42 Facts About Vicente Guerrero

Vicente Ramon Guerrero was a Mexican soldier and statesman who become the nation's second president.

Vicente Guerrero was one of the leading generals who fought against Spain during the Mexican War of Independence.

Vicente Guerrero was born in Tixtla, a town 100 kilometers inland from the port of Acapulco, in the Sierra Madre del Sur; his parents were Maria Guadalupe Rodriguez Saldana, and Juan Pedro Guerrero.

Vicente Guerrero's travels took him to different parts of Mexico where he heard of the idea of independence.

Vicente Guerrero enlisted in Jose Maria Morelos's insurgent army of the south in December 1810.

Vicente Guerrero was married to Maria Guadalupe Hernandez; their daughter Maria Dolores Guerrero Hernandez married Mariano Riva Palacio, who was the defense lawyer of Maximilian I of Mexico in Queretaro, and was the mother of late nineteenth-century intellectual [Vicente Riva Palacio].

In 1810, Vicente Guerrero joined in the early revolt against Spain, first fighting in the forces of secular priest Jose Maria Morelos.

Vicente Guerrero joined the rebellion in November 1810 and enlisted in a division that independence leader Morelos had organized to fight in southern Mexico.

Vicente Guerrero distinguished himself in the Battle of Izucar, in February 1812, and had achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel when Oaxaca was claimed by rebels in November 1812.

Vicente Guerrero joined forces with Guadalupe Victoria and Isidoro Montes de Oca, taking the position of "Commander in Chief" of the rebel troops.

Vicente Guerrero's father carried an appeal for his son to surrender, but Vicente Guerrero refused.

Vicente Guerrero remained the only major rebel leader still at large and kept the rebellion going through an extensive campaign of guerrilla warfare.

Vicente Guerrero won victories at Ajuchitan, Santa Fe, Tetela del Rio, Huetamo, Tlalchapa, and Cuautlotitlan, regions of southern Mexico that were very familiar to him.

Vicente Guerrero was victorious against Iturbide, who realized that there was a military stalemate.

Vicente Guerrero appealed to Iturbide to abandon his royalist loyalty and to join the fight for independence.

When Iturbide's imperial government collapsed in 1823, Vicente Guerrero was named one of Constituent Congress's ruling triumvirate.

Vicente Guerrero was a liberal by conviction, and active in the York Rite Masons, established in Mexico after independence by Joel Roberts Poinsett, the US diplomatic representative to the newly independent Mexico.

Vicente Guerrero had a large following among urban Yorkinos, who were mobilized during the 1828 election campaign and afterwards, in the ouster of the president-elect, Manuel Gomez Pedraza.

Vicente Guerrero's supporters included federalist liberals, members of the radical wing of the York Rite Freemasons.

General Gomez Pedraza won the September 1828 election to succeed Guadalupe Victoria, with Vicente Guerrero coming in second and Anastasio Bustamante, third through indirect election of Mexico's state legislatures.

Vicente Guerrero is uneducated, but possesses excellent natural talents, combined with great decision of character and undaunted courage.

Vicente Guerrero himself did not leave an abundant written record, but some of his speeches survive.

Vicente Guerrero issued a political plan there calling for the nullification of Gomez Pedraza's election and the declaration of Guerrero as president.

In November 1828 in Mexico City, Vicente Guerrero supporters took control of the Accordada, a former prison transformed into an armory, and days of fighting occurred in the capital.

Vicente Guerrero took office as president, with Bustamante, a conservative, becoming vice president.

Vicente Guerrero was to rule as president with only a thin layer of support.

For some of Vicente Guerrero's supporters, a visibly mixed-race man from Mexico's periphery becoming president of Mexico was a step toward what one 1829 pamphleteer called "the reconquest of this land by its legitimate owners" and called Vicente Guerrero "that immortal hero, favorite son of Nezahualcoyotzin", the famous ruler of prehispanic Texcoco.

Vicente Guerrero set about creating a cabinet of liberals, but his government already encountered serious problems, including its very legitimacy, since president-elect Gomez Pedraza had resigned under pressure.

Some traditional federalists leaders, who might have supported Vicente Guerrero, did not do so because of the electoral irregularities.

Vicente Guerrero called for public schools, land title reforms, industry and trade development, and other programs of a liberal nature.

Vicente Guerrero was deposed in a rebellion under Vice-President Anastasio Bustamante that began on 4 December 1829.

Vicente Guerrero left the capital to fight in the south, but was deposed by the Mexico City garrison in his absence on 17 December 1829.

Vicente Guerrero had returned to the region of southern Mexico where he had fought during the war of independence.

Bravo had been a royalist officer and Vicente Guerrero was an insurgent hero.

Vicente Guerrero had strength in the hot coastal regions of the Costa Grande and Tierra Caliente, with mixed race populations that had been mobilized during the insurgency for independence.

Vicente Guerrero was taken to Oaxaca City and summarily tried by a court-martial.

Vicente Guerrero's capture was welcomed by conservatives and some state legislatures, but the legislatures of Zacatecas and Jalisco tried to prevent Guerrero's execution.

Vicente Guerrero's death did mark the dissolution of the rebellion in southern Mexico, but those politicians involved in his execution paid a lasting price to their reputations.

Vicente Guerrero's execution was perhaps a warning to men considered as socially and ethnically inferior not to dare to dream of becoming president.

In 1842, Vicente Guerrero's remains were exhumed and returned to Mexico City for reinterment.

Vicente Guerrero is known for his political discourse promoting equal civil rights for all Mexican citizens.

Vicente Guerrero has been described as the "greatest man of color" to ever live.