The Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia - Smithsonian ...

1 5 2 • 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 ymail conveyed outside the national postal system “notonly considerably diminishes the income of the post office,but also allows one to avoid the vigilance that the authoritiesshould have over (the postal service).” The penaltiesassessed for these offenses ranged from a fine of one pesoper piece of mail conveyed illegally to two days of jail timefor every peso left unpaid. 38The frequency with which postmasters were accusedof tampering with the mails points to how central a placethe postal system had assumed in communication innineteenth- century Mexico. In the aftermath of anticlericalreforms, many individuals turned to the postal systemrather than the pulpit to both gather and disseminate information.It was important to them not only to have rapidand reliable mail service but also to trust those who relayedposted letters and newspapers to their destinations.While these demands were initially brought on by beingdeprived of church counsel, they persisted even after thecentral government’s attitude toward the Catholic Churchchanged. The reforms of the nineteenth century had whettedan appetite for secular avenues of communication andparticipation in the public sphere that was there to remain.NOTES1. Manuel Paynó, in Fernando Tola de Habich, ed. Museoliterario tres (Mexico: Premia, 1986), p. 152.2. The Juarez Law, passed in 1855, severely limited thejurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court. The Lerdo Law, passedin 1856, forced the Catholic Church to sell off all real property.Later anti- clerical reforms allowed the government to seizeChurch real estate holdings.3. Boletin del Hospicio de Orizaba, October 27, 1870.4. Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), Correos FomentoVol. 6 Exp. 10 fs. 39–46; In a very literal sense, anti- clerical initiativessought to fracture the influence of the church on publiclife by unseating its priests from their homes and eliminatingthe church from the public landscape. Eulalia Ribera Carbódescribes in detail how, in 1874, government authorities closedthe Carmelite convent in downtown Orizaba and turned the onelarge block that the convent occupied into four by running twostreets through it. Herencia colonial y modernidad burguesa enun espacio urbano: el caso de Orizaba en el siglo XIX (Mexico:Institution de Investigaciones Dr José María Luis Mora, 2002),p. 113.5. Joaquín Arróniz, Ensayo de una historia de Orizaba(Mexico: Editorial Citlaltepetl, 1959), 1: 117.6. “Although it is generally assumed that modern Mexicannationalism is a secular product of nineteenth- century liberalism,it may be more appropriate to see it as forged by these contraryforces of Christian fulfillment and secular liberal commitments,and perched on the horns of its own dilemmas.” Brian Connaughton,Clerical Ideology in a Revolutionary Age (Boulder,CO: University Press of Colorado, 2003), p. 19.7. Boletin del Hospicio de Orizaba, October 27, 1870.8. “. . . con tales recomendaciones, los intereses de losmunicipios se veian como cosa sagrada”; “En los gobiernosdemocráticos en que la soberanía reside en el pueblo” Boletindel Hospicio de Orizaba, October 30, 1870. Also repeated, passagefrom October 27, 1870.9. Francisco Morales, “Mexican Society and the FranciscanOrder in a Period of Transition, 1749–1859,” The Americas 54:3 (January 1998), pp. 346–347.10. José María Naredo, Estudio geografico, historico y estadisticodel canton y de la ciudad de Orizaba (Orizaba: Imprentadel hospicio, 1898), p. 96.11. Naredo, Estudio geografico, 98.12. Naredo, Estudio geografico, pp. 104–105.13. Those discussed here include El Eco de Orizaba, ElOrizaveño, El voto de Orizaba, El Ferrocarril, El Correo de Sotavento(published in Veracruz), and El Siglo XIX (published inMexico City).14. Ribera Carbó, Herencia colonial, p. 59.15. Segura “Apuntes estadisticos del distrito de Orizava,”p. 50.16. Miguel Ángel Castro, ed. Tipos y caracteres: la prensamexicana 1822–1855 (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónomade México, 2001).17. Servicio Postal Mexicano, Quinta casa de correos:crónica del servicio postal en México (Mexico: Secretaría de Comunicacionesy Transporte, Servicio Postal Mexicano, 1990),p. 92.18. Enrique Cárdenas de la Peña, El Correo (Mexico: Secretaríade Comunicaciones y Transportes, 1987), p. 110.19. Segura, “Apuntes estadisticos del distrito de Orizava,”p. 58.20. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 1, Exp. 64, F. 136.21. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 5, Exp. 71, F. 325.22. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 1 Exp. 135–136 Fol. 428–433.23. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 1 Exp. 135–136 Fol. 376.24. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 1 Exp. 135–136 Fol. 9.25. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 5, Exp. 73, F. 336.26. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 6, Exp. 74, F. 394.27. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 6, Exp. 72, F. 389–391.28. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 8, Exp. 50, F. 300.29. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 6, Exp. 71, F. 387.30. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 8, Exp. 50, F. 30031. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 12 Exp. 21, F. 20432. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 1, Exp. 124, F. 385.33. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 12 Exp. 21, F. 20434. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 1, Exp. 113–114, F. 333–338.35. AGN Correos Fomento, Vol. 7, Exp. 21, F. 128.36. AGN Correos Fomento Vol. 4, Exp. 35, F. 139.