José Santiago Vidaurri Valdez (July 24, 1809 – July 8, 1867) was a controversial and powerful governor of the northern Mexican states of Nuevo León and Coahuila between 1855 and 1864. He was an advocate of federalism.
In 1855, he supported the liberal Revolution of Ayutla, which overthrew the dictatorship of Antonio López de Santa Anna, the military strongman who dominated Mexican politics in the 1830s until his overthrow in 1855. Vidaurri stood by the liberal president Benito Juárez during the subsequent War of the Reform, a bloody civil war following Mexican conservatives' repudiation of the liberal government and the Constitution of 1857. During the war, Vidaurri commanded the liberal armies of the north. During the American Civil War (1861–65), Southern slave states had seceded from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. Vidaurri sought advantageous trade relationships with the CSA, which bordered northern Mexico. Confederate forces had early successes in 1861–62 against the northern Union troops, so that it was entirely possible that its existence as a sovereign nation would continue. It was a pragmatic move for Vidaurri and northern Mexico to establish such a connection. Although Mexican conservatives had been defeated militarily in the Reform War, they still sought a way to power so that when Juárez cancelled payment on foreign bonds in 1861 there was an opening for Mexican monarchists. A coalition of European powers sought intervention for debt collection, with France using the opportunity for regime change in Mexico, with the support of Mexican conservatives. The French invaded, displacing Juárez from the capital Mexico City. Although Mexican conservatives had invited Hapsburg Archduke Maximilian to be emperor of Mexico, put into power by the French, Maximilian was in fact a political liberal. Vidaurri broke with Juárez, who never went into foreign exile, but whose government did not effectively control territory. Vidaurri was one of several moderate liberals who joined the cabinet of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico in the Second Mexican Empire and served in early 1867 as the emperor's final First Minister. When the Empire fell in 1867, Vidaurri was captured and summarily executed by the restored Republican government. His place in Mexican history remains clouded by his collaboration with the Empire, but in Nuevo León he remains an important historical figure.
Early life
Vidaurri was born in Villa Punta de Lampazos, New Kingdom of León on July 24, 1809, the oldest of the four sons of Pedro José Vidaurri de la Cruz and María Teodora Valdez Solís. A rumor circulated that "he was the son of an unknown Indian brave, raised to adulthood by roaming bands of indios bárbaros, but his baptismal record shows that he was born in Lampazos in 1809.
Political career
Vidaurri is best known as the strongman of northeast Mexico during the 1850s and 1860s who defended that territory against outside intervention. The first notice of him appears when he cut off a soldier's hand in 1832, with unknown adverse consequences to him, but he went on to become a clerk for the police of Nuevo León and then, in 1837, an assistant to the governor of the state, Joaquín García, and then Manuel María de Llano. Vidaurri then became his secretary and was chosen by General Arista to spy on the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, sponsored by Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar. The purpose was to divert the Santa Fe Trail into Texas and establish control over New Mexico. In the 1840s and early 1850s, Vidaurri worked with Mexican conservatives, but broke with them and joined the liberal revolt against Antonio López de Santa Anna. Santa Anna attempted to strengthen central government rule over Mexican states, which had held considerable autonomy. Vidaurri promulgated a plan called "Restaurador de la Libertad" (restorer of liberty), captured the main city of Nuevo León, Monterrery, in May 1855, and became both military commander in the state.