Over the course of about 100 years, Mexico
went from a Spanish colony, to a constitutional
monarchy, to a dictatorship, to a democracy,
with several other kind of governments in
between.
During that time, the country underwent a
war for independence, was invaded by France
(twice!), lost Texas, California, Nevada,
and New Mexico to the US, and had itself a
revolution because of said dictatorship.
This period, between 1821 and 1920 was a busy-ass
time and, in this video, we’re going to
attempt to untangle this immensely complicated
period of Mexican history without having a
brain haemorrhage.
 
Napoleon
Bonaparte.
Ah! See what I did there?
You thought I was going going to say Miguel
Hidalgo.
True, Hidalgo did help to start the first
proper uprising against Nueva Espana.
However, if it wasn’t for Napoleon’s invasion
of Spain in 1807 and the battle for the Iberian
Peninsula happening over in Europe, the Mexican
criollos — who were beginning to feel properly
Mexican at this point — wouldn’t have
noticed that the Spanish had let their guard
down, so to speak.
As a result, they had an excuse to say to
themselves, “You know what?
Screw Spain.
Spain is a smouldering ruin.
Now Mexico.
There’s a country with promise.”FYI: it’s
unclear whether Miguel Hidalgo used those
exact words but, you know, he might have.
The truth is that neither Hidalgo nor Napoleon
were the sole causers of the War for Mexican
Independence.
Both men were massively influential, but history
is as rarely as simple as series of a events
caused by quote — Great Men — unquote.Some
people argue that the cause of the Mexican
War of Independence wasn’t one man, or a
group of men but — in fact — the Age of
Enlightenment.
The educated Mexican born criollos had heard
and understood the rhetoric of the writers
of the time and it was this that inspired
them to revolt.
The Age of Enlightenment meant questioning
the things that had previously been deemed
as normal and all this questioning, all this
asking why, this is what lead to Mexican War
for Independence in the end.
I mean, maybe.
It’s a decent theory.
Skip forward ten years, and the Mexican War
for Independence was won by Mexico — obviously.
I mean, if Mexico hadn’t won then this video
would be titled “A Crash Course in New Spanish
History”.
However, it’s not.
Mexico won and the war was over.
After that, though, the fighting really began.You
see, despite the fact that the Spanish were
no longer in charge, the Mexican caste system
still very much persisted and so, as a result,
the Mexican people were divided on the issue
of what kind of country Mexico should be.
Broadly speaking, you had the conservative,
church-loving, monarchists who felt that everything
should stay the way it was, except with no
Spanish people in charge, and the liberal,
proletariat-loving, reformists who wanted
to give land back to the people, redistribute
the wealth, and generally shake things up
a bit.
In the end, the reformists won, but they took
their sweet old time about it and it wasn’t
until 1920 that Mexico we know today emerged.Jumping
back to 1821 though and, at first, Mexico
was a constitutional Catholic monarchy with
Agustin I as the country’s first emperor.
This empire had a flag, territory, and everything
and it certainly looked like it could go the
distance.
However, it was not to be and Agustin’s
reign lasted from 1821 all the way to 1823
when the Mexicans decided that being ruled
by the Mexican Empire felt an awful lot like
being ruled by the Spanish Empire.
Agustin was exiled and, when he returned to
Mexico in 1824 with his family, he was executed.This
First Mexican Empire was followed by an uprising
of anti-Monarchist ideas and a temporary Provisional
Government of Mexico which lasted for less
than a year was replaced by the more permanent
First Mexican Republic.
At least, they thought it would be permanent.Thinking
it would be permanent, the people who formed
this government did not call it the “First
Mexican Republic” because, of course, that
implies that there would be a second one.
Which, of course, there was — but the government
at the time didn’t know that.
These Mexicans called their new government
the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the United Mexican
States).
This government was a big-ass deal because
it was the first democratically elected government
of Mexico ever and it was the government which
signed Mexico’s first constitution.
Now I say “democratically elected” but,
much like early American democracy, voting
was limited to a select few people.This government
was federalist which meant that they wanted
to give more power the individual Mexican
states and limit the power of the central
government.
This was the type of government preferred
by the Liberal Party who were liberal in an
economic sense — as in they preferred the
idea of unrestricted capitalism to government
intervention of the market — and who also
believed in a kind of social form of liberalism
which meant secularism.
However, despite all this seeming potential,
the government lasted just 11 years with the
presidency changing hands 15 times between
ten different men.
In fact, it’s even more ridiculous than
that — between 1st April 1833 and 24 April
1834 two men — Valentin Gomez Farias and
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna — argued back
and forth over the presidency with the result
being that the presidency changed hands seven
times.Seven bloody times in just over a year?
I wash my jeans less than that.Now, it’s
worth pointing out that not all of these presidency
changes (from 1824 to 1920) were due to infighting.
Some people fell ill and some people went
off to fight wars and so just handed power
over to someone else (Antonio Lopez de Santa
Anna did this a lot).
There were coups as well, though.
Don’t get me wrong.
In fact, between 1824 and 1920 hardly a single
Mexican president actually completed their
term with the average presidency lasting just
fifteen months during this period.
Anyway, after the ridiculous Lopez de Santa
Anna / Farias fiasco, a new president was
eventually elected — Miguel Barragan.
Barragan was from the Conservative Party who
wanted radically different things and so,
as a result, he abolished the constitution
of 1824 and replaced it with the kind of government
the conservatives wanted.
They believed in a centralised government
which was strong, Catholic, and ruled in much
the same way that the Spanish did during their
colonial rule.The new government Barragan
set up is referred to now as the Centralist
Republic of Mexico but, at the time, it was
simply called the Mexican Republic.During
the Centralist Republic of Mexico, the Mexicans
ended up fighting a really strange war with
French known as the Pastry War.
The story goes that a French pastry chef had
his boat destroyed by Mexicans while it was
sitting in a harbour in Mexico.
The French had a pretty decent relationship
with Mexico up until this point and had been
trading with them since the Spanish had occupied
Mexico all those years ago.
However, as the Mexican government was going
through something of a rough patch, they didn’t
have time to do things like — you know — enforce
the law.
And so, when the pastry chef had his boat
destroyed by some random Mexicans, rather
than arresting anyone or paying compensation
to the pastry chef, the Mexican government
just shrugged their shoulders and said “Well,
what do you want us to about it?”
The French responded by demanding the Mexican
government pay out 60,000 pesos in compensation
(the boat is said to be worth around 1,000
pesos), the government refused, the French
invaded Mexico, fought a three month war with
them, and only relented when the Mexican government
promised to 600,000 pesos compensation for
the boat.
Although, as of 2017, the Mexicans have yet
to pay the French a single penny for this
boat.As well as fighting off the French, this
Mexicans also had to deal with internal uprisings
which eventually culminated in a huge land-loss
to the United States.
However, before all that, the Mexican government
was changed again (the Centralist experiment
having been a massive failure) and the Second
Federal Republic of Mexico was established
in 1846).In 1848, the Mexican-American war
ended with Mexico selling off 2,400,000 square
kilometres of land to US in exchange for just
under 20,000,000 US dollars in total.
In 1853, they sold the US even more land for
a further 10,000,000 US dollars.
The land the US gained included what is now
Texas, California, Oregon, Nevada, and New
Mexico.
The loss of Texas is particularly notable
for the story of The Alamo (which is beyond
the scope of this video) but here is some
nice footage of the Alamo which my girlfriend
and I visited last year.Most of the Mexico’s
land-loss to the US is often blamed on Antonio
Lopez de Santa Anna who, by this point, was
pretty much addicted to being President of
Mexico.
Before he died in 1876, he had been president
a ridiculous 11 times and, by the end of career,
had a reputation for being something of a
tyrannical dick.
He wasn’t the only person to be President
of Mexico multiple times, however.
Lots of people did this and speaks volumes
for how crazy the political situation was
during this 100 years.In 1857, Benito Juarez
became president and, in an almost unprecedented
turn of events, served out a full-term as
president.
He was only the third person to have done
this since the country’s beginnings just
under 40 years and just over 20 presidents
ago.Juarez was also notable for being the
first indigenous president of Mexico and for
being something of a hero to most people in
modern Mexico.
At the time, though, not everybody liked the
guy.For starters, he had to deal with the
Reform War.
This kicked off when Juarez demanded the church
give up some of its land.
In response, the Conservatives started a civil
war.
At around the same time, Juarez also had to
deal with Second French Invasion of Mexico.
This invasion happened when Napoleon, not
that one — the other one — the third one
— his nephew — tried to reinstate a Second
Mexican Empire with Maxmillian I of the Habsburg
family (the family notable for its facial
defects brought on by generations of inbreeding)
as its ruler.
The French were helped by the British, the
Spanish, and the Conservatives within Mexico
who didn’t like Juarez and really, really
wanted Centralist, monarchist government just
like the good old days when the Spanish were
in charge.Juarez saw things differently.
He defeated the French and the Conservatives,
reinstated the Federalist government, made
education mandatory for children, built a
railway system, and introduced a rural police
force.
By 1872, Juarez had served five terms as president
and died during his fifth and final term.
It was Juarez who made Mexico — more or
less — what it is today.However, Mexico
wasn’t stable just yet and — a mere four
years later — Porforio Diaz took power.
Porforio did some pretty great things for
Mexico, such as make it a more industrialised,
wealthy, and capitalist nation, but he was
also a complete and utter dictator.
Freedom of speech was banned, there was voter
suppression, there was fraud — all of this
was done to try and curb the instability of
Mexico during this tumultuous time.However,
it didn’t work and the Porfiriato, the period
of dictatorship from 1876 to 1910 named after
the dictator who made it possible, eventually
lead to the Mexican Revolution in 1910.
That revolution ended in 1920 and led to yet
another constitution and form of government
which, by and large, is the constitution Mexico
still uses today.
We’ll talk about that in the next video
but, for now, thanks for watching.
