The “Age of Democratic Revolutions” is not a self-evident concept. R. R. Palmer needed two volumes of detailed research and hard argument to establish his thesis that the concurrence of democratic movements and their culmination in the North American and French revolutions showed a common pattern of radical reform, the principles of which were transmitted from one part of the world to another. But the thesis of a single great democratic revolution, as Alfred Cobban and Albert Goodwin pointed out, ignores a number of important differences between the various movements, not least between those inside and those outside Europe. And democracy was not the only medium of change. The age of democratic revolutions was also the age of absolutism, when it was believed that obstacles to modernization were best overcome by concentration of power, not its dispersal.
Latin America, including Mexico, does not fit easily into the framework of democratic revolution, but this conceptual problem is dealt with only briefly in the first of these two works (pp. 1-2). Having remarked that “the period from 1750 to 1850 witnessed the emergence and subsequent restriction of popular, representative government in Mexico” (p. 13), the editor leaves the age of democratic revolutions as a title rather than a frame of reference, an example followed by most of the contributors. The true theme of the book thus remains the coexistence of continuity and change from the colonial period through independence into republican Mexico. The chronology, 1750-1850, is well chosen for this purpose, and the papers, which set a uniformly high standard of research and interpretation, divide into two groups, “The Twilight of New Spain” and “The Republic of Mexico.”
Felipe Castro Gutiérrez assesses the impact of the “reforms” imposed by José de Gálvez in New Spain and concludes that they were absorbed and diluted by the bureaucracy. Ignacio del Río contributes a new case study of the intendant system and its opponents among the interest groups through his account of Pedro Corbalán’s term of office in Sonora and Sinaloa. Robert W. Patch studies the nature of the Bourbon reforms in Yucatán and concludes that their major impact was to deprive people of powers they already had. Virginia Guedes examines the interests and policies of one individual, Ignacio Adalid, a politician who trimmed his desire for Mexican autonomy to each successive stage of the independence period, regardless of whether it was achieved inside or outside the Spanish Empire. Jaime E. Rodríguez O. analyzes the transition from colony to nation in 1820-21 and attributes the political tension to rival claims for victory over Spain between the urban elites, who stood for legislative supremacy, and the military, who favored executive power.
The second half of the book opens with a paper by Andrés Lira González, who manages to write on Servando Teresa de Mier without a single reference to the works of David Brading but otherwise pinpoints the basic differences between Mier and the Mexican federalists. David M. Quinlan uses statistical analysis of the constituent congress of 1823-24 to confirm that the most divisive issue was center versus periphery, and that regionalism dominated every significant issue. Hira de Gortari Rabiela documents the struggle for compromise between federal power and regional interests in the making of the Constitution of 1824. Anne Staples studies clerics as politicians and describes a church much less monolithic and more diversified in its political interests and ideas than is often supposed; the clergy, like the rest of Mexican society, lived within a framework of “group, family, and region.” Finally, Michael P. Costeloe brings to independent Mexico’s center stage a new ruling elite, the hombres de bien, whose solidarity of class and values gave Mexican government a certain, if temporary, stability.
The book closes with critical essays by two expert comentaristas that are among the best in the collection. Christon I. Archer provides a masterly survey of Mexicans’ conflicting ideas on central power, regionalism, the church, social class, and national government in a process extending from colony to republic. Barbara A. Tenenbaum, in an incisive critique, adds to and, in some cases, improves on the ponencias, while also making a strong case for the importance of economic and fiscal factors in this period of Mexican history.
The symposium emphasizes policies rather than personalities. But Rogelio Escamilla Torres is proud of his hero, Mariano Matamoros, who, from his power base at Jantetelco, became second in command of Morelos and one of the distinguished clerical caudillos characteristic of Mexican insurgency. It was Matamoros who designed for his squadron of dragoons a special banner, a black flag with a crimson cross, the arms of the church, and the legend “Die for Ecclesiastical Immunity.” This brief synthesis based on published sources provides a strong narrative of Matamoros’ career but little clarifying evidence on his political motivation.
