Losing Mexico
WHY DID THE MEXICAN ELITES
TURN AGAINST SPANISH COLONIAL RULE FROM 1820?
ABSTRACT
Mexico it was among the last Spanish colonies in the Americas to secede from the metropolis. From 1808 to 1820, most members of the White and Creole elite continued to support
Spain because they feared both racial violence and lower-class demands for social reform,
including land redistribution benefitting the poor. The elite’s attitudes changed around 1820
for two reasons: It became clear that Spain remained committed to preserving a top-down relationship with its colony in which the elite’s political and economic demands would not only
be marginalised but Spanish colonial policies actively antagonised the elite, including the
Church, the military and the colonial judiciary. In addition, Agustín de Iturbide’s “Plan of
Iguala” emerged as a blueprint for independence that did not threaten the political and economic interests of the colony’s elite. These two factors united the elite behind the independence cause. The paper shows that Mexican independence in 1821 was primarily the result of
Spanish policies and that Spain repeatedly missed opportunities to preserve the loyalty of the
Mexican elite.
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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Losing Mexico
Mexico, the “crown jewel” among the Spanish possessions in the Americas, was among the
last mainland territories in Spanish America to establish its independence.1 While the emancipation process in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, as it was called under colonial rule, “began,
as in other parts of Spanish America, with the imperial crisis of 1808”, it was initially less
successful than its sister movements in South America.2 Yet in 1821, it took only a few
months for a second attempt to succeed.
Part of the explanation for these different trajectories can be found in the political and
military developments in Spain. Beginning in 1808, when a French invasion resulted in the
abdication of the ruling Bourbon kings, the country experienced more than a decade of war
and political and economic turmoil both at home and in its American colonies.
The key difference between both independence attempts was the behaviour of New
Spain’s elite. Including a small number of European Spaniards but mostly Creole – Whites of
Spanish descent born in New Spain –, its membership consisted of high-ranking administration officials; wealthy landowners, merchants and mine-owners; military leaders; and the upper ranks of the Catholic Church in the viceroyalty. Between 1810 and 1815, these groups
actively opposed the pro-independence movement, in large part because of its demands for
social change. After 1820, however, when the cause of independence was taken up and reoriented by one of their own, the elite overwhelmingly supported separation from Spain.
Hamnett has made the case that “the entire question of Mexican independence reduces
itself to a readjustment of positions among the groups constituting the elites”.3 This paper will
argue that the elites’ support for independence after 1820 was the result both of a Spanish
failure to retain their loyalty by addressing Creole demands for reforms in the imperial system, and the emergence of an independence programme that promised them separation without threatening social change.
For a brief moment in the early 1820s, independence appeared as an option with significant benefits for and no threat to the elite’s interests, and while subsequent events would
prove this an illusion, the moment lasted long enough to cast off Spanish rule over New
Spain.
1
Alicia Hernández Chávez, Mexico: A Brief History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 38.
Virginia Guedea, “The Process of Mexican Independence,” The American Historical Review 103:1 (Feb.
2000), 116.
3
Brian R. Hamnett, “Mexico’s Royalist Coalition: The Response to Revolution 1808–1821,” Journal of Latin
American Studies 12:1 (May 1980), 55.
2
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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I.
Spain depended heavily on its overseas possessions, which were responsible for 55.5 percent
of government revenue in 1810 and 35 percent in 1811.4 The most important one among them
was New Spain, where six million of the Spanish America’s total population of 15 to 16 million lived, and where up to two thirds of the colonial silver production originated.5 Its capital,
Mexico City, “was the largest and most important urban center in the New World.”6
New Spain’s economy rested on two pillars: mining and agriculture. The silver mines
were “the life-blood of the colony,” and their owners’ fortunes were unrivalled in Spanish
America.7 Most landowners did not amass similar wealth, and their estates were primarily a
source of social prestige.8 Crucially, however, haciendas concentrated the arable land in an
ever-shrinking number of hands.9 Although Tutino shows some Indian communities preserved collective lands for their members, the combination of rapid population growth and
increasing land concentration left much of New Spain’s population at the mercy of hacienda
owners.10
Lynch is right when he observes that the viceroyalty’s “social structure was rigid.” Of
the population of New Spain, about eighty percent – three quarters of which were Indians, the
remaining of varying degrees of African descent – were barred from meaningful economic or
political participation. There was inequality even within the small white minority that divided
wealth and power among itself: The fifteen thousand Spaniards enjoyed commercial privileges and monopolized access to high offices in the administration, the judiciary, and the
Church.11
It was this inequality, which prevented even the most worthy – or wealthiest – Creole
from rising to the top of New Spanish society, which ultimately motivated the elite to support
independence after 1820. Before that, however, the demands for change made by the lower
classes in the first attempt at Mexican independence united the elites behind Spain one last
time.
4
Timothy E. Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos: The Problem of Equality,” The Hispanic
American Historical Review 62:2 (May 1982), 264.
5
John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions 1808–1826, 2nd ed. (New York/London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1986), 296, 299; Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 259.
6
Timothy E. Anna, “The Finances of Mexico City During the War of Independence,” Journal of Latin American
Studies 4:1 (May 1972), 55.
7
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 296–297.
8
D. A. Brading, “Government and Elite in Late Colonial Mexico,” The Hispanic American Historical Review
53:3 (Aug. 1973), 390.
9
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 297–298.
10
Ibid., 298; John Tutino, “Hacienda Social Relations in Mexico: The Chalco Region in the Era of
Independence,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 55:3 (Aug. 1975), 498–501.
11
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 299.
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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II.
It took only about a decade for events in and actions of Spain to fundamentally erode the loyalty New Spain’s Creole elite had to the metropolis. Anna, who calls this process “the breakdown of the imperial ethos” in New Spain, provides a useful framework for its analysis. He
argues that the bond between Spain and its overseas possessions was the result of three ideas:
the concept of rey padre, cultural – including religious – unity across the Atlantic, and the
equal status of all people within the Spanish empire.12
The concept of the “father king” refers to the idea that the Spanish American territories were “the patrimonial property of the king” of Spain, as opposed to being colonies of the
Spanish state.13 Although more closely associated with the previous Habsburg dynasty than
the house of the recently deposed Ferdinand VII, the concept remained popular in New Spain
and other parts of Spanish America.14 The perception of the king as rey padre had such deep
roots in the viceroyalty that it even withstood “Napoleon Bonaparte [taking] the Spanish
monarchy hostage” in 1808.15 Some members of the first wave of insurgency against Spanish
rule in 1810 in fact believed that Ferdinand had not only directed them to kill the viceroy, but
even accompanied the rebellion’s leader in disguise.16 While the king remained popular
throughout the first half of the 1810s, the idea of rey padre was undermined in the years before 1820 by the reality of Creole movements fighting royal troops across Spanish America
and Creole demands being ignored by the royal government after its restoration in 1814, even
as the king continued to feature prominently in Spanish efforts designed to pacify and keep
New Spain.17 While these efforts failed, one must note, however, that even in 1821 the independence movement was not prepared to fully break with Ferdinand.
Lynch’s characterization of New Spain as “pure colony” in which “Spaniard ruled
creole, creole used Indian, and the metropolis exploited all three” is not inaccurate, but misses
an important cultural dimension and is thus incomplete.18 While the structure of economic
and political power favoured Spaniards over Creoles and the rest of the viceroyalty’s population, it is important to note that this population did not see itself as subjects of a colonial pow12
Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 254.
Ibid., 254.
14
Ibid., 254–255.
15
Eric Van Young, “Of Tempests and Teapots: Imperial Crisis and Local Conflict in Mexico at the Beginning of
the Nineteenth Century,” in Cycles of Conflict, Centuries of Change: Crisis, Reform, and Revolution in Mexico,
edited by Elisa Servín et al. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 25.
16
Eric Van Young, “Millennium on the Northern Marches: The Mad Messiah of Durango and Popular Rebellion
in Mexico, 1800–1815,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28:3 (July 1986), 405.
17
Jaime E. Rodríguez O., The Independence of Spanish America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998), 161–162; Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 267–268.
18
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 296.
13
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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er. Rodríguez correctly observes that Spanish Americans “began the process toward independence in response to metropolitan threats to their self-interests and to their sense of being
an integral and important component” of the Spanish empire, and at the beginning “considered themselves to be Spaniards … defending their Spanish … rights.”19 This idea of cultural
unity across the Spanish empire was not only echoed by leaders in the mother country, but
even by “[a]s different a source as Simón Bolívar.”20 In public rhetoric and declarations,
Spain went to great lengths to project that all parts of the empire were equal; the word “colony” was almost never used except in internal state documents, for example.21
Importantly, the sense of cultural unity was rather one-sided: “For most Spaniards …
America was detached and seemingly unrelated to their daily lives.”22 This cultural gap became evident, for example, when the representatives from across the Spanish empire who
maintained the Spanish government in opposition to the French-backed monarchy voted on a
religious issue in 1811. The Spanish American delegates in the Cortes had demanded to restore the Jesuit Order, which had been banned in 1767, in the overseas territories. The expulsion of the Jesuits, who had been an integral part of colonial society since the first days of the
Spanish conquest of America, was particularly felt in the New World, where they had been
closely connected to the Creole elites, owned extensive lands, dominated educational institutions, and provided a range of social services. Despite that legacy, the Cortes rejected the motion outright.23
While the Jesuit restoration was the only Spanish American demand denied entirely,
the other ten identified by Anna did not fare much better: Seven were delayed for good, and
the three which were accepted – allowing the production of previously banned commodities,
the freedom to mine mercury, and equal representation of the overseas colonies in the Cortes – were either rendered meaningless by the consequences of war, or altered so as to be virtually unrecognizable.24
The greatest source of disappointment for Spanish Americans was the compromise
found on their strength in the Cortes. The mother country initially received one Cortes member per 50,000 citizens, whereas the Spanish Americans had to settle for one representative
19
Jaime E. Rodríguez O., “The Emancipation of America,” The American Historical Review 105:1 (Feb. 2000),
131.
20
Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 256.
21
Ibid., 256.
22
Michael P. Costeloe, Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–
1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 4.
23
Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 262; Rodríguez, The Independence of Spanish
America, 27–28.
24
Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 262.
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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per 100,000 citizens. To secure their majority, the metropolis’ representatives decided “over
the strong objections of [the Spanish] American deputies” to award one Cortes member per
70,000 people, but only after excluding people of African descent, who were recognized as
legal inhabitants but not as voters.25 This left the majority of the empire’s population without
a majority in its politics, and significantly reduced the Creoles’ ability to influence imperial
politics.
Throughout the 1810s, Creole elites in New Spain were given the impression they
would be awarded an opportunity to “achieve their goals legally,” yet throughout the 1810s,
these hopes were disappointed.26 After the largely successful and certainly legal elections
held in New Spain across all levels of government in 1812, the viceregal authorities and European Spaniards stalled, complained, and sought to overturn the result after Creole representatives won.27 When Ferdinand returned to power in 1814 and restored the pre-Cortes
government, including its officials, his initial policy “was to do nothing,” followed by a hardline course that failed to meet the demands of New Spain’s elites.28
Unlike the majority of their people, Spanish leaders from all parts of the political
spectrum spent great attention on Spanish America.29 But their rhetorical commitment to rey
padre, cultural unity, and equality paled in comparison to their desire to preserve the empire
in its colonial form, where decisions were made in the metropolis, by representatives of the
metropolis, and for the benefit of the metropolis. This view of “imperial equality,” shared by
the majority in the Cortes and the post-1814 royal government, was very different from how
the term was understood in New Spain.30 Spain had no desire to actually satisfy the hopes it
had raised, and the ties that once bound Spanish speakers on both sides of the Atlantic were
increasingly seen as “chains of oppression” in New Spain.31
III.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution, Spanish American elites and particularly their colonial authorities had feared armed rebellion and violence everywhere even before war seized
both the mother country and its overseas possession from 1808 onwards. While these per25
Ibid., 259–260; Nettie Lee Benson, “The Contested Mexican Election of 1812,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 26:3 (Aug. 1946), 343.
26
Guedea, “The Process of Mexican Independence,” 125.
27
Benson, “The Contested Mexican Election of 1812,” 349–350.
28
Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 267–268.
29
Costeloe, Response to Revolution, 5.
30
Anna, “Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos,” 264.
31
Ibid., 265, 271.
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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ceived threats were often based on rumour and their strength exaggerated, “the grievances
expressed were common among [Creoles] throughout the Americas.”32
Yet Spain’s actions and failures throughout the 1810s alone, despite ignoring Creole
demands and limiting Creole influence, were not sufficient to drive New Spain’s elites to
support independence. This was not just because the Creole alienation from the metropolis
needed time to develop. More importantly, events in New Spain itself severely limited the
pro-independence cause’s appeal for the elites.
Knight correctly observes that “the common stake which both ethnic elites had in the
social order” of New Spain remained a powerful argument against independence.33 This social order benefitted both European Spaniards and Creoles, despite the discrimination the latter group faced in rising to the highest levels of government, the economy, and the Church.
As elsewhere in Spanish America, the anti-Spanish movement consisted of two
strains. On the hand were the Creole and largely urban supporters of greater autonomy in the
viceroyalty, whose stronghold was Mexico City, where they took political action and established a structure of representation not unlike that developing in the mother country. While
European Spaniards considered them a threat to Spanish rule, both sides initially engaged “in
some interesting discussions, such as the nature and composition of the people and New
Spain’s place in the imperial system” – the same questions that the Spanish American representatives would later bring up in the Cortes. The discussions came to a violent end “when the
defenders of imperial interests imprisoned their own viceroy and the principal autonomists”
on 15 September 1808.34
The next day marked what must be considered the beginning of widespread violent
rebellion in New Spain, which soon overshadowed the autonomist cause and temporarily
drove its supporters back into Spanish arms. This far more radical movement was led by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Creole and the son of a hacienda owner who had become a rural
Catholic priest involved in running social programmes for the poor, and developed relationships with many Indians. The initial concern of Hidalgo’s movement was not separation from
Spain, although “independence and liberty” quickly became its rallying cry.35
Hidalgo’s movement was a coalition of Indians and people of African descent primarily directed against European Spaniards. Rodríguez argues that Creoles initially considered the rebellion “favorably” and identifies the massacre of Guanajuato as “the turning
32
Christon I. Archer, “Introduction,” The Wars of Independence in Spanish America, edited by Christon I. Archer (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2000), 11, 23–24.
33
Alan Knight, Mexico: Volume 2, The Colonial Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 284.
34
Guedea, “The Process of Mexican Independence,” 117–118.
35
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 306–309.
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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point,” when “insurgent masses butchered” the defenders of the city, “making no distinction
between Spaniards and [Creoles.]”36 By contrast, Lynch points out that while three hundred
European Spaniards were killed there, “most creoles were spared, to emphasize the distinction between the two groups,” and notes that Hidalgo received some support from armed Creoles afterwards. The exact nature of the events in Guanajuato, however, made little difference
to how the movement was perceived, as Lynch concedes: Creole support for Hidalgo “remained on the periphery.”37
The key to understanding Hidalgo’s failure to attract support from Creole elites lies
not just in the radicalization of his warfare, which became ever more violent, but also of his
political programme. When Hidalgo was captured in March 11 and executed the following
June, his movement had turned into “a lower-class revolt.”38 Its “agrarian radicalism turned
even anti-Spanish creoles into supporters of the colonial government.”39 Creoles feared not
just the composition of Hidalgo’s coalition and its “revolutionary messages,” but particularly
the attacks against European Spaniards and white Creoles alike.40 As Hamnett observes,
“many members of the provincial bourgeoisie … recoiled at the prospect of mass insurrection
and co-operated with the Royalist effort to suppress it.”41
Hidalgo’s successor at the helm of the insurrection, José María Morelos, was equally
unable to win Creoles. Morelos, also a Catholic priest but of mixed Creole and Indian descent, enjoyed more military success than his predecessor and was initially able to enforce
discipline among his troops. Yet he further radicalized the movement’s political programme,
arguing for greater social equality and land reform, and was linked to ideas about “the destruction, confiscation and redistribution of property belonging to the wealthy, whether lay or
ecclesial, creole or European.”42 None of this was suited to win over Creoles fearing for their
social status, property, and lives.
As Guedea correctly observes, the failure of the insurgents led by Hidalgo and Morelos and the autonomists in Mexico City and other urban centres “proved not only detrimental
to the opponents of the colonial regime but beneficial to the regime itself.”43 It allowed Spanish authorities not just to retain the support of sceptical Creoles but to win over those actively
opposed to Spanish rule. Morelos’ defeat in 1815 and his subsequent execution later that year
36
Rodríguez, The Independence of Spanish America, 163.
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 310.
38
Rodríguez, The Independence of Spanish America, 164.
39
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 312.
40
Archer, “Introduction,” 26.
41
Hamnett, “Mexico’s Royalist Coalition,” 56.
42
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 313–315, 316.
43
Guedea, “The Process of Mexican Independence,” 127.
37
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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“ended the possibility of an alternative government in New Spain,” and while some military
opposition remained active, Spain’s control over the viceroyalty was essentially unthreatened
until 1820.44
IV.
At the beginning of the 1820s, the cause of Mexican independence faced mixed feelings
among the Creole elite of New Spain. On the one hand, political developments in the previous
decade had rendered the rhetorical trinity of rey padre, culture unity of Spain and Spanish
America, and imperial equality largely meaningless. On the other hand, the fear inspired by
the revolutionary uprisings of Hidalgo and Morelos had prevented Creoles from supporting
separation. In remarkably little time, however, that picture fundamentally changed, and with
it the allegiances of the Creole elite.
The shift began with the liberals’ return to power in Spain in 1820, setting back the
clock to the days of the Cortes, before Ferdinand had restored absolutism. The new government, however, remained as “indifferent to self-government within the American territories”
as the previous ones.45 In fact, it made matters worse by alienating virtually every group of
the New Spanish elite: Within a few months, it “restricted the Church’s right to own property,” among other anti-clerical decrees, “attacked the interests of land-owners” by banning
forced labour and other measures, and limited the reach of elite-dominated judicial institutions.46 New Spain’s social order, which had united the Creoles behind Spain when it recently
had been challenged in a lower-class revolt, was now under threat from of the metropolis itself.
At a time when its policies required military backing, the Cortes also limited the rights
of the colonial army.47 New Spain’s viceroy, who rightly questioned the loyalty of his troops,
unsuccessfully appealed to Spain for reinforcements from the mother country.48
It was a Creole, Catholic, hacienda-owning army officer who ultimately brought
down Spanish rule over New Spain. Agustín de Iturbide, sent out to quell an insurrection in
the viceroyalty’s interior, instead took the lead in the independence movement. Based on his
44
Rodríguez, The Independence of Spanish America, 167; Guedea, “The Process of Mexican Independence,”
127–128.
45
Hamnett, “Mexico’s Royalist Coalition,” 74.
46
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 319–320.
47
Ibid., 320.
48
Hamnett, “Mexico’s Royalist Coalition,” 75.
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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support in the military, Iturbide joined forces with leading members of the Church and tapped
into the discontent among the Creole elite.49
More important than Iturbide’s background and connections, however, was his ability
to put forward a political programme that not just the Creole elite, but also many European
Spaniards could support. His “Plan of Iguala” preserved the common ground shared by both
groups, but directed it toward independence, without sacrificing the existing social order. The
Plan’s twenty-four articles managed to break the stalemate that had prevented New Spain
from shaking off colonial rule. Most importantly, it declared that in an independent Mexico,
there would not only be no “distinction between Americans and Europeans,” but “[a]ll the
inhabitants of the country are citizens, and equal.” It offered the crown of the new country to
either Ferdinand or his two brothers, which helped to project the continuity independence required to gain the support of elites. It preserved the rights of the army, the position of the
Church, and the status of all officials, as long as they supported independence. Finally, it created a temporary junta, formed by members of the elite, until a Mexican Congress could be
created.50
Aside from the expansion of citizenship to all Mexicans, the Plan of Iguala contained
no revolutionary programme for social reform, thus offering independence without the threat
that Hidalgo and Morelos’ movements had posed to the elite’s lives and livelihoods. Compared to the uncertain colonial regime, which was further weakened by a military coup
against the government in Mexico City in July 1821, independence now appeared as the safe
option.51 Iturbide managed to create a new, pro-independence consensus that convinced virtually every relevant group – Creoles, European Spaniards, the Church, the army, and even
supporters of the more radical previous insurgencies – to support his vision, although the last
group did so reluctantly, realizing that Iturbide’s independence came “on terms far removed
from their own ideals.”52
In August 1821, the Spanish general dispatched to restore constitution order was
forced to accept the new reality and signed the Treaty of Córdoba, thereby recognizing Mexican independence.53
49
Ibid., 75–76.
“Plan of Iguala,” 24 February 1821, in Henry George Ward, Mexico: With an Account of the Mining Companies and of the Political Events in that Republic to the Present Day (London: H. Colburn, 1829), 524–525, accessed on 11 March 2014 at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EACn38gmd4EC.
51
Hamnett, “Mexico’s Royalist Coalition,” 77.
52
Guedea, “The Process of Mexican Independence,” 120; Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 321.
53
Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 322.
50
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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As Rodríguez aptly puts it, “Mexico achieved its independence not because the royal authorities had lost on the battlefield but because New Spaniards no longer supported the crown politically.”54 That erosion of support was the consequence of two developments: the metropolis’ unwillingness to satisfy the hopes its rhetoric had created throughout the 1810s, and the
emergence of an alternative plan that united the Mexican elite behind independence.
After the imperial crisis, Spanish policies toward New Spain were focused on preserving the colonial nature of the relationship between the two. They benefitted European Spaniards; restricted the political influence, social status, and commercial potential of Creoles; and
failed to provide a political vision that appealed to the Creole elite.
It was the nature of the initial stage of armed rebellion against the colonial regime that
prevented the elites from supporting separation earlier. The movements of Hidalgo and Morelos were primarily supported by Indians, people of African descent, and poor Creoles, and the
radical nature of their political and social demands drove even anti-Spanish members of the
elite into Spanish arms.
Once Iturbide presented the Plan of Iguala, preserving the existing order and stressing
social, political, religious and economic continuity as the guiding principle of an independent
Mexico, the elite’s calculus changed, and their allegiances shifted. When Spanish incompetence encountered a unifying vision of Mexican independence, Spain lost its most important
possession in the New World. Once that was achieved, however, Mexico’s internal conflicts
would reappear stronger than ever, and throw the newly independent nation into decades of
turmoil.
54
Rodríguez, “The Emancipation of America,” 148–149.
Losing Mexico: Why did the Mexican elites turn against Spanish colonial rule from 1820?
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13
—. “Of Tempests and Teapots: Imperial Crisis and Local Conflict in Mexico at the Beginning
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