Janus and the Northern Colossus: Perceptions of the United States in the building of the Mexican nation

Journal of American History

Volumn 86, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 568-599

  Valdés Ugalde, Francisco ^a  

^a UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO   (Mexico)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750879102     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2567046     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. Enrique González Pedrero, País de un solo hombre. El México de Santa Anna, vol. I: La ronda de los contrarias (One man's country. Santa Anna's Mexico, vol. I: The opponents' round) (Mexico City, 1993), 42. All quotations from sources in Spanish have been translated by the author.
2. Enrique González Pedrero, País de un solo hombre. El México de Santa Anna, vol. I: the Opponents' Round) Ibid., 32.
3. "Ayúdame María Santísima, y líbrame de estas gentes." País de un solo hombre. El México de Santa Anna, vol. I: the Opponents' Round) Ibid.
4. País de un solo hombre. El México de Santa Anna, vol. Ibid.
5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Political Writings, ed. and trans. Victor Gourevitch (1762; New York, 1997), 39-152. Constitución Politica de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, arts. 3, 27, 123 (Mexico).
6. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Phillips Bradley, trans. Henry Reeve (1835-1840; 2 vols., New York, 1945), I, 3.
7. Edmundo O'Gorman, Mexico: El trauma de su historia (Mexico: The trauma of its history) (Mexico City, 1977), 7-8.
8. Edmundo O'Gorman, Mexico: El trauma de su historia (Mexico: The trauma of its history) Ibid.
9. The United States of Mexico has been the official name of Mexico since 1824, used only in political and bureaucratic formalities.
10. In recent literature, much informed by pluralistic approaches, more than two Americas tend to appear. Certainly, there is a Francophone America in the North and the Caribbean, a Portuguese one in Brazil, and a Native, or Indian, America in different countries. However, my argument will deal only with the two main European inheritances informing the building up of the main American regions.
11. Charles A. Hale, "The Revival of Political History and the French Revolution in Mexico," in The Global Ramificatiom of the French Revolution, ed. Joseph Klaitis and Michael H. Haltzel (Washington, 1994).
12. David Anthony Brading, The First America (New York, 1991), 1.
13. On the conquest and early colonization of Mexico, see Bartolomé de Las Casas, Historia de las Indias (History of the Indies). Las Casas (1474-1566) was a Dominican missionary and historian and the first and foremost abolitionist of Indian slavery in New Spain.
14. The racial groups were known as "castas." There were 22 different racial combinations with differential legal and social status. Alexander von Humboldt calculated that at the end of the eighteenth century the mestizo population reached 40% and Indians another 40%, whereas peninsulares and Creoles together represented 20%. Alexander Von Humboldt, Ensayo Político sobre el Reino la Nueva España (A political essay on the kingdom of New Spain) (1818; Mexico City, 1941).
15. For more on this problem, see Octavio Paz, Sor Juana; or, The Traps of Faith (Cambridge, Mass., 1988).
16. O'Gorman, Mexico, 20-21.
17. González Pedrero, País de un solo hombre, I, xxv, xxviii.
18. Octavio Paz, One Earth, Four or Five Worlds: Reflections on Contemporary History, trans. Helen R. Lane (San Diego, 1985), 138.
19. See also David A. Brading, The Origins of Mexican Nationalism (Cambridge, Eng., 1985).
20. See John H. Coatsworth, "Obstacles to Economic Growth in Nineteenth-Century Mexico," American Historical Review, 83 (Feb. 1978), 82.
21. John H. Coatsworth, "American Historical Review, Ibid., 91, 92.
22. Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora (New Haven, 1968), 114.
23. Daniel Cosío Villegas, La Constitución de 1857 y sus críticos (The constitution of 1857 and its critics) (Mexico City, 1980), 198. Emphasis added.
24. Rousseau, Social Contract.
25. William H. Riker, Liberalism against Populism: A Confrontation between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice (1982; Prospect Heights, 1988), 14.
26. The Constituent Congress of 1824 considered the problem of religious freedom. The consensus reached was that the Catholic religion would be protected from other confessions. Since most Mexicans were Catholic, participants in the congress thought it was meaningless to "protect" or allow other religions.
27. Literature on Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first permanent United States envoy to Mexico, is abundant, but records and analyses of either the debates over adopting the republican structure of the United States or Mexicans' awareness of the political process in the United States are rare and insufficient.
28. Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (1765-1827), a Dominican monk and intellectual, in 1794, had asserted that the painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe was not a "miracle," but was brought by Thomas the Apostle who had evangelized the Mesoamerican civilization under the form of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. After his first visit to the United States (1816), as part of the insurgents' efforts to get support there, he returned to Mexico falsely declaring that he had been appointed the bishop of Baltimore. On federalism in Mexico, see Charles A. Hale's argument that it came less from the United States experience than from municipal and local government in Spain. The writing of the constitution, however, followed that of the United States Constitution. See Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 193-97.
29. For the statements by Mier and O'Gorman, see González Pedrero, País de un solo hombre, I, 296.
30. Servando Teresa de Mier, Pensamiento político del padre Mier (The political thought of Father Mier), ed. Edmundo O'Gorman (Mexico City, 1945), 127.
31. The Grito de Dolores pronounced by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1810 declaring independence invoked religion and the Crown's sovereignty as major vindications for revolution. Once the movement became a popular upheaval, independence and national sovereignty became central to its program. See Luis Villoro, El proceso ideológico de la revolución de independencia (The ideological process of the revolution of independence) (Mexico City, 1986).
32. Lorenzo de Zavala, Ensayo histórico de las revoluciones de México desde 1808 hasta 1830 (Historical essay on Mexico's revolutions from 1808 until 1830) (1845; Mexico City, 1985), 300-301.
33. José María Luis Mora (1794-1850) was ordained a Catholic priest in 1829. During the war of independence he edited the Semanario Político y Literario. He opposed Iturbide and was prosecuted. He wrote the constitution of the state of Mexico and other laws. Having served the government of Antonio López de Santa Anna, he left government after its defeat in the Texas Revolution and moved to Paris. He lived in Europe the rest of his life. During a resurgence of liberals in government, he was appointed ambassador to Great Britain (1847). Although there is no solid evidence, historians think that he became a Protestant in his later years.
34. Although in the Spanish original the reference is not conclusive, Mora seems to be referring to John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (Boston, 1768).
35. José María Luis Mora "Ensayo filosófico sobre nuestra revolución constitucional" (Philosophical essay on our constitutional revolution), [1830], in Mora, legislador (Mora as legislator), ed. Lilian Briseño and Laura Suárez (Mexico City, 1994), 124-31.
36. David Brading, Los orígines del nacionalismo mexicano (The origins of Mexican nationalism) (Mexico City, 1973), 157;
37. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 195.
38. Villoro, Proceso ideológico de la revolución de independencia, 241.
39. Villoro, Proceso ideológico de la revolución de independencia, Ibid., 249.
40. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 105.
41. José María Luis Mora, México y sus revoluciones (Mexico and its revolutions) (1836; 3 vols., Mexico City, 1977), I, 282-83.
42. This measure also expropriated land owned by Indian communities. Corporate property in land and other feudal privileges were the targets of the liberal reform of Benito Juárez and his group.
43. The only interruption in Porfiro Díaz's regime occurred in 1880 when his friend Manuel González succeeded him. Díaz resumed his presidency in 1884 and remained in power until 1911.
44. Friedrich Karz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution (Chicago, 1981), ch. 1.
45. Liberals' faith in the invisible hand of classical political economy contrasted at times with the defense of state intervention policies by conservatives such as Lucas Alamán. See Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 249.
46. On the roles of liberals and conservatives in setting the economic policy agenda between the 1820s and the 1840s, see Torcuato S. Di Tella, National Popular Politics in Early Independent Mexico, 1820-1847 (Albuquerque, 1996), ch. 7.
47. Indeed, Maximilian refused to dismantle the Juárez government's liberal reforms, aducing that restoring the Catholic Church's property, among other measures, would have obstructed economic progress. This refusal, a sign of his attachment to European standards of "modernity," weakened support for him among conservative constituencies.
48. O'Gorman, México, 37.
49. Gilberto Lopez y Rivas, La guerra del 47 y la resistencia popular a la ocupación (The war of '47 and popular resistance to the occupation) (Mexico City, 1976), 74.
50. Emmanuel Carballo, ed., ¿Qué país es éste! (What country is this?) (Mexico City, 1996), 165.
51. Luis González, "El liberalismo triunfante" (Liberalism triumphant), in Historia general de México (General history of Mexico), ed. Daniel Cosío Villegas (4 vols., Mexico City, 1976), III, 233-35.
52. Luis González, "Historia general de México (General history of Mexico), Ibid., III, 234-35;
53. John H. Coatsworth, "Economic Impact of Railroads in an Underdeveloped Economy," Journal of Economic History, 39 (no. 4, 1979), 939-60.
54. Díaz had a famous expression "ese gallo quiere máiz" (that cock wants corn), referring to his favorite form of cooptation: buying out opposers. On the development of civil organizations, see Francois-Xavier Guerra, Le Mexique. De l'Ancien Régime à la Révolution (Mexico: From the ancien régime to the revolution) (2 vols., Paris, 1985), part 3.
55. José Vasconcelos, Memorias (Memoirs) (2 vols., 1936; Mexico City, 1983), I, 7-11, esp. 10.
56. José Vasconcelos, Memorias (Memoirs) (Ibid., 10.
57. José Vasconcelos, Bolivarismo y Monroísmo (Bolivarism and Monroeism) (Santiago, 1934), 7, 15. Emphasis added.
58. José Vasconcelos, Bolivarismo y Monroísmo (Bolivarism and Monroeism) (Ibid., 12-13, 9-10.
59. "Juárez is the hero of Pan-Americanism. He represents the Anglo-Saxon idea in the Hispanic consciousness." Bolivarismo y Monroísmo (Bolivarism and Monroeism) (Ibid., 15.
60. José Vasconcelos, La raza cósmica (The cosmic race) (Mexico City, 1948), 30-31.
61. Constitución Politica de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, preamble (Mexico).
62. The National Action Party or PAN may be considered in the tradition of Vasconcelos.
63. A caveat is in order. As in any intellectual generation, Octavio Paz does not act alone. Other individuals have made considerable contributions to this problem, struggling to overcome the blindness of nationalistic views. One among them who has done much to shape views of the United States is the novelist and essayist Carlos Fuentes, whose writings are not taken into account here.
64. Octavio Paz, Tiempo nublado (Cloudy weather) (Barcelona, 1983), 159.