Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Lecture: 18/10/10. Mexico 1808-1876 Image of Mexico: land of revolutions....militarism, banditry, agiotismo (creditors funding revolutions), filibustering,

Similar presentations


Presentation on theme: "Lecture: 18/10/10. Mexico 1808-1876 Image of Mexico: land of revolutions....militarism, banditry, agiotismo (creditors funding revolutions), filibustering,"— Presentation transcript:

1 Lecture: 18/10/10

2 Mexico 1808-1876 Image of Mexico: land of revolutions....militarism, banditry, agiotismo (creditors funding revolutions), filibustering, invasions, “caste wars”.... In reality: much less disordered. Lawyers engaged in continual search for way of closing gap between form of government and the political system All govts and revolutionaries failed, until Porfirio Díaz, who succeeded. Pathology of political failure

3 Form of Government and System of Politics Form: – absolutism, constitutionalism : division & balance of powers, suffrage: age/ gender /property /literacy – federalism/centralism : division and balance of powers – Jefes politicos : absolutist or constitutional ? Father or Tribune ? – municipalities and local power : cabeceras & pueblos sujetos.....“Pueblos de Indios” ?

4 Form of Government and System of Politics System: beliefs, customs, habits, practices (“political cultures”) – Subjecthood/citizenship (ciudadanía): “Right to rebel”, feeding into: “Liberalism” : plans, pronunciamientos, revolutions, armed citizenship.... – Identity and emotion: Nación ? Patria ? Patria Chica ? Community ? – Kinship, patronage, loyalty, friendship, ethnic identity and, not least, religion

5 Form of Government and System of Politics Mexico’s “Age of Revolutions”: form of government and system of politics were in conflict Bias in favour of weak executive: rejection of absolutist/corporative colonial heritage Search for the perfect constitution: legislative dictatorships provoking revolutions..... Porfirio Diaz succeeded in concentrating personal power and closing the gap between form of government and system of politics

6 Lecture & Seminar Week 3 1 st two decades of political life: 1808-1828 To get an idea of: – Evolving form of government: centralised Viceroyalty to Federal republic – System of Politics: parties, lodges, elections, riots & revolutions.....

7 Insurgency and Independence - 1808, French Invasion of Spain, fall of monarchy, Madrid uprising, national uprising, patriotic juntas throughout Empire, culminating in Cortes of Cadiz - September 1808, Creoles rally around Viceroy José de Iturrigaray to form a junta prompting “gachupín” (Spanish in Mexico) coup - Two strands: - i) 1808-1814, Creole autonomism and the Constitution of Cádiz: provincial patriotism, Church prominent..... - Ii) 1808-1815, Popular Insurgency, Provincial Creoles conspire & rebel, Hidalgo: mass uprising in Bajio, Morelos: Mexican Constitution of Apatzingán, Virgin of Guadalupe.....

8 Priests and the Insurgency Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla José María Morelos y Pavón

9 Insurgency and Independence - 1814-1820, “Counter-Insurgency”: Restoration of absolutism under Ferdinand VII and Creoles, fearing social disorder, lead counter-insurgency - 1820-21, Agustin de Iturbide’s Plan de Iguala and Army of Three Guarantees (Independence, Church and Army, unity of Spaniards and Mexicans) attract insurgent Vicente Guerrero by promise to retain the Constitution of 1812

10 Agustín de Iturbide, 1783 – July 1824

11 Vicente Guerrero, 1782-1831

12 From Empire to Federal Republic, 1821-1824 Congressional representation: corporate or individual? Monarchy or Republic ? Congress confronts Emperor Iturbide Provinces confronts Centre 1823: Antonio López de Santa Anna’s Plan de Veracruz…Provinces rise up behind Plan de Casa Mata Federal Constitution: República de los Estados Unidos de México (1824)

13 A Puebla Priest & Independence Puebla priest Manuel de la Barcena in Exhortación que hizo al tiempo de jurarse la Constitución..Puebla, 1820, appreciating the complexity of colonial law and society, envisages two possible formulas for Mexico’s independence: “Puede considerarse o como de un pueblo subyugado que recobra su libertad y soberanía, o como de una colonia, que habiendo llegado a un crecimiento Competente, se emancipa de la metrópoli: en el primer caso la acción es propia de los indios, y en el segundo de los españoles u castas.” “Mexico can be considered as a subjugated people that recovers its liberty and sovereignty, or as a colony, that having arrived as Competent size, emancipates itself from the metropolis: in the first case the action belongs to the Indians: in the secon, to the Spanish and Castes” Barcena sees this duality as an advantage, not as a weakness, “porque así resulta un derecho doble, y por consiguiente más fuerte” “because thereby a double right results, and consequently it is stronger”

14 Parties Moderate and Radical Liberalism (no Conservatives or Monarchists until 1840s) Moderates: Escocés (Scottish) Masonic Lodge, “Aceites” (oils) (Oaxaca), Moderados/Conservatives, backed by Great Britain (Henry Ward, Br Minister) Radicals: Yorkino Masonic Lodge, Vinagres (vinegars) (Oaxaca), Puros, backed by the US (Joel Poinsett, 1st US Minister)

15 Popular Elections Suffrage: 1812 Constitution: all males over 18 can vote, Indians are equal citizens, no literacy or property qualifications. “The greatest threat to order in the city (Mexico) during the entire war (of Independence) was not the result of armed conflict but rather the elections required by the Spanish Constitution (in 1812-13)” Richard Warren, Vagrants and Citizens: Politics and the Masses in Mexico City from Colony to Republic (2007)

16 Guardino, Elections in Antequera de Oaxaca Pablo Villavicencio complained in 1826 of the involvment of confraternities (cofradías) in elections in Antequera (Oaxaca): “…reuniones nocturnas que acostumbran concurrir a la casa de un devoto dueño de estandarte y algunos faroles que, como tal, es el capataz de cincuenta o sesenta, en cuya compañia sale resando el rosario por las calles y cantando a gritos el Ave María.“ “ nocturnal meetings which gather in the house of a devoted owner of banners and lanterns (of the confraternity, who, as he is the foreman of fifty or sixty men, leads them out in the streets praying to the rosary and bawling out Ave Marias”.

17 Agustín Arrieta, Tertulia en una Pulquería (Puebla, 1851)

18 Policies (yorkinos/vinagres) Popular mobilisation and electoral preparations(See articles by Richard Warren, Peter Guardino & Sylvia Arrom) Issues Nativism: Expulsion of Spaniards (Harold Sims, The Expulsion of Mexico’s Spaniards Pittsburgh, 1990) - The Spanish danger: absolutism in Europe, FVII’s restoration, 1814-33, & the italian Carbonari exiles in Mexico calling for a radical republic) - Armed citizenship: National Militia against Army of the counter- insurgency - States’ rights: Federalism - “Los Clamores” of artisans: artisans facing cheap imports call for tariff protection - Religious Liberty: Liberal priest Jose Maria Luis Mora welcome Scottish Bible Society agent James Thomson. Aim to increase literacy by selling cheap translations of Bible in the vernacular: Spanish but also main Indian languages

19 Events September 1828 Contested presidential election: Manuel Gómez Pedraza versus Vicente Guerrero November 30 1828 Revolution of La Acordada led by Guerrero and Yorkinos December 4 1828 Motín del Parían

20 Arrieta, Escena popular de mercado con dama, c.1845

21 Conclusion Patterns: external influences: Economic competition and investment boom (1824- 1827), becoming bust Untried constitutional models (US template for 1824 Constit) US “form of government”/ “European” “system of politics” ? Internal influences: Federalism Church leadership Leperos and the urban crowd Indians Explosive combination in 1828


Download ppt "Lecture: 18/10/10. Mexico 1808-1876 Image of Mexico: land of revolutions....militarism, banditry, agiotismo (creditors funding revolutions), filibustering,"

Similar presentations


Ads by Google