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READINGS ON
LATIN AMERICA
AND ITS PEOPLE
Volume 2
Since 1800
Mark Wasserman
Rutgers University
Cheryl E. Martin
University of Texas, El Paso
Prentice Hall
Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River
Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montréal Toronto
Delhi Mexico City São Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo
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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall, 1 Lake St., Upper Saddle River,
NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is
protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission(s) to use material from this
work, please submit a written request to: Pearson Education, Inc., Permissions Department, 1 Lake
Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
Readings on Latin America and its people / [edited by] Cheryl E. Martin, Mark Wasserman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-321-35582-9 (v. 1)—ISBN 978-0-321-35581-2 (v. 2)
1. Latin America—History—Sources. I. Martin, Cheryl English, 1945-
II. Wasserman, Mark, 1946-
F1410.R378 2009
980—dc22 2009039604
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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CONTENTS
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iv Contents
Buenos Aires 84
Secondary Cities 87
The Wealthy Class 92
Religion 96
Corpus Christi 99
Carnavão or the Intrudo 101
Funerals 102
7 The Military 105
The Military Credo 106
The Military Condition 107
The End Result 114
8 Everyday Life in the Twentieth Century Countryside 121
The Old Ways: Subsistence Agriculture 122
The New Ways: Export Agriculture 123
Land Reform in the Post-Modern Region 129
There Are No Utopias 137
Agriculture and Ecology 140
Where Does the Country End and the City Begin? 145
9 Latin American Cities in the Twentieth Century 149
The Scene 150
Immigrants’ View of the City 151
Mexico City 155
Daily Life 158
10 The Mexican Revolution 162
Why Did Mexicans Rebel? 163
Why Did They Continue to Fight? 172
11 The Time of Terror 177
The Dictatorships 177
The Civil Wars 185
Liberation Theology 197
12 The New Latin America 199
Guerrilla Wars without Resolution 200
The Zapatistas 201
The “Pink Tide” 203
The Great Migrations 206
Popular Participation 208
Inflation 211
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Agriculture
Domestic
Manioc, Kidder, Brazil and the Brazilians 45
Subsistence Agriculture in Guatemala, Joseño 122
Land Reform Bolivia 129
NAFTA equals death, say peasant farmers 127
San José Disputes with San Martin over Water Rights, from
Son of Tecún Uman 137
The Cuban Land Reform, Che Guevara 130
Brazil, Land Reform, Stephan Schwartzman 134
Deforestation in the Amazon, Rhett Butler 140
Laundry, from Kidder, Brazil and the Brazilians 46
House in the Countryside, Mayer, Mexico As It Was and As It Is 49
Sertão, from Koster, Travels in Brazil 50
Export
Coffee fazenda, from Gardner, Travels . . . 43
Fazenda, Agassiz, A Journey in Brazil 44
Life of a planter, from Burton, Explorations of the
Highland of Brazil 44
Export Agriculture, Ruhl, The Central Americans 123
Vanilla farmers, Struggle with price drop 125
NAFTA, equals death, say peasant farmers 127
San José Disputes with San Martín over Water Rights, from
Son of Tecún Uman 137
Deforestation in the Amazon, Rhett Butler 140
African Peoples
Montejo, The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave 62
Wetherell, Stray Notes from Bahia 73
Burton, Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil 69
Wetherell, Stray Notes from Bahia 68
Slave Auction, Stewart, Personal Record . . . 74
Corporal Punishment, Graham, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil 75
Arts and Literature
Woodcuts from the Paraguayan War, 1867 32
Manioc, from Kidder, Brazil and the Brazilians 45
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Economy
Mexico City, from Sartorius, Mexico about 1850 77
Buenos Aires, Stewart, The Personal Record of a Cruise 84
Buenos Aires, Francis Bond Head, Journeys across the
Pampas and Among the Andes 86
Street Song V. Allende 177
Indigenous Peoples
Indians, from Koster, Travels in Brazil 46
Indian dwelling, from Sartorius, Mexico about 1850 48
Middle Class
Quito, Hassaurek, Four Years Among the Ecuadorians 89
Street Song V. Allende 177
Peasants
Huantla documents 17
Mestizo dwelling, from Sartorius, Mexico about 1850 52
Gaucho, Head, Journeys across the Pampas 53
Brantz Mayer, Mexico As It Was and As It Is 22
Politics
Letter of Chito Villagrán to Dr. Diego Antonio Rodríguez, June 8, 1812 2
Parian riot 1829, descriptions 16
1830 in Venezuela, Williamson, Caracas Diary 18
Agustín de Iturbide, Plan de Iguala 24 February 1821 11
Brantz Mayer, Mexico As It Was and As It Is 22
Lupe in The Hour of the Poor, The Hour of Women: Salvadoran Women Speak 191
Forty Years of Fighting for Peace, Sovereignty and Social Justice 200
“Today we Say ‘Enough Is Enough!’” 201
CONAIE’s “Sixteen Points” “Sixteen Demands” “Convoking an Uprising” 209
Roman Catholic Church/Religion
Street Song v. Allende 177
Doris Tijerino, in Sandino’s Daughters Revisited 196
Religious festival, from Kidder, Sketches of a Residence 56
Priests, from Gardner, Travels in the Interior of Brazil 58
The Day of the Dead or All Saint’s Day, from Sartorius 96
Religious Festival, C.S. Stewart, The Personal Record of a Cruise 99
Carnival, Wetherell, Brazil: Stray Notes from Bahia 101
Funerals, Kidder, Sketches of Residence and Travels in Brazil 102
Urban Dwellers
Parian riot 1829, descriptions 16
Mexico City, from Sartorius, Mexico about 1850 77
Rio de Janeiro, from Kidder, Brazil and the Brazilians 79
Rio, from Maria Dundas Graham, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil 81
Rio de Janeiro, from H. J. Holland, To the River Plate and Back 150
Montevideo, from H. J. Holland, To the River Plate and Back 150
Quito Hassaurek, Four Years among the Ecuadorians 89
Mendoza, Francis Bond Head, Journeys across the Pampas
and Among the Andes 91
Fortaleza, from Henry Koster, Travels in Brazil 88
Life in Town, from Sartorius 92
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Women/Gender
Soldaderas, from Smith and Judah 37
Earth Flies in All Directions: The Daily Lives of Women in Minas Gerais 145
“Lupe” in The Hour of the Poor, The Hour of Women: Salvadoran
Women Speak 191
Doris Tijerino, in Sandino’s Daughters Revisited 196
Workers
Mining, from Burton, Highlands of Brazil 59
Guide for the Mexican Migrant 207
War
Excerpt, Lucas Alamán, The Alhóndiga 6
Wars of Independence, Hippisley, A Journey to the Rivers Orinoco . . . 25
Cost of War, Wars of Independence in Peru 26
War with the United States, Santa Anna Autobiography 27
To Mexico with Taylor and Scott 29
Paraguayan War documents 30
Statement of Carlos Ibañez of Chile on the role of the military 106
General Benavides last will and testament 1931 106
Brazil, Ministry of Foreign Relations, Understanding the Brazilian
Armed Forces 107
Tobiás Barros, Description of a Chilean recruit 108
Military Budget 1840, from Mayer, Mexico As It Was and As It Is 108
Soldiers, from W. R. Carson, Mexico: Wonderland of the South 110
Torture in Brazil 114
Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior 119
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The idea for Readings on Latin America and Its People came from Janet Lanphier, whose
cajoling led us to a worthwhile and enjoyable undertaking. Two former doctoral
students at Rutgers, now accomplished scholars and teachers, Anne Rubenstein and
Glen Kuecker, were particularly helpful in suggesting new and interesting materials.
Thanks, too, to the reviewers for their thorough and thoughtful comments and
suggestions: Jordana Dym, Skidmore College; Kevin Gannon, Grand View College;
José Morales, New Jersey City University; Jason L. Ward, Lee University.
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PREFACE
R eadings on Latin America and Its People is meant, like Latin America and Its Peo-
ple to emphasize the texture of everyday life for men and women, young and old,
rich and poor. It is not always a pretty picture. The brutality of the European con-
quest of indigenous peoples, of Latin America’s nineteenth-century wars and the ter-
ror of the dictatorships during the 1970s were horrible and catastrophic. The lives
and work of slaves in colonial and post-independence Brazil and Cuba were harsh
and oppressive. Latin Americans always have been overwhelmingly poor. The coun-
tryside, since the beginnings of agriculture, has been a place of hardship and un-
certainty. Country dwellers struggled daily against the elements to produce enough
to feed their families. Men and women toiled from before dawn to well after dusk
often with little to show other than half-starved children. On the large estates,
known as haciendas and fazendas, workers tilled and weeded the soil, and harvested
crops for scant wages. At the end of the year, they were likely to owe more to the
landowners than the latter had paid them. The rich mines exploited by the Euro-
peans were cruelly dangerous. Working underground was almost always a death sen-
tence. Mine owners cast aside their injured or sick employees.
The ever-growing cities were hardly better. They were and remain noisy, smelly,
and unhealthful. Since the Europeans arrived, the metropolises have never had suf-
ficient water, sewers, housing, educational facilities, or medical care. Latin America,
too, has always been a region of bitter contrasts, between wealthy and impoverished,
between traditional and modern, between the physical beauty of the geography
and architecture and the wretchedness of the slums, and between low technology
and high technology. The dilemma for the authors has been (and remains) how to
illustrate the various, often contradictory, aspects of Latin American life without
descending into hopelessness.
Historians are like detectives reconstructing the everyday lives of men, women,
and children in past times. They must diligently search out clues that reveal people
at work, worship, and play; in courtrooms, schools, and markets; and coping with
the commonplace demands of supporting their families and the extraordinary
challenges of war, social unrest, and natural disasters. These clues can be found in
what are known as primary sources, such as official documents, letters, diaries, im-
ages, and eyewitness testimonies that date from the time period they are studying.
Remnants of the material culture of past societies give us further insights about the
everyday lives of people—their dwellings, the tools they used, the religious symbols
they revered. Historians also look to secondary sources—books and articles written
by other scholars—for guidance in the interpretation of all of these primary sources,
but at the same time they must be careful not to let preconceived notions close their
minds to other possible interpretations.
Working with primary sources presents many challenges. Written documents
have obvious biases, in that they most faithfully reflect the viewpoints of privileged
groups—those able to read and write. Even when a source purports to represent the
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Preface ix
words of the illiterate, we must remember that those words were filtered through the
person who wrote them down. Of course, we should also examine all written sources
critically, keeping in mind that people do not always tell the truth. Images pose prob-
lems as well. We cannot be sure whether paintings and drawings depict reality or the
artist’s idealized version of that reality. Even the photographs available to historians
studying the nineteenth and twentieth centuries require critical analysis. The pho-
tographer chooses which scenes to record, and we cannot know for certain whether
a given image represents a staged or spontaneous event. People who appear in his-
torical photographs may have tried to present themselves in ways that may or may
not have conformed to the everyday reality of their lives.
Historians must also acknowledge the many factors that have influenced
the range of primary sources that have survived down to the present. Those who
study relatively recent times, since the invention of modern mass media, may be
overwhelmed by the sheer volume of materials available. They have access to news-
papers and magazines; the massive paper trail generated by governments,
churches, educational systems, and corporations; photographs; audio and video
resources; and digitized data bases. These sources are often well guarded and kept
in climate-controlled archives and museums staffed by professional curators and
preservationists. Historians of the recent past must remember, however, that some
of the most interesting material may never have reached an official repository. They
need to remain on the lookout for treasures hidden in someone’s closet or attic. To
obtain as complete a picture as possible, they need to seek out individuals able to
share their living memories and then check these oral testimonies against other
evidence. The challenge of sifting through all of these sources to identify what is
truly significant can be daunting for the historian, even with all of the convenience
offered by electronically searchable data bases and modern methods of catalogu-
ing information.
The study of pre-twentieth-century history is much like working a jigsaw puzzle,
except that many of the pieces are missing and there are no clearly marked borders
to help in forming an initial framework for our findings. This is particularly true
when we go about examining documents and artifacts that might convey informa-
tion on the daily lives of “ordinary” people. Moreover, if we are careful not to begin
our inquiry with set notions of what we expect to uncover when reading the past, we
are working without a picture of the finished puzzle to guide us. Without the box
cover, a puzzle solver can only determine if a blue piece is sky, water, or perhaps an
article of clothing by seeing how it fits with other pieces, a process that usually
involves considerable trial and error, even if all the pieces are there. The historian
searching for evidence on the lives of people in past societies must carefully work
with the available clues and accept the reality that the resulting picture must neces-
sarily remain incomplete.
Our first intent, therefore, is to explore the detail of daily life through various
prisms.
In Chapter One, “Mexican Independence,” for example, we offer the re-
membrances of Lucas Alamán, Mexico’s foremost conservative politician and in-
tellectual, of the disturbing plunder and massacre of the wealthy whites of
Guanajuato in 1810. The author’s trauma is quite evident. His memories of the
incident scarred his worldview for the rest of his life. In Chapter Three “War,” we
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x Preface
present firsthand accounts of the terror and disorder of battle from a British mer-
cenary, Gustave Hippisley, who was apparently neutral in his sentiments and ob-
servations, juxtaposed with the obviously and passionately self-interested Mexican
general, Antonio López de Santa Anna. The reminiscences of the participants
bring the Paraguayan War, perhaps the most tragic in Latin American history, into
vivid focus.
A second goal is to explore the mindset of everyday people. Explaining why
people acted as they did is far and away the most difficult undertaking for an histo-
rian of any place or time. In Chapter Seven, we present documents that provide us
with insight into the reasons that military officers were brought to the point of com-
mitting unspeakable atrocities against their fellow citizens whom they had sworn to
protect. In Chapter Ten we attempt to understand how Mexican peasants, miners,
and middle class made their decisions to rise up against the seemingly invincible
regime of General Porfirio Díaz in 1910.
There are three notable omissions to the chapters in Volume II. First, since the
preponderance of the materials illuminate daily life, the editors often have left aside
many issues of politics. For example, there is no discussion of populism, so impor-
tant in mid-twentieth century South America. In Chapter 7, “The Military,” the
emphasis is on the mindset of military officers and the conditions of rank and file
soldiers, rather than the politics of the military. Second, the volume considers Cuba
only as one country in Latin America—no more important or studied than any
other. Consequently, the revolution of 1959 that we explore only in Chapter 8,
“Everyday Life in the Countryside during the Twentieth Century,” is one example of
land reform (and not a very successful one). Finally, the reader will note the nearly
complete absence of the United States from the book. It is our belief that for courses
about Latin America, our students should learn about Latin America. Latin Americans
lead their own lives, determine their own histories. The United States should not be
central to the analysis, as it is in so many other books about Latin America. Latin
Americans have their own histories. There is not nearly enough space in the volume
to present all that is worthy to know about Latin America, so discussion of the United
States is hardly appropriate.
The topics covered in these chapters, and the people whose lives are docu-
mented here, represent only a small fragment of the Latin American experience.
The region’s history is simply too rich to contain in any single volume. Many other
stories can be found in our companion textbook, Latin America and Its People, and
still others in the works of many historians who have researched this vibrant
and diverse people. Still other stories remain untold, awaiting their historian. We
invite our readers to sample the historian’s craft in the readings in this volume,
and hope that some of you will be inspired to search out these stories in the
archives of Latin America. You will have to get your hands dirty and puzzle over
the meaning of widely scattered bits of evidence, but it is an exciting adventure
of discovery.
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MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE
1
INTRODUCTION
After three centuries of Spanish colonial rule, New Spain and the many other neighbor-
ing political entities in Mesoamerica broke loose from the metropolis and proclaimed
independence as Mexico in 1821. More than a decade of often brutal war had preceded
separation. The rebellion divided into two movements and into two stages. The first move-
ment involved the upper classes, American-born Spaniards (known as creoles), typified by
Father Miguel Hidalgo and his conspirators in 1810. They had calculated that colonial rule
was no longer beneficial. They, too, chafed against the Spanish Crown having excluded
them from important offices prior to 1808 and then reneging on promises for extensive
self-government after the Napoleonic invasion and occupation of Iberia (1808–1814). The
second movement was a broad-ranging revolt of the lower classes in the countryside.
Country people protested government meddling in their villages, over-taxation, landless-
ness, and severe food shortages. The first stage began in 1810 and lasted until 1815
with the defeat of both Hidalgo and his successor, Father José María Morelos. The second
stage, a guerrilla war led by Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria and comprised
predominantly of the lower classes, ended only when the rebels negotiated a deal with
rogue royalist general Agustín de Iturbide in 1821. The Treaty of the Three Guarantees,
September 27, 1821, engendered independent Mexico.
Father Miguel Hidalgo issued the Grito de Dolores (the Cry of Dolores)—the
Mexican Cry for Independence—on September 10, 1816. His small group of creoles had
plotted their rebellion for months. When the time came to rise up, they hoped that dis-
gruntled fellow creoles, many of whom the colonial government had trained as militia
officers, and the lower classes would join them. They succeeded far beyond any outcome
they could have imagined. Almost overnight, sixty thousand angry, landless, hungry,
country people swelled the ranks of the rebel army. The army of the masses, consisting of
Indians and mestizos and led by a small group of creoles, struck terror in the hearts of
the upper class. Most creoles side with the Spanish Crown. There followed a number of
rebel victories, including the slaughter of Spaniards hiding in the granary in the city
of Guanajuato. The rebel army may have reached 100,000. With the banner of the Virgin
of Guadalupe—the patron saint of New Spain—protecting it, shouting epithets against
Spaniards, the rebel army marched to the outskirts of Mexico City, but its leaders, unable
to fully control their soldiers, turned away. A reinforced Spanish army then inflicted a
series of defeats on the rebels. The royalists captured Father Hidalgo in Chihuahua and
executed him in May 1811.
The rebellion continued in south-central Mexico, led by another priest, Father José
María Morelos. Morelos, like Hidalgo, had become disaffected with Spanish rule. A mixed
1
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2 Chapter 1
blood from the hot lands of Guerrero, the church had never permitted him other than a
desperately poor parish; he thought himself worthy of more. He also believed that more
influential relatives had cheated him of an inheritance. Father Morelos proved a brilliant
military leader, ruling over a vast territory that included present-day Morelos, parts of
Puebla, and Guerrero. The Spanish army, however, eventually defeated him as well. In late
1815, the Spaniards captured and executed him.
Vicente Guerrero, one of Morelos’s lieutenants, carried on the fight, harassing the
ostensibly victorious Spanish army for the next six years. Finally, in the fall of 1821, the
leading royalist General Agustín de Iturbide worked out an arrangement that brought
about independence with the creoles in charge. The Plan de Iguala, February 24, 1821,
provided “Three Guarantees”: independence; the equality of creoles and Spaniards; and
continuation of the preeminent role of the Roman Catholic Church.
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Mexican Independence 3
did not because of that despoil its Kings of their Crown); and supposing that this
were not the time determined by God for the Europeans to pay for the iniquities,
robberies, cruelties, and deaths that with such impiety they committed in the Con-
quest of these Kingdoms, as noted in the representations of Bishop Las Casas, of
Garcilaso de la Vega, of the cited Solís, and of many other authors; and supposing,
finally, that all this were true, and that the entire American Nation had risen in mass
as they have, asking a new government that will not overturn or suppress the edicts
and laws of the Sovereign, or asking a King of the nation itself, and not a foreigner
(or de fee), according to the expression of Padre Vieira in favor of the Americans of
Brazil; I ask you, according to what has been said, upon what basis rest the censures
fulminated against Senor Hidalgo and those who follow his party by the Holy
Tribunal and the so-called Bishop of Valladolid?
If the Church does not hurl anathemas against the infamous Napoleon because,
being a Corsican, he takes control of the Kingdom of France, nor against his brother
Joseph who was crowned in Spain, nor against the Dutch who, renouncing their
National Government, acknowledge [as monarch] the intruder Louis Bonaparte,
why does it hurl anathemas against a nation that, to maintain pristine the Catholic
Religion it professes, takes up arms to demand and acquire the rights usurped from
it so long ago, to throw off a tyrannical government, and to take unto itself the
sovereignty of its King, don Ferdinand, whom Napoleon and his emissaries (most of
the Europeans [in New Spain]), after persecuting and almost decapitating, are
trying to despoil of his rights? I cannot persuade myself, Senor Priest, that the anath-
emas fulminated by the Church fall on the defense we are making of Religion, and
liberty, and thus I believe firmly that we are not comprehended in their penalties.
I assume that you are informed that the Edict of the Holy Tribunal of the Faith, and
the proclamation of the late Archbishop, tell us that Napoleon has despoiled our
Ferdinand of his Kingdom; that his brother Joseph is King of Spain and proclaims
himself also King of the Indies; that there are five hundred Spanish emissaries in our
Kingdom, sent to seduce us; and finally that we should prepare to defend ourselves
because all this threatened total ruin to our Religion.
According to what I have said, which you cannot deny, tell me, Señor Priest,
should we permit our Religion and our liberty to perish, or should we not take up
arms to defend both? If from fear of censure we had followed our generals, what
would our fate have been by now? You, with your fervor, can infer the results. God’s
Law commands us not to take the life of our neighbors, and that we are forbidden to
take what is not ours, and he who denies this is a heretic because he denies the pre-
cepts of the Decalogue. Furthermore, it is the case that the Europeans are our neigh-
bors, as are all the sons of Adam be they of any nation or religion—this is true. But
tell me, Señor Priest: a Jew, an Aterite, a Calomite, or a Lutheran—are they our neigh-
bors? There is no doubt that they are. And would you fail to hand over one of these
people, if you saw him, to the Holy Tribunal of the Faith, or inform it of his presence,
so that he be killed, burned, punished, and all his possessions confiscated? There is
no doubt. But is not this man your neighbor? Does not the Devine Law command that
you see him as yourself? This means that for them there is no law, nor are they pro-
tected by the laws of charity. And why? So that their false doctrines not contaminate
others. And shouldn’t these principles operate against the Europeans, and shouldn’t
they be destroyed, whose unjust possession of the government not only deprives our
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King of his rights, and tyrannizes us, but also threatens the loss of our Religion, and
that we remain slaves forever—should they only be seen as our neighbors? Ah, Father
Priest, how little you know of this matter of the Catholic, Christian American Nation
of today! I assure you that if you scruple to discuss and communicate with the
Americans for fear of anathemas, how much more scruple should we have in dis-
cussing with the Europeans, and with those of their party. Because it is doubtful if we
are included in the anathemas, which are inspired by the passion of partisanship and
the defense of material interests which the Europeans did not bring with them from
their own land; but the Europeans and their allies are included in the anathemas of
sacred canons and councils of the Church, hurled against those who burn homes, lay
waste fields, profane churches, etc. Assume that not Saint Thomas the Apostle but the
Europeans brought the faith to these regions, but seeing that they intend to destroy
that which they have built, it is necessary to persecute them and drive them out. The
Jews were the people beloved of God, those entrusted with the Religion, and from
whom the Messiah came, but not because of that do we forbear to burn them when
we see them. I could say much to you in answer to your letters. . . .
Text from pp. 190–191, “Letter of Chito Villagrán to Dr. Diego Antonio Rodriguez, June 8, 1812”
translated by Eric Van Young in The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Mexican Struggle for
Independence, 1810–1821. Copyright © 2001 by the Board of Trutees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univeristy.
All rights reserved. Used with the permission of Stanford University Press, www.sup.org.
...
Another similar view comes from El Despertador Americano of January 1811. Published from
December 20, 1810, for seven issues, it served as the voice of the rebellion led by father Hidalgo.
This issue protests the indignities creoles suffered at the hands of the Spaniards, disdainfully
called gachupines.
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Mexican Independence 5
the deadly edict with which they believe they will ruin Hidalgo and his followers, that
is to say, all Creoles. They filled the edict with the most filthy and indecent expressions,
more likely to scandalize than to edify; they crafted it with such blindness that they did
not see its enormous contradictions that even a child could perceive. . . . The edict is
circulated not by proper ecclesiastical authorities but by merchants and subdelegados,
without the customary seal of the Inquisition and signatures of the Inquisitors. . . . Sup-
pose for an instant (although it is not so) that our Liberating Hero had fallen into
some error contrary to the faith. Would this in any way undetermine the justice of our
aspirations for independence, our wish to free ourselves from a Spain dominated by a
drunken king and flooded with the horrors of impiety? . . . The sole crime of this new
Washington lies in his having raised his voice for the liberty of our fatherland in having
uncovered the Gachupins’ plots to surrender us to Jose, and having opposed the
carrying out of such a criminal and detestable design. . . . The Holy Office of the
Inquisition established in Mexico, that respectable tribunal which according to its
stated purpose should only watch over the preservation of the Catholic Faith, has
openly degenerated of late, converting itself into a police force, a bloody organization
that has involved itself in matters that are purely political. . . .
Do you fight, our dear brothers, for the legitimate Spanish King, the unfortunate
captive Fernando? But don’t you notice that Gachupines now don’t even remember
that hapless monarch? Don’t you see that Spain has recognized an intruder as king. . . .
“Joe Bottles,” that king of cups? . . . Do you fight for your fatherland? But, oh, your fa-
therland, America, the legitimate mother who conceived you in her breast . . . now
looks upon you as expatriate and rebellious children who have taken up arms against
her. Have you not allied yourselves with the tyrants who for three hundred years have
sacked, devastated, and crushed America? . . . Look at this vast continent, at the opu-
lent region where you were born. . . . Who are the owners of the richest mines? . . . Who
own the biggest haciendas? . . . Who marry the most beautiful American women with
the best dowries? Who hold the prime posts in the judiciary, the viceroyalties, the in-
tendancies . . . the most eminent honors, the most abundant stipends in our churches?
The Gachupines! If once in a while, guided by their maquiavellianism, they entrust
some high position to someone who is native-born, it is only the kind of position that
requires hard work, and they choose old Creoles who can barely do the job because of
their advanced age, or better yet, they prefer the most inept and ignorant, so that later
on they can discredit the capabilities of the entire nation.
In whose hands does our commerce lie? Who has confined it to a single port and
burdened it with onerous taxes? . . . Who has impeded all sorts of American manufac-
tures with the false pretext of not hurting industries in Spain, as if nobody knew that
almost everything they resell to us comes from foreign factories? Who has established
monopolies on salt, tobacco, mercury, . . . mescal, gunpowder . . . leaving no job for
the honorable Creole? . . . Adding insult to injury, they throw up our supposed laziness
in our faces and treat us like vagrants? Who collects an annual twenty million pesos
from this America? . . . Meanwhile, the poor Creole redoubles his efforts. . . . The
Gachupines have followed their ancient maxim of destroying in order to dominate, of
keeping us in misery so that we lack the strength to rise up against their tyranny. . . .
Finally, are you fighting because you are terrified of Spanish power? Don’t you
realize that this power that was once so formidable has been destroyed to its very roots
by the French and is now, by the just disposition of Providence, nothing more than a
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6 Chapter 1
scarecrow, an insubstantial ghost? Don’t you see that your arms are the last resort they
have been able to summon in order to prolong the convulsions of their moribund
despotism? How can you be scared of this despicable gang of Europeans who watch
over you from the rear, never exposing themselves to our fire? Americans, such fear
has no place in manly chests, it is suited only to the lowly and worthless slaves.
Remember that you are Americans, turn your bayonets against these treacherous
ones and return to our camps. If your souls are prone to fear, know that there is less
risk to your lives if you choose this easy and honorable alternative, given that you are
10,000 against 800,000, than if you choose otherwise and expose yourselves to our just
wrath. It is irrational and foolish to go against the impetus of an entire Nation that
has risen up for its independence. It is not possible to upset the plans of our Father
and Liberator. . . . All of our enemies shall be ground to dust by the intrepid Allende.
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