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The Constitution of Cádiz and the Independence of Yucatán

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Paul Joseph Reid
Paul Joseph Reid*
Affiliation:
Springfield, Virginia
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Extract

ONE of the principal reasons for the promulgation of the Constitution of Cádiz was the desire of Spanish liberals to answer the complaints of dissenters in overseas colonies and thereby suppress the budding independence movements. This policy met with more success in Yucatán than in most other Spanish colonies. The Yucatecans took advantage of the constitutional reforms to implement a number of economic changes. As long as these changes were in operation, Yucatán was safe from the fervor of the independence movement. To be sure, Yucatán was not completely immune to the appeal of revolutionary propaganda. There was a hard core minority which agitated to disrupt the constitutional system in order to win independence, but this group never gained much popular support. Events outside Yucatán, coupled with the potential threat of crown interference in the economic structure which the Yucatecans were striving to build, led a group of moderates in the Provincial Deputation, an administrative body provided for by the constitution, to declare Yucatán's independence from Spain. Moreover, the motivation for this declaration foreshadowed the factional strife which beset Mexico throughout the nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , July 1979 , pp. 22 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1979

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References

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16 Fray Lanuza came to Yucatán from Guatemala where he had become acquainted with the works of the Encyclopedists. In 1814 he had the honor of reading Ferninand' s proclamation of the abolition of the constitution at the official church ceremony announcing the fact. Later he became a member of the Society of San Juan, O’Reilly, Sierra, Los Indios, 2, 134, 170Google Scholar; “Cinco expedientes,” YCUAL.

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40 Ibid., Sesión 26, June 29,1821; published in El Fenix (Campeche), no. 30-32 (March 25-April 5, 1849).

41 Yucatán, Provincial Deputation, “Sesiones,” III, Sesión 36, August 9, 1821.

42 Ibid.

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