Celebrating Insurrection

The Commemoration and Representation of the Nineteenth-Century Mexican Pronunciamiento

Will Fowler

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780803244863
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Mexican History
• Index: History

The pronunciamiento, a formal list of grievances designed to spark political change in nineteenth-century Mexico, was a problematic yet necessary practice. Although pronunciamientos rarely achieved the goals for which they were undertaken and sometimes resulted in armed rebellion, they were nonetheless both celebrated and commemorated, and the perceptions and representations of pronunciamientos themselves reflected the Mexican people's response to these "revolutions."

The third in a series of books examining the pronunciamiento, this collection addresses the complicated legacy of pronunciamientos and their place in Mexican political culture. The essays explore the sacralization and legitimization of these revolts and of their leaders in the nation's history and consider why these celebrations proved ultimately ineffective in consecrating the pronunciamiento as a force for good, rather than one motivated by desires for power, promotion, and plunder. Celebrating Insurrection offers readers interpretations of acts of celebration and commemoration that explain the uneasy adoption of pronunciamientos as Mexico's preferred means of effecting political change during this turbulent period in the nation's history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chronology of Main Events and Pronunciamientos,1821–1910
• 1. The Memory and Representation of Rafael del Riego’sPronunciamiento in Constitutional New Spain and within theIturbide Movement, 1820–1821
• 2. The Damned Man with the Venerated Plan: The ComplexLegacies of Agustín de Iturbide and the Iguala Plan
• 3. Refrescos, Iluminaciones, and Te Deums: CelebratingPronunciamientos in Jalisco in 1823 and 1832
• 4. The Political Life of Executed Pronunciados: TheRepresentation and Memory of José Márquez and JoaquínGárate’s 1830 Pronunciamiento of San Luis
• 5. Memory and Manipulation: The Lost Cause of the SantiagoImán Pronunciamiento
• 6. Salvas, Cañonazos, y Repiques: Celebrating the Pronunciamientoduring the U.S.-Mexican War
• 7. Contemporary Verdicts on the Pronunciamiento during theEarly National Period
• 8. The Crumbling of a “Hero”: Ignacio Comonfort from Ayutla toTacubaya
• 9. Porfi rio Díaz and the Representations of the Secondof April
• 10. Juan Bustamante’s Pronunciamiento and the Civic SpeechesThat Condemned It: San Luis Potosí, 1868–1869
• 11. “As Empty a Piece of Gasconading Stuff as I Ever Read”: The Pronunciamiento through Foreign Eyes
• Bibliography
• Contributors