Tomás Garrido Canabal

Tomás Garrido Canabal (Catazajá, Chiapas; September 20, 1890 – Los Angeles, California, United States, April 8, 1943) was a politician, military man and revolutionary. He was governor of Tabasco on three occasions in periods interrupted between 1919 and 1934. He was also interim governor of Yucatán for one month and thirteen days, from May 13 to June 26, 1920.

Although he organized reforms aimed at improving the living conditions of society, he is best known for having directed an authoritarian policy based on anti-Catholicism and radical measures to eradicate the influence of the Church from Mexican society at the beginning of the 19th century. century XX.

His childhood

Son of a family of landowners, he was born on September 15, 1890, on the "Punta Gorda" farm known as "Loma de los Canabal" in Playas de Catazajá, Chiapas, a site located on the borders of Tabasco and Chiapas. The farm was owned by his uncles Domingo Canabal Brown and Aurora Ynurreta Lastra. After three months, he and his mother returned to Tabasco where they had a farm called Buenavista in Tabasco land that had belonged to the Garrido Lacroix family for several generations. This child would become one of the most controversial personalities in the history of Tabasco. Arbitrary dictator for some, undisputed leader for others, Tomás Garrido Canabal filled more than a decade of political life in Tabasco with his vigorous personality.

His youth

While still very young, in his first year of high school, he was expelled from the state for participating in a demonstration against the Porfirio governor Abraham Bandala. He then moved to Veracruz to finish his high school studies and later, to Campeche where he finished, at the age of 25, his law studies. He was a follower of Francisco I. Madero and when he was assassinated by Victoriano Huerta he joined the Revolution.

After finishing his degree in 1915, he returned to Tabasco where, recommended by his cousin Colonel José Domingo Ramírez Garrido, he joined the Public Administration as a district judge. At that time, General Francisco J. Mújica, a prominent Michoacan military officer sent by Venustiano Carranza to control the political situation in the state, was at the head of the Tabasco government. General Mújica, imbued with a Jacobinism typical of the time, hastened to change the name of the capital San Juan Bautista to Villahermosa, which had once accompanied it. When General Álvaro Obregón raised his voice against the clergy in March 1915, in the state of Tabasco, Governor Francisco J. Mújica incinerated images within the framework of the "de-fanatizing campaign." Garrido found that environment upon his return to Tabasco: a situation quite conducive for the ideas he had received from General Salvador Alvarado and Felipe Carrillo Puerto to germinate in him.

Military career

In addition to having obtained his degree as a lawyer in the city of Campeche, he joined the Constitutionalist Army in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution. General Salvador Alvarado appointed him a member of the Criminal Proceedings Review Board of Mérida. In Tabasco, Governor Francisco J. Múgica appointed him Head of the legal department of the State government. In 1917 he served as District Judge in Villahermosa, and was later named interim governor of Tabasco in 1919. Garrido Canabal, despite being attached to the same Mexican army, decided to continue being what he always was in reality, a politician rather than a military man.. He joined the Agua Prieta Plan in 1920, and shortly after left the Mexican Army, to continue the political life that he exercised.

His foray into politics

In 1919, after the events that brought Carlos Greene to the State Government, Garrido had to take charge of the interim government. Five months of interim from August 1919 to January 1920 were enough for him to begin to put some of his ideas into practice: «He initiated new procedures in administrative matters, took the first steps to integrate the Peasant Leagues and the Workers' Groups and formed the first youth groups identified with the Revolution.

Meanwhile the country was boiling in the midst of revolutionary turmoil. The elections for the presidency of the Republic were approaching and the political struggle between Carranza and Obregón was acquiring increasingly explosive nuances. The Obregonistas, led by the then governor of the state of Sonora Adolfo de la Huerta, rebelled against the Carranza government and enacted the Agua Prieta Plan. «The Plan called for rebellion against the government so that, once it was overthrown, a provisional president could be named, who would call elections immediately. The first members of the Obregonista movement emerged from Yucatán and Tabasco, from where Garrido left for Sonora to offer his unconditional support to Álvaro Obregón, who granted him broad powers throughout the southeastern region.

Governor of Yucatán

With the triumph of the Agua Prieta Plan, Tomás Garrido was left at the head of the interim government of Yucatán, while constitutional elections were called. He then worked hard in favor of General Obregón's candidacy for the presidential period of 1920-1924. Garrido therefore had the sympathy of the candidate who, once in the presidency, offered him all his support to become the strong man of Tabasco. In 1922 he was elected governor for the period 1923-1926. The garridista era began.

Governor of Tabasco

As governor of Tabasco, he encouraged social development through agricultural and social policies, such as improving the quality and variety of crops, dual-purpose breeds in livestock, the vote for women, the generalization of public education for specific purposes. He established the dry law to put an end to alcoholism, leading the state of Tabasco to be, as he called it, "The Laboratory of the Revolution."

Roberto Hinojosa, the Bolivian revolutionary, described Garrido's Tabasco as 'The Bethlehem of the Socialist dawn in America', and Garrido as an 'academic and farmer, intellectual and rancher, a guide and soldier of socialism".

But he carried out a very radical anti-religious, anticlerical and anti-Catholic campaign. He supported the persecution promoted by President Calles and the repression against the Cristeros, who opposed the tightening of anticlerical laws. He founded several socialist organizations, mainly the so-called Red Shirts, a paramilitary group of young people between 15 and 30 years old, very violent.

Garrido's persecution against Catholics included the disappearance and death of priests, closure of all churches in Tabasco, forcing priests to marry, humiliation of nuns and the prohibition of the use of the cross on tombs. All priests who did not marry were outlawed in the state and their lives were at risk from being persecuted by government agents. Garrido's revolutionary fervor was reflected in the names of his children, Lenin and Zoila Libertad (except for his eldest son Felipe); He also had a niece named Luzbel. He even had a farm with animals named God, Pope, Mary and Jesus. In Tabasco, satirical plays were organized mocking the Pope and the bishops. He was a senator for his state in 1926, the year in which he was the target of an attack in Mexico City carried out by religious organizations. He remained in the United States for a time and returned to Tabasco in 1927.

He was Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock in the government of General Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, but was forced to resign from his position in the cabinet, since the Red Shirts, a group of which he was founder, and which was a bloc known as 'Young Revolutionaries', in 1934 they shot at a group of Catholics in the Plaza Coyoacán of the Federal District, killing the 27-year-old María de la Luz Camacho, generating indignation among the Catholics who went against a young man red shirt that was barely present in the Plaza Ernesto Malda Maza finishing it off. Immediately after this action, the political pressure was such that he went into exile.

He was sent on a presidential mission to Central America and the Dominican Republic. Once the mission was cut short, with the arrival of Lázaro Cárdenas and the fall of Plutarco Elías Calles, Garrido had to emigrate, settling in Costa Rica from 1935 to 1941. He returned to Mexico in 1940 and died in Los Angeles, California, United States, in 1943..

His anti-religious campaign

In 1928, while Ausencio Cruz was still governor, at the request of Garrido, an anti-religious campaign began in Tabasco. The aim was to de-fanaticize the people, trying to completely eradicate religious dogmatism.

The objective, according to Garrido himself, was "seek the freedom of people". The campaign began with the closure of the temples, many churches were completely demolished, others were transformed into schools or barracks, priests were expelled from the state and were prohibited from officiating masses, religious images were piled up in the squares and parks of the communities and were incinerated, homes were raided by garridista brigades called Red Shirts with the aim of seizing all religious objects and images and it was warned that anyone who had them in their homes would be imprisoned. Many faithful took the images out of the state, to be hidden in other places like Chiapas. Some priests secretly celebrated masses in remote communities.

Eradicating religious beliefs became a true obsession for Garrido. The use of crosses on graves was prohibited; religious festivals were replaced by regional fairs; The designation of all the rancherías, towns, villages and cities that bore religious names was changed and they were named after heroes, teachers, regional liberators, artists, wise men; All writings that made any reference to God were prohibited. Many people were murdered at that time, especially in the Town of San Carlos (today Villa Benito Juárez) where a massacre took place where approximately 20 people died and others were injured.

It can be said that the religious cult "disappeared" of Tabasco during the garridista era.

Their anti-alcoholic campaign

Another of Garrido's purposes was to eliminate vices, especially alcoholism, which was deeply rooted in Tabasco. For this purpose, brigades were organized in the municipalities and communities. Garrido ordered the doors of the canteens to be removed and the interior furniture changed to make it as uncomfortable as possible. However, this did not work, so he resorted to more severe measures: the closure of the vending establishments, the cancellation of production permits and criminal sanctions for those who did not comply with the law.

«The Prohibition Law of April 30, 1931 included sanctions for the import, export, purchase, sale, supply and production of alcoholic beverages in any form or quantity, other than beer, which consisted of up to six years in prison and a fine of 500 to 5000 pesos at that time. Anyone caught drinking liquor was subject to the same sanctions; anyone who ventured into the streets while intoxicated was exposed to spending several years in prison or paying the high fines decreed by law.

A black market then emerged, however, the sanctions were so strong and the citizens' distrust that there were undercover Garrido people within their circles of friends, that little by little alcohol consumption in Tabasco disappeared.

Tomás Garrido also persecuted and applied strong sanctions to thieves, rustlers and rapists, who were frequently hanged in large ceibas, without prior trial, which led to a considerable decrease in crime rates in the state.

The Garridista economic project

After returning to Tabasco in 1925, the politician found himself in a predominantly agricultural state with very little industry, so he applied his project based on a State that promoted economic and social development with economic dimensions referring mainly to the agricultural and industrial sector.. Garrido had a clear idea of a project to apply in the State of Tabasco, revitalize the countryside and promote small industry, although its results in economic matters were not all that was expected, in the long term it was possible to better observe the bases that Garridismo settled. The distribution of land was its first implementation, as it happened in different parts of the country, although it did not have the same impulse or results that were obtained in other states of the republic, it remained stagnant mainly due to the type of forest and swampy terrain, in addition to the presence of landowners.

Agricultural sector

Garrido put the agricultural sector as his main priority since he thought that this was the key sector to promote the State, so he sought to create a cooperative to which producers had to sell, although at a lower cost than the market offered. which caused displeasure in the population, which added to the fall in international prices of rubber or cocoa meant that agricultural production specialized in the monoculture of bananas, and despite the efforts to diversify production, it only achieved that the state was self-sufficient in fruit trees and grains, but not at the level of being able to trade them, so the fundamental economic base was the Banana.

Livestock sector

Garrido was deeply interested in raising the sector, he introduced studs, legislated in favor of the livestock trade and applied laws to encourage the care and flourishing of livestock, he bought experimental farms, eliminated taxes on livestock and introduced Saturday cultural missions and Sundays where he sought that students, teachers and the people themselves would help in the different agricultural sectors of the State.

Industrial sector

Garrido sought to implement an anti-oligarchic system, although he contemplated the need for entrepreneurs who could intensify or diversify production to create a process of capital accumulation. He introduced the tobacco industry, derivatives of milk, skins or seeds, giving it a focus totally focused on what Garrido promoted the most, the agricultural and livestock sector; He in turn organized fairs throughout his entity, so he managed to attract the attention of other parts of the State as well as improve the quality of life of Tabasco residents, perfecting these three sectors.

His time in Yucatán

Garrido Canabal collaborated with General Salvador Alvarado while he was governor of Yucatán from 1915 to 1917. As a lawyer, he headed the Review Board of Criminal Procedures in Mérida, Yucatán. He assumed political command in that state when, after Alvarado's departure, Carlos Castro Morales was governor.

In the turbulent Mexico of the 1920s, upon the death of Venustiano Carranza, Obregonism imposed its law in Yucatán. Castro Morales, who was, like Alvarado, a Carrancista, fled the peninsula fearing for his life, leaving the governorship vacant and also generating a political crisis. Despite the fact that the state Congress named Gustavo Cuevas as the provisional successor of Carlos Castro Morales, the legislative body was dissolved in a coup by Obregón's military forces that dominated the square, imposing Tomás Garrido Canabal, who at the time was imprisoned. in the Merida prison.

In Garrido Canabal's brief mandate -less than a month and a half-, the Tabasco lawyer reestablished many Resistance Leagues, which were the basis of the Socialist Party of the Southeast and which would be instrumental key for Felipe Carrillo Puerto to later become governor of the state of Yucatán.

To replace Garrido Canabal in office, covering the emergency that arose in Yucatán with the departure of Castro Morales, General Álvaro Obregón, the strong man of Mexico at that time, being president of the republic Adolfo de la Huerta, appointed former constituent deputy Enrique Recio.

End of Garridismo

In 1934, when General Lázaro Cárdenas was president of the Republic, Tomás Garrido left Tabasco to take charge of the Ministry of Agriculture; At that time, the political situation in the country was tense, but Garrido did not arrive alone; A group of young red shirts from Tabasco accompanied him to the capital of the Republic, where a group of anti-garridistas had already been organized, led by Rodulfo Brito Foucher. Violent fights broke out between the two groups. “The red shirts” of Tabasco organized a series of rallies in the capital of the Republic.

Due to the rupture between President Cárdenas and General Calles, Tomás Garrido de Calles, unconditional, was forced to resign from the Secretariat on June 15, 1935 and returned to Tabasco.

The young British people then decided to go to Tabasco to rescue the state from Garridism. As a consequence of this, an armed confrontation arose in which more than 80 people were injured, 10 young people were killed, among them Manuel Brito Foucher, César Pedrero Gutiérrez, Jovito Pérez, Juárez Merino and Pedro Priego. When the news became known, protests arose throughout the country demanding Garrido's punishment. For this reason he was exiled from Mexico on August 11, 1935, and went to Costa Rica, which concluded the garridismo in Tabasco and his influence at the national level. He returned again in 1941 and died in the United States of America on April 8, 1943.

His death

Tomás Garrido died on April 8, 1943 in the city of Los Angeles, California, USA, from bone cancer, a disease diagnosed in Costa Rica and corroborated in the United States. His archives, whether personal objects, as well as his film archives, are in the General Archive of the Nation.

Family members

The former governors of the state of Chiapas, Salomón González Blanco and José Patrocinio González Garrido were relatives of Tomás Garrido Canabal.

Lic. Manuel González Calzada de Garrido said:

High, strong, upright, of firm steps, of perspicacious and penetrating look, product of a green eyes of revealing vivacity of a great and recio character; unmovable, usually in its decisions, loyal in the commitment, male in peace and war; player determined to politics, independent in their domains, from where ever, recognized but only a single boss. A tenacious fighter against self-adversity, faithful to deep-seated friendship; this was Tomás Garrido Canabal. Cold in repression, constant in resentment and hatred, wrought in its negative decisions; unbelieving in the face of the threat of discredit, violent in punishment and revenge, as well as its means and its time; distrusted in the light of others, egocentrist, absolute, disdainful of culture in its broadest sense; scarce in its sociological information, experiential in its pretensions;

In his honor, several streets in Tabasco cities, as well as one of the main parks in the city of Villahermosa, Tabasco, are named after him.