The Costs of Modernization PDF

Printed by: quinn.smid!@avc:.edu. Printing is for pcil80D8l, privare uso only. No part of1his book may bci npn,dua,d or tnmsmitb:d without pabliahcr'a prior permisaion. VIOl.a1ms will be proeec:uted. CHAPTER 24...

Printed by: quinn.smid!@avc:.edu. Printing is for pcil80D8l, privare uso only. No part of1his book may bci npn,dua,d or tnmsmitb:d without pabliahcr'a prior permisaion. VIOl.a1ms will be proeec:uted. CHAPTER 24 THE COSTS OF MODERNIZATION DICTATO RSHIP BY FORCE Modernization came to Mexico during the Diaz regime not simply as the result of positivist theory and careful economic plannina. The peace that made it aU possible was in pan at tributable to brute force, but also to bm's ability to create networks of political and soda! power that discouraged opposition. Dfaz ilaintained himself in power from lW6 to 1911 by a combination of adroit political maneuvering, intimidation. and, whenever necessary, callous use of the federal army and the rurales. He was the consummate bully. Throughout the Lhlrry-fouryears the dictator maintained the sham. of democracy. The government held clectiom periodically at the local, state, and national levels; but they were invariably manipulated in favor of those candidates from local fiun'i1y oligarchies who held official favor. The press throughout the epoch was tightly c;cnsor'fd; journalists who dared to oppose the regime on any substantive maner found th/mselves in jail or exile. while recalcitrant editors fou.nd thcir newspapers closed doWl), Filomeno Mata, the editor of the Diario de/ 1:/og/lT, suffered imprisonment over thin,:. times for his anti-reelectionist cam- paigns. While a few persistent critics were kille4 ihe large majority of journalists opted to self-censor their criticisms. "Che dictator played political opponen~>against one another or bought them off. He regularly shifted potentially ambitious generals or regimental commanders from one miJJ. taty zone to another to assure that they-would be unable to cultivate a power base. State gov- ernors were invited to assume the-sThie position in other states or to become congressmen, cabinet secretaries, or diplomatS t0 remove their influence at home. Not even members of the Dfaz family were immune. When the dictator's nephew, Felix Diaz, decided to run for the governorship of Oaxaca against Don Porfirio's wishes, he shonly found himself on a ship bound for Chile. where he took up a diplomatic post Most influential Mexicans cooperated with the regime in order tO receive political favors and lucrative economic concessions. Dfaz himself never accumulated a personal fonune, but many of his civilian and military suppon- ers in high positions had ample opportunity for graft. The cientffico advisers, for example. 335 Printed by: [email protected]. Printing is for pmcma1, priva&e me only. No part of'lhis book may be reprodnced or transmitted without publisher's prior permisaii>n. Violatvn will be prosec:utcd.  336 THE MOOERN I ZATIO S OF ~l?XICO always seemed to know in advance the route of a new boulevard or railroad line; the prop- eny could thus be bougbI up at a low price and sold back to the government for a profiL When Diaz needed to use fortt it was provided by the army a.n d the rurales. I le recog- nized the need for professionalizing the anny and, although he did not invite foreign mili- tary missions into the country, he did send military observers to West Point and to the French officer's school at SL Cyr; The recently reorganized Colegio Militar de Chapultepec provided fonnal instruction for the officer corps and made use of the most current European training manuals. By the tum of the cenruryabou1 half of the active officers (but few of the generals) were graduates of the Chapultepec academy. The cadets, resplendent in snappy uniforms;. were highlighted at the frequent military parades during which Diaz took the opponunity to display the latest armament obtained from France or Germany. Such spectacles masked Diaz's failure to provide education for the rank-and-file and imbue d{em with moral virtue and patriotic zeal. Usually conscripted by force, thclr behavior frequently mimicked that of the bandits or criminals they were supposed to suppress. Agents of order were crucial to the modernizing project, but they enjoyed linle of its benefits and a reputation of ill repute. The rurales, Diaz's praetorian guard, also constiw ted an important enforcement 1.ool for the Pax Porfiria= The dictator strengthened the coq>s considerably, not simply to curtail brigandage in the rural areas but to seive as a counterpoise 10 the army itself, By the end of the regime the strength of the rurales had been increased to over twenty-seven hundred men. While the force was not large, the dictator used it to good advantage. In addition to its j To reinforce the deslnd image. the rurales were al"")" femured during military parades. SUmner Maneson p~ tographed this salute 10 rresident Di;u; on Mays, 1907. Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae only. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced OJ' trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be proJec:Uted.  111, O>srs of Modemizariott 3 3 7 original parrolling funaions, Diaz had rural corpsmen guard o re shipments from the mines, support local police forces, escort prisoners, enforce unpopular court decisions, and guard public payrolls and buildings. Resea.rch ~ shown that the rurales were neithe.r as harsh nor as efficient as conventionally thought, but Dfaz used their exaggerated reputation for cru- elty and excess. The myth served bis purposes we!~ for the ruralcs were feared by brigands, marauders, political opponents, and recaldtram village.rs. When uouble flared it was often more prudent to send in the nearest corps than to allow a distinguished federal general the chance to enhance his reputation. Diaz used the military not only to force compliance with the dictates of Mexico City but to administer the country as well. By the mid-!880s it was not unusual'for military of- ficers, most often generals of unquestionable loyalty, to dominate the state governorships and to be well represented among the three hundred jefes ,pol(ticos)local political bosses). In 1900, although relative peace had already been ac.hlevul. Dfaz was still spending almost one-fourth of the total budget on the military establishmen_y Hc believed it was worth it because the modernization process was so intertwined with his concept of enforced peace. Diaz's ciemlfico advisers have been labeled rads1 for !heir conscientious denigration of the Indian population. But the generalization bas certain flaws, for it presupposes a mono- lithic philosophical framework within the dentlfico community. Jos~ Limamour was less a follower of Comte than of Darwin. I le adapted notions of natural seleaion and survival of the fittest to Mexican reaUty as be un~ood it and emerged from his introspection calling for an aristocratit: elite to reo.rder society. He expected little or no nelp from the Indian population. Francisco Bulnes, a prolific historian and apologist foc,:cientffico rule. The federal artillery corps, well trained and well equipped. was the pride of the Diaz army. Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae only. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced OJ' trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be proJec:Uted.  338 THE MOOERNIZATIOS OF ~l?XICO was more openly racisL Five million (white) Argentines. he argued, were wonh more than 14 million Mexicans. He characterized the Mexican Indian as sullenly intractable and hope- lessly inferior, not because of innate conuption of his genes but because his grossly deficient diet sappro his mental, moral, and physical vitality. Less biologically oriented was Justo Sierra, the most famous cientffico of all. Cofounder of the conservative newspaper La Liller· md, author of Evoluci6n poUtica deJ pueblo mexiclllU), secretary of education during pan ofthe Porfiriato, and first rector of the national university, Sierra argued forcefully that social and wltural forces, not biological ones, had shaped the Indian's inferior position. And u.nlike limantour and Bulnes, Sierra asserted the Indian's educability. Bm the schools built during the Porfiriato, even when the Department of Education was in Justo Sierra's hands, existed primarily in the cities, not in the rural areas where they might ser.'I! the Indian and mestizo population. At the end of the Porfiriato Mexico still had 2 million Indians speaking no Span- ish. They had been left aside. THE HACE NDADOS Mexico greeted the twentieth century still a predomi.Q:antly rural country, and the rural peas- antry bore most of the costs of modernization. The payment was exacted in fear of the rura- les, intimidation by local hacendados, constant badgering by jefes politicos and municipal officials, exploitation by foreign entrepreneurs, and, most important, seizure of pril.;te and communal lands by government-supported land sharks. Haciendas doned the rural areas along with indigenous and mixed villages. The number of large landholdings, more pred minant in the nonh where livestock raising suhed the environment, had increased tn 'tile nineteenth century. Railroad consu:o'ction began to push land values up, bm exaggerated land concentration proliferated aftiJC the enactment a new land law in 1883. This law, designed to encourage foreign ~)oniiation of rural Mexico, authoriz.ed land companies to survey public lands for the l?ll/POSe of subdivision and settle- ment. For their efforts the companies received up to one-third of the land surveyed and the privilege of p~ing !he remaining two-thirds at bvgain prices. If the private owners or traditional ejidos could not prove ownership through legal title, their land was considered public /"d subjea to denunciation by the com~nies. The process that ensued was predictable. FfW rural Mexicans in the nonh could prove legal title. All they knew for sure was that they ha'd lived and worked the same plot for their entire lives, and their parents and grandparents had done the same. Their boundary line ran from a certain tree to a certain stream to tl!e crest of a hill. The central and southern Indians and campesinos who could produce documents, some dating back to the colonial period, were convinced by the speculators and their lawyers that the papers had not been properly signed, nota.rized, stamped. or registered. Not even those communal ejidos that could produce titles of indisputable legality were immune. The Constitution of 1857 with its reform laws was once again applied to the detriment of the ejidos, and with greater vigor than ever before. Within five years after the land law became operative. land companies had obtained pos- session of over 68 million acres of rural land and by 1894 one-fifth of the total land mass of Mexico. Not yet completely satisfied, the companies received a favorable modification of the Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae only. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced or trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be proJeCUted.  111, O>srs of Modemizariott 3 39 law in 1894, and by the early twentieth cenrury most of the villages in ruta1 Mexico had lost their ejidos and some i34 million acres of the best land had passed into the hands of a few hundred fantastically wealthy families, Over one-halfof all rural Mexicans lived and worked on the haciendas by 1910. The Mexican census of 1910 listed 8,245 haciendas in the republic, but a few landlords, often tied together by a marriage network of family clues. individually owned ten, fifteen, or even twenty of them. Though varied in size, haciendas of fony to fifty thousand acres were not at a.11 uncommon. Fifteen of the richest Mexican hacendados owned haciendas totaling more than three hundred thousand acres each. The state of Chihuahua affords a classic example of how the hacienda system operated and brought wealth and prestige to one extended family, Throughout the Dfaz regime the fonunes of that north central Mexican state were guided by the Terrazas-Creel dan. Don Luis Terrazas, the f!under of the dynasty, had served a.s governor prior to the French intervention and fought with Ju.lrez ag.1inst the French in the 1860s. His land acquisitions began shonly ther-eafter, when he obtained the estate of Don Pablo Martinez del Rio, a French sympathizer. fn the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, in and out of the gubernatorial chair; he acquired additional haciendas, profiting immensely from the land laws of the Diaz govemmenL By th early twentieth century Terrazas owned some fifty haciendas and smaller ranches totaling a fantastic 7 million acres. Don Luis was the largest hacendado in Mexico and perhaps in all of Latin America; his holdings were eight times the size of the legendary King Ranch in Texas. He owned five hundred thousand head of cattle, twO hundred twenty-five thousand sheep, twenty-five thousand horse{ five thou- sand mules, and some of the best fi~l;ning bulls in the western hemisphere. Encinillas, north- west of Chihuahua Ciiy, was the ~est of his haciendas, extending to some 1,300,000 aaes and employing some two tfiousand campesinos. San.Miguel de Babtfora contained over eight hundred fifty thousand acres, while San Luis and Hormigas were over seven hundred thousand acres each. - The wealth and power of the Terrazas family cannot bajuclged in terms of landholding and its related activities alone. Don Luis also owned. textile mills. granaries, railroads, tele- phone comp~es. candle factories. sugar mills, mea.1p11cking plants, and several Chihuahua mines. Ea~of his twelve children married well. ~aughter Angela Terrazas married her first cousin, Enrique Creel, the son of an American consul in Chihuahua and a man of wealth, ei:udi~on, and prestige. Enrique Creel served;everal times in the state governorship and was Mexico's secre1ary of foreign relations in;~o-n. Creel's own haciendas totaled more than 1,700,000 acres. One of the founders iµi'i:1 directors oflhe Banco Minero de Chihuahua. he was a panner, furthermore. in many gfhis father-in-law's enterprises and directed or owned iron and steel mills, breweries, granaries, and a coal company. Two of Luis Terrazas's sons Alberto and Juan eacb had haciendas totaling over six hundred thousand acres, while his son-in-law Federico Sisniega held some twO hundred sixty thousand acres and was a director of the Banco NacionaJ de Chihuahua. It is vinually impossible to calrulate the extent of either the fortune or the power wielded by the Terrazas-Creel dan. Luis Terrazas himself probably did not know how much he owned. He surely did know, however, that the value of rural land in Chihuahua rose from about $.30 per acre in 1879 to about $9.88 per acre in 1908. Had he been able to liquidate Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae only. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced or trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be proJec:Uted.  340 TIU MODttNIZ.ATIO.S OF WE..XICO only his personal, nonuman landhold in~ on 1.he eve oflhe Mexican revolution, he would have carried over S69 million to I.he bank. One can be ccnaln 1.hat linle of major impon.-.nce o«urred in Chihu;ihua wilhou t 1.he approval of patriarch Don Luis Terrazas. During !he Dfaz regime members of 1.he extended family sa1. for a 1.01.al of six1y-six 1.erms in I.he state legislature and twenty-two terms in the natlonal congress. Because residency requirements ,vere loosely defined, £nrlque Creel and Juan Terrazas became national senators from olher Mexican states. Municipal and regional officialdom bore eilher the Terrazas-Creel names or 1.hetr stamp o( appruvdl A handful of powerful sugar fami lies domlnating the state of Morclos-~e Carda Pi- mentels, I.he Amors, 1.he Torre y Miers, and a few o ther..-h,1d to increase production by expa nding into new IMds to be able to fund the purchase of exr,ensive new machinery. AS no public lands were available. they comple1.ely encircled smaJJ rant:hes and even villages. 1.hcreby choking ofT Infusions of economic lifeblood Some tO'VTI$ stagnated, while other.. vanished from the map altogether. TI1e 1.o wn fathers of Cu:wtla · uld nm even find sufficient land for a new cemetery and were reduced to buiying children in a neighboring village. TI1e circumstances 1.hrough ,vhich land,.-.,~ priv:ulz.id throughout Mexico were complex and varied_ Although outsiders appropriated -qiuch communal lat1d, not all communities shared land in an egali1.arian fashion. and internal conllicts frequemly pla)'l?d into the hands of hacendados and merchants. fo r example, in Lhe vaniJJa-producing lands of l'apant't'a in Veracruz., weallhierTotonac lndiatLS bencfued from state privatization schemes UH.fie delii- mem o( o ther, less affiuent menibers of their commu11ities, who rebel led again.~ I.hem and were repressed. In other cases, lnd,;n communities tha1. developed ideologies of popular liberalism or conservdtism to su~sfully defend their autonomy dnd lands earlier in the nineteenth cen1.ury, found thelr"dalms increasingly denied. In Lhe U~fl'Ca area of San Lws Potosi, campesinos found all ies in the clergy and developed strategies that mixed at1archist and sodalist Ideas With traditional communa l values, to o p1 priva1.iutlon. Thejr resis- tance led to the 1-fuastecan Peasan1. War, 1879-84, which~ eventually suppressed by thc federal army. TH E CAMPESINOS The mlruons of rural Mexicans \srs of Modemizariott 3 39 law in 1894, and by the early twentieth cenrury most of the villages in ruta1 Mexico had lost their ejidos and some i34 million acres of the best land had passed into the hands of a few hundred fantastically wealthy families, Over one-halfof all rural Mexicans lived and worked on the haciendas by 1910. The Mexican census of 1910 listed 8,245 haciendas in the republic, but a few landlords, often tied together by a marriage network of family clues. individually owned ten, fifteen, or even twenty of them. Though varied in size, haciendas of fony to fifty thousand acres were not at a.11 uncommon. Fifteen of the richest Mexican hacendados owned haciendas totaling more than three hundred thousand acres each. The state of Chihuahua affords a classic example of how the hacienda system operated and brought wealth and prestige to one extended family, Throughout the Dfaz regime the fonunes of that north central Mexican state were guided by the Terrazas-Creel dan. Don Luis Terrazas, the f!under of the dynasty, had served a.s governor prior to the French intervention and fought with Ju.lrez ag.1inst the French in the 1860s. His land acquisitions began shonly ther-eafter, when he obtained the estate of Don Pablo Martinez del Rio, a French sympathizer. fn the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, in and out of the gubernatorial chair; he acquired additional haciendas, profiting immensely from the land laws of the Diaz govemmenL By th early twentieth century Terrazas owned some fifty haciendas and smaller ranches totaling a fantastic 7 million acres. Don Luis was the largest hacendado in Mexico and perhaps in all of Latin America; his holdings were eight times the size of the legendary King Ranch in Texas. He owned five hundred thousand head of cattle, twO hundred twenty-five thousand sheep, twenty-five thousand horse{ five thou- sand mules, and some of the best fi~l;ning bulls in the western hemisphere. Encinillas, north- west of Chihuahua Ciiy, was the ~est of his haciendas, extending to some 1,300,000 aaes and employing some two tfiousand campesinos. San.Miguel de Babtfora contained over eight hundred fifty thousand acres, while San Luis and Hormigas were over seven hundred thousand acres each. - The wealth and power of the Terrazas family cannot bajuclged in terms of landholding and its related activities alone. Don Luis also owned. textile mills. granaries, railroads, tele- phone comp~es. candle factories. sugar mills, mea.1p11cking plants, and several Chihuahua mines. Ea~of his twelve children married well. ~aughter Angela Terrazas married her first cousin, Enrique Creel, the son of an American consul in Chihuahua and a man of wealth, ei:udi~on, and prestige. Enrique Creel served;everal times in the state governorship and was Mexico's secre1ary of foreign relations in;~o-n. Creel's own haciendas totaled more than 1,700,000 acres. One of the founders iµi'i:1 directors oflhe Banco Minero de Chihuahua. he was a panner, furthermore. in many gfhis father-in-law's enterprises and directed or owned iron and steel mills, breweries, granaries, and a coal company. Two of Luis Terrazas's sons Alberto and Juan eacb had haciendas totaling over six hundred thousand acres, while his son-in-law Federico Sisniega held some twO hundred sixty thousand acres and was a director of the Banco NacionaJ de Chihuahua. It is vinually impossible to calrulate the extent of either the fortune or the power wielded by the Terrazas-Creel dan. Luis Terrazas himself probably did not know how much he owned. He surely did know, however, that the value of rural land in Chihuahua rose from about $.30 per acre in 1879 to about $9.88 per acre in 1908. Had he been able to liquidate Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae Clllly. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced or trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be proJec:Uted.  340 TIU MODttNIZ.ATIO.S OF WE..XICO only his personal, nonuman landhold in~ on 1.he eve oflhe Mexican revolution, he would have carried over S69 million to I.he bank. One can be ccnaln 1.hat linle of major impon.-.nce o«urred in Chihu;ihua wilhou t 1.he approval of patriarch Don Luis Terrazas. During !he Dfaz regime members of 1.he extended family sa1. for a 1.01.al of six1y-six 1.erms in I.he state legislature and twenty-two terms in the natlonal congress. Because residency requirements ,vere loosely defined, £nrlque Creel and Juan Terrazas became national senators from olher Mexican states. Municipal and regional officialdom bore eilher the Terrazas-Creel names or 1.hetr stamp o( appruvdl A handful of powerful sugar fami lies domlnating the state of Morclos-~e Carda Pi- mentels, I.he Amors, 1.he Torre y Miers, and a few o ther..-h,1d to increase production by expa nding into new IMds to be able to fund the purchase of exr,ensive new machinery. AS no public lands were available. they comple1.ely encircled smaJJ rant:hes and even villages. 1.hcreby choking ofT Infusions of economic lifeblood Some tO'VTI$ stagnated, while other.. vanished from the map altogether. TI1e 1.o wn fathers of Cu:wtla · uld nm even find sufficient land for a new cemetery and were reduced to buiying children in a neighboring village. TI1e circumstances 1.hrough ,vhich land,.-.,~ priv:ulz.id throughout Mexico were complex and varied_ Although outsiders appropriated -qiuch communal lat1d, not all communities shared land in an egali1.arian fashion. and internal conllicts frequemly pla)'l?d into the hands of hacendados and merchants. fo r example, in Lhe vaniJJa-producing lands of l'apant't'a in Veracruz., weallhierTotonac lndiatLS bencfued from state privatization schemes UH.fie delii- mem o( o ther, less affiuent menibers of their commu11ities, who rebel led again.~ I.hem and were repressed. In other cases, lnd,;n communities tha1. developed ideologies of popular liberalism or conservdtism to su~sfully defend their autonomy dnd lands earlier in the nineteenth cen1.ury, found thelr"dalms increasingly denied. In Lhe U~fl'Ca area of San Lws Potosi, campesinos found all ies in the clergy and developed strategies that mixed at1archist and sodalist Ideas With traditional communa l values, to o p1 priva1.iutlon. Thejr resis- tance led to the 1-fuastecan Peasan1. War, 1879-84, which~ eventually suppressed by thc federal army. TH E CAMPESINOS The mlruons of rural Mexicans \