Until now, General Saturnino Cedillo was known as the last regional chieftain who became a footnote in twentieth-century Mexican revolutionary history. Cedillo’s downfall was significant because he led the last unsuccessful military coup in Mexico when he revolted against the national government in May 1938. Ankerson’s aim is to explain the role and impact of this cacique who, while guarding his own self-interest, acted as a power broker between local peasant factions and Mexico City.
The first three chapters develop the situation in the rural setting of San Luis Potosí. Ankerson sets the stage in the late nineteenth-century Porfiriato, and then leads into a description of the political violence and instability created by the military phase of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-20. Included is Cedillo’s leading role as an agrarianist in San Luis Potosí. Land distribution on a national scale was used as a major instrument of pacification in the 1920s, commencing with the interim presidency of Adolfo de la Huerta, and reaching its apex in the 1930s under Lázaro Cárdenas. This resulted in a lasting impact on rural society. As noted with respect to San Luis Potosí, it mobilized the peasantry in support of government leaders and increased their dependence. Also examined is Cedillo’s participation in the rebelión de la Huertista of 1923—24; his seizure of state control from Aurelio Manrique in 1925; the manipulation of the peasantry to accomplish his purpose during the Cristero rebellion in 1926; and the consolidation of his power in 1929. The last two chapters cover the 1930s, and describe the caudillo’s ambivalent relationships with the jefe máximo Plutarco Elias Calles and with Lázaro Cárdenas.
Ankerson’s conclusion correctly analyzes the factors that led to Cedillo’s demise. By the winter of 1937-38, the Cárdenas government had outmaneuvered the general on both the political and military fronts. His peasant power base eroded when land distribution in San Luis Potosí was forced on him by the Cárdenas government. Times had changed, traditionalist warlord Cedillo had become an anachronism. Unfortunately for him, the death knell to his political survival came from an unlikely source: the national crisis brought on by the oil expropriation issue. Cedillo’s opposition to Mexico City’s land reform policies allowed Cárdenas to turn public sentiment against him and tar him as a traitor. Cedillo’s revolt lasted as long as it did only because of the support of the local peasantry. This insurrection closed the chapter on the last open conflict between centralism and federalism in Mexico.
Parts of Ankerson’s book read like a dissertation as he tries to combine a political biography with a regional study in the manner skillfully accomplished by John Womack for Emiliano Zapata. In comparison to Womack and similar works written by Michael Meyer on Victoriano Huerta and Pablo Orozco, Ankerson achieves only partial success. Speaking from my own experience, converting a dissertation into a book, particularly a political biography, is difficult, since there are pitfalls in attempting to entwine local history with a dominant personality. For example, Ankerson devotes more space than necessary to develop his setting. There are too many facts, statistics, and narrative details that obscure the main issue: Saturnino Cedillo! One gets the impression that this is a book in two sections: a regional agrarian history and a political biography. That is not to say, however, that it does not have a great deal of merit.
Agrarian Warlord is rich in primary source documentation, particularly in the use of Mexican military defense archival material, which is normally difficult to consult. Hopefully, Ankerson’s success will set a precedent and enable other scholars to have easier access to this valuable source. Ankerson’s most important contribution to Mexican historical literature is that he has produced the first scholarly work in English that focuses on Saturnino Cedillo, a personality whose life story needed to be told.
