The age of cotton: Santiago Vidaurri and the confederacy, 1861-1864
Tyler, Ronnie C.
Tyler, Ronnie C.
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1968
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Abstract
Santiago Vidaurri was one of the most powerful men ever to hold the governorship of Nuevo Leon. And he had the good fortune to live during an era when personal ambition and ability paid handsome dividends. He was able to balance off the hostile forces of the federal government and Anglo-American filibusters from 1855 until 1861. By that time, President Benito Juarez called on him to aid the national government, but the American Civil War offered another opportunity for personal diplomacy. Essential to the Union plan to defeat the South was the blockade of Confederate ports. Since the South could not produce all the necessary goods for war, an outlet to foreign markets--to import war material and export cotton was one of the foremost goals of "King Cotton" diplomacy. When the Confederacy sent Juan Agustin Quintero to Monterrey for' a conference with Vidaurri, it became obvious that he could provide the desired facilities. Quintero further realized that, because of Vidaurri's precarious relationship with Juarez, perhaps he could gain a port on the Gulf of Mexico. For his part, Vidaurri hoped that the South could supply the force necessary to allow him to fend off the encroachments of Juarez and his centralist allies. Thus a firm relationship developed between the Confederacy and the South, between Quintero and Vidaurri. Because of the French intervention in Mexico, Vidaurri was ousted before the Confederacy fell, and Quintero established working agreements with the successive occupants of the frontier, Juarez, then the French. Probably huge amounts of trade goods would have crossed the Rio Grande even if Vidaurri had not been there. But the fact remains that he be friended the South when he was the strongest caudillo in northern Mexico, and may have shown his successors that trade with the Confederacy was a profitable venture. With the purpose of narrating and evaluating Vidaurri's role in mind, various primary source materials were consulted--the Vidaurri Papers, comprising more than 16,000 documents were of particular importance--in finally determining the significant influence that he had in both Mexico and the South.
Contents
Subject
Subject(s)
Vidaurri, Santiago, 1808-1867
Cotton trade--Confederate States of America
Cotton trade--Confederate States of America
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Dissertation
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ii, 192 leaves, bound
Department
History