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1 4 8 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o h i s t o ry a n d t e c h n o l o g ysquabbled with one another over jurisdiction in censorshipcases. Shortly after the execution of Maximilian, theycontinued to needle the federal government with complaintsregarding the shabby appearance and vigilance ofthe police force. And through this all, no complaints surfacedin the same arenas regarding the treatment of theclergy or their Catholic followers.In fact, Orizaba’s intellectual community was quick todisavow the town’s reputation as a mammoth monastery.In his Essay on the history of Orizaba (1867), JoaquínArróniz refuted this reputation at length, writing,He who believes that modern Orizaba had monasticand clerical origins is mistaken. Althoughthe preponderance of religious sentiment in thetown supports this viewpoint, its religiosity isoften overemphasized.The Spaniards who made Orizaba their principalresidence were drawn to it neither by conventnor by cross. They were attracted by theopportunities this location offered merchants toconduct business with travelers. They also camein search of the healthy condition they had loston the coast.The Church, the true center of all the populationsof America and Europe, came later, oncethe light of the true faith was known, to furtherstrengthen the vitality of our fledgling city. In thiswe differ from the foundation of the rest of ournation’s cities since it can be said that they wereborn of the altar. 5Why this comparative complacency regarding anticlericalreform? I will argue here that the anticlerical reformsof the nineteenth century spurred on public debateregarding the obligations that the government assumedafter depriving the public of church counsel. Correlationscan be drawn between anticlerical initiatives and demandsfor improved distribution, regulation, and protection ofprivate information circulating in the public sphere. Thatsaid, Mexicans in the nineteenth century acclimated tosecular society at a pace that only apparently stood atodds with their “parochial reputation.” Their demandsconformed to a holistic concept of church and state inwhich the duties of governing society were shared betweenthe two institutions. 6While residents of Orizaba demanded that the clergyretain their traditional duties through the first third of the1800s, they rethought their appeals beginning in the midnineteenthcentury. Rather than seek to preserve the centralpublic place of the clergy, orizabeños sought to foistsome of the traditional duties of the clergy, namely thediffusion of information, on the government itself. Whatone 1870 orizabeño editorial called “the vacuum left bythe exit of the religious communities” 7 needed to be filled.If the government wanted to assume the mantle of arbiterof public life, they reasoned, then the government wouldalso assume the obligations that came therewith. Theseobligations included keeping the public informed and protected,both traditional purviews of the clergy in Mexico.The process of resolving themselves to these changes andresponding with altered expectations of the clergy and thegovernment alike represented a declaration of faith in thepublic sphere. The public sphere, and with it public service,became sacred arenas and occupations. 8 Here I willexamine the chief government institution to which individualsturned for information and security in an increasinglyanticlerical age: the postal service.Several scholars have explained the growing “massparticipation” in the postal system in the United Statesduring this period as a result of improvements in printtechnology, literacy and transportation. The area understudy in this essay experienced improvements in both printtechnology and literacy in the nineteenth century. Anticlericalismis an important additional factor that must beconsidered in studying the development of the postal systemin any country in which the church played a centralrole in information diffusion. Many patronizing the postalsystem in the United States did so in hopes of maintainingcontact with far- flung relations and friends. By contrast,those patronizing the postal system in Mexico often experiencedless mobility and craved news of the wider worldin the form of newspapers and, to a lesser degree, personalletters. Before the liberal reforms of the midnineteenthcentury, many individuals turned to the Church as a sourceof information and answers. The closing of churches deprivedthem of this uniquely sanctioned information.Orizaba and Córdoba are particularly interestingcities to study because residents simultaneously bore theconsequences and enjoyed the fruits of nineteenth- centurymodernization. The anticlerical initiatives and demandsfor improved government services manifested in thesetowns fit squarely into two larger processes at work globallyin the nineteenth century – secularization and centralization.In Mexico, the Bourbon dynasty spearheaded bothprocesses in the late eighteenth century with reforms thatminimized the influence of the clergy and the autonomyof the colonial government. Secularizing and centralizinginitiatives persisted after Mexican independence. They experiencedrenewed popular approval after several stormyyears under the passage of a federal constitution in 1824.
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 4 9The allegedly parochial orizabeños reacted to earlyanticlerical reforms in the expected manner. In 1827, nineteenof the thirty- five friars working at the PropagandaFide College in Orizaba were forced to return to Spainwhen the Mexican government expelled all Spaniardsfrom the country. According to Francisco Morales, “thecity’s inhabitants threatened to guard the convent to preventthe government from expelling the Spanish friars.” 9 Itwould not be until 1834 that orizabeños followed throughon that threat.In 1834, the state government ordered that all religioushouses with fewer than twenty- four residents beclosed. “This,” wrote local chronicler José María Naredo,“amounted to abolishing them all since none of them hadthis many residents.” 10 The anxieties of local residentsmounted as they awaited the promulgation of the decree.The arrival of five empty carriages heightened suspicionsthat the religious community of Orizaba would soon beforced from their residences and the town. When authoritiesfinally moved to expel the religious, they did so in themiddle of the night. However, residents noticed this activityas well. According to Naredo, one resident left her house attwo in the morning alerting the town that “They are takingthe priest! They are taking the priest!” Naredo wrote that,News spread like a bolt of electricity. Townspeoplecame out of their houses armed and readyto act and soon the bells of the Church were ringing,sounding the alarm. At dawn the group ofarmed people had grown and the church bellscontinued sounding until noon. Upon hearingthe news, many combatants left their ranches andcame into town, forming a large squad with thosealready there. . . . At midday the uproar was horribleand everything was in disarray, so muchso that some people stepped forward to imposesome order. These individuals, along with FathersLlano and Mendoza, engineered a truce withthe armed forces and they put down their arms.The whole thing had come to a close by six thatnight, and the ringing of the church bells, as wellas the fireworks, announced the triumph of thetownspeople. 11Even in a moment of victimization the clerical communityof Orizaba demonstrated the strong sway theycontinued to hold over popular action to this point. Afterdiffusing the situation with government authorities, thepriests implored the irate population to return to theirhomes. “The obedient townspeople withdrew, forminggroups and singing hymns to the Lord,” wrote Naredo.However, as the nineteenth century progressed therewere an increasing number of instances in which publicsentiment overrode public deference to representativesof the church. In 1834, the priests of Orizaba had successfullyprevented residents of the town from retaliatingagainst government authorities for attempting to drive theclergy from their homes. Just four years later their entreatieswere not as effective. The devaluation of currency bythe Mexican government in 1837 incensed orizabeños.When they threatened to march on the textile factory atCocolapam, located on the outskirts of Orizaba, priestsattempted to dissuade them. Naredo wrote that, “Thepeople listened to the arguments of the priests and seemedto calm down; and when it seemed like each and everyone of them would return to their homes, a voice startedto chant ‘To Cocolapam! To Cocolapam!’” When Frenchworkers at the factory fired warning shots at the menacinggroup, the demonstration escalated into open violence.Two Frenchmen were injured and the factory sufferedan estimated 1,200 pesos worth of damage. Naredo describedthe event as a gross aberration for the people ofOrizaba. “The moderation and docility of the people hereis proverbial,” he wrote. 12 However, in light of their subsequentdemands of the government, this would not seemto be the case.With the clerical community under attack, orizabeñosturned to other means of gathering information. Orizabeñosconceived of themselves as active participants in theburgeoning print culture and legal system of nineteenthcenturyMexico. They were avid newspaper readers andfrequent correspondents. Documents make reference tono less than six newspapers published or circulated withinthe city itself. 13 Much of the population was keenly awareof the way in which information circulated. In addition,they had strongly held opinions regarding the quality andintegrity of information to which they were entitled. Inthe aftermath of local and national anticlerical initiatives,residents of Orizaba became increasingly vocal in their demandsfor a more reliable and secure postal service. Thesedemands grew as much from the unique intellectual environmentof Orizaba as they did from the larger dialoguesoccurring in Mexico at the time regarding the transparencyof government.While Orizaba did not boast the same concentrationof educational institutions as neighboring town of Xalapa,the tobacco barons responsible for many of the improvementsto the town made certain that residents had accessto secondary education. The Colegio Preparatorio deOrizaba opened thanks to their sponsorship in 1825. 14 Fortheir primary education, orizabeños had several options
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Smithsonian InstitutionScholarly Pr
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smithsonian contributions to histor
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ContentsLETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR OF
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AcknowledgmentsThe symposium would
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2 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n t
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1 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n
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“Little Colored Bits of Paper”C
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 7as something
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 9protest came
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 1nals I revie
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WWI Philatelic Censuses of East Afr
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 5Table 1. GEA
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 7Figure 5. MA
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Explorations in the Official Regist
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 3 1receipts. De
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 3 3TABLE 2. Pop
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 3 5different ge
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Introduction to the Second Symposiu
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“Food Will Win the War”: Motor
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 1business tha
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 3support for
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 53. “Postal
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 7“Farmers W
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Picking Up the Pieces: The Aftermat
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 3and U.S. adm
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 5September, 1
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 7Figure 9. Th
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 9“B.C.O.F.
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Introduction to the Fourth Symposiu
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Page 145 and 146: n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 5The glazed
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