| Vicente Guerrero | |
|---|---|
| A half-length, posthumous portrait by Anacleto Escutia (1850) | |
2nd President of Mexico |
|
| In office 1 April 1829. – 17 December 1829. |
|
| Vice President | Anastasio Bustamante |
| Preceded by | Guadalupe Victoria |
| Succeeded by | José María Bocanegra |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 10 August 1782 Tixtla (modern-day Guerrero) |
| Died | 14 February 1831 (aged 48) Cuilapan, Oaxaca |
Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña (August 10, 1782 – February 14, 1831) was one of the leading revolutionary generals of the Mexican War of Independence, who fought against Spain for independence in the early 19th century, and served briefly as President of Mexico.[1] He was also the grandfather of the Mexican politician and intellectual Vicente Riva Palacio.
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Guerrero was born in Tixtla, a town 100 kilometers inland from the port of Acapulco, in the Sierra Madre del Sur, son of Juan Pedro Guerrero and his wife, María de Guadalupe Saldaña. However, the Guerreros were accounted "españoles americanos" ("American Spaniards", i.e. criollos) in a contemporary census of Tixtla. His family consisted of landlords, rich farmers and traders with broad business connections in the south, members of the Spanish militia and gun and cannon makers. Probably, these were the reasons why the criollo status of the Guerreros was respected, although Vicente was of African descent on his father side and Amerindian from his mother.[2] This fact would be used later by his enemies to attack him politically through ad hominem arguments. Vicente’s father, Pedro, supported Spanish rule, but Vicente was opposed to the Spanish colonial government. When his father asked him for his sword in order to present it to the viceroy of New Spain as a sign of goodwill and surrender, Vicente refused, saying, "The will of my father is for me sacred, but my Motherland is first." "My Motherland is first" is now the motto of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, named in honor of the revolutionary.
He married María de Guadalupe Hernández and their daughter María de los Dolores Guerrero Hernández married Mariano Riva Palacio, who worked for the Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico in Querétaro, and had Vicente Riva Palacio.
Guerrero joined in the early revolt against Spain in 1810, first fighting alongside José María Morelos. When the War of Independence began, Guerrero was working as a gunsmith in Tixtla. He joined the rebellion in November 1810 and enlisted in a division that independence leader José María Morelos had organized to fight in southern Mexico. Guerrero distinguished himself in the battle of Izúcar, in February 1812, and had achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel, when Oaxaca was claimed by rebels in November 1812.
Following the capture and execution of Morelos in late 1815, Guerrero joined forces with Guadalupe Victoria and Isidoro Montes de Oca, taking command of the rebel troops. He remained the only major rebel leader still at large, keeping the rebellion going through an extensive campaign of guerrilla warfare. He won victories at Ajuchitán, Santa Fe, Tetela del Río, Huetamo, Tlalchapa and Cuautlotitlán, regions of southern Mexico that were very familiar to him.
Mexico achieved independence, he at first collaborated with Agustín de Iturbide, who proposed that the two join forces under what he referred to as the Three Guarantees. Iturbide's professed belief in these ideological mandates – that Mexico be made an independent constitutional monarchy, the abolition of class distinctions between Spaniards, creoles, mestizos and Indians, and that Catholicism be made the state religion – earned Guerrero's support, and, after marching into the capital on September 27, 1821,[3] Iturbide was proclaimed Emperor of Mexico by Congress. However, when Iturbide's policies supported the interests of Mexico's wealthy landowners through continued economic exploitation of the poor and working classes, Guerrero turned against him and came out in favor of a Republic with the Plan of Casa Mata.
When the general Manuel Gómez Pedraza won the election to succeed Guadalupe Victoria as president, Guerrero, with the aid of general Antonio López de Santa Anna and politician Lorenzo de Zavala,[4] staged a coup d'état and took the presidency on April 1, 1829.[5] The most notable achievement of Guerrero's short term as president was ordering an immediate abolition of slavery[6] and emancipation of all slaves.
Guerrero was deposed in a rebellion under Vice-president Anastasio Bustamante that began on December 4, 1829. He left the capital to fight the rebels, but was deposed by the Mexico City garrison in his absence on December 17, 1829. Guerrero hoped to come back to power, but General Bustamante captured him through bribery and had him executed.
After his death, Mexicans loyal to Guerrero revolted, driving Bustamante from his presidency and forcing him to flee for his life. Picaluga, a former friend of Guerrero, who conspired with Bustamante to capture Guerrero, was executed.
Honors were conferred on surviving members of Guerrero's family, and a pension was paid to his widow. In 1842, Vicente Guerrero's body was returned to Mexico City and interred there.
Guerrero is a Mexican national hero. The state of Guerrero is named ln his honour.
In 1821, Mexico accepted Americans to settle the Texas territory under the conditions that the settlers convert to Catholicism and observe Mexican laws, including the abolition of slavery. On September 15, 1829 President Vicente Ramon Guerrero, emancipated all slaves within the Republic of Mexico:[5][6]
However, Guerrero immediately received strong warnings from Texas, where most of the slaveholders were located, of "serious inconvenience apprehended by the execution of the decree of the 15th of September last, on the subject of abolition of slavery in that department and the fatal results to be expected, prejudicial to the tranquility and even to the political existence of the state." Thus, scarcely two months later, Guerrero sent a note dated November 20 communicating to the governor and military garrisons of Texas that the Texas slaves would remain enslaved.[6]
Several towns in Mexico are named in honor of this famous General, including Col. Vicente Guerrero in Baja California and the Mexican State of Guerrero, on the mainland of Mexico. Guerrero Negro in Baja California Sur, however, is not named after him but after the "Black Warrior", a whaling ship that shipwrecked in the area.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Guadalupe Victoria |
President of Mexico 1829 |
Succeeded by José María Bocanegra |