The Political Currency of Water during the Porfiriato

The Porfirian governor of Tlaxcala, Próspero Cahuantzi, was one of the few regional leaders to govern nearly as long as President Porfirio Díaz (1877-1910). Scholars have suggested that it was because of their unwavering loyalty to Díaz that regional leaders like Cahuantzi were able to remain in power. Yet, in addition to being a loyal Porfirista, Cahuantzi was also a native of Tlaxcala and an Indian. This paper outlines a historiographical review of how state governors supported the Porfirian regime on the regional levels. Then, the paper will examine the various ways in which the Governor of Tlaxcala exploited the symbolic weight of the past in order to establish his political legitimacy in the present. As an Tlaxcalan Indian, Governor Cahuantzi participated in Mexico’s international campaigns to foment a national patrimony, one that lauded the pre-Hispanic past. Through his participation in these campaigns as well as in local Catholic rituals, Governor Cahuantzi used Tlaxcala’s heritage to gain political leverage and guard his state’s sovereignty. Yet similar to the way in which Díaz glorified Mexico’s history to entice investment, the governor hoped that distinguishing his region’s past would reinvigorate his state and help him to carry out plans of modernization and economic development. While Cahuantzi’s close relationship with Díaz was vital, so too was his ability to draw upon local knowledge and participate in local traditions, to manage personal relationships, and to promote Tlaxcalan history and insert himself into its historical narrative. These were among the many strategies Cahuantzi used to govern and to establish a regime that would last nearly twenty-six years. How Cahuantzi managed politics—that were at once deeply personal and calculated, national and local, liberal and anti-liberal—begins to open up an understanding of how locally rooted processes of governance supported the national regime.