Victoriano Huerta: Difference between revisions
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Huerta has been portrayed or referenced in any number of movies dealing with the Mexican Revolution, including ''[[The Wild Bunch]]'', ''[[Duck, You Sucker!]]'', and ''[[And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself]]''. In the 2008 film ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'', [[Indiana Jones|Jones]] recounts a tale from his youth of riding with [[Francisco "Pancho" Villa]] and spits on the ground as he says Huerta's name. |
Huerta has been portrayed or referenced in any number of movies dealing with the Mexican Revolution, including ''[[The Wild Bunch]]'', ''[[Duck, You Sucker!]]'', and ''[[And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself]]''. In the 2008 film ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'', [[Indiana Jones|Jones]] recounts a tale from his youth of riding with [[Francisco "Pancho" Villa]] and spits on the ground as he says Huerta's name. |
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He is also the subject of the famous song La cucaracha ("La cucaracha / La cucaracha / ya no puede caminar / porque requiere, porque le falta / majijuana que fumar"). Huerta's addiction to cannabis is real and documented. |
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Revision as of 11:10, 14 January 2011
Victoriano Huerta | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 12th President of Mexico | |
| In office February 18, 1913 – July 15, 1914 | |
| Preceded by | Pedro Lascuráin |
| Succeeded by | Francisco S. Carvajal |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 22, 1850 Colotlán, Jalisco |
| Died | January 13, 1916 (aged 65) El Paso, Texas, USA |
| Nationality | Mexican |
| Political party | No Party |
| Spouse | Emilia Águila |
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez (Colotlán, Jalisco, December 22, 1850,[1] – January 13, 1916 in El Paso, Texas) was a Mexican military officer and president of Mexico. Huerta's supporters were known as Huertistas during the Mexican revolution. Huerta is still vilified by modern-day Mexicans, who generally refer to him as El Chacal — "The Jackal".[2]
Early life
Victoriano Huerta was born in the town of Colotlán, Jalisco, son of Jesús Huerta and María Lázara del Refugio Márquez. He self-identified as indigenous and historians have claimed that his father was ethnically Huichol. He learned to read and write early on and in 1869, he was recruited by General Donato Guerra to serve as his personal secretary. In that role, he distinguished himself and with the aid of General Guerra and President Benito Juárez gained admission to the Mexican National Military Academy (Heroico Colegio Militar) at Chapultepec in Mexico City in 1872.[3]
Upon graduating from the military academy in 1877, he was employed by the Corps of Engineers to perform topographic studies in the states of Puebla and Veracruz, where he met Emilia Águila Moya, his future wife. He married Emilia Águila on November 21, 1880 in Mexico City[4] and together they had eleven children. The names of his children surviving him in 1916 were Jorge, Maria Elisa, Victor, Luz, Elena, Dagoberto, Eva and Celia.[5]
Military career
During the Porfirio Díaz administration he rose to the rank of general, and fought to subdue the Chan Santa Cruz Maya peoples of the Yucatán and against the rebels of Emiliano Zapata.[3] On the eve of the 1910 Revolution against the long established Díaz regime, Huerta was involved in the innocuous project of reforming the uniforms of the Federal Army.
After Díaz went into the exile Huerta initially pledged allegiance to the new administration of Francisco Madero, and he was retained by the Madero administration and crushed anti-Madero revolts by rebel generals such as Pascual Orozco. However, Huerta secretly plotted with U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson,[6] cashiered general Bernardo Reyes, and Félix Díaz, Porfirio Díaz's nephew, to overthrow Madero. This episode in Mexican history is known as La decena trágica.
Following a confused few days of fighting in Mexico City between loyalist and rebel factions of the Army, on February 18, 1913 Huerta had Madero and vice-president José María Pino Suárez seized and briefly imprisoned in the National Palace. The conspirators then met at the US Embassy to sign el Pacto de la Embajada (The Embassy Pact), which provided for Madero and Pino Suárez's exile and Huerta's takeover of the Mexican government.[7]
Political career
To give the coup the appearance of legitimacy, Huerta had foreign minister Pedro Lascuráin assume the presidency; under the 1857 Constitution of Mexico, the foreign minister stood third in line for the presidency behind the vice-president and attorney general; Madero's attorney general had also been ousted in the coup. Lascuráin then appointed Huerta as interior minister--constitutionally, fourth in line for the presidency. After less than an hour in office (some sources say as little as 15 minutes), Lascuráin resigned, handing the presidency to Huerta. At a late-night special session of Congress surrounded by Huerta's troops, the legislators endorsed his assumption of power. Four days later Madero and Pino Suárez were taken from the Palacio Nacional to prison at night and shot by officers of the rurales (federal mounted police) who were assumed to be acting on Huerta's orders.
Huerta established a harsh military dictatorship. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson became hostile to the Huerta administration, recalled ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, and demanded Huerta step aside for democratic elections. When Huerta refused, and with the situation further exacerbated by the Tampico Affair, President Wilson landed U.S. troops to occupy Mexico's most important seaport, Veracruz.
The reaction to the Huerta usurpation was Venustiano Carranza's Plan of Guadalupe, calling for the creation of a Constitutional Army, for Huerta's ouster, and for the restoration of constitutional government. Supporters of the plan included Zapata, Francisco "Pancho" Villa and Álvaro Obregón. After repeated field defeats of Huerta's Federal Army by Obregón and Villa, climaxing in the Battle of Zacatecas, Huerta bowed to pressure and resigned the presidency on July 15, 1914.
Exile and late life
He went into exile, first traveling to Kingston, Jamaica, aboard the German cruiser SMS Dresden.[8] From there, he moved to the UK, then Spain, and arrived in the United States in April 1915.
During 1915, he negotiated with Captain Franz von Rintelen of German Navy Intelligence for money to purchase weapons and arrange U-boat landings to provide support, while offering (perhaps as a bargaining chip) to make war on the U.S., which Germany hoped would end munitions supplies to the Allies.[9] Their meetings, held at the Manhattan Hotel (as well as another New York hotel, "probably the Holland House" at Fifth Avenue and 30th Street)[10] were observed by Secret Servicemen, and von Rintelen's telephone conversations were routinely intercepted and recorded.[10]
Huerta traveled from New York by train towards El Paso, Texas, presumably to regain the Mexican presidency through a coup d'état. He was apprehended aboard his train in Newman, New Mexico, within 25 miles of El Paso, on June 27, 1915 together with Pascual Orozco and charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. neutrality laws.[11] After some time in a U.S. Army prison at Fort Bliss, he was released on bail but remained under house arrest due to risk of flight to Mexico. Later he was returned to jail, and while so confined, died of cirrhosis of the liver.[11]
Pop culture
Huerta has been portrayed or referenced in any number of movies dealing with the Mexican Revolution, including The Wild Bunch, Duck, You Sucker!, and And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself. In the 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Jones recounts a tale from his youth of riding with Francisco "Pancho" Villa and spits on the ground as he says Huerta's name.
He is also the subject of the famous song La cucaracha ("La cucaracha / La cucaracha / ya no puede caminar / porque requiere, porque le falta / majijuana que fumar"). Huerta's addiction to cannabis is real and documented.
See also
External links
- Colotlán official website biography of Victoriano Huerta
- Mexico para niños biography of Victoriano Huerta
- Genealogy and descendancy of Victoriano Huerta
- NNDB entry for Victoriano Huerta
References
- ^ There is dispute about the date of birth and the maternal surname of Victoriano Huerta. Many sources, including Gobernantes de México by Fernando Orozco Linares give a birthdate of March 23, 1854 and a maternal surname of Ortega. However, the parrish register of Colotlán, Jalisco as filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah on film 0443681 v. 24 p. 237 shows a baptism date of December 23, 1850, a birth date of December 22, 1850 and his mother's name as María Lázara del Refugio Márquez. The marriage record dated November 21, 1880 at Santa Veracruz parrish in Mexico City as filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah on film 0035853 confirms his mother's name as: Del Refugio Márquez.
- ^ Laton McCartney, "The Teapot Dome Scandal: how big oil bought the Harding White House and tried to steal the country", Random House, Inc., 2008, pg. 1901, [1]
- ^ a b Coerver, Don M. (2004). Mexico: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Culture and History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1576071324.
- ^ Genealogical Society of Utah, Film 0035853
- ^ El Paso Times obituary
- ^ McLynn, Frank (2002). Villa and Zapata. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0786710888.
- ^ Michael D. Richards, "Revolutions in world history", Routledge, 2004, pg. 26, [2]
- ^ Thomas Herbert Russell, "America's War for Humanity", BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009, pg. 500, [3]
- ^ Tuchman, Barbara W. The Zimmermann Telegram (New York: NEL Mentor, 1967), pp.73-4.
- ^ a b Tuchman, p.73.
- ^ a b Lee Stacy, "Mexico and the United States", Marshall Cavendish, 2002, pg. 405, [4]
