MEXICO sive warfare against all alike. 1 Events now follow in quick succession, and as many as three hundred successful or abortive revolutions are recorded during the brief but stormy life of Mexican national independence. 2 But amid the confusion of empires, republics, dictatorships, and military usurpations, succeeding each other with bewilder ing rapidity, the thoughtful student will still detect a steady progress towards the ultimate triumph of those Liberal ideas which lie at the base of true national freedom. A brief tabulated summary of the more salient incidents in this eventful struggle must here suffice : 1821-23. Mexican independence acknowledged by Spain ; regency under Iturbide, who (1822) is elected hereditary constitu tional emperor; in December Santa Anna proclaims the republic in Vera Cruz. 1823-24. Provisional Government ; Iturbide abdicates ; exiled, withdraws to London, but returning is shot (1824). 1824. First Liberal constitution, " Acta Constitutiva de la Federa- cion Mexicana," then comprising nineteen states and five territories; first president D. Felix Victoria, known as "Guadalupe Victoria." 1828-30. Contested presidencies of Pedraza, Guerrero, and Busta- mente. 1835. Reaction of the church party; constitution of 1824 abolished ; the confederate states fused in a consolidated republic under Santa Anna as president, but practically dictator. 1836. Texas refusing to submit secedes, defeats and captures Santa Anna. 1837. Santa Anna returning resumes office. 1839. Bravo s brief presidency followed by much anarchy. 1841-44. Santa Anna s first dictatorship with two others. 1844. Constitution restored with Santa Anna president; banished same year, he is succeeded by Canalizo. 1845. Herrera president; disastrous war with United States to recover Texas. 1846. Santa Anna again president. 1848. Treaty of Guadalupe ; California and New Mexico ceded to United States. 1853. Santa Anna s second dictatorship; trea ty of Medl la (negotiated by Gadsden) ceding extensive territory to United States and reducing Mexico to its present limits ; great financial embar rassment; "Plan of Ayutla" ; flight of Santa Anna followed by universal chaos. 1855. Provisional Government under President Comonfort. 1856. Constitutional convention ; radical reforms ; rupture with Spain. 1857. Liberal constitution of Marcli 11 ; suspended December 1; Comonfort dictator ; the reaction supported by the church, large part of the army, and all Conservatives ; opposed at Vera Cruz by Vice-president Benito Juarez at the head of the " Puros," or advanced Liberals; the "War of Reform" begins, and lasts till 1860. 1858-59. In the capital Comonfort is deposed by Zuloaga, who abdicates in favour of Miramon, general of the Conservative forces ; but, declining the presidency, Miramon restores Zuloaga ; British legation violated ; in Vera Cruz the United States envoy MacLean acknowledges Juarez, who introduces further Liberal measures. 1860. Capitulation of Guadalajara ; flight of Miramon from the capital ; triumph of the Liberals. 1861. Triumphal entry of Juarez into the capital ; further radical reforms ; marriage declared a civil contract ; celibacy and ecclesiastical tribunals suppressed ; confiscation of church property valued at 75,000,000 and over a third of the soil ; final separation of church and state ; Spain, Fra.nce, and England urge claims for losses of their subjects resident in Mexico ; convention of London ; intervention of the allies, who occupy Vera Cruz in December. 1862. England and Spain withdraw, their claims having been settled by negotiation ; war continued by France. 1863-64. The capital occupied by the French ; Louis Napoleon dreams of a universal fusion of the Latin races ; offers the Mexican imperial crown to the Austrian archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who accepts, and arrives in June 1864. 1867. After diverse issues the French withdraw ; Maximilian, abandoned to his fate, is captured and shot at Queretaro (June 19). 1 In December 1882 a party of seventy-five Mexicans and Americans were massacred in the state of Chihuahua by a band of Bravos. 2 Between 1821 and 1868 the form of government was changed ten times; over fifty persons succeeded each other as presidents, dictators, or emperors; both emperors were shot, Iturbide in 1824, Maximilian in 1867, and according to some calculations there occurred at least three hundred iironunciamienton. 1867-69. Various pronunciamientos by Santa Anna and others. 1871-72. Juarez president ; he dies in office July 1872 ; succeeded by his secretary Lerdo de Tejada. 1873-74. The Liberal constitution of 1857, which had been twice suspended (1858--60 and 1863-67), is now largely amended, and continues to be henceforth the organic law of Mexico. 1876. Tejada succeeded by Porfirio Diaz. 1880. Manuel Gonzalez, reigning president Since 1869 the Liberal party has succeeded in preserving peace at home and abroad, while establishing democratic institutions on a firm basis. A. v. Humboldt s gloomy anticipations 3 have not been realized, and for the first time in its chequered history Mexico may look forward with some confidence to a blight future. The plague spot is the uncivilized Indian element. But with boundless natural resources at its disposal, a wise administration may hope to over come that difficulty, and gradually effect a complete fusion of the antagonistic racial elements. Literature. 3. Frost, History of Mexico and its Wars, with addenda by A. Hawkins, New Orleans, 1882; T. U. Brocklehunt, Mexico To-dan, London, 1882; Lorenzo Castro, Mexico in 1882, New York, 188-. ; Aubertin, A Flight to Mexico, 1882; E. Busto, Ettadistica de la Republica Mexicana, Mexico, 1880; Don Lucas Alamaii, Historia de Mexico, Mt-xico, 1849-52; J. M. L. Mora, Mexico y sus Revoluciones, Paris, 1836; E. K. H. von Riehthofen, Die politifchen Ziistande tier Republik Mexico, Berlin, 1854-59; W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest oj Mexico, New York, 1847; E. Muhlenpfordt, StMIderung der Rep. Mexico, besondei-s in Beziehung auf Geographie, Ethnoyraphie, und Statistik, Hanover, 1844; A. R. Thiimmel, Mexico und die Mexicaner in physischer, socialer, und politischer R>zu- hung, Erlangen, 1848; Brantz Mayer, Mexico as it was and as it is, New York, 1844, and Mexico, Aztec, Spanish, and Republican, Hartford, 1853; F. W. von Egloffstein, Contributions to the Geology and the Physical Geography of Mexico, New York, 1864 ; J. C. Beltrami, Le Alexique, Paris, 1830; Madame C. [Calderon] de la B. [Rarca], Life in Mexico, Ac., with preface by V. H. Prescott, London, 1843; A. M. Gilliam, Travels over the Table-lands and Cordilleras of Mexico, Phil adelphia, 1846; A. von Humboldt, Yuen des Cordil eres et monuments des peuples indigenes de I Ame rique, Paris, 1S10, and Vcrsuch iiber den politifchen Zustand d* s 1846; Anales del Ministerio de fomcnto, colonization, industria, y comercio de la RepubJica Mexicana y reperlorio de noticias sobre ciencias, artes, y estadistica nacional y estranjera, Mexico, 1851-55; Memoria sobre el estado de la agricultura y industria de la Republica, que la direction general de estos ramox presenta al Gobierno Supremo, &c., Mexico, 1843-46; Don Mariano Galvez, Industria Rational, TltJ, Olll>L_JO Ul 111U CiCUVU _/UlJO JC. AJ^CUIl lulllltlll C GUI UUU1CU 111 1 1 1C -llllC IJ it Me xique, with accompanying monograph by M. Niox, Paris, 1873. Other large and more or less trustworthy maps are A. G. Cuba, Carta Geograftca, Mexico, 1874 ; The Library Map of Mexico, Chicago, 1882; Huniboldt, Atlas Geograplnque California, Weimar, 1847 ; F. de Gerolt y C. de Berghes, Carta geognos ica de /os principals distritos minerales del Estado de Mexico formada sobre obserraciones astron., barometr., y mineral., Mexico, 1827; the large physical and geological maps accompanying Von Egloffstein s above-quoted work ; and a good relief map in K. Ratzel s Aus Mexico, Breslau, 1878. (A. H. K.) III. THE CITY OF MEXICO. Mexico, the capital formerly of the Aztec empire and of the Spanish colony of New Spain, and now of the republic, state, and federal district of Mexico, stands on the Anahuac plateau, 7524 feet above sea-level, 2| miles from the south west side of Lake Tezcuco (Texcoco), the lowest and largest of six basins filling the deepest depression in the hill-encircled Mexican valley. Situated in 19 25 45" N. lat. and 99 7 W. long., it is 173 miles by rail from Vera Cruz on the Atlantic, 290 from Acapulco on the Pacific, 285 from Oajaca, 863 from Matamoros on the United States frontier. Mexico is the largest and finest city in Spanish America, forming a square nearly 3 miles both ways, and laid out with perfect regularity, all its six hundred streets and lanes running at right angles north to south and east to west, and covering within the walls an area of about 10 square miles, with a population (in 1880) of 230,000. Most of the inhabitants are pure-blood Indians or mestizoes ; but the foreigners, chiefly French, English, Germans, Americans, and Spaniards, monopolize nearly all the trade, and as capitalists, bankers, merchants, and dealers enjoy an influence out of all proportion to their numbers. A large portion of the natives are mendicants or vagrants, and the distinctly criminal element (26,470 in 1878) is kept in order by a police force of 1320 men; yet in that year there were as many as 5370 knife-attacks and 3250 robberies. The 3 Consulted shortly before his death as to the future prospects of Mexico, with which his name was so intimately associated, Huniboldt ventured to prophesy that " die Vereinigten Staaten werden esan sich
reissen und dann selbst zerfallen."