Popular Aspects of Liberalism in México, 1848-1888

Popular Aspects of Liberalism in Mexico, 1848-1888
Author(s): Guy P. C. Thomson

Source: Bulletin of Latin American Research , 1991, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1991), pp. 265-292
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Popular Aspects of Liberalism in

1848-1888
GUYP.C.THOMSON
University of Warwick, UK
INTRODUCTION
Between 1855 and 1867, Liberalism grew from a minority mo

become the national political consensus.1 This apparent monopo
logical discourse enjoyed by Liberalism was, of course, helped b
appearance of 'Conservatism' from the political vocabulary, disgr
association with the European Intervention. Liberalism, by
emerged in 1867 re-enforced by its close association with the patrio
ance to the Empire. It is nevertheless remarkable that Liberalism
and individualistic doctrine, took such a hold in a country with
found Hispanic and Catholic legacy. It is all the more extraordinary
considered that liberal hegemony was achieved over a period of
stagnation and relatively limited social change. Mexico's liberal
was achieved before the emergence of a substantial, economically in
middle class.
At first glance, then, it seems that the rise of Liberalism in mid-nineteenth
century Mexico owed more to the ideological clarity and military prowess of
a younger generation of Liberal leaders, and to the weakness of their
opponents, than to any deeper social or economic forces. In terms of political
geography, the rise of Liberalism coincided at first with the continued
economic and political decline of the capital and the central states permitting
a correspondingly greater economic and political assertiveness of the
provinces. Richard Sinkin has shown that prominent Reform Liberals were
recruited socially from the low to middle ranking mestizo and creole popula-
tion, more often from an outer 'Liberal archipelago' of states (Oaxaca,
Guerrero, Michoacan, Jalisco, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Veracruz),
than from the centre (the Bajio, Mexico and Puebla) (Sinkin, 1979: 37-39).
Provincial Liberals thus stole a march at a favourable conjuncture when there
was little to oppose them.
The idea that Liberals took power due to the default of Conservative
Mexico, rather than because they represented broader ideological changes in
society at large, is a widely shared one. D. A. Brading has recently concluded
that 'The Reforma is ... best viewed not as an essay in "nationbuilding", but
rather an exercise in "state-building"'. He presents the radical liberal, mestizo
intellectuals, Ignacio Ramirez and Ignacio Altamirano, as exceptional men,
in an otherwise undisturbed, traditional and Catholic milieu. Social and
cultural isolation obliged liberals to accept 'presidential autocracy', either of

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266 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH
the civilista Juarez or of Mexico's home-grown Napoleon,

Diaz's attractiveness to Ramirez and Altamirano Brading finds
Quite why the radicals should have prefered King Stork to K

something of a mystery. Possibly the neo-classic cult of pat
pre-disposed them to identify more closely with a popular g
with an impassive lawyer (Brading, 1988:41).
The assumption is that there was little, apart from livery, to
liberal leader from another. And the reason for this is that Libe
nineteenth century Mexico was a minority doctrine, with
appeal. In another recent article, Brading agrees with Fran
statement that 'The real strength of the Mexican Liberal party
been caciquismo ... its local heroes established cacicazgo
despotic personal power in their distinct regions' (Brading, 19
within the new Liberal state was therefore allocated in cacique
consequence of the exercise of individual sovereignty.
Brading is not alone in belittling the popular agenda of the R
Sinkin and Ballard Perry favour a view of a new Liberal politi
cerned above all with designing a state to control, as much
ordinary Mexicans (Ballard Perry, 1978: 14-15; Sinkin, 19
Preoccupation with ensuring order outweighed any concern fo
individual rights. Daniel Cosio Villegas, however, credits
Liberals with a somewhat grander achievement. For him,
contribution of the Reform generation was to lay the foundat
frail, of modern Mexican Liberal democracy. The great a
Juarez and Lerdo was their determination to steer a course be
for the individual guarantees of the new constitution and the
for national survival. What makes this period, in Don Dan
golden age of Mexican Liberalism, is the unwavering respect for
the press and of association throughout the Restored Republic
continuing conspiracies and armed rebellion. But this gener
of the Juarez and Lerdo regimes was in part made pos
Villegas's bias in favour of central power and his thinly veiled
those who rebelled against the regime, particularly for Porfir
following. His unwillingness to explore the reasons for Dia
beyond postulating that it had something to do with 'un sex-a
and his contempt for the rustic, the uneducated and the uninte
the value of the first volume of La Historia Moderna de M
Republica Restaurada, Vida Politica is an account of a pro
building, not a history of nation-building (Cosio Villegas, 1
accompanying volumes on Vida Social and Vida Economica
succeed in filling the gap.
Yet, Cosio Villegas at least suspected that something more w
Mexican Liberal politics than conflict between lawyers and sol
spoils of office. While condemning the porfirista opposition a
'elements of no political or intellectual rank, with a shady
outlook ...', he nevertheless admits in the same breath that po
count upon 'evident popular roots which other groups

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POPULAR ASPECTS OF LIBERALISM IN MEXICO 267
Villegas, 1954: 88-89). It is Cosio Villegas's observation th

count upon an historic advantage not shared by his pol
popularity?which inspired the writing of this paper.
Recent comments by scholars of the period have enco
endeavour. Charles A. Hale describes the contempt expr
'conservative-liberaT group in Congress in 1877 (who soon
the label of 'cientificos') towards the twctepecanos (the follo
successful rebellion of Tuxtepec). They were accused of hav
the chamber as "hayseeds" (paletos), speaking the "coarse lan
hamlet" and lacking the refinement, intelligence, and oratorical
deputies ...'. Hale adds that 'Although there were clear overt
conflict within the Tuxtepec movement and the first Diaz admi
exact dimensions of this conflict are obscure and worthy of fur
(Hale, 1989: 57). Thus, however much Liberalism may have
providing the language of political consensus as well as a 'un
important political fissures existed within Liberalism. Indeed
achievment of Hale's book is to chart the rise of an elitist 'conservative-
liberalism' as an ideology of order, at the expense of 'doctrinaire', Jacobin
and more popular liberalism. Friedrich Katz, in his contribution to the
Cambridge History of Latin America, also suggests the importance of
popular Liberalism until well into the Porfiriato, recognising the existence of
a third group (after liberal landowners and the middle class) among the
supporters of the Liberal party which he calls \.. the "popular sector". Its
composition, still only incompletely known, was diffuse. It encompassed
some peasants and an inchoate proletariat of textile workers, blacksmiths,
shop clerks, and the like' (Katz, 1989:7).
Katz could have been more precise in his CHLA chapter, had Jean Pierre
Bastian's work on the rise of religious heterodoxy in Mexico from the early
1860s, then been available. Bastian has shown that radical, Jacobin
Liberalism and Protestantism, particularly Methodism, proved to be very
comfortable bedfellows. Methodism offered an attractive spiritual rallying
point for socially and culturally marginal individuals and groups who were
excluded from power, or whose more radical Liberal convictions found little
resonance in official circles. Protestant congregations, concentrated in
circumscribed ecological pockets?Central Puebla and Tlaxcala, the Puebla
and Hidalgo Sierras, the district of Zitacuaro in Michoacan, the Huasteca
potosina?and often within improbable social constituencies?Indian
communities?proliferated during the 1870s and 1880s: from 125 in 1875
to 600 in 1897, with a signed-up membership of 13,096 in 1882 rising to
30,000 in 1910 (Bastian, 1988a, 1989). Mexicans have felt uncomfortable
about seeing their indigenous radical Liberal tradition seemingly appro-
priated by a foreign, protestant sect, accounting, perhaps, for why this
important development had been neglected until the arrival of the Swiss
historian. Bastian demonstrates convincingly that Mexican Protestantism
was no fifth column of United States spiritual imperalism. During the
Porfiriato, Methodists could be found among the country's most patriotic
and socially committed educationists, journalists and labour and peasant
organisers. In this sense, Methodism formed part of the phenonemon of

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developmental LiberaUsm, discerned recently by Alan

1985a). But, it was a popular, non-conformist, social
politically disfavoured brand of Liberalism, which assumed
in the resurgence of radical Liberalism after 1900. This
Reform to the Revolution is clearly vital to take account of
of 'popular Liberalism'.
To be fair to D. A. Brading (however much he may rece
tioned the assumptions of Mexican Liberal orthodoxy), in se
the predominance of Liberalism in mid-nineteenth cen
nevertheless raised a series of questions?mostly still un
pioneering Los origenes del nacionalismo mexicano in 197
for the widespread popularity of Liberalism in Mexico, in co
where in Spanish America? How can we explain the success o
occupying Mexico's ideological and patriotic centre gro
Liberals succeed in capitalising upon popular hatred of t
army, the Church and the hacienda? Why did Liberalism
popularity among both the urban crowd and the rural popu
we account for the enduring co-existence in some regions (Z
mentioned, from Governor Francisco Garcia in the 182
Trinidad Garcia de la Cadena in the 1870s) of radical Liberali
system? What were the attractions of Liberalism to the
'middle segment'? How was Liberalism used by local caci
and control men? And finally, how did Liberalism revolu
military conduct, accounting 'for the apparent facility with
fifty to five hundred men could be assembled and led o
Brading concluded that his:
brief sketch of the heterogeneous elements which ent

liberalism indicates that the movement?party it was n
broad, shifting coalition, a peculiar union of rural caci
gressive state governors, of old insurgents and new
ideologues and the mob (Brading, 1985:88-98).
This is clearly a vast agenda for the historian and I propose
address only two questions. How popular was Liberalism in m
century Mexico? And, what political form did 'popular Liber
phenonemon can be said to have existed?take during the
aftermath? The focus will be provincial and rural and
experience of the Reform in central and southern Mexico.
'POPULAR LIBERALISM' IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY
Charles Berry, working on Oaxaca, observed no popular basis to Liber
... there was the Reform that affected principally the white and mes
middle class ... and the Reform that left practically untouched the
of the great majority of Oaxacans, the peasant folk who lived in
isolated towns and villages ... the Liberal revolution... was ... in l
part... a middle-class, urban, rather elitist movement, which had lit
concern of positive nature for the lower classes, the peasantry

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Indian and the masses... the Reform of Oaxaca, and pre

where, was a truncated affair (Berry, 1981:196-197).
Thus, not only did the Reform in Oaxaca not involve ord
did not significantly affect them either. Are we to accept t
Berry has asserted for Oaxaca, was true also for much of th
or, even, for Oaxaca itself? Since his research was based pri
city and the central valley of this vast and complex state, w
be wary of any general applicability of his conclusions.
In such a complex and highly regionalised country, judg
impact of the Reform will depend upon where and how d
look. Rodolfo Pastor's recent study of the Mixteca argu
reforms were exercising a profound impact upon politics an
long before the Reform. Thereafter, he claims, 'between
there was constant political ferment in the Sierra', add
rebellion was now insolubly enmeshed with extra-regional i
1987: 449). Marcello Carmagnani embraces this Tocquev
Reform even more enthusiastically:
... a powerful transformation is perceptible from the

1840s; from the Congress of 1846 it is evident tha
authority wished to reorganise public finances, justice, th
tion and establish a real military organisation. We are
presence of a vast regional reform or, better said, the
Creole power in Oaxaca (Carmagnani, 1988:232-233)
Most other states also underwent precocious Liberal disamor

early as the 1820s, with momentous effects in Chiapas, Y
(Fraser, 1972:622-623; Meyer, 1984:111-139). A usefu
be drawn between the calamitous (in terms of Indian reb
these early Liberal reforms in remoter areas?such as Y
Oaxaca, Guerrero, southern Michoacan and southern
Ometepec) and the mountain peripheries of Jalisco?wh
hitherto enjoyed a relatively greater autonomy than on t
and the G&vez reform package in Guatemala which prov
Indian population of the Montafia into rebellion in 1837,
three decades of retreat from liberalism under the ladin
RafaelCarrera(Reina, 1980:85-120,157-166,231-243
MacLeod and Wasserstrom, 1983; Hart in Katz, 1988
1964; Pastor, 1987:531-535; Tutino, 1980: 89-101; Wo
If these were the consequences of Liberal reforms before 1
more concerted, centralised programme following the pr
Constitution of 1857, accompanied by two decades of civ
intervention, must have had an even deeper impact upon
without adopting a social perspective, or a regional or lo
student of this period cannot help but be moved (given t
most Mexican historiography) by the heroic, almost ho
political and military events: the prolonged campaigns
veteran caciques, Gordiano Guzman and Juan Alvarez, ag

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Santa Anna in 1854-1855; the unprecedently vengeful, blo

sive Three Years War (1857-1861); Benito Jiiarez's four-ye
in the North during the Intervention; Manuel Lozada's ete
Tepic's Sierra de Alica; Porfirio Diaz's long, peripatetic c
Noria and Tuxtepec, etc. These were, often still are, nati
trumpeted myths. But move to the local level, and the stude
wealth of lesser myths, passed down mostly through an oral
upon memories of civil and patriotic struggles which are still
Much in the manner of Colombia's nineteenth-century
Three Years War and the French Intervention occasioned inte
struggles which forged ideological and political allegiance
today. This ideological tincturing became particularly firmly
Liberal side when patriotic resistance against the French
combined with local struggles. Alan Knight sees this mid-nin
fusion of Liberalism and patriotism, for being both popul
particular locahties, as an 'indestructible combination', w
during the Revolution, inspiring, or at the least providing the
village insurrections (Knight, 1985a: 73-74; 1985b: 163).
Knight points at the gulf between this locally defined Libera
wider notions of nationalism. But whereas Brading suggests
between the Liberal patriotism embraced by intellectuals and
of the pueblo was unbridgeable, Knight points at the fle
Liberalism and patriotism, their cross-class appeal and the
with catholicism.
Richard Sinkin in his invaluable, yet problematical, sy
Reform era, also recognises the importance of liberal patriot
almost all Mexicans had to make the choice (to support t

the Republic) ... the French Intervention brought home
that they were Mexicans, that they belonged to a nation la
patria chica that had claimed their individual loyalty up to
the appeal by the liberal elite to the sentiments of independ
democratic ideal ... ultimately combined liberalism and
into an unbreakable combination_
But while admitting that these sentiments reached the popular level, Sinkin
insists the primary objective, as well as the result, of these patriotic appeals
from the 'Liberal elite' was to strengthen the new Liberal state against its
foreign and domestic enemies (Sinkin, 1979: 166-167). Because of this
primary concern with statecraft, radical proposals for a swift secularisation
of society, religious freedom and land reform were delayed or indefinitely
postponed (in the case of land reform), in the interests of preserving social
peace and placating pohtical enemies. Radicals such as Ponciano Arriaga,
Isidro Olvera, Melchor Ocampo, Ignacio Ramirez and Ignacio Altamirano
made their voices loudly heard, but they failed to convince the more
pragmatic and moderate Liberal majority to pass more radical social legis-
lating. And, as urban, civilian intellectuals and statesmen, they remained
isolated from any popular following which might have compelled them to do
so.

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If it is true that very few, if any, of the prominent Liber

Sinkin selects as a sample of 53 to depict the entire gen
worked to create a popular social constituency, was there
spontaneous and unsollicited popular responsiveness
Reading Sinkin, one would doubt it. At no point does he sug
of a popular Liberalism with any measure of autonomy. A
contemporary dualist perception of the Indian as eithe
completely apart from Mexican society, or, vengefully set u
three centuries of oppression in a 'Caste War' (Sinkin, 19
Reyes Heroles, the father of the study of Mexican Liberalism
Sinkin in this respect. Reyes Heroles notices the coincid
national trauma of defeat in the American War, signifying
death blow to the colonial regime, and the proliferation
popular movements which he describes as 'telluric', 'lack
logical antecedents', lumping them under the general h
mientos instintivos'. He observes that these rural movem
three occurring in the Huasteca in 1848) simultaneously r
of land, relations with the clergy and the matter of 'Indian
(Reyes Heroles, 1974: Vol. 3: 569). From the late 1840s,
showed a marked tendency to embrace exotic (European)
political doctrines, far outside the mainstream of Mexica
had evolved since the 1820s: utopian socialism, Fourieri
Communism, etc. (Garcia Cantii, 1969:55-78; Reina,
255-269, 271-288, 356-357; Lopez Camara, 1959-1960
Navarro, 1976-1977: 72-74). Reyes Heroles sees no r
'instinctive movements' within the constitutional movement
Benito Juarez and even less, within the praetorian following
which he refers to as the 'Oligarquia Tuxtepecana'. Yet, ther
many of these movements, particularly those occurring in t
(Julio Lopez in Chalco in 1868 and Alberto de Santa Fe
1879) were direct responses to promises of land restitutio
leaders during military campaigns (Garcia Cantii, 1969:
of this essay is to explore whether such 'instinctive' movem
within an opportunistic and praetorian liberal tradition run
Alvarez's revolution of Ayutla to Diaz's revolution of Tux
How then can the popular impact of Liberalism be explore
examine the rhetoric?the declared ideals and intentions as in
and petitions?of the popular participants in the struggles of
Indians, peasants, artisans (although we will not be looking a
embrace of popular Liberal discourse: the rights of man, th
before the law, freedom of thought and association, per
compulsory labour services, from military recruitment, fro
study of popular discourse is a neglected area, parti
enough?among recent studies of popular movements. In
essay, Eric Van Young comments on what little light the im
of recent work on Mexican peasant movements has shed upo
actually rebel. He finds all the work under review (Tutin
1986; Katz, 1988; Knight, 1985b; Meyer, 1984) to be str

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preconditions for revolt, but weak on immediate causati

ity'. He sees the problem as partly one of the dearth of so
of the inarticulate'. But a more important explanation
historians have used:
... when we generalise about political leaders, we tend t

biographical materials; when we generalise about pe
exceptions), we tend to illustrate with sociological g
He goes on to observe how very few studies of popular p

from the eighteenth to the twentieth century in M
explanatory importance upon culture or ideology as ingr
action:
ideologies may exist but not ideation or perception.

peasant communities function much as protozoa?the
when touched, but have virtually no agenda of their ow
Van Young concludes by emphasising the need to go

deprivation to explain collective violence:
... we need to determine not only what it is that make

at a given time and place, but also how they are able to
that facilitates their action ... One of the key facto
political violence ... may be less the material condit
people to rebellion, than the reasons for their enter
tivities, or how social collectivities change their forms
goals and employ violence as an instrumentality toward
Young, 1990:133-159).
Van Young calls for historians to move beyond the

economic context to observe the associational/sociol
communities, as well as to explore the conscious and unc
human action through the study of the judicial records.
specialisation perhaps prevented him from making
obvious?observation about how our understanding of
and political participation might be enhanced. Many
movements take as a premise a dualistic view of pol
popular?especially peasant?movements as 'pre-politic
unideological, distant from the 'political nation' of the elit
This is an unhelpful point of departure for any study of
politics (however correct a dualist premise may prov
analysis of a particular case). As Malcolm Deas has
nineteenth-century Colombia, there were multiple chann
information upon 'national' issues could flow to the m
(Deas, 1983). Knowledge of the 'small print' of a const
plans, of the electoral calendar, of the political rhyth
districts or even far-removed provinces, can be vital for e
of local movements.

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THE LIBERAL PROGRAMME
Federal system, popular elections, absolute liberty of the press, relig

freedom, abolition of special privileges, reorganisation of the ar
freedom of trade throughout the country, regulation of the po
rights of the people, nationalisation of property held in mortmain,
division of these lands among the villages and subordination of
Church to the State.... (Torres, 1963:192).
Apart from some confusion over the break-up of corporate landh
and the failure to mention the abolition of compulsory services, such
programme of the Mexican Reform, succinctly encapsulated by
Manuel Torres in a pioneering essay on Ignacio Ramfrez. Of cour
application of most of these reforms had to wait for at least a decade
the cycle of wars which followed the proclamation of the Constit
1857. During this period, the Reform was less a centrally applied
gramme, more a menu from which Mexico's states, collectivities (to us
Young's term) and individuals could select what appealed to them, r
what they did not like. The reforms most likely to appeal to a popular
stituency were the abolition of compulsory personal services, the reor
tion of the army with the abolition of the leva, freedom of commerce,
elections and, in areas where the Catholic clergy had lost its legi
religious freedom. There was also a widespread expectation in rura
encouraged by the promises of local caudillos, that the land questio
be addressed beyond the disamortisation of corporately held prop
include the restitution of land lost by villages to haciendas.
THE REVOLUTION OF AYUTLA AND POPULAR LIBERALISM

The revolution of Ayutla of 1854-1855 ranks as a great waters
Mexican history, comparable to the Insurgency of 1810-1814 a
Revolution of 1910. Militarily it was an undramatic series of small battl
skirmishes between the mainly guerrilla (National Guard) forces o
rebels, against Santa Anna's recently professionalised regular army. B
revolution lasted for a full 18 months, forces on each side exceeded
and battles were often bloody and uncompromising affairs. Officers
regular army loathed the upstart National Guard (hurriedly formed in 1
for national defence against the United States of America's invasion), an
gentlemanly protocol of previous civil wars was abandoned.2 Prisoner
routinely shot, rebel property confiscated and the civilian populat
persecuted in areas sympathetic to the rebels; all serving to deepe
broaden the Ayutla movement. As a consequence, mortality was pro
higher than in any of Mexico's civil wars since the Insurgency. Inde
political geography of the revolt closely resembled that of the Insurgen
principal iniatives coming from southern Jalisco, the tierra calien
Michoacan and Guerrero, the sugar zones of Morelos and Puebl
pockets in the Sierra Madre Oriental in the states of Puebla, Veracr
Hidalgo. But the revolution was also truly a national one, with impo

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movements in Chiapas, Tehuantepec (Juchitan), Tama

San Luis Potosi, Durango, Zacatecas, Colima and the S
son, 1939:45-79; Diaz y Diaz, 1972:232-278).
The driving force of the revolution was the reasser
against the arbitrary centralism of the Santa Anna dicta
very little central co-ordination of Alvarez's 'Ejercito
Libertad', in essence a coalescence of numerous local and
under autonomous chieftains. Chance more than design b
tion's instigator, Juan Alvarez, finally to the presidency.
Ayutla movement differed, however, from the federalism
republic of 1824. In 1824, it was members of the provinci
state capitals of Puebla and Guadalajara who took to arms
credited Emperor Agustin I and to establish state soverei
insurrection sprang from small towns and villages and b
and their following were drawn from a far wider s
embracing creoles, Indians and mestizos.
An example of the kind of town that supported the re
can be found in southwestern Jalisco. Zacoalco de Tor
munity (but with a large non-Indian population), had
nently in the insurgency of 1810-1811 behind th
overseer, Jose Antonio ('El Amo') Torres. This headtow
subject villages, had been engaged in long-standing dispu
with neighbouring haciendas and against the abuse of aut
officials since the early eighteenth century (Tovar Pinzo
1981: 281-282; Olveda, 1980; Taylor in Katz, 1988:
1986:132-134; Knowlton, 1978-1979). In 1854-1855, th
support for Santos Degollado's regional insurrection (
59; Sinkin, 1979: 34). Following the defeat of Santa
Degollado now occupying the governorship of the free an
of Jalisco, Zacoalco and numerous other villages demande
long-standing grievances over land lost to haciendas. D
commission for investigating these grievances but no
exasperation, from January 1856 villages rose up over a
from the northern sierras, through central, into southe
Zacoalco and most other cabeceras stood back from ent
Lugardo Onofre, Zacoalco's Indian governor, published
eloquent proclamation of the town's federalist sympat
return of land usurped by haciendas. Manuel Lozada assum
northern villages, at this early stage of his career favou
federalism, attracted by its agrarian component. Ha
survived?he was captured and shot even before his p
might well have stepped into the shoes of 'El Amo' To
with Lozada, succeeded in creating a state-wide movemen
the state authorities in Guadalajara. Instead, after the pr
light-handed suppression of the movement by General J
of southern Jalisco returned to the banditry which had
since the eighteenth century (Meyer, 1984: 61-110).
movement continued, of course, until well into the 1870

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What is of interest in both the Troclama de los pueblos de

Zacoalco de Torres' of September 1857, and a very simi
from the 'Pueblos Unidos de la Sierra de Golondrinas' in
are their explicitly Alvarista sentiments (Reina, 1980: 1
1984:61-66; Garcia, 1954:100).
... the Indians of the village of San Cristobal in union

Zacoalco and the white inhabitants, who, along with the
do not recognise any other form of government than the
popular, federal without any restriction, sustaining it wit
until the last drop of blood, protesting in the most solemn
any rival form, as being opposed to the wishes of the m
Nation... (Reina, 1980:149; Meyer, 1984:64).
Jean Meyer, clearly surprised but unconvinced by the so

proclamation, and its Liberal discourse, puts this down to th
intinerant tinterillo/huizachero (Meyer, 1984:266). He ev
of Lugardo Onofre improbable for the governor of an India
should such sentiments not be expected from the rust
governors of Indian communities? Why is it that ideation
come from outside the parroquial confines of the villa
Meyer underestimates the political and ideological sophis
villagers. Zacoalco, after all, possessed a heritage of litigatio
two centuries, and of Liberal-republicanism going back t
Mexican state in 1810. If Indians had for so long prove
litigation, why should they not also have become exper
constitutional small print?
Popular representative government, state sovereignty
restitution of land illegally taken from the village, all guara
recruited and accountable National Guard: these were the attractions of the
Ayutla movement. Zacoalco was merely one of the thousands of towns and
villages throughout the Republic which proclaimed for the Plan Ayutla, find-
ing the Liberal promises and popular leadership of the Ayutlans attractive.
Florencia Mallon's work on Morelos reveals a very similar pattern to the
Zacoalco one. She shows how, from the American war, National Guard
commanders and soldiers, generally recruited from the towns of Morelos,
sided with villages in their long-standing conflicts with haciendas. With the
revolution of Ayutla, National Guard commanders extended their recruit-
ment to include villagers, even hacienda peons, encouraged by a donation of
1000 rifles from General Alvarez. Morelos National Guards then con-
tributed importantly to the final taking of Mexico City. Returning to their
homes after helping secure Alvarez's victory, the state authorities began
immediately to demobilise and disarm them. They resisted but were soon
called upon again to help with the suppression of a Conservative army up-
rising in the city of Puebla in December 1855. Having made an important
contribution to the suppression of the movement, the Morelos National
Guards once more returned home, again to find orders from Ignacio Comon-
fort (who by now had substituted Alvarez in the presidency) to demobilise

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and disarm. Weapons were ordered to be collected from

haciendas of the region (Reina, 1980:162-164; Mallon
For Mallon, the Morelos National Guard shared muc
Alvarista support elsewhere in southern Mexico:
... the social composition of Alvarez's support was

While clearly resting on the village peasantry, it had a s
in the urban areas and among hacienda labourers as wel
included smaller merchants, prosperous peasants, a
artisans. What seemed to unify Alvarez's supporte
diversity, was their criticism of the local dominant cla
and Mexican (Mallon, 1988:20).
In Morelos, what appears to have brought these grou

affirmative response given by small town bourgeoisie to
which had multiplied in Morelos during the early 1850s:
co-operation with resident peons on haciendas, demandin
drawing their labour to that end, carrying their arms to
fields, taking land for food crop cultivation, etc:
... cross-class collaboration was the hallmark of all t
whether the cooperation of the wealthier villagers with
the great estate, or the leadership of officers from
bourgeoisie in the national guard organised by Alvarez.
coalition of forces together was a vision of a just societ
preserving differences of wealth and status, also gave ev
dignity and subsistence. In order to guarantee this, peas
their access to ancestral lands and water rights and to
cratic control in local village life. At the core of this v
image of a peasant cultivating the land with a gun on h
was a dual symbol; of the struggle that had given peasan
right to reclaim the soil; and of the organised violence
would ensure that this right be respected (Mallon, 1988
This solidarity was not sufficient, however, to dete

troops from disarming the region. With the swift
nationally, the National Guard of Morelos lost its patron
ism was left without any institutional support. Beyond t
political alliances, Mallon sees the defeat of popular liber
a consequence of the backwardness of Mexican society:
... the populist strand within Mexican liberalism ... w

with the social, racial and cultural rifts that Mexican s
from the colonial period. One could not, in the end, have
ism with social peace ... when push came to shove,
Mexican liberals much preferred social peace_
The cross-class coalition which developed during the 1

enough to sustain its radical political implications. Lookin
for a comparison, Mallon concludes that during the 1850

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... no socially significant class segment was available f

the peasantry ... the very nature of economic growth
period generated precisely the kind of class segment that
ing in the 1850s: a new provincial bourgeoisie and petty b
saw its route to power in an alliance with the pop
(Mallon, 1988:45).
Morelos in the 1850s, as in 1910, was, in many respect

state contained some of the most highly capitalised agricul
and Morelos landowners traditionally enjoyed very direct a
state and national governments. Foreigners were al
region?with the attendant diplomatic complications?o
overseers and technicians, as well as owners. Morelos villag
were some of the country's most litigious who, during the
the kind of direct action characteristic, in many respects,
tural proletariat. Under these circumstances, the room for
was very constricted. Evidently, alliances between Nat
manders and villages, which in other parts of the coun
served as a basis for Liberal prateorian politics for de
smacked of social revolution and the imminent demise of t
economy. Thus Morelos, like Zacoalco, slipped out ofthe
Reform politics very early. In both regions, the marti
Alvarez's original agrarian appeals had provoked, prove
risk for the increasingly moderate Liberal leadership to to
Was this early foreclosure of the 'popular Liberal' op
experienced in Jalisco and Morelos, common also in oth
Indeed, were there any other popular movements, tinged w
element of agrarianism? The historical archive of the M
Defence, as Leticia Reina has shown, reveals clearly tha
were very common (Reina, 1980). However, whether t
agrarianism, popular Liberal politics and the defensive a
National Guard could be permitted to survive, depend
political context. In both Jalisco and Morelos, as in sou
little margin for compromise existed. Jalisco lacked an
Liberal leadership. Santos Degollado, hardly a radical, wa
The political class in Jalisco ranged from moderate Li
conservatives, with the Church surviving the Reform r
(Bazant, 1971:138-142,272-277). InMorelos, quite apart
and entrenched hacienda-owning class which continued
government, Mallon shows that even Juan Alvarez wit
from the Morelos National Guard (which he originally had
demonstrate moderation during the unsuccessful bid to
his home state of Guerrero.
Elsewhere, this coalescence of Liberal leadership around the mobilisation
of the National Guard and popular agrarianism failed to emerge during the
revolution of Ayutla. John Tutino demonstrates that this was the case in the
cereal-growing district of Chalco close to Mexico City, where peasants had
been forcefully resisting encroachments upon their lands and water rights

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since the 1840s. Here the National Guard was recruited from the towns and
haciendas, with the village peasantry either remaining disarmed or exposed
periodically to the hated leva. Local Liberal leaders, such as Vicente Riva
Palacio?the drafter of the Ley Lerdo?were themselves great landowners
and were thus opposed to any communal agrarian reassertion. Hence, no
alliance emerged between the Liberal leadership, National Guard com?
manders and villagers engaged in agrarian disputes. Indeed, as the incidence
of conflict increased, landowners (including the Riva Palacio family) estab-
lished their own cavalry to protect the security of their properties. The
villages lacked, moreover, any external patron (such as Alvarez in Morelos)
to redress this local imbalance (Tutino in Katz, 1988: 106-118). These
villages also appear to have tackled their problems on a village-by-village
basis, rather than seek external alliances or a regional confederation of the
kind Lozada succeeded in creating in the Sierra de Alica. Later, as mentioned
earlier, both Chalco, and the neighbouring valley of Texmelucan (Puebla)
experienced agrarian movements whose leaders?Julio Lopez and Alberto
de Santa Fe?embraced utopian socialist ideologies, with Methodism
exercising a strong appeal in these districts by the end of the 1880s (Bastian,
1988: 472, 479). Neither Lopez nor Santa Fe, however, were closely
involved in their local Liberal parties in Mexico City and Puebla (Garcia
Cantu, 1969:71,220-234;Reina, 1980:64-83,255-269). And thedecisive
political factor of a sympathetic local National Guard was also still absent.
A gulf between urban Liberal leadership and a potential peasant following,
also existed in the state of Oaxaca. Here the Liberal Juarez governorship in
the central valley had clashed with popular agrarianism of the isthmus, led by
Jose Gregorio Melendez, during the 1840s and early 1850s (de la Cruz,
1983). Pastor shows an equally antagonistic relationship developing in the
Mixteca during the 1830s and 1840s between an emerging creole-ladino
entrepreneurial group in the head towns, and subject villages struggling to
defend their common land from encroachment (Pastor, 1987: 531-535).
The alliance between leading Liberal families of the Sierra de Ixtlan?the
Castro, Meijueiro, and later, the Hernandez?with National Guard com?
manders of local Indian communities, an important factor in the ascendancy
of both Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz in the state and the nation, appears to
have been forged only during the French Intervention.
So was the popular agrarian energy of the Ayutla movement spent once the
Liberal victory had been consummated? Was this the parting of ways
between, on the one hand, localised agrarian movements, tending (if they
were anything other than Instinctive') towards utopian socialism, com-
munism, anarchism, Methodism and, on the other, the Liberal leadership,
now in reach of national power, and unprepared to assume the risks involved
in peasant mobilisation, for the questionable value of peasant support? The
question oversimplifies the political options confronting local movements
and the Liberal leadership during the 1854-1876 period. As a consequence
of the Conservatives' rejection of the 1857 constitution, the country slipped
into two decades of profound conflict during which the localised pattern of
armed resistance and insurrection, observed during the revolution of Ayutla,
continued as the Liberals' principal military strategy. Armed conflict, and

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competition for recruits and support, required that a popu

be kept alive. Hence, agrarianism, however Liberal lead
ferred it to go away, remained an issue. This was espec
once the profound implications of the Ley Lerdo for t
village land tenure began to be appreciated. However, in th
war, an even more pressing matter than agrarianism, from
most Mexicans, was their political relationship with the co
particularly concerning the conditions of military service
and the National Guard.
THE NATIONAL GUARD AND THE SURVIVAL OF

POPULAR LIBERALISM
The National Guard was a key Reform institution which, until recen
been curiously neglected in the literature on the Reform (Sinkin
102; Guerra, 1985: I, 130-133; Santoni, 1988: 269-288; Hernandez
Chavez, 1989: 265-272; Thomson, 1989: 31-68). This is explained, it
seems, by the common belief that nineteenth-century Mexican mihtary
administration, Liberal or Conservative, was both arbitrary and unpopular.
Soldiers were drafted unwillingly into armies, deserting at the earliest oppor-
tunity. The notion that there was any reciprocal element in military service?
that the patronage of civilian politics was extended to the barracks and the
battlefield?is rarely entertained. Military service was also unideological. If
soldiers joined up willingly, it was for opportunity to plunder. Even Jean
Meyer, when reviewing the Zacoalco episode, agrees with the standard view
of the Indian soldier, propounded in 1906 by Andres Molina Enriquez:
... because of the pay they earned, or because of the pillage which
allowed them to improve their condition, the Indians always provided
cannon fodder for any government, for any revolutionary, for any leader
of a riot, whom they would follow without knowing or discussing the
ideas for which they were fighting ... (Molina Enriquez, 1906: 85;
Meyer, 1984:107).
Yet, we have already seen how Alvarez with his Tintos' awakened the
agrarian as well as the martial energies of the peasantry of highland as well as
coastal communities. Moreover, Mallon has demonstrated how the political
implications of this combination in Morelos proved too much even for
Alvarez to stomach. But what of socially less-explosive areas?
Recent research on the emergence of a Liberal-praetorian leadership in
the Sierra de Puebla during the 1850s and 1860s?a phenomenon which
extended much more widely into the adjoining states of San Luis Potosi,
Hidalgo, Veracruz, and Oaxaca?suggests that the National Guard could, in
certain contexts, coexist with, even complement, the reassertion of local
autonomy and the pursuit of local objectives, within a broadly Liberal dis-
course (Ferrer Gamboa, 1967; Huerta Jaramillo, 1985; LaFrance and
Thomson inBeezley and Ewell, 1987; Thomson, 1987,1989,1990,1991).
The case for the survival of a popular element within the Liberal mainstream
(as opposed to the localised incidents of Fourierist, Bakunist radicalism)

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rests, therefore, upon our judgment of the meaning of

'people in arms', envisaged in the original ordinances of
decreed in 1848, in the Mexican context.
The National Guard ordinances placed great empha
rights and duties of the citizen-soldier, contrasting
corporate immunity and arbitrariness ofthe old army
48; Hernandez Chavez, 1989:265-272). The federalisat
Guard, combined with this emphasis upon soldiers' rig
organisation, encouraged the emergence of localised,
mous military units, composed of village level Guard
popularly elected commanders, which in turn, were grou
representing entire districts. Village Guard companies of
local solidarity, currently under threat from the disamo
land, as well as a channel for local political assertiveness.
provided a potential basis, when central control was weak
of veritable 'city states'. Hence, as in liberal revolut
abolition of old corporations?in this case the old Co
spawned the emergence of new collectivities.3 What mea
an apparent revolution in military organisation will depe
understanding of the local and regional context.
Carmagnani demonstrates that in Oaxaca the Nation
inception under Governor Benito Juarez, was intende
peace-keeping force for a state which had experience
unrest during the 1840s and early 1850s. Moreover,
National Guard was a weapon of ethnic politics:
... the National Guard functioned as the strong arm of

power facilitating the control of the insurrectionary t
Indians, of rebellions and permitting the gathering up
scattered throughout the capital and the villages of the s
ordinances had prescribed)... (Carmagnani, 1988:234
Carmagnani goes as far as to assert that the establishmen
Guard was the culmination of a process which he calls 'th
of the ethnic groups of Oaxaca'.
If we accept that the National Guard in Oaxaca was a
politics, favouring the dominant creole-ladino minority (1
over the Indian majority (87 per cent), then it is hard to i
army' serving as a guarantor ofthe individual rights enshr
tion of 1857 or the guardian of village autonomy or p
Carmagnani is discussing, however, an early stage of the
Later, especially after the European intervention, there
National Guard, particularly in the Sierra de Juarez,
closely aligned with district and local level power. Her
ruling families and Indian village authorities shared a
autonomy from the state capital. Local control of th
secured this. The mining specialisation of this serrano
core of which were the Hernandez and Meijueiro cacica
interest in acquiring land at the expense of Indian commu

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high degree of reciprocity between Indians and non-Indians en

Villegas, 1954;Kearney, 1972).
A similar basis of reciprocity between non-Indians and Indian
parts of the Puebla Sierra. Indeed, the Puebla Sierra has provided
strongest evidence to date for Liberalism taking popular root
was not only embraced by gente de razon?by an emerg
bourgeoisie?but was also accommodated within Indian comm
necessarily the most acculturated ones). It was a martial Liberalism
expression the effective organisation of battalions of National Gu
the Three Years War and the French Intervention. The National Guard of the
Sierra, which assumed the party name of the Montaha, became the principal
force in state politics after 1867. During the Juarez and Lerdo regimes, only
federal backing for the Liberal party of the plateau (known as the Llanura)
saved its state governors from succumbing to the challenge of the Montaha.
The survival of autonomous National Guard cacicazgos in this region
through until the 1880s, and the use made of them both by Juarez during the
Three Years War and the Intervention and by Diaz during the Restored
Republic, owed much to geography. The Sierra de Puebla was sufficiently
close to the Mexico-Veracruz communications artery and to Mexico City
and Puebla, to endow the region with an unrivalled strategic significance. Yet,
in strong contrast to Morelos and Chalco, the region was sufficiently in-
accessible and remote to deter successfully centralising initiatives. Many
other factors help to account for the strength and effective projection of the
Sierra Liberal cacicazgos. One of the more important of these was tradition.
Many prominent Sierra Liberals traced their ideological pedigree back to
the insurgency, particularly in Zacatlan and San Francisco Ixtacamastitlan,
towns which offered sanctuary to the insurgents, Mariano Aldama and Jose
Francisco Osornoin 1813-1814 (Hamnett, 1986:138-142,171; Thomson,
1989: 40-42). In Zacatlan and Tetela, this Liberal and praetorian tradition
was reinforced by the participation of the National Guard batallion of those
districts in the patriotic resistance to the American invasion in 1847
(Galindo y Galindo, 1904-1906). The region's Liberal disposition con-
tinued throughout the Three Years War, the European Intervention and the
insurrections of the Restored Republic. During the Porfiriato, Methodism
proved attractive to many Liberal families in Zacatlan, now chafing under the
oppressive conditions of renewed clericism and political centralism (Bastian,
1988a: 487). With the Revolution of 1910, Zacatlan was the first town in the
Sierra to take to arms, providing steadfast support for the Conventionists
through until 1916.
Although it was the f ormation of the National Guard during the American
War which, above all, facilitated the resurgence of Liberalism in the Puebla
Sierra, at first, Liberal leaders possessed a civilian and secularising, more
than a praetorian, vision of district administration. Well before the collapse
of the Santa Anna regime in 1855, several National Guard officers already
occupied prominent posts?as prefects and sub-prefects?in the district
administration of Zacatlan and Tetela. The Reform provided a means by
which these leaders, on behalf of the mestizo population from which they had
sprung, could increase administrative and economic control over their

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districts. At first, the intention was to disturb the majority In

as little as possible and merely to displace the established
families and clergy who traditionally had possessed an edge
over Indians (through personal services). Thus, following the R
Ayutla, mestizo National Guard commanders in Zacatl
Zacapoaxtla at first kept a cautious distance from a local I
which had received the backing of Alvarez. Indeed, they
pursuit both of Indians supporting the Conservative rebell
Haro y Tamariz, under the Plan de Zacapoaxtla of Decembe
the 'Alvarista' 'indios cuatecomacos' who had rebelled in Zac
same month. Only with the outbreak of the Three Years W
Liberal leaders?Juan Nepomuceno Mendez, Juan Crisos
Ramon Marquez Galindo, Lauro Luna, Pilar Rivera, Franci
etc?begin to mobilise and arm the Indian population. At first,
more from the fear that Conservatives would organise Indians i
than out of any idealistic or democratic sentiments.
The circumstances of war changed what was initially a re
gency measure into firm alliances between Liberal leaders and
communities which participated actively in the National G
over a protracted period?almost a quarter of a century?eve
unbreakable ties of loyalty and friendship, cemented by
between mestizo and Indian National Guard commanders. M
extraordinary conditions of war enabled Liberal reforms to be
in peace-time might have been subverted, such as the abolition
services, the expulsion of priests, the subdivision of common
community members, rather than outsiders. Contractual relat
military leaders and their armed following had to be frequently
at each crisis, election and insurrection. The Liberal caciquismo
Sierra thus evolved from a curious amalgam mestizo and I
opportunism.
Was the political success of the martial, largely mestizo, Liberal leadership
in the Puebla Sierra, accompanied by widespread diffusion of popular
Liberal sentiment among the Indian population? Or was it simply that these
leaders had succeeded in devising a reform strategy which minimised the
disruption to Indian villages, rather than antagonising them, as was so often
the case elsewhere in Mexico? Here we must be careful to avoid falling into
too simplistic a dualism which posits separate Indian and non-Indian worlds
in the Sierra regions of Mexico during the mid-nineteenth century. It has
become clear from recent research (Pastor, Carmagnani, Rus, Hamnett,
Meyer, etc.) that the roots of much of Mexico's social and political unrest,
from the 1830s until the 1890s, lay in the major rearrangement in the
relations between Indians and non-Indians in the remoter Sierra regions of
the centre and south of the country. This 'second conquest of the ethnic
groups' (if we take Carmagnani's rather too absolute version of this process)
was a consequence of a series of secular developments: white and mestizo
immigration from the plateaus into the Sierras from the eighteenth century,
the introduction of cash crops (particularly tobacco, sugar and coffee) during
the first half of the nineteenth century, the development of the aguardiente

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and mining industries, the establishment of constitution

place of formerly autonomous Indian republics, etc.
In the light of these developments, it is clearly import
between different Liberal Reform packages, designed to
socio-ethnic constituencies, which were becoming incr
intertwined. Very crudely, a core Liberal constituency
secular, creole-mestizo, restless, mobile, individualistic, a
not necessarily anti-catholic), alert to economic opport
clients of this core constituency?largely Indian and mest
be weaned over to the Liberal camp with offers of L
(freedom from compulsory services, forced recruitment,
dues, etc). We should beware, however, of assuming passivit
these clients, which the model of patronage and clientel
Clients possessed varying degrees of autonomy and ass
Puebla Sierra, the cases of Xochiapulco and Cuetzalan, t
which lent consistent military and fiscal support to th
illustrate two different kinds of Liberal clientelism am
population.
The creation of a Liberal military colony to the south-west of the district
capital of Zacapoaxtla during the Three Years War, populated almost wholly
by Nahua peasants, illustrates the capacity ofthe Liberal leadership substan?
tially to reorganise Indian society according to a Liberal masterplan.
Xochiapulco has its origins in 1855 in an insurrection of Indian barrios sub?
ject to the town of Zacapoaxtla, with the express approval of Alvarez, who
had promised them land and municipal autonomy, during the Revolution of
Ayutla. The inhabitants of these rebel barrios, known as los indios
cuatecomacos' (after the Cuatecomaco ridge on which they are situated)
participated prominently on the Constitutionalist side in the Three Years
War, receiving in reward the land of two bankrupt cereal and grazing
haciendas, municipal rights and the long-sought autonomy from Zaca?
poaxtla. On lands of their former 'seiiores', the 'indios cuatecomacos'
founded the town of Xochiapulco, or Villa del Cinco de Mayo, in honour of
their participation in the Mexican victory over the French at Puebla on 5 May
1862. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Xochiapulco became
a kind of Liberal 'model municipality', a military colony where no member of
the Catholic clergy was permitted to tread, where a Methodist ministry was
welcomed in 1873, where a bizarre Indian version of Liberal masonry
flourished, where Liberal experiments in pedagogy were followed nationally,
and where citizens who retained the rMes they had stripped from their
Austrian enemies lived according to ordinances of the National Guard until
returning to fray in 1911.
The leader of the 'barrios cuatecomacos' in 1854-1855 was a Nahua
Indian called Jose Manuel Lucas. Upon his death in 1857, his son, Juan
Francisco, assumed command. Juan Francisco Lucas soon became an
indispensable figure in the military organisation ofthe entire southern Sierra
during the Three Years War and the French Intervention. In 1865 Porfirio
Diaz promoted him to the rank of Brigade General and he remained on the
army list until his death in 1917. His influence spread far beyond

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Zacapoaxtla to every district of the Puebla Sierra, as

hacienda zone of the plateau (Zautla, San Juan de los L
national fame rested on his effective command of the Nati
patriotic campaigns against the French and Austrians and
tions, earning a reputation for invincibility. Regional
figure in supporting the insurrectionary and electoral st
Juan Nepomuceno Mendez, leader of the Montafia par
influence and authority, however, lay in his energetic inv
conditions of service for his largely Indian soldiery whic
National Guard ordinances: local commanders, volun
regular pay, no corporal punishment, no personal service
exemptions when on active service, and, above all, ens
service beyond the Sierra was kept to a minimum. He als
subdivision of communal lands in many Indian communit
community members' claims were respected and tho
strained. The Indians of the Sierra grew to regard Gen
Lucas as the guarantor of their rights vis-d-vis the Liber
and Thomson, 1987; Sanchez, 1984).
Cuetzalan's relationship with the Liberal state was diffe
Xochiapulco. Xochiapulco is situated on the southern e
tierra fria. Its population had for generations experie
political and economic status in squatter barrios situated
obliged to labour seasonally on the cereal haciendas of th
livestock grazing, trade and domestic industry. The r
cuatecomacos' for their support for the Liberal cause i
wars was the granting of a far greater degree of eco
autonomy compared to what they had known befor
Ayutla. Cuetzalan, in contrast, is a remote municipality in
the northern Sierra. Throughout the colonial period, unt
nineteenth century, the Nahua of Cuetzalan had enj
economic and political autonomy. What the Nahua of Cue
to preserve this autonomy and to reverse a pattern of ec
encroachment by non-Indians which had been gai
Independence. Their demands upon the Liberal state
altogether different from those of Xochiapulco. The natur
is illustrated by the case of Francisco Agustih Dieguill
Guard commander from Cuetzalan. His career shows how two Indian
communities, San Francisco Cuetzalan and San Andres Tzicuilan, looked
very carefully at what the Reform had to offer, deciding to give the Liberals
their military support in exchange for the enforcement of rights guaranteed
by the Constitution of 1857.
'Pala' Agustin organised a company of 100 or so Nahua Indian guardsmen
from Cuetzalan and its subject barrio, San Andres Tzicuilan, probably
towards the end of the Three Years War. He is first mentioned in the list of
National Guard officers who fought under the orders of General Miguel
Negrete and Juan Nepomuceno Mendez at the Mexican victory over the
French expeditionary force on 5 May 1862. Throughout the Intervention, his
company served Colonel Jose Maria Maldonado, the constitutionalist

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commander in the Sierra, while the two communities from wh

pany had been recruited supplied the Republican war effor
food. Tala' Agustin was present at the battle of 2 April 186
Austrian garrison fell to the Constitutionalists. In return for
during the Intervention, the Indians of Cuetzalan and Tzi
support from Maldonado in their attempts to limit encroac
Indian cattle dealers upon the Cuetzalan and Tzicuilan's com
radical liberal discourse of Tzicuilan's Indian leaders in 1862 is evident in
their petition to Maldonado denouncing this encroachment.
... you are able to understand and share our sufferings for your ideas are
known to be in the highest sense liberal, and you must therefore indis-
pensably be inclined to take the side of the weak and especially the
Indian race which always suffers from its dominators, who are called
capitalistas, as though the times of feudalismo had not passed ... you
will be able to find the remedy, for it is known that Justice and equity are
what inform all your actions.4
With the restoration of the Constitutional order in 1867, Francisco

Agustin's patrons in the Sierra National Guard found themselves excluded
from office as a consequence of Juarez's preference for lawyers from the
plateau in the Puebla state governorship, over the more independent-minded
soldiers from the Sierra. Francisco Agustin loyally participated with his
cuetzalteco militia in two major insurrections led by Generals Juan N.
Mendez and Juan Francisco Lucas against the state government, in Diaz's
Rebellion of La Noria and in the victorious Rebellion of Tuxtepec. Also, on a
different front, between January 1868 and June 1870, Francisco Agustin led
a protracted local rebellion against the non-Indian families settled in the
municipality of Cuetzalan with the aim of limiting their claims upon village
commons during the period of common land adjudication. The clearest state-
ment of Francisco Agustin's broader objectives, as well as an explanation for
his willingness to render military tribute to the Liberal cause for so long, can
be found in two petitions submitted to General Juan N. Mendez in February
and March 1877, when the Tetela caudillo briefly occupied the interim
presidency of the Federation.
The first of these was concerned principally with ensuring the fulfillment of
a promise made by Mendez and Lucas to Francisco Agustin before the
Tuxtepec revolt that land in Cuetzalan which had been illegally denounced
and claimed by outsiders should be returned to the community. Additionally,
Francisco Agustin pleaded that the full compliment of 100 National Guard
under his command be retained, emphasising the sacrifices of his men during
successive campaigns in defence of the principles of the Constitution:
When with arms at hand we have contributed to the social and political
regeneration of our country, we have always believed that our toils
would be duly attended to, and moreover, when on various occasions we
have seen the corpses of our brothers on the battlefield, we have
thought, with hand upon chest, that our sacrifice would not be futile; that
is why today, when at last the brilliant torch of regeneration shines

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radiantly, we desire no longer the theory, but to

practical truths_5
The second petition, signed by Francisco Agustin and 50
Indians, judging from the absence of surnames), con
plea for an end to the abuses committed by the authori
razon upon the Indian population, again alluding to 'o
for which we have shed blood on the battlefield...'. The
reintroduction of compulsory services, arbitrary impri
in kind (aguardiente) rather than in cash. They als
services exacted by parish priests, who obliged me
sacristans and bellringers and widows, with their childr
domestic services in the priest's household. Finally, the
abuses of the adjudicators of common land who were ch
amounts for processing denuncias of plots, often va
pesos when the law forbade any charge for adjudication
than 200 pesos. The petition ended with a list of the law
the clergy were breaking, with a further reminder of h
earned, through military service and the loss of blood, th
grievances, 'having contributed to the reestablishm
observance of our carta magna\ appealing finally t
known concern for the welfare of the Indian, 'trusting in
you have always shown towards the indigenous class.. .'.
Francisco Agustin was elected Presidente Municipal of
the summit of his career. From this position he was able
Cuetzalan's non-Indians for establishing a fundo leg
cabecera, seen as a necessary precondition for any s
colonisation in the municipality.7 After stepping down
presidency in 1884 (and with his patron, Juan N. Mend
Puebla state governorship?and from the state), Francisc
swiftly declined. By the late 1880s, his guard unit had
fundo legal had been established and gente de razon
government. Francisco Agustin's last appeared in Cuetza
of Indian "pelatones" armed with machetes and staff
guard, taking control ofthe municipal palace and shouti
de Razon!'. He was arrested and sent to Puebla for trial.
How many such National Guard commanders as
Dieguillo were there in Mexico during the 1860s and 187
unique? And the Nahua of Cuetzalan were surely no
rights enshrined in the Constitution of 1857?inciden
Nahuatl in Puebla?so seriously?8 And surely, the arch
must be littered with evidence for the kind contract wh
made with Mendez and Lucas before going to fight for
rebellion of Tuxtepec?9 Diaz tells us as much in a let
Martinez, Puebla state governor, in 1894 (the year o
last uprising):
Never will I recommend to you too much that you pay
tion to the consideration which Indians deserve, for t

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cannon fodder on which we have based our efforts to change

and political situation of the country ... With that we have ar
plausible victory which peacefully is being converted into a d
ambitions of speculators to whom the nation owes not s
breath (Quoted in Stevens, 1982:162).
The letter demonstrates Diaz's awareness of the gulf which

between the priorities of the regime and the nature of the pop
which had brought him to power.
CONCLUSION
I have attempted to demonstrate that the Mexican Reform was mor

successful exercise in state-building, carried through by a small,
minded Liberal elite of Hustres'. It also enjoyed widespread popular
Indeed, if the accession of Diaz to power in 1876 is taken as the culmin
of the Reform, rather than its atrophy (as both Reyes Heroles an
Villegas argue), it could be said that the most distinctive feature
Reform?at this stage?was its popular rather than elite character (a
and Ballard Perry would have it). The victory of Alvarez in 1855; of Oc
and Gonzalez Ortega in 1861; of Escobedo, Diaz and Juarez in 1
Diazin 1876: none would have beenpossible without awidebasis of
support.
Of course, the popularity of these figures has never been in dispute. A
powerful popular mythology around many of Mexico's nineteenth-century
Liberal leaders still survives. The question is whether Liberalism, a doctrine
embracing a set of social and political ideals, codified in the Constitution of
1857, enjoyed widespread popular diffusion, legitimacy, even popularity.
The examples I have given show that elements of the Liberal programme
were attractive to Indian communities in Guerrero, southern and northern
Jalisco, in Morelos and southern Puebla, in the Sierra de Ixtlan in Oaxaca and
the Puebla Sierra. Juan Francisco Lucas became a paragon of Mexican
liberalism, remaining a popular figure but without sacrificing his close friend-
ship with Porfirio Diaz until the last moments of his regime. Francisco
Agustih may have died labelled a bandit. But for much of his active life, he
considered himself and his following to be footsoldiers of the Liberal cause.
He showed in his petitions and his actions a familiarity with the small print of
the liberal constitutionalism he claimed to be defending. Moreover, Captain
Francisco Agustin Dieguillo was regarded by the General Mendez and the
leaders of the Liberal Party of the Sierra as an entirely reliable party member,
who could be depended upon to deliver military support or votes from
Cuetzalan when called upon.
There must have been hundreds of other, similarly energetic, village
National Guard commanders upon whom regional caudillos and caciques
could rely for support. Nahua Cuetzalan was surely not unique in its adhesion
to the Liberal cause? Indian communities elsewhere must also have made the
leap into the nineteenth century, to embrace selectively its ideas. But until
more research is done on the regional and local impact of the Reform, these

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questions will remain unanswered. Historians must shift

federal and state capitals, to villages and small town
lived, where the Reform had its origins, wherein lay its
from where a popular Liberalism was destined to r
Historians should also beware of convenient, yet genera
logical dualisms and generahsations: modern versus
versus periphery, urban versus folk, formal and instit
istic and personal, ideas versus beliefs, the associatio
'otherness', illiteracy with ignorance and incomprehens
with atheism. As the example of Francisco Agustin d
orthodox Liberalism, emphasising equality before th
church and state, the individual rights of citizen-soldie
the most remote and culturally 'other' of places.
What, then, in practical terms, can historians do to b
standing of political culture beyond that of the elites an
step must be to move away from the tendency to se
Mexican history as primarily a series of competitions fo
sending ripples down the hierarchy of patronage from
mentioned earlier, Daniel Cosio Villegas's otherwise
Restaurada. Vida Politica suffers from this bias toward
lesser extent, does Sinkin's Mexican Reform. In their vie
and Lerdo regimes, Mexico witnessed the maturation of
ised exercise in state-building, which gradually extende
residual, traditional caudillismo in the provinces. Di
under the heading of traditional, so he is treated as a r
'Bonapartist' figure who shps into power in 1877, almos
This centralist bias has a cramping effect upon region
The only way really to understand Juarez and Diaz is to
context of Oaxaca state politics, as Hamnett's recen
revealing (Hamnett, 1991). What historians must do,
national history from the local and regional, to the natio
it possible to see how local aspirations tallied with state
tions, and to understand the nature of the resulting com
The case of Francisco Agustin illustrates some of
tackling national history from the bottom up. First, th
ment itself shows how local power in Cuetzalan was eng
process of negotiation or conflict with other local
Agustin's influence extended over only two of Cuetzalan
the Conservative district authorities in Zacapoaxtla
cacicazgo of Mendez and Lucas in neighbouring Tet
government and with the federal power (often present
form of a division of the Ejercito de Oriente). Secondly
movement illustrates, in very graphic and precise term
Reform programme Indian communities were prepa
fight to defend (their National Guard company, freedom
services) and which they opposed (the disamortisatio
Thirdly, the example of Francisco Agustin illustrates how
same events could differ widely. From the perspective

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Mexico City or Puebla, Francisco Agustin was a violent and

Indian leader opposed to the disamortisation of common lan
igniting a caste war. Between 1868 and 1871 many ofhisfell
arrested and sent to Yucatan to serve out their sentences. In thei
tion to defeat Francisco Agustin and to undermine M
cacicazgo, the state government chose to overlook Zaca
servatism and treacherous collaboration with the Intervention,
district capital all the help it needed against troublesome Tetela
and Cuetzalan. From the perspective ofthe regional opposition t
Lerdo (Porfirio Diaz in Tlacotalpan, and Juan N. Mend
Francisco Lucas in Tetela and Xochiapulco), Zacapoaxtla was
nest of conservatism with which they had repeatedly clashe
Tamariz's Plan de Zacapoaxtla in 1855. By contrast, Francis
Cuetzalan was looked upon affectionately by Diaz and Men
viding loyal and consistent support for the patriotic cause until
the 'Regeneration' thereafter.
The final, and perhaps the most valuable lesson drawn fro
Francisco Agustin, is what it tells us about the travails of t
Lerdo regimes and Porfirio Diaz's rise to power. In their pact
Liberal state, the Indians of Cuetzalan were asked in Decem
sacrifice the control they had exercised over their commo
immemorial. This proved too much to stomach and they re
January 1868 and July 1870. Defeated on the issue of common
back upon the defence of liberal constitutional rights which
allow them a degree of autonomy: a National Guard compan
by their own officers, freedom from personal services to t
private citizens, and a popularly elected council. Having succe
ing up the village commons by 1872, the state government atte
arm the Sierra and reintroduce personal services. As a
Francisco Agustin remained a fervent believer in the need for t
tion of Liberalism and fought for Diaz at Tecoac. Thus, at least
Sierra, the 'Regeneration' had popular, Liberal roots. Surely, thi
elsewhere too?
NOTES
1. Charles Hale has recently argued that Liberalism remained the ideological co
throughout the age of 'scientific politics" during the Diaz regime, opposing the view t
Porfiriato represented any departure from Mexico's Liberal tradition. See Hale (19
also Hale (1986: 51-55).
2. The execution of rebel leaders, a common procedure during the Insurgency, seems t
been less commonly practiced during the 1820s and 1830s. By the 1840s, however, su
executions became common in the suppression of movements in southern Mexico; se
OrtizEscamilla(1988).
3. For the influence of Cochin (1925), Furet (1980) and Agulhon (1968, 1979) upon r
Mexican historiography, inspiring research upon 'new coHectivities, and 'new cir
political sociability' (what Bastian has recently called 'una revolution societaria'); see B
(1988b), Guerra(1985, 1988) and Thomson (1990).
4. Archivo Municipal de Zacapoaxtla (AMZ) 1863, Expediente No. 34, 28 April 186
Jose Francisco de los Santos, Alcaldes, and 14 'alcaldes pasados', Tzicuilan, to Jose
Maldonado, Zacapoaxtla.

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290 BULLETINOF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH
5. AMZ, February 1877, Expediente relativo d un ocurso presentado an

Union por el C. Francisco A. Dieguillo y otros vecinos de Cuetzalan, pidie
los terrenos que algunos C. C se han adjudicado.
6. AMZ, 1877 Expediente No. 27, Expediente relativo d un ocurso qu
nacionales de este distrito pesentaron ante elPresidente interino de la rep
ciertos abusos que dicen se cometan con la clase indigena por estas autori
the peonage debate, there has been very little scholarly interest in the imp
upon compulsory personal services. As with so many subjects, Moises Go
made a pioneering start (Gonzalez, 1977-1978).
7. Most municipal cabeceras would be expected to possess a fundo legal
colonial period. Cuetzalan, for some unknown reason, did not. Preventing
of ?i fundo legal was one ofthe principal strategies of Cuetzalan's Indians
Indian immigration. The standard size of a fundo legal was '500 or 6
towards each of the four cardinal points from the church or the principal s
(Knowlton, 1978-1979:27).
8. Guerra mentions the translation of the Constirution into Nahuatl in Pue
1986: 29).
9. For instance, 'Exposicion que los representates de varios pueblos de indigenas hacen ante el
supremo magistrado de la Nacion', ElHijo del Trabajo, II, No. 68,11 November 1877, cited
in Garcia Cantii (1969:72,437).
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