Vicente Guerrero
Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña (
10 August 1782 –
14 February 1831) was one of the leaders of
Mexico's
struggle for independence from
Spain and an early
President of Mexico. He was born in the town of
Tixtla, some 100 km inland from the port of
Acapulco, in the
Sierra Madre Occidental. He was from a poor
Mullato (a mixture African, Spanish, & Amerindian descent) family.
He joined in the early revolt against Spain in
1810, first fighting alongside
José María Morelos and then taking command over those troops after Morelos's death. The valiant resistance he displayed against the Spanish armies and the fact that he himself was a
Mestizo made him a hero among the Mexicans who would rather deposit their trust to a fellow of the same race than to any other of the
Criollos supporters of the revolution like Agustín de Iturbide in the central New Spain or
Simón Bolívar at the south.
Once Mexico achieved independence he at first collaborated with
Agustín de Iturbide (he even accepted his
Grand Cross of the Order of Guadalupe and the rank of General in his Imperial Army). After Iturbide was proclaimed Emperor of Mexico by the Congress, Guerrero later turned against him and came out in favor of a
Republic with the
Plan of Casa Mata.
When the conservative
Manuel Gómez Pedraza won the election to succeed
Guadalupe Victoria as president of Mexico, Guerrero, with the aid of General
Antonio López de Santa Anna, staged a
coup and took the presidency on
1 April 1829. (The violent nature of the coup displeased some Latin American liberals of the time who otherwise sympathised with Guerrero's goals, and his actions were condemned by
Simón Bolívar.) The most notable achievement of Guerrero's short term as president was ordering an immediate abolition of
slavery and emancipation of all slaves.
Guerrero was deposed in a counter-coup on
4 December 1829. He hoped to come back to power, but conservative General
Anastasio Bustamante captured him through bribery and had him executed.
The
state of
Guerrero is named after him, and his birthplace was renamed
Tixtla de Guerrero in his honor.
*
History of Mexico*
List of Presidents of Mexico*
Vicente Guerrero: An Inventory of His Collection at the Benson Latin American Collection*
Alfredo Ávila: Vicente Guerrero, un presidente republicano (PDF document in Spanish)
*
Vicente Guerrero on Mexconnect.com*
Guerrero on gob.mex/kids*
Guerrero on Creole Culture site*
Letters about Vicente Guerrero hosted by the
Portal to Texas History.
