Illegal Military Recruitment and Constitutional Law: The Judicial Protection of Forced Recruits in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico

Abstract

Juana Tapia did not know how to sign her own name. Yet, on September 12, 1900, Tapia successfully initiated a suit in federal district court for her son's release from military service. Her son, Miguel Álvarez, had been imprisoned by a local prefect during the recent municipal elections in the city of Hermosillo, Sonora, for alleged criminal activities. Instead of consigning Álvarez to a criminal judge to be prosecuted for these alleged crimes, the local prefect had ordered Tapia's son to nearby Torim to serve in the Mexican army's twelfth battalion.