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Broken Traditions: Mexican Revolutionaries and Protestant Allegiances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Deborah Baldwin
Deborah Baldwin*
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas
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Extract

Scholarly, as well as popular, literature focused on the interaction of the Catholic Church and the Mexican Revolution of 1910 has frequently advanced the contention that the Revolution had “Protestant overtones.” The vagueness of the accusation and its ambiguous implications have thus far eluded clarification. Some of these accusations, particularly those made in the 1920's when memories of the Cristero Revolt were fresh, represent the opinions of the Revolution's detractors and thus their comments have often been dismissed as mudslinging. However, writers of the 1960's in more dispassionate terms have also alluded to this theme. Jean Meyer, for example, includes as a part of his explanation of Cristero dissatisfaction the incompatible juxtaposition of the traditional Roman Catholic Cristero and the Protestant attitude adopted by the revolutionaries. Few investigations have explored the extent or role of non-Catholic religious institutions in Mexico during the revolutionary era. Despite these accusations, systematic research on Protestants has been overshadowed by investigations of Catholics to such an extent that the accuracy and seriousness of accusations of “Protestant overtones” cannot be evaluated.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , October 1983 , pp. 229 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1983

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References

1 See for example: Lic. Obregón, Toribio Esquivel, La propaganda protestante en México a la luz del derecho international y del mas alto interes de la nación (México, 1946)Google Scholar; Planchet, Regis, La intervención protestante en México y Sud América (El Paso: Editorial Revista Católica, 1929)Google Scholar, and La propaganda protestante en México (Mexico, 1922).

2 See for example: Meyer, Jean A., The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican People between Church and State, 1926–1929 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D’Antonio, William and Pike, Frederick, eds., Religion, Revolution and Reform (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964)Google Scholar; Sedano, Olivera, Aspectos del conflicto religioso de 1926 a 1929: sus antecedentes y consecuencias (México, 1966)Google Scholar; and Bailey, David C., Viva Cristo Rey! The Cristero Rebellion and the Church-State Conflict in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974).Google Scholar

3 Several dissertations have been completed on the subject. Helms, James E., “Origin and Growth of Protestantism in Mexico” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1955)Google Scholar; Porter, Eugene O., “History of Methodism in Mexico” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1936)Google Scholar; Penton, Marvin J., “Mexico’s Reformation: A History of Mexican Protestantism” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1965)Google Scholar. Protestant missionaries themselves wrote numerous reminiscences of their work in Mexico. The only scholarly work on the topic was conducted by Gonzalo Báez Camargo. See his Religion in the Republic of Mexico with Grubb, Kenneth (New York: World Dominion Press, 1935)Google Scholar; The Reason for Protestantism in Mexico (Mexico: Union Press, 1929); Protestantismo en Ibero América (Mexico: Casa Unida de Publicaciones, 1930).

4 Ober, Frederick A., Travels in Mexico (Denver: Perry Publishing Co., 1883), p. 301.Google Scholar

5 Simpson, Eyler N., The Ejido (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937) p. 588.Google Scholar

6 Protestant locations were determined by compiling a list of ministers and their assigned locations as this information occurred in the correspondence of missionaries or from mission annual reports. The resulting data were then entered onto a computer file. A list was subsequently generated of the mission-occupied areas by year of occupation. This list consisted of over nine hundred notations for the period 1870 to 1920. These notations of locations were sorted for duplications and aggregated by decade. It should be remembered that they do not represent every location of a Protestant congregation or even every location of a Protestant minister; but they are a sampling (not in statistical terminology since the total number of locations was not determined, therefore they are referred to as selected sites) of Protestant locations. This sample is the basis from which trends of Protestant development can be determined.

7 Triennial Report of the Board of Missions for the Episcopal Church. 1907–1908 (New York: The Episcopal Church of the United States, 1908), p. 247.

8 Drees, Charles W., Thirteen Years in Mexico (New York: The Abington Press, 1915), p. 103.Google Scholar

9 Case to Mission Board Secretary, April 1889, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) archive, Cambridge, MA.

10 Compiled from various sources including The Missionary Herald; Missionary Tidings; Dale, James G., Mexico and Our Mission (Lebanon, PA; Sowers Printing Co., 1910)Google Scholar; and the correspondence of missionaries Petran, Chastain, Case, and Butler.

11 Anderson, Rodney, Outcasts in Their Own Land: Mexican Industrial Workers, 1906–1911 (DeKalb; Northern Illinois University Press, 1976), p. 39.Google Scholar

12 Anderson, , Outcasts in Their Own Land, pp. 58–66.Google Scholar

13 Ibid.

14 Winton, George B., Mexico Today (New York: Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1913), p. 197.Google Scholar

15 Case to Mission Board Secretary, March 31, 1893, ABCFM archive, n = 21, δ = 9.81.

16 From Presbyterian fiscal reports for the Mexican mission, 1901-1905, Presbyterian archive, Philadelphia, PA. Individual names were not entered into the report, therefore, no mean or modal statistics could be calculated.

17 See ABCFM reports for 1896 to 1911, ABCFM archive, or Presbyterian reports for 1903-1905, Presbyterian archive.

18 Annual reports of the northern Mexican mission, 1896, 1899, 1911, ABCFM archive.

19 Bulnes, Francisco, The Whole Truth About Mexico (New York: M. Bulnes Book Co., 1916), p. 141.Google Scholar

20 Villegas, Daniel Cosío, gen. ed. El Porfiriato: La Vida Social, (México, 1957) by Navarro, Moisés González, pp. 30–39 Google Scholar; see also Cockcroft, James D., “El Maestro de primaria en la Revolución Mexicana,” Historia Mexicana 16 (April-June 1967), 565–587 Google Scholar; Sánchez, George I., Mexico: A Revolution by Education (New York: The Viking Press, 1936).Google Scholar

21 Recent historical research has indicated that both occupational groups—artisans and teachers—participated in the Revolution. Meyer, Jean in “Los obreros en la Revolución Mexicana: Los Batallones Rojos,” Historia Mexicana 21 (July-September 1971)Google Scholar: wrote about the tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and printers who were decisive in the formation of a pact with Carranza in 1915 that was responsible for the organization of the Red Battalions. James Cockcroft in “El Maestro” detailed the careers of several teachers who were instrumental in the early work of the PLM as well as the later revolutionary movements of Carranza and Obregón. Thus, Protestant ministers came from occupational groups that tended to participate in the Revolution and Protestantism enhanced their opportunities to do so by providing employment and income in difficult economic times for artisans and teachers.

22 Porter, Eugene Oliver, “The History of Methodism in Mexico,” p. 72.Google Scholar

23 Knowles, James Purdie, Samuel A. Purdie, His Life and Letters (Plainfield, Ind.: Publishing Association of the Friends, 1908), p. 67.Google Scholar

24 Dale, , Mexico and Our Mission, p. 223.Google Scholar

25 Eaton to Mission Board Secretary, July 1886 and September 1886, ABCFM archive.

26 The Missionary Herald, June 1895, p. 239, and January 1895, p. 18.

27 J. W. Butler to W. H. Stokes, March 24, 1911, Methodist archive, Mexico City.

28 LeSeur to Mission Board Secretary, April 1911, Southern Baptist Convention archive, Richmond, VA.

29 Long to Mission Board Secretary, March 1911, ABCFM archive.

30 See for references to the issue of guidance, Vedder, Henry C., A Short History of Baptist Missions (Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1924), p. 335 Google Scholar; The Missionary Review of the World, 1892, p. 222.

31 Rankin, Melinda, Twenty Years Among the Missions (Cincinnati: Chase and Hale Publishers, 1875), p. 209.Google Scholar

32 El Faro, February 1886.

33 The Missionary Review of the World, 1895, p. 843.

34 The Missionary Review of the World, 1902, p. 203.

35 El Faro, December 1885.

36 Duggan, Janie P., A Mexican Ranch (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publishing Society, 1894).Google Scholar

37 Annual Report of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1907, p. 247. Filed, in part, in the mission archives, Austin, Tex.

38 El Faro, April 1892.

39 El Faro, February 1886.

40 El Evangelista Mexicano, February 15, 1910.

41 El Evangelista Mexicano, September 15, 1910.

42 Annual Report of the northern Mexican mission, July 1911, ABCFM archive.

43 The Missionary Review of the World, May 1911, p. 325.

44 It is questionable whether Protestants defined “class” in terms of economics or in terms of religion. In either event, the propaganda uses the term “class.”

45 “La visión clara,” El Bautista, 1908, p. 79.

46 El Faro, September 1885.

47 Johnson, Hannah More, About Mexico, Past and Present (Philadelphia: The Publishing House of the Presbyterian Church, 1887), p. 236.Google Scholar

48 El Bautista, 1908, p. 125.

49 Winton, George B., New Era in Old Mexico (Nashville, Tenn.: Methodist Church Soc, Publishing House, 1905), pp. 176, 195.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., p. 195.

51 Annual Report of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1910, p. 376. Filed, in part, in the mission archives, Austin, Tex.

52 El Evangelista Mexicano, January 1, 1910.

53 See also The Triennial Report of the Board of Missions, 1910 (New York: The Domestic and Foreign Mission Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1910); El Evangelista Mexicano, 1909, p. 357; Missionary Tidings, June 1904, p. 59; Eaton, James D., Life Under Two Flags (New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1922), p. 260.Google Scholar

54 Goodall, Normal, Christian Missions and Social Ferment (London: The Epworth Press, 1964), p. 71.Google Scholar

55 El Evangélico Mexicano, March 1909, p. 92.

56 Drees, Charles W., Thirteen Years in Mexico (New York: The Abington Press, 1915), p. 81.Google Scholar

57 Beezley, William H., Insurgent Governor: Abraham González and the Mexican Revolution in Chihuahua (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), p. 9 Google Scholar; Meyer, Michael E., Mexican Rebel: Pascual Orozco and the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1915 (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. 14 Google Scholar; Almada, Francisco R., Resumen de historia del estado de Chihuahua (México, D. F.: Libros Mexicanos, 1955), pp. 317, 348–350.Google Scholar

58 Eaton, James D., Life Under Two Flags, p. 258.Google Scholar

59 Wright to Mission Board Secretary, December 1910, ABCFM archive.

60 The Missionary Herald, June 1908, p. 289. Grijalva is occasionally spelled “Grijuva” in correspondence.

61 Eaton to the Mission Board Secretary, December 1910, ABCFM archive.

62 Annual report of the northern Mexican mission, 1911, ABCFM archive.

63 Eaton to the Mission Board Secretary, December 1910, ABCFM archive. Grijalva continued to act as a preacher; in 1919 the annual report noted that he was assigned to a church in Nayarit.

64 Filed under Eaton to Mission Board Secretary, January 1911, ABCFM archive.

65 Long to Mission Board Secretary, March 1911, ABCFM archive.

66 Eaton to Mission Board Secretary, February 24, 1911, ABCFM archive.

67 Eaton to Mission Board Secretary, December 1910, ABCFM archive.

68 Eaton to Mission Board Secretary, January 1911, ABCFM archive.

69 Eaton to Mission Board Secretary in two letters, both dated July 1911, ABCFM archive.

70 Eaton to Mission Board Secretary, July 1911, ABCFM archive.

71 Eaton, James D., Life Under Two Flags, p. 26 Google Scholar. The informant reportedly said that she could not elaborate; it had been difficult to obtain permission to say as much as she did.

72 Eaton to Mission Board Secretary of the Women’s board, February 1914, ABCFM archive.

73 Beezley, , Insurgent Governor, p. 18.Google Scholar

74 Ibid, p. 35, Ross, Stanley, Francisco Madero: Apostle of Mexican Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), Chapter 4.Google Scholar

75 Annual report of the northern Mexican mission, 1900, ABCFM archive.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Clark, Francis E. and Clark, Harriet A., The Gospel in Latin Lands (New York: Macmillan Co., 1909), p. 7.Google Scholar

79 Annual report of the northern Mexican mission, 1903, ABCFM archive.

80 The activities of Sáenz in both these fields are elaborated in Baldwin, “Variation within the Vanguard,” Chapter 7.

81 Cumberland, Charles C., Mexican Revolution: Genesis Under Madero (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1952), pp. 79–86 Google Scholar; Vasconcelos, José, Ulises Criollo (México, D. F.: Ediciones Botas, 1936), p. 486.Google Scholar

82 Madero, Francisco I. to Palavicini, Félix F., November 13,1909, in Archivo de Don Francisco I, Madero: Epistolario, 1900–1909 (Mexico, D. F.: Ediciones de la Secretaría de Hacienda, 1963), p. 486.Google Scholar

83 Francisco I. Madero to Moisés Sáenz, November 22, 1909, ibid., p. 505.

84 Wright to Mission Board Secretary, February 1912, ABCFM archive.

85 Howland to Mission Board Secretary, February 1913, ABCFM archive.

86 The Missionary Review of the World, May 1913, p. 721.

87 See for information on the lobbying effort Baldwin “Variations in the Vanguard,” Chapter 8.

88 Starr, Fredrick, Mexico and the United States (Chicago: The Bible House, 1914), pp. 123–133.Google Scholar

89 The Missionary Herald, January 1917, p. 30.

90 Inman diary notes, n.d. from its position in the file probably 1915, Inman Papers, National Archives Washington, D.C.

91 New York Times, September 9, 1919, 1:2.

92 Wallace report to Mission Board Secretary, 1915, Presbyterian archive, Philadelphia, Pa.

93 Onderdonk, Frank S., A Glimpse at Mexico (Nashville: Methodist Publishing House, 1930), p. 81.Google Scholar

94 Howland to Mission Board Secretary, May 1916, ABCFM archive.

95 Kelley, Francis C., Blood-Drenched Altars (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1936), p. 312.Google Scholar

96 Wallace to Mission Board Secretary, June 10, 1915, Presbyterian archive.

97 Personal notes of meeting with Carranza filed and dated 1908, Inman Papers, National Archives. This is not the correct date since it makes reference to the Madero assassination of 1913.