What are sone examples of localized conflicts in Mexican history?

Cinco de Mayo the Battle of Puebla against the French 1862. It is not Independence Day for Mexico which in September.

Here is an answer to my question. The closest example (that I can find in English) of a localized micro-conflict involving Mexican-Amercians (and indirectly Mexico) was the El Paso Salt War of 1877, in the vicinity of Fort Worth, Texas. The Mexicans who settled the area before it became part of the United States would extract salt from the region’s salt lakes on a communal basis. No one privately owned the lands and lakes producing the salt. Any Mexican-Amercian living in the area could take salt from the area as they pleased and put it out on the market or use it for private purposes. When Americans began settling the region in earnest, there was talk of privatizing these lands and resources, which would result in ending access to these salt lakes for the Mexican Americans that had been there previously. This eventually lead to ethnically charged partisan war, between factions that supported privatization and those who did not, culminating in a siege of about 20 Texan Rangers, in the border town of San Elizario, where they were nearly overwhelmed by hundreds Mexicans coming over the border to support the siege. The Texan Rangers surrender and negotiated a safe retreat. This was allegedly the only time the Texas Rangers had to retreat from a battle. The Ninth US Cavalry eventually stepped in to restrain the local warring factions.

There must have been many other local micro-conflicts that escalated into partisan wars and subsequent federal intervention, further inside Mexico, not just involving border issues. Were there and family blood feuds that went out of control?

Brian Ghilliotti

Here is another angle by which to examine question. Has there been a disputed provincial election in Mexican history that led to a provincial level civil war, resulting in intervention from the “federales”? The closest thing to this happening in the United States was the Brooks-Baxter War in Arkansas (April-May 1874), leading up to 200 deaths, between southern supporters of Reconstruction and southerns who did not support Reconstruction era reforms. The catalyst was a hotly disputed state governor election…there must have been many of these types of conflicts in Mexican history, though racial enfranchisement may have not been the decisive issue…

Brian Ghilliotti

Fluther Members have addressed many of your history questions here on Fluther over the past ten years. You might try going up to the Fluther search window on the upper right and punching in a specific subject. This should bring up many old posts.

I, myself, have written here many times about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya back in 1953 and the many internal conflicts occurring in what is today Mexico over the past two centuries. The one I find most interesting was the Cristero Wars of the 1920’s and 30’s. I first became interested in them when we had our own little Cristero War here at Fluther a few years ago. LOL.

If I were you, I would first consult an encyclopedia for clues as to the various internal conflicts occurring in the country of your interest. Pay special attention to the references and news articles cited at the bottom. Read them. This will create a trail for you to follow.

I would start with The History of Mexico

I chose to concentrate on the Cristero War because this enormous conflict continues to be unknown by most Americans, even those living directly on the border with Mexico and it is doubtful that they were even aware of it at the time.

In my search for information, I found a free downloadable copy of The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene in pdf format. Before he became one of the most popular authors of his era, Greene, like Ian Fleming, was a field agent for the British Secret Service. He was an interesting guy who wrote many novels and histories about spying and nations in conflict. The Power and the Glory is a novel occurring at the time of the Cristero Wars in Mexico.

Here is the complete novel by Graham Greene in free, downloadable pdf format

Good luck. Short of getting into a time machine and visiting these places during times of heavy stress, searches like this are the next best thing – and much safer.