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Tamaulipas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tamaulipas (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Tamaulipas), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 43 municipalities.
Located in northeastern Mexico, it is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the southeast, San Luis Potosí to the southwest, and Nuevo León to the west. To the north, it has a 370 km (230 mi) stretch of the U.S.–Mexico border along the state of Texas, and to the east it is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to the capital city, Ciudad Victoria, the state's largest cities include Reynosa, Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, Tampico, and Mante.
The name Tamaulipas is derived from Tamaholipa, a Huastec term in which the tam- prefix signifies "place (where)". No scholarly agreement exists on the meaning of holipa, but "high hills" is a common interpretation.[9] Another explanation of the state name is that it is derived from Ta ma ho'lipam ("place where the Lipan Apache prey").
History
The area known as Tamaulipas has been inhabited for at least 8,000 years. Several different cultures (north coastal, south coastal, lowlands, and mountains) have come and gone during that period.
Tamaulipas was originally populated by the nomad Chichimec and sedentary Huastec, in addition to non-Chichimec hunter-gatherer and fishing tribes.
Colonial Era
A gradual process was needed for Spain to subjugate the inhabitants of Tamaulipas in the 16th and 17th centuries. The first permanent Spanish settlement in the area was Tampico in 1554. Further settlement was done by Franciscan missionaries; widespread cattle and sheep ranching by the Spanish bolstered the area's economy while forcing native populations from their original lands. Repeated indigenous rebellions kept the area unstable and weakened colonial interest in the region. What is now Tamaulipas was first incorporated as a separate province of New Spain in 1746 with the name Nuevo Santander. The local government capital during this time moved from Santander to San Carlos, and finally to Aguayo. The territory of this time spanned from the San Antonio River to the northeast to the Gulf of Mexico, then south to the Pánuco River near Tampico and west to the Sierra Madre Mountains. The area became a haven for rebellious Indians who fled there after increased Spanish settlements in Nuevo León and Coahuila.
In the mid-17th century, various Apache bands from the Southern Plains, after acquiring horses from Europeans in New Mexico, moved southeastward into the Edwards Plateau, displacing the native hunting and gathering groups. One of these groups was known as Lipan (see Hodge 1907 Vol. I:769 for a confusing list of synonyms). After 1750, when most Apache groups of the Central Texas highlands were displaced by Comanche and moved into the coastal plain of southern Texas, the Europeans of the San Antonio area began referring to all Apache groups in southern Texas as Lipan or Lipan Apache.
Many Indian groups of missions in southern Texas and northeastern Mexico had recently been displaced from their territory through the southward push by the Lipan Apaches and were still hostile toward Apaches, linking arms with the local Spanish authorities against their common foe.
By 1790, Europeans turned their attention from the aboriginal groups and focused on containing the Apache invaders. In northeastern Coahuila and adjacent Texas, Spanish and Apache displacements created an unusual ethnic mix. Here, the local Indians mixed with displaced groups from Coahuila and Chihuahua and Texas. Some groups, to escape the pressure, combined and migrated north into the Central Texas highlands.
Independent Mexico
In 1824, after the Mexican War of Independence from Spain, and the fall of the Mexican Empire, Tamaulipas was one of the 19 founder states of the new United Mexican States. Slavery was formally abolished by the 1824 Constitution. During the fights between centralists and federalists that after independence, the successful Texas Revolution led to the creation of the Republic of Texas in 1836. The new republic claimed as part of its territory northern Tamaulipas.
In 1840, it became a part of the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande. In 1848, after the Mexican–American War, Tamaulipas lost more than a quarter of its territory via the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. American president James K. Polk had desired to annexe Mexican territory as far south as Tampico although his negotiator Nicholas Trist disregarded this and settled on a border with Texas on the Rio Grande. Its capital was kept at Aguayo, which later was renamed Ciudad Victoria in honor of Guadalupe Victoria, first President of Mexico.
In the wake of the war, Tamaulipas remained an object of interest to American expansionists. The climate was considered suitable for the spread of slavery by Southerners who desired the admission of new territory to shift the balance in Congress back towards the slave states. Senator Albert Gallatin Brown declared "I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican states; and I want them all for the same reason - for the plantation and spreading of slavery". In the 1850s José María Jesús Carbajal led several incursions into Tamaulipas before being indicted for violating the Neutrality Act. Filibustering efforts were also directed towards Cuba with the Lopez Expedition, which was desired for the same reason as Tamaulipas.
The French occupation and reign of Emperor Maximilian during the 1860s was difficult for Tamaulipas, at least on the borders and in the city of Tampico. Portions of Tamaulipas supported the republican forces led by President Benito Juarez in resisting the French, especially in the north. Two years after French occupation began, Tamaulipas as a state finally acceded to Maximilian's rule, and the last French soldiers left the state in 1866, leading up to Maximilian's execution and fall of the Second Mexican Empire in 1867.
However, the years after Maximilian's defeat were ones of rebuilding and great growth in Tamaulipas. International trade began to blossom, especially with the coming of the railroad to Tampico, which was developing as not only a port city but also as an industrial and commercial center. The railroad allowed goods to flow quickly from the mines and cities of the interior and the Texas border to Tampico for processing and shipment. This, in turn, caused significant growth in towns such as Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo.
Since the revolution of 1910, successive governments have dedicated themselves to building industry and infrastructure in Tamaulipas, including communications and educational systems. Norberto Treviño Zapata founded the state university system, as well as reformed the state oil industry. Marte Gómez provided increased farm sizes for private family farmers. And more recently, Emilio Martínez Manautou led industrial growth. Lately, a push has been to strengthen fishing, including efforts to increase the price of fish and shellfish on the international market. During the 1970s, Colombia was experiencing the Colombian Conflict, leading to the rise of illicit criminal organizations like the Cali Cartel and Medellín Cartel led by drug traffickers like Pablo Escobar and Fabio Ochoa Vásquez. In Mexico, there had already existed various illicit organizations doing drug trafficking like the Gulf Cartel, Milenio Cartel, Juaréz Cartel, Guadalajara Cartel, and a new group of vigilante drug traffickers called La Familia Michoacana. The Gulf Cartel was in charge of the State of Tamaulipas and other gulf coast states, leading to the drug trafficking rates going high in the 1990s. Around that time, a group of defectors from the Mexican Special Forces that participated in the Chiapas conflict defected as Osiel Cárdenas Guillén made them promises that they would receive better wages if they worked as the enforcer group of the Gulf Cartel called Los Zetas. They did incursions in states like Michoacán and merged La Familia Michoacana as an enforcer group from 2004 to 2006. In 2006, their crimes resulted in the Mexican drug war and Joint Operation Nuevo León-Tamaulipas.
Economy and Culture
Northern Tamaulipas shares its economic culture with that of Texas and is primarily characterized by agriculture and strong growth in all industrial sectors. This region is home to many of the maquiladoras, factories owned by foreign companies but worked by Mexicans, primarily by women. In the state there are important industrial parks such as the Oradel Industrial Center, located in the border city of Nuevo Laredo.
Southern Tamaulipas' economy is based primarily on the petrochemical industries. There are petrochemical production plants around Altamira as well as a principal Gulf coast container port, refinery facilities in Ciudad Madero and many oil-industry support service companies in Tampico, as well as a major general and bulk cargo port. Also of importance are the tourism and fishing industries, as well as much commercial shipping, based in Tampico and Altamira. The little village of La Pesca, in the municipality of Soto La Marina, about midway between Brownsville, Texas and Tampico, is a rapidly growing tourist area with lovely beaches and excellent fishing both in the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Soto La Marina. The central zone contains the capital, Ciudad Victoria, and is home to much forestry and farming, as well as some industrial development. About 30% of the population lives here, both in the capital and in Ciudad Mante. Ciudad Victoria is a significant educational center, home to the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas (which also has campuses in other cities in the state), the Regional Technical Institute of Ciudad Victoria, the University of Valle de Bravo, and other institutions of learning.
As of the 1990 Mexican census, 13 percent of the homes had only dirt floors, nearly 19 percent had no running water, and over 15 percent of the homes had no electricity. This was better than the national average but was skewed because of the high rate of development in the urban centers. In rural communities in Tamaulipas, access to running water was available in less than 40 percent of homes.
As of 2005, Tamaulipas's economy represents 3.3% of Mexico's total gross domestic product or 21,664 million USD. Tamaulipas's economy has a strong focus on export oriented manufacturing (i.e. maquiladora / IMMEX). As of 2005, 258,762 people are employed in the manufacturing sector. Foreign direct investment in Tamaulipas was 386.2 million USD for 2005. The average wage for an employee in Tamaulipas is approximately 240 pesos per day, $2.00 to $3.00 an hour.
Crime
This state is known to be the site of a territorial struggle for both the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. The resulting deaths and unresolved kidnappings from the gang violence have been described as a "humanitarian tragedy".
The state of Tamaulipas is one of the most affected by violence in the country, mainly caused by organized crime. In February 2010, an armed conflict broke out between the criminal groups known as the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, resulting in many border cities becoming "ghost towns", such is the case of the border strip known as "La Frontera Chica "made up of the cities of Miguel Alemán, Mier, Camargo and Nueva Ciudad Guerrero.
In November 2010, the Mexican army, together with the Federal Police and the Navy, launched an operation around the north of the state of Tamaulipas, allowing hundreds of families to return to their homes after months of exile in other states, mainly in municipalities like Mier, where around 4,000 people return.
According to INEGI , in 2012 Tamaulipas contained 9 municipalities with a homicide rate higher than 100 per 100,000 inhabitants: Cruillas (106), San Fernando (175), Llera (159), Mier (156), Güémez (141), Hidalgo (135), Nuevo Laredo (134), González (109) and Soto la Marina (100). On the other hand, the municipalities that had had the most intentional homicides in 2012 were Nuevo Laredo (536 homicides), Victoria (165) and San Fernando (102).
In 2013, 880 homicides were recorded in the state, giving a rate of 25 per 100,000 inhabitants. This placed it that year in the 9th position of the states with the most homicides in Mexico. In 2013, Tamaulipas reached the first national place in kidnappings with 275 known cases and the ninth place in violent highway robbery (68 cases).
Currently Tamaulipas continues to be affected by violence, this being one of the factors that have greatly hindered the economic and social activity of the state. In 2014 it was estimated that the losses due to violence by each company in Tamaulipas reached an average of 95 thousand pesos per year (fourth highest in the country). This placed it above the national average in terms of cost of crime for each company (13,600 pesos against the national average of 12,800).