Mexico del Norte

State of Mexico del Norte.

Mexico del Norte is a state of the United States of Mexico. It is one of six states created by the Mexico City Convention of 1820. Its capital and largest city is Conyers (formerly Santa Fe).

Settlement by Spain

The first settlements in Mexico del Norte were established by the Pueblo Indians in the 8th century. At their height in the 13th century, the Pueblo Indians built multistory structures, practiced irrigation, and laid out road systems. The coming of drought in the late 13th century reduced the numbers of the Pueblo Indians and led to their abandoning their northern settlements to settle in river communities.

The first Europeans to appear in Mexico del Norte were members of an expedition led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in the early 1540s. Coronado was searching for the Seven Cities of Gold, traveling as far east as the present-day Southern Vandalia, but all he found were primitive Indians.

The area was named New Mexico by a Spanish explorer in 1563. The first Spanish settlement in New Mexico was established in 1598, but the Spanish were driven out by the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and did not return for twelve years. The capital of New Mexico, Santa Fe, was founded in 1608.

Mexican State

When Andrew Jackson created the United States of Mexico at the Mexico City Convention in September 1820, he renamed the area Mexico del Norte, and renamed Santa Fe Conyers in honor of his former commanding officer, General Horatio Conyers. Although a majority of the population of Mexico del Norte were, and remained, Hispano, one of the four members of the Mexican Senate elected in 1821 was an Anglo named Thomas Hinds. At the same time, the state's Indian population remained great enough and cohesive enough to organize the Indian Party and elect two members to the Assembly.

During his Grand Tour of the U.S.M. in 1823, Jackson spent much of his time in Mexico del Norte inspecting the land and speaking to the Indians. In his post-Tour address to Congress on 12 February 1824, Jackson spoke of the unexplored frontier of Mexico del Norte, which he said held wealth for intelligent and energetic young people, whom he encouraged to settle there. Jackson conceived a plan for a vast project to irrigate the Mexico del Norte desert, but he was forced to abandon it after the Panic of 1836.

In spite of his pledge to help develop Mexico del Norte, Jackson opposed the Sprague Bill of 1832, which would have subsidized the search for iron and coal in the state. This led to a pro-industrial faction within the Continentalist Party splitting away that year to form the Progress Party, which soon joined the opposition Liberty Party.

In the 1839 Mexican elections, Mexico del Norte's four senators split evenly between the two parties, which led to the election of Miguel Huddleston. However, six years later, all four of the state's Continentalist Senate candidates were elected, adding to the Continentalist majority that voted for Pedro Hermión in September 1845.

Rocky Mountain War

In the wake of the California Gold Rush, prospectors spread out across Mexico del Norte in search of mineral wealth, and the state was found to be rich in non-ferrous metals, especially copper, zinc, and lead. However, as the prospectors traveled east, they came into contact, and sometimes into conflict, with North American prospectors exploring western Vandalia. Silver was discovered along the border between Mexico and the Confederation of North America early in 1844. The uncharted border between Mexico and the C.N.A. had been a source of trouble since the end of the Trans-Oceanic War, and by 1845 open warfare had broken out in the Broken Arrow region. From February to June 1845, 156 Mexicans and 197 North Americans were killed by vigilantes, and the two nations were on the brink of war.

North American Minister of War Henry Gilpin sent troops into the disputed area, and fighting between the opposing armies began on 4 September, marking the start of the Rocky Mountain War. The Mexicans withdrew, and by January 1846 General Philip Lodge of the Northern Confederation was poised to invade Mexico del Norte. Over the next three years, a series of North American attempts to overrun Mexico del Norte and sieze Conyers were defeated, most notably by Chief Running Deer's Cheyenne at the Battle of Arroyo de Dios in late August 1846, and at the Battle of Arroyo de Quatros Hombres two years later.

The terrible casualties suffered by both sides in the Battle of Williams Pass of November 1850 to March 1851 turned the people of both countries against the war. President Hermión swore to continue fighting until victory in his speech before Congress on 19 June 1851, but his assassination afterwards allowed the Libertarians, led by Assemblyman Hector Niles of California, to win the 1851 Mexican elections. The Libertarians won two of Mexico del Norte's four Senate seats, and four of its seven seats in the Assembly.

The fall of the Gilpin government in February 1853 brought William Johnson to power in Burgoyne, and within months he and President Niles had negotiated an armistice and sent peace delegations to The Hague to negotiate a peace treaty. Under the terms of the 1855 Hague Treaty, the U.S.M. ceded part of Mexico del Norte to the C.N.A., and the C.N.A. paid N.A. £2.5 million in indemnities "for slaves who left the United States of Mexico to take residence in the Confederation of North America, and who for reasons of their amalgamation with the general population cannot be found and returned."

Postwar Prosperity

The completion of the Jefferson & California Railroad in 1848 provided Mexico del Norte with a rail link to the more developed states of Jefferson and California. After the Rocky Mountain War, Secretary of Home Affairs Fidel Sonora recommended that federal aid be given to the Indians of Mexico del Norte and Arizona who had suffered from the effects of the war.

President Niles' attempt to win re-election in the 1857 Mexican elections failed, as the Continentalists won three of Mexico del Norte's Senate seats and five of its Assembly seats. However, over the course of the next twelve years, Henry Colbert of the Liberty Party was able to win election as Governor of Mexico del Norte, and in the 1869 Mexican elections he went on to win the Libertarian presidential nomination before losing to Senator Omar Kinkaid of California. Colbert won majorities in four states, including a 213,960 to 192,554 majority in Mexico del Norte, but Kinkaid's majorities in Jefferson and California were sufficient to gain him the election.

In the 1875 Mexican elections, some of the more radical tribes in Mexico del Norte formed alliances with Senator Carlos Concepción of the breakaway Workers' Coalition, but Concepción won only 4.2% of the vote in the state, versus 48.5% for Libertarian candidate Thomas Rogers and 47.3% for Kinkaid. Concepción responded to his loss by creating a guerrilla movement called the Moralistas and attempting to overthrow the Mexican government. After the assassination of Kinkaid in December 1879, his successor, George Vining, created a secret police force called the Constabulary to root out the insurgency. Vining's death by heart attack in September 1881 allowed Constabulary Commandant Benito Hermión to sieze power in Mexico City. Senator Fritz Carmody of Mexico del Norte was imprisoned on Hermión's orders. By 1883, Hermión's henchmen had taken control of the settled portion of Mexico del Norte, while the Indians in the northern part of the state became semi-autonomous in fact if not in theory.

Twentieth Century

Following Hermión's ouster in 1901, democratic government was restored in the U.S.M. A three-man runoff election for the presidency in the 1902 Mexican elections resulted in Mexico del Norte giving 660,978 votes to Anthony Flores, 530,578 to Pedro Sanchez, and 452,970 to George Craig. Twelve years later, Libertarian candidate Albert Ullman won 943,203 votes in the state against United Mexican Party candidate Victoriano Consalus' 690,304, although Consalus won the presidency. Six years later, Libertarian candidate General Emiliano Calles won 1,304,398 votes in Mexico del Norte to Consalus' 495,605, along with the presidency.

As President, Calles oversaw the manumission of Mexico's 103,000 Negro slaves, many of whom emigrated to the Indian areas of Mexico del Norte and Arizona and intermarried. However, this was not enough to allow Calles to win a majority of votes in the state in the 1926 Mexican elections, which Assemblyman Pedro Fuentes won by 1,000,059 votes to 945,334. It is unknown which candidate won a majority of votes in Mexico del Norte in the 1932, 1938, and 1950 Mexican elections, since Sobel neglected to include them.

President Alvin Silva's cancellation of the 1944 Mexican elections led to an uprising known as the Rainbow War. A Negro guerrilla movement called the Black Justice Party terrorized the Anglo, Hispano, and Mexicano populations of Mexico del Norte. Other groups were formed in Mexico del Norte, many of them outlaws seeking loot. The Rainbow War was crushed by 1952 by self-appointed Secretary of War Vincent Mercator. In 1966, Secretary of Education Professor Albert Peck began establishing university centers in each state, including Mexico del Norte, where the cream of Mexico's students would be trained in the sciences.

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This was the Featured Article for the week of 29 September 2013.