AP World History POD #25 – American Supremacy

1. AP World HistoryPOD #25 – American Supremacy Mexican Revolution

2. Class Discussion Notes Bulliet – “Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, 1900-1949”, pp. 832-839

3. Historical Context “Latin America achieved independence from Spain and Portugal in the nineteenth century but did not industrialize. Most Latin American republics, suffering from ideological divisions, unstable governments, and violent upheavals, traded their commodities for foreign manufactured goods and investments and became economically dependent on the United States and Great Britain. Their societies remained deeply split between wealthy landowners and desperately poor peasants. Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina contained well over half of Latin America’s land, population, and wealth, and their relations with other countries and their economies were quite similar. Mexico, however, underwent a traumatic social revolution, while Argentina and Brazil evolved more peaceably.” (Bulliet, p. 832)

4. Mexico circa 1910 • Society was divided into rich and poor and into persons of Spanish, Indian, and mixed ancestry • Haciendas – large estates – 85% of the land was owned by 1% of the population • British and American corporations controlled most of Mexico’s railroads, silver mines, plantations, and other productive enterprises • Nearly everyone else was either a non-Spanish speaking Indian or mestizo (mixed European and Indian ancerstry) who lived as peasants who worked on the haciendas or farmed small communal plots near their ancestral villages

5. Corruption • After independence in 1821 the wealthy families and foreign corporations used bribery and force to acquire massive plots of land • As a result of the corruption peasants were stripped of their access to forests for firewood and pastures for grazing and were left with little choice to work on the haciendas

6. General Porfirio Diaz: “Liberty, Order, Progress” • Ruled for 34 years (1876-1910) • Liberty – freedom for rich hacienda owners and foreign investors to acquire more land • Order – government imposed through rigged elections, bribery and summary justice for all who opposed him • Progress – importing foreign capital, machinery, and technicians to take advantage of Mexico’s labor, soil, and natural resources • Built Mexico City into a showplace • Only the wealthy and well connected benefited from his rule • Even though a mestizo, he discriminated against the non-white majority of Mexicans

7. Mexican Revolution • This was a social revolution that developed without a formal plan or guidance and without the direction of a strong influential leader • There were many revolutionary leaders each representing their own specific faction of Mexican society • When the revolution broke out, Diaz fled into exile leaving a power void

8. Revolutionary Players: Francisco I. Madero • son of a wealthy landowning and mining family • educated in the United States • became president after Diaz fled Mexico – welcomed by some (rich 1%), opposed by most (poor peasants- the rest) especially Emiliano Zapata • Overthrown and killed by one of his former supporters after two years as president, General Victoriano Huerta • United States sent troops to occupy Veracruz as a sign of their displeasure

9. Revolutionary Players: the Constitutionalist • Veneustiano Carranza (landowner) & Alvaro Obregon (schoolteacher)’ • Organized private armies • Overthrew Huerta in 1914 • With these events the revolution had spread to the countryside

10. Revolutionary Players: Francisco “Pancho” Villa • “Zapata, an Indian farmer, had led a revolt against the haciendas in the mountains of Morelos, south of Mexico city. His soldiers were peasants mounted on horseback and armed with pistols and riffles. For several years they periodically came down from the mountains, burned hacienda buildings, and returned the land to the Indian villages to which it had once belonged.” (Bulliet, p. 834)

11. Civil War • Villa & Zapata had the support of the people but could never rise above their regional peasant origins and lead a national revolution • Constitutionalist had fewer soldiers but the money they earned from the sale of oil allowed them to remain strong in the cities and buy weapons • The Constitutionalists slowly gained control of all of Mexico and killed Zapata in 1919, while Villa was assassinated in 1923

12. Constitution of 1917 • Adopted agrarian reforms – restored communal lands to the Indians of the Morelos • Social programs to appeal to the working and middle class • Universal suffrage • One-term presidency • State run education designed to free the poor from the grips of the Catholic church • End of debt peonage, restrictions on foreign ownership of property • Minimum wage standards and maximum hours protected laborers • These reforms were costly and difficult to enact and enforce, but did bring a level dignity and respect to the people of Mexico

13. National Revolutionary Party (PNR) • “In the early 1920s, after a decade of violence that exhausted all classes, the Mexican Revolution lost momentum, and President Obregon and his closest associates made all the important decisions. His successor, Plutarco Elias Calles, founded the National Revolutionary Party or PNR. The PNR was a forum where all the pressure groups and vested interests – labor, peasants, businessmen, landowners, the military, and others – worked out compromises. The PNR gave the Mexican Revolution a second wind.” (Bulliet, p. 834)

14. Lazaro Cardenas • Chosen by Calles to be president in 1934 • brought peasant and workers organizations into the PNR • Removed generals from government positions • Redistributed 44 million acres of land to peasants • Replaced church run schools with government schools • Nationalized the railroads and oil industry (the British and American firms who lost their property and investment expected their governments to intervene, but it never happened) • At the end of his presidency Mexico was still a land of poor peasant farmers, but with a small industrial base

15. Evaluating the Mexican Revolution • “The Mexican Revolution did not fulfill the democratic promise of Madero’s campaign, for it brought to power a party that monopolized the government for eighty years. However, it allowed far more sectors of the population to participate in politics and made sure no president stayed in office more than six years. The Revolution also promised far-reaching social reforms, such as free education, higher wages for workers and the redistribution of land to the peasants. These long-delayed reforms began to be implemented during the Cardenas administration. They fell short of the ideals expressed by the revolutionaries, but they laid the foundation for the later industrialization of Mexico.” (Bulliet, p. 835)