Mexico History

Over 10,000 ancient ruins pepper the Mexican landscape, testament to some of the world’s greatest empires in the period before Christopher Columbus, who “discovered” the New World. After the Spanish conquest, native and European cultures mixed, setting up a neo-feudal system still evident despite years of long and bloody conflict. The country of over 100 million people is incredibly diverse; indígenas make up nearly 30 percent of the Mexico’s population and over 62 different native languages are still spoken among the different states. In the last two decades, Mexico’s economy and its democratic stability have improved, though it is still plagued by severe socio-economic differences and political corruption.

Strait Crossing (14,000-10,000 Bc). Relatively little is known about hunter-gatherer societies in Mexico’s earliest historic period. Most archeologists hypothesize that the first humans traveled across the Bering Strait, arriving in Mexico between 14,000 and 10,000 BC. Historians generally separate Pre-Hispanic history into five periods: Pre-Agricultural (40,000-8000 BC), Archaic (8000-2000 BC), Formative (or Pre-Classic, 2000 BC-AD 200), Classic (200-900), and Post-Classic (or Historical, 900-1521).

The Olmecs (1700-600 Bc). The Olmecs flourished in the warm, humid area that today comprises the states of Veracruz and Tabasco . Though they are most famous for the giant stone heads that were likely portraits of their rulers, by 1350 BC the Olmecs had also developed large-scale public works, hieroglyphic writing, and a long count calendar, which later influenced the Maya. One of the first people to develop farming techniques in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs declined suddenly for unknown reasons.

Teotihuacán (200 Bc-Ad 750). The return of great Mesoamerican empires was characterized by impressive cultural achievements. From the capital at Teotihuacán , located near present-day Mexico City, the city-state controlled a region as large as modern-day Belgium. The city’s name—given by the Aztecs who were awestruck by the site centuries later—means “Place of the Gods” in Náhuatl. At its peak, it was home to one of world’s largest populations—around 200,000 people in AD 600. The empire may have included the Zapotecs, who lived in Monte Albán. Teotihuacán left behind a rich cultural legacy; many of their gods, like Quetzacoatl, the god of fertility, and Tlaloc, the god of rain, were worshipped by the Aztecs many centuries later. Between 600-750 AD, the center was sacked for unknown reasons.

The Maya (250-900 Ad). The Classic Mayan civilization, based along the Mexican and Gulf coast, is best known for its early advances in astronomy and mathematics. The Maya preceded the Greeks and Romans to understanding the mathematical concept of zero. Their superior stargazing skills—Mayan astronomers predicted the movements of Venus for over 500 years with only a 2hr. margin of error—enabled them to create a sophisticated calendar. Like many tribes in the region, they also practiced human sacrifice. The empire’s demise was likely prompted by internal revolts around AD 900. During the post-Classic period, the remaining Maya shifted to new centers on the coast, like Chichén Itzá , Mayapán , and Uxmal . Together these formed the Mayapán League, which came to a bloody collapse in 1441.

The Toltecs (Ad 900-1100). Nomadic warrior societies, like the Toltecs, filled the void left by the fall of the empires of the Classical period. Their rule, which centered in their capital at Tula , is often remembered as the golden era of the pre-Hispanic period—they were the originators of the central american ball game and the legend predicting the return of the light-skinned god Quetzalcóatl, which would mislead the Aztecs when the Spanish arrived centuries later. Invading tribes and famine brought their civilization to a close.

The Aztecs (Ad 900-1521). In the early 14th century, the Aztecs, known in their native Náhuatl as the Mexica, established Tenochtitlán (modern-day Mexico City), on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. From this watery capital (19 islands, connected by a series of canals and decorated with lush gardens), the Aztecs ruled central Mexico, claiming dominion over more than 25 million people at the time of the Spanish conquest. Organized in a loose federation dependent on tributes from subdued townships, the empire attracted enemies by ruthlessly using conquered tribes for human sacrifice. The rituals—intended to stave off the apocalypse—culminated with the offering of a human heart to patron god Huitzilopochtli.

Encounter With Cortés (1519-1521). In 1519, Hernán Cortés landed on the island of Cozumel. Accompanied by 550 Europeans, 16 horses, and a small cannon, Cortés worked his way up the Gulf Coast. During one of these skirmishes he acquired 20 maidens as booty, including Malintzin (Doña Marina to the Spanish and, later, traitorous La Malinche to Mexicans), an enslaved Aztec who would become both his advisor and mistress. The combined language skills of two of his prisoners, Malintzin and Jerónimo de Aguilar, a Spaniard who spoke fluent Mayan, enabled Cortés to overcome the language barrier. The meeting of Aztec emperor Moctezuma II (known in the US as Montezuma) and Cortés was initially peaceful, but turned sour when the Spaniards took Moctezuma hostage and began to raid the royal treasury. The Aztecs drove Cortés from Tenochtitlán on July 1, 1520, a night known to the Spanish as La Noche Triste (Sad Night). But Cortés regrouped and the Aztecs—weakened by plagues and famine and overwhelmed by guns and steel—were unable to overcome the Spanish. In 1521, the Aztecs were finally defeated at Tlatelolco.

The Colonial Period (1522-1810). The Spanish quickly were able to gain control of a vast territory by superimposing colonial administration on the Aztec system. Diseases like smallpox and typhoid fever also proved to be a powerful ally of the advancing conquistadors, wiping out whole villages often more effectively than the battles themselves. After being conquered, the indígenas were assigned to Spaniards in encomiendas (estates). In return, the encomenderos (estate owners) were responsible for educating their workers and converting them to Christianity. With little regulation of the system (and few Spaniards who cared), abuse was rampant.

Fight For Independence (1810-1822). Faced with gross economic and social inequities perpetrated by a powerful land-owning class, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, from the small parish of Dolores , formed a “literary club” that soon turned its thoughts to revolution. On the morning of September 16, 1810, now Mexican Independence Day, Hidalgo delivered an electrifying speech, El Grito de Dolores (The Cry of Dolores), which called for the end of Spanish rule, equality of races, and a redistribution of the land. The speech launched fighting between Mexican and Spanish forces, but victory did not enter sight until conservatives began to worry about the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812, and what its promotion of popular sovereignty might mean for the colonies. The most important convert to the cause was Agustín de Iturbide, a criollo (light-skinned Mexican of European descent) who originally led Spanish troops against Hidalgo. In 1820, he turned thousands of his soldiers to the independence cause, tipping the scales in Mexican favor. In 1821, with the Treaty of Córdoba, the country’s independence was complete, and the following year the new national congress crowned Iturbide Emperor of Mexico.

A Shaky Start. The victory was bittersweet: a decade of war had left the economy in shambles and anarchy reigned throughout much of the countryside. Over the course of the next 40 years, more than 50 different governments ruled the country, 11 of these headed by Antonio López de Santa Anna, who led a military coup against Iturbide’s government in November 1822. Alternately liberal and conservative, he was more interested in possessing power than exercising it responsibly, at one point conducting a military coup against his own vice president.

Cooking Up Trouble (1838-1839). Debt problems led to a French intervention, dubbed the Pastry War in honor of the French pastry chef whose wares had been seized and eaten by rioting Mexican troops. During the Pastry War, Santa Anna’s left leg was severely wounded and eventually had to be amputated. Not a man to take a lost limb lightly, Santa Anna had his leg transported to Mexico City where, after an elaborate procession and a formal entombment in an urn atop a pillar, the decayed limb was serenaded and applauded by cabinet members and diplomats. Victory and his famous wound served to bolster Santa Anna’s image.

The Lone Star Republic (1836-1845). Santa Anna’s image was temporarily damaged during the Texas secession. As US settlers began to outnumber Mexicans in the lands to the north, Yankee-led independence movements mobilized to protest restrictive immigration laws and the abolition of slavery. Santa Anna responded with 6000 troops, which overwhelmed Texan rebels at the Alamo in February of 1836, killing all 150 defenders. The Texans ultimately won their independence, capturing Santa Anna and his army on April 21, 1836.

War With The States (1845-1848). In 1845 the United States annexed the Lone Star Republic, jump starting another war with Mexico over the boundaries of their new state. On March 9, 1847, general Winfield Scott and his 10,000 men launched an attack in Veracruz. After a brutal sack of the city that killed twice as many Mexican civilians as soldiers, the victorious army continued toward Mexico City. By September 7, only the Castle of Chapultepec remained unvanquished. The young cadets defending the castle were revered throughout Mexico for their bravery; and a monument at the castle remembers six teenagers who leapt to their deaths rather than surrender. The war ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which settled the border at the Río Bravo (known in the US as Rio Grande) and ceded California and New Mexico to the US for a paltry US$19 million. Santa Anna resigned in shame, but, back five years later, he agreed to the Gadsden Purchase, selling a strip across southern Arizona and New Mexico.

Caste War (1847-1901). Rebellion also hit the Yucatán Peninsula, where ethnic tensions and socioeconomic divisions led to an uprising of the Maya people against the criollo rulers. The Maya established an independent state at Chan Santa Cruz, not falling to the Mexican army until more than 50 years later.

Reform School (1854-1876). In 1854, liberals, led by indígeno Benito Juárez, sent Santa Anna into exile. The move launched the Reform Era (1855-1972), a period of bitter divide between liberal reformers and conservatives, including supporters of the Catholic Church. As president, Juárez introduced the Ley Juárez, which abolished clergy and military privileges, and the new Constitution of 1857, which established Mexico as a representative democracy. The moves touched off Mexico’s bloodiest revolt to date, a three-year conflict known as the War of the Reform (1858-1861). Although the liberals repelled the conservatives by 1860, default on debts prompted another foreign intervention.

Foreign Foes (1860-1867). While the British and Spanish attempted to resolve the conflict peaceably, imperial ambitions drove the French to invade. Although Cinco de Mayo celebrates an 1862 Mexican victory in Puebla, the French eventually forced the Juárez government to flee to the north of the country. Napoleon III chose the Austrian archduke Ferdinand Maximilian as emperor. His left-leaning, anti-Catholic policies quickly alienated conservatives and he died by firing squad in 1867. Juárez returned triumphantly with a program for greater social equity: for the first time, education was free and compulsory. But tensions mounted, eventually prompting General Porfirio Díaz to lead a coup in the name of establishing stability.

The Porfiriato (1876-1910). Porfirio Díaz presided over a period of stability and economic growth, known as the Porfiriato or the Pax Porfiriana. He introduced a new railroad system, along with institutional and bureaucratic reform, contributing to a new period of economic growth. But the benefits of the reforms remained concentrated in the hands of the small, social elite (the científicos) and large foreign investors. Díaz’s cronies controlled local politics, enforcing their abuse of the indígenas with a new rural police force and the cruel peonaje system, which bound peasants to the land. They also worked to destroy the ejidos, a system of community farming dating to Aztec times, in the name of more economically efficient privately-owned farms.

The Revolution (1910). Widespread discontent allowed Francisco Madero, a wealthy hacienda owner from Coahuila, to run on an anti-reelection platform. Supported by the guerilla forces of Emiliano Zapata, an Indian peasant from the state of Morelos, and Francisco “Pancho” Villa, a longtime outlaw from the north, the rebels eventually took Ciudad Juárez , forcing Díaz into comfortable exile in Paris.

Revolutionary Governments (1911-1914). The 1911 election ushered Madero and his vice president, José María Pino Suárez, into power. Madero’s attempts to govern were challenged by former allies, like Zapata, who saw no indication that he would work to satisfy peasant demands for land redistribution. In 1913, 10 days of violence in the zócalo known as the Decena Trágica led US ambassador Henry Lane Wilson to convince General Victoriano Huerta to betray Madero and lead a military coup in the name of the conservatives. Huerta’s incompetence—in cartoons from the period he is never pictured without a bottle in his hand—only unified the opposition, led by Villa, Álvaro Obregón, and Venustiano Carranza, who came together under the Plan de Guadalupe. Zapata continued to fight independently. The US eventually undermined the dictator with the occupation of Veracruz, and Huerta resigned under pressure in 1914.

Villa, Zapata, And The Constitutionalists (1914-1920). The forces of Villa and Zapata met only once in the capital at the end of 1914, and their failure to come to an agreement on a national program created an opportunity for Carranza’s constitucionalistas (Constitutionalists) to take charge. The Constitution of 1917, endorsed by Obregón and Carranza, set out the world’s most progressive labor rights and declared that private ownership of land was a privilege, not a right. Its successful passage led to the election of Carranza in 1917. Villa, angered by US recognition of the Carranza government, raided Columbus, New Mexico. This spurred a US invasion by General John Pershing, whose only success was in insulting the newly recognized government. Carranza eliminated his other rival by assassinating Zapata, though the Morelos peasant movement would continue as a political force into the late 20th century.

Party People (1921-1934). Carranza’s decision to seek reelection, which violated the Constitution’s one-term-only provision, helped to alienate Obregón. Sensing that the tide had turned, Carranza fled the capital for Veracruz, making off with all the public treasury he could carry (allegedly 20 train cars’ worth). He was captured en route to the port city and shot, and Obregón took over, granting amnesty to all parties and pursuing tentative social reforms. He ceded power peacefully in 1924 to his chosen successor, Plutarco Elías Calles. As Calles’s term came to a close, he sought a way to preserve power while maintaining the trappings of democracy, founding the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) in 1929. Soon known as the Jefe Máximo (Highest Chief), Calles ruled behind the scenes from 1929 to 1934, a period of puppet presidents and rigged elections that became known as the Maximato. His party and its two descendants would rule Mexico for 71 years.

Redistributing Power (1934-1940). Calles’s power came to an end with the election of Lázaro Cárdenas, who exiled Calles in 1936. Cárdenas undertook drastic land reform. His single most famous and popular action was the nationalization and consolidation of the oil industry as Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). Cárdenas resigned in 1940, at the end of his six-year term, setting a precedent that has been followed ever since.

The Post-War “Mexican Miracle” (1940-1968). After Cárdenas, the party’s leaders shifted to a more conservative position, emphasizing business and state-led economic growth. In 1946, the new president, Miguel Alemán, restructured the party, renaming it the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Alemán was both the first civilian president since the Revolution and the most conservative. He broke the fiercely independent national unions and undertook massive improvements in infrastructure, including 7500 miles of new highways. He also oversaw the completion of the modern campus of the Universidad Autónoma Nacional de Mexico, (UNAM), though a lack of resources combined with government corruption to leave library shelves empty and facilities in disrepair.

Olympic Problems (1968-1988). Despite the economic growth (the origin of the “miracle” moniker), rapid population growth and high levels of unemployment, widened the gap between rich and poor and spurred migration to the capital. In the summer of 1968, under the conservative President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, demonstrations against the corrupt and unresponsive government broke out in the capital. Standoffs between students and the military mounted, reaching crisis levels in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas , in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, where the army killed an estimated 400 peaceful demonstrators and jailed another 2000 just 10 days before the 1968 Olympics were to open in Mexico City. A campaign of violent repression of political dissenters, known as the guerra sucia, followed. A combination of inflation, falling oil prices, and foreign debt brought the miracle to a close. Perhaps the biggest blow was the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which registered an 8 on the Richter scale and killed thousands.

Nafta, No Lafta (1988-1994). PRI candidate and Harvard PhD Carlos Salinas de Gortari won the widely contested 1988 election. Salinas presided over the passage of the North American Fair Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, which lowered trade barriers between the three North American countries. Though they had a broad base of support among Mexico’s elite and middle classes, the Salinas reforms left many behind. On January 1, 1994—the day NAFTA went into effect—the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN; the Zapatista National Liberation Army) captured the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas in a 12-day siege. Over 9000 Mayan peasants followed the eloquent masked guerilla Subcomandante Marcos (later revealed to be a university-educated Marxist). The Zapatistas called for a complete government overhaul, extensive land reform, social justice for indígenas, and fair elections. Within a year, Salinas’s legacy suffered another blow, when members of his inner circle were accused of extreme corruption. Notoriously, Salinas’s brother, Raúl Salinas de Gortari, was convicted of murdering his former brother-in-law and had alleged ties with drug cartels.

Reform And Change (1994-2000). Former Education Minister Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Léon assumed the presidency, only to be confronted with a devaluation crisis that was another setback to economic progress. Zedillo changed the political climate, self-consciously distancing himself from the PRI and formally ending the dedazo—the president’s traditional right to name the next PRI presidential candidate. He personally ushered in the democratic transition, announcing the victory of opposition candidate Vicente Fox on national television ahead of the official results.

Foxy Business (2000-2006). With Fox, Mexico entered the 21st century with a sluggish economy and a growing land shortage, prompting many to immigrate to the US. Soon after gaining a seat on the United Nations Security Council, Fox became the first to allow human rights observers into the country. On the southern front, he honored the San Andres Accords, ordering the army out of Zapatista Chiapas.

Electing Democracy (2006-Today). The 2006 election was one of Mexico’s most competitive yet, pitting Felipe Calderón, a former energy commissioner and member of Fox’s party, against the leftist mayor of Mexico City, Manuel López Obrador, who ran on the ticket of the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD). Throughout the campaign, Obrador was dogged by charges that he broke court orders in a land dispute case, which nearly derailed his candidacy. Analysts described the election as a ruling on the free market, with Calderón promising to follow in the footsteps of Fox’s free market policies and characterizing Obrador as a dangerous Hugo Chavez in the making. Obrador’s championship of the poor also highlighted persistent class cleavages in a country where 10% of the population controls almost half the wealth. In July 2006, Obrador lost to Calderón by less than 1% of the vote, fewer than 243,000 votes out of 41 million cast. He rejected the results and called for a recount, shutting down parts of Mexico City with protests. In September, Mexico’s electoral court confirmed Calderón’s win. In April 2007, Mexico City legalized abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, a watershed moment for this still largely Catholic country. Moreover, Mexicans have a large stake in the increasingly heated debate about Mexican immigration in the US. In June 2007, the US Congress defeated a bill that included provisions to legalize the status of many illegal immigrants in the US, create a temporary guest worker program, and enhance border security.