Las dos proclamas de Francisco Xavier Mina:

de héroes y villanos*

Antonio E. de Pedro Robles[1]

Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia

Reception: 09/06/2014

Evaluation: 04/08/2014

Approval: 27/10/2014

Research and innovation article.

Resumen

El presente texto reflexiona sobre algunos aspectos relacionados con la publicación de las dos proclamas políticas por parte del militar español Francisco Xavier Mina en su incorporación al movimiento insurgente mexicano. Destaca la configuración de un ideal histórico liberal internacionalista que convierte la independencia de las naciones americanas en un proceso de ampliación del propio ideario liberal español; y la construcción de un nuevo marco de relaciones entre la metrópoli colonial y sus antiguas colonias americanas. Para ello, hemos procedido al análisis de las dos proclamas, usando ciertos referentes procedentes del Análisis del Discurso y la Teoría de la Interpretación defendidos por el filósofo francés Paul Ricoeur.

Palabras clave: Francisco Xavier Mina, Independencia de Nueva España, liberalismo español.

Two Proclamations by Francisco Xavier Mina: on Heroes and Villains

The following article is a reflection on certain aspects related to the publication of two political proclamations made by the Spanish military officer Francisco Xavier Mina, during his incorporation into the Mexican insurgent movement. This study highlights the configuration of an internationalist liberal historical ideal that turns the independence of the American nations into an expansion process of Spain´s own liberal ideology; as well as the construction of a new framework of relations between the mother country and the former American colonies. The two proclamations have been analyzed by means of certain models taken from discourse analysis and the theory of interpretation, defended by French philosopher Paul Ricoeur.

Keywords: Francisco Xavier Mina, independence of New Spain, Spanish liberalism.

Les deux proclamations de Francisco Xavier Mina: de héros et méchants

Résumé

Ce texte étudie quelques aspects dela publication des deux manifestes politiques du militaire espagnol Francisco Xavier Mina au moment de son incorporation au mouvement insurgé mexicain. Il souligne la conformation d’un idéal historique libéral internationaliste qui transforme l’indépendance des nations américaines en un processus d’élargissement de l’ensemble des idées des libéraux espagnols. Il s’intéresse également à la construction de nouvelles relations entre la métropole et ses anciennes colonies américaines. Pour cela, nous avons utilisé certaines notions de l’analyse du discours et de la théorie de l’interprétation prônés par le philosophe français Paul Ricoeur.

Mots-clés: Francisco Xavier Mina, Indépendance de la Nouvelle Espagne, libéralisme espagnol.

1. The political proclamations of Galveston and Soto la Marina

On the 21 of April, 1817, the Spanish military man, Francisco Xavier Mina[2], arrived in Soto la Marina, in the north of New Spain, from Galveston, in what is now Texas. He had traveled from England, to where he had previously been exiled after having been persecuted by the restored absolutist policy of King Ferdinand VII. The trip to the United States was carried out in the company of Mexican friar and politician Servando Teresa de Mier[3], who had convinced him to participate in an expedition to support the Mexican insurgent forces fighting against the Spanish monarchy:

The purpose of this Expedition was to provide General Morelos and the Mexican Congress with a select group of chiefs and commanders, capable of organizing the Mexican insurgents and making possible the defeat of Fernandine absolutism, in America and Spain. In London, he was fortunate to meet with American General Winfleld Scott, the hero of the Anglo-American war, a friend of Lord Holand[4].

Mina had met the native Mexican in the circle American exiles in the city of London, among which were also the Venezuelans Andrés Bello and the doctor Manuel Palacio Fajardo; the New Spanish brothers Fagoaga, Jose and Franciscio, as well as a cousin of theirs called Wenceslao de Villaurrutia; all of them were very close to the circle of the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who had frequent contact with Lord Holand[5].

Shortly after reaching the coast of the New Santander, today the state of Tamaulipas, Mina launched a political proclamation in which he justifies the reasons that motivated him to fight under the banner of New Spain’s independence ideals[6]. The Proclamation of Soto la Marina, as it is known by historiography, was published and signed on the 25 of April and initialed a day later by the Chief of Staff, the Spanish Colonel Noboa. The text was reproduced immediately in Bulletin No. 1 of the La División Ausiliar de la República Mexicana, a newspaper that Mina created after his disembarkation, and, at its head he put the Cuban Joaquín Infante, who had embarked on the expedition in the United States[7]. Subsequently, the Rebel Board of Jaujilla, in its issue of July 1817 bulletin, inserted the text again, achieving greater diffusion. It has been emphasized that this proclamation is, to a large extent, a copy of an earlier one written by the same Mina during his stay in Galveston[8]. This, the "Proclamation of Galveston", has been considered by Manuel Ortuño, as a proclamation in which Mina had already matured politically:

[…] From the ideological point of view, Xavier Mina's position had matured, that he felt much more secure in his approaches and objectives. The training he had received in London, mainly thanks to Flórez Estrada and Palacio Fajardo, and the constant presence of the intellectual stimuli of
Brother Servando, with whom he had traveled to New York and other cities, led him to write a "Proclamation", a fundamental political element in view of the beginning of the great adventure[9].

He also points out how the influences of the Venezuelan insurgent Pedro Gual Escandón can be seen in this proclamation, a figure very close to Francisco de Miranda and then to Simon Bolivar who lived in exile in Galveston[10] and with whom Mina came into contact, becoming a fundamental support of the expeditionary plans of the Spaniard:

Promoted by Gual, an advertising campaign was orchestrated around the Expedition and this is how the news of Mina's arrival in the United States is shown, published by the newspaper American, of Baltimore, on the 17 of July of 1816. This campaign was simultaneous with the frantic activity of Mina and Mier, who wrote letters and communicated with dozens of people, in the United States, New Spain and even Haiti[11].

Likewise, Ortuño points out that the supporters of Mina and Brother Servando were numerous in the United States, particularly among American exiles and a group of Baltimore merchants, who provided "steamship ‘Calypso’ with weapons, ammunition, merchandise and $ 110,000."

In both proclamations, the one of Galveston and Soto la Marina, Francisco Xavier Mina begins by expressing the personal reasons that led him to make his decision to join the cause of American independence. In an autobiographical tone, he is constructing a story in which his personal trajectory is referred to as a sacrifice of service to the Spanish homeland, showing himself as an example of the "oppressed Spanish people", under the Napoleonic annexationist claims: "I was studying at the University of Zaragoza when the disorders of the Spanish Court and the ambition of Napoleon reduced the Spaniards to be prisoners of a strange nation or to sacrifice themselves to the defense of their rights[12]." Thus, historical adversity determined his future; and, from then on, "I felt like others animated by this holy fire and devoted myself to the destruction of the enemy[13]."

The story of Mina is not exempt from projecting itself from the image of romantic heroism. In this sense, the chosen model has its roots in the ancient Spanish humanistic tradition of the 16^th century, which, now revalued after the advent of the romanticism of the 19^th century, it is presented as a sign of the identity of liberal heroic undertaking[14]. In the context of the call by Jorge Vilches "first Spanish liberalism", which has as political and institutional references the Constitution that emerged from the Cortes de Cádiz in 1812, it saw in personal sacrifice the basis for the achievement of collective goals[15]. A sacrifice that was only possible from the proclamation of the civic virtues that every citizen should embody in his personal and civic trajectory:

Liberal patriotism was, therefore, the pursuit of freedom for the motherland by founding it in civic virtue. In the case of the War of 1808, the freedom of the nation to decide its form of government, its dynasty and its laws, was linked to the independence. The moral values of civic virtue were logically linked to the precise qualities for the warlike confrontation against the invader and, in a propagandistic way, constituted an identity and motivating element, such as surrender, sacrifice, honor, courage, or solidarity[16].

As can be seen, this doceañista liberalism was in turn needed to develop a "new reading" of the history of Spain, which must undoubtedly encompass the very imperial history of which America was a fundamental part. This new homeland and imperial history was interpreted for Mina, who had evolved from this doceañismo to more extremist positions, from two guiding concepts: the history of the Spanish people had been determined by a valuable search for freedom undertaken from the times of the Catholic Kings; and that fight was now extended to any form of oppression and tyranny that occurred in any part of the Empire, so that the Spanish liberals were obliged to come to their support and participate in the war if necessary. That is, this "new homeland and imperial history" was justified from the sacrifice and immolation, if necessary, of the figure of the great man, the defender and savior of the homeland: the hero.

But in this liberal reading of Spanish history, heroes are not created without antagonists: the villains. In this sense, we are facing a reading of history built on antagonisms, which will embody public and political figures with names and surnames; starting with the figure of the monarch Fernando VII. In addition, this antagonistic reading needs an epic tone, sometimes exalted, and not free of emotion; as dynamic forces of historical action. In this case, the overthrow of the old regime, embodied in the figure of the villain Fernando VII, the indisputable protagonist of this "historical drama":

We owed him nothing (referring to Fernando VII). National generosity released him from domestic tyranny. National generosity had freely called him to the throne, from where the weakness and the mismanagement of his father had overthrown him [...]. The ruins of which the road was everywhere covered had to show him his debts and his obligations to those who had saved him. Could it be believed that the decree given at Valencia on May 4, 1814, was an indication of the treatment which the ungrateful man prepared for the whole nation? The courts, that ancient aegis of Spanish freedom and to which in our orphanage the nation owed its dignity and honor, the courts who had just triumphed over a colossal enemy, were dissolved in their members fleeing in all directions from the pursuit of sycophants and servants. […] The Constitution was abolished and the same one whom Spain had rescued with rivers of blood and with immense sacrifices, made it fall under the tyranny and fanaticism of which the enlightened Spaniards[17] had rescued it.

In this historical scheme, America is not seen as an “extra”, nor as ballast that needs to gotten rid of, as the enlightened Basque liberal Valentín de Foronda[18] came to propose to the king in 1813. On the contrary, Mina gives a qualitative leap in the development of Spanish liberalism, heir to Doceañismo. In his argument, he turns the American stage into the historic opportunity that Spain has in order to overcome and end tyranny. But also, America is the Gordian knot that untied will allow the reaching of the longed for historical zenith of freedom:

[...] as if the cause defended by the Americans was different from that which had exalted the glory of the Spanish people; as if my principles resembled the servile and selfish ones that, for our opprobrium, commanded to catch and desolate America; as if the right of the oppressed to resist the oppressor is nill, and as if it were calculated as the executioner of an innocent people who felt the weight of the chains that overwhelm my fellow citizens[19].

In accordance with liberal principles, the quest for freedom is a quest that cannot be denied to any people who feel oppressed. Mina justifies the fight for the overthrow of the tyrant king from his incorporation into the fight for American independence, as the conduct that every liberal should assume from an internationalist commitment, going where his efforts "could be more beneficial to my oppressed homeland and more fatal to its tyrant[20]." Mina, in his two proclamations, summits of his political thought both groundbreaking and evolved from Spanish liberal thought, reverses the turn of what was understood in the liberal circles of Spain as "the American problem." For Mina, America is no longer "that problem[21]"; it has now become a solution; a good for Spain.

2. An independent America is a good for Spain

The choice of New Spain as the territory where his American fight was to begin was not taken at random. Undoubtedly, the contact with the New Spaniards residing in London, particularly with Brother Servando, had much to do with that decision, as did the fact that the New Spanish Viceroyalty was the most important overseas territory for the sustenance of the Spanish imperial monarchy:

They say (referring to the king himself and his supporters) that Spain cannot exist without our Americas. Of course, it is understood by this gentlemen that Spain is the short number of its people, relatives and acquaintances. Because, having an emancipated America, there will be no more exclusive graces, no sales of governments, intendancies, and other jobs of the Indies to their creatures. Because, when American ports open to foreign nations, Spanish commerce will pass into a more numerous and enlightened class. Because, finally, if America is free, it will undoubtedly revive the national industry, sacrificed in the day to the crawling interests of a few men[22].

In the “Soto la Marina Proclamation", Mina changed the terms of "our Americas", for “The America", no doubt seeking to distance himself from a colonialist referent that was already deeply questioned. Also, in that same paragraph, Mina assumed the main American claims as fair reasons for achieving independence: to end the abuses of bad government; prevent the corruption that was caused by the sale of administrative positions; the constant marginality of the Americans against the Peninsular citizens in occupying the American administration; and the need to implement the free trade of America with the rest of the world without the restrictions imposed by the metropolis. The future envisioned by Mina for Spain, in its political, economic or cultural relations with respect to America, was related to an emancipated America. And although the historical weight would allow the establishment of bonds that were difficult to break culturally, this would only be possible under the ideals of liberal internationalism that were above the particular conjunctures of individuals and communities:

The consolidation of the war of independence in America had led many of the Spanish liberals to be convinced that the break with the Spanish monarchy was already a fact that seemed unavoidable. Since his voluntary exile in the English capital, José María Blanco White (who was in London since 1810), with whom Mina maintained contact, had already pointed out, in the midst of the constitutional process of the Courts of Cadiz in 1812, that they were not doing enough to prevent the insurrection of America. Blanco insisted, over and over again as the conflict progressed, that the future scenario between Spain and America should be projected in terms of strict and absolute equality. Initially, he proposed a new framework of association that Juan Goytisolo has defined as "assimilationist[24]". While Rafael Herrera has argued that Blanco already envisioned an America transformed into a "new Europe", and that he was very optimistic, if not naive, in thinking that those European descendants "would never turn their backs on the fate of their brothers" who were engaged in a war against France[25]:

The Spaniards of America need our advice, children of a bitter experience. Let us paint what we suffer (it refers to the Spanish fight against the Napoleonic invasion), it is just that they should know the crafty, wicked people, who, after having been fattened on the blood of their brothers in Spain, are trying to deceive the New World in order to enjoy their riches exclusively. The seas do not protect them from the French intrigue, and even if they cannot attempt a conquest there, they will try to ignite the fire of discord in the vast regions where its weapons do not reach[26].

Much has been emphasized by the Spanish and American historiography, on the influence of Blanco on the thinking of Francisco Mina. In my view, and strictly adhering to the texts of the proclamations, that influence had already been mitigated, if not evolved. It is true that the times of Mina in America were no longer the same as the historical moments raised by Blanco from London. The insurrection, far from mitigating, accelerated, and liberals like Mina actively participated in that process. No longer were the times those that called for the return of the "Desired" King Ferdinand VII, of the fight against the Napoleonic invasion; they were the times of Fernandina's betrayal of the Constitution and the restoration of the absolutist regime.

In this new historical context - Mina had also been a protagonist in the previous historical events and he makes it very clear in his proclamations by claiming so, personal and historical legitimacy to his new fights - the Navarrese military, if ever he was especially committed to the ideas of the Andalusian thinker, these were no longer useful to explain what was happening in America. For him, any pact that was given had to go through the overthrow of the king and mark a new process of relations between Spain and its former overseas territories that were not determined by the old colonialism.

Nor were they useful as an explanation of the imperial situation, the arguments expressed by the Asturian liberal Álvaro Flórez Estrada, of whom it has been said that Mina had received notable influence. Flórez had published in 1811 - also in the city of London - his work: Examen imparcial de las disensiones de la América con la España, de los medios de su reconciliación, y de la prosperidad de todas las naciones. The Asturian liberal maintained that while he was in favor of recognizing equal processes between America and Spain, both socially and politically, he remained faithful to the idea of favoring the unity of the empire on the basis "of the mutual benefit that would be drawn from its continuity for Spaniards and Americans[27]." In this way, he was against to any argument for independence. His book was intended, as Herrera points out, more to combat American emancipatory ideas, diverting them from the debate on the equality of the political rights that the American representatives had demanded in the courts of Cádiz, and focusing the issue on civil rights, mainly on property and free trade: " (...) although Flórez addressed the American problem also from its social, political and legal elements, his intention was to divert attention from these issues, which he believed should be resolved in the Peninsula, and to focus all efforts on finding the keys of unity in economic and commercial freedom[28].

Once again, as in the case of Blanco White, this generation of liberals, as Rafael Herrera Guillen points out:

[…] it could not be foreseen that the dynamic of the values and rights that it defended demanded their extension beyond the Peninsula to the lands of America, the peninsularity was an unthinkable limit, given as evident and immovable, in the mental construction and self-representation of the men of Cadiz. However, practically at the same time that liberalism took center stage as a political force in Spain, it had to face an American reality that demanded the application to its territories of the social and political values and rights of liberalism[29].

Indeed, the great difference of Francisco Mina was that he succeeded in overcoming this peninsularity which doceañista liberalism was incapable of, as the liberalism of the Liberal Triennium would not be much later, with Mina dead, after the restoration of the 1820 constitutionalist process. At that time, the Spanish Courts returned to deal with the urgent matter of American sedition. Spanish liberalism, as it had already happened in 1812, considered then that the fact of constitutional restoration would work "as a strong enough element to cause the American rebels to reconsider their positions and, just then, to obey the "Motherland[30]."

3. The proclamation: an instrument of Spanish and American patriotic exaltation

As a kind of public notification, a political proclamation seeks to exalt certain arguments that, when they are publicly proclaimed, are offered as unquestionable truths, impelling an awareness of the reader - in the event that it is written - that leads him to carry out or promote individual and/or collective actions.

A political proclamation calls for a public commitment and seeks to create what is now called a "favorable public opinion" presenting the author as a qualified and exemplary defender of rights that are tainted or denied to the collective. In this sense, the case of the proclamations of Francisco Xavier Mina are exemplary. Individuality is offered as the standard bearer of the protests and grievances of the collective (the people). Both are identified, with the use of the us, which under an antagonistic scheme, must face an enemy: them.

However, in the proclamations of Mina that we are analyzing, the us is represented in phrases such as: "the whole nation"; "unfortunate homeland"; “national generosity"; "oppressed Spaniards"; "national interest"; "our rights"; "our ancient laws"; "our orphanhood"; "our dignity". Mina, in order to defend the idea of a free and independent America, was not only communicating to the Spanish people the impossibility of maintaining the present imperial regime, the prevailing status quo; but also urged the Spanish people to adhere to the construction of a "new historical reality", assumed to be real progress; to an extension of the us, although no longer under the historical premises of old colonialism.

Likewise, while in the doceañista liberal approach, America had to regain freedom by fighting alongside Spain. That, at least, was the thesis of characters like Flórez Estrada[31]. Mina poses, with the French external threat finished and the betrayal to the constitutionalist order that arose from the process of 1812 by Fernando VII planned, the previous political scene is broken; that imperial history, as it had been developed, had been overcome; and that after the overthrow of the old regime, the metropolis and its colonies had to enter into a new process of political association. In this way, the fate of Spanish national history, and not exclusively the imperial, is decided on American soil. In this sense, the center-periphery axis is overturned in Mina's theses and his liberal internationalism: the old metropolitan center is totally conditioned by what happens in relation to the old peripheries.

But in addition, the us, now broadened, had to be understood on equal terms. We are facing a declaration of principles that seeks, as is obvious within the schematic framework of liberal history, to achieve not only the understanding of its citizens (the Spaniards) but also their support of Mina's reasons for choosing a type of action that could be seen by the regime as treason to Spanish interests.

In that sense, the proclamations are aimed at finding supporters for the American cause, which is already the cause of Spanish liberalism that Mina incarnates, as a common cause to honorable Spaniards. For this, Mina designs a discursive strategy based on the Spanish reader answering a series of questions:

Spaniards: Would you think I am a degenerate? Will you decide that I have abandoned the interests, the prosperity of Spain? Since when, here, happiness consists of the degradation of a part of our brothers? Will she be less happy when the king lacks the means to sustain his absolute empire? Will she be less happy when there are no monopolists who support despotism? Will she be less agricultural, less industrious, when there are no exclusive graces to bestow, or jobs in the Indies with which to foster and increase the number of low flatterers? Will she be less dedicated to commerce, when, not reduced to certain and particular persons, it passes on to the hands of a larger and more enlightened class? [32]

The future envisioned can only be a shared reality of interests, which allows the Spaniards, in an aspect not less than the moral character that all historical action must have, to recover the "lost dignity":

If, in this view, American emancipation is useful and convenient to the majority of the Spanish people, it is much more so because of its infallible tendency towards the definitive establishment of liberal governments throughout the length of the old monarchy. Without demolishing the colossus of despotism held by monopolist and courtesan fanatics, we can never recover our old dignity[33].

It will no longer be just sharing liberties between sovereign nations, determined by internationalist liberalism, but something perhaps more abstract, which for the liberal ideology that overcomes doceañismo becomes sacred: the dignity not only of the people, but of History itself. In other words, we are in facing (and this is said particularly in the proclamation of Soto de la Marina, which begins convening “Spaniards and Americans") an implicit recognition of Spanish imperial failure. Therefore, it is necessary that the Spaniards, the patriots, are able to "consult the past", to draw lessons: " Spaniards, in such circumstances, consult the past to draw lessons capable of arranging your future conduct[34]." From now on, every opinion on the "American problem" must be judged from this conception of history. For this reason: either the judgment on what happened in America was submitted to historical analysis, or it would not be worthy and far less fair. As the military man Navarro states: "The cause of the Americans is just, it is the cause of free men, and it is the one of the non-degenerate Spaniards[35]."

The call of Mina is historical in its causes and consequences, whose aim is the regeneration of the historical role of Spain in America. If the commitment, in any case, is initially personal, because the scheme managed so preaches and claims it, given that it is a moral rather than a social commitment, its actions and benefits must be gathered collectively:

These are the principles that have determined me to separate from Spain and to join America in order to cooperate with its emancipation. If they are upright, they will respond satisfactorily to my sincerity. For the sake of freedom and independence I have taken up arms until now; only in their defense I will take them up from here on[36].

During the 19^th century, as we have pointed out, there were other interpretations of the Spanish liberals about the American independences. In general, all try to highlight the civilizing work of colonization on indigenous groups; and to point out as the main cause of the collapse, the bad actions of the monarchist governments, in particular those of Charles III and Ferdinand VII. Within this scheme were managed the outstanding liberals, the Asturian Jose Maria Queipo de Llano, Count of Toreno and Agustín Argüelles[37]. The latter in particular, echoed Mina's thesis, considering that the evils suffered by the colonies were none other than the same evils that the metropolis had also suffered because of the absolutist regimes that had ruled them; although, and in this, Mina had not positioned himself, he also maintains, in line with a liberal thought that does not end up accepting independence, that the "mother land" did not intend to oppress their colonies[38]. Along the same lines, other authors such as José Presas, who, despite emphasizing absolutism as an evil, supported the continuity of the colonial regime, and opposed to any reformism that gave power to the creoles[39]. Also, José M. Vadillo complains that the English and absolutism blame the liberals for the American failure, while the only culprit was Spanish monarchist absolutism[40]. Mariano Torrente, who, starting from the American ingratitude, that of the creoles towards what the colony meant to them, also criticizes absolutism as an evil for the empire[41].

In the second half of the 19^th century, in the midst of the Elizabethan reign, the American independences joined the general history of Spain. At that time two general histories stand out, the one of Modesto Lafuente: Historia General de España, whose publication began as from 1850, and the Historia General de España, by Eduardo Chao, that would be a continuity of the one realized by Father Mariana, which would appear in 1851. In both, the positive elements of the Spanish colonization are recognized, where the errors were not greater than those committed by other Spanish colonial metropolis; although the great difference of the Spanish colonization was the civilizing process that prevailed over the economic interests of the other colonizations.

From the moderate liberal currents, in the second half of the 19^th century, in the work of Rico and Amat: Historia política y parlamentaria de España, 1860-1861, the facts are criticized from two positions: the first, the Spanish doceañismo of Cadiz as the cause of propagating among the creoles the ideas of independence and the liberal principles that served as an ideological excuse for it; in the second, the absolutism of Ferdinand VII, when seeking armed confrontation and not establishing links of agreements with the insurgents. As it turns out, Mina's ideal is accused, without naming it, of propagating insurrection. The silence of Navarro is present as a censorship of his approaches.

By the end of the 19th century (1879-1880), Spanish liberalism, embodied in figures such as Angel Fernandez de los Ríos, Estudio histórico de las luchas políticas en la España del siglo XIX, came to defend the liberal ideology as not being the cause of colonial disaster. For him, as it was for Mina, absolutism is the great culprit of it. Like Navarro, Fernandez de los Ríos also goes back to the Catholic Kings as the initiators of that absolutism, so that in his thesis the colonial order was vitiated from the origin.

4. The proclamation as a construction of a discourse of political mobilization

It draws significant attention that Mina, after his landing in Soto La Marina, decided among his first actions to create the aforementioned Bulletin No. 1 of the Division of the Mexican Republic. This clearly demonstrates, the great importance that the Spanish military was going to give to the printed texts as instruments of propaganda: on the one hand, as a method to justify their actions regarding peninsular and creole people, seeking adepts to their cause; and, on the other, making use of a printed instrument that the groups fighting in New Spain frequently used.

From the proclamation of the political freedom of printing, established in the Constitution of Cadiz in 1812, the proliferation of printed matter for political purposes grew on both sides of the Atlantic. Researcher Celia del Palacio emphasized that, after Mina's death in 1817, the first period of the Mexican independence war, which began in 1810, came to a close[42]; at the same time, a first type of insurgent press was closed. Mina’s Bulletin is an example[43].

In that case, if Mina's purpose was to create a favorable public opinion to the patriotic cause and justify his decision of leaving Spain to join the American insurgency, then the Bulletin had to reach as many people as possible, whether they were creoles or Spaniards; in the expression of Cecilia del Palacio: to "reach everyone[44]". But that "everyone" is only a remote possibility, if we take into account the degree of literacy of the country at that time, apparently no more than 5%[45]. We prefer to reduce the intentions of disclosure to a civil and religious elite, who, as "direct readers", would become, in turn, spokesmen in front of the illiterate masses. In this way, the so-called "public opinion" would be reduced to those literate elites, who with their reading and opinions, influenced the populations of towns and cities. We must suppose then, that the editors and creators of the texts in the newspapers and passages issued were already aware of the situation. Publishers like Mina himself had as their highest priority the circulation of the printed paper among broader sectors, developing both direct and indirect readers. If the paper was discussed in public places and between groups, the situation would be more conducive to the interests of the independence movement. Let us bear in mind that a very important part of the aims that proclamations pursued was to incite insurrection, an uprising against power, and this was driven by a certain naive voluntarism about the efficacy of the method, as Celia del Palacio asserts: " they were given too much importance[46]." Even Morelos himself believed that the military in the service of the monarchy, after reading these published papers, "would rip their uniforms and join the cause of Independence[47]."

Besides that, there are some aspects of Mina’s proclamations that I am interested in bringing here in terms of a theory of speech interpretation, in this case political discourse, as it is surplus to meaning. The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, in his work Teoría de la interpretación[48], proposes the following in relation to language as speech:

Language is not a world of its own. It is not even a world. But because we are in the world, because we are affected by situations, and because we are sympathetically orientated in those situations, we have something to say, we have experiences to bring to the language [...] We presuppose that something must be, in order that something can be identified[49].

Later on, Ricoeur continues:

It is because first there is something to say, because we have an experience to bring to language, so, conversely, language is not only directed towards the ideal sense, but also refers to what it is. [...] If language were not primarily referential, would it be or could it be meaningful? How could we know that a sign is in place of something, if its use in speech does not push it towards something it represents[50].

In this sense, and returning to the proclamations of Francisco Mina, the persuasion of truth, that is, the rhetorical apparatus set in motion in the language of the proclamation, starts precisely from the idea that Mina has something important and transcendent to say; that the Spanish military, from the narrative construction of its biographical arguments, has transcendental and unique experiences to share with public opinion.

It is under these assumptions, inscribed in the speech referents established by Ricoeur, when the rhetoric-persuasive apparatus of the proclamation is set in motion. First, as a story that represents the hero. Then, to support this representation of the hero in the narrative speech of his own shared experience and, finally, from this narrative construction, to influence the reader in decision making, that means "discourse in action and in use refers backwards and forward, to a speaker and to a world[51]."

For these reasons, in the model of this liberal and romantic history, in which knowledge and representation of the world fit according to Mina, in the manner of the expressions of the hero, personal experience, once established the reading of the text, is proposed as a priority shared by the collective wanting to establish a dialectic between the speaker-writer and the listener-reader; a dialectic in which the message is shared: "Once again the dialectic between sense and event is maximally exhibited by writing. The discourse is revealed as a discourse by the dialectic of the message that is addressed, which is both universal and contingent[52]."

Proclamations are addressed to someone; even if that someone is a collective, a group, a society. In the proclamation of Galveston, the "oppressed Spaniards" are the recipients: “(…) but it is the oppressed Spaniards, and not the oppressors, whom I wish to persuade not to revenge or other low passions, but to national interest, the purest principles, and an intimate and irresistible conviction have influenced my public and private conduct[53]". In Soto la Marina, for it part, is: "TO THE SPANISH AND AMERICAN PEOPLE".

In this way, and although the listener, in the words of Ricoeur, is not present before the author, the text is proposed from the emotional effort of oratory; of the harangue as a mobilizing force. In this sense, the act of communication is an act of persuasion from the emotive force of the direct language of Mina's written proclamation: "The speaker has the emotional function, the listener the connotative and the message the poetic function[54]."

5. Conclusions

The revolutionary experience of Francisco Xavier Mina in Mexico's war of independence was short but intense. On November 11, 1817, and after a summary trial, Francisco Xavier Mina was shot near the Hacienda of Venadillo, by mandate of Viceroy Apodaca. He had no time to see how his fight regarding the so-called American insurgents would eventually bear fruit in the form of the creation of a nation-state called Mexico; or how America became independent without the villainous king, Ferdinand VII, who was banished definitively, beyond the second betrayal carried out by him to the second constitutionalist attempt developed by the Liberal Triennium of 1820.

We have proved that Francisco Mina, as a liberal, went farther in relation to the interpretation of the phenomena that were taking place in America, than any of the doceañista liberals, even the liberals who would assume power in the Liberal Triennium, once Mina was dead. Not only because he became personally involved in the processes of independence, but he understood that a crucial historical moment was taking place in the history of Spain and its Empire; And that in this historical event the peninsular vision was wrong and short-sighted, since both the problem of the Spanish monarchy and the absolutism of Ferdinand VII, and the regeneration of the Empire before its dismemberment, passed through an overseas perspective, in which the protagonism of the Metropolis had been assumed by the American territories. The rupture with the vision of the peninsularity took for granted, under the liberal internationalist approach of Mina, that what was better for the future American nations, also was for peninsular Spain. Nevertheless, Mina's internationalist liberalism can be considered as a mirage within the Spanish liberal tradition. His imprint was buried, hidden and silenced by the heirs of the doceañista liberalism, both moderate and radical. As we can see, the liberal historiography of the 19^th century omitted his figure; It was banished from Spanish liberal history. Contrary to Mexican liberalism that turned his thinking into part of the beginnings of Mexican liberalism along with those of Father Mier.

Likewise, in his two proclamations, it can be traced, thanks to the theories of speech analysis and interpretation that we have used, to the construction of a political and ideological discourse destined to the exaltation of the hero as a fundamental figure of historical becoming. In this sense, under the figure of Mina, will be configured a binomial: hero and homeland; which is built from the autobiographical narrative, presented as an instrument of collective political reference from which two consequences stand out: personal sacrifice, and the moral regeneration of shared history. As a political strategy, the proclamations had to fulfill two purposes: first, to justify Mina's personal trajectory to the Spaniards and their liberal coreligionists as a sacrificed hero who gave his life for the freedom of the Spaniards and Americans from the absolutist yoke of the tyrant Ferdinand VII; and, second, to establish a new vision of Spanish history that turned the overseas territories, particularly the Americas, into key pieces for the future development of the peninsula.

ANNEXES

FIRST PROCLAMATION OF XAVIER MINA IN GALVESTON

In separating myself forever from political association, for whose prosperity I have worked since my tender years, it is a sacred duty to tell my friends and the whole nation the motives that have dictated this resolution. I would never, I know, be able to satisfy the agents of the dreadful despotism that afflicts my unfortunate homeland; but it is the oppressed Spaniards, and not the oppressors, whom I wish to persuade not to revenge or other low passions, but the national interest, the purest principles, and an intimate and irresistible conviction have influenced my public and private conduct.

It is well-known that I was studying at the University of Zaragoza, when the domestic dissensions of the royal family of Spain and Bayona’s transactions reduced us, to a vile pray of a strange nation, or to sacrifice everything in the defense of our rights. Placed thus between ignominy and death, this sad alternative indicated his duty to all the Spaniards, in whom the tyranny of the past reigns had not been able to completely relax the love of his homeland. Like many others, I felt animated by this holy fire, and faithful to my duty, I dedicated myself to the common defense, I accompanied successively as a volunteer the armies of the right and center: these armies, unfortunately, dispersed by the enemy, I rushed to the place where I was born, where I was best known; I met twelve men, who chose me as their leader, and soon I came to organize in Navarro, respectable bodies of volunteers, of which the Central Board appointed me commander-in-chief. I will quietly pass the labors and sacrifices of my comrades-in-arms: Suffice it to say that we fought as good patriots until I had the misfortune to fall into prison. The division I commanded then took my name for a currency, and chose, to succeed me, my uncle Mr. Francisco Espoz: the national government, which approved that determination, also allowed my uncle to add his name to Mina; and all know what patriotism was, how much the glory that distinguished that division under his orders.

When the Spanish nation resolved to enter into such unequal fight, it must be supposed that the object of so many risks and privations was not to restore the old government in the base of corruption and dishonesty that led us to misery. We remembered that we had imprescriptible rights that secured our fundamental laws, and that we had been forcibly deprived.

This only memory set everything in motion, and we resolved to win or die. They began effectively to destroy the old abuses, revived our rights and solemnly vowed to defend them to the end. Here is the principle that made prodigies of value to the Spanish people in the last war.

When restoring in our soil the dignity of men and our ancient laws, we believe that Ferdinand VII, who had been our companion and victim of oppression, would hasten to repair, with the benefits of his reign, the misfortunes that had overwhelmed the state of his predecessors. We owed him nothing: national generosity had freely called him to the throne, from where his own weakness and the mismanagement of his father had knocked him down. We had already forgiven the despicable acts that made him a criminal in Bayona and Valençey: we had forgotten that, more attentive to his own tranquility than to national honor, he had corresponded to our sacrifices, wishing to be united with the family of our oppressor; we were confident that he would always be aware of what price had been paid back in possession of the scepter, and that, together with his liberators, he healed the deep wounds of which, for his cause, resented the nation.

Spain finally succeeded in regaining itself, and conquering the freedom of the king who had been elected. Half of the nation had been devoured by the war; the other half was still covered with the blood of dead enemies and Spanish blood, and when Ferdinand was restored to the bosom of his protectors, the ruins of which his road was covered everywhere had to show him his debts and his obligations to those who had saved him. Could it be believed that his famous decree, given at Valencia on May 4, 1814, was an indication of the reward that the ungrateful prepared for the whole nation? The courts, that ancient shield of Spanish liberty to which in our orphanhood the nation owed its dignity and honor; the courts, which had just triumphed over a colossal enemy, were dissolved, and their members fleeing in all directions from the persecution of the courtiers.

The imprisonment, chains and prisons, were the reward of those who had enough firmness to oppose such a scandalous usurpation; the inquisition, the ancient shield of tyranny, the impious, the infernal inquisition, was restored in all the fury of its primitive institution; the constitution abolished and Spain enslaved again by the same person that the country had rescued with rivers of blood and immense sacrifices.

Free from the French prisons at that time, I rushed to Madrid, in case I could contribute, with other friends of freedom, to the restoration of the principles we had sworn to uphold. To my astonishment, things had a new order! The satellites of the tyrant were only occupied in destroying the work of so many efforts: it was no longer thought of consummating the subjugation of the provinces overseas, and the minister, Don Manuel de Lardizabal, misunderstanding the feelings of my heart, proposed to me the Command of a division against Mexico; as if the cause defended by the Americans was different from the one that exalted the glory of Spanish people; as if my principles resembled the servile and selfish ones that, for our opprobrium, commanded to caught and desolate America; as if the right of the oppressed to resist the oppressor is null, and as if it were calculated as the executioner of an innocent people who felt the weight of the chains that overwhelm my fellow citizens.

My wounds, not well healed, told me in an irresistible way my duty. I retired to Navarra, and, in concert with my uncle Mr. Francisco Espoz, we determined to take Pamplona and offer an asylum there to Spanish heroes, to the meritorious of the country who had been proscribed or treated as criminals. For one night, I owned the city; and when my uncle came to reinforce me, to contain, if necessary, a part of the garrison of which we did not promise conformity, one of his regiments refused to obey him. Those courageous soldiers who had triumphed for national independence so many times were tied up, when it came to their freedom, shameful ties, deep-rooted concerns, and ignorance that we had not yet been able to overcome. Having frustrated the enterprise, it was necessary for me to take refuge in foreign countries, with some of my companions, and, always animated by the love of liberty, I thought to defend its cause where my weak efforts were sustained by the opinion and the efforts of the community: they could be more beneficial to my oppressed country and more fatal to its tyrant. From the provinces on this side of the ocean the usurper obtained the means of his arbitrariness; also, they fought for freedom, and since that moment the cause of the Americans was mine.

Spaniards: Would you think I am a degenerate? Will you decide that I have abandoned the interests, the prosperity of Spain? When the happiness of this, is about the degradation of a part of our brothers? Will she be less happy when the king lacks the means to sustain his absolute empire? Will she be less happy when there are no monopolists who support despotism? Will she be less agricultural, less industrious, when there are no exclusive graces to bestow, or jobs of the Indies with which to foster and increase the number of low flatterers? Will she be less dedicated to commerce, when, not reduced to certain and particular persons, it passes on to a larger and more enlightened class?

The sound and sensible part of Spain is now well convinced that it is not only impossible to conquer America again, it is impolite and contrary to well-understood interests. Regardless of the unquestionable justice that assists Americans, what would be the advantages that would be gained by subjugating it again? Who would be the gainers with such iniquity, if it were possible?

Two kinds of people are the only ones who profit exclusively from the slavery of Americans: the king and the monopolists; the first one to sustain his absolute empire and oppress us at his discretion, the second to gain wealth to support despotism and keep the people begging. Here are the most active agents of Ferdinand and the fiercest enemies of America. The courtiers and monopolists would like to perpetuate the pupilage in which they have set the nation, to lift from the ruins their fortune and of their descendants.

Spain, they say, cannot exist without our Americas. Of course, it is understood by this gentlemen that Spain is the short number of its people, siblings and relatives. Because, having an emancipated America, there will be no more exclusive graces, no sales of governments, intendancies, and other jobs of the Indies to their creatures. Because, when American ports open to foreign nations, Spanish commerce will pass into a more numerous and enlightened class. Because, finally, if America is free it will undoubtedly revive the national industry, sacrificed in the day to the crawling interests of a few men.

If, from this point of view, the emancipation of the Americans is useful and convenient to the majority of the Spanish people, it is much more because of its infallible tendency to definitively establish liberal governments throughout the length of the old monarchy. Without demolishing the colossus of despotism held by monopolist and courtesan fanatics, we can never recover our old dignity. For this endeavor, it is indispensable that all the towns where Castilian is spoken learn to be free, to know and practice their rights. The moment a single section of America has strengthened its independence, we may flatter ourselves that liberal principles will sooner or later extend their benefits to the rest. This is the terrible time that agents and supporters of tyranny are constantly dreading. See, in the excess of their despair, their empire collapsed, and they would sacrifice everything due to their impotent rage.

In such circumstances, consult, Spaniards, the experience of the past, and therein you will find quite instructive lessons with which you will guide your future behavior. The cause of free men is that of non-degenerate Spaniards. The country is not circumscribed to the place where we were born, but, more properly, to the one that covers our personal rights. Your oppressors calculate that in order to restore to you and your children their barbaric domination, it is indispensable to enslave everyone. The famous Pitt feared such consequences, when he justified the resistance of Anglo-Americans in the presence of the British Parliament. "We are told that America is obstinate (he said), that America is in open rebellion. I boast, sir that America will resist. Three million inhabitants, indifferent to the impulses of freedom, voluntarily submitted, would then be the most appropriate instruments to impose chains on all the rest. " Americans: these are the principles that made me decide to join you; If they are upright, they will respond to you that I am sincere. For that I have held the weapons until now. Only in their defense I will take them from here on. Permit me, my friends, allow me to take part in your glorious labors, accept the cooperation of my small efforts in favor of your noble enterprise ... Tell of me among your compatriots. I wish that I could deserve this title, causing your freedom to rule, sacrificing my own existence. Then, at least, tell your children in reward: this happy land was twice flooded in blood by servile Spaniards, abject slaves of a king; but there were also Spanish friends of freedom who sacrificed their rest and their lives for our good".

Galveston, February 22, 1817.

PROCLAMATION OF SOTO LA MARINA

TO SPANIARDS AND AMERICANS

After separating myself from the political association for whose prosperity I have worked since my tender years and adhering to another in dissension to help her, I believe it is my duty to expose those that had been touched by the motives this resolution dictates.

I was studying at the University of Zaragoza when the disorders of the Spanish Court and the ambition of Napoleon reduced the Spaniards to be prisoners of a strange nation or to sacrifice themselves to the defense of their rights. Placed between ignominy and death, this sad alternative indicated its duty to all those in whom the tyranny of the past reigns had not been able to completely relax the love to their homeland. I felt like others animated by this holy fire and devoted myself to the destruction of the enemy. Accompany as a volunteer the armies of the right and center, and unfortunately dispersed, I ran to the place where I was born, where I was a stranger. I met twelve men who chose me for their leader and soon I came to organize in Navarre respectable bodies of volunteers of which the Central Board appointed me chief.

I will quietly go through the labors and sacrifices that I had done with my comrades in arms. Suffice it to say that we fight like good patriots. I was taken prisoner and then the division I commanded took my name by currency and as my successor Mr. Francisco Espoz, my uncle. The national government that approved this determination also allowed me, to add Mina to his name; and all know what patriotism was, it was so much the glory that the division under his order gave me.

When the dignity of men and our old laws were restored on our soil, we believed that Ferdinand VII, who had been our companion and victim of oppression, would hasten to repair with the benefits of his reign the miserable ones who had overwhelmed the State during his predecessors. We owed him nothing. National generosity released him from domestic tyranny. National generosity had freely called him to the throne, from where his weakness and the mismanagement of his father had overthrown him. We had forgiven him for the baseness of which he had been guilty in Aranjuez, Bayona, and Valencey. We had forgotten that, more attentive to its own security than to national honor, it corresponded to our sacrifices with the intention of connecting with the family of our aggressor.

We were confident; however, that he would always be aware of the price he had been given to the throne, and that, together with his liberators, he would heal the deep wounds which the nation still resented because of it.

The ruins of which his road was covered everywhere had to show him his debts and his obligations to those who had saved him. Could it be believed that his famous decree, given at Valencia on May 4, 1814, was an indication of the reward that the ungrateful prepared for the whole nation? The courts, that ancient shield of Spanish liberty to which in our orphanhood the nation owed its dignity and honor; the courts, which had just triumphed over a colossal enemy, were dissolved, and their members fleeing in all directions from the persecution of flatterers and servants.

Chains and prisons were the reward of those who had enough strength to oppose the most scandalous usurpation. The Constitution was abolished and the same one whom Spain had rescued with rivers of blood and with immense sacrifices, made it fall under the tyranny and fanaticism that had been taken out by the enlightened Spaniards.

Free from the French prisons, I rushed to Madrid, in case I could contribute, with other friends of freedom, to the restoration of the principles we had sworn to uphold. To my astonishment, things had a new order! The satellites of the tyrant were only occupied in destroying the work of so many efforts.

It was no longer thought of consummating the subjugation of the provinces overseas, and the minister, Don Manuel de Lardizabal, misunderstanding the feelings of my heart, proposed to me the Command of a division against Mexico; as if the cause defended by the Americans was different from the one that exalted the glory of Spanish people; as if my principles resembled the servile and selfish ones that, for our opprobrium, commanded to caught and desolate America; as if the right of the oppressed to resist the oppressor is null, and as if it were calculated as the executioner of an innocent people who felt the weight of the chains that overwhelm my fellow citizens.

Consequently, I will go to Navarre, in concert with my uncle Mr. Francisco Espoz, we determined to take Pamplona and offer an asylum there to Spanish heroes, to the meritorious of the country who had been proscribed or treated as criminals. For one night, I owned the city; and when my uncle came to reinforce me, to contain, if necessary, a part of the garrison of which we did not promise conformity, one of his regiments refused to obey him.

Those courageous soldiers who had triumphed for national independence so many times were tied up, when it came to their freedom, shameful ties, deep-rooted concerns, and ignorance that we had not yet been able to overcome. Having frustrated the enterprise, it was necessary for me to take refuge in foreign countries, with some of my companions, and, always animated by the love of liberty, I thought to defend its cause where my weak efforts were sustained by the opinion and the efforts of the community: they could be more beneficial to my oppressed country and more fatal to its tyrant.

From the provinces on this side of the ocean the usurper obtained the means of his arbitrariness; also, they fought for freedom, and since that moment the cause of the Americans was mine.

Only the king, the employees, and the monopolists are the ones who take advantage of the subjection of America to the detriment of the Americans. They, therefore, are their united enemies and those who want to perpetuate the pupilage in which they have set the nation, to lift over the ruins, their fortune and of his descendants.

They say that Spain cannot exist without America; and this is true, for Spain they understand themselves, their relatives, friends and favorites. Because, having an emancipated America, there will be no more exclusive graces, nor sales of governments, intendancies and other jobs of the Indies; because American ports were open to foreign nations, trade would pass into a more numerous and enlightened class; and because if America is free will undoubtedly revive the Spanish industry, sacrificed in the day to the crawling interests of a few men

For this it is indispensable that all the towns where Castilian is spoken learn to be free, to know and practice their rights. The moment a single section of America has strengthened its independence, we may flatter ourselves that liberal principles will sooner or later extend their benefits to other countries. This terrible time is what the agents and supporters of tyranny fear endlessly. They see, in the excess of their despair, their empire collapsed and they would sacrifice everything to their impotent rage.

The country is not circumscribed to the place where we were born, but, more properly, to the one that covers our personal rights.

Your oppressors calculate that in order to restore to you and your children their barbaric domination, it is indispensable to enslave everyone. The famous Pitt feared such consequences, when he justified the resistance of Anglo-Americans in the presence of the British Parliament.

We are told that America is obstinate -he said-, that America is in open rebellion. I boast, sir that America will resist. Three million inhabitants, indifferent to the impulses of freedom, voluntarily submitted, would then be the most appropriate instruments to impose chains on all the rest.

These are the principles that have determined me to separate from Spain and to join America in order to cooperate with their emancipation. If they are upright, they will respond satisfactorily to my sincerity. For the sake of freedom and independence I have taken up arms so far; only in their defense I will take them from here on.

Mexicans: allow me to participate in your glorious tasks, accept the services that I offer you in favor of your sublime endeavor and count with me as your compatriot. I hope that I will deserve this title, making your freedom to rule or sacrificing my own existence!

Then, in recompense, say to your children: "This land was twice flooded in blood by servile Spaniards, abject vassals of a king, but there were also liberal and patriotic Spaniards who sacrificed their rest and their life for our good.

Soto la Marina, April 25, 1817. Xavier Mina. Soto la Marina Headquarters, April 26, 1817. The Chief of Staff, Noboa.

Documental sources

Mina, Francisco Xavier. “Proclama de Galveston, 22/02/1817”. En: Ortuño, Manuel. Xavier Mina. Primera Proclama. http://mortumar.blogspot.com/2006/09/xavier-mina-primera-proclama.html. (Consultado: 17 de agosto de 2012).

__________. “Proclama de Soto La Marina, 25/04/1817”. En: Hernández y Dávalos, Juan E. Historia de la Guerra de Independencia de México. Tomo VI. México: INEHRM, 1985.

Bibliography

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Anna, Timothy. España y la Independencia de América. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986.

De Andrés, Juan Ramón. “Informes realistas sobre el asentamiento de Javier Mina en Galveston (Texas) durante 1816 y 1817”. Argumentos. (Septiembre-diciembre), año/vol. 20, N°. 055. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Xochimilco, México, 157- 181.

Del Palacio, Celia. “El periodismo de la independencia. El papel de la prensa en los inicios de la esfera pública política en México”. Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre as Américas, Vol. I (2009), 1-15.

Fernández Fernández, Iñigo. “Un recorrido por la historia de la prensa en México. De sus orígenes al año 1857”. Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información, Vol., 33, (2010), 69-89.

Goytisolo, Juan. José María Blanco White, Obra inglesa. Edición de Juan Goytisolo, Buenos Aires: 1972.

Herrera, Rafael. “Blanco White y América. La escisión del mundo hispánico”. Scienza & Politica Vol. 22, N° 43 (2010), 17-46.

__________. “Álvaro Flórez Estrada y la reconciliación entre España y América”. Araucari. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política y Humanidades, año 14 N°27 (Primer Semestre de 2012), 132-156.

O ’ Gormann, Edmundo. “Teresa de Mier. Ideario político” (Prólogo). En: Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, Ideario Político. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1978.

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__________. “Xavier Mina en los Estados Unidos (1816)” http://dspace.uah.es/dspace/bitstream/handle/10017/5034/Xavier%20Mina%20en%20los%20Estados%20Unidos%2c%201816.pdf?sequence=1 (Consultado: 19 septiembre 2014).

__________. Francisco Xavier Mina; guerrillero liberal insurgente. Ensayo biobibliográfico. Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra, 2000.

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Vilches, Jorge. “1808: el patriotismo liberal”, La Ilustración Liberal. Revista española y americana N°35 (primavera, 2008). http://www.ilustracionliberal.com/35/1808-el-patriotismo-liberal-espanol-jorge-vilches.html. (Consultado: 17 de agosto de 2012).

__________. “Nación, libertad, revolución. El Patriotismo liberal. Entre el dos de mayo y la reunión de Cortes”. Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo N° 15 (2007).

To cite this article:

Antonio E. de Pedro Robles, “Two Proclamations by Francisco Xavier Mina: on Heroes and Villains”, Historia y Memoria N° 10 (January-June, 2015): 129-164.

* This article is the product of the research project named: Discursos políticos de criollos ilustrados en las independencias americanas (Political discourses of enlightened creoles in American independences), financed by the Research Directorate of the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, 2012-2013.

[1] Doctor of History. Tenured professor of the Doctorate in History and the School of Social Sciences, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia. Research group: The Enlightenment in Colonial America – ILAC, by its acronym in Spanish. Lines of investigation: creole scientists and enlightenment. Email address: abra1957@gmail.com

[2] His real name was Martin Xavier, but ended up adopting the name of Francisco as an alias. He was born in the Navarrese town of Otano on July 1, 1789. He was shot dead on November 11, 1817 in Cerro del Borrego, near to Pénjamo (Guanajuato). The historian Manuel Ortuño has maintained that Mina disembarked not on the 15 but the 21 of April (“Xavier Mina, lazo de unión entre América y España. Con ocasión del Bicentenario de las “independencias” (Hispania Nova. Revista de Historia Contemporánea. N°8, 2008., pages 94- 102). http://hispanianova.rediris.es/ (18 September, 2012)

[3] About Mina's stay in the United States and the preparations for the expedition, as well as the actions undertaken by the Spanish ambassador in that country, Luis de Onís, with regard to trying to stop the expedition of Mina and Mier, see the work of Manuel Ortuño, already mentioned, Xavier Mina en los Estados Unidos (1816) (In it other previous work on the subject are mentioned); and the most recent work of the historian Juan Ramón de Andrés, “Informes realistas sobre el asentamiento de Javier Mina en Galveston (Texas) durante 1816 y 1817”. Argumentos Vol. 20, N° 055. (September-December); 157- 181.

[4] Manuel Ortuño, “Xavier Mina en los Estados Unidos (1816)” http://dspace.uah.es/dspace/bitstream/handle/10017/5034/Xavier%20Mina%20en%20los%20Estados%20Unidos%2c%201816.pdf?sequence=1 (19 September 2014): 184.

[5] See: Guadalupe Jiménez, La Gran Bretaña y la Independencia de México (1808-1821) (México: FCE, 1991). Also, Lucas Alamán, “Biografía de D. Francisco Fagoaga”, in: Rafael Aguayo (Comp) Documentos diversos (Inéditos y muy raros) (México: JUS, 1946).

[6] Francisco Xavier Mina, “Proclama de Francisco Xavier Mina en la que informa sobre sus antecedentes revolucionarios, sus ideas políticas y los propósitos de su expedición al desembarcar en el Nuevo Santander”. Soto la Marina, 25 April 1817.

[7] Joaquín Infante was born in Bayamo, in January of 1775. He was considered as one of the first precursors of the independence of his country, being the writer of a draft of the Constitution, written and printed in Venezuela, the country in which he was exiled. In the year 1816, while in the United States, he contacted Mina through the Venezuelans Juan Germán Roscio, Mariano Montilla and José Rafael Revenga. And he started to take part in the expedition as auditor of war. In Mexico, he was arrested and imprisoned in San Juan de Ulúa. Later, he was transferred to a jail in Habana; later to the prison of the Carraca in Cadiz; and, finally, to the prison of Ceuta, in African territory. After the uprising of Rafael Riego, he left prison with the amnesty of 1821. In the year of 1825 he returned to Cuba, but again had to exile after the restoration of the absolutist regime of Fernando VII, passing, this time, to Cartagena de Indias. The place and date of his death is unknown. The newspaper created by Mina, had the intention to become an organ for dissemination of his military activities in Mexico; in line with the growing role that the press and the printed editions played in the War of Independence of this country. In relation to the role played by the press in Mexican Independence, See: Iñigo Fernández Fernández, " Un recorrido por la historia de la prensa en México. De sus orígenes al año 1857", in: Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información, year 2010, Vol., 33, pages 69-89; In particular see pages 76-78.

[8] See: Manuel Ortuño, Xavier Mina; guerrillero liberal insurgente. Ensayo biobibliográfico (Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra, 2000).

[9] Manuel Ortuño, “Xavier Mina en los Estados Unidos… 198.

[10] Pedro José Ramón Gual Escandón (Caracas, 1783-Guayaquil, 1862).
He was a lawyer, journalist and politician. He contributed to the development of the foreign policy of Gran Colombia and Venezuela. He was charged with the presidency of the latter on three occasions. Brother Servando Teresa de Mier made an allusion to this influence in his letters, Gual also contributed to the text.

[11] Manuel Ortuño, “Xavier Mina en los Estados Unidos…186.

[12] Francisco Mina, Proclama de Galveston, February 22, 1817.

[14] Jorge Vilches: “1808: el patriotismo liberal”, La Ilustración Liberal. Revista española y americana. N°35, (spring, 2008). http://www.ilustracionliberal.com/35/1808-el-patriotismo-liberal-espanol-jorge-vilches.html (17 August, 2012).

[15] Jorge Vilches, “1808: el patriotismo liberal”…

[16] Jorge Vilches, “Nación, libertad, revolución. El Patriotismo liberal. Entre el dos de mayo y la reunión de Cortes”, Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo. 2007, N° 15 (Miscelánea), 195.

[18] Valentín de Foronda (1751-1821), in letter about what a prince who has colonies at great distance should do, published in 1813, he solicited that the Spanish Monarchy get rid of the “American burden”.

[21] Blanco White as well as Flórez Estrada did not share this view; although their approaches to America and its independent fate never reached the position of Navarro.

[24] Juan Goytisolo, José María Blanco White, Obra inglesa, (Buenos Aires: edición: Juan Goytisolo, 1972). The “assimilationist” position was as much against vassalage as it was against independence.

[25] Rafael Herrera, “Blanco White y América. La escisión del mundo hispánico”, Scienza & Politica Vol. 22, N° 43 (2010); 28.

[26] Referred to in: Juan Goytisolo, José María Blanco White…85.

[27] Rafael Herrera, “Álvaro Flórez Estrada y la reconciliación entre España y América”, Araucari. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política y Humanidades N°27 (first semester of 2012); 135.

[28] Rafael Herrera, “Álvaro Flórez Estrada y la reconciliación…136.

[29] Rafael Herrera, “Álvaro Flórez Estrada y la reconciliación…,134.

[30] See: Brad A. Aquino, “Las Cortes españolas del “Trienio Liberal” y la cuestión del reconocimiento de las independencias hispanoamericanas”, in: Anuario de Estudios Bolivarianos, año XIII, N° 14, 2007., 46. Aquino follows the argument in relation to this question of the liberal error, as Timothy Anna did previously in España y la Independencia de América. México, FCE.

[31] Rafael Herrera, “Álvaro Flórez Estrada y la reconciliación…139.

[32] Francisco Xavier Mina, Proclama de Galveston,

[33] Francisco Xavier Mina, Proclama de Soto La Marina, April 25, 1817.

[34] Francisco Xavier Mina, Proclama de Soto La Marina,…

[35] Francisco Xavier Mina, Proclama de Soto La Marina,…

[36] Francisco Xavier Mina, Proclama de Soto La Marina,…

[37] See the work of the Count of Toreno, Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolución de España, 1835.

[38] See the work of Argüelles, Examen histórico de la reforma constitucional que hicieron las Cortes Generales y Extraordinarias desde que se instalaron en la Isla de León el día 24 de setiembre de 1810, hasta que cerraron en Cádiz sus sesiones en 14 del propio mes de 1813, 1835.

[39] See: Juicio imparcial sobre las principales causas de la revolución americana, 1828.

[40] See: Apuntes sobre los principales sucesos que han influido en el actual estado de la América del Sud, 1830.

[41] See: Historia de la Revolución Hispanoamericana, 1830.

[42] Celia del Palacio, “El periodismo de la independencia. El papel de la prensa en los inicios de la esfera pública política en México”, Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre as Américas, Vol. I, (2009), 1-15.

[43] Cecilia del Palacio is a defender of this idea, see: “El periodismo de la independencia…

[44] Celia del Palacio, “El periodismo de la independencia…

[45] Eric Van Young, La Otra rebelión. La lucha por la independencia de México. 1810-1821 (México: FCE, 2006).

[46] Celia del Palacio, “El periodismo de la independencia…12.

[47] Cited in: Celia del Palacio, “El periodismo de la independencia…12.

[48] Paul Ricoeur, Teoría de la Interpretación. Discurso y excedente de sentido sexta reimpresión (Siglo XXI editores, 2011).