Escribir la nación: La Independencia en las obras historiográficas de Carlos María de Bustamante y Lucas Alamán

Abstract

In September 1810, just a few days after the start of the Mexican War of Independence, insurrectionary troops attacked the city of Guanajuato. This included storming the so-called Alhóndiga de Granaditas – a granary in which the peninsular families of Guanajuato had taken refuge. The conquest of the Alhóndiga was the first combat of the War of Independence and its cruelty elicited multifarious and often controversial interpretations over the course of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the historiographical works of liberal-leaning authors treated the confrontation as the Mexican people’s legitimate and heroic combat against their Spanish usurpers. On the other hand, more conservative historians took it as the first proof of a ferociousness and brutality that would, from their point of view, come to characterize the independence movement. This article analyzes the description of the assault of Guanajuato in two historiographical works from the middle of the nineteenth century, both of which illuminate something of these two perspectives. While Carlos Maria de Bustamante’s Cuadro histórico de la Revolución Mexicana (first edition 1821–27, second edition 1843–46) foregrounds the bravery of the popular heroes among the insurgent lines, Lucas Alaman’s Historia de Méjico (1849–52) condemns the anarchy of the independence movement and its threat to what he thinks is the perfect organization of the viceroyalty. In both works, the narration of the insurgent victory in Guanajuato functions like a micro-history of the global narrative about the War of Independence. The narrative nucleus allows for a sharp image of the new Mexican nation and its legitimation in Bustamante’s work, and of its dubiousness in Alamán’s.

Keywords

• historiography
• independence
• nation
• narrative procedure
• nineteenth century