The era of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911) has often been described as the beginning of United States economic domination of Mexico. But like many other aspects of Porfirian Mexico, United States penetration and control of the Mexican economy had its roots in the Liberal period under Benito Juárez (1857-72). It was during these critical decades that the basic outlines of the Porfiriato emerged: a centralized political dictatorship, large-scale land concentration, and an intense desire for foreign investment as the key to economic growth. This last goal—the formation of a United States economic protectorate over Mexico—is the central theme of Donathon C. Olliff’s book, Reforma Mexico and the United States. Olliff argues that most of the literature on the Reforma period, by focusing on the political and religious struggles, ignores or demotes the crucial economic goals of the Liberals. And he offers a clearly stated argument (unfortunately the best expression of it is buried in the bibliographical note): “the desire to have Mexico become a protectorate of the United States was common among all varieties of liberals … not [from] a lack of patriotism, but [from] a desperation born out of a keen sense of the need for material development, an almost mystical belief in the transforming powers of capital and technology, and a pessimism produced by three decades of government by chaos in Mexico” (p. 184).
Olliff supports his thesis well. Drawing on archival material in Mexico City (principally that of the foreign ministry) and the National Archives in Washington, D.C., he takes the reader through the complicated series of negotiations that finally culminated in the signing, but not the final ratification, of the McLane-Ocampo treaties of 1859. The study shows that on each of three attempts to establish formal economic relations with the United States, Mexican Liberals were eager to situate Mexico as an economic dependency of the United States. The principal reason this never happened until the Porfiriato was that the United States and in particular President James Buchanan wanted to acquire Mexican territory, not economic influence. In the face of pressures for territory, Mexican Liberals showed great skill and flexibility in forging treaties that preserved Mexico’s national land, and at the same time granted the United States remarkable control over Mexico’s economic future.
As competent as this study is, it misses opportunities to move beyond the details of diplomatic intrigue and maneuvering to explore some of the implications of the central argument. One fertile field for exploration is the relationship between Olliff’s thesis and the general descriptive assumptions of the dependency approach to international relations. Clearly this work presents an opportunity at least to mention these relationships. Nor does it venture beyond its chronological limits to put the Reforma economic ideas into the larger context of nineteenth-century attitudes toward economic development. Both of these explorations would have added depth and meaning to what is otherwise an informative and well-executed diplomatic history.
