Rurales

Established as a federal Constabulary by the Liberal regime of Benito Juárez in 1861, the ''Rurales'' were originally too weak in numbers and organisation to effectively control the widespread Banditry in Mexico during the 1860s and 70s. The concept of an armed and mobile rural police, organised on military lines, was derived from the Spanish Civil Guard ("'' Guardia Civil ''"), which had been established in 1844 and quickly won a reputation as an effective but often oppressive force.

President Díaz expanded the ''Rurales'' from a few hundred to nearly 2,000 by 1889 as part of his programme of modernisation and eventually repression. Initially some captured bandits were forcibly recruited into the ''Rurales'', although the basis of enlistment later became more conventional. Officers were usually seconded from the Federal Army . The ''Rurales'' were heavily armed, carrying Sabres , carbines and pistols. They were divided into ten corps, each comprising three companies of about 76 men.

The image of the ''Rurales'' as a ruthless and efficient organisation, which seldom took prisoners under the notorious '' Ley Fuga '' and inevitably got its man, was deliberately fostered under the Porfirian regime. However, research during the 1970s involving detailed examination of the records of the corps indicated that the ''Rurales''were neither as effective nor as brutal as regime publicists had suggested. Never numbering more than about 4,000 men located in small detachments, the ''Rurales'' were too thinly spread to ever completely eliminate unrest in the Mexican countryside. They did however impose a superficial order, especially in the central regions around Mexico City , which encouraged the foreign investment sought by Díaz and his '' Científico '' advisers . To a certain extent the regime saw the ''Rurales'' as a counterweight to the much larger Federal army and in the later years of the regime they were increasingly used to control industrial unrest, in addition to their traditional task of patrolling country areas.

The ''Rurales'' achieved a high profile internationally, rather like that of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Texas Rangers , whose roles they paralleled. They wore a distinctive grey uniform braided in Silver , which was modelled on the national '' Charro '' dress and included a wide Sombrero and red necktie. This dress, their frequent involvement in ceremonial parades and their general reputation invariably drew the attention of foreign visitors to Mexico during the Porfiriato. They were variously described as "the world's most picturesque policemen" and "mostly bandits". The former may have true but the latter was a distorted memory of the rough and ready early days of the corps. Some of the Mexican states maintained their own rural mounted police forces and there was an efficient city police in Mexico City, but none matched the Federal ''Rurales'' in notoriety or glamour.

After the overthrow of Díaz, the ''Rurales'' continued to exist under Presidents Francisco I. Madero and Victoriano Huerta . Madero's intention seems to have been that the force should remain essentially unchanged, though with the abuses of the Diaz years curbed. In practice the induction of large numbers of Maderista fighters on a temporary basis while awaiting discharge simply diluted such efficiency as the corps had retained. Huerta saw a more central role for the ''Rurales'' using a detachment to murder Madero after the "Ten Tragic Days" of 1913. He then proposed to expand the existing units into a field force of over ten thousand men serving alongside the regular Federal troops. Recruiting and desertion problems prevented this ever being a realistic project and the remains of the Guardia Rural, along with the old Federal army, was finally disbanded in July 1914 when Huerta fled into exile.

The modern Mexican ''Rurales'' are a part-time militia (Cuerpo de Defensa Rural), originally formed as village self defence groups during the agrarian disturbances of the 1920s. They do not have any functions that parallel those of the paramilitary mounted police force of the 1861-1914 era.

SEE ALSO

Mexican Revolution

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Rurales