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The Veracruz Massacre of 1879
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
On the 23rd of November 1876 Porfirio Díaz rode into Mexico City at the head of a “regenerating army” that had just toppled liberal President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada from power through armed insurrection. This was not an unusual incident in Mexico. Since the establishment of the Republic only two presidents had left office voluntarily at the end of their elected terms. The rest had all been deposed, usually after only a year or so in executive power, with the notable exception of Benito Juárez, who died in the office that he apparently intended to retain indefinitely, having held onto it in one way and another for fifteen years.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1976
References
1 Details of these foreign obligations are contained in despatch No. 803 from U. S. Minister Plenipotentiary John W. Foster to the State Department, dated October 8, 1878. The National Archives in Washington have microfilmed these records, and this despatch is in the microcopy series 97, roll 61, hereafter to be cited in the format M97R61. The total foreign debt, exclusive of the repudiated Maximilian obligations, was $131,914,665, including principal and interest, as of the year 1877.
2 No. 701, Foster, 4 May 1878, M97R59.
3 No. 777, Foster, 7 Sep 1878, M97R60.
4 No. 938, Foster, 28 Apr 1879, M97R63.
5 No. 320, U. S. Consulate at Veracruz, Trowbridge to Hunter, M183R12.
6 No. 982, Foster, 30 Jun 1879, M97R63.
7 Included in Volume XXV of the Diaz Archives published for the Mexican government is a 62 page discussion by the Editor, Alberto María Carreño, of all the documents that he could unearth relative to the massacre at Veracruz. This quotation from Zayas Enríquez appears on pages 16 and 17 of this Carreño article. Subsequent references to this source will be cited simply, “Carreño.”
8 All these telegrams appear in Carreño, pp. 34–35. The telegram which the Minister of War sent to Mier y Terán, which follows, is quoted by Carreño with his own parenthetical hints of how some of the infinitives might be treated. His Spanish text follows: “Enterado de tus tres mensajes de esta noche. Que Vela con el ‘Independencia’ perseguir (persiga) al ‘Libertad’ hasta capturarlo, y si se logra, que fusile luego todos los oficiales y el díez por ciento de la tripulación; hacerlo con los comprometidos en esa campaña, y despues dar parte, y con los oficiales que haber (habia) mandar (mandado) traer de allá y que se encuentra en esa ciudad. Felipe Roblada que debe estar allí mandar (manda) buscarlo por extramures y que corres (corra) egual suerte.”
9 Ibid., p. 36.
10 No. 982, Foster, 30 Jun 1879, M97R63.
11 No. 1009, Foster, 8 Aug 1879, M97R64.
12 No. 101, Phillip Morgan (successor in 1880 to John W. Foster as Minister Plenipotentiary in Mexico City), 16 Sep 1880, M97R67.
13 Carreño, pp. 17–19.
14 The two Enríquez quotations are from Carreño. For the two others, see the following: Priestley, Herbert Graham, The Mexican Nation (New York, 1930), p. 377;Google Scholar and Creelman, James, Díaz, Master of Mexico (New York, 1911), p. 361.Google Scholar
15 An enclosure to No. 1036, Foster, 20 Sep 1879, M97R64 gives a detailed account of the experience of an Ivan Demetrio, a ship captain operating out of Mobile, Alabama to Tuxpam and Veracruz.
16 No. 1029, Foster, 17 Sep 1879, M97R64.
17 No. 105, Morgan, 21 Sep 1880, M97R67.
18 No. 303, Foster, 11 Jun 1875, M97R52.