| Summary: | This paper analyzes the character of the Mexican liberal state during its formation by studying the government's interpretations, reactions and policies towards peasant and ethnic armed rebellions. The author considers the complex and multifactorial roots of social upheavals during the Restored Republic (1867-1876). After a brief review of the eight most important rebellions, the author explores the ideas, perceptions and rationale —a combination of fear and contempt— through which commoners, Indians, itinerants and, above all, rebels were judged, in order to consider the central rules of domination, both the relatively hidden ones, such as alliances between economic and political power, and military rule, which surely became the main answer to social upheavals. This paper shows the depth of the discontent, agitation and violence exerted by the poorest rural groups, as well as the national State's systematically repressive reaction, which had not been sufficiently studied by historians.
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