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Enrique C. Creel: Business and Politics in Mexico, 1880–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Mark Wasserman
Mark Wasserman
Affiliation:
Mark Wasserman is associate professor of history at Rutgers University.
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Abstract

Enrique C. Creel was Mexico's leading banker, an innovative industralist, venture capitlist, and representative of the nation's largest land and cattle owner; he was also the political boss of the state of Chihuahua and the key conciliator of the conflicting intersts of the north and the national regime of dictator Porfirio Díaz. In this essay, Professor Wasserman describes Creel's activities, showing how he and his family built the greatest business empire in Mexico before 1910, survived the decade-long destruction of the revolution (1910–20), and rebuilt their empire in the 1920s. Better than any of his contemporaries, Creel combined managerial talent and vision with a mastery of the interplay of politics, regional interests, and foreign capital that comprised his economic entrepreneurship and the special nature of economic entrepreneurship and the intimate relationship between business and politics in pre-and post-revolutionary Mexico.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 59 , Special Issue 4: Business in Latin America , Winter 1985 , pp. 645 - 662
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

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References

1 Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico from 1877 to 1880 and from 1884 to 1911. Historians have labeled the era the Porfiriato. Manuel González, a close ally of Díaz, was president of Mexico from 1880 to 1884. The Mexican Revolution erupted in 1910 and lasted for ten years.

2 There is no satisfactory biography of Creel, Enrique C.. Helguera, Alvaro de la, Enrique Creel: Apuntes biográficos (Madrid, 1910)Google Scholar, is an undisguised panegyric. Great grandson Cobián's, Alejandro Creel Enrique C. Creel: Apuntes para su biografía (Mexico City, 1974)Google Scholar contains much useful information but is unabashed in its admiration. Its major value is that it uses the Creel family papers, which are not accessible to historians. Sr. Eduardo Creel kindly provided me with a copy of this book. Almada, Francisco R., Diccionario de historia, geografía e biografía Chihuahuense, 2d ed. (Chihuahua, n.d.), 124Google Scholar, and Gobernadores del estado de Chihuahua (Mexico City, 1950), 437–47 are basic sources.

3 Reuben W. Creel was U.S. consul in Chihuahua during the French intervention. Paz Cuilty was the sister of Carolina Cuilty Bustamente de Terrazas, the wife of General Luis Terrazas. The Cuiltys were among the largest landowners in the state. Adolphus, J. Owens, comp., Anywhere I Wander I Find Facts and Legends Relating to the Creel Family (Warrior, Ala., 1975), 520–23.Google Scholar

4 Owens, Creel Family, 23; Creel Cobián, Enrique C. Creel, 9–26; Chihuahua Mail, 17 Oct. 1882, 2.

5 The Creel-Terrazas marriage was not, as Enrique's less-than-aristocratic origins might hint, socially demeaning for the bride or her family. Enrique's mother was the sister of Luis Terrazas's wife. Thus, Enrique married his first cousin. Such intrafamily marriages seem to have been fairly common among the Mexican elite.

6 See, for example, the Memorandum of 17 Aug. 1931, the day he died, in Creel Cobián, Enrique C. Creel, 371–72.

7 Ibid., 27–36; Almada, Gobernadores, 437–38.

8 México, Secretaría de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Boletín de estadísticas fiscales, no. 336 (1910–11), 248–49, 264–65; The Mexican Yearbook (1911), 139.

9 Banco Minero de Chihuahua, Consejo de Administración, Informe del Consejo de Administración y Comisario a la asamblea general de accionistas de 28 de marzo de 1908 (Chihuahua, 1908).

10 Mexican Herald, 22 Jan. 1906, 7, and Mexican Investor, 3 Feb. 1906, 7.

11 Saragoza, Alexander M., “The Formation of a Mexican Elite: The Industrialization of Monterrey, Nuevo León, 1880–1920” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Diego, 1978), 84.Google Scholar

12 Document entitled “Negocios de Enrique C. Creel, May 10, 1922,” which lists the landholdings and stockholdings and losses incurred by Creel during the revolution. This document is to be found in the Creel papers in the possession of Sr. Eduardo Creel in Mexico City. My thanks to Professor Harold D. Sims and Sr. Creel for making this document available to me.

13 El Correo de Chihuahua, 10 March 1904, 2; Bankers' Magazine 77 (Oct. 1908): 525–29; Mexican Investor, 31 March 1906, 19; d'Olwer, Nicolas, et al., El Porfiriato: La vida económica, 2 vols. (Mexico City, 1965)Google Scholar, vol. 7 of Historia Moderna de México, ed. Daniel Cosió Villegas, 2: 827.

14 Bankers' Magazine, 77 (Oct. 1908): 537–41; El Correo de Chihuahua, 22 March 1904, 3; Mexican Yearbook, 1911, 129.

15 Helguera, Enrique C. Creel, 105–11; Creel Cobián, Enrique Creel, 81–95.

16 El Correo de Chihuahua, 3 June 1903, 2; Chihuahua, , Tesorería General, Presupuestos de egresospara el ejercicio fiscal de 1907 a 1908 (Chihuahua, 1907)Google Scholar; Chihuahua, Secretaría de Gobíerno, Sección Estadística, Anuario estadístico del estado de Chihuahua, 1908; 1909, 205; El Periódico Oficial del Estado de Chihuahua, [hereafter cited as POC], 17 July 1910, 10.

17 Walter M. Brodie to E. C. Creel, 5 Nov. 1910, pt. 2, reel 2, Silvestre Terrazas Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley [hereafter cited as STP]; E. N. Schwabe to W.E.D. Stokes, 28 Dec. 1910, Schwabe to Juan A. Creel, 29 Dec. 1910, and accompanying documents, pt. 2, reel 14, STP. Part 2, reel 2 lists the board of the Guaranty Trust and Banking Company. This venture was one of the few Creel enterprises that failed. It went into receivership in 1911. For an interesting perspective on the bank see the Max Weber Collection, University of Texas at El Paso.

18 Martín Falomir to Enrique C. Creel, 27 Dec. 1910, and 19 Jan. 1911, pt. 2, reel 14, STP.

19 El Correo de Chihuahua, 21 Oct. 1903, 1; Boletín Comercial (Chihuahua), 1 Sept. 1908, advertisements; Meyers, William K., “Interest Group Conflict and Revolutionary Politics: A Social History of La Comarca Lagunera, Mexico, 1888–1911” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1979), 88–94, 199–212.Google Scholar

20 Mexican Yearbook, 1912, 137; Southworth, John R., Directorio oficial bancario de México (Mexico, 1906), 245.Google Scholar

21 Bankers' Magazine 77 (Oct. 1908): 525–29; El Correo, 10 March 1904, 2.

22 Bankers' Magazine 77 (Oct. 1908): 537–41.

23 Engineering and Mining Journal 76 (17 Dec. 1903): 918; 81 (3 March 1906): 429–30; 73 (22 March 1902): 428 and (12 April 1902): 528; 78 (14 Nov. 1904): 950; Meyers, “Interest Group Conflict,” 201.

24 Bankers' Magazine 77 (Oct. 1908): 531. An earlier issue of this magazine lauded Creel in the following terms: “… stands in the front rank of the financiers in Mexico … combined energy and skill of Anglo-Saxon suavity and tact of the Latin.” Bankers' Magazine 77 (Feb. 1903): 314.

25 El Correo de Chihuahua, 13 May 1903, 4.

26 Mexican Investor, 1 July 1905, 16, and 18 Nov. 1905, 3; Engineering and Mining Journal 80 (11 Nov. 1905), 900. Brother-in-law Juan Terrazas obtained the lease on the company store at the smelter as part of the deal. Almada, Francisco R., La revolución en el estado de Chihuahua (Mexico, 1964), 1: 73.Google Scholar

27 El Correo de Chihuahua, 1 March 1906, 1; 9 Feb. 1905, 1; 25 Jan. 1905, 1. Mexican Herald, 22 April 1907, 11; 16 July 1907, 11.

28 Jorge Griggs, Mines of Chihuahua, 1907: History, Geology, Statistics, Mining Company Directory (N.p., n.d.), 80–81; Mexican Financier, 22 Aug. 1891, 541; 26 March 1892, 15; Mexican Herald, 21 May 1896, 2; Engineering and Mining Journal 72 (30 Nov. 1901): 698; El Correo de Chihuahua, 21 Oct. 1902, 2.

29 Griggs, Mines of Chihuahua, 81, 336; Lewis Morgan and Hubert Bankart to Enrique C. Creel, 2 Dec. 1896; Creel to William Heimke, 14 Sept. 1896; Juan A. Creel to H. C. Hollis, 4 and 19 May 1904, pt. 2, reel 17, STP; Mexican Herald, 16 Sept. 1905, 7.

30 Siglo XX, 27 July 1904, 2; POC, 31 Aug. 1895, pt. 2, reel 17, STP.

31 Federico Sisniega to Ernesto Madero, 25 Sept. 1900, pt. 2, reel 7, STP; U.S. Department of State, Monthly Consular and Trade Reports, no. 305 (Feb. 1906); El Correo de Chihuahua, 12 Feb. 1902, 1.

32 Mexican Herald, 29 July 1908, 1; 30 July 1908, 3; 27 Sept. 1908, 1; El Correo de Chihuahua, 20 Sept. 1902, 1; 27 April 1904, 1; Federico Sisniega to E. C. Creel, 2 July 1904, pt. 2, reel 8, STP.

33 Villegas, Daniel Cosió, El Porfiriato: Lavida politico interior, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1972)Google Scholar, vol. 9 of Historia Moderna de México, 2: 58–64. See also Beezley, William H., “Opportunity in Porfirian Mexico,” North Dakota Quarterly 40 (Spring 1972): 30–40.Google Scholar

34 Helguera, Enrique Creel, 61, 82–83; Almada, Gobernadores, 441–42; Bankers' Magazine 74 (Jan.–June 1907): 589; Mexican Herald, 6 Nov. 1906, 3; Chihuahua, Gobernador, Informe del C. Gobernador Constitutional Interino de Chihuahua, José María Sánchez, at H. Congreso del Estado 1 junio de 1907 (Chihuahua, 1907), 6; Chihuahua, Gobernador, Informe leído por el Gobernador del estado 16 septiembre de 1908 (Chihuahua, 1908), 5.

35 Wasserman, Mark, “The Social Origins of the 1910 Revolution in Chihuahua,” Latin American Research Review 15 (1980): 15–40.Google Scholar

36 Raat, Dirk, Revoltosos. Mexico's Rebels in the United States, 1903–1923 (College Station, Texas, 1981), 175–202.Google Scholar Creel was ambassador from 18 Dec. 1906 until 25 Sept. 1908. He was secretary of foreign relations from 25 April 1910 until 23 March 1911. See also the Flores Magón files in STP.

37 Madero was a landowner from Coahuila, whose family owned the largest native-owned smelter in Mexico. His followers were known as maderistas. Madero was elected president of Mexico in 1911 and was toppled and killed in 1913. Victoriano Huerta led a reactionary regime that lasted until 1914, when it was ousted by the Constitutionalist forces led by Venustiano Carranza, another Coahuilan landowner. Carranza ruled until 1920, when he was overthrown by Alvaro Obregón.

38 Raat, Revoltosos, 222–23; 178–79; POC, 1 May 1910.

39 El Correo de Chihuahua, 21 Oct. 1903, 1; Boletín Comercial, 1 Sept. 1908, advertisements; Mexican Yearbook, 1912, 62–63. The two families were partners in the Banco de la Laguna Refaccionario, which had thirteen million pesos in assets in 1911. POC, 17 Nov. 1910, 30; Mexican Herald, 6 Nov. 1908, 5. They were related through the Zuloaga family. Francisco Madero made his headquarters at the Zuloagas's Hacienda de Bustillos during the spring of 1911.

40 E. C. Creel to Juan Terrazas, 6 Aug. 1911; Ernesto Madero to Abraham González, 2 Dec. 1912, pt. 2, reel 2, STP, Madero to Creel, 31 Jan. 1909, Archivo de Francisco Madero,11 312, cited in Raat, Revoltosos, 207.

41 Meyer, Michael C., Mexican Rebel: Pascual Orozco and the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1915 (Lincoln, Nebr., 1967), 75.Google Scholar

42 U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Revolutions in Mexico, hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate, 62d Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C., 1913), 131–32, 167, 345–46, 804, 559–60; Meyer, Mexican Rebel, 56. For the clan's activities during the revolution consult box 83, expediente 32, Ramo de Gobernación of the Archivo General de la Nación, summarized in Katz, Friedrich, The Secret War: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution (Chicago, 1981), 535–36, 635.Google Scholar

43 Cumberland, Charles C., Mexican Revolution: The Constitutionalist Years (Austin, Tex., 1972), 206Google Scholar, citing Gracey, U.S. consul, to secretary of state, n.d. (received 31 March 1915), file 812.00/14751, U.S. National Archives, RG59, General Records of the Department of State, Decimal files, 1910–1929; Meyer, Mexican Rebel, 124–25.

44 Pancho Villa was one of the leading figures of the Mexican Revolution from its inception. Fighting on the side of Carranza, he was the key general in the defeat of Huerta. Later, he split with Carranza. A series of defeats in 1915 forced him into guerrilla activities, which he sustained until 1920. From 1913 until 1916, Villa controlled the state of Chihuahua. In 1913 he ordered and carried out the expropriation of all the property of the Terrazas-Creel family. His followers were known as villistas.

45 Katz, Secret War, 534–36. The Ramo de Gobernación is filled with the correspondence between members of the Terrazas extended family (Luján, Horcasitas, etc.) and other terracistas in Chihuahua with Carranza, petitioning for the return of lands confiscated by Villa. By 1919 the Carranza government had in fact honored these requests.

46 Krauze, Enrique, et al., Historia de la Revolución Mexicana, Periódo 1924–1928: La reconstrucción económica (Mexico City, 1977), 32–35Google Scholar; Mayer, Lorenzo, et al., Historia de la Revolución Mexicana, Periodo 1928–1934: Los inicios de la institucionalización, la politico del maximato (Mexico City, 1978), 224–25Google Scholar; Creel Cobián, Enrique C. Creel, 371.

47 David J. D. Myers, U.S. consul, Chihuahua, to Juan A. Creel, manager. Banco Minero, 8 Jan. 1929, file 851.6, vol. 6, 1929, RG 84, Records of the American Consulate in Ciudad Chihuahua, U.S. National Archives; “Review of Commerce in Chihuahua,” comp. Thomas McEnelly, U.S. consul, Chihuahua, 10 Oct. 1925, RG 84, vol. 6, 1925, National Archives.

48 “Directory of Agricultural and Grazing Lands in Chihuahua,” comp. U.S. consulate, Chihuahua, enclosure from McEnelly to Secretary of State, 17 June 1926, RG 84, vol. 6, 1926. The four were La Gallina, Puerto de Lobo, Las Orientales, and a parcel in the municipality of Guerrero.