University of New Mexico Press Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico's Religionero Rebellion

Review This is a wonderful example of how talented historians can start with an incident or a speech or a crime--something apparently quite minor--and probe its context, investigate the circumstances that produced it, and build out from it to help the reader see this small event as something very important indeed.--Margaret Chowning, Church HistoryStauffer's work is not only a remarkable contribution to Mexico's political and religious historiography in the second half of the nineteenth century but also an extremely rich resource with plenty of conceptual and methodological reflections.--Roberto Di Stefano, H-LatAm Product Description This work reconstructs the history of Mexico's forgotten "Religionero" rebellion of 1873-1877, an armed Catholic challenge to the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. An essentially grassroots movement--organized by indigenous, Afro-Mexican, and mestizo parishioners in Mexico's central-western Catholic heartland--the Religionero rebellion erupted in response to a series of anticlerical measures raised to constitutional status by the Lerdo government. These "Laws of Reform" decreed the full independence of Church and state, secularized marriage and burial practices, prohibited acts of public worship, and severely curtailed the Church's ability to own and administer property. A comprehensive reconstruction of the revolt and a critical reappraisal of its significance, this book places ordinary Catholics at the center of the story of Mexico's fragmented nineteenth-century secularization and Catholic revival. About the Author Brian A. Stauffer is a translator and curator of the Spanish Collection in the Archives and Records Program at the Texas General Land Office.