Victoriano Huerta

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Victoriano Huerta (1854-1916) was a Mexican general and political leader who, in 1913, overthrew the first government to emerge from the Mexican Revolution and became the executive of a counterrevolutionary regime.

Victoriano Huerta was born of Huichol Indian parents in Colotlán, Jalisco, on Dec. 23, 1854. He received military training at the Chapultepec Military College. During the rule of Porfirio Díaz, Huerta's abilities brought him recognition and advancement to the rank of general. In 1901 he was in command of the military campaign which crushed the resistance of the Maya Indians. When Díaz's regime collapsed in 1911 and the aging dictator was forced into exile, Gen. Huerta commanded the escort which accompanied Díaz safely to Veracruz.

At the very time that Francisco Madero was endeavoring to arrange for the peaceful discharge of the revolutionary forces in Morelos, interim president Francisco de la Barra ordered Gen. Huerta to crush the peasant followers of Emiliano Zapata. When Madero, who wanted a peaceful solution, assumed the presidency, Huerta was sent into temporary retirement. Nonetheless, the impatient agrarians of Morelos rebelled against the new administration less than 3 weeks after it took office. When Pascual Orozco pronounced against Madero in February 1912 in northern Mexico with conservative backing, Huerta was recalled to active duty and, after careful preparations, crushed the rebellion. Returning to the capital, he was rankled by Madero's treatment of him.

The revolt led by Bernardo Reyes and Félix Díaz in February 1913 made it necessary for Madero once more to place his fate in the hands of Huerta. After the carnage in Mexico City known as the "Ten Tragic Days," Huerta made a deal with Félix Díaz to betray the Madero government. Madero and his vice president, Pino Suárez, were seized and, influenced by promises that they and their associates would be protected, resigned their posts. Huerta assumed the provisional presidency and, on the night of Feb. 22, 1913, while being transferred from the National Palace to prison, Madero and Pino Suárez were assassinated by their escort.

Although there is no evidence of Huerta's direct responsibility in the tragic events, he and his administration could not escape blame for the bloody trail which led to his secretary of war. Madero's martyrdom unified the divided revolutionaries, and United States president Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize a regime which had come to power through murder. Having outmaneuvered Félix Díaz, Huerta became president in a farcical October election and tended to conduct national business behind a bottle of cognac in the Café Colón.

The regime of the heavy-drinking Huerta became more oppressive the more desperate the leader became. Opposition was suppressed, and critics like Senator Belisario Domínguez met violent death. With the dissolution of Congress, all pretense of representative government ended. Venustiano Carranza became the first chief of the Constitutionalist movement to avenge Madero and reestablish constitutional government. These forces, led by Carranza, Pancho Villa, and Álvaro Obregón in the north and Zapata's guerrilla army in the south, were aided by the lifting of the United States arms embargo.

The brief arrest of some American sailors at Tampico (April 1914) became an "affair of honor" for President Wilson, who, to prevent a German arms shipment from reaching Huerta, ordered the occupation of Veracruz. This almost permitted Huerta to rally the nation behind him. Military victories by revolutionary forces - Villa at Torreón and at Zacatecas and Obregón on the west coast - splintered Huerta's army, and on July 15, 1914, Huerta escaped to Veracruz.

After living for a time in Forest Hills, N.Y., Huerta traveled to the southwest border to join other antiregime plotters. Arrested for conspiracy, he died at El Paso, Tex., on Jan. 13, 1916, shortly after being released for health reasons from Fort Bliss.

Further Reading

While there have been no full biographical studies of Huerta, there recently has developed a revisionist effort emphasizing the need for serious restudying of the man and his regime. This need was pointed out by William L. Sherman and Richard E. Greenleaf in Victoriano Huerta: A Reappraisal (1960). Details of Huerta's role in the De la Barra and Madero periods are to be found in Stanley R. Ross, Francisco I. Madero: Apostle of Mexican Democracy (1955). Two scholarly studies of diplomatic relations during Huerta's government are available: Peter Calvert, The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1914: The Diplomacy of Anglo-American Conflict (1968), and Kenneth J. Grieb, The United States and Huerta (1969). See also John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (1969).

A graphical timeline is available at Timeline of the Mexican Revolution

Victoriano Huerta
President of Mexico
In office February 18, 1913 – July 15, 1914
Preceded by	Pedro Lascuráin
Succeeded by	Francisco S. Carvajal
Born	December 22, 1850(1850-12-22) Colotlán, Jalisco
Died	January 13, 1916 (aged 65) El Paso, Texas, USA
Nationality	Mexican
Political party	No Party
Spouse(s)	Emilia Águila

Not to be confused with Adolfo de la Huerta.

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.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Military career 3 Political career 4 Exile and Late Life 5 Pop Culture 6 See also 7 External links 8 References

Early life

Victoriano Huerta was born in the town of Colotlán, Jalisco, son of Jesús Huerta and 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.^[2]

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^[3] 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.^[4]

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.^[2] 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,^[5] 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.

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. US 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 US 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

José C. Delgado, Victoriano Huerta and Abraham F. Ratner.

He went into exile, first traveling to Kingston, Jamaica, aboard the German cruiser SMS Dresden. From there, he moved to England, then Spain, and arrived in the United States in April 1915. He was discovered to be plotting to return to power in Mexico — in both Spain and Washington he had been negotiating with German agents to secure the support of Germany's ruler, Kaiser Wilhelm II for another attempt at a coup d'état. He was arrested in Newman, New Mexico, USA, on June 27, 1915 together with Pascual Orozco and charged with conspiracy to violate US neutrality laws. After some time in a US 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.

Huerta is still vilified by modern-day Mexicans, who generally refer to him as El Chacal — "The Jackal".

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.

See also

• Huerta's Federal Army
• La Cucaracha
• United States occupation of Veracruz

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

1. ^ 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 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 Refugio Márquez.
2. ^ ^{a b} Coerver, Don M. (2004). Mexico: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Culture and History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1576071324. 
3. ^ Genealogical Society of Utah, Film 0035853
4. ^ El Paso Times obituary
5. ^ McLynn, Frank (2002). Villa and Zapata. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0786710888. 

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Persondata
NAME	Huerta, Victoriano
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Huerta Ortega, José Victoriano (Spanish)
SHORT DESCRIPTION	President of Mexico (1913 - 1914)
DATE OF BIRTH	1850-12-22
PLACE OF BIRTH	Colotlán, Jalisco, Mexico
DATE OF DEATH	1916-01-13
PLACE OF DEATH	El Paso, Texas, United States

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