THE FIRST INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENTS OF MEXICO (19TH CENTURY) - HISTORY - 2025

The first independent governments of Mexico were marked by a convulsive political movement that saw 31 presidents pass in just 24 years. This movement began with the break with colonial Spain and even led to the emergence of an emperor.

In that process it went through confrontations with powerful foreign armies. In this context, the strong presence of several characters that left their indelible wake in the history of Mexico is remarkable. Manuel Antonio González Félix, Manuel Gómez Pedraza and Vicente Guerrero were some representatives of the first governments of Mexico.

Antonio López de Santa Anna

Imperial background

Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu (1783-1824) was sent to the Hispanic colonies to fight the Mexican insurgents. He directed the actions in the Sierra Madre del Sur area.

When the Spanish courts promulgated the Constitution of Cádiz in 1812, Iturbide opposed it and made a pact with the insurgents. On February 24, 1821 he proposed the Plan of Iguala, in which three basic principles are proposed:

First principle of the Iguala Plan

The first was the defense of the independence of the viceroyalty of New Spain. This viceroyalty was made up of Mexico as the center of government. It also included the Captaincy General of Guatemala (Chiapas, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua).

It also included several states in present-day US territory. These were: California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and Florida.

In addition, it covered parts of what are now Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, and included the Captaincy General of Cuba (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Guadalupe).

The Captaincy General of the Philippines was also part of the viceroyalty. This included the Philippines, the Caroline Islands and the Mariana Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, in Asia and Oceania.

Second and third principles of the Iguala Plan

The second principle of the Iguala Plan was absolute loyalty to the Catholic Church; and, the third referred to the unity of all social classes.

Beginning of dissent

On May 16, 1822, Augustine I was proclaimed Emperor of Mexico. Almost immediately, intellectual groups, merchants and landowners reacted. They opposed repeating the traditional colonial model of the aristocracies.

Then the figure of a military man named Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (1795-1876) emerged. This Mexican military man from an aristocratic family begins to organize the opposition.

Thus, the Plan of Veracruz emerged in 1822. It was oriented towards total independence and the dissolution of the unicameral congress instituted by Agustín I. The following year the Casa Mata Plan appeared. The monarchy was broken and the Republic started.

Independent governments

The first Constitution was signed in Apatzingán on October 21, 1814, but it is with the Constitution of 1824 that a truly independent government was established.

It has an Executive made up of a president and a vice president, elected by the votes of the state legislatures. It also has a Legislative made up of two chambers.

For its part, the Judicial Power was represented by the Supreme Court of Justice, the Circuit Courts and the District judges.

Miguel Antonio Fernandez Felix

The first Mexican president was Miguel Antonio Fernández Félix (1786-1843), known as Guadalupe Victoria. It covered the period 1824-1828.

Under this first independent government, the United States and England recognized Mexican independence.

Manuel Gómez Pedraza and Vicente Guerrero

At the end of the period, elections were held and Manuel Gómez Pedraza won the presidency. However, these elections were annulled.

Antonio López de Santa Anna appears on the scene again. It was raised in Xalapa, Veracruz, in favor of the competitor, Vicente Guerrero, who ruled for a few months in 1829.

In this period, Spain tried to reconquer the lost territory, with an army under the command of Brigadier Isidro Barragas. López de Santa Anna and Mier y Terán defeated him.

The Xalapa Plan was drafted and Vice President Anastasio Bustamante took office from 1830 to 1832. Under his government Vicente Guerrero was arrested, tried, and shot.

Bustamante, Gómez Pedraza and López de Santa Anna

In 1832 there were disagreements with Bustamante. Again uprisings arose and, for a year, the presidency was in the hands of Manuel Gómez Pedraza. In 1833 new elections were held and Antonio López de Santa Anna came to power.

During that government a reform was developed that contained four basic points: the religious principle subjected the Catholic Church to the secular State, and an educational principle suppressed the Colegio Mayor de Santa María de Todos los Santos and the Pontifical University.

A high school and an institute for ideological studies were built. In addition, there was a military reform.

This implied the disappearance of the jurisdiction and the dissolution of the troops that opposed the Reform. There was also a tax reform, by which the assets of the clergy were confiscated to obtain income for the nation.

The reform basically affected the Church. In the region it was this institution that did the strongest work in the colonization process; This allowed her to increase her economic, political and ideological power.

Disagreements with López de Santa Anna

López de Santa Anna has ups and downs. At times he is an expatriate. He lives in the United States, Cuba and even in Colombia. Yet it comes back again and again. He ruled six times, and was influential in several interim presidencies.

There was a lot of movement, the conservative and liberal forces clashed in the press, in the cameras and political circles. They also did it on the battlefield.

They had to fight military powers like the Americans. These were annexed northern Mexico from Texas to Utah, passing through California. They also had to resist the French army, which attacked several times causing damage and deaths. Years later the Gauls returned.

Consolidation

There were more than 30 presidents in less than a quarter of a century, considering both interim and constitutional ones; some only lasted a week or two. There were many clashes, but that first phase of the independence process consolidated visions, traditions and a culture of its own.

However, the Mexicans still had to face the French intervention again. They imposed an emperor (Fernando Maximiliano de Habsburgo, 1863-67) and had to develop a fight led by Benito Juárez.

This was a stage where two governments coexisted in parallel. All of this was a historic effort so that Mexico could, at last, consolidate its independence process.

References

1. Benson, Nettie Lee (1953). Iturbide and the plans for independence. Mexican History Magazine Vol. 2, No. 3 (Jan - Mar), pp. 439-446. Recovered at: scholar.google.es
2. From Iturbide, Agustín (1821). Plan of Mr. Colonel D. Agustín Iturbide. Supplement N ° 14 14. The Puebla Bee. Equal to. February 24, 1821. Facsimile edition. Recovered at: scholarship.rice.edu
3. Jáuregui, L. (2001). The Casa Mata Plan and Federalism in Nuevo León, 1823. Sequence Magazine, (50), May-August. Page 140. Recovered at: scholar.google.es
4. López de Santa Anna, Antonio (1848). Details of the operations that took place in the defense of the capital of the Republic attacked by the army of the United States of the North in 1847. Ignacio Cumplido's printing house. Mexico. Recovered at: books.google.es
5. Vázquez, JZ (1989). Church, army and centralism. Mexican History Magazine, 205-234. Recovered at: scholar.google.es