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The Mexico City Cricket Club was founded in 1827 by a mixed group of British and foreign nationals. This article traces its origins, rules and regulations, membership, progress and activities through to the 1870s and again in the revival of the 1880s and 1890s. It reveals that although the game of cricket was adopted by few Mexicans, it was enthusiastically played by the British community in Mexico throughout the nineteenth century. The Club continues to the present time in Mexico City.

William Bullock was one of the first British travelers to visit Mexico after independence in 1821. Accompanied by his son, he spent six months there in 1823, and, on his return to Britain, he published an account of his experiences. He also staged in 1824 the first exhibition in Britain of Mexican artifacts and natural fauna. A year later, he liquidated all his business interests and took his family back to Mexico, where he hoped to make a fortune in silver mining. This article examines Bullock's Mexican ventures in London and in Mexico. It also provides much new biographical data on Bullock himself and on his family connections with Mexico that continued throughout the nineteenth century. William Bullock fue uno de los primeros viajeros británicos en visitar México después de la independencia en 1821. Acompañado de su hijo, pasó seis meses allí en 1823, y al regresar a la Gran Bretaña, publicó una crónica de sus experiencias. También presentó en 1824 la primera exhibición en Inglaterra de artefactos y fauna natural de México. Un año después, liquidó todos sus intereses comerciales y se llevó a su familia a México donde él esperaba hacer una fortuna en la minería de plata. Este artículo examina las empresas de Bullock en Londres y en México. También proporciona muchos nuevos datos biográficos de Bullock mismo y de sus conexiones familiares con México que siguieron a lo largo del siglo diecinueve.

Este artículo versa sobre la deuda externa de México en el siglo dicinueve. Revela la manera en que los acreedores británicos, representados por su Committee of Mexican Bondholders (Comité de Tenedores de Bonos Mexicanos) y su agente, Francis Falconnet, negociaron el pago en efectivo de 2.5 millones de dólares del dinero de indemnización pagada por Estados Unidos después de la guerra México-Estados Unidos de 1846-1848. Las transacciones financieras internacionales; los intereses gubernamentales franceses, estadounidenses y británicos; la política mexicana doméstica y la probable corrupción de la élite política mexicana, son algunos de los temas explorados en este ensayo. This article concerns Mexico's nineteenth-century foreign debt. It reveals how British creditors, represented by their Committee of Mexican Bond holders and its agent, Francis Falconnet, negotiated payment in cash of 2.5 million of the indemnity money paid by the United States after the Mexican-U. S. War of 1846-1848. International financial transactions; French, U.S., and British government interests; and Mexican domestic politics and probably corruption in Mexico's political elite are among several themes in this essay.

This article examines the 1850 presidential election in Mexico. It is divided into five sections: party political background, electoral regulations, candidates, campaign, results. General Mariano Arista was the successful candidate in what was the first genuinely contested presidential election since independence.

El presente artículo se ocupa del desarrollo que tuvieron los festejos que anualmente se llevan a cabo en la ciudad de México para celebrar el día de la independencia. La elaboración del programa de actividades para los días 16 y 27 de septiembre era responsabilidad de una Junta Patriótica. Esta Junta, integrada por voluntarios, se renovaba cada año mediante una elección y se encargaba de las finanzas, administración y ceremonial de los festejos. Se describe aquí la integración de la Junta, sus finanzas, regulaciones e implicaciones políticas durante la época de Santa Anna.

In 1843, two friends, one Scottish and one American, published books about Mexico which were to become essential reading for students of Mexican history. Much the better known of the two is William Hickling Prescott whose History of the Conquest of Mexico became an instant best-seller and remains to this day one of the classics of Mexican historiography. Less well-known but equally valuable to historians of nineteenth-century Mexico is Frances Calderón de la Barca's vivid account of Life in Mexico based on her experiences during the two years from 1840-1841 when she lived in the country as the wife of the first Spanish ambassador. By coincidence, Prescott and Sra. Calderón were close personal friends and regular correspondents and they gave each other much assistance in preparing their respective books for publication. Both their works were greeted with critical and public acclaim in the English-speaking world of Europe and North America but reactions in Mexico were markedly different. While Prescott's book was received with qualified enthusiasm, Life in Mexico was the subject of hostile reviews and its author much vitriolic, personal abuse.

The national Congress is one of the unsung heroes of the Age of Santa Anna. From the time of Iturbide onwards, successive generations of congressmen displayed considerable courage in their determination to sustain the independence of the legislative power, often in the face of open hostility from the military-dominated executives. Iturbide's response was to jail recalcitrant deputies and to use his military strength to close the Congress. During the Victoria and Guerrero presidencies, the Congress reasserted its authority, and neither executive was able to dominate or even restrain it to any significant degree. Bustamante, under the subtle tutelage of Alaman, was rather more successful, but even his carefully organized administration was obliged to resort to threats and intimidation against a resolute minority who steadfastly opposed his policies. Santa Anna was even less able to control the representatives, and it is probable that he failed to turn up for his first inauguration day in 1833 because he knew that he could not dictate to them and their majority of radical liberals. Like that of Iturbide before him, his solution was to use the army to lock the doors of the debating chamber, but even that was achieved only after defiant and prolonged resistance by the Congress. As we have seen in previous chapters of this study, Bustamante's second administration witnessed many disputes with Congress until Santa Anna again brought its sessions to an abrupt end with his Bases de Tacubaya.

Much of the so-called Age of Santa Anna in the history of independent Mexico remains a mystery and no decade is less well understood than the years from 1835 to 1846. In 1834, the ruling elite of middle class hombres de bien concluded that a highly centralised republican government was the only solution to the turmoil and factionalism that had characterised the new nation since its emancipation from Spain in 1821. The central republic was thus set up in 1835, but once again civil strife, economic stagnation, and military coups prevailed until 1846, when a disastrous war with the United States began in which Mexico was to lose half of its national territory. This study explains the course of events and analyses why centralism failed, the issues and personalities involved, and the underlying pressures of economic and social change.

The decades that followed independence from Spain in 1821 transformed Mexico from a strong, stable colony to a republic suffering from economic decline and political turmoil. This chaotic state hindered efforts of the young republic to meet the aggressive expansionism of the United States between 1845 and 1848. Santoni sheds new light on Mexican domestic history during the conflict--a much neglected subject--through a comprehensive examination of the only Mexican political bloc that wanted war with the United States. Led by Valentin Gomez Farias, this faction was the radical federalists, who in 1846 took the name of "puros." Santoni demonstrates the reasons for the failure of the "puros""'" attempts to reestablish federalism in Mexico, shape public opinion, develop a civic militia and forge alliances with senior army officers and opposing political groups. Santoni maintains that the economic, social, and political troubles of Mexico nullified the "puros""'" endeavors to direct armed resistance against the Americans.

Dr Antoni Turull, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Bristol, died aged 56 on 30 January 1990, after a long struggle against cancer. Toni, as he was known to his many friends in this country, first came to the UK in 1959 as a lector at Glasgow. He spent two years there and then returned to his native city of Barcelona where he had a number of teaching appointments. In 1964 he was appointed lector at Bristol and was so successful that he was quickly promoted to a lectureship. After 24 years of loyal and efficient service, he was finally promoted to a Senior Lectureship in 1988.

A prominent feature of Spain's response to the rebellions of its Latin American colonies, both during the constitutional régime of 1810–1814 and the absolutist system of Ferdinand VII from 1814–1820, was wide-spread bureaucratic confusion. When José García de Léon y Pizarro became Secretary of State in 1816, he found the whole question of the pacification of America in a deplorable state which had reached ‘un punto de exasperación increíble’1In a Council of State session of December 1816, the Navy Minister, José Vázquez de Figueroa, angrily denounced the red tape and inefficient administrative system in which decisions were lost in ‘una verdadera lucha de papeles’.2

The main outlines of Spain's trading relations with its Latin American colonies are well known. Although in the eighteenth century, under pressure from international political and domestic economic considerations, the Bourbon monarchs had permitted some liberalization, the fundamental policy remained that of confining transatlantic commerce to the mother country. Even after the so-called free trade laws were issued by Charles III, only certain ports within the peninsula and relatively few merchants were able to engage in the American trade. These merchants acted on their own account buying and selling cargoes within Spain or from Europe, or as commission agents arranging the import-export cycle for a fixed fee or percentage. Few were manufacturers in their own right and most gained a substantial part of their business from the fact that Spain remained to a large extent a channel through which foreign manufactures were sent to the colonies. Organized in their powerful guilds, they constituted an effective and influential vested interest group, determined to protect their highly privileged position against any attempted incursions by foreigners or Spaniards. Their reasons, of course, were obvious and often denounced at the time. Commerce with America was highly lucrative and large fortunes were made from it, particularly during the last quarter of the eighteenth century when a significant expansion in the value and volume of trade took place.

El presente trabajo es un análisis del pronunciamiento de Valentín Gómez Farías y José Urrea, ocurrido del 15 al 27 de julio de 1840. Pone de relieve su significado político, la organización y logística de los rebeldes, así como las perspectivas y reacciones contemporáneas.

In the summer of 1835 Mexico chose to abandon the federal form of government instituted a decade earlier in 1824 and to replace it with a centralized republic. The dismantling of federal laws and institutions and the enactment of those designed to replace them occupied the next eighteen months until on December 30, 1836 the process of change to the new system culminated in the publication of a new constitution, the so-called Constitutión de las Siete Leyes. This fundamental change in the political structure of the nation was not achieved without considerable dissent and the protracted transitional period permitted many groups who opposed the new order of things to air their views and in some cases, notably in Zacatecas and Texas, to attempt military resistance. The supporters of centralism found themselves, therefore, obliged to make and justify their case for change and to convince themselves as well as their opponents that their proposals represented the popular will. It is with this centralist case for change, or manifesto, that this article is primarily concerned.

Before the establishment of commercial banks in Mexico in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the aspiring merchant or impecunious landowner had few sources from which he could borrow capital. Funds were available within the country but the rich preferred speculation in government bonds and securities to investment in agricultural or industrial enterprises. Financial deals in which enormous interest rates were paid by the government to private individuals became almost a matter of public scandal and were widely condemned by politicians of all parties. The only institution to operate an extensive lending policy was the Roman Catholic Church which, through the offices of its Juzgado de Capellanías, continued after independence its practice of lending money to any person able to provide adequate security for a loan. Although the contractual terms demanded were by no means onerous to the borrower, nevertheless there was much criticism of these fiscal activities by the clergy. The liberals in particular attacked the Church’s control of the land which was a direct consequence of its lending operations. The Church’s defense against these attacks was based firstly on its rights under both civil and canon law, and secondly, on the benefits which the nation’s economy received from the widespread clerical investments. Furthermore, the clergy insisted that they were genuinely interested in utilizing their wealth for the advantage of the people and country as a whole. Hence their funds were invested by way of loans in every kind of industrial and agrarian venture.

O-N January 11, 1847, Valentin G6mez, Farias, vice president of Mexico, signed a law which authorized the government to appropriate ecclesiastical property and goods to the maximum value of fifteen million pesos.' One third of this sum was to be taken from the regular and secular clergy within the archbishopric. The purpose of this radical measure was to obtain the funds which General Antonio L6pez de Santa Anna had insisted were necessary if he was to continue to prosecute the war against the invading United States army. In spite of the military danger, both public and clerical reaction to the law was immediately hostile, and within four days rumors of imminent armed rebellion to force repeal of the law were reported in the press.2 Faced with this threat, G6mez Farias moved a regiment and a battalion of the National Guard, suspected of revolutionary intentions, to barracks located at some distance from the National Palace.3 Then on January 16 the clergy, who had been openly condemning this latest assault on the wealth of the Church, were forbidden by the government to make political speeches. Still the bishops and their chapters in every Mexican diocese continued to denounce the law in numerous representations hurriedly dispatched to the central government and to the Congress.4 Furthermore, the proclerical press lost no time in rousing

T HE CATHEDRAL in Mexico City houses two separate archives, one of which contains the records of the cathedral chapter, and the other the papers and correspondence of the archbishops. Neither collection is complete, due to the fact that large numbers of documents have been removed at various times, particularly during the Juarez administration, when whole sections were confiscated by the civil authorities.' All the archiepiscopal documents were taken away at this period, and it is for this reason that the Cathedral now contains no archiepiscopal papers earlier than 1870.2 Many papers were also removed from the archives of the chapter, but sufficient remain to be of interest to the historian. It is these which form the subject of the present article. The chapter records are kept in the office known as the Haceduria de Diezmos, which is concerned with the administration of tithes. The records are those of the chapter itself and the several offices formerly involved in the collection of tithes and other related clerical revenue. In addition to these two main sections, there are many other volumes which concern various aspects of secular and religious life during the colonial period. The archives have retained approximately five hundred volumes of documents, most of which are from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although a few items date from earlier periods. Apart from several layers of dust, all were found to be in a good state of preservation. They are stacked on twenty-one shelves and in several locked cupboards in which certain records considered of particular importance are carefully guarded. Most of the loose documents have been sorted and placed in parchment covers with a general title written in the spine. There are also several works, mostly modern, on theological doctrine, and some recent account books.