Martyrdom in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: The Photograph as Testimony and Trace in Mexico’s Cristero War (1926–29)

A tradition of martyr photography flourished during Mexico’s religiously motivated Cristero War (1926–29). Graphic photographic prints and postcards depicting executed Catholic activists and priests circulated widely during the conflict as a form of antigovernment propaganda, justifying comparisons of the Cristeros to the earliest persecuted Christians. Taking into account the iconographic and material features of these photographs as well as the medium’s particular ontological qualities, I explore how Cristero martyr images fulfilled comparable functions to early martyr narratives and relics by providing a compelling visual testimony and material trace of the martyr’s sacrifice. In these photographic images, the testimonial value and heightened verisimilitude of the early martyr text finds a parallel in a graphic documentary visual language that emerged with the increased mediatization of violence during the Revolution (1910–17). At the same time, these visual mementos sought to appeal to viewers on an affective level by drawing from long-standing iconographic vocabularies and material modes of devotional experience, most notably the tactile intimacy of the portable relic. Approaching the Cristero conflict from the analytical perspectives of visual culture and material religion, my research sheds new light on how Catholic activists conceptualized and justified violent sacrifice in their struggle for religious freedom while also making novel contributions to the history of Mexican photography. These complex visual artifacts reveal how Cristero propagandists utilized familiar religious images and concepts to provide a meaningful religious framework for their activism while also adapting strategies of martyr memorialization to the age of mechanical reproduction.