Tomás Garrido Canabal
{{short description|Mexican politician}}
File:Tomás Garrido Canabal.JPG
Tomás Garrido Canabal (September 20, 1891 – April 8, 1943) was a Mexican politician, revolutionary and atheist activist.{{citation|title=Mexico 1910-1982: Reform or Revolution?|year=1983 |page=245 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KkjXjgEACAAJ&q=Mexico+1910-1982:+Reform+Or+Revolution|publisher=Zed Press|isbn=9783700303398}} Garrido Canabal served as governor of the state of Tabasco from 1920 to 1924 and from 1931 to 1934. He was noted for his anti-Catholicism; during his term, he led persecutions against the Church in his state, killing many priests and laymen and driving the remainder underground.Kirshner, Alan M. [http://jcs.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/3/479.extract "A Setback to Tomas Garrido Canabal's Desire to Eliminate the Church in Mexico"]. Journal of Church and State (1971) 13 (3): 479-492.
Biography
Tomás Garrido Canabal was born in the hacienda of Playas de Catazajá, in the northernmost part of the Mexican state of Chiapas. During the Mexican Revolution, he was drawn into politics. He was named interim governor of Tabasco for a brief spell in 1919 (and then of the Yucatán in May and June 1920) until in December 1920 "Garrido again became provisional governor of Tabasco. From this point until August 1935 (except for a brief hiatus during the de la Huerta rebellion) he controlled the state."{{cite journal
|title = Monoculture, Monopoly, and the Mexican Revolution: Tomás Garrido Canabal and the Standard Fruit Company in Tabasco (1920–1935)
|last = Ridgeway
|first = Stan
|journal = Mexican Studies
|issn = 1533-8320
|volume = 17
|issue = 1
|year = 2001
|pages = 143–69
|doi = 10.1525/msem.2001.17.1.143
|jstor = 10.1525/msem.2001.17.1.143
}} Garrido's rule, which marked the apogee of Mexican anti-clericalism, was supported by the Radical Socialist Party of Tabasco (PRST) of which he was the leader.
File:Convento de Oxolotan 14.JPG, bombed by order of Garrido Canabal]]
A character thought to be based on Canabal, in the novel The Power and the Glory, was called an "atheist and a puritan" by Peter Godman.Godman, Peter. "Graham Greene's Vatican Dossier". The Atlantic Monthly 288.1 (July/August 2001): 85. Canabal was a fervent anticlericalist and anti-Catholic, who supported President Plutarco Elías Calles's war against the Cristeros, a rebellion opposed to the enforcement of anticlerical laws. He founded several organizations "that terrorized Roman Catholics",[http://www.bartleby.com/65/ga/GarridoC.html "Garrido Canabal, Tomás"]. The Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition (2005). most notably the so-called "Camisas Rojas" or "Red Shirts", and as a result some have labeled him a "fascist", but he named one of his sons after Vladimir Lenin, a Marxist,Mabry, Donald J. [http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=339 "Garrido Canabal, Tomás"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030174802/http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=339 |date=2007-10-30 }}, at the Historical Text Archive. and considered himself a Marxist Bolshevik.World Vision Magazine. Volumes 10-11.National Republic. Volumes 22-23.Buchenau, Jürgen. The Last Caudillo: Álvaro Obregón and the Mexican Revolution, Volume 12 of Viewpoints/Puntos de Vista: Themes and Interpretations in Latin American History. John Wiley & Sons, 2011. {{ISBN|1405199032}}, 9781405199032. Length: 232 pages.Bennett, Charles. Tinder in Tabasco: a study of church growth in tropical Mexico. Eerdmans, 1968 (Original from University of Texas). Length: 213 pages.{{Cite book |last=Ard |first=Michael J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9GhTZd-EnoEC&pg=PA33 |title=An Eternal Struggle: How the National Action Party Transformed Mexican Politics |date=2003-10-30 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-275-97831-0 |language=en}} The anthem of his Redshirts was The Internationale. Some scholars have argued that his authoritarian policies were more akin to European right-wing dictatorships,{{Cite book |last=Austin |first=Ron |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xajAjbJNDu4C&pg=PA129 |title=Peregrino: A Pilgrim Journey Into Catholic Mexico |date=2010-12-21 |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |isbn=978-0-8028-6584-7 |language=en}} though he wished to turn the traditionally conservative state of Tabasco into a socialist model and fought for socialist causes{{Cite book |last1=Baird |first1=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A1xFLYO2lyIC&pg=PA648 |title=Frommer's® Mexico 2011 |last2=Christensen |first2=Shane |last3=Delsol |first3=Christine |last4=Hepp |first4=Joy |date=2010-07-30 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-0-470-92641-3 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last1=Beezley |first1=William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Amt1ZXMeVYMC&pg=PA444 |title=The Oxford History of Mexico |last2=Meyer |first2=Michael |date=2010-08-03 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-977993-2 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Walker |first=Ronald G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=soHiok82EZwC&pg=PA183 |title=Infernal Paradise: Mexico and the Modern English Novel |date=1978-01-01 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-03197-5 |language=en}} and Tabasco has been called a "socialist tyranny" by Martin C. Needler, Dean of the School of International Studies at the University of the Pacific in California.{{Cite book |last=Needler |first=Martin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AOZdMLLx1t8C&pg=PA15 |title=Mexican Politics: The Containment of Conflict |date=1995-11-14 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-275-95251-8 |language=en}} He also invited the First Congress of Socialist Students to meet in the state of Tabasco and created a form of socialist education which he termed "Rationalist".Brown, Lyle C. Copper, William F. Religion in Latin American life and literature. Markham Press Fund, 1980. University of Texas {{ISBN|0918954231}}, 9780918954237. Length: 426 pages. Page 113, "Tomas Garrido, always proud of the success his atheist teachers had achieved and desirous of winning student support for his political ambitions, invited the First Congress of Socialist Students to meet in Tabasco.", "Tomas Garrido termed this education "Rationalist", which in reality was a forerunner of the socialist education amended into Article III of the Constitution in 1934."{{Cite book |last=Gonzales |first=Michael J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=se17aQLbKioC&pg=PA213 |title=The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940 |date=2002 |publisher=UNM Press |isbn=978-0-8263-2780-2 |language=en}}
Garrido Canabal's revolutionary fervor was reflected in the names of his children: Lenin and Zoila Libertad. He even had a farm with a bull named God, an ox and a hog named Pope, a cow named after Mary, and a donkey named Christ. In Tabasco, satirical plays were also organised, with for instance "the parading of a stud bull called 'the bishop' or an ass labeled 'the pope.'"{{cite journal
|title = Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910-1940
|last = Knight
|first = Alan
|author-link = Alan Knight (historian)
|journal = The Hispanic American Historical Review
|issn = 1527-1900
|volume = 74
|issue = 3
|year = 1994
|page = 408
|doi = 10.2307/2517891
|jstor = 2517891
}}
Roberto Hinojosa, the Bolivian revolutionary, described Garrido's Tabasco as "the Bethlehem of the Socialist dawn in America" and Garrido as an "academic and farmer, intellectual and rancher, a guide and soldier of socialism".{{Cite book |last1=Vaughan |first1=Mary Kay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uf42VXJrF8EC&pg=PA139 |title=The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940 |last2=Lewis |first2=Stephen |date=2006-03-13 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8752-7 |language=en}}
Garrido Canabal's administrative achievements included stimulating the social development of the state of Tabasco by means of agricultural and social policies and his support for the enfranchisement of women. In 1934, he introduced women's suffrage to Tabasco, making him the second governor to do so after Felipe Carrillo Puerto of the Yucatán twelve years earlier. Garrido Canabal's Tabasco was one of several states "vying with one another for the title 'Laboratory of the Revolution'."Gilbert M. Joseph (ed.), The Mexico Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002): 411. As Governor, however, he also issued rigid decrees against corsets and alcohol and outlawed tombstones.{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884892,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081214173032/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884892,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 14, 2008|title=Milestones, Apr. 19, 1943|date=1943-04-19|newspaper=Time|issn=0040-781X|access-date=2017-02-02}}
When Lázaro Cárdenas was elected president in 1934, his first cabinet was hand-picked by his patron, Plutarco Elías Calles, the "Jefe Máximo" and power behind the presidency.Cline, Howard F. The United States and Mexico, second edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1961, p. 219. Calles named fellow anticlerical Garrido Canabal as Secretary of Agriculture to Lázaro Cárdenas's cabinet.{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,748144,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125080407/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,748144,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 25, 2010|title=MEXICO: Palm Down|date=1934-12-10|newspaper=Time|issn=0040-781X|access-date=2017-02-02}} Garrido Canabal brought the Red Shirts to Mexico City. Soon after Cárdenas took office, he turned against Garrido Canabal.{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788523,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111222064917/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788523,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 22, 2011|title=MEXICO: Ossy, Ossy, Boneheads|date=1935-02-04|newspaper=Time|issn=0040-781X|access-date=2017-02-02}} In 1935, after Garrido Canabal ordered his Red Shirts to kill Catholic activists in Mexico City seeking to return to Tabasco, Cárdenas forced Garrido Canabal to step down and into exile in Costa Rica.Krauze, Enrique. [http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060619&s=krauze061906&c=2 "THE TROUBLING ROOTS OF MEXICO'S LÓPEZ OBRADOR: Tropical Messiah"]. The New Republic. June 19, 2006. Dismissing Garrido Canabal was part of Cárdenas's political maneuvering against Calles, who had expected to continue to be the power behind the presidency. Politically, eliminating Garrido Canabal and Calles gained Cárdenas the grudging support of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico.Cline, United States and Mexico, p. 220. Garrido Canabal's paramilitary groups were subsequently disbanded. He was allowed to return to Mexico in 1941 and died two years later of cancer in Los Angeles, California.
Literary portrayal
The lieutenant in Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory is based on Garrido Canabal,Barbara A. Tenenbaum and Georgette M. Dorn (eds.), Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (New York: Scribner's, 1996). though his name is never mentioned. The novel's protagonist is a (also unnamed) "whisky priest", a theme often used in Garrido Canabal's antireligious propaganda.
He is also referenced under the name Salgado in Les couteaux, a novel by French writer Emmanuel Roblès released in 1956.{{cite web |title=Les couteaux, Emmanuel Roblès |url=https://www.librairie-gallimard.com/livre/9782020008648-les-couteaux-emmanuel-robles/ |website=Librairie Gallimard |access-date=15 December 2024}}
References
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{{Persecution of Christians}}
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Category:Mexican expatriates in Costa Rica
Category:Persecution of Catholics