Porfirio Diaz got into power in 1876; he reigned 36 years, so long in fact that historically his reign is known as the Porfiriato. His slogan was “Order and Progress”. With the rural police and the federal army, he exercised absolute authority over rebellious “Indian” groups and mestizos (campesinos and workers). Progress for Diaz, meant foreign investment. Diaz had no educational background and took advice from scientists and technocrats. The rail system was largely extended by British engineers, ensuring easier access to agricultural production, for export. Mexican oil was exported too and there was the revival of silver and gold mining, under the concessions granted to US and European prospectors. Industry was thriving, but the money made, only went to very few. Diaz even managed to pay off all the foreign debt.
Porifirio Diaz managed to stay in power by going against the constitution and running for office every four years, while also rigging the elections to make sure he was always in power. He managed to do this eight times.
Eighty percent of the population were bound to haciendas and in the south many were made to cut down mahogany forests for European consumption.
By the first decade of the 20th century, Diaz, now very old, was starting to lose the authority he once had. Anarchist writings by the Flores Magon brothers, banned by the regime, were starting to fuel the middle classes, in particular, to do something about the oppressive regime. Trade unions started to spring up, although strikes were usually crushed by Diaz’s federals. Peasants would watch as more and more haciendas took over. There were four times more haciendas, than free towns at the time. In 1908 Diaz declared he would not run for election in the two years following. After this declaration from 1908-1910 up to five thousand anti-Diaz liberal party clubs started.
Francisco Madero, a man with a wealthy background, campaigned up and down the country. He challenged Diaz, and made it clear how Diaz’s re-election would go against the constitution of 1857. Diaz then changed his mind about being re-elected, put Madero and his voters in prison, and unsurprisingly won again.
However Madero did not give up; he managed to escape prison, and at 6pm on the 20th of November 1910 he issued a call for the revolution to begin. The revolution was mainly led by Venustiano Carranza from Caohuila, Francisco Villa and Pascual from Orozco, bean farmer Alvaro Obregon of Sonora and peasant leader Emiliano Zapata of Morelos. Diaz absolutely terrified left to France in the fear of being killed.
In 1911, Zapata decided to take back village lands from the haciendas and declared a “Plan of Ayala” an agrarian programme and a declaration against anyone who dared try and rule over them. Madero, a timid leader, who backed the idea of private property and didn’t quite grasp the concepts unleashed by the middle class revolution he started, was an easy target for the Porfirian class. US backed General Victoriano Huerta had him shot and soon took over. However Huerta’s army where no match for Obregon’s army, who sweeped down the Pacific coast.
After Huerta fled, Carranza called Zapata, Obregon and Villa, to the capital to join together for a “sovereign revolutionary convention”. He wanted for them to decide who should rule out of all of them. Zapata and Villa, the most revolutionary of the four, decided against this and appointed a type of temporary president for the time being. In December 1914 their peasant armies stormed the National Palace in the capital. Carranza fled, to which Obregon soon followed. Zapata and Villa soon went back to their hometowns.
Confrontations between Obregon and Villa in the years following, left Villa’s troops almost entirely annihilated. Soon Villa had little to do with the revolution any more. This in turn brought Carranza’s attention to Zapata. Zapata managed to avoid Carranza until 1919, when with the promise of obtaining arms was shot by Carranzas troops.
Carranza was the undisputed winner, and in 1917 released a constitution. This constitution consisted of, free public education, workers rights to strike and to work an eight hour day, along with Zapata’s contribution which was , expropriation and redistribution of hacienda lands to the rural poor. However this was soon violated in practise.
At least a million Mexicans died between 1910-1920, in 1915 thousands died because of famine as fields were left fallowed, and many more in 1917 because of influenza. Again the one that most suffered were the “Indian” and mestizo poor.
In 1821 Mexico became independent from Spain. When Porfirio Diaz got to power 1876, all Mexicans were equal under the law. However what this really meant was “the dispossession of peasant communities (many of them Indian) and the creation of a reliable labour force, urban and rural”(Alan Knight,----). Diaz was far more interested in economic development, than equal rights. There was no genuine social reform, yet one of “Indian” oppression. The “Indian” was an anti-national element of Mexico and needed to be assimilated.
Porfirian indigenismo: great interest in “Indians” long dead (19th century Romanticism), not in the living ones except to disperse and proletarize them.
Continuity and discontinuity between “indigenismo” before and after the revolution:
During Porfiriato still strong influence of Spencerian ideas of sociological Darwinism with its racist implications. Already at that time some authors were “evolving” themselves in their views. After the revolution the new views on “indigenismo” were still a creation/construct of the ruling party, not of the “Indians”, although now needed to be used as a base of a national/ist identity of the Mexican revolution, to differentiate it from other revolutions at the time. Indegenismo was incorporated into official ideology. The “Indian” went from being anti-national, to being an essential part of what it meant to be Mexican. Many ethnically indigenous people participated in the revolution, but not as “Indians”, not even as belonging to a specific nation different from the Mexican nation, but mainly on the basis of the decisions of their caciques. Their support of the revolution was not based on ethnic or racial considerations but on class. Most often they would rather be with the revolutionaries than with the exploitative terratenientes.
The main leaders of the revolution were mestizos. They and their anthropologists moved from the European sociological Darwinism to the creation of what is in fact a series of anthropological indigenous myths, seeing the mestizos as a kind of new race, even the “universal race” that had the key to the future. Now the purpose is not assimilation through acculturation (making them whiter) but the emphasis is on rural schools as a way of integration in the life of the nation, with respect for the different cultures. Rejection of the Spencerian European views of mestizaje as resulting in a racial and cultural impoverishment; the Mexican view after the Mexican revolution is that mestizaje is for the best.
The new regime believed it was possible to integrate the “Indian”, without de-indianization. It was believed this could be done in an enlightened, non-coercive fashion. Education was a key element forging ideas of patriotism; officially ways of thinking towards race and ethnic relations had certainly changed. Indigenismo was now a way of making “Indians” realise they were part of a revolutionary state and not one ruled by elitism where by they were enslaved. It was a way of converting passive subjects into active citizens. After the revolution, as “Indians” owed no loyalty to anybody, it was importnat to try and get this ideology across to try and rebuild a new nation. The idea of forging patriotism was one of the most important elements, along with the idea that being mestizo meant being the carrier of the national culture of the future. The mestizo was a symbol of the new regime. The integration of Indians was now to “mestizo-ize” them. Altohugh the indigenistas liked to think that the “Indians” were “mestizo-ized” while the mestizos were “Indianized”.
The Mexican revolution, was not an “Indian” revolution; and when asked, “What freedom did they gain from it?”, it is more a question of, “How less exploited were they?”
The people in question (mainly campesinos), felt no part of any nation and lived in different villages, around what we know as Mexico.
During the Porfiriato “Indians” were wrongly exploited through forced labour and some even led to believe that they were inferior, all in the interest of building a nation.
After the revolution (mainly led by middle class mestizos), things did change, there was an interest in Indian culture and they were even incorporated into new ideologies, however this was also in the interest of nation building.
There were radical changes in attitudes towards the “Indians” before and after the revolution, nevertheless they were always by a “ruling party”. When it comes to how attitudes changed towards “race” or ethnicity, it could be said that there was a big change as “Indians” were recognised as citizens, and there was a rejection of racist ideologies. Regardless, when it came to class, “Indians” were not equal.
The only way this equality would be possible, would be through a true “Indian” revolution. However, how can this be, when there is no true “Indian” identity as it was merely forged by others? They were only un-equal in as far as that others exploited them.
The only attitudes, which needed to be changed, were those of “imperialism”.
