“We Are Now the True Spaniards”: Sovereignty, Revolution, Independence, and the Emergence of the Federal Republic of Mexico, 1808–1824 by Jaime E. Rodríguez O (review)

Rodríguez has devoted more the thirty years of his academic life to studying the concluding history of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and the early years of independent Mexico. The book under review is the English translation of a study in two volumes published originally as Nosotros somos ahora los verdaderos españoles (Mexico City, 2009). The new edition eliminates material that the author did not consider essential for an English-speaking audience but incorporates research that he performed after the publication of the first version.

Rodríguez is the staunchest supporter of a controversial thesis regarding Mexico’s independence movement—namely, that the emancipation process of New Spain consisted of two revolutions, “The Cádiz Revolution” (Chapter 5) and “A Fragmented Insurgency” (Chapter 6). In principle, without ignoring the connections between them, this notion is acceptable; the problem, however, is the way in which Rodríguez presents and contrasts both processes. He defines the Cádiz Revolution as “the fundamental revolution” (1), whereas he considers the insurgency as “violent and disastrous” (336).

Many nationalist historians cannot accept his position because it deprecates the movement that fought against the Spanish authorities from 1810 until Mexico’s independence in 1821. That the insurgency (more specifically, the leadership of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos) has been over-praised by Mexican historiography is undeniable. But Rodríguez’s conception of the Spanish liberal revolution that took place in Cádiz between 1810 and 1814 is also a panegyric. The Cádiz Constitution is not the quintessence of liberalism and modernity that Rodríguez portrays. Moreover, regarding Spanish America, it was fraught with ambiguities and limitations that barely appear in the book (including the extensive notes). This deficiency is the result of Rodríguez repeatedly dismissing or simply ignoring the copious bibliography concerning those shortcomings.

The other flaw that decreases the value of this ambitious interpretation of Mexican independence is the omnipresence of the terms “home rule” and “autonomy,” which Rodríguez treats as a passe-partout for not only the Cádiz Revolution but also the insurgent movement (for example, see 3, 4, 148, 185, 200, 201, 234, 241, 253, 268, 271, 341, and 342).Why would someone who has devoted many years to the study of this period promote a Manichaean perspective on it, forcing every aspect of it to turn on what appears to be an incommensurable contrast between “a great political revolution” and “a violent and disastrous” movement (148, 336)? Needless to say, the period is much more complex.