Victory on Earth or in Heaven
Victory on Earth or in Heaven
Mexico's Religionero Rebellion
This work reconstructs the history of Mexico’s forgotten "Religionero" rebellion of 1873-1877, an armed Catholic challenge to the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. An essentially grassroots movement—organized by indigenous, Afro-Mexican, and mestizo parishioners in Mexico’s central-western Catholic heartland—the Religionero rebellion erupted in response to a series of anticlerical measures raised to constitutional status by the Lerdo government. These "Laws of Reform" decreed the full independence of Church and state, secularized marriage and burial practices, prohibited acts of public worship, and severely curtailed the Church’s ability to own and administer property. A comprehensive reconstruction of the revolt and a critical reappraisal of its significance, this book places ordinary Catholics at the center of the story of Mexico’s fragmented nineteenth-century secularization and Catholic revival.
This is a wonderful example of how talented historians can start with an incident or a speech or a crime—something apparently quite minor—and probe its context, investigate the circumstances that produced it, and build out from it to help the reader see this small event as something very important indeed.
Stauffer's work is not only a remarkable contribution to Mexico's political and religious historiography in the second half of the nineteenth century but also an extremely rich resource with plenty of conceptual and methodological reflections.'--Roberto Di Stefano, H-LatAm
Brian A. Stauffer is a translator and curator of the Spanish Collection in the Archives and Records Program at the Texas General Land Office.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One. Death to the Protestants! Long Live Religion!: The Religionero Rebellion in Michoacán, 1873-1876
Chapter Two. The Other Reforma: Clerical Accommodation and Catholic Restoration in Central-Western Mexico
Chapter Three. A Levitical City Divided: Religious Culture and Religionero Violence in Northwestern Michoacán
Chapter Four. Martyrs for Our Lord: Baroque Catholicism, Religionero Mobilization, and the Taming of the Reforma in Central Michoacán
Chapter Five. "Spiritual Orphans": Religioneros and the Modernization of Southwest Michoacán
Chapter Six. Lerdismo Derailed: The Religioneros, Porfirio Díaz, and the Twilight of the Reforma in Michoacán, 1876-1878
Conclusions
Appendix A. The Plan of Nuevo Urecho
Appendix B. The Manifesto of Tzitzio
Appendix C. Proclamation of Colonel Juan de Dios Rodríguez
Notes
Bibliography
Index
