America and World Affairs: The Mexican Revolution

AMERICA AND WORLD AFFAIRS: THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

Background

The 1910s were a tumultuous decade in Mexican politics, and U.S.-Mexican relations were strained to the limit. Born in poverty, Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1911, had worked against French efforts to dominate Mexico in the nineteenth century. For most of his tenure in office he had kept democratic mechanisms in place, but by 1910 he was turning increasingly to coercion. Troops under Diaz's control suppressed strikes by textile workers and miners with bloody violence, and as many Mexican organizations began to oppose him, his regime was beginning to totter. Francisco I. Madero, a member of one of Mexico's ten richest families, ran against Diaz for the Mexican presidency in 1910, lost because of corrupt voting practices, and was imprisoned. Escaping to the United States, Madero rallied his forces, attacked Diaz's ill-disciplined federal troops, and on 25 May 1911 forced Díaz to resign and flee to Paris. On 2 November Madero was declared the winner of a new presidential election. Soon his administration was being charged with broken promises and corruption.

Rebellion

In the Morelos region of Mexico the peasantry, under the leadership of Emiliano Zapata, resisted government pacification efforts with guerrilla warfare and sabotage. Within fifteen months of the election Madero's government was under attack from both the Right and the Left. In February 1913 Victoriano Huerta, commander of the Mexican army, staged a military coup against Madero, who was subsequently imprisoned and assassinated. The Huerta government failed to stabilize Mexican politics, and in northern Mexico Venustiano Carranza soon initiated a democratic opposition to Huerta's military regime.

The Tampico Incident

The United States watched events in Mexico with interest. President Wilson condemned Huerta's regime as "a government of butchers," siding with Carranza. In early 1914 the United States removed an embargo against shipping arms to Mexico in order to bolster Carranza's chances. Wilson also initiated a naval blockade off Veracruz to keep Huerta's government from getting military shipments from foreign allies. Tensions mounted on 9 April 1914, when a small contingent of U.S. sailors from the blockade force went ashore to collect supplies at Tampico, Mexico. The sailors inadvertently wandered into a restricted zone and were arrested. The local Mexican commander promptly released the sailors and tendered an apology to the U.S. naval commander, but the American officer insisted that the Mexicans fire a salute to the U.S. flag. When they refused, President Wilson saw the incident as an opportunity to take action against the Huerta government, and Congress authorized the employment of military force. Using the "Tampico incident" as pretext, U.S. Marines and sailors invaded and occupied Veracruz. Nineteen Americans and more than two hundred Mexicans were killed in the fighting, and the two nations were on the brink of war. In an effort to avoid further conflict the two sides accepted the mediation of three South American countries: Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Dubbed the "ABC Powers," these governments proposed a settlement favoring the United States in June 1914, The United States should withdraw its troops from Mexico, they asserted, and Huerta should resign. At first Huerta refused to abdicate, but he was forced from office in July, and Carranza came to power in August. U.S. forces withdrew from Mexico in November, and in October 1915 the United States recognized the Carranza government.

U.S. Intervention

During the period between the conclusion of the ABC Conference and U.S. recognition of Carranza's government, Carranza's erstwhile general Francisco "Pancho" Villa called for land reforms and intimated to the Wilson administration that he was willing to follow the lead of the United States. By June 1915 Wilson, badgered by criticisms at home, threatened the use of troops, but by the autumn of 1915 relations between Mexico and the United States had improved. In January 1916, however, Villa's men murdered sixteen U.S. mining engineers, and on 9 March his soldiers razed the town of Columbus, New Mexico, murdering seventeen Americans. With the initial support of the Carranza government Wilson sent a military force under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing to Mexico to pursue and capture Villa. In February 1917 U.S. soldiers withdrew from Mexico without having apprehended Villa. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 included democratic elements, and Carranza was elected president. Yet, as American focus turned increasingly toward Europe, the politival situation remained unstable in Mexico. In 1919 Zapata was killed in an ambush, and the next year Carranza was assassinated as he fled Mexico City during an otherwise nearly bloodless coup. Villa was ambushed and murdered by political opponents in 1923.

Sources:

Robert A. Pastor, Limits to Friendship (New York: Knopf, 1988);

Josefina Zoraida Vazquez and Lorenzo Meyer, The United States and Mexico (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985);

John Womack Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1969).