HISTORY OF MEXICO 4

SOCIAL HISTORY 1824-1850

The Mexican wars for independence killed around 500,000 people, with tens of thousands of orphans and in general caused great dislocations for Mexico's society, economies and peoples.

INDIANS

Mexico was overwhelmingly a rural country throughout the 19th century. Of this rural society the majority were Indians who lived in thousands of villages that were economically isolated from the rest of the country.

The villages called pueblos were the most traditional social unit besides the family in Mexico.

The pueblos were corporate entities were land was held communally. Each pueblo maintained its own internal government as well as judicial system and conflict resolution mechanisms.

Land was held communally therefore there was no private property. Lands and plots would be regularly rotated among the members to ensure that no one member was monopolizing the best lands.

The villages had what has been described as a moral economy in that the economic system of the villages was to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number. In the tension between the "I" and the "we", it would be the we that would be most important to the community

This was very different from the larger economy of Mexico were economic individualism was practiced in a sort of amoral economy.

The Indian economy was a non-monetized economy and usually based on barter or reciprocation. Labor was social and non-remunerated.

Only the larger Indian towns had churches and almost none had schools. As previously stated the Indian was outside the economic and political system of the nation, but usually they were not part of the nation in a linguistic sense as well. Many Indians continued and continue today to speak Indian dialects instead of Spanish.

The Indian woman, of which little has really been studied, was more than a housekeeper and even when pregnant she would work in fields and share in all the domestic labors.

The villages produced for subsistence only and because daily life was difficult, the Indian woman was the cornerstone of cultural survival for the village.

Indian society was very patriarchal were the male was the dominant figure in the home and in the community.

Many Indians had had their lands taken away by the haciendas and became wage laborers. On many occasions due to the extreme labor shortage in the countryside, the hacendado would indebt the Indian through a series of loans or advances and the free-wage laborer would be reduced to a debt-peon or a bonded-servant. Often this would pass on to future generations of Indians.

This would mean that the Indian was allowed to share-crop on hacienda lands with 1/3 to 1/2 of his production going to the hacienda as a form of rent. In addition the Indian and his family were expected to fulfill free labor for the hacienda.

TOWNS

Rural towns were composed of 1000 to 3500 people and ethnically were made up of Indians who had undergone a process of acculturation and mestizos.

The Indians who had acculturated were those who more often than not had entered the wage economy through mining or crafts, changed their clothing style, and began residing in an urban setting away from their villages. They had become hispanicized.

In the towns Spanish was the dominant language and the town served as the economic hub of all the surrounding villages. Usually there would a feria or market day one or two days a week when all the Indians from the surrounding communities would bring their production to the town to sell or trade.

The pulqueria was also a center of attraction where people could spend time drinking the fermented juice of the Maguey cactus.

Life in towns was somewhat easier than life in the villages. There were no hotels, and the streets were dirt, with houses being one story adobe structures.

The lower classes in the towns often were subjected to corvee labor which was known as the leva. This was a forced labor conscription directed at the uneducated lower classes. It was also used as a form of military conscription when the need arose.

Part of the problem of Mexico was that outside the cities there was little conception of belonging to a nation for most of the people that live in Indians villages or rural towns. These places took on the status of patrias chicas or little countries. People identified more with their town or villages than they did with the larger Mexican nation.

CITIES

The cities and the state capitals were the only places;laces where one could find any trace of culture, wealth or Mexican nationalism. Cities usually ranged in population from 7000 to 71,000.

The cities were constructed in the classical Spanish tradition. There were markets and shops that carried imported goods and the number of shops suggested that in the cities one could find an established middle class of small business people.

Criollos, Indians and mestizos could be found in the cities. There were schools and book stores, bull rings and theatres. But there was also great poverty in the cities and great disparities of wealth. Slums usually ringed the cities.

Most of the state capitals grew rapidly in the first half of the 19th century and many doubled their population in 25 years.

Mexico city was another case entirely. It was where the richest and the poorest congregated from all over the country. Mexico was Mexico city and Mexico city was Mexico. In 1800 it had 137,000 people, but by mid century it had 170,000.

In many aspects it was a cleaner and more modern city than any cities in the US. There was culture and the arts, universities and a literate population. The rich flaunted their wealth and married other rich people called la gente decente.

At the other extreme the poorest of the Indian population were concentrated around Santiago Tlateloco and San Juan Tenochitlán. Mixed in with the wealthy were the underclass of poor known as the léperos, the homeless, beggars, cripples and panhandlers.

Life for the working urban poor was difficult and wages were generally very low. Indians and mestizos whether they lived in the city or not constituted the labor force. Women usually worked as domestic servants, in textile plants, vendors or food service.

CULTURE

The prime literary movement in Mexico in the 19th century was romanticism that was intensely concerned with freedom and individualism. They turned their backs on Spanish cultural forms and set out to develop their own independent Mexican culture.

Two great writers emerge in this period. Fernando Calderón and Ignacio Rodríguez Galván. Mexican music also rejected Spanish forms in terms of the choice of theme. The selection of subject matter for art, writing and music revealed the beginnings of a Mexican cultural consciousness.

This period also witnesses the rise of the first Mexican historian and a great statesman, Lucas Alamán. Alaman wrote the first history of Mexico, his five volume set Historia de Mejico. In this history he considers Cortes the founder of the Mexican nation. Alaman was a conservative, but an enlightened one who saw that Mexico would need to industrialize and modernize in order to defend itself from the eagle of the north.

Alaman was very critical of the Hidalgo movement having witnessed the massacre of Gunajuato when he was a boy. Lucas Alaman is the father of Mexican historiography. But others followed in his heels. Carlos Maria Bustamante, Lorenzo de Zavala and Jose Maria Luis Mora all wrote histories of Mexico as well.

All three saw the independence movement as a struggle against three centuries of tyranny and all stressed the Leyenda Negra of Spanish rule. The three historians were also inherently anti-Hispanic.

The greatest weakness of the culture of the post-independence period was Mexican culture was defined by what it was not. It was not Hispanic culture and it was a reaction against Spanish cultural forms. But it did not really stress what it meant in a positive sense to be Mexican, what Mexican culture rested on and what it celebrated.

THE REVOLUTION OF AYUTLA

The revolution of ayutla was the liberal revolt that ousted Santa Anna from power in 1855 and brought together some of the best thinkers in Mexico.

The question was something had been tried since independence, it had by and large been a disaster for Mexico, not much had come of it and now it was time to try something new.

The reformers deeply distrusted the church and the military. Melchor Ocampo, Santos Degollado and Guillermo Prieto were leaders in this movement. But the greatest reformer of all would be a Zapotec Indian named Benito Juárez who had worked his way up from humble origins to become a lawyer.

Juarez realized that the only way to save Mexico was to change the structure of the nation in terms of society, and political economy. He was a fierce liberal in this sense and Juarez would lead the liberals and liberalism to triumph in Mexico.

When war broke out between Mexico and the US Juarez was a delegate in the congress and was recalled to his home state to serve a a governor. Juarez was vehemently anti-Santa Anna and would not even allow the general to rest in his state. In 1848 the people of Oaxaca elected Juarez full governor of the state.

Juarez as governor was no revolutionary, but he did engage in sound management of the state and was an honest and competent leader. He paid off on the state debt and cut back on the huge bureaucracy.

When the revolution of ayutla broke out the rebels sent for Juarez to serve as a political aide to one of the leaders.

The revolution of ayutla had a wide social base of support, especially as an anti-government movement. Most Mexicans saw the Santa Anna regime as a disgrace and conservatives were lumped in with him.

There rebellions throughout the country and they were effective in weakening both SA and the conservative base. By August of 1855 SA saw the handwriting on the wall and tendered his resignation.

THE REFORM

The government established after the resignation of SA were the leaders of the revolution of ayutla. Juan Alvarez was provisional president, Ignacio Comonfort who helped draft the document became secretary of war, Melchor Ocampo was secretary for the treasury. Miguel Lerdo de Tejada was secretary of development and Benito Juarez secretary of justice.

The first important piece of legislation to emerge was the Ley Juarez which abolished military and church fueros. The new law led to great unrest in Mexico and actually split the revolutionaries of ayutla.

The moderados formed which favored backing down in the face of conservative and church reaction. There were also the puros who were staunch liberals who were for carrying out the Ley Juarez at all costs. Due to the infighting most of the leadership resigned and Ignacio Comonfort became president.

In June of 1856 the secretary of the treasury Miguel Lerdo de Tejada drafted the Ley Lerdo. The law prohibited civil corporations and the catholic church from holding real estate or speculating in real estate. The only properties the church could own were those necessary for religious services. The goal was to weaken the financial hold the church had on Mexico. All the other church properties were to be auctioned off.

In practice the enforcement of the Ley Lerdo worked to the detriment of the rural masses. One of the civil corporations that would be forced to sell off its property were the Indian ejidos, or the communal landholdings of the Indians.

Despite the weakening of the economic power of the catholic church, the law was also intended to transform Mexican indigenous landholding to private property and can be seen as an attempt to modernize Mexico and institute modern capitalism in Mexico.

The reformers also barred the church as the legal registrar of marriages, births, deaths and adoptions. From 1857 on for these acts to be legal the state would be the recorder.

Finally the ley iglesias prohibited the church from charging fees for the giving of the sacraments. The poor would receive the sacraments for free, while people with money would pay a moderate charge.

THE CONSTITUTION OF 1857

The federal constitution of 1857 was modeled after it predecessor of 1824. The major difference was that a unicameral legislature was set up. It was believed that it would be better to have one strong house to stand up to a potential dictator than to have two weak houses that could be divided by a strong executive.

The constitution of 1857 was also much more liberal than the one in 1824. The various leyes: ley Juarez, ley lerdo, and ley iglesias were incorporated into the constitution. A bill of rights was also created. Mexicans had the right to carry arms, to have bail if arrested and habeas corpus.

The articles of the constitution that prompted the most heated debate were those that attacked the authority of the church and the church hierarchy issued decree after decree that contested and opposed the constitution and its anti-church statutes.

The opposition of the church created a real quandary in Mexico. If church leaders did not swear allegiance to the constitution they would be declared traitors of the Mexican state. If they did the church men would be considered heretics by Rome and the officialdom of the church.

If the priests gave the sacraments to those who refused to swear allegiance to the constitution would be suspended by the government from practicing religion. What all this confusion about the church suggests is that far from unifying Mexico,

the reform laws and the constitution divided Mexican society into two hostile camps.

As tensions mounted it appeared that compromise was out of the question and Mexico headed into another period of civil conflict and civil war.

THE WAR OF REFORM

The war of the reform was a civil struggle that gripped Mexico from 1858 to 1861 and could be thought of as the culmination of all the tensions that had been building since independence.

Mexicans still had to define the kind of society they wanted. The war began as most internal Mexican wars had begun over a new plan and this time the plan was the Plan de Tacubaya.

This was a conservative plan proclaimed by Félix Zuloaga a general who dissolved congress and arrested Benito Juarez. Comonfort was the president but was unable to stop the progression of events.

As Comonfort stalled liberals in the provinces announced their support of the constitution and the reform laws. At this point Comonfort resigned the presidency. The army then declared Zuloaga as the new president.

Juarez managed to escape to the north to Queretaro where liberals proclaimed him president. Thus Mexico had two presidents and two governments with two conflicting ideologies. This would lead Mexico into the most horrifying civil war in its history.

The opposing sides in the conflict were very heterogeneous in terms of ethnicity, location and even class. The Indians did not know which side to back since it was the liberals who had legally dispossessed them of their lands.

The Liberals were able to establish their capital at Veracruz in order to receive supplies from the outside world. But for the first two years of the civil war the liberals had a tough time.

The conservative army was better trained, equipped, led and won most of the major engagements. The conservatives also held the most populous centers in central Mexico.

The turning point came in early 1859 when General Miramón attempted to push the liberals out of Veracruz and was defeated. The fighting throughout the country was vicious and there was little distinction between combatants and civilians.

Atrocities were committed on both sides. Conservative officers would kill any doctor who had treated a liberal, while liberals for their part put many priests before the firing squad and desecrated churches.

The Juarez government also issued even more radically liberal decrees. Births and marriages were civil ceremonies, all cemeteries were secularized, monastic orders banned and all church properties were nationalized. Finally, church and state were separated and the church was subordinate to the state.

In 1860 the war turned in favor of the liberals and Juarez finally found two great commanders Ignacio Zaragoaza and Jesús González Ortega. The conservatives by this time were divided and bickering among themselves.

The two commanders combined their forces at Silao and from that battle on, conservatives forces were defeated and in December the liberals had taken Mexico city. On New Years day Juarez triumphantly entered Mexico city.

FRENCH INTERVENTION

After the war of the reform Mexico was in dire need for a period of stability and peace. But the liberal victory in 1861 proved to be a brief respite from war.

The elections of 1861 showed that the liberals were badly split over how to deal with their defeated conservative enemies. Juarez continued to be very magnanimous in commuting sentences for conservatives.

Juarez considered political opposition a healthy thing in a democracy and he would not control or muzzle congressional opposition to his policies.

But it would be economic malaise rather than politics that would cause the next war in Mexico. The Juarez administration found a bankrupt treasury and a police force, army and bureaucracy that had not been paid.

The infrastructure of Mexico had yet to be modernized, the sale of church lands did not yield the capital expected and in the spring of 1861 the national deficit amounted to $400,000. And what was worse was that there was no currency in circulation.

Then on top of all this Mexico's creditors began demanding repayment on their loans that they had made to Mexico and some of these debts were 100 years old.

Juarez declared a two year payment moratorium on Mexico's debt, arguing that the money that existed in Mexico must be used for more pressing problems rather than satisfy the dividend statements of European investors. After all most of these debts were contracted by conservative governments.

The majority of the debt belonged to British, French and Spanish claims and banks.

In October of 1861 representatives of all the three countries that Mexico owed money met in London and signed the Convention of London. The three nations agreed to a joint occupation of Mexico ports and coasts to collect customs receipts.

Conservatives also actually requested for intervention in Mexico as it would be the only way they might regain power, by letting a foreign army invade their country and for them to be collaborators.

Spanish troops actually landed in Veracruz first in December of 1861 followed by the British and French. After much bickering between the three powers the convention broke down.

England and Spain eventually withdrew not wishing to attain a special advantage in Mexico. But the French stayed on and the French reinforced their troops and began to march inland to carry out a war of occupation.

The French forces were led by General Charles Latrille and he was told that French forces would be welcomed in the city of Puebla with open arms. But in reality General Zaragoza laid in wait of the French forces and in May of 1862 the Battle of Puebla broke out and was a defeat for the French.

In addition to Zaragoza's forces a young brigadier general named Porfirio Diaz repelled several French assaults on Zaragoza's army. This all occurred on May 5.

But not all Mexicans rejoiced at the defeat of the French. Many conservatives and church officials aided the French army so that it could continue its invasion.

After hearing of the defeat at the Battle of Puebla the French then sent 30,000 reinforcements and it one year for the French to reorganize their forces due to the disaster at Puebla.

In the middle of March the French encircled Puebla and laid siege to the city in order to starve out the residents. French artillery also attacked the city. After starvation occurred in the city the Mexicans turned Puebla over to the invading army of French.

The fall of Puebla opened the door to an assault on Mexico city. Initially Juarez wanted to make a stand in the capital, but when it was clear that the Mexicans had too few troops to stop the French army they decided to evacuate.

Juarez, his cabinet and what was left of his army retreated to San Luis Potosi and the French army entered the Mexican capital unopposed. Conservative and the church rejoiced.

THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT

The conservatives of Mexico were less concerned that they had been colonized by the French than by how they might profit from the demise of Juarez and the liberals.

The conservative orientation of the 35 Notables was apparent when the leader had been a Santanista, this was General Juan Almonte. The 35 Notables were conservatives who would rule in the interests of the French colonizers.

Napoleon III had made up his mind about the fate of Mexico. Mexico would become a monarchy and a colony of the French empire. Maximilian would be the French emperor of Mexico. Napoleon had even discusses this possibility with Max even before the Convention of London.

Before leaving for Mexico, Max entered into an agreement with his protector Napoleon. In the agreement called the Convention of Miramar the new Mexican emperor would pay France for all the military costs used to subdue the colony. In return Napoleon would allow Max to be the commander in Chief of all French troops.

The new emperor by signing the convention had tripled Mexico's foreign debt even before he had stepped on Mexican soil. Neither he nor his wife Carlota could speak Spanish. At the end of May in 1864 they arrived in Mexico.

The welcome that the emperor and empress received at Veracruz was cold and hostile. Veracruz had been a city of liberals and very few people were even on the streets to greet their new monarches.

Max and Carlota set up their residence in Chapultapec palace and Max made himself very accessible to the people. He often toured the provinces and he listened to the problems of the people. He also allowed freedom of the press and a general amnesty for all political prisoners.

But Max's position was hardly stable and safe. His first problem came from his conservative supporters. The conservatives assumed that Max would suspend the reforms, but Max fancied himself a liberal and he would not bow before Rome or the Mexican church.

Despite Max's liberal pretensions, the liberals were determined to overthrow him and restore Mexican sovereignty.

When Juarez withdrew from Mexico city he established his government first at San Luis Potosi and then in Chihuahua. But French troops pushed him even further north to El Paso del Norte (ciudad Juarez). The Juaristas quickly taught the French about guerrilla warfare.

The French may have won all the big battles but they could not pacify the country. But in late 1864 and into 1865 the empire was at its strongest.

In late October the advisors to Max erroneously informed him that Juarez had fled the country and had gone to the US. Max thought that Mexico had been pacified and he ordered the death penalty for any remaining Juaristas. Shortly two republican generals were captured and put to death.

By doing this Max has signed his own death warrant for Juarez was still in the country and had promised his people that he would never allow the French and Max to remain.

The US was unable to enforce the Monroe Doctrine due to the fact that it was involved in a civil war, but as the fortunes of the north improved Juarez vigorously lobbied for US assistance to expel Max.

With the end of the US civil war the US put pressure on the French. The government closed its eyes to neutrality violations and allowed the Juaristas to purchase arms and ammo and have them shipped from US ports.

The Juaristas were also allowed to pass freely over the border without sanction from customs or border patrol. At the same time Napoleon began to withdraw troops from Mexico due to the threat that Bismarck of Prussia posed to France.

French troops withdrew in late 1866 and 1867 and this left Max in an impossible position. Carlota then made a tour of Europe begging for assistance but was rejected by all. Upon all the rejections Carlota lost her mind.

In 1866 Juarez and his republican army assumed the offensive. General Terrazas captured Chihuahua city and General Escobedo shattered a French column near Matomoros.

The situation was dire for Max. The French were pulling out or being defeated, the treasury was empty, Carlota had gone insane in Europe, but Max decided to make one last stand.

Mexico's 2nd empire would collapse in the city of Querétaro. Max himself led some conservative Mexican troops, but found him and his troops outnumbered 4 to 1 by republicans. In May of 1867 Max surrendered.

Juarez immediately decided the fate of Max, he would be tried by court-martial and the state would request the death penalty.

The verdict was a political verdict. After the war of the reform Juarez had been very merciful in dealing with his enemies and he believed that Mexico had paid a terrible price for this.

He wanted to show the world that Mexico's existence would not be left to chance or to the goodwill of foreigners. On June 19 Max was shot by firing squad with several conservative Mexican officers. 50,000 Mexicans had lost their lives due to the war to expel Max.

The French intervention and the resulting war had a profound impact on the course of Mexican history. Mexican nationalism and self-esteem had began to develop.

The republicans saw the victory as a vindication of the constitution of 1857 and the liberal principles it had espoused. The clerical party had been defeated as had the conservatives.

Liberalism had emerged triumphant for liberalism had emerged as the moral ideology that sought independence from foreigners.

But on the negative side the French occupation had stifled industry, commerce, agriculture and economic modernization and development. Thousands of armed men roamed the countryside looking for work in an economy that had no meaningful employment.

The occupation and war between the years of 1861 to 1867 had left Mexico without political stability and economic development once again.