The Rurales is a Mexican Army gendarmerie unit which was founded in 1861 by President Benito Juarez. It was founded as a federal constabulary consisting of mounted, gray-uniformed rural policemen, and their goal was to contain the widespread banditry of the 1860s and 1870s. During the French Intervention of 1862-1867, the Rurales largely remained loyal to the republican government, but Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico created the 12,300-strong Resguardia to fulfill the functions of the Rurales. In 1869, the Rurales were re-established, and they had 1,000 members by 1875, providing mounted patrols for rail and road links, escorting gold and other valuable shipments, providing support for the federal Army when called upon, and protecting local elections. President Porfirio Diaz expanded the Rurales to nearly 2,000 men by 1889, and many captured banditos and revolutionaries were pressed into the Rurales' ranks. Under Diaz, the Rurales seldom took prisoners, but 25% of recruits deserted before completing their four-year enlistments due to their low pay (which had once been better than the Army), and only one in ten Rurales re-enlisted after completing their first term. As the Rurales never had more than 4,000 men, they were too thinly spread to ever eliminate unrest in the Mexican countryside, but they pacified the areas around Mexico City in order to attract foreign investment. During the Mexican Revolution, the Rurales sided with the federal government against the revolutionaries, and, while they were elite, they were too few in numbers to defeat the rebels. In 1914, the Rurales were disbanded on Victoriano Huerta's deposition, but they were revived in 1926 as the Rural Defense Corps. In 1970, the Rurales had a strength of 120,000, with 80,000 mounted and 40,000 dismounted policemen. In Michoacan, the government deployed the Rurales to fight against the cartels in the Mexican Drug War and crack down on vigilantism.
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