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Juan Diaz Covarrubias: Mexico’s Martyr-Novelist
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
ON APRIL 11, 1859, during the Mexican War of the Reform, the liberal forces of Santos Degollado were defeated at Tacubaya by the conservative forces under the command of General Márquez. Among the prisoners taken by the conservatives were several young physicians who were ordered shot by the conservative command. One of the physicians was Juan Díaz Covarrubias. The specific source of the command is obscure, but its infamy is clear; it has lived as a shameful chapter in Mexican history, and it has granted Díaz Covarrubias the glory of the man who might have been.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1954
References
1 A concise statement concerning the Tacubaya incident may be found in Sierra, Justo (ed.), Mexico, its social evolution, translated by G. Sentiñon (Ballescá, 1900), Tome I, vol. 1, p. 260:Google Scholar “General Miramon arriving at the end of the conflict ordered the captured officers to be shot; general Marquez, the bran-new [sic] victor who had got on the battle field his division general’s sash, had the order executed comprising therein the surgeons of the vanquished army and some civilians who were impiously shot.”
Bancroft gives a more detailed and clearer account. Miramon returned to the capital just as the battle reached a decisive point. In a note written and signed by Miramon the latter ordered Marquez to execute the captured officers. Márquez ordered executed the officers, the physicians and some civilians, and later contended that Miramon had ordered him to do so. Miramon denied the charge, admitting only the written order to execute the officers. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Mexico (San Francisco, 1885), V, 763–764.
2 Díaz Covarrubias carried on his literary activity and his medical study at the same time. His biographer, Antonio Carrion, says he began his medical study in 1854 and was an intern in the San Andrés hospital in 1857. Carrion says also that only one soldier in the firing squad would shoot Díaz. After shooting him twice, the soldier finally killed him with the rifle butt. Covarrubias, Juan Díaz, Impresiones y sentimientos (Mexico, 1859), “Apuntes biográficos,” by Antonio Carrión, pp. i-viii.Google Scholar
3 Among the critics who have generously evaluated the novels of Díaz Covarrubias are Carlos González-Peña and Manuel Pedro González.
“It [the fictional work of Díaz] seems a preparatory exercise, a happy augury of better things, rather than a finished product.” González-Peña, Carlos, History of Mexican Literature, translated by Nance, G. B. and Dunstan, F. J. (Dallas, 1945), p. 231.Google Scholar
“Más que obras logradas, estas cuatro novelas representan una gran promesa…. Es posible que de haber vivido veinte o treinta años más, Díaz Covarrubias hubiera sido uno de los mejores novelistas que México ha producido.” González, Manuel Pedro, Trayectoria de la novela en México (Mexico, 1951), p. 41.Google Scholar
An interesting evaluation of Juan Díaz Covarrubias is his appearance as a minor personage in a novel written by one of his own contemporaries. The author, Nicolas Pizarro, relates in a footnote the circumstances of the death of Díaz and explains that he wishes to portray him as the man he might have become—a kind and capable physician. Pizarro, Nicolás, La coqueta (Mexico, 1861), pp. 168–170.Google Scholar
4 The first indications of any considerable number of newly rich may be found in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. See Valadés:, José C. El Porfirismo, historia de un régimen (Mexico, 1941), especially pp. 339–387.Google Scholar The principal growth of a class of newly rich came with the Agrarian Revolution.