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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
Mexborough
1911
Encyclopædia Britannica
Volume 18
Mexico
by
Philip Lake
Andrew J. Lamoureux
Edward B. Tylor
Walter Lehmann
and
James S. Mann
Mexico (state)
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2484908
1911
Encyclopædia Britannica
Volume 18
— Mexico
Philip Lake
Andrew J. Lamoureux
Edward B. Tylor
Walter Lehmann
and
James S. Mann
MEXICO
(Span.
Méjico
, or
Mexico
,) officially styled
Estados
Unidos Mexicanos
and
República Mexicana
, a federal republic
of North America extending from the United States of America
southward to Guatemala and British Honduras, and lying
between the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Gulf of Mexico
and Caribbean Sea on the east. Its northern boundary line
was fixed by the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty of 1848 and the
Gadsden treaty of 1853; it follows the Rio Grande del Norte
from its mouth north-westward to lat. 31° 47′ N., thence on
that parallel W. 100 m., thence S. to lat. 31° 20′ N., thence
due W. to the 111th meridian, thence in a straight line (nearly
W.N.W.) to a point on the Colorado river 20 m. below the mouth
of the Gila river, thence northward to the mouth of the Gila,
and thence, nearly due W., along the old line between Upper
and Lower California to a point on the Pacific coast one marine
league S. of the southernmost point of San Diego Bay; this
line has a total length of 1810 m., of which the Rio Grande
comprises 1136 and the land route 674 m. The boundary
line with Guatemala, for a long time in dispute, was fixed by
the treaties of 1882 and 1895. It is an arbitrary line and follows
only two natural lines of demarcation—the Suchiate river
from the Pacific coast to its source, and the Chixoy and Usumacinta
rivers from near the 16th parallel N.W. to a point on the
latter 25 kilometres, S. of Tenosique (Tabasco). Between these
rivers the boundary line is determined by the peaks of Tacana,
Buenavista and Ixbul, and from the Usumacinta eastward
it follows two parallels of latitude, one on the point of departure
from that river, and the other, the longer, on that of 17° 49′
to the British Honduras frontier. The boundary with British
Honduras was determined by a treaty of 1893 and is formed
in great part by the Hondo river down to the head of Chetumal
Bay, and thence through that bay to the Boca Bacalar Chica—the
channel separating Yucatán from Ambergris Cay. Geographically,
Mexico extends from 14° 30′ 42″ (the mouth of
the Suchiate) to 32° 42′ N. lat., and from 86° 46′ 08″ to
117° 07′ 31″ W. long. Approximately its greatest length from
N.W. to S.E. is 1900 m., its greatest width 750 m., and its
least width a little short of 140 m. In outline it is sometimes
compared to a huge cornucopia with its small end curving S.E.
and N. The interior curve formed by the Gulf of Mexico is
comparatively regular and has a coast-line of about 1400 m.
The Caribbean coast-line is about 327 m. long, exclusive
of indentations. The outer curve facing the Pacific is less
regular, is deeply broken by the Gulf of California, and has
a coast-line of 4574 m., including that of the Gulf. The
peninsula of
Lower California
q.v.
) lies parallel with the mainland
coast and extends southward to about 22° 52′ N. lat., a distance
of nearly 760 m. The area of Mexico is commonly given by
English authorities as 767,005 sq. m., by German statisticians
as 1,987,201 sq. kiloms. (767,290 sq. m.), and by H. H. Bancroft,
who quotes official figures, as 1,962,899 sq. kiloms. (757,907 sq. m.).
Physiography
.—The surface features consist of an immense
elevated plateau with a chain of mountains on its eastern and
western margins, which extends from the United States frontier
southward to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; a fringe of lowlands
tierras calientes
) between the plateau and coast on either side;
a detached, roughly mountainous section in the south-east, which
belongs to the Central American Plateau, and a low sandy plain
covering the greater part of the Isthmus of Yucatán. The peninsula
of Lower California is traversed from north to south by a chain
of barren mountains which covers the greater part of its surface.
The slopes are precipitous on the east coast, but on the west they
break down in hills and terraces to the Pacific. This range may
be considered a southward continuation of the Californian Sierra
Nevada. The great plateau of Mexico is very largely of volcanic
origin. Its superstructure consists of igneous rocks of all descriptions
with which the original valleys between its marginal ranges
have been filled by volcanic action. The remains of transverse
and other ranges are to be seen in the isolated ridges and peaks
which rise above the level of the table-land, in some cases forming
well-defined basins; otherwise the surface is singularly uniform in
character and level. The two noteworthy depressions in its surface,
the Valley of Mexico and Bolsón de Mapimi, once contained
large bodies of water, of which only small lakes and marshy lagoons
now remain. The highest part of this great plateau is to be found
in the states of Mexico and Puebla, where the general elevation is
about 8000 ft. Southward the slope is broken into small basins
and terraces by transverse ranges, and is comparatively abrupt.
Northward the slope is gentle, and is broken by several transverse
ridges. At Ciudad Juarez (adjoining El Paso, Texas), on the northern
frontier, the elevation is 3600 ft., which shows a slope of only
⁠4
ft. to the mile, Less is definitely known of the elevated regions
of Chiapas, on the border of Guatemala, which are separated from
the great Mexican Plateau by the low Isthmus of Tehuantepec
(718 ft. at the highest point of the transisthmian railway), but
their general elevation is much lower, and they are broken by wooded
sierras and eroded by water-courses.
The mountain ranges which form part of the great Mexican
Plateau consist of two marginal chains known as the Sierra Madre
Occidental, on the west, the Sierra Madre Oriental, on the east,
and a broken, weakly-defined chain of transverse ranges and ridges
between the 18th and 20th parallels known as the Cordillera de
Anahuac. All these chains are known locally under diverse names.
The Sierra Madre Occidental consists of several parallel ranges in
the north, where a broad belt of country is covered with a labyrinth
of ridges and valleys. The most eastern of these are known as the
Sierra Tarahumare and Sierra del Durango, and the most western
as the Sierra del Nazareno, Sierra Yaqui and Sierra Fuerte. These
converge in southern Sinaloa and Durango to form the Sierra de
Nayarit. Near the 20th parallel the great chain again divides,
the eastern part crossing the southern end of the plateau, and the
western, or Sierra Madre del Sur, following the shore line closely
to Tehuantepec. The Sierra Madre Occidental has but few noteworthy
elevations, its culminating points being the Nevado de
Colima (14,363 ft.) and Volcan de Colima (12,750 ft.) in the state of
Jalisco. In the Sierra de Nayarit the Cerro Pimal rises to an elevation
of 11,319 ft., and in the extreme south the Cerro del Leone
to 10,302 ft. These sierras lying near the coast have an imposing
appearance from the lowlands, but when seen from the plateau
their general elevation is so dwarfed as to render them comparatively
inconspicuous. The Sierra Madre Oriental consists of a
broken chain of ranges extending along the eastern margin of the
plateau from the great bend in the Rio Grande south-eastward to
about the 19th parallel. In the north these ranges are low and
offer no great impediment to railroad building. South of Tampico,
however, they are concentrated in a single lofty range. This range
extends south-eastward along the western frontier of Vera Cruz
(state) and includes the snow-capped cone of Orizaba or Citlaltepetl
(18,209 ft.), and the Cofre de Perote, or Nanchampapetl (13,419 ft.).
The eastern slopes are abrupt and difficult, and are a serious impediment
to communication with the coast. Rising from the open
plateau half way between this range and the city of Mexico is the
isolated cone of Malinche, or Malintzin (14,636 ft.). Crossing the
highest part of the Mexican Plateau is a broken series of ranges,
which form the water-parting between its northern and southern
slopes. To a part of these ranges has been given the name of
Cordillera de Anahuac, but there is no true cordillera across this
part of Mexico. In a general sense these ranges may be considered
part of the eastern branch of the Sierra Madre Occidental, which
turns eastward on the 20th parallel and crosses the plateau in a
south by east direction. Southward the plateau is traversed by
many low ranges and breaks down in terraces, forming one of the
most fertile and attractive parts of the republic. Close to the
capital are the Sierra de Ajusco, whose highest point is 13,078 ft.
above sea-level, the Nevado de Toluca (15,168 ft.), in a range which
separates the valleys of Mexico and Toluca, the Montes de las
Cruces, and that volcanic, spur-like range, running northward at
right angles to the axis of the other ranges, whose culminating
points, some 20 m. south-east of the city, are the gigantic, snow-clad
volcanoes of Popocatepetl (Smoking Mountain) and Ixtaccihuatl
(White Woman). Both of them are extinct and Popocatepetl
no longer smokes. Their elevations, according to the Comisión
Geográfica Exploradora, are 17,888 and 17,343 ft. respectively,
that of Ixtaccihuatl being the highest of its three crests. This
part of Mexico is highly volcanic in character, the transverse ridge
just described having a large number of extinct volcanoes and at
least three (Colima, Jorullo and Ceboruco) that are either active
or semi-active. Colima was in a state of eruption as late as 1909,
Jorullo (4262 ft.) is said to date from 1759, when its cone was formed,
and Ceboruco (7100 ft.) in the territory of Tepic, shows occasional
signs of activity. Near the coast in the state of Vera Cruz is San
Martin, or Tuxtla (9708 ft.), which has been quiescent since its
violent eruption of the 2nd of March 1793. Orizaba is sometimes
included among the semi-active volcanoes, but this is a mistake.
It has been quiescent since 1566, and is now completely extinct.
Earthquakes are common throughout the greater part of the republic,
especially on the western coast. They are most violent from San
Blas southward to the Guatemala frontier, and some of the Spanish
towns on or near this coast have suffered severely. Chilpancingo,
in Guerrero, was badly shattered in 1902, and in 1907, and in 1909
was reduced to a mass of ruins. The earthquake shocks of the
30th and, 31st of July 1909 were unusually severe throughout
southern Mexico, reducing Acapulco and Chilpancingo to ruins
and shaking the city of Mexico severely. In Acapulco a tidal wave
followed the shock. Slight shocks, or
temblores
, are of almost daily
occurrence. According to Humboldt’s theory there is a deep rent
in the earth’s crust about the 19th parallel through which at different
periods the underground fires have broken at various points between
the Gulf of Mexico and the Revillagigedo Islands. “Only on the
supposition that these volcanoes, which are on the surface connected
by a skeleton of volcanic rocks, are also united under the surface by
a chain of volcanic elements in continual activity, may We account
for the earthquakes which in the direction mentioned cause the
American continent, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean,
to oscillate at the same time” (
Egloffstein
, p. 57).
Map of Mexico, 1911
The lowland or
tierra caliente
region, which lies between the
sierras and coast on both sides of Mexico, consists of a sandy zone
of varying width along the shore-line, which is practically a tidewater
plain broken by inland channels and lagoons, and a higher
belt of land rising to an elevation of about 3000 ft. and formed in
great part by the débris of the neighbouring mountain slopes. On
the Pacific side there are places where the mountain spurs extend
down to the coast, but in general this lowland region ranges from
30 to 40 m. in width, except in southern Vera Cruz, Tabasco,
Campeche and Yucatán, where it extends farther into the interior.
The talus zone of this region, especially at elevations of 1000 to
3000 ft., is noted for its great fertility and the luxuriance of its
vegetation.
There are no large islands on the coast of Mexico, and most of
the smaller ones are unimportant. Many of those that fringe the
Gulf coast are sand-keys, or parts of a new coast formation. They
are commonly barren and uninhabitable. The Isla del Cármen,
which partly shuts in the Laguna de Términos (Campeche), is one of
the largest of this class, and has the town and port of Cármen at
its western extremity. On the northern coast of Yucatán is the
small, inhabited island of Holbox or Holboy, and on the eastern
coast the islands of Mujeres, Cancum and Cozumel, of which the
first and last have a considerable population and good ports. On
the Pacific coast there are a number of islands off the rocky shores
of Lower California and in the Gulf of California—most of them
barren and uninhabitable like the adjacent coast. The largest of
these, some of them inhabited, are: Guadalupe—about 75 m. west
of the coast on the 29th parallel, which is fertile and stocked with
cattle; Cerros, off Viscaino Bay, and Santa Margarita, which partly
shelters Magdalena Bay, on the Pacific side; and Angel de la Guarda,
Tiburon, San Marcos, Cármen, Monserrate, Santa Catalina, Santa
Cruz, San José, Espiritu Santo and Cerralvo in the Gulf. Lying
off San Blas in the broad entrance to the Gulf are the Tres Marias,
and directly west of Colima, to which it belongs, is the scattered
volcanic group of Revillagigedo.
The peculiar surface formation of Mexico—a high plateau shut
in by mountain barriers, and a narrow lowland region between it
and the coast—does not permit the development of large river
basins. Add to this the light rainfall on the plateau and a lack of
forests, and We have conditions which make large rivers impossible.
The hydrography of Mexico, therefore, is of the simplest description—a
number of small streams flowing from the plateau or mountain
slopes eastward to the Gulf of Mexico and westward to the Pacific.
Most of these are little more than mountain torrents, but one has
a course exceeding 500 m., and few have navigable channels. The
principal watershed is formed by the sierras of the state of Mexico,
from which streams flow north-east to the Gulf of Mexico, north-west
to the Pacific and south-west to the same coast below its great
eastward curve. The Rio Grande del Norte, or Rio Bravo, on the
northern frontier, is practically an American river, as it rises in
American territory and receives very little water from the Mexican
side. Its larger Mexican tributaries are the Rio de los Conchos,
Salado and Pesqueria. Of the Suchiate and Hondo, which form
part of Mexico’s southern boundary, the first is a short, impetuous
mountain torrent flowing into the Pacific, and the other a sluggish
lowland stream rising in north-eastern Guatemala and flowing
north-east through a heavily forested region to Chetumal Bay.
The peninsula of Yucatán has no rivers, and that of Lower California
only a few insignificant streams in the north. This is due to the
porosity of the soil in the former, and the very limited rainfall in
the latter. The largest rivers of Mexico are: the Rio Grande de
Santiago, called the Lerma above Lake Chapala, rising in the state
of Mexico and flowing westward across Guanajuato, Jalisco and
Tepic to the Pacific coast, with a total length of 540 m., celebrated
for its deep canyons and waterfalls; the Rio de las Balsas, or Mescala,
which rises in Tlaxcala and flows south and west to the Pacific
with a course of 426 m.; the Yaqui, which rises in western Chihuahua
and, after breaking through the northern ranges of the Sierra
Madre Occidental, flows south-westerly across Sonora to the Gulf
of California, with a length of 390 m.; the Grijalva, also called the
Chiapas on its upper course, which has its sources in the state of
Chiapas and flows north-west and north across Tabasco to the
Gulf of Mexico, with a total length of 350 m.; the Fuerte, which
rises in southern Chihuahua and, after breaking through the sierras,
flows south-west across Sinaloa to the Gulf of California, with a
course of 340 m.; the Usumacinta, which is formed by the confluence
of the Chixoy and Pasión on the east frontier of Chiapas, and flows
north-west across Tabasco to the Grijalva, with a course of 330 m.;
and the Pánuco, which has its source in the north-west of the state
of Mexico and flows north-eastward to the Gulf of Mexico. The
rivers of the Pacific coast have no navigable channels worth mentioning,
but many on the Gulf coast are navigable for considerable
distances. The more important of these are in Tabasco—the
Grijalva, navigable for about 93 m., and the Usumacinta, for about
270 m. The country about the Laguna de Términos is low and
flat, and is traversed in all directions by deep, sluggish streams.
Many of the rivers crossing the lowlands bordering the Gulf have
short navigable channels, the most important of which is the
Pánuco and its tributaries. The Rio Grande is navigable for small
vessels up to Matamoros (31 m.), and for smaller craft 65 m. farther.
Nearly all the Gulf coast rivers, however, are obstructed by bars
owing to the quantity of silt brought down from the sierras and
the prevailing winds and currents on the coast.
The lakes of Mexico are small and few in number. They may be
divided into two classes; those of the plateau region which occupy
lacustrine depressions and receive the drainage of the surrounding
country; and the tide-water lagoons of the coast formed by the
building up of new sand beaches across the indentations in the
coast-line. Of the former, the best known are the lakes of the
Valley of Mexico—Texcoco, Chalco, Xochimilco, Zumpango,
Xaltocán and San Cristobal—which are probably the remains of
a lake once occupying the whole valley. They receive considerable
surface drainage, but are slowly diminishing in area. Some of
them, like Xochimilco, will eventually disappear. The largest,
Texcoco, has an area of about 11
sq. m. (30 sq. kiloms.), but it
covered a much larger area at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Its surroundings are bleak and sterile and its waters brackish and
polluted with the drainage of the neighbouring city for nearly four
centuries. The other lakes are wholly different in character and
surroundings, especially Chalco and Xochimilco. Texcoco is now
connected with the new drainage works of the capital and is no
longer a menace to its population through inundations and pestilential
fevers. Another group of lakes is to be found in the Laguna
district of south-western Coahuila, where the Tlahualila, Mairan,
Parras and others occupy a large lacustrine depression and receive
the waters of the Nazas and Aguanaval rivers from the south-west
(Durango). The size of this isolated drainage basin is very large,
the Nazas River alone having a length of about 370 m. The great
Mapimi desert of western Coahuila is another lacustrine depression,
but only marshy lagoons remain. In eastern Coahuila, near
Monclova, are the Agua Verde and Santa Maria lakes, and in eastern
Chihuahua there is a similar group. The largest and most attractive
of the plateau lakes is Chapala, in the state of Jalisco, about 80 m.
long by 10–35 m. wide, which receives the waters of the Lerma
and discharges into the Pacific through the Santiago. On the
lower terraces of Michoacan are Patzcuaro and Cuitzeo lakes, and
elsewhere among the sierras are numerous other small bodies of
water. Among the tide-water lagoons, of which there are many
along the Gué coast, the best known are the Laguna de Términos
in Campeche, Tamiahua in Vera Cruz, Madre (130 m. long), Pesquerias
(21 m. long) and Chairel (near Tampico) in Tamaulipas.
All these lagoons are navigable, and those of northern Vera Cruz
and Tamaulipas, when connected and improved, will afford a safe
inland route for some hundreds of miles along the coast. The
north coast of Yucatán is remarkable for the extensive banks
built up by the Gulf current from 5 to 7 m. from the shore-line.
Inside the present sandy coast is a peculiar tide-water channel
called the Rio Lagartos, which follows almost the whole northern
shore, with occasional openings or
bocas
, connecting with the open
sea. It is apparently of the same character as the lagoons of
Tamaulipas, There are a number of these lagoons on the Pacific
coast—such as Superior and Inferior near Salina Cruz, Papacayo,
near Acapulco, Cayutlan, near Manzanillo, and Tecapan in Tepic—but
they are usually shallow, sometimes swampy, and have no
value for commerce.
There is a marked difference between the Gulf and Pacific coastlines
of Mexico in regard to their minor indentations and harbours.
The south-west part of the Gulf of Mexico is called the Gulf of
Campeche (Campeachy), but no distinction is necessary. This
coast has no bays of importance, its rivers are obstructed by sandbars,
and it has only one natural harbour—that of Cármen and the
Laguna de Términos, which has sufficient depth for the larger
classes of vessels and is sheltered by the islands of Cármen and
Puerto Real. Of the principal ports on this coast, Matamoros,
Tampico, Tuxpan, Coatzacoalcos and Frontera are on rivers,
which are obstructed by bars. Tampico and Coatzacoalcos, however,
have been improved by breakwaters or jetties, and the deepening
of the Channels across the bars, into safe and commodious
harbours. Vera Cruz is an open anchorage inside a series of reefs
which afford no protection to vessels from the “northers.” A
breakwater has remedied this defect and Vera Cruz is no longer
considered a dangerous port. Campeche has a small artificial
harbour, which is so silted up that vessels drawing 9 ft. must anchor
1 m. outside and larger vessels still farther away. Progreso,
Yucatán, has only an open roadstead, and large vessels cannot
approach its landing-place nearer than 6 m. On the east coast of
Yucatán there are two deep, well-sheltered bays, Ascensión and
Espiritu Santo, which afford good anchorages, and at the north
end of the island of Cozumel the bay of Santa Maria offers an excellent
harbour. The Pacific coast has several deep and well sheltered
bays; but they are separated from the interior by the rough
and difficult ranges of the Sierra Madre Occidental. There are
two large indentations of the coast—the Gulfs of Tehuantepec and
California. The former is opposite the Gulf of Campeche, and
possesses no distinguishing characteristic. The Gulf of California,
on the other hand, penetrates the continent for a distance of 739 m.,
from south-east to north-west, with a maximum breadth of 190 m.
Its area is usually restricted to the waters north of the latitude of
Cape San Lucas, but it should be extended to the outer waters
enclosed by a line from Cape San Lucas to Cape Corrientes. Its
upper waters are not much navigated because of the aridity of its
coasts, but there are two or three important ports towards the
south. The Gulf has a considerable number of islands, most of
them near the peninsular coast, and several deep, well-protected
bays—those of La Paz and Santa Inés in Lower California, Guaymas
in Sonora, Agiobampo, Topolobampo and Altata Salinas in Sinaloa.
On the Pacific coast of Lower California are the Ensenada de
Todos Santos and the bays of San Quentin, Viscaino and Magdalena.
The principal bays on the mainland coast are Olas Atlas, which is
the harbour of Mazatlan, San Blas, Banderas, Manzanillo, Acapulco,
Salina Cruz and Tonalá. Several of these are being improved.
Geology
.—By far the greater part of Mexico is covered by deposits
of Cretaceous and later date, the pre-Cretaceous rocks occurring
only in comparatively small and isolated patches. At the southern
extremity of the great table-land, however, in the state of Puebla,
there is a considerable mass of crystalline rocks which is believed
to be of Archaean age. Similar rocks occur also in Chiapas, Oaxaca,
Guerrero and elsewhere; but owing to the absence of any early
fossiliferous deposits, the age of these rocks is very uncertain.
Silurian and Devonian fossils have been reported at one or two
localities, but for the present the observations are open to doubt.
The earliest fossiliferous beds which have been proved to exist in
Mexico belong to the Carboniferous system. They are found on
the borders of Guatemala and consist of limestones and dolomites
with Productus.
The Mesozoic beds are of greater importance. The Triassic and
Jurassic systems are met with only in scattered patches. The
former consists of sandstones and clays, and the fossils found in
them are chiefly plants, including
Gangamopteris
and
Macrotaeniopteris
two characteristic genera of the Indian Gondwana system.
The Jurassic beds are marls, sandstones and limestones, which
contain marine fossils. The Cretaceous rocks take a far larger
share in the formation of the country. They form the greater part
of the Sierra Madre Oriental and also cover most of the central
plateau. They contain many fossils, including Hippurites and
Ammonites. The sedimentary deposits of the Tertiary era do not
occupy a very wide area. They occur, however, along the coasts,
where they are marine, and also on the central plateau, where they
are of lacustrine origin. But by far the most important of the
Tertiary rocks are the volcanic lavas, agglomerates and ashes, which
cover so much of the country. It is in the western half of Mexico
that they are most fully developed, but towards the southern
extremity of the plateau they spread nearly to the eastern coast.
The eruptions are said to have begun with the ejection of syenites,
diorites and diabases, which probably took place at the close of
the Cretaceous or the beginning of the Eocene period. In the
Miocene period andesites of various kinds were erupted, while at
the close of the Pliocene began the great eruptions of basalt which
reached their maximum in Quaternary times and continue to the
present day.
P. La.
)]
Climate
.—Mexico stretches across 17 parallels of latitude, with
the Tropic of Cancer crossing her territory about midway. This
implies tropical and sub-tropical conditions. The relief of the land
and varying degrees of rainfall and vegetation, however, serve to
modify these conditions in many important particulars. The
elevation and extent of the great central plateau, which penetrates
deeply into the tropical half of the country, carry with them temperate
and sub-tropical conditions over much the greater part of the
republic. Above the plateau rise the marginal sierras, while a few
isolated peaks in the region of perpetual snow give to Mexico a
considerable area of cold temperate and a trace of arctic conditions.
Descending to the lowlands on either side of the plateau, the temperature
rises steadily until the upper limit of the tropical region, called
tierras calientes
, is reached, where the climate is hot, humid and
unhealthy, as elsewhere in the forested coastal plains of tropical
America.
The
tierras calientes
(hot lands) of Mexico include the two coastal
zones, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the states of Tabasco, Campeche,
and part of Chiapas, the peninsula of Yucatán and a part of eastern
Oaxaca. The mean temperature ranges from 77° to 82° F.,
seldom falling below 60°, but often rising to 105°, and in the sultry
districts of Vera Cruz, Guaymas and Acapulco to and even above
110°. The rainfall is heavy in the south, except Yucatán, but
diminishes gradually toward the north, until on the Pacific and
Gulf of California coasts it almost disappears. These lowland
districts are densely forested in the south, except Yucatán, and
large areas are covered with streams, swamps and lagoons, the
abode of noxious insects, pestilential fevers and dysentery. On
both coasts yellow fever epidemics appear at frequent intervals.
The great fertility of these regions and the marvellous wealth of
their forests are irresistible attractions to industrial and commercial
enterprise, but their unhealthiness restricts development
and is a bar to any satisfactory increase in population. The heavy
rainfall on the Gulf coast, however, which reaches a maximum of
90 to 100 in. in the Huatusco district of Vera Cruz, causes the
flooding of large areas of lowlands, and will make improvement
very difficult. The peninsula of Yucatán, whose general level does
not rise above 130 to 200 ft. above the sea, consists almost wholly
of an open, dry, calcareous plain. The temperature ranges from
66° to 89°, but the heat is tempered by the cool sea-breezes which
sweep unobstructed across its plains. The rainfall is abundant in
the rainy season, but in the long dry season it is extremely rare.
In the wet season the rain is quickly absorbed by the dry, porous
soil; consequently there are no rivers and no lakes except near the
forested region of the south-east. These exceptional conditions
give to Yucatán a moderately hot, dry, and comparatively healthful
climate. Another hot, dry climate is that of the
tierras calientes
of Sonora. The coast is low and extremely arid, and would be
uninhabitable were it not for the proximity of the Sierra Madre,
where a light rainfall is experienced, and for the numerous rivers
that cross the arid belt between the mountains and the sea. The
maximum temperatures in this region are 98° at Hermosillo and
119° at Guaymas.,
To a large extent the climate of Mexico is determined by vertical
zones. According to H. H. Bancroft (
Resources of Mexico
, pp. 3–4),
the
tierras calientes
, which include a coastal zone 30 to 40 m. wide
and the low-lying states already mentioned, rise from sea-level to
an elevation of 3280 ft. The
tierra templada
, or sub-tropical zone,
rises to an elevation of 5577 ft., and comprises “the greater portions
of Coahuila, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosi, nearly half of Tamaulipas,
a small part of Vera Cruz, nearly the whole of Chiapas, nearly all
of Oaxaca, a large portion of Guerrero, Jalisco, Sinaloa and Sonora,”
together with small parts of the inland states of Puebla, Mexico,
Morelos and Michoacan. The mean annual temperature is about
75°. Above this is the
tierra fria
, which ranges from 5577 to 8200 ft.,
and includes all the higher portions of the Mexican plateau, and
which corresponds to the temperate regions of Central United
States where frosts are very rarely experienced. Even here the high
sun temperatures give a sub-tropical character to the country. In
the sierras, above the
tierras frias
, which are not “cold lands” at
all, are the colder climates of the temperate zone, suitable for cereals,
grazing and forest industries, and, farther up, the isolated peaks
which rise into the regions of snow and ice.
Speaking generally, the four seasons are clearly marked north of
lat. 28° N. only. South of that parallel they merge in the
estación
de las aguas
, or rainy season, from May to October, and the
estación seca
, or dry season, which prevails for the rest of the year.
The rains generally begin on the east coast and gradually move
northwards. The windward slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental
receive the greater part of the rainfall, and the winds, deprived of
their moisture, pass over the northern plateau without further
precipitation. On the Pacific coast the belt of calms, known as
the northern horse latitudes, crosses the northern parts of Lower
California and Sonora, which accounts for their extreme aridity.
The southern terraces of the plateau have no high mountain barriers
between them and the moist winds of the Caribbean, and they too
receive an abundant rainfall in the wet season, especially during the
prevalence of heavy “northers” on the Gulf coast. The precipitation
varies widely, that of the western side of the northern plateau
(Chihuahua and Durango) being about 39 in., that of the Valley of
Mexico about 25 in., and that of the whole republic 59 in. Long
droughts are common in many parts of the country, and on the
barren surfaces of the plateau the rains drain away rapidly, leaving
but slight beneficial results.
Flora and Fauna
.—The types of animal and vegetable life found
in Mexico belong, in a general sense, to those of the northern temperate
region, and those of the tropical regions of Central and South
America. The great central plateau and its bordering lowlands
form an intermediate territory in which these dissimilar types are
found side by side, the tropical species extending northward along
the coast to the United States, while the northern species have
found their way to the southern limits of the plateau. The jaguar
and puma have found their way into the United States, while the
wolf, coyote, bear and beaver have gone far southward on the
plateau, and the buffalo was once found in large numbers on its
more favoured northern plains. This intermingling of types does
not apply to south-eastern Mexico, where animal life is represented
by many of the genera and species found in the forested lowlands
of the great, Amazon basin.,
Aside from its origin, the fauna of Mexico includes at least five
species of monkey, the jaguar, puma, ocelot (
Felis pardalis
), wolf,
coyote, lynx, badger, otter (
Lutra felina
), beaver, muskrat, bear,
raccoon (
Procyon
), coati (
Nasua
), tapir, two species of peccary
Dicotyles torquatus
and
D. labiatus
), skunk (
Mephitis
Spilogale
and
Conepatus
), marten, several species of opossum (including a pigmy
species of the Tres Marias islands), sloth, two species of ant-bear
Myrmecophaga tetradactylus
and
Cyclothurus didactylus
), armadillo
Dasypus novemcinctus
), a small arboreal porcupine (
Synetheres
mexicanus
), the kinkajou (
Cercoleptes caudivolvulus
), three species
of deer—the white-tailed
Cariacus toltecus
, the little black-faced
brocket, Coassus rufinus, which is also found in Brazil, and the
Sonora deer (
Odocoileus couesi
)—the Mexican bighorn (
Ovis mexicanus
of Chihuahua, at least two species of hare (
Lepus calotis
and
L. palustris
), rabbits, black, gray, red and ground squirrels,
gophers, and many small rodents. Alligators and crocodiles are
numerous in the lagoons and rivers of the coast and the iguana is to be
found everywhere throughout the tropical lowlands, the large
black
Ctenosura acanthinurus
being partly arboreal in habit when full
grown; Mexico is a paradise of lizards, which are noted for their
diversity in form as well as for their remarkable colouration. Frogs
and toads are represented by scores of species, some of which,
e.g.
the tree-frogs (
Hylidae
), are extremely interesting. The ophidians
are also very numerous, ranging from the comparatively harmless
boa-constrictor to the deadly “palanca” or “fer de lance”
Lachesis lanceolatus
) and rattlesnake (
Crotalus
), of which there are
several species. In southern Mexico in 1902 and 1904 Hans Gadow
collected specimens of 44 different kinds of snakes, which he estimated
to be only about 45% of the species in the states visited.
The arboreal life of the tropical forests has developed the tree-climbing
habit among snakes as well as among frogs and toads, and
also the habit of mimicry, their colour being in harmony with the
foliage or bark of the trees which form their “hunting-grounds.”
Bats are numerous, both in species and individuals. The sanguinary
vampire (
Desmodus rufus
) has an extensive range through the
tierras calientes
and
tierras templadas
of the southern states. The
coasts of Mexico, together with their accessible lagoons and rivers,
afford innumerable breeding-places for turtles, which include the
large green and tortoise-shell species. In some places the capture
of the latter is the source of a considerable export trade in tortoise-shell.
The coast of Lower California is a favourite resort for the
fur-bearing seal, and pearl oysters find a congenial habitat in the
south waters of the Gulf. There are some good fishing-grounds on
the coasts, but fishing as an organized industry does not exist.
The inland waters, with the exception of Lake Chapala, have comparatively
few species, but the government has introduced carp,
brook-trout and salmon-trout.
The avifauna of Mexico includes most of the species of the tropical
and temperate regions of America—such as parrots (chiefly the
yellow-headed Chrysalis), parakeets (
Conurus canicula
), macaws
Ara macao
and
A. militaris
), toucans, trogons, herons, egrets, ibis,
spoonbills, boat-bills (
Cancroma
), ducks, pelicans, cormorants,
bitterns, stilts, sandpipers, curlews, grackles, kingfishers, motmots,
“Chachalacas” (
Ortalida poliocephala
), woodpeckers, jays, cuckoos,
“garrapateros” (
Crotophaga sulcirostris
), the ingenious weaver-bird
Icterus
), and another species (
Cassicus
), whose curiously woven,
sack-like nests are suspended from the slender limbs of trees, and
sometimes even from telegraph-wires, scarlet-crested fly-catchers
Muscivora mexicana
), tanagers, mocking-birds (called “zenzontl”),
turkeys, partridge, quail (
Colinus
Lophortyx
Callipepla
and
Cyrtonyx
),
doves, pigeons, eagles, caracara hawks (
Polyborus
), fish-hawks,
falcons, crows, and turkey-buzzards (both the red-faced
“aura” of North America and the black-faced “zopilote" of the
tropics), which are the scavengers of the country. The most numerous,
perhaps, are the humming-birds, of which there are many
genera and species, each one distinct in form and colour. They are
called “huitzilin” (spikelet by the Aztecs, and “colibrí,” “chupaflor”
and “chupa-miel” (flower- or honey-sucker), and “pájaromosca”
(fly-bird) by the Spanish-speaking Mexicans. These
descriptive names are highly poetic, as also that of the Portuguese,
“beija-flor” (flower-kisser); but the humming-bird is insectivorous,
and thrusts his long bill into flowers in search of insects instead of
honey. Mexico is credited with a great variety of song-birds, but
these are to be found chiefly in the partly-forested country of the
tierras templadas
and
tierras frias
. Her chief distinction, however,
is in birds of varied and gorgeous feathering. The wonderful plumage
of the “quetzal” (
Trogon resplendens
) was, it is said, reserved
by the Aztec rulers for their own exclusive use. Of the indigenous
birds, the turkey has been fully domesticated, and the musk-duck
and “chachalaca” are easily reared. Sea-fowl are most numerous
on the coasts of Lower California, where certain islands in the arid
belt are frequented at night by countless numbers of them. It
should be added that many of the migrating birds of North America
pass the winter in Mexico.
The insect fauna of Mexico covers a very wide range of genera
and species which, like the other forms of animal life, is largely
made up of migratory types. No complete study has ever been
made of this fauna, but much has been, and is being done by the
U.S. Biological Survey and Plant Industry Bureau. To the traveller,
the most conspicuous among the Mexican insects, perhaps, are the
butterflies, beetles, ants and the myriads of mosquitoes, midges,
fleas and chinches. Among the mosquitoes, which are extraordinarily
numerous in some of the hot lowland districts, are the
species credited with the spread of malarial and yellow fevers.
The midges are even more numerous than the mosquitoes. In
pleasing contrast to such pests are the butterflies of all sizes and
colours, beetles of an inconceivable variety of size, shape and
colouration, and ants of widely dissimilar appearance and habits.
An interesting species of the last is the leaf-cutting ant (
Eciton
which lives in large underground colonies and feeds upon a fungus
produced by leaf-cuttings stored in subterranean passages to promote
fermentation. These ants will strip a tree in a few hours and
are very destructive to fruit plantations. Some of the native trees
have developed ingenious methods of defence, one of which is that
of attracting small colonies of another species to drive away the
marauders. Most destructive, also, are the termites or white ants,
whose ravages are to be seen in the crumbling woodwork and furniture
of all habitations in the hot zones. Some species build their
nests in trees—great globular masses sometimes three feet in
diameter, supported on the larger branches, and connected with the
ground by covered passages on the outside of the tree. These
insects are blind and avoid the light. Bees find a highly congenial
habitat in Mexico, and some honey is exported. Spiders are also
represented by a large number of genera and species, the most
dreaded being the venomous “tarantula” and the savage “mygale.”
Few countries, if any, can present so great a diversity in plant
life as Mexico. This is due not only to its geographical position
and its vertical climatic zones, which give it a range from tropical
to arctic types, but also to its peculiar combination of humid and
arid conditions in which we find an extensive barren table-land
interposed between two tropical forested coastal zones. These
widely divergent conditions give to Mexico a flora that includes the
genera and species characteristic of nearly all the zones of plant
life on the western continents—the tropical jungle of the humid
coastal plains with its rare cabinet-woods, dye-woods, lianas and
palms; the semi-tropical and temperate mountain slopes where oak
forests are to be found and wheat supplants cotton and sugar-cane;
and above these the region of pine forests and pasture lands. Then,
there are the mangrove-fringed coasts and the dripping wooded
slopes where rare orchids thrive, and above these, on the inland
side of the sierra, a treeless, sun-scorched table-land where only the
cactus, yucca, and other coarse vegetation of the desert can thrive
without irrigation.
For convenience of description, the flora of Mexico may be
divided into four great divisions: that of the comparatively barren
plateau and the arid coast regions, the humid
tierras calientes
, the
intermediate
tierras templadas
and
tierras frias
, and the higher
regions of the sierras. The line of demarcation cannot be very
sharply drawn, as the zones everywhere overlap each other and
local climatic conditions greatly modify plant types. In general,
the aspect of the great central plateau north of the Anahuac sierras
is that of a dusty, treeless plain. There is but little natural vegetation
to be seen—ragged yucca trees, many species of agave and
cactus, scrubby mesquite bushes, sage bushes and occasional
clumps of coarse grasses. The rainy season completely changes the
appearance of these plains, new grass appears, and wheat and Indian
corn are cultivated. The rains do not last long, however, and sometimes
fail altogether. The most common plants of the Mexican
plateau are the agaves, yuccas and cacti, each of which is represented
by a number of species. The first is chiefly known in the
south by the “magueys,” from which the national drinks “pulque”
and “mescal” are extracted. There is some confusion in the
specific names of these agaves; the “pulque”-producing plant is
usually described as the
Agave americana
, though
A. atrovirens
and
several others are also credited with the product. The mescal-producing
magueys have a thinner leaf and are not cultivated, with
the exception of the species producing the “tequila” mescal. The
chief value of the agaves, however, is in their fibres, of which a
great variety is produced. The principal plateau agaves producing
fibre are the
A. lechuguilla
and
A. lophantha
and
A. univittata
of
the Jaumave Valley, Tamaulipas, which furnish what may be
termed the genuine ixtle fibre. The “tapemete” fibre of western
Mexico is credited by Mr E. W. Nelson to the
A. vivipara
, which is
found chiefly in the warmer and lower elevations of the Pacific
slope. There are many other fibre-producing agaves, including
some of those from which pulque is derived. The cactus is unquestionably
the characteristic plant of Mexico. About one
thousand species have been described, a very large percentage of
which are to be found on the Mexican plateau.
Explorations by botanists of the United States Department of
Agriculture have been made in many localities, in Jalisco, Zacatecas,
Michoacan and Tamaulipas, but many years must elapse before the
whole ground can be covered. In central and southern Mexico the
mountain slopes are forested up to 12,500 to 13,500 ft., juniper
bushes continuing up to 14,000 ft. The forests consist of several
species of evergreen and deciduous oaks, “oyamel” (
Abies religiosa
),
the arbutus or strawberry tree, the long-leaved
Pinus liophylla
and
the short-leaved “ocote” or
Pinus montezumae
and the alder, with
an undergrowth of elder (
Sambucus mexicana
), broom and shrubby
heath. In the Southern Sierra Madre, the “oyamel” and “ocote”
pine are the, giants of the forest, sometimes rising to a height of
100 ft. Oaks are to be found over a wide area and at lower elevations
of the sub-tropical zone as well. They are represented by a
number of species, and are called “roble” and “encina” by the
natives.
In the intermediate zones between the higher sierras and the
tierras calientes
the flora is very largely composed of species
characteristic of the bordering hot and cold regions. Oaks are
everywhere common and the “ocote” pine on the Gulf coast is
found as far down as 6300 ft. In southern Mexico the pine is
found at even lower elevations where the tropical growth. has been
destroyed by cultivation and fire. The lower slopes of the sierras,
especially those of southern Mexico, are well forested and include an
immense number of species. The most common families on the
eastern slopes, where the precipitation is heavy, are the magnolias,
crotons, mimosas, acacias, myrtles, oaks, plane-trees and bamboos.
Palms are common, the chestnut abounds in many places, the cacti
are almost as numerous as on the open plateau. On the southern
slopes of the Ajusco and other sierras considerable forests of the
“ahuehuete” or cypress (
Taxodium distichum
) are to be found.
The “higuerilla”' or castor-oil plant (
Ricinus communis
) is widely
distributed throughout the plateau and the open plains of the lower
zones. In some localities the characteristic types of the two
climatic extremes, the palm and the pine, are to be found growing
side by side.
No brief description can adequately portray the marvellous
variety and magnificence of the flora of the
tierras calientes
. Its
forests are not composed of one or a few dominating species, as in
the cold temperate zone, but of countless genera and species
closely interwoven together—a confused mass of giant trees, lianas
and epiphytes struggling to reach the sunlight. This struggle for
existence has completely changed the habits of some plants, turning
the palm and the cactus into climbers, and even some normal
species into epiphytes. Among the more important and conspicuous
trees of these tropical forests are mahogany, rosewood, Spanish
cedar (
Cedrela
), cassias, ceibas (
Bombax
), rubber (
Castilloa
), palms
of many species including the oil-producing
Attalea
of Manzanillo
and
Acrocomia
of Acapulco, guayacan (
Guaiacum
), logwood (
Haematoxylon
campechianum
), brazilwood (
H. boreale
) which should not be
confounded with the Brazilian
Caesalpinia
, palo blanco (
Lysiloma
candida
), the cascalote and divi-divi trees (
Caesalpinia Cacalaco
and
C. coriaria
), the “zapote chico” (
Achras sapota
) from which
chicle is extracted, “zapote prieto” (
Diospyros ebenaster
), wild fig,
myrtles, bamboos and many of the types already mentioned in
Connexion with the sub-tropical zone. Of the 114 species of trees
and cabinet-woods, 17 of oil-bearing plants, and over 60 of medicinal
plants and dyewoods indigenous to Mexico, by far the larger part
are represented in the
tierras calientes
. Among the well-known
forest products of this zone are arnotto, jalap, ipecacuanha,
sarsaparilla, rubber, orchids and a great variety of gums.
Of the economic plants and products of Mexico, the list is surprisingly
long and interesting. The cereals, fruits and vegetables
of Europe have been introduced and some of them have done well.
Wheat is widely cultivated and a considerable part of the population
depend upon it for their bread. Indian corn, which is believed to
have had its origin in Mexico, also provides food for a large part of
the population. “Tunas” or cactus fruit, red peppers, “zapotes”
(the fruit of various trees), “arrayan” (
Myrtus arayan
), “ciruelas”
or Mexican plums (
Spondias
), guavas, “huamuchil” (
Pithecolobium
dulce
), tamarinds, aguacates (
Persea gratissima
), bananas, plantains,
pineapples, grapes, oranges, lemons, limes, granadillas, chirimoyas,
mammees (
Mammea americana
), coco-nuts, cacao, mangoes, olives,
gourds and melons, are among the fruits of the country, and rice,
wheat, Indian corn, beans, yams, sweet potatoes, onions and
“tomatoes” (
Physalis
) are among its better-known food products.
The food of the common people is chiefly made up of Indian corn,
beans, red peppers and “tomatoes,” There are about 50 known
species of beans (
Phaseolus
) in Mexico and Central America, and
probably a dozen species of red peppers (
Capsicum
) which are used
both in seasoning and in making chili sauce. The “tomato” or
“tomatillo” mentioned, is the fruit of the
Physalis ixocarpa
, sometimes
called the “strawberry tomato” and the “Mexican ground-cherry,”
which is used with red peppers to make chili sauce.
The common potato (
Solanum tuberosum
), of which wild varieties
are found, is not commonly used as a vegetable, but as a flavouring
for soups and other dishes. Among other economic plants are the
fibre-producing agaves, the best known of which is the
A. rigida
var.
elongata
which produces the “henequen” fibre, or sisal hemp,
of Yucatan, silk or tree-cotton (
Ceiba casearia
), sugar-cane, cotton
Gossypium
), indigo and “canaigre” (
Rumex hymenosepalus
whose root contains a large percentage of tannin.
Mexico has suffered much from the reckless destruction of her
forests, not only for industrial purposes but through the careless
burning of grassy areas. The denuded mountain slopes and plateaus
of southern Mexico are due to the prehistoric inhabitants who cleared
away the tropical forest for their Indian corn fields, and then left
them to the erosive action of the tropical rains and subsequent
occupation by coarse grasses. Fire was generally used in clearing
these lands, with the result that their arboreal vegetation was
ultimately killed and their fertility destroyed. In the valleys of
some of these denuded slopes oak and pine are succeeding the
tropical species where fires have given them a chance to get a good
foothold.
Population
.—According to the census of 1900 the population
of Mexico numbered 13,607,259, of which less than one-fifth
(19%) were classed as whites, 38% as Indians, and 43% as
mixed bloods. There were 57,507 foreign residents, including
a few Chinese and Filipinos. Since then the Japanese have
acquired an industrial footing in Mexico. Under the constitution
of 1824 all race distinctions are abolished, and these diverse
ethnic elements are nominally free and equal. For many
years, however, the Indians remained in subjection and took
no part in the political activities of their native country. Since
about 1866, spurred on by the consciousness that one of their
own race, Benito Juárez, had risen to the highest positions
in the, gift of the country, they have taken greater interest
in public affairs and are already making their influence felt.
In southern Mexico the Zapotecas furnish schoolmasters for
the village schools. Peonage, however, is still prevalent on many
of the larger estates, and serious cruelties are sometimes reported.
The government itself must be held partly responsible, as for
the transportation of the mountain-bred Yaquis to the low,
tropical plains of Yucatan (see Herman Whitaker's
The Planter
1909), but the influence of three and a half centuries of slavery
and peonage cannot be shaken off in a generation.
According to Humboldt, the census of 1810 gave a total
population of 6,122,354, of which the whites had 18%, the
mestizos 22% and the Indians 60%. The census of 1895
increased the whites to 22%, which was apparently an error,
the mixed bloods to 47%, and reduced the Indians to 31%. It
is probable that the returns have never been accurate in regard
to the mixed bloods and Indians, but it is the general conclusion
that the Indians have been decreasing in number, while the
mixed bloods have been increasing. Neglect of their children,
unsanitary habits and surroundings, tribal intermarriage and
peonage are the principal causes of the decreasing Indian population.
Recent observers, however, deny the assertion that
the Indians are now decreasing in number except where local
conditions are exceptionally unfavourable. The death rate
among their children is estimated at an average of not less than
50%, which in families of five and six children, on an average,
permits only a very small natural increase. The larger part
of the population is to be found in the southern half of the
republic, owing to the arid conditions prevailing in the north.
The unhealthfulness of the coastal plains prevents their being
thickly populated, although Vera Cruz and some other states
return a large population. The most favourable regions are
those of the
tierras templadas
, especially on the southern slopes
of the great central plateau which were thickly populated in
prehistoric times.
The dissimilar races that compose the population of Mexico
have not been sufficiently fused to give a representative type,
which, it may be assumed, will ultimately be that of the
mestizos
Mexico was conquered by a small body of Spanish adventurers,
whose success in despoiling the natives attracted thither a
large number of their own people. The discovery of rich
deposits of gold and silver, together with the coveted commercial
products of the country, created an urgent demand for labourers
and led to the enslavement of the natives. To protect these
adventurers and to secure for itself the largest possible share
in these new sources of wealth, the Spanish crown forbade
the admission of foreigners into these colonies, and then harassed
them with commercial and industrial restrictions, burdened
them with taxes, strangled them with monopolies and even
refused to permit the free emigration thither of Spaniards.
Out of such adverse conditions has developed the present
population of Mexico. It was not till after the middle of the
19th century that a long and desperate resistance to foreign
intervention under the leadership of Benito Juarez infused
new life into the masses and initiated the creation of a new
nationality. Then came the long, firm rule of Porfirio Diaz,
who first broke up the organizations of bandits that infested
the country, and then sought to raise Mexico from the state
of discredit and disorganization into which it had fallen. Suspicion
and jealousy of the foreigner is disappearing, and habits
of industry are displacing the indolence and lawlessness that
were once universally prevalent.
The white race is of Spanish descent and has the characteristics
common to other Spanish-American creoles. Their
political record previous to the presidency of Porfirio Diaz
was one of incessant revolutionary strife, in which the idle,
unsettled half-breeds took no unwilling part. The Indian
element in the population is made up of several distinct races—the
Aztec or Mexican, Misteca-Zapoteca, Maya or Yucateco,
Otomi or Othomi, and in smaller number the Totonac, Tarasco,
Apache, Matlanzingo, Chontal, Mixe, Zoque, Guaicuro, Opata-Pima,
Tapijulapa, Seri and Huavi. As the tendency among
separated tribes of the same race is to develop dialects and as
habitat and customs tend still further to differentiate them,
it may be that some of these smaller families are branches
of the others. In 1864 Don Manuel Orozco y Berra found no
fewer than 51 distinct languages and 69 dialects among the
Indian inhabitants of Mexico, to which he added 62 extinct
idioms—making a total of 182 idioms, each representing a
distinct tribe. Thirty-five of these languages, with 69 dialects,
he succeeded in classifying under 11 linguistic families. A later
investigator, Don Francisco Belmar (
Lenguas indigenas de
Mexico
, Mexico, 1905), has been able to reduce these numerous
idioms to a very few groups. None of them were written except
through the use of ideographs, in 'the making of which the
Aztecs used colours with much skill, while the Mayas used an
abbreviated form, or symbols.
The Aztecs, who called themselves Mejica or Mexicans after
they had established themselves on the high table-land of Mexico,
belong to a very large family or group of tribes speaking a
common idiom called Nahua or Nahoa. These Nahua-speaking
tribes were called the Nahuatlaca, and compose a little more
than one-fourth of the present Indian population. They inhabit
the western Sierra Madre region from Sinaloa southward to
Chiapas, the higher plateau states, which region was the centre
of their empire when Cortés conquered them, and parts of
Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Morelos, Aguascalientes and
San Luis Potosi. They were energetic and warlike and evidently
had not reached the zenith of their power when Cortés came.
They had been preceded on the same plateau by the Chichimecs,
possibly of the same race, who were conquered by the Aztecs
sometime in the 15th century after a supposed occupation of
the territory about 400 years. The characteristic civilization
of prehistoric Mexico, however, antedates both of these periods.
An Aboriginal race called the Toltecs is said to have occupied
Vera Cruz and Tabasco and to have extended its empire westward
on the plateau to and perhaps beyond the present capital.
They were the builders of the pyramids of Cholula and Teotihuacan,
near the city of Mexico, and of Papantla, Huatusco and
Tuzapan, in Vera Cruz. One of their towns was Tollan (now
Tula) 50 m. north of the national capital, and it is not improbable
that the people of Cholula, Texcoco and Tlaxcala at the
time of the Spanish invasion were occupying the sites of older
Toltec towns. There has been much discussion in regard to
the origin of the Toltecs, some assuming that they were a distinct
race, and others that they belonged to the Nahuatlaca. Another
and perhaps a better supposition is that they belonged to the
Maya group, and represented a much earlier civilization than that
of the builders of Palenque, Quirigua and Copan. Confirmatory
evidence of this is to be found, not only in the character
of their constructions, but in the circumstance that a tribe
closely akin to the Mayas (the Huastecos) still occupies a retired
mountain valley of Vera Cruz, entirely separated from their
kinsmen of the south, and that a dialect of the Maya language
is still spoken in northern Vera Cruz. There is evidence to
show that the Aztecs adopted the civilization of the Toltecs,
including their religion (Quetzalcoatl being a god of the Toltecs
and Mayas), calendar and architecture. Perhaps the most
remarkable of the Mexican races are the Mayas, or Maya-Quiché
group, which inhabit the Yucatán peninsula, Campeche
and parts of Tabasco, Chiapas, and the neighbouring states
of
Central America
q.v.
). The remarkable ruins of Palenque,
Uxmal, Chichenitza, Lorillard, Ixinché, Tikal, Copan and
Quirigua, with their carved stonework and astonishing architectural
conceptions, show that they had attained a high degree
of civilization. They were agriculturists, lived in large, well-built
towns, cultivated the mountain sides by means of terraces,
and had developed what must have been an efficient form of
government.
The Mistecas, or Mixtecas, and Zapotecas, who occupy the
southern slopes of the central plateau, especially Puebla,
Morelos, Oaxaca and Guerrero, form another distinct race, whose
traditional history goes back to the period when the structures
now known as Mitla, Monte Alban, Xochicalco and Zaachila
were built. Their prehistoric civilization appears to have been
not inferior to that of the Mayas. They were an energetic
people, were never subdued by the Aztecs, and are now recovering
from their long subjection to Spanish enslavement more
rapidly than any other indigenous race. The Otomis comprise
a large number of tribes occupying the plateau north of the
Anáhuac sierras. They are a hardy people, and are the least
civilized of the four principal native races.
The Totonacs inhabit northern Vera Cruz and speak a language
related to that of the Mayas; the Tarascos form a small group
living in Michoacán; the Matlanzingos, or Matlaltzincas, live
near the Tarascos, the savage Apaches, a nomadic group of
tribes ranging from Durango northward into the United States;
the Opata-Pima group, inhabiting the western plateau region
from Sonora and Chihuahua south to Guadalajara, is sometimes
classed as a branch of the Nahuatlaca; the Seris, a very small
family of savages, occupy Tiburon Island and the adjacent
mainland of Sonora; and the Guaicuros, or Yumas, are to be
found in the northern part of the peninsula of Lower California
In southern Mexico, the Chontales, Tapijulapas, Mixes and
Zoques inhabit small districts among and near the Zapotecas,
the first being considered by Belmar a branch of that family.
The Huavis inhabit four small villages among the lagoons
on the southern shore of Tehuantepec and have been classed
by Belmar as belonging to the Maya stock. The census of
1895 gave these Indian races an aggregate population of nearly
4,000,000, of which nearly 3,450,000 belonged to the first four
groups. Three of these four had made important progress
toward civilization. Some of the others had likewise made
notable progress, among which were the Tarascos, Totonacs
and Zoques.
The builders of
Casas Grandes
q.v.
), in Chihuahua, evidently
belonged to the Pueblo tribes of Arizona and New Mexico.
As for the builders of Quemada, in Zacatecas, nothing positive
is known. The ruins apparently are of an earlier period than
those of Mitla and Xochicalco, and have no inscriptions and
architectural decorations, but the use of dressed stone in the
walls, rather than adobe, warrants the conclusion that they
belonged to the civilization of southern Mexico.
From the records made at the time of the Spanish conquest, and
from the antiquities found in the abandoned cities of prehistoric
Mexico, it is certain that the Indians lived in substantial houses,
sometimes using dressed stone, inscriptions and ornamental carvings
on the more pretentious edifices; they cultivated the soil, rudely
perhaps, and produced enough to make it possible to live in large
towns; they made woven fabrics for dress and hangings, using
colours in their manufacture; they were skilful in making and ornamenting
pottery, in making gold and silver ornaments, and in
featherwork; they used the fibres that Nature lavishly provided
in weaving baskets, hangings, mats, screens and various household
utensils. Copper was known to them, and it is possible that they
knew how to make cutting instruments from it, but they generally
used stone axes, hammers and picks, and their most dangerous
weapon was a war-club into which chips of volcanic glass were set.
Many of these primitive arts are still to be found in the more secluded
districts, and perhaps the best work in pottery moulding in Mexico
to-day is that of uneducated Indian artists.
Of the half-breed element which has become so important
a part of the Mexican population, no safe estimate can be made.
Education, industrial occupation, commercial training and
political responsibility are apparently working a transformation
in a class that was once known chiefly for indolence and criminal
instincts, and many of the leaders of modern Mexico have
sprung from this race. Settled government, settled habits,
remunerative employment and opportunities for the improvement
of their condition are developing in them the virtues of
the two parent races. Brigandage was formerly so common
that travel without an armed escort was extremely dangerous;
under President Diaz, however, not only has such lawlessness
been repressed but the brigands themselves have been given
regular employment as rural guards under the government.
This class is also furnishing the small traders of the towns,
overseers on the plantations and public works, petty officials,
and to some extent the teachers and professional men of the
provincial towns.
Political Divisions
.—The republic of Mexico is politically
divided into 27 states, one federal district, and three territories.
The states are generally subdivided into
distritos
(districts)
or
partidos
, and these into
municipios
(municipalities) which
correspond to the townships of the American system. The
state of Nuevo Léon, however, is divided into
municipios
only,
while some other states use entirely different titles for the
divisions, the larger being described as
departamentos
cantons
and
municipios
, and the smaller as
partidos
directorias
and
vecindarios rurales
. The Federal District consists of thirteen
municipalities. The territory of Lower California is divided
into two large districts, northern and southern, and the latter
into partidos and municipios—the larger divisions practically
forming two distinct territories.
The states and territories, with their areas, capitals and populations,
are as
follows:—
Name.
Area,
sq. m.
Pop.
1900.
Capital.
Pop.
1900
Aguascalientes
2,950
102,416
Aguascalientes
35,052
Campeche
18,087
86,542
Campeche
17,109
Chiapas
27,222
360,799
Tuxtla Gutierrez
9,395
Chihuahua
87,802
327,784
Chihuahua
30,405
Coahuila
63,569
296,938
Saltillo
23,996
Colima
2,272
65,115
Colima
20,698
Durango
38,009
370,294
Durango
31,092
Guanajuato
11,370
1,061,724
Guanajuato
41,486
Guerrero
24,996
479,205
Chilpancingo
7,497
Hidalgo
8,917
605,051
Pachuca
37,487
Jalisco
31,846
1,153,891
Guadalajara
101,208
Mexico
9,247
934,463
Toluca
25,940
Michoacan
22,874
935,808
Morelia
37,278
Morelos
2,773
160,115
Cuernavaca
9,584
Nuevo León
23,592
327,937
Monterrey
62,266
Oaxaca
35,382
948,633
Oaxaca
35,049
Puebla
12,204
1,021,133
Puebla
93,152
Querétaro
3,556
232,389
Querétaro
33,152
San Luis Potosí
25,316
575,432
San Luis Potosí
61,019
Sinaloa
33,671
296,701
Culiacán
10,380
Sonora
76,900
221,682
Hermosillo
10,613
Tabasco
10,072
159,834
San Juan Bautista
10,543
Tamaulipas
32,128
218,948
Ciudad Victoria.
10,086
Tlaxcala
1,595
172,315
Tlaxcala
2,715
Vera Cruz
29,201
981,030
Jalapa
20,388
Yucatán
35,203
309,652
Mérida
43,630
Zacatecas
24,757
462,190
Zacatecas
32,866
Distrito Federal
463
541,516
Mexico
344,721
Territories:—
Baja California
58,328
47,623
La Paz
5,046
Tepic
11,275
150,09
Tepic
15,488
Quintana Roo
Santa Cruz de Bravo
276
Islands
1,420
The area and population of Yucatán include those of the territory
of Quintana Roo, which formed part of that state at the time of
the census.
Baja, or Lower California; is divided into two districts for
administrative convenience. The Distrito del Norte is credited
with a population of 7583 and has its capital at Ensenada (pop.
1026); the Distrito del Sur has a population of 40,041 and has its
capital at La Paz.
Tepic was detached from the north-west part of Jalisco and
organized as a territory in 1889.
Quintana Roo was detached from the state of Yucatán in 1902
and received a territorial government.
The principal cities of Mexico, other than the capitals above
mentioned, are as follows, the populations being those of 1900 except
when otherwise stated: Acapulco (pop. 4932), a famous port on
the Pacific coast in Guerrero, which was wrecked by the earthquake
of 1909; Carmen, or Laguna de Términos (about 6000), a thriving
commercial town and port on the Gulf coast in Campeche; Celaya
(25,565), a railway centre and manufacturing town of Guanajuato;
Ciudad Guzman, or Zapotlán (about 17,500), an interesting old town
of Jalisco; Cholula (about 9000), an ancient native town of Puebla,
widely known for its great pyramid; Comitán (9316), the commercial
centre of Chiapas; Cordoba (7974 in 1895), a picturesque Spanish
town in the sierras of Vera Cruz; Cuautla (6269), the centre of a
rich sugar-producing district of Morelos; Guaymas (8648), a flourishing
port of Sonora on the Gulf of California; Léon (62,623), the largest
city in Guanajuato and distinguished for its commercial activity,
manufactures and wealth; Linares (20,690), the second city of
Nuevo Léon in size and importance; Matamoros (8347), a prominent
commercial centre and river port of Tamaulipas; Mazatlán (17,852),
the foremost Mexican port on the Pacific coast; Orizaba (32,894),
a city of Vera Cruz famous for its delightful climate and picturesque
surroundings; Parral (14,748), a well-known mining centre of southern
Chihuahua; San Cristobal (about 16,000), once capital of Chiapas
and rich in historical associations; Tampico (16,313), a Gulf port
and railway terminus of Tamaulipas; Tehuantepec (10,386), the
largest town on the Tehuantepec railway in Oaxaca; Vera Cruz
(29,164), the oldest and best known Gulf port of Mexico.
Communications
.—Railways began in Mexico with a line of four
kilometres between the capital and Guadalupe, which was finished
in 1854 and afterwards became a part of the Ferrocarril Mexicano.
The latter dates from 1857, when a concession was granted for the
construction of a railway from the city of Mexico to Vera Cruz.
The French invasion of 1862 found only 10 m. in operation outside
of Vera Cruz and military needs led to its immediate extension to
Paso del Macho, at the foot of the sierras, about 35 m. At the same
time the English company holding the concession extended the
Guadalupe line to Puebla. Nothing more was accomplished until
after the downfall of Maximilian, and with a liberal subsidy from
the Mexican government the Ferrocarril Mexicano was pushed to
its completion in 1873. It is celebrated because of the difficulties
overcome on the precipitous eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre,
the beauties of the mountain scenery through which it passes, and
the rapid transition from the hot, humid coastal plain to the cool,
arid plateau, 7924 ft. above the sea at Boca del Monte. The railway
extends 263 m. between Vera Cruz and Mexico City, to which 58 m.
were added in branches from Apizaco to Puebla, and from Ometusco
to Pachuca. The line was capitalized at $46,000,000 and has paid
a good profit on the investment. The period of active railway construction,
however, did not begin until 1878, during the first term of
President Porfirio Diaz. In 1874 a concession was granted for a
line from the port of Progreso to Mérida (
⁠22
m.), and in 1878 four
concessions were added under which 806 m. were constructed.
The principal of these four concessions was the Ferrocarril Interoceánico
running from Vera Cruz to Mexico City and across the
republic toward Acapulco. In 1880 concessions were granted to the
F.C. Occidental, F.C. Central Mexicano, F.C. Nacional Mexicano
and three others of less importance, aggregating nearly 3500 m.
The first three of these have become important factors in the development
of Mexico. The first runs southward from the capital to
Oaxaca through the rich sub-tropical states of Puebla and Oaxaca,
and the other two run northward from the same point to the
American frontier. These two lines, popularly called the Mexican
Central and Mexican National, have their northern termini at
Ciudad Juárez and Laredo on the Rio Grande and connect with
American trunk lines at El Paso and Laredo. These two great lines
were merged in 1908, with an aggregate capital of $460,000,000 Mexican
money, of which the Mexican government holds $230,004,580, or
a controlling interest. Important branches of these lines extend
to Tampico on the Gulf coast, to Manzanillo on the Pacific coast,
and westward and southward into Michoacan and Guerrero, with
a coast terminus at or near Acapulco. The next important line
is the F.C. Internacional Mexicano, running from Ciudad Porfirio
Diaz, on the Rio Grande, south-westward across the plateau to
Durango, and is to be extended to Mazatlán, on the Pacific coast.
This line was built with American capital and without a subsidy.
Another line built with American capital and in connexion with
American railway interests extends southward from Nogales, on the
northern frontier, to Hermosillo, Guaymas and Mazatlán; it is to be
extended to Guadalajara and possibly to other points in southern
Mexico. Monterrey is connected with Tampico by a Belgian line
known as the F.C. de Monterrey al Golfo Mexicano, and the capital is
to have direct connexion with the Pacific, other than the F.C.
Interoceánico, by a line through Cuernavaca and Iguala to the coast.
Indirectly the capital has a Pacific coast connexion by way of Cordoba
and the F.C. Vera Cruz al Pacifico to a junction with the
Tehuantepec line. One of the most important railways in Mexico
is the F.C. Nacional Interoceánico de Tehuantepec, also called the
Tehuantepec National, and the Mexican Isthmus railway, which is
192 m. long and was formally opened in 1907. This line crosses
the Isthmus of Tehuantepec from Coatzacoalcos (officially Puerto
Mexico) on the Gulf coast to Salina Cruz on the Pacific coast, and
has been under construction many years. The railway was first
completed in 1894, but light and defective construction, together with
lack of shipping facilities at its terminal points, rendered it useless.
To correct these defects the line was completely rebuilt and terminal
ports constructed. In 1909 the ports were ready to receive large
ocean steamships, and regular traffic was begun, including cargoes
of Hawaiian sugar for New York. The highest point on the line
(Chivela Pass) is 735 ft. above sea-level. The railway has been built
by the Mexican government as a transcontinental route for international
commerce. Its final construction together with that of its
two ports were executed by S. Pearson & Sons, Ltd., of London, who
also undertook the working of the line when open. It was estimated
in 1907 that the total cost of the railway and ports when completed
would be about £13,000,000. The line is connected at the station of
Santa Lucrecia (109 m. from Salina Cruz) with the Vera Cruz and
Pacific railway which gives an all-rail connexion with Vera Cruz
and Mexico City, the distance between the latter and Salina Cruz
being 520 m. According to the President’s Message of April 1909,
there were 14,857 m. of railway in operation, of which 11,851 m.
belonged to or were controlled by the government. It is the evident
policy of the Mexican government to prevent the absorption of its
railways by private monopolies, and this is effected by state ownership
of a controlling share in most of the trunk lines.
Mexico is well provided with tramway lines in its larger cities.
A British consular report for 1904 stated that Mexico City and
Torreon only were using electric traction, but that Guadalajara,
Monterrey, Aguascalientes, Lagos, Colima, Vera Cruz and San Luis
Potosí would soon be using it. No official reports are available. The
telegraph lines had an aggregate length of 35,980 m. at the end of
1907, of which 33,000 m. belonged to the national government. The
President reports an addition of 1626 m. in 1908. Wireless telegraphy
was represented in 1908 by a connexion between Mazatlán
and Lower California, which was in successful operation. Telephone
lines were in use in all the large cities and in connexion with the large
industrial enterprises and estates, beside which the government had
500 m. of its own in 1908.
Commerce
.—In 1905 the mercantile marine of Mexico comprised
only 32 steamers, of 13,199 tons, and 29 sailing vessels, of 8451 tons.
The ocean-carrying trade was almost wholly in the hands of
foreigners, the government wisely refraining from an attempt to
develop an occupation for which its citizens had no natural aptitude.
The coast wise trade is principally under the Mexican flag, but the
steamers are owned abroad. An official publication entitled
“Mexico: Yesterday and To-day, 1876–1904,” states that while the
number of steamers engaged in the foreign trade increased from 841
to 969 in the 17 years from 1886 to 1903, the number of Mexican
steamers decreased from 55 to 4. For the year 1906–1907 the entries
of vessels from foreign ports numbered 1697, of 3,282,125 tons, and
the clearances were 1669, of 3,257,932 tons. Subventions are paid
for regular steamship service at the principal ports, the total expenditure
in 1907–1908 being £42,876. These ports are well served by a
large number of foreign steamship companies, which give direct communication
with the principal ports of the United States, Europe,
and the west coast of South America, and the initiation of a Japanese
line in 1908 also brings Mexico into direct communication
with the far East. The larger ports for foreign trade are Vera
Cruz, Tampico, Progreso, Carmen and Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf
coast, and Guaymas, La Paz, Mazatlán, Manzanillo, San Blas,
Acapulco and Salina Cruz on the Pacific coast. Some of these—Vera
Cruz, Tampico, Coatzacoalcos, Salina Cruz, Manzanillo and
Mazatlán—have been greatly improved with costly port works.
Among the smaller ports, some of which are open to foreign trade,
are Matamoros, Tuxpan, Alvarado, Tlacotalpan, Frontera, Campeche
and the island of Mujeres (coast of Yucatán) on the Gulf
side, and Ensenada, Altata, Santa Rosalia and Soconusco on the
Pacific.
The foreign trade has shown a steady increase during the period
of industrial development, to which better means of transport have
been an invaluable aid. In 1906–1907 the imports were valued at
$111,234,968 U.S. gold, and the exports at $123,512,969, of which
very nearly one half consisted of precious metals. According to an
official report issued early in 1909 there had been a heavy decrease
in both imports and exports, the former being returned at $36,195,469
and the latter at $54,300,896 for the six months ending the 31st of
December 1908. Too rapid development and overtrading were given
as reasons for this decline. Import and export duties are levied,
the former in many cases for the protection of national industries.
The imports largely consist of railway material, industrial machinery,
cotton, woollen and linen textiles and yarns for national factories,
hardware, furniture, building material, mining supplies, drugs and
chemicals, wines and spirits, wheat, Indian corn, paper and military
supplies and equipment. The exports include gold, silver, copper,
coffee, henequén or sisal, ixtle and other fibres, cabinet woods,
chicle, rubber and other forest products, hides and skins, chickpeas,
tobacco and sugar.
Agriculture
.—The agricultural resources of Mexico are large and
unusually varied, as they comprise some of the cereals and other
food products of the temperate zone, and most of the leading products
of the tropics. Agriculture, however, received slight attention,
owing to the early development of the mining industries. An
indirect result of the industrial development of Mexico, which began
during the last quarter of the 19th century, has been an increased
interest in agriculture, and especially in undertakings requiring
large investments of capital, such as coffee, sugar and rubber plantations.
A large part of the country is too arid for agriculture, and
even with irrigation the water supply is sufficient for only a small
part of the dry area. This region has, for the most part, a temperate
climate, and produces wheat, barley, Indian corn and forage crops.
Long droughts often destroy the wheat and Indian corn and compel
their importation in large quantities to supply the people with food.
This uncertainty in the wheat crop extends to the southern limits of
the higher plateau, and is a serious obstacle to the increased production
of this cereal. Indian corn, also, is a comparatively uncertain
product on the plateau, and for the same reason. As it is a
staple food with the poorer classes, the deficiency is made up through
importation. These drawbacks tend to restrict agriculture on the
plateau to comparatively limited areas, and the country people are,
in general, extremely poor and badly nourished. A comparatively
new product in this region is that of canaigre, which is grown for the
tannin found in its root. It is a native of the arid regions and is now
cultivated with success. The district about Parras, in southern
Coahuila, produces grapes, which are principally used in the manufacture
of wine and brandy. An important product of the plateau
and of the open districts of the
tierras calientes
, growing in the most
arid places, is the “nopal” or prickly pear cactus (
Opuntia ficus
indica
). Its fruit, called “tuna” by the natives, is refreshing
and wholesome and is a staple food in spite of its spiny covering.
In the
tierras calientes
of Mexico, however, better conditions prevail.
A fertile soil, abundant rainfall and high temperatures have covered
these mountain slopes and lowland plains with a wealth of vegetation.
The problem for the agriculturist here is not irrigation, but drainage
and keeping down spontaneous growths. In these regions, sugar,
tobacco, indigo, cacao, rice, sweet potatoes, alfalfa, beans and
cassava are produced, and Indian corn yields two and three crops a
year. Fruits also are plentiful, both wild and cultivated. Among
them are the banana, plantain, tuna, chili pepper, olive, coco-nut,
orange, lemon, lime, mango, pomegranate, “piña” or pineapple
(wild and cultivated), fig, ahuacatl (
Persea gratissima
), chirimoya
Anona chirimolia
), papaya, gourd, melon, guava, ciruela (plum),
and the several “zapote” fruits, including “chico zapote” from
the
Achras sapota
, which produces the “chicla” or chicle-gum of
commerce, “zapote blanco” from the
Casimiroa edulis
, “zapote-barracho”
(or “amarillo”) from the
Lucuma salicifolia
, “zapote-prieto”
(or “negro”) from the
Diospyros obtusifolia
, and “zapote-mamey.”
The production of rubber is becoming an important
industry, large plantations having been set with both
Hevea
and
Castilloa
rubber trees. Lying between these two regions is the
subtropical belt where coffee of an excellent quality is produced,
and where cotton is cultivated. Coffee has become an important
article of export, but cotton does not yield enough for the domestic
factories. Better cultivation would probably increase the output
and make it an article of export. A peculiar and highly profitable
branch of Mexican agriculture is the cultivation of the Agave for
two widely different purposes—one for its fibre, which is exported,
and the other for its sap, which is manufactured into intoxicating
liquors called “pulque” and “mescal.” In Yucatán immense
plantations of the
Agave rigida
var.
elongata
are cultivated, from
which large quantities of “henequén” or “sisal,” as the fibre is
called, are exported. It is produced on light shallow soils overlying
calcareous rock. It is also cultivated in Campeche and Chiapas.
The pulque industry is located on the plateau surrounding the city
of Mexico, the most productive district being the high, sandy, arid
plain of Apam, in the state of Hidalgo, where the “maguey” (
Agave
americana
) finds favourable conditions for its growth—a dry calcareous
surface with moisture sufficiently near to be reached by its
roots. Its cultivation is the chief industry of the states of Mexico,
Hidalgo, Puebla and Tlaxcala. Of the 208 plantations in the
state of Hidalgo in 1897, 129 were devoted to maguey. The plant
is propagated from suckers and requires very little attention after
transplanting to the field where it is to remain, but it takes six to
eight years to mature and then yields an average of ten gallons of
sap during a period of four or five months, after which it dies.
“Pulque” is the fermented drink made from this sap: “mescal”
is the distilled spirit made from the leaves and roots of the plant.
There are other agaves used both in the production of drinks and
fibres, but they are not cultivated. The “ixtle” fibres shipped
from Tampico and Chiapas are all obtained from the agaves and
yuccas found growing wild.
The natural and forest products of Mexico include the agave and
yucca (ixtle) fibres already mentioned; the “ceibón” fibre derived
from the silk-cotton tree (
Bombax pentandria
); rubber and vanilla
in addition to the cultivated products; palm oil; castor beans;
ginger; chicle, the gum extracted from the “chico-zapote” tree
(Achras sapota); logwood and other dye-woods; mahogany, rosewood,
ebony, cedar and other valuable woods; “cascalote" or
divi-divi; jalap root (
Ipomaea
); sarsaparilla (
Smilax
); nuts and
fruits.
Stock-raising dates from the earliest Spanish settlements in Mexico
and received no slight encouragement from the mother country.
For this reason much importance has always been attached to the
industry, and stock-raising of some sort is to be found in every
state of the republic, though not always to a great extent. The
Spaniards found no indigenous domestic animals in the country,
and introduced their own horses, cattle, sheep and swine. From
these are descended the herds and flocks of to-day, with no admixture
of new blood until toward the end of the 19th century. The
horses and cattle are of a degenerate type, small, ungainly and
inured to neglect and hard usage. The horse is chiefly used for
saddle purposes and is not reared in large numbers. The mule is
more generally used in every part of the country, being hardier,
more intelligent and better adapted for service as a draft and pack
animal. The transport of merchandise and produce was wholly
by means of pack animals before the advent of railways, and is
still the common means of transport away from the railway lines.
For this purpose the sure-footed mule is invaluable. In some districts,
however, oxen and ox-carts are employed, especially in the
southern states, and always in the open, level country. The varying
climatic conditions of Mexico have produced breeds of cattle that
have not only departed from the original Spanish type, but likewise
present strikingly different characteristics among themselves.
Those of the northern plateau are small, hardy and long-lived,
being bred on extensive ranges in a cooler atmosphere, and accustomed
to long journeys in search of water and pasture. In the
south they are larger and better nourished, owing to the permanent
character of the pasturage, but are less vigorous because of the heat
and insect plagues. In Yucatan the open plains, rich pasture, and
comparative freedom from moist heat, insects and vampire bats,
have been particularly favourable to cattle-raising, and the animals
are generally rated among the best in Mexico. Notwithstanding
the frequency of long, destructive droughts, cattle-raising is a preferred
industry among the landowners of the northern states, and
especially near the American frontier. Almost total losses are
frequently experienced, but the profits of a favourable year are so
great that losses seldom deter ranchers from trying again. In the
sierra regions of western Chihuahua and Durango, Nuevo León,
Coahuila, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, and the plateau states
farther south, the rainfall is more abundant and the conditions more
favourable. The largest herds are to be found in Chihuahua and
Durango. Above 5000 ft. the wild pasturage is short, tender and
reproduces itself annually. It is exceptionally nutritious, but it
disappears altogether in the dry season because of its short roots.
The lowland pasture, from 2000 to 5000 ft., is composed of more
vigorous grasses, with an undergrowth of an exceptionally succulent
character. The stock-raiser on the border pastures his herds on the
uplands during the rainy season, and on the lower pastures during
the remainder of the year. Next in importance is the breeding of
sheep, which is largely confined to the cooler sierra districts. They
are commonly of the Spanish merino breed, and suffer in many
localities on account of insufficient pasturage. Some attention is
given to the breeding of goats because of the local demand for their
skins, but the industry is apparently stationary. The raising of
swine, however, is increasing. In the last decade of the 19th century
the capital invested in these live-stock industries was estimated
(by Bancroft) to exceed $700,000,000, but an official return of the
30th of June 1902 gave an aggregate valuation of only $120,523,158
(Mexican), or about £12,052,316. According to this report, which is
not strictly trustworthy, there were in the republic 5,142,457 cattle,
859,217 horses, 334,435 mules, 287,991 asses, 3,424,430 sheep,
4,206,011 goats and 616,139 swine. Two years later home consumption
returns noted the slaughter of 958,058 cattle (129,938 in the
Federal District), 561,982 sheep, 992,263 goats and 887,130 hogs—the
last item being larger than the census return of 1902. The
greater part is consumed in the country, but there is a considerable
export of cattle to the United States, Cuba and Central America,
and of hides and skins to the United States and Europe. A few
mules are sent to Central America, but the home demand usually
exceeds the supply.
Other Industries
.—There are no fisheries of importance except the
pearl fisheries on the eastern coast of Lower California, and the
tortoise fisheries on the coasts of Campeche, Yucatán, and some of
the states facing the Pacific. The pearl fisheries have been worked
since the arrival of the Spaniards, and were once very productive
notwithstanding the primitive methods employed. Since the closing
years of the last century pearl fishing in the Gulf of California has
been carried on with modern appliances and better results by an
English company under a concession from the government. Mother-of-pearl
or abalone and other shells are also found, and, with sponges,
are exported. Fishing for the tortoiseshell turtle gives employment
to a large number of natives in the season, and considerable quantities
of the shell are exported. Other industries of a desultory
character include the collection of archil, or Spanish moss, on the
western side of the Californian peninsula, hunting herons for their
plumes and alligators for their skins, honey extraction (commonly
wild honey), and the gathering of cochineal and ni-in insects. The
cochineal insect was once an important commercial product, but the
industry has fallen into decay. The “ni-in” (also known as “axe”)
is a small scale insect belonging to the genus
Coccus
, found in
Yucatan, Oaxaca, Vera Cruz, Michoacan and other southern states,
where it inhabits the spondia trees and produces a greasy substance
called “ni-inea,” which is much used by the natives as a varnish,
especially for domestic utensils, as it resists fire as well as water.
Mining
.—The best-known and most productive of the industries
of Mexico is that of mining. It was the chief object of Spanish exploration,
and the principal occupation of European residents and
capital during three centuries of Spanish rule. Agricultural and
pastoral industries gradually gained footholds here and there, and
in time became important, but mining continued far in advance
until near the end of the 19th century. Mines of some description
are to be found in 26 of the 31 states and territories, and of these the
great majority yield silver. According to the official records, there
were registered in September 1906, 23,191 mining properties, of which
very nearly five-sixths were described as producing silver, either
by itself or in combination with other metals. The properties were
classed as 1572 gold, 5461 silver, 970 copper, 383 iron, 151 mercury,
94 lead, 86 sulphur, 52 antimony, 49 zinc, 40 tin, 21 opals, 9 manganese,
6 “sal gema,” 5 tourmalines, 1 bismuth and 1 turquoise—the
remainder being various combinations of these minerals. The
absence of coal from this list is due to the circumstance that coal
mines were at that time considered as private property and were
not registered under the general mining laws. A comparison with
1888–1889, when 8970 properties were registered, will show how
rapidly the mining industries have been developed during that
period. Besides the above, the mineral resources of Mexico include
coal, petroleum, asphalt, platinum, graphite, soda and marble. In
1906 the productive mines numbered 1786, of which 491 were in
Sonora, 282 in Chihuahua, 211 in Durango, 113 in Oaxaca and 105
in Nuevo León. Gold is found in Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato,
Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla, Sinaloa,
Sonora, Vera Cruz, Zacatecas, and to a limited extent in other
states; silver in every state and territory except Campeche, Chiapas,
Tabasco, Tlaxcala and the Yucatan peninsula; copper in Lower
California, Guanajuato, Guerrero, jalisco, Michoacan, Sonora,
Tamaulipas and some other states; mercury chiefly in Guanajuato,
Guerrero, San Luis Potosi, Vera Cruz and Zacatecas; tin in Guanajuato;
coal, petroleum and asphalt in 20 states, but chiefly in
Coahuila, Hidalgo, Michoacan, Oaxaca, Puebla, Sonora, Tabasco,
Tamaulipas and Vera Cruz; iron in Durango, Hidalgo, Oaxaca and
other states; and lead in Hidalgo, Querétaro and in many of the
silver-producing districts. The most celebrated iron deposit is that
of the Cerro del Mercado, in the outskirts of the city of Durango—a
mountain 640 ft. in height, 1100 in breadth, and 4800 in length,
reputed to be almost a solid mass of iron. Large masses of the metal
are also said to exist in the sierras of Lower California. The principal
coalfields that have been developed are in the vicinity of
Sabinas, Coahuila. They have been opened up by American capitalists
and the coal is used on the railways passing through that
region. Mexican coal is of a low grade—similar to that found in
Texas, but as an official geological report of 1908 estimates the supply
in sight at 300,000,000 tons its industrial value to the country cannot
be considered inferior to that of the precious metals. The same is
true of the petroleum deposits in Tamaulipas, near Tampico, and in
southern Vera Cruz. An investigation by the U.S. Geological Survey
in 1909 finds that the crude Mexican oils are of low grade, but that
while not equal to those found in the upper Mississippi basin for
refining purposes, they furnish an excellent fuel for railway engines
and other industrial purposes. Many of the Mexican railways
are using these fuel oils, which are superseding imported coal. In
1909 a well was opened in the southern oilfields whose yield was
equal to the best American product.
Manufactures
.—Although Mexico is usually described as a non-manufacturing
country, its industrial development under President
Porfirio Diaz will warrant some modification of this characterization.
Manufacturing for international trade has not been and may never
be reached, but the industry certainly has reached the stage of meeting
a great part of the home demand for manufactured goods, where
the raw material can be produced in the country. There were of
course some crude industries in existence before the arrival of the
Spaniards, such as weaving and dyeing of fabrics made from various
fibres, and making earthenware utensils, images, &c. The Spaniards
introduced their own industries, including sugar-making, weaving,
tanning, and leather- and metal-working, some of which still exist.
The early methods of making cane sugar, clarified with clay and dried
in conical moulds, are to be found all over Mexico, and the annual
output of this brown or muscovado sugar (called “panela” by the
natives) is still very large. The sugar crop of 1907–1908 was
reported, as 123,285 metric tons, in addition to which the molasses
output was estimated at 70,947·5 metric tons, and “panela” at
50,000 tons. Other estimates make the “panela” output much
larger, the product being largely consumed in the rural districts
and never appearing in the larger markets. The estimated number
of sugar mills in 1904 was about 2000, of which only about 300
were important for size and equipment. Merino sheep were introduced
in 1541 and woollen manufactures date from that time. Large
factories are now to be found in all parts of Mexico, and good and
serviceable grades of broadcloths, cassimeres, blankets and other
fabrics are turned out. There is also a considerable quantity of
carpeting, underwear and hosiery manufactured. An important
branch of this industry is the manufacture of “zarapes” (called
“ponchos” in other parts of Spanish America)—a blanket slit in
the centre for the head to pass through, and worn in place of a coat
by men of the lower classes. The most important textile industry
is cotton manufacture, which has become a highly successful feature
in the industrial life of the republic. There were 146 factories
in 1905, of which 19 were idle, and these were distributed over a very
large part of the country. About one-half the raw cotton consumed
was produced in Mexico, and the balance imported in fibre
or as yarn. The industry is protected by a high tariff, as is also
the production of raw cotton, and further encouragement is offered
through a remission of internal revenue taxes where Mexican fabrics
are exported for foreign consumption. The cotton factories of 1905
were equipped with 22,021 looms having 678,058 spindles, and with
38 stamping machines, employed 30,162 operatives, and turned out
13,731,638 pieces of cloth. Statistical returns, however, are somewhat
incomplete and conflicting, and cannot be used with confidence.
Coarse fabrics chiefly are manufactured, but the product also comprises
percales, fine calicoes, ginghams, shirtings, towelings, sheetings
and other kinds of goods. Considerable attention is given to the
manufacture of “rebozos,” the long shawls worn by women.
Another very important manufacturing industry is that of tobacco,
the consumption of its various products being large among all classes
of the population. There were 467 tobacco factories reported in
1905 to be engaged in the manufacture of cigars, cheroots, cigarettes,
snuff and cut tobaccos for the pipe. The number of factories
reported for 1899 was 743, but as the consumption of leaf tobacco
increased from 5,546,677 to 8,587,356 kilogrammes, it may be
assumed that the decrease in factories is due to the absorption or
disappearance of the small shops using old-fashioned methods.
Other important manufactories are flour mills, of which there were
over 500 in 1904; iron and steel works, of which there are 7 large
establishments, including the immense plant at Monterey; 90
smelters for the reduction of precious metals; tanneries, potteries,
and factories for the manufacture of hats, paper, linen, hammocks,
harness and saddles, matches, explosives, aerated waters, soap,
furniture, chocolate and sweetmeats. There are also a large number
of distilleries, breweries, and establishments for the manufacture of
“pulque,” “mescal,” and imitation or counterfeited liquors. In
addition to these are the many small domestic industries, such as the
making of straw hats, mats, baskets, pottery, ropes and rough
textiles. The policy of the Mexican government is to encourage
national manufactures, and protective duties are levied for that
purpose. Other favours include exemption from taxation and
exemption from import duties on machinery and raw materials.
These inducements have attracted large sums of foreign capital
and have brought into the country large numbers of skilled
operatives, especially in the cotton, iron and steel, and Smelting
industries.
Constitution
.—Under the Constitution of the 5th of February
1857, subsequently modified in many important particulars,
the government of Mexico is described as a federation of free
and sovereign states invested with representative and democratic
institutions. Practically it is a Federal Republic with centralized
executive powers. Its political divisions consist of 27 states
(originally 19) having independent local governments, 3 territories
and 1 federal district in which the national capital stands.
The central government consists of three co-ordinate branches—executive,
legislative and judicial—each nominally independent
of the other. The executive branch consists of a president and
vice-president, assisted by a cabinet of 8 secretaries of state:
(1) foreign affairs; (2) interior; (3) justice; (4) public instruction
and fine arts; (5) fomento, colonization and industry; (6) communications
and public works; (7) finance and public credit;
(8) war and' marine. The president and vice-president are
elected indirectly through an electoral college chosen by popular
vote, and serve for a period of six years (the term was four years
previous to 1904), the vice-president succeeding to the office in
case of the death or permanent disability of the president.
The office of vice-president was created on the 6th of May, 1904,
and that official serves as president of the senate. A constitutional
amendment of 1890 permits the re-election of the president
without limit, the original clause prohibiting such a re-election.
A candidate for the presidency must be a native-born Mexican
citizen in the full exercise of his political rights, 35 years of age,
not an ecclesiastic, and a resident of the republic at the time of
the election. Although the authority of the president is carefully
defined and limited by the Constitution, the exercise of
dictatorial powers has been so common that the executive may
be considered practically supreme and irresponsible. Previous
to the presidency of General Porfirio Diaz in 1877 political
disorders and changes in government were frequent.
The legislative branch of government consists of a Congress
of two chambers—a senate and a chamber of deputies. Two
ordinary congressional sessions are held each year—April 1 to
May 31 and September 16 to December 15—and a permanent
committee of 29 members (14 senators and 15 deputies)
sits during recess, with the power to confirm executive appointments,
to give assent to a mobilization of the national guard,
to convene extra legislative sessions, to administer oaths, and
to report at the next session on matters requiring congressional
action. The senate is composed of 56 members—or two from
each state and from the federal district—who are elected by
popular vote for a term of four years, one-half the number
retiring every two years. A senator must be not under 30 years
of age, a Mexican citizen in the full enjoyment of his rights,
a resident of the state he represents, and not an ecclesiastic.
The chamber of deputies is composed of popular representatives,
in the proportion of one deputy for each 40,000 inhabitants or
fraction over 20,000, who are elected for a term of two years.
A deputy must be not less than 25 years of age, other qualifications
being the same as those for a senator. The salary for either
senator or deputy is $3000 and that of the president $50,000.
Federal officials and ecclesiastics are ineligible for election to
either chamber.
Mexican citizenship includes all persons born of Mexican
parents, all naturalized aliens, and all foreigners owning real
estate in the republic or having children by Mexican mothers
unless formal declaration is made of an intention to retain the
citizenship of another country. In some cases exemptions
are granted from specified taxes and military duties, otherwise
naturalized citizens are treated the same as native-born. Aliens
are granted the civil rights enjoyed by Mexicans, but the
government reserves the right to expel those guilty of pernicious
conduct. Suffrage is extended to all Mexican citizens who
possess honest means of livelihood, the age limit being 18 for
the married and 21 for the unmarried.
The judicial branch of the government consists of a supreme
court of justice, three circuit courts, and 32 district courts. The
supreme court is composed of 11 “ministros” or justices, four
alternates, a “fiscal” or public prosecutor and the attorney-general—all
elected by popular vote for a term of six years.
It has jurisdiction in cases arising from the enforcement of
the federal laws, except cases involving private interests, in
admiralty cases, in cases where the republic is a party, in those
between two or more states, or between a state and the citizens
of another state, in those originating in treaties with foreign
states, and in those affecting diplomatic and consular officials.
There are likewise supreme and inferior courts in most of the
states, governed by the civil and criminal codes in force in the
federal district. The territories are governed by federal laws.
The department of justice has oversight in matters relating to
the enforcement of the federal laws and the administration of
justice through minor courts. The police service is both municipal
and federal in character. In some states a local police
service is maintained, but in most states the federal government
maintains a very efficient force of mounted “
rurales
.”
The states are organized very much like the federal government,
each with its own governor, legislature, laws and judiciary.
Elections are generally indirect, like those for the national
executive, and official terms correspond closely to those of
similar offices in the national organization. The state is nominally
sovereign within its own boundaries, and the authority of
its officers and courts in local questions is supreme except in cases
where federal intervention or supervision is provided for by the
federal constitution. The larger political divisions of the state
partidos
distritos
, &c.) are governed by a
jefe politico
, or prefect,
and the smaller by a municipal council called an
ayuntamiento
Defence
.—The Mexican army consisted in 1908 of 2474 officers
and 24,132 men, organized on modern lines, and commanded by
a general staff at the capital. There were 30 battalions of infantry
and 4 battalions cadres with an effective strength of 730 officers
and 14,898 men; 14 regiments of cavalry and 4 regimental cadres
with 493 officers and 6058 men; 2 regiments and 3 cadres of field
artillery; one regiment and one cadre each of horse and mountain
artillery, 4 sections of garrison artillery, and one mitrailleuse company,
in all 147 officers and 1647 men; and the remainder divided
among other services. Administration and headquarters staffs
comprised 885 officers and 531 men. This force represented the
peace footing of the army, which is recruited in part by voluntary
enlistments and in part by a form of conscription that might be
called impressment. Mauser rifles (1901 model) and carbines are
used by the infantry and cavalry, and Schneider Canet quick-firing
guns by the field and horse artillery. The nominal war strength
of the army is rated at 2510 officers and 81,984 men. Factories for
arms and ammunition have been established with modern machinery,
and uniforms and other equipment are made in the country. The
military school in the capital occupies a part of the historic castle
of Chapultepec and has been thoroughly reorganized on modern
lines. There is also an artillery school at Vera Cruz and subordinate
schools in other parts of the republic. The national guard, to which
reference is sometimes made, has no effective organization.
Mexico may be said to have no navy, the ten small vessels in commission
in 1908 hardly meriting such a designation. There were 2
old despatch boats and 2 old unarmoured gunboats, a steel training
cruiser, the “Zaragoza,” and 5 small modern gunboats. The personnel
consisted of 198 officers and 965 men. Six new cruisers were
projected, but the republic has no pressing need of a navy. Small
naval schools are maintained at Campeche and Mazatlán.
Education
.—Education in Mexico may be said to have entered
upon a progressive phase. The institutions founded by the Spaniards
were wholly under ecclesiastical control. The first college in
Mexico was founded during the administration of Viceroy Mendoza
(1535–1550), but it taught very little beyond Latin, rhetoric, grammar
and theology. The university of Mexico, planned by Mendoza
and founded on the 21st of September 1551, was formally opened
on the 25th of January 1553, with faculties of law, philosophy and
theology. Practically nothing was done for the natives beyond oral
instruction in the catechism. The university of Mexico received
much support from both church and state, but it never gained
a position comparable to the universities of South America—Cordoba,
Lima (San Marcos) and Bogotá. The overthrow of Spanish
rule in Mexico was the beginning of a new period, and efforts were
made to introduce educational reforms, but the colonists and ecclesiastics
were still governed by their fears and prejudices, and little was
accomplished. In 1833 the university of Mexico suspended work,
and in 1865 passed out of existence altogether. In 1857 the adoption
of a more liberal and democratic constitution paved the way for
a new period in the educational history of the country. Its realization
was delayed by the wars that devastated the country down
to the overthrow of Maximilian, but the leaven was at work,
and with the return of peace a marked increase in the number of
primary and secondary schools was noted. Colleges of law, medicine
and engineering were created in Mexico City in 1865 in place
of the old university and were successful from the beginning.
Professional schools were also established in several of the more
important provincial capitals, and everywhere increasing interest
in educational matters was apparent. The best proof of this was
to be found in the development of the primary schools, of which there
were 8226 in 1874, with an attendance of 360,000 pupils. Of these,
603 were supported by the national government, 5240 by municipalities,
2260 by private enterprise, 117 by the Catholic church, and the
remainder by Protestant denominations. Handsome schools were
built in the cities and larger towns, and schools were opened in all
the villages and hamlets. In some parts the natives made most
creditable progress in all branches of learning. This was especially
true of the Mixtecos and Zapotecas of Oaxaca, from whom have come
some of the leading men of the republic. The national school
laws now in force had their origin in the recommendations made by
a national congress of public education convened on the 1st of
December 1889, and again on the 1st of December 1890. The first
result was a law regulating free and compulsory education in
the federal district and national territories, which came into
effect on the 17th of January 1892. From 1822 to this time the
government primary schools had been under the supervision of the
Compañia Lancasteriana, but they were now placed under charge of
the Department of Public Education. On the 19th of May 1896
a general public education law was promulgated, which provided
further regulations for the public schools, and outlined a comprehensive
system. Compulsory attendance had been adopted
in 1888, but did not come into effect until after the enactment
of the law of 1896. It provides for uniform, free and non-sectarian
primary instruction, and compulsory attendance for children of 6
to 12 years of age. Preparatory courses for professional training in
the government schools were also made free and secular. As the
states have control of the schools within their own boundaries
there was at first a great lack of uniformity, but the national system
is being generally adopted. In the official report for 1904 the number
of public schools, exclusive of infant schools, was returned at
9194 (against 5843 in 1874), with an enrolment of 620,476. Of
these 6488 were supported by the national and state governments
and 2706 by the municipalities. The private, religious and association
schools numbered 2281, with 135,838 pupils. For secondary
instruction the national and state schools numbered 36 with 4642
pupils, and for professional instruction 65 with 9018 students, of
whom 3790 were women. Normal schools for the training of teachers
are also maintained at public expense and are giving good results.
Besides these, the government maintains schools of law, medicine,
agriculture and veterinary practice, engineering, mining, commerce
and administration, music and fine arts. There is also a mechanics
training school (
artes y oficios
) for men and a similar school for
women, schools for the blind and for deaf-mutes, reform schools,
and garrison schools for soldiers. Early estimates were that
90% of the population were illiterate. In 1895 this percentage was
reduced to about 84%, and the work of the schools is slowly cutting it
down. Mention must be made of the National Library in Mexico
City with about 225,000 volumes, and 138 public libraries (in 1904)
in other parts of the republic, 34 museums for scientific, educational
and art purposes, and 11 meteorological observatories. Newspapers
and periodicals, whose educational value varies widely, numbered
459 in 1904, of which 439 were in Spanish and 12 in English.
Religion
.—The people of Mexico are almost wholly of the Roman
Catholic faith, the census of 1900 returning 13,533,013 communicants
of that church, 51,795 Protestants (in great part foreigners), 3811 of
other faiths, and 18,640 of no faith. The constitution of 1857 grants
toleration to all religions, and since 1868 several Protestant denominations
have established missions in the towns, but their numbers
are still comparatively small. The Roman Catholic religion was
enforced at the time of the conquest, but a large percentage of the
natives may still be considered semi-pagan, the gods of their ancestors
being worshipped in secret, and the forms and tenets of the
dominant faith, which they but faintly comprehend, being largely
adulterated with superstitions and practices of pagan origin. The
church hierarchy consists of 3 archbishops and 23 suffragan bishops.
It dates from the creation of the bishopric of Mexico in 1530, with
Fray Juan de Zumárraga as bishop, although two previous creations
had been proclaimed at Rome, that of Yucatan in 1518 and Puebla
in 1525. In 1545 the bishopric of Mexico was elevated to an archbishopric,
which in 1863 was divided into three archdioceses—Mexico,
Michoacán and Guadalajara. An Inquisition tribunal was established
in the capital in 1571, and in 1574 its first
auto-da-fé
was
celebrated with the burning of “twenty-one pestilent Lutherans.”
The Inquisition was active in Mexico during two and a half centuries,
and was finally suppressed on the 31st of May 1820. The great power
exercised by the Roman Catholic church during the colonial period
enabled it not only to mould the spiritual belief of the whole people,
but also to control their education, tax their industries, and shape
the political policies governing their daily life. In this way it acquired
great wealth, becoming the owner of extensive estates in
every part of the country and of highly productive properties in the
towns. It was said in 1859 that the church owned one-third of
the real and personal property of the republic. The reform laws of
that year nationalized its property, abolished its numerous orders
and institutions and deprived it of state support and of all participation
in political affairs. Subsequent legislation removed clerical
influence from public instruction, made marriage a civil ceremony
and closed all conventual establishments. The church still exercises
a boundless influence over the Mexican lower classes, and is still the
most influential organization in the republic.
Finance
.—The national revenues are derived from import and
export duties, port dues and other taxes levied on foreign commerce;
from excise and stamp taxes and other charges upon internal business
transactions; from direct taxes levied in the federal district and
national territories, covering a land tax in rural districts, a house
tax in the city, commercial and professional licences, water rates,
and sundry taxes on bread, pulque, vehicles, saloons, theatres, &c.;
from probate dues and registry fees; from a surcharge on all taxes
levied by the states, called the “federal contribution,” which is
paid in federal revenue stamps; from post and telegraph receipts;
and from some minor sources of income. The most fruitful revenue
is the duty on imports, which is sometimes used for the protection
of national industries, and which yields from 40 to 45% of the total
receipts. The excise taxes in 1905 were levied on tobacco, alcohol
and alcoholic beverages, and on cotton goods. Mining taxes, which
are subject to periodic changes, consist of an initial or registry tax
on the claim (
pertenencia
), an annual or rental tax on each claim,
and a tax of 3
% (1905) on the export of unrefined gold and silver,
% on partially refined ores, and
⁠1
% on pure silver. The expenditures
are chiefly for the services of the public debt, military
expenses, public works and internal affairs (Department of the
Interior). The public debt service alone required $26,201,873
(£2,620,187) in 1908.
For the fiscal year 1906–1907 the revenue produced a total of
114,286,122
pesos
(dollars), or, approximately, £11,428,612, and the
expenditure was 85,076,641
pesos
, or £8,507,664. The estimates for
1908–1909 show a marked decline owing to the commercial depression,
the revenue being computed at 103,385,000
pesos
, and the expenditure
at 103,203,830
pesos
. Of the former 46,500,000
pesos
are credited to import duties, 31,930,000
pesos
to stamps, excise
taxes, &c., 10,930,000
pesos
to direct taxes, and the balance to
various sources. Owing to the circumstance that the great
majority of the Mexican people own no property, carry on no
industry, and are not even to be considered regular productive
labourers, the revenues are small in relation to the population and are
comparatively inelastic.
The revenues and expenditures of the states and municipalities
in 1904, the latest date available, aggregated as
follows:—
Revenue.
Expenditure.
States
24,519,926 pesos
23,557,968 pesos
Municipalities
14,605,022  ,,
14,160,132  ,,
The taxes cover a great variety of occupations and property, often
to a minute and vexatious degree, and the expenditure includes the
expenses of local administration, schools, police, streets and other
objects of purely local interest.
The public indebtedness of Mexico includes a foreign debt payable
in gold, an internal debt payable in silver, and a floating debt
covering unpaid balances on appropriations, unpaid interest, and
other credits and obligations. The paper money issues are by banks
and not by the government, and the national treasury keeps no cash
in its vaults and has no sinking funds to offset this indebtedness.
The foreign debt dates from 1825, when £10,000,000 were borrowed
in London through two loans. Interest defaults led to a conversion
of the debt in 1851, the interest rate being reduced from 5% to 3%.
Further defaults followed and in 1888 another adjustment was made
by the issue of 6% gold-bearing bonds. From this time the
Mexican government has met its obligations promptly, in consequence
of which its credit is rated high and its bonds have even been
quoted at a premium. In 1899 the government placed a loan of
£22,700,000 in Europe at 5% for the conversion of its 6% bonds,
securing it by the hypothecation of 62% of its import and export
duties. Further loans have considerably increased the debt since
then, but it is still within the normal resources of the country.
According to Matias Romero (
Mexico and the United States
, 1898),
a new type of indebtedness was inaugurated in 1850 in the shape of
an internal debt payable in silver. Other loans and obligations contracted
during periods of disorder were afterwards consolidated
under this type, and later on unpaid railway subsidies were also
included. The rate of interest is from 3% to 5%, and both principal
and interest are payable in silver. The rapid development
of railway construction has largely increased this part of the public
debt, the revenues of the country being insufficient to meet the subsidy
obligations, but as the railways are built for the development
of valuable resources and the opening of needed trade communications,
the increase has occasioned no loss of credit. At the end of
1908 the total public indebtedness of the republic
was:—
Foreign, or gold debt, including City of Mexico loan
£30,927,348
Internal, or silver debt
$130,892,100
Floating debt
860,495
$131,752,595
or
£13,175,259
Total
£44,102,607
The fiscal or tax valuation of property throughout the republic
in 1904 was computed to be—the fiscal value being two-thirds of
the real
value:—
Urban
$312,950,983
Rural
488,182,009
Federal District
252,716,454
Total
$1,053,849,446
Previous to 1905 all monetary transactions in Mexico were based
in practice on a fluctuating silver standard and free coinage. By a
law of the 9th of December 1904, promulgated by an executive
decree of the 25th of March 1905, the gold standard was adopted,
and the silver
peso
, ·9027 fine and containing 24·438 grammes of
pure silver, was made the monetary unit with a valuation of ·75
grammes of gold. At the same time the free coinage of silver was
suspended, the government reserving to itself the sole privilege of
coining money. The coinage of Mexico, now concentrated at the
mint in the capital (all others having been closed) is based (since
November 28, 1867) on the decimal system—the
peso
being divided
into 100
centavos
—and consists of gold, silver, nickel and bronze
coins, whose weight and fineness are determined by the monetary
law of 1904. The coins minted under this law
are:—
Gold
:  10
pesos
, ·900 fine, weighing
8·333
grammes.
pesos
,,   ,,     ,,
4·116
,,
(the first called a “hidalgo” and the
second a “medio hidalgo”).
Silver:
peso
, ·9027 fine, containing 24·438 grammes of pure silver,
50
centavos
, ·800 fine,
20   ,,
,,  ,,
10   ,,
,,  ,,
Nickel:
5   ,,
Bronze:
1 and 2
centavos
, 95 parts copper, 4 tin, 1 zinc.
Provisions are also made for continuing the coinage of “trade
dollars” for export, which have a wide circulation in the Orient
but are not current at home. Fractional silver coin is not legal
tender above 20
pesos
, and bronze and nickel coins not above 1
peso
but the government maintains conversion offices where such coins
can be converted into silver
pesos
without loss. The amount of
gold in circulation is small, the bank notes convertible into gold
taking its place. Foreign coins are permitted to circulate in the
republic.
There were 34 chartered banks in Mexico in 1908, of which 29
enjoyed the privilege of issuing bank notes; the total note circulation
on the 31st of December 1906 was 97,787,878
pesos
. These note
issues are everywhere current at full nominal value, being secured
under the provisions of the national banking law of 1896 by metallic
reserves. The notes are not legal tender, and it is forbidden to
count them as “cash on hand” in bank returns, but ample safeguards
both as to issue and redemption inspire full confidence in
their employment as a substitute for gold. Restrictions on speculative
operations in real estate and on the use of hypothecated and
discounted paper as security for other transactions, together with the
publication of detailed monthly balance sheets, have kept these banks
free from unsound methods, and their record thus far (1909) has been
conspicuously good. Mortgage and loan banks have also been established
in accordance with the law of 1896, and are subject to official
supervision. Private banks are numerous, but foreign banks are
not encouraged to open agencies. The use of cheques is very limited
because of the stamp tax.
Weights and Measures
.—Mexico adopted the metric system in
1862, and it is used in all official transactions, land measurements,
railway calculations and public school work. The old Spanish
weights and measures, modified in many particulars, continued in
private use, however, and in 1895 it became necessary to declare
the metric system the only legal system and to make its use
compulsory after the 16th of September 1896.
Bibliography.
—The historical student will find valuable material
in Bernal Diaz del Castillo,
Crónica de la conquista de Nueva España
(Madrid, 1632, and other dates); Antonio Herrera
História generál de los hechos de los Castellános en las islas y tierra firma del mar oceáno
(4 vols., Madrid, 1601); F. C. Mac Nutt,
Letters of Cortés to Charles V.
(London, 1908); W. H. Prescott,
Conquest of Mexico
(3 vols., London,
1845); and the works of Gomara, Helps, Kingsborough, Las Casas,
Sahagun and Justin Winsor.
Among the more popular works on Mexico are Baedeker’s
The United States, with Excursions to Mexico
&c.
(Leipzig, 1909); H. H.
Bancroft,
Resources and Development of Mexico
(San Francisco,
1893); M. Chevalier,
Le Mexique ancien et moderne
(Paris, 1886);
A. Garcia Cubas,
Étude géographique
statistique
descriptive et historique des États-Unis Mexicains
(Mexico, 1889; in English, 1893);
C. B. Dahlgreen,
Minas históricas de la República Mexicana
(tr.
from Eng., 1887); J. Domenech,
Guia general descriptiva de la República Mexicana
(vol. i., Mexico, 1899); F. W. Egloffstein,
Contributions to the Geology and Physical Geography of Mexico
(New York,
1864); C. Reginald Enock,
Mexico
its Ancient and Modern Civilization &c.
(London 1909); Hans Gadow,
Travels in Southern Mexico
(London, 1908); Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg, Mexico,
Land und Leute
(Vienna, 1890); W. T. Hornaday,
Camp Fires on Desert and Lava
(London, 1908); Alex. von Humboldt,
Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent
(Paris, 1807 sqq.); A. H. Keane,
“Mexico” in Stanford’s
Compendium of Geography and Travel
(London, 1904); H. Kessler,
Notizen über Mexico
(Berlin, 1898);
Carl Lumholtz,
Unknown Mexico
(New York, 1902); C. F. Lummis,
The Awakening of a Nation
(New York, 1898); P. F. Martin,
Mexico of the Twentieth Century
(London, 1907); A. H. Noll,
Short History of Mexico
(Chicago, 1903); Santiago Ramirez,
Noticia histórica de la riqueza mineira de Mexico
(Mexico, 1884); Friedrich Ratzel,
Aus Mexico: Rėiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1874–1876
(Breslau, 1878);
Matias Romero,
Geographical and Statistical Notes on Mexico
(New
York, 1898); idem,
Mexico and the United States
(New York, 1898);
E. Seler,
Mexico und Guatemala
(Berlin, 1896); Justo Serra (editor),
Mexico: Its Social Evolution
&c.
(2 vols., Mexico, 1904); J. R. Southworth,
Mines of Mexico
(9 vols., Mexico, 1905); Frederick Starr,
Indians of Southern Mexico
(Chicago, 1899); Sara V. Stevenson,
Maximilian in Mexico
(New York, 1899); T. Philip Terry,
Mexico
(Boston, 1909;
an excellent guide); David A. Wells,
A Study of Mexico
(New York,
1887);
W. E. Weyl
Labor Conditions in Mexico
(Washington, 1902),
Bull. No 38, Bureau of Labor; Nevin O. Winter,
Mexico and her People of To-day
(Boston, 1907); Marie R. Wright,
Picturesque Mexico
(Philadelphia, 1898); and Rafael de Zayas Enriquez,
Les États-unis mexicains
(Mexico, 1899).
Important works of reference are:
Anuario estadistico de la República Mexicana
(Mexico);
Mexican Year-book
(London, 1908);
Biological and botanical publications
of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (Washington);
Statesman’s Year-book
(London);
Handbook of Mexico
(Washington), published by the Bureau of American
Republics;
Monthly Bulletin
of the Bureau of American Republics
(Washington);
British Foreign Office Diplomatic and Consular Reports
(London); and the U.S. Consular Reports (Washington).
A. J. L.
History
I.—
Ancient Mexico
The name Mexico is connected with the name of the group of
American tribes calling themselves
Mexica
(sing.
Mexicatl
) or
Azteca
. The word is related to or derived from the name of the
Mexican national war-god, Mexitl, better known as Huitzilopochtli.
The Aztecs from the 12th century appear to have
migrated from place to place over the mountain-walled plateau
of
Anahuac
, the country “by the water,” so called from its salt
lagoons, which is now known as the Valley of Mexico.
About 1325 they founded on the lake of Tezcuco the permanent
settlement of Mexico Tenochtitlan, which is still represented by
the capital city, Mexico. The name Mexico
was given by the
Spanish conquerors to the group of countries over which the
Aztec power more or less prevailed at the time of the European
invasion. Clavigero (
Storia antica del Messico
, vol. i.) gives a
map of the so-called “Mexican empire,” which may be roughly
described as reaching from the present Zacatecas to beyond
Guatemala; it is noticeable that both these names are of Mexican
origin, derived respectively from words for “straw” and
“wood.” Eventually Mexico and New Mexico came to designate
the still vaster region of Spanish North America, which
(till cut down by changes which have limited the modern
republic of Mexico) reached as far as the Isthmus of Panama on
the south and took in California and Texas on the north. Mexico
in this wide sense is of high interest to the anthropologist from
the several native American civilizations which appear within its
limits, and which conveniently if loosely group themselves round
two centres, the Mexican proper and the Central American.
When early in the 16th century the Spaniards found their way
from the West India Islands to this part of the mainland of
America, they discovered not rude and simple tribes like the
islanders of the Antilles, but nations with armies, official administrators,
courts of justice, high agriculture and mechanical arts,
and, what struck the white men especially, stone buildings
whose architecture and sculpture were often of dimensions and
elaborateness to astonish the builders and sculptors of Europe.
Here was a problem which excited the liveliest curiosity and
gave rise to a whole literature. Hernandez and Acosta shared
the opinion of their time that the great fossil bones found in
Mexico were remains of giants, and that, as before the deluge
there were giants on the earth, therefore Mexico was peopled
from the Old World in antediluvian times. On the other hand
the multitude of native American languages suggested that the
migration to America took place after the building of the tower
of Babel, and Siguenza arrived at the curiously definite result
that the Mexicans were descended from Naphtuhim, son of
Mizraim and grandson of Noah, who left Egypt for Mexico
shortly after the confusion of tongues. Although such speculations
have fallen out of date, they induced the collection of
native traditions and invaluable records of races, languages and
customs, which otherwise would have been lost for ever. Even
in the 19th century Lord Kingsborough spent a fortune in
printing a magnificent compilation of Mexican picture-writings
and documents in his
Antiquities of Mexico
to prove the theory
advocated by Garcia a century earlier, that the Mexicans were
the lost tribes of Israel. Modern archaeologists approach the
question from a different standpoint, but the origin of the
American aborigines and of Mexican civilization remains
extremely obscure (see
America
, where the primitive Mexican
cultures are fully illustrated, and
Central America
Real information as to the nations of Mexico before Spanish
times is very imperfect, but not altogether wanting. The
accurate and experienced Alexander von Humboldt considered
the native Americans of both continents to be substantially
similar in race-characters. Such a generalization will become
sounder, if, as is now generally done by anthropologists, the
Eskimo with their pyramidal skulls, dull complexion and flat
noses are removed into a division by themselves. Apart from
these polar nomads, the American indigenes group roughly
into a single division of mankind, of course with local variations.
If our attention is turned to the natives of Mexico especially,
the unity of type will be found particularly close. The native
population of the plateau of Mexico, mainly Aztecs, may still
be seen by thousands without any trace of mixture of European
blood. Their stature is estimated to be about 5 ft. 3 in., but
they are of muscular and sturdy build. Measurements of their
skulls show them mesocephalic (index about 78), or intermediate
between the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic types of mankind.
The face is oval, with low forehead, high cheek-bones,
long eyes sloping outward towards the temples, fleshy lips, nose
wide and in some cases flattish but in others aquiline, coarsely
moulded features, with a stolid and gloomy expression. Thickness
of skin, masking the muscles, has been thought the cause
of a peculiar heaviness in the outlines of body and face; the complexion
varies from yellow-brown to chocolate (about 40 to 43
in the anthropological scale); eyes black; straight coarse glossy
black hair; beard and moustache scanty. Among variations
from this type may be mentioned higher stature in some districts,
and lighter complexion in Tehuantepec and elsewhere. If now
the native Americans be compared with the races of the regions
across the oceans to their east and west, it will be seen that their
unlikeness is extreme to the races eastward of them, whether
white Europeans or black Africans. On the other hand they
are considerably like the Mongoloid peoples of north and east
Asia (less so to the Polynesians); so that the general tendency
among anthropologists has been to admit a common origin,
however remote, between the tribes of Tartary and of America.
This original Connexion, if it may be accepted, would seem to
belong to a long-past period, to judge from the failure of all
attempts to discover an affinity between the languages of America
and Asia. At whatever date the Americans began to people
America, they must have had time to import or develop the
numerous families of languages actually found there, in none of
which has community of origin been satisfactorily proved with
any other, language-group at home or abroad. In Mexico
itself the languages of the Nahua nations, of which the Aztec
is the best-known dialect, show no Connexion of origin with the
language of the Otomi tribes, nor either of these with the
languages of the regions of the ruined cities of Central America,
the Quiché of Guatemala and the Maya of Yucatan. The
remarkable phenomenon of nations so similar in bodily make
but so distinct in language can hardly be met except by supposing
a long period to have elapsed since the country was first inhabited
by the ancestors of peoples whose language has since passed into
so different forms. The original peopling of America might then
well date from the time when there was continuous land between
it and Asia.
It would not follow, however, that between these remote ages
and the time of Columbus no fresh immigrants can have reached
America. We may put out of the question the Scandinavian
sea-rovers who sailed to Greenland about the 10th century. But
at all times communication has been open from east Asia, and
even the South Sea Islands, to the west coast of America. The
importance of this is evident when we consider that late in the
19th century Japanese junks still drifted over by the ocean
current to California at the rate of about one a year, often with
some of the crew still alive. Further north, the Aleutian islands
offer a line of easy sea passage, while in north-east Asia, near
Bering’s Strait, live Chukchi tribes who carry on intercourse
with the American side. Moreover there are details of Mexican
civilization which are most easily accounted for on the supposition
that they were borrowed from Asia. They do not seem
ancient enough to have to do with a remote Asiatic origin of the
nations of America, but rather to be results of comparatively
modern intercourse between Asia and America. Humboldt
Vues des Cordillères
, Pl. xxiii.) compared the Mexican calendar
with that in use in eastern Asia. The Mongols, Tibetans,
Chinese and other neighbouring nations have a cycle or series
of twelve animals, viz. rat, bull, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent,
horse, goat, ape, cock, dog, pig, which may possibly be an imitation
of the ordinary Babylonian-Greek zodiac familiar to ourselves.
The Mongolian peoples not only count their lunar
months by these signs, but they reckon the successive days by
them, rat-day, bull-day, tiger-day, &c., and also, by combining
the twelve signs in rotation with the elements, they obtain a
means of marking each year in the sixty-year cycle, as the woodrat
year, the fire-tiger year, &c. This method is highly artificial,
and the reappearance of its principle in the Mexican and Central
American calendar is suggestive of importation from Asia.
Humboldt also discussed the Mexican doctrine of four ages of
the world belonging to water, earth, air and fire, and ending
respectively by deluge, earthquake, tempest and conflagration.
The resemblance of this to some versions of the Hindu doctrine
of the four ages or yuga is hardly to be accounted for except on
the hypothesis that the Mexican theology contains ideas learnt
from Asiatics. Among Asiatic points of resemblance to which
attention has since. been called is the Mexican belief in the nine
stages of heaven and hell, an idea which nothing in nature would
suggest directly to a barbaric people, but which corresponds to
the idea of successive heavens and hells among Brahmans and
Buddhists, who apparently learnt it (in common with our own
ancestors) from the Babylonian-Greek astronomical theory of
successive stages or concentric planetary spheres belonging to
the planets, &c. The Spanish chronicles also give accounts of a
Mexican game called
patolli
, played at the time of the conquest
with coloured stones moved on the squares of a cross-shaped
figure, according to the throws of beans marked on one side; the
descriptions of this rather complicated game correspond closely
with the Hindu backgammon called
pachisi
(see Tylor in
Jour.
Anthrop. Inst.
, viii. 116).
The native history of Mexico and Central America is entitled
to more respect than the mere recollections of savage tribes.
The Mexican pictures so far approached writing proper as to set
down legibly the names of persons and places and the dates of
events, and at least helped the professional historians to remember
the traditions repeated orally from generation to generation.
Thus actual documents of native Aztec history, or copies of
them, are still open to the study of scholars, while after the
conquest interpretations of these were drawn up in writing by
Spanish-educated Mexicans, and histories founded on them
with the aid of traditional memory were written by Ixtilxochitl
and Tezozomoc. In Central America the rows of complex
hieroglyphs to be seen sculptured on the ruined temples probably
served a similar purpose. The documents written by natives
in later times thus more or less represent real records of the past,
but the task of separating myth from history is of the utmost
difficulty. Among the most curious documents of early America
is the
Popol-Vuh
or national book of the Quiché kingdom of
Guatemala, a compilation of traditions written down by native
scribes, found and translated by Father Ximenez about 1700,
and published by Scherzer (Vienna, 1857) and Brasseur de Bourbourg
(Paris, 1861). This book begins with the time when there
was only the heaven with its boundaries towards the four
winds, but as yet there was no body, nothing that clung to anything
else, nothing that balanced itself or rubbed together or
made a sound; there was nought below but the calm sea alone
in the silent darkness. Alone were the Creator, the Former,
the Ruler, the Feathered Serpent, they who give being and whose
name is Gucumatz. Then follows the creation, when the creators
said “Earth,” and the earth was formed like a cloud or a
fog, and the mountains appeared like lobsters from the water,
cypress and pine covered the hills and valleys, and their forests
were peopled with beasts and birds, but these could not speak
the name of their creators, but could only chatter and croak. So
man was made first of clay, but he was strengthless and senseless
and melted in the water; then they made a race of wooden
mannikins, but these were useless creatures without heart or
mind, and they were destroyed by a great flood and pitch poured
down on them from heaven, those who were left of them being
turned into the apes still to be seen in the woods. After this
comes the creation of the four men and their wives who are the
ancestors of the Quichés, and the tradition records the migrations
of the nation to Tulan, otherwise called the Seven Caves, and
thence across the sea, whose waters were divided for their passage.
It is worth while to mention these few early incidents of the
national legend of Guatemala, because their Biblical incidents
show how native tradition incorporated matter learnt from
the white men. Moreover, this Central American document,
mythical as it is, has an historical importance from its bringing
in names belonging also to the traditions of Mexico proper.
Thus Gucumatz, “Feathered Serpent” corresponds in name to
the Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl; Tulan and the Seven Caves are
familiar words in the Aztec migration traditions, and there is
even mention of a chief of Toltecat, a name plainly referring
to the famed Toltecs. Thus the legends of the
Popol-Vuh
confirm what is learnt from comparing the culture of Central
America and Mexico proper, that, though these districts were
not connected by language, the intercourse between them had
been sufficient to justify the anthropologist in including both
districts in one region. Historical value of the ordinary kind may
be found in the latter part of the
Popol-Vuh
, which gives names
of chiefs down to the time when they began to bear Spanish
names and the great city of Quiché became the deserted ruin of
Santa Cruz. The Maya district of Yucatan has also some vestiges
of native traditions in the manuscript translated by D. Pio Perez
(in Stephens,
Incidents of Travel in Yucatan
) and in the remarkable
16th century
Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan
by Diego de
Landa, published by Brasseur de Bourbourg (Paris, 1864). As
in the Guatemala traditions, we hear of ancient migration from
the Mexican legendary region of Tula; and here the leaders are
four famous chiefs or ancestors who bear the Aztec name of the
Tutul-Xiu, which means “Bird-Tree.” Unfortunately for the
historical standing of these four ancestors, there are in the Aztec
picture-writings representations of four trees, each with a bird
perched on it, and placed facing the four quarters, which make
it probable that the four Tutul-Xiu of tradition may be only
mythic personifications of the four cardinal points (see Schultz-Sellack
in
Zeitschr. f. Ethn.
, 1879, p. 209). Nevertheless, part of
the later Maya records may be genuine—for instance, when they
relate the war about three centuries before the Spanish conquest,
when the king of Chichen-Itza destroyed the great city of Mayapan.
Though the Central American native kings have too little
interest for traditions of them to be dwelt on here, they bring
into view one important historical point—that the ruined cities
of this region are not monuments of a forgotten past, but that
at least some of them belong to history, having been inhabited
up to the conquest, apparently by the very nations who built
them.
Turning now to the native chronicles of the Mexican nations,
these are records going back to the 12th or 13th century, with
some vague but not worthless recollections of national events
from times some centuries earlier. These traditions, in some
measure borne out by linguistic evidence of names, point to the
immigration of detachments of a widespread race speaking a
common language, which is represented by the Aztec, still a
spoken language in Mexico. This language was called
nahuatl
and one who spoke it as his native tongue was called
nahuatlacatl
so that modern anthropologists are following native precedent
when they use the term
Nahua
for the whole series of peoples
now under consideration. Earliest of the Nahua nations, the
Toltecs are traditionally related to have left their northern
home of Huehuetlapallan in the 6th century; and there is other
evidence of the real existence of the nation. Their name
Toltecatl
signifies an inhabitant of
Tollan
(land of reeds), a place which
has a definite geographical site in the present Tulan or Tula,
north of the valley of Anahuac, Where a Toltec kingdom seems
to have had its centre. To this nation was due the introduction
of maize and cotton into Mexico, the skilful workmanship in gold
and silver, the art of building on a scale of vastness still witnessed
to by the mound of Cholula, said to be Toltec work, and the
Mexican hieroglyphic writing and calendar. With the Toltecs
is associated the tradition of Quetzalcoatl, a name which presents
itself in Mexican religion as that of a great deity, god of the air,
and in legend as that of a saintly ruler and civilizer. His brown
and beardless worshippers describe him as of another race, a
white man with noble features, long black hair and full beard,
dressed in flowing robes. He came from Tulan or from Yucatan
(for the stories differ widely), and dwelt twenty years among
them, teaching men to follow his austere and virtuous life, to hate
all violence and war, to sacrifice no men or beasts on the altars,
but to give mild offerings of bread and flowers and perfumes,
and to do penance by the votaries drawing blood with thorns
from their own bodies. Legend tells stories of his teaching men
picture-writing and the calendar, and also the artistic work of the
silversmith, for which Cholula was long famed; but at last he
departed, some say towards the unknown land of Tlapallan, but
others to Coatzacoalcos on the Atlantic coast on the confines of
Central America, where native tradition still keeps up the divine
names of Gucumatz among the Quichés and Cukulcan among
the Mayas, these names have the same meaning as Quetzalcoatl
in Aztec, viz. “Feathered Serpent.” Native tradition held that
when Quetzalcoatl reached the Atlantic he sent back his companions
to tell the Cholulans that in a future age his brethren,
white men and bearded like himself, should land there from the
sea where the sun rises and come to rule the country. That
there is a basis of reality in the Toltec traditions is shown by the
word
toltecatl
having become among the later Aztecs a substantive
signifying an artist or skilled craftsman. It is further
related by the Mexican historians that the Toltec nation all but
perished in the 11th century by years of drought, famine and
pestilence, a few only of the survivors remaining in the land,
while the rest migrated into Yucatan and Guatemala. After
the Toltecs came the Chichimecs, whose name, derived from
chici
, dog, is applied to many rude tribes; they are said to
have come from Amaquemecan under a king named Xolotl,
names which being Aztec imply that the nation was Nahua; at
any rate they appear afterwards as fusing with more cultured
Nahua nations in the neighbourhood of Tezcuco. Lastly is
recorded the Mexican immigration of the seven nations, Xochimilca,
Chalca, Tepaneca, Acolhua, Tlahuica, Tlascalteca, Azteca.
This classification of the Nahuatlac tribes has a meaning and
value. It is true that Aztlan, the land whence the Aztecs traced
their name and source, cannot be identified, but the later stages
of the long Aztec migration seem historical, and the map of
Mexico still shows the names of several settlements recorded in
the curious migration map, published by Gemelli Careri (
Giro del
mondo
, Venice, 1728) and commented on by Humboldt; among
these local names are Tzompanco, “place of skulls,” now Zumpango
in the north of the Mexican valley, and Chapultepec,
“grasshopper hill,” now a suburb of the city of Mexico itself,
where the Aztecs are recorded to have celebrated in 1195 the
festival of tying up the “bundle of years” and beginning a new
cycle.
The Aztecs moving from place to place in Anahuac found little
welcome from the Nahua peoples already settled there. One
of the first clear events of the Aztec arrival is their being made
tributary by the Tepanecs, in whose service they showed their
warlike prowess in the fight near Tepeyacac, where now stands
the famous shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Thus they overcame
the Acolhuas, who had made Tezcuco a centre of prosperity.
By the 13th century the Aztecs by their ferocity had banded
their neighbours together against them; some were driven to
take refuge on the reedy lake shore at Acoculco, while others
were taken as captives into Culhuacan. The king of this district
was Coxcoxtli, whose name has gained an undeserved reputation
even in Europe as “Coxcox, the Mexican Noah,” from a scene
in the native picture-writing where his name appears together
with the figure of a man floating in a dug-out tree, which has
been mistaken even by Humboldt for a representation of the
Mexican deluge-myth. Coxcoxtli used the help of the Aztecs
against the Xochimilco people; but his own nation, horrified at
their bloodthirsty sacrifice of prisoners, drove them out to the
islands and swamps of the great salt lagoon, where they are said
to have taken to making their
chinampas
or floating gardens of
mud heaped on rafts of reeds and brush, which in later times
were so remarkable a feature of Mexico. As one of the Aztec
chiefs at the time of the founding of their city was called Tenoch,
it is likely that from him was derived the name Tenochtitlan or
“Stone-cactus place.” Written as this name is in pictures or
rebus, it probably suggested the invention of the well-known
legend of a prophecy that the war-god’s temple should be built
where a prickly pear was found growing on a rock, and perched
on it an eagle holding a serpent; this legend is still commemorated
on the coins of Mexico. Mexico-Tenochtitlan, founded about
1325, for many years afterwards probably remained a cluster of
huts, and the higher civilization of the country was still to be
found, especially among the Acolhuas in Tezcuco. The wars
of this nation with the Tepanecs, which went on into the 15th
century, were merely destructive, but larger effects arose from
the expeditions under the Culhua king Acamapichtli, where the
Aztec warriors were prominent, and which extended far outside
the valley of Anahuac. Especially a foray southward to Quauhnahuac,
now Cuernavaca, on the watershed between the Atlantic
and Pacific, brought goldsmiths and other craftsmen to Tenochtitlan,
which now began to rise in arts, the Aztecs laying aside
their rude garments of aloe-fibre for more costly clothing, and
going out as traders for foreign merchandise. In the 14th century
the last great national struggle took place. The Acolhuas
had at first the advantage, but Ixtlilxochitl did not follow up the
beaten Aztecs but allowed them to make peace, whereupon,
under professions of submission, they fell upon and sacked the
city of Tezcuco. The next king of Tezcuco, Nezahualcoyotl,
turned the course of war, when Azcapuzalco, the Tepanec
stronghold, was taken and the inhabitants sold as slaves by the
conquering Acolhuas and Aztecs; the place thus degraded
became afterwards the great slave-market of Mexico. In this
war we first meet with the Aztec name Moteuczoma, afterwards
so famous in its Spanish form Montezuma. About 1430 took
place the triple alliance of the Acolhua, Aztec and Tepanec
kings, whose capitals were Tezcuco, Mexico and Tlacopan, the
latter standing much below the other two. In fact the rest of
native history may be fairly called the Aztec period, notwithstanding
the magnificence and culture which make Tezcuco
celebrated under Nezahualcoyotl and his son Nezahualpilli.
When the first Moteuczoma was crowned king of the Aztecs,
the Mexican sway extended far beyond the valley plateau of
its origin, and the gods of conquered nations around had their
shrines set up in Tenochtitlan in manifest inferiority to the
temple of Huitzilopochtli, the war-god of the Aztec conquerors.
The rich region of Quauhnahuac became tributary; the Miztec
country was invaded southward to the Pacific, and the Xicalanca
region to what is now Vera Cruz. It was not merely for conquest
and tribute that the fierce Mexicans ravaged the neighbour-lands,
but they had a stronger motive than either in the desire
to obtain multitudes of prisoners whose hearts were to be torn
out by the sacrificing priests to propitiate a pantheon of gods who
well personified their bloodthirsty worshippers.
E. B. T.
Ancient Civilization
While the prairie tribes of America lived under the loose sway of
chiefs and councils of old men, the settled nations of Mexico had
attained to a highly organized government. This may
be seen by the elaborate balance of power maintained
in the federation of Mexico, Tezcuco and Tlacopan,
where each king was absolute in his own country, but in war or other
Government.
public interests they acted jointly, with powers in something like
the proportion in which they divided conquered lands and spoil,
which was two-fifths each to Mexico and Tezcuco and one-fifth to
Tlacopan. The successor of the Aztec king was customarily a
chosen brother or nephew, the eldest having the first claim unless
set aside as incompetent; this mode of succession, which has been
looked on as an elaborate device for securing practical advantages,
seems rather to have arisen out of the law of choice among the
descendants of the female line, found in American tribes of much
lower culture. Something like this appears in the succession of
kings of Tezcuco and Tlacopan, which went to sons by the principal
wife, who was usually of the Aztec royal family. The Mexican
chronicles, however, show instances of the king’s son succeeding or of
powerful chiefs being elected to the kingship. The term republic
is sometimes used to describe the little state of Tlascala, but this
was in fact a federation of four chiefs, with an assembly of nobles.
In the Zapotec district the Wiyatao or high-priest of Zopaa was a
divine ruler before whom all prostrated themselves with faces to
the ground; he was even too sacred to allow his foot to touch the
earth, and was only seen carried in a litter.
The accounts of the palaces of the native kings must be taken
with some reserve, from the tendency to use descriptive terms not
actually untrue, but which convey erroneous ideas taken
from European architecture; thus what are called
columns of porphyry and jasper supporting marble balconies
might perhaps be better described as piers carrying slabs, while
Palaces, &c.
the apartments and terraces must have been more remarkable
for number and extent than architectural grandeur, being but low
one-storied buildings. The principal palace of Mexico consisted
of hundreds of rooms ranged round three open squares, of such
extent that one of the companions of Cortes records having four times
wandered about till he was tired, without seeing the whole. Not
less remarkable was the palace of Tezcuco, surrounded with its
groves and pleasure-gardens; and, though now hardly anything
remains of the buildings above ground, the neighbouring hill of
Tezcotzinco still has its stone steps and terraces; and the immense
embankment carrying the aqueduct-channel of hewn stone which
supplied water to basins cut in the solid, rock still remains to prove
that the chroniclers’ descriptions, if highly coloured, were at any
rate genuine. Till the 18th century the gigantic figures of Axayacatl
and his son Montezuma were to be seen carved in the porphyry hill
of Chapultepec, but these as well as the hanging gardens have been
destroyed, and only the groves of
ahuehuete
(cypress) remain of the
ancient beauties of the place. That in the palace gardens flowers
from the
tierra caliente
were transplanted, and water-fowl bred
near fresh and salt pools fit for each kind, that all kinds of birds and
beasts were kept in well-appointed zoological gardens, where there
were homes even for alligators and snakes—all this testifies to a
cultivation of natural history which was really beyond the European
level of the time. From the palaces and retinues of thousands of
servants attached to the royal service may be inferred at once the
despotic power of the Mexican rulers and the heavy taxation of the
people; in fact some of the most remarkable of the picture-writings
are tribute-rolls enumerating by hundreds and thousands the
mantles, ocelot-skins, bags of gold-dust, bronze hatchets, loads of
chocolate, &c., furnished periodically by the towns. Below the king
was a numerous and powerful class of nobles, the highest of whom
tlatoani
) were great vassals owing little more than homage and
tribute to their feudal lord, while the natural result of the unruliness
of the noble class was that the king to keep them in check increased
their numbers, brought them to the capital as councillors, and
balanced their influence by military and household officers, and by
a rich and powerful merchant class. The nobles not only had
privileges of rank and dignity, but substantial power over the
plebeian or peasant class (
macehualli
). The greatest estates belonged
to the king, or had been granted to military chiefs whose sons
succeeded them, or were the endowments of temples, but the
calpulli
or village community still survived, and each freeman of the tribe
held and tilled his portion of the common lands. Below the freemen
were the slaves, who were war-captives, persons enslaved for punishment,
or children sold by their parents. Prisoners of war were
mostly doomed to sacrifice, but other classes of slaves were mildly
treated, retaining civil rights, and their children were born free.
The superior courts of law formed part of the palace, and there
were tribunals in the principal cities, over each of which presided a
supreme judge or
cihuacoatl
, who was irremovable, and
whose criminal decisions not even the king might reverse;
he appointed the lower judges and heard appeals from them; it is
doubtful whether he judged in civil cases, but both kinds of suits
Justice.
were heard in the court below, by the
tlacatecatl
and his two associates,
below whom were the ward-magistrates. Lands were set apart
for the maintenance of the judges, and indeed nothing gives a higher
idea of the elaborate civilization of Mexico than this judicial system,
which culminated in a general court and council of state presided
over by the king. The laws and records of suits were set down in
picture-writings, of which some are still to be seen; sentence of death
was recorded by drawing a line with an arrow across the portrait
of the condemned, and the chronicles describe the barbaric solemnity
with which the king passed sentence sitting on a golden and jewelled
throne in the divine tribunal, with one hand on an ornamented skull
and the golden arrow in the other. Among the resemblances to
old-world law was the use of a judicial oath, the witness touching
the ground with his finger and putting it to his lips, thus swearing
by Mother Earth. The criminal laws were of extreme severity, even
petty theft being punished by the thief being enslaved to the person
he had robbed, while to steal a tobacco pouch or twenty ears of corn
was death; he who pilfered in the market was then and there beaten
to death, and he who insulted Xipe, the god of the gold- and silversmiths,
by stealing his precious metal, was skinned alive and sacrificed
to the offended deity. Though aloe-beer or “pulque” was allowed
for feasts and to invalids in moderation, and old people over seventy
seem to be represented in one of the picture-writings as having liberty
of drunkenness, young men found drunk were clubbed to death
and young Women stoned. For such offences as witchcraft, fraud,
removing landmarks, and adultery the criminal had his heart cut
out on the altar, or his head crushed between two stones, while even
lesser punishments were harsh, such as that of slanderers, whose
hair was singed with a pine-torch to the scalp.
Based on conquest as the Aztec kingdom was, and with the most
bloodthirsty religion the world ever saw, the nation was, above all,
a fighting community. To be a tried soldier was the road
to honour and office, and the king could not be enthroned
till he had with his own hand taken captives to be butchered
War.
on the war-god’s altar at his coronation. The common soldiers
were promoted for acts of daring, and the children of chiefs were
regularly trained to war, and initiated by being sent into battle with
veterans, with whose aid the youth took his first prisoner, but his
future rise depended on how many captives he took unaided in fight
with warlike enemies; by such feats he gained the dignity of wearing
coloured blankets, tassels and lip-jewels, and reached such military
titles as that of “guiding eagle.” The Mexican military costumes
are to be seen in the picture-writings, where the military orders of
princes, eagles and tigers are known by their braided hair, eagles’
beaks and spotted armour. The common soldiers went into battle
brilliant in savage war-paint, but those of higher rank had helmets
like birds and beasts of prey, armour of gold and silver, wooden
greaves, and especially the
ichcapilli
, the quilted cotton tunic two
fingers thick, so serviceable as a protection from arrows that the
Spanish invaders were glad to adopt it. The archers shot well and
with strong bows, though their arrows were generally tipped only
with stone or bone; their shields or targets, mostly round, were of
ordinary barbaric forms; the spears or javelins had heads of obsidian
or bronze, and were sometimes hurled with a spear-thrower or
atlatl
of which pictures and specimens still exist, showing it to be similar
in principle to those used by the Australians and Eskimo. The most
characteristic weapon of the Mexicans was the
maquahuitl
or “hand-wood,”
a club set with two rows of large sharp obsidian flakes,
a well-directed blow with which would cut down man or horse.
These two last-mentioned weapons have the look of highly developed
savage forms, while on the other hand the military organization was
in some respects equal to that of an Asiatic nation, with its regular
companies commanded each by its captain and provided with its
standard. The armies were very large, an expedition often consisting
of several divisions, each numbering eight thousand men; but
the tactics of the commanders were quite rudimentary, consisting
merely of attack by arrows and javelins at a distance, gradually
closing into a hand-to-hand fight with clubs and spears, with an
occasional feigned retreat to draw the enemy into an ambuscade.
Fortification was well understood, as may still be seen in the remains
of walled and escarped strongholds on hills and in steep ravines, while
lagoon-cities like Mexico had the water approaches defended by
fleets of boats and the causeways protected by towers and ditches;
even after the town was entered, the pyramid-temples with their
surrounding walls were forts capable of stubborn resistance. It was
held unrighteous to invade another nation without a solemn embassy
to warn their chiefs of the miseries to which they exposed themselves
by refusing the submission demanded, and this again was followed
by a declaration of war, but in Mexico this degenerated into a ceremonial
farce, where tribute was claimed or an Aztec god was offered to
be worshipped in order to pick a quarrel as a pretext for an invasion
already planned to satisfy the soldiers with lands and plunder, and
to meet the priests’ incessant demands for more human sacrifices.
Among the accounts of the Mexican religion are some passages
referring to the belief in a supreme deity. The word
teotl
, god, has
been thought in some cases to bear this signification,
but its meaning is that of deity in general, and it is
applied not only to the sun-god but to very inferior gods. It is
related that Nezahualcoyotl, the poet-king of Tezcuco, built a nine-storied
Religion.
temple with a starry roof above, in honour of the invisible
deity called Tloquenahuaque, “he who is all in himself,” or Ipalnemoani,
“he by whom we live,” who had no image, and was propitiated,
not by bloody sacrifices, but by incense and flowers. These
divinities, however, seem to have had little or no place in the popular
faith, which was occupied by polytheistic gods of the ordinary
barbaric type. Tezcatlipoca was held to be the highest of these,
and at the festival of all the gods his footsteps were expected to
appear in the flour strewn to receive this sign of their coming. He
was plainly an ancient deity of the race, for attributes of many kinds
are crowded together in him. Between him and Quetzalcoatl, the
ancient deity of Cholula, there had been old rivalry. As is
related in
the legends
Quetzalcoatl
came into the land to teach men to till the
soil, to work metals and to rule a well-ordered state; the two gods
played their famous match at the ball-game, and Tezcatlipoca persuaded
the weary Quetzalcoatl to drink the magic pulque that sent
him roaming to the distant ocean, where he embarked in his boat
and disappeared from among men.
These deities are not easily
analysed, but on the other hand Tonatiuh and Metztli, the sun and
moon, stand out distinctly as nature gods, and the traveller still sees
in the huge adobe pyramids of Teotihuacan, with their sides oriented
to the four quarters, an evidence of the importance of their worship.
The war-god Huitzilopochtli was the, real head of the Aztec pantheon;
his idol remains in Mexico, a huge block of basalt on which is sculptured
on the one side his hideous personage, adorned with the
humming-bird feathers on the left hand which signify his name, while
the not less frightful war-goddess Teoyaomiqui, or “divine war-death,”
occupies the other side. Centeotl, the goddess of the all-nourishing
maize, was patroness of the earth and mother of the gods,
while Mictlanteuctli, lord of dead-land, ruled over the departed in
the dim under-world. There were numbers of lesser deities, such as
Tlazolteotl, goddess of pleasure, worshipped by courtesans, Tezcatzoncatl,
god of strong drink, whose garment in grim irony clothed
the drunkard’s corpse, and Xipe, patron of the goldsmiths. Below
these were the nature-spirits of hills and groves, whose shrines were
built by the roadside. The temples were called teocalli or “god’s
house,” and rivalled in size as they resembled in form the temples
of ancient Babylon. They were pyramids on a square or oblong
base, rising in successive terraces to a small summit-platform. The
great teocalli of Huitzilopochtli in the city of Mexico stood in an
immense square, whence radiated the four principal thoroughfares,
its courtyard being enclosed by a square, of which the stone wall,
called the coatepantli- or serpent-wall from its sculptured serpents,
measured nearly a quarter of a mile on each side. In the centre,
the oblong pyramid of rubble cased with hewn stone and cemented
375 × 300 ft. at the base, and rising steeply in five terraces to the
height of 86 ft., showed conspicuously to the city the long processions
of priests and victims winding along the terraces and up to
corner flights of steps. On the paved platform were three-storey
tower temples in whose ground-floor stood the stone images and
altars, and before that of the war-god the green stone of sacrifice,
humped so as to bend upward the body of the victim that the priest
might more easily slash open the breast with his obsidian knife, tear
out the heart and hold it up before the god, while the captor and his
friends were waiting below for the carcase to be tumbled down the
steps for them to carry home to be cooked for the feast of victory.
Before the shrines reeking with the stench of slaughter the eternal
fires were kept burning, and on the platform stood the huge drum,
covered with snakes’ skin, whose fearful sound was heard for miles.
From the terrace could be seen seventy or more other temples within
the enclosure, with their images and blazing fires, and the
tzompantli
or “skull-place,” where the skulls of victims by tens of thousands
were skewered on cross-sticks or built into towers. There also might
be seen the flat circular temalacatl or “spindle-stone,” where captives
armed with wooden weapons were allowed the mockery of a gladiatorial
fight against well-armed champions. The great pyramid of
Cholula with its hemispherical temple of Quetzalcoatl at the top,
now an almost shapeless hill surmounted by a church, was about
thrice as long and twice as high as the teocalli of Mexico. A large
fraction of the Mexican population were set apart as priests or
attendants to the services of the gods. The rites performed were
such as are found elsewhere—prayer, sacrifice, processions, dances,
chants, fasting and other austerities, but there are some peculiarities
of detail. Prayers and other formulas have been copied down by
Sahagun and other chroniclers, of endless prolixity, but not Without
occasional touches of pathos. These prayers seem essentially
genuine; indeed there was no European model from which they
could have been imitated; but at the same time it must be remembered
that they come down in Spanish writing, and not untouched
by Spanish influence, as in one passage where there is a mention
of sheep, an animal unknown to the Mexicans. As to sacrifice,
maize and other vegetables were offered, and occasionally rabbits,
quails, &c., but, in the absence of cattle, human sacrifice was the
chief rite, and cannibalism prevailed at the feasts. Incense was
constantly used, especially the
copalli
(copal) well known to us for
varnish; little terra-cotta censers are among the commonest of
Mexican antiquities. Long and severe religious fasts were customary
at special seasons, and drawing blood from the arms, legs and body,
by thrusting in aloe-thorns, and passing sharp sticks through the
tongue, was an habitual act of devotion recalling the similar practices
of devotees in India. The calendar of religious festivals for the
Mexican year has been preserved. Each 20-day period had one or
more such celebrations. In the month of the “diminishing of
waters” the rain gods or Tlalocs were propitiated by a procession
of priests with music of flutes and trumpets carrying on plumed
litters infants with painted faces, in gay clothing with coloured
paper wings, to be sacrificed on the mountains or in a whirlpool in
the lake. It is said that the people wept as they passed by; but if
so this may have been a customary formality, for the religion of
these nations must have quenched all human sympathy. In the
next month the god Xipe-totec, already mentioned, had his festival
called the “flaying of men” from the human victims being flayed,
after their hearts were torn out, for young men to dress in their skins
and perform dances and sham fights. The succeeding festival of
Camaxtli was marked by a severe fast of the priests, after which
stone knives were prepared with which a hole was cut through the
tongue of each, and numbers of sticks passed through. For the
great festival of Tezcatlipoca, the handsomest and noblest of the
captives of the year had been chosen as the incarnate representative
of the god, and paraded the streets for public adoration dressed in
an embroidered mantle with feathers and garlands on his head and
a retinue like a king; for the last month they married him to four
girls representing four goddesses; on the last day wives and pages
escorted him to the little temple of Tlacochcalco, where he mounted
the stairs, breaking an earthenware flute against each step; this was
a symbolic farewell to the joys of the world, for as he reached the
top he was seized by the priests, his heart torn out and held up to
the sun, his head spitted on the tzompantli, and his body eaten as
sacred food, the people drawing from his fate the moral lesson that
riches and pleasure may turn into poverty and sorrow. The manner
of the victim’s death in these festivals afforded scope for variety;
they dressed them and made them dance in character, threw them
into the fire for the fire-god, or crushed them between two balanced
stones at the harvest-festival. The ordinary pleasures of festivals
were mingled with all this, such as dances in beast-masks, sham
fights and children’s games, but the type of a religious function was
a sickening butchery followed by a cannibal feast.
The Mexican priesthood were much concerned with the art of
picture-writing, which they used systematically as a means of recording
religious festivals and legends, as well as keeping
calendars of years and recording the historical events
which occurred in them. Facsimiles of several of these
interesting documents, with their translations, may be seen in
Picture-writing.
Kingsborough; splendid reproductions of the beautiful Mexican
and Mixteco-Zapotecan codices have also been published at the
expense of the duke of Loubat and by the “Junta Colombina”
(Mexico, 1892). Gods are represented with their appropriate
attributes—the fire-god hurling his spear, the moon-goddess with
a shell, &c.; the scenes of human life are pictures of warriors fighting
with club and spear, men paddling in canoes, women spinning and
weaving, &c. An important step towards phonetic writing appears
in the picture-names of places and persons. The simplest forms
of these depict the objects signified by the name, as where
Chapultepec
or “grasshopper-hill” is represented by a grasshopper on a
hill, or a stone with a cactus on it stands for Tenoch or “stone-cactus,”
the founder of
Tenochtitlan
. The system had, however,
risen a stage beyond this when objects were drawn to represent, not
themselves, but the syllables forming their names, as where a trap, an
eagle, a pricker, and a hand are put together not to represent these
objects, but in order that the syllables of their names mo-quauhzo-ma
should spell the word Moquauhzoma (see Aubin’s introduction
to Brasseur,
Hist. du Mexique
, i. 68.). The analogy of this
to the manner in which the Egyptian hieroglyphs passed into
phonetic signs is remarkable, and writing might have been invented
anew in Mexico had it not been for the Spanish conquest. The
Aztec numerals, which were vigesimal or reckoned by scores, were
depicted by dots or circles up to 20, which was represented by a flag,
400 (a score of scores) by a feather, and 8000 (a score of scores of
scores) by a purse; but for convenience these symbols might be halved
and quartered, so that 534 might be shown by one feather, one
quarter of a feather, one flag, one-half of a flag, and four dots. The
Mexican calendar depended on the combination of numbers with
picture-signs, of which the four principal were the rabbit, reed, flint,
house—
tochtli
acatl
tecpatl
calli
. The cycle of 52 years was reckoned
by combining these signs in rotation with numbers up to 13, thus:
1 rabbit, 2 reed, 3 flint, 4 house, 5 rabbit, 6 reed, &c. By accident
this calendar may be exactly illustrated with a modern pack of cards
laid out in rotation of the four suits, as, ace of hearts, 2 of spades,
3 of diamonds, 4 of clubs, 5 of hearts, 6 of spades, &c. In the
Mexican ritual calendar of the days of the year, the same method
is carried further, the series of twenty day-signs being combined
in rotation with numbers up to 13; as this cycle of days only reaches
260, a series of nine other signs are affixed in addition, to make up
the 365-day year. It is plain that this rotation of signs served no
useful purpose whatever, being less convenient than ordinary counting
such as the Mexicans employed in their other calendar already
mentioned, where the 20-day periods had each a name like our
months, and their days had signs in regular order. Its historical
interest depends on its resemblance to the calendar-system of central
and eastern Asia, where among Mongols, Tibetans, Chinese, &c.,
series of signs are thus combined to reckon years, months and days;
for instance, the Mongol cycle of 60 years is recorded by the zodiac
or series of 12 signs—mouse, bull, tiger, &c., combined in rotation
with the five male and female elements—fire, earth, iron, water,
wood; as “male-fire-bull” year, &c. This comparison is worked
out in Humboldt’s
Vues des Cordillères
, as evidence of Mexican
civilization being borrowed from Asia. Naturally the Mexican
calendar-system lent itself to magic in the same way as the similar
zodiac-signs of the Old World, each person’s fate being affected by
the qualities of the signs he was born under, and the astrologer-priests
being called in to advise on every event of life. Of all
Mexican festivals the most solemn was that of the
xiuhmolpilli
, or
“year-binding,” when the 52-year cycle or bundle of years came to
an end. It was believed that the destruction of the world, which
after the Hindu manner the Mexicans held to have already taken
place three or four times, would happen again at the end of a cycle.
As the time drew near, the anxious population cleansed their houses
and put out all fire, and on the last day after sunset the priests,
dressed in the garb of gods, set out in procession for the hill of
Huixachtla, there to watch for the approach of the Pleiades to the
zenith, which gave the auspicious signal for the lighting of the new
fire. The finest of the captives was thrown down and fire kindled
on his breast by the wooden drill of the priest; then the victim’s
heart was torn out, and his body flung on the pile kindled with the
new flame. The people watching from their flat housetops all the
country round saw with joy the flame on the sacred hill, and hailed
it with a thank-offering of drops of blood drawn from their ears
with sharp stone-flakes. Swift runners carried burning brands to
re-kindle the fires of the land, the sacred fire on the teocalli of the
war-god blazed up again, and the people began with feasting and
rejoicing the new cycle.
Mexican education, at any rate that of the upper class, was a
systematic discipline much under the control of religion, which here
presents itself under a more favourable light. After
the birth of a child, the
tonalpouhqui
or “sun-calculator”
drew its horoscope from the signs it was born under, and fixed
the time for its solemn lustration or baptism, performed by the
Education.
nurse with appropriate prayers to the gods, when a toy shield and
bow were provided if it was a boy, or a toy spindle and distaff
if it was a girl, and the child received its name. An interesting
picture-writing, to be seen in Kingsborough, shows the details of
the boy’s and girl’s education, from the early time when three small
circles over the child show it to be three years old, and a drawing
of half a tortilla or corn-cake shows its allowance for each meal; as
they grow older the lads are seen beginning to carry burdens,
paddle the canoe and fish, while the girls learn to spin and weave,
grind maize, and cook—good conduct being enforced by punishments
of increasing severity, up to pricking their bodies with aloe-thorns
and holding their faces over burning chillies. The schools
were extensive buildings attached to the temples, where from an
early age boys and girls were taught by the priests to sweep the
sanctuaries and keep up the sacred fires, to fast at proper seasons
and draw blood for penance, and where they received moral teaching
in long and verbose formulas. Those fit for a soldier’s life were
trained to the use of weapons and sent early to learn the hardships
of war; children of craftsmen were usually taught by their fathers
to follow their trade; and for the children of nobles there was
elaborate instruction in history, picture-writing, astrology, religious
doctrines and laws. Marriages depended much, as they
Marriages.
do still in the East, on comparison of the horoscopes of the
pair to ascertain if their birth-signs were compatible. Old women
were employed as go-betweens, and the marriage ceremony was
conducted by a priest who after moral exhortations united the young
couple by tying their garments together in a knot, after which they
walked seven times round the fire, casting incense into it; after the
performance of the marriage ceremony, the pair entered together
on a four days’ fast and penance before the marriage was completed.
The funeral rites of the Mexicans are best seen in the
Funerals.
ceremonies at the death of a king. The corpse laid out
in state was provided by the priest with a jug of water for his journey.
and with bunches of cut papers to pass him safely through each
danger of the road—the place where the two mountains strike
together, the road guarded by the great snake and the great alligator,
the eight deserts and the eight hills; they gave him garments to
protect him from the cutting wind, and buried a little dog by his side
to carry him across the nine waters. Then the royal body was
invested in the mantles of his patron-gods, especially that of the
war-god, for Mexican kings were warriors; on his face was placed
a mask of turquoise mosaic, and a green chalchihuite-stone as a
heart between his lips. In older times the dead king was buried
on a throne with his property and dead attendants round him. But
after cremation came in a mourning procession of servants and chiefs
carrying the body to the funeral pyre to be burnt by the demon-dressed
priests, after which the crowd of wives and slaves were
exhorted to serve their lord faithfully in the next world, were
sacrificed and their bodies burnt. Common people would not thus
be provided with a ghostly retinue, but their simpler funeral ceremonies
were as far as they went similar to those of their monarch.
The staple food of the Mexicans before the conquest has continued
with comparatively little change among the native race, and has
even been adopted by those of European blood. Maize
or Indian corn was cultivated on patches of ground
where, as in the Hindu
jûm
, the trees and bushes were
burnt and the seed planted in the soil manured by the ashes. A
Agriculture and food.
sharp-pointed planting stick, a wooden shovel, and a bronze-bladed
hoe called a
coatl
were the simple implements. The Mexicans
understood digging channels for irrigation, especially for the cultivation
of the
cacahuatl
, from which they taught the Europeans to
prepare the beverage
chocollatl
; these native names passed into
English as the words cacao, or coco and chocolate. Other vegetables
adopted from Mexico are the tomato (
tomatl
) and the
chilli
used as flavouring to native dishes. The maize was ground with a
stone roller on the grinding stone or
metlatl
, still known over Spanish
America as the
metate
, and the meal baked into thin oval cakes called
by Aztecs
tlaxcalli
, and by Spaniards
tortilla
, which resemble the
chapati
of India and the oatcake of Scotland. The Mexicans were
also skilful makers of earthen pots, in which were cooked the native
beans called by the Spanish
frijoles
, and the various savoury stews
still in vogue. The juice extracted by tapping the great aloe
before flowering was fermented into an intoxicating drink about the
strength of beer,
octli
, by the Spaniards called
pulque
. Tobacco,
smoked in leaves or cane-pipes or taken as snuff, was in use,
especially at feasts. In old times Mexican clothing
Clothing and Ornaments.
Metalwork.
was of skins of woven aloe and palm fibre, but at the
time of the conquest cotton was largely cultivated in
the hot lands, spun with a spindle, and woven in a rudimentary
loom without a shuttle into the mantles and breech-cloths of the
men and the chemises and skirts of the women, garments often of
fine texture and embroidered in colours. Ornaments of gold and
silver, and jewels of polished quartz and green chalchihuite were
worn—not only the ears and nose but the lips being pierced for
ornaments. The artificers in gold and silver melted
the metals by means of a reed-blowpipe and cast them
solid or hollow, and were also skilled in hammered work and
chasing, as some fine specimens remain to show, though the famous
animals modelled with gold and silver, fur, feathers and scales
have disappeared. Iron was not known, but copper and tin ores
were mined, and the metals combined into bronze of much the same
alloy as in the Old World, of which hatchet blades and other instruments
were made, though their use had not superseded that of
Obsidian and other sharp stone flakes for cutting, shaving, &c.
Metals had passed into a currency for trading purposes, especially
quills of gold-dust and T-shaped pieces of copper, while coco-beans
furnished small change. The vast size of the market-squares with
their surrounding porticos, and the importance of the caravans of
merchants who traded with other nations, show that mercantile
had risen into some proportion to military interests. Nor was the
wealth and luxury of Mexico and surrounding regions without a corresponding
development of art. The stone sculptures
Art and Pastime.
such as that remaining of Xochicalco, which is figured
by Humboldt, as well as the ornamented woodwork,
feather-mats, and vases, are not without artistic merit. The often-cited
poems attributed to Nezahualcoyotl may not be quite genuine,
but at any rate poetry had risen above the barbaric level, while the
mention of ballads among the people, court odes, and the chants of
temple choirs would indicate a vocal cultivation above that of the
instrumental music of drums and horns, pipes and whistles, the
latter often of pottery. Solemn and gay dances were frequent, and
a sport called the bird-dance excited the admiration of foreigners
for the skill and daring with which groups of performers dressed as
birds let themselves down by ropes wound round the top of a high
mast, so as to fly whirled in circles far above the ground. The ballgame
of the Mexicans, called
tlachtli
, was, like tennis, the pastime
of princes and nobles; special courts were built for it, and the ball
of india-rubber (perhaps the first object in which Europeans became
acquainted with this valuable material) might not be touched by
the hands, but was driven against the walls by blows of the knee or
elbow, shoulder or buttock. The favourite game of
patolli
has been
already mentioned for its similarity to the
pachisi
of modern India.
The accounts given by Spanish writers of the Central Americans
in their state after the Spanish conquest are very scanty in comparison
with the voluminous descriptions of Aztec life. They
bring out perfectly, however, the fact of close connexion between
the two civilizations. Some Central-American peoples
were actually Mexican in their language and culture,
Central-American Culture.
especially the Pipils and a large part of the population
of Nicaragua. The investigations made by Dr Walter
Lehmann in Central America (1907–1909), prove that these Mexican
elements were extended through Guatemala, Salvador, a small part of
Nicaragua (the territory of the Nicaraos) and on several places in the
peninsula of Nicoya (Costa Rica) amongst the autochthonous Chorotega
or Mangue. It is an error of the Spanish authorities to pretend
that the Pipil civilization in Guatemala and Salvador is not older
than the time of King Ahuitzotl (
. 1482–1486). The language
spoken by the Pipils of Salvador (Balsam Coast) is a very old dialect
of the Mexican language of the highland of Mexico. It has preserved
in the conjugation and in the formation of the plural older forms
than the classical Nahuatl itself. The separation of the Pipils from
the chief tribes of the Nahuatl branch happened centuries before
the conquest, and they developed a singular and characteristic
civilization, which can be seen in the wonderful stone-reliefs and
sculptures of Sta Lucia de Cozumalhuapa on the Pacific coast of
Guatemala.
Dr Lehmann’s archaeological and linguistic researches, especially
in Salvador and Nicaragua, also enabled him to prove another very
important fact, viz. that these Pipils, who may be descendants from
the peoples of the Mexican Plateau, migrated into territories previously
occupied by an older race of Mayan origin. The archaeological
and linguistic evidence proves also that a great part of
Salvador and Honduras was once occupied by peoples of the Maya
race—Pokomam, Chorti and perhaps other unknown tribes. They
left typical Mayan ruins in Honduras (Tenampua) and in Salvador
(Opico near Tehuacan, Quelepa near San Miguel), which seem,
however, to be destitute of Mayan hieroglyphic inscriptions. The
easternmost limit of prehistoric Mayan civilization, on the Pacific
coast of Central America, is Fonseca Bay, with the island of Zacate
Grande.
It is noteworthy that archaeological objects of the type characteristic
of northern Honduras (Ulloa Valley) have been found on the
Pacific coast of Salvador. A strange stone sculpture of the so-called
Chac-Mol type, known before only from the country of the Tarascs,
from Tlaxcala and Chichen Itza, was discovered in Salvador
(Ahuachapan).
In the nearly unexplored central part of Nicaragua Dr Lehmann
found fragments of painted polychrome clay pottery similar to
objects known from the Ulloa Valley (Honduras) amongst other
ceramic pieces which seem to have been left by the ancestors of the
Sumo Indians, now extinct in that territory. It is possible that
these remains of Mayan pottery came into central Nicaragua as
articles of commerce.
It is significant that Mayan civilization cannot be traced in any
other part of Nicaragua or Costa Rica.
The above-mentioned prehistoric Mayan peoples lived in contact
with “barbarous” nations and with another little-known civilized
race. The barbarians belonged to the great family of the Sumo-Misquito
Indians, the civilized race was that of the Chorotega or
Mangue (Dirian, Orotiñan, &c.). The Sumo-Misquito Indians
occupied the Atlantic coast and the interior of Nicaragua and
Honduras, where they still live in small tribes; a dialect of the hitherto
unknown Sumo languages is the Matagalpan, now extinct in Nicaragua,
and nearly identical with the Matagalpan is the language spoken
by the Indians of Cacaopera in Salvador (Ultra-Lempa territory).
There is no doubt that, at the time of the Pipil invasion, tribes of
the Sumo-Misquito family were the immediate neighbours of the
Pipils towards the east and north. This fact is proved by the names
of some places in Salvador,
e.g.
Santiago Nonohualco, San Juan
Nonohualco and San Pedro Nonohualco. The word
Nonohualco
signifies in the Mexican language a place where a language changes,
where another idiom begins. To the east of the three places whose
names are compounded with “Nonohualco,” must have dwelt, in
the time of the Pipil Indians, the Nonoualca, called also by Mexican
tribes Chontales or Popoloca. The western neighbours of the Sumo
Indians were and are (though few still survive) the Lenca Indians,
who formerly occupied large parts of Honduras. A linguistic relationship
can be established between all the Indian languages spoken
on the Atlantic coast and in the interior of Nicaragua and Honduras.
Several tribes, such as the Paya (or Poya) and the Jicaques, form
together with the Lenca, Sumo (Matagalpa, Tauakhca and Ulua)
and Misquito one great family.
The position of the isolated Xinca (or Sinca) Indians, regarded
from this point of view, becomes very interesting. There are
scientific reasons to believe that the Xinca also belong to the same
great family as the Lenca, Jicaques, Paya, Misquito-Sumo. It
may be possible either that these tribes are the autochthonous inhabitants
who dwelt in Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua
before the immigration of the prehistoric Maya peoples; or else that
they invaded this region after it had been deserted by a prehistoric
oriental branch of the Maya family.
The Chorotega race had its centre in Nicaragua (Pacific coast) and
at one time extended thence as far as Guanacaste (Costa Rica); at
another time it extended as far as Honduras (actual department
of Choluteca) and into eastern Salvador as far as the state of Chiapas
in Mexico, where the Chorotega penetrated amongst the Mixe.
The Chorotega or Mangue language, so closely affiliated to the
Chiapanec, is now extinct, but its former extension is to be recognized
by many Indian local names. It seems that there was formerly
a mutual interpenetration between Lenca, Sumo and Chorotega
tribes. The territories of all these tribes can be, more or less exactly,
calculated by the existence of Indian local names. The Misquito
country is characterized by names terminating in
laya
, water, or
auala
, river; the Sumo and Ulua country by names in
uas
, water;
the Matagalpan by names in
li
, water; the Lenca by names in
tique
ligue
isgue and
ai
quin
. Such Lenca names occur on the north-eastern
boundary of the Ultra-Lempa country of Salvador. It is
strange that there is not a single place-name in Salvador either of
Mayan origin, or, as it seems, of Chorotegan origin. Probably the
Mexican elements superseded the Maya so completely that there
remained no trace of the Maya except archaeological objects; it
is to be supposed that the Lenca and Sumo tribes superseded the
Chorotega in Salvador. If we can be sure—and the linguistic
evidence admits of no doubt—that the Chorotega had their centre
in Nicaragua and thence extended north-westwards, it may be
hoped that Chorotegan remains will be found in the vast territory
occupied for many centuries by the Maya peoples in the Pacific part
of Guatemala. These remains would, of course, be archaeological
or place-names.
How closely related some of the Central-American nations were
in institutions to the Mexicans appears, not only in their using the
same peculiar weapons, but in the similarity of their religious
rites; the connexion is evident in such points as the ceremony of
marriage by tying together the garments of the couple, or in holding
an offender’s face over burning chillies as a punishment; the native
legends of Central America make mention of the royal ball-play,
which was the same as the Mexican game of tlachtli already mentioned.
At the same time many of the Central-American customs
differed from the Mexican; thus in Yucatán we find the custom of
the youths sleeping in a great bachelor’s house, an arrangement
common in various parts of the world, but not in Mexico; the same
remark applies to the Maya exogamous law of a man not taking a wife
of his own family name (see Diego de Landa,
Relacion de Yucatan
ed. Brasseur de Bourbourg, p. 140), which does not correspond with
Mexican custom. We have the means of comparing the personal
appearance of the Mexicans and Central Americans by their portraits
on early sculptures, vases, &c.; and, though there does not appear
any clear distinction of race-type, the extraordinary back-sloping
foreheads of such figures as those of the bas-reliefs of Palenque prove
that the custom of flattening the skull in infancy prevailed in Central
America to an extent quite beyond any such habit in Mexico. The
notion that the ruined cities now buried in the Central-American
forests were of great antiquity and the work of extinct nations has
no solid evidence; some of them may have been already abandoned
before the conquest, but others were inhabited by the ancestors of
the Indians who now build their mean huts and till their patches
of maize round the relics of the grander life of their ancestors. In
comparing these ruins in Yucatán, Chiapas, Guatemala and Honduras,
it is evident that, though they are the work of two or more
nations highly distinct in language, yet these nations had a common
system of pictorial or written characters. One specimen of a Central-American
inscription may give a general idea of them all, whether
it be from the sculptured façade of a temple sketched by Catherwood,
or from the painted deerskin called the Dresden Codex (reproduced
in Kingsborough), or from the chapter of Diego de Landa where
he professes to explain and translate the characters themselves.
These consist of combinations of faces, circles, lines, &c., arranged
in compartments in so complex a manner that hardly two are found
alike. How they conveyed their meaning, how far they pictorially
represented ideas or spelt words in the different languages of the
country, is a question not yet answered in a complete way; Landa’s
description (p. 320) gives a table of a number of their elements as
phonetically representing letters or syllables, but, though there may
be a partial truth in his rules, they are insufficient or too erroneous
to serve for any general decipherment. One point as to the Central-American
characters is clear, that part of them are calendar-signs
recording dates. From the accounts given by Landa and other
writers it is plain that the Central-American calendar, reckoning the
year in twenty-eight periods of thirteen days, was the same in its
principle of combining signs as that of Mexico. The four leading
Maya signs called
kan
muluc
ix
cauac
corresponded in their position
to the four Aztec signs rabbit, reed, flint, house, but the meanings
of the Maya signs are, unlike the Aztec, very obscure. A remarkable
feature of the Central-American ruins is the frequency of truncated
pyramids built of hewn stone, with flights of steps up to the temple
built on the platform at top. The resemblance of these structures
to the old descriptions and pictures of the Mexican teocallis is so
striking that this name is habitually given to them. The teocallis
built by the Nahua or Mexican nations have been mostly destroyed,
but two remain at Huatusco and Tusapan (figured in Bancroft,
iv. 443, 456), which bear a strong resemblance to those of Palenque.
On the whole it' is not too much to say that, in spite of differences
in style, the best means of judging what the temples and palaces
of Mexico were like is to be gained from the actual ruins in Central
America. On the other hand, there are features in Central-American
architecture which scarcely appear in Mexican. Thus at Uxmal
there stands on a terraced mound the long narrow building known
as the governor’s house (Casa del Gobernador), 322 ft. long, 39 ft.
wide, 26 ft. high, built of rubble stone and mortar faced with square
blocks of stone, the interior of the chambers rising into a sloping
roof formed by courses of stonework gradually overlapping in a
“false arch.” The same construction is seen in the buildings forming
the sides of a quadrangle and bearing the equally imaginary
name of the nunnery (Casa de Monjas); the resemblance of the interior
of one of its apartments to an Etruscan tomb has often been noticed
(see Fergusson,
History of Architecture
, vol. i; Viollet-le-Duc, in
Charnay).
The explorations made by Dr Lehmann in 1909 in the famous
ruins of Teotihuacan, near Mexico city throw new light upon certain
chronological problems. Like the excavations made by Dr Max
Uhle in Peru, they tend to determine the relative antiquity of the
different periods of the ancient civilization. They also show that
these various culture-periods followed one another among the
Mexicans in much the same sequence as among the Peruvians. At
a considerable depth below the foundations of a temple-palace at
Teotihuacan, Dr Lehmann discovered certain ceramic fragments of
a type quite different from any hitherto classed as Mexican. These
are painted on a fine stucco in beautiful colours (notably a kind of
turquoise-green) and represent archaic forms of flowers and butterflies.
The relation between the wall paintings of Teotihuacan and
ornaments at Chichen Itza, as also the existence of sculptured stone
yokes in Teotihuacan, in the country of the Totonacs, in Guatemala
and in Salvador, furnish important material for the investigation
of the obscure problems of the Toltecs and Olmecs, and of the extension
of Maya peoples on the Atlantic coast of the Mexican Gulf
from Campeche as far as Tabasco and Vera Cruz.
Attempts to trace the architecture of Central America directly
from Old-World types have not been successful, while on the other
hand its decoration shows proof of original invention, especially
in the imitations of woodwork which passed into sculptured ornament
when the material became stone instead of wood. Thus the
architectural remains, though they fail to solve the problem of the
culture of the nations round the Gulf of Mexico, throw much light
on it when their evidence is added to that of religion and customs.
At any rate two things seem probable—first, that the civilizations
of Mexico and Central America were pervaded by a common influence
in religion, art, and custom; second, that this common element
shows traces of the importation of Asiatic ideas into America.
Bibliography
.—The most illuminating and fundamental work
on Mexican archaeology is the
Gesammelte Abhandlungen
, of Eduard
Seler (vol. i. Berlin, 1902; vol. ii., 1904). For the earliest descriptions
of the ancient cities of Mexico the writings of Cogolludo, Landa,
Antonio del Rio, Sahagun, Torquemada and others are of the greatest
value, The account by Antonio de Leon y Gama,
Descripcion
historica y cronologica de las dos piedras que
. . .
se hallaron en
la plaza principal de Mexico el año de 1790
(Mexico, 1792; 2nd ed.
by C. M. de Mustamentel), may be specially mentioned. Much of
this material is to be found in Lord Kingsborough’s monumental
work in 9 vols., seq., on the
Antiquities of Mexico
(London, 1831–1848).
Alexander von Humboldt’s
Vues des Cordillères et monuments
des peuples indigènes de l’Amerique
was published in Paris in
1816. At the beginning of the 19th century the colonial government
undertook a comprehensive exploration of the best known groups
of ruins and three expeditions were made in 1805–1808 under the
direction of Captain Guillaume Dupaix, accompanied by Luciano
Castañeda as artist. The reports were not published, however, until
Kingsborough included them in his work, though some of the drawings
appeared in other works. In many respects these reports are
the best of the early accounts. Another early explorer was the
French artist Frédéric de Waldeck, who published
Voyage pittoresque
et archéologique dans la province d’Yucatan
(Paris, 1838), and whose
collection of drawings appeared in 1866, with the descriptive text
by Brasseur de Bourbourg, under the title
Monuments anciens du
Mexique
. Among other and later works, including some who have
devoted themselves more especially to Maya inscriptions, are:
Arnold and Frost,
The American Egypt
(London, 1909); H. H.
Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States
(5 vols., New York,
1874–1876, vol. iv. is devoted to “Antiquities”); A. F. Bandelier,
Report on an Archaeological Tour in Mexico
, 1881 (Archaeol. Inst.
of America, papers, Am. Ser. II.); Leopoldo Batres,
Cuadro arqueológico
y etnográfico de la República Mexicana
(Mexico, n.d.); W. W.
Blake,
Catalogue of the Historical and Archaeological Collections of
the National Museum of Mexico
(Mexico, 1884); Eug. Boban,
Cuadro
arqueológico y etnográfico de la República Mexicana
(Paris, 1885);
Daniel G. Brinton,
The American Race
(New York, 1891) and
Ancient Phonetic Alphabets of Yucatan
; Desiré Charnay,
The Ancient
Cities of the New World
(Transl. New York, 1887); Charnay and
Viollet-le-Duc,
Cités et ruines américaines
(Paris, 1863); Alfredo
Chavero (ed.)
Antiguedades mexicanas
(Mexico, 1892); Dupaix,
Antiquités mexicaines
(Paris, 1834–1836); E. Förstemann (Numerous
articles in
Globus
and other German publications, 1893–1897, on
Maya inscriptions); E. T. Hamy,
Decades americanae
(Paris, 1888,
1898, 1902); Wm. H. Holmes,
Archaeological Studies among the
Ancient Cities of Mexico
(Parts I. and II. Field Columbian Museum,
Chicago, 1895–1897); W. Lehmann,
Ergebnisse und Aufgaben der
mexikanischen Forschung
Archiv. für Anthropologie
neue Folge
iii., 2; 1907), Eng. trans.: Methods and Results in Mexican Research,
by Seymour de Ricci (Paris, 1909); Theobert Maler,
Neue Entdeckung
von Ruinen-Städten in Mittel-Amerika
(Globus, lxx. 149–150, Braunschweig,
1896), and also contributions to American archaeological
publications; A. P. Maudslay,
Biologia Centrali-Americana-Archaeology
(London, 1897); J. F. A. Nadaillac, Prehistoric America (New
York, 1895); Zelia Nuttall,
The Fundamental Principles of the Old
and New World Civilizations
(Arch. and Ethn. Papers, Peabody
Museum, Cambridge, 1901); Antonio Penafiel,
Monumentos del arte
mexicano antiguo
(1 vol. text, 2 vols. plates; Berlin, 1890); Carl
Sapper,
Das nördliche Mittel-Amerika
(Braunschweig, 1897); Caecilie
Saler,
Auf alten Wegen in Mexico und Guatemala
(Berlin, 1900);
Eduard K. Seler, “Der Charakter der aztekischen und Maya-Handschriften”
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie
, Berlin, 1888), and other papers
in various German publications; John L. Stephens (F. Catherwood,
artist),
Travels in Central America
(2 vols., New York, 1841), and
Incidents of Travel in Yucatan
(2 vols., New York, 1843).
E. B. T.
W. L.*
II.—Colonial Period. 1520–1821
The conquest of Mexico by the Spanish forces under
Hernando
Cortes
q.v.
) in 1520, and the death of the last Aztec emperor,
Guatemozin, introduced what is known as the colonial period
of Mexican history, which lasted down to the enforced resignation
of the last viceroy, O’Donoju, in 1821. During these three
centuries, after a brief but most unsatisfactory experience of
government by audiencias (1521–1535), sixty-four viceroys
ruled over New Spain. Of these a few were ecclesiastics: two
had two terms of office; only two or three were of native birth,
and their previous official life had always been passed in other
parts of the Spanish dominions.
New Spain was one of four great viceroyalties, the other
three being New Granada, Buenos Aires and Peru. Its viceroy
ruled over districts differing in status and with overlapping
and conflicting authorities, some of these
being appointed directly by the king of Spain, and
New Spain: Extent.
responsible to him. New Spain in its widest meaning includes
the audiencias or judicial districts of Manila, San Domingo and
Guatemala, and the viceroy had some sort of authority over
them: but in its narrower meaning it comprised the audiencia
district of Mexico and the subordinate audiencia district of
Guadalajara, which together extended from Chiapas and Guatemala
to beyond the eastern boundary of the modern state of
Texas and northwards, eventually, to Vancouver’s Island. In
the course of the 18th century this came to consist of the following
divisions: (1) the kingdom of Mexico, which included the
peninsula of Yucatan but not the present state of Chiapas or a
part of Tabasco, these belonging to Guatemala. Approximately
its south border ran from a point slightly east of Tehuantepec
to the bay of Honduras, and its north limit was that of the
modern states of Michoacan and Guanajuato, then cutting across
San Luis Potosi to a point just above Tampico. (2) The kingdom
of New Galicia, including the present states of Zacatecas, Jalisco
and part of San Luis Potosi. (3) The Nuevo Regno de Leon
(the present state of that name). (4) The Provincias Internas,
i.e.
“interior” regarded from the capital, viz. Nuevo Santander
(Tamaulipas, and Texas to the bay of Corpus Christi, founded
1749), the several provinces of Nuevo Biscaya or Chihuahua,
Durango, Sonora with Sinaloa, Coahuila, Texas (from Corpus
Christi Bay to the mouth of the Mermenton in the present state
of Louisiana), and the two Californias.
The audiencia councils also advised the Viceroy in matters
of administration; and, as with other officials, his career was
subject at its close to a formal examination by a
commission—a process known as “taking his
residencia.” Local government till 1786 was largely
Government and Organization.
in the hands of
alcaldes majores
and
corregidores
, the latter
established in 1531 to look after the Indians, and both appointed
by purchase. Towns, which were to some extent founded after
the conquest as centres of civilization for the Indians, were
governed by civic officials appointed in the first instance by the
governor of the province, but subsequently as a rule purchasing
their posts.
The church rapidly supplemented the work of the conquerors.
The first Franciscan mission arrived in 1524; other orders
followed. The announcement of the apparition of
the Virgin to an Indian near Mexico City provided a
place of pilgrimage and a patroness in Our Lady of
The Church and the People.
Guadalupe; and the friars ingeniously used the hieroglyphic
writing for instruction in Christian doctrine, and taught the
natives trades, for which they showed much aptitude. The
university of Mexico was founded in 1553. The Jesuits established
themselves in 1572, devoting themselves actively to the
education both of whites and of natives, and were a powerful
factor in the exploring and civilizing of the northern districts.
The Inquisition was introduced in 1571. With the natives
south of the latitude of Tampico there was little trouble after
the Mixton War (in Guadalajara) in 1540–1562, save for occasional
risings in Yucatan, Tehuantepec, and in 1711 in the Nayarit
mountain region west of Zacatecas, and Tamaulipas was conquered
in 1748; but the wild Indians of Sonora and New Mexico
gave constant trouble to the missions and outlying settlers.
There were occasionally riots due to scarcity of corn (notably
in Mexico itself in 1692). As in other Spanish possessions,
Indian labour was replaced or supplemented by that of negro
slaves, but these were almost wholly confined to the coast regions
of Vera Cruz and Acapulco, and early in the 19th century there
were only some 10,000 in all.
As the Spanish conquerors brought few women, there was
much mixture of races. Among the pure whites—who were
practically all of Spanish extraction—there were two
well-defined classes, the Gachupines or chapetones,
Spaniards born in Europe, said to be so named in
Races and Castes.
allusion to their spurs, from Aztec words meaning “prickers
with the foot,” and the native-born or creoles: the former,
though a small minority, had almost all the higher positions
both in the public services and in commerce. Besides these there
were five well-defined
castas
: mestizoes (Indian and white);
mulattoes (negro and white); Zambos (negro and Indian), who
were regarded as specially vicious and dangerous; native
Indians and negroes. But there were about a dozen intermediate
“named varieties,” of which the
salto-atras
(tending
away from white) and
tente en l’aire
(tending towards white)
may be mentioned; and many of the last named eventually
passed into the Creole class, sometimes by the decree of a court.
The fact that the trade route to Manila passed through Vera
Cruz, Mexico City and Acapulco entailed the settlement also of
a few Chinese and Malays, chiefly on the Pacific coast.
The natives were subject to tribute and kept in perpetual
tutelage: divided at the conquest, with the land, as serfs of the
conquerors, in
repartimientos
or
encomiendas
, they
were gradually freed at an early date from their
serfage, and allowed to sell their labour as they
Position of
the Natives.
pleased; they were, however, to a great extent kept in villages
or settlements, compelled to cultivate land which they held
for their life only, and strictly controlled by the friars or the
priests. Their numbers were several times seriously reduced
by the
matlazhuatl
, apparently analogous to yellow fever, but
not attacking the whites, and unknown before the conquest.
The negroes were allowed to buy their freedom gradually at
rates fixed by the judicial authorities, and slavery seems never
to have taken much hold except in the coast region.
Of the events of this period only a bare outline can here be
given. The term of office of the first viceroy, Antonio de
Mendoza, was marked by the Mixton War, by an
attempt to suppress the encomienda system, and by
a violent epidemic among the natives. Under his
successor, Velasco, the measures taken for the relief of the
Leading Events:
1535–1822.
natives provoked the landowners to a conspiracy (repressed
with great severity) to set up Cortes’ son as king of New Spain.
In 1568 the island of Sacrificios, near Vera Cruz, was seized by
John Hawkins
q.v.
), who was surprised by the Spanish fleet
accompanying the new viceroy, de Almansa, and escaped with
Sir Francis Drake
q.v.
), but without the remaining ships of his
squadron. In 1572 and 1578, however, Drake took abundant
vengeance, and in 1587 Cavendish captured the Manila galleon—a
success repeated in the next century.
For the next sixty years an urgent question was the prevention
of floods in the capital. Situated on the lowest of four lakes,
whose waters had only one small outlet from the
valley, it was only 4 ft. above the level of the
lowest, and was flooded on an average once in every
twenty-five years. It had been protected, under the native
The Drainage of the Capital.
kings by a system of dikes, which were added to under the earlier
viceroys, but serious inundations in 1553 and 1580 flooded the
city, and the latter suggested the relief of the highest lake, that
of Zumpango, by a tunnel carrying its chief affluent into a
tributary of the Panuco, and so to the Atlantic. This, however,
was not then undertaken, and when mooted again in 1603 was
opposed as certain to involve a heavy sacrifice of Indian life.
Another inundation, in 1604, suggested the transfer of the city
to Tacubaya, but the landowners opposing and the city being
again inundated in 1607, the Nochistongo tunnel was begun
under the auspices of a Jesuit, Enrico Martinez, and roughly
completed in eleven months. It passed under a depression in the
mountains of the extreme north of the valley. Humboldt states
that it was 6600 metres long,
wide
and 4 high. But it did
nothing for the southern lakes, so that a further system of dikes
was recommended in preference, in 1614, by the Dutch engineer
Adrian Boot; it was inadequate for its work and, not being
lined with masonry, it was liable to be choked by falls. Repairs
were suspended in 1623, and a further inundation, with great
losses of life, occurred from 1629 to 1634. The removal of the
city was again mooted and, though sanctioned by the king of
Spain, successfully opposed by the landowners. Another flood
occurred in 1645. After a disastrous attempt to enlarge the
tunnel in 1675, it was eventually converted into an open cutting,
but the work was not finished till 1789, and the bottom was then
29 ft. 6 in. above the level of the lowest lake. The drainage was
only satisfactorily accomplished at the end of the 19th century
(see below).
A negro revolt in the Vera Cruz region (1609) and an Indian
rebellion in Sinaloa and Durango may be mentioned among the
events of the earlier part of the 17th century. The
regular and secular clergy had early come into conflict,
particularly over the tithe and the control of
the Indians; and in 1621, the marquis de Gelves, an energetic
Church and State.
reformer, who as viceroy favoured the appointment of the
regulars to deal with the natives, came into conflict with Archbishop
Serna of Mexico, who placed the city under interdict,
excommunicated the viceroy and constrained him to hide from
the mob. Some years later the bishop of Puebla, Juan de
Palafox y Mendoza, transferred many native congregations
from the friars to secular priests, and subsequently, in 1647,
came into conflict with the Jesuits, whom he excommunicated,
but who eventually triumphed with the aid of the Dominicans
and the archbishop. The power of the church may be judged
from the petition of the Ayuntamiento of Mexico to Philip IV.
(1644) to stop the foundation of religious houses, which held
half the property in the country, to suspend ordinations because
there were 6000 unemployed priests, and to suppress feast days
because there were at least two per week.
To check the Dutch and British corsairs the Barlovento
(“windward”) squadron had been set up in 1635; but the
British capture of Jamaica (1655) aggravated the
danger to the Spanish convoys. During the rest of
the century the ports of Yucatan and Central
America were frequently raided, and in 1682 Tampico
Buccaneer Raids.
suffered a like disaster; in May 1683 Vera Cruz itself was
captured through stratagem by two buccaneers, Van Horn and
Laurent, who plundered the town for ten days, committed
shocking outrages, and escaped as the Spanish fleet arrived.
In 1685–86 the Pacific coast was ravaged by Dampier and Swan,
and in 1709 Woodes Rogers, with Dampier as pilot, captured
the Manila treasure galleon, a feat repeated by Anson in 1743.
But the European wars of the 18th century had little effect on
Mexico, save that the privileges of trade given to Great Britain
by the treaty of Utrecht facilitated smuggling. In the first
half of the 18th century we may note the appearance, intermittently
at first, of the first Mexican periodical—the
Gaceta de
Mexico
—in 1722, a severe epidemic of yellow fever in 1736, and the
establishment about 1750 of a standing army with a nucleus of
Walloons and Swiss, negroes and Indians being excluded and
the half-breeds admitted under restrictions. But the great
event of the 18th century was the expulsion of the Jesuits from
Mexico, as from the other Spanish dominions, in 1767, under
orders from Charles III. They were arrested en masse on the night
of the 26th of June; their goods were sequestrated, and they
themselves deported to Havana, then to Cadiz, Genoa, and eventually
Corsica. They had done much to civilize the natives and
to educate the whites, and their expulsion, which was greatly
resented by the Creoles, probably tended to increase the popular
discontent and prepare for the overthrow of Spanish rule.
In 1769 Don José de Galvez was sent out as special commissioner
to devise reforms, with powers independent of the then
viceroy, but without much immediate result. It
was, however, a consequence of his work that in
1786 the provinces and kingdoms were replaced by
twelve intendencias (Guadalajara, Zacatecas, Durango, Sonora,
Centralized Government.
Puebla, Vera Cruz, Merida, Oaxaca, Valladolid, Guanajato, San
Luis Potosi, Mexico), whose governors and minor officials were
directly dependent on the viceroy, the former alcaldes, mayores
and corregidores, who were very corrupt, being abolished.
Possibly it is from this reform that we may date the antithesis
of Federals and Centralists, which is so conspicuous in the history
of republican Mexico. Among the later viceroys the Conde de
Revillagigedo (1789–1794) deserves mention as a progressive
ruler who developed commerce and improved administration,
and took the first, but very imperfect, census, on which Humboldt
based his estimate of the population in 1803 at 5,840,000.
The European wars of the French revolutionary period
interfered with the traffic with Spain, and so relaxed the bonds
of a commercial system which hampered the manufactures
of Mexico and drained away its wealth.
in 1783 the Conde de Aranda had suggested
to the Spanish king the scheme of setting up three Spanish-American
Beginnings of Severance.
kingdoms bound to Spain by perpetual treaties of
alliance and reciprocity and by frequent royal intermarriages,
and with the king of Spain as overlord. The plan was devised
as a means of rivalling Anglo-Saxon supremacy, but was rejected
through fear of the mixed races predominating over the whites.
A similar fear helped to keep down the tendencies inspired by
French revolutionary literature, though plots occurred against
the viceroy Branciforte in 1798 and 1799. But the real causes
of the revolution were local. The chief was the Creole jealousy
of the Spanish immigrants. There was oppressive taxation,
restriction on commerce and manufacture in the interest of
Spain, even vineyards having been prohibited; and the courts
were very corrupt. But to these grievances was added in 1804
the sequestration, to provide for Spain’s needs, of the benevolent
funds (
obras pias
) in Mexico, amounting to about $45,000,000,
and nearly all invested on mortgage. The mortgages were
called in: forced sales were necessary, the mortgagers were
frequently ruined, and less than a fourth of the total was realized.
Other confiscations and exactions followed; and when the rule
of Fernando VII. was succeeded by that of Joseph Bonaparte,
the municipality of Mexico invited Iturrigaray, the viceroy, to
declare the country independent. He proposed the convocation
of a national congress, but was overthrown by a conspiracy of
Spaniards under one Yermo, who feared that they would lose
their privileged position through severance from Spain. The
two next viceroys were incompetent; further demands from the
Spanish authorities in revolt against Joseph Bonaparte increased
the disaffection, which was not allayed by the grant of representation
in the Spanish Cortes to the colonies; and, on the demands
being repeated by a third viceroy, Venegas, Creole conspiracies
arose in Querétaro and Guanajato. Their discovery in 1810
was followed by the outbreak of the revolution. Hidalgo, a
parish priest, and Allende, a captain of cavalry, with forces
consisting largely of Indians, captured a stronghold at Guanajato
and even threatened the capital; but the revolutionists were
defeated in 1811 at Calderon, and the leaders executed. Another
priest, however, named Morelos, continued the movement, and,
despite defeat in the terrible siege of Cuatla (now Morelos) on
the 2nd of May 1812, raised the south, so that in the next year
his forces overran most of the kingdom of Mexico and held its
southern parts, and he was able to convoke a congress and issue
a constitution. But he also was captured, and executed at
Mexico City in 1815. Though revolutionary movements still
continued, by 1817 only one leader, Vincente Guerrero, was left
in the field. But in March 1820 the Spanish constitution,
repudiated by King Fernando VII. soon after his restoration,
was restored after a military rising in Spain. It was promulgated
in Mexico, and the ecclesiastics and Spaniards, fearing
that a Liberal Spanish government would force on them disendowment,
toleration and other changes, induced Augustin de
Iturbide, who had already been conspicuous in suppressing the
risings, to take the field in order to effect what may be called a
reactionary revolution.
III.
Independent Mexico
Thenceforward, till the second election of Porfirio Diaz to
the presidency in 1884, the history of Mexico is one of almost
continuous warfare, in which Maximilian’s empire
is a mere episode. The conflicts, which may at
first sight seem to be merely between rival generals,
General character-istics.
are seen upon closer examination to be mainly (1) between the
privileged classes,
i.e.
the church and (at times) the army, and
the mass of the other civilized population; (2) between Centralists
and Federalists, the former being identical with the army,
the church and the supporters of despotism, while the latter
represent the desire for republicanism and local self-government.
Similar conflicts are exhibited, though less continuously, by most
of the other Spanish-American states. On both sides in Mexico
there was an element consisting of honest doctrinaires; but rival
military leaders exploited the struggles in their own interest,
sometimes taking each side successively; and the instability was
intensified by the extreme poverty of the peasantry, which
made the soldiery reluctant to return to civil life, by the absence
of a regular middle class, and by the concentration of wealth in a
few hands, so that a revolutionary chief was generally sure both
of money and of men. But after 1884 under the rule of Diaz,
the Federal system continued in name, but it concealed in fact,
with great benefit to the nation, a highly centralized administration,
very intelligent, and on the whole both popular and
successful—a modern form of rational despotism.
Iturbide eventually combined with Guerrero, and proclaimed
the “Plan of Iguala,” which laid down, as the bases of the new
state, the maintenance of the Roman Catholic
religion and the privileges of the clergy, the establishment
of a limited monarchy, and equality of rights
General Iturbide becomes Emperor, 1822–1823.
for Spaniards and native-born Mexicans. Iturbide
sought the co-operation of the viceroy Apodaca, who,
however, refused; but he was presently superseded by General
O’Donojú, who, being unable to get beyond Vera Cruz, recognized
the independence of Mexico. O’Donojú shortly afterwards
died; the Spanish government repudiated his act; and
Spanish troops held the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, off Vera
Cruz, till 1827. A provisional junta, nominated by Iturbide,
issued a declaration of independence (Oct. 1821), and nominated
a regency of five, with Iturbide as its president. The first
Mexican Congress met on the 24th of February 1822. A section
of it favoured a republic; another, monarchy under Iturbide;
another, which was broken up by the refusal of Spain (continued
until 1836) to recognize Mexican independence, monarchy under
a Bourbon prince. A conflict now arose between the republican
majority and Iturbide, which was settled by a military pronunciamiento
in his favour, and the Congress elected him emperor.
He was crowned on the 21st of July 1822. Fresh conflicts broke
out between him and the Congress, and Antonio Lopez de Santa
Anna, captain-general of Vera Cruz, proclaimed a republic,
promising to support the Plan of Iguala. He was defeated at
Jalapa and driven to Vera Cruz; but the army deserted Iturbide,
who was compelled to abdicate (April 19, 1823). The Congress
deported him to Italy, and granted him a pension. He
returned almost immediately, on the pretext that Spain was
intriguing against Mexican independence, and on landing
(having been previously outlawed) was arrested and executed
(July 1, 1824).
The Congress had meanwhile undone much of his work, and
had divided into Federalists and Centralists, the latter largely
Monarchists and Freemasons. The Federalists were strong
enough to secure the adoption of a constitution (Oct. 4,
1824) modelled on that of the United States, with additional
clauses, notably one declaring the Roman Catholic religion
to be alone recognized. A source of abundant discord was
opened by the provision that each state should contribute
its quota to the Federal revenues. No proper statistical
basis for estimating the quotas existed, and the device gave
each state a plausible reason for attempting secession on
occasion. Moreover, the capital and some territory round it
was made into a “Federal district”—another grievance intensifying
the antagonism of the state to the central power. The
Freemasons had been largely instrumental in overthrowing
Iturbide; they now divided into the Escoceses (lodges of the
Scottish ritual), who were Monarchist and Centralist, and the
Yorkinos, who took their ritual from New York, and their cue,
it was alleged, from the American minister, Joel Poinsett. An
attempt at revolt, headed by Nicolas Bravo, vice-president, the
Grand Master of the Escoceses, was suppressed, but dissensions
ensued in the Yorkino party between the followers of President
Guerrero (a man largely of native blood, and the last of the
revolutionary leaders) and of Gomez Pedraza, the
President Guerrero, 1825–1831.
war minister. A conflict broke out, the Guerrerists
were victorious, and the pillage of foreign shops in
Mexico City (1828), among them that of a French baker,
gave a basis for the foreign claims which, ten years later,
caused the “Pastry War” with France. Meanwhile, attacks
on Spanish ships off Cuba by a Mexican squadron, commanded
by an American, David Porter, had induced Spain
to send an expedition to reconquer Mexico (1829) which was
checked at Tampico by Santa Anna. During the invasion
Vice-President Antonio Bustamante declared against President
Guerrero; the bulk of the army supported him. Guerrero was
deposed, and his partisans in the south were defeated at Chilpancingo
(Jan. 2, 1831); and Guerrero, retiring to Acapulco, was
enticed on board an Italian merchant-ship, and treacherously
seized, tried and executed (Jan.–Feb. 1831). Next year, however,
a revolt broke out against Bustamante, which was joined
by Santa Anna, and eventually resulted in a pronunciamiento in
favour of Gomez Pedraza. He, and his successor, Vice-President
Gomez Farias (1833), assailed the exemption of the clergy and
of military officers from the jurisdiction of the
Santa Anna, Dictator, 1834.
civil courts, and
the latter attempted to laicize higher education and to relax
monastic bonds. Santa Anna took advantage of the situation
to assume the presidency. He eventually became
dictator, dissolved Congress (May 31, 1834) and the
state legislatures, and substituted creatures of his
own for the governors of the states and mayors of towns, then
retiring into private life. A new Congress, having resolved
itself into a constituent assembly, followed up this Centralist
policy (Dec. 30, 1836) by framing a new constitution, the Siete
Leyes or Seven Laws, which converted the states into departments,
ruled by governors appointed by the central authority,
and considerably reduced popular representation. Antonio
Bustamante became the first president under it.
Bustamante, President, 1837.
The French claims set up by the pillage of foreign
shops in Mexico had, however, remained unsatisfied,
and in 1838 a French fleet blockaded the coast, bombarded
the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, off Vera Cruz, and
occupied the town. The Mexican government gave way,
threatened by Federalist risings and secessions of states, which
culminated in 1841. Santa Anna appeared, nominally as a
mediator, and put forward the bases of Tacubaya (Sept. 28,
1841), abolishing all the Siete Leyes except the part relating
to the judicial system, arranging for a new
Santa Anna Restored, 1841.
constituent assembly, and reserving for the president
(himself) full power of re-organizing the
administration. The Centralist government, after a vain attempt
to defeat him by professing a more thorough Federalism,
gave way to force, and Bustamante was allowed to leave the
country. But the new Congress was too Federalist for Santa
Anna, and he retired, leaving the reins to Nicolas Bravo, under
whom a new Centralist constitution was established (1843).
This expressly retained the privileges of the clergy and army,
and was in some respects more anti-Liberal than that of 1836.
But new complications were now introduced by the question
of Texas. Though a state of the Mexican Union, it had been
settled from the United States in consequence of a
land grant given by the Spanish Viceroy to Stephen
Austin in 1820, and had been estranged from Mexico
partly by the abolition of slavery under a decree of President
The Texas Question.
Guerrero, and partly by the prospect of the Centralist constitution
of 1836. It then seceded. Santa Anna attempted to reduce
it, showing great severity, but was eventually defeated and
captured by Houston at the battle of San Jacinto, and compelled
to sign a treaty recognizing Texan independence, which was
disavowed on his return to Mexico. A state of war thus continued
nominally between Mexico and its seceded member,
whose independence was recognized by England, France and
the United States. The slaveholders in the United States
favoured annexation of Texas, and pressed the claims due from
Mexico to American citizens, partly perhaps with the aim of
forcing war. Most of these claims were settled by a mixed
commission, with the king of Prussia as umpire, in 1840–1841,
and a forced loan was raised to pay them in 1843, which stimulated
the revolt of Paredes against Santa Anna, who had returned
to power in 1844. It resulted in Santa Anna’s downfall, imprisonment
at Perote and eventual exile (Dec. 1844 to Jan. 1845),
and the election of General José Joaquin Herrera as president.
But Herrera was displaced in the last days of 1845 by a pronunciamiento
in favour of Paredes, who undertook to uphold the
national rights against the United States, and who was elected
president on the 3rd of January 1846. Texas had meanwhile
applied for admission into the American Union. The annexation,
rejected in 1844 by the United States Senate, was
sanctioned on the 1st of March 1845, and carried out on the
22nd of December 1845. The Mexican minister withdrew from
Washington, and both sides made active preparations for war.
The United States forces were ordered by President Polk to
advance to the Rio Grande in January 1846. They established a
depot at Point Ysabel (behind the opening of Brazos
United Santiago), and erected a fort in Texan territory, commanding
Matamoros, on the Mexican side of the Rio
Grande. This provoked the Mexican forces into a
War with the United States,
1846–48.
defensive invasion of Texas, to cut the American communications
with Point Ysabel. They were, however, defeated at Palo Alto
(May 8) and Resaca de la Palma (May 9). There was an outburst
of warlike feeling in the United States (with a counter-movement
in the North), and an invasion of Mexico was planned
by three routes—from Matamoros towards Monterey in New
Leon, from San Antonio de Bexar to Chihuahua, and from Fort
Leavenworth to New Mexico. Importance attaches chiefly to
the movements of the first force under General Zachary Taylor.
During the war preparations President Paredes, suspected of
intriguing to overthrow the Republic and set up a Spanish
prince, had to give place to his vice-president Bravo, who in his
turn gave way before Santa Anna, who was hastily recalled from
his exile at Havana to assume the presidency and the conduct
of the war (Aug. 1846). He was allowed by the American
squadron blockading Vera Cruz to pass in without hindrance.
Probably it was thought his presence would divide the Mexicans.
The preparations of the United States took some months. It
was not till the 5th of September 1846 that General Zachary
Taylor could leave his depot at Camargo on the Rio Grande,
and march on Monterey. It was taken by assault on the
23rd of September; Santa Anna was defeated at Buena
Vista (near Saltillo) on the 23rd of February 1847, and
forced back on San Luis Potosí. New Mexico was occupied
without opposition; Chihuahua was occupied, but not held,
owing to the difficulties in maintaining communications; and
Upper California was seized in the autumn of 1846 by John
C. Fremont, who had been exploring a route across the continent,
and by the United States Pacific squadron, and made secure by
the aid of the New Mexico expedition. But as Mexico still continued
to fight, it was determined to reach the capital via Vera
Cruz. That city was taken by General Scott after a siege and
bombardment (March 7 to 29, 1847); and after winning the battle
of Cerrogordo (April 18), and a long delay at Puebla, Scott
marched on Mexico City, stormed its defences against greatly
superior forces, and effected an entrance after severe fighting on
the 13th of September 1847. This virtually ended the war;
Santa Anna was deprived of his command, and the treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluded on the 2nd of February 1848,
ceded to the United States Texas, New Mexico and
Treaty of Peace.
Upper California, in return for a payment of
$15,000,090 by the United States to Mexico, and
the assumption of liability by it for the claims of its subjects
which it had hitherto been pressing against Mexico. This payment
was doubtless intended to strengthen the United States
title to the conquered territory. It is generally admitted that
Mexico was provoked into aggression in order that additional
territory might be available for the extension of slavery.
The American forces were withdrawn in May and June 1848
after the ratification of the treaty by Mexico. Under the presidency
of Herrera (1848–1851) attempts were made to Herrera,
restore order and the public credit. An arrangement
was effected with English holders of Mexican stock;
an attempt was made to carry out a consolidation of the internal
Herrera, President, 1848–85.
debt, which failed; the army was reduced and reorganized, and
the northern frontier was defended by military colonies, formed
partly of civilized Seminole Indians from the United States.
But the financial situation was desperate; the federal revenue,
mostly from customs—which were evaded by extensive smuggling—was
not half the expenditure; and Indian revolts in
Yucatan (1847–1850) and in the Sierra Gorda had added to the
strain. Arista succeeded Herrera as president (Jan. 1851), but
resigned (Jan. 1853).
After a sort of interregnum (Jan.–March 1853) Santa Anna was
recalled (by a vote of the majority of the states under the Plan of
Arroyozarco, on the 4th of February 1853, the result
of a pronunciamiento), and made dictator in the
interests of federation. His measures, partly inspired
by an able Conservative leader, Lucas Alaman, proved
Santa Anna in Power, 1853–1854.
strongly Centralist: one is especially noteworthy, the establishment
of the ministry of “fomento,” or encouragement to public
works, education, and intellectual and economic development,
which is a conspicuous aid to Mexican welfare to-day. He
also negotiated (at the end of 1853) the sale of the Mesilla
valley (now Arizona) to the United States, but the purchase
money. was soon dissipated. On the 16th of December 1853
Santa Anna issued a decree making himself dictator, with the
title of serene highness. On the 1st of March 1854, at Ayutla
in Guerrero, a section of the army under Colonel Villareal
proclaimed the Plan of Ayutla, demanding Santa Anna’s deposition
and the establishment of a provisional government to
secure a new constitution. Among the leaders in the movement
were Generals Alvarez and Comonfort, and it is said that Porfirio
Diaz, subsequently president, then a young soldier, made his
way to Benito Juarez, then in prison, and arranged with him
the preliminaries of the revolt. It spread, and Santa Anna left
the country (Aug. 1854).
Two filibustering expeditions at this time—one by William
Walker, afterwards notorious in Nicaragua, in Lower California
(Dec. 1853), the other by Count Raousset de Boulbon in Sonora
(July 1854)—added to the general disorder.
The provisional president, General Carrera, proving too Centralist,
was replaced by Alvarez (Sept. 24, 1855), two of whose
ministers are conspicuous in later history—Ignacio Comonfort,
minister of war, and Benito Juarez, minister of
finance. Juarez (b. 1806) was of unmixed Indian
blood. The son of a Zapotec peasant in a mountain
Benito Juarez.
village of Oaxaca, he was employed as a lad by a bookbinder in
Oaxaca city, and aided by him to study for the priesthood. He
soon turned to the law, though for a time he was teacher of
physics in a small local college; eventually went into politics,
and did excellent work in 1847 as governor of his native state.
Juarez almost immediately secured the enactment of a law (Ley
Juarez, Nov. 23, 1855) subjecting the clergy and the army to
the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. “Benefit of clergy”
was the curse of Mexico. Officers and soldiers could be tried only
by courts-martial, the clergy (including numbers of persons in
minor orders, who were practically laymen) only by ecclesiastical
courts. The proposed reform roused the Clericals to resistance.
Alvarez gave place (Dec. 8, 1855) to his war minister Comonfort,
who represented the less anti-Clerical Liberals. He appointed
a commission to consider the question of draining the Valley of
Mexico, which adopted the plan ultimately carried out in 1890–1900;
suppressed a Clerical rising in Puebla (March 1856), which
was punished by a considerable confiscation of church property;
sanctioned a law releasing church land from mortmain, by providing
for its sale, for the benefit, however, of the ecclesiastical
owners (called after its author Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, brother
of the subsequent president), and a new draft constitution,
largely modelled on that of the United States (Feb. 5, 1857).
The clergy protested violently, and the Plan of Tacubaya (Dec.
17, 1857), which made Comonfort dictator, provided for the
construction of a new constitution under his auspices. He was
presently displaced by a thorough reactionary, General Zuloaga,
and expelled from Mexico early in 1858; and for three years
Mexico was a prey to civil war between two rival governments—the
Republicans at Vera Cruz under Juarez, who, as Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, succeeded Comonfort; and the
reactionaries at the capital. The latter were at first presided
over by Zuloaga, who, proving incompetent, was replaced at
the end of 1858 by Pezuela, who early in 1859 gave place to
Miguel Miramon, a young, able and unscrupulous soldier who
was shortly afterwards accepted as “constitutional” president
by his party. The Juarists were defeated outside the city of
Mexico twice, in October 1858 and on the 11th of April 1859,
On the second occasion the whole body of officers,
Miramon.
who had surrendered, were shot with Miramon’s
authority, if not by his express orders, together with several
surgeons (including one Englishman, Dr Duval) (the fifty-three
“martyrs of Tacubaya”). This atrocity caused great indignation
in Mexico and abroad: the reactionists were divided;
their financial straits were extreme, as the Juarists held all the
chief ports. Juarez was recognized by the United States, and
allowed to draw supplies of arms and volunteers thence; and in
July 1859 he published laws suppressing the religious orders,
nationalizing ecclesiastical property (of the estimated value of
$45,000,000), establishing civil marriage and registration, transferring
the cemeteries to civil control, and, in short, disestablishing
the church. But the apparent hopelessness of any ending
to the conflict, together with the frequent outrages of both
parties on foreigners, afforded strong reasons for foreign intervention.
Early in 1859 President Buchanan had recommended
the step to Congress, which did not respond. On the 12th of
December 1859 the M‘Lean-Juarez treaty was concluded, which
gave the United States a sort of disguised protectorate over
Mexico, with certain rights of way for railroads over the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec and between the Rio Grande and Pacific. The
American Senate, however, did not ratify the treaty, and a motion
for its reconsideration late in 1860 came to nothing, owing to the
approach of the War of Secession.
When Napoleon III. was in captivity at Ham he dreamed of
a Central America civilized and opened up to modern enterprise
by a transoceanic canal: and the clerical refugees in Paris,
among them Labastida, archbishop of Mexico, easily influenced
the Empress Eugenie, herself a Spaniard, to interest her husband
in the cause of centralized monarchy and the church: it
is said that even in 1859 they had thoughts of setting up the
Archduke Maximilian as ruler of Mexico.
The question of a joint intervention of Great Britain, France,
Spain and Prussia was mooted between those powers in 1860.
Early in 1859 the outrages on British subjects had
caused the British minister to break off diplomatic
relations. Forced contributions had been levied by
both sides on goods or bullion, being European property, the
Overthrow
of Miramon, 1860.
reactionaries being the worst offenders; and there were numerous
cases of murder and robbery of Europeans. At last, on the
17th of November 1860, Miramon, under the plea of necessity,
seized $630,000 in specie which had been left under seal at the
British Legation and was intended for the bondholders. On
the 22nd of December 1860 his forces were routed by the Juarist
general Ortega at Arroyozarco, and his government was overthrown.
Juarez entered Mexico City on the 11th of January 1861. He
soon found that his government was held responsible to Europe
for the excesses of its rival as well as its own. Miramon’s government
had violated the British Legation; the Spanish minister,
the papal legate and the representatives of Guatemala and
Ecuador were expelled from the country for undue interference
on behalf of the reactionaries; the payments of the
European Intervention, 1861.
British loan were suspended by Juarez’s Congress in
1861; and various outrages had been committed
on the persons and property of Europeans for which no redress
could be obtained. The French
chargé d’affaires
, Dubois de
Saligny, who had been sent out in November 1860, urged French
intervention, and took up the Jecker claims. Jecker, a Swiss
banker settled in Mexico, had lent Miramon’s government in 1859
$750,000 (subject, however, to various deductions): in return,
Miramon gave him 6% bonds of the nominal value of $15,000,000
which were ingeniously disguised as a conversion scheme. Jecker
had failed early in 1860, Miramon was overthrown a few months
later. Jecker’s creditors were mostly French, but he still held
most of the bonds, and there is reason to believe that he won
over Dubois de Saligny by corrupt means to support his claims.
Intercepted correspondence (since confirmed from the archives
of the Tuileries) showed that the Duc de Morny promised Jecker
his patronage in return for 30% of the profits (De la Gorce,
Hist. du Second Empire
, IV. c. 1). An imperial decree naturalized
Jecker in France, and Napoleon III. took up his claim. A
convention between Great Britain, France and Spain for joint
interference in Mexico was signed in London on the 31st of
October 1861. A separate arrangement of the British claims
was negotiated by Juarez, but rejected by the Mexican Congress,
November 1861; and the assistance of the United States with
a small loan was declined, Mexican territory being demanded
as security. On the 14th of December Vera Cruz was occupied
by Spanish troops under General Prim; the French fleet and
troops arrived soon after, with instructions to seize and hold
the Gulf ports and collect the customs for the three Powers till
a settlement was effected; Great Britain sent ships, and landed
only 700 marines. In view of the unhealthiness of Vera Cruz,
the convention of Soledad was concluded with the Mexican
government, permitting the foreign troops to advance to Orizaba
and incidentally recognizing Mexican independence. But as
the French harboured leaders of the Mexican reactionaries,
pressed the Jecker claims and showed a disposition to interfere
in Mexican domestic politics, which lay beyond the terms of
the joint convention, Great Britain and Spain withdrew their
forces in March 1862.
More troops were sent from France. Their advance was
checked by Zaragoza and Porfirio Diaz in the battle of Cinco
de Mayo, on the 5th of May 1862; and in September of that
year 30,000 more French troops arrived under General
Forey. Wintering at Orizaba, they recommenced their advance
(Feb. 17, 1863), besieged and reduced Puebla, and entered Mexico
French Expedition, 1862–63.
City on the 7th of June. A provisional government of Mexicans,
nominated directly or indirectly by Dubois de
Saligny, adopted monarchy, offered the crown to
Maximilian of Austria, brother of the Emperor Francis
Joseph, and should he refuse, left its disposal to Napoleon III.
Maximilian, after some difficulty as to renouncing his right
of succession to the throne of Austria, accepted the crown
subject to the approval of the Mexican people, and
reached Mexico city on the 12th of June 1864. Juarez
meanwhile had set up his capital, first in San Luis
Potosí, then in Chihuahua. The new empire was unstable from
Maximilian Emperor, 1864.
the first. Before Maximilian arrived the provisional government
had refused to cancel the sales of confiscated Church lands, as
the clericals demanded. When he came, a host of new difficulties
arose. A new loan, nominally of about eight millions sterling,
but yielding little more than four, owing to discount and commission,
was raised in Europe, but no funds were really available
for its service. Maximilian carried the elaborate etiquette of
the court of Vienna to Mexico, but favouring toleration of
Protestantism, and the supremacy of the Crown over the
Church, he was too liberal for the clericals who had set him
up. As a foreigner he was unpopular, and the regiments of
Austrians and Belgians which were to serve as the nucleus of
his own army were more so. His reforms, excellent on paper,
could not be carried out, for the trained bureaucracy necessary
did not exist. For a time he nominally held sway over about
two-thirds of the country—roughly, from lat. 18° to 23°, thus
excluding the extreme north and south. Oaxaca city, under
Porfirio Diaz,
capitulated to Bazaine—who had superseded the
too pro-clerical Forey in October 1864—in February 1865, and
by the autumn of that year the condition of the Juarists in the
north seemed desperate. But the towns asked for permanent
French garrisons, which were refused, as weakening their own
power of self-defense. Instead, the country was traversed by
flying columns, and the guerillas dealt with by a French service
of “contre-guerilla,” who fought with much the same savagery
as their foes. Directly the French troops had passed, Republican
bands sprang up, and the non-combatant Mexicans, to save
themselves, could only profess neutrality. Yet on the 3rd of
October 1865, Maximilian, misled by a false report that Juarez
had left the country, issued a decree declaring the Juarists
guerillas, who, whenever captured, were to be tried by court-martial
and shot. Mexican generals on both sides had done
as much. But Maximilian’s decree prepared his own fate.
The American Civil War ended in the spring of 1865, and a
strong popular feeling was at once manifested in favour of
asserting the Monroe doctrine against Maximilian’s government.
In the summer there were threatening movements of United
States troops towards the Rio Grande; early in 1866
Maximilian deserted by France.
Napoleon III. announced his intention of withdrawing
his forces; in response to a note of Seward, the
United States secretary of state, of the 12th of February 1866,
he was induced to promise their return by three instalments—in
November 1866, March and November 1867. Maximilian
now turned for support to the Mexican clericals; meditated
abdication, but was dissuaded by his wife Charlotte, the daughter
of Leopold I. of Belgium (and “the better man of the two,” as he
had once jestingly said), who went to intercede for him with the
emperor of the French. Finding him obdurate, she went on to
appeal to the pope; while at Rome she went mad (end of
September 1866).
Maximilian had meanwhile drawn nearer to the clericals and
farther from the French, and, to protect French interests,
Napoleon III. had decided to send out General Castelnau to
supersede Bazaine, arrange for the withdrawal of the French
forces in one body, and restore the Republic under Ortega, who
had quarrelled with Juarez, and was therefore, of all republicans,
least unacceptable to the clericals. But fearing the prospect,
they induced Maximilian, who had retired to Orizaba for his
health, to remain. He yielded on condition that a congress of
all parties should be summoned to decide the fate of the empire.
Hereupon he returned to the capital; the Juarist dominion
extended rapidly; the French troops left (in one body) on the
5th of February 1867, and shortly after Maximilian took command
of the army at Querétaro. Here, with Miramon, he was
besieged by the Juarists under Escobedo, and the garrison,
when about to make a last attempt to break out, was betrayed
by Colonel Lopez to the besiegers (May 15, 1867).
Execution of Maximilian, 1867.
Maximilian, with the Mexican generals Miramon and
Mejia, was tried by court-martial, and, refusing (or
neglecting) to avail himself of various opportunities of escape,
was convicted on charges which may be summarized as rebellion,
murder and brigandage, on the 14th of June, and shot, with
Miramon and Mejia, on the 19th of June 1867, despite many
protests from European governments and prominent individuals,
including Garibaldi and Victor Hugo. (An effort to save him
made by the U.S. Government was frustrated by the dilatoriness
of the U.S. Minister accredited to Juarez’s Government.) After
considerable difficulty with the Republican Government, his
body was brought to Europe.
Meanwhile Porfirio Diaz had captured Puebla (April 2) and
besieged Mexico City, which fell on the 21st of June. The last
anti-Juarist stronghold (Inayarit) submitted on the
20th of July 1867. A good deal of discontent existed
among the republican rank and file, and Juarez’s
election in October to the presidency was opposed by Diaz’s
Juarez President.
friends, but without success. But so soon as Juarez was elected,
insurrections broke out, and brigandage prevailed throughout the
following year. There were unsuccessful insurrections also in
1869 (clerical) and 1870 (republican), but an amnesty, passed
on the 13th of October 1870, helped to restore peace; trouble
again arose, however, at the 1871 election, at which the candidates
were Juarez, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada and Diaz. Juarez’s
continued re-election was regarded as unconstitutional, and no
party obtaining a clear majority, the matter was thrown into
Congress, which elected him. Diaz’s supporters refused to
recognize him, and a revolution broke out, which went on
sporadically till Juarez’s death on the 18th, of July
Death of Juarez, 1872.
1872. Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, as president of
the Supreme Court, succeeded him, and amnestied
the rebels, but made no further concessions. In the next year,
however, laws were passed repeating in a stronger form the
attacks of 1857 on the supremacy of the Church, and prohibiting
monastic life. The first day of 1873 was marked by the opening
of the Vera Cruz & Mexico railway. Protestant
missions established themselves (with some opposition)
in the country, and diplomatic relations were
Administra-tion of Lerdo de Tejada.
renewed with France and Spain (1874). But towards
the close of Lerdo de Tejada’s term he was suspected of aiming at
a dictatorship, and Diaz, whom he had proscribed, made preparations
for a rising, then retiring to Texas. At the beginning of
1876 the revolution broke out in Oaxaca with the plan of
Tuxtepec, which was adopted by Diaz, and proclaimed as the
plan of Palo Blanco (March 21). Diaz’s attempt to raise the
north, however, failed, and, trying to reach Vera Cruz by sea,
he was recognized on the steamer, and recaptured while attempting
a four-mile swim ashore. The purser, however, made it
appear that he had again jumped overboard, concealed him
for some days—generally inside one of the saloon sofas—and
helped him to get ashore in disguise at Vera Cruz. He then
escaped to Oaxaca and raised a force. Lerdo was declared
re-elected, but was overthrown by Diaz after the battle of
Tecoac (Nov. 16, 1876) and forced into exile (Jan. 1877), and
Porfirio Diaz President, 1877.
Diaz was declared, president on the 2nd of May
1877. A law forbidding the re-election of a president
till four years had elapsed from his retirement
from office was passed in the autumn of that year.
Diaz’s first presidency (1870–1880) was marked by some
unsuccessful attempts at revolution notably by Escobedo from
Texas in 1878, and by a more serious conspiracy in 1879.
Diplomatic relations were resumed with Spain, Germany, Italy
and some South American states (1877), and France (1880).
There were some frontier difficulties with the United States,
and with Guatemala, which revived a claim dropped since 1858
to a portion of the state of Chiapas; and there was considerable
internal progress, aided by a too liberal policy of subsidies to
railways and even to lines of steamships. The boundary questions
were settled under President Gonzalez (1880–1884); relations
with Great Britain were renewed in 1884. The claims of the
railways, however, necessitated retrenchment on official salaries,
and the president’s plan for conversion of the debt roused
unexpected and successful opposition in an ordinarily subservient
Congress. At the end of 1884 Porfirio Diaz was again
elected president, and was continually re-elected, the constitution
being modified expressly to allow him to continue in office.
The history of Mexico from 1884 to 1910 was almost void of
political strife. President Diaz’s policy was to keep down
disorder with a strong hand; to enforce the law; to
foster railway development and economic progress,
to develop native manufactures by protective tariffs;
to introduce new industries,
e.g.
the production of silk and
Mexico under Diaz.
wine, of coca and quinine; to promote forestry; to improve
elementary and higher education—for all which purposes the
Ministerio del Fomento is a potent engine; to encourage colonization;
and, above all, to place the national credit on a sound
basis. The first step in this process was a settlement of the
British debt by direct arrangement with the bond-holders.
In 1890 the Spanish bondholders’ claims
Financial reorganiza-tion.
were satisfactorily arranged also. In 1891 the tariff
was made more protectionist. In 1893 the depreciation of
silver necessitated stringent retrenchment; but the budget
balanced for the first time during many years, the floating debt
was converted, and a loan raised for the completion of the
Tehuantepec Railway. After 1896 substantial annual surpluses
were spent in reducing taxation and in the extinction of debt.
In 1895 the 6% external debt was converted into a 5% debt,
the bonds of which remained at a premium for 1902; in 1896
the alcabalas or interstate customs and municipal
octrois
were
abolished, and replaced in part by direct taxation and increased
stamp duties.
The institution by Diaz of the
guardias rurales
, a mounted
gendarmerie composed of the class who in former days drifted
into revolution and brigandage, was a. potent means
of maintaining order, and the extension of railways
and telegraphs enabled the government to cope at
Pacification of the Country.
once with any disturbance. The old local revolutions practically
disappeared. In 1886–1887 there were some disturbances
in Coahuila, New Leon, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas; subsequently
hardly anything was heard of such disorders except on the
Texan frontier, where in 1890 Francisco Ruiz Sandoval and in
1891 Catarino Garza made incursions into Mexico. Occasionally
the Church gave trouble—the presence of foreign priests was
complained of; attempts to evade the law prohibiting conventual
life were detected and foiled (1891, 1894); and there were Indian
risings, repressed sometimes with great severity, among the
Mayas of Yucatán, whose last stronghold was taken in 1891,
and the Yaquis of Sonora (1899–1900). Under federal and
democratic forms, Diaz exercised a strictly centralized and
personal rule. He was invited to approve the candidates
proposed for state governorships; in all law cases affecting
the Government or political matters the judges asked his
opinion; he drafted bills, and discussed their text with individual
members and committees of congress. Similarly, the state
legislatures, as well as the judges and municipal officers, were
actually or virtually selected by the state governors, who were
practically agents of the president. Now and then the old
passions broke out: in September 1898 an absurd attempt to
assassinate President Diaz was made by a countryman named
Arroyo, but discontent with Diaz’s rule was apparently confined
to a small minority.
In 1909 indeed there were some disquieting
symptoms. Owing to Diaz’s age the vice-presidency had been
revived in 1904, and Don Ramon Corral elected to it; but at
the elections of 1909 a movement arose in favour of replacing
him by General Bernardo Reyes, Governor of Nuevo Leon, but
he was disposed of by an official commission to study the
military systems of Europe. It was, therefore, regarded as
certain that, should President Diaz die in office, Señor Corral
would succeed him without serious difficulty.
In foreign affairs the rule of Diaz was uneventful. There
were transient disputes with the United States (1886, 1888).
In 1888–1890 and 1894–1895 a boundary dispute
with Guatemala became serious. But Guatemala
gave way at the threat of war (Jan. 1895) and a new
treaty was made (April 1, 1895). Again in 1907 there was some
Foreign Affairs.
friction owing to the murder of a Guatemalan ex-president by a
compatriot in Mexico: later in the year, however, the Mexican
government was active in stopping a war between its Central
American neighbours. In the difficulty between England and
the United States over the Venezuelan boundary (Dec. 1895)
Mexico expressed strong adherence to the Monroe doctrine in
the abstract, and suggested that its maintenance should not be
left wholly to the United States, but should be undertaken by
all American Powers. The first Pan-American congress met in
Mexico City in 1901, and the country was represented at the
second, held in Rio Janeiro in 1906. Mexico also took part in
establishing the permanent Central American Court of Arbitration,
inaugurated on the 25th of May 1908 at Cartago, Costa
Rica, under the Washington treaties of December 1907, and
showed readiness to associate herself with the Government of
her great northern neighbour in preserving peace among the
Central American States. On the 17th of October 1909
President Taft and President Diaz exchanged visits at the
frontier at El Paso, Texas.
In brief, under President Diaz’s rule the history of Mexico
is mainly economic. In the six financial years 1893–1894 to
1899–1900 inclusive the yield of the import duties
increased by upwards of 80%; the revenue from
stamps over 60%, though the duties were reduced;
Economic Progress.
the postal revenue from 1895–1896 to 1899–1900 rose 60%;
the telegraph revenue over 75%. Again, in 1898–1899 the
total ordinary revenue of the state was £6,013,921; in 1906–1907
it had increased to £11,428,612, or by more than 90%,
and though 1907–1908 was a year of depression its total revenue
(£11,177,186) exceeded that of any year save its immediate
predecessor. The great drainage scheme which completed the
works of the 17th century by taking out the surplus waters of
the southern lakes of the valley of Mexico was devised in 1856,
begun under Maximilian, proceeded with intermittently till 1885,
then taken up with improved plans, practically completed by
1896, and inaugurated in 1900;
the harbour of Vera Cruz was
finished in 1902; the Tehuantepec railway, likely to prove a
formidable rival to any interoceanic canal, was opened on the
24th of January 1906. All three were the work of an English
firm of contractors, the head of which was Sir Weetman Pearson.
American, and later Canadian, capital and enterprise have also
been very largely concerned in the development of the country;
and its progress was not permanently interfered with by the
great earthquakes of April 1907 and July 1909 at Acapulco,
and the floods in August 1909 at Monterey. In 1891 elementary
education was reorganized, and made compulsory, secular and
gratuitous. Great attention has been paid to higher education,
and—at least in the hospitals—to modern sanitation and
hygiene.
Authorities
.—For English readers the standard work is H. H.
Bancroft,
Collected Works
(Histories of the Pacific States, Central
America, &c., vols. x.–xiv. (Mexico, 1521–1887) with vols. xv., xvi.
(Texas), and vol. xvii. (New Mexico, &c.). Mention may also be
made of Gaston Routier’s
Histoire de Mexique
(1895). Standard
Mexican authorities are: C. M. de Bustamante,
Quadro historico
de la revolution mexicana
, 6 vols. (Mexico, 1832–1846); Lucas
Alaman,
Historia de Mexico
(Mexico, 1849–1852); N. de Zamacois,
Historia de Mexico desde sus tiempos mas remotos hasta nostras dias
19 vols. (Barcelona, 1876–1882); J. E. Hernandez y Davalos,
Coleccion
de documentos para la historia de la Independencia
(Mexico,
6 vols). A huge and informative illustrated work, edited by Justo
Sierra (3 vols. large 4to), sumptuously produced and badly translated,
is
Mexico
its Social Evolution
(Barcelona, 1900–1904); a useful and
handy chronicle is Nicolas Leon’s
Compendio de la historia general
de Mexico hasta el año de 1900
(Mexico and Madrid, 1902). For the
colonial period, Alexander v. Humboldt,
Essai politique sur la
royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne
(Paris, 1811, 2 vols., and atlas; also
an English translation). For the war with the United States see
R. S. Ripley,
The War with Mexico
(New York, 1849); E. D. Mansfield,
The Mexican War
(New York, 1849); and Winfield Scott’s
Memoirs
. For Maximilian, the Blue-books on Mexican affairs
contained in
Accounts and Papers
(presented to parliament), vol.
lxv. 1862, and vol. lxiv. 1863, are valuable; E. de Kératry,
La Créance
Jecker; l’empereur Maximilien
son élévation et sa chute
(translated into
English by Venables);
La Contre-guerilla française au Mexique
, are
specially noteworthy; Prince Felix Salm-Salm’s
Diary
gives valuable
information as to Maximilian’s decline and fall. Also Dela Gorce,
Histoire
du second empire
, vols. iv. v.; J. F. Domenech,
L’Empire mexicain
(Mexico, 1866), and
Le Mexique tel qu’il est
(Paris, 1867); Daran,
El General Miguel Miramon
(in French) (Rome, 1886); Schmidt von
Tavera,
Gesch. d. Regierung d. Kaisers Maximilian I.
(Vienna, 1903).
Ulick Ralph Burke’s
Life of Benito Juarez
(London, 1894) is of considerable
value and interest. For the period since 1887 information
in English must be sought chiefly in magazine articles: Matias
Romero, “The Garza Raid and its Lessons,”
North American Review
(Sept. 1892); Don Agustin Iturbide, “Mexico under Diaz,” ibid.
(June 1894); Romero, “The Philosophy of Mexican Revolutions,”
ibid. (Jan. 1896); and C. F. Lummis, “The Awakening of a Nation”
(New York, 1898, previously in
Harper’s Magazine
), are valuable
as giving information (especially the last named) and points of view.
Van Dyke, “Politics in Mexico,”
Harper’s Magazine
(1885), vol.
lxxi., gives particulars of the opposition to Gonzalez’s debt conversion
scheme of 1884. President Diaz’s message of November 1896,
giving an account of his stewardship from 1884 to that year, has
been translated into French (
Rapport du Général Porfirio Diaz
. . .
à ses compatriot es sur les actes de son administration
&c.
), edited
by Auguste Génin (Paris, 1897). The early constitutions of the
Republic have been published (in Spanish) in three volumes; a study
of that of 1857 by B. Moses (of the University of California) is in the
Annals of the American Academy of Political Science
, 11. i. 1891.
Various books, chiefly American, have been written on Mexico of
late years from a tourist’s standpoint. Mrs Alec Tweedie’s
Mexico
as I saw it
(London, 1901) and
Life of Porfirio Diaz
(1906) contain
valuable information personally obtained from good authorities
in Mexico. See also Percy F. Martin,
Mexico of the Twentieth Century
2 vols. (London, 1907); and C. R. Enock,
Mexico
(1909).
J. S. Ma.
See J. G. Aguilera,
Sinopsis de geologia mexicana
; “Bosquejo
geológico de México,” segunda parte, Bol. inst. geol., Mexico, Nos.
4–6 (1897), pp. 189-270, with map—a summary of this paper will
be found in
Science Progress
, new series (1897), vol. i. pp. 609–615.
See also the
Livret-guide
of the Tenth Cong. Géol. Internat.
(1906).
In this, as in all other Aztec names, the
(or
) represents the
English sound
sh
; hence
Mexitli
and
Mexico
should be properly
pronounced
Meshitli, Meshico
. But they do not appear to have
ever been so pronounced by the Spaniards, who naturally gave to
the
its ordinary Spanish sound of the German
ch
One of the most important sources for the ancient Mexican
traditions and myths is the so-called “Codex Chlmalpopoca,” a
manuscript in the Mexican language discovered by the Abbé
Brasseur de Bourbourg. It is the interpretation of different mythological
and historical Mexican picture-writings, composed by
an anonymous author some time after the conquest and copied by
Fernando de Alva (Ixtlilxochitl, 1568–1648). It belonged to the
priceless collection of Mexican documents brought together in the
18th century by Lorenzo Boturini (see his “Catálogo del Museo
historic indiano,” appendix of his
Idea de una nueva historia general
de la America septentrional
, Madrid, 1746, § viii., No. 13). It is
named there
Historia de los reynos de Colhuacan y de Mexico
. Other
copies of the same manuscript, made by Leon y Gama, José Pichardo,
Aubin and Brasseur, exist in the Paris National Library in the Aubin-Goupil
collection. Brasseur died before he could realize his plan
to publish the whole MS. in Nahuatl with a translation. Some
extracts are to be found in his
Histoire des nations civilisées du
Mexique
, and in Leon y Gama,
Dos Piedras
. . .
, ed. Bustamente
(Mexico, 1832). Larger fragments of the Ixtlilxochitl copy were
published in the
Anales del museo nacional de Mexico
, tom. iii.,
appx. pp. 7–70; but in this edition the Mexican text is very
corrupt, and the two Spanish translations are by no means exact.
The Paris MSS. and the Ixtlilxochitl copy were carefully collated
by Dr Walter Lehmann (see
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie
, 1906, pp. 752–760;
Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris
nouv. sér.
vol. iii. No. 2; Dr E. Seler,
Verhandlungen des XVI. Internationalen
Amerikanisten-Kongresses
, Vienna, 1909, II., pp. 129–150). The
precious Ixtlilxochitl copy was found by Lehmann in the library
of the National Museum of Mexico, and arrangements were made
for the publication of the whole MS. by him in conjunction with
Professor E. Seler. Another very important MS. was discovered
by Dr Lehmann, in Guatemala. It is the MS. of Father Francisco
Ximenez,
Historia de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y de
Guatemala
, in three big volumes in folio, which contain the famous
Spanish translation of the Quiché myths or the “Popol-Vuh.”
The MS. was bought at the expense of the duke of Loubat, who
decided to present it, after the death of Dr Lehmann, to the Royal
Library at Berlin.
Santa Anna tried to get back to politics in Mexico after
Maximilian’s fall, without success. He was amnestied with other
exiles in 1874, and died in obscurity in 1876.
Diaz refused parole, and was confined at Puebla for some months,
but made his escape, and was soon in the field again.
Lopez said he acted as Maximilian’s agent, but his story rested
on an alleged letter from Maximilian which was discredited as a
forgery. The evidence of his treason was published in
El Nacional
of Mexico, Sept. 11, 1887.
Don Augustin Iturbide, grandson of the emperor, godson and
(perhaps) at one time the destined heir of Maximilian, was turned
out of the army and imprisoned in 1890 for abusing President Diaz.
For a full account of the works see J. B. Body in
Proceedings
of the Institution of Civil Engineers
, cxliii. 286, sqq.
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