Valentín Gómez Farías

Valentín Gómez Farías was a Mexican political leader who served as president for brief intervals in 1833 and 1834–1835, while Antonio López de Santa Anna repeatedly yielded and reclaimed power. Their revolving arrangement offers a concentrated example of the instability that marked Mexico’s first decades of independence and weakened the country’s political institutions.

Brief Presidencies and a Repeated Transfer of Power

Santa Anna first became president in May 1833 but exercised power for less than a month, preferring to let Gómez Farías act as president. Gómez Farías’s first presidency lasted fifteen days. Santa Anna then retook power, only for his own spell to be as brief as the first; in early July, Gómez Farías again replaced him.

The two men continued this political back-and-forth until the middle of 1835, when Santa Anna was replaced by Miguel Barragán. Gómez Farías’s authority in this account is therefore defined by the short intervals in which he occupied the presidency, amid repeated changes at the top rather than a stable transfer governed by a lasting constitutional order.

Instability Beyond One Presidency

The shifts between Santa Anna and Gómez Farías formed part of a much wider pattern. Between 1824 and 1867, Mexico had fifty-two presidents, few of whom assumed power through a constitutionally sanctioned procedure. In contrast with the five years of political instability the United States experienced between 1860 and 1865, Mexico endured almost continual instability during its first fifty years of independence.

The consequences extended beyond the succession of presidents. Repeated instability made property rights highly insecure and weakened the Mexican state, leaving it with little authority and little ability to raise taxes or provide public services. The presidency itself did not guarantee control over the country: even while Santa Anna held office, large parts of Mexico lay beyond his control, a weakness that enabled the United States’ annexation of Texas.

Significance in the Book’s Argument

Gómez Farías’s brief presidencies serve as evidence of how political disorder can disrupt the institutions and incentives that underpin economic life. The chapter sets Mexico’s post-independence instability against the different economic opportunities available to a large share of the United States population, especially in its northern and western regions, even before and after the Civil War.

The episode also belongs to a broader argument about the legacy of colonial institutions. Mexico’s declaration of independence had been motivated in part by a desire to protect economic arrangements developed during the colonial period, arrangements associated with profound inequality. The rapid turnover of presidents, including Gómez Farías’s short spells between Santa Anna’s returns, makes political instability visible as a recurring condition rather than a single crisis.