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Illegal Military Recruitment and Constitutional Law: The Judicial Protection of Forced Recruits in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2019

Timothy M. James
Timothy M. James*
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina, Beaufort, Beaufort, South Carolinatjames@uscb.edu
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Extract

Juana Tapia did not know how to sign her own name. Yet, on September 12, 1900, Tapia successfully initiated a suit in federal district court for her son's release from military service. Her son, Miguel Álvarez, had been imprisoned by a local prefect during the recent municipal elections in the city of Hermosillo, Sonora, for alleged criminal activities. Instead of consigning Álvarez to a criminal judge to be prosecuted for these alleged crimes, the local prefect had ordered Tapia's son to nearby Torim to serve in the Mexican army's twelfth battalion.

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Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 415 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2019 

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Footnotes

The author wishes to acknowledge the University of South Carolina's Research Initiative for Summer Engagement and the University of South Carolina Beaufort's Faculty Development Committee for their support of archival research crucial to the completion of this article. The author would also like to thank Robert Landrum and the journal's anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Finally, a special debt of gratitude goes to Erika Gómez and Tracy DeCanio for their help with research and making sense of the data, respectively.

References

1. Toca al juicio de amparo promovido por Miguel Álvarez por violación de artículo 5 y 16 de la Constitución Federal contra Prefecto Político de Hermosillo, 1900, Archivo Central de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación [hereafter ACSCJN], Fondo: Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación [hereafter SCJN], Tribunal Pleno, Serie: Amparo [hereafter Amparo], exp. 2333.

2. According to the procedural legislation in force, amparo decisions at the first instance or district judge level were automatically appealed to the Supreme Court for review. The Supreme Court could confirm or revoke or otherwise modify the first-instance decision. See Title 2, Chapter 6, Sections 8–9 of the Federal Code of Procedure of 1897.

3. The annual average of 700 is calculated using published sources for the years 1881, 1882, 1883, 1885, and 1888–89, and my own estimate of 870 granted cases for the year 1887. For a discussion of these published sources and my own estimates based on random samples, see the second-to-last section of this article. The historian Stephen Neufeld has estimated an annual average of 2,000 successful cases a year. This estimate is probably too high for reasons explored elsewhere in this article. For Neufeld's estimates, see his “Servants of the Nation: The Military in the Making of Modern Mexico, 1876–1911” (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2009), 64–66, 72.

4. Quoted in Soberanes, José Luis, “Algunas reflexiones sobre la ley de amparo de 1882,” in La Suprema Corte de Justicia a principios del porfirismo, 1877–1882, Cabrera, Lucio, ed. (Mexico City: Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, 1990), 959Google Scholar. All translations from the Spanish are my own unless otherwise specified.

5. For an alternative view, see Laborde, Ignacio Marván, “El constituyente de 1917: rupturas y continuidades,” in México: Un siglo de historia constitucional (1808–1917), Noriega, Cedilia and Salmerón, Alicia eds. (Mexico City: SCJN/Instituto Mora, 2009), 356Google Scholar. See also El Nacional 6, July 1898.

6. Rancaño, Mario Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal: 1898–1914, Vol. 1, La Justicia durante el Porfiriato y la Revolución, 1898–1914 (Mexico City: Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, 2010)Google Scholar, 3, 17, 29. See also Rancaño's, Ramírez “Ejército federal, jefes políticos, amparos, deserciones: 1872–1914,” Estudios de Historia moderna y contemporánea de México 47 (January–June 2014): 41–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal: 1898–1914, 18; my emphasis.

8. Victoria Livia Unzueta Reyes, “La justicia militar: un estudio comparativo (México (1855–1901) – Italia (1859–1896)” (PhD diss., Università degli Studi di Torino, 2005), chapt. 5.

9. Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal: 1898–1914, 18.

10. Unzueta, “La justicia militar,” 460–461.

11. Archer, Christon, “To Serve the King: Military Recruitment in Late Colonial Mexico,” Hispanic American Historical Review 55:2 (1975): 226–229CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Archer, “To Serve the King,” 229–231.

13. Archer, “To Serve the King,” 231.

14. Ortega, José Antonio Serrano, El contingente de sangre: los gobiernos estatales y departamentales y los métodos de reclutamiento del ejército permanente mexicano, 1824–1844 (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología and Historia/Instituto Mora, 1993)Google Scholar, chapt. 2.

15. See the regulation of militias of May 30, 1867, in Basilio José Arrillaga, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, bandos, reglamentos, circulares y providencias de los supremos poderes de los Estados-Unidos Mexicanos y otras autoridades de la unión formada de órden del Supremo Gobierno por el Lic. Basilio José Arrillaga, enero a diciembre de 1834 (Mexico City: Imprenta de J. M. Fernandez de Lara, 1835), 336–433.

16. Serrano, El contingente de sangre, 33.

17. Serrano, El contingente de sangre, 44–48.

18. Basilio José Arrillaga, Recopilación de leyes, decretos, bandos, reglamentos, circulares y providencias de los supremos poderes de los Estados-Unidos Mexicanos y otras autoridades de la unión formada de órden del Supremo Gobierno por el Lic. Basilio José Arrillaga …, 1839 (Mexico City: Imprenta de J.M. Fernandez de Lara, 1850), 13.

19. Serrano, El contingente de sangre, 75, 84–85.

20. Serrano, El contingente de sangre, 87.

21. Guardino, Peter, “Gender, Soldiering, and Citizenship in the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848,” American Historical Review 119:1 (February 2014): 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Fowler, Will, Military Political Identity and Reformism in Independent Mexico: An Analysis of the Memorias de Guerra (1821–1855), (London: University of London Institute of Latin American Studies, 1996), 39Google Scholar.

23. Serrano, El contingente de sangre, 81.

24. Memoria del Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Guerra y Marina, leída a las Cámaras del Congreso Nacional de la República Mexicana, en enero de 1844 (Mexico City: Impreso por Ignacio Cumplido, 1844), 90.

25. Thomson, Guy P. C., “Los indios y el servicio militar en el México decimonónico. ¿Leva o ciudadanía?,” in Indio, nación y comunidad en el México del siglo XIX, Ohmstede, Antonio Escobar, ed. (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos/Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1993), 207–252Google Scholar.

26. Manuel Dublán y José María Lozano, Legislación mexicana, ó colección completa de las disposiciones legislativas expedidas desde la independencia de la República, vol. 10 (Mexico City: Imprenta del Comercio de Dublán y Chávez, a cargo de M. Lara, 1873), 604.

27. This was not a government secret. See for example El Monitor Republicano April 28, 1887; Diario del Hogar, December 15, 1891; El Demócrata, January 22, 1895; El Siglo XIX, March 9, 1896; El Imparcial, October 29, 1897; and La Convención Radical Obrera, January 9, 1898.

28. Robert Martin Alexius, “The Army and Politics in Porfirian Mexico” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1976), 27, 32; El Amigo de la Verdad, January 19, 1895.

29. Gonzalbo, Fernando Escalante, Ciudadanos imaginarios (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1992), 176–177Google Scholar; Daniela Marino, “La modernidad a juicio: los pueblos de Huixquilucan en la transición jurídica (Estado de México, 1856–1911),” (PhD diss., Colegio de México, 2006), 149–150. Marino has described how this process worked during the Restored Republic and the Porfiriato in a largely indigenous municipality of the State of Mexico. Just six months after the passage of the Law of May 28, 1869, for example, the cabildo of Huixquilucan drafted six men to be sent as replacements in the permanent army. The men were selected not by chance but, as the acts of the cabildo explain, because they were noxious to the population. In other words, they were victims of the traditional practice of leva. In October 1872, however, the local authorities protested that they had no men to draft since there were no bums or malefactors currently residing in their community. Nonetheless, a few days later six men were sent as new recruits and then another four. As Marino makes clear, the ten men who were sent in 1872 were not malefactors or bums. They were simply the unlucky ones forced into military service by leva for reasons that had nothing to do with bad behavior.

30. This was the case for the state of Veracruz from August 13, 1869, until June 20, 1900. See Silvestre Moreno Cora, Tratado del juicio de amparo conforme a las sentencias de los tribunales federales (Mexico City: Tip. y Lit. ‘la Europea,’ de J. Aguilar Vera y Compañía, S. en C., 1902), 246–247.

31. Alexius, “The Army and Politics,” 38, 48.

32. Katz, Friedrich, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 291Google Scholar; Alexius, “The Army and Politics,” 32.

33. Toca al juicio de amparo promovido por Bartolo Cruz, 1883, ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 206–1.

34. Alexius, “The Army and Politics,” 71.

35. Mentz, Brígida von, “Trabajo minero y control social durante el Porfirato,” Historia Mexicana 50:3 (2001): 557, 595Google Scholar.

36. For example, Katz, Friedrich, “The Liberal Republic and the Porfiriato,” in Mexico since Independence, Bethel, Leslie, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 107Google Scholar; and Guerra, François-Xavier, México: del Antiguo Régimen a la revolución (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1988), 1:35Google Scholar.

37. Family members of some soldier-plaintiffs went directly before Mexico City's first District Court and filed amparo in 1879, according to one battalion commander who complained to the governor of the Federal District about the high numbers of discharges and the ease with which his soldiers were able to obtain amparo. He requested that the employees of the first District Court who were helping families with their petitions be investigated. See El Gobierno de Distrito sobre los abusos de que cometen los empleados de los juzgados de Distrito en los amparos, Archivo General de la Nación [hereafter AGN], Sría de Justicia, caja 89, exp. 147.

38. Non-lawyers who nonetheless made their living by providing legal counsel were referred to at the time as tinterillos or huizacheros. On the importance of these legal intermediaries and the various attempts to ban them from practicing, see González, Andrés Lira, “Abogados, tinterillos y huizacheros en el México del siglo XIX,” in Memoria del III Congreso de Historia del Derecho Mexicano, Fernández, José Luis Soberanes, ed. (Mexico City: UNAM, 1984), 375–392Google Scholar.

39. Memoria que el Secretario de Estado y del despacho de Guerra y Marina presenta al Congreso de la Unión en 30 de junio de 1883, vol. 1 (Mexico City: Tipografía y Litografia de ‘La Época,’ Ignacio Haro y Cía., 1884), 107.

40. Unzueta, “La justicia militar,” 449.

41. Barragán, José Barragán, Proceso de discusión de la Ley de Amparo de 1882 (Mexico City: UNAM, 1993), 493Google Scholar.

42. Vega, Fernando, La nueva ley de amparo de garantías individuales orgánica de los arts. 101 y 102 de la Constitución (Mexico City: Imprenta de J. Guzman, 1883), 104Google Scholar.

43. Cabrera, Lucio, La Suprema Corte de Justicia a principios del porfirismo, 1877–1882 (Mexico City: SCJN, 1990), 420–421Google Scholar.

44. Toca al incidente en el amparo promovido por José Marcelino en el Juzgado de Veracruz y queja del Juez de Distrito relativa a la circular expedida por el Ministerio de Guerra, Asuntos Económicos, 1880, exp. 73718, AGN, SCJN, base digital.

45. Cabrera, La Suprema Corte de Justicia a principios del porfirismo, 1877–1882, 420–421.

46. See for example Escoltas a Reemplazos, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (hereafter AHSDN), siglo XIX, año 1877, exp. 11758, 23.

47. Quoted in Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal, 18–19.

48. Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal, 18–19. Ramírez suggests that this practice became something of a standard operating procedure for battalion officers during much of the Porfiriato. In support, he cites an amparo case from 1904 involving Inés and Manuel Villegas, who were accused of banditry. However, in this case, as in others, the army eventually complied with the district court's orders. See Amparo of Martiniano Límón, 1904, AGN, Secretaría de Justicia, caja 491, exp. 3022. For another similar example, compare Alexius “The Army and Politics,” 62–63, with Amparo of Refugio Rosas Pérez, 1887, AGN, Secretaría de Justicia, caja 213, exp. 1990. Here again what has been assumed to be an example of noncompliance turns out to be an example of delayed compliance. This seems to indicate that this strategy was not as successful as historians have sometimes assumed, although more research needs to be done.

49. For González's conflictive relationship with the federal judicial power more generally, see Coerver, Don M., The Porfirian Interregnum: The Presidency of Manuel González of Mexico, 1880–1884 (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

50. Granados, Ricardo García, Historia de México desde la restauración de la republica en 1867, hasta la caída de Huerta (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1956), 1: 194–195Google Scholar (for Montes); and Coerver, Porfirian Interregnum, 73–75 (for Vallarta).

51. Acuerdo pleno, August 27, 1880, ACSCJN, Libros de Actas.

52. For the opinion of a prominent jurist, see Vega, La nueva ley de amparo de garantías individuales orgánica de los arts. For the opinion of a judge, see Alejo Arriola, 1883, AGN, Secretaría de Justicia, caja 136, exp. 565, fol. 3.

53. For two examples of judicial complaints after 1882, see the amparo of Filomeno Almanza, 1883, AGN, Secretaría de Justicia, caja 136, exp. 539; and Queja del Juez de Dist. de Querétaro contra el Jefe de reemplazos por su conducta respecto de los soldados que piden amparo, 1887, AGN, SCJN, Asuntos Económicos, exp 44664, base digital.

54. See for example AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1887, cajas 210–215, exps. 875–2206; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1889, caja 243, exps. 929–2089; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1890, caja 259, exps. 1232–1837; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1891, caja 271, exps. 1271–1770; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1892, caja 284, exps. 1123–1491; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, caja 303, exps. 1190–1496; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1895, cajas 314–317, exps. 1301–1772; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1896, cajas 328–329, exps. 1490–1961; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1897, cajas 338–341, exps. 1386–2042; AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1898, cajas 350–354, exps. 1399–2117; and AGN, Sría. de Justicia, 1899, cajas 364–366, exps. 1557–1915 and exps. 2033–2335.

55. Alexius, “The Army and Politics in Porfirian Mexico,” 64–67. Compare this to Neufeld, “Servants of the Nation,” 65–66.

56. The total number of cases is based on the complete inventory of digitized files in ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparos. The sample of cases for the years 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1883 was determined by reading every fifth file from the complete inventory. A 20-percent random sample was taken for the years 1877, 1882, 1887, 1892, and 1897, using an online random number generator (www.random.org) after assigning each case in the inventory its own unique number. It should be noted that the year noted corresponds to the date that an amparo enters the Supreme Court, not the year of its final resolution. In addition to the cases above, I consulted all of the published cases related to the leva in the Semanario Judicial for the years 1880 to 1897, but these are not included in the table.

57. Amparo Jesús Martínez contra la Justicia militar que lo condenó por deserción, Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Época 3, vol. 2, 718. See also Moreno, Juicio de amparo, 244.

58. Moreno, Juicio de amparo, 245–247.

59. Moreno, Juicio de amparo, 245–247.

60. Amparo Pedro Nolasco, contra su consignación al servicio de las armas, Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Época 2, vol. 10, 674.

61. Toca al juicio de amparo promovido por Manuel Hernandes, 1889, ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 354.

62. Amparo Ignacio Flores, Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Segunda Época, vol. 1, 34,

63. Toca al juicio de amparo … Virginio [sic] Vazquez, 1885, ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 17.

64. With the benefit of hindsight, this appears to be something of a precondition for their rate of success especially in light of the socioeconomic status of most soldier-plaintiffs. An elaborate defense would have required more resources than most soldier-plaintiffs had at their disposal.

65. Toca al juicio de amparo promovido por [sic] a favor de Francisco Mora contra su consignación al servicio militar, 1883, ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 194. See also Toca al juicio de amparo promovido por Bartolo Cruz, 1883, ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 206–1. In this case, the Court took the additional step of ordering the circuit court of Yucatan to investigate and bring charges of responsibility against the district judge if applicable for failing to follow the established jurisprudence of the Court on this question.

66. Amparo Pablo García, Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Segunda Época, vol. 9, 721.

67. Toca al juicio de amparo … Martiniano Arrieta, ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 761.

68. Amparo Arrieta Martiniano, 1887, AGN, Secretaría de Justicia, caja 210, exp. 900.

69. Toca al juicio de amparo promovido por Francisco Aguilar por violación de los artículos 5 y 16 de la Constitución Federal contra su consignación al ejército, 1899, ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 675. Aguilar was discharged on May 17, 1899, some 106 days after his sister filed amparo on his behalf.

70. Moreno, Juicio de amparo, 243.

71. Unzueta, “La justicia militar”; Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal.

72. Unzueta, “La justicia militar,” 450–458; Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal, 17.

73. In the majority of stayed cases that I read, the reason given in support of this resolution was that the plaintiff had already been set free from military service.

74. Lista nominal de individuos amparados contra su consignación al servicio militar en enero de 1885, Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Segunda Época, vol. 8, 172.

75. Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Segunda Época, vol. 8, 274; vol. 8, 423; vol. 8, 634; vol. 9, 160; vol. 9, 215; vol. 9, 345; vol. 9, 414; vol. 9, 559; vol. 9, 642.

76. Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Segunda Época, vol. 14 (January-December 1888).

77. There were 603, to be exact. Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Segunda Época, vol. 16, 247; vol. 16, 422; vol. 16, 548; vol. 16, 668; vol. 16, 834; vol. 16, 1074; vol. 17, 201; vol. 17, 277; vol. 17, 338; vol. 17, 425; vol. 17, 568; and vol. 17, 672.

78. Although the Semanario Judicial continued to publish individual CSA decisions for these years, the number of decisions actually published have no relation to the universe of data in CSA or any other type of case.

79. For the year 1893, Unzueta states that there were three cases, and Ramírez says there were 18. However, more than 18 cases were decided by the district court of Guanajuato alone in the first seven months of 1893. These examples can be found in ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 17, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 145, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 146, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 149, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 246, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 290, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, Expedientes 462–464, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exps. 574–575, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 602, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 753, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 755, 1893; ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exp. 889, 1893; and ACSCJN, SCJN, Tribunal Pleno, Amparo, exps. 1085 and 1086, 1893. In none of the cases listed above was amparo denied by the judge of Guanajuato or the Supreme Court, but a number of cases were stayed for various reasons.

80. Ramírez, Los amparos entre el Ejército Federal: 1898–1914, 17.

81. These laws can be found in Cabrera, Lucio, La Suprema Corte de Justicia sus leyes y sus hombres (Mexico City: SCJN, 1985)Google Scholar.

82. Garner, Paul, Porfirio Díaz (London: Pearson Education Ltd., 2001), 131Google Scholar.

83. Villegas, Daniel Cosío, La Constitución de 1857 y sus críticos, 4th ed. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica), 86–101Google Scholar.

84. Trillo, Mauricio Tenorio and Galvarriato, Aurora Gómez, El Porfiriato (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, 2006), 111–112Google Scholar.