I wrote this for my take home Mid-Term Exam for Modern Latin America class.
Part I: Compare and contrast the historical development of Argentina and Mexico in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Argentina and Mexico both became independent in the early 1800’s. The Mexican independence movement was led by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla while the Argentinean independence movement was led by José de San Martín. Following independence, Latin America was ruled mostly by caudillos, military bosses. Argentina was ruled by Juan Manuel de Rosas, “a politically ambitious cattle rancher from the province of Buenos Aires, who won the governorship of his province in 1829.” Mexico during this time was ruled by Antonio López de Santa Anna.
Latin America was also faced with racial issues. The elite in Mexico City stayed royalists while those in the countryside did not. The Creole elite crushed the attempt to unify the Mestizo and indigenous peoples. Mexico as a whole remained majority non-white since it was in the center of Mesoamerica, the part of the Americas with the largest native population. Many Latin American white elites started to believe in the racial theories that were hitting Europe and The United States at that time. They believed the way to solve the problem was immigration from Europe. The cities in Southern South America such as in Argentina because major white areas attracting immigrants from all over Southern Europe but also Eastern Europe. This was in contrast to the situation in Mexico. This mirrors the pattern of The United States somewhat in terms of 19th Century immigration.
Argentina because the France of South America at the turn of the 20th Century with Buenos Aires being compared to Paris. Buenos Aires was built to look resemble a European city such as Paris. The 19th Century closed with nationalist spirit. The last frontier of South America was conquered and many immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe immigrated to Argentina. Argentina was also proud of its War of the Desert, in which it conquered the last frontier in Southern South America, in which they wiped out most of the native population. Mexico on the other hand, lost its Northern frontier when the United States conquered half of what was then Northern Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Mexico under General Santa Anna further sold off more of its land to the United States that was needed for an American railroad to California. This land was the Gadsden Purchase and included areas in what is today Arizona and New Mexico.
After the period of Santa Anna’s rule, Mexico soon fell under French occupation when Emperor Napoleon III of France installed Maximillian as Emperor of Mexico. Many white Mexicans saw this as an answer to Mexico’s problems. However, the Mestizo and Amerindian Mexicans did not agree. Under the leadership of the first Amerindian President of Mexico Benito Juarez, the French occupation was ousted from Mexico. After Juarez left office, the Mestizo Porfirio Diaz came to power. He would rule as dictator until 1911 except for a brief intermission.
Although Argentina was better of than Mexico, it was still susceptible to military regimes taking power. In the late 1940's, Juan Peron took power. He had a Socialist working class agenda. At first he nationalized foreign controlled industries and paid off foreign debt making Argentina financially independent but he soon moved to authoritarian style rule. He had the Argentinean Constitution amended so he could run for a second six-year term. His wife Evita was almost like a ruler aside him. They were like the King and Queen. He wanted to have her be his Vice-President but the party did not allow it. When she died of cancer, many people worshiped her as a saint. Juan Peron soon became tyrannical and tried to overthrow the authority of the Catholic Church and he seized parochial schools and placed them in state control. His fight against the Vatican "conspirators" led to the Vatican excommunicated him and his entire cabinet. Peron was exiled to Paraguay but he would return as President many years later, this time with his new wife Isabel as Vice-President who indeed succeeded to the Presidency upon his death.
During the Post-Peron regimes of Argentina from the 1950's onward, there was a lot of corruption. Different parties ran in elections with the military often canceling the election results. The military also ousted democratically elected leaders already serving in office. Peronist parties were often banned from running and if they won, the results were canceled. In The 1970's, Peron was allowed to return from exile and he was elected President once again. This time, he was able to have his new wife Isabel as his Vice-President. He met her because she was a nightclub dancer in Panama. She succeeded him as President when he died in office. She was ousted by the military in 1976.
In parallel to the military ousting governments that they didn't approve of, many people were kidnapped and tortured. This led to a group of mothers referred to as Las Locas de la Plaza de Mayo (The Mad Women of The Plaza de Mayo.) regularly protesting there. They would share their stories with each other work together to secure the safe release of their sons and daughters. Many of the kidnapped people were tortured, interrogated under extreme physical pain, and even raped.
Part II: What were the origins and the outcomes of the Mexican Revolution?
Following the liberation of Mexico from the rule of the French imposed Emperor Maximillian, Benito Juarez, the first Amerindian Mexican President came to power. After his rule was up, Mexico began a long period of dictatorship under President Porfirio Diaz. His rule came to an end in 1911 following the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. In 1910, the Mexican Revolution began. This revolution was not a single war but rather a series of many wars on different fronts led by rebel leaders on horseback. Among the rebel leaders were Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco. In these series of civil wars, different rebel leaders were often assassinated by the rival groups.
"Francisco I. Madero was one of the strongest believers that President Diaz should renounce his power and not seek re-election." Madero and others created the ''Anti-reeleccionista'' Party. He represented this party in future elections. This party believed that there should be short two-year terms of President. However, the short term Presidents were often controlled by a party boss. A firm supporter of democracy, Madero believed in "making government subject to the strict limits of the law". For this reason, President Diaz viewed him as a threat. Prior to the elections of 1910, "Madero was apprehended in Monterrey and imprisoned in San Luis Potosi". He fled to the United States soon after. While in exile, "he issued the 'Plan of San Luis', a manifesto which declared that the elections had been a fraud and that he would not recognize Porfirio Diaz as the legitimate President of the Republic". Madero declared himself "'President Pro-Temp' until new elections could be held". He was committed to returning to the peasants their land which had been confiscated and universal suffrage. This marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
Once the Revolution had begun, a small group of followers took up arms in the State of Chihuahua. "Back in Chihuahua, Madero was able to persuade Pascual Orozco and Francisco Villa to join the revolution", despite the fact that they had no "military experience". The people of Northern Mexico gave them their loyalty due to their excellent roles as strategists. The locals there were fed up with "the abusive ranchers and landlords who ran the North".
Emiliano Zapata led a local peasant uprising in March of 1911. He was fighting for land and water rights. His followers were called the Zapatistas. In other parts of the country, other revolts took place. "The 'Maderista' troops, and the national anger which inspired them, defeated the army of Diaz within six months." The Revolution was one with the capture of Ciudad Juarez, just across the border with El Paso, Texas, at the hands of Orozco and Villa. Upon his defeat, Porfirio Diaz resigned as President and he "fled to exile in France, where he died in 1915".
At the fall of Diaz's regime, "the Mexican Congress elected Francisco Leon De La Barra as President Pro-Temp and called for national popular elections, which resulted in the victory of Francisco I. Madero as President and Jose Maria Pino Suarez as Vice-President.".
The new Mexican Government eventually evolved into a one party system which lasted much of the 20th Century. It was a Marxist regime which nationalized the oil industry and seized all oil fields from foreign investors and had them put into the control of the government monopoly PEMEX. This led to resentment from foreign investors, especially those from the United States, and Mexico's oil industry was subject to boycott by the United States. Mexico was also subject to American intervention at times during the Revolution.
On a cultural note, during the time of the Mexican Revolution, the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo rose to fame. Kahlo was the daughter of a German Jewish man and a Mestiza. She is known for her many self-portraits. She had polio as a child and was severely injured in a trolley-car accident. She also lived a life of scandal. She married the Communist Diego Rivera who was already well known as a Communist. Kahlo also became a member of the Mexican Communist Party. Frida Kahlo identified with the indigenous Mexican side of her family even though she is only 1/4 Amerindian. During the Mexican Revolution, they recreated the Mexican national image. Rather than be proud of their Spanish heritage as in the past, they decided to make the Amerindian culture their national heritage. Kahlo was a symbol of that because she was of mixed heritage herself and so is Salma Hayek, the actress who played her in the film Frida. It was the Mexican Revolution which destroyed the old Mexico and made it into what it is today. This revolution seems part of a cultural revolution in Mexico. Just as in China where the “Cultural Revolution" initiated by Mao Zedong destroyed Chinese culture and replaced it with Communism, the Mexican Revolution destroyed the old Mexican culture and attempted to replace it with a Mestizo Communist culture. In fact, until the election of Vicente Fox as President of Mexico in 2000, Mexico was ruled entirely by one political party. This all parallels the political Mexican Revolution.
Topic: Argentina and Mexico (Read 3190 times)