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Mexico's Royalist Coalition: The Response to Revolution 1808-1821Author(s): Brian R. HamnettSource: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 (May, 1980), pp. 55-86Published by: Cambridge University Press

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J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 2, 55-86 Printedin Great Britain

Mexico's Royalist Coalition: the Responseto Revolution I808-I82I

by BRIAN R. HAMNETT

Consensus politics delayed the achievement of Mexican independence.

The numerically small, but variegatedelites, regrouped in a common stand

against Hidalgo's revolutionarymovement in 1810. Themselves fragmented,

mutually antagonistic on central issues, they sank their differences for the

duration of the counter-revolutionary truggle. This re-forgedunity proved,needless to say, temporary.A tactical allianceconcealedfar-reachingdivisions:

ultimately, the removal of the revolutionary challenge created a new set of

circumstances.Under the impact of the Liberal regime's policies after 1820,the Royalist consensusor coalition began to disintegrate.Nevertheless, manyideas and attitudes of the

counter-revolutionarydecade survived

indepen-dence, and contributedeventually to the formationof a Mexican conservative

position in opposition to a native Liberalismsprung from Mexican roots. My

purposehere is to show how the Royalistcoalition came into being, delineate

its personnel and assessthe measureof its achievements.This, then, will be a

study of the elites. Perhaps the entire question of Mexican independencereduces itself to a readjustmentof positions among the groups constitutingthe elites. Even so, the displacement of the Spanish peninsular mercantile

and administrativecorpsfrom theirdominant position in New Spaininvolved

deeper economic and political repercussions than the preceding statementsuggests. Central to the matter were the practicalitiesof capital ownershipand fundamental principles of government. Change of considerablemagni-tude followed the achievementof Mexican independencein 1821.

The Mexican elites in September I8I0 took a decision to preserve the

political system as it then stood. That very action, however, pre-supposeda

change in itself, for the re-groupingat the politicalapex took placein responseto an attempt to alter from below the entire nature of the system. In the

vanguard of this revolutionary attempt were members of the provincial

bourgeoisie, members of the professional rather than the business classes,who sought to direct a mass popular uprising towards their own politicalgoals. This provincial bourgeoisie formed a junior segment of the Mexican

0022-2 6x/8o//lLS- T23 02.00 .? T980 Cambridge University Press

55







56 Brian R. Hamnett

elites. The ensuing conflict brought about a tightning of ideology, a re-

alignmentof forces and a

strengtheningof the role of the

militaryin

politicallife. Indeed, many members of the provincialbourgeoisie themselvesrecoiled

at the prospect of mass insurrection and co-operatedwith the Royalist effort

to suppressit. Given these conflicting political forces, it was clear that, in the

long run, Mexicowould neverbe the same again.

I

Fragmentationvitiated in practicethe colonial theoryof an organicsociety:

polarization brought it near to collapse. The centralizing absolutism of theGalvez period (1765-88) re-opened the friction between creole and penin-sular over the question of administrative appointments. Rash conclusions,however, should not be drawn from recent researchon creole exclusion. The

Galvez policies did not produce an independence movement: the issue

focussed instead on power-sharing and autonomy. The exclusion policycentred upon competition for audiencia positions at the apex of the decision-

making processwithin New Spain. Resentment and jealousy tended to hide

from view the real nature of the creole-peninsulardispute, which was one of

policy. In this dispute many members of the establishedpeninsular mercan-tile elite, often connected by marriage or business interests to the leadingcreole landowning and mine-operating families, tended to adopt a similar

political stance to their creole counterpartsand relatives.The reaction of the

Mexican elites to the efforts of the metropolitan government in Madrid to

bind the empire more tightly together may be seen in the two well-known

representationsby the municipal council of Mexico City to the Crown in

1771 and I792.'

These grievances amounted to a demand for

power-sharingbetween the

senior creole and peninsular elites within the context of a vice-regal systemunder the Bourbon monarchy. Under no circumstancesdo they point to any

separatist intent. Precisely these groups stood at the summit of colonial

society: they were the merchants, financiers, entrepreneurs, innovators,

large-scale landowners, noblemen, city councillors and, here and there,members of the bureaucracy: they were also the senior churchmen. They,

1British Museum (BM) Add. Mss. 13,975, Ayuntamiento of Mexico-CharlesIII,26 May I77I. JuanEusebioHernandezy Davalos, Coleccidnde documentosparala

historia de la guerrade la independenciade Mexicode i808 a 1821, 6 vols (Mexico,1877-82), I, Ayuntamiento-Charles IV, Mexico, 2 May I792, 427-54. The issue of

autonomy is clearly analysedin Doris M. Ladd, The MexicanNobility at Indepen-dence, 1780-1826 (Texas, I976), pp. 95-111, and by Timothy E. Anna, The Fall ofthe RoyalGovernment n MexicoCity(Nebraska,1978), pp. 35-63.







Mexico'sRoyalistCoalition:heResponse o Revolution 57

moreover, tended to be the principal creditors not only of the viceregal

governmentbut of the

metropolitan government

- in time of need - as well.

In short, these groups had the strongestvested interest in the perpetuationof

the monarchical system and the nobiliar titles and trappings that went with

it. However, they wanted this system to reflect their own interests: for that

reason they hated Godoy and rallied in i808 to the cause of the youngFerdinand VII, who seemed to stand for a general redress of grievances.Their objective,then, was not revolution but revindication.2

Nevertheless, the Mexican political situation at the turn of the century

posed considerableproblems for the survival of metropolitanauthority.The

point of danger lay not among the creoles but within the ranks of thepeninsulares. Galvez had sought to reassert peninsular primacy in New

Spain and to diminish the position of the long-establishedmembers of the

peninsular group. Instead, his single-minded endeavour resulted in a serious

division within peninsular ranks at precisely the time of mounting creole

resentment at exclusion. These internal divisions involved mattersof bureau-

craticorganizationand practice: they extended to the entire regime of finance

and the economy. Furthermore,the Madridgovernment'seffortsto terminate

administrative and commercial abuses such as the repartimiento suggested

a full reappraisalof policy where the Indian and mestizo mass of the popu-lation was concerned. Under the impact of later Bourbon legislation the

peninsulares divided into two antagonistic groups of 'older' and 'newer'

merchants, the former upholding the privileged status of the Consulado of

Mexico, the latter defending the Consuladosof Veracruz and Guadalajara,establishedin 1795. Similarly, the introductionof the Intendant system after

1786 divided the bureaucracy nto 'older' and 'newer' groups. The former

strove, like the 'older' merchants,through pressurewithin the administrative

organsin Mexico

Cityand Madrid to obstruct,dilute or reverse those

aspectsof Bourbon policy which conflicted with their own interests. Since, in anycase, the metropolitan and viceregal governments consisted of individuals

not unanimously committed to a programme of clearly defined reforms for

the monarchy as a whole, this pressuregenerally found a soft, receding spot.We witness, then, especiallyin the I79os and i8oos, the paradoxof govern-mental organisms subverting their own policies. Such a case in point was the

unilateral suspension of the prohibition of the repartimiento contained in

2 For the literatureon exclusion,see D. A. Brading,Miners and Merchants in Bourbon

Mexico, 1763-1810 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 40-2 (i0 peninsulares and 5 creoles inthe Audiencia of Mexico in 1779), and Mark A. Burkholder and D. S. Chandler,From Impotence to Authority. The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias,i687-i808 (Missouri, I977), pp. 9i-9, o08(Mexicans after 1776 lost control ofdomesticpolicy).







58 BrianR. Hamnett

article 12 of the Ordinance of Intendants (I786) by the Mexican Junta

Superiorde Real Hacienda in

I795.Where it

proved impossibleto reverse

a reform measure, the old tended to co-exist alongside the new. In this waythe Consulado of Mexico, which Revillagigedo (1789-94) had, at his most

lyrical, wished to see abolishedoutright, survived throughout the remainder

of the colonial period alongside the two newer mercantile guilds. The office

of viceroy, absolute monarch in New Spain, survived intact, despite the

abortive attempt to weaken it through the creation of a separate financial

superior,the SuperintendenteSubdelegadode Real Hacienda. The Audiencia

remained the viceroy'sconsultativecommittee on policy as the Real Acuerdo,

even though the Intendant system, central to the Galvez concept of adminis-trative personnel dependent directly upon Madrid, subsisted beside it.

Despite the early idealism placed in the Subdelegates, the Intendants' sub-

ordinates in the locality, these virtually unpaid officials rapidly degeneratedinto the same abusesas the alcaldesmayores,their predecessors.3

If the day-to-dayfinancial administration of the Intendants and the far-

reaching economic changes of the later eighteenth century had not inter-

vened to dispel such an impression,a superficialglance at the stateof politicallife in the viceroyaltyof New Spain at the turn of the century would have

suggested that inertia, or worse, paralysis, had fallen upon it. In effect, aseries of political positions had been taken, which counterbalanced each

other. They were basically four: they correspondedto the various elites, the

views of which they articulated.In the firstplace stood the 'older' mercantile

and bureaucraticgroups of the Consulado and Audiencia of Mexico, the

Tribunal de Cuentas and the Junta Superior de Real Hacienda; secondly,

3 These issues are discussed in detail in Brading, ibid., 102-27, and in Brian R.

Hamnett, Politics and Trade in Southern Mexico, i750-1821 (Cambridge, I97I),

pp. 7I-98, I48-55, I77-82. 'Older' merchants:Antonio Bassoco(Basque,receivedthe title of Count in 181I), Juan de Castafiiza(Basque,title of Marquis, I772), the

Fagoaga brothers(investors in the silver mines of Zacatecasand Bolafios),PedroAlonso de Alles (from Asturias, married a Mexican from Durango in 1778, title of

Marquis in 1792), Pedro Gonzalez Noriega (in the i79os became a Cuernavaca

sugar-estate owner), Diego de Agreda, Juan Fernando Meoquf, the Conde de la

Cortina (a montanies), Gabriel de Yermo (meat-supplier for Mexico City, sugar

planter of the Cuernavaca region) and others. In 1787 the Consulado of Mexicoconsisted of seventy-five members. 'Newer' merchants: Thomas Murfi (Consulado of

Veracruz), Juan Bautista de Lobo, Pedro Miguel de Echeverria, Domingo Lagoa,

Joaquin del Castillo (a Veracruz city councillor in I799), Jose Ignacio de la Torre,

Gregorio Garcia del Corral and others. See, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Apunteshistoricos de la heroica ciudad de Veracruz, 3 vols (Mexico, .1850-3), I, 339, 385-7;II, 5 -3. For the members of the Consulado of Guadalajara see Archivo General de

Indias (AGI), Seville: Audiencia de Mexico, leg. T144, Diputados del comercio-

Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola, Guadalajara 20 August 1791.







Mexico's Royalist Coalition: the Response to Revolution 59

were the 'newer' mercantile and bureaucraticelite of the Consulados of

Veracruz andGuadalajara

and the reformist members of the Intendant

corps such as Flon, Riafio and Mora y Peysal in Puebla, Guanajuato and

Oaxaca respectively; the third position was that of the creole elite, which

sought to recovera voice, if not control, in the decision-making process, that

is, to reverse the Galvez policies: here.the career and political stance of the

Regente Gamboa cut across positions (i) and (iii); the fourth position was

held by the creole provincial bourgeoisie, a disgruntled, resentful, proto-nationalistgroup that sought to take political advantage of creole-peninsular

antagonism, in order to displace the senior elites from their decisive positions

in the political processes. Lawyers, junior militia officers, members of thelower secular clergy, small landowners provided the personnelof this group:the embryo of later Liberalism. Given the frequent provincial resentment at

continued dominance from the centre core region, this group would providethe seed-bedof a subsequentfederalistposition .

Clearly, peninsular reformism found itself caught between the pressureof

(i) and (iii): by March I 808 little remained of the absolutist centralism of the

era of Galvez and Revillagigedo. Instead, an uneasy patchwork of balances

and compromises ensured the co-existence of the deeply-rooted with such

elements of innovation that had managed against the odds to survive inbarren soil. Galvez had been warned by Viceroy Bucareli (I771-9) not to

tamper with the precariousbalance of forces within the Mexican political

system. He had boldly ignored this advice. Yet, the balance had not been

upset. The metropolitan government had been neither strong enough nor

consistentenough to enforce the Galvez policies; the viceregaladministration

had, in any case, a realisticcomprehensionof the limits of the possible. Even

4 For Gamboa, see Brading, ibid., pp. 41-5, 70-1. Another case in point is Jacobo de

Villaurrutia, b. Santo Domingo, the creole oidor of the Audiencia of Mexico, whosupported the autonomy projects of I8o8 and was chosen as one of the electors inthe parish elections of 29 November I812 under the Cadiz Constitution. See Anna,ibid., pp. 42, 56, iii. 'Older' does not necessarily denote either age or length of

stay in New Spain: it denotes the type of political position adopted with regard tothe Bourbon centralising measures. Brading stresses the newness of the Guanajuatoelite: 'Guanajuato's elite was almost entirely composed of recent arrivals, new rich,

gachupin merchants and creole miners,' ibid., pp. 318-19. With regard to the creole

bourgeoisie, Ladd, ibid., p. 29, suggests a class struggle within the ranks of theelites: 'creole-peninsular strife was evidently a class interest sustained by the middle

groups to protest immigrant preference in office and in managerial positions. It was

clearly an interest that was not shared by the elites.' (i.e. the senior echelons.)Members of this creole bourgeoisie.would be: Miguel Dominguez, :b. Guanajuato1756,. Miguel Hidalgo. y Costilla, b. Hacienda: de .Corralejo 1753, Carlos Maria de

Bustamante, b. Antequera de Oaxaca .774,. Lorenzo de Zavala, Andres Quintana

Roo, Ignacio Allende, Ignacio L6pez Ray6n, and others.







60 BrianR. Hamnett

so, change had taken place, and, as a result, a new balance had by the

earlyi 8oos at last

emerged,the nature of which demonstrated

unequivocallythe resilience of (i) and (iii) and the self-assertionof the factors of conti-

nuity.5

Spain's wartime failures between I796 and i808 and the credit-raisingmeasure known as the Consolidacion de Vales Reales, adopted by Viceroy

Iturrigaray(1803-8), forced a further readjustmentof the political balance.

This time we witness a coincidence of sentiments among all three groups in

oppositionto the policiesof CharlesIV's favourite,Godoy.The Consolidacion

de Vales Reales left a once popular viceroy precariouslyisolated, as, within

the peninsula itself, the entire regime began to totter towards a final disinte-gration.6 Ten years previously it would have seemed incredible that the

Consulados of Mexico and Veracruz could be found on the same politicalside; that theywere at this point was the measureof the impactof Iturrigaray's

policies upon the peninsulares. The creole notability, moreover, found itself

equally adverselyaffectedwith regardto the Consolidacion.7

II

During the political crisis of July-September I808 other factors enteredthe political spectrum. In the first place the collapseof the Bourbon absolute

monarchy in the peninsula during the motin de Aranjuez thrust upon the

Mexican elites the task of devising an effective method of preventing the

viceroyalty's incorporationinto the Bonaparteempire. Notwithstanding the

presence of the British fleet in the Atlantic, the political vacuum in Spain

obliged each group at the apex of Mexican society to concentrateupon the

centre of power. During this summer crisis groups (i) and (iii) once again

5 Hamnett, ibid., pp. 72-94.6 E. Lafuente Ferrari, El virrey Iturrigarayy los origenes de la independencia de

Mejico (Madrid, I941), pp. 4I-4. Brian R. Hamnett, 'The Appropriation of Mexican

ChurchWealth by the Spanish Bourbon Government.The 'Consolidaci6n de Vales

Reales,' I805-1809,' Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. I, No. 2 (Nov., 1969),pp. 85-113. Among those affected were the Conde de Regla, the Fagoaga family,the Alles heir,now Marquesde SantaCruzde Inguanzo, the Condede la Valenciana,Antonio Bassoco,the Marquesde Castafiiza,the Conde de la Cortina, the Marquesde Selva Nevada and Gabrielde Yermo.Localcreolefamilies such as the Allendes inSan Miguel el Grande and the Murguias and Castillejosin Oaxaca forfeited sub-stantial sums. Ladd, ibid., pp. 96-104, strikingly places the Consolidacion n the

background o the demandfor autonomy.7 A broaderdiscussionmay be found in Brian R. Hamnett, 'MercantileRivalryandPeninsular Division: The Consuladosof New Spain and the Impactof the Bourbon

Reforms, 1780-I824,' Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv N.F., Jg. 2 (1976), pp. 273-

305.







Mexico'sRoyalistCoalition: heResponse o Revolution 61

diverged, eventually polarizing into complete opposition. Yet it was not a

nakedpower struggle

between theAyuntamiento

and the Audiencia. The

former did not appear to envisage the total separationof peninsulares from

the government of New Spain. Still less did the city notables propose to

remove themselves from the Spanish imperial system.8 Indeed, the tension

seems to have been caused by the Audiencia's intransigence in consistently

portraying this mild creole argument of devolution, presented by Azcarate

and Verdad, as outright separatism, and behaving accordingly. The

gachupin coup during the night of 15 September I808 was not, then,directed against the cause of Mexican independence - except in the imagina-

tion of the peninsulares,but, in fact, against the principle of self-governmentwithin the empireon the basisof power-sharing.9

The crisishad sprungfromIturrigaray'sreluctance to declareunequivocallyin favour of the rights of Ferdinand VII and adhere to one or other of the

peninsular juntas of resistanceto the French. Whether the viceroy aspiredto

weave his way between competing factions in Mexico City or had yielded to

pressure from the cabildo remains difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, five

juntasconvened by him met in the capitalbetween 3 August and 9 SeptemberI808. In consequence,the gachupines assumedthat the viceroyhad conceded

without resistance the creole argument that New Spain constituted a king-dom in its own right. These juntas contained representativesof both the

creole and peninsular interests: landowners, mineowners, merchants, civil

servants,city councillors, academics,churchmen and soldiers. Their attitudes

coincided upon the basic matter of preservationof the existing social struc-

ture. The issue in dispute devolved simply upon a small extension of the

number of individuals involved in the decision-making process. Autonomist

political theory remained vague. From their tentative proposals, it appearsthat Azcarate and Verdad

tacitlyassumed the continuation of the sociedad

estamental, which had characterizedcolonial behaviour, if not its juridicalstructure. They floundered through nebulous realms. The desire implicit in

their recommendations for Mexico's political future amounted to a restora-

8 For the cabildo, see Anna, ibid., pp. 26-3I. There were twenty-fivemembers, ofwhom four had to be peninsulares:it representedthe double constituencyof thesenior elite (autonomy)and the creole bourgeoisie.See also LucasAlaman, Historiade Mejico,5 vols (Mexico, 1849-52), I, 93. For a parallelstudyof the Pueblacabildo,see Reinhard Liehr, Ayuntamiento y oligarquia en Puebla, 1787-i8Io, 2 vols

(Mexico, I976), I, III-I8; II, 142-57.

9 Including the Regente, Pedro Catani, the audienciaconsisted of fifteen members:eight oidores, the principal being the decano, CiriacoGonzalez Carvajal,and thethree staunch absolutists, Guillermo Aguirre, Miguel Bataller and Jose AriasVillafafie;three alcaldesdel crimen and threefiscales.AGI Mexico 1320, Iturrigaray-MiguelCayetanoSoler,No. 564, Mexico24 May i808.







62 Brian R. Hamnnett

tion of an idealized traditionalor corporativeconstitutionalism. Such versions

of corporaterepresentation n the form of a Mexican Cortes of Estates hadnever existed in New Spain through the deliberate choice of the absolute

monarchy that they should not. To all intents and purposes Azcarate and

Verdad placed the cabildos - in particular, that of Mexico City, which,

thoroughly in the tradition of viceregalcentralism,they saw in the leadership- at the core of this system of representationby Estates. Since these citycouncils remainedclosed,hereditaryand unreformed,the creolestancecannot

be describedas an authenticupsurgeby the Third Estate.10

The viceroy's intention to convene a Mexican Congress in September

proved to be the immediate impulse to the gachutpincoup. Yermo's removalof Iturrigaray n this conspiracyby the Audiencia and Consulado of Mexico

and the arrestof the creole leaders ended the prospect of peaceful evolution

towards self-governmentwithin the empire. Similarly, it deprived the creole

notabilityof taking the initiative in reshapingthe political life of New Spain.Mexico City and the centre core region lost the leadershipin the movement

for devolution and power-sharing.Although the peninsular coup for a time

appearedto reassertthe dominant role of the capitalcity as the centreof vice-

regal and bureaucraticpower, this blow to the city's creole elite proved to

have long-term consequences. It signified that initiatives would henceforthcome from the provinces. In that respect, their distinct social, ethnic and

economic conditionswould colour their politicalorientation.

Violent hostility among the creoles towards the golpistas led, however, to

no national rising against them. The swift, well-organized coup capitalized

upon the disaffection felt towards the Iturrigaray regime. Furthermore, two

elite groups, the membership of which cut across creole-peninsularorigins,at this point entered the political spectrumas activeparticipants n defence of

group (i). These new participantswere the ecclesiasticalhierarchy and thearmy officer corps. In September I808, each made its first decisive politicalcommitment in the period we are discussing. They made it in favour of

sustaining the existing peninsularvested interests.For this reason,group (iii)had no option but to witness its own incorporation into this coalition of

traditionalists. In effect, for the ordinary member of the creole noble and

professional classes in group (iii) - beyond the ideological vanguard - the

coup of 1808 signified an abruptand unpleasantcalling into line.

10 Jose Miranda,Las ideas y las institucionespoliticas mexicanas, 1521-1821 (Mexico,I952), pp. 304-I0; Anna Macias, Genesis del gobierno constitucionalen Mexico,1808-1821 (Mexico, 1973), pp. I6-28. Ladd, ibid., pp. 95-III; Anna, ibid., pp. 35-63. Supportfor autonomy came from certain members of the creole nobility: the

Marquesesde Guardiola,San Juande Rayasand Uluapa,and the Condes de Sierra-

gorda,Casa Alta and Santiago.








The coup succeeded by virtue of the newly rediscovered unity of the

peninsular administrative, legaland mercantile

interests, actingin alliance

with the ecclesiasticalhierarchy and with the officer corps, which morallyand physically guaranteed the replacement of one regime by another. The

new viceroy, Garibay, a senior army officer, established an extraordinary

court, the Junta de Seguridad y Buen Orden, on 26 June 1809, in order to

circumvent creole-administeredcourts in cases of suspected treason. It there-

after became deliberate government policy to regard political dissent as

subversion,and punish offendersaccordingly.

III

Opposition to the revolution of September I810, launched by Hidalgofrom the village of Dolores, marked the second decisive political commit-

ment by the ecclesiasticalhierarchyand the army officer corpsin this period.Their unequivocal alignment behind the viceregalgovernment provided the

Royalistcause with powerful weapons of persuasionand coercion. In essence,the Queretaro conspiracy, out of which sprang Hidalgo's abortive rising,

sought like the preceding Valladolid conspiracyof 1809, to reverse the coup

of September I808. Both movements considered the possibility of a risingfrom within the creole militia. Lack of confidence in effective support, how-

ever, encouraged the plotters to broach the controversial matter of mass

participation.Hidalgo's decision to appeal to the mestizo and Indian masses

ensured initial military successes,but, in the long run, solidified the adhesion

of the creole propertied classes to the Royalist regime, heir of the coup of

i8o8.11

The vagueness of Hidalgo's professedaims and the sparsityof his political

pronouncementsmade it

exceedinglydifficult to determine whether his

movement can be describedas an attemptedseparatistputsch launched from

the provinces. The profession of loyalty to Ferdinand VII confused matters

considerably. If the revolution had intended to avenge the deposition of

Iturrigaray,then it certainlyfailed to elicit the desired support in the capital

11 Ernesto de la Torre Villar, La Constitucidn de Apatzingdn y los creadores del estado

mexicano (Mexico, 1964), p. 32. Hugh M. Hamill, Jr., The Hidalgo Revolt. Preludeto Mexican Independence (Florida, I966), pp. 36-8. By the autumn of i8o8 Itur-

rigaray had amassed a militia force of some 12,000 troops at Jalapa, Orizaba and

C6rdoba: junior creole officers, such as Lieutenant Jose Mariano Michelena, instigatorof the Valladolid conspiracy, Captain Ignacio Allende and Captain Juan de Aldama,associates of Hidalgo in I8Io, trained there. For a recent major study of the army,see Christon I. Archer, The Army in Bourbon Mexico, I76o-I810 (New Mexico,

1978).







64 Brian R. Hamnett

city, for Azcarate condemned the rising before the College of Lawyers on

x January181 as an assaultupon civilization and orderand a threatto theeconomy.l2 It was this social and economic dimension that ensured the

alienation of the propertied creoles, irrespective of the moderate politicalstance of such revolutionaryeaders asAllende and Ray6n. Despite the latter's

refusal to abandon the initial commitment to uphold the King's sovereign

rights in New Spain, notably in his Elementos constitucionalesof 4 Septem-ber I8I2, and in his subsequent repudiation of his signature of the Act of

Independenceof 6 November 1813, the creole propertiedclassesappearedto

prefer a golpista regime backed by extraordinarycourts to the revolutionary

movement.l3 Initially, then, the creole fear of Hidalgo's rising greatly sur-passed their resentment at the exclusion from audiencia and other positionsas a result of the Galvez policies. Similarly, fear for life and property re-

conciled them to the peninsular group which had inflicted upon their van-

guard the political debacleof I 808.

Thus it seemed on the surface of things. The opportunity for devolution

had been lost in the coup; separatism,or simply revenge at the frustrationof

devolution, could not rally the creole notability in I8Io. Whatever creole

leverage might be exercised, it would have to be done within the context of

a peninsular-dominatedRoyalist regime. Once, however, the Spanish Cortes

had opened on the Isla de Leon on 24 September 181o, creole political aims

became dedicated towards altering the balance of forces within the Royalistcoalition. Nevertheless, the reinforcement of the traditionalpolitical positionof the Consulado and Audiencia of Mexico as a result of the coup of i808

and the clear intention of Viceroy Venegas (I810-13) to maintain as much

of the formerlyabsolutepower of his office as he could, considerablyobstruc-

ted this endeavour.14The strength of the government itself increased in

proportion to its recovery of the major cities briefly lost to the insurgents:Guanajuato on 25 November I8I0, Guadalajara on 2I January and San

Luis Potosi on 5 March 181 . The architectof the military victorywas Felix

Calleja, who had arrivedin Mexico with the younger Viceroy Revillagigedoin 1789, helped to realize Branciforte'smilitia projects,and had married into

one of the principal creole landed families of San Luis Potosi in I807. In

12 Hamill, ibid., pp. I73, 243.13 Alaman, ibid., I, 370; II, 334-5; IV, 666. Torre Villar, ibid., pp. 358-61.14 Nettie Lee Benson (ed.), Mexico and the Spanish Cortes,1810-1822 (Texas, I966),

pp. 8, 70-3. The viceroy gnoredmetropolitanorders to abolishthe Juntasof Security,and used the abortiveconspiracyof August I811 as the pretextfor imposing virtualmartial law in the capital under the aegis of a new Junta of Police and Public

Security,which superseded he older bodyand managedthe internalpassport ystem.Anna, ibid., pp. 78-82.








many respectsCalleja,viceroyfrom 1813 until 816, is the key figure duringthis

phaseof the

Royalistcoalition, but he has

only recentlybeen studied as

such. Clearly, his marriageconnection with the de la Gandarafamily and his

long command of the local regiments of militia made him a desirablecandi-

date for a creole-peninsularrapprochementat the highest levels.15

Viceroys Venegas and Calleja governed New Spain at a time of revo-

lutionary civil war, in the midst of which the Imperial Cortes in Cadiz

strove to implant a new political system, which provided the creoles with

access to governing institutions at three levels. In the first place, Mexican

deputies attended the Cortes itself, actively shared in its discussions and

decisions, and helped to write the Constitutionof 1812. At the second level,creoles took office in the regions with the eventual installation of the new

administrative committees, the Diputaciones Provinciales in 813 and I814.At the local level, creoles staffed the elective municipal councils, the

Ayuntamientos Constitucionales.l6 The Audiencia and Consulado, ever fear-

ful that constitutionalism might become the prelude to separatism, under-

standably opposed this creole accession to the institutions of decision and

administration. Similarly, Spanish peninsular merchants, magistrates and

civil servantstenaciouslyresistedany alteration of the balanceof forceswithin

the Royalist coalition, for the logical consequenceof these creolegains wouldbe a recrudescenceof the demand for power-sharingwhich the coup of 1808

15 J. Ignacio Rubio Mafie, 'Antecedentes del Virrey de Nueva Espafia, Felix Maria

Calleja,'Boletin del Archivo General de la Nacion I ser., Vol. xix, No. 3 (July-Sept.1948), pp. 323-30; M. Meade, 'Don Felix Maria Calleja del Rey. Actividadesanteriores a la Guerra de la Independencia,'ibid., II ser., Vol. i, No. I (I960),

pp. 59-86. Jose de J. Nfiez y Dominguez, La virreina mexicana. Dona MariaFrancisca de la Gandarade Calleja(Mexico, 1950). Both Anna, ibid., pp. 68, 85-9,and Archer, bid.,pp. 202-3, stressthe roleof Calleja.

16 Constitucidn politica de la monarquia espafiola (Cadiz, I812), arts. I, 3, I8, 23-7,34-8, 59-77, 78-I03, defined the Spanish nation, sovereigntyand citizenship, andlaid down the rules for the electoralprocedurein a system based upon equalitybefore the law and representationaccordingto population;arts. 324-35 dealt withthe provincial deputations;arts. 309-I8 with the elected municipalities.Details ofthe elections may be found in Archivo General de la Naci6n (AGN), Mexico, ramode Historia, tome 445, Diputados a Cortes. Elecciones, i809-i8I3. After I8IItwenty-one Mexican deputies sat in the Cortes, among them: Jose CayetanoFoncerrada(Michoacan),JoaquinManiau(Veracruz),MarianoMendiola(Queretaro),Antonio Joaquin Perez (Puebla), Jose Maria Couto (New Spain), Dr Jose MiguelGuridiy Alcocer(Tlaxcala),JoseMiguelGordoa(Zacatecas) nd JoseMariaGutierrez

de Teran (New Spain).Neither Juande Dios Cafiedonor Juan JoseEspinosade losMonteros, elected in 1813 for Guadalajaraand Guanajuatorespectively,appeartohave reached the Cortes. These deputiestended to reflect the attitudes of the creole

professionalbourgeoisie;many of them were members of the lower clergy or the

legal profession.







66 BrianR. Hamnett

had frustrated.17The viceroys had no intention of altering their customarymethod of

government,constitutional

changesor not. Initial creole electoral

gains in the preliminary stages for the selection of members of the Ayunta-miento Constitucional of Mexico City on 29 November I812, provided

Venegas with a pretext for suspending the constitutionalguaranteeof libertyof the press on 5 December. Alleging public unruliness as a result of the

victories, Venegas suspended the completion of these elections and delayedthose to the Diputacion Provincial of Mexico. The latter did not finallyconvene until 13 July i814. This suspensiondid not, however, apply outside

the capital city for municipal elections or outside the province of Mexico for

the deputations.18The viceroy's actions were illegal; they had been taken inReal Acuerdo, that is in conjunctionwith the Audiencia meeting as the vice-

regal consultative committee on policy and matters of State. The I812

Constitution had restrictedthe Audiencia to a purely judicial role, under the

principle of separationof powers. Calleja, however, did not lift the suspen-sion of freedom of the press after his accessionto office in March 813. The

new viceroy, appreciating the necessity of conciliation, did, nevertheless,allow the electoral procedureto continue after April. His disillusionment at

the result, which showed a victory in the election to the OrdinaryCortes for

candidates regarded by the government as the 'opposition', led to the out-

right prohibition of the elected deputies, Ignacio Adalid, a creole, and

J. M. Fagoaga, a Spanish Liberal, from proceeding to the assembly. Both

Venegas and Calleja chose to justify their measures of restriction of the

constitutionalprocesseson the grounds that creole participantswere nothingbut crypto-insurgents.This allegation, however, could backfire, for govern-ment failure to observe the Constitutionto the letter might encouragecreoles

to adopt a more favourable attitude towards the separatist revolutionaries,who themselveshad evolved towards a constitutionalist

positionnot

radicallydissimilarto that of Cadiz. Indeed, a circleof conspirators,centredupon the

professional classes, and known as Los Guadalupes, had already contacted

Morelos in 1812. Suspension of liberty of the press brought about the

defection of the Oaxaquefio lawyer, Carlos Maria Bustamante, from the

Royalist camp, followed by other professionalmen such as Andres QuintanaRoo and Juan Nepomuceno Rosains. Their influence, especially after the

demise of the clericalcaudillos, gradually diluted the messianic aspectsof the

17 AGI Indiferente General IIO, Expediente sobre levantamiento e independencia

(1818), Audiencia - Regency Council, Mexico 18 November 1813. M. S. Alperovich,Historia de la Independencia de Mexico, 1810-1824 (Mexico, 1967), pp. I57-8.

18 AGI Mexico 1822, Expedientes inventariados(i813-i814), Venegas - Minister of

War, Mexico I4 December 1812. Nettie Lee Benson, 'The Contested MexicanElection of 1812', HAHR Vol. 26, No. 3 (Aug., 1946), pp. 336-50.








revolution and bestowed upon it the aspect of a liberal constitutionalist

movement. Suchdevelopments, however, proved

ineffectual in face of

Calleja's victories. On 2 January I812 Calleja took Zitacuaro, seat of the

insurgent provisional government. The Congress of Chilpancingo met in

September 1813 as a divided gathering, hardly more than a committee, of

insurgent leaders. The Act of Independence on 6 November 1813 and the

Constitution of Apatzingan on 22 October 1814 causedlittle stir at the time.

Bustamante and his associates formed a tiny minority of creole defectors;most of their fellows chose not to identify themselves with the caudillo,

Morelos, despite the latter's proclaimed opposition to race and class war.

Therefore, the creole propertied classes remained imprisoned within theconfines of the Royalist coalition, with little possibility of increasing their

gains and decisively tilting the political balance in their favour.19

By the time we reach the Constitutions of 1812 (Cadiz) and 1814

(Apatzingan), we find that Mexican political ideology has evolved consider-

ably from the cautious traditionalism of i808. We have now passed well

beyond the frontiers of early Liberalism. Nevertheless, the principles of

separation of powers, representation according to population rather than

estate, and equality before the law held the vanguard of political thought.While many peninsulares might hanker after the old absolutism, a sub-stantial number of creoles dreamed of the kind of hypothetical corporativerestorationpropounded by Azcarate and Verdad in 1808. This latterpositiondid not die in the coup against Iturrigaray. It survived in the minds of

conservative opponents of Liberalism and separatismto form the doctrinal

rootsof an indigenous MexicanConservativePartyduring the second quarterof the nineteenth century. Already, then, in the issues of the I18 os, debated

both within and without the Cortes in Cadiz or Madrid, we can point to the

existence of a conservative-liberalpolemic

on theideological plane,

which

frequently tended to cut across the creole-peninsulardivision. Even so, this

political argument derived its origin from Mexican social and economic

realities; it did not exist apartfrom it, as if it were an alien accretion. On the

contrary, the polemic involved the problem of Mexico's social structure and

economic organization, matters which in themselves had brought about the

explosion of 1810.20

19 AGI ibid., Ores - Regency Council, Mexico 14 December I812. W. H. Timmons,'Los Guadalupes.A Secret Society in the Mexican Revolution for Independence',

HAHR Vol. 30, No. 4 (Nov., I950), pp. 453-79; Torre Villar, ibid., pp. 291-326,

380-406. TorreVillar, bid.,Decretode Morelos,Tecpan I3 OctoberI8I I, pp.335-6.20 The Extraordinaryand OrdinaryCortes(I8I0-I4) split into factions over the issues

of sovereignty,limitation of royal power, the structureof the representativenstitu-tions and Church-Staterelations. While the 1812 Constitution in arts. 249-50







68 BrianR. Hamnett

Regional sentiments and interests characterized much of Mexican life.

Nevertheless,the Cadiz Constitution had striven to bind the

empiremore

tightly together. The definition of sovereignty precluded any suggestion of

American separatism, and confined representationto the Imperial Cortes

which met in the peninsula. There were to be no devolved American

assemblies. Furthermore, this Constitution continued and extended the

Galvez principlesof centralization. Let us not confuse ourselves over termin-

ology at this point. The introductionof the Intendanciesafter 1786 had not

been a measure of decentralization within the viceroyalty,for the Intendants

were nominated not by the viceroy or Audiencia, but by the metropolitan

government in Madrid. They were not designed to respond to regionalsentiments, but to representthe authorityof a centralgovernment in Madrid

intent upon affirming the plenitude of absolute power which it claimed by

right. The viceroy was preciselythe devolved authoritywhich the Intendants

were meant to supersede,but whom, due to the abortednature of the many

aspectsof the Galvez reforms, they never did. Similarly, the 1812 Constitu-

tion repeated this endeavour of Enlightened Absolutism, and in doing so

revealedyet anothermajorobjectiveof that period which had been inherited

by early Spanish Liberalism, imperialist and centralizing. Nor should this

occurrence cause any surprise.The Cortes sat in Cadiz, principal port of the

Spanish American trade. Following in Galvez's footsteps, the 1812 Constitu-

tion reduced the viceroy'sfaculties. The latterbecame merely Jefe Politico of

New Spain proper. Callejacomplainedthat he barelyknew what his powerswere. This official was strictly an appointee of the metropolitangovernmentat the provincial level, directly responsible to the Regency Council. The

Intendant system continued, though confined to administrativematters, at

the level beneath the Jefe Politico, until the Cortes should introduce its pro-

jected legislationfor the formation of

departments,modelled on those of

RevolutionaryFrance, which had completed the centralizing measures of the

absolute monarchs by suppressing the old provincial divisions. The lefePolitico presided over the Diputacion Provincial. This latter body was not

designed to act as an embryonic state legislature within a federal system,but as an elective agency for the implementation of central government

policies, with the concomitantfacultyof consultation.21

preserved he fueros militar and eclesidstico, he Cortes in September1813 abolished

guilds and alteredthe structureof taxation.

21 Constitucion, bid., arts. 324-35. Nettie Lee Benson, La Diputacion provincial y elfederalismo mexicano (Mexico, I955), pp. 30-4I. There were six such bodies -

Merida, installed on 23 April 1813; Guadalajara, 20 September 18I3; Monterrey,21 March I814; Durango, 13 July 1814; San Luis Potosi, not installed; Mexico,I3 July I8I4.








Intentions in Cadiz counted for much where plans were concerned; theystood little chance of

implementation, however,if

theyconflictedwith social

realities.The centripetalismof the doceanistasencountered the shifting rocks

of centrifugal regionalism and broke in fragments across them. The reduc-

tion of viceregal power combined with civil war and perennial difficulties of

communications to provide the conditions for the emergence of military

satrapies in Guadalajara under General Cruz and in Monterrey under

Arredondo, virtually independent of Mexico City. At the same time Calleja's

protege, the creole Colonel Agustin de Iturbide, his position resting uponthe Celaya Regiment, dominated the counter-revolutionarystruggle in the

Intendancies of Guanajuato and Michoacan. Similarly, insurgent caudillossuch as Vicente Guerrero,Juan Alvarez and GuadalupeVictoria held out in

mountain strongholdsor remoteregions.22While the Cortes sought to bind the empire together by offering the

constitutionas the common platformfor a redressof grievancesin both hemi-

spheres, political struggles within and without the assembly shattered these

aspirations.Over questions of ideology, institutions and Church-State rela-

tions, the deputies in the Cortes, irrespectiveof their provenance, divided

into antagonistic factions. Four Mexican deputies adhered to the Manifesto

of the Persians of 12 April I814, which appealed to a newly arrivedFerdinand VII to dissolve the Cortes, revoke the Constitution and convene,

instead, a traditional cortes of estates or orders on the idealized medieval

model. The traditionalist or servil Manifesto provided the King with the

political opening to spring a rapid coup d'etat with the aid of an aggrievedsection of the regular army. The coup of Io-II May I814 enabled the arrest

of many Liberal leadersand supporters,such as the MexicandeputiesManiau

(Veracruz) and Ramos Arizpe (Coahuila), on the grounds that they had

participatedin a

Jacobin-inspired conspiracyto

stripthe monarch of his

sovereignty.23

22 JustoSierra,Evolucidnpoliticadel pueblo mexicano(Mexico, I957), pp. 163, I67-8.Villoro,ibid., pp. 187-8. AGI Mexico I830, PedroSomoza- SM,Mexico29 Februaryand 31 March I816. This writer accused Iturbideof making a businessout of thewar.

23 Perez, Foncerrada,Angel Alonso y Pantiga(Yucatan)and SalvadorSanmartfn NewSpain), Representaciony Manifiestoque algunos diputadosa las Cortes Ordinarias

firmaron .. etc., I2 April I8I4. In contrast, Ferdinand VII compiled a list ofexaltadosto be arrested;Americans'names were Maniau,RamosArizpe, Octaviano

Obregon (New Spain), Gordoa, Couto, Guridi y Alcocer, Gutierrez de Teran, andJose Miguel de Quijano (Merida),BN (BibliotecaNacional, Madrid)MSS 12,463,no. I2, Conde de Buenavista, f. 46-53, Madrid,28 May I8I4. The trialsof Maniau.and Ramos Arizpe are found in Archivo Hist6rico Nacional, Madrid (AHN),Consejo6297 and 6298, Comisionde Causasde Estado(1915), respectively.







70 Brian R. Hamnett

By 5 October, Callejahad completelydismantled the constitutionalsystemin New

Spain.The

viceroy therebynullified the creole

political gainson the

two levels, regional and local, and re-asserted his former power. The

Audiencias similarly reverted to their pre-constitutionalposition. In this way

hopes for the possible viability of a middle position between absolutism and

separatismwere dealt a bitter blow. It should not be assumed, however, that

such a via media had during the first constitutionalperiod come to anything

resembling effective realization, for everything depended upon, first, the

objectivesof the Cortes- which were imperialistand centralist,and secondly,on the attitude and behaviour of the Royalist authorities in Mexico City -

which remainedessentially absolutistand peninsular-orientated.24

IV

With the restorationof absolutism in the summer and autumn of i814,the Royalist government in Mexico City, on the offensive in the struggle

against the insurgents, assumed a deceptive aspect of strength. Nevertheless,the aspirationsof Liberals,peninsularor creole, had sufferedsharp repulse.25The Ayuntamiento and Consulado of Veracruz, partisans of the constitu-

tional system, had been cowed into conformity. It appearedas though thepolitical situation had returnedto the days of September I808. The captureand execution of Matamoros and Morelosencouragedcreole members of the

Royalist coalition to believe that the revolutionarythreat was on the wane.

Yet, clearly, in full view of the debacle of 1814, no opportunity presenteditself for any creole revindication. The years, 1814-20, were, then to be a

time of waiting upon events. Furthermore, this period, on the surface tran-

quil, was one in which all partiesinvolved in the civil war sought to recuper-ate in the often vain

hope

of reconstruction.The revolution had affectedthe

centres of mineral production, and, thereby, restrictedthe viceregal govern-ment's silver supplies for the Royal Mint. Disruption of communications

reduced revenues from internal customs houses. This loss occurred at the

same time as the abolition of Indian tribute, long a principal governmentrevenue. With reduced income, the regime combated the revolution from

below, and fended off pressure from the metropolitan government, itself

faced with the French occupationof Spain, for increasedcontributions. How-

24

AGI Mexico I975, Real Palacio de Mexico, 17 August I814. Lerdo, ibid., II, II8;Alaman, ibid., V, 5-i6; Benson, Cortes, pp. 80-I.

25 Both Rayon and Dr Cos sought, as a result, to rally constitutionalists to the insurgentcause in two proclamations to Europeans in Mexico on 19 August and 21 October

18r4. Torre Villar, ibid., pp. 283-7.








ever, with the revolutionary civil war in New Spain the traditional credit

roleof

the mercantilecorporations began

to contract.Calleja's

financial

measures fell heavily upon the Royalist-heldcities, particularlyMexico Cityitself. Peninsular merchants grew at first reluctant and soon recalcitrantin

face of increased taxes and forced loans. Their own activities restrictedbythe civil war, they exhibited a distinct unwillingness to sacrifice their

dwindling fortunes to save the viceregal regime, of which they themselves

provided the principal support. Under the impact of metropolitan pressureand the revolution at home, Mexican national debt rose from around thirtymillion pesos in 81o to aboutfifty million in 18 5. Although the insurgents

failed to bring down the Royalist regime by means of an armed insurrection,they ruined its financial creditability, and ensured that the government'sefforts to raise revenue would act as a sourceof division among the ranks of

its partisans.26The collapseof the Cortesand the militaryfragmentationof the revolution

provided absolutists and traditionalists with the political opportunity to

impose their own solution to Mexico's problems, as they diagnosed them.

Essentially this resolved itself into an alliance of Throne and Altar. From

this position the peninsular and creole conservatives directed their attack

against the ideas and representatives of Liberal constitutionalism and

separatism.Leadersof the ecclesiasticalhierarchyattackedboth constitutions,and identified them with the French Revolution and a tradition of heterodoxy

reaching back to ancient Greece and Rome. Other conservative writers

followed a similar line of thought. In essence they strove to work out a theory

capable of combating the ideology of early Liberalism, but their arguments

merely provided a justification for Ferdinandine absolutism and for the

political repressionthat accompaniedit. Church and State co-operated n the

apprehensionof

suspectedsubversives.

Fagoaga,whom

Callejahad detained

in Mexico, finally went to the peninsula but as a deportee. The Marques de

San Juan de Rayas, a participant in the creole attempt of I808, went to

Veracruz. Lorenzo de Zavala, Carlos Maria Bustamante, Fray Servando

26 The Urgent Patriotic Loan of August I809 yielded a total of 1,82 ,000 pesos for the

Royalist government; contributors included the Prior of the Consulado of Mexico

and his brother, the Consul Gabriel de Yermo, the former Consul Jose Ruiz de la

Barcena, and the merchants - Tomas Domingo de Acha, Gablied de Iturbe,Sebastian de Heras Soto, Pedro Gonzalez de Noriega and his nephew, Diego de

Agreda, Tomas Ramon de Ibarrola, Antonio Bassoco and others. Large sums alsoproceeded from ecclesiastical corporations. AGI Mexico 2375, Lista de los contri-

buyentes... etc. Many of the same individuals and corporations contributed to the

Patriotic Loan of March I813, which eventually produced I,078,900 pesos. AGIMexico i638, Calleja - Ministry of Finance, No. 50, Mexico 31 May I813.







72 Brian R. Hamnett

Teresa de Mier and Andres Quintana Roo's wife, Leona Vicario, spent longperiodsin the fortressprisonof San Juande Ulua.27

Despite the semblance of unity, the Royalistcoalition remaineddivided on

the issue of long-term objectives. With the proscription of Liberal ideas,which had provided in notable instances a common cause for Spaniardsand

Mexicans, the old creole-peninsulartensions began to recur. Even on the

matter of unity of Throne and Altar, cracksappearedthat suggested that the

Mexican clerical wing of the Royalist coalition preferred the Altar to

the Throne. Two representative writers, the ex-deputy for Guanajuato,Fuentes, and the former deputy for Puebla, Perez, implicitly criticized

important aspects of Bourbon policy, in calling for the restoration of theJesuits and full preservationof the fuero eclesidstico.28 During the period of

the Cortes, Mexican deputies had sought to undermine the position of

Viceroy Venegas, on the grounds that he had obstructedthe implementationof the Constitution's provisions. Perez, appointed Bishop of Puebla byFerdinand VII in December 1814, further denounced the former viceroy in

May I8I4 as 'apathetic and voluptuous'. This servil polemicist, however,extended his attack to Calleja as well, whom he portrayedas surroundedby

insurgent sympathizers. He further pointed to the viceroy's creole marriage

as a potential source of danger for the metropolitan government, and calledfor Calleja's removal on the grounds that he has been 'indolent', an extra-

ordinary allegation against a victorious military commander and forceful

ruler.29 Similar imputations came from the Mexican Inquisitor, Manuel de

Flores, who had become involved in an unpleasant dispute over jurisdictional

competence with both the viceroy and the Cathedralchapterof Mexico, and

followed it by an imbroglio with the Audiencia.30 Perez returned to the

attack in 1816, a direct assault upon the policies and methods of Calleja'sadministration. This time, instead of

pointingto

possible insurgent sym-pathies, the Bishop of Puebla singled out Calleja'salleged harsh treatment of

the rebels, and complained that Royalist authorities had appropriatedthe

27 Pedro Fonte, Impugnacion de algunos impios. . . articulos del codigo de anarquia. . etc. (Mexico, 1816), Archbishop of Mexico in succession to Antonio Bergoza yJordan in 1815, Fonte attacked the Constitution of Apatzingan. The Bishop-elect of

Michoacan, Manuel Abad y Queipo, before I8IO a reformist, attacked the Cadiz

Constitution in his Informe dirigido al rey D. Fernando VII, 20 July 1815, in Niceto

de Zamacois, Historia de Mejico, 21 tomos (Barcelona, I888-I9o0), IX, 86I-9I.28 AGI Mexico 1827, Victorino de las Fuentes y Vallejo, Madrid 21 September I8I4.

AGI Estado 40, Perez-Duque de San Carlos, Madrid 18 May 1814.29 Ibid.SO The Inquisition was restored in Mexico on 4 January I8I5. Jos6 Toribio Medina,

Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion en Mexico (Santiago de

Chile, 1905), pp. 465--9.








funds of certain convents. Calleja countered that Perez's charges amounted

to the same as those levelledagainst

himby

theinsurgents

themselves.38

These disputes, following upon the nullifiation of the creole advances in

1814, indicated the failure of Calleja's policy of reconciliation within the

Royalist camp. His successor,whose term of office combined a policy of slow

economic and financial recuperation with a gesture of clemency towards

repentant revolutionaries, continued the attempt to bind the coalition

together. Apodaca,moreover,issued some 6o,ooo pardonsto rebelapplicants,in an attempt to kill the revolution by kindness. Nevertheless, the more the

danger of 810oreceded, the less remained the need for a united front of

peninsularand creole elites. Lorenzo de Zavala emphasized that the politicallull of 1818 and 18 9 was highly deceptive. Creole demands for advance-

ment or outright independence remained no less strong then than in the

earlier years of the decade. Yet the military defeat of Hidalgo and Morelos

removed the possibility that independence would be the achievement of the

revolutionary masses. The agents of victory had not been the peninsularmerchants, magistrates or civil servants - although, of course, they had

helped to pay for it, but the largely Mexican-officeredarmy in New Spain.The officer corps sprang from the creole landed elite. It was upon this groupthat the fate of the viceregal government hung.32

V

In April and May 1820 the surfacecalm ended. The re-installationof the

constitutional system throughout the Spanish dominions eventually broke

31 AGI Mexico 1830, Perez-Calleja,Puebla 14 April I8I6; Calleja-Perez,Mexicoio JulyI816; Calleja-Councilof State,Mexico I2 July I816.

32 Lorenzo de Zavala,Ensayo historico de las revolucionesde Mexico desde i8o8 hastaI830 (Mexico, I969), pp. 70-7; Sierra, ibid., pp. I49, I63-5; Villoro, ibid., p. x80.Romeo FloresCaballero,La Contrarrevolucion n la independencia.Los espanolesenlacvida politica, social y econdmicade Mexico (i804-1838), (Mexico, 1969), p. 8I.

Viceroy Venadito stated that the numberof pardonsexpeditedfrom the time of the

publicationof the amnestyorder on 30 January1817 and the end of DecemberI818came to 29,818, AGN Virreyes273, ff. 255-63v, Venadito-Minister f War, No. 761res, Mexico 31 December I8I8. The first peninsulartroops arrivedin Mexico Cityon 13 May I8I2, a force of only 3,000 men. Callejaleft a total number of some

40,000 troopsby the middle of I816, recruitedwithin New Spainover the past twodecades: the peninsular element was small. An auxiliary force of 44,098 loyalists

also existed, see AGN Historia 485, Ejercito- organizacion, feb 1816-i821, f. I9,estado que manifiestala fuerza de los cuerpos y companiassueltas de urbanos yRealistasfieles de todas armas auxiliares del Ej6rcitode Nueva Espana, 31 AugustI816. Anna, ibid., pp. i8o-I, underestimates he continuing insurgent threat after8rT6.







74 Brian R. Hamnett

apart the Royalist coalition. The return of the Liberals to power in Madrid

on 9 March exposed the viceroy to a precariousisolation. Furthermore, theecclesiasticalhierarchy and the officer corps were faced with a transformed

political situation. As in the period, I8 Io-I4, the Spanish Liberalspresentedthe Constitution and the prospect of representation in the Cortes as the

common platform for a redressof grievancesfor both the peninsula and the

Americas. An alliance of creole and peninsular Liberals in Veracruz and

Jalapa obliged Venadito to publish the Constitution in Mexico City on

31 May, an action he regardedas pregnantwith danger. The abolition of the

Inquisition and the restoration of liberty of the press followed. In mid-June

elections to the Ayuntamiento Constitutionalof Mexico City took place. On22 August the viceroy sanctioned the release of non-insurgent political

prisoners.33On the face of things, the bishops appeared willing to conform

to the Liberal system. Fonte's edict of 18 July urged compliance.34Elections

to the OrdinaryCortes took placeon 17 September,and eventually forty-nineMexicandeputiesattended the assembly n the following year.35

The re-establishmentof the constitutionalsystem restored the creole gainsof 1812-14, and revived the possibilityof a middle way between absolutism

and separatism. Nevertheless, the Spanish Liberals of I820 remained as

indifferent to self-governmentwithin the American territoriesas the genera-tion of I8Io. At the same time specific measures adopted by the Cortes in

Madrid began to alienate Mexican conservatives,and drive them into con-

spiratorial activity. The restriction of the religious orders accompanied

proposals to curtail further the fuero eclesiastico. In New Spain, 1,500 per-sons appealed to Venadito in August I820 to ignore the Cortes's decree for

the extinction of the Society of Jesus.To the indignation of the ecclesiastical

hierarchy,which now saw its vision of an alliance between Throne and Altar

33 Francisco de Paula Arrangoiz y Berzabal,Mejico desde I808 hasta I867, 4 vols(Madrid, I87I-2), II, 3-I0.

4 Karl M. Schmitt,'The Clergyand the Independenceof New Spain,'HAHR, Vol. 34,No. 3 (Aug., 1954), pp. 289-312.

35 AGI Mexico I503, Venadito-Ministro de la Gobernaci6n de Ultramar, No. 71,Mexico 30 SeptemberI820. Mexicandeputiesto the Cortes ncluded:Lucas Alaman

(Guanajuato),Lorenzo de Zavala (Yucatan), Manuel G6mez Pedraza (Mexico),Francisco Fagoaga (Mexico), Miguel Ramos Arizpe (Coahuila), Jose MarianoMichelena (Michoacan), Pablo de la Llave (Veracruz), Juan de Dios Cafiedo

(Guadalajara)and Jose MariaMurguia y Galardi(Oaxaca),who had been the fifthmemberof the insurgent Congressof Chilpancingo.Benson, Cortes,30-6. For the

elections to the constitutionalcity council of Mexico, see Anna, ibid., pp. I95-6: itincluded autonomistsand Liberals,such as FranciscoManuelSanchez de Tagle, the

young Conde de Bassoco and Gabriel Patricio de Yermo, both nephews of penin-sular merchantsof the i808 generation, Ignacio Adalid, and Jose Miguel Guridi yAlcoceras secretary.








obstructed,was compounded that of the officer corps. The Cortescontinued

the efforts of itspredecessor

to subordinate themilitary

to the control of the

civilian legislature, to place the government of provinces in the hands of

civilian Jefes Politicos and to reduce the application of the fuero militar in

civil and criminal cases. Two of the principal opponents of these measures

were the Bishop of Guadalajara,Ruiz de Cabanias,a peninsular, and the

newly-appointed commander of the Celaya Regiment, Iturbide.36

Viceroy Venadito, who had emerged from the complacencyof the years,1818 and i819, into the realization that the metropolitan government's

positionin New Spain was 'undoubtedly critical', appealedin vain to Madrid

for the despatch of peninsular troops. Evidently he distrusted the loyalty ofthe Mexican-officeredarmy. Since the new troops never came, Venadito

found himself obliged to rely on Iturbide's force of 2,479 men to root out

Vicente Guerrero from the interior between Acapulco and the capital. At

the time of his appointment on 9 November I820, it seems, this officer

approached Manuel G6mez Pedraza, one of the deputies en route to the

Cortes, with a view to striking immediately for Mexican Independence by

using the army as the instrument. The latter, however, felt that neither of

the two officers essential to the plan, Gabriel Armijo and Pascual Lifian,

could be trusted. The conspiracyhad to be abandoned. Gomez Pedraza leftfor Spain. On i6 November Iturbide himself departed from the capital.While on campaign against Vicente Guerrero, nevertheless, he took the

precautionof contactingthe second-in-commandof the Guadalajaragarrison,Pedro Celestino Negrete, a peninsular, and other officers. In a similar vein

he wrote to the deputy, Gomez de Navarrete, and early in 1821 sent a draft

plan of independence to the Mexico City lawyer, Espinosa de los Monteros.37The fragmentationof the old Royalist coalition assumed a further dimen-

sion with the conspiracyof La Profesa.Inspiredby

the formerinquisitor

andRector of the University of Mexico, MatfasMonteagudo, a group of penin-sular conservativesdiscussed measures to restoreabsolutism, on the grounds

36 Benson, ibid., pp. 125-9, 148-5o. Anna, ibid., pp. I98-204, errs in denying theexistence of a counterrevolutionary strain in opposition to the Cortes' measures:cf. Ladd, ibid., p. i66, 'Mexican autonomy had decidedly conservative characteristics.It conceived of religion as exclusively Catholic and Catholicism as exclusivelynational and submissive to the regulation of government agencies. It required thestate to be a corporate realm in the Spanish model of semi-autonomous entitiesreconciled in the person of the king.'

37

Fernando de Gabriel y Ruiz de Apodaca, Apuntes biogrdficos del excmo. senorD. Juan Ruiz de Apodacay Eliza, Conde del Venadito (Burgos, I849), pp. 114-20.

Manuel Payno, Bosquejo biogrdfico de los generales Iturbide y Terdn (Mexico, I843),pp. 7-9. Jaime Delgado, 'El Conde del Venadito ante el Plan de Iguala', Revista de

Indias, Nos. 33-4 (I948), pp. 957-66.







76 Brian R. Hamnett

that constitutionalism could only lead to separatism. The possibility exists

thatViceroy

Venaditomay

have been aware of thesemeetings, and, indeed,

sympathized with them. However, the most these conspiratorscould hope for

was a viceregalsuspensionof important partsof the Constitution, as Venegashad done in December 812. They lacked the necessary military support to

spring a purely peninsular absolutistcoup. Initially, then, the Reunion de La

Profesa does not appearto have been connectedwith the projectof Iturbide:

on the contrary, its aims were the opposite. Even so, a common thread of

opposition to Liberal constitutionalism ran through both. The connection

between the two may have been made through the mediation of Bishop

Perez of Puebla, who had apparentlyorganized a similar junta in his owncity. This prelate had, on the face of things, welcomed the re-establishment

of the Constitution in his manifesto of 27 June 1820, Hay tiempo de callar

y tiempo de hablar, but had become the centre of opposition to the new

system after the Cortes had determined to punish the signatories of the

Manifesto of the Persians. In face of the outbreakof disturbances n Puebla

on behalf of the bishop, the fiscal of the Audiencia, Odoardo, counselled

suspension of the Constitution. From Puebla appeals arrived in the capitalfrom the secular and regular clergy for the suspension of the Cortes's

ecclesiastical measures. Venadito informed the metropolitan governmentthat the other bishops had declared their support for Perez. Iturbide tappedthis clerical discontent. His letter of 21 February 1821 to the Bishop of

Guadalajarapresentedhis movement as a defence of Catholic orthodoxyand

the privileges of the Church. In this way Iturbide isolated the viceroy,

deepened the division between the hierarchy and the Spanish government,and brandedthe ministers in Madrid- much as Hidalgo had done in 1810 -

as heterodox on religious matters. Mexico, then, was to become the home of

truereligion

and traditional monarchism. Thesupport given

to Iturbide's

Plan of Iguala after 24 February pointed to the third decisive politicalcommitment by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the officer corps in this

period.38As a propagandagesture the Plan of Iguala offered Europeansand creoles

a platform from which to make common cause in defence of basic Hispanictraditions in opposition to the innovations emanating from the new regime

38 N. M. Farriss, Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico, 1759-1821. The Crisis ofEcclesiastical Privilege (London, 1968), pp. 248-9. BM 977ok5, Papeles Varios,

Manifiestodel Obispode la Puebla de los Angeles a sus diocesanos,27 June 1820.AGI Mexico I680, Venadito - Min. de Ultramar, No. i86, Mexico 31 January 1821;Venadito - P6rez, Mexico 24 January 1821; Perez - Venadito, Puebla 26 January1821. Only two bishops, Fonte (peninsular) in Mexico and Castafiiza (creole) in

Durango opposed the Plan.








in Spain. Iturbide convinced this conservative wing that Independence

providedthem with safer

guarantees.The detailsof the Plan are well-known.

Less clear is its significance. In face of its clear separatistintent, ViceroyVenadito, never an enthusiastic constitutionalist, denounced it as 'anti-

constitutional'. On 2 June i821, he demonstrated the continuity of viceregalattitudes towards the Constitution by suspending liberty of the press. Arch-

bishop Fonte, by condemning the Plan on 19 March, appearedto imply in

his appeal for loyalty to the legitimate authoritiesthat the Cortes and consti-

tutional system answered that description. In this way he seemed to defend

the Constitution he had attacked in I8I5, on the grounds that it precluded

separatism. Iturbide's successes throughout the provinces produced suchdiscontent in the capital among peninsular officers that Novella and Liinan

sprang a coup d'etat to remove Venadito upon the pretext that resistanceto

separatismhad been inadequate and ineffective. The Royalist military coupof 5 July I821 destroyed whatever claims to legitimacy the government in

Mexico City might still have put forward. By comparison, the Three

Guarantees appeared to be the embodiment of legitimacy, continuity and

moderation.89The arrival of O'Donoju, the Cortes's Jefe Politico of New

Spain, whose task was to reconcile the viceroyaltyto the Constitution, signi-

fied that two Royalist viceroys now existed. Iturbide's approaches to

O'Donojui, which resulted in the conciliatory Treaties of C6rdoba on

24 August 182I, enabled the former's entry into the capital on 27 Septem-ber. These treaties reiterated the provisions of the Plan of Iguala, but from

O'Donoju's point of view they preservedthe throne of the Mexican Empirefor the Spanish Bourbons. Iturbide had provided that the new sovereignstate would be a constitutional monarchy. Even so, it had still not been

specified what type of constitution was in the long run to apply. In the

interim, all clauses of the Cadiz Constitution that did not conflict with the

reality of Mexican Independence subsisted. Ultimately, though, the new

sovereign state would have to formulate its own constitution in accordance

with its specific needscThe protectionof the fueros militar and eclesidstico,and the support given to the Plan by opponents of liberal political forms,

suggested that Iturbide would by-pass the inheritance of Cadiz and

Apatzingan, and return, instead, to the corporative position of Azcirate and

Verdad in I808. In the meantime, however, the Mexican Empire entered

89For the Plan, see Felipe Tena Ramirez,Leyes fundamentalesde Mexico. i8o8-I964

(Mexico, 1964, pp. II3-I6. W. S. Robertson,Iturbideof Mexico(Duke Univ. Press,1952), pp. 84-104. Apodaca, ibid., 63-77. Carlos Maria de Bustamante, Cuadrohistorico de la revolucion mexicana,4 vols (Mexico, i96I), I, 474. Timothy Anna,'Francisco Novella and the last stand of the Royal Army in New Spain', HAHRVol. 51, No. i (Feb., I97I), pp. 92-11.







78 Brian R. Hamnett

into existence as a sovereign state under the provisions of the Cadiz Consti-

tution of1812.

Amovement which had gained the support

ofpowerful

opponents of the Cadiz system sponsored the emergence of a new political

organism temporarilygoverned in accordancewith it. The Plan of Iguala

displayeda panoplyof paradoxes.4?Iturbide, the professed champion of Catholic orthodoxy, concluded the

Treaties of C6rdoba with a celebratedSpanish freemason and Liberal. We

have to examine the question whether, after all, Mexican Independence

really did amount to a 'triumph of reaction'. Certainly, the Monteagudo

plot fell into that category - but that was not a blow for Independence but

against the Constitution. The coup of Novella also may be classified asreaction - but that, too, struck against Independence and was directed

against the person of the viceroy. In contrast, Iturbide's consensus spannedthe entire political spectrum: it excluded only the peninsular absolutist

fringe, the 'extreme Right', so to say. It included every political positionfrom the ecclesiasticalcorporativismof Perez and Ruiz de CabaFias o the

remnants of the old insurgent movement under the leadershipof GuadalupeVictoria and Vicente Guerrero.41Despite the stance of the ecclesiastical

hierarchy and the officer corps, the consensus of Iguala was not exclusivelyand narrowly directed against the existence of a Liberal government inMadrid. That fact it employed as a pretext on two mutually contradictoryaccounts.In the firstplace, Iturbideralliedanti-constitutionalists,both penin-sular and creole, to the cause of separatismfor the obvious reasons alreadydiscussed. In the second place, his movement offered Mexican Liberals -

whether they were protagonistsof continued union or outright Independence- the prospectof realizing more completelythe provisionsof the Constitution,which the viceroy and Audiencia had generally striven to frustrate. The

formergroup

- the traditionalistsor conservatives-sought

to reverse the

consequencesof the 1820 Revolution; the latter - Liberal constitutionalists-

hoped to extend fully to New Spain its achievements. Indeed, Iturbide's

declarationof 28 June 1821 for the continuationof the Constitution ensured

the uninterrupted functioning of the Diputaciones Provinciales and

Ayuntamientos Constitucionales, essential features of the Liberal system.One Liberal adherent of the Plan of Iguala, Tornel, secretaryto the MilitaryCommand in Veracruz, equated Iturbide'smovement in Mexico with that of

Riego and Quiroga in Spain, and, further, linked Dolores and Iguala as

40 Jaime Delgado, 'La Misi6n a Mejicode Don Juan de O'Donoju,'Revista de IndiasVol. 35 (Jan.-March 1949), pp. 25-87. Tena Ramirez, ibid., pp. II6-I9. ProbablyRamosArizpe's pressure ecuredO'Donoju'sappointment.

41 Zavala, bid., p 89; Robertson, bid., p. 65.







80 BrianR. Hamnett

Bourbons, and administer the coup de grace to the rival Liberal position of

imperial unity

under a constitutionalmonarchy

based in the

peninsula.45The Iturbide movement was not so much a reaction against Liberal

policies, but a general response, common to all the Mexican elites, to

Ferdinand VII's absolutistperiod during the years, 1814-20: it was partly a

reaction to the nullification of the constitutionalgains of 1812-14. In effect,Ferdinand VII's royal coup of May 814 amounted, in American terms, to

a second gachupin coup: the first had blocked the movement towards devo-

lution; the second had nullified the creole political advances after 1812. In

other words, it is very importantto focus upon the Constitution of 1812 as a

potential via media between absolutism and separatism. We should notconcede uncritically the argument of the absolutists, the political 'Right',that devolution, autonomyand constitutionalism,allof them indiscriminately,were the thin end of the wedge, that they inevitably led to separatism.That is to obscure the fact that almost no one among the senior elite wanted

outright independence, even less, republicanism. The interests of this elite

cut across the simple dichotomies of creole: peninsular or Mexico: Spain.This group wanted the power to decide its own affairs and to govern in its

own interests: such interests were internal and Mexican-based.They did not

want to be interferedwith - and they had been since the time of Galvez - bya Spanish metropolitan government seeking to re-orientate the governmentof the empire solely in the directionof Spain'sparticular nterests. As regardsmost membersof the junior branchof the elite, the creolebourgeoisie,fear of

the insurrection from below had duly curbed their political ambitions and

had locked them within the bounds of the Royalist coalition. In I82I they,too, formed partof the consensus elaboratedby Iturbide.

The Royalist coalition - minus viceroy and senior peninsular absolutists-

brought

about New

Spain's

transformation nto a

sovereign

state

during

the

course of 1821. These peninsular absolutists became the expendable factors

in the political shift among the higher echelons of Mexican society. In their

place the renovated coalition acquiredthe tacticalsupport of the last vestigesof the defeated insurgent movement. For a time, then, Iturbide managed to

neutralize the 'Left' by 'incorporating' it into the 'official' coalition. At

Iguala the Mexican elites completed the processesbegun in 1808 and con-

tinued in I812-I4 and I820, and finally took control of political power.

They were able to do this peacefully, because the Mexican Royalist coalition

45Among the Mexican deputies elected in March i82I to sit in the Cortes of 1822-3

were Matias Monteagudo (Mexico), Andres Quintana Roo, Cafiedo (New Galicia)and Valentin G6mez Farfas(Zacatecas).Benson, ibid., 38-41. They clearlyreflecteddifferentpolitical origins and persuasions.Cuevas, bid., p. I35; Sierra, bid., p. I77.








had won the civil war commonly described as the 'War of Independence'.Furthermore, the

experienceof the

coupsof 1808 and 8I14, of

viceregalsubversion of fundamental aspectsof the constitutionalsystem between 8122

and 1814, and finally the Novella coup of July 1821, had destroyed the

Spanish peninsularregime's case for legitimacywithin New Spain. Iturbide's

renovated coalition succeeded in its tacticalobjectives,because the consensus

of Iguala representedthe new legitimacy. Liberals, as we have seen, divided

in responseto the Plan. That division could last only as long as the possibilityof a constitutional solution within the imperial framework remained open.On I3 February 1822, the Spanish Cortes repudiated the Treaties of

C6rdoba,and therebydashed the prospect altogether. Opposition to Iturbide'scorporativescheme and to his personal power, which by July had converted

the Regency into a monarchy, began to reunite Liberal constitutionalistson

a republicanplatform.4

VI

We have traced the transitionof a viceroyaltyadministeredfrom Madrid

through the mediation of bureaucraticorganisms in Mexico City into a

sovereign state with representativeinstitutions. In the first quarter of thenineteenth century the long struggle within the ruling groups for the control

of the decision-makingprocessand the institutions of law and order reached

its climax. It is necessary,as we conclude, to take stock of the alteredpositionof the senior strata of Mexican society. Before Independence, the Absolute

Monarchy rested upon the twin columns of the ecclesiastical hierarchy,tamed by the Patronato Real, and the magisterial bureaucracy of the

audiencias. In each of these departments of the civil service, creole and

peninsular

had

intermingleduntil the

metropolitan governmentafter

I770initiated a concertedattempt to remove the former. In New Spain these two

columns formed the governing elite, from which the creole element was inrecession. The ecclesiastical elite consisted of the predominantly peninsular

46 Tornel reactedstrongly to the Cortesrepudiationof O'Donoji's actionsby denounc-

ing the Spanish Liberalsin his Derechos de Fernando VII al Trono del Imperiomexicanopor un ciudadanomilitar (Mexico 15 September1822). The signaturesofthe Act of Independence on 28 September 1821 demonstrated the breadth ofIturbide'sconsensus: Iturbide, Perez, O'Donojui,Monteagudo, Azcairate,Guridi yAlcocer, J. M. Fagoaga, Espinosa de los Monteros, Anastasio Bustamante, Juan

BautistaLobo, Marquesde San Juande Rayas,JuanBautistaRaz y Guzman (one ofthe 'Guadalupes') and others. Tena Ramfrez, ibid., p. I23. For the corporativeproject of 8 November 1821, see Robertson, bid., p. 138, and Ocampo, ibid., pp.209-o0. Anna, Royal Government,passim, stressesthis peninsularloss of legitimacyin New Spain.







82 Brian R. Hamnett

episcopate, the prelates of religious orders, cathedral canons, parish priests

andmembers

of religious orders. The Church remained the most numerousprofession; more than i,ooo parish priests practised in New Spain. By

comparison, the secular bureaucracycontinued to be numerically inferior to

the ecclesiastical,and in less intimate contact with the mass of the mestizo

and Indian population. At the summit of this bureaucracystood the viceroyand the magistrates of the Audiencia, the latter a corps of professional,

university-trainedlawyers and civil servants - togados. By and large, theywere not a hereditarycaste, despite family traditions of service,and the status

of nobility was not acquired upon entering such a position. The Mexican

colonial bureaucracyformed a corps rather than a caste, but, even so, itsindividual members frequently divided among themselves over importantissues in the continuous struggle for the supremacy of personalities and

policies. Although the civil service, in theory, expressed the authority and

executed the power inherent in absolutemonarchy, and, by attempting to do

so, sought to restrain the principal constituted bodies of the realm, its

membership,nevertheless,behaved as if the secularbureaucracy tself formed

an estate or order. Alongside this corps, a series of juridically recognized

corporationsrepresentedthe interests of the mercantile, mining and pastoralelites: the Consulados of Mexico, Veracruz and Guadalajara,the Cuerpo deMineria and the Mesta. On the level of personal contacts through business

arrangements and inter-marriagecreole and peninsular continued to inter-

mingle at these points. While the Crown governed through the mediation of

the Church and bureaucracy,both the viceregal and metropolitan govern-ments relied heavily upon the consulados for credit, which the mercantile

community was both ready and willing to facilitate as a result of large-scalecommercial activities and its role as aviador in the mining industry. At

Independenceboth the

secularcolumn

and the mercantileelite of peninsularorigin fell away.47

The Crown had customarilygoverned through the two sectors of the civil

service, lay and clerical, the members of which it appointedand examined at

the termination of office. It did not govern through the mediation of the

47 See also Ricardo Konetzke, 'La Condicion legal de los criollos y las causas de la

independencia', Estudios Americanos II (1950), pp. 31-54; John Leddy Phelan,

'Authority and Flexibility in the Spanish Imperial Bureaucracy',AdministrativeScience Quarterly, Vol. 5 (June, I960), pp. 47-65; Lyle N. McAlister, 'Social

Structureand Social Change in New Spain', HAHR, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Aug., I963),pp. 349-70; D. A. Brading,'Governmentand Elite in LateColonialMexico',HAHR,Vol. 53, No. 3 (Aug., I973), pp. 389-414; Guillermo Lohmann Villena, LosMinistros de la Audiencia de Lima en el Reinado de los Borbones (1700-1821).Esquemade un estudio sobre un nticleodirigente(Seville, 1974).








local territorial nobility or land-owning class. Although this group was

certainlyable to

apply pressureuponthe

organsof administration,in order

to satisfy its own interests, generally to the detriment of the labouring popu-lation, the owners of haciendas did not form an integralpartof the governingelite of colonial Mexico. By and large, the closed and unreformedmunicipalcouncils, characterized by hereditary and purchased offices, were able to

representthe interests of this and other local pressure groups. Decisive action

by the Crown during the sixteenth century had prevented the formation of

the political institutions of the European Standestaat. For that reason no

Cortes of the three estates or orders of the realm had ever met in Mexico

City. The absence of such a body seriously vitiated the feasibility of theconstitutional forms advocatedby Mexican conservatives,whose corporativ-ism led them to propose the restoration of a mythical traditionalconstitution

laid waste by the ravages of 'Ministerial Despotism'. In New Spain there

had been no juridically recognized estates or orders as such, despite the fact

that the ecclesiastical hierarchy, fortified with the fuero eclesidstico, its

privilege or private law, and the creole landed class, possessing in manyinstancesafter 1768 the fuero militar, behaved as if they constituted the First

and Second Estates.48

New Spain was not a feudal society in I8Io. The Crown had long ago

prevented the encomienda from evolving into a hereditary agency for the

exerciseof jurisdictional rights by landowners(senores)over tenants(vassals).The American viceroyaltylived not in a medieval, feudal world, but in the

post-feudal system of the ancien regime, in which commercial capitalism,

primary exporting and a royal civil service sharply modified the landed

nobility's predominance. In this system the principles of absolutism, then,

intermingled with and diminished the attitudesand instincts of corporatism.Nevertheless, the

policy objectivesof Bourbon ministers

frequentlyencoun-

tered the obstacle of Mexican social realities.The many diverse corporationsand fueros, the psychology of esprit de corpsand regional diversity in an ageof transportationdifficultiesensured that, in reality,New Spain assumedthe

aspect of a sociedad estamental, by attitude and behaviour, if not by right.Furthermore, it is certainly plausible to argue that one essential componentof this corporate society was formed by the structureof Indian government,the reputblicas de indios, with their governors and alcaldes and common

lands. This structurerepresentedperhaps the most traditionallevel of all in

Mexicansociety,and, indeed, it was recognized as such by the anti-corporative48 Ricardo Konetzke, 'La Formaci6n de la nobleza en Indias', Estudios Americanos,

III (I95I), pp. 33-58; ibid., 'Estado y Sociedad en las Indias,' ibid., pp. 33-58;Lyle N. McAlister,The 'Fuero Militar' in New Spain I764-1800 (Florida, I957).







84 BrianR. Hamnett

Liberal reformers of the i85os and i86os. Indian caciques, governors and

alcaldescomposed

an elite of their own within the mass of thepopulation.The determinationto retainexisting privilegesand to recover as much of the

elusive past as lay to their capacity may well have conditioned the coolnessof

Indian communities towards the revolution of I8I0 as well as the anti-

Liberalstance of laterdecades.49

Much of our attention has been directedso far to the older componentsof

the Royalist coalition. Although the creole landed class was in no sense a

new factor, the possessionof the fuero militarby many of its members, who

had become officers in the colonial militia or the regular army, certainly

amounted to a new departure in Mexican political history. The fuero andofficer rank, and with them the command of men, gave the old landed class

a renewed importanceand potential power at the time of division among the

peninsulares. Almost to a man the Mexican officer corps remained in the

viceregal camp until the Plan of Iguala presentedthem with the possibilityof

conserving their privileges in the new sovereign state. After 1830 this group

provided many of the governing personalities of the Mexican Republic.Political ideology and regional distinction of interest rather than different

social status or lack of landed estate separated this officer corps from the

creole legal and literaryelite. This lattergroup had never formed part of thecolonial governing body. Instead, its members, waited in the wings for

the decomposition of the magisterial bureaucracyof the audiencias and the

regional structure of the Intendancies. These men provided the leadershipof the Liberalmovementsafterthe I8 Ios.

The debt to the Cadiz Constitution remained profound. The Cortes,which had contained both traditionalists and Liberals, Americans and

Europeans,strove to plot a new course for the monarchythat would steer the

wayout of absolutismin favour of some form of

representativegovernment.The new Mexican sovereign stateinherited this endeavour.Indeed, the effort

to prevent the recrudescenceof absolutismbestowed upon Mexico the prob-lem of the weak executive and strong legislature, the diminished central

government and the powerful federatedstate system, which seriouslyvitiated

the applicability of the federal Constitutions of 1824 and I857. To that

extent, Liberal constitutionalism reacted against the inheritance of abso-

lutism. On the other hand Mexican Liberalism continued and extended

49 Hamill, ibid., pp. I76-7. Fran9ois Chevalier, 'Conservateurs et Liberaux auMexique', Asociacion Mexicana de Historiadores. Instituto Frances de AmericaLatina (Mexico, 1965), pp. I-27. CharlesA. Hale, MexicanLiberalism n the Age ofMora, 1821-1853 (Yale, I968), pp. 221-34, 243-8. William B. Taylor, Landlordand Peasant n ColonialOaxaca Stanford,1972).







Mexico'sRoyalistCoalition:heResponseo Revolution 85

many of the policy objectivesof Enlightened Absolutism: administrativeand

fiscal rationalization, thesupremacy

of the civilpower,

the restrictionof the

power of the Church. Nevertheless, a decade of revolutionarycivil war, the

devastation of units of production and the destruction of government

creditabilitycreatedthe adverseconditionsas a result of which latent regional-ism broke into blatant centrifugalism. Already Royalist commanders had

created virtual satrapies for their personal power. The basic problem,

especially in view of the disintegrationof the Mexican Empire in 1823 and

the proclamation of Estados Libres, concerned the efforts of the central

government to reimpose its authority over recalcitrantregions, which, for

their part, through the doctrineand institutionsof federalism, strove to asserttheir will upon the resentedand once overmighty capitalcity and centre core

region. Parallel to this field of tension lay another. The Constitutions of

1812, 1814 and I824 grafted representative nstitutions upon the reality of

a resisting and uncomprehending sociedad estamental. According to Mora,the destructive feature of the latter consisted in the espiritu de cuerpoexhibited by its component elements, in contrast to the desired espiritunacional. Mora, a proponent of the moderate Liberal strain, regarded the

latter as a prerequisite for national unity and the emergence of a mature

nationalconsciousness.50

Upon such issues as these Iturbide's consensus of 1821 broke into frag-ments. By the end of the i82os a new patternof elite rivalryhad emerged.Three subdivisions existed. In the first place, the privileged classes, bene-

ficiaries of the existing social and economic order, stood at the apex: the

upper clergy, possessed of the fuero eclesia'stico,senior army officers, with

enjoyment of the fuero militar, the old nobility, terratenientes and largescale merchants. This group provided the membership of the masonic order

of the escoceses. In

rivalry

to them stood the secondgroup,

formedlargelyby the professional classes: lawyers, doctors, clergy and military of middle

rank, small property-owners and lesser merchants. They provided the

membership of the masonic rite of the yorkinos and the leadership of

Mexican Liberalism. The largest component of the elite, however, consisted

of its lowest group, which, in its struggles for position, opened out from the

creole caste towards the mestizo mass. These were the 'outs' of politics,who desired social and economic transformation,in order to improve their

status: frustratedpoliticians, lower officers,soldiers, tradesmen,shopkeepers.

In short they were the yorkino radicals, supportersof Vicente Guerrero inthe presidential election campaign of 1828. Though the rivalry of the first

5o Jos6Maria Luis Mora, ObrasSueltas(Mexico, i963), pp. 53-7, 622-9. Zavala,ibid.,pp. 669-98.







86 BrianR. Hamnett

two groups remained sharp, the example of the realignment of forces in

18 o in oppositionto the revolution from below continued to be a customarypractice in Mexican politics after Independence. In I828-9 and I833-4elements of these two groups realigned as imparcialesand hombres de bien

to frustrate the objectivesof the third group, the partidopopular.51

51 Michael P. Costeloe,La PrimeraRepUblica ederal de MIexico, 824-1835 (Mexico,1975), PP. 438-9.

hamnett, brian r., ‘mexico´s royalist coalition; the response to revolution 1808-1821’

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