Vicente Guerrero

Mexico's new empire faces serious economic problems.

After the wars, the public coffers are empty, and the bureaucracy has grown.

Modest tax adjustments are tried, but the results are meager.

In congress, discontented factions sharply criticize the government, and Iturbide's recourse is to dissolve the legislative branch and to have all opposition delegates arrested in August 1822.

In Veracruz, the commander of the garrison, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna Perez de Lebron, rises against Iturbide and proclaims a republic on December 1, 1822.

Santa Anna is quickly joined by other revolutionaries—including a disenchanted Vicente Guerrero, Nicolas Bravo, and Guadalupe Victoria.

Together, they draw up the Plan of Casa Mata on February 1, 1823.

By mid-month, Iturbide, realizing the failure of his efforts, abdicates the throne.

Rebel forces encounter no opposition when they arrive in Mexico City.

In July the United Provinces of Central America (consisting of Spanish-speaking Central America except for present-day Panama), which had been forcibly incorporated into the empire by Iturbide, declare their independence. (The province of Chiapas, belonging to the Captaincy General of Guatemala, opts to remain a part of Mexico.)

The experience of an empire has failed, and the idea of a monarchical system for Mexico will be dismissed for four decades.

Iturbide's excesses have worked to the benefit of the republicans.

Mexico's  economic conditions worsen during the administration of its first president, Guadalupe Victoria, as government expenditures soar beyond revenues.

Declining economic conditions persuade the criollos that there is more behind the economic decline than bad management by peninsulares.

One of the government's major burdens is the assumption of all debts contracted during the late colonial period and the empire, a substantial sum.

The government's ability to service the debt is severely constrained by the costs of maintaining a fifty-thousand-strong standing army and the insufficiency of revenues generated by tariffs, taxes, and government monopolies.

To cover the shortfall, Victoria accepts two large loans on stiff terms from British merchant houses.

The British have supported independence movements in Spanish colonies and see the loans as an opportunity to further displace Spain as the New World's dominant mercantile power.

The federalist forces largely prevail in writing the new constitution, but the centralists win three major concessions.

The constitution of 1824, which is strongly influenced by the United States constitution and Mexico's legislative relationship with Spain since 1810, establishes the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos) as a federal republic composed of nineteen states and four territories.

Power is distributed among executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

Legislative power is wielded by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, while executive power is exercised by a president and a vice president elected by the state legislatures for four-year terms.

In spite of the liberal outlook of the constitution, certain traditional privileges are maintained: Roman Catholicism remains the official religion, the fueros are retained by the military and clergy, and in national emergencies the president can exercise unlimited powers.

After the fall of the Mexican Empire, a provisional government is installed consisting of Bravo, Victoria, and Pedro Celestino Negrete.

Delegates are elected to the Constitutional Congress that enter into session on November 27, 1823.

The congress has two major factions: the federalists, who fear control from a conservative Mexico City and are supported by liberal criollos and mestizos; and the more conservative centralists, who prefer the rule of tradition and draw their allegiance from the clergy, conservative criollos, the landowners, and the military.

Most of the fighting by those seeking independence from Spain is done by isolated guerrilla bands from 1815 to 1821.

Out of these bands rise two men, Guadalupe Victoria (whose real name is Manuel Felix Fernandez) in Puebla and Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca, both of whom are able to command allegiance and respect from their followers.

The Spanish viceroy, however, feels the situation is under control and issues a general pardon to every rebel who will lay down his arms.

The independence movement is stalemated and close to collapse by early 1820, after ten years of civil war and the death of two of its founders.

The rebels face stiff Spanish military resistance and the apathy of many of the most influential criollos.

The violent excesses and populist zeal of Hidalgo's and Morelos's irregular armies have reinforced many criollos' fears of race and class warfare, ensuring their grudging acquiescence to conservative Spanish rule until a less bloody path to independence can be found.

It is at this juncture that the machinations of a conservative military caudillo, coinciding with a successful liberal rebellion in Spain, makes possible a radical realignment of the pro-independence forces.

Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca sends a force led by a royalist criollo officer, Augustin de Iturbide, to defeat Guerrero's army in Oaxacan in December 1820 in what is supposed to be the final government campaign against the insurgents.

Iturbide, a native of Valladolid, has gained renown for the zeal with which he had persecuted Hidalgo's and Morelos's rebels during the early independence struggle.

A favorite of the Mexican church hierarchy, Iturbide is the personification of conservative criollo values, devoutly religious, and committed to the defense of property rights and social privileges; he is also disgruntled at his lack of promotion and wealth.

Iturbide's assignment to the Oaxaca expedition coincides with a successful military coup in Spain against the new monarchy of Ferdinand VII.

The coup leaders, who had been assembled as an expeditionary force to suppress the American independence movements, compel a reluctant Ferdinand to sign the liberal Spanish constitution of 1812.

When news of the liberal charter reaches Mexico, Iturbide sees in it both a threat to the status quo and an opportunity for the criollos to gain control of Mexico.

Ironically, independence is finally achieved when conservative forces in the colonies choose to rise up against a temporarily liberal regime in the mother country.

After an initial clash with Guerrero's forces, Iturbide switches allegiances and invites the rebel leader to meet and discuss principles of a renewed independence struggle.

While stationed in the town of Iguala, Iturbide proclaims three principles, or "guarantees," for Mexican independence from Spain: Mexico will be an independent monarchy governed by a transplanted King Ferdinand or some other conservative European prince, criollos and peninsulares will henceforth enjoy equal rights and privileges, and the Roman Catholic Church will retain its privileges and religious monopoly.

After convincing his troops to accept the principles, which are promulgated on February 24, 1821, as the Plan of Iguala, Iturbide persuades Guerrero to join his forces in support of the new conservative manifestation of the independence movement.

A new army, the Army of the Three Guarantees, is now placed under Iturbide's command to enforce the Plan of Iguala.

The plan is so broadly based that it pleases both patriots and loyalists.

The goal of independence and the protection of Roman Catholicism brings together all factions.

Iturbide's army is joined by rebel forces from all over Mexico.

The viceroy resigns when the rebels' victory becomes certain.

Representatives of the Spanish crown and Iturbide on September 27, 1821, sign the Treaty of Cordoba, which recognizes Mexican independence under the terms of the Plan of Iguala.

Iturbide, a former royalist who has become the paladin for Mexican independence, includes a special clause in the treaty that leaves open the possibility for a criollo monarch to be appointed by a Mexican congress if no suitable member of the European royalty will accept the Mexican crown.