The Hemisphere: A SHORT HISTORY OF MEXICO

HISTORY, as Mexicans see it, is a largely calamitous chronology of conflict with troublesome foreigners.

The first, Conquistador Hernán Cortés, landed near Veracruz A.D. 1519 with horses and 600 men, defeated the Aztecs under Montezuma because the Indians believed the Spaniards to be brothers of a neglected god. Spain ruled for nearly 300 years before Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a parish priest in the village of Dolores, led forth a ragged army of Indians under the banner of Mexico’s own Virgin of Guadalupe, sparked an uprising that ended Spanish rule in 1821.

The next foreigner was Yanqui Sam Houston, who defeated Antonio López de Santa Anna at the battle of San Jacinto in 1836 and won the independence of Texas, which nine years later joined the U.S. In 1846 and 1847 the U.S. sent Generals Zachary (“Old Rough and Ready”) Taylor and Winfield (“Old Fuss and Feathers”) Scott into Mexico to defeat Santa Anna again, seize all the land from northern California to Texas.

Dreaming of empire, France’s Napoleon III sent mild-mannered, well-intentioned Austrian Archduke Maximilian to rule Mexico while the U.S. was busy fighting its Civil War. But Napoleon had to abandon “Emperor” Maximilian to the advancing forces of Mexican Patriot Benito Juárez, and the pathetic Austrian went gallantly before a firing squad in Mexican shirt and cowboy trousers, dividing his few remaining gold coins among his executioners.

Strongman Porfirio Diáz took over after Juárez in 1876, ruled with an iron hand, justifying his protective dictatorship by sighing, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the U.S.” He was overthrown by the 1910 Revolution, which became the almost mystical source of reform—land, church, social, economic—and is still the major influence in Mexico’s national life today. It was led by Francisco Madero, a 5-ft. 2-in. vegetarian, teetotaler and spiritualist with brown beard, piping voice and a nervous tic. Madero was supported by the backwoods guerrillas Francisco (“Pancho”) Villa and Emiliano Zapata. But U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson cooperated actively against Madero, supported Victoriano Huerta as a better friend of U.S. busi ness interests. When Madero was killed, Zapata and Pancho Villa joined with Venustiano Carranza in a new revolt. In Washington Woodrow Wilson realized Huerta could not maintain stability and switched U.S. support to Carranza, saying. “I intend to teach the South American republics to elect good men.” A U.S. fleet invaded Veracruz in 1914; Carranza won. but repudiated the U.S. intervention. Nevertheless, two years later, Wilson ordered General John J. (“Black Jack”) Pershing into Mexico on a fruitless pursuit of Pancho Villa after Villa had raided Columbus, N.Mex.

After Carranza, Mexico began electing its Presidents, in 1924 chose Plutarco Elías Calles. Calles quickly turned into a dictator, suppressed the Roman Catholic Church ruthlessly. He established a dynasty of puppets that ran until 1934, when Lázaro Cárdenas was elected.

Cárdenas, a socialist-idealist, turned out to be no puppet. He threw Calles out of the country and carried on the revolution. He nationalized the oil industry, expropriated the huge haciendas. Peasants took the land that had fed the nation, used it at first to feed only themselves. Finally, the country’s communal-farm system evolved.

Cárdenas’ successor, Manuel Avila Camacho, got Mexico’s industrialization into full swing during World War II. To fight the war, the U.S. needed everything that Mexico produced—cotton, metals, ores. The railroads were antiquated and creaky, but at least they were submarine-proof. U.S. dollars tumbled in, exports rumbled out. Many rich ex-landowners built factories to produce the goods Mexico could no longer import.

After the war, President Miguel Alemán plunged into deficit-spending on spectacular airports, dams, power plants. He winked at corruption in government, got rich quick. Puritanical Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, who followed Alemán in 1952, took the role of consolidator. He hooked up power lines and irrigation canals to Alemán’s dams, cleaned up corruption, opened new areas for food growing. Quietly, he encouraged foreign investors to flood into Mexico with capital, machinery, ideas to feed the boom that incoming President Adolfo López Mateos inherited this week.