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••
CRUCIBLE OF
STRUGGLE
Crucible
of
Struggle
r
Crucible
of
Struggle
A History ofMexican Americans
from Colonial Times to the Present Era
ZARAGOSA VARGAS
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
SECOND EDITION
New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vargas, Zaragosa, author.

Title: Crucible of struggle : a history of Mexican Americans from colonial
times to the present era/ Zaragosa Vargas.
Other titles: History of Mexican Americans from colonial times to the present era
Description: Second edition. I New York: University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, (2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025659 I ISBN 9780190200787
Subjects: LCSH: Mexican Americans--History. I Mexican Americans--Social
conditions. I Immigrants--United States--History. I United
States--Relations--Mexico. I Mexico--Relations--United States.
Classification: LCC El84.M5 V343 2017 I DDC 973/.046872--dc23 LC record available
at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025659
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by LSC Communications, Inc., United States of America
For Zaneta, Lina, Marcel, and Margo

CON T E N TS
PREFACE Xii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix
NEW T O T HI S E D ITIO N x.xi
A N O TE O N TER MINO L O GY xxi
Chapter 1 The Era of the Spanish Northern

Frontier to 1821 I
Spanish Institutions and Mixed-Race Society of the Northern
Frontier 3
The Founding of New Mexico 8
Resisting Spanish Colonization: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 11
Duty to the Crown and Church Fulfilled: The Spanish
Reconquest of New Mexico 13
A Buffer Zone Against Expansion: Spanish Colonial Texas 20
The Apache and Comanche Threat in Texas 22
The Condition of the Spanish Texas Colony in the Early
Nineteenth Century 24
Guarding the Western Periphery: Spanish Colonial Alta
California 25
Mexican Independence Comes to the Northern Frontier 30
Conclusion 31
Chapter 2 Life and Society in Mexico's Northern

Borderlands, 1821- 1846 39
Indian Relations on the Northern Frontier After Mexican
Independence 42
Men of the Plains: New Mexican Ciboleros and
Comancheros 45
vii
viii C ON TE N T S
The Opening of Commercial Markets: The Taos Trade Fair

and the Santa Fe Trail 46
Conflict in New Mexico: The 1837 Revolt 48
Tejano Life on the Texas Frontier Under Mexico 50
The Never-Ending Indian Menace: Comanche Raids
in Texas 51
The Growing Conflict in Texas with Mexico 52
The Drive for Texas Independence 54
Making California Mexican 63
The California Missions: Making Indians Faithful
and Industrious Christians 65
The Golden Age of California Ranching 67
The California-Era Revolts Against Mexican Rule 70
Conclusion 72
Chapter 3 Mexican Americans in the Era of War

and American Westward Expansion 80
The Southwest on the Eve of the Mexican War 82
The Outbreak of War 85
The American Occupation of New Mexico 86
The 1847 Taos Revolt Again st American Occupation
of New Mexico 89
The American Occupation of California 92
The Battles at Monterrey and Buena Vista 95
The Enduring Paradox: The Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo 101
Conclusion 106
Chapter 4 Mexican Americans from the 1850s

to the End of the Civil War 113
Mexican Americans in the Post-conquest Southwest 114
The California Banditti Joaquin Murieta and Tiburcio
Vasquez 120
Juan Cortina: Champion and Hated Villain of the Texas
Border Region 124
Mexican Americans in the American Civil War 128
Mexican Americans in the Indian Wars 135
Conclusion 137
Chapters Mexican Americans in the Southwest, 1870

to the Early Twentieth Century 144
The Mexican Americans of California 145
The Tejanos and Mexicans of Texas 146
Disenfranchising Tejano Voters as Political Strategy 151
Contents ix
The Mexicans of Arizona and New Mexico 152

The United States and the New Mexico Land Grants
Question 156
Las Gorras Blancas and the Struggle to Protect Land
Grants 158
Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona? 162
The New Southwest Economy and the First Modern Phase
of Mexican Immigration to the United States 165
Conclusion 169
Chapter6 Mexican Immigration, Work, Urbanization,

and Americanization, 1910-1929 177
Mexican Labor Strife and Struggle 179
Tejano Freedom Fighters: The Plan de San Diego 183
The Killing Fields of South Texas 185
Immigration from Mexico During the Years 1910- 1920 188
Mexicans, World War I, and the 1920- 1921 Depression 189
Mexican Immigration from 1920 to 1929 191
Mexican Los Angeles 192
Mexicans in the Rocky Mountain and Plains States 194
Mexicans in the Urban Industrial Heartland of the
Midwest 195
Mexicans and Social and Cultural Change
and Americanization 198
Mexican Mutualism and Fraternalism 200
Conclusion 204
Chapter 7 The Mexican American Struggle for Labor Rights

in the Era of the Great Depression 212
The Plight of Mexicans in the Early Years of the Great
Depression 214
The Repatriation Campaign Unfolds 216
Mexicans in the Era of the National Recovery Act 220
Mexican Women Workers Battle for Equality 222
Mexican Coal Miners Wage War in Gallup 224
Tejano Struggles for Unionism in South Texas 227
Emma Tenayuca Brings Social Justice to San Antonio's
Mexicans 228
The 1938 Str ike by San Antonio's Pecan Shellers 229
The UCAPAWA Organizes Colorado's Mexican Farm
Workers 231
Mexican American CIO Unionists Organize Los Angeles
and Southern California 231
Conclusion 235
x CO TENTS
Chapter 8 The Mexican American People in the World

War II Era 241
Mexican Americans on the Eve of the Second World War 243
Justice Delayed: The Sleepy Lagoon Incident 248
Mexican Americans and the Sinarquista Menace 250
America's War at Home: The Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots 251
Mexican American Gis on the Pacific and European War
Fronts 253
Mexican Americans Fight Against Discrimination:
The Case of Los Angeles 257
Mexican American Women War Workers 258
Braceros: The Mexican Contract Labor Program Begins 260
American Race Relations and Mexican Americans 261
Conclusion 263
Chapter 9 Mexican Americans in the Postwar Years,

1946-1963 270
Forgotten: The Status of Mexican Americans in Postwar
America 272
Mexican Americans in the Early Postwar American Labor
Movement 274
The Radicalism of ANMA 278
Mexican Americans and the CSO 279
Mexican Americans Caught in the Web of the Red Scare 282
Mexican Americans in the Dragnets of Operation Wetback
and Operation Terror 284
Civil Rights Litigation by Mexican Americans 285
Don't Bow to the Powers That Be: Shifts in the Mexican
American Rights Movement 288
Mexican Americans and the Democratic Party 290
Conclusion 294
Chapter 10 Mexican Americans in the Protest Era,

1964-1974 304
Viva La Huelga!-Gaining Ground for Farm Workers 307
The People's Choice: Reies Lopez Tijerina and the New Mexico
Land Grants Movement 311
Cultural Nationalism and Community Control:
The Crusade for Justice 316
A Search for Identity: The Chicano Student Movement 318
Righteous Discontent: The Chicana Women's Movement 321
Raza Si! Guerra Nol-The National Chicano War
Moratorium 323
Contents xi
"Pardon My English "-La Raza Unida Party 329

Conclusion 332
Chapter 11 Mexican Americans at the End of the Twentieth

Century 342
Mexican Americans and Reagan's "New Morning in
America" 345
"Tu Voto Es Tu Voz" (Your Vote is Your Voice): Mexican
Americans and the Political Process 347
Mexican Americans and the Civil Wars in Central
America 350
Unemployment, Drugs, Gang Warfare, and the 1992 Rodney
King Riots 351
The 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act (IRCA), the English-Only
Movement, and Proposition 187 353
"Fight the Power": From the Bakke Decision to
Proposition 209 357
Mexican American Workers O rganize 360
"NAFTA's Gonna Shaft Ya": Mexican Americans
and NAFTA 362
Latino, a New National Identity, a nd Continued Latino
Immigration 365
Conclusion 366
Chapter 12 Latinos and the Challenges of the Twenty-First

Century 375
Latinos and Increased Anti-immigrant Activity
After 2006 378
Latinos Help Elect Barack Obama in 2008 379
Latinos Bear the Weight of Deportation 381
Latinos and the Great Recession 385
Latinos and Health Care 388
Individual States Take on Immigration Reform 389
Latinos Stand up for Immigrant Rights 392
The Dreamers and Doers 394
Latinos and the 2012 Reelection of Barack Obama 397
Latinos and Private Detention Centers 401
The Surge of Children from Central America 403
Conclusion 405
INDEX 415
PREFACE
T he broad demograph ic shift in the racial and ethnic composition of the U.S.
populat ion through un paralleled immigration from Mexico, Central and
South America, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean has resulted in the Latini-
zation of America. Latinos are a major political, economic, and cultural force
who are changing the national identity of the United States. With its inclusive
diversity, Latino culture is considered to be a prototype of a future American
culture that has recast the pervading notion of a black and white America.
Currently exceeding 55 million people, Latinos have replaced African Americans
as the nation's largest minority group. As the fastest-growing and youngest mi-
nority, Latinos are projected to make up 25 percent of the U.S. population by the
middle of this century and they will have an even greater presence by century's
end, when half of the U.S. population may be Latino. Despite this significant de-
mographic reality, mainstream America knows relatively little about the history
of Latinos. 1
Mexicans make up the vast majority of Latinos. As of 2013 about 34.6 mil-
lion Mexicans make up two-thirds of the nation's Latinos, and their numbers are
increasing faster than all other Latino groups. Mexicans are both the oldest set-
tlers of the United States and the nation's largest and most recent immigrant ar-
rivals. Mexican Americans have been helping to shape the nation since the late
sixteenth century. At that time, men and women of mixed racial background
helped colonize and settle the Southwest before the English colonization of North
America. These ancestors of Mexican Americans shaped the regional landscape
of the Southwest and in turn were shaped by it, in the process helping to define
America's perception of the region. Mexicans today continue to fashion much of
the social, cultural, political, and economic reality of the Southwest and other
regions that now include the South. The growing importance of this minority
group on American society calls for a fresh assessment of Mexican American
history. By recognizing and understanding this history, we can counteract the
relative historical invisibility of the Mexican population, which has been shunted
off to the margins of American history, and the profound resistance to reconcep-
tualize this history.
x ii
Preface xiii
Mexican American historiography emerged from and was indelibly marked

and inspired by the political and social activism of the 1960s, which also influ-
enced other approaches to historical writing. Seeking to provide innovative views
of a long-misunderstood history generally neglected in accounts of America's
past, Mexican American historians altered the focus of the new narrative to pres-
ent the role of Mexican Americans as primary historical actors and determinants
of Mexican American history. The outcome of this paradigm shift in Mexican
American historiography was clearly a revised account that applied methods of
the new social history that had an impact on these scholars. New studies written
by Mexican American historians made substantive contributions to this contem-
porary American historical scholarship. 2 Historians of Mexican American his-
tory in the late 1970s and 1980s began a process of reinterpretation, all pointing
the way toward the type of historiographical developments and research that
emerged in the 1980s and the 1990s that reconceptualized the Mexican American
experience in a broader context.
The new generation of historians has broadened and developed our knowl-
edge of Mexican Americans in the United States. Books on urban life, labor,
immigration, politics, and a host of other themes examine the Mexican Ameri-
can population in more detailed and innovative ways in addressing ethnicity,
race relations, Catholicism, and other topics. 3 The twentieth century is the period
to which Mexican American historians have turned; however, the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries have been well served by the appearance of works in
the field, some that pay more attention to American Indian and Mexican per-
spectives, for example. They evince the authors' awareness of the importance of
this and other issues in the new borderlands scholarship. These histories, for
example, trace the historical interaction among California Indians, Mexicans,
and Anglos through the framework of relations of production and labor de-
mands; examine the issues of sex, power, and gender in colonial New Mexico; or
situate the U.S.- Mexico borderlands within a transnational perspective to ex-
plore national identity formation among the Spanish-speaking population in the
years leading up to the Mexican-American War. 4 Mexican American historiog-
raphy has increasingly incorporated gender as an analytical category in studies
of the late colonial period and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Women
historians provide a new interpretation of Mexican American history because
they have investigated the roles of class, race relations, and sexuality in relations
of power in this history. 5
Mexican American history continues to be influenced by the shifts and de-
bates in the broader field of American history. The discipline is headed in varied
and complicated directions as innovative methods and perspectives have sur-
faced, and established domains will be supplanted by other methodologies as
more scholarship emerges. Most Mexican American historians are not engaged
in writing about a separate historical experience but in integrating Mexican
Americans into the broader study of the American experience.
With the exception of Carey McWilliams' lucid history North From Mexico,
first published in 1949, there is a dearth of readable and comprehensive surveys
of the history of persons of Mexican descent in the United States. 6 McWilliams,
xiv PREFACE
an attorney, writer, activist, and editor of The Nation magazine, informed his
readers what was being forgotten: the significant social and cultural contribu-
tions of Mexicans to the larger history of the American Southwest; their role in
shaping the economy; the legal codes regarding mining, water, range lands, and
community property that affected them; and their general survival on the fron-
tier. Mexican culture was ignored, supplanted by a mythic Spanish heritage based
on the memoirs of the Spanish-speaking elites that was used to romanticize a
supposedly simple and virtuous pastoral past.7
In 1972, one of the first revisionist surveys published was Occupied America:
A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna. 8 The most important aspect of Occupied
America is its interpretative framework. The book begins in the period when the
United States takes possession of the Southwest and reinterprets the life of the
Mexican American community from this historical juncture to the 1960s (then
the present day) as one of occupation. It traces the conquest of northern Mexico
by the United States and the violation of the civil rights of Mexican Americans
from the 1800s to the present, while providing an analysis of the class politics
within the Mexican American community. Acuna basically carries forward the
critical point made by McWilliams that Mexican Americans are the only ethnic
minority other than Native Americans who were added to the United States by
conquest and who were accorded treaty protection. While the provisions of the
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were quickly forgotten, Acuna argues that the
structure of colonialism was not. Instead Acuna contends that Mexican
Americans, regardless of when their families entered the Southwest, are a colo-
nized people. The agencies of the Southwestern states and the federal government
serve the purpose of disenfranchising Mexican Americans and restricting them
to relatively low social and political spheres.9
Acuna's work is a detailed and moving history that laid the groundwork for a
provocative recentering of Mexican American history. As noted, the field has been
transformed dramatically in the more than three decades since the publication of
Occupied America. These newer works provide a textured social critique and ex-
amine particular regions, eras, persons, or organizations in much more detail
than can be done in a work as broadly defined as Acuna's Occupied America. 10
There is certainly ample room for an interpretative account of Mexican
American history, especially one that rethinks its chronological conceptualiza-
tion and integrates the latest and best available scholarship. A sound knowledge
of the distinct historical experiences of Mexican Americans, along with a clear
understanding of the social, economic, and political variations among the re-
gions of the Southwest, is necessary to accurately convey their contributions to
the American experience. Crucible of Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans
from Colonial Times to the Present Era attempts to present an informed assess-
ment ofMexican American life from the Spanish colonial period to the twenty-first
century that is national in scope.
The concept of this book emerged from my work on Major Problems in
Mexican American History, when I first outlined the historical patterns I saw in
Mexican American history. My work shares some of the same themes with the
Preface xv
continuing variety and depth of scholarship in Mexican American history, and it

demonstrates as well the vitality and strength of this scholarship. As the title sug-
gests, the Mexican American freedom struggle and how this theme has changed
over time stands at the core of this synthesis. It examines how the 1836 Texas
Revolt, the Mexican war, the Civil War, World War II, the Great Depression, the
Chicano movement, and other important and epoch-making events all altered
and shaped the context of the Mexican American struggle for equality and free-
dom. Crucible ofStruggle places the history of Mexican Americans directly in the
mainstream of American history. The Mexican American experience cannot be
understood without analyzing the long history of U.S. involvement in Mexico,
from territorial expansion in the early nineteenth century to the North Ameri-
can Free Trade Agreement and immigration policy in the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries. Thus Crucible of Struggle not only analyzes the nature of
the Mexican American quest for equality and freedom but does so in the context
of the larger economic and political changes in the United States.
Crucible ofStruggle investigates the realities Mexican Americans confronted
and in turn affected on myriad levels. It also celebrates the resolute spirit of a
people in the face of overwhelming odds and the persistence of a community over
the generations. The history that follows is meant to be suggestive rather than
exhaustive or conclusive. I hope it will stimulate more research, further debate,
and additional studies. Its relevance is far reaching in light of the recent demo-
graphic shifts that make Latinos the nation's fastest-growing population. History
has placed Latinos at center stage as the United States is forced to adjust to an
ever-changing international order.
Crucible of Struggle emphasizes social, economic, and political history over
cultural interpretation. In terms of organization, the book follows a chronologi-
cal framework that covers a period of more than 400 years and sweeps through
the colonial period and the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries in
order to reinterpret the Mexican American experience. It addresses significant
differences in the Mexican American experience between and within subregions
of the Southwest. Little-known segments usually ignored or only briefly touched
upon in the chronicling of Mexican American history receive special emphasis.
The content and outlook shifts from period to period. The book attempts to bal-
ance detail with discussion of the themes that give an overall perspective and an
integrated view of the whole Mexican American experience.
This book comprises twelve chapters, each reflecting the turning points in
social, political, and economic relations and the dynamic forces that produced
them. Each chapter is divided into subsections. Chapters 1 through 5 deal with
the formative stages of Mexican life and society in the Southwest-the nature and
consequence of Spanish colonialism and the themes of settlement and Indian re-
sistance; the development of the northern frontier region during the transition
from Spanish to Mexican and finally American rule, focusing on the shift of the
economic production of mission lands to the native Californians through secular-
ization; the social interactions among Mexicans, Indians, and entrepreneurs
in the New Mexico territory who connected it to the United States through the
xvi PREFACE
Santa Fe Trail; the encroachment upon Texas by the westward movement of Anglo
slaveholders that culminated in the Texas Revolt of 1836; the Manifest Destiny
ideology that led to expansion into California and culminated in the Mexican war
and the disruptions and transformations of Mexican life caused by this war; Mex-
ican Americans in the Civil War and relations with Indians; the rise of capitalist
agriculture in the 1870s and 1880s; and agrarian protest and populism. Along
with race relations there is a thematic emphasis on the effect of the railroad build-
ing in the late nineteenth century on the economics of northern Mexico and the
United States and Mexican migration. It was at this time that Mexican migrants
arrived as "birds of passage" intending to return to Mexico with newly acquired
wealth but ended up remaining and sending for their family members.
Chapters 6 through 11 take up the themes of the first wave of Mexican im-
migration to the United States from the 1910 Mexican Revolution to the early
Great Depression; the challenges Mexicans faced in the initial years, during
which they arrived in large numbers and initiated community formation and
adaptation in their new homeland; repatriations; the surge of union activism
among mine, cannery, and agricultural workers emblematic of larger struggles
already evident in the 1930s; the appeal of communism and the struggle against
fascism; the domestic and overseas warfront experiences of Mexican Americans
during World War II; the progress and achievements of Mexican Americans in
their challenge of racial norms in the 1950s; the key issues of the Cold War and
McCarthyism; the failure of President Johnson's Great Society to bring social
and economy equality to Mexican Americans; the rise of Mexican American
social protest movements in the 1960s and 1970s to secure full citizenship;
Chicano movement ideology; mobilizing against the long and unpopular war in
Vietnam; Mexican Americans and the culture wars and social polarization of
the 1980s and 1990s and the struggle over affirmative action; and the ongoing
process of globalization as embodied in the North American Free Trade Agree-
ment, when the new rapid and intensive immigration from Mexico became no -
ticeable. The final chapter, Chapter 12, considers the implications of the dramatic
growth of the Latino population in the early twenty-first century. Chapter 12
discusses the years since 2000, with a focus on immigrant social movements and
policy debates regarding immigration reform, and it confronts and discusses
other contemporary issues facing Latinos of Mexican background. Throughout
the book I have attempted to include and acknowledge the presence and contri-
butions of women, whose lives have been underdocumented and need to be writ-
ten into the history. Their many contributions have earned them the honor of
remembrance.
Crucible of Struggle: A History ofMexican Americans from Colonial Times to
the Present Era is thus a story of the denial of equality and freedom and the de-
velopment of strategies by Mexican Americans for achieving these elusive goals.
It is mindful of the earliest Spanish frontier but also rethinks the chronological
conceptualization of Mexican American history by discussing and giving an
up-to-date view of Mexican American history that reflects the state of current
research.
Preface xvii
NOTES
1. Joseph A. Rodriguez and Vicki L. Ruiz, "At Loose Ends: Twentieth-Century Latinos
in Current United States History Textbooks," Journal of American History, Vol. 86,
no. 4 (March 2000), pp. 1689-1699; Vicki L. Ruiz, "Nuestra America: Latino History
as United States History," Journal of American History, Vol. 93, no. 3 (December
2006), pp. 655-672.
2. Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to Ameri-
can Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848-1930 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1979); Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles
Barrio, 1850-1890: A Social History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979);
Juan Gomez-Quinones, Sembradores, Ricardo Flores Magan y El Partido Liberal
Mexicano: A Eulogy and Critique, revised edition (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies
Center Publication, University of California, Los Angeles, 1977.)
3. George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in
Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Stephen J.
Pitti, The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); David G. Gutierrez, Walls and
Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Neil Foley, The White Scourge:
Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1997); Roberto Trevino, The Church in the Barrio: Mexican Ameri-
can Ethno-Catholicism in Houston (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2006).
4. David Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821- 1846 (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1982); Douglas Monroy, Thrown Among Strangers; The Making of
Mexican Culture in Frontier California (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1987); Ramon Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage,
Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500- 1846 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1991); James Brooks Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community
in the Southwest Borderlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2002); Andres Resendez, Changing Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico,
1800-1850 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
5. Vicki L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century
America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Deena Gonzalez, Refusing the
Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe: 1820- 1880 (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2001); Gabriela Arredondo, Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and
Nation, 1916- 39 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), among other studies.
6. North from Mexico was reissued in paperback in the late 1960s and was updated by
Matt S. Meier in an expanded 1990 edition for Greenwood Press to cover the period
from 1945 to 1988. The other three surveys are (1) The Chicanos: A History of Mexi-
can Americans by Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Ribera (published in 1972 by Hill &
Wang for its American Century Series, and reissued in 1993 as a second edition
under the new title M exican Americans/American Mexicans: From Conquistadores
to Chicanos); (2) North to A z tlan: A History of Mexican Americans in the United
States by Richard Griswold del Castillo and Arnoldo de Leon (published in 1996
by Twayne Publishers as part of its Immigrant Heritage of America Series); and
xviii PREFACE
(3) Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States by Manuel G. Gonzales

(published by Indiana University Press in 1999).
7. For example, McWilliams notes that in 1900, the Sons of the Golden West were asked
for a list of prominent men in the history of Los Angeles. When the list was submit-
ted, there was not one Spanish name. An excellent account of Carey McWilliams' life
and career is Peter Richardson's American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey
Mc Williams (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005).
8. Harper & Row produced a second edition of Acuna's survey in 1980 as Occupied
America II. Harper & Row published a third edition of Occupied America in 1988
and a fourth in 2000, and Acuna readopted the chronological framework of the first
edition.
9. In the preface to the third edition of Occupied America, Acuna tells us that this style
of analysis was informed by contemporary critiques of more traditionally under-
stood colonialism in Africa and Asia, especially Franz Fanon and Chinua Achebe.
10. Published in 2014 by Harvard University Press, Mexicans in the Making of America
by Neil Foley is a political history of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants
in America from 1848 to the present. It is presented as a regional, national, and
transnational struggle for full citizenship rights that considers the perspective of
Mexico. The book's most interesting chapters on the bracero program, the Chicano
movement, and the immigration debates of the late twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries are familiar stories. Despite thematic continuity across decades, omissions
mar Foley's book. The two-centuries-long Spanish colonial period receives only cur-
sory treatment. Left out are the repatriation campaigns of the 1930s and the myriad
problems faced by contemporary undocumented Mexican workers. Nor do we learn
that the migrant flows across the border that originate in rural Central America
make the problem of undocumented labor more complex than simply a U.S.-Mexico
issue.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE SECOND EDITION
I have been helped greatly by many friends and colleagues without whom this
book would not be the same. They let me know how they use the book for
teaching. I am especially grateful to Luis Leobardo Arroyo, Rudy D. Torres, and
Marc S. Rodriguez.
In the community of scholars, I would like to mention all of those who have
had a profound intellectual influence on me. I especially want to thank Alan M.
Wald, David Montgomery, Nelson Lichtenstein, Eileen Boris, Gerald Horne,
David G. Gutierrez, Ramon A. Gutierrez, David J. Weber, Robin D. G. Kelly,
Pekka Hamalainen, Michael K. Honey, Linda Gordon, and Nancy MacLean.
Others who deserve my thanks include Louis. A. Perez, Jr., Lloyd Kramer,
Katherine DuVal, W. Miles Fletcher, Joe Glatthaar, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Jerma
A. Jackson, Heather Williams, Ben Waterhouse, Katie Turk, and Lars Schoultz, in
addition to my other colleagues and my friends at the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill.
The archivists and staff who were particularly helpful with my research, and
colleagues and friends who assisted me in procuring archival material and
images that appear in this book, are as follows: Dr. Thomas Kreneck and Grace
Charles, Special Collections, at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi for their
archival help with their expert and ready assistance in finding materials as well
as obtaining the photograph of the Viva Kennedy club; Professor Ann Massmann
of the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico for her as-
sistance in navigating the Reies Lopez Tijerina Collection as well as arranging a
meeting with the staff members who processed Tijerina's papers for the Center
and offered valuable insights; Christine Marin and Neil E. Millican, Chicano
Research Collection, Arizona State University, for their guidance in finding in-
formation and for prompt processing of my request for photographs from their
rich collection; Dr. William Estrada for permitting me to use the photograph of
Ernesto Galarza from his own personal collection as well as providing me fasci-
nating historical background on Galarza the "barrio boy"; Katherine Reeve of the
Arizona Historical Society in Tucson for obtaining a photograph of the Camp
Grant massacre trial participants the day before her staff photographer lost his
xix
xx ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE SECOND EDITION
job to state budget cuts and consequent staff reductions; Michael Hironymous of
the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas,
Austin, for his assistance in acquiring the Sons of America image and willingness
to comb the Raza Unida Party archives for a photograph of this group's activities;
Patrick Lemelle of the Institute of Texan Cultures as the University of Texas, San
Antonio, for his helpfulness and sleuthing to find his archive's copy of a photo-
graph of Gregorio Cortez when another major university, which was the primary
repository for the photograph, could not; Daniel Kosharek of Palace of the
Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Michelle Frauenberger of the Franklin Delano
Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York; Victor Hotho of the
Texas State Preservation Board; Clare Flemming of the Academy of Natural
Sciences, Philadelphia; Susan Snyder of the Bancroft Library, the University of
California, Berkeley; Carol Nishijima, Department of Special Collections, the
University of California, Los Angeles Library; and David Nacke at the University
of New Mexico.
A special thanks to photographer and longtime friend Harry Gamboa, Jr.,
for his expert aesthetic and ability to recognize when he is at the perfect place at
the optimal time to take a shot that will be historically significant and included
in this book.
I thank Oxford University Press freelance acquisitions editor Bruce Borland
for originally inviting me in 2000 to work on this book. Thanks also to Oxford
University Press reviewers Pablo Mitchell, Jerry Gonzalez, Maria Raquel Casas,
Phil Martin, James B. Barrera, Ronald W. Lopez II, and the two anonymous re-
viewers for their critical and constructive reviews of my manuscript. At Oxford
University Press I would like to thank former executive editor Brian Wheel, who
gave me vital support, and so many encouraging words, from the beginning to
the end of the formal publication process; production editor Christian Holdener
for his expert laying out of this book; copyeditor Wendy Walker for her efficient
preparation of this manuscript for publication; and the creative book cover and
interior design by Todd Williams and Michele Laseau. I especially value the im-
portant and thorough work of my editorial assistant, Marissa Dadiw. Marissa
was helpful in managing numerous details related to the images and the permis-
sions, along with helping answer my questions as the publication process moved
forward. I would like to thank my new editor, Charles Cavaliere. Many thanks to
Jill Carson, Tili Sokolov, and the many people at Oxford University Press whose
names I do not know who labored to convert my manuscript into a book.
Finally, and most of all, a very special thanks is due to my beautiful and
loving wife S. Zaneta Kosiba-Vargas, who came into my life and changed me
forever. Thank you for your unceasing love, companionship, and encouragement
and for standing by my side all of these years. This book is dedicated to you,
Zaneta, our gifted daughter, Lina, and our precious grandchildren, Marcel and
Margo. Lina, you are so close to my heart. Marcel and Margo, each of your births
marked my emotional rebirth and your special love was a source of inspiration in
writing this book.
NEW TO THIS EDITION
A new final chapter examines such issues as:

• Increased anti-immigrant activity after 2006
• The crucial role of Latinos in the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and
2012
• Increased border enforcement and deportation in the wake of the U.S.
Senate's failure to pass amnesty legislation
• Latinos and the Great Recession
• The role of individual states in immigration reform
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
T he terminology varies from chapter to chapter and in some cases within a

chapter. The terms Tejano and Californio are used to designate persons of
Mexican American and Mexican background in Texas and California respec-
tively. Anglo is the term of usage in the Southwest both in the past and in present
times. It functions much in the same way as the term white. I use the term
Mexican when I want to emphasize a moniker whites use to define both US.-
born Mexicans and Mexican nationals. The term Chicano connotes political
awareness or consciousness and refers to U.S.-born persons of Mexican descent.
As a final remark on terminology, the term Latino is all-inclusive. It is used to
refer to immigrants to the United States from Mexico, Central America, and the
Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Latino is used to reflect the shift in self-identifica-
tion of the Spanish-speaking population from Mexican to Latino, especially in
Chapters 11 and 12. Otherwise I use the term Mexican American.
xxi
CHAPTER I
The Era of the Spanish Northern

Frontier to 1821
T he history of the inhabitants of Spain's vast northern frontier- the modern

Southwest area of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California- unfolded
within the context of the various rivalries among European colonial powers for
control of North American trade, influence over the Indians, and possession of
empires. Unlike England, France, or Russia, Spain's rivals in the Americas, the
purpose of the Spanish entrada (entrance) into the northern frontier was to look
for riches, with the religious conversion of Indians playing a secondary role. The
Spanish era consisted of three periods. The first period of initial colonization
lasted from the arrival of Juan de Onate in New Mexico in 1598 to the Pueblo
Revolt of 1680. The second began with the reconquest of New Mexico in 1693 by
Juan de Vargas and lasted to the inspection of the northern frontier by Visitador
General Jose de Galvez in 1765 during the Bourbon Reforms. The third period
was from the Bourbon reorganization of the northern frontier until Mexican In-
dependence in 1821. By the early eighteenth century, Spanish explorers had
mapped most of the territory and established over 300 settlements, thereby ex-
tending Spain's presence in this vast region. 1
The desire of the Spanish crown was to establish permanent settlements on
its northern frontier as buffers against European enemies and hostile Indians.
Missions, presidios, and pueblos (towns) were the most important institutions.
Spain's missionary impulse, developed through centuries of warfare, was longer
lasting than for other European powers. Missionary efforts were designed to
spread the Catholic faith in the heathen wilderness. As teachers, civilizers, and
lawgivers, Spanish missionary priests imposed European culture on the Indians
to make them loyal and obedient Christians. Known for their missionary work,
the Franciscans preached to the Indians but also exploited their labor to the ben-
efit of agricultural development as in Alta California, where the missions held
most of the better land. In Texas, missions failed to convert Indians to the Catho-
lic faith or produce many goods, the same shortcomings of the few missions es-
tablished in the New Mexico province. Power struggles arose between religious
and secular authorities on the northern frontier over their access to Indian labor
2 CRUCIBLE OF STRUGGLE
and commerce. Bound by notions of self-interest and religious conviction to pro-

tect the Indians, the Church deplored the excessive actions against them, espe-
cially Spanish soldiers raping Indian women. The fear oflndian rebellion fostered
the Church's dependence on civil-military authority. The "harvesting of Indian
souls" by the missionary priests and the Spanish states' costly and erratic pattern
of Indian diplomacy eventually created for its colonists a condition of endemic
warfare with several powerful Indian nations, among them the Comanche. By
1800, Spain had yet to overcome the Indian threat to its northern frontier
settlements. 2
Imperial Spain regarded the northern frontier of New Spain (Mexico) as a
territorial buffer zone between empires. Marginal to Spain's economic needs, the
vast region was furthermore expensive to maintain. With its overall objective the
colonization of lands for defensive purposes against its European rivals, Spain es-
tablished an institutional presence in the northern frontier through the presidios.
These frontier outposts became melting pot communities, owing to Spain's inabil-
ity to adequately man them with soldiers and through the practice of Spanish
males taking Indian and mixed-race spouses or negro (African) concubines. From
these presidios militias made up of Spanish and Indian allies launched expeditions
into the Indian strongholds resisting subjugation.
The settlers faced constant attacks by Apaches, Comanches, and other no-
madic Indians who raided the frontier settlements or defended their territory
from Spanish encroachment. The Spaniards took advantage of a royal decree that
permitted the enslavement of unconverted Indians who made unprovoked at-
tacks on Spanish colonists. Indian reaction to this imperial policy of colonization
and slavery was resistance, and in the New Mexico province it produced the
Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The bloody episode sealed the end to thirteen years of
Spanish rule in the New Mexico province.
A succession of raids and counter-raids by Spanish colonists and their Indian
allies rapidly developed into widespread warfare. This gave rise to retaliatory at-
tacks whereby captives were taken and traded. The demand for captives intensi-
fied fighting between the nomadic Indian tribes, which the Spanish learned to
exploit by purchasing captives from all groups. The Spanish also used diplomacy
in their dealings with the Indian tribes. Through the policy of peace by purchase
put into effect in the late eighteenth century, the Spanish supplied Indians with
food, clothing, and other items that they could only procure by raiding or trading
captives. 3 Guided by their self-interests, the Indians of the northern frontier
would ally with one or the other European rivals to leverage favors from them.
Those who occupied the land for Spain on the northern frontier lived in
small, isolated self-sufficient poblaciones (communities). The use of the soldier as
colonist formed part of the Spanish colonization strategies to the early nine-
teenth century. Individual and communal land grants were rewards for service
to the Spanish Crown, and the occupation of expansive lands was achieved
by rancher-farmers. Colonists and Indians influenced one another in their
techniques of hunting and warfare. Trade conducted between the New Mexican
colonists and nomadic Indian tribes of the southern plains was a key activity
during the last decades of the eighteenth century. The commercial interests of
CH APTER 1 • The Era of the Spanish Northern Frontier to 1821 3
New Mexico's residents likewise structured and restructured relations and alli-
ances with the area Indians with whom they traded. Because no mineral wealth
was found to encourage population growth in such an inhospitable land, the
northern frontier settlements grew slowly.
By 1800, the newly created United States was already the chief threat to New
Spain's northern periphery. Bourbon Spain's confrontation with the United States
meant a new series of crisis: disputes over the boundary with Florida, navigation
on the Mississippi River, and competition for the loyalty of the Indians in the
contested lands. Nonetheless, the northern frontier society that emerged was eco-
nomically, socially, and politically diverse; it was a product of interactions among
settlers, Indians, and foreign immigrants in which exploitation, power struggles,
and cooperation over material and spiritual values unfolded. The regionally dis-
connected northern societies, islands of Spanish royal power beset by dangers,
also showed a decided tendency toward defining themselves separately from and
resisting control by New Spain, emphasizing individualism, self-reliance, depen-
dence on one another, and the intermingling of races. 4 This is the frontier society
the ambitious and expansion-minded Americans came upon as they made their
way into the Southwest. Mexico City's lack of communication and control over
the northern frontier made it difficult to provide the settlers protection from the
Americans.
SPANISH INSTITUTIONS AND MIXED-RACE SOCIETY

OF THE NORTHERN FRONTIER
Spain used three basic institutions to settle the northern frontier: the mission, the
presidio, and the town, all focal points of Spanish civilized society. This was in con-
trast to central Mexico, where the Spanish developed an economy based on agricul-
ture and mining using Indian tribute labor. The missions as a conquest institution
allowed the Spanish to control and settle the northern frontier. In New Mexico,
missions were built at the edge of Indian villages; in Texas, missions merged with
settlements established around military presidios; and in Alta California, a mission
was a self-sustaining community and the basic institution of settlement. The mis-
sions would operate for as long as it took to convert and civilize the Indians, duly
estimated at ten years. 5 To achieve conversion to Christianity, priests used trickery,
bribery, and force.
Spanish settlers had little contact with the missions or priests because the
missions' purpose was for full cultural and social reorientation of the Indian,
achieved through promoting community life (congregaci6n). This implied a reor-
ganization of the various Indian economies based on mission needs. The neo-
phytes were taught to make wine, shoes, and candles; tan hides and make tallow;
cultivate gardens, vineyards, orchards, and grain fields; and build aqueducts,
dams, and reservoirs; and consequently the mission Indians learned carpentry
and masonry to construct buildings. The Spanish brought Indian auxiliaries
with them as aides in the civilizing of the Indians. As models, teachers, and colo-
nists, the auxiliaries instructed the northern Indians in social life, work, and
minor political office holding. The Indians felt the oppressive, authoritarian
character of the Catholic regime through punishment. Indeed, the mission
priests unmercifully made regular use of every form of corporal punishment
against recalcitrant Indians, including whipping posts, stocks, branding, mutila-
tion, prison cells, and execution. 6 As an additional safeguard against rebellion,
the Indians were forbidden to bear arms or ride horses. This legacy of brutality
and harsh treatment of the Indians sears the Catholic missionary's humane
image. Subjected to a state of hopeless servitude, the Indians believed the mis-
sionaries were the devil incarnate. Slavery to the Indians was annihilation, and
they resisted Spanish incursion with rebellion.
Spain's vast, far-flung empire had many frontiers facing hostile Indians and
European rivals, and thus it was never able to garrison all the danger flashpoints
effectively. Based on the model for the protection of the mining areas of New
Spain, the presidio or fort was the defensive arm of Spanish colonization. From
the presidios full-scale military campaigns were launched against marauding In-
dians in the immediate area and far afield. In the eighteenth century the presidios
eclipsed the missions as a dominant Spanish northern frontier institution.
Manned by soldier-settlers, for the most part, the presidios gave rise to the towns
of Santa Fe in New Mexico, El Paso and San Antonio in Texas, Tucson in Arizona,
and Monterey, San Francisco, and San Diego in Alta California. 7
The new Bourbon administration that assumed power in 1707 was deter-
mined to centralize power in the Spanish monarchy. The status of the northern
frontier changed dramatically after 1750 when Spain, pressed by growing foreign
pressure, sought to strengthen and coordinate the defensive margins of its pos-
sessions to consolidate New Spain's northern presidia} line. A response to the
Seven Years' War (1756-1763), the Bourbon Reforms in Spain's northern frontier
provinces resulted in territorial expansion, political consolidation, increased de-
fenses against foreign invasion, and economic growth through trade. In 1776, an
office of commandant-general was set up to provide all the northern provinces
with more effective government and better defense. 8 As its chief administrator,
Teodoro de Croix strengthened the existing frontier fortifications, the new forts
stretching from Texas to the California coast. New Mexico, an interior Spanish
province, was left outside of this line of defense, though a garrison was estab-
lished in this province.9
Duty on the dangerous and remote northern frontier was avoided and most
troops were kept in Mexico City. Only when there was political turmoil or im-
minent foreign invasion were the presidios properly manned or reinforced.
Forced conscription as a result was used to fill the ranks of the presidio soldiers;
vagabonds, criminals, and Indians (kept in chains to prevent their escape) made
up many of the militia companies formed by the Spanish.10
Manning the military garrisons was difficult since manpower was in short
supply. Just under a thousand soldiers and officers commissioned by the Span-
ish Crown served on the northern frontier. The presidio soldiers were veteran
Indian fighters with prior experience at other presidios on Spain's northern
frontier. Fifty-nine soldiers were assigned to the two presidios in Texas, half the
force required by each fort. New Mexico had one garrison with 100 soldiers, but
CH APT E R 1 • The Era of the Spanish Northern Frontier to 1821 5
a third of the men lacked military equipment. In Arizona less than a dozen
soldiers manned the presidios at Tubae and Tucson. In Alta California, presi-
dios were established at San Diego (1769), Monterey (1770), San Francisco
(1776), and Santa Barbara (1782). Half the soldiers guarded the missions and
the rest served at presidios or presidia! towns. There were 400 soldiers in Alta
California during the Spanish period, distributed among the four presidios and
twenty-one missions. 11
Presidio soldiers faced long duty assignments, were poorly paid, and had
little chance of promotion. Unhappy with their duty, insubordination, desertion,
and other disciplinary problems limited the soldiers' efficiency, and poor com-
munication and little or no provisions further hindered defense. 12 The poorly
clad men had to purchase overpriced uniforms, horses, and weapons, for much of
the money Spain provided for its frontier defense wound up in the pockets of cor-
rupt officials. Going months without pay, the hard-pressed soldiers sold their
guns and ammunition and asked for permission to hunt, farm, and ranch to feed
themselves and their families. Owing to trying circumstances, soldiers usually
exacted food and rations from the frontier citizenry and some even resorted to
steali ng.13
The presidios were an economic burden for the impoverished northern set-
tlements because the civilian communities were required to provide the garrison
soldiers and their families with food and shelter. For example, the pueblo of San
Jose in northern Alta California, this province's fi rst Spanish civilian settlement,
grew grain and vegetables to support the military outpost at San Francisco as
well as the Santa Clara mission. The pueblo of Los Angeles served a similar pur-
pose. Twelve families had been recruited to raise crops and livestock for the four
area presidios.14
Santa Clara M ission in 1849.

CRtmr: Santa Clara Mission in 1849, Creator: Andrew P. Hill, Photographer unknown, date of photograph,
unknown, image no. msc12.1 l : Serving the Intellect, image no.1.8. Collection Title: SCU General Photograph
Collection-Mission Santa Clara Sketches & Paintings.
The small presidial communities such as San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey,
San Francisco, Tucson, and Nogales did not develop into municipalities until after
the end of the Spanish era. As a condition of owning land within a five-mile radius
of a presidia, the settlers all along the frontier fought in campaigns against
the highly mobile Indian raiders who swept through the country and were difficult
to subdue. 15
The protection of the far-flung northern colonies against ascending Indian
raids grew to depend upon an informal civilian militia recruited from the nearby
ranches and towns who supplied their own weapons and horses. Owing to the
severe shortages of guns and ammunition, and having adjusted to pioneer condi-
tions, the volunteer forces frequently pursued and fought the Indians in their
own way with bows and arrows and lances. The weary combatants showed them-
selves to be able soldiers, but there were not enough of them. The weak system of
defense against raiding Indians, who struck quickly and without warning, con-
tributed to the growing alienation of the northern frontier settlements from the
government in Mexico City. 16 Nonetheless, the protection of homes and families,
property, and the emergent sense of community encouraged settlers to volunteer
as militia that included Indian allies. The promise of spoils, namely Indian cap-
tives who could be forced into service as ranch hands and servants, also served as
an inducement.
The subjects of a strong and absolute monarchy, the pioneers had journeyed
north with permission, were sent there by royal order, or were recruited by Span-
ish officials given authorization to open new lands for the Crown. Settlers went
north with offers of land, seeds, tools, titles of nobility, exemption from taxes,
and the promise of military protection. 17 Once on the frontier, the settlers could
not leave or travel without official consent since settlement was part of a royal
plan. Laws also governed land tenure, methods of irrigation, and the laying out of
towns, and there were restrictions on trade with foreigners. Integrated into a
social system that was an extension of the larger Spanish colonial society, the set-
tlers essentially were captives of the Spanish Crown's bureaucracy. Moreover,
New Spain was a society rigidly stratified by race and class.
At the top of New Spain's caste system were the peninsulares (European-
born Spaniards) and the creoles (Spaniards born in the Americas). Most admin-
istrative officials were peninsulares, while creoles dominated the political realm,
the Catholic Church, and bureaucracies and owned land and mines. These upper-
class Spaniards perpetuated income inequality and an authoritarian-paternalistic
rule over a broad peasant substratum comprising mestizos (that is, people of mixed
Indian, European, and negro blood). Miscegenation was known as mestizaje. The
elaborate Spanish caste system distinguished sixteen kinds of mestizos. Mestizos
were considered racially inferior, a low-status caste. While legally free, mestizos
had to pay taxes and render military service. Throughout Spanish colonial America
the term indio (Indian) had heavily negative connotations; it was a term of deni-
gration and also one that suggested aggression. 18
In the Spanish Americas an individual's social status, wealth, occupation, and
legitimate or illegitimate birth strongly correlated with his or her racial and ethnic
origins. Mestizos together with negros, mulattos, afromestizos (African-Indians
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employment for his activity, and create an honourable retreat far
from public affairs in which he could no longer take part with
honour. He well understood this when he said: “Let us preserve at
least a partial liberty by knowing how to hide ourselves and keep
silence.”[282] To keep silence and hide, was indeed the programme
that suited him best, as it did all those who had submitted after
Pharsalia. We shall see how far he was faithful to it.
I.
It is very difficult to relinquish politics all at once. The conduct of

public affairs and the exercise of power, even when they do not
entirely content the mind, give a secondary importance to other
things, and life appears aimless to him who can no longer employ
himself in them. This is what happened to Cicero. He was certainly
very sincere when, on leaving Brundusium, he undertook “to hide
himself entirely in literature”; but he had promised more than he was
able to perform. He soon wearied of repose, and the pleasures of
study at length seemed a little too quiet; he listened with more
curiosity to outside rumours, and, in order to hear them better,
quitted Tusculum and returned to Rome. There he insensibly
resumed his old habits; he returned to the senate; his house was
again open to all who loved and cultivated letters; he began again to
frequent the houses of the friends he had in Caesar’s party, and by
their means resumed intercourse with Caesar himself.
They were easily reconciled, notwithstanding all their motives for
ill will. The taste for intellectual pleasures which united them was
stronger than all political antipathy. The first irritation over, they
approached each other with that ease that the habit and experience
of society give, forgetting or appearing to forget all the disagreements
that had separated them. Nevertheless these relations had become
more difficult than ever for Cicero. It was not only a protector that he
had found in his old fellow-student, it was a master. There was no
longer between them, as formerly, an agreement or understanding
that created reciprocal obligations; there was the victor to whom the
laws of war permitted everything, and the vanquished who owed his
life to his clemency. The difficulty of the position was greater,
because the more right the conqueror had to be exacting the more
public opinion commanded the conquered to be reserved. It may be
supposed that, at the time of the Gallic war, Cicero defended Caesar’s
projects through friendship or conviction; but since he had shown
that he disapproved his cause by boldly expressing his opinions
during the civil war, the deference he might show to his wishes was
nothing more than a sort of base flattery, and a discreditable way of
earning his pardon. Already his sudden return from Pharsalia had
been much blamed. “I am not forgiven for living,”[283] said he. He was
forgiven still less for his familiar relations with Caesar’s friends.
Good citizens murmured at seeing him visit so assiduously the house
of Balbus, go and dine with the voluptuous Eutrapelus in company
with Pansa or Antony, and by the side of the actress Cytheris, take
part in the sumptuous feasts that Dolabella gave with the money of
the vanquished; on all sides the malevolent had their eyes open to his
weaknesses. He had, then, to satisfy at once all parties, to hold with
the conquerors and the conquered for the sake of his reputation or
his safety, to live near the master without being too confident, and
without ever offending him, and in these dangerous relations to
make what he owed to his honour agree with what was needful for
his repose. It was a delicate situation, from which an ordinary man
would have had perhaps some trouble to extricate himself, but which
was not beyond the dexterity of Cicero. To get out of it he had in his
favour one marvellous quality which prevented him from appearing
too humble and too base, even when he was constrained to flatter.
Madame de Sévigné has said somewhere: “Wit is a dignity.” This
saying is true in every sense; nothing helps one more to pass through
difficult times without baseness. When a man preserves his wit
before an absolute master, when he dares to joke and smile in the
midst of the silence and terror of others, he shows by this that the
greatness of him to whom he speaks does not intimidate him, and
that he feels himself sufficiently strong to support it. To remain
master of oneself in his presence is still a way of braving him, and it
seems to me that an exacting and suspicious despot ought to be
almost as displeased with those who dare to be witty before him as
with those he may suspect of having courage. There is, then, below
that courage of the soul that inspires energetic resolutions, but near
it, that courage of the mind which is not to be despised, for it is often
the sole courage possible. After the defeat of the men of resolution,
the men of wit have their turn, and they still do some service when
the others can no longer do anything. As they are crafty and supple,
as they can raise their head quickly after necessity has forced them to
bend it, they maintain themselves with a certain amount of honour
in the ruin of their party. Their raillery, however discreet it may be, is
a sort of protestation against the silence imposed on all, and it at
least prevents the loss of liberty of speech after having lost the liberty
of action. Wit is not then such a trivial thing as people affect to
consider it; it also has its grandeur, and it may be that, after a great
disaster, when all is silent, downcast, and discouraged, it alone
maintains human dignity, which is in great danger of perishing.
Such was, very nearly, the part Cicero played at this time, and we
must acknowledge that it was not wanting in importance. In that
great city, submissive and mute, he alone dared to speak. He began
to do so early, he was still at Brundusium, not knowing if he should
obtain his pardon, when he frightened Atticus by the freedom of his
remarks. Impunity naturally rendered him bolder, and after his
return to Rome he took scarcely any other precaution than to make
his raillery as agreeable and as witty as possible. Caesar liked wit
even when it was exercised at his own expense. Instead of getting
angry at Cicero’s jokes, he made a collection of them, and in the
midst of the war in Spain, he ordered his correspondents to send
them to him. Cicero, who knew this, spoke without constraint. This
freedom, then so rare, drew all eyes upon him. He had never had
more society round him. The friends of Caesar frequented his society
readily to give themselves an air of liberality and tolerance, after the
example of their chief. As he was the most illustrious survivor of the
republican party after the death of Pompey and Cato, the remaining
partisans of the republic crowded around him. People came to see
him from all sides, and all parties met in the mornings in his
vestibule. “I receive at the same time,” said he, “the visits of many
good citizens who are downcast, and those of our joyful
conquerors.”[284]
This attention no doubt had something flattering in it, and nothing
must have given him more pleasure than to have regained his
importance. Let us remark, however, that in regaining his position as
a person of eminence, whose friendship was sought and whose house
was frequented, he had already fallen short of the first part of the
programme that he had laid down for himself; the share he had,
about the same time, in the return of the exiles, soon made him
forget the other. He had given up hiding to respond to Caesar’s
advances. We are going to see how he ceased to keep silence in order
to thank him for his clemency.
Caesar’s clemency is admired with good reason, and it deserves the
praises awarded to it. For the first time a ray of humanity had been
seen to shine in the midst of the pitiless wars of the ancient world.
No doubt about the extent of his rights had hitherto entered the
mind of the conqueror; he believed them to have no limit, and
exercised them without scruple. Who, before Caesar, had thought of
proclaiming and practising consideration for the vanquished? He
was the first who declared that his vengeance would not outlast his
victory, and that he would not strike a disarmed enemy. What adds
to the admiration his conduct inspires is that he gave this fine
example of mildness and moderation in a time of violence, between
the proscriptions of Sulla and those of Octavius; that he pardoned his
enemies at the very moment that they were massacring his soldiers
who were prisoners, and burning his sailors alive with their ships.
We must not, however, exaggerate, and history should not be a
panegyric. Without attempting to diminish Caesar’s glory, we may be
allowed to ask what motive he had in pardoning the vanquished, and
it is right to inquire how and within what limits he exercised his
clemency.
Curio, one of his closest friends, said one day to Cicero, in a private
conversation, that Caesar was cruel by nature, and that he had only
spared his enemies to preserve the affection of the people;[285] but the
sceptic Curio was very much disposed, like Caelius, to look at people
always on their bad side: he has certainly calumniated his chief. The
truth is that Caesar was clement both by nature and policy: pro
natura et pro instituto;[286] the continuator of his Commentaries,
who knew him well, says so. Now, if the heart does not change, policy
often changes with circumstances. When a man is good solely by
nature he is good always; but when the reflection which calculates
the good effect clemency will produce, and the advantage which may
be drawn from it, is added to the natural instinct that inclines to
clemency, it may happen that a man may become less clement as
soon as he has less interest to be so. He who becomes gentle and
humane, by policy, in order to draw men towards him, would
become cruel, by policy also, if he had need of intimidating them.
This happened to Caesar, and when we study his life closely we find
that his clemency suffered more than one eclipse. I do not think that
he committed any gratuitous cruelties for the sake of committing
them, as so many of his contemporaries did; but neither did he
refrain when he found some advantage in them. While he was
praetor in Spain he sometimes stormed towns which were willing to
surrender, in order to have a pretext for sacking them. In Gaul he
never hesitated to terrify his enemies by fearful vengeance; we see
him behead the whole senate of the Veneti, massacre the Usipetes
and the Tencteri, sell the forty thousand inhabitants of Genabum for
slaves at one time, and cut off the hands of all in Uxellodunum who
had taken up arms against him. And did he not keep in prison five
whole years that heroic chief of the Arverni, that Vercingetorix who
was an adversary so worthy of him, that he might coolly give the
order to slaughter him on the day of his triumph? Even at the time of
the civil war and when he was fighting his fellow-citizens, he got tired
of pardoning. When he saw that his system of clemency did not
disarm his enemies, he gave it up, and their obstinacy, which
surprised him, at last made him cruel. As the struggle was prolonged
it took darker colours on both sides. The war between the
republicans exasperated by their defeats and the conqueror furious
at their resistance, became merciless. After Thapsus, Caesar set the
example of punishments, and his army, inspired by his anger,
slaughtered the vanquished before his face. He had proclaimed,
when starting on his last expedition into Spain, that his clemency
was exhausted, and that all who did not lay down their arms should
be put to death. Therefore the battle of Munda was terrible. Dio
relates that both armies attacked with silent rage, and that instead of
the war-songs that usually resounded, one only heard at intervals the
words: “strike and kill.” When the fight was over the massacre began.
The eldest son of Pompey, who had succeeded in escaping, was
tracked in the forest for several days and killed without mercy, like
the Vendean chiefs in our wars of the Bocage.
The most glorious moment of Caesar’s clemency was just after the
battle of Pharsalia. He had proclaimed in advance when he entered
Italy that the proscriptions would not recommence. “I will not
imitate Sulla,” said he in a celebrated letter, which no doubt was
widely circulated. “Let us introduce a new way of conquering, and
seek our safety in clemency and mildness.”[287] At first he did not
belie these fair words. After the victory, he ordered the soldiers to
spare their fellow-citizens, and on the battle-field itself he gave his
hand to Brutus and many others. It is wrong however to think that
there was a general amnesty at that moment.[288] On the contrary, an
edict of Antony, who governed Rome in the absence of Caesar,
strictly forbade any Pompeian to return to Italy without having
obtained permission. Cicero and Laelius, from whom there was
nothing to fear, were alone excepted. Many others returned
afterwards, but they were only recalled individually and by special
decree. This was a means for Caesar to make the most of his
clemency. Usually pardons thus given separately were not given
gratuitously, they were almost always bought by the exiles with a
part of their property. Besides, they were seldom complete at first;
the exiles were allowed to return to Sicily, then to Italy, before
opening to them completely the gates of Rome. These steps cleverly
managed, by multiplying the number of favours granted by Caesar,
did not allow public admiration to cool. Each time the chorus of
flatterers recommenced their praises, and did not cease to celebrate
the generosity of the victor.
There was, then, after Pharsalia, a certain number of exiles in
Greece and in Asia who were waiting impatiently for permission to
return home, and who did not all obtain it. Cicero’s letters do us the
good office of making us acquainted with some of them. They are
people of all conditions and fortunes, merchants and farmers of the
taxes as well as great nobles. By the side of a Marcellus, a Torquatus
and a Domitius there are entirely unknown persons like Trebianus
and Toranius, which shows that Caesar’s vengeance did not stop at
the heads of the party. We find also among them three writers, and it
is worthy of notice that they were perhaps the most hardly treated.
One of them, T. Ampius, was a fiery republican who did not show so
much firmness in exile as one would have expected. He was occupied
in writing a history of illustrious men, and it seems that he did not
profit much by the good examples he found there. We know the other
two, who are not much alike, better: they were the Etruscan Caecina,
a merchant and a wit, and the scholar Nigidius Figulus. Nigidius,
who was compared with Varro for the extent of his attainments, and
who was, like him, at once philosopher, grammarian, astronomer,
physicist, rhetorician and lawyer, had particularly struck his
contemporaries by the extent of his theological researches. As he was
seen to be much occupied with the doctrines of the Chaldeans and
the followers of Orpheus, he passed for a great magician. It was
believed that he predicted the future, and he was suspected of raising
the dead. So many occupations, of such various kinds, did not
prevent him taking an interest in the affairs of his country. It was not
thought, then, that a scholar was excused from performing the duties
of a citizen. He solicited and obtained public offices: he was praetor
in difficult times, and was noticed for his energy. When Caesar
entered Italy, Nigidius, faithful to the maxim of his master
Pythagoras, which commands the sage to carry help to the law when
it is menaced, hastened to leave his books, and was one of the
principal combatants at Pharsalia. Caecina had appeared at first as
firm as Nigidius, and like him was conspicuous for his republican
ardour. Not content with taking up arms against Caesar, he had,
besides, insulted him in a pamphlet at the beginning of the war: but
he was as weak as he was violent, he could not bear exile. This
frivolous and worldly man had need of the pleasures of Rome, and
was disconsolate at being deprived of them. To obtain his pardon, he
formed the idea of writing a new work destined to contradict the old
one, and to obliterate its bad effect. He had called it his Querelae,
and this title indicates well enough its character. In it he lavished
eulogies on Caesar without measure, and yet he was always afraid he
had not said enough. “I tremble in all my limbs,” said he to Cicero,
“when I ask myself if he will be satisfied.”[289] So much humiliation
and baseness succeeded in softening the victor, and while he
relentlessly left the energetic Nigidius, who could not flatter, to die in
exile, he allowed Caecina to approach Italy, and settle down in Sicily.
Cicero had become the consoler of all these exiles, and employed
his influence in ameliorating their condition. He served them all with
the same zeal, although there were some among them of whom he
had reason to complain; but he no longer remembered their offences
when he saw their misfortunes. In writing to them he showed a
graceful tact in accommodating his language to their situation and
feelings, caring little whether he was consistent with himself,
provided he could console them and be useful to them. He told those
who lamented that they were kept away from Rome, that they were
wrong in wishing to return, and that it was better simply to hear
reports of the misfortunes of the republic than to see them with their
eyes; he wrote in the opposite strain to those who supported exile too
courageously, and would not beg for recall, to the great despair of
their families. When he met with a too servile eagerness in
anticipating and entreating Caesar’s kindness, he did not hesitate to
blame it, and with infinite tact recalled the unfortunate to that self-
respect which they had forgotten. If, on the contrary, he saw some
one disposed to commit a heroic imprudence and to attempt a
useless and dangerous move, he hastened to restrain this burst of
idle courage, and preached prudence and resignation. He did not
spare his pains during this time. He went to see the friends of the
master, or if necessary, he tried to see the master himself, although it
was very difficult to approach a man who had the affairs of the whole
world on his shoulders. He begged, he promised, he wearied with his
supplications and was almost always successful, for Caesar was
anxious to draw him more and more into his party by the favours he
granted him. The favour once obtained, he wished to be the first to
announce it to the exile, who impatiently awaited it; he heartily
congratulated him and added to his compliments a few of those
counsels of moderation and silence which he readily gave to others,
but which he did not always follow himself.
There was no more important personage among these exiles than
the former consul Marcellus; neither was there any whom Caesar
had so much reason to hate. By a sort of cruel bravado, Marcellus
had had an inhabitant of Como beaten with rods, in order to show
what value he set upon the rights that Caesar had granted to that
city. After Pharsalia, he had retired to Mitylene and did not think of
returning, when his relatives and Cicero took it into their heads to
obtain his pardon. While taking the first steps they met with an
unexpected obstacle: they thought they only had to entreat Caesar,
and they had to begin by appeasing Marcellus. He was an energetic
man whom the ill success of his cause had not dispirited, a veritable
philosopher, who had reconciled himself to exile, an obstinate
republican, who would not return to Rome to see her a slave. Quite a
long negotiation was necessary before he would consent to allow
them to crave anything for him from the conqueror, and even then
he allowed it with a very bad grace. When we read the letters that
Cicero wrote to him on this occasion, we greatly admire his skill, but
have some difficulty in understanding the motives of his persistence.
We ask with surprise why he took more interest in the return of
Marcellus than did Marcellus himself. They had never been very
closely connected; Cicero did not stand upon ceremony in blaming
his obstinacy, and we know that those stiff and self-willed characters
did not suit him. He must have had then some stronger motive than
affection to be so anxious for Marcellus’ return to Rome. This motive,
which he does not mention, but which we can guess, was the fear he
had of public opinion. He well knew that he was reproached with not
having done enough for his cause, and at times he accused himself of
having abandoned it too quickly. When, in the midst of Rome, where
he passed his time so gaily at those sumptuous dinners that Hirtius
and Dolabella gave him, and to which he went, he said, to enliven his
slavery a little; when he came to think of those brave men who had
been killed in Africa and Spain, or who were living in exile in some
dull and unknown town in Greece, he was angry with himself for not
being with them, and the thought of their sufferings often troubled
his pleasures. That is the reason why he worked with so much ardour
for their return. It was of importance to him to diminish the number
of those whose miseries formed a disagreeable contrast to the
happiness that he enjoyed, or who appeared to condemn his
submission by their haughty attitude. Every time that an exile
returned to Rome, it seemed to Cicero as though he got rid of some
remorse and escaped the reproaches of the ill-natured. Therefore,
when he had obtained, contrary to his expectation, the pardon of
Marcellus, his joy knew no bounds. It went so far as to make him
forget that resolution he had taken to keep silence to which he had
been faithful during two years. He spoke in the senate to thank
Caesar, and delivered the celebrated speech which remains to us.[290]
The reputation of this speech has had very diverse fortunes. It was
long unreservedly admired, and, in the last century, the worthy
Rollin regarded it as the model and perfection of eloquence; but this
enthusiasm has much diminished since we have become less
appreciative of the art of praising princes with delicacy, and value
free and open speech more highly than the most ingenious flattery.
We should certainly sometimes wish for a little more dignity in this
speech, and we are especially shocked at the manner in which
embarrassing recollections of the civil war are treated in it. He
should have said nothing of them, or have spoken out more boldly.
Ought he, for example, to hide the motives that the republicans had
for taking up arms and reduce the whole struggle to a conflict
between two eminent men? Was it the time, after the defeat of
Pompey, to sacrifice him to Caesar, and to assert with so much
assurance that he would have used the victory less well? That we may
be able to judge less severely the concessions that Cicero thought
himself obliged to make to the victorious party, we must recall the
circumstances in which this speech was delivered. It was the first
time he had spoken in public since Pharsalia. In that senate, purged
by Caesar and filled with his creatures, free speech had not yet been
heard. The friends and admirers of the master alone spoke, and
whatever excess we may find in the praises that Cicero gives him, we
may rest assured that all these flatteries must have seemed lukewarm
compared with those heard every day. Let us add that, as no one had
yet dared to make a trial of Caesar’s forbearance, its limits were not
exactly known. Now it is natural, that he who does not exactly know
where rashness begins has a little dread of becoming rash. When one
does not know the bounds of the liberty that is permitted, the fear of
overstepping them sometimes prevents their being reached at all.
Besides, this orator who spoke for an exile was himself one of the
vanquished. He knew the whole extent of the rights that victory then
conferred, and he did not try to hide it. “We have been defeated,” he
said to Caesar, “you might legitimately put us all to death.”[291] At the
present time things are quite different. Humanity has lessened these
pitiless rights, and the conquered, who knows it, does not give way so
completely; from the moment that he does not run the same risks it
is easy for him to have more courage; but when he found himself
before a master who had absolute power over him, when he knew
that he only held liberty and life by a favour always revocable, he
could not speak with the same boldness, and it would not be just to
call the reserve imposed by such a perilous position, timidity. There
is yet one other way, simpler and probably truer than the others, of
explaining these rather too exaggerated praises with which Cicero
has been reproached, namely, to acknowledge that they were sincere.
The greater the rights of the conqueror, the more becoming it was in
him to renounce them, and the merit was still greater when they
were renounced in favour of a man whom there were legitimate
reasons for hating. Accordingly, the excitement was very great
among the senators when they saw Caesar pardon his personal
enemy, and Cicero shared it. What proves that all these effusions of
joy and thankfulness, with which his speech is filled, were not simply
oratorical embellishments, is that we find them in a letter which he
addressed to Sulpicius, and which was not written for the public.
“That day seemed to me so grand,” said he, relating that memorable
sitting of the senate, “that I thought I saw the republic rise again.”[292]
This was going very far, and indeed nothing less resembled the
revival of the republic than this arbitrary act of a despot in pardoning
men who were only guilty of having served their country. This violent
hyperbole is none the less a proof of the deep and sincere emotion
that Caesar’s clemency caused Cicero. We know how open that
sensitive nature was to the impressions of the moment. He usually
allows himself to be seized so forcibly by admiration or hatred, that
he seldom keeps within bounds in expressing them. Hence came, in
the speech for Marcellus, some hyperbolical eulogies and an excess
of complimentary phrases which it is easy to account for, although
one would rather not have found them there.
These reservations being made, nothing remains but to admire.
Cicero’s speech does not contain only flatteries, as is asserted, and
those who read it carefully and without prejudice will find something
else. After thanking Caesar for his clemency, he takes the liberty of
telling him a few truths and giving him some advice. This second
part, which is somewhat hidden now under the splendour of the
other, is much more curious, although less striking, and must have
produced more effect in its time. Although he revised his work before
publishing it, as was usual with him, he must have preserved the
movement of improvisation. If he had not at first found those grand
periods, the most sonorous and pompous of the Latin tongue, it is at
least probable that he has not changed very much the order of the
ideas and the coherency of the speech. We feel that he becomes
excited and warmed by degrees, and in proportion as he advances he
becomes more daring. The success of his eloquence, of which they
had been deprived so long, the applause of his friends, the
admiration and surprise of the new senators who had not yet heard
him, that sort of transport a man feels in speaking when he perceives
he is listened to; in sum, the place itself where he was speaking, those
walls of the senate house to which he alluded in his discourse, and
which guarded the memory of so many eloquent and free voices,—all
this put him in heart again. He forgot the timid precautions of the
commencement, and boldness came with success. Was it not
attacking absolute power indirectly when he said: “I am grieved to
think that the destiny of the republic, which ought to be immortal,
depends entirely on the life of one man who must some time die.”[293]
And what can we think of that other saying, still sharper, almost
cruel? “You have done much to gain the admiration of men; you have
not done enough to deserve their praises.”[294] What must Caesar do
in order that the future may praise him as much as it admires him?
He must change that which exists: “The republic cannot remain as it
is.” He does not explain himself, but we guess what he wants. He
wants liberty, not that entire liberty that they had enjoyed up to
Pharsalia, but a moderate and regulated liberty, compatible with a
strong and victorious government, the sole liberty that Rome could
support. It is plain that at this moment Cicero did not think it
impossible to make a compromise between Caesar and liberty. Could
not a man who so ostentatiously renounced one of the least disputed
rights of victory be tempted to renounce the others later? And when
he was seen to be so clement and generous towards private
individuals, was it forbidden to think that he might one day show the
same liberality to his country? However weak this hope might be, as
there was then no other, an honest man and a good citizen would not
let it be lost, and it was his duty to encourage Caesar by all possible
means to realize it. They were not then to blame in praising him
without restraint for what he had done, in order to urge him to do
still more, and it seems to me that the praises Cicero heaps on him,
when we think of the intention he had in giving them, lose a little of
that look of slavishness with which they have been reproached.
Caesar listened to the compliments with pleasure and to the advice
without anger. He was too pleased that Cicero had at last broken
silence to think of being angry at what he had said. It was important
to him that this statesman, on whom all eyes were fixed, should re-
enter public life in some way or other. While that powerful voice
persisted in remaining mute it seemed to protest against the new
government. By not even attempting to contradict him, it let it be
thought it had not the liberty to do so, and made the slavery appear
heavier. He was then so content to hear Cicero’s voice again that he
let him say what he liked. Cicero quickly perceived it and took
advantage of it. From this moment, when he speaks in public, we feel
that he is more at his ease. His tone becomes firmer, and he concerns
himself less about compliments and eulogies. With the speech for
Marcellus, he had tried what liberties he could take. Having once felt
his ground, he was more sure of his steps and walked with
confidence.
Such was the position of Cicero during Caesar’s dictatorship; we
see clearly that it was not so humble as has been asserted, and that,
in a time of despotism, he was able to render some services to liberty.
These services have been generally ill appreciated, and I am not
surprised at it. It is with men something as it is with works of art:
when we see them at a distance we are only struck with the bold
situations and well-drawn attitudes; the details and finer shades
escape us. We can well understand those who give themselves up
entirely to the conqueror like Curio or Antony, or those who
constantly resist him like Labienus and Cato. As to those ingenious
and flexible minds who fly from all extremes, who live adroitly
between submission and revolt, who turn difficulties rather than
force them, who do not refuse to pay with a few flatteries for the right
of telling a few truths, we are always tempted to be severe towards
them. As we cannot clearly distinguish their attitude at the distance
from which we regard them, their smallest subserviencies appear to
be cowardice, and they seem to be prostrating themselves when they
are only bowing. It is only by drawing near them, that is to say by
studying the facts closer, that we succeed in rendering them justice. I
think that this minute study is not unfavourable to Cicero, and that
he was not mistaken when he said later, speaking of this period of his
life, that his slavery had not been without some honour: quievi cum
aliqua dignitate.[295]
II.
In giving an account of the relations of Cicero and Caesar after

Pharsalia, I have purposely omitted to speak of the courteous contest
they had about Cato. It was such a curious incident that it seems to
me to be worth the trouble of being studied apart, and in order to
understand better the sentiments that each of the two brought into
this contest, perhaps it will not be amiss to begin by making the
acquaintance of the person who was the subject of the dispute.
A sufficiently correct idea is generally formed of Cato by us, and
those who attack him as well as those who admire him are very
nearly agreed upon the principal features of his character. He was
not one of those elusive and many-sided natures like Cicero, that it is
so difficult to seize. On the contrary, no one was ever more
outspoken, more uniform, than he, and there is no figure in history
whose good and bad qualities are so clearly marked. The only danger
for those who study him is to be tempted to exaggerate still more this
bold relief. With a little intention it is easy to make an obstinate
block of this obstinate man, a boor and brute of this frank and
sincere man; that is to say, to draw the caricature and not the
portrait of Cato. To avoid falling into this extreme, it will be proper,
before speaking of him, to read again a short letter that he addressed
to Cicero when proconsul of Cilicia.[296] This note is all that remains
to us of Cato, and I should be surprised if it did not very much
astonish those who have a preconceived notion of him. There is
neither rudeness nor brutality in it, but on the contrary much
refinement and wit. The occasion of the letter was a very difficult
one: it was a question of refusing Cicero a favour that he very much
wished to obtain. He had had in his old age the aspiration to become
a conqueror, and he asked the senate to vote a thanksgiving to the
gods for the success of the campaign he had just made. The senate in
general showed deference to this caprice, Cato almost alone resisted;
but he did not wish to fall out with Cicero, and the letter he wrote to
justify his refusal is a masterpiece of dexterity. He shows him that in
opposing his demand, he understands the interests of his glory,
better than he does himself. If he will not thank the gods for the
successes Cicero has obtained, it is because he thinks that Cicero
owes them to himself alone. Is it not better to give him all the honour
than to attribute it to chance, or the protection of heaven? This is
certainly a very amiable way of refusing, and one that did not leave
Cicero an excuse for getting angry, discontented though he was. Cato,
then, was a man of wit at odd moments, although at first sight we
might have some difficulty in supposing so. His character had
become supple by the study of Greek literature; he lived in the midst
of an elegant society, and he had unconsciously taken something
from it. This is what that witty letter makes us suspect, and we must
remember it, and take care to read it again every time we are
tempted to fancy him an ill-bred rustic.
We must, however, admit that usually he was stiff and stubborn,
hard to himself, and severe on others. That was the turn of his
humour; he added to it by his self-will. Nature is not alone to blame
for those self-willed and absolute characters that we meet with; a
certain pursuit of quaint originality and a little self-complacency,
very often make us aid nature and bring it out more vigorously. Cato
was led into this defect by the very name he bore. The example of his
illustrious grandfather was always before his eyes, and his single
study was to resemble him, without taking into account the
difference of times and men. In imitating we exaggerate. There is
always a little effort and excess in the virtues we try to reproduce. We
take only the most salient points of the model, and neglect the others
which tone them down. This happened with Cato, and Cicero justly
blames him for imitating only the rough and hard sides of his
grandfather. “If you let the austerity of your behaviour take a few
tints of his gay and easy manners, your good qualities would be more
pleasing.”[297] It is certain that there was in the old Cato a dash of
piquant animation, of rustic gaiety, of bantering good-nature, that
his grandson did not have. He only shared with him his roughness
and obstinacy, which he pushed to extremes.
Of all excesses the most dangerous perhaps is the excess of good; it
is at least that of which it is most difficult to correct oneself, for the
culprit applauds himself, and no one dares to blame him. Cato’s
great defect was that he never knew moderation. By dint of wishing
to be firm in his opinion, he became deaf to the advice of his friends
and the lessons of experience. The practical conduct of life, that
imperious mistress, to speak like Bossuet, had no hold upon him. His
energy often went to the length of obstinacy, and his sense of honour
was sometimes in fault by being too scrupulous. This extreme
delicacy prevented him succeeding when he canvassed for public
offices. The people were very exacting towards those who asked for
their votes. During the rest of the year they allowed themselves to be
driven and ill-used, but on election day they knew they were masters
and took pleasure in showing it. They could only be gained by
flattering all their caprices. Cicero often laughed at those unfortunate
and deferential candidates (natio officiosissima candidatorum), who
go in the morning knocking at every door, who pass their time in
paying visits and compliments, who make it a duty to accompany the
generals when they enter or leave Rome, who form the retinue of all
the influential orators, and who are forced to have infinite
consideration and respect for everybody. Among the common
people, upon whom after all the election depended, the more honest
wished to be flattered, the rest required to be bought. Cato was not
the man to do either the one or the other. He would neither flatter
nor lie; still less would he consent to pay. When he was pressed to
offer those repasts and those presents that for so long candidates had
not dared to refuse, he answered bluntly: “Are you bargaining for
pleasures with debauched young men, or asking the government of
the world of the Roman people?” And he did not cease repeating this
maxim, “that it is only a man’s merits which must solicit.”[298] A hard
saying! said Cicero, and one they were not accustomed to hear at a
time when all offices were for sale. It displeased the people, who
profited by this venality, and Cato, who persisted in only soliciting on
his merits, was almost always vanquished by those who solicited with
their money.
Characters of this sort, honest and outspoken, are met with, in
different degrees, in private as well as in public life, and for this
reason they belong to the domain of comedy as well as to that of
history. If I were not afraid of failing in respect towards the gravity of
the personage I am studying, I should say that this haughty response
that I have just quoted, makes me think involuntarily of one of the
finest creations of our theatre. It is a Cato that Molière wished to
paint in the Misanthrope. We are here only concerned with the
fortune of a private individual, and not with the government of the
world, we have only to do with a lawsuit; but in his position, the Cato
of the Comedy speaks just like the other. He will not submit to
customs that he does not approve of. Even at the risk of losing his
case he will not visit the judges, and when people say to him: “And
who do you then intend to solicit for you?” he answers as haughtily
as Cato: “Who do I intend? Reason, my just cause, and equity.”
Whatever we may feel, these personages always inspire a great
respect. We have not the heart to blame them, but, nevertheless, we
must have the courage to do so. Honesty, honour, liberty, all noble
causes in fine, cannot well be defended with this exaggerated and
strait-laced rigour. They have disadvantages enough by themselves
in their struggle with corruption and licence, without making them
more unpleasing still by a useless stiffness and severity. To multiply
scruples is to disarm virtue. It is quite enough that she is forced to be
grave; why wish to make her repulsive? Without sacrificing anything
of principle, there are points on which she ought to give way to men
in order to rule them. What proves that those men, who boast of
never giving way, are wrong is that they are not as inflexible as they
suppose, and that, in spite of their resistance, they always end by
making some concessions. That austere, that stern Alceste, is a
member of society after all, and of the best. He lives at court, and we
can see very well what he is. I do not say only by his manners and
appearance, although I imagine the man with the green ribbons
dressed with taste and elegance, but by those turns of phrase he
employs, by those polite evasions which are also lies, and which he
will not endure in Philinte. Before breaking out against the nobleman
of the sonnet he uses adroit formulas where we only catch a glimpse
of the truth:
“Do you find anything amiss in my sonnet?”
“I do not say that.”
What is this “I do not say that,” which he repeats so often, but a
blameworthy compliance and weakness, if we judge it with the rigour
of the misanthrope? Rousseau severely reproaches Alceste for it, and
I do not think that Alceste, if he remains faithful to his principles,
can find any reply to Rousseau; it would not be difficult either to
point out contradictions of the same kind in Cato. This stern enemy
of intrigue, who at first will do nothing for the success of his
candidature, ends by canvassing: he went to the Campus Martius like
everybody else, to shake hands with the citizens and ask for their
votes. “What!” says Cicero to him ironically, whom these
inconsistencies put into good humour, “is it your business to come
and ask for my vote? Is it not rather I who ought to thank a man of
your merit who wishes to brave fatigue and dangers for me?”[299] This
stern enemy of lying did more: he had one of those slaves called
nomenclatores who knew the name and profession of every citizen of
Rome, and he used him like the rest, to make the poor electors
believe that he knew them. “Is not this cheating and deceiving the
public?” said Cicero, and he was not wrong. The saddest thing is that
these concessions, that compromise the dignity and unity of a
character, are of no use: they are generally made with a bad grace,
and too late; they do not efface the remembrance of past rudeness,
and gain nobody. Notwithstanding his tardy solicitations and the aid
of his nomenclator, Cato did not attain the consulship, and Cicero
severely blames the awkwardness that made him fail. No doubt he
could do without being consul; but the republic had need that he
should be consul, and in the eyes of many good citizens, to favour by
refinements of scrupulosity and exaggerations of honour the triumph
of the worst men was almost to abandon and betray it.
It is easy to understand these excesses and exaggerations in a man
who intends to fly the approach of humankind, like Alceste; but they
are unpardonable in one who wishes to live with men, and still more
so in one who aspires to govern them. The government of men is a
nice and difficult matter which requires a man not to begin by
repelling those whom he is desirous of leading. Certainly he ought to
intend to make them better, but it is necessary to begin by taking
them as they are. The first law of politics is to aim only at the
possible. Cato often overlooked this law. He could not condescend to
those attentions without which one cannot govern the people; he had
not sufficient flexibility of character nor that turn for honourable
intrigue which make a man succeed in the things he undertakes; he
wanted some of that pliancy that brings opposing pretensions
together, calms jealous rivalries, and groups people divided by
humours, opinions and interests around one man. He could only be a
striking protest against the manners of his time; he was not the head
of a party. Let us venture to say, notwithstanding the respect we feel
for him, that his spirit was obstinate because his mind was narrow.
He did not at first distinguish the points on which a man should give
way and those that ought to be defended to the last. A disciple of the
Stoics, who said that all faults are equal, that is, according to Cicero’s
joke, that it is as wrong to kill a fowl needlessly as to strangle one’s
father, he had applied this hard and strange theory to politics. His
mind being restricted to the merest legality, he defended the smallest
things with tiresome obstinacy. His admiration of the past knew no
discrimination. He imitated the ancient costumes as he followed the
old maxims, and he affected not to wear a tunic under his toga
because Camillus did not wear one. His want of breadth of mind, his
narrow and obstinate zeal were more than once hurtful to the
republic. Plutarch reproaches him with having thrown Pompey into
Caesar’s arms by refusing some unimportant gratifications of his
vanity. Cicero blames him for having dissatisfied the knights whom
he had had so much trouble to conciliate with the senate. No doubt
the knights made unreasonable demands, but he should have
conceded everything rather than let them give Caesar the support of
their immense wealth. It was on this occasion that Cicero said of
him: “He thinks he is in the republic of Plato and not in the mud of
Romulus,”[300] and this saying is still that which best characterizes
that clumsy policy that, by asking too much of men, ends by getting
nothing.
Cato’s natural character was that of opposition. He did not
understand how to discipline and lead a party, but he was admirable
when it was a question of making head against an adversary. To
conquer him, he employed a tactic in which he often succeeded:
when he saw that a decision that seemed to him fatal, was about to
be taken, and that it was necessary at any price to prevent the people
voting, he began to speak and did not leave off. Plutarch says that he
could speak for a whole day without fatigue. Nothing deterred him,
neither murmurs, cries, nor threats. Sometimes a lictor would pull
him down from the rostrum, but as soon as he was free he went up
again. One day the tribune Trebonius got so much out of patience
with this resistance that he had him led off to prison: Cato, without
being disconcerted, continued his speech while going along, and the
crowd followed him to listen. It is to be remarked that he was never
really unpopular: the common people, who love courage, were at last
mastered by this steady coolness and this unconquerable energy. It
sometimes happened that they declared themselves in his favour,
contrary to their interests and preferences, and Caesar, all-powerful
with the populace, dreaded nevertheless the freaks of Cato.
It is none the less true, as I have already said, that Cato could not
be the head of a party, and what is more deplorable is, that the party
for which he fought had no head. It was an assemblage of men of
capacity and of dignified personages, none of whom had the
necessary qualities to take the lead of the rest. Not to mention
Pompey, who was only a doubtful and distrusted ally, among the
others, Scipio repelled every one by his haughtiness and cruelty;
Appius Claudius was only a credulous augur who believed in the
sacred chickens; Marcellus was wanting in pliability and urbanity,
and was himself aware that scarcely anybody liked him; Servius
Sulpicius had all the weaknesses of a punctilious lawyer; and lastly,
Cicero and Cato erred in opposite directions, and it would have been
necessary to unite them both, or modify them one by the other in
order to have a complete politician. There were, therefore, only
brilliant personalities and no head in the republican party before
Pharsalia, and we may even say that, as this jealous selfishness and
these rival vanities were ill blended, there was scarcely a party.
The civil war, which was a stumbling-block for so many others,
which laid bare so many littlenesses and so much cowardice,
revealed, on the other hand, all the goodness and all the greatness of
Cato. A sort of crisis then took place in his character. As in certain
maladies the approach of the last moments gives more elevation and
lucidity to the mind, so, it seems, that at the threat of that great
catastrophe which was about to engulf the free institutions of Rome,
Cato’s honest soul was yet further purified, and that his intelligence
took a juster view of the situation from the feeling of the public
dangers. While fear makes others go to extremes, he restrains the
usual violence of his conduct, and, while thinking of the dangers the
republic is running, he becomes all at once discreet and moderate.
He who was always ready to attempt useless resistance, advises
giving way to Caesar; he wishes them to grant all his demands; he
resigns himself to all concessions in order to avoid civil war. When it
breaks out he submits to it with sorrow, and tries by all means to
diminish its horrors. Every time he is consulted he is on the side of
moderation and mildness. In the midst of those young men, the
heroes of the polished society of Rome, among those lettered and
elegant wits, it is the rugged Cato who defends the cause of
humanity. He compelled the decision, in spite of the outbursts of the
fiery Pompeians, that no town shall be sacked, no citizen be killed off
the field of battle. It seems that the approach of the calamities he
foresaw, softened that energetic heart. On the evening of the battle of
Dyrrhachium, while every one was rejoicing in Pompey’s camp, Cato
alone, seeing the corpses of so many Romans lying on the ground,
wept: noble tears, worthy of being compared with those that Scipio
shed over the ruins of Carthage, the memory of which antiquity so
often recalled! In the camp at Pharsalia, he severely blamed those
who spoke only of massacre and proscription and divided among
themselves in advance the houses and lands of the conquered. It is
true that after the defeat, when the greater number of those wild
schemers were at Caesar’s knees, Cato went everywhere to stir him
up enemies and to revive the civil wars in all the ends of the earth.
Just as he had wished them to yield before the battle, so was he
determined not to submit when there was no more hope of freedom.

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Crucible of Struggle: A History of

Mexican Americans from Colonial

Love Canal : a toxic history from Colonial times to the

Regulating the Lives of Women Social Welfare Policy

Vi■t Nam : a history from earliest times to the present

African Americans in the Colonial era : from African

African Americans in the Colonial Era: From African

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Musical Maryland A History of Song and Performance from

Magic, A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the

New York Oxford

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vargas, Zaragosa, author.

For Zaneta, Lina, Marcel, and Margo

Chapter 1 The Era of the Spanish Northern

Chapter 2 Life and Society in Mexico's Northern

The Opening of Commercial Markets: The Taos Trade Fair

Chapter 3 Mexican Americans in the Era of War

Chapter 4 Mexican Americans from the 1850s

Chapters Mexican Americans in the Southwest, 1870

The Mexicans of Arizona and New Mexico 152

Chapter6 Mexican Immigration, Work, Urbanization,

Chapter 7 The Mexican American Struggle for Labor Rights

Chapter 8 The Mexican American People in the World

Chapter 9 Mexican Americans in the Postwar Years,

Chapter 10 Mexican Americans in the Protest Era,

"Pardon My English "-La Raza Unida Party 329

Chapter 11 Mexican Americans at the End of the Twentieth

Chapter 12 Latinos and the Challenges of the Twenty-First

Mexican American historiography emerged from and was indelibly marked

continuing variety and depth of scholarship in Mexican American history, and it

(3) Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States by Manuel G. Gonzales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE SECOND EDITION

xx ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE SECOND EDITION

NEW TO THIS EDITION

A new final chapter examines such issues as:

T he terminology varies from chapter to chapter and in some cases within a

The Era of the Spanish Northern

T he history of the inhabitants of Spain's vast northern frontier- the modern

and commerce. Bound by notions of self-interest and religious conviction to pro-

CH APTER 1 • The Era of the Spanish Northern Frontier to 1821 3

SPANISH INSTITUTIONS AND MIXED-RACE SOCIETY

CH APT E R 1 • The Era of the Spanish Northern Frontier to 1821 5

Santa Clara M ission in 1849.

It is very difficult to relinquish politics all at once. The conduct of

In giving an account of the relations of Cicero and Caesar after

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