The Mexican Far North 1821-1848

The Mexican Far North 1821-1848

The Eve of Mexican Independence

 •  Was there at the eve of the Mexican Revolution of 1810 a national identity? •  Three hundred years of mercantilism had left Mexico without its own

commercial or manufacturing infrastructure. •  The Church owned between one-quarter and one-half of the land and

controlled most schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions.

The Eve of Mexican Independence

•  Criollo and Mestizo discontent towards “peninsulares” or “gachupines”

•  Interest for independence increased with the successful revolt of the English colonist to the north

•  Haiti’s & the French revolution

•  1807-1808 French under the command of Napoleon occupy the Iberian peninsula

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

•  Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe

Political Ideologies During the 19th Century  

Liberals

•  Influenced by the the French Revolution, wanted to end privileges and secularize Mexico.

•  Anti-clericalism was a central tenet

•  Criollos, and Mestizos tended to fall under this category

Conservatives

•  Or aka Royalist wanted to remain royal to the interest of the Spanish Crown.

•  The clergy saw Liberalism as “God less” ideology.

•  Peninsulares, or clergy tended to fall under this category

•  The night of September 15 1810 Miguel Hidalgo proclaimed Mexico’s Independence from Spain.

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

Post-independence Mexico and the Rise of Caudillos

•  Between 1833 and August 1855 the presidency in Mexico changed hands thirty-six times, the average term being about seven and a half months.

 •  The first caudillos were often generals who, leading private armies, used

their military might to achieve power in the newly independent states.

•  The borderlands would see a resurgence of the Indian threat due to the

lack of military presence in the region.  

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna 1794-1876

•  General Santa Anna was a dominant figure of the first-half of the 19th century, he served in the presidency on eleven different occasions.

•  Franciscan missions controlled the most valuable land in the province, some fourteen million acres along the fertile and accessible coast.

•  Secularization of the missions made possible the raise of the rancho aristocracy.

•  Hide and tallow was the most valuable trade in California during the first half of the 19th century.

•  Tallow, a hardy fatty substance made from rendered animal fat, used in the making of soap and candles.

•  (Left) California method of killing cattle for hide and tallow. Sight common at the mission and ranchos during its apogee.

Californios 19th Century

Louisiana Purchase & Anglo Westward Expansion

The Santa Fe Trail, 1821

•  In 1829-1830 Antonio Armijo blazed the Old Spanish Trail.

Fur Trappers & The Fur Trade

Fur and its uses

Maritime Fur Trade & Whaling Commerce

Sea Otter  

1802

Russian Explorations and settlements in Alaska were seen as a threat.

Russian Ship Sets Anchor in the Bering Sea

Ludwig, Louis Choris 1795-1828

The French and Americans depended on the natives for the trapping of beaver and otter

•  American Traders and French had provided the natives guns

The Whaling Maritime Industry, 1790-1924

Onshore Whaling  

Offshore Whaling

•  The whaling industry embodied in many ways the American spirit of the time.

In  the  19th  century  San  Francisco,  the  yard  of  the  Pacific  Steam  Whaling  Co.  brims  with  whale  bone.  The  use  of  baleen  products  in  women’s  fashion  prolonged  the  life  of  the  industry.    

American presence in the Frontier

•  The  hide  and  tallow  trade  •  Fur  trade  •  Pioneers,  farmers  who  followed  overland  trails  blazed  by  mountain  men.    

Natural Resources & Their Role Shaping History

•  Economic trade between California and New England was to help lay the foundation for its later political incorporation into the U.S. and formal integration as a semi-peripheral and then core zone of the capitalist world economy.” (63) Gonzales citing Almaguer