The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 41, July 1937 - April, 1938 Page: 303
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Santa Anna's Last Dictatorship, 1858-1855
create a situation unfavorable to stable government, for Mexican
economy was predominantly agricultural, and the number of
landless mestizos and Indians was dangerously large. These people
had little interest in preserving existing property arrangements,
and could gain nothing by fighting for a government pledged to
sustain them. On the other hand, the revolution offered oppor-
tunities for plunder, revenge, diversion, and, perhaps to a few
of the more ambitious, a possibility for effecting a redistribution
of landed property. It probably would be foolish to give much
credence to the statement of one contemporary of the revolution
of Ayutla, who asserted that it looked toward the revival of Indian
rule; but the fact that Santa Anna's successors had considerable
difficulty in upholding existing property arrangements argues that
the hacendados' land monopoly was beginning to drive some of
the poor to violence. Certainly there is little doubt that the dic-
tator aggravated "an absurd division of territorial property."6
The government's punitive measures sometimes were executed
so rigidly as to arouse public sympathy for convicted persons. The
carelessness and profusion with which orders of exile or impris-
onment were issued against political enemies, who actually had
not revolted, served to make martyrs of many men who otherwise
were undistinguished. The unnecessarily harsh treatment accorded
political prisoners, and the avidity with which the government
confiscated the properties of its enemies, or suspected enemies,
likewise aroused some discontent, especially when innocent persons
suffered. Santa Anna's rigid policy of executing captured rebels,
16Diario official, May 13, 1854; June 10, 1854; September 5, 1854; October
1, 1854; December 14, 1854; June 3, 1855; July 3, 1855; July 15, 1855;
and July 21, 1855; also, drafts of letters of Corona to Santa Anna, July
17, 1854, and July 28, 1854, Crimenes de los generales, I; P. Blanco to
Mariano Riva Palacio, August 25, 1855, Riva Palacio Papers; Rivera
Cambas, Historia de Jalapa, IV, 490, 502, 504-505, 508, 525; Portilla,
Historic, 107, 115-116, 123, 141, 165; Domenech, IHistoire du Mexique, I,
272; Fossey, Le Mexique, 341-342; M. J. Box, Capt. Box's Adventures ...,
153; George McCutchen McBride, The land system of Mexico, 3-4, 31-32,
39, 41, 90-91; Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Cuadro sin6ptico . . ., 28-29,
34-36, 39-43, 48-50; Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Comercio esterior de Mexico,
53-58; Carlos Butterfield, The United States and Mexican mail steamship
line and statistics of Mexico, 35, 38, 61-67; Wilson, Mexico: Its peasants
and its priests, 290; Lafragua, Memorandum de los negocios, 32; Ignacio L.
Vallarta, Discursa . . ., 13.303
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 41, July 1937 - April, 1938, periodical, 1938; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101103/m1/331/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.