Joaquín Amaro Domínguez (August 16, 1889 – March 15, 1952) was a Mexican revolutionary general and military reformer. He served as Secretary of War in the cabinets of Presidents Plutarco Elías Calles, Emilio Portes Gil, and Pascual Ortiz Rubio, making him one of the longest-serving cabinet-level officials in Mexican history. His ambitious reforms of the fractious Mexican military transformed the armed forces from a political partisan to an armed force loyal to the president and government. He accomplished this "through a process of cultural reeducation that replaced an entrenched tradition of militarism with one emphasizing such values as discipline, duty, honor, and loyalty to the civilian government."
Early life Amaro was born in Corrales de Abrego in the municipality of Sombrerete, Zacatecas, the first of Antonio Amaro and Angela Domínguez's ten children. His family was of Indigenous ancestry, although they were probably not Yaqui, as was widely assumed. While Amaro was still a child, the family moved to the nearby state of Durango, where his father worked on an hacienda. He learned to read and write, although probably without the benefit of formal schooling. Beginning in 1908, he worked in the office of the Saucillo hacienda where his father was employed, assisting with bookkeeping. With two incomes, the family was able to enjoy a comfortable existence. In 1910, his father sold his possessions and gave the money to his eldest son, advising him, "go to Durango with your mother and siblings, work for Mr. Calderón [a local store-owner], learn the business, get to know the town, and when you feel able, open your own store." His father left for Torreón in November of that year, and although Amaro never saw him again, he read about his exploits with the revolutionary army of Colonel Luis Moya. Joaquín Amaro Domínguez married Elisa Izaguirre Jurado on September 3, 1921, in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. Together, they built a large family, becoming the parents of at nine children six sons and three daughters.
Military career
Early Revolution On February 28, 1911, Amaro enlisted in the Maderist army of General Domingo Arrieta. Shortly after Amaro enlisted, his father was killed in battle. After five months as a private, he was promoted every subsequent month, attaining the rank of lieutenant by December.
As part of the army of Colonel Gertrudis G. Sánchez, whose forces Arrieta's had joined, Amaro fought against the Zapatistas in Morelos, engaging them at least nineteen times. In one of these engagements, the battle of Jojutla de Juárez, he earned the "Cruz de Segunda Clase," a heroism medal. From 1913 to 1914, he fought the federal troops under the command of Victoriano Huerta, continuing all the while to rise in rank. By 1914 he had risen to the rank of general.
It was under the command of General Sánchez that Amaro developed the reputation of a fierce warrior. It was rumored that he wore an earring and used the battlecry "Here is the man of the pendant earring! Here is the Indian!" He also supposedly emulated the fighting style of the Yaqui people. He also developed the reputation of a harsh disciplinarian who occasionally used his riding crop to mete out corporal punishments to his subordinates. He may have even shot men in his charge or employ for disobeying orders.
Conventionalists v. Constitutionalists After the fall of Huerta, while still under the command of Sánchez, he briefly supported the conventionalist government of Eulalio Gutiérrez, before breaking with Sánchez to ally with the constitutionalist army of Venustiano Carranza. Shortly after Sánchez and Amaro joined the Constitutionalists, Sánchez ordered Amaro to attack a column of troops commanded by General Francisco Murguía, who, while also a Constitutionalists, was a rival of Sánchez. While initially successful, Murguía's troops eventually prevailed, and Murguía sought to have Amaro executed for treason, a charge he narrowly escaped. Rather than damaging the reputation of Amaro, however, the incident did more to isolate Sánchez, who Amaro abandoned. The split finally came in 1915, when Amaro advanced the troops under his command on the Villista División del Norte, leaving Sánchez in Michoacán. By this time, he had already professed allegiance to General Álvaro Obregón and the carrancista government.
In April 1915, he led his troops, known as the "Rayados" ("striped ones"—so-called because the only uniforms Obregón could provide were prison uniforms) to support Obregón's defeat of the villistas in the second Battle of Celaya. Following the battle, Obregón named him Comandante militar ("military commander") of the 5th Division of the Army of the Northwest, and he was charged of ridding Michoacán of villista influence. At the end of 1915, the area under his command was expanded to include Guanajuato and Querétaro.
In 1916, he again fought the zapatistas in Morelos and Guerrero. In 1917, he was placed under the command of Murguía, and led expeditions against the remaining villistas of Durango and Chihuahua.
Rebellion against Carranza When Obregón proclaimed the Plan of Agua Prieta against Carranza in 1920, Amaro remained loyal to Obregón, and was rewarded with the rank of General de división, the highest military rank. He became chief military officer of the third military zone, which included the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí. In this capacity, he undertook to professionalize the unorganized ranks under him, gaining experience that would later benefit his reorganization of the entire military.
He later became commander of the seventh military zone, which comprised Nuevo León. There he put down the July rebellion of Pablo González. When in 1922 political unrest threatened to destabilize Coahuila, Amaro positioned his troops to block the occupation of the state legislature and to protect the governor's palace. In 1923, he was sent to maintain order during Nuevo León's gubernatorial elections. Following a series of violent incidents, Amaro disarmed groups of rural fighters.
After the assassination of Pancho Villa in July 1923, Amaro was widely suspected as one of the planners of the operation. Today, most historians attribute Villa's death to a well planned conspiracy, most likely initiated by then Minister of War Plutarco Elías Calles, who ordered Amaro to give support to the assassins.McLynn, Frank, Villa and Zapata, Basic Books (2000), pg. 393 Amaro was later instrumental in freeing Jesús Salas Barraza, the leader of the group of assassins, from jail.
Amaro never wavered from his support for Calles and Obregón, and he fully shared Calles' hatred of the clergy. Calles gave Amaro full support in continuing the latter's plan to reform the Mexican armed forces along anti-clerical and populist lines: I have fought without rest [...] against clericalism, large landowners, the militarism of the ex-Federals, the Spanish, and in general all those that do not contribute to the enrichment of our beloved homeland and the betterment of the working class.
Despite these sentiments, neither Calles nor Amaro hesitated in taking action against the extreme left-wing. When José Guadalupe Rodríguez tried to organise "soldier soviets" on the Bolshevist pattern, he was promptly arrested and shot along with some of his soldiers.Fehrenbach, T.R., Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico, Da Capo Press (1995), pp. 572-572 Moreover, when a peasant and labor bloc of the Communist International was formed under the artist Diego Rivera, it was forcibly disbanded. Many on the extreme left were sent to the Marias Islands penal colony.
Delahuertist rebellion In 1923, Amaro's chief of staff José Álvarez learned of the plot between generals Enrique Estrada, Guadalupe Sánchez, and Fortunato Maycotte to overthrow Obregón. Álvarez immediately returned to Nuevo León and informed Amaro of the plot, who promptly related the information to Obregón. The conspirators drafted Adolfo de la Huerta, then-Minister of Finance, to run for president against Plutarco Elias Calles, Obregón's chosen successor. Facing a rebellion with armies in the North, South, and East, Obregón relied on loyal generals such as Amaro to block rebel access to resources and the northern border and to put down the insurrection. Amaro, aided by General Lázaro Cárdenas, battled Estrada's forces, defeating them in the decisive battle of Ocotlán. Three days after the battle, Amaro's troops occupied Guadalajara, where Estrada's operation had been based. The rebellion crushed, the 1924 Mexican election was carried out peacefully.
Post-war career Following the election of Calles, Amaro was appointed Undersecretary of War. Francisco Serrano having been sent to Europe on a diplomatic mission late in Obregón's presidency, the Secretariat was unfilled. Calles may have been waiting to secure the support of generals Eugenio Martínez and Arnulfo Gómez, who were also potential candidates for the post. While undersecretary, Amaro initiated a series of legal reforms to purge the armed forces of "the germ of immorality and corruption." After an initial convention of important military figures, the Commission for Studies and Reforms of Military Laws and Regulations was formed. Ten months later, four new laws were promulgated.
Amaro's four laws The first, the Law of Discipline, was divided into three sections: General Duties, Corrective Discipline, and Court of Honor. The first three articles of the General Duties defined military duty in terms of "self-sacrifice, loyalty, guardianship, and adherence to the law." The subsequent articles dealt with specific issues. One clarified the officer's duty to maintain order within his ranks; another prohibited soldiers from complaining about orders. One article prohibited servicemembers from interfering in politics. The final articles concerned decorum, and required subordinates to salute and give up their seats to superiors.
The Corrective Discipline section described the circumstances in which soldiers could be arrested for breaking the law, and required that such arrests be recorded in the offender's file.
The Court of Honor section was written for people who committed offenses that threatened the reputation of a unit or of the "dignity of the military." It established a system of courts martial to punish drunkenness, gambling, mismanagement of funds, and negligence. Punishments for those found guilty ranged from transfer to demotion to imprisonment.
The second law, the Law of Retirements and Pensions, allowed servicemembers who had given twenty to thirty-five years of service to retire at will. It also required retirement at a certain age that was dependent on rank. Finally, it provided for pensions for disabled servicemen and their families.
The third law, the Law of Promotions and Rewards, set up two distinct rubrics for promotion: one for peacetime and one for wartime. Peacetime promotions were tied directly to military education. Wartime promotions could be granted for heroic actions such as preventing enemy capture of artillery pieces, and could only be given by high-ranking officers. These promotions had to be approved by higher bodies. These reforms were an effort to end the practice of opportunistic and haphazard promotions which had inflated the number of generals in Mexico's officer corps during the Revolution.
The purpose of the fourth law, the Organic Law, was to organize the armed services. The first section sought to redefine the relationship between generals and the soldiers under them, demanding that all personnel be loyal to the nation and the constitution and take their orders from the President or his designees.