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Huatulco

“You Say You Want a Revolution” — Literature That Imparts History

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By Carole Reedy

Revolution: A forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system.
— Oxford Languages

History written as literature is a popular genre, providing the reader with knowledge of the past in the context of fine writing. American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor Truman Capote created this new way of looking at actual events in his true-crime novel In Cold Blood in 1966.

The following books are among the best examples of this style. Some are recognized as historical fiction and some as nonfiction, but all are written with the style and flair that these well-established writers bring to a subject. Each covers a different and significant period and place in time. Reading them not only allows us to engage with the past, but also gives us the opportunity to reflect on its effect on our daily life and decisions.

Revolution, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (2022)
“All my life I heard at home the story of that friend of my great-grandfather, a mining engineer, who worked in Mexico in the midst of the revolution. That remote memory has brought me closer to my own relationship with adventure and has led me to write this story. It is a novel of initiation and learning and is, in some way, my own biography of youth. It is my Golden Arrow.” Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Revolution is among the 30-some Pérez-Reverte (1951 – ) novels that readers devour every year. His popularity seems easy to grasp. Since we all suspect that truth is stranger than fiction, his preferred genre, historical fiction, resonates with people of all classes and cultures worldwide. Pérez-Reverte combines plot and characterization to perfection, often including a dollop of humor.

The Revolution in question here is our own Mexican Revolution (1910-1921) in the time of Zapata and Pancho Villa. The focus is not simply on fighting and war, but rather on finding a treasure consisting of 15,000 twenty-peso Maximilian gold coins that had been stolen from a bank in Ciudad Juárez in 1911.

One reader praises the breadth of the book: Pérez-Reverte “takes us through important episodes such as the capture of Ciudad Juárez, the Ten Tragic Days, the battles of Zacatecas and Celaya. The narrative is so good that one is transported in places and times to understand a process as complex as the Mexican Revolution. Highly recommended reading.”

Pérez-Reverte is Spanish, born in Cartagena, Spain, and while many of his novels concern Spain and the Mediterranean, his books are read in more than 50 countries. As you celebrate the Mexican Revolution this November 20, crack open this important read!

Hilary Mantel (1952-2022) asserted that “We don’t reproduce the past, we create it.” In 2017, Mantel gave the Reith Lectures (the BBC’s annual lecture series featuring significant intellectual figures).  Addressing “the aims, ideals, constraints and critiques of historical fiction, and the challenges that writers face,” Mantel observed that readers are “actively requesting a subjective interpretation” of the historical evidence.  The writer’s job is “to recreate the texture of lived experience: to activate the senses, and to deepen the reader’s engagement through feeling”
Many of us deeply enjoyed Mantel’s three novels Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror and the Light (2020), which transported us, through the eyes of the ever-crafty Thomas Cromwell, into Henry the Eighth’s tumultuous kingdom.
Mantel’s sometimes forgotten novels live up to the esteemed reputation she enjoyed after the publication of the Cromwell trilogy. Among her earlier works and one of the most formidable, A Place of Greater Safety ensconces us in the French Revolution though the eyes of its three heroes. It is my favorite of her many powerful novels.
It’s hard to believe Mantel had trouble finding a publisher for this significant contribution to the literature of the French Revolution. By telling us the complicated history of the Revolution through the eyes of Georges Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre, Mantel humanizes the major players on both sides, allowing us to relate to them and to the Revolution itself.
“Hilary shares her strict adherence to historical facts; her frustration with the gaps in the historical record; and her preoccupation with French 18th-century drawing room wallpaper. She explains how familiar events from history can be transformed into surprising new dramas when a point of view is changed; and how the unknowns – what her characters think or feel – is where her creativity did its work” (author Katie Ward, “Hilary Mantel was my mentor. Here are seven things she taught me about writing – and life,” The Guardian [September 19, 2024]).

Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, by Fareed Zakaria (2024)
Most of us recognize Zakaria (1964 – ) as the face of CNN’s popular show Fareed Zakaria GPS (Global Public Square). You may also have read his popular column in The Washington Post or seen his profile on the jacket of his books. Zakaria inspires trust, and his faithful admirers look to him for guidance in our complicated world.

This significant book covers five centuries of history to explain the world’s current state of affairs. It advises us to understand how the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the American Revolution affect our current situation.

Evelyn Waugh wrote in Brideshead Revisited: “We possess nothing certainly except the past.” And it is this from which we must learn, although it doesn’t appear we are doing a very good job of it.

Another Day of Life, by Ryszard Kapuściński (Polish edition 1976, English translation 1987)
There is nothing more satisfying than discovering an author whose creations spark curiosity about the conditions of other cultures. For years the Polish journalist, writer, poet, and essayist Kapuściński (1932-2007) gave us a wealth of knowledge and, more importantly, a glimpse into the suffering of “the other.”

He could also be correctly crowned the king of revolutions, having reported in his lifetime on 27 revolutions, mostly in Africa and the Middle East.

In 1975 Kapuscinski reported on the civil war following independence in Angola. His book Another Day of Life describes the “sloppy, dogged and cruel war.” An animated film was made from the book. Both book and movie demonstrate the abysmal effect of war on the populations that suffer through them.

Kapuscinski is best known for The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat (1978), the story of the 40-plus year reign of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia. Observations related to Kapuscinski by those who worked for Selassie or lived during his rule describe a man who lived like a king among the neglected population that served him.

In another gem, the story of the infamous Shah of Iran is told in his best-selling Shah of Shahs (1992), which assesses the reign of the Shah of Iran and his exit from the country.

In Ryszard Kapuściński, the Nobel Prize committee once again missed the opportunity to recognize an important writer who traveled and reported on world areas in the turmoil of revolution.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe (2019)
The Irish Revolutionary Army dominated the world news for years in the 1980s and 90s, though its many factions and rumors of the era can be confusing. Through a main story and its accompanying sidebars in this marvelously crafted piece of literature, Radden Keefe sets up and describes this era from a variety of perspectives, via the citizens involved as well as the hidden nuances that make up this history.

The true and brutal action begins on the first page with the kidnapping of Jean McConville, a mother of ten wee weans in Belfast, Ireland, in 1972. From there the story expands into a narrative that includes an explanation of the seemingly endless conflicts in Ireland.

Recognizable major players are highlighted in this long history of clashes between Catholics and Protestants, as well as the presence of the British government in the north of the island. Through the actions of Gerry Adams, Bobby Sands, and Dolours Price, the story of the various factions is told.

Radden Keefe (1976 – ) is well regarded for his accurate account of pertinent historical eras and the people behind the history. The book was named one of the top ten books of 2019 by both The New York Times Book Review and The Washington Post. It won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. Radden Keefe knows how to take facts and weave a story of grand proportion that kept this reader on the very edge of her seat.

Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (2021) received well-deserved attention more recently, as did the book-based Netflix series Painkiller (2023); both tell the story of how the pharmaceutical industry created a nationwide opioid addiction for its own profit.

¡VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!

 

Huatulco

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“The great cause of inequality in the distribution of wealth is inequality in the ownership of land. The ownership of land is the great fundamental fact which ultimately determines the social, the political, and consequently the intellectual and moral condition of a people.”
― Henry George, Progress and Poverty

Learning about history in school was like hearing about people you would never meet. For me, there was an abyss between the Then and the Now.

Even when we were studying WWII in grade six it felt so distant – something that belonged in a museum exhibition with a sign warning you not to touch it. Of course we need only look at the morning news to see that human atrocities are never ending. Our species is insatiable for more, insatiable for claiming ownership and dominion over… well anything that crosses it’s path. World leaders behave like squabbling five year olds, each pulling the arm of a doll while screaming ‘mine’. There is a crassness to needing so much.

From the moment I moved to Mexico I felt the way the past covered the now like a gauze, time here is not linear but layered. Although the Mexican Revolution occurred over a hundred years ago, life here will constantly remind you what it accomplished. This month our writers explore Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican icon and hero of the revolution.

Revolution is word that conjures up violence and conflict and yet the Mexican Revolution aimed for more equanimity, more humanity and dignity for living off the land. It questioned ‘what is ownership?’ and challenged the class system that gave, and continues to give, one group power over another. I would even go so far as to say that it hinted at the dissolution of the ego. If our egos are intertwined with what we have, then releasing this idea of dominion and ownership is letting go a little bit of what most of us have been taught defines us.

These questions and reverence for the land continue today, not throughout all of Mexico, but in some places. Places like the communal land village where I live. Where there is a feeling of contentment that I hope rubs off on me.

If you are in Mexico enjoy Día de la Revolución celebrations on November 20th. There will be a parade in almost every town and city with children dressed up as revolutionaries, a testament to the way history is now.

See you soon,

Jane

P.S. Aim for a plastic-free vacation and travel with your own refillable water bottle.

Huatulco

The Legacies of Emiliano Zapata: Apparently, the Personal was NOT Political

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

Even if you don’t know much about Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919), you’ve probably heard of the Zapatista movement he inspired (see Julie Etra’s article elsewhere in this issue). Dedicated to the proposition that land should be returned to the people, Zapata, as commander of the Liberation Army of the South, is one of the best-known heroes of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). When Francisco Madero successfully ousted the dictator Porfirio Díaz and made himself president in 1911, however, he failed to implement any of the land reforms Zapata and like-minded revolutionaries expected.

Zapata went home to Ayala in Morelos (south of Mexico City) and wrote his “Plan de Ayala,” castigating Madero and ensuring that the peasants of Morelos would benefit from land reform. The Plan de Ayala was instrumental to creating Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution, which establishes indigenous land rights in communal holdings (ejidos and comunidades agrarias); it is considered a fundamental text for the Zapatista movement.

The Mexican Revolution was marked by chaos: coups, assassinations, hostilities between northern and southern factions in what was basically a-civil-war-within-a-civil-war. Zapata was a thorn in the side of Mexico’s various presidents – none of whom implemented any meaningful land reform, despite the 1917 Constitution. The Constitution had been promoted by Venustiano Carranza, governor of the state of Coahuila; in the wake of the Constitution, Carranza became president of Mexico.

Once in office, he was determined to get rid of Zapata, who took his ragged peasant soldiers into battle whenever his demands were ignored. On April 10, 1919, Carranza’s military organized an elaborate ruse to get Zapata to a supposedly secret meeting at Hacienda Chinameca (about 18 km, or 11 miles, south of Ayala). He arrived on horseback and saluted the military lineup; they promptly murdered him in his saddle.

Zapata’s Political Legacy

Politically, Zapata left behind a peasant movement that lives on today, mostly in Chiapas. The lengthy dominant-party role of the PRI party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional – see Randy Jackson’s article elsewhere in this issue) left many people, especially younger people, feeling there was no political avenue open to them except Zapata-style resistance. As the Revolution faded (it took quite some time for the fighting to stop), the Zapatistas began a long and complicated history of representing the indigenous peoples of southern Mexico, often clashing with northern anti-government groups.

Three events crystallized the Zapatista identity and firmly located it in the Lacondon jungle area of Chiapas as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (National Zapatista Army of Liberation, or EZLN).

· In 1992, Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution (which had been repealed in 1991) was amended, basically eliminating any official recognition of the need for land reform and halting any efforts at protecting communal lands of indigenous or campesino groups.
· On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, leading the EZLN to declare war on the Mexico government. The EZLN occupied four towns in Chiapas, including San Cristóbal de las Casas; after 11 days of bloody fighting, during which 300 people died, the Mexican government started negotiations with the EZLN. It took two years, but in 1996, the Mexican government and the EZLN signed the San Andres Accords, granting autonomy, recognition, and rights to the indigenous peoples of Mexico. In other words, the Accords ostensibly restored some portions of Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution.
· Also in 1996, the EZLN convened an Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, becoming the de facto leader of leftist activists around the world.

As time has passed, the Zapatistas have had less impact on political issues; the EZLN still exists, and still fights for indigenous rights, but their activities are mostly confined to Chiapas. They are opposed to mega-infrastructure projects in the region and maintain ties with European activists. Drug cartels have used violence against local Zapatista governments, causing the EZLN to reorganize in more local collectives aligned with broader Assemblies of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments” (ACGAZ).

Zapata’s Personal Legacies: Men???

Zapata, an icon of machismo, had twenty or so kids with either 9 or 14 women (he only married one of them); he may also have been bisexual, a possibility that has recently been reexamined because of a painting.

A Controversial Painting. On Tuesday, December 10, 2019, protesters stormed the usually staid and monumental Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City’s historic center. Many of the protesters were indigenous farmers – those for whom Zapata had fought. Their target was one particular painting in the exhibition Emiliano. Zapata Después de Zapata (Emiliano. Zapata after Zapata), held to mark the centennial of Zapata’s death.

Three events crystallized the Zapatista identity and firmly located it in the Lacondon jungle area of Chiapas as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (National Zapatista Army of Liberation, or EZLN).

· In 1992, Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution (which had been repealed in 1991) was amended, basically eliminating any official recognition of the need for land reform and halting any efforts at protecting communal lands of indigenous or campesino groups.
· On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, leading the EZLN to declare war on the Mexico government. The EZLN occupied four towns in Chiapas, including San Cristóbal de las Casas; after 11 days of bloody fighting, during which 300 people died, the Mexican government started negotiations with the EZLN. It took two years, but in 1996, the Mexican government and the EZLN signed the San Andres Accords, granting autonomy, recognition, and rights to the indigenous peoples of Mexico. In other words, the Accords ostensibly restored some portions of Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution.
· Also in 1996, the EZLN convened an Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, becoming the de facto leader of leftist activists around the world.

As time has passed, the Zapatistas have had less impact on political issues; the EZLN still exists, and still fights for indigenous rights, but their activities are mostly confined to Chiapas. They are opposed to mega-infrastructure projects in the region and maintain ties with European activists. Drug cartels have used violence against local Zapatista governments, causing the EZLN to reorganize in more local collectives aligned with broader Assemblies of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments” (ACGAZ).

Zapata’s Personal Legacies: Men???

Zapata, an icon of machismo, had twenty or so kids with either 9 or 14 women (he only married one of them); he may also have been bisexual, a possibility that has recently been reexamined because of a painting.

A Controversial Painting. On Tuesday, December 10, 2019, protesters stormed the usually staid and monumental Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City’s historic center. Many of the protesters were indigenous farmers – those for whom Zapata had fought. Their target was one particular painting in the exhibition Emiliano. Zapata Después de Zapata (Emiliano. Zapata after Zapata), held to mark the centennial of Zapata’s death.

Three events crystallized the Zapatista identity and firmly located it in the Lacondon jungle area of Chiapas as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (National Zapatista Army of Liberation, or EZLN).

· In 1992, Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution (which had been repealed in 1991) was amended, basically eliminating any official recognition of the need for land reform and halting any efforts at protecting communal lands of indigenous or campesino groups.
· On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, leading the EZLN to declare war on the Mexico government. The EZLN occupied four towns in Chiapas, including San Cristóbal de las Casas; after 11 days of bloody fighting, during which 300 people died, the Mexican government started negotiations with the EZLN. It took two years, but in 1996, the Mexican government and the EZLN signed the San Andres Accords, granting autonomy, recognition, and rights to the indigenous peoples of Mexico. In other words, the Accords ostensibly restored some portions of Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution.
· Also in 1996, the EZLN convened an Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, becoming the de facto leader of leftist activists around the world.

As time has passed, the Zapatistas have had less impact on political issues; the EZLN still exists, and still fights for indigenous rights, but their activities are mostly confined to Chiapas. They are opposed to mega-infrastructure projects in the region and maintain ties with European activists. Drug cartels have used violence against local Zapatista governments, causing the EZLN to reorganize in more local collectives aligned with broader Assemblies of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments” (ACGAZ).

Zapata’s Personal Legacies: Men???

Zapata, an icon of machismo, had twenty or so kids with either 9 or 14 women (he only married one of them); he may also have been bisexual, a possibility that has recently been reexamined because of a painting.

A Controversial Painting. On Tuesday, December 10, 2019, protesters stormed the usually staid and monumental Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City’s historic center. Many of the protesters were indigenous farmers – those for whom Zapata had fought. Their target was one particular painting in the exhibition Emiliano. Zapata Después de Zapata (Emiliano. Zapata after Zapata), held to mark the centennial of Zapata’s death.

Three events crystallized the Zapatista identity and firmly located it in the Lacondon jungle area of Chiapas as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (National Zapatista Army of Liberation, or EZLN).

· In 1992, Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution (which had been repealed in 1991) was amended, basically eliminating any official recognition of the need for land reform and halting any efforts at protecting communal lands of indigenous or campesino groups.
· On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, leading the EZLN to declare war on the Mexico government. The EZLN occupied four towns in Chiapas, including San Cristóbal de las Casas; after 11 days of bloody fighting, during which 300 people died, the Mexican government started negotiations with the EZLN. It took two years, but in 1996, the Mexican government and the EZLN signed the San Andres Accords, granting autonomy, recognition, and rights to the indigenous peoples of Mexico. In other words, the Accords ostensibly restored some portions of Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution.
· Also in 1996, the EZLN convened an Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, becoming the de facto leader of leftist activists around the world.

As time has passed, the Zapatistas have had less impact on political issues; the EZLN still exists, and still fights for indigenous rights, but their activities are mostly confined to Chiapas. They are opposed to mega-infrastructure projects in the region and maintain ties with European activists. Drug cartels have used violence against local Zapatista governments, causing the EZLN to reorganize in more local collectives aligned with broader Assemblies of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments” (ACGAZ).

Zapata’s Personal Legacies: Men???

Zapata, an icon of machismo, had twenty or so kids with either 9 or 14 women (he only married one of them); he may also have been bisexual, a possibility that has recently been reexamined because of a painting.

A Controversial Painting. On Tuesday, December 10, 2019, protesters stormed the usually staid and monumental Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City’s historic center. Many of the protesters were indigenous farmers – those for whom Zapata had fought. Their target was one particular painting in the exhibition Emiliano. Zapata Después de Zapata (Emiliano. Zapata after Zapata), held to mark the centennial of Zapata’s death.

It wasn’t this one …

 

 

 

 

 

Nor was it this one, odd as it may be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was this one. Note that the stilettoes seem to be revolvers, Zapata’s sombrero is pink with painted flowers, and the horse is – um – aroused. The title is La Revolución.

Antonio Medrano spoke for the protesters: “This isn’t freedom of expression, it is debauchery! It’s degrading. They can’t exhibit our history that way … they can’t permit this kind of mockery.” Perhaps the strongest protests came from Zapata’s descendants, who said they would sue to have the painting removed. Jorge Zapata Gonzalez, Zapata’s grandson, asserted that “We are not going to allow this,” said Jorge Zapata Gonzalez. “For us as relatives, this denigrates the figure of our general – depicting him as gay.”

The artist, Fabián Cháirez, says he was surprised by the cries to take it down, hide it away, or burn it. Cháirez, gay himself, shows a number of similar paintings on his website – La Revolución was painted in 2014. At the time of the exhibition, the artist told the BBC he conceived of the painting as a counterpoint to the predominant image of masculinity as a white fortachón (strongman – Zapata was called el caudillo del sur, another way to say “strongman”); he said he thought issues of sexuality “had already been overcome or [were] under control: inclusion, respect for diversity or difference. Issues such as machismo, misogyny, homophobia.” Those who disagree with the protesters see the painting as an exercise in artistic freedom, or as an effort to quell the negative Mexican attitude towards anything effeminate.

 

Huatulco

Beyond the Battlefield: The Impact of the Mexican Revolution on Women’s Rights

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By Kary Vannice

On October 1st, 2024, Mexico experienced a historic moment – the inauguration of its first female president, a paradigm shift long in the making that started partly with the gun-toting Adelitas and soldaderas (see article by Frances López elsewhere in this issue) who fought alongside men during the Mexican Revolution (1910-±21), but more so because of the fundamental shift in family structures and social norms of the time. Women were presented with opportunity born out of necessity, and they made the most of it.

With the men away waging war, women were not only able but required to break out of their traditional roles as wives and mothers. They became leaders and active participants in political, social, and labor movements. The impacts of the revolution spread far beyond the front lines and bled right down into rural communities, upending their way of life, leaving countless widows and orphans behind, and breaking down social structures. Grassroots, women-led initiatives focused on providing education, healthcare, and social services. They formed mutual aid societies designed specifically to address the needs of women.

Suddenly, women became the primary decision-makers and breadwinners in their homes. They started managing farms, businesses, and household finances, all responsibilities previously considered male domains. If they didn’t have a business to run, they entered the workforce as factory workers in industries like textiles, tobacco, and food production. Other women stepped even deeper into male roles, operating trains, driving vehicles, and working as messengers. These more dangerous jobs were crucial for moving goods, transporting troops, and relaying information to support the war effort. Women serving in these roles defied societal expectations of physical capability and mental fortitude.

As more women advanced in business and industry, they began to exert their influence in labor unions, organizing strikes, leading labor movements, and advocating for workers’ rights. For women to lead public political movements, in both urban and rural areas, was groundbreaking at the time. Many of these women have been lost to history, but one woman, Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza (1875-1942), a professor, journalist, and outspoken activist who led a national campaign for better wages, safer working conditions, and shorter work hours, remains in the history books as a prominent leader of the feminist movement.

Other feminist leaders, such as Hermila Galindo (1886-1954) and Elvia Carrillo Puerto (1878-1967), seized the political and social chaos of the Revolution to advocate for women’s right to vote, reproductive rights, and access to education, spearheading social movements to secure women’s rights in the long term.

The Revolution led to a nearly decade-long shift in family structures, granting women the financial independence and economic bargaining power to challenge patriarchal norms. Though this period was brief, it was significant for the advancement of women’s rights. Once the war ended, women were expected to return to their traditional roles as wives and mothers, but enough progress had been made to change the Mexican socio-political landscape forever.

The 1917 Constitution instituted new labor laws, including fair wages, reasonable working hours, and safe working conditions. And, more importantly, it specifically addressed women workers, guaranteeing maternity leave and making it illegal to fire a woman for becoming pregnant. New constitutional laws also mandated free schooling for all citizens, improving women’s access to education, particularly in rural areas. Although women did not gain the right to vote until 1953, they had officially become a political force in Mexico, advancing the feminist agenda and bringing attention to gender inequality.

One might think that, now, with a woman seated in the highest office in the land, women have “arrived” at full and total equality with men in Mexico. But if you ask any woman here if that’s the case, you will likely hear sentiments reminiscent of those expressed by feminist leader Hermila Galindo: “I firmly and intensely believe that women deserve a better fate than that which has been bestowed upon them by the legislation of all the eras prior to the present.”

Perhaps with a woman leading the country, what these revolutionary women fought for will finally come to pass.

Huatulco

Power of the Press: The True Heroes of the Mexican Revolution

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By Carole Reedy

“It is a newspaper’s duty to print the news and raise hell.”
― Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion

The quotation above accurately describes how the press exposed the abuses of the Porfirio Díaz government (1876-1910), leading eventually to its decline and the establishment of a new democratic Mexico. The journalists and newspapers of that era have been described as the “true authors” of the Mexican Revolution.

It was not a short journey. The Revolution and struggle for power lasted for ten years, and the repercussions and discontent in the country lasted even longer.

The seeds of revolution were planted by the press and the Flores Magón brothers, as well as by other journalists and periodicals of the era beginning in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

REGENERATION, A NEWSPAPER
The newspaper was the creation of the Flores Magón brothers – Enrique, Jesús, and Ricardo – lawyers by day and journalists by night. It called for a return to the principles of Mexico’s 1857 constitution: free elections, free press, and term limits, all of which had been conveniently forgotten during the 30-year reign of President Porfirio Díaz.

They called the Díaz administration a “den of thieves,” thieves of land, wages, life, and democracy. On August 7, 1900, Antonio Horcasitas and the Flores Magón brothers published the first issue of Regeneration.

Ricardo Flores once said: “Paper is an idol to me, and I think that will soon be my great weapon.”

The mission of Regeneration was “to seek remedies and, where necessary, to point out and denounce all of the misdeeds of public officers who do not follow the precepts of the law, so that public shame brings upon them the justice they deserve.” The focus of most of the articles centered on misconduct of the police, lawyers, and judges.

Porfirio Díaz was not always a despot. In 1857 he supported the principles of the new Mexican constitution and those of Benito Juárez. But once he gained the power of the presidency in 1876, Díaz gradually became authoritarian, favoring land grabbing by rich (often foreign) land owners and industrialists. He was never criticized by the press. Regeneration even accused him of “muzzling the press.”
In 1904 Regeneration and the Flores Magón brothers were forced to leave Mexico for fear of arrest for their radical views. They fled north of the border, where they continued to publish their paper in various US cities, smuggling copies back to Mexico weekly to their 26,000 loyal readers. “Tyranny has thrown us out of our country, forcing us to seek liberty on foreign soil.”

During their exile in the US, political differences deepened among the brothers. Jesús split from Ricardo and Enrique, who had adopted anarchist ideas. Jesús returned to Mexico in 1910 to edit – along with Antonio I. Villarreal – a moderate version of the newspaper Regeneración in Mexico City. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, brothers Enrique and Ricardo continued to publish their radical version.

The story doesn’t end here, however. For the complete telling, do read Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernández (2023), an excellent rendering of and resource on the Mexican Revolution and the Magonistas, named one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker and winner of the Bancroft Prize.

VESPER AND FIAT LUX, AND OTHERS
Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza, known as “The Progresista,” was one of the most prominent woman activists pushing for change during the Mexican Revolution. She authored both feminist and radical political literature for 45 years.

In 1901, she became the first woman to publish and edit a periodical that decried the abuses of the government of Porfirio Díaz, along with his legislators and judges, as well as the powers of the church and the state. She has been called “our Joan of Arc,” and the Flores Magón brothers in their newspaper Regeneración supported her journalistic work calling for freedom for all people.

Gutiérrez de Mendoza was constantly imprisoned by Díaz for her stances, but she kept on fighting for the workers, being a particular supporter of Emiliano Zapata and his causes, among them The Plan de Ayala. Her publications were shut down nearly 40 times by the government, eventually leading her to do as the Flores Magón brothers had and move her operation north of the border. She eventually returned to Mexico and continued to pursue her convictions.

Gutiérrez de Mendoza also wrote with and for other women, some of whom she met in prison. Many of her articles centered on the mistreatment by the church and state of the indigenous population in Mexico. Mistreatment of miners was another of her principal concerns. ¡Por la Tierra, Por la Raza! (For the Earth, For the Race! 1924) is one of her more popular and significant publications.

Some of the women Gutiérrez met in prison became her partners in publishing. One of these was Dolores Jiménez y Muro, from Aguascalientes, a former teacher and writer in rural Mexico. In 1902 Jiménez moved to Mexico City, where she wrote and published articles against the Díaz regime. She was promptly arrested and imprisoned, but that didn’t halt her radical activities. Gutiérrez and Jiménez, along with other women prisoners, published a radical journal Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light). Jiménez also joined the staff of another leftist periodical, La Mujer Mexicana.

Elisa Acuña Rossetti, one of their associates from prison, also had been a rural teacher in Hidalgo. She worked with the Flores Magón brothers on the newspaper El Hijo de Ahuizote in Mexico City and co-founded and wrote in Vesper and Fiat Lux.

EL HIJO DE AHUIZOTE
This is one of the most critical publications regarding the reign of Porfirio Díaz. It first appeared in 1885 and was packed with political cartoons and satirical writings. In 1903 the paper reported “La Constitución ha muerto” (The Constitution has died).

Ahuizote is derived from a Nahuatl word for an otter or water dog, an animal that takes its place in Mexican mythology. “Ahuízot a(tl),”means water, and “huiz(tli),” means thorn – it is often translated as “the annoying one,” and hijo (son) of the ahuizote would be a pain.

Started by Daniel Cabrera, Manuel Pérez Bibbins, and Juan Sarabia, the periodical was taken over in 1902 by our old friends Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón. The Díaz administration promptly shut down the operation, seizing the equipment and arresting the Flores Magón brothers. It would not be their first or last arrest.

To learn even more about the Mexican Revolution and the men and women behind it, I suggest on your next visit to Mexico City that you visit the National Museum of the Revolution, located in the National Monument of the Revolution.

It’s conveniently located just one Metrobus stop north of Paseo de la Reforma on Avenida Insurgentes. There you’ll find a stunning building with an elevator to take you to the top for a spectacular overall view of the city. On a lower floor is the Museum of the Revolution, where a basic timeline helps you understand, in a clear format, the series of events that led up to and occurred during and after the Revolution. This is essential to understanding present-day Mexico.

There you will also find more extensive information about the people and periodicals from this article.

Huatulco

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“By standing together in unity, solidarity and love, we will heal the wounds in the earth and in each other. We can make a positive difference through our actions.”
Julia Butterfly Hill

This month our writers explore political parties and revolutions. In my cooking classes I always say that the recipe for a revolution is a few very wealthy people controlling everything while poor people do all the work. This has been true during most of the large revolutions of the past that were a reflection of class struggle.

With technology and the decline of environmental quality, we are seeing a new kind of revolution and it doesn’t care how much stuff you have- in fact the less the better.

Back in 1997 Julia Butterfly Hill ascended Luna—a giant 1,500-year-old redwood tree near Stafford, California, and spent 738 days in a tree to protest the logging industry. Her act was seen as radical and perhaps crazy- there is no denying it was a huge commitment. However when examined through the lens of today, while an outrageous act, the philosophy behind it is being embraced more than ever.

People are fleeing urban areas for cleaner air, access to water and nature – planning for survival in an ever growing hostile world. Peasant life is the new rich. With carbon dioxide levels on our planet at the highest they have been in 4 million years, we have seen a rapid increase in temperature, which is leading to drought, forest fires, dying coral, melting permafrost, loss of biodiversity and decimated crops.

Where this will take us is anyone’s guess. As a species we are slow to make immediate changes for long-term gain- we are impatient and want what we want now.

Thanks for reading,

Jane

Huatulco

From Ireland to India: Novels and the Revolutions that Inspired Them

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By Carole Reedy

In hindsight, the stories told of revolutions often seem thrilling. Revolutions themselves are frequently portrayed as virtuous, noble, moral, and/or ethical, and they usually make for exciting reading. In the details, however, lies the reality, which often doesn’t bear out the romance of our perceptions.

Heroes emerge, but there are also the stark realities of revolution, explored in the books selected here. Looking in depth at significant revolutionary figures, famous or not, offers a fresh take on the subject of revolution and those who voluntarily or involuntarily dedicate their lives to a cause.

These highly respected authors have penned unique and well-researched books that mutually illuminate via their distinctive perspectives.

Ireland: A Star Called Henry, by Roddy Doyle (1999)
Doyle’s historical novel is set in Ireland during the 1916 Easter Rising, culminating in the eventual truce signed with the United Kingdom in 1921.

Swashbuckling young Henry Smart tells us his story, from his birth to a poor Irish family through his 20s as a member of the Irish Civil Army. Doyle’s colorful fictional characters are intertwined with the real strugglers for freedom, such as Michael Collins.

This is the first of a trilogy in which Henry escapes to the US in the second book, but returns to Ireland in the third.

Doyle received well-deserved praise for his lyrical composition, though the novels have been criticized for being overly graphic. Personally, I find this exactly the attraction: Doyle’s staccato style full of colorful imagery is the element that not only moves the story but reveals the conjugations of revolution.

Readers can’t help but experience a range of emotions while Doyle enlightens us on Irish history.

France: A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel (1992)
The grave. That is the place of greater safety to which Mantel refers in the title of her all-encompassing 872-page-turner about the French Revolution. She tells the story of the Revolution in the late 18th century through the lens of the three major players, coincidentally all lawyers and friends and all executed by guillotine in the Place de Concorde, Paris, in 1794. At the time of their deaths, none had reached the age of 40.

George Danton was the ambitious young lawyer who has been described by several historians as “the chief force in the overthrow of the French monarchy and the establishment of the First French Republic.”

Camille Desmoulins, the charming conspirator and radical pamphleteer, is best known for his role that led to the storming of the Bastille. Although a schoolmate of Robespierre and Desmoulins as well as Danton, Desmoulins and Danton later distanced themselves from Robespierre, criticizing the excesses of the Revolutionary Government.

Danton and Doumoulins were executed side-by-side on April 5, 1794.

Maximilian Robespierre, slight of stature, diligent, and ironically terrified of violence, is often thought of as the “brains” of the Revolution. His role was complicated, as is the entire period of this history.

Mantel has taken a complex series of events and used these three major figures to weave a cogent and satisfying tale. Instead of simply viewing these powerful intellectuals as revolutionary figures, we see them as men in their relationships with others and among themselves.

Most readers are familiar with the late Mantel’s Wolf Hall series, the trilogy that tells the tale of Thomas Cromwell and the beguiling story of England in the 16th century, complete with the colorful Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn, just two of the starring personages of the series.

For my part, A Place of Greater Safety is the crème de la crème of all of Mantel’s varied and intriguing novels.

Mexico: The Death of Artemio Cruz, by Carlos Fuentes (1962)
We often think of Fuentes’ masterpiece as a novel of the Mexican Revolution, 1910 to 1921, although dates for revolutions are arbitrary since the reverberations seem interminable and unremitting.

The timeline of the novel runs from 1889 to 1960 to give the reader a perspective on the Mexican character. Fuentes uses rotating characters to demonstrate “the complexities of a human or national personality.”

Carlos Fuentes is to Mexico what García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, and Mario Vargas Llosa are to Colombia, Argentina, and Peru, respectively. He was, and still is, one of the most admired writers in Mexico, with distinguished recognition worldwide.

It was often thought he deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature, but like so many venerable writers (Philip Roth, Javier Marías, Salman Rushdie) he was somehow overlooked.

Women: Women Talking by Miriam Toews (2018)
This daring story, based on fact, tells of the courage of women in a Mennonite community who decide to determine their own future and that of their children after suffering abuse from the men in power. The actual incident took place in a Mennonite community in Bolivia.

The novel was transformed into a successful and tense movie (2022) despite the fact that the action is solely women talking. The detailed depiction of the women is at the core of the book, and the perfect and precise casting contributes to the success of the movie. Directed by Sarah Polley, Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, and Clare Foy dominate the screen with their superb skills.

India: Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie (1981)
After a hundred years or more of struggle for independence from Britain, India was partitioned into the new states of Pakistan and India in 1947, a haphazard and tragic map devised by the British. While the former “colony” was finally free from British rule, in the years that followed perhaps even more blood was shed amongst Muslims and Hindus in the chaos that ensued after partition.

Enter Salem, a boy born with a powerful gift of telepathy at the precise hour in 1947 that India was freed from British rule. Thus another surrealistic tale from the master of storytelling begins.

With magical realism, the formidable Rushdie gives us a history of family and country during the havoc and muddling of the authorities in the years following 1947.

Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981. In addition, it was awarded the “Booker of Bookers” Prize in both 1993 and 2008, celebrating the 25th and 40th anniversaries of the Booker Prize. Unfortunately, Rushdie was once again overlooked for the Nobel Prize this year.

Next month: My favorite reads of 2023.

Huatulco

The Afterlife and the Mexican Revolution

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By Randy Jackson

Concepts of the afterlife have shaped culture and behavior throughout human history, from the building of the Pyramids of Egypt, to the celebration of Día de los Muertos today. Whatever we think the afterlife is “like,” including the materialist concept of no afterlife at all, influences our worldview and how we interact with other people.

From Heaven and Hell to Spiritism

Western thought regarding the afterlife has evolved through time. The concepts of Heaven and Hell did not exist in early Christianity. Christian dogma evolved from the belief in an afterlife of deep sleep until the final judgment at the end of time. Over the centuries Heaven and Hell became eternal rewards or punishments based on the conduct of humans during their time on earth. This concept remained foundational through the centuries. Then in the late 1800’s, a movement that became known as Spiritism (Spiritualism in the U.S.), arose first in Europe and spread throughout the world, particularly among the elite and educated classes. Spiritism held a belief that the afterlife was a continuity of individual consciousness, a concept similar to Eastern religious thought. Spiritism also held the concept that spirits in the afterlife could be communicated with.

One adherent of this view was Francisco Madero, the elected president of Mexico after the downfall of Porfirio Díaz. Madero may have channeled the spirit of Benito Juárez for advice in the early days of the Mexican Revolution.

Madero and the Rise of Spiritism

For a variety of reasons, Spiritism flourished in popularity around the turn of the 20th century. A turn away from the orthodoxy of mainstream religion was a particularly strong cause in the United States. New religions, such as Mormonism and the Seventh Day Adventist Church, were founded in this period, in what is known as the “Second Great Awakening,” a religious revival movement in the U.S. (c. 1795-1835). (The original “Great Awakening” was similar and started in Great Britain, flourishing in the colonies from the 1730s-1770s.)

Another factor that moved western thought towards a different view of the afterlife was the groundbreaking publication in 1859 of “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin. The acceptance that life arose on earth through a natural process rather than divine creation was an intellectual paradigm shift that is still reverberating today. Spiritism, fully embracing evolution as a concept, holds that evolution of individual consciousness continues in the afterlife.

The spiritual beliefs of Francisco Madero were consistent with these concepts. Francisco Ignacio Madero González (1873-1913) was from one of the wealthiest Mexican families of the time. He was educated in France and the United States. In the international educated elite circles where Madero moved, the concepts of Spiritism were widely held. The Spiritist held that there were seven hierarchical realms in the afterlife; Spiritism postulated lower “hell-like” realms, up to realms very much like our physical realm, through to higher angelic realms, and ultimately a realm where individual consciousness (the soul) merged with the divine.

This afterlife view of Spiritism, in which individual consciousness can evolve to higher realms, is fundamentally intertwined with the concept of reincarnation. But reincarnation back into our physical realm wasn’t seen as something that happened immediately. Rather, there is time between lives where spirits are believed to exist in the afterlife realm of their evolutionary attainment. This “between lives” period of the afterlife enables mediums to connect to the spirit of the deceased. In the case of Madero’s mediumship, most of his initial contact, he believed, was with his younger brother Raul, who had died at age three.

In 2011 (paperback 2014), C.M. Mayo published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. In numerous interviews about the work, she makes the point that Madero’s spiritual beliefs are fundamental in understanding the motivations and actions of the person who is credited with initiating the Mexican Revolution.

Madero’s Spiritism and the Mexican Revolution

In 1908, Madero published La sucesión presidencial en 1910, after the long-serving president and dictator, Porfirio Díaz announced in an interview with American journalist James Creelman, that Mexico was ready for democracy and that he would retire in 1910. Díaz subsequently changed his mind, Madero organized the anti-reelection opposition, Díaz had Madero imprisoned, and proceeded to rig the election for yet another term. Madero escaped from prison and while residing in San Antonio, Texas, wrote a manifesto, the “Plan of San Luis Potosí,” considered the founding document of the Mexican Revolution. (Recall that the Mexican Revolution was more of a series of regional conflicts than a clear war; it might have ended in 1917, with the establishment of the Mexican Constitution, but fighting continued on for years.) Madero’s writing led to the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz and Madero’s winning the interim presidential election of 1911.

Historians have given Francisco Madero a couple of significant titles: “Apostle of Democracy” and “Father of the Revolution.” He has been frequently described as having been a decent and honest man. In 2013, Michael Benjamin Amoruso, a doctoral student at the University of Texas in Austin, published a paper for the American Academy of Religion annual meeting, “A Transcendental Mission: Spiritism and the Revolutionary Politics of Francisco I. Madero, 1900-1911.” (The author is now an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Occidental University in Los Angeles). Amoruso argued that Madero “understood his political action as the earthly component of spiritual struggle.” Madero expresses a

prescriptive Spiritist vision, in which democracy represents a triumph of human’s “higher nature” over the “base, selfish passions” of Porfirio Díaz and his regime.

In his memoir, Madero wrote that beings in the afterlife instructed him in moral and spiritual matters. The political documents that launched the ousting of Porfirio Díaz were likely channeled from a source noted by Madero as “Jose.” Other journals from his channeled works were noted as being from “BJ,” considered by some to be Benito Juárez, the president of Mexico who preceded Porfirio Díaz.

Madero’s beliefs and practices of Spiritism were not a secret in Mexican society of the time. There were cartoons in Mexico City newspapers lampooning the president performing seances; the press described Madero as a “loco que se comunicaba con los muertos” (a madman who talks with the dead). In 1913, a segment of the army rebelled against Madero, and General Victoriano Huerta joined them. Huerta had risen to General under Porfirio Díaz, and Madero apparently did not completely trust him but felt he needed him.

The rebellion resulted in a coup d’etat – aided by the U.S. – against Madero; Huerta had Madero and his Vice-President, José María Pino Suárez, murdered in an alley within the week. Madero was 39; Suárez 44. The New York weekly newspaper The Sun trumpeted huge headlines: “MADERO AND SUAREZ SHOT DEAD ON WAY TO PRISON.” Madero’s overthrow and execution seemed to have nothing to do with his beliefs in the evolution of individuals across lifetimes towards a selfless growth in divine love. His fate was rather a raw power grab by Huerta.

I can’t imagine that Madero and Huerta ended up in the same realm in anyone’s version of the afterlife.

Email: box95jackson@gmail.com

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National Identity and the Mexican Revolution

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By Randy Jackson

One hundred years separated Mexico’s War of Independence and the Mexican Revolution. The War of Independence (1810 – 1821) may have severed Spanish European rule from New Spain, but it left this new country of Mexico to sort through the competing power structures left behind. These were the Catholic Church; the privileged economic structure of the encomiendas (estates owned by the descendants of the conquistadores); and the indigenous and mixed-race underclass majority that had been cemented in poverty since the time of the conquest. These grappling power structures, along with foreign invasions, beset Mexico with a century of wars, coup d’etats, uprisings, and assassinations.

These blood-soaked events of the 19th century led to the 20th-century Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920), which hammered out a constitution and a process of governance in 1917. But only a sense of national identity could hold these new structures in place. For this we turn to the mightier pen, to the artists, the poets and philosophers. Around the time of the Mexican Revolution, there was a diverse group of artists, professors and students called Ateneo de la Juventud Mexicana (Mexican academic youth group). This group stood for (among other reforms) the value of a Mexican identity against the “Ideals” of President Porfirio Díaz, who saw Europe and America as ideals for a future Mexico.

José Vasconcelos Calderón, a philosopher and writer (later politician) was a member of this group. One influence on Vasconcelos was the Uruguayan essayist José Enrique Rodó. Rodó argued against what he called “Nordomanía,” the influence of Yankee materialism and the cultural megaphone of the United States. Rodó saw this influence as a threat that would drown out the regional identities of Latin America. For a century, Latin American philosophers were aware of the decline of the Catholic Spanish empire and the ascendency of the Anglo-Saxon and Protestant paradigm. Finding a foothold of identity amid this cultural erosion was something that Vasconcelos tried to establish for Mexico.

Beyond the support for unique Mexican and Latin American identities, Vasconcelos was philosophically opposed to Social Darwinism, which proposed the superiority of certain races. This concept was gaining ground in parts of the western world around the time of the Mexican Revolution. In 1925, in response to these ideas and influences, Vasconcelos wrote “La raza cósmica” (“The Cosmic Race”) an essay that became highly influential in Mexican political and sociocultural policies.

In “La raza cósmica,” Vasconcelos looks back to the ancient civilizations of the Americas and the mixing of people following the Spanish conquest, to produce el mestizaje (the mixed race). Vasconcelos writes, “Spanish colonization created mixed races [whereas] the English kept on mixing only with the whites and annihilated the natives.” Vasconcelos proposed that el mestizaje would be a “fifth race” that would hold the best aspects of their various forefathers, and in time would become the universal humanity. This was a message of hope for the people of Mexico at a time when national identity was beginning to be articulated.

Vasconcelos and his work are not without controversy. Modern scholars point out his own period’s racism, which Vasconcelos himself held and displayed in his work. Yet his influence lives on. Under President Álvaro Obregón (1920-24), Vasconcelos was made the head of the Secretariat of Public Education. Along with an expanded budget for education under the Obregón administration, Vasconcelos expanded the public education system, initiating a large number of texts for use in schools.

Vasconcelos’ work on modern Mexican identity influenced many artists and philosophers. His work is said to have direct influence on Octavio Paz’s most famous work, El laberinto de la soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude). Under his secretariat, Vasconcelos commissioned artists like Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, to paint the insides of Mexico’s most important public buildings. This gave rise to the Mexican muralist movement.

The Mexican Revolution was an unfortunate protracted civil war with tremendous loss of life. It does, however, mark a turning point in Mexican history and the birth of a unique national identity. Individuals like Vasconcelos contributed to defining the fascinating and tumultuous history of Mexico and initiating the formation of a Mexican national identity.

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Mexico’s Northern Border c. 1890:Saints, Unrest, and Rebellions

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By Julie Etra

When you think about the Mexican Revolution, the larger-than-life characters typically come to mind: Emiliano Zapata in the south, Francisco (Pancho) Villa in the north. Before the Revolution, there was plenty of unrest and dissatisfaction with the centralized Mexican government led by José de la Cruz Díaz Mori. Near the border with the United States, pro-revolutionary, anti-Porfirio exiles living in El Paso and vicinity helped foment revolution through a variety of publications, also intended to gain support from the US Government. One of these Mexican expatriates was the inventive engineer and newspaper editor, Lauro Aguirre. (You can learn more about Aguirre in The Hummingbird’s Daughter, a wonderful book by Luis Alberto Urrea.)

The Rebellion of Tomóchic

After reading The Hummingbird’s Daughter, I became interested in the Rebellion of Tomóchic (1891-92) and the border unrest. This area, located in the state of Chihuahua, includes the Sierra Madre Occidental and the famous Copper Canyon (Barrancas de Cobre), home to the Tarahumara, or Rarámuri. It has always been geographically isolated, and essentially autonomous even after the Spanish conquest. Before the rebellion, the Tomochitecos resisted exploitation by the Spanish-descended hacienda owners (land barons) and mining companies. Constant unrest included land and property ownership conflicts as well as on-going threats by the Apache tribes from the north. Local skirmishes also resulted in violent conflicts with Mexican federal forces.

Around 1890, the community of Tomóchic became under increased scrutiny due to the rising fame of Teresita Urrea, the daughter of the Hummingbird (also the author’s great aunt), and the town’s adoption of her as their patron saint. Although she never set foot in the town, she was perceived as a Saint due to her purported healing abilities and posed an existential threat to the Porfirio regime solely due to her following, despite her claims to be apolitical.

The Catholic Church never had a strong presence in this remote region due to the lack of permanent priesthoods in isolated areas. This led to a vacuum of leadership and an atmosphere ripe for the cultivation of ‘saints’ to whom the locals attributed miracles due to their presumed direct communication with God and associated power. The only way for the Church to combat the dissemination of these alternatives to Catholicism was through the rare presence and ranting pontifications of priests in the Sierra Tarahumara. This situation became complicated since religious dissent was tied to notions of social justice and the “saints” provided guidance and comfort to the Tomochitecos suffering from exploitation and precarious socioeconomic conditions.

Since the early 1800s, the Porfiriato and the Church had both been trying to strengthen and centralize their control of remote regions. With the arrival of the railroad on the Chihuahuan border with the U.S., American exploitation of the area’s natural resources, particularly timber, took off. On December 1, 1891, Tomóchic staged an organized rebellion and declared its autonomy.

Although viewed by some historians as a precursor to the Revolution, other historians viewed the rebellion as a local affair, mestizos rebelling against their lighter-skinned, exploitative oppressors and the Church.

The story is told that the first time federal troops arrived in Tomóchic, they had talked themselves into a fright at the thought of facing the savage rebels. They were confused when they were met by a silent line of thirty women, all dressed in black, advancing slowly closer. The women dropped their black shawls, revealing themselves to be men, whipped out their Winchesters, and shot down the front line of troops. Nonetheless, after a year of confrontations with Porfirio’s troops, the rebellion ended with the annihilation of the entire town.

The Role of the Hummingbird’s Daughter

As noted above, the Tomochitecos were followers of Teresita Urrea, the Saint of Cabora. Before the uprising she had participated in other so-called insurgent movements, as defined by the federal government, that addressed social justice, particularly for the poor. She was demonized by an itinerant Catholic priest, offending the locals, and thereby planting the seeds of confrontation with the church. (Before the Mexican Revolution [1910-20] the church and the government were one state, intertwined and codependent.)

The true influence of la Santa de Cabora in the uprising has never been clear, as the entire town was destroyed during the conflict, along with most witnesses. Teresita Urrea and her father, perceived as a threat to the federal government, were exiled (or fled) to the United States. The Porfirio regime believed that if they had been executed in Mexico, it would have led to intolerable and counterproductive martyrdom. The Mexican Revolution had yet to be born, but this conflict undoubtedly fueled the flames of discontent.

If you are interested in reading more about the Rebellion of Tomóchic, check out these sources:

Frías, Heriberto. The Battle of Tomóchic: Memoirs of a Second Lieutenant, translated by Barbara Jamison. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. This is a historical novel by Frías, based on his experiences in the Rebellion of Tomóchic. The author sharply criticizes the actions of the federal government in crushing the Rebellion.
Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Hummingbird’s Daughter. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. Queen of America. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2011.
Vanderwood, Paul J. The Power of God against the Guns of Government: Religious Upheaval in Mexico at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. This is a broader (academic) view of the Mexican Revolution and how the Rebellion is a key precursor to it.

If you are interested in Mexican music, the corrido, or heroic ballad, achieved its high point during the Mexican Revolution; “El Corrido de Tomóchic” is considered the first revolutionary corrido.

Lamadrid, Enrique R. “El Corrido de Tomóchic: Honor, Grace, Gender, and Power in the First Ballad of the Mexican Revolution.” Journal of the Southwest, 41:4 (Winter 1999): 441-60.

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