Mexico: Resource-rich, Unequal, and Religious

A response to William Carpenter’s Travels and Adventures in Mexico (1851)
by Allan Apoj Pascal

Offering the unique perspective of an American soldier during the Mexican-American War of 1846, William W. Carpenter’s Travels And Adventures is a valuable record of the state of Mexican affairs at the turn of the nineteenth century. Carpenter was captured and taken as a prisoner of war.  After his release, he wandered the country until he could find his way back north.

In his journal entries, Carpenter portrays Mexico’s condition following a devastating war of independence and 25 years of successive caudillo governments. Travels And Adventures can be thought of as testimony to the short-term effects that independence had on the Mexican population. It is a highly descriptive narrative of the conditions among the Mexican lower classes. Throughout his journey, Carpenter attempts to understand the persistence of misery within what he perceives to be a resource-rich society, but in the end he fails. Instead, the young American traveling through an “exotic” land offers only racist stereotypes to explain what he observes. The true value of Carpenter’s work lies in his meticulous depiction of the environment that surrounded him, rather than on his assessment of the root of Mexico’s social inequities.

Carpenter’s account reveals that the immediate legacy of the vaunted Mexican revolution was one of social and political anarchy. Mexico was ravaged by battles throughout the nineteenth century. Carpenter depicts the lack of order that pervaded the country by describing the freedom with which bandits roamed around the country:

“The government…so utterly destitute of the means to disperse these bandits that had organized in large bands in every section of the country were daily committing their depredations on quiet and unoffending citizens with impunity. Even officers of the government were sometimes found to be in league with them.” (Carpenter 1851, 158)

The lack of a strong central government in post-independence Mexico served to localize power in the hands of the Alcalde, whose “decisions are nearly absolute” (Carpenter 1851, 259) or in the hands of the wealthiest landlord in town. Quick to learn, Carpenter’s first act upon arriving in a new town was to look for the mayor and ask for his hospitality and protection.

Carpenter devotes a lot of thought to questions related to wealth; he is perplexed by the inequity he finds within the nation. His bafflement serves to highlight just how little newfound independence from the Spanish crown changed the economic and social reality of Mexico’s diverse population. Slavery for people of African descent was technically abolished, although debt peonage was perpetuated by the peasant’s labor and tribute obligations. Indians lost their communal lands in the post-independence period, allowing for a new wave of land accumulation by the already landed-elite. While passing through a town with a population of two thousand people, Carpenter’s interpreter told him that the town “was owned entirely by one man. He also told us that we would travel four days on this same man’s land, and every night encamp in towns fully as large as this, all owned by this man.” (Carpenter 1851, 78). The aforementioned wealth was not generated by ideas or technology, but rather by the systematic abuse of peasants.

Carpenter provides extensive testimony about the right, unchanging social norms which governed the lives of the lower classes:

“The rich, who rule every thing—even the minds of the poor—are generally most debased, morally; and they are, consequently, cruel masters. They have the power to punish to almost any extent, even death, and are served with the most abject deference by their peons or slaves. As slavery is not recognized, the word servants, perhaps, would be more proper. But, in effect, they are in a state worse than slavery. They [eds. —  Rural workers and indigenous populations] are mostly bound to their masters for some debt, which the latter take care shall never be paid….When addressing their masters, they take off their hats, and speak in a hesitating and trembling manner, as though they were in the presence of a superior Being”(Carpenter 1851, 148).

In the course of his travels, the reality surrounding him forces him to confront questions about the conditions endured by the populace. He wonders: “how the inhabitants manage to live was a mystery” (Carpenter 1851, 146). As an American, Carpenter is not puzzled by the institution of slavery, but rather by economic enslavement—a by-product of the lack of attention that the independence movement gave to the welfare of significant sectors of the population.

Carpenter is very critical of the Catholic Church. Perhaps biased by his Protestant upbringing, Carpenter lambasts the institution for its extravagant spending amidst such rampant poverty, as well as the blind religious zeal of Mexicans, “which pervades all classes, young and old that [left] this morally bankrupt institution unquestioned.” (Carpenter 1851, 148) Carpenter is amazed at the church’s riches, which he exemplifies best in his description of Guadalajara’s Cathedral, “the largest Cathedral that I ever saw, the best furnished, and the richest.” (Carpenter 1851, 211). Furthermore, as an American, he is surprised to find virtually no separation between the funding of church and state: “The revenue of the bishop is derived from a tithe or a percentage of the wealth and income of all the inhabitants.” (Carpenter 1851, 237)

Religion was at the heart of Mexican culture. Miguel Hidalgo and many others were themselves members of the Catholic Church, and therefore the institution remained in the center of power after independence. It is evident that the guarantee of protection for religion proclaimed by Augustin de Iturbide, Mexico’s Constitutional Emperor in the wake of independence, meant the church would be able to continue its strong control over Mexicans. Given the wealth under its control, it was an institution that had an enormous potential to mitigate some of the poverty that existed. However, according to Carpenter, its curas (priests) spent their time fulfilling all of their “passion” and  “indulged in the grossest licentiousness,” rather than attending to the needs of the poor. (Carpenter 1851, 239)

Although accurate in his portrayal of Mexico at the time, Carpenter fails to understand the sources of the hardship around him. He incorrectly reproaches Mexicans (more precisely, the indigenous populations) for not taking advantage of the land which, “besides being extremely fertile, is said to abound mineral wealth.” (Carpenter 1851, 80) According to Carpenter, this wealth “yields them little, and that little is derived principally from the foreigners who now occupy the richest portion of the mining region.” (Carpenter 1851, 80) Carpenter attributes this phenomenon to genetic deficiencies, asserting that “the natives are either too ignorant or too indolent to derive any more benefit from this internal wealth than the simple two shillings per day which they receive as wages. They would sit and play cards all day on silver stone, and not know it.” (Carpenter 1851, 80)

Carpenter is guilty of confusing causes and effects. He frequently implies that the deepest societial problems faced by the state are a result of “gambling and drinking (those curses of Mexico) [that] are practiced to great excess.” (Carpenter 1851, 142) He fails to consider the alternative possibility that Mexicans drink and gamble because they are unemployed or forced into subsistence farming on land they do not own. Travels And Adventures is a valuable historical document not because of its insight but because of its geographical and social breadth and depth. His insights may be questioned, but his extensive observations are of value on their own. In addition, his are the only records of their kind.  A prisoner of war, he was forced to travel the country without the typical resources of most travelers to the region. He spent time with both the lower and upper classes and visited regions seldom explored by outsiders during a chaotic period of time in Mexican history. Carpenter believed his thoughts to be valuable because of the particular “circumstances which afforded him unusual opportunities of learning the character, customs, and domestic habits…among the Mexicans.”(Carpenter 1851, iv) However, his work continues to be studied because of the the comprehensive and detailed approach he took to documenting his exploration of Mexico.

*****
*****

References:

Carpenter, William. 1851. Travels And Adventures In Mexico In The Course Of Journeys Of Upward Of 2500 Miles Performed On Foot. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers.

Skidmore, Thomas E. and Peter H. Smith and James N. Green, eds. 2010. Modern Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press