The Rule of Agustin De Iturbide: a Reappraisal
]. Lat. Amer. Stud. 17, 79-IIO Printed in Great Britain 79 The Rule of Agustin de Iturbide: A Reappraisal 0; TIMOTHY E. ANNA After a struggle of eleven years, and the loss, according to the conservative estimate of Carlos Marfa de Bustamante, of 2oo,ooo lives, 1 Mexico awoke in September I 82 I an independent nation. For months before the culmination of independence there was no doubt who would rule the nation - that is, who was the de facto chief of state, at least for the moment. Agustin de Iturbide, author of the Plan of Iguala, conceiver of the idea of the Three Guarantees that united all factions in favor of independence, chief of the Army of the Three Guarantees, signatory on Mexico's part of the Treaties of Cordoba that granted independence de jure (in Mexico's view), was the undisputed leader. Incorruptible, invincible, wise, Christian, the consummate politician, the salvation of the Church, the Protector of Spaniards in Mexico, the Hero of Iguala, the Liberator, the Father of the Nation, Iturbide had broken the yoke of the Lion of Castile. Mexicans, of all political persuasions, rallied around the demigod in a euphoria of rejoicing and hope that has no equal in the history of the country. 2 Yet, within less than three years, he would be reviled and viewed with contempt. Historians of Mexico almost universally dismiss him as a usurper, perjurer, traitor, as a vain and inexperienced man scarcely worth a mention after September I 82 r. Miquel i Verges, for example, in his Diccionario de Insurgentes, assigns but one sentence to Iturbide's reign as emperor.
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