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3. Refrescos, Iluminaciones, and Te Deums: CelebratingPronunciamientos in Jalisco in 1823 and 1832
- University of Nebraska Press
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W hen, on 1 March 1823, Miguel Ignacio Castellano, the military commander of Tepic, Nueva Galicia, seconded the Plan of Jalisco drafted in the provincial capital of Guadalajara, he marched his officers straight to the municipal buildings, where the city council was in session, to arrange for three days of celebrations to mark the launching of his plan de adhesi ón (supporting pronunciamiento). He informed the governor and military commander of the state, Luis Quintanar: We agreed that the pronunciamiento should be declaimed following a parade of the troop and that when that was over there should be a Te Deum laudamus in the parish church . . . and it was decided that this night there will be street lighting throughout the town, tomorrow a thanksgiving mass and tonight and tomorrow night serenades with military music.1 Why did the ayuntamientos in Jalisco choose to celebrate pronunciamientos , which were essentially extra-constitutional, subversive acts, with civic and religious celebrations? Why did they spend funds on these public events and how did it suit their political purposes? This chapter addresses these issues by focusing on the celebration of the pronunciamientos that took place in the state of Jalisco in 1823 and 1832. I analyze the role that civic and Three. Refrescos, Iluminaciones, and Te Deums: Celebrating Pronunciamientos in Jalisco in 1823 and 1832 rosie doyle Refrescos, Iluminaciones, and Te Deums 51 religious fiestas played in legitimizing the pronunciamientos, informing the public of these newly legitimized historic events, making heroes of the military officers who launched them, and making the pronunciamientos a part of the lives of ordinary tapatíos (citizens of Jalisco). The phenomenon of the pronunciamiento originated in Spain as a liberal form of effecting political change and challenging absolutism in what was quite evidently a context of contested authority following King Ferdinand VII’s abolition of the 1812 liberal Cádiz Constitution when he returned to power in 1814. As has been argued in the first two volumes of Will Fowler’s tetralogy on the subject, it became the political tool of choice of the Mexican political class in the early independence period.2 As a result, the pronunciamiento played a significant role in the political and everyday life of Nueva Galicia/Jalisco between 1821 and 1852. Pronunciamientos , which have been referred to as revolts, are better understood as political movements in which petitions or plans were drafted and circulated by coalitions and networks of military and civilian actors who, with military backing and making use of threats of insubordination and violence, aimed to negotiate forcefully with the existing authorities when these were perceived to act arbitrarily or were seen to abandon the constitutional path. More often than not, the hope was that violence would not be resorted to, and that those in power would listen to the demands that were made in the given political plans.3 Pronunciamientos thus emerged in Mexico at a time of political crisis and uncertain legitimacy or, as Rodrigo Moreno Gutiérrez argues in chapter 1, a time when the origins of political sovereignty and legitimacy had been significantly called into question. The nascent governments and institutions of early independent [44.197.214.36] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:57 GMT) 52 Doyle Mexico, together with the accepted political discourse and therefore the texts of the pronunciamientos themselves, were inspired by liberal constitutionalism. It was a time when the popular or national will paired with concepts of popular sovereignty started to be seen as the true source of legitimacy. However the power of, and people’s loyalty to, a number of key colonial institutions and corporations—such as the church, provincial deputations, and ayuntamientos (with their new powers afforded by the 1812 Cádiz Constitution as representatives of popular sovereignty)—did not disappear overnight and were also powerful sources of political legitimacy. Pronunciamientos, with their lists of grievances and political plans, were acts of insubordination but they were so commonly used in the public sphere that they became one of several means, alongside elections and the legislation proposed by nascent congresses and institutions, of promoting political ideologies, of defending and opposing constitutions and political systems, and of negotiating power. In Nueva Galicia and the state of Jalisco between 1821 and 1853, for example, pronunciamientos were used to lobby state and national governments into changing the law; to make proposals for new laws, constitutions, and political systems; to circulate pseudo-constitutional demands for new laws issued by the state authorities; to...