PREFACE
IN ADDITION TO THE SHEDDINGS OF BLOOD, we can affirm that the other great
constant in the history of México is the lie. Might some relation exist
between these two institutions of the Mexicans? It is necessary that, without
prejudices we face our past. The lack of an accurate memory is tied to the lack
of true citizenship: it will be knowledge of our past that will help shape a
true critical conscience or aspirational horizon towards which we direct
ourselves.
The perverse myths disseminated by the official history should not impede
our configuring a fair image of ourselves, a clear image that exalts and
highlights our intelligence and our dignity; but it is necessary that we draw
those disastrous veils which, through their endeavor to make the dominion of one
group or another lasting, official history has been irresponsibly spread. If the
truth shall make us free, let us go, without any delay, to encounter it.
FOREWORD
SILENCE damages the historical truth as much as the lie itself. Of course it is not
possible to tell it all at once, yet when there are such persistent absences, when theFOREWORD
passage of time instead of bringing more information about our past only brings more
lacunae, especially deep silences with respect to very specific themes, then it is not
possible to keep attributing the shameless omission of those subjects to the impossibility
of telling it all.
One of the major silences of our national historiography has to do with the political
activity of the clergy during our independent existence. For example, it is not considered
whether the Catholic church has been the worst enemy of the nation, against which it
financed and directed such a number of coups of State that we can attribute to said
practice many of the most disastrous characteristics of our political culture and of our
civil customs. Likewise, it is false that we once stopped being a nation of bosses: that
tag stems from the lies that Plutarco Elías Calles and his minions employed to fool
the people and the political class itself with regard to the fruits of the revolution. To
another class of silences belongs that which in turn concerns the figure of Carlota of
Belgium, who after being called empress of México abandoned her ephemeral
empire, not without first becoming pregnant, and not exactly by the emperor.
It is necessary to occupy ourselves with these subjects not only from pure love of
knowledge (which would be sufficient justification) but also because their study teaches
how truths are hidden, how historical facts are prostituted. Is it remembered that the
North Americans' pretext for declaring war on us in 1847 was that Mexico had spilled North
American blood on North American soil? A damnable lie, villainous, that makes us appear
blameworthy for one of the greatest injustices in American history. It is also false that
Victoriano Huerta would assassinate the president of the Republic in order to achieve
power: that Huerta ordered Madero killed, in one of the lowliest acts committed by a
Mexican, is a proven fact...but, what picture did Madero play on the day of his infamous
murder?
Something that is almost not mentioned, yet which has become an indisputable fact, is
that Francisco Villa has not been a respected hero following his demise, and that the sort
of dishonors which have been done to his memory should shame a people who hypocritically
venerate him while, with the other hand, permitting the desecration of his cadaver.
Finally, when we think of the conquest of México the book by Bernal Díaz del
Castillo almost infallibly comes to mind, one of the few testimonies about the deeds
occurring during that transcendental occasion. But, how true will his history of the
conquest be?
We violate all those silences, certain that something new about we ourselves will be
revealed...
THE CHURCH WAS NEVER
INVOLVED IN COUPS OF STATE
AT THE END OF THE FIFTIES Daniel Cosío Villegas affirmed: "still to be written is an
informed and impartial history of the opposition of the Catholic church to the liberal
movement... It cannot be doubted, either that that opposition existed, nor that it took
violent and even criminal forms." In effect, the 19th century is full of events in which
the bloody role played by the Catholic church is evident, the backwardness that it caused
the nation, the social division which it stimulated, and the places embattled or mutilated
so as to impede the civil authority from removing their privileges or perhaps intercepting
their gigantic patrimony - something like 50 percent of the country's real estate, among
other goods.
The official history does not say so, but blood ran in torrents in México every
time that the church perceived a threat to its interests, which impeded the strengthening
of the Mexican State, provoked economic and social convolutions, sowed the germ of
political instability, and provided perpetual financial crises.
FROM COUNTERINSURGENTS
TO FATHERS OF THE NATION
In the same way that the ecclesiastical hierarchy vigorously combatted the insurgency of
1810 excommunicating and demoting Hidalgo, Morelos and their followers, providing all
manner of resources to the viceregal power, and 11 years later financed and executed the
Plan of the Profesa, so called in allusion to the temple where the independence of
México was truly determined. Matías Monteagudo, the inquisitor who had judged Morelos
and who in 1808 inaugurated the practice of clerical coups of State to topple the viceroy
Iturrigaray, came to become the true father of independence in 1821, with the sole purpose
that in México the liberal Constitution of Cádiz would not take effect, which was
already being applied in Spain and which diminished the church's power and patrimony.
THE ARMADAS OF GOD
In September of 1828, when the government of Vicente Guerrero ordered the seizure of the
goods of those individuals who lived outside the country, confiscation of half of the
rents of Spaniards located in México and the transferal to the government of the
properties of the church expropriated by the states; the clergy resumed pressure for the
fall of the government, for in effect:
This was the drop that drained the glass: Seize the properties of the Church,
transfer them to the Government! Attack the property of the rich and of the
clergy...! At the end of October, the legislatures of Puebla and Michoacán filed
for removal of the minister...Lorenzo de Zavala who left the Ministry on the eve of
Guerrero being eliminated on the 4th of November by the sedition of Bustamante.
"The nation has been saved!" the reactionaries then said:
It is true that Guerrero marches southwards and promotes a civil war... In this state
of affairs the government and the chambers expedite the necessary laws to return the
Mexican Church to its old splendor... What a contrast the people presents between
the fourth day of December of 1828, with the 3rd of October in 1830! Lawless mobs
then joined in looting and plunder, while now they deliver everything to God showing
sincere repentance for those outrages...
In 1833, when the vice-president Valentín Gómez Farías attempted to radically
transform the Mexican State founding of system of lay teaching, suppressing the convents,
creating the national library and decreeing: "In all the Republic the civil obligation of
paying the ecclesiastical tithe ceases, leaving each citizen in full liberty to participate
in this in accordance with what his conscience dictates." The ecclesiastical heads, once
again, set out to overthrow the atheist government: the colonel Ignacio Escalada launched
his Escalada Plan, swearing to "sustain at all costs the holy religion of Jesus Christ
and the charters and privileges of the clergy and of the army threatened by the intrusive
authorities." Days later the Escalada Plan was endorsed in Tlalpan, and on the 8th of June
in the same year, the general Mariano Arista launched the Plan of Huejotzingo, which
"promised to protect and defend the Catholic religion and its longstanding regular clergy
and proclaimed general Santa Anna as the supreme dictator." And in turn there unfolded, in
that same tenor, armed uprisings in Puebla, Jalapa, Oaxaca, Cuernavaca, Querétero, San
Juan del Río, and Iguala. Gómez Farías fell and then the bishop of Puebla could say:
The year 1834 will be memorable in the history of Anáhuac by having been for us
the origin of everything bad and afterwards everything good... Jesus Christ's
legacy, that is, the pious offerings destined to feed the poor and maintain the
churches, were delivered over...to the most inhuman and sacrilegious depredation, or
to the most scandalous looting... Furthermore, O mercy of the Highest! O portents of
your goodness! O incomprehensible secrets of the eternal wisdom! He who brings
resplendent light out of the center of the fog brought to birth from this chaos the
most orderly, the holiest revolution that our republic had ever seen. Orizaba cried,
then Cuernavaca cried, all the peoples shouted in consonance, and the religion of
Jesus Christ was heard energetically proclaimed, was seen to be lifted and
established at the same instant when it seemed destined for total destruction... The
work is entirely that of God: the mutation of the scene is due exclusively to the
skill of the Exalted and the powerful mediation of María de Guadalupe, true
Mother of the very God, and also the sweetest mother of all Mexicans.
Once the government was overthrown, the Congress was replaced by a new one
which--following the desires of the clergy and of Santa Anna--would abolish the federal
Constitution of 1824 and would promulgate the so-called Constitution of the Seven Laws,
breaking the federal pact and handing over the nation to a new series of failures, the
first of which would be the loss of Texas.
In 1834, when they attempted to reconstruct the anachronistic legal framework through
a Constituent Congress, the general Tornel delivered a new parliamentary blow in that
Nicolás Bravo, interim president, would dissolve the Congress and would deliver the
so-called Organic Bases: a new reactionary retrogression.
In December of 1845, when the hostilities of the war with the United States
commenced, the high clergy supported Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, who in one of the most
cowardly disloyalties in the history of the Mexican army, having been sent to combat the
invader, Paredes rose in arms against the Mexican government and assuming command of the
nation, ignoring the Texan conflict orchestrated by the United States, worked intensively
for the installation of a monarchical regime in México, with a Spanish prince at the
head!
With Paredes overthrown, the church bishops, and with the country already invaded by
the North American troops--in February of 1847--the church again organized a coup of State
against the government of the vice-president Gómez Farías, through the so-called
mutiny of the polkos, an authentic felony that not only facilitated the invading troops
in taking the port of Veracruz and access to the city of Puebla, naturally assisted by the
bishop of the locality, but also unhinged the defense of the north of the country after
the battle of La Angostura, in which general Zachary Taylor--however much the official
history denies it--was defeated... Certainly another unforgivable treason by the Catholic
church towards the Mexican State...
"In January of 1851, an unusual act occurred: José Joaquín Herrera handed over
power, peacefully, to Mariano Arista. Since the times of Guadalupe Victoria, no president
had left the National Palace on his own volition," yet very soon "the reaction threatened
Arista's political course and the conspiracies began"; once again the outbreaks of violence,
the pronouncements and the barracks revolts began to desolate the Republic, until on the
20th of October in 1852, through the Hospicio Plan, underwritten by priests, called upon
the army to support the rebellion on the grounds--more was lacking--of public recognition
of the services provided the nation by Santa Anna, who in this way returned to occupy the
presidency of the Republic despite the treasons committed during the war against the United
States, and which facilitated the stripping of half the national territory!
With the triumph of the revolution of Ayutla and the coming to power of a generation
of liberals who had grown up in independent México with all its failures, all its
frustrations, bringing also a new era of radical and republican measures which equally
would encounter a fierce resistance on the part of the clergy. There we have the Plan of
Zacapoaxtla (1855) or that of Puebla (1856) or that of Tacubaya (1857), designed by the
same Catholic church to overthrow Comonfort's government and later abolish the
Constitution of 1857 itself, which led to the explosion of the Reforma war (1858), a
bloody conflict financed, it is clear, with ecclesiastical resources, so that the clergy
would not only be required to sell their copious holdings. "With the priests converted
into grenadiers of the church [the press said] they have machine gunned the poor nave of
Saint Peter, have disturbed the faith of the faithful, the repose, the oratory and the
silence of the cloisters."
Defeated in the Reforma war, the church returned to savage the State by promoting the
French intervention and in facilitating the installation of the ephemeral empire of
Maximilian, whom they abandoned to his fate when he failed to abolish the reformist laws.
Again, then, they lost, yet as soon as Juarez, the true father of the nation, falls victim
to a chest angina, they attack once again, with no notion of piety nor of love nor of
respect for the nation. It was under the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada--on
the 5th of October in 1873--when the Congress incorporated the Reforma laws into the
Constitution, and a little more than a month later the "Jacobin deputies" denounced the
clergy for:
having abused the tolerance of the Government to re-organize themselves and
conspired against the established powers, and having skillfully evaded
compliance with the laws: the nationalization of ecclesiastical goods had
been decreed, but the clergy, thanks to "assessments"...obtained abundant
resources that they later invested in purchasing ranches in the names of
individuals; the suppression of some religious festivals ordered by law "had
never been achieved"; the dissolution of the monastic orders was prescribed, yet
these continued with the monks or nuns living in neighboring houses; nor were the
laws of the civil registry obeyed, for the clergy defended sacramental marriage;
in a few words, the clergy prepared a new civil war.
In 1875, that "civil war" exploded to the cry of "Viva Christ the King," attempting to
impede the application of the law. In Guanajuato, Querétero, Jalisco, and
Michoacán there are acts of violence, despite which "the movement, called
cristero, did not prosper and soon degenerated into a war of guerrillas in which
robbery, assassination and arson were more and more prevalent." Then Porfirio Díaz
appeared and shouted, following the Plan of Tuxtepec: "That no citizen shall impose and
perpetuate the exercise of power and this will be the ultimate revolution." Considering
the support of the church for this cry proferred by a supposed liberal--in reality a
hypocritical tyrant throughout the entire Porfiriate--"the action of the Catholic church
in México was totally illegal, transgressing the regulations of the Mexican
Constitution and the Reforma Laws."
Then in the 20th century the same church supported the coup of State and the
dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta, the "Jackal"; it opposed the validity of the 1917
Constitution, which it tried to abolish through the cristeros rebellion in 1926;
attempted to overthrow the government of Plutarco Elías Calles, and participated
actively in the assassination of Álvaro Obregón, president elect, in 1928. Each
time with less strength, they kept conspiring during the Thirties, seeking any military
dissidence to support in order to cast the impious laws, the atheist governments, to the
ground.
On the 13th of January in 1940 the senator José María Dávila assured the Senate
of the Republic that some generals, among whom was found Juan Andrew Almazán, no
less than a candidate for the presidency: "are in connivance with the Episcopate and
with the expropriated North American oil companies to organize an armed uprising and,
among other things, abolish the 3rd article of the constitution." Nothing new - this
last, we should indicate, in alliance with the Nazis.
So then, it is false--exceedingly!--that the church was never involved in coups of
State. It follows that among other reasons already expounded in another chapter of this
edition, it would be feasible to adduce with justice that the Catholic clergy has been the
worst enemy of México throughout the length of her painful history...
WE ARE NO LONGER A NATION OF BOSSES
CAESARISM CONSTITUTES ONE of the most significant contributions of Latin America to the
political history of the hemisphere. While in the Old World the chieftains--whose name
comes from the Latin capitellium, "head"--are ever less prevalent (without them, in
general, having stopped being execrable figures) on this side of the planet tyrants keep
emerging, the eternal enemies of democracy and liberty who historically have imposed their
law, that is, their states of will, by means of arms, for invariably they have ruled as
the messiahs or saviors of their nations, or of all humanity, and as owners of the
absolute truth, when in reality the only thing they pursue is power for power, power at
any price, since now they almost never have a political project to improve the quality of
life of the governed and do have a perverse strategy to conceal their more sinister
intentions.
Thus, while in Europe the actions of the bosses are an example of what should not
happen, in Latin America, at least since the 19th century, the arrival of a providential
man has been desired who would transform reality and resolve with a penstroke--or by
force--all the problems of the country.
Despite the foregoing, and against all evidence, it has been insisted that some years
ago México ceased being a nation of bosses: this fact, due to its importance, brings
us before two fundamental questions - why is Mexican history characterized by the presence
of bosses, and did we truly cease being a nation of bosses?
WARLORD REASON
Our culture is hybrid, crossbred. In it, since the 16th century, three great dictatorial
traditions have prevailed: the pre-Hispanic gentlemen, who were an incarnation of the gods
and whose words could never be doubted; the Spanish monarchs, who exercised power through
the grace of God, and likewise could not be questioned; and the Catholic church, which
inexorably requires absolute obedience and respect for its anachronistic commands -
opposed, in almost equally absolute terms, to the most elementary reason. We are, at least
in principle, a culture prone to accept the existence of great persons who can do
everything, it mattering little whether they are named Huey Tlatoani, Your Majesty, Your
Most Serene Highness, Maximum Leader, or Mr. President.
Nevertheless, the autocratic tradition of crossing races--despite its importance--is
not the only determining factor in Mexican Caesarism: it is also, undoubtedly, one of the
consequences of the Catholic religion in our country, which maintains the existence of a
providential being capable of solving everything with the simple exercise of his will.
No one can avoid, in this respect, the sinister heritage of Spanish authoritarianism,
Hispanic intolerance, a psychological defect that contaminated the nations conquered by
the mother country and which impeded in time and form the arrival of democracy and
ultimately, shared economic growth. The viceregal tradition, that obeyed solely the
need to efficiently and permanently exhaust the New World, bequeathed us the terrible
custom of not only tolerating, but even adulating the oppressive tyrant and of endowing it
with all the attributes of a divinity (so it is not in vain that the power of a king derives
directly from God), such as the examples of the Latin American dictators, always
attentive about capitalizing on this disastrous inclination of our societies toward the
infallible supermen: Carias Andino, Anastasio Somoza, Jorge Ubico, Fulgencio Batista,
Pérez Jiménez, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, Juan Domingo Perón, Fidel Castro,
and Hugo Chávez, among many others, so many more...
In accordance with this tendency, the majority of the Mexicans, at least since the
times of the colonization, have been firmly convinced in the existence of providential
beings who can do everything, given that they are an instance of the incarnation of force
and divine power. Thus it is not strange that when on the political horizon a person is
descried who claims to have the solution to all the problems, some Mexicans hurry to
consider them as our savior: that was what happened various times with Antonio López
de Santa Anna, with Álvaro Obregón and with Plutarco Elías Calles, among still
others, who offered the salvation of the nation, when in reality all that they sought was
power for power.
Nevertheless, the paradise that throughout time the bosses have offered is always
paradoxical: though the paradise is found in the future, it is always identical to the
past. Let me explain: when the conservatives and the ecclesiastical hierarchy offered the
Mexicans a perfect nation, in reality they were proposing to return to the times of
colonization, when the king and the ecclesiastical hierarchy were the only arbiters of the
national destinies; with the revolutionary Eden of Obregón and Calles something very
similar occurred: their obsession with dictatorship did not look towards the future nor
toward democracy or freedom, but instead towards an authoritarian past. In consequence,
when the Mexicans have followed the bosses they only move like crabs: they seem to
advance, yet in reality they retreat from the present and the future, so that all the
bosses turn out to be retardants.
No one can doubt that the Catholic religion created an imprint in the collective
imagination, a sign that leads us to consider the existence of men who can take us to
paradise, and precisely for that we seriously accept the presence and the action of the
bosses. They are, if we observe them carefully, the new messiahs who benefit from the
politico-religious beliefs.
In this manner, the strength of the bosses, while tyrants upon whom the destiny of
the nation depended, impeded the development of democratic practices and institutions: for
many years effective suffrage was substituted with the designations of bosses; examples of
this disastrous practice: Porfirio Díaz and Manuel González, as well as the interminable
re-elections of the first; Carranza's intention to impose Ignacio Bonillas (which cost
him his life); the Obregónist imposition of Plutarco Elías Calles and Manco's failed
attempt to return to the presidency; the ignominious period known as "The Maximato," in
which Calles "governed the country by telephone"; the unfortunate culture of the cover-
up and the presidential revelation as a signal of the onset of the sexennial chicanery;
the not very distant practice of removal of governors at the will of the presidents
and. finally, the verticality that characterizes the functioning of our political parties
and the consequent and unhideable deficit in legitimacy of our electoral processes.
In harmony with this, the expeditious and legal judicial system was supplanted by the
desires and the interests of the tyrant in power, and the development of democratic
practices was obstructed to the degree that they were undermined by bosses, this situation
reaching their climactic moment during the Porfiriate, when:
The Federal Judiciary was formed in the same fashion as the Congress. The president
designated his candidates in person, and sent his list to the Chamber of Deputies
for them to vote on... Once the Court was installed, the Circuit Magistrate and
District Judges were named by the same procedure and with the same subjection to the
President... With all the departments of Justice in the Union constituted in this
way, it was said that nothing was done in them unless the President approved.
In this manner, faith, tradition and the obstacles created by the bosses themselves
impeded the political evolution of our nation.
WILL WE CONTINUE TO BE
A NATION OF BOSSES?
Although many persons have proclaimed that we have ceased being a nation of bosses
(especially after the memorable and hypocritical words of Plutarco Elías Calles in
his last presidential address: "we shall stop being a nation of bosses in order to become
a nation of institutions") it is evident that "providential men" still frequent the public
scene - and will haunt it when more ignorant and desperate persons exist. Yet how was it
not going to be like this? Before banishing forever this authentic social curse, the
revolutionary regime that over 70 years cramped the political freedom of the Mexicans only
ingrained even more the perverse acceptance, or at least their inclination towards
veneration of the boss. Or were the presidents of the brilliant PRI not true sexennial
bosses - not to say chieftains, which today the governors of the states are? Did they not
perfect the mechanisms of subjection of the entire political apparatus to a single person,
in this case the next sexennial Tlatoani?
What is certain, however, is that after 70 years of "perfect dictatorship," in frank
betrayal of the postulates of the revolution which started it, we Mexicans still keep
waiting for our savior, for the maximum leader to resolve our problems, for the boss who
thinks for us and conducts us to the promised paradise. How many times does one hear that
"México needs a firm hand"? Where are the enlightened despots? Do they exist?
How distant have become the words that in 1911 Luis Cabrera dedicated to the precise
person of one of our bosses:
if Mr. Madero turns out not to be a genius in the science of governing, so much the
better: we should congratulate ourselves for the deception, because it will mean that
the disgraceful epoch of miraculously masterly governments, of irreplaceable
governors and of dictatorships, has concluded, to give way to the era of honorable
governors and of simple common sense, to the era of truly republican governments
where it is the people who govern behind the Chief of State.
Therefore, tied to the problem of the necessity for the boss is the matter of permanence
in power and, necessarily, that of re-election, since, once more following Cabrera:
re-election...signifies that there is no faith in anything but the capacity of a
superman...and that this prolific race of ours is not capable of producing great
men, except as the exception, and that consequently we are predestined to be
governed alternately by a half-century of Santa Annas and another half-century by
Díaz's.
In effect, we shall only cease being a nation of bosses when we stop believing in
providential beings (?) and assume the imperious necessity of developing our institutions,
of creating a democratic and just nation where liberty and law are above the persons who
only seek power and lack the liberal and modern projects capable of improving the quality
of life of the governed. We shall say adios to the bosses on the day in which citizens
exist, that is to say, true guardians of the republican institutions.
CARLOTA HAD NO CHILDREN
FOR MANY OF THEIR CONTEMPORARIES in the Old World, Maximilian and Carlota were an
exceedingly strange pair. Some held that she had married for love, and that he, from self-
interest; others thought that her lack of children could only be due to an "unnameable
illness" that the Hapsburger had contracted during one of her travels to Brazil, and still
others maintained that the acceptance of the throne of México was only a new attempt
to unite as a pair after the confirmation of her sterility. Gossip about the court--the
same as in our time--were the order of the day and Maximilian and Carlota were not immune
to it. But it is indeed true that the emperors did not have an heir: the unnameable
disease, the use of sheep gut condoms, the cotton soaked in water and vinegar, the
impotence, the lovelessness or declared homosexuality of Maximilian may be an explanation
of this matter, whose definite cause is yet to be discovered. Upon their arrival in
México, the imperial couple provoked the same remarks as in Europe. According to the
biography of Carlota written by Susanne Igler, her Mexican allies and the ecclesiastical
hierarchy were very worried because the emperors were not conceiving an heir to the
Mexican empire and, in consequence, the future of the kingdom was at risk. The alienation
of the royal pair was not insignificant, and to top the evils, their habit of sleeping in
separate bedrooms "had raised suspicions among Mexican society." How were they going to
give continuity to the empire if during the nights the walls of the castle separated them?
But the disgraces of the royal couple could not be reduced to the foregoing, for "in
contrast with the image of an impotent Maximilian [writes Igler], a legend emerged of a
gallant emperor, who had his secret romances and his illegitimate children, mostly from
the frequent stays in Cuernavaca, where the emperor occupied the Borda ranch as a place of
retreat." There, it is said, Maximilian had one of his great loves: Concepción
Sedano, who passed into history with the nickname of the "Pretty Indian" who, apparently,
was the daughter or the wife of one of the gardeners of the ranch.
Thus, Maximilian and Carlota--without the reasons mattering--passed into history as a
couple without children and, in consequence, it has always been affirmed that the throne
of the Mexican empire remained vacant for a lack of heirs. However, this claim is a myth.
THE EMPEROR CHILDREN
Everybody knows that one of the principal obligations of ruling couples is to conceive an
heir to the throne. Their marriages, outside of the romantic stories in the tabloid press,
have precise goals: to guarantee the continuity of their reign, to avoid problems of
transition thanks to a prince and to unite their marriage with the interests of the
nobility and with politics. Love, if it exists, is something additional and contributes
nothing to the basic objectives of their relationship. Thus it is that Maximilian and
Carlota--at least in the eyes of their allies and of the ecclesiastical hierarchy--were
not fulfilling one of their obligations. They knew it, and wrote letters about the matter.
In August of 1864, as one reads in a letter that Maximilian sent to Carlota from
Irapuato, he had brought a pleasant surprise from Querétero, where:
they gave me a little indian, sent to me as a gift from the Sierra Gorda; no one
knows who are his parents. In any case, they were too poor to baptize him. I took him
and had him baptized, receiving the names of: Fernando Maximiliano Carlos José.
I had a good nurse found and, for the time being, established him in Querétero,
and later will have him sent to Mexico City.
The news of the indigenous infant did not take long to cause quite a stir: on the 24th day
of that month the newspaper La sociedad not only took note of the solemn baptism,
but also maintained that the boy was adopted as the imperial prince. This news, surely
false--as Konrad Ratz argues--was nothing more than a manifestation of the discontent and
estrangement concerning the lack of an heir.
The pressure was real: it pressed for Carlota to become pregnant quickly. Yet since
this did not occur, in September of 1865 Maximilian made a critical decision: to adopt
Agustín de Iturbide, the grandson of the liberator of México, so that he could
be converted into an heir to the throne. The mother of the little Agustín, a United
States pragmatist, was in agreement with that after some negotiations which guaranteed her
a generous rent. For Carlota, however, this news was a slap, for it made public her
incapacity to comply with her conjugal duty as empress, and also discredited her due to
the certainty which this action provided about Maximilian's love affairs.
Carlota, as we know, administered the empire, for which she had been duly trained in
Belgium, while the emperor enjoyed the pleasures of the City of Eternal Spring,
accompanied by his inseparable count Bombelles, with whom, it was said, he had long-
standing amorous relations, in addition to those he maintained with other men and women in
tropical México. Carlota, alone and abandoned in Chapultepec Castle, unable to
confide with anyone the betrayals of which she had been victim. Furthermore from the state
of abandonment in which she found herself, she began to have long conversations with
colonel Alfred van der Smissen, nothing more and nothing less than her bodyguard, the one
who her father had put there, king Leopold I of Belgium, to help her stay intact
physically during what promised to be a long and difficult stay in México. The
military attaché, also of Belgian origin, did not delay in having an intense carnal
interchange with Carlota, the empress of México, who in 1866 became pregnant. Time
passed while Carlota experienced the expansion of her waist, which very soon she could not
hide from her husband and he, once the trespass was known, refused to recognize the child
that his wife would have.
Against such negativity, Carlota decided to absent herself from México with the
pretext of negotiating with Napoleon III and with the pope Pius XI the withdrawal of the
French troops quartered in México. She well knew that if Napoleon III withdrew his
army from México, the second Mexican empire would collapse like a house of cards.
Once in Europe, the second part of the strategy to hide her pregnancy consisted in showing
signs of insanity that would allow her to be isolated and maintained incommunicado in the
castle of Miramar. When her son was finally born, whose father was obviously Alfred van
der Smissen, the had-been empress of México named him Maxime Weygand, who with time
would be one of the architects of the French defense in the first world war. With Carlota
closed in castle of Bouchot, she kept making the necessary decisions of a political and
mercantile nature that at length would convert her into the richest woman on the planet
until her demise in 1927.
It is enough to compare the photographs of Alfred van der Smissen and Maxime Weygand
to demonstrate the surprising lineage between the two men. It is thus that the supposed
infertility of Carlota was left disproved with the birth of her son Maxime Weygand in
January of 1867, for which she left México, pregnant.
The myth of the lack of heirs and Carlota's inability to have children has remained
refuted, yet nevertheless some loose ends still remain for us: what happened to the heirs
to the throne. The indian from the Sierra Gorda disappeared from the pages of history
after his bombastic baptism; the grandson of Agustín Iturbide returned to his mother
and years later returned to our country to face Porfirio Díaz and be judged in 1890;
and the son of Carlota, as already mentioned, was educated in the French military schools
until becoming one of the great military leaders of that nation... Yet one remains:
Rubén Darío, the poet, had as personal secretary a Mexican named Julio
Sedano, who assured him that he was the bastard son of Maximilian of Austria and
Concepción Sedano y Leguízamo, known as the Pretty Indian, a native
of the city of Cuernavaca... Since infancy he had been taken to the city of Madrid,
where he studied. [In the first world war] Julio Sedano fell prisoner in Paris
[accused of being] a spy in the service of the Germans... Sedano first said that he
was not a spy, but after an intense interrogation he broke down crying and finally
confessed that out of hunger he had received a few francs from the Germans, but that
he had not given them any more information than was available in the Paris newspapers
and which was in the public domain. As expected, the Military Jury condemned him to
die. It was ascertained that he had the same features as Maximilian of Austria, blue
eyes and a dimpled chin, the same as his supposed father.
In the Encyclopedia of the Towns of Mexico, in the part corresponding to the state
of Morelos, section "Persons," we find the following: "Julián Sedano y Leguízamo
(1866-1914). Born the 30th of August, son of Concepción Sedano Leguízamo and of
Maximilian of Austria. Shot in Paris."
THE WAR AGAINST THE U.S.A.
WAS THE FAULT OF THE MEXICANS
THE MOST SORROWFUL MUTILATIONS OF OUR territory occurred with an astonishing
rapidity: in little more than a decade México lost more than two million square
kilometers. The Texas war and the United States intervention--in which we were defeated
due to traitors to the nation and to the felonies of the clergy, who refused to contribute
to the defense of the nation and supported rebellions that depleted the forces which
battled the invaders--are two of the great traumatic facts in the history of Mexico, and
to them, in good measure, we owe the psychological complexes which we inherit from said
armed conflicts.
Nevertheless, beyond the military questions, and the actions of the traitors and the
sinister attitude of the ecclesiastical hierarchy--deeds which I have already covered in
other chapters of this edition--there is a myth that should be refuted: according to some
United States historians, we Mexicans held the blame for the war with the United States,
for we did not respect the border limits and attacked the United States armed forces in
the vicinity of the Nueces river, a confrontation which became the detonator of the war of
1846.
THE FAULT WAS NOT OURS
The Inquirer published an amazing, visionary and most revealing letter, drafted in
1812--that is to say 34 years before the United States invasion--by no one less than the
ambassador himself of the Spanish empire in Washington and directed to the viceroy of New
Spain during those years:
The United States intends to establish its southern border starting from a line to
the west of the mouth of the Rio Bravo, including Tejas, Nuevo México,
Chihuahua, Sonora, and the Californias,.. This project might seem imaginary to
many rational persons, but believe me, it certainly exists.
The limits of Texas were defined by two rivers, one, in the north-east, the Sabina,
according to the Adams-Onis treaties of 1819, as it pertained to the frontier with
Louisiana, and the other, the Nueces, in the south, that established the contiguity with
the state of Coahuila. This means that the border frontier between Coahuila and Texas was
never the Bravo river, but the Nueces, and therefore when Texas was arbitrarily annexed to
the American Union it necessarily had to do so respecting the original borders. One of the
influential dailies of that era, the National Observer, published a column characteristic
of a newspaper of liberal beliefs:
Texas must be annexed with the same boundaries and dimensions. The exact size of
the territorial extension enjoyed when it formed part of México. Not one acre
more. The border between Texas and Tamaulipas, in terms of the laws and the political
geography of México, was comprised, to the south, of the Nueces river, in no
instance the Bravo, for which reason, if the North American army surmounts the Nueces
river, the United States would be violating México's sovereignty and, ultimately,
we would become not defenders of our legitimate patrimony, but instead freebooters,
pirates, invaders, enemies of legitimacy, whom we have always criticized with all
the strength of our truth and of our reason.
In fact, the Democratic candidate in 1844 for the United States presidency, J, K. Polk,
sustained a brutal expansionist program in his political platform which, obviously,
included the annexation of Texas, whose independence had already been recognized by the
"gringos" in 1837. Polk's project attained its goal and the Texan territory was converted
into one more state in the American Union. As a result of this action, the Mexican
government broke off relations with the United States and the diplomatic tension
reached unsuspected limits... The war was something more than a possibility, as Jesús
Velasco indicates in his essay The war with the United States:
Mexican public opinion began to demand a declaration of war and the organization of
a campaign to immediately recover Texas. The warlike spirit of the Mexican
intellectuals was supported principally by the idea that the war would be the only
way to stop the North American expansionism. It was also considered that war was the
most effective means to awaken national sentiment and accelerate the reforms that
society and the institutions needed. But Joaquín Herrera's government did not
share those opinions. For they, following the advice of England, were disposed to
recognize the independence of Texas.
The Mexican government did not concede, resisted the threats of John Slidell, the North
American ambassador, and refused to pay the absurd claims that the Americans made for
supposed damages; for its part, Texas incorporated into the United States on the 4th of
July in 1845. But the conflict was not solved, for according to the Texans and those from
the United States there still remained one matter to resolve: the "actual" limits of
Texas. This matter, always complex, was explained with great clarity by J. M. Roa
Bárcenas:
The province of Tejas had never extended south of the Nueces in the area contiguous
with Tamaulipas and Coahuila, nor beyond the Red or the Colorado that divided it
from Chihuahua and Nuevo México. When Santa Anna fell prisoner at San
Jacinto, the desire to conserve his life...led him to sign the contract that the
Texans imposed on him, and by virtue of which Santa Anna himself and the principal
chiefs under his orders recognized the independence of Téjas and the extension
of its frontiers to the Bravo, and they committed to procure confirmation of such a
pact by the Mexican government which, as was natural and right, pronounced it null
and of no value nor effect.
That is to say, due to the proverbial cowardice of Santa Anna, he endorsed a document that
enlarged the Texan territory down to the Rio Bravo, but this document was never ratified
nor approved by the Mexican Congress, so that it had no value. However, in a unilateral
manner and violating all the accords, on the 19th of December in 1836 the Congress of
Texas published an act that extended the limits to the Rio Bravo. Evidently, this deed
lacked a juridical foundation, for the borders are not a matter of voting, but instead of
international agreements.
Although the act of the Texan Congress lacked judicial efficacy, the United States
government supported this decision and--under the auspices of the Monroe Doctrine and that
of Manifest Destiny which assumed providential guidance for the United States to extend
its dominion over territories from which other peoples obtained no advantage--ordered the
advance of her troops towards the Rio Bravo. In this fashion, general Zachary Taylor
arrived on the banks of the Bravo and constructed Brown's fort (now Brownsville) on
Mexican territory, occasioning, as a justified response, an attack on the part of the
Mexican forces. The army of the United States had crossed the border that the Nueces river
marked and thereby had invaded México. In this manner, as Roa Bárcena well
describes:
The congress issued the relevant resolution on the 13th of May in 1846, with the
existence of a state of war thus becoming officially recognized in the United
States... It is well to warn that the United States government, subsequent to its
capricious and absurd pretension of considering the Bravo as the border line, always
alleged that the campaign had been begun by Mexico...and if by some sort of magic
chance the limits of Tejas had been expanded...by more chance of the same sort we
appear as invaders of the invaded.
"Remove the intruders from the zone between the Nueces and the Bravo. The border zone
where the spark occurs must remain blurred," an infuriated Polk would order. On the 12th
of April in 1846 the general Pedro Ampudia has Taylor sent a peremptory note. We have here
the last part of the text send by the Mexican officer:
For Mr. Zachary Taylor:
I apply to you in the broadest manner and in the imperative term of 24 hours, to
dismantle your encampment and return to the east bank of the Nueces river while our
Governments dispute the inconclusive question regarding Tejas. If you insist on
remaining in the territory property of the state of Tamaulipas, this will result that
arms, and only arms, will resolve this situation. If that were the case I assure you
that we would accept the war which you had so unjustly provoked.
The United States then commits the first act of war against México: its naval forces
now blockade not the mouth of the Nueces river, but instead that of the Rio Bravo itself,
obviously Mexican territory - more concretely, the waters and Tamaulipan soil. In this way
the international border is ostensibly violated, and the anxiety leads to the loss of
tempers. Polk decrees:
Everyone is in agreement that if the Mexican forces found in Matamoros commit any
act of hostility against general Taylor's forces, I should immediately send a
message to Congress recommending the immediate declaration of war. I told the
cabinet that, until the moment, as they already knew, he had not had notice of any
open act of aggression on the part of the Mexican army; yet that there was immediate
danger that such acts might occur. I added that, in my opinion, we had ample motives
for war and that it was impossible for us to remain in the status quo, or for me to
be silent any longer. It was my duty to very quickly send a very concrete message to
Congress, recommending definitive measures.
Only the colonel Ethan Hitchcock writes a few notes in his diary for history, while
the plans of the White House are being executed:
We do not have even a particle of right to be here, on Mexican territory. Our forces
are very small to fulfill this mission of charity. It seems to be that our government
sent an intentionally reduced armed force to provoke a war and be able to have a
pretext for taking California and all that one chooses from the neighboring nation.
President Paredes y Arrillaga, though being against an armed conflict, announces war
with the United States on the 23rd of April in 1846, without having the legal
authorization of the Mexican Congress.
I solemnly announce that I do not declare war against the government of the United
States because it falls to the august Congress of the nation, and not to the
Executive Power, to decide what should be the exact reparation for these injuries.
But the defense of Mexican territory that has been invaded by the troops of the
United States is an urgent necessity and my responsibility before the nation would
be immense if I did not order the repulsion of forces which are acting like enemies
and thus I have ordered it. The defensive war commences on this date and every point
in our territory that has been invaded or attacked will be defended by force.
Curiously, on that 25th, when in Carricitos the first informal confrontation between
the United States and México occurs, the governments of Washington and London
celebrate a bilateral agreement to resolve the territorial problem of Oregon. The
expansionism promoted by Polk is an alarming reality.
General Taylor takes up paper and quill and writes a letter to president Polk:
"Today, the 25th of April of 1846, hostilities can be considered to have begun. I
urgently require that the governors of Texas and of Louisiana send me eight regiments,
approximately 5,000 more men." News of the massacre at Carricitos reaches Polk--the
"mendacious," the "opportunist," the "lying manipulator"--in Washington on the 8th of May.
The White House chief addresses the Congress of his nation with this disgraceful text:
After repeated threats, Mexico has trespassed the border of the United States, has
invaded our territory and has spilled North American blood on North American land.
Since war exists in fact and, despite all our efforts to avoid it, exists because
of an act pertaining to Mexico, we are obliged, by every consideration of duty and
patriotism, to decisively vindicate the honor, the rights and the interests of our
country.
Finally the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, signed with a pistol pointed at the
head of the nation, legalized the historic stripping of half our territory, whose recovery
we should achieve when we come to be militarily superior to the United States...
VICTORIANO HUERTA ASSASSINATED
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
DURING THE BIENNIUM 1911-1912 THE MADERIST government successfully
confronted its opponents: the uprisings of Pascual Orozco, Félix Díaz, Emiliano
Zapata, and the Vázquez Gómez brothers--among others--were defeated on the
battlefield or, at least, succeeded in establishing some mechanisms for the peaceful
negotiation of rifts, such as occurred in the Zapatista territory thanks to the
labor of the general Felipe Ángeles who--according to Friedrich Katz in his essay
"Felipe Ángeles and the Tragic Decade"--put an "end to the massive reprisals against
civilians, such as the burning of villages and collective executions," which allowed
the virulence of the peasants to diminish and the establishment of a sure contact with
Zapata in order to solve the agrarian problems that were undoubtedly pending since
Madero's arrival in Mexico City. In effect, at the end of 1912 the Maderist regime
stumbled, yet still had possibilities of going forward.
However, in February of 1913 Francisco I. Madero confronted his ultimate enemy and
paid with his life for the political errors he committed during his government: let us not
forget that his desire to achieve national unity led him to maintain the power of the
Porfirians, to preserve whole the dictatorship's army and, above all, to pardon his two
major opponents--Félix Díaz and Bernardo Reyes--at the same time as--to compound
the evils--he also pardoned the "Jackal" Huerta and restored him to his post after the
conflicts that the general had with the War secretary and with Gustavo Madero himself.
Yet in that disastrous year misfortunes did not arrive singly: Madero's mortal
enemies, the evil businessmen of Wall Street--with the "Jackal" at the head--allied
themselves with the United States ambassador Henry Lane Wilson and with the Catholic
church to forge his overthrow. The traitors, after some encounters, put their plans in
march: thus the Tragic Decade began, an armed conflict organized to vanquish the troops
loyal to the president and consummate the overthrow of the first democratic president of
the Mexican 20th century. We all know that Madero and the vice-president Pino Suárez
were assassinated, and that Victoriano Huerta occupied the presidency of the Republic
after the crime; nevertheless, a question also exists to which almost no one wishes to
give a reply: did Madero and Pino Suárez renounce their offices in order to deliver
the nation to the "Jackal" Huerta?
THE RESIGNATIONS: AN (ALMOST) IGNORED HISTORY
On the 18th of February in 1913, in the midst of the Tragic Decade, Madero and Pino
Suárez were apprehended by the minions of the "Jackal," who had also ordered the
capture and assassination of Gustavo Madero, who still had certain possibilities of
organizing a response against the blow thanks to his allies, who united in a group
popularly known as "The Club."
In this manner, while the president and the vice-president of the Republic were
prisoners in the National Palace, Madero's family and the ambassador from Cuba, Manuel
Márquez Sterling, initiated negotiations with the putschists to guarantee the life of
the legitimate governors. The terms of agreement that they proposed were more or less
precise: Madero and Pino Suárez would resign their offices in exchange for their
lives and for the possibility of exiling in Cuba.
Notwithstanding, the pressure of the putschists was merciless, and upon arriving at
noon on the 19th of February both leaders yielded and, on a page without letterhead,
wrote:
Citizen secretaries of the Honorable Chamber of Deputies:
In view of the events that unfolded yesterday here in the nation, and for her greater
tranquility, we do formally resign our offices of president and of vice-president,
respectively, to which we were elected.
We protest this necessity.
Mexico City, 19 February 1913.
Francisco I. Madero.
Jose Maria Pino Suarez.
Madero and Pino Suárez signed their resignations with one condition: the document
should only be delivered to the Congress--obviously controlled by the Porfiristas--once
they had abandoned the country and were en route to Veracruz to board the cruiser
Cuba which would take them from México. But Huerta and his followers also
violated this last accord. In The last days of president Madero, the ambassador
Márquez Sterling narrates that:
Don Ernesto [Madero] arrived to strange news [at the place where Madero and Pino
Suárez were]:
--Mr. Lascuráin, the minister of Foreign Relations, will now announce "your"
resignation...
Madero jumped from his seat...
--And why has Lascuráin not awaited the departure of the train? Bring him here,
immediately...in the midst of the act; without delay, run; you go too, Mr.
Vásquez, bring him here right away...
Ernesto returns with worse news. "The resignation was already presented"...
Slowly [Madero] was recapturing his habitual smile, and forcing his spirit into
conformity.
--Huerta has set a second snare for me, and with my resignation signed and
delivered will not keep his word.
Madero was right: the "Jackal" did not keep his word and some hours later ordered the
murder and that of Pino Suárez. However, thanks to that document obtained through
force of arms, the "Jackal" managed to reach the presidency of the Republic through a
legalistic scheme: since Madero and Pino Suárez had renounced their posts, the only
one who could occupy the most important office in the country was Pedro Lascuráin,
the then secretary of Foreign Relations, who after protesting and swearing to defend the
Constitution, took one sole decision: he signed the naming of the "Jackal" as the
secretary for Governorship. In a second act, after 45 minutes of possessing title to
executive power, he resigned, to cede the presidential sash to the only member of his
cabinet: the murderer of Madero and Pino Suárez.
Huerta became the constitutional president while the Mexicans, submerged in apathy,
allowed the treason to be consummated and mark a terrible regression in our public life.
It can be affirmed, then, that Huerta did not kill the head of the nation, because the
latter had already resigned, although the abdication was vitiated to nullity by not being
a free, spontaneous and voluntary act. We agree, yet Madero should have warned his
victimizer: "You will not assassinate a citizen bereft of powers, but will take the life,
and cover your hands with the blood, of the president of the Republic..." He should never
have resigned...
PANCHO VILLA WAS ASSASSINATED
DURING THE REVOLUTION
EVERYTHING SEEMS TO INDICATE THAT THE SENTENCE for Francisco Villa's demise
was dictated stemming from the interview which he had with Regino Pagés Llergo, one
of the most famous journalists of El Universal. A little before being murdered, the
Centaur of the North asserted that "True son of Huerta, a good man with defects,
alright, but they are due to his great kindliness, which would not appear bad in the
Presidency of the Republic," in place of Plutarco Elías Calles... The Sonoran bosses
never forgave him, although these declarations were unfamiliar to no one; we do not forget
that some years previously Villa had agreed with Adolfo de la Huerta to lay down arms.
Also, nor would it be mindless to assume that he did not suspect that Obregón and
Calles would order him killed for declaring that he was a consummate Huertista... His
words were practically obvious and he was almost retired in Canutillo.
Francisco Villa spent the last three years of his life at his ranch in Canutillo,
carrying out a social experiment which left compatriots and foreigners agape. That which
occurred on those lands was the true revolution, a live example which should be re-traced
by the whole nation. Effectively, thanks to the Treaties of Sabinas, the government
awarded Villa the Canutillo ranch--in Durango--and allowed him to keep a squad of 50 men,
whose pay remained a charge of the State. The rest of his famous division could be
indemnified with a year's assets.
In those conditions the Centaur began a new existence, for he attemped what he had
always dreamed: and no one had the slightest doubt that he had been born for the fields.
During the nights, around the campfire, battles were no longer planned but instead they
spoke of the future, of the earth's productive capacity, of the repair of hooves, of the
purchase of farm implements, of the contractual workforce, of work in community, of the
production of exportable surpluses, of the distribution of revenues, of investment in
liquid reserves, of education, of health facilities so that women might give birth without
endangering their lives...
Between 1920 and 1923 the ranch came to have a population that wavered between 400
and 800 persons, who worked in the pastures in raising the livestock for export. Not only
the regional market was supplied from Canutillo, but also, in a small measure, that of the
United States, and when the crops satisfied the needs of the ranch, the old soldiers sold
its products in Parral, Torreón and other localities. There was no waste nor corruption.
And the store in Canutillo furnished many neighboring towns. The accounts of the ranch
were impeccable, because everyone knew: the bookkeepers did not want to be shot for
misuse of funds. A good control system, no?
Education was also a concern of Villa's, and thus he got José Vasconcelos, the
then secretary of Public Education, to send a cultural mission to Canutillo to bring
literacy to the inhabitants of his "little world." Villa even helped the teachers with
additional pay and provided them lodging, food, clothes washing, arms for hunting, a
horse and a budget for books. In this way the school "Felipe Ángeles" was founded, in
honor of one of the soldiers most admired by the Centaur.
Two facts would determine the final day of general Villa: the invitation to
participate in a baptism in Parral and the statements that he made to Pagés Llergo.
And indeed Villa not only publicly leaned towards Adolfo de la Huerta, the deadly enemy of
Obregón and of Calles, but who also confessed the possibility of gathering 50,000 of
his best--an unattainable goal at those heights--with only a snap of his fingers.
Villa knew the resources of Obregón and of Calles, the aspirant to occupy the
main office of the nation. He knew that they would hesitate at nothing in order to remain
in power. Obregŗn, perhaps feigning indifference, cynically subsidized the Canutillo
expenses through Miguel Trillo, Villa's last secretary. The Centaur, following these
deeds, relaxed and undertook a last trip to the Florido river, without knowing that a
group of thugs awaited the moment to execute him. There were some military and political
possibilities that De la Huerta had with the support of Villa and others, very different
if the latter were to disappear from the political scene. Francisco Villa was one of the
few men who might oppose the plans of Obregón and Calles, and therefore had to be
assassinated: his physical disappearance was unpostponable. Only the order to fire was
lacking.
On the morning of the crime Trillo vacillated: he did not know whether to bring the
mounted squad or, for reasons of economy and of speed, select a small group of bodyguards
who would go aboard general Villa's Dodge. It was decided for this last. Those on
horseback would remain in Canutillo. On the eve of the exit from his ranch, a village
woman asked to speak with Villa. She obtained that. Overcome with weeping she reported a
plot to assassinate him. She was risking her life to reveal the plans to kill him. Villa
thanked her for her words and sent her off giving her a few pats. At that moment his worry
increased: he did not forget the declarations that he had made. It was impossible to hide
the threat that his military presence implied for the president and for his political
heir. On that 20th of July in 1923 Villa bade farewell to his family: Soledad and his
children hugged him. She also asked him not to leave, to which he jokingly responded: "It
is not bad to die in Parral."
Obregón and Calles finalized the details of the crime in Chapultepec Castle.
They had already analyzed all Villa's movements and statements. The work of espionage
confirmed it: Villa had been dedicated to the tasks of the field until he decided in favor
of Adolfo de la Huerta, his friend, to seek the presidential succession in 1924.
To execute the crime and consummate the betrayal a group of nine individuals was
contracted, all of them fierce enemies of Villa, among whom figured Melitón Lozoya,
Librado Martínez, José and Román Guerra, José Barraza, Ruperto Vera, Juan López
and the Sáenz Pardo brothers. No one doubted that Villa's assassination was
orchestrated by Plutarco Elías Calles, in accord with general Obregón.
The physical assassins had rented a house on Gabino Barreda street, where travelers
who entered or left Parral to the northeast necessarily had to pass. They were hunting the
Centaur, waiting for the best occasion not to miss the target. They meant to massacre him,
to shoot from different angles so that the victim would not be able to return the fire.
The action would be executed in the style of Villa's military campaigns: lightning fast,
precise, overwhelming. It had to produce a rain of high-caliber bullets, exploding
bullets, to end the life of one who had the audacity to contradict the desires of
Obregón and Calles...
The return to Canutillo where his wife was, ready for her part to give birth, was set
for the 20th of July in 1923. On the tragic morning, the general drove his automobile.
Trillo sat on his right side. There was no room left in the vehicle: it was occupied to
full capacity by his personal guards, proof that the general knew his political rivals
very well.
Everything was perfectly organized. They left. A candy vendor removed his hat when
Villa's automobile passed in front of him. He had to see him, witness his presence and
make the gesture with the hat. That was the awaited signal. The assassins loaded their
cartridges. They were sure that they could open fire at any moment. They posted themselves
in their places. They allowed time to aim carefully. They did so, yet with pulse
trembling. Not everyone dared to shoot at Pancho Villa.
When at the final intersection the general's car turned the corner the triggers were
activated. The discharge of weaponry was ferocious, imposing, deafening. The rifles spat
fire. They made sure. They made sure again. They found a target from every point. They
re-loaded. They resumed shooting until their index fingers swelled. A regiment fired from
that ominous house so as to end the life of the general and that of his traveling
companions. Not even a single one should live to recount it.
The general's famous Dodge veered toward a tree and crashed against it. His motor
was silent immediately and, at the same time, the mouths of the criminals' rifles became
quiet. In the Parral dawn only isolated laments were heard, cries of pain that
extinguished gradually. One of the assassins emerged from the house to fire point-blank
the coup de grace to the temple of the general, who hung from the door of the
vehicle with his right hand on his pistol, as if he wanted to unholster it to die
fighting. The expanding bullets destroyed his chest and head. His macabre photograph would
be added to those of Zapata and Carranza. Those of Madero and Obregón would be lost
in the night of history.
Ever since the president of the Republic thought for the first time of the
assassination of general Villa until the crime was executed, it never passed through his
mind that "I swear to defend the Political Constitution of the Mexican states united and
the laws emanating from her, and if not that the nation dismiss me..." What did that which
was affirmed by the Magna Carta promulgated only six years before matter to Obregón
and to Calles, particularly that the Mexicans' maximum law established and commanded that
"no one can be deprived of life, and of liberty...except through judgments pursued through
previously established courts?" In the same manner, when president Carranza agreed to the
assassination of Zapata, he did not think about article 14 either; and Calles and
Obregón also ignored the oath when they ordered the capture and assassination of
Serrano and Gómez and their followers in Huitzilac. What chance was taken during the
history of political crime, almost always immune, by the material assassins of Madero and
Pino Suárez and those of Zapata and those of Carranza and those of Villa and those of
Field and Alvarado? The crimes and the betrayals were never sanctioned neither by the
public power nor by the society.
They did not even bury Villa with military honors, nor did they fire salvos in his
memory nor did they organize a funeral procession. Only the people brought flowers to the
cemetery.
Yet Pancho Villa, as he himself predicted, was not to repose tranquilly even in his
own tomb: three years after the crime someone returned to the tomb and removed the cranium
of the general...
BERNAL DÍAZ DEL CASTILLO NEVER LIED
LITTLE MORE THAN 100 YEARS after Cortás and his allies took Tenochtitlan, the Reyno
Press, located in Madrid, published a voluminous book that attempted to provide the last
word concerning the conquest of one of the jewels of the crown. Its author, who according
to the title page was "one of the conquistadores," had put an ambitious title on his work:
The true history of the conquest of New Spain. The name left no room for suspicion:
Bernal Díaz del Castillo attempted to refute every one of the histories--from Five
Letters of Relation by Hernán Cortés to Gómara's book--which gave an account
of those deeds.
The conquest of New Spain did not delay in becoming one of the principal sources
about that era and, as opposed to the letters of Cortés and the History of the
conquest of México by Francisco López de Gómara, have been re-published with
great success for 400 years, gaining approval far and wide. Bernal is the mirror of the
conquest and the conquest is Bernal's mirror. Thus, it is not strange that all the
historians--official or not--and those readers interested in the facts which he narrates
have approached his pages in order to discover the "truth." And at least in principle,
they are not unreasonable to do so: Bernal was a witness and a protagonist, and many of
the things that he says are beyond reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, I have the impression
that, on more than one occasion, we have overvalued Bernal's book, for he wrote some
falsehoods and, in certain cases, his affirmations are contrary to reality.
To examine the work of Bernal with a critical gaze will permit us to judge it with
impartiality and to assess it in its true measure, at the same time that we reveal as
myth, that Bernal never lied. Hence, let us enter into The conquest of New Spain.THE "TRUTHS" OF THE "TRUE" HISTORY
As an historical personage, Bernal Díaz del Castillo is elusive, we only having a handful
of confirmed facts about his life: he was born in Medina del Campo, was the son of
Francisco Díaz del Castillo--whom they nicknamed "The squire"--and of María Díez Rejón.
In Mexico City he had a love affair with a maiden which Moctezuma gave him, who after
being baptized as Francisca disappeared from history without leaving a trace; later he
married Teresa Becerra, with whom he had several children. We know that after the
conquest of México he settled in Guatemala, where he held some public offices and wrote
his True history... Beyond those datums, all that we know is what he says about
himself in his work. Curiously, Bernal is never mentioned by his companions in arms nor
by the first historians of the conquest: Cortés did not dedicate him a single line in
his Five Letters of Relation, nor did the other soldiers take note of him, and in
Gómara's book he stands out by his absence. Therefore, many of the Bernal scholars
--with Juan Miralles at the head--maintain that he wrote the True history... to
"save his name from oblivion."
This interpretation is not wrongheaded, for the chronicler prefaced the printing of
his work claiming: "I am an oldster of 84 years and have lost my sight and hearing."
Nevertheless, this did not cause him great problems, for he probably dictated his work to
some scribe or to a friend of his. The book, as opposed to that by Gómara, was never
conceived as a work of historical research, but instead as some memories, which explains
the relative disorder that characterizes his exposition.
The simple fact that the True history... is a book of memories and not the work of
a researcher can explain for us some of its errors and falsehoods: he undertook the
writing in solitude and never consulted his companions in arms about what they said,
though some of them also lived in Guatemala. His great and perhaps only source was his
memory, which he invoked various decades after the events that he narrated occurred. Yet
time and the ability to remember are not the only problems that mark the True
history... Bernal--like his companions in arms--was not present at each and every one
of the events that he recounts, and thus his source of information was, at least in these
instances, what was told him--at second-, third-, or fourth-hand--by the persons with whom
he conversed during the conquest and the first years of colonial life.
In this light, it should not surprise us that, for example, when the True history...
refers to the resident's trial which Hernán Cortés confronted upon being accused of
extracting gold from the royal quarters and distributing it among the conquistadores--to
which was added the suspicion that he had poisoned his wife Catalina Juárez--it does
not fit any of the facts which really occurred, for Bernal was not in Spain with the
Conquistador and his words, in good measure, only show the hearsay that ran from mouth
to mouth during those days.
Likewise, it should not surprise us that Bernal would tell half-truths about the
confrontation between Cortés and Diego Velázquez at the time of leaving Cuba,
offer a strange version concerning the imprisonment and demise of Moctezuma, that he err
on some details of the "Night of Sorrows," that he invents certain occurrences in relation
to Narváez and with the expedition that came to those lands to apprehend Cortés
and that, above all, he attributes a few feats to himself.
Bernal lied on various occasions. Nevertheless, and despite his errors and falsities,
the True history... continues to be a marvelous book, yet--like all works of history--one
that must be read with caution, with suspicious eyes and open mind, for only so will we
be able to discover its wealth and rid ourselves of its impurities. Such a reading,
which should characterize all our approaches to the words that are written about the
past and the present, is something that we should grant Bernal, the great memorioso of
the conquest who confided too much on his memories and never went beyond that which his
mind dictated.
FOREWORD
SILENCE damages the historical truth as much as the lie itself. Of course it is not
possible to tell it all at once, yet when there are such persistent absences, when theFOREWORD
passage of time instead of bringing more information about our past only brings more
lacunae, especially deep silences with respect to very specific themes, then it is not
possible to keep attributing the shameless omission of those subjects to the impossibility
of telling it all.
One of the major silences of our national historiography has to do with the political
activity of the clergy during our independent existence. For example, it is not considered
whether the Catholic church has been the worst enemy of the nation, against which it
financed and directed such a number of coups of State that we can attribute to said
practice many of the most disastrous characteristics of our political culture and of our
civil customs. Likewise, it is false that we once stopped being a nation of bosses: that
tag stems from the lies that Plutarco Elías Calles and his minions employed to fool
the people and the political class itself with regard to the fruits of the revolution. To
another class of silences belongs that which in turn concerns the figure of Carlota of
Belgium, who after being called empress of México abandoned her ephemeral
empire, not without first becoming pregnant, and not exactly by the emperor.
It is necessary to occupy ourselves with these subjects not only from pure love of
knowledge (which would be sufficient justification) but also because their study teaches
how truths are hidden, how historical facts are prostituted. Is it remembered that the
North Americans' pretext for declaring war on us in 1847 was that Mexico had spilled North
American blood on North American soil? A damnable lie, villainous, that makes us appear
blameworthy for one of the greatest injustices in American history. It is also false that
Victoriano Huerta would assassinate the president of the Republic in order to achieve
power: that Huerta ordered Madero killed, in one of the lowliest acts committed by a
Mexican, is a proven fact...but, what picture did Madero play on the day of his infamous
murder?
Something that is almost not mentioned, yet which has become an indisputable fact, is
that Francisco Villa has not been a respected hero following his demise, and that the sort
of dishonors which have been done to his memory should shame a people who hypocritically
venerate him while, with the other hand, permitting the desecration of his cadaver.
Finally, when we think of the conquest of México the book by Bernal Díaz del
Castillo almost infallibly comes to mind, one of the few testimonies about the deeds
occurring during that transcendental occasion. But, how true will his history of the
conquest be?
We violate all those silences, certain that something new about we ourselves will be
revealed...
