Travel Photography and the Second American Conquest of Mexico

Photograph from Nevin O. Winter, Mexico and her People of To-day (1923)

“The atmosphere of the market is truly oriental,” Nevin Winter, an American, commented while traveling abroad in 1907. Fine fruits and vegetables, and an abundance of other goods, streamed in and out of the market all afternoon, carried by the locals, who were “an industrious race.” Watching from the sidelines, Winter continued: “I could not think of anything but Palestine, as I gazed at this unceasing procession of donkeys, Egyptian carts, women with shawls folded and worn on their heads in Eastern fashion…” It was “a glimpse of the oriental,” and suddenly the traveler found himself “involuntarily looking for the mosque and listening for the cry of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.”

Geographically speaking, the scene was not “oriental” at all. It was in Oaxaca, Mexico. The author’s way of framing what he saw, however, is significant because it supports cultural critic Edward Said’s observation that Orientalist thinking, broadly defined, has never been limited to the Orient. In fact, European representations of the East had much in common with how Americans portrayed Mexico at the time Winter was writing. And though there were also differences, the goal was the same: economic gain.

Following the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the United States, American industrialists looked for new projects to invest in and new markets to develop. Their eyes landed on Mexico, which was nearby and had huge potential for agriculture, mining, and oil production. All it lacked was infrastructure and initiative. With the encouragement of Mexico’s president and de facto dictator Porfirio Díaz, foreign capital “invaded” the country. American and European investors eventually acquired nearly a quarter of Mexico’s landholdings, displacing millions of rural workers and beginning the era of large-scale Mexican migration to the United States.

One obstacle investors faced was that Mexico had an “image problem” in the U.S. as a result of the Mexican-American War (1846-48), Mexico’s political instability, and anti-Catholic prejudice, among other things. To attempt to undo this, Mexican railroad corporations, controlled by foreign investors, began advertising what made Mexico attractive, romantic, and even progressive. Americans would then travel there on the new railroads and see that it was not only a nice place to visit but also a smart place to invest in. Some literature even encouraged Americans to settle in Mexico permanently and become Mexican citizens so they could have more influence in shaping the country's future.

Photography, naturally, played an important part in this marketing campaign. In one sense, tourist images of Mexico are the opposite of their Orientalist counterparts. The Middle East is seen as dark and dangerous, and its people sullen. Mexico, in contrast, is bright, welcoming, and full of cheerful, smiling faces. Unlike with the Arabs in Egypt, there is no attempt to brush indigenous Mexicans’ history under the rug. In fact, it is part of the lure of visiting Mexico. And rather than lazy (a common Western stereotype of Arabs), Mexicans are usually portrayed in tourist literature as hardworking, an appealing trait to potential investors and business owners.

In the sense of validating foreign intervention, however, these photos are cut from the same cloth as Orientalist imagery. Though Americans, especially those who visited Mexico and wrote about their experiences, tended to see Mexico’s people as good, they saw its leaders as bad. Especially after the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which ended President Díaz’s American-friendly dictatorship, tourist photographs captured Mexico’s ongoing troubles and political instability along with positive things about the country. How should this contrasting imagery be interpreted? One view is that it sent the message that Mexico, like the Middle East, could be modernized only with outside intervention, and that the American doctrine of peaceful economic conquest was therefore justified.

Additional context

Facts and Figures About Mexico and Her Great Railroad System (1903).

A statement in this promotional pamphlet provides further insight into the similarities and differences in how Americans and Europeans saw Mexico, Japan, and Egypt in the era of Western colonialism:

“Adjoining the United States on the south is a great country… wonderful in material resources, charming in climate, picturesque beyond description, rich in traditions, grand in prehistoric ruins; a country attractive and interesting, and which, with possibly the single exception of Japan, has no peer in universal progress in recent years… [T]he average citizen of the United States… is less well informed of [Mexico’s] ruined temples, its adobe pyramids, its unread hieroglyphics, its uncounted wealth… than he is of Egypt, a country with which it compares in many respects.”

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Alexander D. Anderson, The American and Mexican Pacific Railway, or Transcontinental Short Line (1883).

In addition to connecting Mexican markets to the United States, American investors sought to develop Mexico’s railroad system to expand access to commercial opportunities in the Far East and Australasia. This pamphlet describes the potential of the port of Topolobampo on the Gulf of California. Though the plan was never realized, its promoters pointed out that the distance from New York to Topolobampo was 2,261 miles—300 miles less than the distance to San Francisco.