Victoriano Huerta was a Mexican general and political leader who, in 1913, overthrew the first government to emerge from the Mexican Revolution and became the executive of a counterrevolutionary regime.
Background
Victoriano Huerta was born on December 23, 1854 in the settlement of Agua Gorda within the municipality of Colotlán, Jalisco, son of Jesús Huerta and María Lázara del Refugio Márquez.
He identified himself as indigenous, and both his parents are reported to have been ethnically Huichol, although his father is said to have been Mestizo.
Education
He graduated from the military academy at Chapultepec in 1875 and was commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers.
Career
In 1901 he was in command of the military campaign which crushed the resistance of the Maya Indians.
Returning to the capital, he was rankled by Madero's treatment of him.
The revolt led by Bernardo Reyes and Félix Díaz in February 1913 made it necessary for Madero once more to place his fate in the hands of Huerta.
Madero and his vice president, Pino Suárez, were seized and, influenced by promises that they and their associates would be protected, resigned their posts.
Madero's martyrdom unified the divided revolutionaries, and United States president Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize a regime which had come to power through murder.
Opposition was suppressed, and critics like Senator Belisario Domínguez met violent death.
Then occurred the Tampico incident, in which some members of an American ship were arrested in April 1914 while going ashore to obtain oil supplies.
Although they were immediately released, Admiral Henry T. Mayo deemed this an insult and demanded an apology and a 21-gun salute to the American flag.
Huerta was unable to survive this incident, coupled with the refusal of the United States to accord him diplomatic recognition, and on July 15, 1914, he abdicated and fled from Mexico to Jamaica.
Venustiano Carranza became the first chief of the Constitutionalist movement to avenge Madero and reestablish constitutional government.
This almost permitted Huerta to rally the nation behind him.
Views
Quotations:
Following a complaint from the Catholic church that Huerta had plundered a church to sell off its gold and silver to pay his men, Huerta justified his actions on the grounds: "Mexico can do without her priests, but cannot do without her soldiers".