Agustín de Iturbide
Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu(Spanish pronunciation: [aɣusˈtin de ituɾˈbiðe] ; 27 September 1783 – 19 July 1824), commonly known as Agustín de Iturbide and later by his regnal name Agustín I, was the first Emperor of Mexico from 1822 until his abdication in 1823. An officer in the royal Spanish army, during the Mexican War of Independence he initially fought insurgent forces rebelling against the Spanish crown before changing sides in 1820 and leading a coalition of former royalists and long-time insurgents under his Plan of Iguala. The combined forces under Iturbide brought about Mexican independence in September 1821. After securing the secession of Mexico from Spain, Iturbide was proclaimed president of the Regency in 1821; a year later, he was proclaimed Emperor, reigning from 19 May 1822 to 19 March 1823, when he abdicated. In May 1823 he went into exile in Europe. When he returned to Mexico in July 1824, he was arrested and executed.[2][3][4]
In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Iturbide and the second or maternal family name is Arámburu.Agustín I
19 May 1822 – 19 March 1823
21 July 1822
Monarchy established
Provisional Government (Chronologically)
Maximilian I
(as Emperor)
28 September 1821 – 18 May 1822
Monarchy established
Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu
27 September 1783
Valladolid, Viceroyalty of New Spain
(now Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico)
19 July 1824 (aged 40)
Padilla, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Mexico City Cathedral
Agustín Jerónimo, Prince Imperial of Mexico
Princess Sabina
Princess Juana de Dios
Princess Josefa
Prince Ángel
Princess María de Jesús
Princess María de los Dolores
Prince Salvador María
Prince Felipe
Prince Agustín Cosme
María Josefa de Arámburu y Carrillo de Figueroa
Family and early life[edit]
Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu was born in what was then called Valladolid, now Morelia, the provincial capital of Michoacán, on 27 September 1783.[5][6] He was baptized with the names of Saints Augustine, Cosmas, and Damian at the cathedral.[7] The fifth child born to his parents, he was the only male to survive and eventually became head of the family.[8]
Iturbide's parents were part of the privileged landed class of Valladolid, owning agricultural land[5][6] including the haciendas of Apeo and Guaracha as well as lands in nearby Quirio.[7]
Iturbide's father, Joaquín de Iturbide, came from a family of the Basque gentry who were confirmed in nobility by King Juan II of Aragon. One of his ancestors, Martín de Iturbide, was designated as Royal Merino in the High Valley of Baztan in the 1430s, and thereafter many in the family held political or administrative positions in the Basque Country from the 15th century. As a younger son, Joaquín was not in line to inherit the family lands, so he migrated to New Spain to make his fortune there.[8] While the aristocratic and Spanish lineage of Agustín's father was not in doubt, his mother's ancestry was less clear.
His mother was of pure Spanish blood born in Mexico, and therefore, a criolla.[7][8] Some sources state she came from a high-ranking family in Michoacán.[5][6][9] In the Spanish colonial era, racial caste was important to advancement, including military rank, and having some indigenous ancestry was often a disadvantage.[10] Iturbide insisted throughout his life that he was criollo (native born of Spanish descent).[11][12]
Agustín studied at the Catholic seminary called Colegio de San Nicolás in Valladolid, enrolled in the program for secular officials, though he was not a distinguished student.[2][5][8] After that, he worked as an overseer at one of his family's haciendas for a short time, discovering he was a very good horseman.[2][5]
Iturbide entered the royal army in 1805,[12] commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Valladolid regiment of the provincial infantry.[5][6][13] In 1806, he was promoted to full lieutenant.[8]
Marriage and family[edit]
In 1805, when he was twenty-two, Iturbide married Doña Ana María Josefa Ramona de Huarte y Muñiz, member of the House of Tagle of the family of the Marquises of Altamira.[5][8] She came from Valladolid, from prosperous family of businessmen and landowners.[14] She was the daughter of wealthy and powerful noble Isidro de Huarte, governor of the district, and the granddaughter of the Marquis of Altamira. With her dowry of 100,000 pesos, the couple bought the Hacienda of San José de Apeo in the small town of Maravatío,[8] not far from property owned by Father Miguel Hidalgo, who became leader of the insurgency for independence in 1810.[15] Iturbide had a longstanding friendship and had business dealings with the wealthy Mexico City beauty María Ignacia Rodríguez, known as La Güera Rodríguez ("Rodríguez the Fair"), who supported the insurgency for independence.[16]
Military career[edit]
In the early 19th century, there was political unrest in New Spain. One of Iturbide's first military campaigns was to help put down a mutiny, headed by
Gabriel J. de Yermo.[17]
He quickly grew in popularity amongst the royalists, whilst becoming a feared foe for the Insurgents. A peerless horseman and a valiant dragoon who acquired a reputation for achieving victory against numerical odds, his prowess in the field gained him the nom de guerre of "El Dragón de Hierro" or "The Iron Dragon", in reference to his skill and position in the army. He was given an important charge in the army. However, he was accused by locals of using his authority for financial gain although he was recognized as valiant in combat.[12] Those accusations could not be proved but cost him his post. He turned down the offer to reclaim his post since he felt that his honor had been damaged. He may have been involved in the initial conspiracy to declare independence in 1809 that was headed by José Mariano Michelena in Valladolid.[17][18] It is known by his and Hidalgo's documents that he was a distant relative of Miguel Hidalgo, the initial leader of the Insurgent Army. Hidalgo wrote to Iturbide, offering him a higher rank in his army. Iturbide writes in his memoirs that he considered the offer, but that ultimately turned it down because he considered Hidalgo's uprising ill-executed and his methods barbaric.
Switching sides[edit]
Criollo rebellion[edit]
From 1810 to 1820, Iturbide had fought against those who sought to overturn the Spanish monarchy and Bourbon dynasty's right to rule New Spain and replace that regime with an independent government. He was solidly aligned with the Criollos.[3][12][14] However, events in Spain caused problems, as the very monarchy for which that class was fighting was in serious trouble. The 1812 Cadiz Constitution, which was reinstated in Spain in 1820 after the successful Riego Revolt, established a constitutional monarchy, which greatly limited Ferdinand VII's powers. There was serious concern in Mexico that the Bourbons would be forced to abandon Spain altogether.[17][25] That led to the disintegration of viceregal authority in Mexico City, and a political vacuum developed that the Mexican nobility sought to fill, seeking limited representation and autonomy for themselves within the empire.[14] An idea arose in the class that if Mexico became independent or autonomous, and Ferdinand were deposed, he could become king of Mexico.[25]
Downfall[edit]
Dissolution of Congress[edit]
The republicans were not happy with Iturbide as emperor. While the Catholic clergy supported him,[23] the coronation dashed republican hopes, and while the Plan of Iguala and the Treaty of Córdoba directed that in the event of it being impossible to install a European on the Mexican throne, a national sovereign could be chosen, some of the royalists who had supported Iturbide had hoped for a European ruler. Many of the landed classes supported Iturbide and those documents because they offered a sense of continuity with the past. Iturbide's election to the throne was against their wishes, and many of them withdrew their support for him and conspired against the new empire.
The strongest opposition to Iturbide's reign came from the Congress, where a significant number of its members supported republican ideas.[21] Many of these members also belonged to Masonic lodges, which provided an easy forum for communication. Those ideas found a voice when Manuel Codorniu founded the newspaper El Sol, essentially becoming the in-house publication for the Scottish Rite lodge in its struggle against Iturbide.[2] Iturbide's government was notoriously harsh in turning down territorial negotiations with agents of the US government, as attested by Poinsett. The United States was itself a republic as well, meaning Iturbide's relations with the US were on shaky ground. The Congress, believing itself to be sovereign over the Emperor and the people and the recipient of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, antagonized Iturbide. The Congress refused to draw up a new monarchical Mexican Constitution with a role for the Emperor. Furthermore, people loyal to the Emperor became aware of a conspiracy that involved several members of the Congress who planned to kidnap the Emperor and his family and overthrow the Empire.[32] As a response to this claimed threat to his life and to combat the resistance, Iturbide dismissed the Congress on 31 October 1822 and two days later created a new junta, the National Institutional Junta, to legislate in its place, answering only to himself.[21][25]
The National Institutional Junta was directed to create much-needed legislation in economic matters, create a provisional set of laws for the Empire, and then issue a call for a new Constituent Congress. The formulation of the new Congress was changed in how many representatives each Mexican province was granted. The new Congress would also be in charge of issuing a new Mexican Constitution. Iturbide persecuted his enemies, arresting and jailing a score of former members of the Congress, but that did not bring peace.[2][3][17]
A number of prominent politicians and military leaders, many of whom had supported Agustín as emperor, turned against him for having "made a mockery of national representation" in the new Congress's composition.[25] Among those were prominent Insurgent leaders Vicente Guerrero, Nicolás Bravo and Guadalupe Victoria.
Meanwhile, Mexico suffered as an independent country. Ferdinand's resurgence as a ruler in Spain and his clear intentions to reconquer Mexico meant that no European nation was willing to recognize Mexico's independence, and most broke off economic ties with the new state. Iturbide's economic policies were draining resources as well. To increase his popularity, he abolished a number of colonial-era taxes. However, he still insisted on a large and very well-paid army and lived extravagantly himself.[25] The elite turned against him when he imposed a 40% property tax.[32]
The situation did not last long. Soon, Iturbide was unable to pay his army, creating discontent in a significant portion of his power base. When criticism of the government grew strong, Iturbide censored the press, an act that backfired against him. Opposition groups began to band together against him.[3] Leaders such as Valentín Gómez Farías and Antonio López de Santa Anna began to conspire against the imperial concept altogether and became convinced that a republican model was needed to combat despotism.[25]
Iturbide's role in history[edit]
Iturbide's reign as emperor lasted less than a year, but as leader of the coalition that brought about Mexican independence and then as its first ruler in the post-independence era, he remains an important figure not only in Mexico, but also in Europe. For a number of Mexican autonomists, a constitutionally sanctioned monarchy seemed a logical solution to the problem of creating a new state as it seemed to be a compromise between those who pushed for a representative form of government and those who wished to keep Mexico's monarchist traditions. In this view, a republican, federalist government was virtually unheard of; for 300 years New Spain had lived in a monarchy, so a continuation of some form would have aided national stability. Historian Eric Van Young states that Iturbide's seizure of the crown "seems less cynical and idiosyncratic when it comes along at the end of the independence struggle."[20] Van Young's assessment is that "he demonstrated moments of political brilliance clouded over in the long term by bad judgment and that in the end he was an opportunist."[20] Agustín de Iturbide was politically motivated by the Spanish Constitution in 1812. This Constitution gave the people constitutional rights, established a representative government in Spain, and also made the monarchy into a parliament. Iturbide recognized that with this new Constitution in place, he would not retain as much power as he had before, seeing as he was an upper class elite male. Even though his Plan de Iguala proclaimed equality for Spaniards and Creoles, this was only benefitting him at the end of the day. He also wanted to make Roman Catholicism supreme to others and ban any other religion, which was very much keeping with the Spanish. Iturbide was not a revolutionary, but a reactionary. This is even further proved by the fact that he originally would not join Miguel Hidalgo in the independence cause until it best benefitted him. The rest of the 19th century would be marked by oscillation between the two political extremes, with each side gaining the upper hand at one point or another. The old Mexican nobility remained close at hand, ready for a return. Members of the Iturbide family intrigued against the Mexican government in Madrid, New York City, Paris, and Rome as late as the 1890s.[33]
Liberal or republican ideas would continue to be embraced by people outside the Mexico City elite. These came out of Bourbon Reforms in Europe that were based on the Enlightenment. Attacks on the Catholic Church by liberals in Spain and elsewhere in Europe were in Mexico during the Liberal Reform period in the mid-nineteenth century. Ideals of the Constitution of Cadiz would find expression in the 1824 Constitution of Mexico. This constitution would influence political thought on both sides of the Mexican political spectrum, with even Iturbide bending to it when he created the first congress of an independent Mexico. After Iturbide, there was wide general consensus, even among the landed elite, that some form of representative government was needed. The question was how much power would be in legislative hands and how much in an executive.[25]
Iturbide's empire was replaced with the First Mexican Republic. General Guadalupe Victoria was elected the first president, but in subsequent years, General Vicente Guerrero became the first in a long line of Presidents to gain the Presidency through a military revolt after losing an election. Guerrero was betrayed and assassinated, and Santa Anna would rise to avenge him, beginning an era of Mexican history that Santa Anna dominated. This regime would oscillate and finally be overcome by the Plan of Ayutla. The new Government would struggle between anti-clerical, reformist views and conservative views during the Reform War. During the French Intervention the country would face Civil War amongst conservative, Catholic, Europe-adherent monarchists led by the ironically liberal Maximilian I of Mexico, and liberal, masonic, anti-clerical, reformist and United States-adherent liberals led by the American-backed Benito Juárez. Having prevailed, Juárez died after 15 years of forcefully remaining as president. Porfirio Díaz in the late 19th century would install a one-man rule which imposed upon México its first true period of relative peace, in exchange for freedom, and Díaz remaining for the next 30 years in power. He would be overthrown by the Mexican Revolution.[14]
Coat of Arms of Agustín de Iturbide as Emperor of Mexico
Iturbide in a 19th-century painting
Copy of a portrait of Agustín I, Constitutional Emperor of Mexico, made for the Iturbide Gallery (current Ambassador's Hall) at the National Palace.
Declaration to the World (Manifiesto de Liorna) by Agustín de Iturbide or rather Notes for History, a manuscript tinged with his blood and found between his sash and shirt after his execution.
Transfer of the remains of Iturbide to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City. Lithography from Ignacio complement of 1849, published in the book "Description of the funeral solemnity funeral with which the remains of the hero of Iguala were honored."
