Table Of ContentGUNS OVER THE BORDER:
AMERICAN AID TO THE JUAREZ GOVERNMENT DURING
THE FRENCH INTERVENTION
by
Robert Benaway Brown
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the
University of Michigan
1951
Committee in Charge:
Professor Irving A. Leonard, Chairman
Dr. Roger S. Abbott
Dr. Donald F. Drummond
Professor Lewis G. Vander Velde
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface .. i
Chapter I. INTRODUCTION.................................. 1
II. JUAN BUSTAMANTE.............................. 11
III. PLACIDO VEGA.................................. 21
IV. GASPAR SANCHEZ OCHOA......................... 54
V. THE LEGION OF HONOR AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS... 73
VI. CARVAJAL AND WALLACE ON THE BORDER......... 87
VII. THE WALLACE ORGANISATION AND BAGDAD........ 125
VIII. HERMAN STURM.................................. 156
IX. SOLDIERS AND STATESMAN...................... 208
A. A MATTER OF OPINION.......................... OL OrrUo
XI. END OF ENDEAVOR.............................. 247
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................. . 255
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PREFACE
The subject of the dissertation was worked out by
the author in consultation with Professor Arthur Scott
Aiton and Dr. Randolph G. Adams.
I have received assistance from a large number of
sources, but most particularly the following. In the United
States: Dr. Irving McKee, of Sacramento State College; Dr.
Robert W. Frazer, of the University of Wichita; Dr. George
P. Hammond, Mrs. Elizabeth Euphrat, and other members of the
staff of the Bancroft Library; Mr. Lew Wallace, of Indianapo
lis; Miss Caroline Dunn, of the William Henry Smith Memorial
Library at the Indiana Historical Society, and Mr. Howard
Peckham, Director of the Society; Adriana Arnold, of Los
Angeles; Sehor Ernesto Romero, Mexican consul in Los Angeles;
Dr. Carlos Castaheda, of the University of Texas; Colonel W.
E. Mills, of Burbank, California; the members of the staff of
the National Archives; Dr. William Spence Robertson, dean of
Hispanic American historians; and members of the staff of the
William L. Clements Library. In Mexico, where I was received
with unfailing courtesy, I particularly appreciate the aid of
Sell or Edmundo 0*Gorman, of the Archivo General de la Nacion;
Sehor Rafael Muftoz and Sehor Garcia Duellos of the Secretaria
de Relaciones Exteriores; Brigadier General Juan Garcia Rosas,
i
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of the Archivo Militar of the Secretaria he la Defensa Nacional,
and the many helpful members of the staff of that Archivo.
After initial citations, I refer in the text to several
of the lengthly documentary compilations by abbreviated forms,
indicated in the first citation. Thus the 10 volume Corres-
pondencla is so noted, although the full entry begins Mexico♦
Legacidn. U.S. These abbreviated forms will be found under
the entry Mexico... in the bibliography. Cases of the claims
commission of 1868 are noted by docket number, but a full
list is provided in the bibliography under the heading "U.S.
National Archives," in the manuscripts section.
NOTE
The final draft of this dissertation was
completed on December 8, 1950. The author
died suddenly on December 9. Therefore, the
present manuscript was not proofread by the
author.
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chapter I
INTRODUCTION
In the study of relations between the United States
and the republics to the south of us it is not always too
easy to find an even relatively happy chapter. Except at the
very beginning of its national existence, when the United
States didn't have any too much weight to throw around, and
saw the new Spanish republics as an outgrowth of her own in
dependence movement, cordiality has not been the rule.
True, there is much talk of good neighborliness. And
from time to time, especially when there is a war on, we con
centrate upon these nations and, in a sense, take them to our
collective bosom.
But these people are not exactly dazzled by the bril
liance of our attitudes. They cast the coldly analytical
glance of Hispanic logic upon our protestations. And the
result is not always happy— for us.
If we could send more sympa.th.etic, Spanish-speaking
representatives to these countries, it would help. If we
could woo them at times other than those of urgency to us,
they might believe us the sooner. But, probably, first of
all we have to learn who and what they are, their past, their
1
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2
present, and their probable future. This is a task which has
barely been begun. We should be able, at any rate, to recog
nize the more important periods of modern Mexico, the Wars of
Independence, from 1810 to 1821; the Regency from 1821 to 1822;
the short-lived empire of Iturbide from 1822 to 1823; the first
federal republic, beginning with President Guadalupe Victoria,
from 1824 to 1833; the central republic, from 1834-1835 to
1843; a return to the federal form in 184-4, and to centralism in
1846; the federal government from 1846 to 1353; centralism and
the dictatorship of Santa Anna from 1853 to 1855; federalism
and the Wars of the Reform, 1857 to 1861; the French Interven
tion, 1861 to 1867, which includes Maximilian's Empire, 1864
to 1867; a continuation of federalism to the beginning of the
dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, which continued up to the
Revolution of 1910, and the resumption of relatively demo
cratic processes.
The United States was once wont to boast, through the
pens of its more chauvinistic nineteenth century historians,
that with one gesture, it threw the French from Mexico and
toppled Maximilian from his throne, a rather considerable
achievement. In determining what actually did happen, we may
well learn more of both Mexico and the United States.
The problem, then, is the extent and the degree of aid
furnished by the United States to the recognized government of
Mexico, the so-called "supreme government," of Benito Juarez,
during the period when the French armies of Napoleon III in
vaded Mexico and placed Maximilian von Hapsburg on the throne
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3
as Emperor of Mexico* The story starts at the end of 1861, and
is over by mid-1867, years in which, it must be borne in mind,
the United States was extremely involved in remaining one nation,
indivisible.
Our endeavor will be to see who sent what, and where.
We shall concern ourselves primarily with material aid, for
the diplomatic historians have long speculated upon the policy
notes of Mr. Seward. Any standard history will trace the grad
ually roughening surface of this secretary of state* 3 tongue cis
applied to the French emperor.
But to observe intelligently what was done north of
the border, at least an outline of events south of the Rfo
Bravo is probably necessary that events may be viewed within
their proper frame of reference.
Mexico, perhaps more than most nations, has climbed a
stairway to national independence made constantly slippery by
the best blood of her sons. Man after man in the rolls of her
heroes died that the country might continue. This may be a
romantic concept, but in the case of Mexico, it is a valid one.
The great leaders of the Independence Movement did not die in
bed at any Mount Vernon. They pointed the way, but the greater
number of them were shot down even as they looked to the future.
At the time of Independence, it was a badly divided
country. There were the great splits between the peninsula
born and the native born Spaniards, between the various mix
tures of the native and Spanish races, between the several eco
nomic levels of society. There was little in the way of a
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middle class to compare with that of the Anglo-American col
onies.
And while the North Americans protested the tyranny
of George the Third and his ministers, the Spanish were ac
customed to a kind of regulation that had never reached the
English colonies along the Atlantic. It was not wholly un
democratic, any Spaniard felt that he had the right to appeal
directly to the king himself, and times without number he did
just that. But it was built on a powerful concept of author
itarian rule. Therefore, in the newly independent country, it
is not surprising that men come forward seeking to substitute
themselves for the royal figurehead. These are the Iturbides
and the Santa Annas of Mexico. And the bitter, bloody rivalry
between the various politicos composes much of the early his
tory of independent Mexico.
To a very great degree, Mexico was a feudal society
up to, and to a considerable extent even after, the period
of the Reforma. The church was powerful beyond the imagina
tion of a modern Protestant nation.. The great landowners ex
ercised high, middle and low justice with impunity if not
right. The theoretical privileges of the Indians, as citizens
of the new Mexico, were present on paper but largely ignored.
Meanwhile the leaders of the country played the game of power,
like the robber barons of Central Europe and a few centuries
ago. They fought little wars, established near dynasties, all
without any serious consideration of the central government,
and actually, without much need to consider that element. The
central government was an ineffective force.
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Then came the wars of the Reform, 1857 to 1861, begun
under the hesitant liberal president, Ignacio Comonfort, and
reaching full flower under President Benito Juarez. The
country was split wide open, with the forward looking "new
men" on one side, and the conservatives, the clingers to old
ways, on the other. It was almost a new Revolution. Around
the black coated little Indian gathered the best minds of
Mexico, Guillermo Prieto, Melchor Ocampo, Miguel and Sebastian
Lerdo de Tejada, Ignacio Ramirez, Santos Degollado, and others.
Stalwart sons of the conservative Church were reactionary
leaders, Tomas Mej£a, Miguel Miramon and Leonardo Marquez.
From 1857 to 1861, these forces battled back and forth
across a countryside that was slipping slowly to ruin. From
his capital at Vera Cruz, Juarez and his followers finally
strangled the opposition into submission. But it was a long
and particularly bloody conflict with incident after incident
of no credit to either side.
Finally, Judrez and the movement of the Reform pre
vailed. The Conservatives were at any rate dispersed, and the
stricken country could begin to breathe again.
But her travail was only beginning.
From the early times of Independence, Mexican leaders
had found it amazingly easy to float loans in European capitals,
and then, by merely paying interest, to ignore them. If forced
by the representatives of the powers concerned, concessions
might be given, in lieu of actual repayment. Thus some countries
enjoyed what amounted to absolute ownership of certain resources,
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o
mines and such, within the country. And so when a British
silver convoy was seized hy the Juaristas, at a time of com
plete desperation, a reckoning was Inevitable. Spanish cit
izens were maltreated, and the Spanisi court began to think
upon its lost Nueva Espaha. Miguel Miramon, of the Conserva
tives, in urgent need of money and claiming, just then, to be
the legitimate president of Mexico, gave 15 millions in bonds
to the Swiss Jecker for 750,000 pesos in cash. Jecker almost
immediately became a French citizen and an intimate of the Due
de Morny, illegitimate half brother of Napoleon III, and a man
with an eye always on the main financial chance.
And then, in 1861, the trade of Mexico in ruins, the
country devastated, the customs receipts almost non-existent,
Juarez was forced by the power of simple arithmetic to suspend
payment on the foreign debts.
Europe in those days, and indeed, a good bit of North
America as well, still saw Mexico as the fabulous realm of the
Aztec empire of gold. With this the basis of their picture in
Mexico, it is hardly to be wondered at that the holders of the
securities affected screamed in anguished protest. Something
had to be done, and done at once.
From 1861 on, we can easily trace the development of
the movement which was to become knoxm as the French Inter
vention. The following outline will serve as a reference to
indicate the space-time place of events to be considered later
in more detail.
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