Tomás Garrido Canabal

Tomás Garrido Canabal (born Playas de Catazajá, Chiapas, September 20, 1891— died Los Angeles, California, April 8, 1943), was a Mexican politician and revolutionary. Garrido Canabal served as governor of Tabasco from 1920 to 1924 and again from 1931 to 1934, and was particularly noted for his anti-Catholic persecution.

Biography

Tomás Garrido Canabal was born in the hacienda 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 would control the state." [Stan Ridgeway, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0742-9797(200124)17%3A1%3C143%3AMMATMR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 "Monoculture, Monopoly, and the Mexican Revolution"] "Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos" 17.1 (Winter, 2001): 147.] 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.

An "atheist and a puritan" [Peter Godman, "Graham Greene's Vatican Dossier" "The Atlantic Monthly" 288.1 (July/August 2001): 85.] , fervent anticlericalist and anti-Catholic, he supported President Plutarco Elías Calles's war against the Cristeros, a popular 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 "Red Shirts," and as a result some have labeled him a "fascist." [ [http://www.bartleby.com/65/ga/GarridoC.html "Garrido Canabal, Tomás"] . "The Columbia Encyclopedia" Sixth Edition (2005).] [Stan Ridgeway, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0742-9797(200124)17%3A1%3C143%3AMMATMR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 "Monoculture, Monopoly, and the Mexican Revolution"] "Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos" 17.1 (Winter, 2001): 167.] Garrido Canabal's persecution of Catholics included closing all the state's churches, [Hudson Strode, "Timeless Mexico" (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1944), 280.] forcing the priests to marry [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884892,00.html Obituary Time Magazine April 19, 1943] ] [Adrian A. Bantjes, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0742-9797%28199724%2913%3A1%3C87%3AIAIIRM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 "Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico"] . "Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos" 13.1 (Winter 1997): 106] , and even killing priestsFact|date=June 2007: all priests who did not marry were outlawed from the state of Tabasco with their lives at risk if they stayed.Fact|date=June 2007 He was known as the "executioner of priests" and his Red Shirts regularly committed atrocities against priests who ventured into the state of Tabasco. [Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo [http://books.google.com/books?id=AfdjWl1xKpwC&pg=PA392&dq=Tom%C3%A1s+Garrido+Canabal&as_brr=3&sig=HkfPtdqMt3qrdcMuprgfjnfnq60 Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People] p.392 (1993 W. W. Norton & Company) ISBN 0393310663]

Garrido Canabal's revolutionary fervor is reflected in the names of his children: Lenin and Zoila Libertad, while he had a nephew named Luzbel (Lucifer). [Donald J. Mabry, [http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=339 "Garrido Canabal, Tomás"] , at the Historical Text Archive.] He even had a farm with a bull named God, an ox and a hog named Pope, a cow name after Mary, and a donkey named Christ. [Donald J. Mabry, [http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=339 "Garrido Canabal, Tomás"] , at the Historical Text Archive.] 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.'” [Alan Knight, " [http://www.jstor.org/cgi-bin/jstor/viewitem/00182168/di008696/00p0002x/ Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910-1940] ." "The Hispanic American Historical Review" 74.3 (August 1994): 408.]

Yet 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. In Mexico, Garrido Canabal's Tabasco was one of several "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.]

In 1934 he was named Secretary of Agriculture by President Lázaro Cárdenas. In 1935, after he ordered his red shirts to kill Catholic activists in Mexico City, he was forced 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] His 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. [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884892,00.html Obituary Time Magazine April 19, 1943] ]

Artistic portrayals

The lieutenant in Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory" is clearly based on Garrido Canabal, [Barbara A. Tenenbaum and Georgette M. Dorn (eds.), "Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture" (New York: Scribner's, 1996).] [Stan Ridgeway, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0742-9797(200124)17%3A1%3C143%3AMMATMR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 "Monoculture, Monopoly, and the Mexican Revolution"] "Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos" 17.1 (Winter, 2001): 143.] though his name is never mentioned. The novel's protagonist is a "whiskey priest", a theme often used in Garrido Canabal's antireligious propaganda.

References