History

Pre-Hispanic Civilizations

The earliest "Mexicans" were Stone Age hunter-gatherers from the north, descendants of a race that had probably crossed the Bering Strait and reached North America around 12,000 B.C. They arrived in what is now Mexico by 10,000 B.C. Sometime between 5200 and 1500 B.C., in what is known as the Archaic period, they began practicing agriculture and domesticating animals.

The Pre-Classic Period (1500 B.C. to A.D. 300) -- Eventually, agriculture improved enough to support large communities and free some of the population from agricultural work. A civilization emerged that we call the Olmec -- an enigmatic people who settled the lower Gulf Coast in what is now Tabasco and Veracruz. Anthropologists regard them as the mother culture of Mesoamerica because they established a pattern for later civilizations in a wide area stretching from northern Mexico into Central America. The Olmec developed the basic calendar used throughout the region, established a 52-year cycle (which they used to schedule the construction of pyramids), established principles of urban layout and architecture, and originated the cult of the jaguar and the sanctity of jade.

The Maya civilization began developing in the late pre-Classic period, around 500 B.C. Our understanding of this period is sketchy, but Olmec influences are apparent everywhere. The Maya perfected the Olmec calendar and, somewhere along the way, developed an ornate system of hieroglyphic writing and early architectural concepts. Two other civilizations began the rise to prominence around this time: the people of Teotihuacán, just north of present-day Mexico City, and the Zapotec of Monte Albán, in the valley of Oaxaca.

The Classic Period (A.D. 300-900) -- The flourishing of these three civilizations marks the boundaries of this period -- the heyday of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artistic and cultural achievements. These include the pyramids and palaces in Teotihuacán; the ceremonial center of Monte Albán; and the temple complexes and pyramids of Palenque and Calakmul.

The inhabitants of Teotihuacán (100 B.C. to A.D. 700), near present-day Mexico City, built a city that, at its zenith, is thought to have had 200,000 or more inhabitants. It was a well-organized city, covering 30 sq. km (12 sq. miles), and built on a grid with streams channeled to follow the city's plan.

Farther south, the Zapotec, influenced by the Olmec, raised an impressive civilization in the region of Oaxaca. Their two principal cities were Monte Albán, inhabited by an elite class of merchants and artisans, and Mitla, reserved for the high priests.

The Post-Classic Period (A.D. 900-1521) -- Warfare was a more conspicuous activity of the civilizations that flourished in this period. Social development was impressive but not as cosmopolitan as the Maya, Teotihuacán, and Zapotec societies. In central Mexico, a people known as the Toltec established their capital at Tula in the 10th century. They revered a god known as Tezcatlipoca, or "smoking mirror," who later became an Aztec god. The Toltec maintained a large military class divided into orders symbolized by animals. At its height, Tula may have had 40,000 people, and its influence spread across Mesoamerica. By the 13th century, however, the Toltec had exhausted themselves, probably in civil wars and in battles with the invaders from the north.

Of those northern invaders, the Aztec were the most warlike. At first they served as mercenaries for established cities in the valley of Mexico -- one of which allotted them an unwanted, marshy piece of land in the middle of Lake Texcoco for their settlement. It eventually grew into the island city of Tenochtitlán. Through aggressive diplomacy and military action, the Aztec soon conquered central Mexico and extended their rule east to the Gulf Coast and south to the valley of Oaxaca.

During this later period, the Maya civilization flourished in northern Yucatán, especially in cities such as Chichén Itzá and Uxmal.

The Conquest

In 1517, the first Spaniards arrived in what is today known as Mexico and skirmished with Maya Indians off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. One of the fledgling expeditions ended in shipwreck, leaving several Spaniards stranded as prisoners of the Maya. The Spanish sent out another expedition, under the command of Hernán Cortez, which landed on Cozumel in February 1519. Cortez inquired about the gold and riches of the interior, and the coastal Maya were happy to describe the wealth and splendor of the Aztec empire in central Mexico. Cortez promptly disobeyed all orders of his superior, the governor of Cuba, and sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, landing at what is now Veracruz.

Cortez arrived when the Aztec empire was at the height of its wealth and power. Moctezuma II ruled over the central and southern highlands and extracted tribute from lowland peoples. His greatest temples were literally plated with gold and encrusted with the blood of sacrificial captives. Moctezuma was a fool, a mystic, and something of a coward. Despite his wealth and military power, he dithered in his capital at Tenochtitlán, sending messengers with gifts and suggestions that Cortez leave. Meanwhile, Cortez blustered and negotiated his way into the highlands, always cloaking his real intentions. Moctezuma, terrified by the military tactics and technology of the Spaniard, convinced himself that Cortez was in fact the god Quetzalcoatl making his long-awaited return. By the time the Spaniards arrived in the Aztec capital, Cortez had gained some ascendancy over the lesser Indian states that were resentful tributaries to the Aztec. In November 1519, Cortez confronted Moctezuma and took him hostage in an effort to leverage control of the empire.

In the middle of Cortez's dangerous game of manipulation, another Spanish expedition arrived with orders to end Cortez's authority over the mission. Cortez hastened to meet the rival's force and persuade them to join his own. In the meantime, the Aztec chased the garrison out of Tenochtitlán, and either they or the Spaniards killed Moctezuma. For the next year and a half, Cortez laid siege to Tenochtitlán, with the help of rival Indians and a decimating epidemic of smallpox, to which the Indians had no resistance. In the end, the Aztec capital fell, and when it did, all of central Mexico lay at the feet of the conquistadors.

The Conquest started as a pirate expedition by Cortez and his men, unauthorized by the Spanish crown or its governor in Cuba. The Spanish king legitimized Cortez following his victory over the Aztec and ordered the forced conversion to Christianity of this new colony, to be called New Spain. Guatemala and Honduras were explored and conquered, and by 1540, the territory of New Spain included possessions from Vancouver to Panama. In the 2 centuries that followed, Franciscan and Augustinian friars converted millions of Indians to Christianity, and the Spanish lords built huge feudal estates on which the Indian farmers were little more than serfs. The silver and gold that Cortez looted made Spain the richest country in Europe.

The Colonial Period

Hernán Cortez set about building a new city upon the ruins of the old Aztec capital. To do this, he collected from the Indians the tributes once paid to the Aztec emperor, many of these rendered in labor. This arrangement, in one form or another, became the basis for the construction of the new colony. But diseases brought by the Spaniards decimated the native population over the next century and drastically reduced the pool of labor.

Cortez soon returned to Spain and was replaced by a governing council, and, later, the office of viceroy. Over the 3 centuries of the colonial period, 61 viceroys governed Mexico. Spain became rich from New World gold and silver, chiseled out by Indian labor. The colonial elite built lavish homes in Mexico City and in the countryside. They filled their homes with ornate furniture, had many servants, and adorned themselves in imported velvets, satins, and jewels.

A new class system developed. Those born in Spain (peninsulares) considered themselves superior to the Spanish born in Mexico (criollos). And, below the latter, were the other races and the castas (mixtures of Spanish and Indian, and African).

Discontent with the mother country simmered for years over social and political issues: taxes, royal monopolies, the bureaucracy, the superior position of peninsulares over criollos, and restrictions on commerce with Spain and other countries. In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain and crowned his brother, Joseph, king in place of Charles IV. To many in Mexico, allegiance to France was out of the question; discontent reached the level of revolt.

Independence

The rebellion began in 1810, when Father Miguel Hidalgo gave the grito, a cry for independence, from his church in the town of Dolores, Guanajuato. The uprising soon became a full-fledged revolution, as Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende gathered an "army" of citizens and threatened Mexico City. Although Hidalgo ultimately failed and was executed, he is honored as "the Father of Mexican Independence." Another priest, José María Morelos, kept the revolt alive with several successful campaigns through 1815, when he, too, was captured and executed.

After the death of Morelos, prospects for independence were rather dim until the Spanish king who replaced Joseph Bonaparte decided to make social reforms in the colonies. This convinced the conservative powers in Mexico that they didn't need Spain after all. With their tacit approval, Agustín de Iturbide, then commander of royalist forces, changed sides and declared Mexico independent and himself emperor. Before long, however, internal dissension brought about the fall of the emperor, and Mexico was proclaimed a republic.

Political instability engulfed the young republic and Mexico waged a disastrous war with the U.S., losing half its territory. A central figure was Antonio López de Santa Anna, who assumed the leadership of his country no fewer than 11 times and was flexible enough in those volatile days to portray himself variously as a liberal, a conservative, a federalist, and a centralist. But, by 1855, he was finally left without a political comeback and ended his days in Venezuela.

Political instability persisted, and the conservative forces, with some encouragement from Napoleon III, hit upon the idea of inviting in a Habsburg to regain control (as if that strategy had ever worked for Spain). They found a willing volunteer in Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who accepted the position of Mexican emperor with the support of French troops. The ragtag Mexican forces defeated the French force -- a modern, well-equipped army -- in a battle near Puebla (now celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo). A second attempt was more successful, and Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph of Habsburg became emperor. After 3 years of civil war, the French were finally induced to abandon the emperor's cause; Maximilian was captured and executed by a firing squad near Querétaro in 1867. His adversary and successor (as president of Mexico) was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian lawyer and one of the great heroes of Mexican history. Juárez did his best to unify and strengthen his country before dying of a heart attack in 1872; his impact on Mexico's future was profound, and his plans and visions bore fruit for decades.

The Porfiriato & The Revolution

A few years after Juárez's death, one of his generals, Porfirio Díaz, assumed power in a coup. He ruled Mexico from 1877 to 1911, a period now called the "Porfiriato." He stayed in power by imposing repressive measures and courting the favor of powerful nations. Generous in his dealings with foreign investors, Díaz became, in the eyes of most Mexicans, the archetypal entreguista (one who sells out his country for private gain). With foreign investment came the concentration of great wealth in few hands, and social conditions worsened.

In 1910, Francisco Madero called for an armed rebellion that became the Mexican Revolution (La Revolución in Mexico; the revolution against Spain is the Guerra de Independencia). Díaz was sent into exile; while in London, he became a celebrity at the age of 81, when he jumped into the Thames to save a drowning boy. He is buried in Paris. Madero became president but was promptly betrayed and executed by Victoriano Huerta. Those who had answered Madero's call responded again -- to the great peasant hero Emiliano Zapata in the south, and to the seemingly invincible Pancho Villa in the central north, flanked by Alvaro Obregón and Venustiano Carranza. They eventually put Huerta to flight and began hashing out a new constitution.

For the next few years, the revolutionaries Carranza, Obregón, and Villa fought among themselves; Zapata did not seek national power, though he fought tenaciously for land for the peasants. Carranza, who was president at the time, betrayed and assassinated Zapata. Obregón finally consolidated power and probably had Carranza assassinated. He, in turn, was assassinated when he tried to break one of the tenets of the Revolution -- no reelection. His successor, Plutarco Elias Calles, learned this lesson well, installing one puppet president after another, until Lázaro Cárdenas severed the puppeteer's strings and banished him to exile.

Until Cárdenas's election in 1934, the outcome of the revolution remained in doubt. There had been some land redistribution, but other measures took a back seat to political expediency. Cárdenas changed all that. He implemented massive redistribution of land and nationalized the oil industry. He instituted many reforms and gave shape to the ruling political party (now the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI) by bringing a broad representation of Mexican society under its banner and establishing mechanisms for consensus building. Most Mexicans practically canonize Cárdenas.

Modern Mexico

The presidents who followed were noted more for graft than for leadership. The party's base narrowed as many of the reform-minded elements were marginalized. Economic progress, a lot of it in the form of large development projects, became the PRI's main basis for legitimacy. In 1968, the government violently repressed a student protest in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. An unknown number of citizens were killed. Though the PRI maintained its grip on power, it lost all semblance of being a progressive party. In 1985, a devastating earthquake in Mexico City brought down many of the government's new, supposedly earthquake-proof buildings, exposing shoddy construction and the widespread government corruption that fostered it. The government's handling of the relief efforts also drew heavy criticism. In 1994, a political and military uprising in Chiapas focused world attention on Mexico's great social problems. A new political force, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, or EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army), skillfully publicized the plight of the peasant.

In the years that followed, opposition political parties grew in power and legitimacy. Facing pressure and scrutiny from national and international organizations, and widespread public discontent, the PRI began to concede defeat in state and congressional elections throughout the '90s. Party reformers were able to make changes over the objections of many hard-liners. They instituted a partial system of primary elections to give greater voice to the rank and file. This made for successful campaigns in several states, but in other states the old-style party leaders held on to their right to appoint the official party candidate. Internal strife reached a climax with the assassination of the party's presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio. A quick compromise between different party factions resulted in the nomination of Ernesto Zedillo for president. Once in power, Zedillo proved to be a reformer. Over his 6-year term, he steadily led the country toward open and fair elections by strengthening the electoral process, gaining the public's confidence, and getting his own party to accept the possibility of losing power.

In the presidential elections of 2000, Vicente Fox, candidate for the Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party, or PAN), won by a landslide. It couldn't have been otherwise. For many voters this election was an experiment to see if their votes would really count. They voted for the most prominent opposition candidate to see if, in fact, he would be allowed to assume the presidency. For Mexicans, a government under the PRI was all that they had ever known.

During Fox's presidency, the three main political parties had to adjust to the new realty of power sharing. The old government party, the PRI, still had a large infrastructure for getting out the vote and still controlled the local governments of several states. Fox's center-right PAN had control of the presidency and the most seats in the legislature, while the center-left PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, or Democratic Revolution Party) controlled the city government of Mexico City as well as a few southern states. Many observers anticipated gridlock. But the three parties, to their credit, handled the transition better than expected.

But by the end of Fox's term, the situation turned ugly, and Mexico's experiment with pluralistic democracy faced a difficult crisis. The Fox administration showed no finesse in dealing with the legislature and failed to pass most of its initiatives. In the off-year elections of 2004, PAN lost many seats in the legislature and several governorships.

The main beneficiary was the PRI, which looked to be in an excellent position for the presidential election of 2006, but not for long. In 2005, the party's leader, Roberto Madrazo, sought to become the party's nominee without going through primary elections. His power plays worked to make him the nominee but splintered the party badly and reminded voters of the old days when their votes didn't count for anything.

Meanwhile, the PRD's choice of nominee seemed inevitable. Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO for short) was without question the most important figure in the party. He was tremendously popular for creating programs, such as a pension for the city's elderly. And his popularity soared when he became the target of political dirty tricks to make him ineligible to run for president. He was genuinely interested in helping the poor, but there was something unsettling about the way he would take political opposition personally. He dismissed a large demonstration in Mexico City against kidnapping and other crimes as the work of his political enemies and not as the expression of local citizens to highlight the need to feel safe in their city.

The PAN ended up having the only meaningful primary elections, which resulted in an underdog candidate, Felipe Calderón, becoming the party nominee. He is a social conservative and a devout Catholic who believes in privatization and market forces.

A bitter campaign between AMLO and Calderón, followed by an incredibly close election in the summer of 2006, made for a serious crisis. So close was the election that it took over a month for the elections tribunal to declare Calderón the winner. AMLO refused to recognize the verdict and launched a protest that lasted another month. Supporters in his party even tried to physically prevent Calderón from taking office by occupying the legislative chambers. All of this ended up diminishing AMLO's popularity.

The crisis shows that Mexico must continue to strengthen its political institutions. PAN now has the most seats in the legislature, but not a majority. To pass legislation it will need to compromise with the other parties. The PRD has the second highest number of seats. It must put AMLO behind it if it doesn't want to be marginalized. And the PRI must learn from its mistakes and move towards democracy and transparency. But at the moment, its legislators enjoy the role of powerbrokers between the government and a powerful opposition party. It will be the key player in deciding what gets accomplished in the next few years.