Patriots, Poverty, Taxes, and Death: Recent Work on Mexican History, 1750-1850

The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's First Black Indian President. By Theodore G. Vincent. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. Pp. 336. $55.00 cloth.)

Tornel and Santa Anna: The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico, 1795-1853. By Will Fowler. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Pp. 308. $69.50 cloth.)

Vagrants and Citizens: Politics and The Masses In Mexico City From Colony To Republic. By Richard A. Warren. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001. Pp. 202. $60.00 cloth.)

Containing The Poor: The Mexico City Poor House, 1774-1871. By Silvia Marina Arrom. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Pp. 398. $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.)

De Colonia A Nacià�n: Impuestos Y Polà�tica En México, 1750-1860. Compiled by Carlos Marichal and Daniela Marino. (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2001. Pp. 279. N.p.)

Los Nobles Ante La Muerte En México: Actitudes, Ceremonias Y Memoria, 1750-1850. By Verónica Zárate Toscano. (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, Instituto Mora, 2000. N.p.)

Alone Before God: The Religious Origins of Modernity in Mexico.By Pamela Voekel. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. 233. $64.95 cloth, $21.95 paper.)

"The poor you always have with you. . . ."

—John 12:8

"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."

—Benjamin Franklin

Ancient and modern authorities agree that some things never change, but historians usually know better. Theodore G. Vincent's new book on Vicente Guerrero is the first major study of that Mexican patriot to appear in English since 1939, and only the second to be published in English.¹ It contains extensive scholarly apparatus (appendices, footnotes, a bibliography, lists of archives and interviews) and was published by a major university press (the University Press of Florida, distinct from but heir to the legacy of the University of Florida Press, a major publisher of Latin American history). Nevertheless, Vincent's The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's First Black Indian President is not an example of conventional historical scholarship in Mexican history. Its title provides two clues to its distinctive point of view: the use of the word "legacy" and the identification of Guerrero as "Mexico's first black Indian president." The first signals that the book is as concerned with genealogy as with biography; the second signals that the book takes a point of view that is firmly rooted in U.S. history and racial categories.

Nearly three-quarters of the book deals directly with Vicente Guerrero's life and times. Vincent provides students of nineteenth-century Mexico with a whole chapter on Guerrero's term as president. He includes a long excerpt from a speech published in a newspaper in 1829, one of the few examples of Guerrero's rhetoric that appears in print. It is unfortunate that Vincent provides no credit for the translation since his own work is so riddled with elementary errors that it undermines his credibility as a translator. Even when Vincent provides a fresh perspective on a familiar story, he frequently compromises his position by uncritical acceptance of sources that are consistent with his populist bias. For example, I was intrigued with the argument that the Spanish invasion in 1829 was contained on the coast by local resistance, probably militia troops of African heritage, until the national army under Antonio López de Santa Anna arrived to claim credit. Vincent cites a census manuscript for the racial background of the region, but his reference for the military action itself includes no evidence and is merely the assertion of a clearly biased secondary source.

Vincent takes a genealogical approach to Guerrero's legacy in the final seventy pages of the book, which follow the careers and marriage choices of succeeding generations of the family. Most interesting is his description of how African Americans in the...