Alamán, Estadiste e Historiador. By José C. Valadés. (Mexico:
Antigua Librería Robredo, José Porrua e Hijos. 1938.
Pp. xii, 576, (1). Plates.)

Lucas Alamán, conservative historian and statesman, a true
gentleman of the old school in Mexican history and politics, was
born in Guanajuato in 1792. His father, Juan Vicente, held several
municipal offices in Guanajuato and was instrumental in building
the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, in which his friend, the intendente
Riano, lost his life fighting against the rebel priest Hidalgo. His
mother, Doña Maria Ignacia, had placed young Lucas under
Riaño for his first instruction in languages, music, painting, and
the natural sciences. Later, in Mexico City, using his legacy of
seventy thousand pesos inherited from his father, Alamán learned
French and began reading the revolutionary literature which had
seeped into New Spain. Later, in Guanajuato, he took up mining,
mathematics, Latin, the classics, drawing, and music. By adopting
the rules of the Third Order of San Francisco in 1811, young
Lucas pledged to eat no meat on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays,
and Saturdays, to hear mass every day, to avoid comedies,
parties, and profane acts, and to stay away from taverns and
dubious houses. His formal education was completed in the College
of Mines in Mexico City in 1813, and this was followed by a
journey which lasted for six years and included in its itinerary
the capitals of Europe. On this journey he met prominent Span-
iards, Italians and Frenchmen as well as some rebellious Americans,
among whom was Father Mier.

After the war of independence, Alamán served in the first con-
stituent congress and later was in almost continuous service of his
country until his death in 1853. A list of the positions which he
held from time to time would be too long, but his most distin-
guished service possibly was as minister of relations during a long
and turbulent period in the political history of Mexico. Like many
others of his time, Alamán feared the peril of the United States
and worked continually to protect his country from it. Next to
this peril he feared most the threats from liberalism and federalism.
The story of Alamán is the record of the struggle for the survival
of the conservative party, for the ascendency of the proprietary
group and the clergy against the ever-increasing movements for
the abolition of the specially privileged.

Alamán was largely responsible for the Law of April 6, 1830.
In his proposal for the law, the iniciativa, he incorporated General
Manuel de Mier y Terán's denunciation of the methods by which
the United States promoted its "spurious claims to the territory
of its neighbors and the means by which he hoped to thwart its
designs on Texas." To Mier y Terán's proposal for military occu-
pation of Texas, counter-colonization and coasting trade he added
a fourth measure for the preservation of Texas. "Let Congress
repeal the national colonization law in its application to Coahuila
and Texas, take from the state the right to make new contracts,
suspend the execution of existing contracts, and vest in the federal
government the further direction and supervision of colonization
in Texas." The passage of the law necessitated plans for the
permanent occupation of the department by military forces.

Alamán, in his five-volume history of Mexico, found his military
hero in Anastasio Bustamante, his program in the development of
industry, his source of political inspiration in Europe (pp. 78-80).

Valadés has depended largely upon hitherto unused material.
His book is marked by the same outstanding scholarship, illumi-
nating in its character, found in Santa Anna y la Guerra, de Texas.
Each of the thirteen chapters has an adequate index, several good
illustrations, and a full bibliography.

The University of Texas.

Ohland Morton.

How to cite:
"Alamán,Estadista e Historiador", Volume 43, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v043/n1/review_DIVL2758.html
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