Tornel and Santa Anna. The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico 1795-1853

Abstract

In his book on Tornel the author roughly uses the same periodization, but zooms in on the experiences of just one of the hombres the bién who, like many of his peers, had high hopes for the federal republic in 1824, became gradually disenchanted by 1829, disillusioned in the thirties and despaired in the disastrous eighteen forties. Tornel was of strategical importance to Santa Anna during his periods as efficient governor of the capital city or as Minister of War, because it implied a significant degree of military control. [...]Tornel, an excellent writer and orator, became the speechwriter and defender in congress of the caudillo. [...]Tornel comes out of this book as a sincere Mexican nationalist, but one who increasingly thought that the country needed a stronger central government with a professional Army to defend itself against its internal and external enemies.

- Tornel and Santa Anna. The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico 1795-1853, by Will Fowler. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000.

Politicians and generals despised by the well-known nineteenth century Mexican Liberal heroes were conveniently forgotten until the end of the century of the Mexican Revolution. Maria del Carmen Vasquez Mantecon (1997) and Will Fowler (2000) saved José María Tornel y Mendivil from oblivion. Fowler offers in this political biography of Tornel and his relationship to Santa Anna, a new analysis of the santanista politics and their impact on political thought within the developing Mexican political class. The Santanistas changed between the 1820s and the 1850s from a radical Liberal agenda to a reactionary one, but Fowler rejects the traditional stereotype of turncoats. He explains, quite convincingly, that the change of agenda's of the santanista Tornel had much to do with the smashing failure of the many political proposals that surfaced in independent Mexico and never resulted in stable and workable constitutional conditions. On that basis he also offers us a new vision of Santa Anna's own political changes, a vision that questions the traditional view of a 'cynical opportunist'. This study may be a stepping stone to a new project: a biography of Santa Anna. It is certainly the result of an earlier book ( 1998) on Mexico in the Age of the Proposals (1821-1853). In his book on Tornel the author roughly uses the same periodization, but zooms in on the experiences of just one of the hombres the bién who, like many of his peers, had high hopes for the federal republic in 1824, became gradually disenchanted by 1829, disillusioned in the thirties and despaired in the disastrous eighteen forties.

The first chapter, on Tornel's formative years, must have been a difficult one, because of the admitted lack of data and traditional stereotyped judgments on Tornel. So Fowler had to carefully reconstruct part of those turbulent years on the basis of young Tornel's social environment. He was the son of a middle class Creole shopkeeper in Orizaba, a student at the prestigious, formerly Jesuit, San Ildefonso college, who became a staunch representative of Creole patriotism. In his Odyssean years as a zealot of the Insurgence, he rapidly rose in their ranks, was caught, sentenced to death, pardoned, detained, escaped only to start again until he finally joined a Royal Army in 1820 which had already begun to embrace independence. It was only in later years that he met Santa Anna, who, until the Plan de Ayala, had remained a ruthless supporter of the royalists. In the 1820s became Tornel's friend for life.

In the second chapter we see Tornel as a quick apprentice in politics, first as a clerk on the war ministry and afterwards (1824) as personal secretary to the first Mexican president, Guadelupe Victoria. Tornel left Iturbide, became a republican, changed newspapers form traditionalist El Sol to the liberal El Aguila Mexicana, changed Masonic rites from the Scottish to the York ones and became an overt defender of federalism. A turncoat? He followed a trend to be found among most Mexican intellectuals of that time coming from the provinces. They became republicans after the Imperial disaster, supported the autonomy of their provinces and had high hopes for the political system inaugurated by the 1824 Constitution. Tornel was among them, he was against centralisation, in favour of local militias and freedom of the press, he advocated the abolition of slavery and, proud of the pre-Spanish Indian realms, he even asked political attention for the oppression of the Indians, even if he despised, like many criollos, the Indians of his time. By the middle of the 1830s he had lost his commitment to constitutional federalism, agreed to restrictions on the vote and the liberty of the press. He ended his life (1853) accepting dictatorship, faute de mieux perhaps, but he abhorred monarchism and remained a republican all his life. The intriguing question is then, was Tornel a radical Liberal until the late 1820s or was it a pose?

Fowler is quite careful in evaluating the ideological and political positions demonstrated by Tornel and santanismo, precisely because of their collective image as turncoats in Mexican historiography, but the outcome is a revision, if not in the positive sense, at least an understanding one. It interweaves Tornel's personal development into an experienced, later hardened politician, his developing hatred for the Creole aristocrat Carlos Maria Bustamente. his special relation with Santa Anna, and his increasing doubts about the functioning of the constitutional system. In this way chapters three to five see him developing from an uneasy collaborator in unconstitutional acts to a full-fledged conspirator and organizer of pronunciamientos. He lost his faith in the Federal Constitution, not because of its principles, but because of the impossibility to realize them during that time in Mexico. By the 1850s he hoped a dictatorship could save the country from imminent chaos, foreign invasion and U.S. imperialism. These preoccupations reflect his continuous obsession for law and order, and foreign threats to the independent republic. The former became visible in his often quite successful efforts to reduce criminality in Mexico City during his periods as governor of the Federal District and the efforts to professionalize the Army and educate its soldiers, during his many periods as Minister of War. These were in fact his most successful accomplishments. The latter ones had to do with the continuous threats by absolutist Spain and increasing American imperialism. That became obvious to him during his stay as Mexican envoy in the U.S.

His relationship to Santa Anna had to do with their mutual patria chica and their complementarities in Mexican power politics. Both were provincials from Veracruz, never completely accepted by the elites of Mexico City. Tornel was of strategical importance to Santa Anna during his periods as efficient governor of the capital city or as Minister of War, because it implied a significant degree of military control. Moreover, Tornel, an excellent writer and orator, became the speechwriter and defender in congress of the caudillo. He repeatedly saw, and he was certainly not the only one, Santa Anna as the only one who could save the country. Their relationship was an interesting example of the relationship between doctores y caudillos. In fact, Tornel comes out of this book as a sincere Mexican nationalist, but one who increasingly thought that the country needed a stronger central government with a professional Army to defend itself against its internal and external enemies. At least in this he was not that far away from Juárez, not to speak of Don Porfirio. Fowler's study is yet another attempt to do away with the artificial watershed constructed in Mexican historiography and, in so doing, may be 'politically correct' in post PRI Mexico.