Vicente Riva Palacio

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Vicente Riva Palacio y Guerrero (October 16, 1832 – November 22, 1896) was a Mexican politician, essayist, novelist and historian.

He was born in Mexico City. His father was Mariano Riva Palacio, a liberal lawyer whom Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg chose for his legal defense subsequent to his capture by the forces of President Benito Juárez. Riva Palacio y Guerrero's mother was Dolores Guerrero, daughter of the Independence War hero and later second president of Mexico, General Vicente Guerrero.

He studied law at Mexico City, graduating in 1854. He rejected a position at the national tax office offered to him by then President Benito Juárez. He was Member of Congress between 1856 and 1861. The next year during the French intervention in Mexico he raised a guerrilla army and joined General Ignacio Zaragoza against the French. On 1863, with the nation under siege, he was designated governor of the Estado de México and on 1864 of Michoacán, defending them from the invaders.

In 1870, he and Manuel Payno wrote El Libro Rojo (The Red Book) to honor the memory of Mexican patriots and martyrs who helped shape the country. The adjective "red" is an allusion to the bloodshed attending the battle for sovereignty. ^[1] His novel Memories of an Impostor: Don Guillén de Lamport, King of Mexico is considered among the sources which inspired the well-known fictional hero Zorro.