by Ellen Mass
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This article is part two of a series on Mexico’s history and economic development
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The presidency of Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) made large public investments in energy, transportation, technology and human resources, transforming life for the people of Mexico. AMLO’s popularity and successes led to his party, the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (MORENA) winning a massive victory in the 2024 election. With over 61% of the popular vote Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, AMLO’s Vice President was elected the first female president of Mexico. But, these latest gains, now being called Mexico’s Fourth Transformation, can’t be fully understood without knowledge of the three transformations that preceded. These three transformations tell the story of Mexico’s difficult struggle for freedom from colonialism and foreign control. Like most stories of struggle against oppression, it features great steps forward, and steps back.
The First Transformation was, of course, the struggle for Mexico’s Independence from Spain. Launched by the Mexican hero, Bishop Hidalgo’s Grito De Delores on September 16, 1810, the “Cry of Delores” was a call to drive out the Spanish colonists who had ruled and exploited Mexico for centuries. Though Hidalgo was captured and executed by Spanish royalists in 1811, the struggle was carried forward by the Afro-Mexican priest and abolitionist, Jose´ Morelos. But, after his death in 1815 power fell into the hands of Agustín Iturbide, an officer of the royal Spanish army who had defected to the Revolution. Iturbide established himself as Emperor of Mexico in 1822. After a brief imperial rule, Agustín I was forced to abdicate, the first President of Mexico, Guadelupe Victoria, was elected and the Mexican Constitution of 1824 instituted.
Slavery was abolished by the second president, Vincent Guerrero, a man of black and Indian ancestry. But, Guerrero was taken down by a coup led by Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, a man who would become President of Mexico 11 times between 1833 and 1855, ushering in an era of military rule. During his tumultuous career the sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative, but always General Santa Ana led the battles to retain Mexican independence from Spain in 1829, lost Texas in 1836, repulsed a French invasion in 1838, lost the Mexican-American war of 1845 and, by 1848, had ceded over with 55 percent of Mexico’s territory to the US via the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty.
Mexico’s next major historical leap is the Second Transformation, la Reforma, of 1858-1872. Rising to power after the last dictatorship of Santa Ana ended in 1855, Benito Juarez, revered today with country-wide monuments and institutions dedicated to his contributions, is known best for the Reform Constitution of 1857. It instituted freedom of speech, conscience, and assembly and universal male suffrage across Mexico. It also created separation of church and state, abandoning Catholicism as the official religion of Mexico. These reforms led to a Conservative backlash that led to a 3 year civil war.
Though Juarez’s Liberals would eventually prevail, the country was so weakened that Napoleon III of France saw the opportunity for intervention. He installed a friendly aristocrat from Europe and established a Second Mexican Empire under Emperor Maximilian I. It took 5 and a half years, 10s of thousands of lives, and substantial military aid from the US to oust the French and their puppet emperor. Despite the gains of la Reforma, the rise of a key leader in the fight against the French, the Conservatives, and Santa Ana before them, would establish a new form of autocratic rule.
Porfirio Diaz, ironically a protege of Benito Juarez, became president in 1876 and held power for 35 years. The technocratic style of the “Porfiriato” created important city infrastructure, railways, and wealth for the wealthy, but ignored the needs of most of the population. Unwilling to give up power even at the age of 80, Diaz was eventually overthrown by the political idealist Franciso Madeiro in 1910. But he didn’t last long and the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 saw a series of strongmen capture power through violent coups and nation-wide violence that killed well over 1 million Mexicans.
The Mexican Revolution, as part of the Third Transformation, transformed banditos like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata into popular revolutionaries and folk heroes. With human, economic, and civil rights as their stated causes, they fought Diaz and his immediate successors, using guerilla warfare.
The third transformation might be defined as a declaration of independence of Mexican resources from total control by the US. The establishment of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which still governs Mexico to this day, was one of the first such documents to guarantee a set of social rights. These included labor rights, land reform, further limitations on the power of the Catholic Church, and Mexican control of their own natural resources. During the period between 1919 and 1928 the Mexican Labor Party was able to implement many of these reforms but, after the murder of President Álvaro Obregón by a pro-Catholic assassin in 1928, a political crisis ensued. To solve it, Obregón ally and former President Plutarco Elías Calles created what would become the Mexican Revolution the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The PRI dominated Mexican politics for the rest of the 20th century, increasingly becoming less concerned with the needs of the people and more corporate in character.
The political development of President Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador and, now, Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is inspired by Mexico’s past history for independence and social justice. Understanding the 3 previous transformations in Mexican political history is crucial to understanding the state of Mexican politics today. In the next article in this series we will explore the development of the PRI through the 20th century and into the early 21st century, and look closer at the rise of AMLO to prominence.
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Ellen Mass is a member of MAPA’s Latin America and Caribbean Working Group