A Mexican Dilemma: The Mexico City Ayuntamiento and the Question of Loyalty, 1846-1848

When war broke out in 1846 between Mexico and the United States, many Mexicans received the news with misgivings, but few could have predicted the chain of military disasters that followed. The ease with which invading armies cut to the heart of the country cruelly exposed the weakness of the national defense and discouraged the most valiant. Mexico enjoyed many impressive material and human advantages, while the invading armies were hardly more than bantam-sized and often dangerously exposed. Also the Mexican will to resist remained firm despite repeated defeats. Soldiers in the field, as well as most civilians, were incensed at the presence of foreign invaders on their soil and almost frantically eager to eject them.

The major problem—the source of Mexico’s weakness and frustration—was that she lacked a government able to exploit her advantages and transmute her stubborn will into effective action. Two decades of revolution and illegitimacy had wrecked her political institutions; president and congress had lost their capacity to focus and nerve Mexican resistance. Rough handling had soiled their reputations and stripped their positions of dignity and authority. A tainted office, men assumed, automatically tainted the officeholder, and all government leadership sank into disrepute.

The aversion with which Mexicans viewed governmental activities extended to the war effort almost from its inception. The first military defeats were followed by two successful revolutions within six months, and these seemed to tear all sense of integrity from government direction of the war. Embittered, many men simply withdrew from public affairs to join the great inert majority of Mexican society. Others turned for leadership to the community, the Church, or the political action groups that gave Mexico the semblance of a party system. In this process the obligations of citizenship became subject to different and sometimes conflicting interpretations. What seemed patriotism to one Mexican was apt to seem treason to another. In truth both terms had lost all normal meaning; neither had any necessary relationship to statute law or even to the government. Instead, each Mexican defined them according to his loyalties within Mexican society itself.

Residents of the cities that lay in the path of the invasion had to make an especially difficult choice among courses of action. Here the price of mistakes was higher than elsewhere, the conflict between public and individual self-preservation more distinct, and the fear of betrayal from above more pronounced. The experiences of such cities during the first year of the war were universally disheartening. The Mexican army did not defend El Paso and Chihuahua, and when local citizens attempted a defense, Alexander Doniphan’s invading Missourians crushed them. Matamoros and Tampico both contained substantial army garrisons, but when the enemy approached, these were withdrawn and the cities laid open to enemy occupation. In Monterrey and Veracruz, to be sure, the army attempted to make a stand. The residents of both cities suffered through siege and house-to-house fighting, only to see the army withdraw and leave them also to the mercies of the invader. In April 1847 Santa Anna was defeated at Cerro Gordo, trying to halt Winfield Scott’s inland march from Veracruz. He pulled his remaining troops northward through Puebla, which he abandoned, and began to reorganize his defenses. When Scott occupied Puebla a week later, the inhabitants received him with a noticeable absence of hostility, and the Americans established what was to remain a secure headquarters and base camp within the city. Mexicans in other parts of the country severely criticized Puebla for this cooperation, but the behavior of people and city officials was so uniform, that their actions took on an anonymous character. This protected individuals from the sting of the criticism, and Puebla stayed on the path of order and accommodation.

Once the fate of Puebla had been settled, the most critical phase of the invasion began, and the focus of the war shifted to Mexico City. As the American army rested and refitted in Puebla, Mexican forces gathered south of the capital. All the pressures and tensions experienced in other war-torn cities now appeared in Mexico City, heightened, however, by its vital role in national affairs. As elsewhere, these pressures affected all segments of society, but in Mexico City they were focused on the ayuntamiento, the heart of the municipal government. Torn between its responsibilities to city and nation, the ayuntamiento faced every dilemma produced by the war and by the uncertainties of Mexican politics.

The ayuntamiento of Mexico City consisted of a twenty-man council and a first alcalde—roughly the equivalent of a mayor—who presided over council meetings and served as the chief administrative officer of the city. The council had both legislative and administrative authority, and in normal times it dealt mainly with routine municipal affairs—supervision of the local police force, city sanitation, licensing of business establishments, regulation of water resources, and the all-important levying and collection of taxes. In the spring of 1847 the ayuntamiento was controlled by moderados—men committed to a cautious brand of Mexican liberalism that endorsed federalism, republican institutions, the elective process, and greater democratization in Mexican life, but forced to take refuge in gradualism because of their emotional attachment to the status quo. The first alcalde, also a moderado, was Manuel Reyes y Veramendi, who effectively dominated the actions of his council with the close cooperation of Leandro Estrada, the able ayuntamiento secretary.

The moderado orientation of the ayuntamiento in the spring of 1847 was important, for at the national level a coalition of moderados and santanistas controlled the government. It was not a comfortable coalition, but it did create sympathy in the municipal council for at least the civil arm of the government, where the moderados had most influence. When Mexico City first came under direct threat by Scott’s army there was consequently some basis for cooperation between municipal and federal authorities, which depended largely on the mutual confidence that existed among men with similar ideological views. On April 11 the ayuntamiento thus authorized the use of municipal employees for building fortifications around the capital, indicating its willingness, at this stage, to defend the city.¹

The defeat at Cerro Gordo followed shortly, and the federal government then enacted defensive measures of its own. Congress granted Acting President Pedro Anaya emergency wartime powers, and on April 26 Anaya outlined the way these powers were to be used. When a state of siege was declared for any part of Mexico he authorized military authorities to seize complete control immediately and suspend normal personal and property rights. Every citizen was subject to conscription for work upon fortifications or for military duty, and those suspected of favoring the enemy were to be expelled from threatened areas.² Shortly afterward Anaya authorized a voluntary national guard, and on May 1, as Puebla succumbed to occupation, the Federal District was declared to be in a state of siege.³

These actions seemed to indicate a gradually stiffening will to resist, but this was deceptive. In spite of Anaya’s actions a growing spirit of distrust and uneasiness spread throughout the capital and affected the moderados strongly. Rumors persisted that Santa Anna intended to return to Mexico City and assume the office of the presidency—which was legally his—in order to establish a military dictatorship, and since many believed these rumors, the federal legislature drifted into helpless inaction.

Then, on May 18, Santa Anna returned to the capital. The tempo of events quickened as a natural response to his energies, but the anticipated move to establish a dictatorship did not take place.⁴ Instead he even lifted censorship from the city’s press for a time, but when newspapers began to discuss defensive preparations within the city he reimposed the censorship more strictly than before.⁵ Santa Anna then levied a special forced contribution of one million pesos on the Mexican public, and he gave new impetus to the work upon fortifications around the capital, which had apparently progressed very slowly during the weeks before his return.⁶ The ayuntamiento, which had remained in the shadows since its actions on April 11, was then forced into an open position.

The ayuntamiento’s response to increased defensive preparations took the form of a letter dated June 2, 1847, signed by the members of the council and addressed to the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Gobernación.⁷ In this letter they protested against siege preparations, on the grounds that Mexico City was indefensible—a reversal of their earlier willingness to fortify the capital. While the letter suggested growing uneasiness at the prospect of a fight for the city, it indicated rejection of government leadership in the coming crisis—primarily because Santa Anna had taken control away from the moderados.

But the government refused to condone this rejection. On June 7 the Secretary of War, Lino Alcorta, replied sharply to the letter, denouncing the council for its unwillingness to defend the capital. He declared that it was impossible for the government to alter its plans to defend Mexico City, and that work upon fortifications would continue.⁸ It did continue, and the government was apparently displeased with the support received by the ayuntamiento, for on June 28 it again declared Mexico City to be in a “vigorous state of siege,” and placed the entire Federal District under complete military control.⁹ On protests from the ayuntamiento the government returned limited jurisdiction to civil authorities with a clear understanding that they must bow to the orders of military authorities.¹⁰ During the following weeks tensions gradually mounted as the day of Scott’s approach grew near, and the ayuntamiento found itself besieged with daily requisitions for laborers, carpenters, wagons, and dray horses to aid in the construction of defensive positions. The military imposed press censorship in a new and stricter form on July 11, suspending all metropolitan newspapers except El Diario del Gobierno.¹¹ Price controls were also imposed on foodstuffs to curb the effects of hoarding, profiteering, and the diminishing flow of farm products into the city. As the situation became more tense many families began to leave Mexico City.¹²

After the first of August General Scott, concluding a series of futile armistice proposals to the Mexican government, began his movement toward the capital. The tempo of activity on the city’s barricades then increased noticeably; military requisitions for laborers, which had averaged from two to three hundred men a day, climbed rapidly to seven hundred, and then still higher. By August 10 over one thousand civilian workers labored on the gates, the causeways, the Castle of Chapultepec, and other natural defensive positions around the city.¹³ The ayuntamiento also attempted to secure hospital facilities for the influx of wounded expected from the forthcoming battles, but it received scant encouragement from private and charity hospitals, which claimed to be already overflowing.¹⁴

Between August 18 and 20 Scott’s advancing army defeated the Mexicans twice, at Padierna and Churubusco. Santa Anna then agreed to an armistice to discuss peace terms, but he could not agree to the severe demands of the Americans, and on September 7 the armistice was ended. Scott then moved upon the city’s defenses. Molino del Rey fell on September 8, and on September 13 he captured the Castle of Chapultepec. From there he moved swiftly across two causeways leading into the capital, and before darkness fell on the 13th he was in the outskirts of the city.

The seeming ease with which Scott invested Chapultepec, and the suddenness of his descent from there into the city, created near panic conditions. The streets were filled with broken and wandering remnants of a beaten army mixed with frightened civilians, many bent only on escaping the enemy. As evening fell, amid the rattle of musket fire and the boom of cannons from the garitas, two separate groups met to decide the fate of the capital. The first was Santa Anna and his major military commanders, the second the ayuntamiento of Mexico City. Santa Anna had first to decide whether to make a block-by-block defense of the capital, which would necessarily entail great damage to the city itself, or to abandon it to Scott. No one really believed in the possibility of driving the Americans from the city, for the army was disorganized and its morale badly shaken after its latest reverses. In addition, the populace of Mexico City, as well as the members of the ayuntamiento, had seemed lethargic and uncooperative in all efforts to defend the city. The combination of circumstances induced Santa Anna to abandon the capital without further delay. It was one of the most fateful decisions of the war.

The army carried out this decision immediately, and by one in the morning of September 14 most of the soldiers were on the move to the nearby village of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The departure of the troops while the city was under siege raised the danger of anarchy, for even as Santa Anna’s soldiers began their withdrawal, looting broke out in the central area.

The ayuntamiento held the second of the important meetings on the night of the 13th, and, forewarned of the military evacuation, made a hard decision of its own. Shortly before midnight it appointed a committee of three to approach General Scott and arrange for the surrender of the city. The committee was instructed to insist on certain terms, particularly the exclusion of counterguerrillas from Mexico City and protection of public and Church property.¹⁵ Scott refused to negotiate surrender terms, however, and sent a stiff note to the council stating that some people within the city were still firing on his troops. If the firing did not halt within an hour, he warned, he would treat the city as if it had been taken by assault—in other words, it would be sacked. This threat was enough for the ayuntamiento, and though it was already well past midnight, cease-fire orders were immediately circulated throughout the capital.¹⁶

The morning of September 14 dawned over an uneasy city. Despite the ayuntamiento’s cease-fire orders, the sound of sporadic gunfire indicated that some citizens and stray soldiers had not given up the fight. The worried council dispatched a letter to Scott disclaiming all responsibility for the firing and requesting an early meeting with him, as soon—the note said—as he had rested.¹⁷ Scott ignored any touch of graciousness, however, as long as Mexicans were still firing at his troops and bluntly informed the ayuntamiento that he would turn his artillery on every building that he suspected of harboring even a single sniper. The ayuntamiento quickly issued another proclamation exhorting the inhabitants of the capital to give up their resistance. “While Mexicans were able to fight,” the proclamation read, “they fought nobly. And when fortune deserted us, when the army abandoned the capital, it became clear that further hostilities on our part, instead of helping the country, would be imprudent, and even censurable under these circumstances. Leave to the nation, then, affairs that concern it and it alone. The duty of the unarmed inhabitants of the capital is to conduct themselves in a moderate and peaceful manner.”¹⁸

With the support of the ayuntamiento assured, Scott began to move into the city. Snipers continued to fire at his troops, and he kept his promise to return fire with artillery. His cannon, together with the appeal of the ayuntamiento, soon brought even scattered resistance to an end. Meanwhile, refugees erroneously informed Santa Anna that the resistance against Scott amounted to a mass uprising. Abandoning a march toward the American supply base at Puebla, he headed for the capital again, hoping to find Scott beleaguered and ready for the kill. When he reached the Garita de Peralvillo in the city’s edge, he learned otherwise.¹⁹ Disheartened and embittered at the role of the ayuntamiento, he turned his army once again from the city, but before he left, he drafted a blunt letter to Manuel Reyes y Veramendi:²⁰

Santa Anna concluded by warning Veramendi to dissolve his-council rather than furnish supplies to the Americans. Veramendi was shocked and surprised at Santa Anna’s rebuke, which he regarded as “no less cruel than unmerited.”²¹ He drafted an immediate response, protesting the purity of his motives and calling attention to his long service to his country. His proclamation, he insisted, as well as the rest of his conduct had “neither sprung, nor could it spring, from any origin than to spare the innocent people of this capital the disasters, the sorrow, the weeping, and the desolation to which it has been cruelly condemned.”²² Veramendi noted that no requests for aid or supplies had yet been received from Scott’s head-quarters, but “if they do you need not doubt that I shall bear closely in mind my duty to my country and my duty to myself.” He closed his letter by threatening to resign his office because of Santa Anna’s rebuke, while continuing privately to “deplore the painful and dangerous situation into which the heroic nation . . . has been led.”

The slur on his own leadership did not escape Santa Anna, and he initiated a second exchange of letters in which the lines of division between the two men were even more clearly drawn. Santa Anna again condemned Veramendi for the “shameful” and “reprehensible” nature of his “antipatriotic proclamation,” charging that only cowardice or loss of reason could have prompted a man to take such action. He also reacted strongly to Veramendi’s complaint of having been abandoned, and rose in defense of the army:²³

Santa Anna’s position was thus clearly defined. The actions of Veramendi and the ayuntamiento in easing Scott’s entry into the city had been shameful, if not treasonous; circumstances had not warranted cooperation; and its continuance would bring severe repercussions for the members of the city’s ruling body. Veramendi was unwilling to accept this interpretation, however, and he attempted to place the actions of the ayuntamiento in perspective:²⁴

Veramendi’s second letter to Santa Anna ended the dialogue, for on September 16 Santa Anna abandoned his plans for returning to the capital and turned again toward Puebla. At the same time he announced his resignation as president of Mexico. Already, on September 7, he had provided that if he were captured the presidency would devolve upon his constitutional successor, the president of the Supreme Court, Manuel de la Peña y Peña. Now, discouraged by defeat and anxious to lighten his burdens, he formally transferred executive power to this man.²⁵

In effect, Santa Anna was turning his civil authority over to the moderados to make of it what they could, but the federal government had in most respects virtually ceased to exist. Peña y Peña established a headquarters of sorts in Toluca and began the task of reorganization. Working on the assumption that the various state governments in Mexico were still operating effectively, he appealed to the governors to send representatives to the city of Querétaro, where he intended to convene the national congress and establish a temporary capital.²⁶ Through these efforts deputies were gradually induced to come to Querétaro, though it took more than a month to establish a congressional quorum.

The members of the ayuntamiento had good reason to be relieved by the transfer of the presidency, for not only did this neutralize the threat posed by Santa Anna, but it enabled them to work closely again with their fellow moderados in directing national policy. In the meantime, the occupation of the capital was producing problems of its own. Reports that gangs of hoodlums were terrorizing sections of the city increased the ayuntamiento’s anxiety to restore law and order, but to do so would require further cooperation with the Americans.²⁷ The council struck up a working relationship with the office of General John Quitman, whom General Scott had appointed military governor in the capital, and however friendless the arrangement, it proved effective in bringing the city under control. Scott’s troops gradually spread throughout the city, taking quarters for the most part in public buildings. When they expostulated at the sight of rocks and other missiles piled on the roofs of several dwellings for obviously hostile use, the ayuntamiento ordered the objects removed at once.²⁸ A friar named Celedonio Domeco de Jarauta had emerged as a hero in the street fighting against Scott; mounted on a charger and alternately brandishing flag and lance he led the residents of the barrios of Santa Catarina and Santa Ana in spirited attacks against the Americans.²⁹ The ayuntamiento promptly protested to the office of the archbishop and asked church authorities to discourage further fighting.³⁰ Gradually all open resistance to the Americans came to an end, and public order was marred only by random acts of violence by Mexicans or occupation troops.

With the return of public order the ayuntamiento achieved a major objective. An urban police force working in concert with the American military police once more patrolled the city, and civil and criminal courts resumed their functions, broadening their jurisdiction to all matters not deemed to be “political cases” or involving American military personnel. Meanwhile the government of the Federal District had ceased to exist, for its officials fled with Santa Anna’s army. The ayuntamiento moved in to fill the void and put the entire District under its control.³¹

A particularly difficult problem was the collection of taxes in the absence of the federal government, for it was compounded by two special demands which Scott made upon the ayuntamiento. The first was that the city assume responsibility for feeding the three thousand Mexicans whom he had taken prisoner in recent battles; the second was that the council make a $150,000 “contribution” to the American army for the purchase of supplies, care of wounded soldiers and “other necessary military purposes.”³² In order that the ayuntamiento might be able to honor these demands, Scott authorized it to assume all tax collecting powers within the city, including those formerly held by the federal government. The city took over the federal tobacco monopoly and the mail revenues, and it reinstituted the unpopular alcabalas—the internal customs levied largely on farm produce at the city gates on its way to market.³³ Even these measures did not produce the $150,000 quickly enough to suit Scott, and the ayuntamiento was forced to borrow the money privately. The price of poverty ran high, for in addition to pledging repayment from future tax returns, the city was forced to pay a commission of fifteen percent to the money lenders.³⁴

Scott’s severe demands upon the ayuntamiento cut short any hope that the two authorities might submerge their differences in a spirit of free cooperation. The primary purpose of the ayuntamiento was to insure the safety of the city, and though it acceded to Scott’s financial demands it became recalcitrant when this safety was threatened. As early as October 5 signs of friction began to appear. The newspaper El Monitor Republicano reported several “outrages” committed against Mexicans by American patrols or individual soldiers, and when the American military authorities threatened to punish the newspaper for libelous actions they learned that the reports were based on police reports supplied by the ayuntamiento. The North American, an English-language occupation newspaper, subsequently observed that “things look a little squally for the Señor Reyis [sic] Veramendi and his Secretary.”³⁵ Relations between the ayuntamiento and the occupation authorities grew even cooler during the following two months, as the city administration increased its opposition to Scott’s demands.

One factor that influenced the actions of the ayuntamiento during October and November was the gradual re-establishment of the federal government at Querétaro under the control of moderados. Peña y Peña and his cabinet, convinced that it would be foolhardy to continue the war, were determined to sign a peace treaty quickly under as favorable terms as possible.³⁶ As the ayuntamiento found the direction of national interests in the hands of men it could trust, it became more willing to accept temporary hardship that might strengthen Peña y Peña’s bargaining position. A general stiffening became noticeable in the attitude and actions of the ayuntamiento. It took an interest in Mexican officers still in the city and gave money to several of them—which The North American claimed enabled the officers to rejoin the army—and clashed with the military government over other Mexican officers still held prisoner.³⁷

The increased independence of the ayuntamiento provoked corresponding hostility on the part of the Americans, first in the occupation press, and then in the actions of the military government. Two English-language newspapers had been established in the capital by journalists following Scott’s army, The North American and Daily American Star. The North American, edited by William A. Peoples, began to complain about the ayuntamiento around the first of November, attacking the council’s support of Mexican army officers and its alleged laxness in the upkeep of city streets and the Alameda.³⁸

The newspaper also questioned the way in which the ayuntamiento dispensed the tax revenues which it had inherited from the federal government. Once raised, the question of taxation quickly became a major issue.³⁹ The alcabala was especially unpopular among the urban poor, on whom it weighed heavily, and among peasants carrying their produce to market. The extreme liberals in Mexico City—the puros—opposed this tax because it discriminated against the lower classes, but the less egalitarian ayuntamiento saw in it mainly an important source of revenue. This difference of opinion on a single measure exemplified the more general division between moderados and puros when it came to the practical task of governing.

The Americans now intervened in what would ordinarily have been a purely domestic issue. On December 17 The North American endorsed the views of a Mexican “study group” which attacked the alcabalas as vicious and also accused the ayuntamiento of influencing municipal court justices to prejudice their decisions against any Mexican known to have had friendly dealings with the Americans.⁴⁰ At the same time, General Scott intervened in the taxation issue by prohibiting the collection of alcabalas after January 1.⁴¹ By this time, the ayuntamiento had other problems besides the collection of alcabalas and was fighting for its own existence. Scott’s decision on the taxation issue was but part of a general move against the council, and he had already decided upon its removal, to judge from his other actions.

According to a law of July 14, 1830, elections for the ayuntamiento were to be held each December. Residents of the capital speculated whether the elections would actually be held in 1847, for the suspension of federal authority and the imposition of martial law by the Americans clearly created a special situation, and there was room for argument that the normal elective process should he suspended until after the occupation had ended. There were two other important reasons for suspending the elections. The personnel of the ayuntamiento seemed to have gained a following in Mexico City for their growing independence from the Americans, but their enforced cooperation with Scott in some areas had also created enemies.⁴² A well-organized puro group, led by the able Francisco Suárez Iriarte, promised hot opposition in the elections. In short, the re-election of the existing ayuntamiento was not a certainty.

In Querétaro, where Pedro Anaya had been elected interim president to succeed Peña y Peña, this fact also became evident, and the moderado government did not want to see the ayuntamiento replaced. Consequently Anaya decreed on November 26 that “at no point in the Republic in possession of the enemy shall elections of any kind be held.” He added that “at those places in which . . . elections are cancelled, the present authorities will continue in the discharge of their functions until circumstances shall permit the election to go on in conformity with the laws.”⁴³ In Mexico City The North American scorned Anaya’s order: “Now if it should happen that the Yankees take upon themselves to order this election,” it conjectured, “what will become of this proclamation? We tremble for it.”⁴⁴

Despite the likelihood of American opposition, the ayuntamiento canceled the forthcoming elections on December 1.⁴⁵ At the same time it notified Scott that the reason for the cancellation was not Anaya’s decree but fear that the elections would lead to public disorder and violence.⁴⁶ Unfortunately for the ayuntamiento, it had misjudged its timing, for it was in the midst of another major controversy. Near the beginning of October a contingent of 4000 American troops had left Veracruz under General Robert Patterson to reinforce Scott in the capital, and Scott had asked the ayuntamiento for a list of public buildings to house the additional soldiers. The ayuntamiento complied on November 26, but the list included either buildings that were already occupied by Scott’s own troops or that were, according to the Daily American Star, unfit for habitation.⁴⁷

This apparent lack of cooperation on the part of the ayuntamiento, following its other controversies, tipped the scales against it. On December 10 Military Governor Persifor Smith announced that “any decree of the Mexican General Government, affecting or modifying the political rights of those living in the territory occupied by the American Army, is null,” and added that any attempt to enforce the decree would be punished. “The people of the city of Mexico,” Smith warned, “have the right to make their municipal elections without any interruption.”⁴⁸

The actions of the military government forced the ayuntamiento into a new and more difficult position and allowed the puro organization to seize the initiative. The Election Law of 1830 provided for the indirect election of ayuntamiento members, and Veramendi had originally fixed December 5 as the date for the selection of electors by the general public. When he decided to cancel the elections the puros went ahead with their campaign. According to their leader, they polled “hundreds of people in every one of the city’s districts” to produce a list of 117 secondary electors.⁴⁹ These electors met for the first time on December 12, set December 19 for the election of the ayuntamiento, and chose a man to preside over them. Their choice was Francisco Suárez Iriarte, a puro statesman from Toluca who was technically still a member of the Chamber of Deputies, although he had remained in Mexico City. In his new position Suárez Iriarte at once became acknowledged leader of the move to install a new ayuntamiento.

Manuel Veramendi and his council moved with haste and some awkwardness to thwart the puros. On December 11 the ayuntamiento reversed its position on the elections. Two days later it gave public notice that because of Scott’s order primary elections would be held on December 19—the same day the puros were holding their own secondary elections. The ayuntamiento scheduled its own secondary elections (i.e., for moderado candidates) on December 26.⁵⁰ It also notified Scott’s headquarters of the elections, and on December 17 Veramendi asked General Smith for heavy patrols on the 19th, for he feared that “various turbulent persons” might try to impede his elections.⁵¹ Veramendi also appealed to the Second Criminal Court in Mexico City for an indictment of Suárez Iriarte and his followers on charges of violating Anaya’s decree of November 26, disobeying “supreme and superior authorities,” and being “the authors of a popular insurrection.”

The decision of the court, handed down on December 13, was a severe setback to the ayuntamiento. The court first declared that the decree of November 26 had not been widely enough publicized in Mexico City to be considered promulgated, “nor could it in any case bind its inhabitants, finding themselves occupied, as they do, by enemy forces.” Citing Reinoso and Vattel as authorities, the judge declared that because the people of Mexico City had lost the protection and support of their government the ties that bound them to this body had been dissolved, so that it was questionable whether the puros had violated a properly constituted law. He concluded that it would be impossible to prosecute them “when no one knows, as I have said, that there was actually and in fact a crime, and the place, day, and hour in which it was committed.”⁵²

Though the court’s logic contained some flaws, its decision all but ended the hopes of the moderado ayuntamiento for successfully prosecuting its own elections. On November 19 the council persisted in holding its futile primary elections; on the same day the puro electors, with the obvious support of the Americans, chose their own ayuntamiento. The Veramendi council then made its last desperate move, a bitter note to the office of the American military governor, which it also released to El Monitor Republicano. In this letter it denounced the Americans for acts of violence committed during the occupation—forcefully occupying Mexican homes, destroying property, and killing Mexican civilians. The ayuntamiento also protested the puro election and appealed to General Smith not to permit “the illegal enthronement of these demagogues without country, without conscience, and without honor. . ..”⁵³

Anyone might have predicted the American reaction to the ayuntamiento’s action. On December 23 Smith notified the council that its reference to the American occupation was highly offensive, particularly since it had released the letter at the same time to El Monitor Republicano. He demanded that the ayuntamiento publish a retraction and apology in the same newspaper on the morning of December 24.⁵⁴ When it refused, Smith wrote that “the bad faith and improper conduct of the present ayuntamiento have made them agents unworthy of administrating the affairs of their fellow citizens.... I now declare that their functions cease from this moment.”⁵⁵

This was the end of the struggle for the moderado ayuntamiento, and its members passed from the immediate scene, perhaps with sighs of relief. For eight months they had groped their way through the threat of siege and the reality of enemy occupation, searching for a course of action that would keep their city—and perhaps its social order—intact, without injuring ill-defined national interests. The rise of moderados to power in the national government following Santa Anna’s resignation had seemed to promise a working arrangement, for while the Querétaro government was admittedly moving toward peace negotiations, subordinate agencies of government might strengthen its hand by using firmness toward the Americans. Any difficulties created for individual Mexicans would be tempered by the knowledge that a peace treaty might soon be signed, and the ordeal ended.

By the time Smith dissolved the ayuntamiento in December, Santa Anna’s treason charges of September had receded safely into the background, and, particularly outside Mexico City, the Veramendi council had won the reputation of being patriotic. Guadalajara honored Veramendi by choosing him as deputy in congressional elections then being held, and the official newspaper of the Querétaro government praised him for his services to the country.⁵⁶ More rewards were to come.

The dissolution of the moderado ayuntamiento cleared the stage for a different cast, provided by the puro electors. Their meeting of December 19 resulted in the choice of Francisco Suárez Iriarte as first alcalde, and with him a council of twenty-one members.⁵⁷ This group took office on December 24, endorsed by the American military governor. A strong indication of its policies was a program which its electors adopted on December 17. "The District has all the ingredients for a perfect body politic,” they declared. All it needed was “a social organization adopted to the century in which we live” and a simple honest system of government.⁵⁸ With the Querétaro government apparently helpless, "the solemn moment is not far from coming when the [national] authorities will announce that it is every man for himself.” Accordingly, the electors instructed the ayuntamiento that it must assume control of domestic affairs ”to preserve the independence of its [Merxico’s] internal administration.” If this happened, a “new confederation” would give Mexico a position of respect among nations and establish “peace, order, prosperity, and freedom of thought and conscience at home.”

What the electors really had in mind—as the ayuntamiento’s actions soon confirmed—was a highly decentralized state in which the province and the municipality were to become the basic units of Mexican political life. The ayuntamiento would assume powers broad enough to make Mexico City and the Federal District almost sovereign; but while controlling their own internal affairs they would be linked to others in a “new confederation,” the Mexico of the future. As the ayuntamiento proclaimed, it was “an immense plan, capable alone of overturning the principles that have ruled the Republic—if one can refer to disorder and general confusion as principles.”⁵⁹

Decentralized power was thus the key to the puro program. The old tax system, which the electors described as “vicious,” and all government monopolies were to be replaced by a simple direct tax “distributed equitably on the basis of wealth.”⁶⁰ All fueros were to be eliminated, a civil registry established, and trial by jury made standard practice in the administration of justice. This was not in all ways a model puro program, for on such important issues as the Church, the Army, and public education both the electors and the ayuntamiento were silent, but there was enough to reveal the direction they were taking. The council also outlined its policy toward the occupation forces, though somewhat vaguely; it would “keep itself constantly between the people and the army, so that the demands made by it [would] fall with the least possible sacrifice” upon the people of the city.

While the Querétaro government looked on affairs in Mexico City with some alarm, events at the national level were quite enough to occupy its attention. Anaya called for congressional elections so that a new legislature might convene in January, but the legislators were slow to arrive at Querétaro. One of their first tasks was to elect a new president, but because they could not reach a quorum Manuel de la Peña y Peña resumed the office until the election could be held. Weak and tentative as it was, the Querétaro government had authorized commissioners to carry on peace negotiations with Nicholas P. Trist. These began on January 2 at Mexico City.

Peña y Peña admitted that his administration was in a weak bargaining position, but he argued that the greatest source of its weakness, as well as the greatest danger to Mexico, lay in the American domination of the frontier provinces, the major ports, and the capital. Enemy control of the frontier provinces threatened secession and permanent loss, while occupation of the port cities deprived the government of its major source of revenue, the tariff. In the capital, declared Peña, some Mexicans “are plotting treacherously against the nationality of the country . . ., fighting for power, usurping municipal authority, taking possession of the little wealth that poor city still has, and seeking support for their crimes in the forces of the invader.”⁶¹ The official government newspaper expanded the theme by suggesting that the puro ayuntamiento was pandering to the Yankees, and contrasted this with the attitude of the puro deputies at Querétaro who attacked the moderados as quitters and solidly supported the continuation of the war at all costs:⁶²

Despite denouncements from the Querétaro government, the ayuntamiento pushed ahead with its program. One of its first steps was to eliminate all fueros within the Federal District, and, perhaps more important, it abolished the existing system of taxation in favor of a simple schedule of direct taxes levied against property owners.⁶³ It also attempted to overhaul Mexico City’s system of law enforcement.

In the process it moved into a working relationship with the American military government which permitted critics to charge collaboration with the enemy. The Veramendi ayuntamiento had relied upon a system of armed patrols to keep order, but Suarez Iriarte maintained that these patrols were both expensive and ineffective, and that when trouble appeared at one point, they usually managed to patrol elsewhere. He arranged to have the Americans provide a security force of four hundred men stationed at five points throughout the city, and then disbanded the Mexican patrols, at a saving (he said) of ten thousand pesos a month.⁶⁴

Suárez Iriarte attributed the rapport that developed between the military government and the puro ayuntamiento to a policy of “controlled moderation and chivalry” toward the Americans.⁶⁵ He accepted whatever odium attached to this policy, insisting that the main responsibility of the ayuntamiento was to protect people and city, and that this required the understanding and cooperation of the Americans. To support his contention the military government liberalized its policies in several respects. Corporal punishment, both barbarous and humiliating to Mexicans, was abandoned by military tribunals in cases involving Mexican citizens, and Mexican courts received wider jurisdiction over criminal cases. The Americans exercised the pardoning power more liberally than before, and in one notable instance Suarez Iriarte succeeded in obtaining the release of Senator Mariano Otero, who had been imprisoned for violent public denunciation of the American army. Ironically, Otero later led the clamor against Suarez Iriarte which brought about the latter’s trial for treason.

In Querétaro criticism of the ayuntamiento continued to grow. Negotiations with Trist progressed steadily if painfully, and most of the moderados hoped to conclude a peace treaty that would limit Mexican losses to the frontier provinces. But the actions of the puros threatened to frustrate this design on two counts. At the national level they pushed for a continuation of the war to the death, while in Mexico City their ayuntamiento seemed to be flirting dangerously with the Americans. Either course of action, if carried too far, might undermine the work of the moderados.⁶⁶

A good example of moderado suspicions was a banquet which the ayuntamiento held for the Americans on January 29. Its occasion was the completion of a survey which Army topographical engineers had made at the request of the ayuntamiento to establish the level of lakes surrounding the city as a basis for flood control measures. The lakes had frequently overflowed into city streets during high water, and the complicated survey was beyond the normal resources of the city, so that the banquet might well have seemed a deserved courtesy.⁶⁷ Nevertheless, moderados regarded the whole affair as scandalous and accused the ayuntamiento of “prostituting” itself to the Americans and “clamoring and crying hoarsely for annexation.”⁶⁸

The presence of the Americans in Mexico City was undoubtedly a source of strength to the ayuntamiento, and it took advantage of this strength. But it also looked forward to the day when the Americans would be gone. The official newspaper of the city government supported the peace negotiations, and at the same time it announced the ayuntamiento’s determination to pursue a program of decentralization after the war ended.⁶⁹ The puros intended to transform the Federal District into a semi-independent state “with a commitment to the recognition of a legally elected Mexican government, but without consenting to its residency here.”

The puro ayuntamiento reached one final understanding with the military government before their relationship came to an end. General Scott was prepared to occupy much of Mexico indefinitely if the peace negotiations failed, and he hoped to make the Mexicans hear much of the cost of the occupation. The military government consequently assigned the ayuntamiento a quota of $400,000 a year, payable in quarterly installments, as part of a general tribute to be laid upon Mexico for the support of the occupation.⁷⁰ But the military government was willing to tender a quid pro quo. When it announced the new levy, it also decreed that in order “to insure tranquility and good order in the neighborhood of the city of Mexico” the entire Valley of Mexico was to be annexed to the Federal District, under the jurisdiction of the ayuntamiento, “for all purposes of police and revenue.” The chance for increased revenue was less important to the ayuntamiento than the extension of its authority to areas that supplied much of Mexico City’s food. It responded with a new schedule of direct taxes to raise the funds Scott demanded, and the burden again fell primarily upon property owners, who protested strongly.⁷¹

Meanwhile, peace negotiations continued through January between Trist and the Mexican commissioners, and they signed a treaty at Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2. The Mexican Congress would not ratify the treaty until it managed to obtain a quorum, which was not to happen for three months. During that period Trist dispatched a copy to the United States for consideration by the U.S. Senate. In Mexico it seemed to be a time for political drifting, hut from Querétaro the moderados moved to reestablish their control over the capital. Though treaty negotiations had been concluded, hostilities still existed formally between Mexico and the United States, and while these continued, it seemed likely that the American army would support the actions of the ayuntamiento. Ignacio Mora y Villamil and Benito Quijana, two leading moderados, were thus sent to Mexico City to arrange an armistice and, if possible, to end the reign of the puros.

They arrived on the evening of February 17, the day before William O. Butler was to replace Scott as commanding general. While Scott had felt constrained from signing an armistice, being under orders to prosecute the war vigorously, Butler was willing to assume that Trist’s treaty would be ratified by both sides, and he appointed Generals William Worth and Persifor Smith to negotiate with the Mexican commissioners. Two days later he ordered the ayuntamiento to suspend action on the tax levy imposed by Scott pending the completion of negotiations. Alarmed over the implications of the move, the council members resigned in a body on February 24.⁷² On the next day nearly all of them returned to duty, but only briefly. They had read the intentions of the Mexican armistice commission correctly, for Quijano and Mora y Villamil pushed successfully for withdrawal of American support of the ayuntamiento.

At this point there was actually little reason for Butler to continue this support. He assumed that the occupation would end shortly, and if it did, the levy which Scott had placed on the Mexicans would be unnecessary. More important, the moderados, as the group responsible for the peace treaty, now held first claim to Butler’s good will. As a result, Butler agreed to an armistice on February 29 that preserved the existing occupation zones, rescinded Scott’s levy, restored freedom of action to Mexicans in matters of taxation and public administration, and permitted elections in Mexican municipalities in accordance with “established law,” even to the point of withdrawing American troops from occupied cities on election day.⁷³

Butler’s swing to the support of the moderados placed the puro ayuntamiento in an untenable position. Unpopular with Mexico City property owners and suspected of treason for their dealings with Scott’s military government, the puros were now laid open to a direct assault by the moderado national government endorsed by Butler. The outcome was certain. On March 7 the Querétaro government reactivated the Federal District as a separate political unit and appointed Juan María Flores as governor with the understanding that the removal of the puro ayuntamiento was to be his first undertaking.⁷⁴ He acted at once to dissolve the ayuntamiento, and he appointed Manuel Reyes y Veramendi and the former members of the moderado ayuntamiento to the positions which they had held before the controversial December elections.⁷⁵ There was no effective opposition to the appointments, and moderados returned triumphantly to Mexico City.

The struggle for power in the Mexican capital was over. The return of the moderados marked the end of conflict between municipal and national governments, and through the months that followed until the treaty was ratified and the American occupation ended, the municipal government of Mexico City operated amid relative calm. Veramendi, the symbol of the moderado administration, had already been honored by election to the Chamber of Deputies, but the reappointment of his ayuntamiento, however partisan, also indicated approval of its conduct during the American occupation.

Not all were so charitable. Santa Anna, temporarily discredited and ordered into exile, fought with characteristic energy against his humiliation. He blamed Mexico’s defeat on the moderados, and particularly on the ayuntamiento, because, he said, it “did nothing for the common defense” and was responsible for the loss of the capital to Scott.⁷⁶ Mariano Otero levied charges that were more painful than Santa Anna’s, if only because they came from a fellow moderado. Otero, who became Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the summer of 1848, was critical of both the puro and moderado ayuntamientos and charged the Veramendi group with mismanagement of funds during the occupation. The accusation seemed important enough to draw a detailed defense from the ayuntamiento.⁷⁷

The experience of the puro ayuntamiento, however, was more unpleasant than that of the moderados. Here, too, the first alcalde had been the dominant force in the administration, and after his ayuntamiento had been turned out of office, Suárez Iriarte found himself the subject of increasing attack. Following the evacuation of the occupation forces, the government issued orders for his arrest on charges of treason.⁷⁸ Suárez Iriarte argued that since he had been a congressional deputy while first alcalde, he had the right to be judged by the Chamber of Deputies. The State complied by calling upon the Chamber to act as a grand jury, and Mariano Otero filed formal charges on behalf of the government before it. Suárez Iriarte was indicted as the leader of a movement which “named a municipal assembly, endowed it with faculties contrary to the national constitution, and established an authority that has left an indelible mark of shame on the history of our age.”⁷⁹

The trial of Suárez Iriarte was delayed until March 1850, and all the bitterness and frustration of the occupation were then brought into focus again as he faced his accusers, openly accepting responsibility for the actions of his ayuntamiento. Otero’s specific charges against him were that he had helped to organize the election of the ayuntamiento in violation of the government decree forbidding municipal elections, that he had refused to permit officials of the national government to operate within the Federal District, and that he had ordered his police force to arrest enemy deserters and surrender them to the American military government.⁸⁰

More serious than these charges were several allegations which Otero inserted into the indictment. Although these were not subjected to the rules of evidence, they nevertheless set the tone for the trial. Otero declared that Suárez Iriarte had attempted “to conspire against the constitution of his country; to make public defense more difficult, putting the nationality of his homeland in danger, . . . voluntarily making himself an instrument of the enemy, lending them assistance they had not requested,” and even plotting to bring about the annexation of Mexico by the United States.⁸¹ These allegations amounted to a charge of treason, and it was clear that this was the real issue before the Chamber. It was treason in a general sense, however, or according to personal definition, for neither Otero nor the Chamber made any reference to violations of statute law.

Suárez Iriarte appeared before the Chamber as his own chief defender. He admitted his responsibility for the policies condemned by Otero, but rejected the allegations of treason, insisting that his actions stemmed from a sense of public responsibility. The national government, he said, had “abandoned [Mexico City] to the discretion of the enemy,” reducing its citizens to a struggle for simple survival. Even survival was hampered by the stumbling leadership of the moderado ayuntamiento, which not only failed to preserve law and order, but even invited harsh treatment of Mexicans by pointless antagonism toward the American military government.⁸² So much had happened to strain the bonds that held society together, he said, that the capital could easily have fallen into complete chaos, with worse results than the “bloody spectacle” that enveloped Paris during its greatest cholera epidemic. The only human agency that could save the city was a truly public-spirited ayuntamiento. For this reason alone, declared Suárez Iriarte, he had joined the movement to replace the moderados when the time for elections drew near.

The puro leader devoted only a small part of his defense to the specific counts in the government’s indictment. He insisted that his election had been legal, conducted in accordance with the Election Law of 1830, while the general government “did not have the power to control the disposition of a public authority it had abandoned.” For this reason, its decree prohibiting the election had been invalid.⁸³ Concerning the return of deserters to the Americans, he pointed out that this arrangement was made only after treaty negotiations had been concluded. Suárez Iriarte denied that he had refused to recognize the Querétaro government. Following his election he had been willing to work out an arrangement with the officials, he said, but those who came to Mexico City had been singularly uncooperative. “I will add,” he went on, “that the previous ayuntamiento had refused to recognize Don Ignacio Barrera, named by the government to administer the aduana of this city, and though his legally proper appointment had been disregarded, none of the members of that body has been the object of a persecution as cruel as that which I suffer.”⁸⁴

The heart of his defense, however, lay not in a refutation of the specific charges against him, but in an explanation of the reasons for his ayuntamiento’s policies. His major objective, he said, was to interpose the ayuntamiento between the Mexican people and the American army, thus shielding Mexico City from the worst effects of the occupation and, indeed, averting a reign of terror. He attained his objective, he maintained, simply by adopting a firm but reasonable attitude toward the military government. As a result, tensions had diminished in the capital; the Americans ceased their harsh treatment of Mexican citizens; the judicial system was reformed; law and order returned to the city; and a breakdown of social order was averted. The ex-alcalde asserted that “whatever suspicions some may have wished to heap upon me, I swear by all that is sacred that I have no other object but to work in the public interest. . ..,”⁸⁵ He said:⁸⁶

Suárez Iriarte’s appeal was futile, for though the respected and elderly Juan de Dios Cañedo also spoke persuasively in his defense, the Chamber voted 48 to 27 to uphold the indictment.⁸⁷ Even though his case never went from the Chamber into the courts, he was imprisoned for several months until he finally became ill. Released then, he died a short time later. It was a tragic end to the career of a man who had established a reputation as a responsible and able politician, and whom even a politically conservative Mexican historian soon described as “a man of undeniable genius.”⁸⁸

While Veramendi succeeded in his search for a policy that would identify the actions of his ayuntamiento with national interests, Suárez Iriarte failed and paid a high cost for his failure. Yet their actions and those of their two councils present many parallels. Both defied the authority of the national government during a tense period in pursuit of their own policies; both entered into working arrangements with the occupation forces to preserve the interests of Mexico City; and both assumed powers normally exercised by the national government, including those of taxation. Suárez Iriarte’s attempt to decentralize the Mexican federation and erect a kind of city-state set his policies apart from Veramendi’s; yet this stemmed from the same disenchantment with the national government that did so much to shape the policies of both men. Only when the moderados obtained control at Querétaro did Veramendi coordinate his direction of Mexico City with the objectives of the national government. This suggests that he gave his allegiance, not to the government itself but to moderado leadership.

Suárez Iriarte was not as fortunate as Veramendi in his political affiliation, for the puros had no hope of gaining political control at Querétaro, and he had no faith in the moderados. Puros at the national level, moreover, advocated war to the death against the Americans. This was hard to accept in the capital where people lived under the enemy sword, and where there was so little evidence that the nation as a whole would also be willing to fight to the end. Suárez Iriarte thus drew upon his political convictions and his concept of the municipality in a search for standards of conduct, and the result was personal disaster.

It would have been difficult for a Mexican of the period to find much in the experience of either the moderado or puro ayuntamiento that held promise for the future of Mexico, but this promise seems more obvious in retrospect. To begin with, men like Suárez Iriarte created what Charles Hale has called the “great intellectual ferment” that characterized Mexican politics during and after the war years and restored a lost sense of meaning to political action in Mexico.⁸⁹ Mexicans continued to manhandle their political institutions, but both the moderado and puro ayuntamientos had demonstrated that if these institutions could not excite the loyalty of Mexican citizens unaided, they could win it through association with a political movement, at least among those who believed in the movement. The task of unifying and institutionalizing such a movement on a national scale would be a work of generations, and it was not realized until after the Mexican Revolution and the ultimate formation of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional. But a few Mexicans established a premise during the war of the 1840s—that political principles furnish the basic motivation for public policy. This premise was the beginning of Mexico’s political regeneration, and the actions of the Mexico City ayuntamiento made an important contribution to this beginning.

Author notes