I. The Evolution of the Law of Recognition until 1913

To state that the United States imperialistically meddled in Mexican internal affairs in 1913 would scarcely surprise the scholarly community. The theme of United States imperialism in Latin America has been the subject of dispassionate scholarship and patriotic diatribes. Regardless of their perspective, writers have generally focused upon the political, social, strategic, and economic aspects of intervention. Considerably less attention has been given the United States' creative use of international law to affect the internal stability of Latin American nations. This article will contribute to bridging this gap by analyzing the manner in which Woodrow Wilson used the law of recognition to unseat Mexico's dictator, Victoriano Huerta; a man Wilson considered unfit to govern.

During the decade beginning in 1910 the economic involvement of the United States in Mexico increased while diplomatic relations deteriorated. Between 1911 and 1920 United States' imports from Mexico increased from $57,000,000 to $179,000,000 and exports from $61,000,000 to $208,000,000. Much of this economic growth related to petroleum and to land where investments in each of these areas increased phenomenally. The new Mexican Constitution of 1917, however, forecast trouble for foreign investors, especially those who depended upon Mexico's unreplenishable subsoil resources. Concessionaires who mined the subsoil appeared to hold their title only at the will of the state. Additionally, the right of foreigners to hold property in Mexico was often restricted. Land on the shores or borders of Mexico, for example, could not be owned by foreigners. Such provisions were designed to limit the economic subservience of Mexico to the United States. Like other Latin Americans, the Mexicans wanted economic self-sufficiency. They resented the fact that their economy was tied to the fluctuating world demand for staple raw materials and that they were caught in an American vise which squeezed both their imports and their exports.

Regional separatism in Mexico, especially in the north, has been one of the most persistent and difficult to explain problems in the historiography of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. It is well known that men of the north (norteños) made the Revolution, in large part, and finally succeeded in winning political power. But norteños, even those who followed Francisco I. Madero and after his fall, continued the struggle under the Constitutionalist banner, failed to agree among themselves either on their aims or their leaders. Leaving aside the questions of motive and ultimate objectives of the major separatists—Pascual Orozco and Francisco “Pancho” Villa in Chihuahua, Esteban Cantú Jiménez in Baja California Norte, and the triumvirate of Alvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta in Sonora—the question of how they financed their independent courses during and after the Constitutionalist victory remains. The following pages represent a preliminary inquiry into the role of illicit drug trafficking between Mexico and the United States in the era of the Mexican Revolution and its contribution to regional autonomy. Patterns and practice of medical and personal usage, as well as supply and demand in both countries are considered for opium, its derivatives, cocaine and alcoholic beverages, along with the gambling and prostitution associated with this trade. The interaction of all these activities and the governmental revenue derived from them, are treated in detail for Baja California Norte. The combined evidence clearly shows the potential governmental income from this clandestine traffic and strongly suggests the hypothesis that illicit trafficking provided a financial base for regional autonomy and separatism during the Revolution.

When King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía of Spain completed a 1978 tour of Mexico, the occasion was naturally marked by sentimental rhetoric. President José Lóopez Portillo launched an official reconciliation when he visited Madrid the year before. Underlying the whole exercise, however, was a deep psychological resistance on the part of most Mexicans. The King attempted to emphasize to Mexicans the Spanish aspect of their heritage, but the history of Mexican-Spanish relations during the Revolution underlines the history of ethnic hostility between both groups during the first decades of the twentieth century. As in 1917, the Mexican government in 1978 decided that economic gains far outweighed whipping up popular resentment against the Spaniards.

The oil business has developed in waves; as new fields are discovered, individuals and companies rush to that area to seek their fortunes. In the United States just after the turn of the century, the wave headed for Texas and Oklahoma, and shortly thereafter, turned farther south toward the Mexican Gulf Coast. Despite the fact that between 1910 and 1920 Mexico was going through a major revolution, entrepreneurs, engineers, geologists, and skilled workers from the American Southwest poured into the area and participated in bringing Mexican oil production up to 25.2 percent of total world production in 1921, at the same time raising United States participation in the Mexican oil industry from 38.5 percent of a total investment of $51,900,000 U.S. in 1911 to 61 percent of $819,600,000 U.S. ten years later. This effort was both dangerous and romantic for the participants, and for many of them the profits were substantial. Needless to say, the relationship between the United States and Mexico was considerably affected by this influx of capital and personnel, and was made particularly crucial by the advent of the First World War in Europe. By the end of the decade, it had become clear that oil had paid a significant part of the cost of the Mexican Revolution and that future institutionalization by the Mexican government would depend greatly on oil revenues. Further, North American companies had gained preeminence in the industry, in large part because of the men who went to Mexico from the American Southwest.