How did Mexicans get their bite?

The Mexican border at Nuevo Laredo, much larger than it was in 1974

In 1974 I arrived at the US-Mexican border at Laredo, Texas-Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. I was about to take the last stage in a long bus journey from the Port Authority terminal on 42^nd Street, New York, to Mexico City. I just needed to get through Mexican immigration. A German man and I, the only non-Mexican passengers, were taken into the immigration office, where after much argument about whether I needed a health certificate, I handed over my remaining US dollars. When I rejoined my fellow passengers they asked with one voice: How much did they take? I had just paid what Mexicans call la mordida (literally “the bite”).

Mexico is, alas, notorious for the corruption of officialdom. Corruption is by no means new to Mexico, but in recent years public outrage at the greed of the most senior public figures has become a loud cry for honesty in public life. The current president, known to all by his initials as AMLO, swept to office with promises of honest government, which won him a landslide not seen since the managed democractic elections that guaranteed victory for the official Partido Revolucionario Institutcional (PRI), more than three decades ago.

The Mayan rulers of Yaxchilán perform blood sacrifice to appease the gods

As I research 16^th-century Mexico, I have asked myself whether Mexico’s corruption was imported from Spain. I am no expert on the subject, but I suspect that the answer is yes. It is impossible to say whether corruption existed before the Spanish arrived in 1519. 16^th-century chronicles tell us that Aztec society had a rather austere moral code. Drunkenness, sexual impropriety, theft and the like were severely punished. The elite lived lives of privilege and relative luxury. One suspects that the desire for privilege and power encouraged factional scheming and strife, in which dishonesty played its part. And rulers certainly ensured that they received all the privileges that they decided were their due. But indigenous rulers also had obligations to protect their subjects from enemies or from wrathful gods. But this may not have led to corruption as we know it.

On the other hand, corruption implanted itself pervasivley in 16^th-century New Spain, as the Spaniards then called Mexico. The Spanish Crown was keenly aware of the potential for corruption. When a senior official, such as a Viceroy, the King’s representative, or an oidor (“judge”) of the Real Audiencia (“Royal Court of Justice”), left office, a visitador (“visitor”, a government inspector) was sent to investigate and report at length accusations of wrongdoing. For example, in 1563 the visitador Jerónimo de Valderrama, who had narrowly escaped death in a shipwreck en route, arrived in New Spain and begin an inspection into the affairs of the viceroy Luis de Velasco. Valderrama finished his investigation in early 1566.

Viceroy Luis de Velasco

Valderrama’s letters to the king paint a picture of favouritism and a complex network of powerful families linked my marriage. Velasco had brought to New Spain a large number of relatives, all of whom married into the families of powerful men, such as Luis de Castilla, one of the richest men in the colony, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, governor of Nueva Galicia, or the Bocanegra family of wealthy miners and landowners. Some of the judges of the Real Audiencia were also part of this network of marital alliances. A modern Mexican would recognize such networks of alliances in their own political elites.

Valderrama documented some of the ways in which family members benefited from official favouritism. One of the functions of the Viceroy was to give mercedes (“favours or concessions”) of land on behalf of the King. Land was supposed to be allocated on merit for services rendered to the king. Valderrama cited many examples of land given to the paniaguados (“favourites”: a wonderful term that means literally recipients of bread and water) of the viceroy: for example, Luis de Castilla, his son Pedro, Luis de Godoy, a member of Castilla’s household, and Gonzalo de León, a silversmith and employee of Castilla. Valderrama also listed favourites who were given salaried government jobs: Francisco Rodríguez Magariño, a wealthy miner and landowner, married to the sister of the viceroy’s sister-in-law, Juan Gutiérrez Bocanegra, “an unmarried young man of no merits”,  and Alonso de Castilla, another son of Luis.

16th-century Spanish playing cards

“Visits” were also paid to innumerable lower-level officials. For example, in 1589, Ruy Díaz de Mendoza, the alcalde mayor (administrator and judge) of the port of Acapulco was investigated. Opportunities for corruption in Acapulco were especially tempting, for it was here that every year galleons arrvied from Manila loaded with a small fortune in Asian goods. Merchants came to the Acapulco Fair, with saddle bags full of silver to buy the merchandise, and endeavoured to avoid paying the King’s taxes. Ruy was accused of a variety of illegal acitivities: helping himself to wine, biscuit and candles (in demand for use in church) from the royal warehouse, illegally trading in Chinese goods, chickens and petates (woven mats, needed to load merchandise on the back of mules). Apparently, Ruy also ran card games in his home, where illegal gambling was reported. Cards, incidentally, were big business, whose sale was a royal monopoly. In 1597, Alonso Ramírez Vargas, administrator of the royal card shops in New Spain, asked permission to send for sale in Manila one thousand sets of a dozen cards. Since only about 700 Spaniards lived in the Philippines at the time, this quantity was very large.

The former house of Luis de Tejada in Mexico City

Another place where corruption flourished was Taxco, a silver mining boom town in the 16^th century. All sorts of illegal and dubious activities flourished there, so in 1542, Lorenzo de Tejada, a judge of the Audiencia, visited the Taxco to issue royal ordinances, intended to introduce order and legality into the town. He banned illegal employment and slavery practices, banished the unemployed and vagrants from Taxco, prohibited the theft of silver ore from the mines, introduced new penalties for not paying taxes on silver, and banned various merchant practices that increasd prices. Tejada was, himself, however, a breaker, or at least a bender, of laws. He had amassed, by dubious legal means, vast amounts of agricultural land. He was also a merchant selling wheat and slaves in Taxco. Perhaps his regulation of other merchants was a ruse to increase his market share.

Priests were not immune to temptation. In 1569, Diego García de Almaráz was priest of Teloloapan, a parish in the well-named Hot Land of the valley of the Balsas River. He was in charge of 40 chuches. Diego did not impress his bishop, who considered him greedy, and poorly educated in Latin, as well as in the indigenous language. Diego extracted from his parishioners candles, maize and other goods, which he sold in the mining twn of Taxco. The bishop summed him up as “more of a peddler than a priest”. In 1570 Diego’s dishonesty got him into trouble. His friend and fellow priest Gaspar de Tejeda had a habit of denouncing enemies to the Inquisition. In 1570 the local Alcalde Mayor (a royal official who administered justice in a district), Diego Díaz de Castillo, annoyed Gaspar, who had him arrested and put on trial at the Inquisition. This official turned out to be of determined stock.  He was the illegitimate son, from an Indian mother, of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a prominent Conquistador and author of the most famous chronicle of the conquest of Mexico (recommended reading). Both Gaspar and Diego swore false testimony against the Alcalde, but made the mistake of blackmailing Indian witnesses to support their case. Unfortunately, once in court the Indians changed their testimony and exposed the priests’ dishonesty.  

The 14th-century church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Lepe

Even the most prestigious and wealthiest in the land were tainted by cronyism and corruption. Baltasar Rodríguez was a native of Lepe, in Adalucía, famous for its 14^th-century church. He made a fortune trading Asian merchandise in Acapulco, and shipping Asian goods to Peru, despite royal prohibitions of such trade. Baltasar was part of  a family netwrok of merchants, and he took care to marry his sons well and to buy for them official government positions. He also loaned money in ways that secured influence. One large loan was to the constable of the Inquisition in Manila, where Baltasar sourced his Asian merchandise. He loaned a truly vast sum to the Council of Mexico City, which the city would be repaying three centuries later. This kind of money bought him not just prestige, but favours and enabled him to break tules with impunity.

We are fortunate that corruption on the scale that is practiced in Mexico is not so prevalent in our societies. However, while the wife of a Russian oligarch can win a fund-raising auction for the Conservative Party to play tennis with the Prime Minister, or when Mr Johnson accepts a £15,000 Caribbean holiday provided by an unknown donor (contrary to the rules), or when Mr Trump’s cabinet, federal government positions, and ambassadorships are full of his business cronies, we should not assume that we are free of taint.