Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T09:06:30.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agrarian Policy and Instability in Porfirian Mexico*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Donald Fithian Stevens
Donald Fithian Stevens*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the struggle sustained from time immemorial by the people with the haciendas, I shall be on the side of the people, once I obtain power.

— Porfirio Díaz, 1876

Given the importance of rural unrest in the destabilizing of Porfirian Mexico, it seems at least ironic to find these words attributed to Díaz during his Tuxtepec revolt. And, given the attention paid to the repressive elements of the Díaz dictatorship, one might easily argue that Díaz never intended to fulfill that promise, vague though it may be. A number of works seem to blame Díaz personally for the land problem which lead to his overthrow. Others maintain that Díaz remained aloof and was isolated from the common people; but by far the greatest number of works employ such amorphous or monolithic concepts as the “State,” the “Díaz regime,” “porjirismo,” or simply “the government” and focus exclusively on evidence of repression in Porfirian Mexico. Repression has attracted attention in part because it has been important in explaining dissatisfaction which lead to the Revolution of 1910 and in part because violence attracted a great deal of attention from contemporaries. This interest provides historians with more accessible sources while evidence of a more conciliatory attitude has remained hidden in the collection of Porfirio Díaz's presidential papers.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , October 1982 , pp. 153 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

A previous draft of this article was awarded the Latin American History Prize at the sixtieth annual meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association, March 1982, San Antonio, Texas

The author thanks Professor John Coatsworth, Friedrich Katz and John Hart for their criticism of earlier versions of this paper and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago for a travel grant.

References

** Cited by Soto y Gama, Antonio Díaz La revolutión del sur y Emiliano Zapata su caudillo (Mexico: n.p., 1960) p. 39.Google Scholar

1 For example, “no palliation, no extenuation can be imagined for the cold rape of the pueblos and the heartless suppression of the small landowners which Diaz not only countenanced but openly aided and a betted.” Simpson, Eyler N., The Ejido: Mexico’s Way Out (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937) p. 29.Google Scholar Or, “old titles had been taken away from the Indians and given away by Díaz for practically nothing.” Brandenburg, Frank The Making of Modern Mexico (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964) p. 38.Google Scholar For another personalistic interpretation see Torres, Santiago Magariños El problema de la tierra en México y la constitutión socialista de México (Madrid: C. Bermejo, Impresor, 1932) pp. 96–104.Google Scholar “Porfirio Díaz had developed his country at the expense of his countrymen. He hermetically sealed himself off from the stark realities of the Mexican masses.” Meyer, Michael C. and Sherman, William L. The Course of Mexican History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980) p. 464,Google Scholar see also pp. 457–458. Other works which discuss Porfirian agrarian policy in terms of general laws and repression of revolts are: Gómez, Manuel Aguilera La reforma agraria en el desarrollo económico de México (Mexico: Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Economicas, 1969.Google Scholar MacLean, Roberto y Estenos, , La Revolución de 1910 y el problema agrario de México (Mexico: n.p., 1959) pp. 34–38.Google Scholar Herzog, Jesús Silva El agrarismo mexicano y la reforma agraria (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1959)Google Scholar ch. 4. Whetten, Nathan L. Rural Mexico (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948) pp. 75–89.Google Scholar McBride, George McCutchen Land Systems of Mexico (New York: American Geographical Society, 1923) pp. 129–136 Google Scholar provides a description of the process of alienating communal Indians but neglects to discuss government involvement beyond writing of laws. Navarro, Moises Gonzále El porfìriato la vida social volume 6 of Historia Moderna de México edited by Villegas, Daniel Cosío (México: Editorial Hermes, 1957), pp. 208–209 Google Scholar notes that Díaz frequently received protests from villages whose lands were in danger, while Phipps, Helen Some Aspects of the Agrarian Question in Mexico—A Historical Study (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1925) pp. 128–130 Google Scholar argues that after 1900 Díaz’ saw the errors of his previous policies and attempted a remedy for rural Mexico which involved legal protection for ejidos and belated plans to distribute land to them. Soto, Antonio Díaz y Gama, , La revolución del sur y Emiliano Zapata su caudillo (Mexico: n.p., 1960) pp. 39–73,Google Scholar presents much information from Díaz’s correspondence, but treats it with undue cynicism and his concern to justify the revolutionary movement of Emiliano Zapata distorts his use of otherwise valuable and provocative material. His concern with indicting “porfirismo” leads to a distortion of Porfirio.

2 Cabrera, Antonio J. La huasteca potosina; ligeros apuntes sobre este país (San Luis Potosí: Tipografía del Comercio, 1876) pp. 92–95,Google Scholar 159, 170.

3 Cabrera, , La huasteca, pp. 160–161.Google Scholar See also Coatsworth, John H. “Railroads, Landholding, and Agrarian Protest in the Early Porfiriato” Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (1974): 48–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Reina, Leticia Las rebeliones campesinas en México (1819–1906) (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1980) p. 271 Google Scholar cites the Archivo de la Defensa Nacional (hereafter ADN) Exp. D/481.4/11652 and Exp. XI/.481.3/9714. Valadés, José C. El porfirismo, historia de un Régimen. El nacimiento, 1876–1884 (Mexico: Antigua Librería Robredo de José Porrúa e hijos, 1941) p. 247.Google Scholar Rafael Montejano y Aquiñaga argues that Zavala was not the parish priest of Tamazunchale nor did he live there. See his review of Pacheco’s, Sixto García Monografía de Tamazunchale in Archivos de Historia Potosina 1 (julio-septiembre 1969): 39.Google Scholar

5 Reina, , Las rebeliones, pp. 271–272.Google Scholar Valadés, , El porfirismo, p. 253.Google Scholar Velázquez, Primo Feliciano Historia de San Luis Potosí, vol. 4, p. 74.Google Scholar

6 Niblo, Stephen Randall “The Political Economy of the Early Porfiriato: Politics and Economics in Mexico, 1876 to 1880” (Dissertation, Northern Illinois University, 1972) p. 200.Google Scholar Velázquez, , Historia, vol. 4, p. 77.Google Scholar Reina, , Las rebeliones, p. 273.Google Scholar A copy of the document is published on pp. 272–273 as well as in Veláquez, , Historia, vol. 4, pp. 76–77.Google Scholar

7 Velazquez, , Historia, vol. 4, p. 78.Google Scholar Valadés, , El porfirismo, pp. 253–254 Google Scholar says that five were killed. Montejano, Rafael y Aguiñaga, , “Tamazunchale, S.L.P.” in Enciclopedia de México (México, 1966) vol. 12, p. 4,Google Scholar says that 800 armed men attacked the 12 employees of the jefatura killing two.

8 Velázquez, , Historia, vol. 4, pp. 78–79.Google Scholar Montejano, y Aguiñaga, , “Tamazunchale,” pp. 4–5 Google Scholar and by the same author. El Valle del Maiz, S.L.P. (Ciudad del Maiz, S.L.P.: n.p., 1967) pp. 312–313.

9 Juan Santiago to General Ignacio Ugalde, 24 August 1879, ADN Exp. D/481.4/11653 published in Reina, , Las rebeliones, pp. 284–286.Google Scholar

10 Juan Santiago to Juan José Terrazas, 1 August 1879, ADN Exp. D/481.4/11653 published in Reina, , Las rebeliones, p. 284.Google Scholar

11 See note (9).

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 A copy of the treaty may be found in ADN Exp. D/481.4/11653 and is published in Reina, , Las rebeliones, pp. 486–487.Google Scholar

15 “Acta de sometimiento de Juan Santiago a cambio de ser atendida la comunidad” ADN Exp. D/481.4/11653 published in Reina, , Las rebeliones, p. 288.Google Scholar

16 Cited by Valadés, , El porfirismo, p. 255.Google Scholar See also Moises González Navarro, El porfiriato, la vida social Historia Moderna de Mexico edited by Daniel Cosío Villegas (Mexico: Editorial Hermes, 1957) p. 242.

17 Reina, , Las rebeliones, p. 275.Google Scholar Velázquez, , Historia, vol. 4, pp. 79–80.Google Scholar

18 Navarro, González El porfiriato, p. 242.Google Scholar Montejano, “Tamazunchale,” p. 6 Reina, Las rebeliones, p. 276–277. Velázquez, , Historia vol. 4, pp. 81–82.Google Scholar

19 Montejano, , El Valle del Maiz, pp; 315–321.Google Scholar Reina, , Las rebeliones, pp. 279–280.Google Scholar Velázquez, , Historia, vol. 4, pp. 80–84.Google Scholar

20 The state governor had ordered the beginning of enforcement as early as 1881 in an effort to break the power of the Huastecans whom he regarded as prone to disturbance and insurrection. See Falcón, Romana “¿Los origenes populares de la Revolución de 1910?-E1 caso de San Luis Potosí,” Historia Mexicana, 29 (Oct.-Dec. 1979): 197–240.Google Scholar

21 Colección Porfirio Diaz, Universidad de Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Porfirio Díaz to Carlos Díez Gutiérrez, 16 July 1894. Legajo XLI, tomo 18, documento 137 (hereafter cited as CPD followed by legajo number, caja or tomo in which the document may be found, and the number of the page on which the document begins.

22 Porfirio Diaz to Carlos Diez Gutierrez, 12 January 1897, CPD XXII:3;1060.

23 Carlos Diez Gutierrez to Porfirio Diaz, 16 January 1897, CPD XX:3;1031.

24 Porfirio Díaz to Carlos Diez Gutierrez, 20 January 1897, CPD XX:3;1034.

25 Porfirio Díaz to Mucio Martínez, Governor of Puebla, 24 December 1894 CPD XIX:39; 019036. The version of this letter quoted by Soto, Díaz y Gama, , La revolución, p. 56 Google Scholar is corrupt.

26 See note (21).

27 See note (1).

28 Villegas, Daniel Cosío Historia Moderna de México vol. 8 La Vida Política Interior (México: Editorial Hermes, 1957) tomo 2, p. 375.Google Scholar

29 Díez Gutiérrez had served as minister of war in González’s cabinet and the former president was godfather to one of Carlos Díez Gutiérez’s children. Villegas, Cosío Vida Política, tomo 1, pp. 648–649,Google Scholar tomo 2, p. 145.

30 Villegas, Cosío La Vida Política, tomo 2, pp. 375,Google Scholar 539, 605.

31 Velázquez, , Historia, vol. 4, pp. 133–134.Google Scholar

32 Velázquez, , Historia, vol. 4, pp. 146–148.Google Scholar

33 For an astute analysis of class relations and the importance of middle class leadership in San Luis Potosí during the early years of the Revolution see Romana Falcón, Op cit., 197–240.