Week 8: Signs of Crisis in a Gilded Age Research Paper

Source 1: Meyers, William K. “Pancho Villa and the Multinationals: U.S. Mining Interests in Villista Mexico, 1913-15” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1991), pp. 339-336

Link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/157028

The career of Pancho Villa began in during the two-pronged revolution to overthrow Porfirio Diaz, with him and his Norteño cavalry descending from the arid north and Emiliano Zapata coming up from the verdent south with an army of campesinos, both intending to storm Mexico City. With the ultimate failure of this revolution culminating in the 1913 assassination of the new president Francisco Madero, Pancho Villa again took to the field to rid his region of Mexican governments who would allow their country to be sold piecemeal to foreign business interests. But, despite this attitude being the bedrock of the Villista movement, strategic concessions had to be made during the course of the war to ensure the day-to-day operation of certain economic activities that required specially trained personnel like mining.

Pancho Villa’s revolutionary activity proceeded, necessarily by his region’s proximity to the border, only with tacit American support for his actions. The balance was particularly in favor of the Americans when it came to heavy industry, as Americans had built most of Mexico’s railways and operated almost all of their mineshafts. When Villa captured several significant American-run shafts and their respective towns, he found it difficult to keep the mines in operation without allowing the Americans to have some degree of control over the external affairs of the mine’s operation. This clearly contradicted the spirit of the revolution, but Villa had to make the choice of all revolutionaries, between ideological purity and the pragmatic success of his movement.

Mining’s fortunes had always determined the overall economic health of Mexico’s north, as it provided jobs and provided a reliable means of foreign exchange. But, for the revolutionary movement, only the successful operation of the mines and export of their ore meant more revenue to continue fighting. For Villa to succeed in the overall struggle against foreign firms controlling the fate of Mexico, he needed to curry their favor while simultaneously maintaining a consistent, revolutionary popular platform for his troops. This meant convincing his thousands of partisans to help restore railroad service to these mines so that they could continue their export.

In the end, the situation or the Villistas was never meant to last, as the Constitutional government fell into disunity and civil war and Villa’s forces dissolved in the fighting. But on a more basic level, global mineral prices were at their lowest point in decades during 1913 and even in the absence of revolutionary turmoil, most firms were liquidating their investments in Mexican mining anyway. In the end, it was a lot of compromise and bloodshed that begat more compromise and bloodshed, while the American companies were subsidized by the Villista revolution during a time when, as a result of market forces, they would have ordinarily been tempted to abandon their investments.

Source 2: Gilbert, Dennis. “Emiliano Zapata: Textbook Hero” Mexican Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 2003), pp. 127 – 159

Link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/msem.2003.19.1.127

Emiliano Zapata is an official national hero of Mexico, by an act of Mexican congress that mandated his name be enshrined in gold script along the Wall of Honor in the legislature building. April 10, the day of his death, is considered a statutory “Day of National Mourning” during which speeches and memorials are commonplace public spectacles. There are more streets that bear his name than all of his more successful contemporaries (Villa, Madero, etc.) combined. The songs, books, poems, odes, articles, ceremonies and other homages to his legacy are too voluminous to number, including the largest equestrian statue in Latin America. At the time of his death in 1919, nobody would have suspected that he might have such a mythic status. He was known as the “Atilla of the South” in the halls of government, vilified in the public press throughout his life, and on top of all of that had been on a steady losing streak between 1915 and his death. What happened to promote him from a reviled rural terrorist to the most celebrated revolutionary hero of Mexico’s history?

The important background for the discussion of Zapata and the resurrection of his legacy is the relationship of the heavily Latinized elite to those who are more visibly Aboriginal. The literature and discourse of the time, generally penned by the elite, expressed disgust and fear at the primitive, provincial ways of “the Indian” and devote their intellectual energy to trying to find a way to integrate them into “civilized life.” These biases drastically affected the way Zapata’s contemporaries, who dismissed his political mission because they believed that he wasn’t capable, as an “Indian”, of having anything serious political vision outside of his immediate grievances. Despite his ignominy, he textbook history would redeem him in the eyes of common students by giving his life a symbolic importance in the overall narrative of Mexican history as it is taught.

The mood that emerged from the decade of chaos and bloodshed that was the Mexican Civil War and the 8 years of lesser, but nonetheless profound, political unrest was one that was looking for a way to understand the last 20 years of its history. Public school textbooks, while not a valuable historical resource in the way their editors intended, give us insights into the process by which Zapata became a crucial figure in understanding the goals of the initial revolution and the roles of others within the revolutionary story.

The common explanation of Zapata in a textbook history is as follows: the charismatic leader of a peasant army, Emiliano Zapata initially rose against Porfirio Diaz (despot) in support of Francisco Madero (democrat), only to have his hopes dashed on the rocks by Victoriano Huerta’s (traitor) coup that reignited the civil war. The similarities to America’s national mythology (democratic rebellion against a foreign-backed autocracy that risked betrayal [Benedict Arnold and the British Loyalist faction]) are worth noting, as the struggle for Latin American national identity has often been contrasted with the constancy of America’s national mythos. Zapata gave Mexico a figure to organize their national consciousness around, despite the fact that the elite Mexicans of his era would have been violently offended to have him representing their society’s values. Over time he was embellished by illustrators to have his now iconic oversized moustache and his dual bandoliers and became the symbol of the revival in agrarian social consciousness during the 1950s.

Populism and Publicity: Week 10 Reading

20th century modernity was a novel experience for every level of society, accompanied with new tools to facilitate connection to the now truly massive urban populations by political leaders. Previously, a political speech was made to a small assembled group on topics that were of interest and relevance to the specific community where the speech was being made. This added a layer of intimacy to politics that soon became lost in the generalized speeches broadcast to millions simultaneously via radio or played over loudspeakers to thousands in a densely packed city square. The people who took advantage of these innovations and the general sense of disorientation at the beginning of the century were frequently called populists by their detractors to try and highlight a vagueness that was a result of their new mass-media vehicles rather than any personal lack of ideological clarity. Once these populists came into power, they frequently nationalized broadcasting facilities as a way of trying to harness mass media as a tool of enforcing the state's cultural agenda, not just publicizing a political campaign.

Radio and mass media also helped construct a new codex of national identity that had nothing to do with one's class background or ethnicity through the broadcasting of songs and stories that became treasured cultural items for people across all sections of society. This new collective identity was usually based on an appeal to the paradoxical notion of belonging to a "community" made up of millions of simultaneous listeners as well as the broader national community (if the program was political in nature), which produced some of the highly emotional but irrational rhetoric associated with populism. At its root, populism feeds on the insecurity and transience of modern life that causes a citizen to reach out for anything that might satisfy the basic human instinct for belonging, even if it is as simple as listening to a song and knowing that your neighbour could sing along. Unsurprisingly, the people who emerged as major demagogues in Latin America during the advent of radio were people who could effectively capture this longing for a sense of community. Vargas in Brazil was unable to effectively cater to the needs of the people once he was in power, but Juan Peron had captured their attention even early in his career and knew how to effectively conduct his public relations as he ascended to the offices of power.

North America and Neo-Colonialism: Week 9 Reading

While the term neo-colonialism is usually applied to the period after 1960, when the former metropoles of European imperialism created policies that sought to economically subvert their former colonial subjects in Africa and Asia, the situation of Latin America during the period of the United States' predations was very similar. Although the United States did not seek to establish formal colonies, their form of land dispossession mirrors the policies of the French as they gradually chewed away at states like Algeria and Lebanon to create zones of entirely French-owned arable land and mineral deposits. Areas of Spanish colonization in the Western Hemisphere were always seen as targets of invasion and subversion. Approximately one third of the territory of the modern United States was at one point under the dominion of the Spanish Empire and then independent Mexico before being seized through a combination of illegal settlement and armed conquest. The seizure of Texas and the Southwest were culminations of the pernicious, deeply violent sentiment among Americans known as "Manifest Destiny" that had been honed in their protracted campaign of genocide against the Aboriginal groups caught within their progressively expanding boundaries.

Even after the United States had achieved its transcontinental ambitions, the desire for territory was still a driving principle of its foreign policy. Under the auspice of expelling imperial influence from the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. conquered all the remaining Spanish territory in the Caribbean and the Pacific and claimed the acquired lands for themselves at the conclusion of the war. Once they had relatively uncontested dominion over Latin America, the U.S. began to protect regimes that would embrace heavily imbalanced export policies and topple those that dared to try and have domestic policies that weren't beneficial to American trade. This policy of low-frequency military intervention coupled with complete economic domination during peacetime laid the foundations for the distinct flavour of American imperialism that would shape the landscape of the post-WWII world. The United Fruit Company became a term synonymous with American hegemony for many Latin American revolutionaries and dissidents of the 20th century because of its role as a stay-behind enforcer of the American economic agenda. The mercantile forces that governed the UFCO became ever-richer off of the exploitation of Latin American land and labor, thus increasing their capacity to enforce and expand their influence. While the defining impetus of revolution in Latin America during the 19th century was overt European colonialism, the character of the 20th century struggle was clearly defined by resisting American economic domination.

Revolution and Reaction: Week 8 Reading

The 1910 revolution in Mexico was an unavoidable reaction by peasants and the urban poor to the program of agricultural displacement and growth of an industrial proletarian culture brought on by the Export Boom and the accompanying dislocation felt by most levels of society who did not enjoy the material benefits of international trade. After implementing his program of free trade and modernization so thoroughly hailed by observers in the United States, Mexico's seven-term president Porfirio Diaz lit the fuse of revolt by suggesting the possibility of open elections when for so long he had refused to recognize the validity of lower-class discontent with his vision of modernity. Even if he hadn't dangled the temptation of a new government before their eyes, the industrial process inevitably leads to the generation of class-consciousness in the fluid spaces of factory floors as former divisions of race and religion dissolve in the face of their shared productive capacity. This alone had the potential to foment revolutionary discord within major cities, which historically have been the seat of formal governance and are the ideal arena for a campaign of radical reform. While typically revolutions are urban affairs, with the countryside serving as a base for counter-revolution, Diaz's policies of land privatization had created a fierce opposition in the agricultural communities of Mexico's hinterland. This mixture of cross-sectional discontentment with the deferred promise of reform created an explosive mixture that ultimately resulted in the occupation of Mexico City and much jubilation by the victorious militants.

Unfortunately the Mexican Revolution fell prey to the classic predator of successful revolutions, the reactionary response from elements of the old regime mixed with members of the population who disagreed with the aims of said revolution. These counter-revolutionary elements tend to be the wealthiest members of society, so they are not bound by the recurring need to bring in an income to sustain themselves. This was the stumbling block of the Zapatistas and the rural element of the Villistas, who had to abandon their occupation of Mexico City and return to their villages in order to preserve their local power blocs, allowing the counter-revolutionary liberal elements of the major cities the time and space to organize against the perceived violation of their sanctified bastions of privilege and class by mixed-blood bandits and natives. And ultimately, the tools that industrialism offers to the managerial classes (railroads, telegraphs, machine guns, etc.) make dominion over large territories by small groups of urban elite all the more defensible against revolutionary discontent.

Exports and Exploitation: Week 7 Reading

The export industry has been the driving force of Latin American "prosperity" since the middle of the 19th century, prosperity here meaning the international sale of natural resources such that those elites involved in trade reap a windfall profit. Modern-day conflicts between different groups that previously lived in separate spheres are driven by the expanding frontiers of industry and state power. The drive to impose order on the less controllable hinterland communities was meant to bolster state power for the sake of effective centralized rule, but also to demonstrate a change from the chaotic, violent days of the revolutions, when the international community ignored Latin America as a trade destination. Eventually, this imposition of order created the kind of tariff income that allowed the state to build up its infrastructure immensely. However, even these public works projects become a tool of the industrial nation-state's disruption of communities that reject the state, as evidenced by the clashes between Amazonian tribes in the state of Para in Brazil and state worker crews over the potential construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.

The innovation of photography also lent itself to the nation-state project, as it purports to show reality while in fact it distorts reality to reflect the intention of the photographer or whoever might publish the prints. This was especially prevalent when the early styles of photography were meant to be images that documented "types" of people according to essentialist principles of race and class. Photographing scenes of slavery and describing it as a diminishing phenomenon and capturing the images of indigenous people dressed in European style both serve to advance the idea of ever-advancing progress as a result of industrialization and nation-state expansion. This is reminiscent of Foucalt's "knowledge is power" theory, which states that any knowledge, however idealistically sought, that helps advance the material dispossession of colonized spaces, is a tool that ultimately aids the colonizer.

I find myself frustrated with Dawson's refusal to engage with some of the valid critiques of this period's imbalanced trade policies and how the material gains from these export trades cemented the inequities they created through spectacle and intimidation. He rejects criticism surrounding Milton Friedman without even bothering to elaborate upon how Friedman's theories would be forcibly incorporated into the economic policies of Argentina, Chile and other nations via U.S.-backed military coups in the late 20th century, which I consider a valuable insight into ways that external pressures affect Latin America's sustained dependence on exports.

Citizens and Chattel: Week 6 Reading

I appreciate that Dawson doesn't expend any intellectual energy pretending that principles enshrined in the first drafts of the Atlantic colonial nations' various bills of rights bore any resemblance to modern multicultural humanism. Rights were ascribed to a select portion of males belonging to the dominant Spanish culture group and those rights included dominion over those people within society whose utter subjugation was deemed necessary for the prosperity of the nation as a whole. The concept of citizenship in the early 19th century and prior doesn't have the universal aspect we think of today. Being born within the political boundaries of these nations did not entitle you to the privileges and freedoms of citizenship enumerated in these charters automatically, but was seen by the authors as a responsibility of the "civilized" castes and a reward bestowed upon members of the underclass for loyalty and cultural conversion. These initial declarations of rights and freedoms are not the proud moments for human advancement that they pretend to be, but they represent a symbolically important initial step along the long road to embracing egalitarian social values on paper, reducing the coercive measures to control Latin America's native cultures and abolishing the institution of chattel slavery by the end of the 19th century. However, even when the foundational documents and legal codes were slowly altered to include the lower castes, these statements of principle were utterly incapable of curtailing the informal social institutions of hierarchy and the advent of scientific racism to casually justify such practices that persisted through the 20th century.

Many of the racial biases held by the European descendants towards African slaves were blind prejudices based on self-serving metrics of "civilization" and propriety. The paternalistic attitude towards Africans led to many hateful biases, such as the assertion by Raymundo Rodrigues that they are physiologically incapable of understanding monotheism. Views such as Rodrigues' would lead to the logical mentality among Africans that "if I culturally convert to more European values and beliefs I may be made a full citizen", but as illustrated by the horrific proxy hate crime of South America's various "desert conquests" even when those forces within the government seemed to be offering a route for marginalized groups (African slaves, specifically) to gain access to the benefits of citizenship through military service, it turned out to be a twisted scheme to eliminate two groups deemed enemies of the prevailing criollo order at once. Racial identities are always meant to be external labels that, in Latin American and most other contexts, serve as comparative assessments of white supremacy to other groups. If race is engaged on its own terms, even if it is a well-intentioned appeal to the humanity of a certain group, is still participating in a pseudo-scientific value system that places monotheism, industry and murderous cunning as ideals that truly modern humans must embody.

Advocates and Autocrats: Week 5 Reading

The position of caudillo, as Dawson describes, fills in the role traditionally occupied by the King of Spain as an intermediary between local elites and the marginalized groups of country and city. My impression is that a lot of the vitriol against the Unitarians in Esteban Echeverria's story, El Matadero is traditional Spanish colonial class tensions given an ideological paint job. The revolution transitioned Latin America from a dependent colonial society to an independent republic, but failed to address some of the basic inequities that led to revolution in the first place. One major bone of contention in the struggle between the merchant classes and the working class was when the urban intelligentsia attacked the Catholic Church, which is considered by many peasants to be a vital institution of philanthropy in their remote areas without the tax base or government initiative to provide secular public works. The role of the caudillo was to act as an advocate for the disenfranchised masses of the hinterland against the machinations of the perceived power-mongers that lived in the capitals. Unfortunately, demagoguery tends to create corrupt short-run despotisms that pay mere lip service to democratic ideals and, when a demagogue senses his end, he frequently resorts to violent scapegoating and confiscating the property of newly invented "enemies of the state" to salvage the loyalty of his followers. While the caudillo can be a vital bulwark against the exploitation of the peasantry, historical example demonstrates that it is in practice a role dedicated to repressing the natural tendencies of liberal democracy, and thus caudillo governments consistently have a benevolently autocratic flavour.

Echeverria's story contains a myriad of metaphors and allegories that I find satisfactory to demonstrate the biases of the literate intelligentsia of the United Provinces of La Plata during the reign of Juan Manuel Rosas towards him and his Federalist faction. The author clearly has disdain for the role of the caudillo, drawing a not-so-subtle comparison between caudillos and the cattle yard judge. He describes the judge as "an important personage, the caudillo of the butchers, who wields supreme power over this small republic" and describes of his office as, "such a small and shabby building that no one in the corrals would give it any importance but for the association of its name with that of the feared judge." This is meant to assert that that the influence of the caudillo has no legitimacy except through the use of emotional leverage, whether joyful, fearful or wrathful, over the dissatisfied rural population. Echeverria also speaks with disdain for the "hideous, filthy, malodorous, and deformed" urban proletariat, and as the chapter mentions earlier, he belonged to a class of people that found the idea of racial equality abhorrent. His insistent mockery of the Catholic Church is meant to offer a criticism of their complicity with the regime, using superstition to stoke anti-Unitarian sentiment.  It is a well-written and highly symbolic work that is valuable both as art and artifact of the Latin American past.