LATIN AMERICAN SOLDIERS

In this accessible volume, John R. Bawden introduces readers to the study of

armed forces in Latin American history through vivid narratives about four
very different countries: Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and Chile.
Latin America has faced many of the challenges common to postcolonial
states such as civil war, poorly defined borders, and politically fractured soci-
eties. Studying its militaries offers a powerful lens through which to understand
major events, eras, and problems. Bawden draws on stories about the men and
women who served in conventional armed forces and guerrilla armies to
examine the politics and social structure of each country, the state’s evolution,
and relationships between soldiers and the global community.
Designed as an introductory text for undergraduates, Latin American Soldiers
identifies major concepts, factors, and trends that have shaped modern Latin
America. It is an essential text for students of Latin American Studies or History
and is particularly useful for students focusing on the military, revolutions, and
political history.

John R. Bawden is an associate professor of history at the University of

Montevallo. He is the author of The Pinochet Generation: The Chilean Military in
the Twentieth Century (2016).
Latin American Tópicos
Edited by Michael LaRosa, Rhodes College

Telenovelas in Pan-Latino Context

June Carolyn Erlick

The Youngest Citizens

Amy Risley

Latin American Soldiers: Armed Forces in the Region’s History

John R. Bawden
LATIN AMERICAN
SOLDIERS
Armed Forces in the Region’s
History

John R. Bawden
First published 2020
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Taylor & Francis
The right of John R. Bawden to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
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explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bawden, John R., 1978- author.
Title: Latin America’s soldiers / John R. Bawden.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, [2019] |
Series: Latin American Tópicos | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019015587| ISBN 9781138492578 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138492585 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Soldiers–Latin America–History. |
Latin America–History, Military.
Classification: LCC F1410.5 .B39 2019 | DDC 355.0098–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019015587

ISBN: 978-1-138-49257-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-49258-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-03010-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK
CONTENTS

Preface vi
Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction 1

2 Mexico 29

3 Cuba 61

4 Brazil 90

5 Chile 123

6 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 156

Conclusion 172

Index 174
PREFACE

Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín, and Toussaint Louverture are among Latin
America’s most cherished national heroes. These soldiers and statesmen evicted
European powers from the Americas and Louverture, though born a slave,
rose to prominence in revolutionary Haiti thanks to his political acumen and
battlefield triumphs. The post-independence reality, however, proved much
harsher than anyone could have imagined. From 1820 to 1870, most of Latin
America experienced civil conflict and chronic instability. Disagreements about
citizenship, the Roman Catholic Church, and whether to adopt constitutional
monarchies or republican governments divided conservative and liberal fac-
tions. The lack of political consensus was one problem while the surplus of
ambitious men with military training was another.
In most of Spanish America, charismatic chieftains called caudillos dominated
postcolonial politics. These “heroes on horseback,” as one scholar put it, cap-
tured the loyalty of local populations. They protected friends, dispensed favors,
and mirrored cultural aspects of the societies from which they came. In the early
twentieth century Pancho Villa and Augusto Sandino organized armies that
challenged landholding elites in Mexico and Nicaragua, respectively. They also
defied the United States and won acclaim for doing so. Fidel Castro’s successful
insurgency in the mountains of Cuba (1957–1958), more than any other event,
cultivated the image of the heroic guerrilla fighter battling an unjust govern-
ment. Today, the visage of Castro’s daring commander, Ernesto “Che” Guevara,
is one of the most recognized symbols of armed revolution in the world.
This is a book about warfare and military traditions in Latin American history
with a focus on four very different countries: Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, and Chile.
The first two account for half of the population in Latin America – reason enough
for study – while the latter two provide interesting points of comparison. Of
 Preface vii

course, militaries do not simply respond to national emergencies or maintain

internal order, they reflect society and shape it. Soldiering has long represented
a path to social mobility in a region marked by strong inequality. Porfirio Díaz,
Fulgencio Batista, and Hugo Chávez – just to name a few – were all mixed-race
men of humble origins whose military careers made their presidencies possible.
Militaries tell us about social stratification and highlight national differences.
Mexico and Colombia, the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking coun-
tries, did not experience military coups in the second half of the twentieth
century. Their armed forces achieved a high level of institutionalization and
refused to support would-be caudillos. Costa Rica abolished its army in 1949
and Cuban officers eat the same food as conscripts, an arrangement unheard of
elsewhere in the Americas. These facts are worth mentioning if only to illus-
trate that generalizations about Latin America usually have exceptions. Coun-
tries in the region vary with respect to race, economy, geography, and yet,
they share many qualities that make intelligible the notion of a common his-
torical experience.
During the twentieth century, Latin America’s armed forces grew more
technologically advanced, professional, and shaped by ideological divides. Anti-
communist military governments assumed power after the Cuban Revolution
and several regimes violently purged their political systems of left-wing influ-
ence. Not all Latin American officers shared the same politics, though. From
1968 to 1975, Peruvian General Juan Velasco led a government that enacted
agrarian reform and nationalized foreign companies. His program inspired
a young lieutenant named Hugo Chávez, who attended Venezuela’s military
academy from 1971 to 1975. Two decades later, Chávez launched a coup that
aimed to benefit Venezuela’s poorest citizens. He went on to show that the
caudillo tradition of charismatic leadership had not disappeared.
When armed forces exist within a stable political order, they tend to focus
on their primary mission, which is to protect the state and its people. In soci-
eties with great social and ideological divides, the military may block one pol-
itical party’s access to power, facilitate another’s, or assume control of the
political system entirely. Understanding why most of Latin America’s presidents
were generals rather than civilians as recently as 1980 requires knowledge of
traditions from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), nineteenth century
precedents, and the Cold War. And while armed forces have been male-
dominated institutions, women have never been far from the fighting.
This book begins by introducing the topic of war and military organization
in Latin American history. The four country-specific chapters highlight pat-
terns and invite informed comparisons while a final chapter puts Latin Ameri-
can soldiers into global perspective. Throughout, armed forces will be used to
examine the character of states and societies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Tópicos editor Michael LaRosa for inviting me to write this
book and for his help along the way. During the earliest stage of research,
I benefited from a semester of sabbatical leave from the University of Monte-
vallo during which time the University of Florida provided a library travel
grant so I could make use of its Latin American and Caribbean Collection.
During the entire process, the University of Montevallo’s interlibrary coordin-
ator, Natasha O’Dell, acquired countless materials on my behalf.
Writing a book about several different countries involves stepping outside
of one’s area of specialized knowledge. I gratefully received country-specific
feedback from Ida Altman, Frank McCann, Robert Patch, Louis A. Pérez Jr.,
and William Sater. My friend and colleague Clark Hultquist generously read
and commented on most of the manuscript. To my wife Tara and daughters
Julie and Amy, thank you for keeping me happy and loved.
1
INTRODUCTION

Two centuries after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Muslim com-
mander Tariq ibn Ziyad landed a large force of Berber horseman on the Iber-
ian Peninsula and killed Roderic, king of the Visigoths. Tariq proceeded to
capture cities across Hispania (Roman name for the peninsula) including
Toledo, the Visigoth capital. By 720 CE, all but the northernmost reaches of
the country were occupied. These developments ensured that the people
living in Al-Andalus, or the name for lands under Muslim rule in Iberia,
would have a unique medieval experience. Mozarabic Christians spoke Arabic
and worshipped in that language. Sephardic Jews developed their own distinct-
ive culture and Muslim Berber peoples resented the ethnically dominant Arabs.
At the peak of Ibero-Islamic civilization, more than half of the peninsula’s
inhabitants were Muslim, both converts and settlers, and Córdoba, the capital
of Al-Andalus, was one of the largest cities in the world. Rich and civilized,
Córdoba’s markets, gardens, and libraries had no parallel in the Latin West.
Gold coins minted in the capital circulated in other Muslim-held cities –
Lisbon, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Valencia – and made them attractive to
Christian principalities. By 1050 CE the border between Christian and Muslim
civilization stretched from Coimbra in northern Portugal to Barcelona in the
east along a belt of no-man’s-lands. Here, Christian and Islamic armies skir-
mished, and patterns of conquest developed that would have important conse-
quences for the Americas.
Men who provided mounted military service entered the ranks of the lower
nobility (hidalgos) and municipal militias developed structures for their collect-
ive defense and offensive operation. The expansion of Castile, a Christian
kingdom in northern Spain, depended on the absorption of territory in Al-
Andalus and Castilian kings offered fueros, or legal privileges, to towns and
2 Introduction

people willing to settle, defend, and Christianize frontier lands. Insecure,

underpopulated territories represented opportunity for soldiers of fortune and
successful raids might result in the division of captured loot: gold, silver, weap-
ons, and animals.1
Rodrigo Díaz (1043–1099), known for posterity as El Cid, was a soldier for
hire and a very successful one. Born near Burgos, the historic capital of Castile,
Díaz lent his legendary fighting prowess to sovereigns across the peninsula. In
fact, he won several battles for Muslim emirs in Zaragoza, and derived his title,
El Cid, from the Arabic sayyid, meaning lord or commander. Lionized in epic
poetry, El Cid became a Spanish icon although his subsequent mythologization
as a crusading warrior who reclaimed lands for Christendom obscures the fact
that he fought for both Christian and Muslim states in an era before national
allegiances.2
1212 was a major turning point in the centuries-long Christian Reconquest
(722–1492). That year a coalition of Christian armies stopped a Moroccan
Berber force from pushing northward. Not long after, Castilians captured Cór-
doba (1236) and Seville (1248). The Portuguese conquered the Algarve region
(1249), which completed that kingdom’s Reconquest and freed up resources
for maritime activities – shipbuilding, cartography, improving nautical instru-
ments – that would make possible Portugal’s voyages of discovery and global
empire. It was also the thirteenth century when shouts of “Santiago!”
(St. James, patron saint of Spain) became the battle cry of Christian armies
fighting Muslims.
As Christians pushed south towards Andalusia (southern Spain), Castilian
monarchs granted the title adelantado (one who goes forward) to nobles willing
to assume the costs of conquering and pacifying frontier zones. In return, ade-
lantados received authority on behalf of the king to administer justice, enrich
themselves, and dispense favors. One such favor, the grant of an encomienda,
included the right to collect tribute from a specified number of conquered
people. In this manner, Castile acquired parcels of land from Muslim rulers
without financing the campaigns directly. The same pattern unfolded in the
Americas. Charles V did not send a royal army to conquer the Inca Empire,
which stretched from modern day Ecuador to central Chile, he merely licensed
Francisco Pizarro to assume the risks and rewards of such an undertaking. The
Spaniards who followed Pizarro into Peru sought encomiendas and a cut of all
captured treasure. Encomenderos, for their part, had to render military service to
the Crown in the event of emergencies and pay for Roman Catholic clergy to
visit the villages of their tribute-paying Indians.
The conversion of infidels was another aspect of the Reconquest. Muslims
and Jews who converted, more than a million of them, were known as “New
Christians” and the primary purpose of the Spanish Inquisition, established in
1478, was to ensure the orthodoxy of these converts. “Old Christians” claimed
limpieza de sangre (cleanliness of blood) or lineages untainted by Jewish or
 Introduction 3

Muslim ancestry. The concept had implications for social stratification because
converts were excluded from the nobility, public offices, and banned, at least
in theory, from ever emigrating to the Americas. Europeans made claims to
social superiority based on their status as Old Christians.
Distinctive military organization developed during the Reconquest. Spanish
horseman, called jinetes, developed a riding style suited for close combat on La
Mancha, a plain in central Spain. By the fifteenth century, Spanish infantry
carried swords, muskets, crossbows, and pikes. During the War of Granada
(1482–1492), infantry effectively protected themselves from charging Moorish
cavalry with tercios, or massed formations that combined pikes and firearms.
These disciplined, mutually supportive formations turned Spain into Europe’s
leading military power and provided heavily outnumbered Spaniards with
a means to survive encounters with indigenous armies in the Americas.
Thus, when Spanish conquistadors came to the Americas, they transferred
the Reconquest’s peculiar mix of military organization, religious zeal, and
profit motive. Spaniards shouting “Santiago!” represented an uncompromising
version of Roman Catholicism, backed by established patterns of conquest.
The men who followed Hernando Cortés (conqueror of Mexico) and Fran-
cisco Pizarro (conqueror of Peru) were ordinary men – merchants, tailors, arti-
sans, notaries. Few had military experience in Europe, but they came from
a militarized society with a crusading, militant faith. Furthermore, many of
Spain’s conquistadores hailed from Extremadura, the poorest region in Castile.
It is not a coincidence that Cortés, Pizarro, and Pedro de Valdivia (conqueror
of Chile) were all Extremadurans, steeped in the culture of Reconquest and
eager for opportunities their home region could not offer. Conquest in the
name of Christianity represented a path for upwardly mobile men to achieve
wealth and status.
Indigenous warriors in Mesoamerica and the central Andes possessed bows
and arrows, lances, shields, swords, slings, spears, and clubs. The fact that
Europeans possessed cavalry and piercing weapons – steel swords, muskets,
crossbows – could make for a highly asymmetrical encounter, but native
people were not pushovers. In many places they relied on stout resistance and
superior numbers to defeat the foreign invaders.
The Taíno peoples that Christopher Columbus met in Cuba, Hispaniola,
and Puerto Rico were peaceful agriculturalists. They did not fall under the jur-
isdiction of an organized state able to mobilize thousands of men for concerted
actions. Nor were they accustomed to heavy taxation, which made it difficult
for the Spanish to group Caribbean peoples into encomiendas for exploitation
and Christianization; most fled or died from disease. Natives in Mesoamerica
and the central Andes were different. There, Castilians found imperial states
with large armies and dense groupings of sedentary farmers.
The Aztec Empire, a tributary state in central Mexico, had a martial cul-
ture predicated on constant warfare. The best evidence of Aztec military
4 Introduction

power was the fact that native warriors expelled the Spanish from their
imperial city, Tenochtitlán, on June 30, 1520, and inflicted staggering losses
on their retreating adversaries (around 500 Spanish and 2,000 indigenous
allies of the Spanish died).3 Smallpox, however, weakened Tenochtitlán’s
inhabitants as Spaniards regrouped and returned with even more indigenous
allies, notably a rival ethnic group called the Tlaxcalans. The Spanish
besieged the Aztec capital on May 26, 1521, but its toppling in August did
not preclude prolonged fights with other ethnic groups to the west, north,
and east.4
The Mayas, another large ethnic group scattered across the densely popu-
lated Yucatán Peninsula, proved formidable in battle, often deceiving Spaniards
with feigned friendliness before driving them back to the coast amid hails of
stones and arrows. Outnumbered Europeans had to tread carefully. It was not
until thousands of ethnically distinct Mesoamericans joined the Spanish as
a combined force, that Europeans could subdue the region. As was the case
everywhere in the Americas, European-origin diseases played a central role in
the conquest.5
Illness and civil war were already convulsing the central Andes when Fran-
cisco Pizarro captured Inca emperor Atahualpa at the Battle of Cajamarca
(1532). Pizarro’s underhanded execution of the native sovereign illuminated
European intentions. One Inca general, Rumiñawi, adopted a scorched-earth
policy. He burned Quito, the northern capital, before its treasure and resources
could fall into enemy hands. Forces loyal to Manco Inca killed hundreds of
Spanish soldiers trying to recapture Cuzco, the imperial capital, but the tide
decisively turned in 1539.6 Thereafter, it became increasingly clear to Andean
populations that Spaniards had both superior arms and sufficient indigenous
support to maintain a dominant position. The last Inca holdout, Vilcabama,
was destroyed in 1572.
Some Indians escaped conquest altogether. In southern Chile, dispersed,
semisedentary natives called Mapuches were quick to adopt the horse and
devise clever stratagems for dealing with the foreign invaders. Mapuches had
no king or centralized government, but during emergencies they formed
a loose confederation of tribes with an elected commander, or toqui. No
matter how many toquis the Spanish captured, resistance continued from this
fiercely independent native culture. Given the power of the confederation, the
Spanish Crown had no choice but to recognize its sovereignty. Something
similar occurred in the northern reaches of New Spain (northern Mexico and
the southwest United States) where nomadic Apache tribes adapted the horse
to their preexisting warrior tradition. In this fringe of the Spanish Empire, it
was Apaches who raided Spanish settlements and made life insecure for His-
panic colonists, not the other way around. Notwithstanding cases such as
these, the Spanish achieved a preponderance of control during the first century
of colonization and it was done without a royal army. Encomenderos put down
 Introduction 5

Indian uprisings and Spanish men had to muster in defense of the empire
during coastal attacks from pirates.
Colonial Latin American society was divided into peninsulares (people born
on the Iberian Peninsula), creoles (whites born in the Americas), Indians (tax-
paying subjects of the king, legally defined as minors), Africans (usually bought
as slaves), and a wide array of castas (people with mixed parentage). Europeans
stood at the top of the social pyramid with Indians and Africans at the bottom.
Concepts such as limpieza de sangre reinforced the status of whites and top
administrative positions were reserved for creoles and peninsulares.
Here, it is worth observing that the Spanish Empire was a land-based entity
designed to extract tribute and precious metals from the interior. The Portu-
guese Empire was much more seaborne. Brazilian planters lived near the coast
and produced sugar. They also imported four million African slaves (the most
of any country in the Americas), which ensured that black and brown men
would carry arms in colonial militias and national armies. In 1822, 65 percent
of Brazil’s population was either African or of African descent.
Environment determined many aspects of the social structure in North and
South America. New England lacked an economic rationale for coerced labor.
Family farms developed in the cold northern latitudes, while plantation econ-
omies based on slavery emerged in locations with soils suitable for cash crops
like sugar and cotton. Exploitable indigenous populations in Mexico and Peru
meant that Europeans could profit from colonialism in a way that they simply
could not in Chile or California, both poor imperial backwaters. Last, the
riches of Spanish America necessitated garrisons of soldiers and strong imperial
defenses in geopolitically vital regions.
Spanish colonial administration relied heavily on military officers. Many
served as viceroys (officials who ruled administrative units for the Crown) and
the Crown appointed officers called captain generals to govern vulnerable
islands and remote territories such as Cuba and Chile. Captain generals had
jurisdiction over any person subject to a military fuero as well as broad powers
for defense within their jurisdiction. The title and associated responsibilities
came from the Reconquest. In a massive empire vulnerable to piracy and ban-
dits, military officers were high-status figures.
Codes of legal exemption (fueros) set religious and military officials apart
from the rest of colonial society. Neither of the two groups was subject to
ordinary civilian courts. They represented separate castes of privileged individ-
uals. At the same time, the number of permanent soldiers in Chile, Cuba, and
Venezuela rarely exceeded 1,500. This is one reason the king began organizing
militias for imperial defense rather than full-time soldiers (regulars). Militiamen
were American-born and recruited for occasional service, especially during
emergencies.
Whatever mixed feelings peninsulares had about arming colonials, the Brit-
ish capture and occupation of Havana during the Seven Years’ War
6 Introduction

(1756–1763) compelled the Spanish Crown to strengthen its system of militias.

On the eve of independence, military forces in New Spain (Mexico and Cen-
tral America) consisted of approximately 6,000 regular troops and 34,000 mil-
itiamen, variously assigned to defend the coasts and interior provinces.7 These
militias ensured that creoles would greatly outnumber peninsulares in the mili-
tary. They also gave creoles command experience. For mestizos (half Indian,
half white), browns (half black, half white), and free blacks military service
offered prestige, a possible commission, and other corporate privileges. Colo-
nial Latin Americans gained confidence too, a fact best exemplified by a major
event in South America.
In the summer of 1806 and 1807, Argentine militias squarely defeated two
separate British attempts to capture Buenos Aires. During the first British inva-
sion, Spanish viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte abandoned the city, ostensibly to
regroup, but in his absence, Argentine militiamen expelled 1,500 British regu-
lars and forced the surrender of a second, much larger British force. The out-
come decisively altered local perceptions. Creole-led militias had inflicted
heavy casualties on a major European power, itself a source of pride, and they
did not need Spanish help. The Reconquest of Buenos Aires therefore engen-
dered native confidence and incubated sentiment for independence.
Spain’s two biggest enemies during the sixteenth century, England and the
Dutch Republic, promoted the idea that conquistadors were especially cruel
and greedy colonizers who represented a sinister imperial enterprise (as if Eng-
lish and Dutch colonizers were saints). The “Black Legend” described Spain as
a deficient culture lacking the virtues Dutch and English settlers supposedly
brought to the New World, such as a sense of impartial justice or capacity for
self-government. The old Protestant idea, although a relic of sixteenth-century
propaganda, has lingered in Western consciousness.
Another European perspective, developed during the nineteenth century’s
age of scientific racism, held that geography explained Latin America’s seem-
ingly unstable politics. Long winters in the northern hemisphere, the theory
went, fostered thrift and discipline while heat and humidity predisposed the
people in tropical zones towards passivity, sloth, and intemperate behavior. It
followed then that such people would reject democracy and prefer the expedi-
ency of dictatorship. Weather, according to this line of logic, condemned most
of Latin America to rule by military strongmen who would hold back progres-
sive reform. The Black Legend, combined with notions of tropical determin-
ism, has shaped negative stereotypes about Latin America and its soldiers.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and subsequent
overthrow of the Spanish king Ferdinand VII in 1808 threw the empire into
crisis. Without a legitimate monarch on the throne, who was in charge over-
seas? It did not produce an immediate break with the mother country. In fact,
the creoles who formed ruling assemblies (juntas) explicitly said that they
would govern on behalf of the king until his rightful restoration to power. At
 Introduction 7

the same time, many creoles wanted to alter colonial arrangements to their
advantage; others seized the chance to rebel. When Ferdinand VII regained his
throne in 1814, the monarch foolishly sought to harshly reimpose absolutism,
which more than anything set off full-blown independence movements and
guaranteed ten more years of fighting.8 This is very different from what hap-
pened in the United States.
Fortune shined on the English-speaking peoples who revolted against the
mother country in 1775. Upstart rebels in Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
and Richmond received crucial assistance from Spain and France (England’s
enemies) and Great Britain was forced to sue for peace in 1783. The rebels
had good leadership and more consensus about the type of government they
wanted to create after the fighting was over.
Latin America’s wars of independence (1810–1825), by contrast, lasted
longer and were far more destructive. Revolutionary governments in Spanish
America had to finance military campaigns without aid from Spain’s enemies
(in fact, they had to worry about European states trying to recolonize the con-
tinent). Furthermore, patriot armies had to surmount Andean peaks and move
long distances by land and sea. Latin America’s military history highlights the
logistical challenges of war-making in tropical and mountainous terrain as well
as the importance of naval power in a region of formidable distances and
extensive coastlines.
The military service of non-elite men speaks to the multiethnic societies
that existed in the early nineteenth-century Latin America. Indians, blacks, and
castas were pressed into royal and patriot armies alike. In Peru, Spanish officers
and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) had to learn elements of Quechua or
Aymara (the country’s two predominant indigenous languages) because Indian
soldiers rarely spoke anything but their native tongue. Mixed-race cowboys on
the Venezuelan plains initially sided with the Crown. They regarded creole
revolutionaries as arrogant and unsympathetic.
Patriot and royal armies both offered freedom to slaves willing to fight.
Enlistment for slave recruits meant wages, meals, and emancipation if they sur-
vived. Creoles could be ambivalent about nonwhite soldiers, but as the wars of
independence dragged on, their numbers became ever more important.9 Pat-
riots like Simón Bolívar had to convince his nonwhite countrymen that they
would be much better off as citizens of sovereign republics. Across Latin
America, people encountered an inclusive rhetoric of citizenship and equality
before the law, which could be alarming or exhilarating depending on one’s
social position.
South America’s liberating commanders – Simón Bolívar, José de San
Martin, Antonio José de Sucre – struck decisive blows to Spanish power
from 1818 to 1824, but unified, stable governments proved elusive. Years of
fighting marked an entire generation. Indians and creoles had killed each
other in Peru and Mexico, leaving behind a conservative mind-set among
8 Introduction

many whites. Territorial disputes between newly independent countries

were just beginning. The United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata (most of
what is today Argentina) regarded Paraguay as a renegade province. In
1825, Brazil and Argentina went to war over the disputed Banda Oriental,
now Uruguay.
The region’s first series of constitutions, which gave presidents control over
the military, did not create careful checks on military power. Fueros had long
reinforced the social difference of officers in society, not their subordination to
civilian leaders or equality before the law. A marked civil–military divide was
present from the beginning. Officers in Peru and Mexico wanted to protect
their status, not give it up. They made pronunciamientos (public pronounce-
ments of political aims) as well as stealthy, illegal seizures of government (coup
d’états).
By the time Spanish forces withdrew from Peru, 15 years of fighting had taken
a massive toll. At least one quarter of Venezuela’s population had been killed from
the wars that raged between 1810 and 1830. Fledgling states in Mexico City,
Bogotá, and Buenos Aires faced bankruptcy as well as severe damage to their
economies. Industries such as silver mining had been wrecked in Peru and
Mexico. Above all, political elites lacked consensus about the post-colonial order.
Conservatives preferred strong constitutional monarchies in which the
Roman Catholic Church would play the same role that it had during colonial
times. They wished to preserve religious and military fueros. Latin America’s
liberals admired France and the United States. They sought a separation of
church and state, free trade, and legal equality for Latin America’s various
racial and ethnic groups. While the United States’ founding fathers managed to
write a constitution acceptable to all 13 states, such a feat was impossible in
Spanish America. The militarization of society from 1810–1825 left behind too
many armed factions. Great plains and winding mountains separated regional
settlements from capital cities. Bandits and regional commanders had little
reason to fear the central state.
Strongmen called caudillos filled the political vacuum. They gained power
by mobilizing private, irregular armies of rugged horsemen capable of challen-
ging national governments. Caudillos did not rule by the sword alone. They
won the loyalty of local populations due to their charisma and bravado. They
were “heroes on horseback,” as one scholar put it, who defied central states,
dispensed favors, and offered protection.10
Charismatic chieftains leading irregular armies through forests, plains, and
jungles has been one theme in Latin American history and it usually involved
a measure of social leveling. That is, ordinary people could join such forces
and benefit. Domingo F. Sarmiento, a famous Argentine writer, argued that
warlords represented a form of indigenous barbarism that central governments
would have to uproot and destroy for civilization (meaning European culture)
 Introduction 9

to prevail in Latin America.11 The contradictions of Sarmiento’s position cut

to the heart of the racial and ethnic divide still present in the region.
Among the caudillos who dominated their homelands in the nineteenth cen-
tury, it is not difficult to spot elements of the Hispanic military tradition.
Argentina’s Juan Manuel de Rosas (ruled from 1829–1852) defended the
Roman Catholic Church’s prerogatives, showed utter contempt for his
enemies, and used government as a source of personal enrichment. Rosas was
not a professional soldier, but society acknowledged and respected his author-
ity. The notion that officers, even warlords, were indispensable men with
a role to play in politics was one carryover from the colonial period.
Amid the postindependence turmoil, armies and military service continued
to offer avenues of social mobility. Republican militias conferred privileges and
status on non-elite men. Veterans used their service records to argue for clem-
ency in republican courts.12 Juan Manuel de Rosas granted lands to veterans
who had pacified the indigenous-held territories of southern Argentina during
his Desert Campaign (1833–1834).
Rafael Carrera, Guatemala’s president from 1844 to 1865, came from
a family of illiterate mestizos. Thanks to his natural charisma and military bril-
liance, he wound up dominating the political life of his newly independent
homeland. Such a thing would have been unthinkable during Spanish
colonialism.13 Carrera’s presidency illustrates several themes. First, the army
was an institution that offered opportunities to capable non-elite men. Second,
Carrera had to straddle the postindependence battle between liberals and con-
servatives. Third, Guatemala faced external threats from more powerful coun-
tries – Britain, Belgium, and the United States. Four, building strong
institutions in a country divided between an indigenous majority and Hispanic
ruling elite represented an enormous challenge. During his own lifetime, Car-
rera negotiated Guatemala’s political landscape capably, but stable forms of civil
governance did not develop. The army remained an instrument of personal, as
opposed to impersonal, state power. It was slow to modernize and subject to
outside influence.
Brazil and Chile were the first nations in Latin America to acquire stable,
centralized governments. That achievement in the 1840s made it possible for
both countries to conduct faraway military operations on land and sea.
Mexico, by contrast, lost a third of its territory. Its government could not put
down the Texas Revolution (1836) or stop the United States from landing
troops at Veracruz and occupying Mexico City (1847–1848). The ability of
US forces to march inland and obtain a favorable treaty had more to do with
Mexico’s internal divisions than the weapons either side wielded. Mexico paid
a high price for its postindependence turmoil.
The French intervention (1861–1867) saw Mexico resist foreign occupation
with greater vigor than it had in the 1840s. Porfirio Díaz, a liberal military
officer who helped defeat the French army at Puebla on May 5, 1862 (Cinco
 MEXICO THE UNITED STATES

Cuba (Spain)
HAITI
Belize
(Britain) Puerto Rico (Spain)
Jamaica
(Britain)
UNITED PROVINCES OF
CENTRAL AMERICA

Guyanas
GRAN COLOMBIA

PERU

EMPIRE OF BRAZIL

BOLIVIA

PARAGUAY

CHILE

URUGUAY
ia
on

ARGENTINE CONFEDERATION
ag
t
Pa

Strait of Magellan

FIGURE 1.1A Boundaries of Latin America in 1830. Mexico occupied vast tracks of
lands in what is today the United States. Cuba and Puerto Rico belonged to the
Spanish Empire. Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador formed a single country called
Gran Colombia (1819–1831). The Haitian government controlled the entire island
of Hispaniola. Bolivia occupied coastal territory, and neither Argentina nor Chile
exercised jurisdiction over Patagonia.
 Ciudad Juárez
Chihuahua

Monterrey Matamoros
Santa Clara
MEXICO Havana
Guantánamo
Guadalajara Mexico City
Mérida CUBA DOMINICAN
Santiago(Cuba) REPUBLIC
Puebla Veracruz
Acapulco BELIZE HAITI PUERTO
GUATEMALA HONDURAS RICO
EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA
GRENADA
COSTA RICA Caracas
PANAMA VENEZUELA
Bogotá GUYANA
SURINAME
COLOMBIA
Quito
Belém
ECUADOR

Natal
Cajamarca
Recife
PERU BRAZIL
Lima Cusco Salvador
BOLIVIA
Brasília
Tacna La Paz
Arica
Pisagua
Iquique PARAGUAY Rio de Janeiro
Antofagasta Asunción São Paulo
Copiapó São Borja
Uruguaiana
CHILE Pôrto Alegre
Santa Fe
Valparaiso
Mendoza URUGUAY
Santiago
Buenos Aires Montevideo
Concepción
Temuco ARGENTINA
Valdivia

Falkland Islands

FIGURE 1.1B Modern boundaries of Latin America.

12 Introduction

de Mayo), was keen to create a small, well-equipped federal army capable of

imposing order during his long dictatorship (1876–1910). The Mexican Revo-
lution (1910–1917) demonstrated that Mexico was still a very divided country,
but it was also more unified in the sense that elites resented the United States’
interference in the upheaval and the population celebrated Pancho Villa’s
escape from US General John Pershing’s punitive expedition in 1916. The
string of terrible wars helped make Mexico more of a nation and remind its
leaders of the need for an effective national army.
South America’s bloodiest armed conflict, the Paraguayan War
(1864–1870), pitted landlocked Paraguay against the combined forces of
Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Paraguay’s overconfident, and many would
say fanatical, dictator Francisco Solano López instructed his countrymen to
make the allies pay as they moved towards the capital, Asunción. When it
was all over, the number of war-related fatalities exceeded 300,000. What
made the bitter slog along the Paraguay and Paraná rivers so incredibly
destructive was the nature of Paraguayan society. López led a relatively
homogeneous population with little racial or economic differentiation. Para-
guayans felt strong bonds of loyalty to their centralized state and its leader.
Retreating armies burned everything of use to the enemy as women man-
aged cattle herds, farms, and markets. Utterly devastated by bullets and dis-
ease, nearly every Paraguayan male between 13 and 50 perished.
Approximately 25,000 Mexicans died fighting the US invasion while some
200,000 Paraguayans died between 1865 and 1870, over half of the total
population.14 As we will see in Chapter 4, the war depleted Brazil’s treasury
and turned many of its army officers against the state.
The military history of South America has involved many pivotal sea bat-
tles. Control over the sea-lanes was indispensable for the achievement of inde-
pendence from Spain and Portugal. Brazil’s destruction of the Paraguayan
Navy at the Battle of Riachuelo (1865) meant that the allies would control
riverine traffic on the Rio de la Plata basin and prevent Paraguay from occupy-
ing Argentine territory or mounting offensive campaigns.
The War of the Pacific (1879–1884), a conflict between Chile and its
neighbors, Peru and Bolivia, further demonstrated the importance of sea
power. Chile’s decisive naval victory at Angamos (1879) permitted its army to
move up the coast and assault Peru’s capital, which resulted in 10,000 casual-
ties. The Chilean army seized books, artifacts, and other trophies during its
occupation of Lima (1881–1883) and Peruvian landowners had to pay the cost
of Chilean garrisons elsewhere in the country. Peru, however, did not cede
territory right away. Chilean commanders had to chase guerrilla bands across
the rugged sierras and defeat a Peruvian army in Arequipa. When it was all
over, Chile had won resource-rich territories, but faced potentially revanchist
neighbors. Bolivia lost access to the Pacific Ocean. As we will see in Chapter
5, Chile did not waste any time modernizing its army and navy.
 Introduction 13

FIGURE 1.2 Malintzin (standing right) directs the Spanish-Tlaxcalan attack against
the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Cholula, the second largest city of Mesoamerica.
Source: History of Tlaxcala (manuscript held at the University of Glasgow).

The bitter memories and sense of grievance felt by the losers of these inter-
state conflicts continue to affect regional attitudes, diplomacy, and international
soccer matches. Paraguay and Brazil cooperate on many issues, but Asunción is
deeply sensitive to the words and actions of a country that once occupied its
cities. Bolivia still seeks a Pacific port under national jurisdiction and for that
reason La Paz does not maintain normal diplomatic relations with Chile.15
Most of Latin America’s revered national heroes come from nineteenth-
century conflicts, whether Mexico’s Niños Héroes (Heroic Cadets) who resisted
Winfield Scott’s invading army or Arturo Prat, Chile’s heroic naval captain,
who refused to surrender his crippled vessel at the Battle of Iquique (1879). In
Cuba, national heroes José Martí and Antonio Maceo both died trying to lib-
erate their homeland from imperial Spain during the War for Independence
(1895–1898).
14 Introduction

Militaries reflect society. Five hundred thousand foreign-born soldiers

served in the federal army during the American Civil War (1861–1865) as well
as 180,000 black men, most of them former slaves. Brazil used slave soldiers
during the Paraguayan War because it could not mobilize sufficient forces
from its free population. During the War of the Pacific, white officers in Peru
and Bolivia commanded large numbers of indigenous conscripts. Chile’s army,
by contrast, was mestizo and Spanish speaking, which meant that, among other
things, Chile’s rank and file could clearly understand their commanding offi-
cers’ instructions.
Some aspects of warfare transcend world region. Preindustrial armies, espe-
cially in rural and mountainous zones had high rates of desertion. Disease
(typhoid, yellow fever, pneumonia, tuberculosis, measles, malaria) claimed
more lives than bullets and the apparent willingness of soldiers to march into
enemy gunfire speaks to an ingrained respect for social hierarchy. The presence
of female camp followers is another common denominator in eras before
modern quartermasters (officers who manage food rations, housing, and
clothing).
Before marching on Tenochtitlán, Hernando Cortés had to secure an army
of women to grind the maize for his troops’ tortillas. More importantly, he
needed a loyal translator and diplomat. Interestingly, it was an indigenous
woman named Malintzin (the Spanish called her Doña Marina) who fulfilled
that role. She learned Spanish and accompanied Cortés everywhere he went
while supplying crucial intelligence at various junctures. Malintzin’s contribu-
tions to the Spanish conquest of Mexico were widely recognized during her
lifetime, hence the honorific title “Doña.”16 Four hundred years later, women
were still close to the fighting.
Juliana García, a slave living near Montevideo, Uruguay, followed her hus-
band Miguel, an enlisted slave, on campaign with the Army of Buenos Aires
from 1811 to 1815. She and her two children trekked with Miguel from the
Pampas to highland Peru.17 Juliana’s case was not an aberration. Bolivian and
Peruvian women who accompanied their husbands or partners on campaign
during the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) were called rabonas. They fulfilled
a variety of logistical tasks: porter, seamstress, nurse, cook, and comrade.
Impressed observers remarked on these ubiquitous women who carried the
rifles of their soldier-lovers. Entrepreneurial vivanderas prepared food in army
camps, sometimes amid exploding shells. The pregnant wife of one Chilean
sergeant, traveling with her husband in the high-altitude Peruvian sierras,
stopped to give birth on blankets before she remounted her horse and con-
tinued the journey.18 Cases of women involved directly in the fighting are not
hard to find either.
This is not to paint a rosy picture of wartime. Women were vulnerable to
marauding armies, rape, and abuse. The Paraguayan War killed nearly every
Paraguayan male aged 15 to 45, leaving women to deal with the aftermath.
 Introduction 15

They rebuilt towns, managed farms, and repopulated the country just as Rus-
sian, German, and Japanese women would do in their own devastated home-
lands after 1945.
The transition from irregular, often personal armies to preprofessional to
fully professional armed forces (technical, autonomous, disciplined) occurred
between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The most advanced
countries in the Southern Cone (Brazil, Argentina, Chile) were the first to
update and reorganize their armed forces. Armies looked to Germany and
France while navies modeled themselves after Great Britain. Brazil, Chile, and
Argentina purchased Krupp cannons, Mauser rifles, and Dreadnought-class
warships. Each country enlarged its standing army. Navies trained a new class
of engineers able to maintain the increasingly technical warships built in
Europe.
Modernization was about more than just equipment. The Napoleonic Wars
(1803–1815) demonstrated the need for competent general staffs in charge of
administrative, logistical, and operational tasks. The Kingdom of Prussia began
training commissioned officers in tactics, strategy, chemistry, mathematics,
geography, languages, and other disciplines. Eventually, the entire world fol-
lowed Prussia’s example. Beginning with Chile, South American governments
hired European officers to help create impersonal systems of retirement and
promotion. Corporal punishments such as flogging were abolished. The army
and navy encouraged officers to publish articles in professional journals about
their individual specialties (engineering, cavalry, artillery, infantry). Commis-
sions could no longer be bought. The creation of a staff college for captains
and majors represents one important milestone in a country’s capacity for
advanced military training.
Army staff college founding dates, selected countries:

1810, Prussia – Preußische Kriegsakademie

1876, France – École Supérieure de Guerre
1881, United States – Army Command and General Staff College
1882, Japan – Rikugun Daigakkō (Army War College)
1886, Chile – Academia de Guerra del Ejército
1900, Argentina – Escuela Superior de Guerra
1904, Peru – Escuela Superior de Guerra
1905, Brazil – Escola de Comando e Estado-Maior do Exército
1909, Colombia – Escuela Superior de Guerra
1923, Bolivia – Escuela de Guerra
1923, Ecuador – Academia de Guerra del Ejército Ecuatoriano
1932, Mexico – Escuela Superior de Guerra

The complexity of a country’s military usually mirrors its political and eco-
nomic development. Navies are expensive and technical. Guatemala did not
16 Introduction

establish a national school for naval cadets until 1960. Countries that lack the
financial wherewithal to undergo a comprehensive modernization process may
opt to send the most promising captains and majors to other countries for staff
training.
Professionalization broadened opportunities for non-elite men, including
historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups. Latin America’s economic
elites are overwhelmingly white. Military elites, by contrast, might come from
poor, provincial towns and have mixed racial origins. Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista,
of Spanish, African, and Chinese parentage, is one example. Venezuela’s Hugo
Chávez, of African and Indian parentage, is another. Generals Juan Velasco
and Omar Torrijos, presidents of Peru and Panama, respectively, came from
humble mestizo families.
Immigrant families in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina encouraged their sons to
seek commissions because the career offered distinct advantages, not just
a salary, pension, and technical training, but national connections. Armed
forces in Chile and Argentina have had many officers with surnames like Fer-
rari and Rossi (Italian) or Schneider and Schmidt (German). Other surnames –
French, Croatian, Palestinian – have been relatively common in Chile’s mili-
tary. Openness to immigrant newcomers marked the modernization process in
South America.
The modern draft, first institutionalized in France in 1798, required
unmarried or childless men between the ages of 20 and 25 to register at
local town halls and perform military service if called. Other countries saw
the rationale for having a large reserve of men with military training after
Napoleon’s Grande Armée overwhelmed its foes from 1805 to 1809.
Departing from the premise that nation-states should be ready to mobilize
citizen-armies in the event of emergencies, South American countries
introduced universal male conscription in the first decades of the twentieth
century.
Modern conscription laws, selected countries:

1798, France
1814, Prussia
1873, Japan
1900, Chile
1901, Argentina
1901, Sweden
1907, Bolivia
1908, Brazil
1912, Peru
1913, Belgium
1919, Turkey
1926, Venezuela
 Introduction 17

1935, Ecuador
1940, United States
1942, Mexico
1954, Thailand

Peacetime conscription put professional soldiers in regular contact with lower-

class citizens. Of the 9,973 Chilean conscripts who reported for military service
in 1901, 6,981 were illiterate. To remedy the problem, the army and navy
organized schools inside of every regiment, a practice that continued until the
middle of the twentieth century.19 The Chilean armed forces, like other mili-
taries in South America, engaged in nation-building. Officers taught conscripts
to read and write and marched soldiers past crowds during civic events. The
navy built a network of lighthouses in Patagonia and ferried goods to isolated
communities in the region. Such activities gave young lieutenants and captains
a unique knowledge of the nation’s people, regions, and problems.
French trainers in Peru and Brazil similarly emphasized the army’s role as
a force for national integration departing from the premise that militaries
take in raw recruits and diminish their regional identities within national
institutions that teach life skills (hygiene, literacy, discipline), patriotic songs,
and reverence for national symbols. To be sure, some countries had further
to go than others. According to a 1960 study, 62.5 percent of the conscripts
in Guatemala’s infantry were illiterate, 30.6 percent did not speak Spanish as
a first language, and 14 percent spoke no Spanish at all.20 The situation was
similar in Bolivia. Conscription reveals much about a country’s social char-
acter and development.
Soldiers obey orders. General staffs decide where officers serve. Soldiers
train on bases, away from civilians, and spend much of their leisure time with
other military personnel. Having a military career means belonging to
a distinctive subculture with frequent moves, family separations, and potential
risks to life and limb.
Modernization can sharpen the civil–military divide by making a nation’s
armed forces more autonomous, educated, and capable of collective action.
The fueros of yesteryear are gone, but militaries often retain a sense of their
special place in society. Professional soldiers may entertain the idea that they
are virtuous warrior-priests who defend the nation’s permanent interests while
civilian leaders are venal and incompetent. Such ideas can have great appeal in
developing countries with unstable political systems.
Middle-class officers in several South American countries grew resentful of
the status quo in the 1910s. They worried about the state’s indifference
towards urban squalor. During the early twentieth century, the prevailing lais-
sez-faire philosophy prevented liberal governments from intervening in the
economy or addressing social issues. National elites in Chile, Argentina, and
Brazil used the army to break up strikes and repress the working class. Few
18 Introduction

officers relished such an unpleasant role. After the Bolshevik Revolution

(1917), radical politics and labor militancy became an even greater institutional
concern. Disaffected soldiers across the political spectrum began to see them-
selves as the only national group capable of creating strong, centralized states.
In several countries, officers were restive enough to contemplate rebellion.
In Brazil, junior officers (tenentes) tried to overthrow the federal government
in 1922 and again in 1924. Rebels opposed the country’s decentralized polit-
ical system, an oligarchy dominated by coffee barons, cattle ranchers, and dairy
producers. The most famous tenente, Luís Carlos Prestes, escaped government
reprisals before leading a march through Brazil’s hinterland where he tried to
whip up support for a left-wing revolution. Although unsuccessful in the short
term, tenentismo provided an impetus for the overthrow of Brazil’s Old Repub-
lic (1889–1930).
Something similar happened in Chile. On September 3, 1924, 56 disgrun-
tled Chilean officers rattled their sabers in Congress, marking the start of their
self-appointed “honorable mission” to end the aristocratic Parliamentary
Republic (1891–1924) and secure passage of social and economic legislation.
A junta of military revolutionaries oversaw the writing of a new constitution
in 1925 that, among other things, centralized executive power, separated
church and state, and democratized elections. General Carlos Ibáñez continued
the process. His authoritarian government (1927–1931) enacted modern labor
codes and used the state to create industrial employment. He and other officers
felt that they were renovating a system that civilians had proven incapable of
fixing themselves. Moreover, Ibáñez did not enrich himself. After a fall from
power, he claimed that patriotism alone had motivated his actions.
Such self-appointed missions are a global phenomenon. Since 1950, armed
forces in Egypt, Thailand, and Nigeria have all overthrown presidents they
deemed corrupt, ineffective, or failing to serve the national interest. Profes-
sional militaries, as opposed to strongmen, have repeatedly seized power on
patriotic grounds (as they define it).
The Spanish American War (1898), in which Spain surrendered control of
Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States, cemented
the United States’ position as a world power. US President Theodore Roose-
velt (1901–1909) cynically supported the independence of Panama, a province
of Colombia, and dispatched US warships to stop Colombia from putting
down the revolt in 1903. With that, Roosevelt secured US rights to build an
interoceanic canal on favorable terms. In an age of gunboat diplomacy, he
boldly asserted the right of the United States to intervene in the internal affairs
of Latin countries. For three decades, US presidents routinely sent marines to
occupy turbulent countries in the Caribbean with the same stated goals: pro-
tect US property, improve state administration, and impose order. The unin-
tended consequences of interventions in Nicaragua (1912), Haiti (1915), and
the Dominican Republic (1916) are striking.
 Introduction 19

Rafael Trujillo, a onetime telegraph operator with a criminal record, saw an

opportunity when US forces arrived in the Dominican Republic. Trujillo
joined the marines’ Guardia Nacional (National Guard) and immediately
impressed his American trainers. He rose from cadet to general in nine years,
something impossible in a professional army, and once the Americans departed
in 1924, Trujillo used his police and army connections to seize power and
establish a brutal dictatorship. US weapons sales to his regime, especially air-
craft, meant that by the 1950s Trujillo was firmly entrenched, difficult to con-
trol, and unwilling to accept Washington’s dictates.21 In 1961, Dominican
army officers murdered Trujillo and the country was plunged into chaos again.
Something similar happened in Nicaragua. US forces organized a National
Guard and maintained a relatively unopposed presence in the country until
Augusto César Sandino organized an armed resistance. From 1927 to 1933, he
destroyed US property, killed marines, and evaded capture. His public pro-
clamations, “Nicaragua shall not be the patrimony of oligarchs and traitors, nor
shall we accept humiliations from the expansionistic dollar pirates …” won
him admirers at home and abroad. The administration of Calvin Coolidge also
looked foolish chasing the “bandit” and American journalists questioned the
wisdom of sending marines to the jungles of Central America. Sandino, for his
part, refused to countenance any negotiated ceasefire, “I am not willing to
hand over my weapons in the event everyone else does. I will die with the
few who accompany me because it is preferable to die as rebels than to live as
slaves.”22 US forces eventually declared victory and evacuated, but not before
handing control of the National Guard over to Anastasio Somoza. He used his
power to kill Sandino in 1934 and build a kleptocratic dynasty, but Sandino’s
memory was not forgotten. Left-wing revolutionaries, calling themselves the
Sandinistas, overthrew the Somoza clan in 1979.
In a region with great social inequalities, there is something irresistible and
culturally powerful about people who oppose unjust governments. The pattern
is deeply embedded in Latin American history. Men such as Emiliano Zapata
and Che Guevara have contributed to an idealized notion of the revolutionary
martyr whose mistakes matter much less than their courage and willingness to
fight against long odds.
World War II put a lock on the United States’ dominant position in the
Western hemisphere. Before 1940, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile maintained
primary military connections to Europe. After World War II, Germany, Brit-
ain, France, and Italy lacked the wherewithal to supply arms, capital, or train-
ing. Washington alone, at least in the postwar period, could offer loans,
industrial goods, and expertise.
The Roosevelt administration hoped to secure inter-American support for
the allied cause and prevent the hemisphere’s armies from fighting each other.
If countries acquired US arms through Lend-Lease (1941) or the Military
Assistance Program (1952), they could not be used in regional conflicts, which
20 Introduction

allowed Washington to enforce a Pax Americana. The Inter-American Defense

Board, begun in 1942, gathered defense officials from across the continent to
discuss collective security and Latin American officers began training at US
staff colleges. The Rio Treaty (1947) committed every Latin American country
to mutual assistance in the event of an outside attack, ostensibly from the
Soviet bloc, and only signatories qualified for the Military Assistance Program.
The Organization of American States (1948) created a diplomatic forum for
the resolution of disputes and it played an essential role pressuring El Salvador
to withdraw its armed forces from Honduras during the 100 Hours War,
known more commonly as the Soccer War (1969). The US security umbrella
also made it possible for Costa Rica to abolish its military in 1949.
The US-dominated postwar order strengthened hemispheric ties and lessened
the likelihood of direct conflict between individual states, but it sharply limited the
possibilities for social and economic reform in a region with fast growing popula-
tions, high inequality, and widespread poverty. Washington’s overriding priority
was keeping communism out of the Western hemisphere, not assisting countries to
address the social and political grievances of their people.
US scholars observed that Latin America’s officers were solidly middle class
by 1950. Political scientists assumed that the changing social and professional
character of the military would mean fewer coups and more political stability
since officers wanted what the middle class did: tax reform, industrial develop-
ment, good public education, and social welfare.23 According to one theory,
Latin America’s increasingly complex, professional militaries would inevitably
accept civilian supremacy in the most advanced countries, but that outcome
might have been more likely under different circumstances. The Cold War
rivalry between the United States and the USSR politicized just about every-
thing, including reform.
The triumph of the Cuban Revolution (1959) sent shock waves throughout
the hemisphere. Fidel Castro’s nationalization of foreign properties and sweeping
land reform upset the US-sponsored capitalist order. Determined to protect his
revolution from US intervention, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and
brought the whole of Latin America to the forefront of the East–West struggle.
Cuba’s stunning defiance of Washington thrilled the Left and gave radicals
a new model of political change that involved armed struggle. Castro said,

Our triumph would never have been feasible if the Revolution itself had
not been inexorably destined to arise out of existing conditions in our
socio-economic reality, a reality which exists to an even greater degree
in a good number of Latin American countries.24

Furthermore, history seemed to be on the side of national liberation move-

ments. Guerrilla fighters in Vietnam and Algeria had humbled the French
army.
 Introduction 21

Castro’s guerrilla uprising in the Sierra Maestra mountains inspired Ernesto

“Che” Guevara’s theory of foquismo, which held that focal points of revolu-
tionary activity could spread to adjacent regions and spark a popular insurrec-
tion. Crucially, he urged young revolutionaries to pick up guns and begin
fighting rather than wait for all the right conditions. After the publication of
Guevara’s book La guerra de guerrillas (Guerrilla Warfare, 1960), insurgencies
popped up in nearly every Latin American country, some with stunning
bravado.
Foquismo, however, failed to deliver on its promise. South America’s profes-
sional militaries were better trained and equipped than armies in the Caribbean
and they were determined to prevent “another Cuba.” US security assistance
had new priorities as well. After 1961, the US Army School of the Americas,
where thousands of Latin American soldiers trained, put an explicit focus on
counterinsurgency. Both sides dug in to entrenched positions. Demands for
radical revolution came at a time of rapid population growth, poverty, and
declining international prices for coffee, sugar, copper, tin, and beef (Latin
America’s traditional commodities). The social, political, and economic context
did not favor stability.
Even Argentina, the region’s richest, best-educated country, was becoming
ungovernable. Its domestic dysfunction predated 1945, but Cold War percep-
tions further polarized an already supercharged political landscape. Urban guer-
rillas, a group called the Montoneros, regarded their national government as
a fascist instrument of foreign capitalism. During the 1970s, they sought to
evict transnational corporations and facilitate a transition to socialism. The
Montoneros came from middle-class families and were convinced of the need
for revolutionary violence. They robbed banks, kidnapped and ransomed the
children of rich businessmen, detonated bombs in foreign hotels, and carried
out targeted assassinations in more than 1,000 terrorist attacks during both
democratic and military governments. In 1975, with membership at about
5,000, the Montoneros assaulted army and navy installations in spectacular,
well-organized operations. Along with the Popular Revolutionary Army,
Argentina’s other major armed group, guerrillas managed to kill 492 security
personnel, most of whom were police officers.25 The brazen challenge to the
state’s monopoly on violence did not increase class conflict or win the rebels
popular sympathy. It did, however, provoke a bloody counterrevolution.
Latin American militaries, backed by the Pentagon, adopted national secur-
ity doctrines that justified military involvement in the political system to main-
tain internal order and combat ideologies, organizations, and movements that
favored communism. Marxists and Marxist sympathizers, therefore, had to be
stopped from gaining a cultural foothold. Global politics heightened what
everyone believed was at stake. Anti-communist armed forces in South Amer-
ica waged “dirty wars” against anyone deemed “subversive,” not just guerrilla
fighters, but students, workers, union leaders, journalists, and peasants. Torture
22 Introduction

became widespread in several countries and, with it, pervasive fear. The worst
of the violence occurred in Argentina where the military killed at least
10,000 persons between 1976 and 1983.26
Powerful forces of revolution and counterrevolution descended on Central
America in the 1980s. Right-wing militaries in El Salvador and Guatemala
waged counterinsurgency campaigns across rural zones that targeted leftist
guerrillas, but primarily affected unarmed civilians. Terrible massacres occurred.
External powers, the United States first and foremost, but also Argentina,
Israel, and Cuba made the wars worse. Thanks to US security assistance, the
Salvadoran military grew to an extraordinary size for a small country but, even
then, it could only fight the country’s tenacious guerrillas to a standstill. Dec-
ades of fighting in El Salvador and Guatemala claimed hundreds of thousands
of lives, displaced communities, and traumatized local societies before peace
deals were brokered in 1992 and 1996, respectively. The degree to which out-
side forces, domestic reactions, and preexisting social structures contributed to
the bloodshed in Cold War Latin America is an unsettled subject.
Military involvement in politics during the Cold War varied from country
to country. Anti-communist dictators Rafael Trujillo and Alfredo Stroessner
seized power in the Dominican Republic (1930) and Paraguay (1954), where
they established personalist dictatorships that lasted over 30 years. Trujillo and
Stroessner both had army backgrounds, but they did not have to consult the
army, navy, or air force before making important decisions. They secured mili-
tary support by promoting loyalists or allowing officers to profit from graft.
By contrast, South American juntas (governing assemblies) were made up of
representatives from each branch of the armed forces. Juntas shared governing
responsibilities and disagreed about policy. Before the 1960s, juntas usually
intervened to remove a politician or establish a provisional government before
heading back into the barracks. That changed during the second half of the
twentieth century. Beginning in 1964, juntas overthrew elected governments
and remained in power for decades. “Bureaucratic authoritarian” was the term
scholars used to describe these regimes because they represented institutions
and usually lacked a dominant personality. Juntas justified their takeovers as
a response to economic turmoil, terrorism, and irresponsible politicians. They
pledged to depoliticize, stabilize, and reorganize the state. People of all social
classes supported them. Majorities passively accepted or enthusiastically wel-
comed coups in Uruguay (1973), Chile (1973), and Argentina (1976), but they
did not expect the ensuing repression or interminable military rule.
Military governments in South America:

Brazil 1964–1985
Argentina 1966–1973, 1976–1983
Peru 1968–1980
Bolivia 1971–1978
 Introduction 23

Ecuador 1972–1979
Uruguay 1973–1985
Chile 1973–1990

Drug smuggling to Europe and the United States added to Latin America’s
security woes. By the 1980s, governments in Lima and Bogotá were battling
insurgencies that had taken to taxing the production of coca leaves, the raw
material used to refine cocaine. Colombia’s Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
Colombia (FARC) expanded their operations with the increased revenue. In
Peru, a group called the Shining Path attacked peasants who refused to support
their revolution. These low-intensity conflicts militarized rural territories and
caused mass migration out of the war zones.
Despite Latin America’s deadly Cold War experience, the only occasion
when two American armies fought a series of conventional battles was Para-
guay’s defeat of Bolivia in the Chaco War (1932–1935). By contrast, the long-
standing border dispute between Peru and Ecuador produced exchanges of fire
in 1941, 1981, and 1995, but few fatalities. Similarly, the conflict between
Chile and Argentina over islands in Tierra del Fuego nearly turned violent in
1978, but the two neighbors managed to sign a peace treaty in 1984. Peru and
Ecuador did the same in 1998. Interstate wars did not ravage Latin America as
they did Europe and Asia; the fighting remained internal.
Latin America’s militaries have not fought overseas with several exceptions.
During World War II, Mexico sent a fighter squadron to help liberate the
Philippines from Japanese occupation (three Mexican pilots were lost). Brazil’s
navy participated in the Battle of the Atlantic and the Brazilian Expeditionary
Force (25,700 men), which included army and air force units, fought in Italy
for eight months between 1944 and 1945. In total, 948 Brazilian soldiers were
killed across the three services. The commitment of Brazilian forces to the
allied cause had important ramifications for the postwar US–Brazilian alliance,
which will be more fully covered in Chapter 4.
Two hundred thousand Cubans participated in the Angolan Civil War
(1975–1990). This is a truly astounding figure for a country that had ten million
people at the time of the conflict. Chapter 3 examines just how unique Cuba’s
armed forces were during the second half of the twentieth century. Finally,
Argentina’s loss to Britain in the Falklands War (1982) was one instance when
a Latin American military engaged a powerful military from outside of the
Americas.
Arms are symbols of state power. Kalashnikov-wielding soldiers march
through Havana’s Revolution Square during political rallies alongside columns
of Soviet tanks. In Chile, people come to Santiago’s O’Higgins Park on Sep-
tember 19 for a patriotic celebration. They fly kites, grill meats, and watch the
spectacle of air force flyovers while impeccably dressed soldiers goosestep past
the president and cabinet. The long-standing tradition is televised.
24 Introduction

Modernization and nationalism have pushed Latin America towards

greater autonomy in arms production. South American countries lost ready
access to European weapons suppliers during World War I (1914–1918),
including some basic munitions. The moment exposed the pitfalls of exces-
sive dependency on outside powers. The regionwide desire for industrializa-
tion and economic self-sufficiency affected arms production. After World
War II, Argentina’s Juan Domingo Perón, an army colonel before his presi-
dency, actively promoted defense industries to develop the aerospace and
automobile sectors.
Latin American countries have generally resented outside attempts to
restrict their access to defense technology. For example, the US State Depart-
ment did not authorize the sale of supersonic fighter jets to any country in
South America until Peru defied Washington in 1967. Lima ordered French
Mirage jets and then purchased battle tanks from the Soviet Union. It goes
without saying that US–Peru relations were rocky in the late 1960s. South
American military governments denounced the application of Western arms
embargoes in the mid-1970s. They were taken as insulting encroachments on
national sovereignty.
The size and sophistication of Latin America’s defense industries varies
widely. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile manufacture aircraft, armored vehicles,
and naval hardware, often with foreign partners. Brazil and Argentina have
each designed, built, and exported turboprop counterinsurgency aircraft.
Argentina’s main battle tank is locally produced. Peru and Mexico have
modest defense industries devoted to the manufacture of light arms, ammuni-
tion, and navy patrol boats. Another group of countries including Honduras,
Bolivia, and Uruguay do not have significant defense industries.
Military equipment is revealing of any country’s domestic economy and
foreign relations. Which arms are manufactured locally, which are imported
from abroad, and where do they come from? Contemporary Latin America
procures weaponry from diverse suppliers – the United States, Western
Europe, Russia, China, and Israel. In the 1950s, almost all weaponry came
from the United States. Today, countries that do not import arms from either
the United States or Western Europe are noteworthy exceptions. Venezuela,
for instance, turned to Russia and China for its most sophisticated materiel
(helicopters, jets, radar systems) when a US arms embargo went into effect in
2006. The armed forces of Cuba and Nicaragua continue to rely on
a significant quantity of materiel made in the former Soviet Union.
The Cold War still haunts Latin America. Thousands of retired Latin
American officers were put on trial for crimes against humanity at the begin-
ning of the twenty first century. That process has stirred resentment among
old soldiers who are often unrepentant and firm in the belief that their insti-
tutions prevented left-wing takeovers and murderous Bolshevik justice.
Elected governments, they say, have undone needed amnesties and failed to
 Introduction 25

acknowledge the shared responsibility for what happened during the Cold
War. Issues of truth, accountability, and reconciliation are ongoing, unre-
solved matters that will continue to affect civil–military relations, although it
is important to observe that civilian supremacy is stronger than it has ever
been in Latin America.
Armed forces play an ongoing role combatting drug smuggling. The
Mexican navy intercepts large drug shipments heading to North America and
Mexican President Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) directly challenged the coun-
try’s powerful drug cartels. He deployed the federal army to occupy several
border towns, having been unable to rely on the local police. Although spared
the worst of Latin America’s Cold War violence, the fight against drug cartels
has caused well over 100,000 deaths from 2006 to the present, many of them
grotesque, and revealed the weakness of Mexico’s political system. Before the
start of the drug wars, Mexico’s army enjoyed strong public approval. Since
then, the difficult internal mission has exposed corruption in the Mexican mili-
tary and negatively impacted its reputation.
The Colombian government, by contrast, has gained the upper hand in
its long-standing conflict with the country’s various insurgencies. In Cuba,
the military fulfills diverse roles. After the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Fidel Castro deployed the country’s officers to assume control of basic
industries across the island, ensuring the fair distribution of goods.
A diverse group of Latin American countries that includes Peru, El Salva-
dor, and Uruguay contribute sizeable numbers of United Nations peace-
keepers to world missions. Argentina has been one of the world’s most
consistent peacekeepers since it emerged from dictatorship in 1983 and
Brazil led the military component of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti
from 2004 to 2017.
Many of the trends and processes identified in this introduction have ana-
logues in other developing countries. Postcolonial Africa, for instance, faced
many of the problems Latin America did after 1820. Not only that, militaries
in Africa and the Middle East have frequently claimed a mandate to integrate
ethnic groups and nation-build. Egypt’s Free Officers Movement, led by
Gamal Nasser, is one such example. Nigeria’s military juntas (1966–1979 and
1983–1998) similarly promised to pursue an agenda of apolitical nationalism.
In India, one of the army’s official missions is promoting national unity in
a country with 23 recognized languages.
Militaries are remarkably similar around the globe. The training officers
receive at academies and staff colleges is often standard. Professional soldiers
observe each other carefully. Alliances and ideologies link armed forces
through joint training and war games. The officers of arms-exporting states
and arms-importing countries develop close relationships. Military service tends
to be a family phenomenon. It is common for officer candidates to have active
duty fathers or uncles. Military behavior as it relates to human rights is now
26 Introduction

a permanent subject of worldwide discussion. The globalized nature of mili-

taries will be more fully considered in Chapter 6.
Antonio José de Sucre, a Venezuelan creole, spent his entire adult life bat-
tling royal armies in South America. He delivered the final blow to Spanish
power in Peru at the Battle of Ayacucho (1824), but his status as a hero of
independence did not exempt his generation from irreconcilable political divi-
sions. Sucre was ousted from power in Bolivia and assassinated traveling to
Ecuador in 1830.
What happened in Latin America following independence is a pattern
familiar to students of history. The collapse of the Spanish Empire left
behind weak states unable to impose order. Local populations looked to
provincial warrior chiefs for protection, not to national states and their con-
stitutions. Hispanic military traditions, transferred to Latin America during
the colonial period, had an important legacy. Military fueros (exemptions
and privileges) combined with a society that acknowledged the authority of
soldiers in times of crisis ensured that soldiers would play an important role
in politics.
Nineteenth-century interstate wars in Central and South America trans-
formed borders and left behind a pantheon of national heroes as well as bitter
memories of humiliating occupation and territorial loss. Warfare, as we have
seen, created opportunities for poor and non-white people. Latin America’s
revolutionary tradition, embodied in figures such as Augusto César Sandino
and Che Guevara, continues to be relevant. The region still celebrates guerrilla
fighters who resist outside influence and defy the central state.
The professionalism and effectiveness of armies, navies, and air forces varies
from country to country. Modernization did not proceed evenly or completely
displace older Hispanic traditions. In the twentieth century, South American
officers could still feel reverence for warriors such as El Cid or Hernando
Cortés. Three Chilean Presidents – Bernardo O’Higgins, Ramon Freire, and
Augusto Pinochet – each received the title Captain General of the Republic,
harkening back to the country’s colonial experience as a frontier region dom-
inated by military officers. The fact that South American juntas described
themselves as crusading to stop godless communism from subverting their
countries’ Christian heritage is revealing. Some Latin American officers felt
a kinship for Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in Spain
(1939–1975).
This introduction has laid out the topic of militaries and warfare as
a lens from which to view Latin American history, its people, and politics.
Some armies have been influenced by outside forces far more than others.
Some have been highly politicized while others appear firmly subordinate
to civilian leadership. Latin America’s militaries, like the countries them-
selves, have vastly different histories, levels of development, and security
concerns.
 Introduction 27

Notes
1 James F. Powers, A society organized for war: the Iberian municipal militias in the Central
Middle Ages, 1000–1284 (University of California Press, 1988).
2 See Richard A. Fletcher, The quest for El Cid (Oxford University Press, 1989).
3 See Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The conquest of New Spain (Penguin, 1963), 302–6.
Eyewitness Bernal Díaz claims that the Spanish lost 870 men in total. His estimate
includes losses from the Battle of Otumba, which occurred on a plain outside of
the Aztec capital.
4 Ida Altman, The war for Mexico’s west: Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia,
1524–1550 (University of New Mexico, 2010).
5 Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570
(Cambridge University Press, 2003).
6 See John F. Guilmartin Jr., “The cutting edge: an analysis of the Spanish invasion
and overthrow of the Inca empire, 1532–1539, in Kenneth J. Andrien and Rolena
Adorno, eds., Transatlantic encounters: Europeans and Andeans in the sixteenth century
(University of California Press, 1991), 40–69.
7 José Bravo Ugarte, Historias de México, vol. 1 (Jus, 1957), 115–6.
8 See Jaime Rodríguez, The independence of Spanish America (Cambridge University
Press, 1998).
9 Peter Blanchard, Under the flags of freedom: slave soldiers and the wars of independence in
Spanish South America (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008).
10 John Charles Chasteen, Heroes on horseback: a life and times of the last gaucho caudillos
(UNM Press, 1995).
11 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Facundo: civilization and barbarism (University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2003).
12 Ricardo D. Salvatore, Wandering paysanos: state order and subaltern experience in Buenos
Aires during the Rosas era (Duke University Press, 2003).
13 Ralph Lee Woodward Jr., Rafael Carrera and the emergence of the Republic of Guate-
mala, 1821–1871 (University of Georgia Press, 2012).
14 See Jerry W. Cooney, “Economy and manpower: Paraguay at war, 1864–1869,” in
Hendrik Kraay and Thomas Whigham, eds., I die with my country: perspectives on the
Paraguayan War, 1864–1870 (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 31–43.
15 Brazil returned war trophies to Paraguay in 1975, but not all. Paraguay still wants
the enormous “El Cristiano” canon, forged in Paraguay and captured by Brazilian
forces in 1868. Similarly, the Chilean government returned approximately 4,000
rare and precious books to Peru in 2007, all of which had been seized during the
Chilean army’s nineteenth-century occupation of Lima.
16 See Camilla Townsend, Malintzin’s choices: an Indian woman in the conquest of Mexico
(UNM Press, 2006).
17 Peter Blanchard, Under the flags of freedom: slave soldiers and the wars of independence in
Spanish South America (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 141.
18 William F. Sater, Andean tragedy: fighting the war of the Pacific, 1879–1884 (Univer-
sity of Nebraska Press, 2007), 75–83.
19 Indalicio Téllez, Recuerdos militares (Instituto Geográfico Militar, 1949), 162. See
also Jorge Rivera Boonen, Participación del Ejército en el desarrollo y progreso del país,
(Imprenta y Encuademación, 1917).
20 Alain Rouquié, The military and the state in Latin America (University of California
Press, 1987), 97.
21 Eric Roorda, The dictator next door: the good neighbor policy and the Trujillo regime in
the Dominican Republic, 1930–1945 (Duke University Press, 1998).
22 Augusto César Sandino, Pensamiento político, vol. 134 (Fundacion Biblioteca Aya-
cuch, 1988), 68, 36.
28 Introduction

23 John J. Johnson, The military and society in Latin America (Stanford University Press,
1964); Samuel P. Huntington, The soldier and the state: the theory and politics of civil-
military relations (Harvard University Press, 1957).
24 https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/castro-revolution.asp.
25 Paul H. Lewis, Guerrillas and generals: the “Dirty War” in Argentina (Greenwood
Publishing Group, 2002).
26 Patrice J. McSherry, Predatory states: operation condor and covert war in Latin America
(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012).
2
MEXICO

Mexico’s geography is one of contrasts. Two parallel mountain ranges run

from north to south creating an array of hills, peaks, and plateaus that divide
the country’s inhabitants into various ecological zones that include tropical
lowlands, grassy savannahs, and arid deserts. Many of the largest cities –
Mexico City, Toluca, Puebla – are located above 2,000 meters while the
Yucatán Peninsula is flat and humid. Such a striking mix of landscapes helps
explain the strength of regional identities, local interests, and independent mili-
tary actors. Forests and mountains have long offered refuge to outlaws and
renegade soldiers.
During the first decades after independence from Spain, the absence of an
extensive central valley or long, navigable river hindered internal communica-
tion and frustrated the creation of a strong, unified government. Armies could
not impose order on far-flung territories. From 1821 to 1867, Mexico desper-
ately needed a national army to keep invaders out, distant territories in, and
regional revolts down, but the country was fragmented and weak. Not only
that, politicized soldiers assumed the right to rule or lead uprisings. With few
exceptions, nineteenth-century presidents had military backgrounds. Ordinary
Mexicans, for their part, feared and hated the army. Forced conscription affected
vulnerable village men and officers were known for their venal behavior and
political ambitions, not selfless patriotic service.
Major changes occurred after the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Mexico’s
ruling party subordinated the armed forces to civilian leadership and liberated
Mexico from the scourge of provincial militarism. Only after the 1940s did
a professional military emerge that enjoyed the respect and trust of Mexico’s
population. Since then, the armed forces have been principally involved with
missions of internal security. Notably, the military has confronted guerrilla fighters
30 Mexico

and, since 2006, battled tenacious drug cartels that mock the state’s monopoly on
violence. These developments put into relief contemporary achievements and
age-old challenges.

Mesoamerican Warriors
Indigenous people living in ancient Mesoamerica (central Mexico, Belize,
Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica)
were different from native people in North America and the Caribbean.
Mesoamerican economies supported dense concentrations of human life.
Among the best-known pre-Columbian civilizations are the Maya city-states
and the Aztec Triple Alliance, forged in 1428 by three cities (Texcoco, Tlaco-
pan, Tenochtitlán) located in the Valley of Mexico, a high-altitude plateau
surrounded by snow-capped volcanos. The imperial capital – Tenochtitlán –
was an island city of some 200,000 inhabitants, making it larger than London
or Venice in 1500.
In this highly militarized society, all adolescent boys attended academies –
telpochcalli – where they learned songs, prayers, history, and how to use
weapons such as the sling and macuahuitl, a razor-sharp club studded with
obsidian glass. Most boys returned home to practice agriculture, but any
male could be mobilized to fight. The merchant class – pochteca – gathered
information about external enemies and supplied marching armies with the
tortillas, beans, salt, and chili they needed for offensive campaigns. High-
ranking Aztec warriors wore ichcahuipilli (heavily quilted cotton armor) for
protection against arrows and stabbing weapons, carried shields, and spears
or macuahuitl. Priests painted warriors’ faces and performed ritual sacrifices
before and after battles.1 Commoners could reach the nobility only through
battlefield distinction and men who wanted to join the most prestigious
military orders – the Eagle Knights and Jaguar Knights – had to prove
themselves. Specifically, they had to bring captives back to the capital. Aztec
society similarly conceived of childbirth as a heroic battle to be won. In the
afterlife, women who died giving birth went to the same place as men who
had fought and died bravely in battle.2
The Aztec Empire thrived on warfare and its material benefits. Subject
peoples paid tribute in the form of food, labor, jewelry, textiles, and human
sacrifices as the imperial state conquered much of central Mexico from 1428 to
1519. Tenochtitlán appeared poised to extend its reach into new territories.
Evidence suggests that Tlaxcala (an independent state in the Valley of Mexico)
went unconquered precisely because the Aztec Triple Alliance wanted
a proving grounds for its young, untested soldiers. The greatest test of all came
in 1519. That year, a strange group of people arrived on the coast determined
to conquer the land and convert its people to a new faith.
 Mexico 31

First Contact
In 1511, 18 shipwrecked Spaniards (16 men, two women) boarded a lifeboat
hoping to reach Cuba or Jamaica. Instead, they drifted to the then-unknown
Yucatán Peninsula where Maya warriors captured the group. Some of the men
were sacrificed to indigenous gods, others perished from disease, while both
women died from overwork. Two Europeans survived, however, Gerónimo
de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero. The former would eventually serve as
a translator for Hernando Cortés, but Guerrero took a Maya wife and sired
three mestizo children with her. Not only that, his loyalties changed. Guerrero
adopted Maya dress and warned his non-Christian relatives about the danger
Castilians posed.3
When Francisco Hernández de Córdoba reached the Yucatec coast in 1517,
Maya soldiers attacked the explorer relentlessly. His party of 110 was told by
hand signs to leave and refused permission to fill their water casks. The Spanish
had no choice but to do as they were told by the men carrying wooden clubs
studded with obsidian glass. On the morning of March 25, Spaniards faced
a Maya army beating drums and blowing into conch shells along the Champo-
tón River. Their only salvation was to scramble aboard rowboats and head to
the safety of their ships moored in deeper waters. Bernal Díaz described the
dramatic retreat:

[Indians] assailed us with such a shower of arrows and darts and

stones from their slings that more than eighty of our soldiers were
wounded. Then they attacked us hand to hand, some with lances and
some shooting arrows, and others with their two-handed cutting
swords. Though we fought back with swords and muskets and cross-
bows they brought us to a bad pass. At last, feeling the effects of our
sword-play, they drew back a little, but not far, and only to shoot at
us from greater safety. During the fighting, the Indians shouted to
one another “Al calachuni, calachuni,” which means in their language,
“Attack and kill the captain.” Our captain was hit by ten arrows, and
I by three.4

This is not the archetypical image of Spanish conquistadors subduing

natives with overwhelming force. The group’s captain, Hernández de Cór-
doba, died of his wounds shortly after returning to Cuba and the two
Spaniards captured at Champotón were almost certainly sacrificed to Maya
gods. Piercing weapons such as crossbows and steel swords gave Spaniards
military advantages as did their armor and tactical formations, but these
advantages were not enough to defeat large numbers of coordinated Indian
warriors in close combat. To prevail over organized armies, the Spanish
needed cavalry, allies, and smallpox.
32 Mexico

Conquest of the Aztec Empire

Spaniards came back to Mexico in 1519, but this expedition was different.
First, it was led by an exceptionally shrewd commander named Hernando
Cortés. Second, it was relatively large (over 500 men) and included both
horses and cannon. Third, Cortés forged key alliances with native chieftains.
Fourth, Cortés maximized the initial benefit of being unknown to peoples
beyond the Maya cultural zone. Through translators, Cortés explained that
Spaniards served a powerful lord from across the sea and worshipped the one
true God and venerated his holy mother, Mary. Europeans cut a striking
picture as they trekked into the Mexican highlands. Natives had neither seen
bearded men on mounts, nor heard the noise Spanish armies produced. One
indigenous description, recorded in the mid-sixteenth century, helps us under-
stand the encounter: “Their spears glinted in the sun, and their pennons flut-
tered like bats. They made a loud clamor as they marched, for their coats of
mail and their weapons clashed and rattled.”5 Likewise, the thunder of cannon
produced fear and awe among people unfamiliar with gunpowder.
Despite these military advantages, Spaniards were still outnumbered and vul-
nerable until a pivotal moment in September 1519. After battling warriors from
a powerful confederation of peoples called Tlaxcala, its chiefs made the historic
decision to align with the Spanish in return for privileges and benefits. Together,
they would march towards the Aztec capital. Henceforth, Cortés had porters to
carry equipment, women to grind corn, and, crucially, tens of thousands of indi-
genous warriors armed with the best weapons of Mesoamerica. Montezuma,
emperor of the Aztec state, did not act decisively. He instructed Cortés to with-
draw from his empire and may have ordered allies to kill or capture the Spanish
at Cholula (Mexico’s second largest city). In a stunning act, Cortés massacred
the Cholulan nobility and permitted his native allies to plunder the city in what
may have been a mixture of self-defense, treachery, and psychological warfare.
The destruction of Cholula clearly affected Montezuma’s thinking. In a fateful
move, Montezuma welcomed Cortés into Tenochtitlán on November 8, 1519
and decided to give both food and lodgings to the strange visitors.
Spanish intentions became clear before long. They wanted gold. Cortés
insulted Aztec gods and seized Montezuma, holding him captive until the Aztec
nobility launched their own offensive. On June 30, 1520, Aztec warriors
expelled the Spanish from Tenochtitlán using spears and macuahuitl and inflicted
heavy losses on their humbled, retreating adversaries. In that battle alone, Aztec
forces killed approximately 500 Spanish and 2,000 indigenous allies.6 The
victory seemed decisive at the time, but the invaders had left behind a biological
time bomb: smallpox. Meanwhile, the Spanish regrouped in Tlaxcala and forti-
fied their regional alliances before returning with many more horses and some
20,000 indigenous allies. Cortés ordered the construction of sailing ships, some
with mounted canon, and secured control of Lake Texcoco before assaulting
 Mexico 33

Tenochtitlán. The final phase of fighting featured close combat in alleyways and
inside houses. By this point, Aztec warriors had adapted their tactics. They knew
to hit the deck before cannon fire and run zigzag patterns when Spaniards aimed
their long guns, but Aztec resistance was no match for the combined power of
the Tlaxcalan/Castilian army.7 The imperial city fell on August 13, 1521.
The Mayas, a large ethnic group scattered across the Yucatán Peninsula,
Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, dealt severe blows to Spanish
arms until it became clear that resistance was futile. The Spanish simply had
too many native allies. They had great military power and their gods seemed
stronger. Much of the surviving indigenous documentation reflects those
natives who sided with the Spanish conquistadors against other Maya groups.
They did not see themselves collectively as “Maya” but individual communi-
ties with their own lineages, each hoping to position themselves favorably in
the Hispanic-dominated aftermath.8
For the conquered, established political traditions did not vanish. Indians
preserved a sense of community and what scholars call a moral economy. If
the Spanish overtaxed or interfered with local indigenous autonomy, rebellions
occurred. Native peoples lynched abusive magistrates and revolted if taxed
beyond their ability to bear the burden. Thus, indigenous traditions of resist-
ance continued. Moreover, the Mexican state was still battling Maya and
Yaqui Indians during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Apache
Indians in the northern reaches of the empire carried out regular raids on
Hispanic settlements, making life insecure for Spaniards and mestizos, not the
other way around.

Colonial Mexico
The bloody warfare so characteristic of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
gave way to a long Pax Hispanica (Hispanic Peace) during which time indigen-
ous communities did not go to war with each other and a Christianization
process occurred. During the colonial period, whites were on top of the social
hierarchy with Hispanic mestizos in the middle and Indians/Africans on the
bottom. That caste structure stands out as one great legacy of the Spanish
Empire.
Colonial Mexico attracted more Spaniards than any other part of the
empire precisely because there were so many natural resources and exploit-
able native people. The number of indigenous communities also created
deep ethnic stratification. Indians paid tribute to the Crown, Hispanic
people and Hispanized mestizos did not. Legally defined as minors under the
Crown’s protection, the Church discriminated against Indians joining the
priesthood. During the colonial period, all Spanish citizens belonged to
militia units used to put down Indian rebellions and repel pirate attacks. In
34 Mexico

practice, however, only able-bodied men were called up for service and, in
tropical zones, the Crown mobilized mulattoes and Africans who were more
resistant to disease.
British victories during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) forced the Spanish
Crown to reassess its military policy and strengthen an empire-wide system of
militias. Mexico, the most populous part of the Spanish Empire also had the
most militiamen, 34,000 by 1800, and they were variously assigned to defend
the coasts and interior provinces against foreign, presumably English, attack.9
Such a system gave large numbers of creoles and mestizos military training and
elevated the status of men who expected privileges and exemptions (fueros) as
members of a distinctive social caste. This is significant because praetorianism, or
an abusive political role played by the armed forces of a country, defined
Mexico’s nineteenth-century experience. Only one long-serving president –
Benito Juárez – did not have a military background.10

Independence
Father Miguel Hidalgo (1753–1811), a priest and creole from a respected
family in Guanajuato (central Mexico), received a fine education. As a boy
he learned several indigenous languages spoken in the area and as
a university student he studied Latin, rhetoric, and philosophy. During this
formative period, Hidalgo read French-language works from the European
Enlightenment, which questioned colonial hierarchies. Ordinary Mexicans
may not have shared Hidalgo’s intellectual foundation or capable mind, but
they shared his resentment of the social order. After Napoleon’s invasion of
the Iberian Peninsula, Father Hidalgo conspired against Spanish rule with
a group of independence-minded notables.
On September 16, 1810, Hidalgo issued the Grito de Dolores (Cry of
Dolores) from Dolores, Mexico. Speaking to an assembled crowd of Indians
and mestizos, he did not call for an overthrow of the monarchy, but rather
urged them to defend their Roman Catholic faith and reject peninsular privil-
eges. The speech’s rallying cry was understandable to anyone: “Long live Our
Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government, and death to the gachupines
(epithet for Spaniards)!” The exhilarated multitude took out their grievances
against anyone at the top of the social order. Insurgents indiscriminately
attacked creoles and peninsulares. Thousands of angry peasants, mostly mestizos,
joined the rebel army. Hidalgo’s inability to control the marauding mob
terrified elites and alienated Mexico’s middle strata (merchants, artisans, and
tradespeople). Fortunately for conservatives, the large insurgent armies lacked
artillery and, crucially, discipline. Royalists cut them down near Guadalajara
and Hidalgo was captured, defrocked, and executed by colonial authorities in
1811. The cat, however, was out of the bag.
 Mexico 35

Soon after, José María Morelos, a mestizo priest from a humble family, organ-
ized another small guerrilla army. Morelos envisioned an independent, Catholic
Mexico based on popular sovereignty and legal equality for all social classes.
Slavery, judicial torture, caste classifications, and state monopolies were to be
abolished. All people born in Mexico were to be called “americanos.” He
invoked the name of Montezuma in speeches and celebrated Mexico’s indigen-
ous heritage. Morelos did not trust creoles or peninsulares and they reciprocated
the feeling. Legal equality meant whites would have to give up their status.
Morelos was captured, like Hidalgo before him, and executed in 1815, but insur-
gents continued to operate in Mexico’s mountains and jungle coasts. The Spanish
army simply could not destroy dispersed guerrillas in the hills of Puebla or the jungles
of Veracruz. Insurgents were too mobile to be fully destroyed; highways remained
unsafe and royal armies faced ambushes. Vincente Guerrero, a mixed-race native of
Tixtla (near Acapulco), emerged as an important guerrilla chieftain who eventually
forged a compromise with a one-time royalist named Augustín de Iturbide.
Iturbide, born to Spanish parents in Mexico in 1783, began his military career
at age 14. He sided with the Crown after the Grito de Dolores and quickly proved
his bravery and tactical skill. Promoted from captain to colonel in the strategically
vital Bajío region, Iturbide was effective in battle with insurgents, although charges
of cruelty and profiteering dogged his career. With the Spanish position becoming
less tenable, Iturbide switched allegiance and formulated the Plan de Iguala (1821)
with Vincente Guerrero. It had three key provisions: Mexico would be an inde-
pendent monarchy, Roman Catholicism would remain the state religion, and,
finally, there would be no legal distinction between Europeans, Africans, or
Indians. All inhabitants would be equal citizens of the constitutional monarchy.
The final provision was important to Guerrero, an Afro-mestizo, while Roman
Catholic monarchy appealed to conservatives. The plan attracted support from dif-
ferent political factions and the two men created a unified army to defend the
three guarantees. The Mexican Empire was born.

Mexican Empire (1821–1823)

No European monarch could be found to sit on a throne in Mexico City and
so the newly established Congress named Iturbide its constitutional emperor
and granted him a grand inauguration with all the accoutrements of a king.
Minted silver coins with his name and face read Mexici Primus Imperator Consti-
tutionalis (First Constitutional Mexican Emperor), but coins alone were not
enough to secure his position. Iturbide lacked legitimacy.
The Mexican Empire was colossal. It stretched from the sparsely populated
Californias to the valleys and coasts of Costa Rica. Only a very strong central
government with an effective ruler could have maintained order across such
expanses, but Iturbide lived extravagantly and did not focus on the practical
36 Mexico

realities of governance such as how to pay the army. As economic problems

mounted, regional forces attacked the beleaguered monarch and Iturbide
responded by censoring the press and jailing enemies. Such ineffective rule has-
tened the inevitable. A caudillo from Veracruz named Carlos Antonio López de
Santa Anna pronounced a republic and won the support of other regional mili-
tary figures. Unable to hold the capital, Iturbide abdicated in 1823 and the
short-lived Mexican Empire eventually fractured into six separate countries:
Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

Republican Turmoil
A junta of three army officers governed Mexico after the overthrow of the
empire (one bad precedent) while a constitutional convention fought over the
structure of the government. Conservatives wanted a state church and central-
ized government, if not a monarchy, and liberals preferred free trade and
a secular state. The negotiations resulted in a federal system – the United
Mexican States – in which Roman Catholicism would be the country’s only
legal faith. Priests and military officers would keep their privileges and exemp-
tions, reflecting a historical continuity. Mexico’s first elected President, Guada-
lupe Victoria, was an army officer who insisted on maintaining a public force
of 50,000 soldiers even though the state lacked the revenue for such a large
army. He did, however, serve a full term. When presidential elections in 1828
brought a conservative to power, Mexican liberals launched a coup and ele-
vated their own candidate, Vincente Guerrero, to office. The violation of
democratic norms shattered any mutual trust between ideological rivals. Why
play fair if the other side did not? Meanwhile, external threats were brewing.
Spain wanted Mexico back and the former colonial master landed some
3,000 troops on Mexico’s gulf coast in 1829. This effort to reconquer the frac-
tured colony, where monarchical sentiment still existed, might have looked
promising from the viceroy’s perch in Havana, but Antonio López de Santa
Anna attacked Spanish troops at Tampico and then laid siege to their position.
Santa Anna had no great military genius but he was a man of action, and the
Spanish – weak from yellow fever – fled. The press dubbed Santa Anna Salvador
del País (Savior of the Country) and Vencedor de Tampico (Victor of Tampico).
With such popularity and political authority, Santa Anna dominated Mexico’s
political life for three decades; he was president 11 times and frequently changed
views or reappeared after what seemed like a career-ending defeat.11

Disorder in the Age of Santa Anna

From 1833 to 1855, Mexico suffered 36 changes of government. State militias
could be powerful military forces on their own, which made it difficult for any
 Mexico 37

federal government to put down rebellions. In such an unstable climate, those

with capital had no incentive to invest. Political vengeance and accusations of
treason were commonplace. Former Presidents, Vicente Guerrero and Augustín
de Iturbide, for instance, were captured and executed. The democratic norm of
respect for a legitimate opposition did not exist. During this period, Mexico’s
expenditures exceeded revenues and creditor nations demanded repayment.
Most dangerous of all was the fact that Mexicans felt little sense of a national
connection to each other. Separatist movements flourished, and the country’s
weakness invited imperialism.
No fewer than 1,500 pronunciamientos were issued between 1821 and
1876. These signed declarations came from army garrisons as well as town
councils and state legislatures. They listed grievances and made demands
such as the restoration of a previous president or constitution. Pronunciamien-
tos threatened armed rebellion if the government did not comply. In the
states of Texas and the Yucatán, for instance, citizens declared their right to
separate from Mexico. The process was collaborative. Lawyers, priests, and
politicians drafted petitions with the approval of local militias and army
garrisons.12 Such negotiation with central state reinforced the political
importance of military officers, regional politics, and society’s tolerance for
armed rebellion. It goes without saying that uprisings and repeated changes
of government hindered the formation of a strong state. Such disorder also
helped make it possible for immigrants in one of Mexico’s most sparsely
populated territories to break away.
In 1823, Mexico’s government issued Virginia-born entrepreneur Stephen
F. Austin a license to settle 300 families in Texas under the proviso that they
would adopt Roman Catholicism and learn Spanish. Few did, and some held
slaves, which put the newcomers at odds with Mexico’s Constitution, which
forbade slavery. The “Austin Colony” was wildly successful, attracting more
immigrants. By 1835, it contained 30,000 English-speaking settlers while the
Mexican population numbered around 7,500. Native Tejanos, for their part, had
grievances. They disliked being appended to the state of Coahuila, which meant
little federal representation. Rancher José Antonio Navarro, a friend of Austin, did
not care for the government in Mexico City. In 1836, Texas Anglos and native
Tejanos like Navarro signed a declaration of independence. Santa Anna tried to
put down the Texas Revolution, but he was defeated at the Battle of San Jacinto
(1836). Returning to Mexico, Santa Anna declared Texas a renegade province;
the treaty he had signed was under duress and therefore null.

Mexican–American War (1846–1848)

Settling sparsely populated northern territories would have been a tremendous
challenge on its own, but Mexico had the misfortune of bordering a powerful
38 Mexico

neighbor with a large population, stable government, and effective military.

Not only that, the issue of territorial expansion dominated US politics in the
1840s, especially the divisive issue of whether western states would permit slav-
ery. The sectional issue mattered precisely because the southeastern slavehold-
ing states wanted to preserve a balance in the US Senate where every state
received exactly two senators regardless of total population. Mississippi Senator
Albert Brown said,

I want Cuba, and I know that sooner or later we must have it … I want
Tamaulipas, Potosí, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want
them for all the same reason – for the planting or spreading of slavery.13

Other forces drove US expansionist aims including Manifest Destiny or the

idea that the American people were destined to settle the western half of
North America.
President James K. Polk (1845–1849), an ardent expansionist, was happy to
oversee the annexation of Texas on December 29, 1845 as well as Texas’
claim that the Rio Grande River was its natural border with Mexico. Eager
for confrontation, President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor into the dis-
puted territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande River knowing
full well that Mexican forces had orders to repel such action. When fighting
broke out, Polk said to Congress, “Mexico has passed the boundary of the
United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the
American soil.” The United States had provoked a war and Mexico, for its
part, was in a poor position to face a more organized adversary. In 1846 alone,
the country’s presidency changed hands four times. Meanwhile, the United
States had superior artillery, well-trained officers, and gold to pay for
provisions.
La Invasión Estadounidense de México – The American Invasion of Mexico –
as Mexicans call it, began in the north. US troops commanded by Generals
Kearny, Doniphan, and Taylor captured San Diego, Chihuahua City, and
Monterrey, respectively. By the end of February 1847, Mexico’s northern
settlements were occupied and isolated from the densely populated south.
Since Mexico was not a unified nation, US commanders dealt with state and
local governments during the first phase of the war and the lack of cleavages
to the center proved highly advantageous since locals in Monterrey and Chi-
huahua City did not necessarily like their federal government. In conventional
battles, US forces repeatedly prevailed, but occupying a country is far more
complicated than winning battles. During Mexico’s war for independence,
mounted rebels routinely ambushed royalists before disappearing into nearby
hills. Even if Mexico’s armies could be beaten, hit-and-run tactics could make
life exceedingly difficult for US forces, to say nothing of whether popular
 Mexico 39

opinion turned on the US occupation. In short, Mexico’s geography and well-

established guerrilla tradition could reverse US gains.
Local populations generally held US army regulars in high esteem when
Zachary Taylor took Matamoros and Monterrey because they were disciplined
and did not commit crimes. As the occupation continued, however, the
dynamic changed. Arriving volunteers were less disciplined, prone to drinking,
and frequently held racist, anti-Catholic attitudes. Furthermore, Taylor did not
exert adequate control over soldiers whose unpunished crimes included rape,
murder, and theft. By the summer of 1847, Mexican civilians willingly
shielded the insurgents who attacked American garrisons and supply lines. To
control the escalating violence, American commanders enforced strict meas-
ures. They imposed curfews and decreed that Mexicans who supported guer-
rilla chiefs would forfeit personal possessions.14 Occupying Mexico’s northern
cities did not end the conflict because Santa Anna refused to negotiate; he still
possessed an army deep in the densely populated center-south. A decisive out-
come therefore meant capturing Mexico’s capital. That task was given to Gen-
eral Winfield Scott, a brilliant commander, who landed 12,000 troops on
Mexico’s gulf coast and laid siege to Veracruz in March 1847.
Scott pounded the city’s walls with 6,000 shells and did not permit its terri-
fied civilian population to escape (1,000 or more Mexicans perished). Once in
charge, General Scott proceeded with caution. He had studied the Peninsular
War (1807–1814) and resolved to avoid the same mistakes as French occupiers
in Spain. “Old Fuss and Feathers” enforced a strict discipline on his troops.
Theft was punished by 30 lashes. The US army, he declared, was a friend of
the Mexican people. Scott made sure his army paid merchants full price for all
goods and he employed Mexican sanitation workers to clean up debris, which
provided an injection of hard currency into the local economy. When an army
commission found two soldiers guilty of stealing from a local store, both men
were imprisoned in the town’s dungeon. Such actions convinced the popula-
tion that it was better to cooperate than resist.15 From his study of French
campaigns in Haiti, he knew that yellow fever would strike his men during
the approaching rainy season. He therefore evacuated Veracruz to higher,
healthier ground – where disease-ridden mosquitos did not breed – and fol-
lowed the same path to Mexico City as Hernando Cortés. In fact, Scott relied
heavily on William C. Prescott’s The Conquest of Mexico (1845) for descriptions
of the land.16
Seizing Mexico City with so few frontline troops meant General Scott had
to ensure populations would view his troops in a neutral or favorable light,
especially since his supply lines to the coast were vulnerable to raids from light
cavalry. In one instance, Mexican guerrillas lassoed two US soldiers and
dragged their bodies to a bloody pulp. Fortunately for Scott, he could exploit
Mexico’s lack of national unity. He paid bandits, deserters, and one of Santa
Anna’s servants for their cooperation and military intelligence. The city of
40 Mexico

Puebla refused to host Santa Anna’s retreating army due to its differences with
the controversial commander in chief. In fact, Puebla’s leaders handed the city
over to Scott and willingly sold provisions to the US army. Crucially, no
major city population revolted during the US occupation. Scott ordered his
forces to respect priests and church property. He knew how explosive that
issue could be in a Catholic country.17
The fighting outside of Mexico City was fierce. On September 7, US
cavalry charged Santa Anna’s positions at Molina del Rey resulting in nearly
800 killed or wounded Americans. That US victory was followed by the
Battle of Chapultepec Castle, defended by 1,000 Mexican troops and teenage
cadets. This was the last engagement of the war and the last fatalities were the
Niños Héroes (Heroic Cadets). According to legend, cadet Juan Escutia wrapped
himself in the Mexican flag and threw himself from Chapultepec Castle rather
than surrender his nation’s standard to US soldiers. Mexico’s armies had
resisted the invasion, albeit unsuccessfully.
During the fall and winter of 1847–1848, the Stars and Stripes flew over
Mexico City. US forces did not develop a reputation for abuse, but local
populations would not forget the foreign soldiers who had occupied their
plazas and sung “Yankee Doodle.” In Chihuahua City, US troops bathed in
public fountains and cut down shade trees for firewood.18 According to the
provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) Mexico ceded its north-
ern territories (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado) to the United
States for 15 million dollars (ca. 450 million today). The humiliating agreement
left a bitter legacy of mistrust towards the United States and a sensitivity to
future encroachments on Mexican sovereignty. Unfortunately for Mexico, this
would not be the last time foreign soldiers marched on the nation’s soil.

War and Society

Mexico’s nineteenth-century wars resulted in large numbers of men being
hastily pressed into military service. Village chiefs usually delivered men con-
sidered dishonorable or undesirable (criminals, drunks, vagrants) and most
shared the habits and comportment of country folk. They observed Catholic
rituals and trusted neither their government nor their commanding officers.
Music filled the barracks where privates played flutes and sung songs. In fact,
every Mexican army had a brass band. Like most soldiers, Mexican troops
developed strong bonds of loyalty with their comrades; they enjoyed gambling
and alcohol during periods of relaxation, but Mexican armies were different
from their American counterparts in two important respects: soldaderas and
priests. The former were wives, lovers, and companions who performed
a wide variety of roles for their menfolk (nurse, porter, herbalist, forager,
seamstress). The latter were not chaplains but rather ordained clergy who
 Mexico 41

blessed the swords and bullets of infantrymen, offered prayers before battles,
and administered last rites.19
Mexican armies revered the Virgin of Guadalupe and Roman Church, but
officers viewed Indians as socially inferior. Conscripts who spoke indigenous
languages did not always like their mestizo countrymen (Spanish-speaking,
Hispanic). The gulf between officers and conscripts, however, did not mean
soldiers refused to fight. The rank and file repeatedly walked into storms of steel,
pushed forward by the clergy, brass bands, and nearby womenfolk. On this point,
the bravery of Mexican soldiers impressed US observers. Ulysses S. Grant,20 for
instance, criticized the Mexican army’s organization and leadership, but he noted
that Mexican soldiers stood their ground in the face of superior force. Others
noted their endurance, discipline, and ability to march great distances with little
food in their stomachs.21
Disparities of wealth and education marked the struggle. Mexican soldiers
were hungry, ill-equipped, and illiterate. Americans soldiers, by contrast, had
enough to eat and could read and write, meaning among other things that
they could leave records of their service. Obtaining food for their troops
preoccupied Mexican officers who knew that failure to feed and pay soldiers
made desertion more likely. Furthermore, Mexican commanders had to make
decisions based on the existence of food. American Lieutenant Theodore
Laidley described Mexican soldiers as “half fed, half clothed, half paid.”22 Peter
Guardino’s interpretation of the conflict emphasizes this material aspect. That
is, Mexico’s poverty and lack of resources mattered more for the outcome
than the country’s internal divisions or military leadership.23
Generally, military mobilizations revealed how little Mexico’s social structure
had changed since independence. Indian villages maintained their traditions and
separation from Spanish-speaking towns. White creoles retained their predomin-
ant position in society and the great majority of the population was mestizo and
lived in rural hamlets.

The French Intervention (1861–1867)

The departure of US soldiers from Mexico did not lead to a new political con-
sensus. A liberal government, led by a Zapotec Indian named Benito Juárez,
passed laws seizing unused church land and abolishing fueros. Conservatives
denounced such outrages and civil war erupted in 1857. The bitter fighting
further bankrupted the state and foreign creditors demanded repayment of
their outstanding debts. Three European powers (Spanish, British, French)
occupied various Mexican ports in December 1861, but the French military
went further. France’s emperor, Napoleon III, saw the potential for a sphere
of influence in the Americas and opportunity for a political foothold
since Mexican conservatives still dreamed of monarchy. Mexican forces defeated
42 Mexico

the better-equipped French army at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 (today
celebrated as Cinco de Mayo in the United States), but the victory proved
short-lived. French reinforcements arrived on the coast and some Mexicans
welcomed the invaders. In 1863, French forces bombarded Veracruz (January),
laid siege to Puebla (March), and captured Mexico City (June). Meanwhile,
Mexican conservatives convinced the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, an
Austrian prince, to lead the Second Mexican Empire. France, under Napoleon
III, would support his reign.
From the moment they landed at Veracruz, Maximilian and his wife Char-
lotte were embattled. Some conservatives disliked the new emperor for being
insufficiently conservative. Benito Juárez maintained an army of resistance and
once the US Civil War ended, Washington supplied him with weapons and
political support. By 1865, his liberal forces were winning battles and retaking
territory. Meanwhile, the French position had become unsustainable. Napo-
leon needed troops home to counter the growing power of Prussia. By the
end of 1866, French troops had almost completely withdrawn and Maximilian,
who refused to evacuate against his better judgment, made a last stand with
what remained of his imperial guard. After five years of fighting and some
50,000 dead, the Mexican army captured, court-martialed, and executed
Maximilian by firing squad on June 19, 1867.
From 1867 to 1910, Mexico enjoyed respite from the bloodshed, invasions,
and ideological battles. Conservatives lacked credibility for having invited the
French occupation and the experience of war and foreign invasion lingered in
the minds of many Mexican elites. After the expulsion of the French army,
Benito Juárez rode into Mexico City triumphant. He wisely focused his efforts
on restoring some semblance of order to the economy; notably he did not
pursue harsh policies towards conservatives. Prison sentences were reduced.
The church, the hacendados (owners of large estates), and the military remained
powerful. In fact, liberals called them the “baleful trinity.” The church con-
tinued to assert its spiritual hold on the nation while the army asserted its
political voice. After all, soldiers could claim to have defeated the French
army.
Benito Juárez wanted to reduce the size of the army and purge the high
command of coup-prone officers, but any mass dismissal invited danger.
Unemployed troops might become bandits; an aggrieved military chief could
easily align with a rival political faction and make mischief. Juárez worked
within the realm of the possible. He reduced the size of the military and kept
newly retired officers on semi-active service with less pay. They had to register
with local garrisons and remain under state supervision.24 Liberal governments
needed regional militias to deal with bandits and guard against US aggression,
but arming militias could backfire if regions rebelled against the central state.
Juárez created the Guardia Rural, generally referred to as the Rurales (rural
police force), and tasked with the job of patrolling highways and hunting
 Mexico 43

down fugitives. The force never exceeded 4,000, but it loomed large in the
foreign and domestic imagination as a rugged force of mounted lawmen much
like the Texas Rangers.

The Mexican Army during the Age of Díaz, 1876–1910

After the death of Benito Juárez in 1872, a liberal general from Oaxaca named
Porfirio Díaz seized power in 1876. He was already famous for defeating Pue-
bla’s French-aligned defenders on May 5, 1862 and April 2, 1867 and, like
Santa Anna, his credibility flowed from a major military victory. Unlike Santa
Anna, however, Díaz was stable and pragmatic. He did not shrink from using
force to crush revolts and quickly became Mexico’s indispensable man. At first
he accepted a good deal of independence at the state level before gradually
imposing some of his supporters on faraway places. During the Age of Porfirio
Díaz or Porfiriato, a semblance of order returned to the countryside. He
increased the size of the Rurales and promoted their reputation as a force that
could not be defied. Díaz would have seen the wisdom of maintaining a Rural
Guard as a counterweight to the less trustworthy army, which counted 37,468
regulars in 1876.25
Mexico developed a reputation for stability by 1890. British engineers com-
pleted a rail line connecting Veracruz and Mexico City while US engineers
built northern railways. As transportation costs declined, Mexicans traveled as
they never had before, overcoming some of the country’s naturally isolating
geography. Now, military forces could rapidly deploy to crush regional revolts
and local producers could sell their goods across national markets. Similarly,
booming exports increased state revenues for infrastructure and military mod-
ernization. Foreign and domestic investors prospered.
Porfirio Díaz was the first Mexican ruler who controlled the military by
employing a range of techniques. He rewarded some officers with governor-
ships while others received generous salaries and expense accounts. Suspect
officers got sent overseas or transferred to isolated regions and Díaz had
a knack for anticipating conspiracies. He might grant opportunities for personal
enrichment only to cashier the offending officer on corruption charges. Such
acumen allowed Díaz to destroy provincial militarism.26 Like other reformers
in Latin America, Díaz dreamed of a modern military with one loyalty: the
Mexican flag and its government. Such a force would be professional and
composed of well-trained soldiers willing to march against their own ethnic
group or region if ordered. That dream was far from reality, however.
Conscription (la leva) was supposed to be a lottery, but in practice it
affected only the most vulnerable. The army seized young men from their
village homes – mothers wailing – for duty in faraway garrisons. Many bare-
foot “recruits” were literally chained together, transported to cities, and marched
44 Mexico

into prison-like barracks. Ordinary Mexicans hated and feared the army. They
knew about the harsh conditions of army life, the low pay, and the corruption of
its officers. Rich or middle-class families did not fear the leva, nor did humble fam-
ilies with powerful patrons, because military service was something that happened
to the unprotected. Most Mexicans looked at conscripts as shameful and degraded.
During the Porfiriato, army reformers wanted to change such perceptions; they
knew a modern nation-state required popular affection for the military and differ-
ent treatment for the rank and file. Civic instruction and literacy classes were
introduced into the barracks and many soldiers did, in fact, acquire education and
a more national outlook during their terms of service.27 Similarly, reformers advo-
cated universal male conscription.
Soldaderas made life in the Mexican army different from that in Europe and
South America during the same time period. Since the army did not have
a barracks’ commissary, it was women who sold food to soldiers. Officers per-
mitted women into the barracks every morning and night and they invariably
partnered up with men, becoming informal wives by habit and reputation.
The notoriously unhygienic barracks lacked privacy and could be noisy.
Crying children came into the barracks along with cats, dogs, venereal disease,
marijuana, and alcohol.28 Reformers may have disliked the presence of these
women, but the army also needed them. Desertion would almost certainly
have been higher without the soldaderas’ presence. Besides, such arrangements
were pre-Hispanic. They dated back to the Aztec Empire. The mujer de tropa
(trooper woman, woman belonging to the soldiers) traveled with Mexico’s
armies and shared many of the same burdens.
The men running Porfirio Díaz’s military were not professionals in 1900,
but lieutenants and captains (junior officers) had attended a national academy
in Mexico City designed to produce professionals who could read technical
maps and shell faraway positions. The Porfirian state wanted professionals who
had mastered technical specialties and had higher loyalties to the nation.
Young officers in dashing uniforms were whiter than average Mexicans and
perceived themselves as a distinctive social class. Although Porfirio Díaz did
not invite European military trainers into the country as was the case in Chile,
Argentina, and Brazil, he did send his most promising officers overseas to study
and negotiate arms deals. By 1910, the federal army possessed high quality
French artillery, Mauser rifles, and institutional leaders aware of currents in
global warfare. Old problems persisted, however. High-ranking officers
received governorships as a reward for loyalty. Generals accepted bribes and
garrison commanders frequently overcharged the army for nonexistent horses
and soldiers. Merit mattered for promotion, but so did patronage and political
connections. In fighting with the Yucatec Maya and Yaquis in Sonora,
Mexico’s federal army showed brutality and did not observe modern rules of
warfare as practiced in Europe although not in Europe’s colonies.29 No ethical
 Mexico 45

code of conduct united the officer corps and the principle of civilian suprem-
acy had not been established.
Mexico modernized considerably during the Porfiriato, but the gap between
rural and urban areas widened. The Díaz regime showed little concern for
indigenous people or the impoverished rural hamlets where most Mexicans
lived. The focus of his government was firmly on the dynamic sectors
(mining, agricultural exports, industry) and public services (schools, sewers,
roads) in the country’s urban centers. Millions of Indians still did not speak
Spanish and a great number were swindled out of their traditional landholdings
by land speculators. Life expectancy remained close to 30 years while infant
mortality hovered around 30 percent. Mexico was far behind Western Europe
in all social indicators.30 Such conditions made the country ripe for revolution.

Mexican Revolution (1910–1920)

Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century contained 13.6 million people
and photographs reveal the country’s deeply agrarian character. Few inhabitants
possessed a national identity yet. They were Veracruzanos, Pueblans, Jaliscans,
and Yucatecos. Not only that, discontent was palpable. Dispossessed peasants
in the south seethed with bitterness. Workers resented their lack of bargaining
power vis-à-vis capital and the absence of workplace protections. Middle-class
Mexicans wanted political and educational opportunities. As for Mexico’s cau-
dillo, Porfirio Díaz said to a journalist in 1908 that Mexico was finally ready
for democracy. In fact, he said he would step down and permit other
candidates to compete for the presidency in 1910. Immediately after Don Por-
firio’s pronouncement, a wealthy, well-educated landowner from Coahuila
named Francisco I. Madero set to work on writing a bestselling book that
called for the organization of a Democratic Party and Sufragio efectivo,
no reelección (Valid Voting, No Reelection). He denounced US financial
domination of the national economy (rail, mining, petroleum) and toured the
country exhilarating crowds with anti-reelection speeches. Madero’s attacks on
Don Porfirio made him a national figure and the 80-year-old dictator decided
to arrest Madero and jail his supporters, but the old tricks had worn thin.
Madero escaped from jail and issued his Plan de San Luis Potosí, which called
for a national uprising on November 20, 1910. Notably, the plan indicated
that revolutionary volunteers would be awarded military ranks commensurate
with the number of troops they commanded. Furthermore, army regulars were
promised promotions if they defected to Madero’s movement. In short, the
Plan de San Luis Potosí offered rapid mobility to anyone willing to fight.31
Small, poorly coordinated armed factions answered Madero’s call and federal
forces put down the first few groups that rebelled in November and December.
But the uprising led by Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco gained momentum
46 Mexico

and in Chihuahua (northern Mexico) 5,000 federal soldiers could not defeat the
mounted rebels carrying .30-30 rifles. After that, self-appointed rebels – some
with less than noble motives – seized towns and government offices shouting
“Viva la Revolución!” With a nationwide insurrection underway, the federal army
fell apart. Soldiers began deserting their posts or joining revolutionary factions.
On May 10, 1911, rebels captured Ciudad Juárez (across the border from El
Paso, Texas) and Díaz surrendered his government. Before departing Mexico,
Porfirio Díaz said, “Madero has unleashed the tiger; let’s see if he can tame it.”
This often-repeated line proved prescient. Without a strong, central figure in
Mexico City, personal armies with regional identities battled each other in
a multisided civil war that would claim over a million lives.
Mexico’s armed factions had diverse motivations. Some wanted land. Some
wanted socialism. Some were opportunists. Others had grievances related to
labor conditions and foreign-owned enterprises. The diverse coalition that
forced Díaz into exile did not share a political vision. Revolutionary com-
manders who had once called themselves Maderista refused to take his orders,
especially after he neglected to honor certain provisions in the Plan de San Luis
de Potosí about military ranks and the removal of the local rulers from power.
Madero, an educated, upper-class Mexican with democratic ideals, was very
different from the men who had forced Porfirio Díaz from power, men such
as Francisco “Pancho” Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
War reveals effective commanders and tacticians. Pancho Villa was one of
them. An outlaw bandit with little education, Villa responded to Madero’s
call for revolution. As someone who disliked the federal government and the
hacendados who controlled the land and pasture of northern Mexico, Villa
was motivated to seize haciendas and defeat federal soldiers entering the
region. Villa had a natural gift for command and easily bonded with his
subordinates. Known for cracking jokes with privates and leading his division
from the front, common people adored him. Embedded journalist John
Reed wrote,

When Villa’s army goes into battle he is not hampered by salutes, or

rigid respect for officers, or trigonometrical calculations of the trajectory
of projectiles … But he does know that guerrilla fighters cannot be
driven blindly in platoons around the field in perfect step, that men
fighting individually of their own free will are braver than long volleying
rows in the trenches, lashed to it by officers with the flat of their
swords.32

By 1914, Villa had accumulated a formidable revolutionary force of 50,000 men.

Fifteen hundred kilometers south, a proud community leader named Emiliano
Zapata organized a revolutionary army committed to the central issue of recovering
stolen lands. Villagers in Morelos elected him their chief because they believed
 Mexico 47

Zapata would not betray them. When Francisco Madero called for demobilization,
Zapata refused; the government would have to deal with their land issues first.
Unsurprisingly, Mexico City regarded the Zapatistas as a mob of unruly bandits, but
the villagers in Morelos knew that the minute they laid down their arms, their
chances of meaningful land reform would decline. Besides, they knew the land and
could burn the crops of hacendados who refused to pay taxes. Mexico’s mountainous
terrain also meant that the federal army would be hard-pressed to defeat an irregular
army with such strong local support.33 A quote attributed to Zapata, “Prefiero morir
de pie que vivir de rodillas” (I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees), may be
apocryphal, but it embodies what peasants admired about Zapata: he defended com-
munity interests despite the government’s demand for obedience.
Francisco Madero did not possess the mettle to control a praetorian army.
In 1913, he was betrayed, imprisoned, and assassinated. His wily successor,
Victoriano Huerta, thought he could control Mexico by increasing the size of
the federal army. Huerta ordered the conscription of 250,000 men (a fivefold
increase) and nightlife quickly ground to a halt. Press-gangs seized men exiting
cantinas, cinemas, and factories while the poor avoided hospitals. Alan Knight

FIGURE 2.1 Francisco “Pancho” Villa at the head of his northern division, Battle of
Ojinaga, January 1914. Source: John Davidson Wheelan: Archivo General de la
Nación/Mexican General National Archive.
48 Mexico

writes, “Trainloads of Maya arrived at Mérida from the interior of Yucatán

and could be seen bidding farewell to weeping wives, amid ‘heart-breaking
scenes’, before being shipped north.”34 Such a strategy did not work. Besides
fomenting hatred for the army, many of these coerced, poorly trained soldiers
deserted to commanders such as Villa and Zapata. A third faction, the “Consti-
tutionalists” led by Venustiano Carranza, were more educated and organized.
They included liberals, middle-class professionals, and schoolteachers frustrated
by the Porfirian order. Championing the eight-hour work day, economic
nationalism, and anti-clericalism, they wanted to enshrine their “Mexico for
Mexicans” outlook in a single document acceptable to various interest groups.
The two most important generals in this faction, Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco
Elías Calles, repeatedly beat the federal army; their victories forced Huerta into
exile by July 1914. Meanwhile, Villa and Zapata led their armies into Mexico
City. Although nominally aligned, the two chiefs did not forge a durable
coalition.
With Mexico heavily militarized, it was unclear if the country’s three major
revolutionary factions could reach an agreement. As a result, the revolution
entered its bloodiest phase. Constitutionalists seized Mexico City in 1915 and
Venustiano Carranza dispatched his best general, Álvaro Obregón, to confront
Pancho Villa (neither man had formal military training). The two commanders
faced off at Celaya in 1915 and Obregón, who had studied what was happen-
ing on the western front in World War I, carefully entrenched his men behind
barbed wire and machine-gun nests. He also correctly anticipated a frontal
assault from Villa who aggressively attacked with cavalry and suffered devastat-
ing defeats as a result. The bloodiest battle in Mexican history destroyed Villa’s
army and, with it, his chance to seize the capital. In political terms, the Battle
of Celaya reduced Zapata and Villa to guerrilla fighters in the south and north,
respectively. Constitutionalists had the upper hand, if not full control over the
country.
Soldaderas followed every revolutionary army. Few of these women left
written records, but the photographs show that wherever soldiers marched, so
did soldaderas. Some followed their husbands on campaign. Others maintained
“free unions”; becoming attached to one soldier before transferring allegiance
to another. Some young soldiers asked girls if they would become their solda-
dera. Others wound up mujer de tropa by no choice of their own, coerced into
a life of soldiering. They could love their men fiercely and be fiercely inde-
pendent. Above all, women labored. They grinded corn for tortillas, cleaned
guns, carried gear, washed clothes, and cared for the infant babies of their con-
sorts. Some understood the political goals of the revolution, others did not.
During the civil war’s many atrocities, women and men were massacred
together and soldaderas fought alongside the troops, too.35 One woman, Angela
Jiménez, dressed like a man and fought as a regular in Villa’s army. She said,
 Mexico 49

Many of the soldiers’ women would risk their lives to bring their men
a cup of hot coffee during a battle. If the man happened to be killed, the
woman would pick up his rifle and shoot along with the rest of us.36

By the 1930s, however, the Mexican army was organizing commissaries, which
effectively ended the role women had played in the war-making enterprise since
pre-Hispanic times.
President Carranza convoked a Constitutional Congress in 1917 and the
participants, most of whom were university-educated professionals, received
a mandate to produce a document that would appeal to workers, peasants, and
reformers nationwide. Villa and Zapata were excluded from the Congress, but
the final product incorporated many of their demands. Article 27 established
the basis for land reform by declaring that idle, unproductive land was subject

FIGURE 2.2 Postcard of an anonymous woman during the Mexican Revolution

(1910–1917) entitled “Una Zapatista.” This posed postcard does not represent the
average soldadera but it does remind us of the fact that thousands of women partici-
pated in the revolution. Source: Antonio Garduño, University of California, River-
side Library, Special Collections & University Archives.
50 Mexico

to expropriation. The article also claimed Mexican sovereignty over the

nation’s subsoil rights, establishing the basis for subsequent nationalization of
the country’s oil industry. Article 123 concerned workers. It established the
eight-hour work day, minimum wages, and a ban on company stores, among
other protections. Constitutionalists further consolidated their grip on power
with the assassination of Zapata (1919) and Villa (1923), but Mexico still had
a military problem. For ten years, soldiers who had picked the winning side
during coups and countercoups got promotions. Now there were over 150
generals who felt entitled to political positions and opportunities for
enrichment.
Álvaro Obregón (1920–1924) and Plutarco Calles (1924–1928) had to
move cautiously lest they face regional uprisings. Both men rotated district
commanders as a measure to keep them from developing independent bases of
power. Obregón is supposed to have said, “There is no general able to resist
a cannon ball of fifty thousand pesos.”37 At this stage, he bought the loyalty of
commanders, allowing graft. As for the Mexican people, they continued to
hate conscription and the army’s venal officers, but Obregón and Calles aimed
to achieve two basic goals. First, reduce the size of the army to 50,000
men. Second, standardize recruitment, establish rules for advancement, and
make promotions competitive. In other words, build a small, professional mili-
tary with fewer officers.
Calles founded a political party – what would become the Institutional Revo-
lutionary Party (PRI) – that established enduring precedents related to power-
sharing and the principle of no reelection. Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940) carried
out a major land redistribution and nationalized the country’s petroleum sector,
both achievements that earned the PRI decades of political legitimacy. Cárdenas
also cultivated junior officers and won their commitment to a process of mod-
ernization that included higher pay, improved barracks, and army schools.38
With growing institutional support, he purged more of the old guard. In fact,
a faction of generals attempted to revolt against the new system in 1940, but
they failed and were retired into obscurity. Having removed many incompetent
and insubordinate generals, the ruling party’s defense ministry could focus on
other goals. First, the public should respect the military as a patriotic
institution. Second, the military should take orders from the president and
defense minister. Third, the military should adhere to an institutional ethos of
service, moral behavior, and respect for civil authority.

Mexico during World War II

German submarines began sinking merchant ships off the North American east
coast one month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Of
the 609 ships sunk from January to August 1942, four were Mexican, including
 Mexico 51

the SS Potrero del Llano and the SS Faja de Oro, both oil tankers torpedoed near
Florida. When the first ship was sunk on May 13, Mexico’s government filed
a complaint and demanded indemnification. When the second tanker was sunk
on May 21, Mexico’s government declared war on the Axis. Here, it should be
observed that Mexico did not have normal diplomatic relations with either Great
Britain or the Soviet Union and joining the Allies meant fighting on the same side
as the United States, a historic enemy. In short, the war declaration elicited mixed
feelings. For the administration of Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–1946), however,
the war presented opportunities. First, Mexico could forge a mutually beneficial
relationship with the United States and restore diplomatic relations with the other
two Allied powers. Second, the war could be used to promote national unity at
a time of lingering revolutionary divisions. “Remember May 13, 1942” appeared
on propaganda posters, which encouraged Mexicans to see themselves as a single
nation working and fighting together. Third, Ávila saw the global conflict’s
potential to push forward a process of military and economic modernization.39
The establishment of universal male conscription (1942) promoted the per-
ception of military service as patriotic. Draft lotteries did away with press-
gangs and the stigma attached to common soldiers, once viewed as criminals
or dishonorable men. The war made it easier to retire incompetent or unquali-
fied generals and, in 1944, President Ávila dispatched some 300 volunteers
(pilots, radiomen, mechanics) to Texas for air force training. Attached to the
Fifth Air Force, the Mexican squadron flew 96 missions in the Philippines
with P-47 Thunderbolts (fighter-bombers) during the Battle of Luzon, some
14,000 kilometers away from home. The pilots, who nicknamed themselves
the “Aztec Eagles,” performed well (a point of domestic pride) and the sym-
bolism of Mexicans batting on the same side as the Americans was not lost on
anyone. Just 30 years earlier US Marines had occupied Veracruz (1914).
On the economic front, Mexico supplied the Allies with strategic commod-
ities such as petroleum and made use of wartime conditions to promote indus-
trialization. After 1945, Mexico’s government retained strong popular support
for high tariff barriers, industrialization, and urban development. In short,
Mexico developed a closer, more respectful relationship with the United States
from 1942 to 1945 and that spirit of cooperation continued during the Cold
War. Mexico City shared Washington’s anti-communist orientation and the
two neighbors have worked on joint issues (e.g. trade, border security, drug
smuggling) ever since.

Postwar Mexico
The election of Miguel Alemán Valdés (1946–1952) marked a turning
point in Mexican history. Army officers no longer dominated state gover-
norships and, for the first time in decades, the country’s president did not
52 Mexico

have a military background. With one exception, all presidents since have
been civilians, trained in subjects like business, law, and economics.
Defense budgets offered further proof of civilian supremacy. Military
spending went from 22 percent of the national budget in 1941 to 7 per-
cent in 1956 despite the armed forces’ repeated petitions for modern
hardware.40 This does not mean Mexico’s demilitarization was a smooth
process. Rumors circulated about restive generals willing to revolt in 1948
and Alemán was still rotating zone commanders as a hedge against
disloyalty.41 Nonetheless, an ethic of professionalism had taken root
thanks to a cohesive system of military education.
Training facilities socialized Mexican officers to see loyalty and discip-
line as bedrock virtues. Cadets at the Heroico Colegio Militar (Heroic Mili-
tary College) and staff officers at the Escuela Superior de Guerra (Higher
War School) learnt a reflexive respect for authority and the chain of com-
mand. Other factors mattered, too. The state actively promoted the image
of a united, monolithic military, and Mexico’s lower-middle class officers
saw themselves as proud, selfless servants of the nation. Meanwhile,
humble families knew that their sons would receive an education in the
barracks, and that they would not be grossly mistreated. Middle-class
Mexicans, for their part, no longer viewed the army as a profession lead-
ing to political power.
By the mid-1960s, Mexico had become a lightly armed country with
just 50,000 soldiers for some 40 million people. During a period with
rapid population growth, the country’s army did not grow in personnel or
expenditure. Roderic Camps writes,

In the mid-1970s, only .13 percent of the total Mexican population was in the
military, contrasted with 1.32 percent in the United States, and approximately
.6 percent in most Latin American countries. In terms of expenditures, Mex-
ico’s military received .86 percent of GNP; that of the United States, nearly
7 percent; and most Latin American militaries, 2 to 3 percent.42

As one of the least militarized countries in the Western hemisphere, the Mexi-
can armed forces have focused on two core missions: maintaining internal
security and protecting the nation from natural disasters. Loyalty to civilian
presidents has consistently trumped institutional concerns over pay and budget.

Mexico since the Cuban Revolution

Mexico experienced remarkable social progress during the second half of the
twentieth century. Paved roads, public sanitation, and modern utilities have
given urban populations a previously unthinkable standard of living while
 Mexico 53

diseases such as malaria and yellow fever no longer threaten large parts of the
country. Between 1930 and 1990, adult illiteracy fell from 61 percent to
12 percent while life expectancy rose from 34 years to 71 years.43 This is not
to suggest that the progress has been evenly distributed, though. The highly
indigenous states of Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca have lagged behind the
rest of the country in all social indicators.
Mexico’s overall political stability is no small achievement. Political elites
share power and chart long-term national goals. Since Cárdenas, all Mexican
presidents have served six-year terms without the possibility of reelection. This
bedrock of Mexican politics is something that distinguishes the country from
the rest of Latin America. Ex-presidents duly step down and do not manipulate
their successors. Such enlightened patterns, however, have not erased preexist-
ing cultures of corruption or authoritarianism. Mexico’s leaders have brutally
suppressed left-wing groups, for instance.
Ten days before the Mexico City Olympics, October 2, 1968, around
10,000 students gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas to protest police
brutality and hear speeches related to a six-point petition about political free-
dom, police reform, and public accountability. Young people chanted, ¡No
queremos Olimpiada! ¡Queremos revolución! (We don’t want the Olympics! We
want a revolution!). As soldiers surrounded the plaza, students saw flares and
heard shots ring out. The army and police were firing directly into the crowd.
Before long bleeding, lifeless bodies littered the square. Furthermore, author-
ities made arrests and removed corpses before proper investigations could
occur. The Tlatelolco Massacre (1968) remains a potent symbol of state crim-
inality because the PRI insisted that students had fired first, provoking the tra-
gedy. The event also disturbed military commanders, especially junior officers,
who did not want to slaughter fellow citizens or blindly follow such orders.
Presidential prestige diminished, and the PRI, for its part, had to become
more sensitive to military concerns.44 That said, the event did not alter pat-
terns of military obedience to civilian authority.
Since the 1960s, national leaders have repeatedly deployed the armed
forces to battle insurgents, which has given the army substantial counterin-
surgency experience. The army defeated one socialist guerrilla campaign in
the mountains of Guerrero (1967–1974), and another urban Marxist–Lenin-
ist group composed of disillusioned university students that operated from
1973 to 1981. The latter, like its rural counterpart, never acquired a social
base of peasants or workers and did not represent a major threat to the
state. The Mexican Army’s record from that era includes torture and the
extrajudicial execution of suspects considered “terrorists.” To this day
there has been no full accounting of what happened during Mexico’s
Dirty War (1964–1982) or any real attempt to hold state actors account-
able for state-sponsored atrocities.45
54 Mexico

With respect to the economy, millions found secure employment

during the “Mexican Miracle” from the 1940s through to the 1970s when
the country enjoyed sustained GDP growth (5 to 6 percent per year) and
low inflation. By the end of the seventies, however, the country’s eco-
nomic model was under severe strain. Public debt, tax evasion, and
a bloated public sector were some of the nation’s problems, while pro-
tected, inefficient industries were another. Furthermore, economic prob-
lems mounted amid rapid demographic expansion. Mexico’s population
increased from 26 million in 1950 to 67 million in 1980. The country
needed strong economic growth. Instead, it suffered from balance of pay-
ments problems, high inflation, and insufficient work for its young, still
growing population. As a result, millions migrated north to the United
States, most without documentation. Another serious problem was the
rising demand for illegal narcotics in Europe and the United States. That
external demand fueled the rise of highly organized criminal networks
moving drugs across the northern border. The federal government period-
ically deployed military forces on missions to burn marijuana crops or
capture head honchos, but the cartels used their vast profits to buy pro-
tection from state bosses and local law enforcement. In this way, the drug
trade exposed state weaknesses.
As millions of Mexicans went north looking for work, the PRI felt new
pressure for political and economic reform. The party’s not-so-subtle vote
rigging during the 1988 presidential contest could not be maintained indef-
initely without more serious backlash. During the presidency of Carlos
Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994), the government deepened its embrace of
neoliberalism, or the idea that the government should stay out of economic
decision-making. Controersially, Salinas oversaw the privatization of state-
owned banks and utilities, a process that created a new class of moguls.
Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim, became a billionaire by acquiring Telex,
the national phone company. Another controversial move was a set of
amendments permitting the privatization of 28,000 ejidos or communal lands
guaranteed by Article 27 in the Mexican Constitution. According to these
amendments, ejidatarios could sell or mortgage their land, something previ-
ously unthinkable. Salinas also signed the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992, a decision that committed Mexico to a path
of free trade and economic openness with Canada and the United States.
One critical reaction came from an unexpected place.

Guerrillas in Chiapas and Democratization

Early on the morning of January 1, 1994, armed guerrillas from the Zapatista
Army of National Liberation (EZLN) seized San Cristóbal de las Casas,
 Mexico 55

a picturesque colonial town in the poor, southern state of Chiapas. Officers

carried shotguns and AR-15 rifles, but many of the rank and file carried
machetes and wooden guns. Most Mexicans had no idea who these insurgents
were or what they wanted. That morning, an Indian chief named “Felipe”
read a statement before the local media. He declared war on the federal army
and denounced a government that ignored Chiapas, the country’s poorest,
least developed state. After speaking to his Maya troops in their native tongue,
he shouted, in Spanish, “Long live the Mexican Revolution!” “Long live the
Zapatista National Liberation Army!” “Long live the Indian people in arms!”
On the day of the takeover, reporters noticed a light-skinned man dressed in
black, wearing bandoliers, and smoking a pipe through his black ski mask.
A head taller than his Maya comrades, the man called Marcos was articulate
and humorous. Not only that, he used English to reassure a worried group of
American tourists. Henceforth, Marcos assumed the role of media spokesperson
as the rebel columns occupied several major towns and cities.46 Before long,
the press learned that Subcomandante Marcos was a well-educated man named
Rafael Sebastián Guillén who had joined EZLN one year after its formation in
1983. Although some urbanites like Marcos joined the movement in the
Lacandon Jungle, the social base remained indigenous. Not only that, several
masked female Zapatistas rose to prominence, including Comandanta Ramona,
a petite indigenous woman, and Comandanta Esther who eventually addressed
Mexico’s National Congress.
The timing of the uprising was no coincidence. EZLN’s anti-capitalist
ideology emphasized indigenous control of local resources and the Zapatistas
rightly associated the NAFTA, which came into effect on January 1, 1994,
with agrobusiness and foreign investment. The federal army regained control
of every Zapatista-held city and flushed the guerrillas back into the jungle by
February but, by this point, the whole world was watching. What would
happen next?
PRI leaders knew they risked a media fiasco if the federal army took a heavy-
handed approach. Marcos had become an international celebrity and the guerrillas
enjoyed massive outside support. Waves of foreign journalists, well-wishers, and
human rights groups descended on Chiapas. They carried cameras and provided
human shields to traveling Zapatistas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the central govern-
ment opted for negotiation instead of military confrontation. The ability of NGOs
and activists to monitor the federal army and protect EZLN fighters prevented the
situation from following a mid-twentieth-century pattern: guerrilla insurgency
followed by a brutal counterinsurgency. The world was watching. And Marcos did
not need internet connections or fax machines to diffuse the movement’s writings
and statements because activists and NGOs did it for him. In short, transnational
forces made the Zapatista protest known to millions and checked the state’s ability
to crush it.47
56 Mexico

FIGURE 2.3 Subcomandante Marcos riding a horse in Chiapas, 1995. The Zapatista
Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made savvy use of foreign media and inter-
national observers to protect their anti-globalization, indigenous rights movement.
Source: José Villa: Wikimedia Commons.

Today, the EZLN is more of an indigenous rights group with a regional

base of support and varied international linkages. Marcos no longer speaks to
the media, but his image and the cultural power of armed revolution remains.
Dozens of restaurants in Mexico and the United States bear the names Pancho
Villa or Emiliano Zapata. Dolls bearing the likeness of Marcos are sold in
Mexican markets and the country continues to celebrate its guerrilla chiefs and
outlaws. Narcocorridos (drug ballads) are sung about the drug trade and its larger
than life kingpins. There is something attractive about people who defy estab-
lished authority in a country where the powerful often enjoy impunity.
Mexico’s 2000 presidential election was a memorable event because it rep-
resented the culmination of a strengthened civil society. Thousands of trained
observers guaranteed the legitimacy of the contest and the ruling party, for its
part, accepted a free and fair contest. Vincente Fox of the center-right
National Action Party (PAN) defeated the PRI candidate, Fancisco Labastida,
by six percentage points and nearly 36 million people cast ballots. Outgoing
President Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000) did not tamper with the result. In fact,
he acknowledged past electoral fraud and shook hands with his successor.
 Mexico 57

With respect to the military, there were concerns. For 70 years, the PRI
had reinforced loyalty to itself. Would professional soldiers obey civilian rulers
from the PAN during the presidency of Vicente Fox (2000–2006)? Further-
more, the legislature did not exercise the kind of oversight typical in other
democracies. Mexico’s armed forces enjoyed autonomy with respect to promo-
tions, doctrine, and other military activities. Civilian leaders generally viewed
the armed forces as “clean,” untainted state institutions, but they lacked points
of contact with the military. It was unclear if political parties might seek alli-
ances with military factions.48 The worst fears proved unfounded. Mexico’s
soldiers have maintained their loyalty to whichever candidate has obtained the
presidency, including, since 2000, politicians from three different political par-
ties. Unfortunately, the emergence of a competitive, multiparty system has
coincided with a marked rise in violence.

The Drug War

The hills and mountains of Mexico’s rugged landscape have long offered sanc-
tuary to outlaws and secure locations for the production and transport of
contraband. Beginning in the 1970s, Mexican governments deployed the
armed forces on missions to disrupt drug production, mostly marijuana cultiva-
tion, but the traffickers’ power kept growing. Drug cartels relied on ruthless-
ness, giving upright politicians and police an impossible choice. Plata o plomo
(silver or lead): accept a bribe and cooperate or take a bullet to the head. Such
intimidation secured the connivance of local law enforcement when it was not
forthcoming. Furthermore, the cartels have actively recruited soldiers from the
Mexican military and sometimes managed to bribe high-ranking officers for
information and assistance. It is difficult to judge the exact scope of such prob-
lems because Mexico’s defense ministry is not transparent with respect to its
members who are complicit with criminals.
President Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) declared war on the cartels. Not-
ably, he deployed the army to Ciudad Juárez with orders for two or three sol-
diers to accompany every policeman. During this mission, the military
acquired a reputation for hauling off suspects without cause and beating out
confessions. Human rights groups documented the disappearance of detainees
in military custody. Such crimes damaged the army’s reputation and revealed
how poorly prepared it was to police border towns. Retired General Jesus
Estrada said succinctly, “We don’t want to perform the functions of the
police.” Since 2006, over 500 troops have been killed in combat with traf-
fickers. Another 1,500 have been wounded, some maimed for life. For insular
institutions that do not seek attention, the Mexican Drug War has taken
a serious toll, not least of all by negatively affecting Mexican society’s view of
the armed forces.49
58 Mexico

Militaries train to maximize the force they deploy, not to show restraint or
calibrate violence to prevent civilian casualties as is the case with police offi-
cers. The Mexican navy’s special forces, by contrast, are trained for urban
combat (assaulting buildings and fighting indoors) and these units have cap-
tured many drug kingpins, which suggest they are impervious to bribery from
the traffickers. Moreover, during such missions to capture high value targets
civilian casualties have been minimized. In such good guy/bad guy scenarios
in which full force is acceptable, Mexican special forces have performed well.
If policing missions have damaged the military’s reputation, the successful cap-
ture of high-value targets demonstrates the marines’ effectiveness in one key
area of internal security.50
Given the current unreliability of Mexican law enforcement and the relative
trustworthiness of the armed forces, Mexico’s soldiers are likely to play an
ongoing role in the asymmetrical conflict with heavily armed criminal enter-
prises that move drugs across the US border using submarines, tunnels, aerial
drones, and trucks. What remains to be seen is how this fighting will affect
public perceptions of the military, the extent to which the cartels can infiltrate
the armed forces, and military perceptions of the political system itself.
Like the rest of Latin America, Mexico experienced massive social change
during the twentieth century. A rural country of 15 million in 1910, Mexico’s
population had grown to 114 million in 2010 with 75 percent living in cities.
Other structures and patterns have not changed. Most obviously, Mexico’s
regions retain their distinctive ecologies, ethnic groups, and levels of develop-
ment. The many “Mexicos” make up a single country of striking diversity. Polit-
ically, Mexico’s proximity to the United States has consistently presented security
challenges: territorial invasions before, US demand for illicit drugs today.
The history of warfare in Mexico is remarkable for the stunning encounter
between native warriors and Spanish conquistadors, enduring traditions of
guerrilla fighting, civil wars, foreign invasions, and the creation of a modern
armed forces in the twentieth century. One essential difference between then
and now, is that Mexico faces contemporary challenges with the benefit of
military officers who adhere to established norms of professional behavior.
With 277,150 active duty personnel, Mexico’s military is the third largest in
Latin America after Brazil and Colombia.51 The country is not heavily militar-
ized, nor does it have pretensions to project power outside of the hemisphere.
Mexico’s great security threats are internal.

Notes
1 See Ross Hassig, Aztec warfare: imperial expansion and political control (University of
Oklahoma Press, 1995).
2 Camilla Townsend, Malintzin’s choices: an Indian woman in the conquest of Mexico
(UNM Press, 2006), 17–8.
 Mexico 59

3 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The conquest of New Spain (Penguin, 1963), 64–5.
4 Ibid. 23.
5 Miguel León-Portilla, The broken spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico
(Beacon Press, 2006), 41.
6 Díaz del Castillo, The conquest of New Spain, 302–6. Díaz claims that the Spanish
lost 870 men total. His estimate includes losses from the Battle of Otumba, which
occurred on a plain outside of the Aztec capital.
7 León-Portilla, The broken spears, 97.
8 See Matthew Restall, Maya conquistador (Beacon, 1998).
9 José Bravo Ugarte, Historias de México, vol. 1 (Jus, 1957), 115–6.
10 Lyle N. McAlister, The fuero militar in New Spain, 1764–1800 (Greenwood Publishing
Group, 1974).
11 For this early period, see William Anthony DePalo, The Mexican national army,
1822–1852 (Texas A & M University Press, 1997), 25–46.
12 Will Fowler, Independent Mexico: the Pronunciamiento in the Age of Santa Anna,
1821–1858 (University of Nebraska Press, 2016).
13 Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: a history of US policy toward Latin America
(Harvard University Press, 2009), 56.
14 Stephen A. Carney, The occupation of Mexico, May 1846-July 1848 (Government
Printing Office, 2005), 1–25.
15 Carney, The occupation of Mexico, 26–9.
16 See Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieut.-General Winfield Scott (University of Tennessee
Press, 2015), 214–32; in these pages, the General anticipates yellow fever as an
environmental factor and comments on various aspects of Mesoamerican history
familiar to him thanks to The Conquest of Mexico.
17 Carney, The occupation of Mexico, 30–44.
18 Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman, and Susan M. Deeds, The course of Mexican
history, 7th Edition (Oxford University Press, 2003), 330.
19 Donald Shaw Frazier, The United States and Mexico at war: nineteenth-century expan-
sionism and conflict (Macmillan Library Reference, 1998), 28–9.
20 See Ulysses Simpson Grant, Personal memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (Charles L. Webster
& Company, 1894), 102.
21 On Mexican endurance, see Peter Guardino, The dead march: a history of the Mexican–
American War (Harvard University Press, 2017), 48.
22 The quote from Laidley is taken from Guardino, The dead march, 67.
23 See Guardino, The dead march, 65–7.
24 Stephen B. Neufeld, The blood contingent: the military and the making of modern
Mexico, 1876–1911 (University of New Mexico Press, 2017), 30–1.
25 Mario Ramírez Rancaño, “Una discusión sobre el tamaño del ejército mexicano:
1876–1930,” Estudios de historia moderna y contemporánea de México 32 (July/December,
2006): 45.
26 Edwin Lieuwen, Mexican militarism: the political rise and fall of the revolutionary army,
1910–1940 (University of New Mexico Press, 1968), 2.
27 Neufeld, The blood contingent, 55–82.
28 Neufeld, The blood contingent, 97–9.
29 Neufeld, The blood contingent, 221–48.
30 Meyer, Sherman, and Deeds, The course of Mexican history, 451.
31 Lieuwen, Mexican militarism, 8.
32 John Reed, Insurgent Mexico (International Publishers, 2002), 141.
33 See John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican revolution (Vintage, 1968).
34 Alan Knight, The Mexican revolution: counter-revolution and reconstruction, vol. 2 (University
of Nebraska Press, 1990), 77–8.
60 Mexico

35 Elizabeth Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican military: myth and history (University of
Texas Press, 1990), 67–81; Elena Poniatowska, Las soldaderas: women of the Mexican
revolution (Cinco Puntos Press, 2014), 9–12.
36 Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican military, 77.
37 Lieuwen, Mexican militarism, 64.
38 Thomas Rath, Myths of demilitarization in postrevolutionary Mexico, 1920–1960 (UNC
Press Books, 2013), 31–53.
39 See Monica A. Rankin, México, la Patria!: propaganda and production during World
War II (University of Nebraska Press, 2009).
40 Lieuwen, Mexican militarism, 142. Roderic A. Camp, Generals in the Palacio: the
military in modern Mexico (Oxford University Press, 1992), 67–9.
41 Rath, Myths of demilitarization in postrevolutionary Mexico, 96–8.
42 Camp, Generals in the Palacio, 52.
43 Consult the National Institute of Statistics and Geography’s website: www.inegi.
org.mx/.
44 On the Tlatelolco Massacre, see Roderic Camp, Mexico’s military on the democratic
stage (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005), 28–32.
45 See Fernando Herrera Calderón and Adela Cedillo (eds.), Challenging authoritarianism
in Mexico: revolutionary struggles and the dirty war, 1964–1982 (Routledge, 2012).
46 Andres Oppenheimer, Bordering on chaos: Mexico’s roller-coaster journey toward prosperity
(Little, Brown and Company, 1998), 16–29.
47 See David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla, “Emergence and influence of the Zapatista
social netwar,” in David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla, eds., Networks and netwars: the
future of terror, crime and militancy (Rand Corporation, 2001), 171–99.
48 Camp, Mexico’s military on the democratic stage, 8–14.
49 Steve Fisher and Patrick J. McDonnell, “Mexico sent in the army to fight the drug
war. Many question the toll on society and the army itself,” Los Angeles Times,
June 18, 2018.
50 See David Pion-Berlin, “A tale of two missions: Mexican military police patrols versus
high-value targeted operations,” Armed Forces & Society 43, no. 1 (2017): 53–71.
51 International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The military balance (Routledge,
2016), 403.
3
CUBA

The triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution established a model of political

change that inspired Latin America’s left. Young, idealistic guerrilla fighters
defeated a corrupt dictatorship and proceeded to implement an uncom-
promisingly radical agenda. Not only that, they made no effort to placate
the hemisphere’s disapproving superpower. Castro confronted the United
States directly and did not hesitate to seek military support from the Soviet
Union. Armed revolution went from being viewed as imprudent and
impossible to legitimate, necessary, and feasible.
Lesser known is the story of Fidel’s younger brother Raúl who
assumed the task of building Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias or FAR). During the 1960s, FAR soldiers success-
fully defended their island from external attacks and trained thousands of
foreign revolutionaries. During the last two decades of the Cold War,
Cuban soldiers were deployed to faraway countries such as Egypt, Angola,
and Ethiopia where they performed well in combat. In fact, the FAR
defeated South Africa’s all-white military in battles involving tanks and
massed infantry, actions that helped unravel apartheid in southern Africa.
The fact that more Cubans have served in the military as a proportion of
the population than any other country in Latin America is one reason
why the island’s republican history can be neatly divided into a pre, and
postrevolutionary reality. This is not to downplay the significance of
Spanish colonialism, however, or the 60 years before the Cuban Revolu-
tion. During the nineteenth century an indigenous, revolutionary tradition
developed and social contradictions from the first half of the twentieth
century made Cuba especially ripe for revolution by the middle of the
century.
62 Cuba

Cuba’s Taíno people, from whom English speakers derive the words hurri-
cane, canoe, hammock, and potato, saw Christopher Columbus’ caravels rec-
onnoiter the island’s northeast coast in October and November 1492. Taíno
inhabitants could not organize a unified response to the strange men in
wooden boats who possessed iron weapons and domesticated animals, but con-
temporary Cubans celebrate a Taíno chief named Hatuey who fought the
invaders. According to Spanish chronicler Bartolomé de las Casas, he showed
a basket of gold jewelry to an assembled crowd and said, “Here is the God of
the Christians … they will kill us in order to get their hands on Him.”
Captured and condemned to death in 1512, Hatuey told a priest who
offered him baptism that he preferred hellfire to an afterlife where he might
see another Christian.1 Very few Taíno people survived the twin onslaught
of disease and exploitation such that Cuba’s genetic makeup is, today, over-
whelmingly African and European.
Following the collapse of the indigenous population, colonial author-
ities geared the island’s economy to provision the imperial fleet and no
seaport in the Spanish Empire was as valuable or strategic as Havana.
Spanish convoys departed for Europe from Havana and its heavily fortified
harbor, which contained the Americas’ only dry dock used for ship repair
and construction. By the late colonial period, Havana had a population
much larger than Boston or New York. The city’s military and economic
importance drew the attention of all imperial competitors.
In 1762, Britain besieged and captured Havana in a large-scale assault
involving 30,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines. Meanwhile, the British also
captured Manila in Southeast Asia. The stunning blows to Spanish power
forced Madrid to cede Florida in exchange for Havana and Manila. The
loss of prestige and evident weakness in the Spanish Empire’s defenses
accelerated a process of reform.2 The Crown wanted to fortify coastal
defenses and build a strategic reserve of men.
Spain’s energetic governor, Alejandro O’Reilly (Irish Catholic), imple-
mented a broad set of changes. Before the British attack, the Crown had
excluded black and brown men from military service. O’Reilly was far
too practical for such prejudice; he organized black, brown, and white
battalions. Crucially, the Spanish crown granted the same privileges and
exemptions (fueros) enjoyed by the regular army to militiamen. For partici-
pating nonwhite men, this was an upgrade in social status. For the Spanish
Empire, the militia system created manpower reserves, approximately
7,500 in Cuba. No one expected them to perform on a par with regulars,
but they represented a bulwark against external attacks and freed up forces
for campaigns in the gulf coast.
The reforms paid off. During Spain’s intervention in the American Revolu-
tion (1776–1783), the governor of Spanish Louisiana, Count Bernardo de
Gálvez, led offensives against British forts in the Mississippi Valley, capturing
 Cuba 63

Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Mobile between 1779 and 1780. During the
Siege of Pensacola (1781), black and biracial militiamen from Cuba proved
their worth.3 Spain recuperated Florida. Ironically, Spain had helped English-
speaking rebels safeguard their republican, constitutional government.
The Age of Revolution was just starting. African slaves on the French
colony Saint-Domingue (Haiti) revolted in 1791. Neither planter elites nor
European armies could reestablish control. That social revolution profoundly
affected Cuba. On the one hand, Haitian sugar disappeared from the world
market, creating commercial opportunities for Cuban producers. On the
other hand, the specter of a massive slave uprising conservatized the island’s
whites. Creoles remained loyal to the Spanish Crown and sugar production,
based on slave labor and capital-intensive milling facilities, quickly dwarfed
ranching, coffee, and tobacco.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Cuban planters imported
hundreds of thousands of African slaves. Reform-minded Cubans sought
a cessation to the slave trade and representation in the Spanish Parliament.
Other political factions favored constitutional, republican government. Just
across the Florida Straits, the United States government made known its desire
to annex the island. The American Civil War (1860–1865) decisively changed
the hemispheric context. Union armies freed 3.9 million enslaved persons and
slaveholding societies like Cuba and Brazil could see the future was free and
semi-free labor. Cuban planters had imported 125,000 Chinese indentured
servants by 1874 and Spain, for its part, pursued a policy of gradual emancipa-
tion before abolishing slavery once and for all in 1886, two years before
Brazil.4 The political difference was that by the mid-1860s, creole planters
resented new imperial taxes and their lack of say-so in Spanish colonial administra-
tion. Cubans disliked being ruled from afar by a culturally distinct ethnic group as
more people on the “ever faithful isle” desired independence.

The Wars for Independence

On the morning of October 10, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes freed
his slaves in eastern Cuba and invited them to join his revolt against the
Spanish government. Called Padre de la Patria (Father of the Nation),
Céspedes’ manifesto called for gradual abolition and legal equality for all
citizens. The ensuing Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) was the first serious
attempt to achieve national independence, and it was bloody.
Insurgents captured Bayamo (eastern Cuba), but revolution did not spread
west. Both sides practiced scorched earth policies. Rebels burned Bayamo
before abandoning the town to Spanish army regulars. The island’s captain
general, the Count of Valmaseda, implemented draconian measures to suppress
the insurrection. On April 4, 1869 he decreed that:
64 Cuba

Every man, from the age of fifteen years, upward, found away from his
habitation, and does not prove a justified motive therefore, will be shot.
Every habitation unoccupied will be burned by the troops. Every habita-
tion from which does not float a white flag, as a signal that its occupants
desire peace, will be reduced to ashes.5

Such measures politicized indifferent Cubans and set the tone for the struggle to
come.
From the Ten Years’ War emerged a group of national heroes, imbued with
a spirit of resistance. Most would die in battle and become martyrs. In 1869, Spanish
authorities jailed and exiled José Martí (1853–1895), the “Apostle of Cuban
Independence” who spent the remainder of his life reflecting on topics such as
Cuban nationhood, racial equality, social justice, democracy, and anti-imperialism.
His influential poems and essays still resonate. Another legendary patriot, Antonio
Maceo, joined the revolution and rapidly rose through the military ranks.
Nicknamed “the Bronze Titan” because of his bravery, physical strength, and skin
color, Maceo led machete-wielding troops in hundreds of engagements and,
in 1878, earned promotion to brigadier general. Like other capable nonwhite Latin
Americans, wartime conditions offered Maceo the opportunity to achieve rapid
social mobility.
When hostilities were renewed during the Cuban War for Independence
(1895–1898), Maceo, second-in-command of the Ejército Libertador (Army of
Liberation), and commander in chief Máximo Gómez believed that Spain could
not afford to occupy the island indefinitely as long as Cuban troops continued
to resist. In 1896, the Spanish army suffered 563 combat fatalities while 7,304
soldiers died of yellow fever. Because Cubans enjoyed some natural immunity
to the virulent disease, Gómez knew the “lack of health” among Spanish
soldiers, together with the cost of maintaining 200,000 troops on the island,
would force at least a partial drawdown.6 However, neither side showed signs of
giving up. Spanish bullets cut down José Martí and Antonio Maceo in 1895 and
1896, respectively, and Spanish commanders organized a system of concentration
camps to separate peasant partisans from rebel forces. Harsh Spanish tactics
reinforced US views of Spain as a brutal, uncivilized oppressor – The Black
Legend – and Cuban patriots did not dispel that perception. During the first
months of 1898, external factors rapidly changed the war’s direction.

United States Occupation of Cuba

On April 25, 1898 the United States Congress declared war on Spain. The
unofficial casus belli was an internal explosion that sunk the USS Maine moored
in Havana’s harbor, but more than anything else the American public wanted
war. Opinion favored intervention on Cuba’s behalf and the federal govern-
ment had no trouble raising volunteer units. Alfred T. Mahan’s book, The
 Cuba 65

Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890), had urged the United States to
acquire naval bases in both the Pacific and the Caribbean. Conflict with Spain
presented just such an opportunity for the growing US navy to flex its muscle.
The “splendid little war” as US statesman John Hay called it, did not
devolve into a quagmire or bloodbath. Commodore George Dewey destroyed
Spain’s Pacific fleet in Manila Bay on May 1 and the US navy successfully
attacked and seized Guantanamo Bay between June 6 and 9. Not long after,
the US fifth army arrived in eastern Cuba. The US navy sunk Spain’s Carib-
bean squadron at the Battle of Santiago, July 3, while the US army besieged
the city and forced a surrender on July 13. These lightening blows forced
Spain to halt military operations and negotiate with the United States.
Cuba’s Ejército Libertador welcomed the US intervention at first, but ambiva-
lent feelings developed soon thereafter. Spain surrendered to the United States,
not to the Cuban Army of Liberation, and the American flag flew above Span-
ish fortifications in Havana. As Louis A. Pérez put it, “Cuban insurgents
served functionally as circumstantial allies to the United States in the Spanish-
American War rather than as agents of Cuban independence.”7 The United
States annexed Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Cuba was made a US
protectorate. Máximo Gómez did not challenge US rule, but the Treaty of
Paris, signed in December 1898, did not sit well with 44 generals and colonels
in the Ejército Libertador. They claimed sovereignty over the entire island and
demanded independence, not foreign occupation. US commanders recognized
the danger. Field officers from Cuba’s liberation army were appointed to civil
positions commensurate with their military ranks and the US occupation
worked to find jobs for the rank and file. Not only that, during the first half
of 1899 the US War Department paid a 75 dollar bonus to all Cuban soldiers
who surrendered their arms. The demobilization plan worked. No anti-US
insurgency developed.8
Much of the US army’s activity during the three-year occupation of Cuba
(1899–1902) focused on infrastructure. Engineers paved roads, drained swamps,
and built sewers. Commanding officers delivered reports to Major General
Leonard Wood (Cuba’s military governor) about island communications –
telegraph and telephone lines – as well as maps and surveys of every city.9 To
the occupiers’ credit, they improved public health and education. In urban
centers, yellow fever ceased to be endemic and school enrollments shot up.
General Wood called for a constitutional convention and 23 Cuban delegates
began writing a national charter. Their first draft, however, did not satisfy Wash-
ington. Not in a strong position to reject US tutelage, Cuban delegates accepted
the Platt Amendment (1901), which allowed the US government to intervene
in Cuba’s internal affairs, oversee the country’s foreign debt, veto its treaties, and
impose a permanent naval base at Guantanamo Bay. The US Army also organ-
ized a Rural Guard that reflected American prejudices and priorities. It excluded
nonwhite officers and required literacy of the officer corps. In effect, only the
66 Cuba

sons of well-to-do families could afford the uniforms, horses, and schooling.
Furthermore, the guard’s essential mission – patrol the countryside and protect
the property of planters – fit into US political objectives since American invest-
ors owned sugar mills and plantations. The Guard’s connection with the sugar
aristocracy meant that Cuba’s first armed force lacked legitimacy.10

Cuban Politics and Society, 1902–1933

On May 20, 1902 the US army withdrew from Cuba but opposition parties
could always try to make the country ungovernable and hope for US interven-
tion. Political parties and politicians appealed to US ambassadors for support
and if Cuban presidents lost favor with an ambassador, they could always
appeal directly to Washington.11 Theodore Roosevelt dispatched marines to
occupy the island from 1906 to 1909 because the US-organized Rural Guard
failed to maintain order. During the second US occupation, American forces
organized a military that would support the Platt Amendment and serve elites
in Havana. Its lack of professionalism and guiding national mission were
obvious. Officers earned promotion based on loyalty to presidents in Havana.
Neocolonialism did not stop the island’s social and economic progress.
Nearly 1.4 million European immigrants came to Cuba between 1880 and
1932, during which time the population increased from 1.5 to 4 million.
Large-scale immigration occurred precisely because Cuba’s economy offered
opportunity.12 Among the newcomers was Ángel Castro. Born poor in north-
west Spain, Castro made his way to Cuba in 1899 and worked for the Ameri-
can-owned United Fruit Company. An irrepressible entrepreneur, he
developed a small business selling supplies to canecutters and eventually hired
teams of immigrants to cut down trees. In 1915, Castro purchased land in
Oriente province (eastern Cuba) and eventually amassed 23,000 acres. His two
most famous children, Fidel and Raúl, were born on the family farm in 1926
and 1931, respectively, and were educated in nearby Santiago before attending
the prestigious University of Havana.13 Ángel Castro’s story speaks to what
Cuba could offer poor, illiterate immigrants even if recently emancipated slaves
and native hill farmers did not experience such fantastic mobility. The island’s
social and economic development had very peculiar characteristics.
Cuba’s urbanites were among the healthiest, wealthiest, and best educated
in Latin America. Sixty-three percent of the school-age population was
enrolled in 1926, an incredible percentage considering that Mexico, Brazil, and
Portugal would not boast such numbers until the 1950s. Some parts of Cuba’s
agrarian sector were highly mechanized and modern. Others were backward
and inefficient. Poor peasants lived a world away from the schools, roads, and
utilities of the island’s bustling cities. Latifundia, the landholding pattern in
Latin America characterized by massive estates, existed alongside tiny plots
 Cuba 67

(minifundia) farmed for subsistence. Governments in Havana did little to miti-

gate the stark divide between Cuba’s urban and rural zones.
An exceptionally high degree of foreign ownership marked Cuba’s national
economy. Sixty-eight percent of sugar mills, for instance, were US-owned in
1932.14 That percentage declined thereafter, but subsequent foreign investment
in utilities and mining maintained outside control over key economic sectors.
Dependence on sugar subjected the economy to fluctuations in its price as
well as to what the United States was willing to buy according to the congres-
sionally mandated sugar quota. Such an economy fueled anti-imperialist senti-
ments and nationalist politics.
Cuba was not a poor nation in 1932. Workers earned comparatively high
wages for Latin America and a professional class existed in the cities. The
country’s people were better educated and organized than anywhere else in
the Caribbean and many Cubans shared a deep sense of nation born from the
long struggle for independence. Most urbanities could read newspapers,
allowing them to participate in politics and follow national events. These social
characteristics combined with a peculiar capitalist development (rich cities,
impoverished countryside) made the nation especially ripe for revolution in
the 1950s.

The Sergeants’ Revolt

Fulgencio Batista did not enter the world with social advantages. Born
out of wedlock in 1901, his racial mixture – Spanish, African, and Chin-
ese – was another handicap. Orphaned at 13, Batista held several different
jobs including canecutter, railroad brakeman, and tailor’s apprentice before
he moved to Havana in 1921. There, he enlisted in the army and became
a stenographer. Thanks to his intelligence and ambition, Batista achieved
the highest non-commissioned rank (sergeant first class) and quickly
learned the nuance of Cuban army politics while recording military
trials.15 Political turmoil associated with the Great Depression created the
conditions for the army chain of command to be inverted.
On September 3, 1933 Batista and a group of sergeants – non-elite and
mostly mixed-race – met to discuss the rumors of pay cuts and reduced oppor-
tunities for promotions. The army general staff summarily dismissed their
grievances. What happened next stunned everyone. Enlisted men under
Batista’s leadership arrested their commanding officers in Havana. Some junior
officers (lieutenants mostly) joined the rebellion as the munity spread outside
of the capital. The Cuban high command mustered at Havana’s Hotel Nacional
hoping for US intervention. After a series of firefights on October 2, two navy
units shelled the hotel and its army officers surrendered. As for Franklin
68 Cuba

Roosevelt’s administration, it stayed out of the Sergeants’ revolt and Congress

agreed to abrogate the Platt Amendment in 1934.
Colonel Batista, who began his career as a private, assumed control of the
army general staff and proceeded to commission former cooks, harness makers,
and blacksmiths. Such policies severed the link between the armed forces and
the sugar-producing elite. Louis Pérez writes, “One reason Batista enjoyed
widespread popularity among the enlisted men was the social mobility he early
infused into the hitherto predominantly all-white officer corps.”16 Under
Batista, barracks housing and curriculum at army academies improved. For the
next quarter century, Fulgencio Batista dominated Cuban politics. As com-
mander in chief of the army, he could call on the troops to support civilian
governments and in 1940 he was elected president – the first nonwhite Cuban
to hold high office. Batista’s pro-labor policies and rural school construction
program won him a base of popular support but that did not preclude his
developing contact with American gangsters or allowing the army top brass to
illicitly enrich itself.17
From 1933 to 1958, Cuban living standards continued their rise. Life
expectancy went up and infant mortality went down.18 Cuba was among the
most developed countries in Latin America with respect to literacy and real
wages. Frustration and anger were rife, however. The island’s political culture
was becoming more violent. Fidel Castro, a law student at the University of
Havana from 1945 to 1950, carried a gun on campus and battled with rival
student gangs. His politics were broadly defined by anti-imperialism, calls for
social justice, and economic nationalism.

The Batista Dictatorship

On March 10, 1952, Batista overthrew the elected government of Carlos
Prío and cancelled upcoming elections. He justified the coup as a measure
to “save the country” from misgovernment, communism, and chaos, but
it was a power grab. Batista wanted to enrich himself. US criminals such
as Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano expanded their profitable operations
related to gambling, drugs, nightclubs, and prostitution. Police and army
officials received kickbacks and Havana became internationally known for
its mafia-controlled tourism. Despite the lack of domestic legitimacy,
Washington supported Batista; he seemed like a force for anti-communist
stability.
After a brief, unsuccessful legal career, Fidel Castro devoted himself fully
to politics in 1952. A charismatic figure and gifted speaker, Castro recruited
anti-Batista fighters from Havana’s poorer neighborhoods and on July 26,
1953, he attacked the Moncada army barracks near Santiago with approxi-
mately 150 revolutionaries. His basic plan – seize weapons and improvise
 Cuba 69

a rebellion with himself as supreme leader – drew from traditions in Cuban

history, but the attack was poorly conceived and unsuccessful (61 killed, 51
captured). During his subsequent trial, Castro defended the assault as the
right of the Cuban people to overthrow an unjust, illegitimate government.
Ongoing press coverage of the trial made Fidel Castro, just 27 years old,
a household name. Moreover, he named his revolution the 26th of July
Movement (MR-26–7).
Thanks to domestic pressure and Batista’s desire to appear magnanimous, he
released MR-26–7 rebels from prison on May 15, 1955. Not long after, Fidel
and Raúl fled to Mexico where they immediately proceeded to raise funds and
prepare for an even more audacious undertaking. On November 25, 1956 Fidel
Castro and 82 guerrillas struck out for Cuba onboard a tiny yacht, the Granma,
launched from Tuxpan, Mexico. After a harrowing week-long journey, the
guerrillas landed in eastern Cuba to a harsh welcome. Batista had learned they
were coming. Just 12 of 82 escaped government forces and managed to regroup.
That revolutionary core included the Castro brothers, Argentine medic Ernesto
“Che” Guevara (the only non-Cuban fighter), and Camilo Cienfuegos. Despite
this setback, Fidel retained an unshakable faith in his ability to fight, survive, and
win. Two years later, all four men would be at the helm of their own guerrilla
columns.

Who Fought Batista?

A poorly understood fact about the insurrection against Batista is just how
many different groups participated. Furthermore, the real danger was in the
cities, not the mountains. Urban revolutionaries faced constant reprisals while
rural guerrillas could launch raids and ambushes with relative impunity; they
suffered fewer casualties thanks to the natural protection of the mountains. In
1957, key leaders of the urban resistance perished. José Antonio Echeverría
(24 years old), the charismatic leader of Cuba’s university students, died in
a firefight with police after a daring attack on the presidential palace. Frank
País (22 years old), a central figure in the MR-26–7 movement, helped keep
Castro’s rebels alive during their difficult first year. He channeled ammunition,
supplies, and information to rural guerrillas while organizing urban strikes and
acts of sabotage. Batista’s henchmen ambushed and murdered País on July 30,
1957. Of all the women involved the in the struggle, none were as important
as Celia Sánchez who paid the revolution’s bills and handled MR-26–7’s logis-
tics. She was remembered “as exceptionally well-organized, with attention to
the smallest details, and a ‘tremendous capacity for paper-work.’”19 After 1959,
Sánchez was Castro’s personal secretary and one of the most powerful people
in Cuba until her death in 1980.
70 Cuba

Of the original revolutionaries on the Granma, Raúl Castro and Che

Guevara were among the most decisive. Raúl Castro, for instance, kid-
napped 24 US marines on leave from Guantanamo Naval Base as a measure
to stop air attacks on his troops and supporters in the summer of 1958.
Raúl announced that American lives would be in danger if Batista con-
tinued the aerial bombardment of his column. It was an audacious move
that could have backfired, but it worked. Washington pressured Batista to
stop and Raúl slowly released his hostages to maximum benefit. In the
meantime, he captured seven light aircraft and recruited pilots to carry out
rebel bombing missions once hostilities resumed. His actions showed
remarkable nerve and organizational talent.20
Che Guevara developed a reputation for fearlessness. Subordinates agreed
that he could be hard and inflexible, but he only expected hardships he himself
would endure. In fact, Che’s gritty resolve during bouts of incapacitating
asthma solidified his authority. A man of action and intellect, Guevara wrote
the most widely read account of the Sierra campaign, Reminiscences of the
Cuban Revolutionary War. In it, he recounts the struggle to survive, secure
ammunition, and win over the peasant population. As Castro’s rebel army
grew stronger in 1957, he ordered the building of schools, health clinics,
workshops, and rural housing. Comandantes did not merely guard liberated ter-
ritory; they administered a parallel state.

Fidel Castro Emerges Supreme

1958 was the decisive year for Fidel Castro. He was strong enough to split his forces
and open new fronts. Domestically, he had become the central figure in the fight
against Batista. Diplomatically, the Eisenhower administration decided to stop selling
weapons to Cuba in view of the dictatorship’s atrocities. By this point, Batista
perceived the threat that rural guerrillas posed to his government and he deployed
the army to deal with MR-26–7 insurgents. Here, it is worth mentioning that
Batista never fully committed to an all-out offensive. Part of the army continued to
guard the country’s sugar mills.21
At the end of July 1958, General Eulogio Cantillo surrounded and cut off Fidel
Castro’s column at the Battle of Las Mercedes. Despite having the upper hand, Can-
tillo agreed to a ceasefire with Castro and rebel forces quietly slipped away from the
battlefield. The fiasco revealed what was happening elsewhere. The Cuban army
(ca. 20,000 soldiers) was in a state of decomposition. Better equipped army units
surrendered to outnumbered rebels and newly trained recruits refused to fight.
Batista insisted on a policy of non-negotiation, but his top commander had agreed
to a truce.22 Meanwhile, rebel strength kept growing. In September 1958, the MR-
26–7 organized an all-female platoon, armed with light machine guns. The image
of teenage girls carrying arms horrified some, exhilarated others, and symbolized the
 Cuba 71

FIGURE 3.1 Raúl Castro (left), Fidel Castro (center), and Camilo Cienfuegos (right)
in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, March 14, 1957. All were cunning field command-
ers. After 1959, Raúl received the task of building a new, revolutionary armed
forces. Source: Andrew St. George: AP.

revolution’s commitment to a more equal society in which women would have

new opportunities.23
Late in December 1958, government troops deserted their posts as Che
Guevara marched his column towards Santa Clara (central Cuba), home to
a large garrison that included tanks and bombers. Batista sent an armored train
with supplies and reinforcements from Havana to support the city’s defenders,
but Che’s men (approximately 350) derailed the train and seized Santa Clara.
At this point, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic and his demoralized offi-
cers surrendered to guerrilla commanders.

What Will the Barbudos Do?

When Camilo Cienfuegos entered Havana on January 2, 1959 he held the
city by arms, just as other twenty-something revolutionaries called barbudos
(bearded ones) did elsewhere on the island. During the next two years,
Fidel Castro relied on his revolutionary comrades – all battle-tested men
and women – to govern. He appointed military governors to each province
where they fulfilled political and military duties without a clear separation
72 Cuba

between the two roles. Fidel Castro signed an agrarian reform law on May 17,
1959. It limited the size of landholdings, including those owned by foreign com-
panies. Comandantes ordered their troops to occupy expropriated lands. The law
was based on one that rebel soldiers had already implemented in liberated territory
during 1958.
Radical revolutions have winners and losers. Guajiros, the term for
Cuba’s class of poor, subsistence farmers, gained a government that would
bring health care and education to neglected rural zones. Foreign firms
and domestic elites lost property. Castro closed Havana’s brothels, out-
lawed gambling, and nationalized the mafia’s hotels. During the first
months of 1959, Che Guevara oversaw the execution of Cuban army offi-
cers and Batista collaborators in short, revolutionary trials that drew criti-
cism from abroad and deeply affected Latin America’s officer class. Many
assumed that they would face firing squads if Castro-inspired guerrillas
seized power in their own countries.
Between 1959 and 1960, comandantes seized the state bureaucracy and
led Cuba’s revolutionary transformation. Within the rebel army, there was
only one major challenge.24 Huber Matos, a comandante who participated
in the final assault on Santiago and who appeared with Fidel during
victory celebrations in January 1959, worried about the radical leanings of
Che Guevara and Raúl Castro. While serving as military governor of
Camagüey province, Matos gave anti-communist speeches and made it
publicly known that he disapproved of the revolution’s socialist direction.
The tipping point occurred in October 1959 when Fidel appointed his
brother as minister of the FAR. Matos and 14 other officers resigned their
commissions in protest. Before any organized resistance materialized, Fidel
brought the hammer down. He ordered Camilo Cienfuegos to arrest
Matos and his supporters. This was the only time that two comandantes
locked horns. Ever since, the armed forces have loyally supported Cuba’s
socialist government. Huber Matos, for his part, was convicted of coun-
terrevolution and spent 20 years in jail.
As the revolution entered its more radical phase, Fidel and his advisors cor-
rectly assumed that the United States would probably try to invade the island
or send US-trained Cubans to establish a beachhead. That possibility loomed
over Raúl who knew the FAR was simply too small to repel a massive inva-
sion or keep watch over every corner of the island. Instead, he established
National Revolutionary Militias (MNRs) under FAR supervision. These
voluntary militias mobilized supporters of the revolution in Cuban schools,
workplaces, and state agencies.25 Although the MNRs had rudimentary
training, they were distributed across the country and represented a broad line
of defense. Two hundred thousand militia members could resist foreign inva-
sion and support the regular army of 25,000. The strategy worked. Militias
were instrumental to the defeat of anti-Castro Cubans at the Bay of Pigs and
 Cuba 73

dissidents operating in the Escambray Mountains. Militias also fit into a new

discourse. Castro described the entire nation as a mass of citizen soldiers
battling the forces of imperialism, illiteracy, and counterrevolution. That
rhetoric could only go so far, however, without tanks, jets, and antiaircraft
artillery.

Alliance with the Soviet Union

Fidel Castro did not claim to be a communist in 1959 or 1960, but his
revolutionary vision put him on a collision course with the United States.
He needed great power protection if he was going to confront the neigh-
boring juggernaut. The timing of the Cuban Revolution could not have
been better. Having launched Sputnik in 1957 and achieved manned space-
flight in 1961, the Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in space
exploration. Moreover, the socialist bloc was enjoying a period of strong
industrial growth in the 1960s. Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet premier from
1958–1964, felt confident. He authorized the sale of Soviet oil to Cuba in
February 1960 and agreed to purchase Cuban sugar at above-market prices.
Crucially, the Kremlin promised to supply the FAR with advanced military
technology. Havana had found a way to survive the closing of US markets.
Cubans witnessed a dizzying array of social changes and upheavals from 1959
to 1961. Politically and economically influential citizens fled. Sugar mills and
large estates were nationalized. Seven hundred thousand Cubans learned to read
and write thanks to the highly successful Literacy Campaign (1961). During this
era, Castro acquired a strong base of support as well as powerful enemies. Castro
deported the archbishop of Havana and other hostile clergymen. On the streets
of the capital, Soviet advisors and military personnel supplanted US tourists and
technicians. Baseball-loving Cubans, with their informal culture and African-
influenced musical traditions, developed working relationships with Soviet citi-
zens – a strange marriage from the start.
On January 3, 1961 the United States broke diplomatic ties with Cuba
and the State Department advised Americans to leave the island. By this
point, the CIA had already begun organizing 1,500 Cuban exiles for an
invasion of the island based on the flawed premise that Fidel was deeply
unpopular and properly equipped anti-Castro fighters would be able to
overthrow his regime. Washington did not foresee stout resistance.
Departing in boats from Guatemala on April 13, the well-supplied
invaders reached the Bay of Pigs early in the morning of April 17 and
were immediately detected by local militia units. Firefights ensued. Once
FAR regulars arrived, their artillery, aircraft, and tanks destroyed two
enemy supply ships and shot down two enemy bombers. By April 19, the
invaders’ position was hopeless. News of the event had global impact.
74 Cuba

Images of US-trained Cubans being marched into detention centers shackled,

exhilarated left-wing Latin Americans. The energetic response of Cuba’s mili-
tary remains a source of national pride. Local militias did not run from
danger; they suffered approximately 2,000 casualties. Shortly after the Bay
of Pigs fiasco, Castro declared Cuba a socialist state and before the end of
the year he had described himself as a Marxist-Leninist. Humiliated, US
President John F. Kennedy approved a secret terrorist program called
Operation Mongoose that involved sabotaging Cuban industry, planting
bombs in Havana, and attempting to assassinate the supreme leader. Des-
pite the expenditure, Operation Mongoose failed. Fidel Castro is supposed
to have said, “If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event,
then I would win the gold medal.” In the eyes of many Cubans, the
external threat justified censorship and state surveillance.
What happened next is a well-known chapter in Cold War history. The
Soviet Union agreed to place medium range ballistic missiles in Cuba, set-
ting up an extraordinarily tense confrontation between the USSR and the
United States during October 1962. When it was over, Moscow agreed to
remove its missiles from Cuba and Washington agreed to remove its
medium range missiles from Turkey. The Americans also pledged not to
invade Cuba. It was the closest the Cold War came to a full-scale nuclear
war. Che and Castro, for their part, felt thoroughly betrayed as they were
left out of the superpowers’ negotiations. If anything, the Cuban Missile
Crisis fueled the Castros’ determination to build a strong military capable of
defending Cuba’s sovereignty. From this point on, the Cold War was rarely
cold in Latin America. US policymakers resolved to prevent “another
Cuba” while Castro and his allies promised to defend their revolution.
¡Patria o Muerte! (Fatherland or Death) was their rallying cry. Both sides
dug in.
The Cuban government took a hard line with its anti-communist
enemies. Some left the island. Others stayed to fight. A tenacious anti-
Castro guerrilla war raged in the Escambray Mountains from 1960 to 1965
where rebel fighters – a mix of students, farmers, Batista soldiers, and disaf-
fected MR-26–7 militants – fought to the death, knowing full well that
they would be executed if captured. Castro had important factors working
in his favor during La Lucha Contra los Bandidos (The Fight against Bandits)
as the Cuban government called the Escambray rebellion: insurgents were
cut off from outside assistance, they lacked local support, and the FAR
could deploy 200,000 troops, mostly militia, to encircle and destroy the
guerrillas. Havana put the number of guerrillas killed or captured at 3,591
when the pacification campaign ended.26 In sum, fighting anti-Castro guer-
rillas at the Bay of Pigs and in the Escambray increased the Cuban mili-
tary’s confidence and operational readiness. The MNRs, for their part,
militarized a large segment of the population.
 Cuba 75

The Cuban Revolution’s Global Impact

Fidel Castro’s defiance of the United States made him a hero to millions of
people, and he did not shy away from ambitious projects or global leader-
ship. In 1962, Fidel Castro said, “And what does the Cuban Revolution
teach? That revolution is possible, that the people can make it, that in the
contemporary world there are no forces capable of halting the liberation
movement of the peoples.”27 His youthfulness mattered too. He swept
away the old political bosses and said to a new generation: you can defeat
a conventional army. You can defy the United States. We will help you.
Che Guevara said, “We are now the hope of the unredeemed Americas.
All eyes – those of the great oppressors and those of the hopeful – are
firmly on us.”28 He hoped to build a strong, independent country with an
industrial economy, diversified agriculture, and socialist citizens who would
selflessly assist “unfree” peoples.
The ideals and optimism of the revolution captured the imagination of
many young people in Latin America who studied Che Guevara’s theory
of foquismo which held that focal points of revolutionary activity could
spread to adjacent areas and spark a popular insurrection. He urged young
revolutionaries to pick up guns and fight dictatorships rather than build
networks and wait for promising conditions. Following the publication of
his book Guerrilla Warfare (1960), insurgencies popped up in nearly every
Latin American country.
Armed revolutionary groups drawing inspiration from Cuba (founding
dates):

Peru: Ejército de Liberación Nacional (1962)

Colombia: Ejército de Liberación Nacional (1964)
Chile: Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (1965)
Brazil: Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro (1966)
Argentina: Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (1969)

Fidel and Che wanted to export revolution as a matter of political neces-

sity. Friendly governments anywhere lessened Cuba’s isolation. Famously,
Che called on revolutionaries to “create two, three, many Vietnams.” Once
overextended, he believed Washington would withdraw from all fields of
battle in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Latin American guerrillas
answered Che’s call, but hemispheric conditions evolved, too. Washington’s
strategy to contain the revolution had several pillars: expel Cuba from the
Organization of American States, impose a strict trade embargo, increase
internal security training for Latin American militaries, and cut off assistance
to countries that nationalized US property without compensation. To
a significant degree, the strategy worked.
76 Cuba

With hindsight we can see how inappropriate the foquista theory was for
general application. South America’s professional militaries were highly
organized and motivated. They compared poorly to Batista’s demoralized
forces. Che’s apostles frequently believed they could alter the course of his-
tory through sheer will, often forgetting that Batista was widely hated in
Cuba and Castro’s guerrillas had the support of a wide network. Nor could
they foresee the powerful forces of counterrevolution that swept the hemi-
sphere in the 1970s and 1980s. National Security Doctrine called for mili-
taries to assume power if revolutionaries threatened the state and millions
of Latin Americans supported the idea.

Remaking the Cuban Armed Forces

Fidel Castro understood that revolutionary Cuba needed a modern, pro-
fessional military ideologically committed to the state’s goals and he gave
that vital task to his 28-year-old brother, Raúl, a man widely respected
by friends and foes alike as practical and competent. At first, Raúl focused
his efforts on countering the threat of a US invasion. Once that likelihood
declined, he proceeded with a plan to professionalize the FAR. In 1963,
he disbanded the militias (MNRs) and instituted compulsory military ser-
vice for males between 16 and 44. Henceforth, a large segment of the
male population would come under the direct control of the FAR, its
programs, and mission.
In 1966, Raúl launched a network of military schools named for Camilo
Cienfuegos (he died in a plane crash in October 1959) as a measure to offer
premilitary training to youths between 11 and 17. Instructors could then
identify promising candidates and channel promising camilitos into army,
navy, and air force officer training schools. During the Cold War, the
brightest lieutenants and captains traveled to socialist countries for
additional study. Meanwhile, the FAR upgraded its weapons systems thanks
to generous, ongoing Soviet aid. The FAR received tanks (T-34), air
defense systems, and MiG-21 fighter jets. The latter, which entered service
in 1963, gave Cuba the distinction of being the first Latin American
country with supersonic aircraft. Moreover, as Latin America’s armed forces
modernized in the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union delivered the next gener-
ation of hardware: T-62 battle tanks, MiG-23 jets, and BM-21 multiple
rocket launchers. From the late 1960s until the end of the Cold War, the
FAR had between 100,000 and 120,000 regulars and about 90,000 reservists
drawn from a population of 9.5 million in 1975.29
According to Cuba’s compulsory service, all Cuban males had to serve
their country for two years (formerly three) and the FAR designated
those conscripts to its service branches with another contingent reporting to
 Cuba 77

the interior ministry for social service in civilian society. Since the best
educated men usually performed civilian service, the system was stratified.
Women, for their part, could volunteer to become soldiers but were not
required to serve. Like other militaries in the developing world, the FAR
assumed roles beyond strictly military ones. If there was a shortage of cane-
cutters during the sugar harvest, the FAR could deploy its forces to fill the
gap. After 1973, the defense ministry created the Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo
(Youth Labor Army) as a permanent branch of the FAR. Its base of civic
soldiers cut cane, built schools, and maintained national infrastructure. Not
only that, Cuba regularly used troops to build airports, hospitals, and
schools in Africa and Latin America during the Cold War.30
Damián J. Fernández summed things up succinctly,

Since 1959 Cuba has been among the most militarized countries in the
world in terms of the quantity and quality of the armed forces; the
resources allotted to the military; the power of the military in the soci-
ety; the military’s participation in non-military tasks; and, the military
component of socialization and education of the population.31

Although written before the collapse of Soviet subsidies, much of Fernán-

dez’s statement holds true for the present. Only North and South Korea
have more active, reserve, and paramilitary forces as a proportion of the
population.32

Revolutionary Elites
The men and women who fought against Batista and have supported the revo-
lution since its inception belong to a political elite. Many come from humble
backgrounds. Víctor Dreke was born in Sagua la Grande to a poor Afro-
Cuban family in 1937. He grew up in an era when it was uncommon for
blacks to attend college or participate in student protests. Dreke did both. He
joined Castro’s movement in 1955 and served under Che Guevara during the
decisive Battle of Santa Clara. During the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Dreke rushed
to confront the invaders and was wounded in a firefight. A trusted soldier and
nonwhite member of the political elite, he was given important
responsibilities: second-in-command of the Cuban mission to train Marxist
rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, member of the central commit-
tee of the Cuban Communist Party, and leader of a military mission to
Guinea-Bissau from 1986 to 1988.33 Dreke’s commitment to the Cuban
Revolution has been unwavering. From his perspective, Castro and the Com-
munist Party transformed the island into a proud, dignified country with far
less racial discrimination than before.
78 Cuba

Delsa Esther “Teté” Puebla was born into a large peasant family in
eastern Cuba. As a teenager she transported weapons for MR-26–7 and
then joined its all-female platoon. After the overthrow of Batista, Puebla
stood alongside Fidel Castro during his victory caravan from Santiago to
Havana. In the years ahead, she would hold several titles: brigadier general
in the FAR, representative in the National Assembly, and director in the
Office of Veterans’ Affairs. For Puebla, the revolution did much more
than provide access to education and medical attention for women and
children. The revolution, she asserts, established models of female leader-
ship and challenged the prejudice that women were only fit for mother-
hood and domestic duties.34
Unlike most socialist countries, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC)
did not lead the country’s revolutionary transformation. In fact, it was not
fully organized until 1965. Even then, the PCC’s rank and file lacked
both education and administrative skill.35 By contrast, the FAR enjoyed
respect and legitimacy. Its officers moved in and out of civilian posts.
Jesús Reyes García – he was on board the Granma in 1956 – directed the
nation’s bodyguards (1960–1961) and Havana’s bus service (1962) before
rejoining the FAR as a captain. Later, he worked as a naval machinist and
then assumed leadership of an automobile repair enterprise.36
Because FAR officers have generally been trustworthy and capable, the
government turns to them for support with various tasks. Moreover, the
presence of military elites in the PCC leadership tends to bolster the party’s
authority and mute civil–military conflict. For decades, the most prominent
PCC members had all fought in the Sierra and had military backgrounds. If
commanders in the FAR disagreed with the PCC, Fidel Castro could
always use his personal authority to mediate the dispute.

Cubans Overseas
Isolated in the Western hemisphere, Fidel Castro valued international alli-
ances from the beginning. In 1961, he sent military and medical supplies
to Algerian revolutionaries and deployed a battalion of combat troops to
support his allies on the Algerian–Moroccan border (1963).37 Before the
end of the decade, Cuba had assisted guerrillas in Zaire, Mozambique,
Senegal, Malawi, Mali, and Eritrea. Piero Gleijeses observes that,

Cuban leaders were convinced that their country had a special

empathy for the Third World beyond the confines of Latin America.
The Soviet and their East European allies were white and, by Third
World standards, rich; the Chinese exhibited the hubris of a great and
rising power and were unable to adapt to African and Latin American
 Cuba 79

culture. By contrast, Cuba was nonwhite, poor, threatened by

a powerful enemy, and culturally both Latin American and African. It
was, therefore, a unique hybrid: a socialist country with a Third
World sensibility.38

Fighting Europe’s colonial powers in Africa also incurred fewer risks of

a direct confrontation with the United States and Che Guevara was keen
to export revolution. In 1965, he led a contingent of Cubans to fight on
the side of Marxist guerrillas in the newly independent Congo, but after
seven months he returned to Cuba unimpressed with the commitment of
Congolese fighters; so he now focused his attention squarely on South
America.
Disguised as a balding Uruguayan businessman with glasses, Guevara
slipped into Bolivia, the poor, landlocked country where he hoped to
build a revolutionary base from which to support guerrillas in Peru,
Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The insurgency that included 29 Bolivians,
25 Cubans, and three Peruvians got off to a terrible start. The group
lacked a charismatic figure like Fidel Castro and Guevara failed to win the
support of Bolivia’s Communist Party or, for that matter, any other
organized group. In March 1967, just months after arriving, the Bolivian
military detected the guerrillas’ base camp along the Ñancahuazú River,
an Amazon tributary, which forced Che’s column into the sparsely popu-
lated jungle.
Washington acted swiftly. CIA advisors and a Mobile Training Team
were deployed to Bolivia and, three months later, an elite fighting force of
Bolivian army rangers was trained and ready for combat. The unforgiving,
insect-infested jungle made life miserable for Guevara’s revolutionaries. On
August 30, 1967, Che wrote in his diary,

The machete users were suffering fainting spells. Miguel and Dario
drank their own urine, as did Chino, with the unfortunate result of
diarrhea and cramps. Urbano, Benigno, and Julio climbed down into
a canyon and found water. They informed me that the mules were
unable to make it down, and I decided to remain with Nato. How-
ever, Inti came back up with water, and the three of us stayed there
eating horsemeat. The radio remained below, so there was no
news.39

The next day, nine revolutionaries were ambushed and killed while fording
a river.
In Bolivia’s isolated, primitive countryside, the Guaraní-speaking natives
had little reason to trust such strange men with guns. Not one single peas-
ant joined the revolution. In fact, the opposite occurred; locals informed
80 Cuba

state authorities when guerrillas passed through. The situation became

hopeless. On October 7, 1967, Bolivian rangers captured Guevara (he was
shot through the leg) and, two days later, the country’s military president
ordered his execution. Che’s ill-fated foco ended in disaster, but his revolu-
tionary life had tremendous impact. Many young Latin Americans were
inspired to emulate the comandante’s example of courage and sacrifice, if not
pragmatism. In Santa Clara, a large bronze statue of Che stands next to the
mausoleum which contains his remains and those of 29 other combatants
from the Bolivian guerrilla. The mausoleum includes an eternal flame and
a museum about the life of Guevara. Every morning Cuban schoolchildren
exclaim “¡Seremos como el Che!” (We will be like Che).

The FAR in Africa

Following the defeat of Che Guevara’s Bolivian campaign and the over-
throw, in 1973, of Cuba’s ally Salvador Allende (President of Chile), it
was obvious that anti-communist military regimes in South America had
the upper hand. Castro turned his attention fully towards Africa where he
deployed 1,500 troops to support Egypt during the Yom Kippur War
(1973) and sent approximately 15,000 to assist Ethiopia’s Marxist govern-
ment defeat Somalia in the Ogaden War (1977–1978). Such deployments
would be striking for any country of Cuba’s size, but they turned out to
be very minor actions compared to what lay ahead in Angola.
The Portuguese Empire crumbled in 1975. Lisbon’s government indi-
cated that it would withdraw from Angola and Mozambique, its two
remaining African colonies, and political factions began looking ahead to
the fight for control of Luanda and Maputo (capital cities, respectively).
Cuba had already sent advisors to help organize Angola’s Marxist faction,
MPLA, while the Soviets sent arms. The United States and South Africa
supported MPLA’s rivals, UNITA and FNLA, and once Portuguese rulers
evacuated the capital, MPLA took possession of Luanda, at which point
Washington urged Pretoria to intervene in the civil war on the side of its
anti-communist allies. Five thousand South African troops entered the
country from Namibia and began moving up the coast in October
towards the Marxist-held capital.
Faced with a desperate situation, the MPLA petitioned Havana for direct
assistance and Castro agreed. On November 5 he dispatched special forces
with the objective of holding Luanda until reinforcements could arrive
(Operation Carlota). Cuban fighters had an immediate impact. “Militarily,
Cuba’s troops made the difference,” writes William M. LeoGrande, “From
November 1975 to March 1976, between 18,000 and 36,000 Cubans
arrived in Angola. By mid-December, the South African advance in the
 Cuba 81

south had been halted.”40 Not only that, Cuban soldiers impressed involved
parties with their courage and effectiveness. Policymakers in Washington
assumed that Moscow had ordered the Cuban intervention, but Fidel did
not consult or inform Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev before deploying his
troops. Only later did the Soviet Union play a role transporting Cuban
troops and weaponry to Angola. At the outset, Fidel Castro personally
briefed Cuban soldiers about their “internationalist mission.”41
For 15 years, Havana maintained approximately 25,000 troops in
Angola (sometimes more, sometimes less). Havana did not reap direct eco-
nomic benefits from Angola, but Cuba’s prestige rose in the socialist
world. After all, Cuba’s intervention carried substantial risks. Fighting the
well-trained and equipped South African Defence Forces held the poten-
tial for a humiliating defeat while sending the island’s sons to fight over-
seas held the potential for domestic backlash from bereaved families. Once
again, Castro had good timing. In the wake of the Watergate scandal and
Vietnam War debacle, the United States Congress was in no mood to
support another overseas adventure. In fact, Senator Dick Clark passed an
amendment specifying that the US government could not expend funds to
support any military factions in Angola.42

Fighting in Angola
Over 200,000 Cubans served in various parts of Angola during the 1970s
and 1980s. In this struggle, the Cuban government disproportionately
mobilized Afro-Cubans, departing from the premise that darker faces
would lessen the racial difference between Cuban and Angolan soldiers.
That policy was not without controversy – critics have called it racist –
but it is also true that blacks defeating whites in Africa had psychological
effects. Rhodesia’s white-dominated government collapsed in 1980 and
Cuban victories over the South African Defence Forces shook Pretoria’s
confidence.
Everyone in Cuba knew someone who went to Angola and the number of
casualties (ca. 3,000 deaths and 15,000 wounded) was highly significant for
a country with 10 million people. Juan Nicolás Padrón says that the volunteers
had diverse motivations: some went to escape problems at home, prove them-
selves as soldiers, or improve their career prospects. Others felt genuine ideo-
logical commitment to the “internationalist cause.” Padrón, a journalist,
arrived in 1984 alongside thousands of doctors, teachers, and construction
workers who went to Angola as civic soldiers.
The Angolan Civil War’s decisive moment occurred during the Battle
of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988. There, the FAR achieved control of the
skies and forced South African forces to retreat behind the Namibian
82 Cuba

FIGURE 3.2 Cuban soldiers pose on a tank in Angola in 1989. Source: Cuban
government.

border. Not long after, South Africa agreed to withdraw from Namibia
(then South African-controlled territory, subject to apartheid) while Cuba
agreed to a phased withdrawal from Angola. In effect, the FAR had accel-
erated the end of apartheid and white rule in southern Africa. Tellingly,
Nelson Mandela came to Havana shortly after his release from jail in
1991. He personally thanked Fidel Castro for sending troops to the region
and said, “As Southern Africans, we are deeply indebted to the Cuban
people for the selfless contribution they made to the anti-colonial and
anti-apartheid struggle in our region.” This is not to say that Cuba’s
intervention was uncontroversial. Some veterans resented being sent to
fight in a faraway country. Other volunteers retain a sense of pride. Look-
ing back, Padrón said, “In the end, I’m satisfied. I did not go to defend
an unjust cause.”43

The Ronald Reagan Effect

The election of Ronald Reagan in November 1980 represented a serious
threat to Cuba’s national security because Reagan gave clear indications
that he intended to assert US power in the region. The cold warrior
made it clear that he would roll back any communist gains in Latin
America. The USSR, for its part, was bogged down in Afghanistan and
 Cuba 83

suffering from economic problems; its leaders informed Havana that

Moscow would not risk another confrontation with Washington. Further-
more, many of Cuba’s regular troops were overseas in Angola.
Raúl and Fidel Castro responded by resurrecting the militia system. They
founded the Territorial Troops Militia (Milicias de Tropas Territoriales, MTT),
conceived as a massive reserve of civilian volunteers – students, women, older
workers, retirees – to assist the regular army in the event of an invasion or
crisis. Based on the “People’s War” doctrine imported from Vietnam, the
MTTs mission is to make any attack on the island costly for the aggressor.
Militia members, up to the present, receive basic military training and prepare
to fight in their respective regions. On January 20, 1981, the same day Ronald
Reagan was inaugurated in Washington, Fidel Castro gave a speech about the
militias in which he associated them with Cuba’s culture of resistance dating
back to the wars for independence and the fight against Batista. Since
1984, the MTTs have had approximately 1 million members that could be
mobilized.44

Cuba in the 1980s

Cuba’s ongoing military operations in Angola raised an unavoidable question:
should a small, developing country spill the blood of its people 10,000 kilo-
meters away in a complicated civil war involving multiple ethnic groups and lan-
guage families? Furthermore, Cuba was assisting revolutionaries in El Salvador
and Nicaragua. With respect to the latter, the triumph of the Cuban-aligned
Sandinistas in 1979 ensured a commitment there. During the 1980s Cuba
provided millions of dollars-worth of agricultural equipment to Nicaragua’s
Sandinistas, as well as technicians, doctors, and teachers. Contact with South
American revolutionaries continued too. Cuban fishing vessels covertly trans-
ferred a large quantity of weaponry to armed groups in Chile. Cuban interven-
tions were not restricted to Africa and the Caribbean.
Despite Cuba’s influential role in hemispheric affairs, a growing number of
Cubans wanted out. Ten thousand people stormed the Peruvian embassy in
1980 requesting political asylum. Facing a domestic crisis, Fidel Castro authori-
zed the multitude’s departure from the Port of Mariel along with anyone else
who wanted to leave between April 15 and October 31, 1980. In total,
100,000 Cubans, most of them working class, departed for the United States
in what is called the Mariel boatlift. These disaffected Cubans voted with their
feet.
Another event with national significance occurred in Grenada, a small
island close to Venezuela. In 1979, Grenada came under the rule of a left-
wing government and 700 Cuban workers arrived on the island to build an
airstrip, which Ronald Reagan said was for military purposes and possibly
Soviet meddling. Amid political instability, Reagan ordered an invasion of the
84 Cuba

island on October 25, 1983. Suddenly, Cuban soldier-workers found themselves

in firefights with US forces (they managed to kill 19 American soldiers) while
suffering 25 dead, 59 wounded, and repeated aerial bombardment. Cuba’s top
commander, Colonel Pedro Tortoló, had orders to fight until the last man but
he took refuge in the Soviet embassy. Back in Cuba, Tortoló received
a demotion and was sent to Angola. In other words, Raúl and Fidel had
a message for FAR commanders: surrender is not an option, we expect revolu-
tionary martyrdom. As one can imagine, this was a controversial position.

Discontent in the FAR

Brigadier General Rafael del Pino, who had fought with Fidel Castro in
the Sierra Maestra, defected with his family to the United States in 1987.
This was a significant event because del Pino was a distinguished pilot
who flew 25 missions during the Bay of Pigs Invasion and shot down two
B-26s flown by Cuban exiles. A graduate of the Soviet Union’s Air Force
Academy, del Pino served in North Vietnam and commanded Cuba’s air
force in Angola. In the United States, del Pino said that he disapproved
of Cuba’s open-ended commitment to Angola. Such a statement surely
reflected the frustration others felt.
In June 1989, the Cuban state put General Arnaldo T. Ochoa on trial
for allowing cocaine to transit through Cuban coastal waters en route to
the United States. Ochoa was no ordinary soldier, though. He had helped
repel the Bay of Pigs Invasion, served on the PCC’s central committee,
trained rebels in the Congo, and won the respect of Cuban and Soviet
commanders for his outstanding performance during Operation Carlota
(1975) and the Ogaden War (1977–1978). The latter earned him the nick-
name León de Etiopía (Lion of Ethiopia). Despite being the country’s most
decorated soldier, a military tribunal found Ochoa and three other officers
guilty of taking bribes from Colombian drug traffickers, among other cor-
ruption charges. He and the others were sentenced to death. This would
be akin to US Army General George S. Patton being shot after World
War II. Rumors circulated. Did Fidel and Raúl know about Ochoa’s
involvement with drug traffickers? Were they covering their own tracks
from the US Drug Enforcement Agency? In a country where decorated
soldiers are among the most important figures in society, a comandante
facing the firing squad unsettled the FAR.

Revolutions in the Socialist World, Not Cuba

1989 marked the beginning of Cuba’s gradual withdrawal from Angola as
stipulated in the Tripartite Agreement signed by Angola, Cuba, and South
Africa. Granma, Cuba’s state newspaper, reported on troop arrivals all year
 Cuba 85

long with headlines like “Internationalist heroes welcomed back,” with

photos of smiling soldiers disembarking from their military transports. After
nearly 15 years of fighting, the FAR could claim to have achieved its
objectives. Granma was silent, however, on the breakdown of political
arrangements in the socialist world.45
In 1989, Hungary’s communist government removed the barbed wire
fence at the border with Austria in May, which meant, among other
things, that East Germans could visit Hungary and escape to the West. In
June, the Chinese Communist Party sent columns of tanks to crush the
protestors who had gathered to demand political reform in Beijing’s
Tiananmen Square, but the pace of change quickened in Europe. Poland’s
parliament named a non-communist prime minister in August and East
Germans freely crossed the Berlin Wall in November. Communist Party
rule similarly unraveled in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. To
the surprise of many observers, Moscow did not safeguard the old Soviet
order with a show of force. These stunning developments had major impli-
cations for Cuba because the island belonged to the Comecon (communist
common market), in which east and central European countries bought
Cuba’s sugar and Cuba bought their cars, electronics, and heavy capital
goods.
Fidel Castro addressed a large crowd at Havana’s Karl Marx Theater on
September 28, 1990. He spoke frankly about what was happening. People
were smashing statues of Vladimir Lenin overseas and Cuba’s trading
partners had decided to embrace capitalism. Generous Soviet subsides
evaporated. But Castro insisted, “We are not going to renounce socialism.”
He spoke of a “special period in times of peace” that would require extra-
ordinary sacrifice and adjustment.

The FAR during Extraordinary Times

During the Special Period (1989–1998), Cuba lost approximately 80 percent of its
import and export markets. Industries collapsed. Gross domestic product shrunk
by a third. Food and medicine imports stopped or severely slowed. The nation’s
caloric intake declined, all while the United States Congress strengthened its eco-
nomic embargo and racketed up the pressure with new sanctions. Desperate
Cubans fled to the United States on makeshift rafts through the Florida Straits. All
sectors of the economy were affected, especially due to the loss of fossil fuels and
synthetic fertilizers. The newly established Russian Federation wanted cash for
arms, fuel, and technology. The Cuban state had very little to spend. The FAR
lacked ammunition for live fire trainings and fuel for its aircraft and trucks. Such
a catastrophic change in the FAR’s operational capabilities surely hurt morale, but
there was no evidence of coup plotting or restlessness among junior officers. In
86 Cuba

fact, the FAR’s professionalism shined. The state may have greatly reduced the
number of active duty soldiers, but it retained a large pool of well-trained officers
with organizational talent.
It is said in Cuba that the military is one of the few, if not the only, state
institutions that truly works. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Fidel
Castro deployed the country’s officers to operate industries across the island,
ensuring the fair distribution of goods. The military, as opposed to the Com-
munist Party, was given various state companies to run because officers are
perceived as less corrupt and more efficient than typical state employees. The
FAR used conscripts to grow food, cut cane, and work wherever needed.46
Tourism is a vital part of the Cuban economy today – its biggest earner
of foreign exchange – and the FAR plays a central role running that
strategic sector. During the Special Period the military began running
hotels, tour bus companies, and all-inclusive resorts. Once the structural
adjustment was over, however, the FAR did not relinquish those roles,
which means that one group of officers carry out traditional national
defense missions while another group is involved in for-profit state enter-
prises. To what extent has that division created internal frictions or lessened
the FAR’s ideological commitment to socialism? Officers who work in the
tourism sector also have greater access to food, fuel, vehicles, and currency.
The potential for corruption is obvious.
Another big change is coming, too. Raúl Castro and his most trusted three-
star generals are old men in their seventies and eighties. They still hold the
highest positions of authority in the FAR and many serve on the politburo
(the highest policymaking committee of the Cuban Communist Party). What
will the next generation do once Raúl and his cohort are gone? Will they
continue to see the United States as Cuba’s implacable enemy now that US–
Cuban relations have improved since Barack Obama’s visit to the island in
2016?47
Fidel Castro transformed Cuba into a global player with influence, impact,
and prestige. Defenders of the Cuban Revolution point to opportunities
created for the poorest members of society and the island’s undeniable achieve-
ments with respect to health care and education. Cuba is also a one-party state
with ongoing surveillance of the population. Since 1960, 1.1 million Cubans
have left their homeland for political or economic reasons. For critics, the
FAR has been an instrument of tyranny, but even those critics would probably
agree that the FAR is an effective instrument of state.
FAR officers had a very singular postwar experience compared to officers else-
where in Latin America. They did not travel to Western Europe or the United
States for postgraduate study. Promising officers trained at academies in the socialist
bloc. During the Cold War, thousands of Cuban soldiers deployed to African coun-
tries where they became familiar with non-Western languages and cultures. In
Cuba, a certain percentage of military cadets must be of worker/peasant origin. That
 Cuba 87

requirement ensures that many FAR officers are black and brown. In mess halls,
Cuban officers eat the same food as conscripts. They are not served first or separated
from the rank and file. In short, a very different ethos governs Cuba’s FAR.48
Young cadets in training are connected to a revolutionary tradition
stretching back to the struggle for independence and the country’s most
cherished heroes, Antonio Maceo and José Martí. Soldiers are told that El
ejército no tira contra el pueblo (The army does not fire on the population);
internal repression is left to other state organs. If protesters mustered in
Havana’s Revolution Square and refused to leave until their political
demands were met, would FAR commanders disperse the crowd if so
ordered? Such a question has never been tested. In the 1990s, the FAR
went from being one of the most powerful militaries in the hemisphere to
one of the most impoverished due to the loss of Soviet aid. Despite the
hardship, FAR’s leadership showed remarkable resilience and adaptability.
Cuba no longer pursues an activist foreign policy or deploys overseas as
it did during the Cold War, but the FAR’s social and political relevance
has not declined at all. The military oversees the country’s massive militia
system, generates cash for the state by running domestic industries, and has
contact with thousands of young men each year due to conscription. The
FAR is respected and enjoys legitimacy due to its past performance on
battlefields. Its institutional lore includes the struggle against Batista, battle-
field victories in Angola, and a reputation for competence. The FAR
remains Cuba’s essential state institution. It has loyally served the PCC and
Cuba’s revolutionary project. Whatever happens next, the FAR will be
there.

Notes
1 Bartolomé de Las Casas, A short account of the destruction of the Indies (Penguin UK,
1992), 28.
2 See Gustavo Placer Cervera, Ejército y Milicias en la Cuba colonial, 1763–1783 (Editorial
de Ciencias Sociales, 2015).
3 Allan J. Kuethe, Cuba, 1753–1815: crown, military, and society (University of Tennessee
Press, 1986), 78–112.
4 See Rebecca Jarvis Scott, Slave emancipation in Cuba: the transition to free labor,
1860–1899 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
5 Néstor Ponce de León, The book of blood: an authentic record of the policy adopted by
modern Spain to put an end to the war for the independence of Cuba (M.M Zarzamendi,
translator & printer, 1871), vii.
6 Yolanda Díaz Martínez, “La Sanidad Militar del Ejército Español en la Guerra de
1895 en Cuba,” Asclepio: Revista de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia 50, no.
1 (1998): 164; John Robert McNeill, Mosquito empires: ecology and war in the Greater
Caribbean, 1620–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 302.
7 Louis A. Pérez, Army politics in Cuba, 1898–1958 (University of Pittsburg Press,
1976), 4.
8 Ibid. 5–15.
88 Cuba

9 Leonard Wood, Civil Report of the Military Governor, vols. 1–5. (Government Printing
Office, 1901).
10 Pérez, Army politics in Cuba, 4–15.
11 Jorge I. Domínguez, Cuba: order and revolution (Harvard University Press, 1978),
18, 52.
12 José C. Moya, Cousins and strangers: Spanish immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930
(University of California Press, 1998), 44.
13 For a firsthand account of Fidel Castro’s rural upbringing, primary education, and
university life, see Fidel Castro and Deborah Shnookal, Fidel: my early years (Ocean
Press, 2005).
14 Domínguez, Cuba, 25.
15 Lawrence Van Gelder “Batista Dies in Spain at 72,” The New York Times,
August 7, 1973.
16 Pérez, Army politics in Cuba, 85.
17 Servando Valdés Sánchez, Cuba: ejército y reformismo, 1933–1940 (Oriente, 2006).
18 Domínguez, Cuba, 76.
19 Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Women and the Cuban insurrection: how gender shaped Castro’s
victory (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 102.
20 Hal Klepak, Raúl Castro and Cuba: a military story (Springer, 2012), 7–10.
21 Domínguez, Cuba, 131.
22 See Fulgencio Batista, Cuba betrayed (Vantage Press, 1962), 97–131.
23 Bayard de Volo, Women and the Cuban insurrection, 2.
24 See William M. LeoGrande, “The politics of revolutionary development: civil-
military relations in Cuba, 1959–1976,” Journal of Strategic Studies 1, no.3
(December 1978): 260–94.
25 Damián J. Fernández, “Historical background: achievements, failures, and
prospects,” in Jaime Suchlicki, ed., The Cuban military under Castro (Transaction
Publishers, 1989), 7.
26 Domínguez, Cuba, 346.
27 Fidel Castro, The second declaration of Havana: Cuba’s answer to the OAS (Pioneer
Publishers, 1962), 19.
28 Ernesto Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban revolutionary war (Ocean Press, 2006),
270–1.
29 See Juan M. del Aguila, “The changing character of Cuba’s armed forces,” in Jaime
Suchlicki, ed., The Cuban military under Castro (Transaction Publishers, 1989),
27–59. See also Domínguez, Cuba, 151, 348–9.
30 Domínguez, Cuba, 361.
31 Fernández, “Historical background,” in Jaime Suchlicki, ed., The Cuban military
under Castro, 1.
32 The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The military balance 2017 (Routledge,
2017).
33 See Víctor Dreke and Mary-Alice Waters, From the Escambray to the Congo: in the
whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution (Pathfinder Press), 2002.
34 Teté Puebla, Marianas in combat: Teté Puebla & the Mariana Grajales Women’s Platoon
in Cuba’s revolutionary war, 1956–58 (Pathfinder Press, 2003).
35 William M. LeoGrande, “The politics of revolutionary development: civil-military
relations in Cuba, 1959–1976.”
36 Domínguez, Cuba, 373–6.
37 Frank R. Villafaña, Cold war in the Congo: the confrontation of Cuban military forces,
1960–1967 (Routledge, 2017), 9.
38 Piero Gleijeses, Visions of freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the struggle for
Southern Africa, 1976–1991 (UNC Press Books, 2013), 23.
39 Ernesto Guevara, The Bolivian diary (Ocean Press, 2006), 291.
 Cuba 89

40 William M. LeoGrande, Cuba’s policy in Africa, 1959–1980, no. 13 (Institute of

International Studies University of California, 1980), 19.
41 Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976
(University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 246–327.
42 Piero Gleijeses, Visions of freedom. See also, Domínguez, Cuba, 354.
43 Interview with Juan Nicolás Padrón, December 17, 2015, Havana.
44 www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1981/esp/f200181e.html; See also, del Aguila,
“The changing character of Cuba’s armed forces,” in Suchlicki, ed., The Cuban
military under Castro.
45 “Primer contingente de combatientes internacionalistas: en la patria, victoriosos,
invictos,” Granma, January 11, 1989; “Vinculados al trabajo más del 75% de los
combatientes internacionalistas que han regresado al país,” Granma, September 30,
1989; “Murieron por los más sagrados valores de nuestra historia y nuestra revolu-
ción,” Granma, December 8, 1989.
46 Hal Klepak, Cuba’s military 1990–2005: revolutionary soldiers during counter-
revolutionary times (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 47–54.
47 See Frank Mora, Brian Fonseca, and Brian Latell, “Cuban military culture,” Florida
International University, Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs
(April 2016).
48 Klepak, Raúl Castro and Cuba, 72.
4
BRAZIL

The fact that Brazil is one nation instead of four or five is a remarkable achieve-
ment. The country borders ten South American nations and is larger by area than
the continental United States. Seventeen Brazilian cities have more than
one million inhabitants and these urban centers are scattered across subtropical
coasts, woodland savannas, and interior rivers. People in the north, northeast,
center-west, southeast, and south have distinctive accents, cultures, and local
economies. In view of such size and diversity, Brazil could have easily fractured
into several different states following its independence from Portugal in 1822.
During the nineteenth century, the military played a decisive role putting
down revolts and holding the massive country together. During this formative
period, soldiers went to war with neighboring countries and developed first-
hand knowledge of Brazil’s forbidding interior. By 1930, army officers had
developed a consensus about the future. They wanted a strong, industrialized
country whose citizens shared a common nationality.
Brazil’s historical trajectory has been forcefully shaped by its military. As
a result, the armed forces present an important lens through which to view
Brazilian society and its evolution. Who served in the armed forces? What role
did the military play in politics? Where did Brazilian soldiers fight? Why did
the military hold power for two decades after the Cuban Revolution? This
chapter provides an overview of events and themes in Brazilian history from
the vantage point of its soldiers.

Brazil on the Eve of Independence

Foreigners disembarking in Salvador da Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s princi-
pal seaports in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, usually commented on
 Brazil 91

the pervasiveness of slavery. Slaves seemed to do everything in Brazil. They

worked as porters, barbers, carpenters, cobblers, and dentists in the cities and
labored on sugar and coffee plantations in the country.1 The Tupí people, who
once inhabited Brazil’s extensive coastline, were no longer an identifiable culture
having succumbed to disease, enslavement, and assimilation. Foreigners also
noticed the mixed status of the colony’s population. According to a 1775 census,
43.6 percent of Salvador’s 33,634 inhabitants were enslaved while the free popu-
lation consisted of whites (32.7 percent), browns (12.5 percent), and blacks
(11.1 percent). Slavery was so deeply embedded in Brazilian society that freed
Africans sometimes acquired slaves of their own. Few questioned the institution’s
morality until the nineteenth century.2
Brazil’s armed forces had a noticeable color hierarchy. The regular army
excluded black men. Officers had to be white (or regarded as white) and soldiers
had to be white or brown. As was the case elsewhere in Latin America, white
men derived status from being Old Christians, and stood atop the social hier-
archy. At the same time, colonial militias were divided into white, black, and
brown battalions, each with their own corresponding officers. All-black militia
units with black captains – something unthinkable in British North America –
closed ranks with whites and browns during African-led slave revolts. The mili-
tary, in short, reflected and maintained the unequal social order.
Free people in Brazil looked down on ordinary soldiers as social dregs –
criminals, vagabonds, and the very poor. Most soldiers were forced into
lengthy periods of service by impressment, not to be confused with conscrip-
tion. Press-gangs combed the cities and rural zones looking for men who
lacked status, employment, or patrons able to shield them from involuntary
service. Rank and file soldiers were regarded as dishonorable men in an
honor-obsessed society because they lacked control over their lives and could
be whipped, which free people associated with slavery. This is not to say that
every soldier was forcibly recruited. Barracks housing and regular wages
enticed some men to enlist.
The military was becoming a profession in late colonial Brazil. Artillery and
engineering officers had specialized training. The king’s commanders expected
promotions based on merit and seniority according to rules established in the
1760s. Most officers began their careers as cadets, but even enlisted men could
apply for a commission after a period of service, usually ten years. Cadets, like
officers, were exempted from corporal punishment and career soldiers looked
ahead to royal pensions.3

Independence
The starting point for Brazil’s independence story is Napoleon Bonaparte’s
invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal’s prince regent, João VI, refused to
92 Brazil

comply with Napoleon’s continental blockade of Great Britain and the French
emperor dispatched an army to ensure compliance. As French forces reached the
hills of Lisbon on November 30, 1807, they saw a remarkable sight. João VI was
setting sail for Brazil in 15 ships escorted by the British navy. The entire Braganza
dynasty along with advisors, imperial officials, courtiers – several thousand –
accompanied the king on a cramped, unhygienic transatlantic voyage. No Euro-
pean monarch had ever traveled to the Americas before.
For 13 years, João ruled the Portuguese Empire from Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil’s capital. Not only that, he liked the tropical country. During his sojourn,
João established numerous cultural and educational institutions including the
National Library and National Museum. The king made Brazil co-kingdom
with Portugal and endowed the former colony with a gunpowder factory,
Royal Military Academy, and Marine Arsenal for warship repair and construc-
tion. The king’s patronage suggested that he was settling in, especially since he
stayed long after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo (1815). Portuguese
nobles, unsurprisingly, wanted their sovereign back.
The Lisbon Cortes (parliament) demanded João’s return and he reluctantly
consented in 1821, but the king left his son Pedro I (heir to the Portuguese
throne) in Rio with a blessing to separate from Portugal if circumstances made
continued union impossible. The Portuguese parliament, which wanted to
reimpose old colonial relationships, issued an ultimatum for Pedro I to return
and the prince famously said, “Digam ao povo que fico!” (I say to the people,
I’m staying!). Creoles supported the prince’s declaration of independence on
September 7, 1822.4 Three months later he was crowned emperor of Brazil.
Brazil, at the time of independence, consisted of coastal settlements, a vast
interior, and a population divided among the free, newly freed, and enslaved
(approximately half of Brazil’s nonwhite population). Three hundred years of
Portuguese colonialism had endowed Brazil with many of the characteristics
found elsewhere in Latin America such as racial hierarchy and Roman Catholic
identity, but one historical outcome made Brazil very different from the
Spanish Empire: it did not fracture several different republics.
Since seaports connected Brazil’s cities and states, the fledging imperial
Brazilian navy had to achieve control of the sea-lanes. Facing this challenge,
Pedro I wisely hired Lord Thomas Cochrane, a daring naval commander from
Britain who had repeatedly triumphed over Spanish forces while leading
Chile’s first naval squadron. On March 21, 1823, Cochrane received command
of Brazil’s navy (one ship of the line, four frigates, and 33 smaller vessels) and
quickly matched his reputation with results.
Cochrane applied a blockade to Salvador and captured several Portuguese
ships attempting to flee that harbor. He then secured a Portuguese surrender in
Maranhão by deceiving its garrison commander into thinking that his army
and supporting naval force were enormous. Another British officer, on orders
from Cochrane, bluffed his way to the same result in Belém. By the time the
 Brazil 93

swashbuckling admiral returned to Rio in 1824, Portugal no longer threatened

Brazil’s independence.5
Pedro I had no designs to style himself an absolute monarch. Brazil’s first
Constitution, written in 1824, established four separate powers – executive, judi-
ciary, legislative, and moderator – the last of which vested the “moderating
power” in the emperor who could dissolve the bicameral legislature, call for
new elections, and name cabinets. In theory, the moderator was above politics,
a neutral, patriotic actor who would reconcile differences in the political system.
This was important because identity remained highly local. Brazilians felt
attached to the places where they grew up, not some faraway government in
Rio. The monarchy, elites hoped, would be a shared symbol and focus of
political loyalty. The architects of Brazil’s constitutional monarchy hoped that
a strong, centralized state would maintain order and protect the human property
of the country’s planters.

Imperial Recruitment
Under Portuguese absolutism, service in the army depended on race and class.
The establishment of a constitutional monarchy with concepts such as citizen-
ship and legal equality for free Brazilians implied changes for military recruit-
ment even though Pedro I’s first instructions, issued in 1822, preserved the
color hierarchy. He specified that all single white and free mulatto men
between 18 and 35 were to serve, with exceptions for those in occupations
deemed essential to the state: artisans, cowboys, slave drivers, sailors, fishermen,
and one son for every farmer. Nonetheless, 130 black marines served on Lord
Thomas Cochrane’s flagship. The empire could not afford to be so exclusion-
ary in a time of emergency.
The army eliminated all racial categories for its rank and file shortly after
independence, but many things did not change. Corporal punishment and
impressment, both symbols of the Old Regime, remained. Most troops
reached the barracks by way of press-gangs, and society continued to view the
army as a collection of criminals, vagrants, and the downtrodden. Critics ques-
tioned the prospect of leaving the nation’s defense to illiterate, forcibly
recruited men.6

Fall of the First Emperor

The young, charismatic man at the center of Brazil’s untested system, Pedro I,
enjoyed early successes. Portuguese troops were expelled from the country and
Pedro I secured diplomatic recognition from Britain and other European
powers in 1825. That year, however, Spanish-speaking rebels from Cisplatina,
Brazil’s southernmost province, declared independence. Rebels there sought
94 Brazil

union with Argentina. Because the empire had a bigger navy and regular
army, Pedro I expected a Brazilian victory, but the Cisplatine War
(1825–1828) quickly turned into a fiasco.
Argentina’s navy, led by Irish-born William Brown, managed to capture
several Brazilian warships and imperial forces failed to win decisive battles or
occupy Buenos Aires. Continued losses, political instability in Rio de Janeiro,
and the government’s failure to recruit sufficient soldiers for a large occupying
force brought Pedro I to the bargaining table and Britain brokered the peace
treaty that created Uruguay, an independent buffer state.
The humiliating loss of Cisplatina turned elite factions against the untested,
undisciplined emperor who was perceived as showing excessive interest in
European affairs and favoring Portuguese merchants. The king’s poor relations
with Liberal cabinets deteriorated to the point that the commander of his
imperial battalion joined a restless mob outside of the palace. On April 7,
1931, the young ruler abdicated in favor of his son, Pedro II, aged seven. Five
days later, Pedro I and his wife departed for Europe. They would never see
three of their children again.7
There were many reasons to think Brazil would fracture into several inde-
pendent republics after 1831. The regency that governed on behalf of Pedro II
lacked legitimacy and seemed incompetent during crises. Fortunately for the
empire, Pedro II assumed office in 1840, aged 14, and quickly developed
a reputation as a decisive leader and ethical ruler who cared about his subjects.
Roderick J. Barman, writes,

In the history of Latin America since independence, no person held

power so firmly and for so long as did Pedro II of Brazil. The only com-
parable figure is Fidel Castro, who came to power in Cuba after the
1959 Revolution.8

Remaking the National Army

Before the teenage king’s coronation on July 18, 1841, imperial officials had
begun the essential process of remaking the army. The empire, for instance,
separated officers from their home provinces, which had an obvious logic.
Better to have battalions in Bahia (northeast) put down revolts in Rio
Grande do Sul (south) or Pará (north). Better to have officers from Rio
command the Bahian garrison. Such policies insulated officers from the
intrigues in their home state and put them in touch with the nation’s
human geography. Rio de Janeiro emerged as the training grounds for artil-
lery officers, which tied together cohorts of officers whose social origins
were increasingly non-elite.
 Brazil 95

Manoel Luciano da Câmara Guaraná’s military career illustrates important

mid-century changes. He joined Bahia’s infantry in 1832 and moved up the
noncommissioned ranks before receiving an imperial commission in 1842. The
army transferred Guaraná to nine different provinces from 1837 to 1855.9 Few
Brazilians, elite or non-elite, possessed such firsthand knowledge of the coun-
try’s provinces. Serving across the sprawling country gave men like Captain
Guaraná a uniquely national perspective.
Military service was also becoming less attractive for elites. Officers increas-
ingly had less money and fewer social connections. During colonial times,
planters could serve in the provincial army and simultaneously oversee their
estate; frequent moves hindered the influence a planter could have on local
affairs. The complexion of the army was also getting darker, reflecting Brazil’s
social reality. Taken together, the army was acquiring a new corporate identity
that served the central state and its interests. It was not until the late 1880s that
the high command openly disobeyed civilian leaders.10

Patron of the Brazilian Army

It is easy to imagine how Brazil might have fractured into several different
countries. Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, the Duke of Caxias, helped prevent
that outcome. Caxias, whose father and grandfather were officers in the
Portuguese army, was born near Rio de Janeiro. He entered the Royal
Military Academy in 1818 and excelled. Promoted to lieutenant in 1820,
his career was just getting underway when Dom Pedro I declared Brazil’s
independence from Portugal in 1822. From that point onward, he loyally
served the monarchy.
Handpicked for the Emperor’s Battalion, a force of elite troops, Caxias helped
evict Portuguese forces from Bahia during the Siege of Salvador (1822–1823). He
led a successful charge against an enemy bunker and witnessed Portuguese officers
surrender to Brazilian commanders. Promoted to captain, Caxias became known
for his immaculate dress and self-discipline. In person, he radiated authority.
The coming years were tumultuous ones. The Crown deployed Caxias’ battal-
ion to guard Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, during the disastrous Cisplatine War.
The ensuing crisis did not cause Caxias to waiver in his loyalty to the monarchy.
In fact, he developed a strong bond with the new prince, Pedro II, tutoring him in
horsemanship and swordplay. After Pedro II assumed power, Caxias proved his
worth. Promoted to colonel at the age of 36, the Crown sent Caxias to quell
a rebellion in faraway Maranhão (northeastern Brazil) where 3,000 escaped slaves
supported the establishment of an independent republic. There, the young com-
mander split rebel factions and used force only when he could achieve swift victor-
ies. Careful to avoid unwinnable skirmishes in the region’s rugged terrain, he
demonstrated an intuitive understanding of local conditions.
96 Brazil

Caxias received two important assignments in 1842. First, he won a series

of lightening victories over rebellious Liberal factions in Rio de Janeiro, São
Paulo, and Minas Gerais. Second, Pedro II dispatched his key asset to Rio
Grande do Sul (southern Brazil) where ranchers continued to resist imperial
authority in the seemingly intractable Ragamuffin War (1835–1845). Caxias,
who understood the ranching economy and the macho culture of its horse-
men, deployed the same tactical and strategic acumen he had shown in the
northeast. He did not disappoint Pedro II.
Given civil and military control over the entire jurisdiction, Caxias imple-
mented a set of policies that today would be called counterinsurgency. He
sowed dissension among enemy factions, redressed the state’s economic griev-
ances, blocked rebel access to horses, induced desertions with amnesty, and
provided relief to orphans and widows. The peace terms he negotiated were
generous and smart: defeated officers (excluding the generals) could join the
imperial army, the Crown guaranteed the debts of rebel forces, and republican
prisoners were released. His success involved a shrewd combination of carrot
and stick, effective preparation, and diplomacy. For his role in the Ragamuffin
War, Pedro II made him a baron.11
Caxias reflected the society he lived in. He served the Brazilian Empire as
statesman and represented its dominant class. Caxias owned slaves and exported
coffee. In this respect, he represented planter interests and their desire for order,
monarchy, and the perpetuation of slavery. A member of the Conservative Party,
Caxias played a role in national politics and international diplomacy.
Perhaps his most stunning contribution to Brazilian history occurred during
the Paraguayan War (1864–1870). At 64 years of age, he led the difficult trek
into enemy territory. A stickler for camp discipline, Caxias improved barracks’
hygiene and made use of new technology. During the Siege of Humaitá
(1868), for instance, he deployed observation balloons to scout enemy posi-
tions. On January 5, 1869 he led Brazilian forces into Asunción, Paraguay’s
capital, before returning home ill and exhausted.
Luís Alves de Lima died in 1880, age 76, having earned three nicknames:
Caxias, the “Peacemaker,” and the “Iron Duke.” The duke’s towering reputation
comes from his central place in early Brazilian history. He fought for Brazil’s
independence from Portugal, put down revolts across the country, and showed
steadfast loyalty to the monarchy during its most important trials. Caxias remains
the Brazilian army’s greatest hero and revered example of patriotic service.

The Paraguayan War (1865–1870)

Growing coffee production ensured foreign exchange during the 1850s. Bankers
upgraded Brazil’s credit worthiness and the country enjoyed strong central lead-
ership. Railroads and steamships announced progress. In Spanish America, only
 Brazil 97

Chile enjoyed a similar record of political and economic stability. For Dom
Pedro II, the period was a happy time before the most destructive war in South
American history.
Argentina and Brazil had competed for influence in Uruguay’s unstable
politics ever since the Cisplatine War (1825–1828). Paraguay’s goals were
more straightforward: safeguard the country’s independence and secure free
navigation on the Paraná River, which borders the Argentine cities of
Corrientes, Santa Fe, and Rosario before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
During the 1850s, Paraguay’s president constructed a fortress on the Paraná
River and hired British engineers to help establish a domestic arms industry.
By the end of 1864, Paraguay’s overconfident dictator – Francisco Solano
López – decided to assert himself in regional politics. He sided with factions in
Uruguay hostile to Brazil and issued a warning to Rio de Janeiro: do not
intervene. Dom Pedro ignored the message. What came next stunned the
region. López ordered the capture of a Brazilian steamer on the Paraguay
River and Paraguayan forces invaded several Brazilian towns including São
Borja (Mato Grosso) and Uruguaiana (Rio Grande do Sul).
Paraguay, with its population of under 450,000, was challenging the Brazil-
ian Empire, with its population of 10 million, including 1.5 million slaves.
Brazil rushed regular army units to the frontier. Patriotic enthusiasm swept
Brazilian cities as thousands of free men joined the Motherland Volunteers.
Meanwhile, Paraguay’s army crossed into Argentine territory without permis-
sion. The order from López proved costly. Argentina and Brazil, though
historic rivals, formed a triple alliance with Uruguay.12
From the outset, the belligerents understood that supremacy on the Paraná
River would be essential for the supply and movement of soldiers. On
June 11, 1865 the Brazilian navy destroyed Paraguay’s fleet at the Battle of
Riachuelo, the largest naval battle in South American history. Thereafter, Para-
guayan armies could not occupy Argentine territory or mount offensive
campaigns. Allied commanders hoped the defeat would bring López to the
bargaining table, but it did not. Paraguayans retreated to fortified positions
upstream and dug in. One month after Riachuelo, 5,000 Paraguayan soldiers
surrendered at the Siege of Uruguaiana. Things seemed to be going well for
the allies, but the war had just begun. Disease and logistical problems
hampered mobilizations. At the Battle of Tuyutí (1866) allied troops suffered
4,000 casualties to Paraguay’s 13,000 killed and wounded. Brazilian veterans
would not forget the piles of stinking Paraguayan cadavers. López refused to
relent. He ordered his countrymen to make the invaders pay as they advanced
towards Asunción. Dom Pedro II, for his part, felt honor bound to secure an
unconditional surrender.
As bloody engagements chewed up troops thousands of miles away, public
opinion began to favor a negotiated peace. Mounting casualties reduced
Argentina’s contribution to the war effort and Brazil needed at least 40,000
98 Brazil

FIGURE 4.1 The Battleship Rio de Janeiro I is sunk by a Paraguayan torpedo at the
Battle of Curuzú, September 3, 1866. Source: José C. Soto.

soldiers in the field. By the end of 1866, the government began systematically
recruiting slaves. Planters who freed slaves for military service received com-
pensation and National Guardsmen could avoid deployment by purchasing
substitutes. Once slaves donned the Brazilian army uniform, they were tech-
nically free citizens albeit subject to military service for the war’s duration.13
Battle-hardened Brazilian troops gradually destroyed what remained of Para-
guay’s shrinking army, increasingly composed of teenagers and old men. The
Fortress of Humaitá surrendered on July 25, 1868 and Brazilian troops
captured Asunción five months later. The Duke of Caxias declared victory,
but López evacuated the capital and proceeded to organize a stubborn guerrilla
resistance as Brazilian soldiers chased López through hills and dense forest
during another year of bloodletting. Finally, on March 1, 1870, the Brazilian
army cornered López in the hills of northeast Paraguay. Before bullets cut
down the defiant dictator, he proclaimed “Muero con mi patria” (I die with my
country). The war was over.

Fighting in Paraguay
One hundred and forty-six thousand Brazilians fought in the Paraguayan
War, including 9,177 navy personnel. Most soldiers were recruited from
 Brazil 99

National Guard units and Motherland Volunteers. The latter were special
units created after Paraguay’s invasion of Brazilian territory. National
Guard leaders brought their clients forward to enlist and volunteers
received the promise of bonuses, land grants, and other benefits. By 1866,
patriotic enthusiasm had evaporated. Press-gangs found “volunteers” and
a total of 8,570 slaves were freed and sent to the front.14 Although typical
soldiers left few records of their experiences, Dom Obá is one notable
exception.
Cândido da Fonseca Galvão rushed to enlist in Bahia’s all-black Zuavo
company. The 20-year-old son of an African freedman considered it his patri-
otic duty to defend the Brazilian Empire. Wounded in battle, Galvão returned
home with a strong sense of pride. In the 1870s, he petitioned the imperial
government for recognition of his battlefield exploits and he was made an
honorary officer in the Brazilian army, something Galvão relished.
A passionate defender of the monarchy, Galvão settled in Rio de Janeiro
where he became known for his peculiar wardrobe, abolitionism, and personal
friendship with Dom Pedro II. Recognized as a member of African nobility
through his Yoruban grandfather, people addressed him as Dom Obá and
Dom Obá had opinions. He wrote newspaper articles that denounced racial
discrimination and praised the service of black and brown soldiers during the
Paraguayan War.15
Entrenchment, disease, and gradual movement defined much of the fighting
in Paraguay. Only during the war’s final phase did the fighting take place out-
side of muddy trenches. Sailors, for their part, faced Paraguayan gun batteries
on the Paraná River and spent much of the war ferrying troops to the front or
transporting the sick and wounded downstream. Dysentery, cholera, smallpox,
and measles took more lives than combat. For instance, in 1867, one in four
Brazilian soldiers were listed as sick.16
Another characteristic of the Paraguayan War was the repeated tendency of
allied governments to anticipate a breakthrough only to face a demoralizing
setback. On May 24, 1866, a combined force of 22,000 Brazilians, 11,800
Argentines, and 1,200 Uruguayans destroyed half of Paraguay’s army at the
Battle of Tuyutí. How could the enemy continue to resist? Four months later,
Paraguayan artillery tore up 4,000 allied troops at the Battle of Curupayty and
debilitating cholera epidemics added to allied body counts. To maintain troop
levels, Brazil resorted to a brutal program of impressment and slave
recruitment.17 In this total war, the Brazilian army faced child soldiers and
women mobilized to resist until the bitter end.
Benjamin Constant, a Brazilian officer, wrote revealing letters about the
war. Like so many other soldiers, he got sick. The army evacuated Constant to
Corrientes for recovery from malaria. While in Argentina, he described half
naked cholera victims arriving by steamer unattended by a single doctor or
100 Brazil

nurse. In one letter to his father, dated April 11, 1867, Constant expressed blis-
tering contempt for imperial authorities:

According to the newspapers of the Court (Rio de Janeiro), the army’s

health is most satisfactory, the number of dead is insignificant, but the
truth is this and it is revealed in official figures that don’t turn up there;
before cholera’s invasion, the number of sick from various diseases rose
to almost 12,000 men, and in Corrientes alone, in the various hospitals,
the death toll always exceeded 300 men per month.18

Constant was not the only army officer upset by ineffective health com-
missions and government inattention to logistics. He felt the war had been
prolonged by older, inept commanders; Constant sharply criticized Caxias,
for instance. The war shaped political outlooks. The contribution of slave
soldiers to the war effort helped make abolitionism an institutional position
in the army.
Five years of total war transformed each of the belligerents, but none like
Paraguay. Its war-related fatalities exceeded 200,000, including three-fourths of
the male population. The devastated nation lost territory and did not recover its
prewar population for over a generation. Brazil retained its position as a regional
military power but gained relatively little from the conflict. Its domestic effects
were far more consequential. Five years of fighting cost Dom Pedro II a great
deal of prestige. The Brazilian Empire had borrowed large sums from British
banks, which created a burdensome foreign debt, and disaffected Liberals
formed a Republican Party in 1871; they looked to the United States and
France for inspiration. Perhaps more damagingly, the war politicized the army.
Veterans complained that civilian leaders had botched the war effort and
did not understand military requirements; officers called for a larger defense
budget, new equipment, and less civilian interference. There was resentment
over the fact that their country had used chattel slaves in battle. What kind of
country defended its national honor with slaves? Reformers called for universal
male conscription, not impressment. Postwar commentators spoke of the ques-
tão militar (military question) with respect to how involved a professional sol-
dier could be in politics. Civil–military relations were changing. O Militar, an
army newspaper published in Rio, expressed corporate grievances and nurtured
a contemptuous attitude towards civilian leadership.
During the postwar decade, some officers embraced a new French doctrine
called positivism, which emphasized logic and scientific reasoning. Brazilian posi-
tivists favored free labor, European immigration, and secular education while
opposing hereditary monarchy, slavery, and Roman Catholic influence in society.
From this ideological lens, the basic structure of the Brazilian Empire (state
church, monarchy) was hopelessly backward. Positivism, therefore, provided an
intellectual basis for those who wanted to change the political system.
 Brazil 101

Abolitionism also gained traction after the Paraguayan War. Dom Pedro
disliked slavery but favored gradual emancipation in view of the country’s
powerful planter class. In 1871, Brazil’s parliament passed the Law of the Free
Womb, which granted freedom to slaves’ children at birth, but by the mid-
1880s, slaves were simply running away. Urban abolitionists provided refuge
and the army refused to enforce fugitive slave laws. Whole units across the
empire associated themselves with abolitionism and regarded slave hunting as
dishonorable. The imperial government had lost control. On May 13, 1888,
Princess Isabel (acting as Dom Pedro’s regent) decreed full emancipation with-
out compensation for planters. The decree released 800,000 human beings
from bondage. Furious planters felt betrayed.
Army factions had talked about proclaiming a republic before, but its con-
summation was a different matter. Dom Pedro II remained popular even if
some elites could not imagine Isabel as empress of the Brazilian Empire (Pedro
II had no male heirs). In 1889, disaffected planters and members of the
Republican Party contacted a respected field marshal named Deodoro da Fon-
seca. He was drawn into a fateful conspiracy. On November 15, 1889, the
marshal proclaimed Brazil a republic and Dom Pedro II did not call for his
subjects to resist the coup or defend the monarchy. The royal family accepted
exile to Europe and four days later a provisional government adopted
a national flag with the positivist slogan, “Order and Progress,” emblazoned
across a blue globe. The Brazilian Empire was no more.19

The Old Republic

From the start, the First Republic, latter known as the Old Republic
(1889–1930), had a shaky foundation. People questioned its legitimacy. Mon-
archists in the navy launched failed revolts against the government in 1892 and
1893. The new constitution established a decentralized federal government,
which meant power devolved to agrarian oligarchs called coronéis (colonels)
who dispensed favors and patronage. The name for national politics during the
Old Republic was Café com Leite (Coffee with Milk) because the country’s
two most populous states, São Paulo (coffee producers) and Minas Gerais
(dairy producers), dominated the federal system. State bosses had their own
political machines. In the absence of a strong state or shared symbol of political
loyalty, such as the king, regional identity mattered most.
Frank McCann points out that with the monarchy gone, the army was the
only national institution left in Brazil. Individual states contracted loans for
infrastructure, issued their own currencies, and monitored local elections with-
out any federal oversight. The gap between Brazil’s wealthier southeast (São
Paulo, Rio, Minas Gerais) and poorer northeast (Bahia, Pernambuco, Ceará)
widened. At the same time, federal troops were stationed in every province and
they pledged loyalty to the pátria, not to their home regions.20
102 Brazil

The next four decades would be important ones for the Brazilian armed
forces. The federal government gave them the thankless task of putting down
stubborn rebellions in the country’s backlands, each of which exposed the
incredible gap between the interior and coastal zones. The army and navy
modernized. Above all, officers developed a new consensus about what kind of
government they wanted in Brazil.

Canudos and the Contestado

Those unfamiliar with Brazilian geography might be surprised to learn that towns
in the southern region can see snowfall and a vast stretch of semiarid territory in
the northeast, the Sertão, is drought prone. In fact, large stretches of it look like
West Texas, hardly Brazil’s tropical stereotype. In the nineteenth century, Brazil’s
backlands lacked cities, roads, and government control. Blood feuds and banditry
were common in the hardscrabble Sertão. Here, in the 1870s, a wandering mystic
named Antônio Maciel became known to local people as Antônio Conselheiro
(Anthony, the Counselor). He rebuilt primitive churches and preached to peas-
ants. The Counselor called on sertanejos (people living in the Sertão) to embrace
a life of strict morality and prepare for the second coming. The tall, thin, bearded
preacher wearing a blue tunic and sandals cut an impressive figure. Many of his
followers regarded him as a saint or messiah.
The Counselor’s apocalyptic message appealed to people looking for com-
fort during a time of economic hardship. He described monarchy as divinely
ordained, denounced republican government, and called for the return of
Dom Pedro II. In 1893, the Counselor ended his decades’ long peregrinations
in favor of a permanent settlement deep in the backlands of Bahia. The reli-
gious colony, Canudos, eventually attracted 30,000 people. Roman Catholic
authorities called the Counselor an apostate, but they had little influence in the
backlands.
In January 1896, Bahia’s governor convinced the federal government that
Canudos constituted a focal point of insurrection that had to be crushed. In
November, an army expedition consisting of 104 soldiers arrived expecting
a disorganized mob of peasants. Instead, the detachment was stunned by the
town’s defenders who counterattacked with speed and ferocity. Machete and
ax-wielding rebels shouted, “Viva a Monarquia! Viva el Conselheiro!” (Long Live
the Monarchy! Long live the Counselor). The army withdrew. When 557
soldiers arrived in January 1897, they found a different set of conditions. The
people of Canudos had fortified their settlement and could field a large force
of several thousand. The army retreated again.
The third army expedition was a complete fiasco. When rebels shot and
killed the army’s commanding officer, Antônio Moreira César, his poorly trained
soldiers fled the battlefield in disarray, leaving behind weaponry and stores of
 Brazil 103

ammunition. It made a terrible statement about the morale and discipline of fed-
eral troops. For the city’s defenders, the victory meant that God was on their
side. Not only that, rebels placed dead soldiers’ heads along the road leading into
the religious colony as a warning to all would-be attackers.21
The fourth and final army expedition was large and well equipped. Officers
arrived with 15 artillery pieces and orders to destroy the settlement once and
for all. Bloody combat ensued as the army encircled Canudos. The final assault
seared army consciousness. Invading troops set houses ablaze and pulverized
the settlement with cannon; soldiers beheaded Canudos captives. Only 150
survived. The fact that thousands of sertanejos had refused to surrender recalled
the Paraguayan War, except that this time it was Brazilians who fought until
the bitter end. It is also worth noting that the rebels had shown a remarkable
level of war organization for illiterate “savages.” In fact, they were effective
soldiers who seriously challenged the central state.
The army “won” the War of Canudos, but it paid a steep price. Between
July and October 1897, alone, 4,193 Brazilian soldiers were wounded there. It
was hard to put a positive spin on what had happened. The internal conflict
showed army weakness and lack of unit cohesion. Soldiers abused provincial
towns and officers profiteered from the provisioning of troops. More generally,
it raised questions about Brazil. Journalists portrayed the religious settlement as
a horde of degenerate monarchists, but atrocities and barbarism had occurred
on both sides.
Fifteen years later, another revolt erupted in the Contestado region of
Paraná and Santa Catarina (southern Brazil) where poor, mixed-race locals
attacked railroad companies and European settlers. The First Republic’s
policy of encouraging European immigration had disrupted the region’s
traditional economy and social relations. Like Canudos, the revolt had
a religious character. Rebels venerated a bearded monk named José Maria,
known regionally for miracles and denunciations of the republic. He organ-
ized peasant resistance to encroaching landowners and although José Maria
died in an armed clash, word spread that he would return to earth and
build a holy city deep in the Sertão. Convinced that God was on their
side, rebels fought for several years until the army enforced a perimeter
around their territory and starved the insurgents into submission.22 Journal-
ists described the events with characteristic racism, i.e., that the state was
battling half-breed fanatics opposed to modernization.
Segments of the army understood the truth. Interior Brazil was Brazil. The
neglected Brazil. Canudos and the Contestado War (1912–1916) illustrated the
social and cultural chasm separating the coast and the interior. These two
events, but especially Canudos, spurred the army to reform itself, professional-
ize, and develop a “civilizing mission” designed to ameliorate the isolation and
ignorance of people in the backlands.
104 Brazil

Making Military Service Honorable

Brazil, in 1900, was a country of 18 million inhabitants. Most people lived
in rural hamlets and 80 percent of the population could neither read nor
write. The massive country, with its striking cultural and geographic diver-
sity, earned foreign exchange from the export of coffee and natural rubber,
while importing heavy capital goods from industrialized countries in the
North Atlantic. Immigrants from Italy, Spain, Germany, and Japan had begun
transforming Brazil’s south and southeastern regions. These newcomers
arrived with higher rates of literacy and skilled trades than native Brazilians.
Immigrants had foreign identities and their children usually developed
regional loyalties as they assimilated. Although political elites welcomed white
Europeans, the army began to worry about the lack of national unity; officers
increasingly wanted a strong state able to instill a sense of national pride in
the populace.
Historian Peter Beattie writes, “a draft became the most practical and vigor-
ous State measure to improve defense while instructing a broader cross-section
of Brazil’s ethnically and racially diverse lower classes in hygiene, physical fit-
ness, discipline, the Portuguese language, and national identity.”23 Brazilian
officers could see that the most powerful countries had strong, industrial econ-
omies and several – Germany, Japan, France – had large military reserves
thanks to universal male conscription. In the event of an emergency, these
states could call up citizen soldiers with relative ease. For an institution that
still remembered its personnel shortages during the Paraguayan War, peacetime
conscription promised to address the issue of military readiness. Nation-
building imperatives mattered too. The army saw itself taking in country
bumpkins and churning out patriotic Brazilians.
Not everyone in Congress believed Brazil needed a draft, but the army got
its obligatory service bill introduced for debate in 1906 and draft registrations
began in 1909. According to the new law, states would supply soldiers in pro-
portion to their populations. After two years of training, soldiers would enter
the national reserve. The army planned to mix northeastern draftees with men
from the south and rotate the commanding officers. For conscription to be
successful, however, the army had to reform itself.
Most Brazilians regarded enlisted troops as undisciplined, illiterate, and
stupid. They associated the barracks with dishonor and criminality because the
military impressed vagabonds, thieves, and the poor into lengthy service con-
tracts. In fact, the army and navy acted as proto-penal colonies, recruiting
troops from the very prisons and orphanages they administered. To make mili-
tary service acceptable to Brazil’s working-class population, the army improved
barracks housing, eliminated corporal punishment, and offered basic education
to illiterate draftees. Conscripts’ families had to be convinced that their sons
were training to defend the nation’s honor, a civic duty shared by all citizens
 Brazil 105

of the nation. As the military changed its relationship to society, soldiering

acquired a new respectability.24 Otherwise, there would have been more resist-
ance to compulsory service.
Full implementation of the draft occurred in 1916 on the eve of Brazil’s
entry into World War I, when German submarines attacked Brazil’s merchant
fleet. After Rio’s declaration of war on the Central Powers in April 1917, the
army sent 20 Brazilian officers to the Western Front on a preparatory mission.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian navy made tangible contributions to the anti-
submarine campaign in the mid-Atlantic. All told, the war had a salubrious
effect on the armed forces. The navy gained operational experience while the
army trained thousands of new recruits. Troop totals increased to 54,000, up
from 15,000 in 1900.

Army Reforms and Outlook

Universal male conscription was one pillar of army reform during the first half
of the twentieth century, but certainly not the only one. War Minister Mar-
shall Hermes da Fonseca (1906–1908) and Brazil’s Foreign Minister José Para-
nhos (1902–1912) sent 32 junior officers to Imperial Germany for study and
training. The experience gave that cohort a sense of what a professional,
modern military looked like with respect to its general staff, reserve system,
and administrative apparatus. The army’s “Young Turks” immediately clashed
with older officers who valued practical experience over what the younger
generation called scientific management. Junior army officers, several of whom
had studied in Germany, founded a monthly review in 1913 that did not
depend on the army general staff. Financed through subscription fees, A Defesa
Nacional was an influential, overtly political publication. Editorials called for
mass conscription as a means to inculcate patriotism and reduce illiteracy.
A series of articles in 1917 argued that Brazil needed to develop a steel indus-
try for its national defense and protect native industries with tariffs.25 Eco-
nomic nationalism, so characteristic of the Brazilian military in the twentieth
century, was becoming a widely held view.
After World War I, a French military mission arrived in Brazil. From 1919
to 1940, French trainers assisted with the reorganization of the army’s bureau-
cratic structure. They also stressed the army’s “civilizing mission” with respect
to peacetime conscription. According to French officers, the Brazilian army
was a “school of the nation,” not merely the guarantor of state sovereignty.26
By the 1920s, clear lines of thought existed in the army: military strength
depended on industrial strength, conscription had important educational, civili-
zing aspects, and the nation needed a large reserve of men to defend the state
from external and internal threats.
106 Brazil

The Navy’s Fitful Modernization

In 1906, Brazil’s government ordered three British-made dreadnought battle-
ships. The money appropriated was an incredible sum for the time – over
500 million dollars adjusted for inflation. It signaled the effort of political elites
to assert themselves regionally and imitate the great powers of Europe. Chile
and Argentina, not to be outclassed by their neighbor, ordered dreadnoughts
too. But Brazil’s outwardly modernizing navy was structurally backward.
The navy still impressed sailors from the merchant marine or forced home-
less teenagers and orphaned boys into naval apprenticeships. Sailors, many of
whom were the sons of former slaves, worked excessive hours and faced cor-
poral punishment. By 1900, every Western navy had abolished flogging, but
officers in Brazil continued the practice. Furthermore, the navy’s overwhelm-
ingly white officers exhibited racial prejudice towards their black and brown
crews. The former looked down on the latter as lazy and inferior, which
recalled Portuguese colonialism, not a universal notion of citizenship. By con-
trast, the British navy did not impress or whip its sailors and Afro-Brazilian
sailors observed that reality in Newcastle, England, where they received the
technical training needed to operate the state-of-the-art Minas Gerais and São
Paulo, both dreadnought battleships.27
On November 21, 1910, an officer on the Minas Gerais ordered the brutal
flogging of Bahian sailor Marcelino Rodrigues de Menezes – he received
around 200 lashes. The bloody scene sparked an uprising. On the evening of
November 22, sailors struck the commanding officer of the Minas Gerais with
an iron bar and bayoneted his lieutenant. During the struggle, both white offi-
cers were shot dead and 30-year-old João Cândido Felisberto (nicknamed the
black admiral) assumed command of the warship. Younger sailors shouted,
“Down with the Lash! Long Live Liberty!”
The revolt was not confined to a single warship. João Cândido announced
the revolt to other ships in Rio’s Guanabara Bay. Crews on the battleships São
Paulo and Deodoro arrested their officers. A total of 2,379 sailors joined the
revolt (nearly half of the enlisted sailors in the Brazilian navy), and the mutin-
ous sailors controlled the most powerful ships in the fleet. João Cândido issued
their demands on November 22, 1910:

We, as sailors, Brazilian citizens, and supporters of the republic, can no

longer accept the slavery as practiced in the Brazilian Navy, we do not
receive – and have never received – the protection guaranteed us by this
Nation … We are sending this message in order that his honor the presi-
dent can … remove incompetent and indignant officers from serving the
Brazilian nation. Reform the immoral and shameful code under which
we serve, end the use of the whip, the bolo, and other similar punish-
ments, raise our pay according to the plan of Deputy José Carlos de
 Brazil 107

Carvalho, educate those seamen who lack the competence to wear our
proud uniform, and put a limit on our daily service and see that it is
respected.28

Foreign diplomats watched the dreadnoughts steam across the bay and
rotate their gun towers before firing shells at army forts. Panicked citizens fled
the capital. Lower-class Brazilians had control of powerful warships and were
threatening the government. What would stop these men from annihilating
Rio de Janeiro? Unable to get control of the situation by force, Brazil’s Con-
gress voted to absolve the rebels of all criminal charges if they handed over
control of the fleet, terms which the mutineers agreed to accept on Novem-
ber 26. The “Revolt of the Lash” was a moment of reckoning for the Brazil-
ian navy. Modern warships did not a modern navy make. Humiliated officers
stopped whipping and subsequent reforms required literacy of naval appren-
tices. The dramatic event highlighted the Old Republic’s rarely discussed racial
divisions and raised the issue of universal citizenship.

Tenentismo
Army thinkers understood that nation-states required horizontal bonds of loy-
alty among the nation’s people. Similarly, Brazil’s gap between the poorer
northeast and wealthier southeast was incompatible with a modern state. In
1920, 35 percent of São Paulo’s population (579,033) was foreign-born and
one million Italian immigrants had already entered São Paulo, now the

FIGURE 4.2 André Avelino and Gregório do Nascimento (left to right) led the naval
revolt on the battleship São Paulo. Picture taken the day Brazil’s Congress granted
amnesty to the rebels, November 26, 1910. Source: Fundação Museu da Imagem
e do Som.
108 Brazil

wealthiest state in Brazil.29 The army shared a political orientation, if not what
to do about it. Legalists believed in subordination to civil authority while
a group of revolutionaries called tenentes (lieutenants) believed they had a duty
to overthrow a corrupt system.
On July 5, 1922, tenentes seized Fort Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro and
called on other units to join their putsch. The rebellion did not last long. The
navy shelled Fort Copacabana and loyalist forces eventually defeated the
remaining rebels in a mismatched firefight. Nonetheless, two survivors lived to
participate in the next rebellion launched exactly two years later in São Paulo.
This time around, the tenentes had more support. Army garrisons in Mato
Grosso, Sergipe, Pará, and Amazonas joined the movement. Revolutionaries
briefly controlled São Paulo, Uruguaiana, and Porto Alegre. What did these
young officers want? Above all, they opposed the country’s decentralized polit-
ical system dominated by agricultural elites: Café com Leite politics at the federal
level and coronéis (political bosses) at the state level. Their manifestos
denounced state corruption and profiteering. They called for compulsory
public education and a national system of taxation. Such demands struck at the
heart of the country’s narrow federalism. Rebels spoke about the rule of law.
When the federal army reached the outskirts of São Paulo with 100 artillery
pieces and began shelling rebel positions, the situation was hopeless. On
July 27, the revolutionaries evacuated the city.

Carlos Prestes and the Long March

Although defeated in the cities, tenentes organized a stubborn revolutionary strug-
gle in the backlands. Lieutenant Luís Carlos Prestes eventually emerged as the
leader of approximately 1,500 rebels who marched north from Brazil’s southern
Pampas through Paraguay, then east across swamps and forests before reaching
the northeast. Prestes hoped to inspire a national uprising against President Artur
Bernardes and the president, for his part, ordered the federal army to capture the
rebels. Few officers, however, wanted to fight Prestes or his men, many of
whom they knew and respected. Similarly, average Brazilians did not want to
risk their necks chasing tenentes through swamps and backcountry scrub. More
than half of all draftees did not report for service in 1925 and 1927.30
For two years, newspapers covered the column’s movements and journalists
dubbed Prestes the “Horseman of Hope.” Prestes, in fact, never expected to
defeat the federal army or hold territory. His strategy was one of constant move-
ment, aided by the lack of aerial reconnaissance and radio communications. His
column could not build a base of popular support because it never stayed in one
place for very long and, besides, it routinely seized food and horses from peasants.
Neill Macaulay writes, “the people of Brazil’s poorest regions were called upon
to pay for this demonstration [because] the interests of the revolutionaries lay in
 Brazil 109

Rio: That was where they wanted their protest to be felt.”31 Curiously, officers
who participated in the epic 25,000-kilometer trek covered the ideological spec-
trum. Some tenentes went on to serve a right-wing dictatorship, and the column’s
leader, Luís Carlos Prestes, eventually joined Brazil’s Communist Party. What
united the group was hatred for the existing regime.
The Prestes Column did not spark a revolution – mounting casualties forced
it across the Bolivian border in 1927 – but the effort earned the daring tenentes
admiration and damaged the government’s legitimacy. The army’s inability to
catch Prestes or rely on police and militia forces to do the job had revealed the
state’s weakness. Furthermore, those involved could see that the terrible condi-
tions of Brazil’s backlands were incompatible with a modern nation-state.
More generally, Prestes was drawing from a well-established pattern. Ban-
dits, runaway slaves, and rebels had long made use of Brazil’s hinterland to
escape state authority and while Prestes was on the run, a bandit nicknamed
Lampião became a Brazilian folk hero due to his success evading state militias
in the 1920s and 1930s. Such irregular warfare has always been more open to
female participation. Lampião’s longtime companion, nicknamed Maria Bonita
(Beautiful Maria), participated in firefights and traversed the arid backlands
armed to the teeth. She and other cangaceiras (bandits) wore the same leather
garb as their male partners. With respect to conventional fighting, it should be
noted that female camp followers (wives, lovers, entrepreneurs) followed the
Brazilian army into Paraguay, Canudos, and the Contestado. Some saw combat
and served on the front lines although it is difficult to determine their exact
numbers.

The Revolution of 1930

The stock market crash on Wall Street in October 1929 precipitated the undo-
ing of Brazil’s First Republic. The price of coffee – accounting for 70 percent
of Brazil’s exports – declined by 50 percent. Old arrangements, already under
strain, simply could not weather the crisis. State politicians no longer trusted
each other, and smaller states resented the Café com Leite politics in which the
presidency rotated between the two most populous and powerful states – São
Paulo and Minas Gerais. Army discontent simmered. Into this volatile situation
stepped Getúlio Vargas, a shrewd politician from Rio Grande do Sul (southern
Brazil) who put together a coalition of states, rebel soldiers, and disaffected
politicians who wanted a change. Characteristic of all major political transitions
in Brazilian history, the military played a central role.
On October 3, 1930, the revolution began in Rio Grande do Sul. Con-
spirators telegraphed the revolt to northeastern rebels who rather quickly
overthrew their state governments. Army command structure disintegrated.
Most officers below the rank of full colonel joined the revolution and
110 Brazil

FIGURE 4.3 Maria Bonita in the Sertão, 1936 or 1937. She and her longtime com-
panion Lampião were ambushed and killed by state police in 1938. Photograph by
Benjamin Abrahão Botto.

helped seize federal outposts. Colonels and generals who tried to maintain
discipline, the “legalists,” were retired or passed over for promotion.32
Church and military chiefs in Rio convinced the sitting president to resign.
When Getúlio Vargas arrived in Rio de Janeiro on November 1, 1930, the
Old Republic had fallen. He assumed office as president of a provisional
government.
What did Vargas believe? His overriding vision was for Brazil to
become a strong, industrial state with a unified population. From 1930 to
1934, Vargas attacked the power of the coronéis in their rural domains. He
created federal ministries – Health, Labor, Education, Commerce – and
sent federal interventors (many of them army officers) to run noncompliant
states and cities. Power gradually shifted away from local bosses and
regions. Vargas wanted state-controlled unions and a system of federal uni-
versities. His cultural politics promoted nationalism. He supported soccer
clubs, astutely viewing the sport as a source of national unity, and cele-
brated samba as Brazil’s national music (elites regarded it as slum music).
One of Vargas’ favorite books was a biography of Benito Mussolini. He
 Brazil 111

admired Il Duce’s brand of corporatism in which a strong central state

mediated the interests of society’s different components – workers, peas-
ants, owners, clergy, soldiers – viewing them as an organic whole
(corpus).33
Brazil in the mid-1930s was an incredibly dynamic country with respect to
competing ideologies. Socialists and anarchists participated in urban politics
alongside the Brazilian Communist Party, founded in 1922. On the Right,
Plínio Salgado founded the Açâo Integralista Brasileira (Brazilian Integralist
Action) in 1932. Inspired by European fascism, Salgado’s foot soldiers wore
green uniforms and gave each other the Roman salute. Integralists did not
emphasize racism or aggressive nationalism, but they had an authoritarian
vision of the future based on discipline, Christianity, and direct-action tactics.
More than a few army officers had sympathies for Integralism, but the high
command tended to look at any mass movement as unstable; they supported
Vargas and his broadly nationalist, authoritarian vision.
In November 1935, a coalition of socialists, anarchists, and communists, led by
Luís Carlos Prestes, tried to overthrow Getúlio Vargas’ regime and seize power.
The left-wing popular front called the National Liberation Alliance (Aliança Nacio-
nal Libertadora) launched revolts in Natal, Recife, and Rio de Janeiro with partici-
pation from lower-ranking army personnel, but the unsuccessful, poorly planned
rebellion failed, and Vargas used it to consolidate his dictatorship. The event also
transformed Brazil’s armed forces. Before 1935, military officers could survive par-
ticipation in conspiracies. After 1935, the rules changed; ideological insurrection
became totally unacceptable, especially after the shocking discovery that Comin-
tern agents and Soviet money had been involved in the uprising.34 Thereafter,
Brazilian officers acquired a much more visceral feeling of repulsion towards inter-
national communism and the army showed zero toleration for left-wing revolu-
tions in the second half of the twentieth century.
On November 10, 1937, the military and Getúlio Vargas launched an auto-
coup. Speaking to the nation by radio, Vargas said that communist conspiracies
and other national security threats had made it necessary to dissolve Congress
and establish the Estado Nôvo (New State). Brazil became a dictatorship with
press censorship, detention camps, and secret police. The Estado Nôvo suited
Brazil’s key players. Vargas and the army high command wanted industrial
development and modern armed forces able to repel any foreign attack. Dem-
ocracy was not on the list of priorities. The dictatorship’s political culture
revolved around a single person – Getúlio Vargas – and what was happening
in Latin America’s largest country greatly unsettled Washington. Military sup-
porters of the Estado Nôvo revered Mussolini and admired the German armed
forces. US President Franklin Roosevelt was glad to have developed a positive
rapport with Vargas during their meeting in November 1936 because he
wanted to cultivate Brazilian friendship as war in Europe looked imminent.
The great powers all courted Brazil. Nazi Germany offered weapons. Mussolini
112 Brazil

sent his daughter on a goodwill trip. US General George C. Marshall toured

Brazil from May to June in 1939.
The outbreak of war in Europe stunned everyone. Nazi Germany invaded
Poland in September 1939 and eight months later the Wehrmacht conquered
Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and France. Many Allied forces evacu-
ated back to the United Kingdom, but the Nazis looked invincible. What if
the Germans seized the Suez Canal or occupied French West Africa? The
degree of uncertainty cannot be understated.
The Allies desperately wanted Brazil’s northeastern bulge (Belém, Natal,
Recife) for the construction of air and naval bases from which to protect
shipping lanes in the South Atlantic (Natal is the closest city in the Americas
to Africa). For this reason, Washington sought permission to build airfields
there, but the army found the prospect of foreign soldiers on its soil offen-
sive. More than anything, the Brazilian high command wanted arms to
modernize and technical assistance for industrial development. Between
1939 and 1941, the two sides negotiated. Brazil’s War Minister, General
Eurico Gaspar Dutra, thought Washington was withholding weapons. Could
the Americans be trusted? From Washington’s perspective, it was the same
question. Could Brazil’s right-wing dictatorship be trusted to fight with the
Allies?
Events accelerated the outcome. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941, the Estado Nôvo broke diplomatic relations with the Axis.
As negotiations continued, Vargas extracted key concessions. He secured US
funding for a state enterprise devoted to mining and hydroelectric power and
crucial technical assistance for the construction of a massive steelworks in the
State of Rio de Janeiro. In short, Vargas got the capital and expertise he
wanted from the United States. The Americans got permission to build air-
fields in the northeast.35 A much stronger alliance developed not long after.
Brazil lost 12 merchant ships to Axis submarines between February and
July 1942, but those attacks occurred off the US East Coast or in Caribbean
waters, none occurred near Brazil’s domestic coastline. On August 15, 1942
German Lieutenant Commander Harro Schacht torpedoed the Baependy (270
fatalities) and the Araraquara (131 fatalities). Schacht sunk three more Brazilian
ships for a total of 607 drowned passengers before heading back to Europe.
His actions had immediate impact. Loud demonstrations broke out across
Brazil. Urban rioters attacked the stores of German immigrants. Of the Baepen-
dy’s victims, over 250 were soldiers. Now the army wanted revenge. One
week after “Brazil’s Pearl Harbor,” Rio de Janeiro declared war on Germany
and Italy. Getúlio Vargas spoke about an active combat role for his nation, not
merely supplying the Allies with raw materials.36
Roosevelt and Vargas met at Natal, January 1943, and the two leaders
firmed up their alliance. Notably, Roosevelt encouraged the contribution of
Brazilian combat troops. He saw Vargas as an important ally. The two
 Brazil 113

governments may have harbored misgivings about each other, but their
militaries quickly became intertwined. From June 1943 to the end of 1944,
over 1,000 Brazilian officers passed through US military schools at places
like Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Fort Benning, Georgia, and Fort Sill, Okla-
homa. Meanwhile, 16,000 American military personnel deployed to Brazil-
ian air and naval bases where Allied convoys moved massive quantities of
materiel to Europe, North Africa, and Asia. The two countries’ navies
jointly hunted Axis submarines.
In January 1943, Brazil’s War Minister, General Dutra, talked to Vargas about
mobilizing some 140,000 soldiers for overseas deployment, a wildly unrealistic
proposal. The country barely had enough men for one foreign division, let alone
three or four. By the time 25,700 soldiers departed, a saying had developed
among troops in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB): “The snake is going to
smoke.” According to some sources, it was none other than Adolf Hitler who
said Brazilian snakes would smoke before Brazilian troops fought on the front
lines in Europe. Another possibility, perhaps more credible, is that the smoky
train which carried Brazil’s 11th Regiment to Rio de Janeiro looked like
a slithering snake as it wound through the hills of Minas Gerais.37
In July 1944, US transports began ferrying Brazilian troops, a citizen army,
mobilized from draftees, to Naples, Italy. Frank McCann writes,

Instead of illiterates, officers found college students in their companies,

and colonels found reservists serving under them who were doctors,
engineers, and lawyers, as well as former sergeants promoted to lieuten-
ants … Cut off from Brazil and faced with the harsh realities of modern
warfare the FEB soon became something very different from the Army
of Caxias.38

Before entering combat in September, Brazilian soldiers trained with unfamiliar

US weapons and communications equipment. Not only that, the FEB would
face battle-hardened Germans on the heavily fortified Gothic Line. Eager to
prove themselves, Brazilian commanders launched four unsuccessful assaults
during the Battle of Monte Castello in December. German officers, for
their part, wanted to know why these South American soldiers were being
so aggressive. During the spring offensive, the FEB adjusted its command
structure and managed to avoid costly mistakes. In total, the FEB suffered
453 killed and 1,577 wounded. The division also captured 20,573 Axis pris-
oners before the European war ended on May 8, 1945.39
The Italian Campaign deeply affected those who were there, not least of all
those who died, lost a limb, or suffered shell shock. Brazilian field commanders
developed confidence after getting through their first battles. After all, they had
faced the Wehrmacht. Brazil’s air force and navy made significant contributions,
too. The First Brazilian Fighter Squadron flew 445 missions during the Italian
114 Brazil

Campaign and dropped 4,442 bombs with a higher than average success rate.
The Brazilian navy protected Allied convoys from 1942 to 1945 and sunk nine
German U-boats while losing just three ships of its own. These contributions
are well known in Brazil, if not the United States.

Postwar Brazil
For three years, substantial Lend-Lease aid modernized Brazil’s armed forces
and the Volta Redonda steel mill, the first of its kind in South America,
opened in 1946. The army’s vision of a stronger, more industrial Brazil had
been decisively advanced, but from the Brazilian perspective, Washington
forgot Rio’s contributions to the war effort and showed little support for the
country’s postwar ambitions to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations
Security Council and be acknowledged as South America’s preeminent military
power. The fact that Brazil declined to participate in the Korean War
(1950–1953) or lease its northeastern air fields to the United States exposed
a strained bilateral relationship.40 To be sure, the Cold War in Europe and
Asia preoccupied the Truman administration (1946–1952), not Latin America,
which seemed safe from communism.
Politically, Brazil’s participation in World War II guaranteed the Estado
Nôvo’s demise. For three years domestic propaganda repeated the idea that

FIGURE 4.4 Brazilian soldiers in Italy during World War II, September 7, 1944. In
Europe, Brazilian soldiers called themselves Cobras Fumantes (Smoking Snakes).
Source: Arquivo Nacional/The Brazilian National Archives.
 Brazil 115

Brazilian soldiers were fighting to save Christian civilization and Western dem-
ocracy. A personalist dictatorship could not survive in the aftermath. The mili-
tary removed Getúlio Vargas in October 1945 and held a presidential election
in December that brought to power, somewhat incongruously, General Eurico
Dutra (1946–1951), a figure in the Estado Nôvo. Despite the weakened military
relationship with Washington, Dutra was still pro-US and ideologically aligned
with the Pentagon.
The return of democracy coincided with tremendous growing pains. Rural
Brazilians streamed into the cities looking for jobs, most wound up in make-
shift shacks. Urban slums called favelas became a fixture of life in postwar
Brazil and the national population skyrocketed from 52 million to 70 million
between 1950 and 1960. Two million Brazilians cast votes in the 1930 presi-
dential election while six million cast votes in 1945. Yet, the larger electorate
did not necessarily mean Brazil’s political and social culture had modernized.
Thomas Skidmore writes,

This social hierarchy retained much of the flavor of Brazil’s colonial era.
Those at the top were treated with great deference by those below …
The way to survive was to find a powerful patrão (patron) to act as one’s
protector. Collective action was not a rational option within this
world.41

Across the nation, a new class of charismatic, populist politicians appealed to

newly enfranchised working-class Brazilians with promises of jobs, benefits,
and dignity. For the military establishment, these politicians and their volatile
politics threatened an orderly process of social and economic development.
Brazil was hardly on the precipice of some revolutionary transformation in
1960. The mood, however, changed after Fidel Castro began calling on Latin
Americans to make their own socialist revolutions based on Cuba’s model of
armed struggle, agrarian reform, and the expropriation of foreign property. His
alliance with the United States’ rival, the Soviet Union, polarized the hemi-
sphere. From one ideological lens, all left-wing politicians and social move-
ments looked dangerous.
In September 1961, João Goulart of the Brazilian Labor Party assumed
office. A left-wing politician and former minister of labor, Goulart made the
military nervous during a period of high inflation, parliamentary deadlock, and
Cold War tension (the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance). In 1963, Goulart
moved leftward, speaking boldly about expropriating land and nationalizing oil
refineries. Such talk terrified a segment of the electorate that believed Goulart
could be opening the door to communism. On March 31, 1964, the armed
forces overthrew the Second Republic in a preemptive strike much to the
relief of Brazil’s middle and upper classes. What would the coup’s leaders do?
At the outset, it looked like the military would outlaw certain parties and hand
116 Brazil

power back to a “responsible” civilian once things had calmed down. The
military’s first institutional act, however, limited personal freedoms and author-
ized the president to remove any elected official or civil servant. Congress
selected General Humberto Castelo Branco, a respected field marshal who had
fought in Italy, as its president. Most citizens assumed the general would serve
out the remainder of Goulart’s term and oversee elections. This was not to be.
During the 1950s, Brazil’s Escola Superior de Guerra (Superior War College)
played a significant role as a think tank for civilian and military elites. Here, offi-
cers had developed a National Security Doctrine that tied political and economic
management to state security. Thus, something like high inflation was a security
issue not simply an economic problem. The Pentagon, for its part, reinforced
a bipolar conception of the world (East–West) in which developing countries
had to protect themselves from varied internal and external threats. Washing-
ton fully supported the 1964 coup and many Brazilian officers conceived of
their actions as a righteous defense of the country’s Judeo-Christian heritage
from godless Marxism. Meanwhile, French doctrines had a major impact on
the Escola Superior de Guerra. French theorists emerging from the Algerian
War (1954–1962) emphasized the need to prevent revolutionaries from ever
gaining a toehold in society through censorship and harsh, but effective, tac-
tics that included torture. In short, the military took power with the intellec-
tual scaffolding to rule indefinitely. Technocrats received orders to stabilize
the economy and Castelo Branco purged Congress of all but two parties.
Understandably, members of civil society rejected the democratic façade,
especially as it became clear that the military was settling in. In 1968, student
protests and loud demonstrations witnessed the regime ratchet up censorship
and repression as one segment of the Left turned to armed struggle.42

Guerrilla War and Counterinsurgency

Brazilian Communist Carlos Marighella published his Minimanual of the Urban
Guerrilla (1969), which disputed Che Guevara’s thesis that rural zones were the
natural habitat of revolutionary guerrillas. Marighella reasoned that cities pre-
sented the best opportunities for the “expropriation of government resources
and the wealth belonging to the rich businessmen.” The Minimanual’s violent,
aggressive language heralded a bloody period to come. Marighella called for
“the physical elimination” of police and military leaders who “must pay with
their lives for the crimes they have committed against the Brazilian people.”43
It is also worth noting that Marighella’s apostles, the varied groups that carried
out spectacular robberies, kidnappings, and attacks on police personnel, were
mostly educated, middle-class Brazilians. Beginning in 1969, urban guerrillas
kidnapped US Ambassador Charles Elbrick, among other high-ranking diplo-
mats from West Germany, Switzerland, and Japan.
 Brazil 117

The security apparatus responded swiftly. Individuals deemed subversive

could be held without charge and potentially disappeared. Methods of torture
such as Pau de Arara (Parrot’s Perch) in which a person’s wrists and ankles
were tied to a pole, resembling a bird’s perch and afogamento (waterboarding)
were systematically employed. State violence had always been a part of Brazil-
ian history, but it rarely affected elites. The military regime, by contrast, dir-
ected state repression at upper and lower-class citizens, the former being
accustomed to very different treatment in the judicial system. The leveling
could be jarring for upper class Brazilians.44 Not only that, female guerrillas
wielded weapons and participated in attacks. The regime called these women
terrorists and treated them no differently than the men. Dilma Rousseff,
a future president of the republic, was one such Marxist fighter, captured, tor-
tured, and imprisoned.

Economic Development
Economic growth from 1969 to 1973 averaged about 10 percent per year,
something dubbed the “Brazilian Miracle.” In many ways it was: inflation
declined, industry expanded, and agricultural exports diversified (soybeans and
poultry joined coffee and sugar), and the state subsidized the entire process.
Brazil developed a thriving entrepreneurial class and higher GDP. There was
no miracle for peasants and workers, though. The glaring gap between rich
and poor widened. It is also worth noting that the military reinforced Brazil’s
peculiar brand of state capitalism with its large number of state-owned enter-
prises and public employees. Certain sectors received tariff protection and low
interest loans. Brazil’s defense industries received special consideration.
By the 1960s, Brazil’s private sector had all the means to create economies
of scale for the efficient manufacture of automobiles, aircraft, domestic appli-
ances, and arms: industrial infrastructure, low labor costs, capacity to fabricate
all primary parts. Volkswagen’s beetles and buses started rolling out of São
Paulo factories and Brazil’s defense exports first exceeded 100 million dollars
during the mid-1970s, a sector that boomed with the start of the Iran–Iraq
War (1980–1988) as Brazil sold hundreds of armored vehicles to both sides of
the conflict and dozens of multiple rocket launchers (Astros II) to Iraq and
Saudi Arabia. Embraer, the world’s third largest exporter of civilian aircraft,
produced its highly successful 312 Tucano, a low-cost turboprop military
trainer and light attack airplane. Operators included Iraq, Argentina, Angola,
Colombia, Egypt, Peru, and Venezuela. Several of Brazil’s defense industries
faced bankruptcy after the Iran–Iraq War ended, but Brazil retained its global
position as an exporter of armaments.
The military also implemented its strategic vision of an integrated national
territory, energy independence, and industrial infrastructure. Construction of
118 Brazil

the Itaipú Dam, a massive hydroelectric plant on the Brazil/Paraguay border,

began in 1971, as did the Angra dos Reis Nuclear Power Plant in Rio de
Janeiro. The following year Brazil began constructing the Trans-Amazonian
Highway, meant to open interior lands for settlement and connect them to
northeast settlements. In 1975, the military launched its successful biofuel
industry after the international price of oil more than tripled. These ambitious
projects tell us something about the military’s development goals.

Democratization
The end of the “Brazilian Miracle” and growing civilian dissatisfaction pushed
the regime to change policy. Beginning in 1974, Brazil’s General President,
Ernesto Geisel, initiated a policy of abertura (opening). Congress passed
a general amnesty covering political crimes from 1961 to 1978 and the military
allowed the formation of new parties. In 1981, Congress legalized the direct
elections of state governors. At the same time, bouts of repression and back-
tracking occurred. A faction of the high command distrusted all politicians and
believed only authoritarian measures could protect Brazil from “subversive”
threats. They opposed legalizing left-wing parties or relaxing press censorship.
Massive citizen demonstrations demanding direct elections helped persuade the
military to go. In 1984, Congress elected a civilian president. The process was
slow, fitful, and controlled.
Twenty-one years of military rule had lasting effects on society. Guerrilla
movements and their violent, authoritarian politics were destroyed and dis-
credited. State repression affected a wide swath of civil society – unions, jour-
nalists, artists, churches – and, for many, the dictatorship strengthened their
commitment to democracy. A major report on the scale of human rights viola-
tions, Brasil: Nunca Mais (Brazil: Never Again), was published and widely read,
but amnesty laws shielded perpetrators. More recently, the National Truth
Commission (2014) identified 434 people killed for political reasons during the
dictatorship, although the commission readily admits that the number is prob-
ably higher. Even so, the number of people killed was relatively minor com-
pared to the bloodletting that occurred in Argentina (at least 10,000) and
Chile (over 3,000). Brazil’s military regime was distinctive in other ways. Con-
gress stayed open most of the time and elected five president generals while
elections occurred at all levels of governments. Members of the Brazilian mili-
tary personnel who participated in documented human rights abuses were not
put on trial as was the case in Argentina and Chile. More generally, it is
important to observe that the period is still controversial. Some officers hold
a highly negative view of the 21-year dictatorship, as a time when their insti-
tutions consented to torture, held on to power far too long, or neglected
social problems.45
 Brazil 119

The military regime had a mixed record on the economy. Its massive
power plants and biofuels industry contributed to Brazil’s energy independ-
ence, but the dictatorship did not prioritize land reform or poverty alleviation.
Moreover, the military handed the first civilian government an economy crip-
pled by debt and inflation, factors that made it impossible to increase social
spending in the short term. Thus, when Brazil returned to democracy in 1985,
many of its essential problems – poverty, corruption, inequality – remained
unresolved and the 1979 amnesty law prevented an accounting of past crimes.
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, Brazil elected
a working-class president named Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2011) whose
administration successfully reduced poverty. The union organizer from São
Paulo wanted Brazil to assume a role in regional security affairs commensurate
with its size and rising international profile. He tapped the army to lead
a United Nations stabilization mission in Haiti, which involved maintaining
more than 1,000 Brazilian troops there between 2004 and 2017. The expen-
sive, large-scale deployment represented an increased commitment to peace-
keeping activities and raised the inevitable question, “Should Brazil deploy
forces overseas when so much remains to be done at home?”
Who serves in Brazil’s armed forces has changed since 1945. Very few
upper-class or upper-middle class Brazilians enter the profession. The military’s
social composition is solidly middle to lower-middle class. Most officers come
from the southeast and tuition-free officer candidate schools maintain avenues
of social mobility for qualified, lower-class candidates. With respect to race,
there are more black and brown officers than before. Isolated indigenous com-
munities in the Amazon have contact with special army units and these frontier
platoons recruit local indigenous citizens for service. Conscription is still one
form of recruitment but the lion’s share of men who register for the draft will
be exempted. In short, the armed forces do not represent the upper end of the
social structure. Brazil’s armed forces reflect other trends. The rate of volun-
teers is rising, in part because the military has opened career opportunities to
women. Looking at the military’s educational structure, entry into the profes-
sion usually comes from military-run preparatory schools, which means that
the officer corps often began their careers at age 14. This may be a good thing
for institutional unity, but it can create an insular world that is not always in
tune with civilian society.46
One of the most remarkable stories in the last quarter century is the growing
independence of Brazil’s judiciary. A massive, ongoing investigation relating to
bribes and money laundering at the highest levels of government has resulted in
the jailing of billionaire moguls and two former presidents. The turmoil has pro-
duced revealing moments. In 2017, amid tremendous public outrage, 43 percent
of the population told pollsters they would support a “temporary military inter-
vention.” Before the impeachment and removal of President Dilma Rousseff in
2016, some active duty officers aired their views about the crisis and a contingent
120 Brazil

of politicians openly called for military intervention. In September 2017, General

Hamilton Mourão revealed that he had discussed overthrowing the government
with other generals if politicians convicted of illegal acts were not removed from
office.47 Mourão was not speaking for the entire army. Bad memories of the dicta-
torship linger for many in civil society and for those in uniform. Do Brazilians
have a favorable view of their military? According to one poll conducted in 2018,
78 percent of respondents identified the armed forces as trustworthy. By contrast,
majorities told pollsters that they did not trust the nation’s political parties, national
Congress, and president (68, 67, and 64 percent, respectively).48
The recent corruption scandals – shocking even by Brazilian standards –
helped create the circumstances that swept a former artillery officer and far-
right nationalist named Jair Bolsonaro to power. Known for blistering attacks
on criminals and left-wing activists, Bolsonaro tapped into a reservoir of anger
about Brazil’s high crime rate and stubborn corruption problem. As a federal
deputy, he described Brazil’s dictatorship as “20 years of order and progress”
and later said “the error of the dictatorship was torturing and not killing.”
During the 2018 presidential campaign, Bolsonaro’s law-and-order message
resonated with a deeply frustrated public. He promised to stamp out corrup-
tion and address public safety. Nearly 58 million Brazilians (55.13 percent of
the electorate) voted for Bolsonaro and as this book went to press he had just
taken the oath of office on January 1, 2019. Such a president, whose extreme
rhetoric and authoritarian tendencies are well known, will test Brazil’s demo-
cratic institutions.
Regardless of turmoil in the political arena, Brazil’s armed forces are going
to retain domestic and regional clout. The country ranks among the 15 largest
in the world with 334,500 active duty personnel, 1,340,000 reserves, and
a defense budget of 82.6 billion.49 Domestic firms supply a significant quantity
of military equipment in Brazil’s arsenal, which is something that sets the
country apart from most of its neighbors. Due to the size and sophistication of
Brazil’s armed forces, it has the capability of supporting relatively large,
ongoing missions.
Beginning with the establishment of the Brazilian Empire in 1822, the army
assumed a central place in the political system. Army officers pressured Dom
Pedro I to abdicate in 1831 and overthrew Dom Pedro II in 1889. The mili-
tary installed Getúlio Vargas in 1930 and removed Getúlio Vargas in 1945.
Professional soldiers have been the country’s political arbiters at many crucial
moments. During the Cold War, Brazil’s military was a regional trendsetter –
the first South American country to overthrow its elected president and the
first to hold power indefinitely. Brazil’s National Security Doctrine and coun-
terinsurgency tactics influenced neighboring countries. What the Brazilian
military does matters for the entire region.
Enlisted soldiers have also been at the center of great political and social
changes. The brave performance of slave soldiers in the Paraguayan War
 Brazil 121

turned the army towards abolitionism and undermined white supremacy. Simi-
larly, impressed sailors demanded recognition of their citizenship in 1910; they
forced progressive changes in the navy. In the 1920s, junior army officers
helped bring down the First Republic. Today, most Brazilians live in cities.
The nation’s exports run the gamut from beef and coffee to civilian aircraft
and pharmaceuticals. To a significant degree, the armed forces helped create
the urban, industrial Brazil of the twenty-first century, even if military actions
did not overcome the burdensome legacy of slavery and backwardness
inherited from Portuguese colonialism.

Notes
1 See Zephyr L. Frank, Dutra’s world: wealth and family in nineteenth-century Rio de
Janeiro (University of New Mexico Press, 2004), 15–45. See also, Herbert S. Klein
and Francisco Vidal Luna, Slavery in Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
2 Hendrik Kraay, Race, state, and armed forces in independence-era Brazil: Bahia, 1790s–1840’
(Stanford University Press, 2001), 18.
3 Kraay, Race, state, and armed forces in independence-era Brazil, 23–35.
4 For background on this period, see Roderick J. Barman, Brazil: the forging of
a nation, 1798–1852 (Stanford University Press, 1994), 9–96.
5 See Thomas Cochrane, Narrative of services in the liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil,
from Spanish and Portuguese domination, vVol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2012),
5–115.
6 Kraay, Race, state, and armed forces in independence-era Brazil, 185–203.
7 Barman, Brazil, 128–59.
8 Roderick J. Barman, Citizen emperor: Pedro II and the making of Brazil, 1825–1891
(Stanford University Press, 1999), xiii.
9 Kraay, Race, state, and armed forces in independence-era Brazil, 166.
10 Ibid. 167–99.
11 See Terry Allen Hammerly, “Caxias and the pacification of Rio Grande Do Sul,
1842–1845: an Exercise in Platine Politics,” (PhD diss., University of Florida,
1970).
12 See Hendrik Kraay, “Patriotic mobilization in Brazil,” in Hendrik Kraay and
Thomas Whigham, eds., I die with my country: perspectives on the Paraguayan War,
1864–1870 (University of Nebraska Press, 2004).
13 Barman, Citizen emperor, 211.
14 Ricardo Salles, Guerra do Paraguai: memórias & imagens (Rio de Janeiro: Edições Bib-
lioteca Nacional, 2003), 37.
15 Hendrik Kraay, “Patriotic mobilization in Brazil,” in Kraay and Whigham, eds.,
I die with my country, 61–80.
16 “Introduction: War, politics, and society in South America, 1820-60s,” in Kraay
and Whigham, eds., I die with my country, 13.
17 Ibid. 10.
18 Renato Lemos, “Benjamin constant: the ‘truth’ behind the Paraguay War,” in
Kraay and Whigham, eds., I die with my country, 103.
19 See Emília Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian empire: myths & histories (University of
North Carolina Press, 2000), 125–71, 202–33.
20 Frank D. McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria: a history of the Brazilian army, 1889–1937
(Stanford University Press, 2004), xvii.
21 See McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria, 30–63.
122 Brazil

22 See Todd A. Diacon, Millenarian vision, capitalist reality: Brazil’s Contestado rebellion,
1912–1916 (Duke University Press, 1991).
23 Peter M. Beattie, The tribute of blood: army, honor, race, and nation in Brazil,
1864–1945 (Duke University Press, 2001), 227.
24 See Beattie, The tribute of blood, 207–67.
25 See Frank D. McCann, “The formative period of twentieth-century Brazilian army
thought, 1900–1922,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 64, no. 4 (1984):
737–65.
26 See Frederick M. Nunn, Yesterday’s soldiers: European military professionalism in South
America, 1890–1940 (University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 132–51.
27 Zachary R. Morgan, Legacy of the lash: race and corporal punishment in the Brazilian
navy and the Atlantic world (Indiana University Press, 2014), 183–7.
28 Morgan, Legacy of the lash, 204.
29 Figures from Neill Macaulay, The Prestes Column: revolution in Brazil (New Viewpoints
Press, 1974), 8.
30 McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria, 275–6.
31 Macaulay, The Prestes Column, 114.
32 McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria, 291–300.
33 See Robert M. Levine, Father of the poor? Vargas and his era (Cambridge University
Press, 1998).
34 Stanley E. Hilton, Brazil and the soviet challenge, 1917–1947 (University of Texas
Press, 1991), 4–25.
35 Frank D. McCann, The Brazilian–American alliance, 1937–1945 (Princeton University
Press, 1973), 193–9.
36 Frank D. McCann, Brazil and the United States during World War II and its aftermath:
negotiating alliance and balancing giants (Palgrave Macmilan, 2018), 150–7.
37 Ibid. 206–7.
38 McCann, The Brazilian–American alliance, 1937–1945, 408.
39 Ibid. 430–1.
40 See Frank D. McCann, Brazil and the United States during World War II and its after-
math, 225–41.
41 Thomas E. Skidmore, Brazil: five centuries of change (Oxford University Press, 2009),
140.
42 See Maud Chirio, Politics in uniform: military officers and dictatorship in Brazil,
1960–80 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018).
43 See “How the urban guerrillas lives” in www.marxists.org/archive/marighella-
carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urban-guerrilla/index.htm.
44 Skidmore, Brazil, 166–9.
45 Frank D. McCann, “Brasil: Acima de Tudo!! The Brazilian armed forces: remodeling
for a new era,” Diálogos 21, no. 1 (2017): 87–92.
46 Michael L. Conniff and Frank D. McCann (eds.), Modern Brazil: elites and masses in
historical perspective (University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 62–74.
47 See Alex Cuadros, “Open talk of a military coup unsettles Brazil,” The New Yorker,
October 13, 2017.
48 http://datafolha.folha.uol.com.br/opiniaopublica/2018/06/1971972-partidos-congresso-
e-presidencia-sao-instituicoes-menos-confiaveis-do-pais.shtml.
49 International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The military balance (Routledge, 2016),
382.
5
CHILE

Poor, dangerous, and isolated. These descriptors of colonial Chile derived

from the country’s reputation for natural disasters, marauding pirates, and war-
like Indians. From Europe, it took several months to reach Santiago, the colo-
nial capital, and that journey consisted of multiple stages beginning in Spain,
where travelers sailed by convoy to Panama, journeyed overland to the Pacific
coast, and set sail for Peru. By the time travelers docked in the port of Valpar-
aíso, they had covered some 14,000 kilometers or roughly the same distance it
would take to reach the colony through the Magellan Strait, a treacherous nat-
ural passageway between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. High transportation
costs were one reason Chile did not experience large-scale immigration.
Isolation had diverse effects. Chilean Spanish evolved in curious ways
(much to the bewilderment of foreign visitors) and the colony’s inhabitants
faced ongoing security challenges due to coastal piracy and Indian raids.
Because native peoples retained their independence south of the Bío Bío
River, Spanish authorities had to maintain a permanent garrison along that nat-
ural boundary and wage a low-intensity conflict for the duration of the colo-
nial period. Political and geographic factors confined the Hispanic population
to a compact central valley naturally insulated by the Atacama Desert (north),
Patagonia (south), the Andes Mountain range (east), and the Pacific Ocean
(west).
During the nineteenth century, Chile built a stable political order and its army
conquered the Atacama Desert. Battlefield success and Santiago’s subsequent pro-
cess of military modernization led governments in Ecuador, Colombia, Guate-
mala, and El Salvador to hire the “Prussians of South America” for domestic
training missions. One result of this history is that national leaders in Santiago did
not acquire a victim’s mentality. Respected regionally, even feared, Chile began
124 Chile

the twentieth century from a position of confidence and prestige. Its navy was
one of the largest in the world but the country still suffered from many of Latin
America’s fundamental problems such as rural illiteracy and income inequality. In
1973, Chile’s competitive, multiparty democracy broke down. What can be said
for the entire national period is that warfare and military institutions have strongly
shaped the Chilean state and its people.

Invasion
Rulers of the Inca Empire (1438–1533) reveled in the speed of their conquests
during the second half of the fifteenth century. Armies extended the empire
north to Ecuador and south to Bolivia using a mix of diplomacy and force. In
Cuzco, the imperial capital, officials developed effective strategies for the con-
trol and assimilation of foreign populations such that Emperor Túpac Yupan-
qui (1471–1493) had every reason to feel confident when he ordered the
conquest of Chile. According to chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, the Inca dis-
patched three generals of noble lineage and a great number of troops south-
ward on a multiyear campaign. Such a large army would have marched with
the best weapons of the Andean world (spears, axes, slings, shields) and the
organizational talent for which the Incas excelled. Advance scouts collected
intelligence and sent messages back to Cuzco.
The first stage of conquest went as expected. Imperial armies subdued
communities from Copiapó to the valleys near modern-day Santiago, but
once imperial forces (20,000 according to de la Vega) reached the Maule
River, invasion plans ground to a halt. A massed army of Mapudungan
speakers received the typical ultimatum: submit to the emperor, accept his
laws and religion, or face open war. Emissaries added that they were offer-
ing peace and civilization, not slavery. The natives’ curt reply: enough talk,
we are here to fight. The ensuing Battle of the Maule, which lasted several
days, resulted in a decisive victory for the purumaucas, or savage enemies, as
the Incas called all unconquered peoples. Chastened, Túpac Yupanqui
ordered his forces to withdraw and fortify positions near Santiago, never to
return.1
Pedro de Valdivia marched into Chile’s central valley in 1540 and
defeated a native army on the site where he was to build his capital, San-
tiago de la Nueva Extremadura. In a letter to Charles V, the conquistador
wrote “this land is such that there is none better in the world for living
in and settling, this I say because it is very flat, very healthy and very
pleasant.”2 The Mediterranean climate may have been agreeable, but the
conquest of Chile was not. Native warriors, whom the Spanish called
Araucanians, destroyed the ship Valdivia’s men were building on the coast
and burned Santiago to the ground in 1541. During the attack, Valdivia’s
 Chile 125

FIGURE 5.1 Chilean Mapuches (left) confront the Inca army at the Battle of the
Maule. Felipe Guamán Poma, an indigenous nobleman from Peru, created the
drawing around 1615.

34-year-old mistress and conquistadora, a woman named Inés Suárez,

helped prevent the city’s annihilation through resolute action. According
to Spanish sources she raised the morale of fatigued soldiers and caused
the enemy to retreat after ordering the execution of seven captive chief-
tains. For two years afterward, Spanish settlers lived a frightened, tenuous
existence, nervously guarding their crops and livestock from indigenous
warriors.
Valdivia managed to consolidate Santiago’s defenses, but once the con-
quistador crossed the Bío Bío River five hundred kilometers south of the
capital, his soldiers met even hardier resistance. Native peoples learned to
neutralize European advantages by attacking the bearded invaders at night,
in the rain, and by pushing Spaniards off their horses with lances.
A celebrated warrior named Lautaro had studied Spanish culture and tech-
nology during six years of captivity before he escaped his masters and
developed the tactic of separating men into dispersed squads that succes-
sively pushed forward and fell back in order to exhaust Spanish cavalry and
diminish their maneuverability. Lacking any concept of monarchy, Arauca-
nians formed a loose confederation of extended family units without
a central state, meaning Valdivia could not defeat an absolute monarch and
126 Chile

place himself atop a set of preexisting imperial structures as Hernando

Cortés and Francisco Pizarro had done in Mexico and Peru.
From 1550 to 1553, Pedro de Valdivia built a network of forts in south-
ern Chile – Concepción, La Imperial, Valdivia, Angol, Villarica – and
routed several native armies. The Spanish playbook appeared to be work-
ing. A gold strike near Concepción added to Spanish excitement, but then
Lautaro captured and killed Valdivia at the Battle of Tucapel (1553). Span-
iards briefly reasserted control, but they could not win a decisive battle or
crush native resistance. The Crown dispatched an experienced commander,
Martín García Óñez de Loyola, to pacify the region in 1592, but Mapuche
forces ambushed and killed him six years later, the same year indigenous
warriors sacked every Hispanic settlement south of Concepción. The
Crown conceded what was obvious. The Mapuches could not be beaten, at
least temporarily, and it was best to establish a permanent frontier.
What factors explain Mapuche success? First, geographic factors worked
to the advantage of indigenous people. Araucanía was remote and less prof-
itable for European settlers. Spaniards found no cities or great silver mines
and the highly dispersed nature of native settlements provided one natural
defense against conquest. Second, Spaniards faced a headless war machine.
No single chieftain could ever speak for the indigenous confederation. Nor
could Spaniards offer privileges to a hereditary aristocracy which did not
exist.3 Such decentralization, however, did not preclude Mapudungan
speakers from gathering to select a single commander, or toqui, endowed
with emergency powers to direct collective military forces. No matter how
many chiefs the Spanish captured, resistance continued. Third, Mapuches
showed remarkable resilience and adaptability. Within a generation they
became skilled equestrians and changed their agricultural practices to suit
the needs of a wartime economy, notably switching from maize cultivation
to wheat because the latter ripens earlier, and harvests could be better pro-
tected from Spanish depredations.4 One long-serving Spanish soldier
reported that native combatants intoned to their spears,

here is my master; this master does not make me dig gold, nor fetch him
food or wood for his fire, nor guard his flocks, nor sow, nor reap. And
since this master leaves me my freedom, it is with him that I wish to
go.5

For the duration of the colonial period, Spanish captain generals

appointed representatives to parley with Mapuche chiefs and negotiate treat-
ies. The Mapuches, for their part, agreed to warn Spanish authorities of pir-
ates off their coastal waters. Mutually beneficial trade occurred as did
intervals of peace; the two sides honored each other’s safe conduct passes.
 Chile 127

Colonial Development
The mestizaje (mixing of European men and native women) occurred rapidly
in Spanish-controlled Chile. Native people who spoke an indigenous language
or dressed in a traditional manner had essentially disappeared from the central
valley by the eighteenth century. Thus, the colony was relatively homoge-
neous when compared to other parts of the Spanish Empire. In Peru and
Mexico, for instance, self-governing indigenous communities maintained their
traditions and lived separately from Hispanic populations. In Chile, creole
elites ruled over a large mestizo lower class and everyone spoke Spanish.
The central valley’s soils, located between 30 and 40 degrees south or
roughly the same latitudes as southern California, favored winemaking, cattle
ranching, and wheat cultivation, not plantation economies based on slave
labor. In the arid northern territory, a mining industry (gold and silver) devel-
oped. Santiago was much smaller and less sophisticated than Lima and Mexico
City, where operas, universities, and printing presses enlivened the imperial
courts. Most Chilean towns consisted of a dusty plaza and modest church. Val-
paraíso remained a village with a few houses, not a thriving seaport comparable
to Havana or Cartagena. Ironically, the country’s general poverty conferred
future benefits. Geographic compactness, ethnic homogeneity, and relatively
weak provincial interests helped lay the foundation for a modern nation-state.6

Independence
When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, creoles across South America swore
allegiance to the Crown and pledged to defend the king’s territories. In Sep-
tember 1810, a group of respected creoles in Santiago established a junta (gov-
erning assembly) that promised to faithfully administer the colony on behalf of
Ferdinand VII until he could reclaim his throne. Creoles in Chile’s second lar-
gest city, Concepción, may have disputed Santiago’s pretentions to rule the
entire kingdom, but it was becoming difficult to imagine the status quo ante.
National institutions took shape, a Congress for instance, and a growing
number of pro-independence voices joined the political debate. After Napo-
leon’s defeat, a showdown occurred. The Crown wanted its colonies back.7
Departing from Peru in July 1814, General Mariano Osorio arrived on the
Chilean coast and defeated an outgunned patriot army led by Bernardo O’Hig-
gins. Osorio marched into Santiago and established a counterrevolutionary
government that turned many Chileans against the Crown. Meanwhile, Ber-
nardo O’Higgins and other patriots fled across the Andes to Mendoza where
he met up with Argentine Liberator José de San Martín who planned to
invade Chile and crush Spanish power there before marching north to capture
Lima, the viceregal seat. The army San Martín mobilized in Argentina sur-
prised everyone. It crossed the cold, windswept Andes and defeated Spanish
128 Chile

forces at the Battles of Chacabuco (1817) and Maipú (1818). Patriots had won
control of the central valley, but the war was far from over.
While San Martín mounted an expedition to liberate Peru, Bernardo
O’Higgins assumed dictatorial powers in Chile. During his first year, he estab-
lished a Military Academy based on French models and focused his attention
on the need for naval power. In this endeavor, his government was wildly suc-
cessful. Chilean agents purchased warships, mostly from England, and con-
tracted the services of Lord Thomas Cochrane, a daring naval officer from
Scotland known for his mastery of coastal warfare. In fact, Napoleon called
him Le Loup des Mers (The Seawolf). The First National Squadron, created in
1818, delivered crucial blows to Spanish power. It captured Valdivia (loyalist
stronghold in southern Chile), blockaded Callao (Lima’s port), captured Span-
ish vessels, and transported San Martín’s army to Peru. During a remarkable
four-year period, Chilean sailors acquired valuable experience serving alongside
seasoned British crewmen and under English-speaking commanders with sur-
names like Williams, Wooster, Morris, and Carter. In the process, the nascent
Chilean navy acquired the habits and institutional structure of the world’s
premier fleet.
Remnants of the Spanish army led by Vicente Benavides turned to
guerrilla warfare in what was called la guerra a muerte (war to the death)
between 1819 and 1821. Mounted combatants burned haciendas, launched
ambushes, and robbed central valley towns. Both sides committed atroci-
ties. The collapse of Spanish authority combined with wartime exigencies –
a military draft and a devastated economy – created opportunities for
social revolt and banditry. Mapuche fighters who trusted Spain more than
the newly established Chilean state joined Benavides and the royalist
Pincheira brothers, a notorious gang of horsemen that controlled the
Andean Mountain passes.8 The brutal fighting did not bode well for the
new republic. It militarized public life and embittered the population.
Vicente Benavides, for instance, was tried, hanged, and dismembered in
1822. The Pincheira brothers continued to rustle cattle and make life
insecure for rural populations until 1832. Social peace would take time to
achieve and, among elites, basic disagreements persisted.
Postindependence political divisions fell along familiar lines. Liberals wanted
to limit the Church and favored a federal system. Conservatives believed that
a colonial framework worked best and expressed shock when Bernardo
O’Higgins permitted a Protestant graveyard in Valparaíso. The constitution he
helped write allowed for his indefinite perpetuation in power, which prompted
another liberal general from Concepción, Ramón Freire, to overthrow the
nation’s first president in 1822. Exiled to Peru where he died, O’Higgins is
remembered as the El Libertador (the Liberator) and lionized by both the army
and navy for his important contributions to their institutional development.
 Chile 129

Diego Portales and the Conservative Settlement

The wars for independence left Chile militarized. Years of armed conflict had
elevated the stature of soldiers and made them politically indispensable. The
first generation of men who dominated Chile’s political life – José Miguel Car-
rera, Ramón Freire, Bernardo O’Higgins, Francisco Antonio Pinto, Joaquín
Prieto, Manuel Rodríguez – were all military figures born after 1785. Warfare
did not change the political or material condition of Chile’s lower classes, but
they were deeply involved in nineteenth century conflicts whether as night
watchmen, regular soldiers, or militiamen.9 Such facts combined with the law-
lessness of the mountain passes and fighting in Araucanía did not bode well for
political stability. By the end of the 1820s, a succession of coups and counter-
coups – always involving military officers – generated agreement that the
country needed order. Eventually, it was a conservative coalition of business-
men and landowners who took control of the central government after their
ally General Joaquín Prieto defeated General Ramón Freire at the Battle of
Lircay (1829). The dominant figure in the coalition was a trader named Diego
Portales. He wrote to a friend in 1822,

Politics do not interest me, but as a good citizen I feel free to express
my opinions and to censure the government. Democracy, which is so
loudly proclaimed by the deluded is an absurdity in our countries,
flooded as they are with vices and with their citizens lacking all sense of
civic virtue … The Republican system is the one which we must adopt,
but do you know how I interpret it for our countries? A strong central
government whose representatives will be men of true virtue and patri-
otism, and who thus can direct their fellow citizens on the path of order
and progress.10

Portales remains a controversial figure in Chilean history. He did, however,

find pragmatic solutions to the country’s disorder. As interior minister, Portales
implemented stabilization policies, chief among them a network of National
Guard units – initially 25,000 men, eventually 50,000 – drawn from the small
electorate of landowners, artisans, professionals, and traders. Qualified male
citizens drilled with their battalions on Sundays and bolstered the government.
Civic militias deterred army officers from launching coups and helped pacify
the bandit-plagued countryside. With respect to the management of public
funds, Portales and his coalition showed integrity; a caudillo tradition of person-
alist, charismatic leadership did not take root. Here it is worth noting that Por-
tales preferred to work behind the scenes. He did not seek the presidency for
himself.11
The constitution of 1833 created a highly centralized state in which the
chief executive appointed his cabinet and dispatched intendants to govern the
130 Chile

provinces. It was not a democratic system in the modern sense; presidents

instructed their intendants to deliver votes for approved candidates, but orderly
government and fiscal stability distinguished Chile from her more turbulent
neighbors. Santiago could secure foreign loans and attract business talent. Such
stability made an enormous difference for regional politics.
In 1836, the Bolivian politician Andrés de Santa Cruz united Bolivia
and Peru into a single state, the Peru–Bolivian Confederation
(1836–1839), imagined as a recreation of the Inca Empire. Portales saw
danger. Such a large state, if successful, could threaten Chile’s security and
commercial interests. A tariff dispute between the two states followed by
the Confederation’s material support of General Ramón Freire (loser at
the Battle of Lircay) prompted Portales to declare war. Few in Chile
understood the foreign policy implications of the Confederation or Por-
tales’ foreign policy reasoning, but the decision unleashed political forces
that would lead to his assassination in 1837. Ultimately, Portales’ murder
strengthened support for the war, which Chile won, and for the political
system he founded. Moving forward, presidents served their terms of
office and handed power to “elected” successors. Such stability had no
parallel in Spanish America. Beginning with Manuel Montt, nearly all of
Chile’s nineteenth-century presidents were lawyers and diplomats, not sol-
diers. Chile had escaped the regional pattern of militarized politics and
frequent changes of government.
Chilean presidents, 1831–1891:

1831–1841 José Joaquín Prieto

1841–1851 Manuel Bulnes Prieto
1851–1861 Manuel Montt
1861–1871 José Joaquín Pérez
1871–1876 Federico Errázuriz
1876–1881 Aníbal Pinto
1881–1886 Domingo Santa María
1886–1891 José Manuel Balmaceda

Important mid-century developments include the University of Chile’s

founding and Manuel Bulnes’ order to take possession of the Magellan
Strait. Industrial technology stimulated the economy. The Pacific Steam
Navigation Company, founded by William Wheelwright, began carrying
mail between Pacific ports, and South America’s first railroad tracks con-
nected Copiapó (mining town in northern Chile) to the port of Caldera.
National elites felt increasingly confident as the population doubled from
approximately one million in 1830 to two million in 1875, although it
should be noted that social structures changed very little. A landholding
elite continued to rule over the country’s mestizo population, and civilian
 Chile 131

leaders, those who controlled the nation’s small army, did not forget the
Mapuche chiefs who had aligned with Spain during la guerra a muerte. San-
tiago wanted control over Araucanía.

The Pacification of Araucanía

Pressures for farmland meant that Hispanic settlers increasingly crossed the
Bío Bío River and Santiago actively encouraged German colonists around
Araucanía’s southern boundary. Such pressure convinced Mapuche chiefs
to launch an uprising in 1859 (the same year Liberals revolted against
Manuel Montt) and the national government, for its part, doubled down
on the objective of obtaining full control over the territory. Army Col-
onel Cornelio Saavedra developed a pacification plan that involved con-
structing a line of forts south to protect settler colonies. Meanwhile,
Saavedra secured the neutrality or assistance of coastal tribes and natives
closer to the Chilean town of Valdivia (far south). With each fort and
settlement, Santiago closed its grip. Army commanders burned the crops
and homes of Mapuche belligerents, seized their livestock, and forced
families to flee. Meanwhile, the introduction of new military technology
and armaments, in 1870, gave the Chilean army a major advantage as did
telegraph lines facilitating military communication. The founding of
Temuco (1881), a town in the geographic center of Araucanía, announced
the army’s victory. Dispossessed, defeated Mapuche communities had to
watch incoming settlers receive land grants.12 One consequence of the
decades-long campaign was to give the Chilean army extensive experience
before the next great conflict.
The career of General Manuel Baquedano represents a bridge between
Chile’s eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Born to a Basque father who
briefly served in the Queen’s Dragoons, his family supported Chilean inde-
pendence from the start and his father served under both O’Higgins and San
Martín. Thus, the younger Baquedano grew up in a military household hear-
ing stories about patriot actions against royal forces. As a teenager he deployed
to Peru with his father during the War of the Confederation and participated
in the decisive Battle of Yungay (1839). Early on, Baquedano learned the
rigors of war from firsthand experience. He helped crush liberal uprisings in
1851 and 1859 and battled Mapuche chiefs during the pacification campaign.
In sum, he loyally served the Chilean state during its earliest years of consoli-
dation. His formation was practical, not theoretical, and Baquedano believed
highly disciplined troops led by men of courage would prevail.13 The com-
mander lacked a gift for strategy or tactical creativity, but he emerged from
Chile’s peculiar military context with valuable traits – discipline, courage,
resolve – before assuming command of his country’s armies.
132 Chile

The War of the Pacific (1879–1884)

Massive nitrate reserves in the sparsely populated Atacama Desert inflamed old
geopolitical rivalries during the 1870s. Rising global demand for nitrates used
in fertilizers and explosives guaranteed robust profits for governments and
companies able to exploit the natural resource. Bolivia’s government permitted
an influx of Chilean capital and miners into its coastal territory. Notably, the
Chilean-owned Nitrates and Railway Company of Antofagasta (CSFA) devel-
oped mining operations in that city while Peru’s government announced
a state monopoly over the nitrate fields near its ports of Iquique and Pisagua.
Ill-defined boundaries from the colonial period motivated Chile and Bolivia
to negotiate a treaty, signed in 1874, which set their border at the 24th parallel
south. The treaty also stipulated that Chilean companies operating above that
parallel would pay taxes to the Bolivian government at a fixed rate for 25
years. In 1878, Bolivia’s government raised the tariff and that decision touched
off a bitter commercial dispute. The CSFA refused to pay higher taxes and
Bolivian President Hilarion Daza ordered the confiscation of CSFA property.
Facing strong pressure in Santiago, President Aníbal Pinto dispatched the navy
to occupy Antofagasta, much to the delight of its Chilean inhabitants. Bolivia
declared war on Chile on March 1, 1879 and Peru found itself drawn into the
conflict because of a secret military alliance with Bolivia.
The War of the Pacific (1879–1884) required Santiago to mobilize men for
large-scale operations thousands of kilometers away and it involved modern
technology – ironclad steamships, torpedoes, Gatling guns, and breech-loading
rifles. The belligerents’ field organization and tactics could be shockingly
crude, however. William F. Sater writes, “The Peruvian and Chilean fleets,
like two bare-knuckled fighters, inelegantly traded blows until one had obliter-
ated the other.”14 Chile obtained naval supremacy at the Battle of Angamos
(October 8, 1879) and marched its armies north.
At the Battle of Tacna, May 26, 1880, General Baquedano’s force of
14,147 men destroyed an Allied army of approximately the same number. The
Chilean army, just 2,500 men in January 1879, had surged to 41,000. Mean-
while, Baquedano received orders to assault Peru’s capital 1,200 kilometers
north. In January 1881, Chilean soldiers marched into Lima after winning two
hard-fought battles, Chorrillos and Miraflores. Santiago hoped for a quick
settlement, but ongoing resistance in the Andes required the Chilean army to
wage a protracted and frequently gruesome counterinsurgency campaign across
the rugged Peruvian sierra. It was not until October 1883 that Santiago signed
a peace treaty with a Peruvian leader willing to cede Tarapacá province and
allow Chile to occupy two cities, Tacna and Arica. When it was all over, the
Allies (mostly Peru) had suffered some 20,000 casualties to Chile’s 10,000.15
Several important factors explain the outcome. First, Chile’s armed forces
were better trained, better equipped, and better led. The country’s army and
 Chile 133

FIGURE 5.2 Lieutenant Solo de Zaldívaricus and two Chileans bury three Bolivian
soldiers after the Battle of Tacna, May 26, 1880. Casualty rates during the hard-
fought Tarapacá Campaign regularly exceeded 30 percent. Source: Chilean newspaper
El Nuevo Ferrocarril, 1880.

navy had more experience with war-making and many Chileans entered the war
with basic training from Diego Portales’ civic militias. Second, Santiago’s control
over the Strait of Magellan facilitated its unrestricted importation of high-quality
artillery and machine guns. In contrast, Peru had to rely on good relations with
Colombia, which controlled the Panamanian isthmus. Third, Chile’s foreign
enemies could not exploit a weak, fractured government. Chile was more of
a nation with a common language, territory, culture, and economic life; internal
stability made an enormous difference. By contrast, the Allied officers frequently
commanded indigenous soldiers who spoke Quechua or Aymara. That cultural
and linguistic divide hampered trust and communication. Of course, none of this
is to say that Allies forces were pushovers. At the Battle of Tarapacá (1879), Peru
routed a Chilean force of 2,281 soldiers leaving 546 dead and 212 wounded.
Politically, the war reconfigured the map of South America (see Figure
1.1). Chile’s newly won territories sustained several decades of profitable
nitrate mining. However, Santiago had been forced to abandon its claim to
Atlantic Patagonia as a measure to keep Argentina from entering the conflict.
Bolivia lost access to the Pacific Ocean. The war left Peru humiliated,
deprived of resource-rich territory, and understandably suspicious of its south-
ern neighbor. During the occupation of Lima (1881–1883), Chilean authorities
systematically looted the city’s libraries, universities, and cultural institutions.
134 Chile

People in Peru and Bolivia would remember the Chileans as bandits and,
above all, the aggressors in an unjust war of conquest.
As with any nineteenth-century conflict, women participated. The Chilean
government authorized uniformed women called cantineras to march with the
nation’s regiments and fulfill diverse roles: seamstress, cook, nurse, porter.
Most were working-class women from urban centers and many more soldiered
without official authorization, selling provisions to soldiers and following their
common-law husbands on campaign. Often they brought water to exhausted
soldiers as bullets snapped overhead. Those who fell into enemy hands could
face cruel fates. Rosa Ramírez, Leonor Solar, Susana Montenegro were all
captured at the Battle of Tarapacá and executed. It is impossible to determine
exactly how many cantineras served because the army did not keep track, but it
was certainly several thousand. Military authorities complained of the role
women played spreading venereal disease and confusing battalion organization,
but commanders also recognized the value of these hard-boiled fighters who
nursed the wounded, provisioned the troops, and had positive effects on troop
morale. Revealingly, 17 percent of all returnees to Valparaíso after the occupa-
tion of Lima were women.16
The most famous cantineras – Irene Morales, Filomena Valenzuela, María
Quiteria Ramírez – earned recognition for their exploits. Irene Morales, for
instance, was 14 years old when the war started. Motivated by patriotism and
a desire to avenge her husband’s death – he died at the hands of Bolivian sol-
diers – Morales disguised herself as a man and unsuccessfully attempted to join
an army battalion in Antofagasta. Unofficially she followed the regiment into
battle and quickly proved her value as a nurse and soldier. Like other women,
she occasionally picked up rifles to fight. None other than Manuel Baquedano
named Morales cantinera for the 3rd Regiment, 4th Division, and she served
with distinction at the bloody battles of Tacna, Chorrillos, and Miraflores.
Granted the title sergeant, she earned the respect of those with whom she
served. According to patriotic mythology she was the first female soldier to
enter Tacna on horseback, with a rifle raised high, shouting “Viva Chile!”
Morales and other cantineras did not receive state pensions for their military
service, but an assembled crowd in Santiago applauded her when she arrived
to Plaza Yungay during the inauguration of a national monument on Octo-
ber 7, 1888.17
The war gave Chile many military heroes, but none quite like naval captain
Arturo Prat. He refused to surrender his crippled vessel during the Battle of
Iquique (May 21, 1879) and chose to die amid a hail of gunfire while leaping
on board the Huáscar, a Peruvian ironclad. His heroic gesture inspired other
sailors to follow suit and suffer the same fate. Their ship, the Esmeralda, sunk
without its flag ever being lowered, a point of institutional pride. Today the
naval academy is named after Prat, there is Arturo Prat University, and his face
appears on the 10,000 pesos banknote. Streets, plazas, and warships bear the
 Chile 135

FIGURE 5.3 Irene Morales during the Chilean occupation of Lima in 1881. Morales
served with the Chilean 4th Division during the War of the Pacific. Photograph by
Eugenio Courret.

name Prat and schoolchildren learn of his heroic exploits. Arturo Prat looms
large as an example of what the navy expects of its personnel. In Plaza Soto-
mayor, Valparaíso, a statue of Prat reproduces part of his speech before the
Battle of Iquique: “Boys: the fight is unequal, but, take courage. Our flag has
never been lowered before the enemy and I hope that this is not the occasion
to do so.” The names of fallen sailors appear around the base of the monu-
ment. More generally, the war left behind a legacy of military glorification,
including two national holidays: September 19 is Army Day (Día de las Glorias
del Ejército) and May 21 is Navy Day (Día de las Glorias Navales), the latter of
which commemorates the Battle of Iquique.
Military skill alone did not decide the War of the Pacific. Santiago had
faced rivals whose domestic turmoil hindered their capacity for effective war-
making. Several incompetent Chilean officers received their positions based on
political connections rather than merit, and on multiple occasions army com-
mander Manuel Baquedano ordered his troops to take enemy positions by
frontal assault rather than considering lifesaving tactical maneuvers. Statesmen
136 Chile

in Santiago learned just how unprepared their nation was to supply a large
army conducting field operations 2,000 kilometers away. They did not rest on
their laurels. In 1885 President Domingo Santa María hired Emil Körner,
a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and graduate of Prussia’s
War College, to assist with the modernization of Chile’s army.
For most of the nineteenth century the Chilean army was organized accord-
ing to a Napoleonic model based on columns of infantrymen charging towards
adversaries with fixed bayonets. Under Körner, war became a professional dis-
cipline based on rational planning and technical skill. Körner established the
Army Academy of War in 1886, making Chile the fourth country in the
world to have an institution of higher education for general staff officers to
study history, cartography, engineering, chemistry, languages, and theorists.
Loci of debate over strategy and doctrine, Chile’s war academies prepare offi-
cers for the general staff, and the brightest minds teach classes and receive
commissions to study abroad. Jorge Boonen, future inspector general of the
army, embodied the new spirit. In 1902, he published a comprehensive ana-
lysis of the national territory and four years later, the army general staff began
producing El Memorial del Ejército de Chile, a professional journal designed to
keep the army current with respect to modern military science.
Not all the changes related to appearance or equipment. Under German
tutelage the Chilean army abolished corporal punishment and restructured its
educational methods. Army professionalism demanded new standards of discip-
line and new activities, such as collecting data about neighboring countries or
creating topographical maps of highly technical quality. German soldiers also
held key positions of institutional leadership. Two Germans, Major Gunter
von Bellow and Major Hermann Rogalla von Biberstein, commanded the
country’s Military Academy in 1896, where they trained teenage cadets.
Körner, who eventually became a citizen of Chile, served as the army’s
inspector general from 1900 to 1910.18
The meaning of Chile’s military professionalization is a debated topic. Chil-
ean soldiers might have resembled Prussians in appearance, but they were
hardly an exact copy. In 1920, the army failed to efficiently mobilize when
Peruvian troops appeared to be massing along the northern frontier. At the
same time, the Prussian influence left an enduring imprint, not just the uni-
forms, goose-stepping, or iconic steel helmets that Chilean soldiers still wear
during ceremonies, but in terms of the more substantive qualities such as
respect for hierarchy, strict discipline, and devotion to study. Outsiders were
certainly impressed.
The War of the Pacific made Chile a naval power. In fact, its Pacific fleet
was briefly more powerful than the US navy. In 1885, during a period of tur-
moil in Colombia’s Panama province, the United States dispatched naval
forces to occupy Colón, located on the Atlantic side of the isthmus, and moni-
tor that crucial transit point. Santiago responded by sending the Esmeralda,
 Chile 137

a protected cruiser custom-built for the Chilean navy and a warship more
powerful than any other in the US navy. Its commander, Captain Juan López,
had orders to do whatever was necessary to prevent the United States from
annexing Panama. López occupied Panama City and US forces withdrew from
Colón. Chile annexed Easter Island (1888) with the expectation that the far-
away island would facilitate trade with Asia and Oceania.19

Civil War (1891)

The bonanza from nitrate mining enriched state coffers and generated new com-
petition for political power. Chile’s Congress wanted say-so with respect to
budget expenditures and oversight of executive ministerial appointments. Presi-
dent José Manuel Balmaceda (1886–1891) wanted to preserve his prerogatives.
A nationalist with a strong personality, Balmaceda had big postwar plans. He
spent lavishly on new schools, military modernization, and infrastructure (dry
docks, rail, bridges). In the process, he locked horns with conservative enemies.
The bitter struggle accelerated, such that by 1890 there was talk of civil war.
A sad indication of what was to come, politicians began forging alliances with
members of the armed forces.20 In January 1891, Balmaceda decreed a budget
without consulting Congress and congressional elites revolted. The armed
forces, as everyone knew, would decide the outcome. Most of the army high
command remained loyal to their commander in chief while navy leaders uni-
formly sided with Congress and sent ships to occupy northern ports and secure
nitrate revenues. Balmaceda controlled the country’s administrative center, but
then in a stunning turn of events Emil Körner joined the congressional rebels
and assumed command of all ground forces. After fastidiously drilling 9,000
troops, he defeated the government’s forces at the battles of Concón and Placilla
(approximately 6,000 fatalities) and proceeded to parade his goose-stepping sol-
diers through Santiago. Unwilling to accept exile or trial for treason, Balmaceda
committed suicide in September 1891.
The congressional victory had important consequences for the country’s
armed forces. It elevated the esteem of Körner’s Prussian model and cleared
the way for him to enlarge the standing army. Congress rewarded the navy
with preferential treatment in subsequent defense budgets. Nevertheless, sol-
diers from the same nation had turned their weapons on each other. Such
a painful memory lingered in the armed forces’ consciousness, and military
leaders resolved to avoid a similar situation when the country began talking of
civil war in 1973.
Warfare profoundly shaped Chile’s political and social development during
the nineteenth century. Successive generations experienced mobilizations
during the struggle for independence from Spain (1812–1826), the war with
the Peru–Bolivian Confederation (1836–1839), and the War of the Pacific
138 Chile

(1879–1884). These conflicts, Mario Góngora asserts, did not merely increase
the state’s territory, they endowed political and military elites, if not illiterate
peasants, with a sense of nationality.21 Having unbeaten armed forces (fuerzas
armadas siempre victoriosas, jamás vencidas) remains a source of national pride.
Nineteenth-century wars gave Santiago independence, territory, resources, and
regional influence. The pacification of Araucanía provided the impetus, in
1896, for the creation of special police units staffed by army officers in territory
formerly under Mapuche control. Here lie the antecedents of Chile’s national
police force. Of course, the nineteenth-century wars left behind new worries.
What if Chile’s neighbors aligned? The possibility of fighting a multifront war
made military modernization a more urgent matter, especially since border dis-
putes with Argentina nearly resulted in open conflict. Between 1894 and
1896, Chile’s defense budget more than tripled and the Chilean navy (sixth
largest in the world) acquired Dreadnought battleships. Thankfully, both sides
agreed to limit naval purchases and accept British arbitration of their territorial
disputes in 1902.22

Conscription and Military Discontent

The period after Balmaceda’s defeat and suicide has been dubbed the Parlia-
mentary Republic (1891–1925) because Chile’s legislature had more power
than the executive. Congress selected cabinet members, controlled ministerial
appointments, and set budgets. Historical judgment of the Parliamentary
Republic has been overwhelmingly negative because its shifting political coali-
tions accomplished little of significance. With respect to the military, many
things changed. The Chilean government introduced obligatory military ser-
vice in 1900, which revealed certain traits of Chilean society to young lieuten-
ants and captains who saw raw recruits arrive for service diseased, illiterate, and
prone to desertion. Captain Tobías Barros disabused his brother Mario of all
nationalistic propaganda about the supposedly patriotic sentiments of the aver-
age Chilean soldier. The reality, he explained, was quite different:

Countless times I have passed through squalid camps and villages, some
not far from the capital, on recruiting commissions … I have drawn my
ear to the heart of these good-natured but uneducated characters. How
great my disappointment has been! Chile for them is Santiago; the army
is the police or the carabineros …With such poor ideas about the nation
and the duties [that] calling oneself Chilean implies, come three-quarters
of our conscripts: almost all of them peasant recruits.23

However, Barros was positively sanguine about the civilizing effect of mili-
tary service. He explained to his brother that illiterate conscripts invariably
 Chile 139

learned to read and write in the barracks and they completed their service
knowing more about Chile’s flag, history, holidays, and heroes. True enough,
conscription did give lower-class men an experience inside a national institu-
tion where they encountered – for the first time, in many cases – the rhetoric
of inclusive citizenship. For junior officers, it generated firsthand knowledge of
the national population outside of the cities and they discovered just how far
the country had to go with respect to social development. World War
I further reinforced the view that modern nation-states needed citizen soldiers
with a sense of duty to defend the country from outside threats. Neglecting
underprivileged citizens, therefore, increased the risk of having unmotivated
soldiers during national crises.
Chile was still a rural, agricultural country at the turn of the twentieth cen-
tury, even as incipient industrialization changed the nation. The nitrate boom
created an urban proletariat in several mining zones, and rural peons began
moving to cities, where they lived in appalling social conditions. Between
1897 and 1925, infant mortality in the city of Valparaíso ranged from 21 to
37 percent.24 Meanwhile, political elites refused to address urban squalor with
concrete policies or impose taxes on the wealthy for public education. They
did, however, deploy the army to crush labor strikes. On December 21, 1907,
Chile’s interior minister sent the army to disperse a large mass of striking
nitrate workers in Iquique. After being met with refusals to go home, General
Roberto Silva ordered his machine-gunners to open fire on the crowd,
mowing down more than 1,000 workers and their family members.
The bone-chilling Santa María School massacre lingered in working-class con-
sciousness and upset the army, too. Many officers resented being used by the
bourgeoisie to attack the country’s exploited proletariat. They believed that only
effective social legislation would prevent the workers from turning to radical polit-
ics. Junior officers drew inspiration from international models such as Imperial
Germany, where Otto von Bismarck’s autocratic state limited working hours and
provided unemployment insurance. It is also worth noting that the Chilean Feder-
ation of Labor, founded in 1909, developed a communist orientation after the
Russian Revolution (1917) seemed to validate radical politics as a viable solution
to workers’ problems. Moving forward, the specter of Bolshevism would shape
the military’s perceptions and its willingness to intervene politically.
World War I (1914–1918) jolted Latin America. The international price for
commodities such as coffee, sugar, tin, and nitrates experienced dramatic
swings due to wartime dislocations. Not only that, Germany’s ability to syn-
thesize fertilizers destined Chile’s nitrate industry for calamity. The war
revealed the dangers of dependence on a single raw material and it shook Latin
America’s faith in Europe as a model of civilization after jaw-dropping carnage
on the Western Front. War-torn Britain, France, and Germany ceased to be
important investors in the aftermath, although foreign capital did not dry up
completely. It came from a new place.
140 Chile

Santiago granted three US companies – Braden, Anaconda, Kennecott –

concessions for the large-scale extraction of copper ores using advanced indus-
trial technology. Anaconda’s Chuquicamata, for instance, became the largest
open-pit copper mine in the world. The arrangement exposed a pattern famil-
iar to Latin America. Chile lacked the capital and technical expertise (geolo-
gists, engineers) to exploit its own natural resources. During the 1920s, Wall
Street banks acquired a large share of Chile’s international debt and the arrival
of more transnational corporations – Bethlehem Steel, Ford Motors, Inter-
national Telephone & Telegraph – further cemented the American presence.
US-owned copper companies established a reliable source of revenue for the
Chilean state, the “salary of Chile” as one politician put it, as well as foreign
control of the country’s most important export, something nationalists disliked.
The entire period coincided with growing military frustration. Junior officers
resented the Parliamentary Republic.
Captain Alberto Muñoz’s 1914 monograph El problema de nuestra educación
militar (The Problem of Our Military Education) condemned Chile’s political
system for cultivating incompetence and laziness among senior officers, who
owed their promotions or desirable assignments to political connections.
Muñoz wrote that civilian leaders ought to put officers in charge of educating
lower-class men. Otherwise, they would make poor soldiers in a system that
condemned them to poverty. Junior officers urged the government to promote
industry and address the “social question,” or develop solutions to the prob-
lems and grievances affecting the wage-earning population. A growing number
of officers looked at the nation’s leadership with contempt. Many felt superior
to and separate from civilians.
In 1919, the conservative administration of Juan Luis Sanfuentes (1915–
1920) uncovered a plotting of two army generals who planned to offer military
support to the president in the event of a national crisis involving organized
labor. Subsequent official investigations revealed that 50 officers in the army
and navy – all below the rank of general or admiral – belonged to a junta that
wanted to reinforce executive power. Their manifesto, signed by the entire
cohort, called for legislation to help workers and spoke of Marxist threats to
democracy. The conspirators also planned to make a liberal senator from the
northern nitrate zones, Arturo Alessandri, the provisional president if they
seized the government.25 Such behavior thoroughly scandalized the Sanfuentes
administration. It had been a very long time since officers had tried to subvert
civilian control of the political system.

Military Revolution
The election of Arturo Alessandri (1920–1925) seemed to herald change because
he wanted to enact major reforms. Congress, however, refused to pass any of the
 Chile 141

laws he proposed. The paralysis was so severe that the military intervened. On
September 4, 1924, 56 officers came to Congress and rattled their sabers. The
act of intimidation worked. Legislators increased military salaries, reformed the
employment code, and approved an income tax law. The junior officers
involved in this self-proclaimed mission of “national regeneration” belonged to
the middle class, and their actions reflected that social stratum and its interests.
Emboldened, the movement’s leaders – Colonel Marmaduke Grove and Major
Carlos Ibáñez – went even further. They supported General Luis Altamirano,
who appeared in Congress on September 8 demanding the passage of legislation
legalizing trade unions, the eight-hour workday, collective bargaining rights,
occupational safety laws, child labor restrictions, and labor courts. Under military
pressure Congress passed the laws. By January 1925 Grove and Ibáñez had
formed a junta and assumed de facto control of the government. They promptly
convened a constituent assembly. Lawyers drafted a constitution that restored
a presidentialist system.26
Ibáñez also purged the high command, which meant rapid advancement for
some and unhappy retirement for others. To keep his shake-up from plunging
the nation into a civil war, he sent rivals abroad and brought all police forces
together into a single organization, creating the Carabineros de Chile. Conceived
as a buttress for his administration, Ibáñez wanted to relieve soldiers of their
erstwhile role maintaining public order. Visitors to Chile often notice that the
police have an unmistakable military character, which is not a coincidence,
because their antecedents lie with the army and their institutional values
mirror those of the other armed services. In the case of emergencies, the carabi-
neros can be mobilized for battle. Ibáñez also issued the order creating the
Chilean Air Force (Fuerza Aérea de Chile, or FACH) in 1930. He appointed
his friend Arturo Merino its first commander in chief and gave him the task of
developing the national airline, Línea Aérea Nacional. Never far from global
trends, Chile was one of the first nations, chronologically speaking, to establish
an independent air force.
The legacy of Carlos Ibáñez is complicated. The movement he led reorgan-
ized the government according to the needs of a more complex, urban society.
Ibáñez enacted progressive labor laws and practiced economic nationalism,
giving Chile’s economy a statist orientation and making the government more
responsive to the interests of organized workers and middle-class professionals.
He also outlawed the Communist Party of Chile, exiled political opponents,
and censored the press. Ironically, the Ibáñez dictatorship established an endur-
ing model of public spending and economic nationalism, which another mili-
tary man – Augusto Pinochet – significantly undid five decades later.
The Great Depression devastated Chile’s export economy. Demand for
nitrate plummeted, which deprived Santiago of essential revenue and cre-
ated a mass of desperate, unemployed workers. In fact, the League of
Nations declared Chile the nation most severely affected by the collapse in
142 Chile

global trade. Unable to manage the escalating crisis, Carlos Ibáñez contem-
plated two options: rely on the army to repress his opposition or leave the
country. He chose the latter, fleeing across the Andes into Argentina on
July 26, 1931. In the wake of his departure people filled the streets of the
capital to celebrate “the fall of the tyrant.” Some talked about sacking the
homes of Ibañistas.
The political fallout lasted for years. In 1931, 16-year-old army cadet Carlos
Prats González recalled the antimilitary backlash on the streets of Santiago:

The uncontrolled masses directed their aggression first against the carabi-
neros, the defenders of law and order who had only been fulfilling their
duties. Later, and with greater cruelty, the civilian reaction began against
the army, especially towards officers and even young cadets who were
beat up by gangs of well-to-do youths and spit on by society ladies
solely for wearing their uniforms in public.27

Political intervention had caused the army to suffer societal scorn and humiliat-
ing attacks. Memories from Prats’ first year in the Military Academy shaped his
outlook as future army commander in chief.
The navy suffered its own trauma. One month after Ibáñez’s chaotic
departure, Interim President Manuel Trucco decreed a 30 percent pay cut for
all public servants. The news upset soldiers and bureaucrats alike, but few
imagined what was about to transpire in Coquimbo, nearly 500 kilometers
north of Santiago. In the early morning hours of September 1, lower-deck
petty officers serving on the Almirante Latorre imprisoned the battleship’s high
command. Soon the rebellion involved 14 ships and 2,750 crewmen. On Sep-
tember 2 the southern fleet, based in Talcahuano, joined the mutiny and
began steaming north with another 15 ships, at which point the number of
sailors involved exceeded 4,000. Initial demands related to pay and working
conditions, but as negotiations broke down, the mutineers called on the Com-
munist Party, the Chilean Federation of Labor, and all other sympathizers to
join their revolution and turn against the government. After President Trucco
ordered warplanes to bombard the fleet, demoralized rebels capitulated on
September 7.28
Turmoil of this kind inevitably influenced the armed forces. A narrative
developed that the Left aimed to opportunistically exploit political crises to
achieve revolutionary aims. Before the military reacquired control of the fleet
on September 7, 1931, army commander in chief, Indalicio Téllez, issued
a general circular. Its opening statement read, “Communism can only flourish
among enslaved peoples … Not a single civilized nation of Europe or Amer-
ica, one that has known liberty, willingly accepts communism …” This institu-
tional position would persist for the remainder of the century.29
 Chile 143

Civilian Control Reestablished

Civilians organized militias republicanas (republican militias) in 1932 – not
altogether unlike the ones Diego Portales established in the 1830s – to guard
against ambitious soldiers. Somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 Chileans
joined these paramilitary organizations, and officers silently accepted the
humiliating arrangement until they were dissolved in 1936. President Arturo
Alessandri (1932–1938) appointed General Oscar Novoa Fuentes commander
in chief of the army. His demand for iron discipline and use of constant
inspections purged rebellious elements from the army. The government con-
sidered dissolving the air force as a means to eliminate the risk of sedition from
a technologically powerful service but, much like the army, the air force was
depoliticized by its commander in chief, General Diego Aracena (1932–1939),
who directed its professional energy towards keeping up with the rapid
advances in aviation.
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) brought refugees into Chile and
created ideological fault lines that went unchanged for decades. Political
conservatives and church officials supported Generalissimo Francisco Fran-
co’s anti-communist coalition while the Left supported the Republican
side and its coalition of anarchists, socialists, and communists. The contin-
ent’s violent, unstable politics had other effects on Chile’s ideologically
plural system. Adolf Hitler’s speeches inspired Jorge González von Marées
to found, in 1932, the Movimiento Nacional Socialista de Chile (National
Socialist Movement of Chile, MNS). The nacistas, as they were known,
opposed democracy, liberalism, Marxism, and Pan-Americanism. They
emphasized the mystical unity of Chile’s people and the need for a strong
state with a supreme leader. Less race obsessed or anti-Semitic than their
German counterparts, González and his chief ideologue Carlos Keller
drew from a domestic tradition of nationalist intellectuals.30 Unsettlingly,
the MNS organized tropas nacistas de asalto or shock troops that aped the
black and brown shirts of Italy and Germany, respectively. Like all fascist
parties, the nacistas believed in direct action to achieve their goals, not
cautious electoral strategy.
The Socialist Party, founded in 1933, elected 19 deputies in Chile’s 1937
parliamentary contest with 46,050 votes (11 per cent of the electorate). The
MNS, which received 14,235 votes, had other plans. The nacistas wanted to
install Carlos lbáñez as supreme leader of the nation and put an end to Chile’s
democracy. On September 5, 1938, González von Marées ordered 63 of his
young followers to occupy two buildings next to the presidential palace. They
hoped a bold action would prompt some sort of army uprising on their behalf.
After an exchange of fire with police and army units, the barricaded nacistas
surrendered their weapons and the police, on unclear orders, massacred all but
144 Chile

five of the youths. The army, it is important to observe, did not intervene to
protect the rebels.
For the next 35 years, military officers generally stayed out of politics.
Groups of officers flirted with the idea of a coup, usually a reimposition of
Carlos Ibáñez as dictator, but their conspiracies lacked support. The mili-
tary did not overthrow presidents. Notably, Chile weathered the Great
Depression and World War II under democratic governments, a rare
achievement in either Europe or the Americas. With each passing decade,
the armed forces seemed more apolitical and it became common to speak
of Chilean exceptionalism or the idea that the country was more stable,
more democratic, and more orderly than republics elsewhere in the
hemisphere.
To the delight of the armed forces, President Pedro Aguirre Cerda
(1938–1941) announced the Chileanness Campaign (la Campaña de Chileni-
dad). The initiative encouraged patriotism through public education and
mandated instruction about national heroes and military history. The
national anthem was to be sung in school, and the armed forces would be
involved more extensively in national holidays and other civic events. The
government also gave the armed forces a role guaranteeing honest and
orderly election procedures during electoral contests. Between 1941 and
1973, military personnel monitored elections as nonpartisan defenders of the
constitutional order.

Postwar Chile
The Cold War came very quickly to Chile. President Gabriel González
(1946–1952) declared a national emergency during a wave of labor unrest in
1947. He accused the Communist Party of trying to paralyze his government
through coordinated industrial strikes and deployed soldiers on missions of
internal repression.31 One army captain, named Augusto Pinochet, received
orders to arrest and detain communist militants in Iquique and, not long after,
he was deployed to a coal mining district near Concepción with similar orders.
Thus, the state reinforced the military’s existing anti-communism and Pinochet
went on to the Army Academy of War where he and others studied geopolit-
ics and the latest military theory. Congress outlawed the Communist Party
from 1948 to 1958, but that repression hardly impaired the party’s presence in
labor unions or its future clout (16.36 percent of the electorate in 1971).
Between 1950 and 1970, the Chilean population increased from 6,081,931
to 9,569,631, which meant the country – like so many others in the develop-
ing world – desperately needed the fruits of a stable, expanding economy.
Instead, bad monetary policy left citizens to grapple with the effects of persist-
ent inflation, inefficient agricultural production resulted in high food prices,
 Chile 145

and dependence on the international price of copper made budgetary planning

a challenge. Urban slums reminded everyone of obvious social distress. But if
the unbalanced economy was typical of others in Latin America, the country’s
competitive, multiparty political system most resembled parliamentary struc-
tures in France or Italy.
Here it is important to make several points. First, Chilean democracy was
strongly “presidentialist.” The chief executive had broad powers to propose
the budget, increase government salaries, and appoint provincial
chiefs. Second, a system of proportional vote counting ensured that small par-
ties could attain congressional representation. Third, electoral participation
grew rapidly after the enfranchisement of women (1949) and the registration
of many new voters, mostly from lower-income groups. Fourth, there was
no second round during presidential contests. Conservative politician Jorge
Alessandri, for instance, won the 1958 presidential election even though his
coalition received just 31.6 percent of the vote. Presidents reached power with
pluralities and governed as if they had mandates.32 Thus, Chile’s postwar dem-
ocracy featured an expanding electorate and political coalitions of widely diver-
gent ideological hues that often saw few incentives to compromise.
The hard-fought 1964 presidential election unfolded against the backdrop
of the Cuban Revolution. Well-known Marxist politician Salvador Allende
headed a coalition of socialists, communists, and smaller left-wing parties.
He pledged to reestablish ties with Cuba, nationalize foreign enterprises,
especially the US-owned copper companies, and maintain Chile’s liberal
democracy while simultaneously building a unique brand of Chilean social-
ism. By contrast, center-left Eduardo Frei, leader of the Christian Demo-
cratic Party, was an anti-communist reformer and pro-US. His platform,
“Revolution in Liberty,” promised land reform, greater control over Chil-
ean copper mines, and increased social investments (housing, schools, public
welfare).
The CIA spent three million dollars to influence the election, mostly
through radio and print propaganda. Faced with a choice between an avowed
Marxist and a reformer, conservatives decided to back the center-left candi-
date, Eduardo Frei, giving him an absolute majority, but they resented his gov-
ernment and felt confident of victory by the next election cycle. Washington,
for its part, committed approximately one billion dollars in direct, overt US
aid, loans, and grants from 1962 to 1969, the most per capita for any country
in the hemisphere. The military similarly received special attention from the
Pentagon. Such spending did not secure Washington’s objectives, however. To
the horror of Frei and conservative parties, Salvador Allende won the 1970
presidential election.
146 Chile

1958 Election Vote

Jorge Alessandri (right) 31.6
Salvador Allende (left) 28.8
Eduardo Frei (center-left) 20.7

1964 Election Vote

Eduardo Frei (center-left) 56.1
Salvador Allende (left) 38.9
Julio Durán (center) 5

1970 Election Vote

Salvador Allende (left) 36.6
Jorge Alessandri (right) 35.3
Radomiro Tomic (center-left) 28.1

Because every existing state socialist system – the USSR, East Germany,
Cuba, Yugoslavia, China – relied on authoritarianism, Allende’s attempt to
build socialism within the bounds of liberal democracy had worldwide
implications. What if he succeeded? US National Security Advisor Henry
Kissinger feared a “demonstration effect” and President Richard Nixon
ordered the CIA to prevent Allende from reaching power. There was one
problem, however. The country’s military chiefs refused to countenance
illegal actions inimical to their professional formation and sense of constitu-
tionalism. Allende had won the 1970 election fairly. The military – or any
faction, for that matter – could not deny him the presidency without invit-
ing the possibility of soldiers firing on one another. The navy high com-
mand – the most conservative of the three services and the one most
offended by Allende from the outset – could not launch a coup without
risking a bloody fight with the army. Here, it is also important to note that
officers, like civilians, took pride in their country’s tradition of constitutional
government and recognized its practical benefits.33
Those in the charge of the armed forces, Carlos Prats (army), Raúl Montero
(navy), and César Ruiz (air force) wanted to keep their institutions out of pol-
itics for practical and professional reasons. They did not wish to plunge the
nation into chaos or harm Chile’s international reputation. Nor could they
imagine the entire armed forces agreeing to move against an elected politician.
Besides, no one knew what Allende would do from 1970 to 1976. Perhaps his
government would provide resources for military modernization and accelerate
social and economic development. Allende, for his part, understood the armed
forces’ ingrained respect for hierarchy and reasoned that if he could win over
the institutional commanders, partly by the sheer force of his personality, he
could expect some, if not most, of the military to fall in line.
 Chile 147

During Allende’s first State of the Union address on May 21, 1971, he
declared that Chile had decided to break its chains of underdevelopment just
as Russia and China had done earlier in the century. After the speech, Allende
paraded alongside General Augusto Pinochet, then commander of the Santiago
army garrison. The two men, it is interesting to note, appeared together on
multiple occasions in 1971. Pinochet accompanied Allende during Fidel
Castro’s six-week tour of the country and betrayed no discontent. He looked
like any other army officer: stern and dutiful.
Allende’s government made the critical mistake of implementing a populist
economic program in 1971. Wage hikes and increased social spending
delivered immediate benefits to the middle and working classes, but by 1972
the policy had backfired. Having exhausted all foreign exchange reserves, the
government turned to printing money. Spiraling inflation eroded workers’
incomes and plummeting production resulted in scarcity, rationing, and black
markets. Breadlines appeared across the country and Allende could not secure
loans from the capitalist West. The USSR, for its part, refused to subsidize
a second socialist revolution. Furthermore, Allende led a free country. Workers

FIGURE 5.4 Augusto Pinochet on horseback (left) escorts the presidential motorcade
with Salvador Allende (center) waving to the crowd after his State of the Union
speech, May 21, 1971. The men on foot belong to Allende’s controversial private
security detail.
148 Chile

went on strike and truck drivers massively resisted government plans for
a nationalization of their property.
Congressional elections in March 1973 confirmed the stalemate. Allende’s
coalition won 43 percent of the vote, more than enough to prevent an
impeachment by two-thirds, but political rhetoric had reached an unsettling
fever. Both sides spoke in binaries (liberation from capitalism, liberation from
communism) and clashes occurred in the streets. One side saw Allende’s coali-
tion beholden to a wicked ideology that would enslave the nation to outside
powers. The Left dismissed the Right as reactionaries, hindering progress
towards the inevitable socialist future. From the sidelines, military commanders
watched politicians speak of civil war and associate with armed militias. To say
they were unhappy with the situation is an understatement.
The high command wanted Allende to crack down on paramilitary groups and
expel foreign revolutionaries, but this was something that he could not do without
losing the confidence of his coalition. In fact, Allende’s personal security team
employed militants from the Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de
Izquierda Revolucionaria or MIR), a Marxist–Leninist group with a belief in armed
struggle. That Allende surrounded himself with these men, trained by Fidel Cas-
tro’s security services, did not inspire military confidence. As the political crisis
worsened, officers imagined rank and file soldiers joining revolutionary columns,
lower-ranking officers trying to oust Allende on their own, and opposed factions
fighting across the length of the country. Acting on their own, dissident army offi-
cers attempted a coup in June. The army’s leadership crushed it, but what if
another one occurred and the military splintered? Another factor, entirely off the
radar for civilians but of enormous concern to military chiefs, was Peru. Chile’s
traditional rival had accumulated superior airpower and modern battle tanks. As
a result, Chile’s internal crisis had external security implications. What would stop
Peru’s nationalist government from taking advantage of a civil conflict to retake
territory lost during the War of the Pacific (1879–1884)?

Overthrow
On Sunday, September 9, 1973 navy commander in chief José Toribio
Merino sent a written message to Augusto Pinochet (army) and Gustavo Leigh
(air force): join me in a coup on September 11, 1973. Both men agreed,
although Pinochet was clearly distressed. What if provincial army units
remained loyal to Allende? On the day of the coup, the navy seized Valparaíso
and Allende raced to the presidential palace, La Moneda. He held out hope
that a faction of army and carabinero units would lead countercoup forces. The
truth quickly became apparent. The armed services had launched a unified
revolt. What happened next shocked everyone. Air force commander Gustavo
Leigh ordered low-flying Hawker Hunter jets to bombard La Moneda. For
 Chile 149

Americans, it would be the equivalent of F-16s striking the White House

while Abrams tanks rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue. From a smoking La
Moneda, Allende committed suicide. Firefights left buildings pockmarked with
bullet holes. Democracy had collapsed.
The high command concurred on a major point of strategy when it
overthrew Salvador Allende: this would not be a “soft” coup. One of the
junta’s first edicts was a warning that all resistance to the junta “will be
punished in the most drastic manner on the very site where the resistance
occurs.”34 The precision bombing of Chile’s presidential palace, the most
iconic and searing image from the coup, made a powerful statement about
the operational capacity of the armed forces and their determination to
crush all opposition. Admiral Patricio Carvajal, the head of the joint chiefs,
summed up a point of strategy: “We planned the movement to occur
quickly and with concentrated violence as a lesson to everyone … In my
opinion, the intensity, violence, and precision of the attack on La Moneda
shortened the war.”35 In early junta sessions, Admiral Merino expressed
concern that Cuban ships might deliver arms to dissidents inside the country
or use coastal islands as way stations for the transfer of weapons to the
continent.36 Military chiefs retired or detained any of their comrades who
had refused to join the coup. The junta agreed that Marxist politicians and
a faulty constitution had caused the political breakdown. They were at war
with the Left and the “international forces of communism.” Between Sep-
tember 11 and December 31, 1973, at least 1,236 Chileans were killed for
political reasons and approximately 20,000 politically motivated detentions
occurred, most involving torture.
A massive literature has developed about what happened in Chile. The least
scholarly parts of it casually assign responsibility for Allende’s downfall to the
United States rather than evaluate the degree to which US actions exacerbated
the existing economic crisis or the relative importance of US interference.
What is certain is that the actions of Chileans mattered most for the outcome,
even as foreign actors, most notably Cuba, Brazil, the United States, and the
Soviet Union, played significant roles in a multisided political drama with
global significance.37

The Pinochet Regime (1973–1990)

General Augusto Pinochet imposed his control over the country quickly. Like
any successful political figure, Pinochet possessed incredible stamina and
a prodigious memory. He never forgot a face, and he proved adept at sizing
people up – cataloguing their strengths, weaknesses, and usefulness to his
objectives. He could be ruthless too. On June 14, 1974, the junta created the
Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), a secret police force endowed with
150 Chile

broad powers to gather information, detain people, and carry out operations
free from judicial or legislative oversight. An outgrowth of the Army Academy
of War, the secret police answered to Pinochet alone and DINA agents saw
themselves fighting an irregular war with internal subversives loyal to foreign
governments and ideologies. Notoriously, Pinochet ordered the murder of his
predecessor. On September 30, 1974, the DINA assassinated Carlos Prats and
his wife Sofía Cuthbert by car bomb in Buenos Aires. If Pinochet would kill
his former boss, who he suspected of a potential challenge to his leadership,
then no one was untouchable. The DINA went on to commit some of the
most egregious human rights violations in Chilean history.
Chile was diplomatically isolated in the mid-1970s. Western countries, not-
ably the United States, applied arms embargoes to Santiago as a result of the
government’s human rights abuses; the United Nations similarly issued mul-
tiple condemnations. Inside of the military government, disagreements existed
with respect to economic policy and internal repression, but officers could
always agree that Chile faced coordinated attacks from Marxist enemies
abroad. Another factor pulling the military together was the threat of interstate
warfare. Tension with Peru’s military government resulted in war scares and
prompted Santiago to mine its northern frontier. This was not Santiago’s only
problem, however. Chile and Argentina’s long-standing dispute over the
Tierra del Fuego archipelago heated as Santiago lost access to Western arms
markets. What would stop the Argentines from taking the contested islands by
force?
The moment of truth came on December 22, 1978. That day, the Argen-
tine military launched Operation Sovereignty. Its initial objective was to
occupy islands off the coast of Tierra del Fuego and wait for Santiago’s
response. If resistance did not materialize, Buenos Aires could negotiate from
a position of strength. The Chilean navy, however, had positioned itself in the
theater of conflict despite being outgunned. Fortunately for both sides, foul
weather delayed Operation Sovereignty’s implementation, and Pope John Paul
II sent his personal envoy to offer mediation. Santiago accepted and Buenos
Aires did too, aware that rejecting papal intervention would play poorly in the
court of international opinion. Argentina could see that successful military
action would not come cheaply.38 That harrowing experience – feverishly pre-
paring to repel an attack in the far south – convinced the Chilean armed
forces of the conviction that they had deterred foreign aggression and saved
Chile from catastrophe for the second time since overthrowing Salvador
Allende.
Former President Eduardo Frei assumed the military would hold elections in
1976. Instead, the junta oversaw a far-reaching transformation of state structures.
Economists, selected by the navy, implemented a shock plan that drastically
reduced spending and opened the economy to foreign competition. Austerity
measures incurred a massive social cost. Unemployment soared and the
 Chile 151

manufacturing sector’s loss of tariff protection resulted in the collapse of many

domestic industries. Capitalist restructuring, often called neoliberalism, involved
selling state companies to the highest bidders and concentrating capital in the
hands of the financial sector. Those with savvy amassed great fortunes. The
regime also wrote a constitution, ratified by national plebiscite on September 11,
1980. It set up a controlled transition to civilian rule and provided the entire
military with a powerful incentive to see the new legal structure to its conclu-
sion. These major changes – macroeconomic and political – were, and are, con-
troversial because they occurred in the context of dictatorship. The constitution,
for instance, explicitly limited civilian control over the armed forces.39
The 1980 constitution provided a legal mechanism for Pinochet’s perpetu-
ation in power, and the caudillo clearly wanted to remain president. What hap-
pened next is a testament to Chile’s democratic character. First, civil society
worked to register millions of citizens for an upcoming national plebiscite – all
in the context of dictatorship. Second, the country’s Electoral Court supervised
a clean contest with few irregularities. Third, officers in each branch of the
armed forces publicly and privately stressed their commitment to restoring
democracy.
On October 5, 1988, 56 percent of the electorate voted “No” to eight
more years of Pinochet. That evening the junta gathered to discuss the situ-
ation, and on his way into La Moneda, General Fernando Matthei (air
force) told reporters, “It seems to me the No has won.” But everyone
understood that Pinochet could accuse the Communist Party of disturb-
ances, seize the capital, and try to nullify the recent election. “We’re
defeated, but with honor,” Matthei said. José Toribio Merino (navy) added
that violating the constitution would turn an honorable defeat into
a shameful one. This time the junta forcefully blocked Pinochet’s
ambitions.40 It is also worth pointing out that 43 percent of the electorate
voted for Pinochet. His passionate supporters belonged to every social class
and region.
On March 11, 1990, Augusto Pinochet handed the presidential sash to
Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin who urged Pinochet to abdicate his
post, saying, “I’m not happy with you continuing as commander in chief of
the army.” The old general replied, “Well, you may not be happy, but the
constitution put me here.”41 Aylwin – like his successor, Eduardo Frei
Ruiz-Tagle – lacked the authority to unseat Pinochet, nor could he alter
the existing constitutional structure, because initiating legal action against
officers accused of crimes risked an institutional crisis. Civilians had to tread
carefully; their control of the political system would have to wait. Aylwin
did initiate Chile’s first truth and reconciliation commission, the Rettig
Report (1991), which identified over 2,000 people murdered or disappeared
during the dictatorship. Years later, the Valech Report (2005) identified
38,000 people who had been imprisoned for political reasons. Survivors
152 Chile

and their dependents now qualify for state compensation as well as health
and educational benefits.

Chile after Pinochet

Not long after retiring from the army in 1998, Pinochet traveled to London,
England for medical treatment. While there, Judge Baltasar Garzón requested
the dictator’s extradition to Madrid on the charge of murdering Spanish citi-
zens. To the surprise of the world, British authorities detained Pinochet and
legal proceedings unfolded. Britain’s interior minister, Jack Straw, eventually
declared Pinochet medically unfit to stand trial and released him from custody
in March 2000, but Pinochet did not return home with his previous aura of
untouchability. Chilean courts stripped him of immunity from prosecution.
Pinochet once said that he expected to meet his end at the hands of assassins;
he never imagined living his remaining years in legal limbo or under house
arrest. Even more harmful to his reputation was the evidence uncovered in
2004 that he and his family had secretly transferred millions of dollars to over-
seas bank accounts. This revelation forever damaged his claim to selfless patri-
otism. Since 2000, Chilean judges have tried dozens of retired officers for
crimes committed during the dictatorship and, in 2005, civilians amended the
constitution so presidents would have the authority to appoint military com-
manders. Pinochet died in 2006, mourned by some as a savior, reviled by
others as a monster.
Public memory remains a contentious topic. People do not dispute that
human rights abuses occurred during the dictatorship, differences of opinion
turn on perceived responsibility for the collapse of democracy. Conservatives,
for instance, argue that armed militants, electrified by Fidel Castro and Che
Guevara, created the political crisis that led to military intervention. Neither is
there broad agreement about Allende’s place in history nor consensus with
respect to the contributions foreign actors made to the destruction of Chilean
democracy in 1973. In short, the country is not reconciled to its recent past.
The question of who should receive state reparations is controversial.
Roughly one-third of the 370,000 men who performed compulsory military
service during the dictatorship have petitioned the state for unpaid pension
contributions as well as reparations for physical and psychological damage they
say occurred while enforcing curfews, building roads, and carrying out missions
of internal repression. These veterans served during a period marked by states
of siege, harsh training methods, and the preparation for possible war with
Peru and Argentina. Victims’ rights groups have disdained such petitions for
state compensation, a fact that speaks to the ex-conscript’s ambiguous place in
current memory battles. Furthermore, veterans are a mixed bunch. They do
not view their military service from a single lens.42
 Chile 153

Setting aside the profound differences of opinion about the meaning of

what happened in Chile from 1970 to 1990, Chile’s military is one of the
most respected and technologically advanced in Latin America. Until 2011
a constitutional provision reserved 10 percent of all revenue from the state
copper company for defense. That money has been used to purchase German
Leopard tanks, French Scorpène-class submarines, Dutch frigates, and F-16
fighter jets. Such acquisitions reflect Chile’s diversified arsenal, overall technical
sophistication, and good relations with arms-exporting states. Despite the role
they played during the dictatorship, Chileans consistently view the carabineros as
a trusted public institution.43 Perhaps, ironically, US–Chile relations have
never been better. The two countries have genuine respect for each other, and
Chile is the only Latin America country whose citizens may enter the United
States without a visa.
Warfare and military institutions have strongly shaped the Chilean state and
its people. Battlefield victories in the nineteenth century created the basis for
nationalism and proud traditions in the army and navy. Political stability fos-
tered a sense of superiority relative to other Latin American countries. The
political system, however, was less stable than is often touted. Civil war
erupted in 1891 and the country’s professional soldiers assumed control of the
political system twice during the twentieth century. Both times, juntas and cau-
dillos (Ibáñez and Pinochet) transformed state structures, although the latter
transformation left behind far greater physical and psychological damage to the
body politic.
Geographic isolation, especially marked during colonial times, engendered
curiosity and desire for knowledge of the outside world. Ever since independ-
ence, Chile’s soldiers, politicians, and artists have been deeply embedded in the
world system. German trainers left a lasting imprint on the nation’s army and
Chilean naval officers sometimes joke that their institution is more British than
the British navy. During the second half of the twentieth century, the Chilean
army sent its officers to the Sinai Peninsula and South Asia as UN military
observers where they closely studied the Arab–Israeli and Indo-Pakistani con-
flicts. The armed forces’ perspective, let alone its equipment, has never been
exclusively local. The twentieth-century’s violent, ideological battles power-
fully shaped the long slender republic on the western side of South America.

Notes
1 Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios reales de los Incas, vol. 2 (Fundación Biblioteca
Ayacuch, 1985), 122–9.
2 Pedro de Valdivia, Cartas de Pedro de Valdivia que tratan del descubrimiento y conquista
de Chile (Fondo Histórico y Bibliográfico José Toribio Merina, 1953), 42.
3 Guillaume Boccara, “Etnogénesis mapuche: resistencia y reestructuración entre los
indígenas del centro-sur de Chile (XVI–XVIII),” Hispanic American Historical Review
79, no. 3 (August 1999): 425–62.
154 Chile

4 See Robert Padden, “Cultural adaptation and militant autonomy among the Arau-
canians of Chile,” in John E. Kicza, ed., The Indian in Latin American history: resist-
ance, resilience, acculturation (Scholarly Resources, 1993), 69–88.
5 Alonso González de Nájera, Desengaño y reparo de la Guerra de Chile, vol. XXVI
(Colección de Historiadores de Chile, 1889), 105.
6 Simon Collier and William F. Sater, A history of Chile, 1808–2002 (Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 3–30.
7 See Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz, Armies, politics and revolution: Chile, 1808–1826
(Oxford University Press, 2014).
8 See Ana María Contador, Los Pincheira: un caso de bandidaje social, Chile, 1817–1832
(Bravo y Allende, 1998).
9 Ossa, Armies, politics and revolution, 4–5.
10 Sergio Villalobos, Portales, una falsificación histórica (Editorial Universitaria, 1989),
37–8.
11 Collier and Sater, A history of Chile, 55–7.
12 See José Bengoa, Historia del pueblo mapuche: siglo XIX y XX (LOM ediciones,
2000).
13 See Jorge Carmona Yáñez, Baquedano (Biblioteca del Oficial, 1946). At the time of Car-
mona’s writing, Baquedano’s faults were still present in people’s minds and Carmona felt
the need to rehabilitate his reputation.
14 William F. Sater, Andean tragedy: fighting the War of the Pacific, 1879–1884 (University
of Nebraska Press, 2007), 347.
15 For the figures cited, see Sater, Andean tragedy, 229, 348–9.
16 See Paz Larraín Mira, Presencia de la mujer chilena en la Guerra del Pacífico (Centro de
Estudios Bicentenario, 2006), 13.
17 Ibid. 51–3.
18 John R. Bawden, The Pinochet generation: the Chilean Military in the twentieth century
(University of Alabama Press, 2016), 18–20.
19 William F. Sater, Chile and the United States: empires in conflict (University of Georgia
Press, 1990), 51–3.
20 See Alejandro San Francisco, La Guerra Civil de 1891, la irrupción política de los militares
en Chile (Centro de Estudios Bicentenario, 2013).
21 Mario Góngora, Ensayo histórico sobre la noción de Estado en Chile en los siglos XIX
y XX (Editorial Universitaria, 2003), 71.
22 Collier and Sater, A history of Chile, 168, 187.
23 Tobías Barros Ortiz, Vigilia de armas: charlas sobre la vida militar, destinadas a un joven
teniente (Imprenta Universitaria, 1920), 48. The entire book is addressed to Barros
Ortiz’s brother, Mario, who was an army cadet about to embark on a military
career.
24 Ronn Pineo and James A. Baer, Cities of hope: people, protests, and progress in urbanizing
Latin America, 1870–1930 (Westview Press, 1998), 200.
25 Frederick M. Nunn, The military in Chilean history: essays on civil–military relations,
1810–1973 (University of New Mexico Press, 1976), 119–23.
26 See Harry Scott, Pensando el Chile nuevo: las ideas de la revolución de los tenientes y el
primer gobierno de Ibáñez, 1924–1931 (Centro de Estudios Bicentenario, 2009).
27 Carlos Prats González, Memorias: testimonio de un soldado (Pehuén, 1985), 59–60.
28 William F. Sater, “The abortive Kronstadt: the Chilean naval mutiny of 1931,”
Hispanic American Historical Review 60, no. 2 (1980): 239–68.
29 Indalicio Téllez, Recuerdos militares (Centro de Estudios Bicentenario, 2005), 175.
30 See Mario Sznajder, “El Movimiento Nacional Socialista: nacismo a la chilena,”
Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 1, no. 1 (2015).
31 See Jody Pavilack, Mining for the nation: the politics of Chile’s coal communities from the
popular front to the Cold War (Penn State Press, 2011).
 Chile 155

32 See Paul E. Sigmund, The overthrow of Allende and the politics of Chile, 1964–1976
(University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), 15–17.
33 See Bawden, The Pinochet generation, 96–134.
34 Manuel A. Garretón Merino, Roberto Garretón Merino, and Carmen Garretón
Merino, Por la fuerza sin la razón: análisis y textos de los bandos de la dictadura militar
(LOM Ediciones, 1998), 58.
35 Patricio Carvajal Prado, Téngase presente (Ediciones Arquén, 1994), 188–9.
36 Actas de la Honorable Junta de Gobierno, no. 5, September 19, 1973, no. 7, September 21,
1973, Biblioteca Nacional del Congreso.
37 For an excellent international perspective, see Tanya Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the
inter-American Cold War (North Carolina Press, 2011).
38 Andrés Villar Gertner, “The Beagle Channel frontier dispute between Argentina
and Chile: converging domestic and international conflicts,” International Relations
28, no. 2 (2014): 207–27.
39 The best political analysis of Chile’s military government remains Carlos Huneeus,
The Pinochet regime (Lynne Rienner, 2007).
40 Patricia Arancibia Clavel and Isabel de la Maza Cave, Matthei: mi testimonio (La Tercera-
Mondadori, 2003), 408–11.
41 María Eugenia Oyarzún, Augusto Pinochet: diálogos con su historia (Editorial Sudamer-
icana Chilena, 1999), 229.
42 See Leith Passmore, The wars inside Chile’s barracks: remembering military service under
Pinochet (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017).
43 Michelle D. Bonner, “The politics of police image in Chile,” Journal of Latin American
Studies 45, no. 4 (2013): 669.
6
LATIN AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

The Art of War, Sun Tzu’s timeless distillation of tactics and strategy, was not
translated into English until 1910. For over two millennia its wisdom was
unknown to military theorists outside of East Asia. Today, its readership
includes soldiers, business leaders, and legal strategists the world over. In the
same way, Chinese officers carefully scrutinize Prussian master Carl von Clau-
sewitz’s On War. His concepts and aphorisms continue to elicit discussion and
debate among professional soldiers who observe each other closely and belong
to global networks. The same can be said of irregular soldiers, a subgroup with
several influential Latin Americans.
Luís Carlos Prestes led a column of revolutionary guerrillas through Bra-
zil’s forbidding backlands from 1924 to 1927, during which time he devel-
oped a “war of movement” strategy that made the federal government look
foolish trying to catch him. Fifty years later, officers in the People’s Liber-
ation Army of China were still studying Prestes’ tactics.1 Other Latin
American guerrillas – Augusto Sandino, Fidel Castro, Subcomandante
Marcos – achieved global recognition in the twentieth century although
none had the cultural or intellectual impact of Ernesto “Che” Guevara
whose Guerrilla Warfare (1960) theorized that focal points of guerrilla activity
could create the conditions for a successful national liberation movement; he
also insisted that popular insurrections had to be based in rural zones. One
of Che’s disciples, Carlos Marighella, disagreed. His Minimanual of the Urban
Guerrilla (1969) outlined tactics for urban warfare that influenced the Irish
Republican Army, Greek N17, Basque ETA, and Direct Action-France
among others.2
This chapter examines the relationship of Latin American soldiers to the
world system. It highlights the fact that since the nineteenth century, militaries
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 157

on every continent have become much more connected and similar with
respect to their organization, ranks, and training methods.

Modernization and Standardization

The history of warfare has many important landmarks such as the invention of
chariots and cannon. That said, natural forces greatly limited preindustrial mili-
taries. Sailing navies needed wind and horses needed pasture. Before the
advent of vaccines and modern sanitation, disease usually claimed more lives
than combat. Massed troops incubated airborne illness (influenza, measles,
smallpox) and unhealthy camps spread waterborne disease (typhoid, cholera,
dysentery). Premodern science offered imperfect remedies for infected wounds
and it was not until the first decade of the twentieth century that mosquitos
were identified as the vector of transmission for malaria and yellow fever.
During the second year of the Cuban War for Independence (1895–1898), for
instance, the Spanish army suffered 7,304 fatalities from yellow fever, 563 from
combat, 348 from dysentery, 284 from typhoid, 259 from tuberculosis, 57
from smallpox, and 37 from malaria.3
The presence of camp followers during military operations was as much of
a reality in ancient Persia as it was for the American Continental Army.4 Offi-
cers frequently brought their wives and sons to war. Civilian tradespeople
shoed horses and repaired equipment. Women frequently handled the logistics
of food preparation and nursed the wounded. Agrarian armies needed these
arrangements as a matter of necessity. Thus, diverse communities of people
traveled together on major campaigns, something that does not square with
Hollywood images of premodern soldiering.
Many timeworn patterns changed after the Napoleonic era (1799–1815).
Locomotives and steamships transformed the movement of troops. Industrial
economies and modern logistics obviated the need for camp followers. War-
ships required new expertise to operate engine rooms, large guns, and complex
navigational equipment. The addition of aviation, armored cavalry, and sub-
marines have only added to the complexity of modern warfare. Thus, the
training and recruitment of troops and officers underwent important changes.
Before the French Revolution, European aristocrats typically received commis-
sions based on birth or family influence. Such a practice placed far too many
incompetent officers in positions of command, especially since many European
aristocrats viewed war as a pastime rather than a full-time profession.
In 1808, Frederick William III, king of the Prussian Empire, decreed that
neither class nor rank would affect the appointment of army officers; promo-
tions would come from valor and merit alone. Furthermore, he decreed that
officers would devote themselves entirely to acquiring professional knowledge
during times of peace.5 The objective of Prussia’s War College (Preußische
158 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective

Kriegsakademie), established in 1810, was to train the general staff officers who
managed the army’s administrative, operational, and logistical affairs. Specific-
ally, the college aimed to develop independent thinkers who could learn from
past mistakes and formulate solutions to new problems. War college curricu-
lum included geography, history, chemistry, mathematics, and logistics among
other useful disciplines. The reforms paid off. Prussia defeated Denmark
(1864), Austria-Hungary (1866), and France (1871). Analysts could see that the
Prussian army’s educational system and general staff had made the difference
for the country’s quick mobilization and intelligent deployment of forces.
The world took notice. France, Japan, and the United States established
their own staff colleges and the Southern Cone countries (Brazil, Argentina,
Uruguay, Chile) were not far behind either.

Latin American Militaries in World Context

After independence from Spain and Portugal, military influence flowed to
South America from Europe’s powerhouses: the French army, the British
navy, and later the German army. Governments in Chile, Brazil, and Argen-
tina hired British naval commanders to lead their first national squadrons
(1810s and 1820s) and, 80 years on, they hired French and German officers to
assist with army reforms.
The fact that South American countries procured arms from Europe does
not mean their officers completely ignored the rest of the world. In 1901, Bra-
zilian commander Armando Duval published Reorganisação do Exército
(Reorganization of the Army) in which he recommended following Japan’s
example of military modernization.6 The fact that Japan, a rural nation, had
developed a steel industry and implemented universal male conscription result-
ing in massive manpower reserves, impressed Duval and other Brazilian offi-
cers. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), Chile and Argentina sent
military observers to that theater of conflict and to the Western Front during
World War I (1914–1918).
Everywhere, training missions and joint exercises connect soldiers of differ-
ent nationalities. Arms-exporting states train and advise arms-importing coun-
tries. In the first half of the twentieth century, Chilean officers, the so-called
“Prussians of South America,” were hired by Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecua-
dor to assist with their own processes of military modernization.7 Allied navies
visited each other’s ports and these international exchanges provided soldiers
with important points of comparison. Brazilian sailors, for instance, trained to
operate Dreadnought battleships in Newcastle, England from 1908 to 1910.
While there, enlisted men experienced a radically different political context.
Workers in Newcastle went on strike. British seamen could not be impressed
or whipped; they were citizens with enumerated rights.8 Back home in Rio de
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 159

Janeiro, Brazilian sailors launched a revolt to protest, among other grievances,

the practice of whipping. The fact that the mutiny occurred in 1910 was no
coincidence.
Professional journals represent another linkage. Countries subscribe to each
other’s defense publications and officers read the articles written by their col-
leagues on a wide range of topics. In the twentieth century, South American
officers routinely translated articles written by French, German, English, and
American officers for domestic publication. They also republished articles from
neighboring countries. In fact, roughly 30 to 40 percent of content in the
Memorial del Ejército de Chile (the Chilean army’s professional journal) came
from foreign sources during the 1960s and 1970s.9

Civilians into Soldiers

The basic training enlisted soldiers receive anywhere in the world has
a common purpose: socialize recruits for military life through drills, inspec-
tions, and physical training. Whereas civilians praise the individual, military
culture elevates the group. Other aspects of life in the barracks vary. Some
countries cannot provide quality food for the rank and file, let alone live-fire
weapons training. The Russian Federation conscripts millions of soldiers who
must serve one year, but very few remain as noncommissioned officers
(NCOs). By contrast, the United States is an all-volunteer force. Its NCOs
(corporals, sergeants) are called the “backbone of the military” because they
provide the essential link between enlisted soldiers and inexperienced lieuten-
ants (commissioned officers). US soldiers sign multiyear contracts and they are
better paid, equipped, and trained than most armed forces. Furthermore, US
soldiers discharge with important health and educational benefits.
Academies such as China’s National Defense University in Beijing or the
United States Army West Point both prepare young cadets for careers in the
armed forces. Newly commissioned second lieutenants are channeled into
branch specialties and receive initial assignments. Promotion to first lieutenant
occurs within three years. At this stage, young officers learn the basics of mili-
tary life and leadership. Promotion to captain involves commanding
a company of 80 to 150 soldiers as well as branch-specific training (e.g. infan-
try, engineering, artillery). Promotion to major usually takes a decade. As the
soldier’s career moves forward, promotions become more competitive. Some
officers attend staff college. Promotion to colonel, a senior officer with much
greater responsibility, comes after approximately 20 years of service. While
70 percent of majors become lieutenant colonels, few majors become brigadier
generals and just a fraction of majors (less than 1 percent) will become generals.
Admirals and four-star generals run their institutions and oversee long-range
plans for development.
160 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective

TABLE 6.1 Imagined careers in the United States Armed Forces (1950–1985)

Army Navy
1950: Second Lieutenant 1950: Ensign
1952: First Lieutenant 1952: Lieutenant Junior Grade
1954: Captain 1954: Lieutenant
1961: Major 1959: Lieutenant Commander
1966: Lieutenant Colonel 1961: Commander
1970: Colonel 1970: Captain
1975: Brigadier General 1977: Rear Admiral (one star)
1978: Major General 1979: Rear Admiral (two stars)
1980: Lieutenant General 1981: Vice Admiral
1983: General 1983: Admiral
1985: Retirement from active duty 1985: Retirement from active duty

The careers above represent 35 years of active service, stellar performance

reviews, and a great deal of specialized training. Both officers would also be
approaching 60 years of age in 1985, a career spent in uniform. Such progression
through the ranks would be perfectly intelligible to service personnel in Egypt, Thai-
land, India, or Brazil. In the contemporary era, military ranks are similar worldwide.
Furthermore, modern armies have the same specialties. They include aviation, air
defense, special forces, signal corps, armor, military intelligence, financial manage-
ment, psychological operations, civil affairs, recruitment, transportation, ammuni-
tion, mechanical maintenance, and newer specialties such as cyber warfare. If the
country is stable and modern, officers and NCOs move up the chain of command
according to fixed, impersonal rules with promotion depending on performance and
vacancies.
The world’s professional soldiers serve governments of various ideological
hues – communist, capitalist, Islamist – but they share a set of assumptions. Polit-
ical scientist Samuel Huntington observes that military officials see conflict as inev-
itable because states will always compete for resources, influence, and power.
Thus, human beings are irrational and selfish, something which necessitates group
discipline and corporate organization.10 Soldiers take oaths to obey their superiors
and deployments can mean long periods of family separation or personal sacrifice.
This does not mean that there are no material incentives. Military academies offer
tuition-free higher education to their candidates. Furthermore, the military career
involves travel, some of it exciting, and, for developing countries, being assigned
overseas as military attaché or on a training mission can represent a significant
form of compensation if the officer’s salary is paid in dollars or euros.
Millions of humble men entered Latin America’s armed forces during the
twentieth century. The rank and file received little pay and most conscripts left
the barracks after two years, but they returned to civilian life different. Many had
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 161

become more national in outlook, having learned to salute the flag, sing anthems,
and march in civic parades.

World Wars and Latin America

If Latin American militaries studied the theory and battles of Europe, European ana-
lysts paid scant attention to the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) or the War of the
Pacific (1879–1884). If they had, perhaps European commanders would have
launched fewer frontal assaults on well-fortified positions during World War I.11
What can be said of the Great War is that it profoundly weakened Europe’s place in
the world system. Colonial subjects in Africa and Asia were not content to accept
the old arrangements. Mohandas Gandhi’s activism in the 1930s heralded the age of
decolonization. Wall Street displaced London as the world’s banking center and
South American militaries wanted their own defense industries and domestic mer-
chant marines.
World War II transformed Latin America further. On March 30, 1942, 21
countries in the hemisphere agreed to establish the Inter-American Defense Board
(IADB), which brought defense officials to Washington DC for talks about col-
lective security in North, Central, and South America. At the time of its creation,
German submarines threatened shipping lanes in the Atlantic and the Japanese
could have seized Chilean-controlled Easter Island. Allies received Lend-Lease
weapons and they worked with Washington to secure a ready supply of strategic
materials – Bolivian tin, Brazilian quartz, Mexican oil, Chilean copper – for the
Allied war machine. In general, the US-led military system functioned well.
The security framework created by Washington during World War II remained
in place after 1945 except that it acquired a new ideological imperative: exclude
communism from the Western hemisphere. Such a structure created opportunities
for the Right and limited political experimentation for the Left. Caribbean dictators
Rafael Trujillo and Anastasio Somoza, for instance, used the phantom of commun-
ism to repress their enemies and avoid reform. Meanwhile, Costa Rica took advan-
tage of the postwar US security umbrella to completely abolish its army in 1949.

The Global Cold War

The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the USSR brought the
world’s militaries into much closer contact. The US-led North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact divided Europe into
a capitalist West and communist East. Countries in the two security pacts con-
ducted joint exercises. NATO countries, for instance, standardized bullet calibers
to ensure weapons interoperability.
The East–West struggle was not limited to Europe. Newly independent coun-
tries in Africa and Asia typically favored one of the two superpowers and the Inter-
162 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective

American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1947) committed the whole of Latin

America to mutual defense in the event of an extracontinental attack. Not only that,
signatories qualified for military aid under the terms of the Military Assistance Pro-
gram (1952). During the postwar period, global networks of professional soldiers
emerged. US-aligned countries (e.g. Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Italy) sent their
soldiers to educational facilities in the United States while the soldiers of socialist
countries (e.g. Hungary, Poland, China, North Korea, Cuba, Angola) studied at
Soviet academies. One effect of these partnerships was to create transnational com-
munities of people committed to global revolution and global counterrevolution.
The Cold War did not preclude divergence from such binaries. Egypt’s Gamal
Nasser, a charismatic army colonel and nationalist, overthrew his country’s British-
backed monarchy in 1952 and nationalized the Anglo-French Suez Canal Company
in 1956. A hero to millions in the Arab world, his military movement championed
economic modernization, Pan-Arab nationalism, and foreign policy independence.
West African militaries took notice, so did Latin Americans. Panamanian nationalists
who resented US control over the Canal Zone saw much to admire in Nasser’s
actions.12 He refused to be bossed by the Western powers and, along with the presi-
dents of Ghana, Yugoslavia, India, and Indonesia, established the Non-Aligned
Movement in 1961, which refused to align with either of the two superpower blocs.
Some Latin American officers, especially in South America, emphasized a dual
division of the world system: an ideological East–West struggle and a North–
South separation between the richer, more industrialized Northern hemisphere
(e.g. the United States, USSR, Europe, Japan) and the poorer, less developed
Southern hemisphere. By the mid-1960s, a contingent of Latin American officials
at IADB meetings insisted that that international communism was not the “sole
adversary.” Rather, any form of economic or ideological imperialism, including
US imperialism, threatened their national sovereignty. Moreover, officers
frequently felt that militaries in the Global South had different functions than mili-
taries in the Global North. The latter strictly prepared for war while the former
might have to stabilize their political systems if civilians wrecked the economy or
committed violence in the name of revolutionary ideologies.13

Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Soldiers

History seemed to be on the side of national liberation movements in the
1950s and 1960s. Revolutionaries in Vietnam and Algeria had defied France,
Gamal Nasser secured control over the Suez Canal despite Anglo-French
opposition and Cuba defeated the US-backed invaders at the Bay of Pigs.
Conventional armies did not seem so powerful; they could be humbled by
determined fighters. Other cultural forces were at play. There was something
sexy and inspiring about youthful Cuban guerrillas (men and women) who
picked up guns to fight a corrupt dictatorship. The face of Che Guevara
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 163

appeared on the flags and posters of middle-class youths across Latin America.
Guevara was not the only source of inspiration either. One group of Peruvian
communists visited China and became fervent disciples of Mao Zedong.14
Revolutionaries representing every Latin American country met in Havana
during the summer of 1967 to “discuss, organize, and advance revolutionary solidar-
ity.” The meeting produced a joint declaration that described guerrilla forces in
mountains and cities as “the embryo of liberation” while Marxist–Leninist principles
had to guide the shared goal of continental revolution. The statement’s authors
expressed the desire to coordinate activities.15 In the years ahead, armed groups such
as Argentina’s ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo) and Columbia’s FARC (Fuer-
zas Armadas Revolucionarias Columbianas) recruited thousands of young soldiers and
developed a capacity to challenge the state’s monopoly on violence. Colombian
revolutionary María Eugenia Vásquez describes the context of her youth:

The triumph of the Cuban guerilla and the experiences of May 1968 in
Paris influenced the Colombian youth in the seventies. My generation
wanted both to end the war in Vietnam and to change the world by
revolutionary war; practice free love and build utopias in South Amer-
ica … We read the Selected Works of el Che, Fidel’s famous speech
(known as “The Historic Second Declaration of Havana”), María Ester
Gilio’s Tupamaro guerillas, Carlos Marighella’s Minimanual of the Urban
Guerilla, and Mao’s Basic Tactics.16

Latin America’s Cold Warriors placed their actions in broad international con-
texts. Left-wing guerrillas spoke of a historic struggle to defeat imperialism and
achieve continent-wide socialism. Anti-communist military regimes, by con-
trast, saw themselves defending Christian civilization from Soviet imperialism
and atheist materialism. Both groups saw themselves as central actors on trans-
national battlefields and influence flowed from several directions. At US train-
ing facilities, Latin American officers studied counterinsurgency doctrines
derived from the American experience in Vietnam. That was one source of
knowledge. The Argentine army invited French officers to lecture about their
experiences in Algeria, and French theory offered a more sophisticated, holistic
view of society as a cultural and psychological battlefield to be secured from
“subversive” forces. Not only that, French doctrines explicitly condoned
torture as a necessary tactic to disrupt urban insurgencies.17
The Cold War was deeply inter-American.18 Washington assisted partners
of the same ideological hue, but anti-communism had preexisting roots. Brazil
sent advisers to train Chile’s security services in 1973 and the chief of Chile’s
secret police organized a regional pact of South American military regimes that
shared intelligence for the capture and assassination of each other’s political
enemies (Operation Condor). Washington knew about the initiative and did
not stop its consummation.19
164 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective

For armed revolutionaries seeking regime change by popular insurrection,

Cuba was their base from which to find political and material support. Havana
provided asylum to exiles fleeing anti-communist dictatorships and nodes of
contact for the continent’s revolutionaries. In Nicaragua, the left-wing Sandi-
nistas pushed the Somoza dynasty from power in 1979. Thereafter, the gov-
ernment invited Cuban advisers to assist with a Literacy Campaign and to
establish agricultural collectives. US-backed Contras (forces opposed to Sandi-
nista rule) waged war in the countryside and drained what few resources
existed for Managua’s revolutionary project.
By the time Ronald Reagan was elected US president in 1980, he pledged
to roll back communist influence in the Americas. Famously, he called the
Soviet Union an “evil empire” and described Cuba as its malevolent proxy.
Cuban defense officials had every reason to feel threatened. During this era

it was not the Soviet Union or China that inspired Cuba: instead, it was the
victorious Vietnamese armed forces, which not only fought for decades
against France and then the United States, but also won an absolute victory
and the reunification of the state under the communist leadership,

writes Hal Klepak.20 General Vo Nguyen Giap insisted that a more powerful
adversary could always be defeated so long as the entire population was unified
and mobilized for resistance. Giap’s book, People’s War, People’s Army: The
Viet Cong Insurrection Manual for Underdeveloped Countries, became required
reading for Cuban officials. If the US invaded, Fidel and Raúl Castro promised
an islandwide insurgency.
Diverse actors poured fuel on the Cold War’s fires during the 1980s. The
Argentine army, on its own initiative, exported assistance and counterinsur-
gency knowledge to Central American countries battling left-wing guerrillas
(Operation Charly) and Cuba did not back away from supporting its allies in
Nicaragua and El Salvador. In 1986, Havana covertly smuggled arms into
Chile for the armed left. In fact, just one of those seized arms caches contained
3,000 assault rifles, 300 rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, grenades, radio
equipment, and several tons of ammunition.21 Washington supplied millions of
dollars to murderous right-wing governments in El Salvador and Guatemala
and much of the blame for the bloodshed in Central America belongs to
Washington, yet any fair assessment of what happened must place the region
and its actors into a much larger, global perspective.

Militaries in the Age of Human Rights

Military behavior as it relates to human rights is now a subject of worldwide
discussion and Latin America is where major precedents were set. The region’s
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 165

Cold War-era dictatorships introduced terms to the international lexicon

such as desaparecido, a person forcibly disappeared by the state. That shock-
ing practice combined with the institutionalized use of torture by South
American military regimes drew worldwide attention. Brutal state violence
was nothing new in the 1970s, but the international context had changed.
In an age of global news media, it has become much harder to conceal
atrocities.
The horrific abuse and murder of civilians went largely unchecked during World
War II as powerful states clashed for supremacy. The creation of the United Nations
(1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), however, helped
build an international order that paid new attention to the suffering of human
beings. Moreover, nonprofit organizations began to effectively monitor and pressure
sovereign states to respect human rights. Membership in Amnesty International, for
instance, surged from 15,000 in 1969 to 200,000 in 1979.22 The “Age of Humani-
tarian Values,” as one scholar put it, put a check on the bloodletting in Latin Amer-
ica, or at least demonstrated that human rights violations could have real political
consequences.23 Military governments in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile faced sanc-
tions and offending governments had to answer questions about their human rights
records.
It is important to observe that not all Latin American officers developed the same
aversion to left-wing politics during the Cold War. One generation of South Ameri-
can soldiers drew rather different conclusions from hemispheric events. Hugo
Chávez, who attended Venezuela’s military academy from 1971 to 1975, admired
the nationalism of General Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Specifically, he
liked Torrijos’ land reform and his successful negotiations with the United States that
resulted in the return of the Canal Zone to Panamanian control. Chávez also
admired Peru’s General Juan Velasco Alvarado who spoke of the military’s eternal
bond with the nation’s people. As time went on, a cohort of officers in theVenezue-
lan army developed a strong conviction that their country needed a left-wing revo-
lution. The politics of Chávez and Torrijos reflect the political diversity within Latin
America’s armed forces as well as Gamal Nasser’s influence, an influence Chávez dir-
ectly acknowledged.24

Arms and Interstate Wars

The weapons used in Europe, Asia, and the Americas were essentially the same
during the nineteenth century: sabers, muskets, and cannons, then ironclad steam-
ships and breech-loading rifles by the War of the Pacific (1879–1884). Latin Amer-
ica’s armies may not have been as large or well trained as those in Europe, but their
war-making technology was similar. After World War I, a growing technological
gap separated countries with and without aircraft carriers, tanks, and strategic bomb-
ers. The gap widened even further after World War II. Today, just a handful of
166 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective

countries possess nuclear submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That

global division, based on wealth and technology, has not changed much since the
end of the Cold War.
On April 2, 1982 Argentina invaded the British-controlled Falkland Islands
located 600 kilometers east of Atlantic Patagonia. From the Argentine perspective,
the islands had been reclaimed and liberated after 150 years of colonial rule. Brit-
ain’s decision to send a naval task force brought two powerful militaries into direct
conflict. During the fighting in May and June, both sides managed to sink each
other’s ships, but the Argentine naval threat ended once the Conqueror, a British
submarine, sunk the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano. Despite the logistical chal-
lenges of operating so far from home, British marines prevailed over greater num-
bers of conscripted soldiers during the land campaign, something that appeared to
vindicate the maintenance of a professional, all-volunteer military. Thankfully, the
Falklands War (Guerra de las Malvinas) did not involve the Argentine mainland.
While violent insurgencies have wracked parts of Latin America since
World War II, a long calm has prevailed with respect to interstate disputes.
The last time that two Latin American nations turned their guns on each other
for any lengthy period was the Chaco War (1932–1935), fought between Para-
guay and Bolivia. There have been tense moments, scares, and border skir-
mishes since then, but nothing catastrophic thanks to a new hemispheric
context. The Organization of American States (founded in 1948) has created
a new forum for conflict resolution while economic integration makes warfare
less imaginable. Brazil and Argentina invest in each other’s economies and
belong to a free-trade zone called Mercosur.

International Cooperation
The United Nations Security Council deployed military observers to monitor
the tense, newly established borders between Israel and her Arab neighbors in
1948. Not long after, the Security Council authorized another group of obser-
vers (Latin Americans among them) to monitor the disputed Kashmir region
in South Asia. These early peacekeeping missions were the beginning of a new
era of international cooperation. Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall
(1989), the number of blue helmets (UN personnel in uniform) surged from
10,304 to 31,031. New missions were dispatched to war-torn regions in
Europe, Africa, and Asia. Between 2005 and 2015, the number climbed from
69,838 to 107,088.25
South American nations have been major contributors to international peace-
keeping efforts since the end of the Cold War. Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay,
for instance, had 2,968 soldiers deployed with UN missions in 1995 and 4,595 ten
years later. Such activity is significant. First, South American governments have
demonstrated a commitment to hemispheric stability through their leadership of,
and majority contributions to, the UN stabilization of Haiti (2004–2017). Second,
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 167

UN missions elsewhere – the Congo, Kosovo, East Timor – have provided Latin
American soldiers with firsthand experience demobilizing former combatants, pro-
tecting civilians, and overseeing peace agreements. Such activities provide govern-
ments and officers with a multilateral perspective and sense of global responsibility.
Drug production and drug smuggling are transnational activities. What hap-
pens in Bolivia affects Peru. Markets in Europe and the United States deter-
mine price. What happens in Mexico affects Columbia. Global demand fuels
violence in Latin America and the region’s security services must deal with the
disorder trafficking breeds, notwithstanding the failed efforts of the United
States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to stem the flow of illicit drugs.26 In
this web of exchanges, the addict in Winnipeg, Canada is connected to
Andean peasants growing coca and to Mexican cartels moving the refined
product across international borders.
The issue of drug smuggling brings military professionals together for intel-
ligence sharing and joint actions. Similarly, warships flying diverse flags have
coordinated their efforts to curtail Somali piracy off the horn of Africa. The
Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), the world’s largest military exercise, is
hosted by the United States navy every other year and it is big. Twenty-two
different countries participated in 2014 including China, South Korea, Peru,
Chile, Colombia, Canada, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, and Mexico.
Its goal is to foster cooperative relationships among navies that share responsi-
bility for policing the world’s sea-lanes.

Women in the Armed Forces

Women are, on average, 10 percent of active duty personnel in the armed
forces of Europe and the Americas. Often, such percentages have come about
due to concerted efforts. Argentina and Norway, for instance, launched gender
equity initiatives in the 2000s, as did Mexico, which saw its percentage of
female personnel jump from 3.3 to 8 between 2006 and 2016.
Considerable variation also exists from country to country. Jewish women
have been conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since the founding
of the State of Israel (1948) and they compose roughly one-third of all regu-
lars. For Israeli women who choose to pursue a career in the IDF, combat
specialties are no longer closed to them.27 South Africa is another interesting
case. Since the end of apartheid (1994), the country’s Defence Ministry has
carefully balanced the number of Whites, Coloreds, Indians, and Africans
while simultaneously encouraging female participation from each racial cat-
egory. Much like the United States armed forces, the South African military
wants its personnel to reflect the nation’s demographic makeup. Some world
regions, by contrast, have very low rates of female participation due to bans or
bias.
168 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective

TABLE 6.2 Percentage of active duty women in their national armed forces (2016 figures)28

Nation Percentage (%) Nation Percentage (%)

Israel 34 United Kingdom 8.4

South Africa 29 Mexico 8
Dominican Republic 21.8 Guatemala 7.7
Hungary 20 Brazil 6.9
Uruguay 18.9 Japan 6.1
Argentina 17.2 Poland 5
The United States 15.9 El Salvador 5.5
Australia 15.8 Honduras 4.2
Canada 15.1 Italy 4.3
France 15 Switzerland 3
Spain 12.6 Ecuador 2.9
Germany 11.3 India 2.9
Norway 10.7 Turkey 1.3
Chile 9.1 Pakistan .6

Reliable data is hard to find for China and Russia and for other large, region-
ally important militaries (e.g. Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia). If those governments
collect such data, they do not make it public. Highly conservative Saudi Arabia
opened noncombat roles to women in 2018 with the revealing proviso that
female soldiers must serve in the same province as their male guardians.
For women who have pursued military careers in the West and Latin America,
the professional corps (e.g. medical, accounting, administrative) usually opened to
them during the 1970s and 1980s while the command corps, including combat
specialties, opened to them during the 1990s and 2000s. Among countries that
have lifted barriers to female participation, women can now be found on submar-
ines, warships, and fighter jets. There are variations among the branches, too.
Chilean women composed 18 percent of the air force in 2016 and 8.2 percent of
the army. That year, Captain Karina Mirana commented, “From the time I was
small, I dreamed of flying and I think there is no better way to experience that
than from a combat jet. Flying a F-5E is the payoff for hard work and
perseverance.”29 Mirana belongs to the first generation of Chilean women
who graduated from the country’s air force academy; their collective résumé
includes flying relief missions to earthquake-stricken territories, deploying to
Haiti as UN peacekeepers, and piloting the presidential jet.
Women still face gender-specific challenges in historically male-dominated
institutions, but their participation as full-time professionals has been rising in
democratic societies. LGBT soldiers, for instance, openly serve in liberal countries.
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 169

Such patterns express a commitment to equality of opportunity. Furthermore,

female personnel have made important contributions to counterinsurgency cam-
paigns in Afghanistan where social taboos prohibit male soldiers from speaking to
women. Female soldiers, by contrast, can speak to, and earn the trust of, rural
populations. Irregular armies have historically been more open to female participa-
tion due to wartime contingencies and because women have certain advantages in
asymmetrical warfare.
The Portuguese Empire strictly forbade French language materials during
the late eighteenth century and, yet, Brazilian Lieutenant Hermógenes Fran-
cisco de Aguilar was caught translating Comte de Guibert’s Essai général de tac-
tique (1772), a French essay on tactical maneuvers.30 Despite royal bans,
colonial Latin Americans still obtained copies of Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie
and news of revolutions in Haiti and the United States. The Spanish and Por-
tuguese Crowns had a hard time insulating their colonials from Enlighten-
ment-era ideas, which eventually reached every corner of the globe due to
imperialism, industrialization, and trade. Today, the sovereign nation-state is
everywhere, and the militaries of these nation-states are similar with respect to
training, ranks, and structure. Most are transitioning from universal male con-
scription to all-volunteer forces, because a contract military is more profes-
sional and more insulated from citizen soldiers who might resent the draft.
For most of the globe, the military remains a middle-class profession dom-
inated by men and one pathway to social mobility for citizens of humble
means. In theory, professional soldiers from any country coolly manage the
war-making apparatus on behalf of the nation’s leadership. That is the ideal if
not the universal reality. Some militaries are composed of highly proficient sol-
diers, subordinate to civil authority and untainted by political activism or cor-
ruption. Others back hated dictatorships. There is considerable diversity from
country to country and, yet, officers use the same conventional weapons and
study the same fields of military science. Reflecting our global age, more sol-
diers than ever before participate in regional exchanges and international mili-
tary missions. African countries share responsibility for continental security.
The newly established African Standby Force (ASF) is a peacekeeping armed
force that operates at the behest of the African Union. Headquartered in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, the ASF can be deployed during moments of crisis. No Pan-
Latin American force exists to deal with joint security issues, but it is not an
unimaginable possibility.
Since the end of the Cold War, the insurgencies and counterinsurgencies
that bled Latin America have declined. In fact, the Colombian government
recently negotiated a peace treaty with FARC combatants who are laying
down their arms after decades of bitter conflict. Few revolutionary actors
seek to overthrow the existing state and most internal challenges stem
from well-armed criminal gangs. Happily, the region’s militaries are more
170 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective

interconnected than ever, something that bodes well for a future without
interstate wars.

Notes
1 Todd Diacon, “Searching for a lost army: recovering the history of the federal
army’s pursuit of the Prestes Column in Brazil, 1924–1927,” The Americas 54, no. 3
(1998): 409.
2 Thomas H. Holloway (ed.), A companion to Latin American history (Wiley-Blackwell,
2010), 409.
3 Yolanda Díaz Martínez, “La sanidad militar del ejército Español en la guerra de
1895 en Cuba,” Asclepio: Revista de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia 50, no. 1
(1998): 164.
4 See, for instance, Holly A. Mayer, Belonging to the army: camp followers and community
during the American revolution (University of South Carolina Press, 1999).
5 Samuel P. Huntington, The soldier and the state: the theory and politics of civil–military
relations (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957), 30–1.
6 Frank D. McCann, “The formative period of twentieth-century Brazilian army
thought, 1900–1922,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 64, no. 4 (1984): 740.
7 Roberto Arancibia Clavel, La influencia del ejército chileno en América Latina,
1900–1950 (Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Militares, 2002).
8 Zachary R. Morgan, Legacy of the lash: race and corporal punishment in the Brazilian
navy and the atlantic world (Indiana University Press, 2014).
9 Bawden, The Pinochet generation, (University of Alabama Press, 2016), 201.
10 Huntington, The soldier and the state, 59–79.
11 William F. Sater, Andean tragedy: fighting the war of the Pacific, 1879–1884 (University
of Nebraska Press, 2007), 21–4.
12 Federico Velez, “From the Suez to the Panama Canal and beyond: Gamal Abdel Nasser’s
influence in Latin America,” Varia Historia 31, no. 55 (Jan/Apr 2015): 1–27.
13 See Carlos Prats González, Memorias: testimonio de un soldado (Pehuén, 1985), 99;
Claudio López Silva, “Las fuerzas armadas en el tercer mundo,” El Memorial del
Ejército de Chile (July 1970), 11–51.
14 Matthew D. Rothwell, Transpacific revolutionaries: the Chinese Revolution in Latin
America (Routledge, 2013).
15 OLAS Conference General Declaration, International Socialist Review 28, no. 6
(Nov-Dec 1967): 50–5.
16 María Eugenia Vásquez Perdomo, My life as a Colombian revolutionary: reflections of
a former guerrillera (Temple University Press, 2005), 38.
17 James P. Brennan, Argentina’s missing bones: revisiting the history of the dirty war
(University of California Press, 2018), 62–73.
18 See Tanya Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the inter-American Cold War (University of
North Carolina Press, 2011).
19 John Dinges, The condor years: how Pinochet and his allies brought terror to three continents
(New Press, 2005).
20 Hal Klepak, Raúl Castro, estratega de la defensa revolucionaria de Cuba (Ediciones Le
Monde Diplomatique, 2010), 96.
21 Bawden, The Pinochet generation, 197–8.
22 See Amnesty International Report 1968–69 (Amnesty International, 1969), Amnesty
International Report 1979 (Amnesty International, 1980).
23 Steven Pinker, The better angels of our nature: the decline of violence in history and its
causes (Penguin, 2011), 382–481.
24 Velez, “From the Suez to the Panama Canal and beyond,” 15–16, 23–5.
 Latin American Soldiers in Global Perspective 171

25 Data sets from 1990 to the present are available at https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/

troop-and-police-contributors.
26 Paul Gootenberg, Andean cocaine: the making of a global drug (University of North
Carolina Press, 2008).
27 See Edna Lomsky-Feder and Orna Sasson-Levy, Women soldiers and citizenship in
Israel: gendered encounters with the state (Routledge, 2017).
28 The percentages for NATO countries, Japan, and Australia come from International
Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Summary of the National Reports of NATO Member
and Partner Nations to the NATO Committee on Gender Perspectives (2016), www.nato.
int/cps/ua/natohq/news_149993.htm; data for Latin America comes from
RESDAL, Latin American Security and Defence Network, www.resdal.org/ing/
atlas-2016.html; for Brazil, www.defesa.gov.br/component/content/article/2-uncate
gorised/12854-presenca-de-mulheres-e-cada-vez-maior; for South Africa, www.gov.
za/sites/default/files/DoD%20Annual%20Report%202017.pdf; India’s National
Defence Academy, https://nda.org.in/womens-in-indian-army/, gives the following
percentages for the army (2.44 percent), air force (6.7 percent), navy (3.0).
I calculated the overall percentage based on branch numbers from The military balance:
IISS (Routledge, 2016). The percentage for Pakistan is based on a widely circulated
number, 4,000, of women who serve among 643,800 total personnel.
29 Gobierno de Chile, Mujeres en la Aeronáutica Nacional (2016), 20.
30 Hendrik Kraay, Race, state, and armed forces in independence-era Brazil: Bahia, 1790s–1840s
(Stanford University Press, 2001), 35.
CONCLUSION

Militaries reflect the diversity of Latin America. Costa Rica is two generations
removed from having a permanent army. In fact, less than 5 percent of Costa
Ricans can even remember a time when the country had a defense ministry.
By contrast, nearly 300,000 active duty personnel serve in the Colombian
armed forces, the most of any Spanish-speaking nation. Cuba maintains
1.2 million military reserves, nearly as many as Brazil, a continental country
with 18 times the population. Understanding the reasons for these differences
requires knowledge of each country’s history.
This book has introduced the topic of warfare and military traditions in four very
different countries. During the nineteenth century, interstate wars transformed the
hemisphere’s boundaries. Armies from the United States, Brazil, and Chile invaded
and occupied Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru, respectively, before returning home with
territorial gains and favorable peace treaties. Such events are not forgotten. They
continue to affect regional politics and national outlooks. The century also saw
important guerrilla traditions develop, most notably in Cuba and Mexico.
One theme, evident in all four country-specific chapters, has been the profession-
alization of each country’s armed forces. Brazil and Chile went through the process
first, and as it occurred, junior officers began to resent their nation’s oligarchies.
Revolutionary factions in both militaries led to uprisings in the 1920s designed to
impose strong, centralized governments. In Mexico, a cohort of revolutionaries laid
the groundwork for a professional military subordinate to civilian leadership. The
same outcome occurred in Cuba after guerrilla fighters overthrew a corrupt dictator-
ship. Beyond the battlefields, armed forces reflect social structures and respond to
state imperatives. In contemporary Cuba, military officers do not simply prepare
for war. They manage commercial enterprises and generate much needed revenue
for the state.
 Conclusion 173

When looking at any country’s armed forces, a basic set of questions is in

order. Do civil and military leaders trust each other? Do they agree on the
state’s most pressing security concerns? How does the military see itself in rela-
tionship to the past, present, and future? What institutional memories shape
military thought? Where does the state acquire its most sophisticated weaponry
and what foreign relationships matter most with respect to arms procurement?
Are women to be found in every branch of the armed forces and in positions
of command? Do upper-class citizens enter the profession or volunteer? What
proportion of the rank and file is drafted? How does the public perceive the
military? What does the defense budget say about the country’s priorities?
Cold War legacies linger in most of Latin America. The Communist Party
of Cuba still controls the country’s political system and celebrates Che Guevara
as a heroic revolutionary. For some Cubans, many of them in Miami, he is
a cold-blooded killer. Augusto Pinochet remains a global icon of brutality and
state terrorism although his reputation is more nuanced in Chile. A minority
praise the deceased dictator as a Cold War hero who protected the country’s
freedom. Such polarized perceptions of the era’s personalities will not fade any-
time soon, nor will questions about the proper balance between reconciliation
and accountability for human rights violations.
Latin America’s Cold War experience tends to dominate contemporary
images and perceptions of the region’s militaries, but it is important to
acknowledge a much longer past. Militaries have been important state-building
institutions, reflecting and shaping Latin American reality for centuries. Not
only that, they have confronted many of the problems postcolonial states do:
poorly defined borders, imperialism, internal conflicts, and dependent
economies. Studying militaries in Latin America therefore helps us to under-
stand the world and especially contemporary issues in the developing world
such as rapid population growth, demands for social reform, and difficult,
internal security challenges.
Drug smuggling is a newer security concern in Latin America, one that affects
some countries (Mexico, Colombia, Peru) much more than others (Chile, Argen-
tina, Uruguay), although none are totally immune. Active guerrilla organizations
exist in several countries although none have the power or influence they once
enjoyed. Other trends say a great deal about where Latin America is headed.
Southern Cone countries (Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile) are among the
United Nation’s most consistent peacekeepers. Participation in international
missions reflects a more recent multilateral orientation. During an age of economic
integration and common markets, interstate wars are much more difficult to
imagine than they were 50 years ago, just as it would have been difficult to
imagine female officers serving in combat specialties. In the decades to come, Latin
America’s militaries will remain essential state institutions that respond to emergen-
cies, reflect society, and shape the future.
INDEX
abertura 118
abolitionism 63, 99, 100, 101, 121
absolutism 15, 93, 125
Açâo Integralista Brasileira 111
Afghanistan 82, 168
afogamento 117
Africa 25, 75, 77, 79, 80, 83, 86, 112, 161,
166, 169; Cuban involvement in 61,
77–83; North 113; Southern 61, 81, 82,
167; West 112, 162
Africans 5, 33–5, 82, 91, 167
African Standby Force (ASF) 169
African Union 169
Afro-Brazilian 106
Afro-Cuban 77, 81
Afro-mestizo 35
Age of Revolution 63
Aguirre Cerda, Pedro 144
Air Force: of Brazil 113; of Chile 23, 141,
143, 146, 148, 151, 168; of Cuba 76,
84; of Mexico 23, 51
Air Force Academy 84, 168
Al-Andalus 9
Alemán, Miguel 51–2
Alessandri, Arturo 140, 143
Alessandri, Jorge 145–6
Algerian: influence on French military
doctrine 116, 163; war for
independence 20, 78, 162
Aliança Nacional Libertadora 111
Allende, Salvador 80, 145–50, 152
all-volunteer military 159, 166, 169
American Civil War 22, 42, 71
Americans 19, 40–1, 51, 73–4, 112, 149;
see also United States
American Revolution 62
amnesty 96, 107, 118–19
Amnesty International 165
anarchists 111, 143
Andes Mountains 3–4, 7, 123, 127–8,
132, 142
Andean peoples 4, 124, 167
Angamos, Battle of 12, 132
Angola 117, 162; Cuban involvement in
61, 80–85, 87
Angolan Civil War 23, 80–81, 83
Angra do Reis Nuclear Power Plant 118
anti-communism 21–2, 51, 68, 72, 74, 80,
143–5, 163–4
anti-imperialism 64, 67–8, 163
Antofagasta 11, 132, 134
Antônio Conselheiro 102
Apaches 4, 33
apartheid 61, 82, 167
Arab world 162, 166
Arab-Israeli Conflict 153
Aracena, Diego 143
Araucanía 126, 129, 131, 138
Araucanians 124–5; see also Mapuches
Argentina 44, 117, 142, 173; guerillas in
21–2, 75, 163; immigration to 16;
independence process in 6, 8, 127;
military government of 22, 118, 165;
military modernization of 15–16, 24,

158; peacekeepers of 25, 166; relations
with neighbors 10, 23, 79, 106, 133,
138, 150, 152, 166–8; see also Cisplatine
War; Falklands War
Army Academy of War 136, 144, 150
The Art of War 156
artillery 15, 34, 38, 44, 73, 91, 94, 99, 103,
108, 120, 133, 159
assimilation 91, 104, 124
asymmetrical warfare 3, 58, 169; see also
guerrillas; Guerrilla Warfare
Atacama Desert 123, 132
Atahualpa 4
Atlantic, Battle of the 23, 50–1, 113–14
Austin, Stephen F. 37
Axis 51, 112–13; see also Germany,
submarines of
Ayacucho, Battle of 26
Aylwin, Patricio 151
Aymara 7, 133
Aztec Eagles 51
Aztec Empire 3, 30, 32, 44
backlands 102–3, 108–9, 156; see also
Sertão
Baependy 112
Bahía 90, 94–95, 99, 101–2, 106
Balmaceda, José Manuel 130, 137–8
bandits 5, 8, 19, 39, 42, 46–7, 74, 102,
109, 128–9, 134
Baquedano, Manuel 131–2, 134–5, 154
barracks 22, 40, 44, 50, 52, 68, 91, 93, 96,
104, 139, 159–60
Batista, Fulgencio: early life vii 16, 67;
governments of 67–9; legacy of 76–8,
83, 87; rise to power of 67–8; struggle
against 68–71
Bay of Pigs Invasion 72–74, 77, 84, 162
Belém 11, 92, 112
Belgium 9, 16, 112
Benavides, Vincente 128
Berlin Wall 85, 166
Bío Bío River 123, 125, 131
Black Legend 6, 64
black soldiers 6–7, 14, 77, 81, 91, 99
Bolívar, Simón vi 7
Bolivia 10–11, 24, 26, 109, 124, 161, 167;
Che Guevara’s guerrilla campaign in
79–80; post-independence governments
of 26, 130, 137; modernization of armed
forces in 15–17; see also Chaco War;
War of the Pacific
Bolsheviks 18, 24, 139
Index 175
Bolsonaro, Jair 120
Bonaparte, Napoleon 6, 15–16, 34, 91–2,
127–8, 136, 157
Brasil: Nunca Mais 118
Brazil: arms industry of 24, 117, 120;
colonial period in 90–2; democratic
transition of 118–19; economy of 96,
101, 109, 112, 114–15, 117–19;
electoral system of 93, 101, 115–16,
118; First Republic of 101–9; geography
of 90, 102, 104, 119; human rights
abuses in 111, 116–18; independence
process in 91–3; military dictatorship of
115–20; military revolts in 106–9;
modernization of armed forces in
104–5; regional differences in 90, 94–5,
101–4; relations with United States
112–16; Second Republic 114–15;
social structure of 91–3, 104, 106,
115–17, 119; United States military
influence in 113–14, 116; WWII in
112–14; see also Brazilian Empire;
Canudos; Cisplatine War; Estado Nôvo;
Paraguayan War
Brazilian Empire 10, 92–101
Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB)
23, 113
Brazilian Miracle 117
Brazilian monarchy see Brazilian Empire
breech-loading rifles 132, 165
Brezhnev, Leonid 81
bribery 44, 57–8, 84, 119; see also
corruption
Britain 51, 152; economic role of 19, 43,
97, 100, 139; imperialism of 5, 9, 34,
41, 62, 162; independence-era role of
6–7, 10, 92–4, 128; naval influence of
15, 106, 153, 158; see also Cisplatine
War; England; Falklands War
brown soldiers 5–6, 62, 87, 91, 99,
106, 119
cadets 13, 16, 19, 40, 52, 86–7, 91, 136,
142, 154n23, 159
Café com Leite 101, 108–9
Cajamarca, Battle of 4, 11
Calderón, Felipe 25, 57
California 5, 35, 40, 127
Calles, Plutarco 48, 50
camp followers 14, 109, 157; see also
cantineras; rabonas; soldaderas
Canada 54, 167–8
Cândido, João 106
176 Index
Cantillo, Eulogio 70
cantineras 134–5
Canudos, War of 102–3, 109
capitalism 20–1, 55, 67, 85, 117, 147–8,
151, 160–1; see also liberalism;
neoliberalism
Carabineros de Chile 138, 141–2, 148, 153
Cárdenas, Lázaro 50, 53
Carranza, Venustiano 48–9
Carrera, Rafael 9
cartels 25, 30, 54, 57–8, 167 see drug trade
smuggling, drug
Carvajal, Patricio 149
Casas, Bartolomé de las 62
castas 5, 7
Castelo Branco, Humberto 116
Castilians 9–10, 33
Castro, Ángel 66
Castro, Fidel: foreign policy of 20, 73–4,
78–82, 85; guerrilla campaign of 68–71;
influence of vi 61, 75–6, 163–4;
opposition to 72–4; policies of 20, 68,
71–3; see also Cuban Missile Criss;
Cuban Revolution; FAR; PCC
Castro, Raúl 61, 66, 69–72, 76, 83–4,
86, 164
Catholicism see Roman Catholic
caudillos vi, vii 8–9, 36, 45, 129, 151, 153
cavalry 3, 15, 31, 39–40, 48, 125, 157; see
also mounted soldiers
Caxias, Duke of 95–6, 98, 100, 113
Celaya, Battle of 48
Central America 6, 10; Cold War in 22,
164; US imperialism in 18–19, 22, 164
censorship 74, 111, 116, 118
center-left 145–6
center-right 56
centralized government 4, 9, 12, 18, 36,
93, 129, 172; see also federalism
Céspedes, Carlos Manuel de 63
Chacabuco, Battle of 128
Chaco War 23, 166
Champotón River 31
Chapultepec Castle, Battle of 40; see also
Niños Héroes
charismatic leaders vi–vii 8, 68–9, 79, 93,
115, 129, 162; see also caudillos
Charles V 2, 124
Chávez, Hugo vii 16, 165
chemistry 15, 136, 158; see also military
science
Che see Guevara, Ernesto
Chiapas 53–6
Chihuahua City 11, 38, 40, 46
Chile: collapse of democracy in 137,
141–2, 148–9; colonial period in 2, 127;
constitutions of 129, 141, 151; economy
of 127–8, 130, 141, 144–7, 150–1;
European military influence in 128,
136–7; government structure of 129–30,
138, 141; human rights abuses in 136,
150, 152, 165; Ibáñez dictatorship in
140–1; independence process in 127–8;
military missions of 123, 145, 158;
modernization of armed forces in
136–8, 146, 153; Pinochet dictatorship
in 149–51; political parties in 141,
143–6; relations with neighbors of 12,
130, 132, 138, 150; republican militias
in 129, 133, 143; Spanish conquest of 4,
124–6, social structure of 127, 129, 134,
139–41, 147; US role in 140, 145, 150,
153; see also Pacification of Araucanía;
War of the Pacific
Chilean Federation of Labor 139, 142
Chileanness Campaign 144; see also
nation-building
China 16, 24, 63, 67, 78, 85, 146–7, 150,
156, 159, 162–4, 167
cholera 99–100, 157
Cholula 13, 32
Chorrillos, Battle of 132, 134
Christian Democratic Party 145
Christianity 3, 111, 115, 163
Christianization 2–3, 33
church and state vi 8, 18, 36, 41–2,
100, 128
Cienfuegos, Camilo 69, 71–2, 76
Cinco de Mayo 42
Cisplatine War 8, 94, 97
citizenship vi 7, 93, 106–7, 121, 139
citizen-soldiers 73, 104, 113, 139, 169
Ciudad Juárez 11, 46, 57
civic soldiers 77, 81
civil-military relationship 8, 17, 25,
78, 100
civil society 56, 116, 118, 120, 151
civil war: in Chile 137, 148, 153; in
Mexico 41, 46, 48, 58; see also American
Civil War; Angolan Civil War; Spanish
Civil War
class: lower 104, 107, 117, 119, 127, 129,
139–40; middle 17, 20–21, 44–5, 48,
52, 116, 119, 141, 163, 169; upper 46,
115, 117, 119, 173
Clausewitz, Carl von 156

clergy 2, 40–1, 73, 111; see also priests
Coahuila 37, 45
Cobras Fumantes 114
coca leaf 23, 167
cocaine 23, 84
Cochrane, Lord Thomas 92–3, 128
coffee 18, 21, 49, 63, 91, 96, 101, 104,
109, 117, 121
Cold War vii 20–5, 51, 61, 74–6, 86–7,
114–15, 120, 144, 161–6
Colombia vii 10–11, 15, 18, 23, 25, 58,
75, 84, 117, 123, 133, 136, 158, 163,
167, 169, 172–3
colonialism 5–9, 26, 33–4, 61–3, 79, 91–2,
95, 106, 115, 121, 123, 126–8, 132,
153, 161, 166, 169
Columbus, Christopher 3, 62
comandantes 55–6, 70, 72, 80, 84, 156
Comecon 85
Comintern 111
communism vii 20–2, 26, 51, 68, 72–4,
77–80, 82, 85–6, 109, 111, 114–16,
139, 141–5, 148–9, 151, 161–4, 173
Communist Party of Bolivia 79; of Brazil
109, 111; of Chile 141–2, 144, 151; of
China 85; of Cuba 77–9, 86, 173
compulsory military service 76, 105, 108,
139, 152; see also conscription
concentration camps 64, 74
Concepción 11, 26–8, 144
Condor, Operation 163
Congo 77, 79, 84, 167
The Conquest of Mexico 39
conquistadors 3, 6, 31, 33, 58, 124–5; see
also Reconquest; Spanish Conquest
conscription 16–17, 29, 43–4, 47, 50–1,
87, 91, 100, 104–5, 119, 138–9, 158,
169; see also compulsory military service
conscripts vii 14, 17, 41, 44, 76, 86–7,
104, 138, 159–60; see also draftees
conservatives 8–9, 34–6, 41–2, 128, 143,
145, 152
Constant, Benjamin 99–100
constitutional monarchy 35, 93
Contestado 102–3, 109
Copiapó 11, 124, 130
copper 21, 140, 145, 161
coronéis 101, 108, 110
corporal punishment 15, 91, 93, 104,
106, 136
corruption 17, 22, 29, 43–4, 50, 5,
61, 84, 86, 108, 119–20, 162,
169, 172
Index 177
Cortés, Hernando 3, 14, 26, 31–2, 39,
92, 126
Costa Rica vii 11, 20, 30, 35–6, 161, 172
countercoups 50, 129, 148
counterinsurgency 21–2, 24, 53, 55, 96,
116, 120, 132, 163–4, 168–9
counterrevolution 21–2, 72–3, 76,
127, 162
coup vii 8, 20, 22, 36, 42, 50, 68, 85, 101,
111, 115–16, 129, 144, 146, 148, 149
creoles 5–7, 34–5, 41, 63, 92, 127
Cuba 3, 5, 10–11, 31; colonial period in
62–4; economy of 66–7, 85; guerrillas in
64, 69–74, 76–7; independence process
in 13, 18, 63–5; militarization of society
61, 64, 74, 77; military role overseas of
23, 78–84; modernization of armed
forces in 76–7; officers of vii 25, 72,
85–6; postcolonial development 66–8;
relations with Soviet Union 24, 73–4,
76; revolt against Fulgencio Batista in
68–71; social structure of 16, 67, 72–3;
surveillance of population in 74, 86; US
relations with 20–1, 38, 65–6, 68, 74–5,
82–6; see also Cold War; Cuban
Revolution see FAR PCC; Special Period
Cuban Missile Crisis 74, 115
debt 41, 54, 65, 96, 119, 140
decentralized state 18, 101, 108; see also
federalism
De la Vega, Garcilaso 124
democracy 6, 21, 36–7, 45–6, 64, 58, 77,
111, 115–16, 118–20, 124, 129–30,
140, 143–6, 149, 151–2, 168
desaparecido 117, 151, 165
desertion 14, 39, 41, 44, 96, 138
developing countries 17, 25, 77, 83, 116,
144, 160, 173
Díaz, Porfirio vii 9, 43–6
Diderot, Denis 169
Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA)
149–50
Dirty War 21, 53
disappeared person see desaparecido
diseases 3–4, 12, 4, 31, 34, 39, 44,
53, 62, 64, 91, 97, 99–100, 134,
138, 157
dissidents 73, 148–9
Dominican Republic 11, 18–19, 22, 71, 168
Doña Marina see Malintzin
draft 16, 51, 65, 104–5, 119, 128, 169,
173; see also conscription
178 Index

draftees 104, 108, 113; see also conscripts
dreadnoughts 15, 106, 138, 158
Dreke, Victor 77
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
84, 167
drug trade 23, 25, 51, 54, 56–8, 68, 84,
173; see also cartels
Dutra, Eurico Gaspar 112–13, 115
dysentery 99, 157
Easter Island 137, 161
East-West 20, 116, 161–2; see also Cold
War
ecology 29, 58; see also environment;
geography
Ecuador 2, 10–11, 15, 17, 23, 26, 123–4,
158, 168
Egypt 18, 25, 61, 80, 117, 160, 162, 168
Ejército Libertador 64–5
Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP)
75, 163
ejidos 54
El Cid 2, 26
Elbrick, Charles 116
elite: economic 16; non- 9, 16, 67,
94–5; political 8, 53, 77, 104,
106, 139
El problema de nuestra educación militar 140
El Salvador 11, 20, 22, 25, 30, 33, 36, 83,
123, 164, 168
Emperor: Aztec 32; Brazilian 93–5; French
41, 92; Inca 4; Mexican 35, 42
encomenderos 2, 4
encomiendas 2–3
England 6–7, 106, 128, 152, 158; see also
Britain
Enlightenment 34, 169
enlisted soldiers 14, 67–8, 91, 104, 106,
120, 158–9
enslaved 63, 91–2, 142; see also slaves
entrepreneur 14, 37, 66, 109, 117
environment 5, 59n16; see also geography;
ecology
Escambray Rebellion (Lucha contra
Bandidos) 73–4
Estado Nôvo 111–12, 114–15; see also
Vargas, Getúlio
estates 42, 66, 73
Ethiopia 69, 80, 84, 169
expropriation 50, 72, 115–16
Extremadura 3, 124
EZLN see Zapatista Army of National
Liberation
F-16 see jets
Falklands War 23, 166
FARC 23, 163, 169
FAR 61, 72–4, 76–8, 80–2, 84–7
fascism 111, 143
favelas 115; see also slums
FEB see Brazilian Expeditionary Force
federalism 36, 101, 108, 128
female soldiers 168–9; see also camp
followers; catineras; rabonas; soldaderas
Ferdinand VII (King of Spain) 6–7, 127
First World War see World War I
flogging 15, 106; see also corporal
punishment
Florida Straits 63, 85
foquismo 21, 75–6, 80
France 16, 19–20, 112, 139, 156, 158,
162, 164, 168; military influence of
15–17, 24, 39, 44, 104–5, 116, 128,
153, 158–9, 163; political influence of
7–9, 34, 41–2, 63, 92, 100, 145,
157, 169
Franco-Prussian War 136
Franco, Francisco 26, 136, 143
Frei, Eduardo 145–6, 150
Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Eduardo 151
Freire, Ramón 26, 128–30
French Intervention 41–3; see also Puebla,
Battle of
fueros 1, 5, 8, 17, 26, 34, 41, 62
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias see FAR
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia
see FARC
Gálvez, Count Bernardo de 62
Gandhi, Mohandas 161
Garzón, Baltasar 152
General Belgrano 166
general staff 15, 17, 67–8, 105, 136, 158
geography vii 6, 15, 158; of Brazil 90, 94,
102, 104, 119; of Chile 123, 126–7,
131, 153; of Mexico 29, 39, 43, 57; see
also ecology; environment
geopolitics 5, 132, 144
Germany 15–17, 113, 116, 168; arms
exports of 15, 44, 153; immigrants of
16, 104, 112, 131; military influence of
15, 19, 104–5, 111, 136, 153, 158–9;
political system of 85, 112, 139, 143,
146; submarines of 50, 105, 112, 114,
161; see also Axis; World War I; World
War II
Giap, Vo Nguyen 164

Gómez, Máximo 64–5
González, Gabriel 144
González von Marées, Jorge 143
goose-stepping 23, 136–7
Goulart, João 115–16
Gran Colombia 10
Granada, War of 3
Granma 69–70, 78, 84–5
Great Depression 67, 109, 141, 144
Grito de Dolores 34–5
Guajiros 72
Guantanamo Bay 11, 65
Guantanamo Naval Base 70
Guatemala 9, 11, 15, 17, 22, 30, 33, 36,
73, 123, 164, 168
Guerra de las Malvinas see Falklands War
Guerrero, Vincente 35–6
Guerrilla Warfare 21, 75, 156
guerrillas 21–2, 35, 39, 54–5, 69–70, 72,
74–6, 78–80, 116–17, 156, 162–4
Guevara, Ernesto “Che” vi 19, 21, 26,
69–72, 75, 77, 79–80, 116, 152, 156,
162–3, 173
hacendados 42, 46–7
haciendas 46, 128; see also estates
Haiti vi 10, 11, 18, 25, 39, 63, 119, 166,
168–9
Hatuey 62
Hidalgo, Miguel 34–5
hierarchy 136, 146; racial 5, 91–3; social
14, 33, 91, 115; see also class
hinterland 18, 109; see also backlands
Hitler, Adolf 113, 143
Honduras 11, 20, 24, 30, 33, 36, 168
human rights 25, 55, 57, 118, 150, 152,
164–5, 173
Ibáñez, Carlos del Campo 18, 141–2,
144, 153
Iberian Peninsula vii 1, 5–6,
34, 91
ichcahuipilli 30
immigration 66, 100, 103, 123
imperialism 3–6, 13, 30–3, 37, 62–4, 73,
124–6, 162–3, 169, 173; see also
anti-imperialism
Inca Empire 2, 124–5, 130
India 25, 160, 162, 167–8
Indians 2, 4–7, 16, 31, 33–5, 41, 45, 55,
123; see also indigenous people
indigenous people 5, 30, 45, 62, 126; see
also Indians
Index 179
Indonesia 162, 168
Indo-Pakistani conflict 153
industrial 14, 18–20, 24, 51, 73, 90,
104–5, 110–12, 114, 117, 121, 130,
139–40, 157, 162, 169
inflation 54, 106, 115–17, 119,
144, 147
The Influence of Sea Power upon History 65
insurgency vi 21, 23, 25, 55, 65, 75, 79,
163–4, 166, 169
Inter-American Defense Board (IADB)
20, 161
Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal
Assistance 161
internationalism 81, 85
Iquique 11, 13, 132, 134–5, 139, 144
Isabel, Empress of Brazil 101
Islam 1, 101; see also Muslim
Israel 22, 24, 153, 166–8
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) 118
Itaipú Dam 118
Italy 16, 19, 23, 104, 107, 112–14, 116,
143, 145, 162, 168
Iturbide, Augustín de 35–7
Japan 15–16, 23, 50, 104, 116, 158,
161–2, 168
jets 73, 76, 168; F-5E 168, F-16 149, 153;
Hawker Hunter 148; MiG 76;
Mirage 24
jinetes 3
John Paul II, Pope 150
Juárez, Benito 34, 41–3
Kashmir 166
Khrushchev, Nikita 73
Korea, North and South 77, 162
Korean War 114
Körner, Emil 136–7
Kosovo 167
La Moneda 148–9, 151
Lampião 109–110
land reform vii 20, 47, 49, 72, 115, 119,
145, 165
latifundia 66; see also minifundia
Lautaro 125–6
Law of the Free Womb 101; see also
abolitionism
left-wing (the Left) vii 18–20, 53, 74, 111,
115–16, 118, 120, 142–3, 145, 148–9,
161, 163–5
Leigh, Gustavo 148
180 Index

Lenin, Vladimir 85; see also
Marxist-Leninist
LGBT 168
liberals vi 9, 17, 41–3, 94, 96, 128, 131,
140, 143, 145–6, 168
Lima e Silva, Luís Alves see Caxias,
Duke of
limpieza de sangre 2, 5
Lircay, Battle of 129–30
literacy 17, 41, 44, 53, 65, 68, 73, 104–5,
107, 124, 139
Literacy Campaign 73, 164
logistics 69, 100, 157–8
Louverture, Toussaint vi
Lula, Luiz Inácio 119
Luzon, Battle of 51
Maceo, Antonio 13, 64, 87
Madero, Francisco I. 45–7
mafia 68, 72
Magellan Strait 123, 130
Mahan, Alfred T. 64
malaria 14, 53, 99, 157
Malintzin 13–14
Mandela, Nelson 82
Mapuches 4, 125–6, 128, 131, 138; see also
Araucanians
Maranhão 92, 95
Marcos, Subcomandante 55–6, 156
Maria Bonita 109–110
Mariel Boatlift 83
Marighella, Carlos 116, 156, 163
marijuana 44, 54, 57
Martí, José 13, 35, 64, 87
Marxist 21, 77, 79–80, 116, 140, 143, 145,
149–50
Marxist-Leninist 53, 74, 148, 163
Matos, Huber 72
Matthei, Fernando 151
Maule, Battle of 124–5
Mayas 30–3, 44, 48, 55
measles 14, 99, 157
Memorial del Ejército de Chile 136, 159
Mercosur 166
Merino, José Toribio 148–9, 151
Mesoamerica 3–4, 13, 30, 32
mestizo 6, 9, 14, 16, 31, 33–5, 41, 127, 130
Mexican-American War 9, 37–40
Mexican Constitution of 1917 49–50
Mexican Miracle 54
Mexican Revolution 45–50
Mexico 10–11; colonial era in 6, 33–4;
conquest of 3, 14, 31–33; economy of
36, 45, 48, 51, 54; geography of 29, 39,
43, 57; guerrillas in vi 29, 35, 53–5, 58;
imperial incursions into 9, 12, 38–42,
51; independence process in 7, 33–5;
indigenous people in 3–5, 30;
modernization of armed forces in vii 15,
17, 24, 29, 43–5, 50–52, 58;
postcolonial politics in 7–8, 12, 29,
35–7; regionalism of 37, 42–3, 46, 50,
56; social structure of 33, 35, 41, 45;
World War II era in 23, 50–1; see also
Aztec Empire; cartels; Mexican-American
War; Mexican Revolution; Porfiriato
middle-class officers 17, 20, 52, 119, 141,
169; see also class, middle
militarized society 3, 23, 29, 30, 43, 48,
52, 58, 74, 77, 128–30
Military Academy vii 92, 95, 128, 136,
142, 160, 165
Military Assistance Program 19, 20, 162
military science 105, 136, 169
militiamen 5–6, 34, 62–3, 129
militias 1–6, 9, 33–4, 36–7, 42, 62, 72–4,
76, 83, 87, 91, 109, 129, 133, 143, 148
Minas Gerais 96, 101, 106, 109, 113
minifundia 67; see also latifundia
Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla 116,
156, 163
mining 45, 67, 112, 130; of copper 21,
140, 145, 153, 161; of nitrate 132–3,
137, 139; of silver 8, 127; of tin 21,
139, 161
Miraflores, Battle of 132, 134
mixed race vii 7, 35, 67, 103; see also castas
MNRs see National Revolutionary Militias
modernization, military 15–17, 24, 26, 43,
50–1, 106–7, 123, 136–8, 146, 157–8
monarchy 34–6, 41, 93, 95–6, 99–102,
125, 162
Monte Castello, Battle of 113
Montezuma 32, 35
Montoneros 21
Morelos, José María 35
Moscow 74, 81, 83, 85
Motherland Volunteers 97, 99
mounted soldiers 1, 14, 38, 43, 46, 128; see
also cavalry
MR-26-7 69–70, 74, 78
MTT see Territorial Troops Militia
mulatto 34, 93; see also brown soldiers
Muslim 1–3; see also Islam
Mussolini, Benito 110–11
mutiny 106–7, 142, 159

nacistas 143
Namibia 80, 82
Napoleon III 41–2
narcocorridos 56
Nasser, Gamal 25, 162, 165
Natal 11, 111–12
National Revolutionary Militias 72,
74, 76
National Security Doctrine 21, 76,
116, 120
National Socialist Movement of Chile
(MNS) see nacistas
National Truth Commission 118
nationalism 24–5, 48, 67–8, 105, 110–11,
120, 137–8, 140–1, 143, 148, 153,
162, 165
nationalize 20, 50, 115, 145, 148; see also
expropriation
nation-building 17, 25
native people see Indians indigenous people
Navarro, José Antonio 37
Navy 7, 15–17, 21–2, 24, 97; of Argentina
94, 166; of Brazil 12, 23, 76, 92, 94,
97–8, 101–2, 104–8, 112–14, 121; of
Britain 92, 106, 153, 158, 166; of Chile
12–13, 17, 124, 128, 132–8, 140, 142,
146, 148, 150–1, 153; of Cuba 67, 78;
of Mexico 24–5, 58; of United States
65, 70, 137, 160, 167
Nazis 111–12
NCOs see non-commissioned officers
neocolonialism 66
neoliberalism 54, 151; see also capitalism
Nicaragua vi 11, 18–19, 24, 30, 36,
83, 164
Nigeria 18, 168
Niños Héroes 13, 40
nitrate industry 132–3, 137, 139–41
Nitrates and Railway Company of
Antofagasta (CSFA) 132
Nixon, Richard 146
Non-Aligned Movement 162
non-commissioned officers (NCOs) 7, 95,
159–60
non-white soldiers 7, 62, 64–5, 68, 77; see
also black soldiers; brown soldiers
North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) 54
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) 161
North-South division 162
Norway 112, 167–8
Novoa Fuentes, Oscar 143
Index 181
Oaxaca 43, 53
Obama, Barack 86
Obregón, Álvaro 48, 50
Ochoa, Arnaldo T. 84
Ogaden War 80, 84
O’Higgins, Bernardo 26, 127–9
oil 50–1, 73, 115, 118, 161; see also
petroleum
Old Christians 2–3, 91
Old Republic 101–9; see also First
Republic of Brazil
Olympics, 1968 Mexico City 53
O Militar 100
On War 156
Operation Carlota 80
Operation Sovereignty 150
O’Reilly, Alejandro 62
Organization of American States 20,
75, 166
Pacific Steam Navigation Company 130
Pacification: of Araucanía 131, 138; of the
Escambray Mountains 74; of Maranhão
95; of Patagonia 10, 17, 123, 133, 166
Panama 11, 16, 18, 123, 136–7, 165
Paraguay 8, 10–13, 22, 27n15, 97–100,
108–9, 118, 166, 172
Paraguayan War 12–3, 27n15, 97–100,
109, 172
paramilitary 77, 143, 148
Paraná River 97, 99
Parliamentary Republic 18, 138, 140
Patagonia 10, 17, 123, 133, 166
patronage 44, 92, 101
Patton, George S. 84
Pau de Arara 117; see also torture
PCC 77–9, 86, 173; see also Communist
Party of Cuba
peacekeeping missions 119, 166, 169
Pearl Harbor 50, 112
peasants 64, 70, 78–9, 86, 103, 138
Pedro I 92–5, 120
Pedro II 94–7, 99–102, 120
peninsulares 5–6, 34–5
Peninsular War 39
pensions 16, 152
Pentagon 21, 115–16, 145
People’s War, People’s Army 164
Peru 11, 23–5, 123, 125, 167, 172–3;
conquest of 2–3, 5, 126; guerillas in 23,
75, 79; independence era in 7–8, 10, 26,
127–8; indigenous population of 7, 127;
military of 14, 16, 22, 117, 148; military
182 Index
modernization of 15–17; see also
Peru-Bolivian Confederation; War of the
Pacific
Peru-Bolivian Confederation 130–1, 137
petroleum 45, 50–1; see also oil
Philippines 18, 23, 51, 65, 167
Pincheira brothers 128; see also bandits
Pinochet, Augusto: army career of 144,
147; dictatorship of 141, 148–151;
legacy of 152–3, 173; supporters of
151, 173
pirates 5, 33, 123, 167
Pizarro, Francisco 2–4, 126
Plan de San Luis de Potosí 45–6
planters 5, 63, 66, 93, 95, 98, 101
plata o plomo 57
plebiscite 151
pochteca 30
Poland 112, 162, 168
Polk, James K. 38
population growth 21, 52, 54, 58, 66, 115,
130, 144, 173
populist 115, 147
Porfiriato 43–5
Portales, Diego 129–30, 133, 143
Portugal vii 1–2, 12, 66, 90, 92–3,
95–6
Portuguese Empire 5, 80, 92, 169
positivism 100
postwar 19–20, 23, 51, 86, 100, 114–15,
137, 144–5, 161–2
poverty 5, 16, 20–1, 26, 41, 47, 55, 66–7,
72, 77, 79, 91, 103–4, 117, 119, 123,
127, 140
praetorian army 34, 47
Prat, Arturo 13, 134–5
Prats, Carlos 142, 146, 150
pre-Hispanic 44, 49
press-gangs 47, 91, 93, 99
Prestes, Carlos 18, 108–9, 111, 156
Preußische Kriegsakademie 15, 158; see also
Prussia; staff college
priests 34–5, 62; see also clergy
privatization 54; see also neoliberalism
professionalism 25–6, 52, 66, 86, 136
professionalization 16, 136, 172
pronunciamientos 8, 37
propaganda 6, 51, 114, 138, 145
Protestant 6, 128
Prussia 15–16, 42, 136–7, 156–8
“Prussians of South America” 128, 158
Puebla 11, 29, 35, 40, 42
Puebla, Battle of 9, 42
Puebla, Teté 78
Puerto Rico 3, 10–11, 18, 65
purumaucas 124
Quechua 7, 133
questão militar 100
rabonas 14
racism 6, 39, 81, 103, 111
radio 51, 79, 108, 111, 145, 164
railroads 43, 45, 67, 71, 96, 103, 130,
132, 137
Reagan, Ronald 82–3, 164
Recife 11, 111–12
Reconquest 2–3, 5–6
recruitment, military 7, 17, 43, 50, 57, 68,
70, 91, 93–4, 98–9, 119, 138, 157,
159–60, 163; see also conscription; draft
reform: agrarian vii 20, 47, 49, 72, 115,
119, 145, 165; economic 20, 54;
military 43–4, 62, 100, 103–7, 141, 158;
police 53; political 49, 63, 85, 140, 145,
161, 173
regional: conflict 8, 19, 29, 36–7, 43, 50,
104, 106, 123; identities 17, 29, 46, 101;
politics 6, 13, 32, 37, 42, 56, 97, 100,
103–4, 106, 119–20, 130, 138, 163,
168–9
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary
War 70
Reorganisação do Exército 158
repression, internal 22, 87, 116–18, 144,
150, 152
republican government vi 63, 102
reserves, military 62, 76, 104, 113, 120,
158, 172
Rettig Report 151; see also Valech Report
Revolutionary Left Movement
(Movimiento de Izquierda
Revolucionaria) 75, 148
Revolution Square 23, 87
Reyes García, Jesús 78
Riachuelo, Battle of 12, 97
right-wing (the Right) 22, 109, 111–12,
148, 161, 164
Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) 167
Rio de la Plata 8, 12
Rio Grande do Sul 94, 96–7, 109
Rio Grande River 38
Roman Catholic vi 2–3, 8–9, 34–7,
39–40, 62, 92, 100, 102
Roosevelt, Franklin 19, 111–12
Roosevelt, Theodore 18, 66, 68
 Index 183

Rosas, Juan Manuel de 9; see also caudillos
Rousseff, Dilma 117, 119
royalists 34–5, 38, 128
runaway slaves 95, 101, 109
rural 14, 22–3, 41, 58, 70, 91, 104, 110,
128, 139, 158, 169; guerrillas 53, 69–70,
116, 156; police forces 42–3, 65–6, 138;
urban divide 45, 67–8, 72, 115, 124
Rurales 42–3
Russia 15, 24, 85, 139, 147, 159, 168; see
also Soviet Union
Russian Revolution 139
Russo-Japanese War 158
sailors 62, 93, 99, 106, 128, 134–5, 142,
158–9
Salvador da Bahía see Bahía
San Cristóbal de las Casas 54
San Jacinto, Battle of 37
San Martín, José de vi 7, 127–8, 131
Sánchez, Celia 69
Sandinistas 19, 83, 164
Sandino, Augusto César vi 19, 26, 156
Santa Anna, Carlos López de 36–7,
39–40, 43
Santa Clara, Battle of 77
Santa María School massacre 139
Santiago, Battle of 65
Saudi Arabia 117, 168
Second World War see World War II
September 11, 1973 148–9, 151
sergeants 14, 67–8, 113, 134, 159; see also
non-commissioned officers
Sergeants’ Revolt 67–8
Sertão 102–3, 110; see also backlands
Shining Path 23; see also guerrillas;
insurgency
sieges 63, 95–7
Sierra Maestra 21, 70–1, 78, 84
sierras, of Peru 12, 14, 132
slave revolts 63, 91
slave soldiers 14, 98–100, 120
slavery 5, 35, 37–8, 63, 91, 96, 100–1,
106, 121, 124
slaves 5, 7, 14, 19, 37, 63, 66, 91, 95–101,
106, 109
slums 110, 115, 145
smallpox 4, 31–2, 99, 157
smuggling, drug 23, 25, 51, 167, 173; see
also drug cartels
soccer 13, 20, 110
socialism 21, 46, 85, 86, 111, 143,
145–6, 163
soldaderas 40, 44, 48–9
Somali piracy 167
Somalia 80
Somoza, Anastasio 19, 161, 164
Southern Cone 15, 158, 173
Soviet Union 20, 24–5, 51, 61, 73–4, 76,
81, 86, 115, 149, 164; see also USSR
Spain vii 1–3, 6–7, 10, 12–13, 18, 26, 29,
158, 168
Spanish Civil War 143
Spanish Conquest 14, 31–3, 62, 125–6; see
also conquistadors; Reconquest
Spanish Empire 4–5, 10, 26, 33–4, 36, 39,
62–6, 92, 104, 123, 127–8, 131, 137
Spanish-American War 65
Special Period 85–6
Sputnik 73
staff college 15, 20, 25, 158–9; see also war
college
state terrorism 173; see also Dirty War
steamships 96, 132, 157, 165
steel 3, 31, 41, 105, 112, 114, 136,
140, 158
stratification vii 3, 33; see also hierarchy
Stroessner, Alfredo 22
Suárez, Inés 125
submarines 50, 58, 105, 112–13, 153, 157,
161, 166, 168
Suez Canal 112, 162
Sun Tzu 156
Switzerland 116, 168
Tacna, Battle of 132–4
Taíno people 3, 62; see also Indians
tanks 23–4, 51, 61, 71, 73, 76, 82, 85, 116,
148–9, 153, 165
Tarapacá, Battle of 132–4
tariffs 51, 105, 117, 130, 132, 151
Taylor, Zachary 38–9
telegraph 19, 65, 109, 131, 140
telpochcalli 30
tenentes 18, 107–9
Tenochtitlán 4, 14, 30, 32–3
Ten Years’ War 63–4
tercios 3
Territorial Troops Militia (MTT) 83
Texas 9, 37–8, 43, 46, 51, 102
Texcoco 30, 32
Thailand 17–8, 160, 162Tiananmen
Square 85
Tierra del Fuego 23, 150
Tlatelolco Massacre 53
Tlaxcalans 4, 13, 30, 32–3
184 Index
torpedoes 53, 98, 112, 132
Torrijos, Omar 16, 165
torture 21, 35, 53, 116–18, 149, 163, 165;
see also Dirty War; state terrorism
Trans-Amazonian Highway 118
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 40
Treaty of Paris 65
Tripartite Agreement 84
Trujillo, Rafael 19, 22, 161
Truman, Harry 114
tuberculosis 14, 157
Tucapel, Battle of 126
Túpac Yupanqui 124
Tupí people 91; see also Indians
Turkey 16, 74, 168
Tuyutí, Battle of 97, 99
typhoid 14, 157
U-boats 114; see also submarines
United Nations 25, 114, 119, 150, 165–6
United Nations Security Council 114, 166
United States: economic interests of 43,
45, 51, 66–7, 140, 145; imperialism of
18–19, 37–40, 51, 72–4, 83, 137, 162;
military influence of 19–22, 24, 51,
113–15, 145, 161–2, 164; opposition to
20, 65; support/admiration for 8, 115,
145; see also Americans
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights 165
urban: combat 58, 156, 163; development
45, 51, 53, 65–7, 90, 121; guerrillas 21,
53, 69, 116, 156, 163; -ites 55, 66, 134;
politics 69, 101, 111–12, 139, 141;
poverty 17, 115, 139; see also rural
Uruguay 8, 10–12, 22–5, 79, 94–5, 97, 99,
158, 166, 168, 173
USS Maine 64
USSR 20, 74, 82, 146–7, 161–2; see also
Soviet Union
Valdivia, Pedro de 3, 124–6
Valech Report 151
Valparaíso 11, 123, 127–8, 134–5,
139, 148
Vargas, Getúlio 109–115, 120
Venezuela vii 5, 7–8, 10–11, 16, 24, 26,
83, 117, 158, 165
Veracruz 9, 11, 35–6, 39, 42–3, 45, 51
veterans 9, 78, 82, 97, 100, 152
Victoriano Huerta 47–8
Vietnam 20, 75, 81, 83–4, 162–4
Villa, Pancho vi 12, 45–50, 56
volunteer soldiers 39, 45, 51, 64, 77, 81–3,
97, 99, 119; see also all-volunteer
military
war college 15, 116, 136, 157–8; see staff
college
War of the Pacific 12–14, 132–7, 148,
161, 165
warships 15, 18, 92, 94, 106–7, 128, 134,
157, 167–8
Watergate 81
Waterloo, Battle of 92
weapons 2–3, 9, 19, 24, 30–2, 42, 62, 68,
70, 76, 78, 81, 83, 102, 111–13, 117,
124, 137, 143, 149, 159, 161, 165,
169, 173
Wehrmacht 112–13
women in military vii 12, 15, 99; of Brazil
109, 117, 119; of Chile 134, 168; of
Cuba 69, 71, 77–8, 83; of Mexico 14,
30, 32, 41, 44, 48–9; worldwide
167–9
Wood, Leonard 65
working-class 21, 39, 45, 49–50, 53, 67,
81, 83–4, 104, 111, 115, 117, 119, 134,
139–41, 147, 158
World War I 24, 48, 105, 139, 158,
161, 165
World War II 19, 23–4, 50, 84, 114, 144,
161, 165–6
yellow fever 14, 36, 39, 53, 59n16,
64–5, 157
Yucatán Peninsula 4, 27, 29, 31, 33,
37, 48
Yugoslavia 85, 146, 162
Yungay, Battle of 131, 134
Zapata, Emiliano 46–50
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
(EZLN) 54–6
Zapatistas 46–8; see also EZLN
Zedong, Mao 163