Mexican Conservatives, Clericals, and Soldiers: the 'Traitor' Tomás Mejía through Reform and Empire, 1855–1867

General Tomás Mejía (1820–67) became a leading Mexican opponent of the Liberal Reform Movement in the mid-nineteenth century. Originating from the Querétaro Sierra Gorda, where for twenty years he had a strong power base, he took his stand in defence of the Catholic religion. A devotee of the local cult of the Virgin of the Pueblito, Mejía cooperated first with the Conservative Party and subsequently with the Second Mexican Empire (1862–67). Beween 1864 and 1866, he became the Empire's principal military commander. Juárez had him shot, along with Maximilian, when the Empire fell. Triumphant Liberals blotted out his name from the history of the nineteenth century. Mejía defended an alternative, Catholic vision of Mexico to the Liberal secular state and its Revolutionary successor.