. He was proclaimed Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico on 20 April 1864 with the backing of Napoleon III and a group of Mexican conservatives.
One of Maximilian's first acts as Emperor was to restrict working hours and abolish child labour. He cancelled all debts for peasants over 10 pesos, restored communal property and forbade all forms of corporal punishment. He also broke the monopoly of the Hacienda stores and decreed that henceforth peons could no longer be bought and sold for the price of their debt.
Maximilian commissioned a grand avenue linking the city center with his imperial residence. The project was originally named Paseo de la Emperatriz and it was modeled after the great boulevards of Europe, such as the Ringstrasse in Vienna and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. After her return to Europe and Maximilian's subsequent execution, the restored Juárez government renamed the Paseo in honor of the Reform War.
To the dismay of his conservative allies, Maximilian upheld several liberal policies proposed by the Juárez administration – such as land reforms, religious freedom, and extending the right to vote beyond the landholding class. At first, Maximilian offered Juárez an amnesty if he would swear allegiance to the crown, even offering the post as Prime Minister, which Juárez refused. Later, Maximilian ordered all captured followers of Juárez to be shot, in response to the Republican practice of executing anyone who was a supporter of the Empire. In the end, it proved to be a tactical mistake that only exacerbated opposition to his regime.
The government of the United States was sympathetic to Juárez, refusing to recognize Maximilian, and opposed the French invasion as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, but was distracted by the American Civil War. Following the end of the war, US President Andrew Johnson demanded the French evacuate Mexico and imposed a naval blockade in February 1866.
The prospect of a US invasion to reinstate Juárez caused a large number of Maximilian's loyal adherents to abandon the cause and leave the capital. Nevertheless, by 1866, the imminence of Maximilian's abdication seemed apparent to almost everyone outside Mexico. In late 1866 Napoleon III withdrew his troops in the face of Mexican resistance and U.S. opposition under the Monroe Doctrine, as well as increasing his military contingent at home to face the ever growing Prussian military and Bismarck.
His wife Carlota travelled to Europe, seeking assistance for her husband's regime in Paris and Vienna and, finally, in Rome from Pope Pius IX. Meanwhile Maximilian allowed his followers to determine whether or not he abdicated. Faithful generals such as Miguel Miramón, Leonardo Márquez, and Tomás Mejía vowed to raise an army that would challenge the invading Republicans. Maximilian fought on with his army of 8,000 Mexican loyalists.
The loyalists were betrayed by Colonel Miguel López who was bribed by the Republicans to open a gate and lead a raiding party through with the agreement that Maximilian would be allowed to escape. The city fell on 15 May 1867 and Maximilian was captured the next morning after the failure of an attempt to escape through Republican lines.
Following a court-martial, he was sentenced to death. Many of the crowned heads of Europe and other prominent figures (including the eminent liberals Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi) sent telegrams and letters to Mexico pleading desperately for the Emperor's life to be spared. Although he liked Maximilian on a personal level, Juárez refused to commute the sentence in view of the Mexicans who had been killed fighting against Maximilian's forces, and because he believed it was necessary to send a message that Mexico would not tolerate any government imposed by foreign powers. The sentence was carried out in the Cerro de las Campanas on the morning of 19 June 1867, when Maximilian, along with Generals Miramón and Mejía, were executed by a firing squad. He spoke only in Spanish and gave his executioners a portion of gold not to shoot him in the head so that his mother could see his face. His last words were, "I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!". Generals Miramón and Mejía were shot after him. Both died shouting, "Long live the Emperor."
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| Last moments of Emperor Maximilian I of México. by Jean-Paul Laurens (1882) |
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| Bette Davis as Mexico's ill-starred Empress Carlota, 1939. |
After his execution, Maximilian's body was embalmed and displayed in Mexico. Early the following year, the Austrian admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff was sent to Mexico aboard SMS Novara to take the former emperor's body back to Austria. After arriving in Trieste, the coffin was taken to Vienna and buried in the Imperial Crypt on 18 January 1868.
As Carlota 's illness progressed, her paranoia faded. She remained deeply in love with her husband. After his death, she cherished all of the surviving possessions they had enjoyed in common. The bias of the historiography of the time makes it difficult to assess to what extent she suffered from alleged mental conditions such as psychosis, paranoia and monomania.
Maximilian has been praised by some historians for his liberal reforms, his genuine desire to help the people of Mexico, his refusal to desert his loyal followers, and his personal bravery during the siege of Querétaro. However, other researchers consider him short-sighted in political and military affairs, and unwilling to restore democracy in Mexico even during the imminent collapse of the Second Mexican Empire.
After the victory, the Conservative party was so thoroughly discredited by its alliance with the invading French troops that it effectively ceased to exist, and the Liberal party was almost unchallenged as a political force during the first years of the "restored republic".
Juárez was controversially re-elected President in 1867 and 1871, using the office of the presidency to ensure electoral success and suppressing revolts by opponents such as Porfirio Díaz. The republic was restored, President Juárez was returned to power in the national capital, yet there was little change in policy given that Maximilian had upheld most of Juárez's liberal reforms.
In 1871, however, Juárez was re-elected to yet another term as president in spite of a constitutional prohibition of re-elections, provoking one of the losing candidates, Porfirio Díaz (a Liberal general and a hero of the French war, but increasingly conservative in outlook) to launch a rebellion against the president. Supported by conservative factions within the Liberal party, the attempted revolt (the so-called Plan de la Noria) was already at the point of defeat when Juárez died in office on 19 July 1872, making it a moot point. Díaz ran against interim president Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, lost the election, and retired to his hacienda in Oaxaca
Benito Juárez died of a heart attack on 18 July 1872 while reading a newspaper at his desk in the National Palace in Mexico City. A great number of cities, towns, streets, institutions, and other things are named after Benito Juárez, including the former El Paso del Norte, now called Ciudad Juárez; see Juárez (disambiguation) for a partial list. Mexico City International Airport is better known in Mexico by its first official name Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez, or internationally often as Mexico City Juárez.
The Porfiriato (1876–1910)
In 1876, Lerdo was reelected, defeating Porfirio Díaz. Díaz rebelled against the government with the proclamation of the Plan de Tuxtepec, in which he opposed reelection, in 1876. Díaz managed to overthrow Lerdo, who fled the country, and was named president. Díaz became the new president. Thus began a period of more than 30 years (1876–1911) during which Díaz was Mexico's strong man. He was legally elected president eight times, turning over power only once, from 1880 to 1884, to a trusted ally, General Manuel Gonzailez. He justified his stay in office by claiming that Mexico was not yet ready to govern itself; only he knew what was best for his country and he enforced his belief with a strong hand. "Order and Progress" were the watchwords of his rule.
This period of relative prosperity and peace is known as the Porfiriato. He remained in power by rigging elections and censoring the press. Possible rivals were destroyed, and popular generals were moved to new areas so they could not build a permanent base of support.
Díaz's presidency was characterized by promotion of industry and development of infrastructure by opening the country to foreign investmen. During this period, the country's infrastructure was greatly improved, thanks to increased foreign investment from Britain and the U.S., and a strong, stable central government. Increased tax revenues and better administration brought dramatic improvements in public safety, public health, railways, mining, industry, foreign trade, and national finances. He modernized the army and suppressed some banditry.
The Mexican Revolution (1910–1929)
The modernization and progress in cities during the Porfiriato came at the expense of the rising working class and the peasantry. Farmers and peasants both complained of oppression and exploitation. The economy took a great leap during the Porfiriato, as he encouraged the construction of factories, roads, dams, industries and better farms. This resulted in the rise of an urban proletariat and the influx of foreign capital (principally from the United States and Great Britain).
Helpless and angry small farmers and landless peasants saw no hope for themselves and their families under a Díaz regime, and came to the conclusion that a change of leadership would be the only route that offered any hope for themselves and their country. More than 95% of Mexico's land was owned by less than 5% of the population. This vastly unequal distribution of land—and, therefore, wealth—had plagued Mexico for many years, to the anger and dismay of the working classes.
In 1910 Francisco I. Madero, a young man from a wealthy family in the northern state of Coahuila, stated that he would be running against Díaz for the presidency in the next election. To ensure Madero did not win, Díaz had him thrown in jail, then declared himself the winner. Madero soon escaped and fled for a short period to San Antonio, Texas. On October 5, 1910, Madero issued a "letter from jail" called the Plan de San Luis Potosí, with its main slogan Sufragio Efectivo, No re-elección ("free suffrage and no re-election"). It declared the Díaz regime illegal and called for revolt against Díaz, starting on November 20. Though Madero's letter was not a plan for major socioeconomic revolution, it offered the hope of change for many disadvantaged Mexicans. Madero's vague promises of agrarian reforms attracted many peasants throughout Mexico. He received the support from them that he needed to remove Díaz from power and raised an army consisting mostly of ordinary farmers, miners, and other working-class Mexicans, along with much of the country's Indian population. Madero's army fought Díaz's forces with some success, and he attracted the forces of other rebel leaders like Pancho Villa, Ricardo Flores Magón, Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza, and they eventually joined together to fight Díaz.
Zapata was positioned as a central leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos. Cooperating with a number of other peasant leaders he formed the Liberation Army of the South of which he soon became the undisputed leader. Zapata joined Madero's campaign against President Diaz. When Zapata's army captured Cuautla after a six-day battle on May 19, 1911, it became clear that Diaz would not hold on to power for long. With the support of Pancho Villa, Pascual Orozco, Emiliano Zapata, and rebellious peasants, Madero overthrew Díaz in May 1911 at the Battle of Ciudad Juárez. A provisional government was formed under Francisco León de la Barra. Under Madero, some new land reforms were carried out and elections were to be ensured. It stated that Díaz would abdicate his rule and be replaced by Madero. Insisting on a new election, Madero won overwhelmingly in late 1911. Some supporters criticized him for appearing weak by not assuming the presidency and failing to pass immediate reforms, but Madero established a liberal democracy and received support from the United States and popular leaders such as Orozco, Villa and Zapata.
Madero was a weak leader and quickly lost much of his support while in power. He angered both the more radical revolutionists and the conservative counter-revolutionists, including the unpopular Congress elected during Díaz's rule. His refusal to enact land reforms caused a break with Zapata. Then Zapata and Otilio Montaño Sánchez, a former school teacher, fled to the mountains of southwest Puebla. There they formed the most radical reform plan in Mexico; the Plan de Ayala (Plan of Ayala). The plan declared Madero a traitor, named one of Madero's military commanders Pascual Orozco head of the Revolution, and outlined a plan for true land reform. The Plan of Ayala called for all lands stolen under Díaz to be immediately returned: there was considerable land fraud under the old dictator, so a great deal of territory was involved. It also stated that large plantations owned by a single person or family should have one-third of their land nationalized and would then be required to give it to poor farmers. It also argued that if any large plantation owner resisted this action, they should have the other two-thirds confiscated as well. The Plan of Ayala also invoked the name of Benito Juárez, one of Mexico's great leaders, and compared the taking of land from the wealthy to Juarez's actions when he took land from the church in the 1860s.
Zapata was partly influenced by an anarchist from Oaxaca named Ricardo Flores Magón. The influence of Flores Magón on Zapata can be seen in the Zapatistas' Plan de Ayala, but even more noticeably in their slogan (this slogan was never used by Zapata) "Tierra y libertad" or "land and liberty"
When Orozco started a counterrebellion against Madero, Villa gathered his mounted cavalry troops and fought alongside General Victoriano Huerta to support Madero. However, Huerta viewed Villa as an ambitious competitor and later accused Villa of stealing a horse and insubordination; he then had Villa sentenced to execution in an attempt to dispose of him. Reportedly, Villa was in front of a firing squad waiting to be shot when a telegram from President Madero was received commuting his sentence to imprisonment, from which Villa later escaped after serving only a brief period in jail.
Orozco's forces known as the Orozquistas and Colorados (Red Flaggers) smashed Madero's army during several engagements. Seeing the potential danger that Orozco posed to his regime, Madero sent general Victoriano Huerta out of retirement to stop Orozco's Rebellion. Huerta's troops defeated the orozquistas in Conejos, Rellano and Bachimba finally seizing Ciudad Juárez. After being wounded in Ojinaga, Orozco was forced to flee to the United States.
Madero's time as leader was short-lived and was ended by a coup d'état in 1913 led by Gen. Victoriano Huerta. Following Huerta's coup, Madero was forced to resign. He and vice president José María Pino Suárez were both shot dead less than a week later by two army officers who were transporting them to a penitentiary.
After crushing the Orozco rebellion, Victoriano Huerta, with the federal army he commanded, held the majority of military power in Mexico. Huerta saw an opportunity to make himself the dictator of Mexico, and he began to conspire with men such as Bernardo Reyes, Félix Díaz (nephew of Porfirio Díaz), and the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, which resulted in La decena trágica (the "Ten Tragic Days").After the culminattion of the ten-day siege of La Ciudadela (La decena tragica) Madero accepted Huerta's "protection" from the Diaz/Reyes forces, only to be betrayed by Huerta and arrested. Madero's brother and advisor Gustavo A. Madero was kidnapped off the street, tortured, and killed. Following Huerta's coup d'état on 18 February 1913, Madero was forced to resign. After a 45-minute term of office, Pedro Lascuráin was replaced by Huerta, who took over the presidency later that day. Following his enforced resignation, Madero and his Vice-President José María Pino Suárez were kept under guard in the National Palace. On the evening of 22 February they were told that they were to be transferred to the main city penitentiary, where they would be safer. At 11:15pm reporters waiting outside the National Palace saw two cars containing Madero and Suárez emerge from the main gate under a heavy escort commanded by Captain Francisco Cardenas, an officer of the rurales. The journalists on foot were outdistanced by the motor vehicles, which were driven towards the penitentiary. The correspondent for the New York World was approaching the prison when he heard a volley of shots. Behind the building he found the two cars with the bodies of Madero and Suárez nearby, surrounded by soldiers and gendarmes. Captain Cardenas subsequently told reporters that the cars and their escort had been fired on by a group, as they neared the penitentiary. The two prisoners had leapt from the vehicles and ran towards their presumed rescuers. They had however been killed in the cross-fire.
Venustiano Carranza, a politician and rancher from Coahuila, was at the forefront of opposition to Huerta, and organized his own rebel army, called the Constitutionalists, with the secret support of the United States. On March 26, 1913, Carranza issued the Plan de Guadalupe, which refused to recognize Huerta as president and called for war between the two factions. Leaders such as Villa, Zapata, Carranza and Álvaro Obregón led the fight against Huerta. In April 1914, U.S. opposition to Huerta had reached its peak when American forces seized and occupied the port of Veracruz, resulting in the death of 170 Mexican soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. In late July the situation worsened for Huerta, and after his army suffered several defeats, he stepped down and fled to Puerto México.
In the winter of 1914 Villa's and Zapata's troops entered and occupied Mexico City. In 1915 Villa took part in two of the most important battles of the revolution, that together are known as Battle of Celaya, which occurred from April 6–7 and from April 13–15. He attacked the forces of General Obregón but was badly defeated in what became one of the bloodiest battles of the revolution, with thousands dead. With his forces' defeat of Villa, Carranza seized power.
A short time later the United States recognized Carranza as president of Mexico. Carranza, hostile to Zapata, constituted himself as the leader of Mexico, but Villa allied with Zapata against Carranza and Obregón. Dismayed with the alliance with Villa, Zapata focused his energies on rebuilding society in Morelos which he now controlled, instituting the land reforms of the Plan de Ayala.
On March 9, 1916, Villa crossed the U.S.–Mexico border and raided Columbus, New Mexico, in order to exact revenge on an American arms dealer who sold ammunition to Villa that he used in the Battle of Celaya and which turned out to be useless. During this attack, 18 Americans died but 90 of Villa's men were killed by U.S. troops and civilians who repelled the attack.
During his presidency Carranza relied on his personal secretary and close aide, Hermila Galindo de Topete, to rally and secure support for him. Through her efforts he was able to gain the support of women, workers and peasants. Carranza rewarded her efforts by lobbying for women's equality. He helped change and reform the legal status of women in Mexico.
In September 1916, Carranza convoked a Constitutional Convention, to be held in Querétaro, Querétaro. However, when the Constitutional Convention met in December 1916, it contained only 85 conservatives and centrists close to Carranza's brand of liberalism, a group known as the bloque renovador ("renewal faction"). Against them were 132 more radical delegates who insisted that land reform be embodied in the new constitution. The radicals also moved much further than Carranza approved on labor relations. In February 1917, they drafted Article 123 of the Constitution. The radicals also established more radical reform of the relationship of church and state than that favored by Carranza. Articles 3 and 130 were heavily anticlerical: the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico was denied recognition as a legal entity; priests were denied various rights and subject to public registration; religious education was forbidden; public religious ritual outside of the churches was banned; and all churches became the property of the nation.
On 19 January 1917, a secret message (the Zimmermann Telegram) was sent from the German foreign minister to Mexico proposing joint military action against the United States if war broke out. The offer included material aid to Mexico to assist in the reclamation of territory lost during the Mexican–American War, specifically the American states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Carranza consulted with his generals about this, and was told Mexico was certain to be defeated by its much more powerful neighbor. Zimmermann's message was intercepted and published, and outraged American opinion, leading to a declaration of war in early April. Carranza then formally rejected the offer, and the threat of war with the U.S. eased.
The new constitution was proclaimed on 5 February 1917 and Carranza became the constitutional President of Mexico. Carranza, however, brought very little change and those who wanted to see a new, liberal Mexico after the revolution were disappointed. Mexico was in desperate stress in 1917. The revolutionary fighting had decimated the economy, destroyed the nation's food supply, and led to widespread disease. Carranza remained lukewarm about the anti-clerical Articles 3 and 130 of the Mexican Constitution, both of which he had opposed at the Constitutional Convention. He proposed a constitutional amendment to mollify these constitutional provisions, but his proposal was rejected by the state legislatures and 2/3 of the Mexican Congress.
As Carranza consolidated his power and won over Villa, Zapata initiated guerrilla warfare against the Carrancistas, who in turn invaded Morelos, employing once again scorched earth tactics to oust the Zapatista rebels. Zapata once again retook Morelos in 1917 and held most of the state against Carranza's troops until he was killed in an ambush in 1919.
Even though Villa's forces were badly depleted by his loss at Celaya, he continued his fight against the Carranza government. Finally, in 1920, Obregón—who had defeated him at Celaya—finally reached an agreement with Villa, who "hung up his guns" and retired to his farm. In exchange for his retirement, Villa was given a 25,000 acre hacienda in Canutillo, just outside of Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, by the national government. This was in addition to the Quinta Luz estate that he owned with his wife, María Luz Corral de Villa, in Chihuahua, Chihuahua. The last remaining 200 guerrillas and veterans of Villa's milita who still maintained a loyalty to him could reside with him in his new hacienda as well and the Mexican government also granted them a pension that totalled 500,000 gold pesos.
Carranza determined not to run for re-election in 1920. His natural successor was Álvaro Obregón, the heroic Carrancista general. Carranza, however, felt that Mexico should have a president who was not a general, and therefore endorsed Ignacio Bonillas, an obscure diplomat, for the presidency. Obregón supporters were repressed and killed and Obregón himself decided that Carranza would never leave the office peacefully. Carranza set out towards Veracruz to regroup but was betrayed and he died in Tlaxcalantongo in the Sierra Norte de Puebla mountains while being attacked by the forces of General Rodolfo Herrero, supporter of Carranza's former allies and local chieftain, on 21 May 1920 while he was sleeping. Today Carranza is remembered as one of the “Big Four” of the Revolution, along with Zapata, Villa and Obregón.
On Friday, 20 July 1923, Villa was killed while visiting Parral. Usually accompanied by his entourage of Dorados (his bodyguards) Pancho Villa frequently made trips from his ranch to Parral for banking and other errands. This day, however, Villa had gone into the town without them, taking only a few associates with him. He went to pick up a consignment of gold from the local bank with which to pay his Canutillo ranch staff. While driving back through the city in his black 1919 Dodge roadster, Villa passed by a school and a pumpkinseed vendor ran toward Villa's car and shouted Viva Villa! – a signal for a group of seven riflemen who then appeared in the middle of the road and fired over 40 shots into the automobile. In the fusillade of shots, nine Dumdum bullets hit Villa in the head and upper chest, killing him instantly. Most historians attribute Villa's death to a well planned conspiracy, most likely initiated by Plutarco Elías Calles and Joaquin Amaro with at least tacit approval of the then president of Mexico, Obregon. At the time, a state legislator from Durango, Jesus Salas Barraza, whom Villa once whipped during a quarrel over a woman, claimed sole responsibility for the plot.
The Cristero War (1926–1929)
Many leaders and members of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico were highly critical of the 1917 constitution. They especially criticized Article 3, which forbade religious instruction in schools, and Article 130, which adopted an extreme form of separation of church and state, including a series of restrictions on priests and ministers of all religions to hold public office, canvass on behalf of political parties or candidates, or to inherit from persons other than close blood relatives, etc
The most serious diplomatic incident occurred in 1923, when Ernesto Filippi, the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico, conducted an open air religious service in spite of the fact that it was illegal to hold a religious service outside a church. The government invoked Article 33 of the constitution and expelled Filippi from Mexico. Obregón effectively applied the secularist laws emanating from the constitution, only in areas where Catholic sentiment was weakest. This uneasy "truce" between the government and the Church ended with the 1924 hand-picked succession of an atheist, Plutarco Elías Calles. Mexican Jacobins, supported by Calles's central government, went beyond mere anticlericalism and engaged in secular antireligious campaigns to eradicate what they called "superstition" and "fanaticism", including desecration of religious objects, persecution, and murder of the clergy and anticlerical legislation.
Calles applied the anti-clerical laws stringently throughout the country and added his own anti-clerical legislation. In June 1926, he signed the "Law for Reforming the Penal Code", known unofficially as the "Calles Law". This provided specific penalties for priests and individuals who violated the provisions of the 1917 Constitution. For instance, wearing clerical garb in public (i.e., outside Church buildings) earned a fine of $500 Mexican pesos ($250 U.S. dollars per the historical exchange rate); a priest who criticized the government could be imprisoned for five years. In the same year 1926, Calles was awarded a medal of merit from the head of Mexico's Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for his actions against the Catholics.
In response to these measures, Catholic organizations began to intensify their resistance. The most important of these groups was the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty, founded in 1924. This was joined by the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth (founded 1913) and the Popular Union, a Catholic political party founded in 1925. On July 11, 1926, Catholic bishops voted to suspend all public worship in response to the Calles Law with the suspension taking effect on August 1, 1926. On July 14, 1926, they endorsed plans for an economic boycott against the government, which was particularly effective in west-central Mexico (the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, and Zacatecas). Catholics in these areas stopped attending movies and plays and using public transportation, and Catholic teachers stopped teaching in secular schools.
On August 3, 1926, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, some 400 armed Catholics shut themselves up in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They exchanged gunfire with federal troops and surrendered when they ran out of ammunition. According to U.S. consular sources, this battle resulted in 18 dead and 40 wounded. The following day, in Sahuayo, Michoacán, 240 government soldiers stormed the parish church. The priest and his vicar were killed in the ensuing violence.
The formal rebellion began on January 1, 1927, with a manifesto sent by Garza on New Year's Day, titled A la Nación (To the Nation). This declared that "the hour of battle has sounded" and "the hour of victory belongs to God". With the declaration, the state of Jalisco, which had seemed to be quiet since the Guadalajara church uprising, exploded.
On February 23, 1927, the Cristeros defeated federal troops for the first time at San Francisco del Rincón, Guanajuato, followed by another victory at San Julián, Jalisco. However, they quickly began to lose in the face of superior federal forces, and retreated into remote areas, constantly fleeing federal soldiers. Most of the leadership of the revolt in the state of Jalisco was forced to flee to the United States, although Victoriano Ramírez and Fr. Reyes Vega remained.
In April 1927, the leader of the civilian wing of the Cristiada, Anacleto González Flores, was captured, tortured, and killed. The media and government declared victory and plans were made for a re-education campaign in the areas that had rebelled. As if to prove that the rebellion was not extinguished, and to avenge the death of González Flores, Fr. Reyes Vega led a raid against a train carrying a shipment of money for the Bank of Mexico on April 19, 1927. The raid was a success, but Reyes Vega's brother was killed in the fighting.
The "concentration" policy, rather than suppressing the revolt, gave it new life, as thousands of men began to aid and join the rebels in resentment of the cruel treatment of the Federation. When the rains came the peasants were allowed to return to the harvest, and there was now more support than ever for the Cristeros. By August 1927, they had consolidated their movement and were constantly attacking federal troops garrisoned in their towns. Soon they would be joined by Enrique Gorostieta, a retired general hired by the National League for Religious Liberty. Although Gorostieta was himself a liberal and a skeptic, he would eventually wear a cross around his neck and speak openly of his reliance on God.
On June 21, 1927, the first brigade of female Cristeros known as the Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc was formed in Zapopan. The brigade began with 17 women but soon grew to 135 members. Its mission was to obtain money, weapons, provisions, and information for the combatant men while also caring for the wounded. By March 1928, some 10,000 women were involved in the struggle with many smuggling weapons into combat zones by carrying them in carts filled with grain or cement. By the end of the war, they numbered some 25,000.
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| Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc |
In October 1927, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Whitney Morrow, initiated a series of breakfast meetings with President Calles at which the two would discuss a range of issues, from the religious uprising to oil and irrigation. This earned him the nickname "the ham and eggs diplomat" in U.S. papers. Morrow wanted the conflict to end both for regional security and to help find a solution to the oil problem in the United States. He was aided in his efforts by Fr. John J. Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference.
Obregón won the 1928 Mexican presidential election, but months before assuming the presidency.Two weeks after his election, Obregón was assassinated by a Catholic radical, José de León Toral, an event that gravely damaged the peace process. To avoid a political vacuum after Obregon death, Calles named himself Jefe Máximo, the political chieftain of Mexico and Emilio Portes Gil was appointed temporary president, although in reality he was little more than a puppet of Calles. The following year, Calles founded the PNR, or Partido Nacional Revolucionario, the predecessor of today's Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
Morrow managed to bring the parties to agreement on June 21, 1929. His office drafted a pact called the arreglos (agreement) that allowed worship to resume in Mexico and granted three concessions to the Catholics: only priests who were named by hierarchical superiors would be required to register, religious instruction in the churches (but not in the schools) would be permitted, and all citizens, including the clergy, would be allowed to make petitions to reform the laws. But the most important part of the agreement was that the church would recover the right to use its properties, and priests recovered their rights to live on such property. Legally speaking, the church was not allowed to own real estate, and its former facilities remained federal property. However, the church effectively took control over the properties. It was a convenient arrangement for both parties, and the church ostensibly ended its support for the rebels. Calles, however, did not abide by the terms of the truce; he had approximately five hundred Cristero leaders and 5,000 other Cristeros shot, frequently in their homes in front of their wives and children. Particularly offensive to Catholics after the supposed truce was Calles's insistence on a complete state monopoly on education, suppressing all Catholic education and introducing "socialist" education in its place, saying: "We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth." The persecution continued as Calles maintained control under his Maximato and did not relent until 1940, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho, a practicing Catholic, took office
On June 27, 1929, the church bells rang in Mexico for the first time in almost three years. The war had claimed the lives of some 90,000 people: 56,882 on the federal side, 30,000 Cristeros, and numerous civilians and Cristeros who were killed in anticlerical raids after the war ended.
Regarding this period, recent President Vicente Fox stated, "After 1917, Mexico was led by anti-Catholic Freemasons who tried to evoke the anticlerical spirit of popular indigenous President Benito Juárez of the 1800s. But the military dictators of the 1920s were a lot more savage than Juárez."
The effects of the war on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 40 priests were killed. There were 4,500 priests serving the people before the rebellion, but by 1934 there were only 334 licensed by the government to serve 15 million people. The rest had been eliminated by emigration, expulsion and assassination. By 1935, 17 states had no priests at all. Nowadays The Catholic Church is the world's largest Christian church, and its largest religious grouping. The 2010 census reported that Mexico had some 101,456,786 Catholics among the population aged five and above, which equates to around 91% of the total population, making it the second largest Roman Catholic country in the world after Brazil. The country is divided into 18 Ecclesiastical provinces, containing a total of 90 dioceses.
Calles was denounced by Pope Pius XI in the encyclical Iniquis Afflictisque (On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico) as being "unjust", for a "hateful" attitude and for the "ferocity" of the war which he waged against the Church.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) (1929–2000)
In 1929, the National Mexican Party (PNM) was formed by the president, General Plutarco Elías Calles. The PNM convinced most of the remaining revolutionary generals to hand over their personal armies to the Mexican Army; the party's foundation is thus considered by some the end of the Revolution. Later renamed the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), the new party ruled Mexico for the rest of the 20th century.
President Lázaro Cárdenas came to power in 1934 and transformed Mexico. Cárdenas managed to unite the different forces in the PRI and set the rules that allowed his party to rule unchallenged for decades to come without internal fights.
On the evening of March 18, 1938, Cárdenas nationalized Mexico's petroleum reserves and expropriated the equipment of the foreign oil companies in Mexico. The announcement inspired a spontaneous six-hour parade in Mexico City; it was followed by a national fund-raising campaign to compensate the companies.
Cárdenas sought to actively help the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War, but those efforts were largely thwarted by the administration of US President FDR Roosevelt. After the war ended with the defeat of the loyalist Republicans, Cárdenas gave specific instructions to his ambassador and envoys in Europe to give safe haven and protection to all exiles, including Republican President Manuel Azaña, actively sought for deportation by the victorious Nationalists and by the Vichy French. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were successful in persuading the Lázaro Cárdenas government to give the Trotskys political asylum in Mexico, and Trotsky and Sedova arrived in Mexico in January 1937.
Russian exile Leon Trotsky was welcomed in 1937 into Mexico by Cárdenas, reportedly to counter accusations that Cárdenas was a Stalinist. Trotsky was earlier forced into exile outside the Soviet Union in February 1929 because of his criticism of Joseph Stalin's government. For eight years, Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, wandered among several countries under surveillance, and later under a death sentence due to Trotsky's persistent political activity against Stalin from exile.
From January 1937 to April 1939, the couple lived at Frida Kahlo's family home called “La Casa Azul” (The Blue House), which is located in the Coyoacán borough of Mexico City. However, by 1939, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky had a falling-out. Some stories state that it was over ideology and Diego’s criticism of Trotsky’s writing and others state that Trotsky had had an affair with Frida, or a combination of both. The Trotskys then moved to the house on Viena Street in the same borough in April 1939, not far from The Blue House.
While Mexico had an active Communist movement at that time, like elsewhere it was divided between those who supported Stalin and those who opposed Stalin. On 24 May 1940, a failed attempt on Trotsky's life was led by NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich and Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. Robert Sheldon Harte, a young assistant and bodyguard of Trotsky, was abducted and later murdered, but the other guards defeated the attackers. Pablo Neruda is also accused of conspiring in the plot, in helping David Alfaro Siqueiros to escape to Chile. However, Neruda denied this and claimed that he had issued the Chilean visa on the orders of Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho.
In 1955 Lázaro Cárdenas was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize, which was later renamed for Lenin as part of de-Stalinization.
Manuel Ávila Camacho served as the President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946.He was also responsible, on 18 January 1946, for renaming what had been the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM) to the name it carries today, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Ávila Camacho put an end to rational education. Conflicts with the United States, that existed in the decades before his presidential term, were resolved. Especially in the early years of World War II Mexican-US relations were excellent. Ávila was a professed Catholic, which was a change from his predecessors in the first half of the twentieth century who had been strongly anticlerical.
From 1946 to 1952 the President of Mexico was Miguel Alemán Valdés. As president, Alemán pursued industrial development, increasing the extension of the nation's rail network, improving highways, and constructing a number of major schools. Also his administration constructed a new campus for the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM).Rampant political corruption and crony capitalism would mark his administration, and this would shape the relationship of politics and big business in Mexico until the present day. His successful economic policy led to talks about the “Mexican miracle”, but only a small elite benefited from economic growth. His administration took an anti-communist stance and supported the United States during the Cold War.
Adolfo Tomás Ruiz Cortines was President of Mexico from 1952 to 1958, representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He was one of the oldest presidents of Mexico, perhaps best remembered for granting women the right to vote in presidential elections and stimulating the Mexican economy.
Adolfo López Mateos was a Mexican politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who served as President of Mexico from 1958 to 1964. As president, he nationalized electric companies, created the National Commission for Free Textbooks (1959) and promoted the creation of prominent museums such as the Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Declaring his political philosophy to be “left within the Constitution,” López Mateos was the first left-wing politician to hold the presidency since Lázaro Cárdenas.
The 1968 Summer Olympics held in Mexico City, Mexico, in October 1968 were the first Olympic Games to be staged in Latin America and the first to be staged in a Spanish-speaking country.
The Mexican government invested a massive $150 million in preparation for the 1968 Olympics to be hosted in Mexico City. That amount was equal to roughly $7.5 billion by today's terms. The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as The Night of Tlatelolco (from a book title by the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska), was a killing of an estimated 30 to 300 students and civilians by military and police on October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The events are considered part of the Mexican Dirty War, when the government used its forces to suppress political opposition. The massacre occurred 10 days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
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| Tlatelolco massacre |
Luis Echeverría served as President of Mexico from 1970 to 1976. As president he embarked on a far-reaching program of populist political and economic reform, nationalizing the mining and electrical industries, redistributing private land in the states of Sinaloa and Sonora to peasants, imposing limits on foreign investment, and extending Mexico's patrimonial waters to 370 kilometres (230 mi). Echeverría has been accused of irresponsible government spending, increasing inflation, and cronyism, which was symbolized by appointing his good friend and eventual successor José López Portillo as Finance Minister, as well as devaluations of the peso, from 12.50 MXP per dollar in 1954 to 20 per dollar in late 1976. During his period in office, the country's external debt soared from $6 billion in 1970 to $20 billion in 1976.
José Guillermo Abel López Portillo y Pacheco served as the 51st President of Mexico from 1976 to 1982. When López Portillo entered office, Mexico was in the midst of an economic crisis. López Portillo undertook an ambitious program to promote Mexico's economic development with revenues stemming from the discovery of new petroleum reserves in the states of Veracruz and Tabasco by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the country's publicly owned oil company. One of his last actions as president, announced during his annual State of the Nation address on September 1, 1982, was to order the nationalization of the country's banking system.During his presidential term his critics accused him of corruption and nepotism.
Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado served as the 52nd President of Mexico from 1982 to 1988.During his presidency, de la Madrid introduced neoliberal economic reforms that encouraged foreign investment, widespread privatisation of outdated state-run industries, and reduction of tariffs, a process that continued under his successors, and which immediately caught the attention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international observers. His administration's mishandling of the infamous 1985 earthquake in Mexico City damaged his popularity because of his initial refusal of international aid. It placed Mexico's delicate path to economic recovery in an even more precarious situation, as the destruction also extended to other parts of the country
The 1985 Mexico City earthquake was a magnitude 8.1 earthquake that struck some states of Mexico and Mexico City on the early morning of 19 September 1985 at around 7:19 am (CST), caused the deaths of at least 10,000 people and serious damage to the Greater Mexico City Area.
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| 1985 Mexico City earthquake |
At the time of the earthquake, Mexico was in its fifth year of a foreign debt crisis, and a contracting economy causing serious political problems for the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Much of the PRI's authoritarian nature was tolerated because the country had seen four decades of economic expansion of six percent or better. When this disappeared, the PRI's power base began to shrink. Its reputation was damaged further when the government seemed to be deliberately downplaying the number of earthquake victims.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari served as President of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Carlos Salinas became presidential candidate in a difficult time for the PRI which for the first time was faced by significant opposition from the left (National Democratic Front) and from the right (National Action Party, PAN). The candidate of the PAN was Manuel Clouthier. The Ministry of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación), through its Federal Electoral Commission, was the institution in charge of the electoral process, and installed a modern computing system to count the votes. On July 6, 1988, the day of the elections, the system "crashed," and when it was finally restored, Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner. Even though the elections are extremely controversial, and some declare that Salinas won legally, the expression se cayó el sistema (the system crashed, lit. "the system fell down") became a colloquial euphemism for electoral fraud. During a television interview in September 2005, Miguel de la Madrid acknowledged that the PRI lost the 1988 elections.
Salinas conducted a constitutional reform; thereby he reformed the Clerical Laws which had forbidden religious ministers from voting, and established a new relationship between State and Church, which had been severely damaged during the Cristero War. The new laws also allowed churches to own their own buildings (which had been nationalized). Moreover the constitutional reform put an end to land redistribution. At the end of Salinas’ presidential term, several politically motivated assassinations occurred. The victims were: Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, PRI Presidential Candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu.
The anticlerical articles were substantially reformed in 1992, removing much of the anticlerical matter by granting all religious groups legal status, conceding them limited property rights, and lifting restrictions on the number of priests in the country. Article 27 was also greatly amended by ending land redistribution, permitting peasants to rent or sell ejido or communal land, and permitting both foreigners and corporations to buy land in Mexico. Still, however, the constitution still does not accord full religious freedom as recognized by the various human rights declarations and conventions; specifically, outdoor worship is still prohibited and only allowed in exceptional circumstances generally requiring governmental permission, religious organizations are not permitted to own print or electronic media outlets, governmental permission is required to broadcast religious ceremonies, and ministers are prohibited from being political candidates or holding public office:
Salinas negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the United States and Canada. Critics say that NAFTA has had mixed results for Mexico: while there has been huge increase in commerce and foreign investment, this hasn't been at all the case for employment and salaries, resulting thus in worse distribution of wealth. Salinas also renegotiated Mexico’s foreign debt. Mexico also reestablished diplomatic relations with the Vatican. Moreover Mexico became member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The First Ibero-American Summit was held and the Chapultepec Peace Accords, a peace agreement for El Salvador, were signed.
The economic bubble gave Mexico a prosperity not seen in a generation. This period of rapid growth coupled with low inflation prompted some political thinkers and the media to state that Mexico was on the verge of becoming a "First World nation." In fact, it was the first of the "newly industrialized nations" to be admitted into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in May 1994. It was known that the peso was overvalued, but the extent of the Mexican economy's vulnerability was either not well known or downplayed by both the Salinas de Gortari administration and the media. This vulnerability was further aggravated by several unexpected events and macroeconomic mistakes made in the last year of his administration.
In keeping with the PRI election-year tradition, Salinas launched a spending spree to finance popular projects, which translated into a historically high deficit. This budget deficit was coupled with a current account deficit, fueled by excessive consumer spending as allowed by the overvalued peso. In order to finance this deficit, the Salinas administration issued tesobonos, an attractive debt instrument that insured payment in dollars instead of pesos.
International perceptions of Mexico's political risk began to shift however, when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation declared war on the Mexican government and began a violent insurrection in Chiapas. Investors further questioned Mexico's political uncertainties and stability when PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated while campaigning in Tijuana in March 1994, and began setting higher risk premia on Mexican financial assets. The higher risk premia initially had no effect on the peso's value due to Mexico's fixed exchange rate regime. Mexico's central bank deviated from standard central banking policy when supporting a fixed exchange rate. Normally, a country's central bank would allow its monetary base to decrease and its interest rates to rise. Rather, Mexico purchased treasury bills to support its monetary base in an effort to prevent rising interest rates, motivated by the political pressures of an election year.Consistent with the macroeconomic trilemma in which a country with a fixed exchange rate and free flow of financial capital sacrifices its monetary policy autonomy, the central bank's interventions to raise the value of the peso by purchasing pesos with dollars against increasing downward market pressure caused Mexico's money supply to contract (whereas without an exchange rate peg, the currency would have instead been allowed to depreciate). The central bank's foreign exchange reserves began depleting as a result of its continuous purchases of pesos until it ran out of U.S. dollars completely in December 1994.
On December 20, 1994, newly inaugurated President Ernesto Zedillo announced the Mexican central bank's devaluation of the peso between 13 and 15 percent.
The United States intervened rapidly to stem the economic crisis, first by buying pesos in the open market, and then by granting assistance in the form of $50 billion in loan guarantees. The peso stabilized at 6 pesos per dollar. By 1996, the economy was growing, and in 1997, Mexico repaid, ahead of schedule, all U.S. Treasury loans.
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a revolutionary leftist political and militant group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. The ideology of the Zapatista movement, Zapatismo, synthesizes traditional Mayan practices with elements of libertarian socialism, anarchism, and Marxism. The historical influence of Mexican Anarchists and various Latin American socialists is apparent in Zapatismo, with the positions of Subcomandante Marcos also adding a distinct Marxist element to the movement. A Zapatista slogan is in harmony with the concept of mutual aid: "For everyone, everything. For us, nothing" (Para todos todo, para nosotros nada).
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| Subcomandante Marcos |
Emphasizing the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize the tax system and labor laws, integrate with the U.S. economy, and allow private investment in the energy sector, Vicente Fox Quesada, the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), was elected the 69th president of Mexico on 2 July 2000, ending PRI's 71-year-long control of the office. Though Fox's victory was due in part to popular discontent with decades of unchallenged PRI hegemony, also, Fox's opponent, president Zedillo, conceded defeat on the night of the election—a first in Mexican history
During his campaign for president, Vicente Fox became well known for his unique cowboy style and popular charisma. As speaker, Fox usually gathered big crowds in early years of his presidency. At six foot five, President Fox easily stood out in most crowds, and is believed to be one of the tallest presidents in Mexican history. After his inauguration, President Fox usually only wore suits for formal occasions, opting to wear his signature boots and jeans throughout his many visits around Mexico.
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| Vicente Fox and George Bush |
President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (PAN) took office after one of the most hotly contested elections in recent Mexican history; Calderón won by such a small margin (.56% or 233,831 votes.) that the runner-up, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) contested the results.
Despite imposing a cap on salaries of high-ranking public servants, Calderón ordered a raise on the salaries of the Federal Police and the Mexican armed forces on his first day as president.
Calderón's government also ordered massive raids on drug cartels upon assuming office in December 2006 in response to an increasingly deadly spate of violence in his home state of Michoacán. The decision to intensify drug enforcement operations has led to an ongoing conflict between the federal government and the Mexican drug cartels.
On July 1, 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto was elected president of Mexico with 38% of the vote. He is a former governor of the state of Mexico and a member of the PRI. His election returned the PRI to power after 12 years of PAN rule. He was officially sworn into office on December 1, 2012.
Some famous Mexicans
Diego Rivera (1886-1957): His mother was a Converso, whose ancestors were forced to convert from Judaism to Catholicism. Speaking about himself, Rivera wrote in 1935: "My Jewishness is the dominant element in my life". But he was an atheist all his life. Maria Vorobieff-Stebelska gave birth to a daughter named Marika in 1918 or 1919 when Rivera was married to Angelina. As an adult, he married Angelina Beloff in 1911, and she gave birth to a son, Diego (1916–1918). In 1922 he joined the Mexican Communist Party. His murals, subsequently painted in fresco only, dealt with Mexican society and reflected the country's 1910 Revolution. Rivera developed his own native style based on large, simplified figures and bold colors with an Aztec influence clearly present in murals.He married his second wife, Guadalupe Marín, in June 1922, with whom he had two daughters: Ruth and Guadalupe. He was still married when he met art student Frida Kahlo. Leon Trotsky lived with Rivera and Kahlo for several months while exiled in Mexico. Frida and Rivera married on August 21, 1929 when he was 42 and she was 22. Their mutual infidelities and his violent temper led to divorce in 1939, but they remarried December 8, 1940 in San Francisco. Rivera later married Emma Hurtado, his agent since 1946, on July 29, 1955, one year after Kahlo's death. Between 1932 and 1933, he completed a famous series of twenty-seven fresco panels entitled Detroit Industry on the walls of an inner court at the Detroit Institute of Arts. During the McCarthyism of the 1950s, a large sign was placed in the courtyard defending the artistic merit of the murals while attacking his politics as "detestable". His mural "Man at the Crossroads", begun in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, was removed after a furor erupted in the press over a portrait of Vladimir Lenin it contained. When Diego refused to remove Lenin from the painting, Diego was ordered to leave. One of Diego's assistants managed to take a few pictures of the work so Diego was able to later recreate it. In December 1933, Rivera returned to Mexico, and he repainted Man at the Crossroads in 1934 in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. This surviving version was called Man, Controller of the Universe. On June 5, 1940, invited again by Pflueger, Rivera returned for the last time to the United States to paint a ten-panel mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. Pan American Unity was completed November 29, 1940.
Agustín Lara (1897 - 1970): He was a Mexican singer, actor and songwriter. Lara’s first musical composition was Marucha, written in honor of one of his first loves. In 1927 he already was working in cabarets. He subsequently moved to Puebla, but returned to Mexico City in 1928. Lara’s first tour, to Cuba in 1933, was a failure because of political turmoil on the island. Later, more successful tours in South America, as well as such new compositions as Solamente Una Vez (composed in Buenos Aires and dedicated to José Mojica), Veracruz, Tropicana, and Pecadora increased his fame. By the beginning of the 1940s, Lara was well known in Spain. In 1965, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, gave him a house in Granada to show his appreciation of Lara’s songs with Spanish themes, such as Toledo, Cuerdas de mi Guitarra, Granada, Seville and Madrid. He received additional honors and decorations from around the world. By the time of his death, Lara had written more than 700 songs.
Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón (1907-1954): She was a Mexican painter who is best known for her self-portraits. Kahlo's father, Guillermo Kahlo was born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo in 1871, in Pforzheim, Germany. Kahlo's mother, Matilde Calderón y González, was a devout Roman Catholic of mixed Amerindian and Spanish ancestry. Kahlo contracted polio at age six, which left her right leg thinner than the left; she disguised this later in life by wearing long, colorful skirts. On September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus that collided with a trolley car. She suffered serious injuries as a result of the accident, including a broken spinal column. The accident left her in a great deal of pain, and she spent three months recovering in a full body cast. Although she recovered from her injuries and eventually regained her ability to walk, she had relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life. The pain was intense and often left her confined to a hospital or bedridden for months at a time. She had as many as 35 operations as a result of the accident, mainly on her back, her right leg, and her right foot. Kahlo created at least 140 paintings, along with dozens of drawings and studies. Of her paintings, 55 are self-portraits which often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. She insisted, "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."
Diego Rivera had a great influence on Frida's painting style. Frida had always admired Diego and his work. She first approached Diego in the Public Ministry of Education, where he had been working on a mural in 1927. Active communists, Kahlo and and her husband Rivera befriended Leon Trotsky during the late 1930s, after he fled Norway to Mexico to receive political asylum from the Soviet Union, where he was expelled and sentenced to death during Joseph Stalin's leadership. During 1937, Trotsky lived initially with Rivera and then at Kahlo's home (where he and Kahlo had an affair). Trotsky and his wife then relocated to another house in Coyoacán where, in 1940, he was assassinated. Both Kahlo and Rivera broke with Trotskyism and openly became supporters of Stalin in 1939. Aside from the 1939 acquisition by the Louvre, Kahlo's work was not widely acclaimed until decades after her death. Often she was remembered only as Diego Rivera's wife. It was not until the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s, when the artistic style in Mexico known as Neomexicanismo began, that she became well-known to the public.
Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes (1911-1993), Cantinflas. He was a Mexican comic film actor, producer, and screenwriter. Before starting his professional life in entertainment, he explored a number of possible careers, such as medicine and professional boxing, before joining the entertainment world as a dancer. By 1930 he was involved in Mexico City's carpa (travelling tent) circuit, performing in succession with the Ofelia, Sotelo of Azcapotzalco, and finally the Valentina carpa, where he met his future wife. He married Valentina Ivanova Zubareff , of Russian ethnicity, on October 27, 1936, and remained with her until her death in January 1966. A son was born to Moreno in 1961 by another woman; the child was adopted by Valentina Ivanova and was named Mario Arturo Moreno Ivanova, causing some references to erroneously refer to him as "Cantinflas' adopted son". Among the things that endeared him to his public was his comic use of language in his films; his characters (all of which were really variations of the main "Cantinflas" persona but cast in different social roles and circumstances) would strike up a normal conversation and then complicate it to the point where no one understood what they were talking about. The Cantinflas character was particularly adept at obfuscating the conversation when he owed somebody money, was courting an attractive young woman, or was trying to talk his way out of trouble with authorities, whom he managed to humiliate without their even being able to tell. This manner of talking became known as Cantinflada, and it became common parlance for Spanish speakers to say "¡estás cantinfleando!" (loosely translated as you're pulling a "Cantinflas!" or you're "Cantinflassing!") whenever someone became hard to understand in conversation. The Real Academia Española officially included the verb, cantinflear, cantinflas and cantinflada in its dictionary in 1992.His contributions to the Roman Catholic Church and orphanages made him a folk hero in Mexico.
Octavio Paz (1914-1998): Mexican poet-diplomat and writer. Paz was introduced to literature early in his life through the influence of his grandfather's library, filled with classic Mexican and European literature. During the 1920s, he discovered the European poets Gerardo Diego, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Antonio Machado, Spanish writers who had a great influence on his early writings. In 1937, Paz abandoned his law studies and left for Yucatán to work at a school in Mérida for sons of peasants and workers. There, he began working on the first of his long, ambitious poems, "Entre la piedra y la flor" ("Between the Stone and the Flower") (1941, revised in 1976), influenced by T. S. Eliot, which describes the situation of the Mexican peasant under the greedy landlords of the day. In 1937, Paz was invited to the Second International Writers Congress in Defense of Culture in Spain during the country's civil war, showing his solidarity with the Republican side, but after learning of the murder of one of his friends by the Republicans themselves he became gradually disillusioned His early poetry was influenced by Marxism, surrealism, and existentialism, as well as religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. His poem, "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone"), written in 1957, was praised as a "magnificent" example of surrealist poetry in the presentation speech of his Nobel Prize. His later poetry dealt with love and eroticism, the nature of time, and Buddhism. In 1990, he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In his magazines Plural and Vuelta, he exposed the violations of human rights in the communist regimes, including Castro's Cuba. This brought him much animosity from sectors of the Latin American left. In the prologue to Volume IX of his complete works, Paz stated that from the time when he abandoned communist dogma, the mistrust of many in the Mexican intelligentsia started to transform into an intense and open enmity. Nonetheless, Paz always considered himself a man of the left; the democratic, "liberal" left, not the dogmatic and illiberal one. Paz has been critical of most aspects of the Zapatista uprising. He spoke broadly in favor of a "military solution" to the uprising of January 1994, and hoped that the "army would soon restore order in the region".
Anthony Quinn (1915-2001): He was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including La Strada, The Guns of Navarone, Lawrence of Arabia, Zorba the Greek, Guns for San Sebastian, The Message and Lion of the Desert. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice: for Viva Zapata! in 1952 and Lust for Life in 1956. His father, Francisco (Frank) Quinn, was also born in Mexico, to an Irish immigrant father from County Cork and a Mexican mother. Frank Quinn rode with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, then later moved to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of City Terrace and became an assistant cameraman at a movie studio.Quinn grew up first in El Paso, Texas, and later the Boyle Heights and the Echo Park areas of Los Angeles, California.
Roberto Gómez Bolaños (1929 - 2014) more commonly known by his pseudonym Chespirito, was a Mexican screenwriter, actor, comedian, film director, television director, playwright, songwriter, and author internationally known for writing, directing, and starring in the Chespirito, El Chapulín Colorado, and El Chavo del Ocho television series.
Carlos Slim Helú (born January 28, 1940) is a Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Slim was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1940 to Maronite Catholic parents. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world,. The position was regained by Bill Gates in 2014 before Slim reclaimed the position again on July 15, 2014. Known as the "Warren Buffett of Mexico", Slim has extensive holdings in a considerable number of Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso, SA de CV, have amassed interests in the fields of communications, real estate, airlines, media, technology, retailing, and finance. Presently, Slim is the chairman and chief executive of telecommunications companies Telmex and América Móvil.
Carlos Santana (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican and American musician who first became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock and Latin American music. He learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana, the city on Mexico's border with California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but later joined his family in San Francisco.
Fher Olvera (born 1959): He is the secondary guitarist, composer, and lead singer for the Mexican rock band Maná. Maná has earned four Grammy Awards, seven Latin Grammy Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards Latin America, six Premios Juventud awards, fourteen Billboard Latin Music Awards and fifteen Premios Lo Nuestro awards. The band established what would become the template for many other popular Spanish-speaking rock music groups.
Salma Hayek (born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American film actress, director and producer of Lebanese origin. She began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela Teresa and went on to star in the film El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley) for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. In 1991 Hayek moved to Hollywood and came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as Desperado (1995), Dogma (1999), and Wild Wild West (1999).
Ariadna Thalia Sodi Miranda (born August 26, 1971), known mononymously as Thalía, is a Mexican singer, songwriter, published author, actress and entrepreneur, who has sung in various languages including Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and Filipino. She is recognized as the most successful female solo Mexican singer by Latin media conglomerates such as Univision, Televisa, and Azteca, while she is often referred to as the "Queen of Latin Pop" by the media internationally, mainly because of her legacy within the Latin pop music scene of the last 25 years. As a solo artist, she has sold over 40 million records worldwide, being considered one of the best-selling Latin musicians of all time. Apart from her success as a recording artist, Thalía has also had a successful career in acting, as she starred in a variety of soap operas (known as telenovelas) that have aired in over 180 countries. During the decade of the 1990s, she was converted into a television icon and was publicly referred to as the "Queen of telenovelas" by the mass media around the world.
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