These Mexican states don’t exist anymore. Where did they go?

Indigenous rebellions, overseas penetration and secessionist movements person meant that Mexico’s representation has changed dramatically since independency successful 1821. Most radical are acquainted with the territory taken by the United States successful the Mexican-American War, but determination are respective different erstwhile Mexican states that nary longer exist. 

Here are six of them — depending connected however you count:

Nuevo León y Coahuila

(Wikimedia Commons)

The representation of Coahuila has changed galore times. While enactment Mexico’s archetypal constitution was being drafted, the home of vino successful the Americas had been portion of the gigantic Internal State of the East. As Coahuila y Tejas, it became the sixteenth Mexican state. In 1840, successful the discourse of a question of secessionist movements sparked by President Antonio López de Santa Anna’s adoption of a centralist constitution, Coahuila joined Nuevo León and Tamaulipas successful forming the short-lived separatist Republic of the Rio Grande.

Arguably, the strangest infinitesimal successful Coahuila’s territorial past came successful the 1850s. When federalists revolted against Santa Anna successful the 1854 Ayutla Revolution, the telephone to rebellion was answered successful the northeast by a Nuevo León-born subject person named Santiago Vidaurri, who defeated centralist troops successful Monterrey and past marched into Coahuila. Through shrewd politicking and subject power, Vidaurri unilaterally annexed Coahuila successful 1856, fusing his location authorities and its neighbour into the authorities of Nuevo León y Coahuila, which helium fundamentally ruled arsenic his idiosyncratic domain. 

Vidaurri’s determination was, of course, wholly illegal, but the caller Liberal authorities of the state needed him connected their side, and the Constitution of 1857 officially ratified Nuevo León y Coahuila arsenic a state. It stayed that mode until 1864, erstwhile Vidaurri was executed for having sided with the Second Mexican Empire. President Benito Juárez made Nuevo León and Coahuila 2 states erstwhile again.

The Kingdom of Guatemala

(Wiki Index)

While not a authorities — Mexico didn’t person them yet — astir each of Central America was erstwhile portion of the country. Under Spanish rule, the territory that is present Chiapas, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica made up the Captaincy-General of Guatemala, a sister colony to New Spain. 

Central America peacefully declared independency from Spain successful September 1821, and its blimpish leaders favored annexation into the newly-independent Mexican Empire, a law monarchy. Agustín de Iturbide, who would aboriginal go Emperor of Mexico, felt similarly, inviting Central America to articulation his country. The authorities of Guatemala City — the region’s de facto authorities — accepted successful January 1822, bringing Mexico to the historical tallness of its territorial extent. Not each Central Americans agreed with Guatemalan enactment oregon annexation to Mexico, however, and galore Salvadorans, Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans took up arms against it. 

Iturbide sent Mexican troops to pacify these regions and was mostly successful, but aft helium abdicated successful March 1823, Mexico’s interim authorities was consenting to fto Central America determine its ain fate. In July of that year, Central America declared independency from Mexico and some countries came into the satellite arsenic republics: Mexico arsenic the First Mexican Republic and Central America arsenic the United Provinces of Central America. Mexico did support a portion of the aged Guatemala, though: Chiapas voted to stay portion of the state successful 1824. 

Sinaloa y Sonora

(Wikimedia Commons)

As galore Sinaloans and Sonorans volition archer you, their states person a batch successful communal — their natives’ loud, percussive accents, emotion of shot and taste for seafood travel to mind. These bluish Pacific states are neighbors, but they were erstwhile thing adjacent closer: the azygous authorities of Sinaloa y Sonora. 

Take a look astatine the representation of aboriginal autarkic Mexico and you’ll rapidly announcement that portion the country’s cardinal and confederate states look mostly arsenic they bash today, the bluish states are enormous. In 1824, that made sense: bluish Mexico was precise sparsely populated by Mexicans and was inactive nether the power of almighty Indigenous nations, truthful ample states initially seemed applicable for administrative and defence purposes. Three Estados Internos, oregon Internal States, were created connected the country’s periphery; Sinaloa and Sonora were made the Internal State of the West, besides called Sinaloa y Sonora, which included portion of modern-day Arizona arsenic well. 

Sonora and Sinaloa had often been governed arsenic portion of the aforesaid territory since the assemblage era. Though this statement fostered a closeness betwixt their populations that persists until today, it besides created heavy rivalries betwixt the territories’ section elites, who competed for power and commercialized opportunities. Illustrating this rivalry, the state’s superior was moved respective times from Sonora to Sinaloa and backmost again. In 1830, with disagreements becoming untenable and authorities torn astir however to respond to Indigenous rebellions, Sinaloa and Sonora yet became the archetypal states admitted to the federation ever to separate.

The Estado Interno del Norte and Estado Interno del Oriente

(Wikimedia Commons)

The elite rivalries that dissolved Sinaloa y Sonora were not unsocial successful the Internal States, and successful the different two, they didn’t instrumentality astir arsenic agelong to instrumentality effect. Under the Constitutive Act of 1824 — the instrumentality of the onshore portion the Constitution of 1824 was being written — the Internal State of the North comprised Durango, Chihuahua and New Mexico, portion the State of the East encompassed Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas and Texas.

The State of the East included 2 large cities — Monterrey successful Nuevo León and Saltillo successful Coahuila — that had been commercialized and governmental rivals since the 1600s and carried their rivalry into the independency period, angling to go the superior of the mega-state. When it became wide that this would not beryllium possible, their leaders began advocating for separation and soon joined the republic arsenic autarkic states.

Chihuahua and Durango had been governed unneurotic by Spain arsenic the state of New Biscay, an statement that had worked retired amended for Durango, which was wealthier and much heavy populated. The 2 were turned into abstracted provinces aft the illness of the First Mexican Empire but were joined again arsenic the State of the North successful 1823, with a astonishing development: the little affluent Chihuahua would beryllium the state’s provisional capital. The Durango elite did not similar this astatine each and agitated for separation, which they got successful May 1824; successful July of that year, Chihuahua became a state, portion New Mexico became a territory.  

The Provincia del Istmo

(Wikimedia Commons)

Set successful the narrowest portion of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which runs betwixt the Oaxaca and Veracruz coastlines, Congress declared the instauration of the Province of the Isthmus successful 1823. Encompassing the districts of Acayucan and Tehuantepec successful present-day Veracruz and Oaxaca, respectively, the state was instantly wracked by conflict, arsenic the authorities aimed to administer the area’s affluent brackish flats and what it called its “wastelands” to retired subject officers and settlers. There was a problem: these resources were communally owned by the area’s Indigenous Zapotec majority, who had not been asked. 

Congress abolished the state successful 1824, but beingness had been breathed into the tone of section and Indigenous separatism successful the portion betwixt the Atlantic and the Pacific, critically important for national governments from the nineteenth period down to our ain time. Unlike the different disappeared states and provinces connected this list, the Province of the Isthmus was concisely resurrected aft its archetypal death, reestablished successful 1852 and dissolved again successful 1855, during the Porfiriato.