Francisco Javier Mina

Francisco Javier Mina Larrea , (born July 1, 1789 in Otano near Pamplona , Navarra , Spain ; † November 11, 1817 near Guanajuato , Mexico ) was a Spanish guerrilla leader who fought in the War of Liberation against Napoleon and as a liberal volunteer in the Mexican War of Independence .

Life

Mina studied at the University of Saragossa and was there in 1808 among the leaders of the student uprisings against the supposedly French-friendly policies of Manuel de Godoy .

When Napoleon's troops occupied Spain, he went to fight the occupiers with a troop of irregulars. His band fought on the Spanish left wing under the command of General Joaquín Blake y Joyes and took part in the battles of Alcañiz and Belchite .

Together with his uncle Francisco Espoz y Mina , he used guerrilla tactics against the French in northern Spain. His troops grew to over a thousand men. The French finally captured him at the end of March 1810 in the locality of Labiano (Navarra) .

Initially he was supposed to be executed, but then found himself interned in the castle of Vincennes together with other leading representatives of Spain . During his imprisonment he met the French general and radical republican Victor-Claude-Alexandre Fanneau de Lahorie , who probably had a strong influence on Mina's political worldview.

In May 1814 he returned to Spain. In Madrid he ventured with other military leaders from the guerrilla an uprising against the return of King Ferdinand to absolutism. When this failed, he fled via Bayonne in France to London, where he arrived in April 1815.

In exile in London, he frequented liberal circles and met José Maria Blanco White . In exchange with other revolutionaries such as Francisco Javier de Istúriz and British supporters such as Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland , he worked on the return of Spain to a constitutional form of government.

When the uprising of Juan Díaz Porlier in La Coruña failed in 1815, some of the Spanish revolutionaries devoted themselves to the idea of actively supporting the Mexican struggle for independence under José María Morelos .

Francisco Javier Mina met the Mexican priest Servando Teresa de Mier in London , and together the plan arose to travel to Mexico with a group of activists in order to continue the fight against absolutist Spain there. With the financial help of British merchants and politicians, the expedition was made possible. On May 15, 1816, the Bark Caledonia sailed from Liverpool to the New World under the English flag .

They reached Baltimore on July 1 and were able to sail from there with the support of US General Winfield Scott and the President of the United States James Monroe via Haiti to Galveston (Texas) , which they reached in November 1816. With the help of French privateers, they reached Soto la Marina , where they went ashore in April 1817.

At that time the independence movement was extremely weakened: its leader Morelos had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards and had been executed, the Congress was in the process of dissolution, and the military resistance was limited to a few nests in Michoacán and Guanajuato , the latter under the leadership of Pedro Romeno .

The Spanish viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca had received reinforcements from Spain and issued a general amnesty. Mina published a proclamation with his political goals, which also met resistance from parts of the independence movement.

Mina led his men to Guanajuato, where they joined forces with Moreno's forces in May. The royalists under General Pascual Liñán arrived in Guanajuato in August 1817 and recaptured the province. In October the Spanish succeeded in seizing the leaders of the independence movement at the Hacienda El Venadito . While Moreno was killed in the attack, the Spaniards caught Mina alive. He was brought before the Spanish officers, sentenced and executed by a Spanish firing squad outside Guanajuato on November 11, 1817.

Honors

The municipality of Mina (Nuevo León) in the Mexican state of Nuevo León was named after him in 1851. Tampico Airport ( IATA : TAM) also bears his name.

The mortal remains of Mina lie with those of 13 other independence fighters in the victory column El Ángel de la Independencia in Mexico City .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Mina, Francisco Javier
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Mina Larrea, Francisco Javier (full name); Mina, Francisco Xavier (alternative spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Spanish guerrilla fighter in the war of liberation against Napoleon and in the Mexican war of independence
DATE OF BIRTH	July 1, 1789
PLACE OF BIRTH	Otano , Navarra, Spain
DATE OF DEATH	November 11, 1817
Place of death	Guanajuato (City) , Mexico