Mexico: Difference between revisions

 

=== Independence and Formation of the Mexican Empire ===

During the [[History of Europe#Communard%20Revolutions%20(1872-1878)|Communard Wars]], communard revolutionaries occupied the majority of Spain. During this time, the royal family and King Ferdinand VII sought refuge in New Spain. While the king was staying in New Spain, he became interested in the colony's internal affairs. He instituted a series of reforms that sought to hispanize New Spain's culture to a further degree and weakened the local elites' power in favor of giving greater control to the royal military and peninsulare business elites in the king's inner circle. This increased tension between Spanish authorities and New Spain's population across social classes. Additionally, over the 19th century, New Spain had become economically self-sufficient, while Spain had been increasingly dependent on New Spain's resources to fund their empire. This led to a period of increased dissatisfaction of local elites and businessmen starting from the 1860s.

 

The Mexican Empire under Emperor González sought to centralize control over all of New Spain's former holdings and embarked on a wave of reforms to consolidate power in Mexico city and in the military. In 1887 the Mexican government sent the military to crush the Central American rebellions centered in Guatemala and Honduras. They also sought to build economic and political relationships with other nations in the region including Saint-Domingue, Colombia and South Tussenland. During the 1890's Mexico became a important funder of the proposed Genoan Panama canal project.

 

In western North America, the fledgling Mexican Empire had a lot of potential in the region as a great power. Heavily religious and autocratic, it wanted to centralize its authority and display its might. In 1897, Mexico abolished home rule for the autonomous Boer states. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, which was generally sympathetic to the Boers, saw this as an affront to their authority in North America and issued an ultimatum to Mexico: restore self-governance for the Dutch Boers states else they will attack Mexico. Mexico refused, and in 1901 the Dutch declared war, known as the [[Mexican-Dutch Boer war]]. At the onset of the war, the former Dutch colony of the New Netherlands joined the war on the Dutch Kingdom's side.

 

Throughout the latter half of the war, the Dutch had managed to occupy the land they had lost to Spain (Mizoerie and Acansa) during the 2nd Dutch-Spanish War of 1850. However, they were only able to liberate only two of the five Voortrekker Republics (Westerzee and Kimoeënim). Things soon came to a stalemate, and in 1903 both parties agreed to meet in the neutral Republic of Virginia to settle matters, with the war ending in ''uti possidetis.''

 

 

=== The Republic of Mexico ===