Nezahualcoyotl: Texcoco's philosopher king (1403–1473)
In the Mesoamerican civilizations that preceded the Spanish Conquest, intellectuals usually derived from the priestly caste rather than from the ranks of warriors and statesmen. But there was one exce...
View ArticleThe Mexican Revolution: a nation in flux - part 1 (1910-20)
Mexico in September 1910 could be compared to a shiny apple whose glossy skin conceals a putrifying interior. But the corruption underneath was still a secret to the rest of the world. Porfirio Díaz, ...
View ArticleThe first and the best: Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza
(Viceroy: 1530 - 1550) The transition from military to civilian rule is not always an easy one. High ranking officers become entrenched in top positions of government and -- as the 1989 fall of th...
View ArticleThe Mexican Revolution: a nation in flux - part 2
Villa broke jail on Christmas Eve and was in El Paso when Huerta engineered the coup that overthrew Madero. In February 1913 Huerta staged a fake 10-day artillery duel with a fake rival, Felix Díaz, n...
View ArticleJeronimo de Aguilar: the marooned priest who speeded the conquest
This is a story that would have been laughed out of a Hollywood studio had it ever been submitted as script material: that a leading figure in the Spanish Conquest of Mexico was a shipwrecked priest wh...
View ArticleAgustin Yañez: the engaged man (1904–1980)
This title has nothing to do with the state of affairs that precedes matrimony. It is intended in the sense of what the French call an homme engagé, literally, a man engaged in a cause or in so...
View ArticleMiguel Hidalgo: the Father who fathered a country (1753–1811)
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla had the unique distinction of being a father in three senses of the word: a priestly father in the Roman Catholic Church, a biological father who produced illegitimate childre...
View ArticleAztec Hamlet: the tragedy of Moctezuma 2
In history, there are innumerable cases of dynasties toppling because of the weakness of incumbents. The incompetence of do-nothing rulers had much to do with the fall of the late Roman Empire. In Fran...
View ArticleNuño de Guzmán: the Himmler of New Spain (14??–1550)
In 1984, his epic indictment of Stalinism, George Orwell writes that totalitarian man exercises power over others by making them suffer. Arthur Koestler, another great analyst and foe of Soviet communi...
View ArticleMelchor Ocampo (1814–1861)
Among critics of the Roman Catholic Church in a country where a vast majority of the citizens are nominal Catholics, the charges most frequently heard are those of worldliness and hypocrisy. Anticleric...
View ArticleMexico's marxist guru: Vicente Lombardo Toledano (1894–1968)
It is no more possible to discuss Marxism in Mexico without referring to Vicente Lombardo Toledano than it is to reminisce about Abbott without mentioning Costello. A teacher, writer, union leader and ...
View ArticleThe Mexican Revolution - consolidation (1920–40) part 1
Of the major figures in the 1910-20 phase of the Mexican Revolution, only Alvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa remained. In a strange twist of fate, the counterrevolutionaries --Porfirio Díaz and Victoria...
View ArticleThe Mexican Revolution - consolidation (1920–40) part 2
His land reform policy reflected the same make-haste-slowly mentality. In his four years of power Obregón distributed three million acres among 624 villages -- hardly a staggering amount but still sev...
View ArticleThe Mexican Revolution - consolidation (1920–40) part 3
The next step was to get rid of Calles, who had become increasingly critical of Cárdenas's radicalism. To pre-empt a coup by the former strong man, Cárdenas sent a party of twenty soldiers and eight ...
View ArticleLucas Alamán and the Mexican right (1792–1853)
(This is an expanded version of an article that appeared in the October 18-24, 1997 issue of the COLONY REPORTER) In 19th century Mexico, most of the intellectuals were firmly on th...
View ArticleThe other (and greater) Moctezuma I
In a curious irony of history, an epigone frequently becomes better known than his/her illustrious namesake and predecessor. Mention Harold Ickes and most people will think you're talking about Clinton...
View ArticleUsurper: the dark shadow of Victoriano Huerta (1845–1916)
(Synopsis & Photo) Victoriano Huerta was a man almost too bad to be true. Described by one historian as an "Elizabethan villain," he was a drunkard and repressive dictator who guaranteed himself a...
View ArticleThe remarkable life of Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695)
On the surface, no two people ever appeared more dissimilar than John Stuart Mill and Juana Inés de la Cruz. One was a great rationalist, an apostle of individual liberty, an enemy of dogma and a beli...
View ArticleThe Quetzalcoatl "Trinity"
It is entirely correct to think of the Aztec legend Quetzalcoatl in three contexts -- as historical personality, as divinity and as literary subject. In the first incarnation he is a 10th century pries...
View ArticleLerdo de Tejada: Jacobin to liberal elitist
Timothy Dwight, the fervently reactionary and comically pompous head of Yale University, was a strong Federalist supporter who predicted that the accession of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency would l...
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