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Forceful Negotiations: The Origins of the Pronunciamiento in Nineteenth-Century Mexico

2012; Duke University Press; Volume: 92; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-1600497

1527-1900

Scott Eastman,

Politics and Society in Latin America

Based on an ongoing research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Will Fowler’s Forceful Negotiations is the first in a series of volumes that aim to analyze the more than 1,500 pronunciamientos drafted between 1821 and 1876 in Mexico. Although most were unsuccessful, they represented coordinated efforts to lobby and to effect political change. Contrary to historians who emphasize the caudillismo of figures like Antonio López de Santa Anna (whom Enrique Krauze dubbed the “Don Juan of the pronunciamiento”), Fowler views pronunciamientos, or forceful negotiations, as a set of discursive practices that couched demands meant to be resolved without bloodshed. These petitions, seconded by others that proclaimed allegiance, often began in the periphery and challenged centralizing policies, religious restructuring, and military reform. For example, Michael T. Ducey’s chapter approaches regional actors through the lens of national struggles and foregrounds the political reprisals often meted out in the aftermath of a pronunciamiento. He also explores the religious dimensions of political conflicts, noting that a cultural counterrevolution erupted in areas of the Sierra Huasteca in response to the liberal reforms of Gómez Farías. Shara Ali looks at the secession of Yucatán in 1840, precipitated, of course, by a pronunciamiento. Replete with rituals and formulaic tropes, the pronunciamiento achieved a “mystique of legitimacy” throughout the course of the nineteenth century (p. xxvi).The book begins by looking at the War of Independence and the politicized military that came of age between 1810 and 1824. Contributors such as Kerry McDonald stress the nationalist as well as local dimensions of the practice, as almost all pronunciados claimed the mantle of “the will of the nation” (p. 111). According to Ivana Fras quet and Manuel Chust, the tradition also must be understood as having developed out of a liberal, constitutional milieu, and the analysis in the collection is not limited to military actions and interventions. Furthermore, as Fowler notes, “there was close collaboration between officers and civilians” as they implemented their plans (p. xvii). For instance, Masons and members of patriotic societies played significant roles in many of the conspiracies linked to pronunciamientos, as Josefina Zoraida Vázquez notes in her contribution to the book. Such was the case with the first successful pronunciamiento in the Spanish world, Rafael de Riego’s proclamation of January 1, 1820. Instead of sailing to South America to fight independence forces, Riego and a small band of troops in Andalusia renounced absolutist rule in favor of reinstating the Constitution of Cádiz, thereby establishing the leitmotif of the liberal pronunciamiento. Generating support throughout the peninsula, the pronunciados quickly forced the hand of King Ferdinand VII, who swore an oath of allegiance to the constitution in March 1820. The return of constitutional monarchy in Spain had major ramifications in Spanish America. Frasquet and Chust write that “an appreciation of the interrelationship of events on both sides of the Atlantic is necessary to understand fully” pronunciamientos, politics, and the military (pp. 41 – 42). Certainly, a chapter exclusively focused on Riego would have been a welcome addition to this volume.McDonald shines light upon the historiographical debates that shape Fowler’s project as a whole. While an earlier generation of scholars such as François-Xavier Guerra insisted that the pronunciamiento was a tool of the military, a revisionist perspective broadly interprets the practice as “a form of politicking” taken up by elected officials, town councils, and at times the clergy (p. 116). Even economic issues could inspire a revolt, as was the case with the 1841 Plan of Jalisco. Yet the text reveals a division between those who analyze pronunciamientos as political documents and those who underscore the personal aggrandizement of those involved. Frasquet and Chust persuasively demonstrate how “the political and social praxis of the liberal system, which had been implanted by the Cortes of Cádiz, had succeeded in establishing deep-seated roots in Spanish society” (p. 24). Fowler concludes that “the experience of Riego’s pronunciamiento had shown that this was a practice that could result in meaningful political change” (p. xxx). Similarly, Ducey claims that “actors appear to have had well-defined political affiliations that they held consistently” (p. 93). On the other hand, McDonald maintains that pronunciados “shifted seamlessly between . . . lines of divide depending on their interests” (p. 104). Likewise, Michael P. Costeloe, in a fascinating chapter examining the effects of a pronunciamiento in 1833 on a British mining company in Guanajuato, echoes the latter claim that many proclamations “had little or no political or ideological character” (p. 139). Rosie Doyle suggests that personal and financial gain clearly motivated a number of key conspirators. Timothy E. Anna asserts that early pronunciamientos such as the Plan of Iguala essentially served the interests of elites and that military values and self-interest fueled early leaders like Iturbide. These examples point to historiographical debates embedded within the collection that might have been highlighted in the introduction.