Nicolás Bravo Rueda (10 September 1786 – 22 April 1854) was a Mexican soldier and politician who served as interim President of Mexico three times, in 1839, 1842, and 1846. Prior to his presidency, he fought in the Mexican War of Independence and served as Mexico's first Vice President under President Guadalupe Victoria from 1824 until 1827, when he attempted to overthrow Victoria. He was also the fourth vice president under President Mariano Paredes in 1846, and served in the Mexican–American War.
Bravo first distinguished himself during the Mexican War of Independence. In 1827, while serving as Vice President, Bravo attempted to overthrow President Guadalupe Victoria through the Plan of Montaño. His revolt failed, though in part due to the services Bravo had provided the nation during the War of Independence, he was spared from execution, but nonetheless exiled.
Bravo later returned to Mexico and went on to serve as interim president of Mexico three separate times in 1839, 1842, and 1846. During his second presidency he oversaw the transition of the Centralist Republic of Mexico to a new constitution known as the Bases Orgánicas. During the Mexican–American War he commanded the Mexican forces at the Battle of Chapultepec.
Early life Bravo was born on 10 September 1786, at the Hacienda de Chichihualco,"Breve biografía de Nicolás Bravo". Mexico Desconocido. an estate outside of Chilpancingo, to a wealthy family. His parents were Leonardo Bravo and . After the Mexican War of Independence broke out in September 1810, Nicolás, along with his father and a brother, joined the insurgents. He served directly under his father at first and after two years was given command of a body of troops that passed to the province of Veracruz and took control of Coscomatepec. After a victory at Palma, he experienced the defeat, imprisonment, and death of his father. Bravo later gained a reputation for clemency after releasing three hundred Royalist prisoners.
Bravo was captured in 1817 in the south of the country and transported to the capital, where he remained imprisoned for three years, until he was amnestied by the liberal Spanish government of 1820. He then joined Agustín de Iturbide's Plan of Iguala in 1821, and Iturbide promoted him to colonel. The Constituent Congress named him to the council of state and a member of the regency, which governed until Iturbide took over as Emperor of the First Mexican Empire.
First Mexican Empire As Iturbide became more autocratic and Santa Anna proclaimed the Plan of Veracruz against him in 1823, Bravo once again decided to fight against the government. He left Mexico City on 5 January 1823, being joined by Vicente Guerrero, and they planned to raise a revolution in the south of the country, carrying with them a copy of the Plan of Veracruz provided to them by Santa Anna. He received money for his campaign from María Petra Teruel de Velasco, wife of Antonio Velasco, a passionate supporter of the movement, who pawned some jewels in order to gather all of the required funds. Iturbide was alerted of Bravo and Guerrero's whereabouts through the mayor of Mexicaltzingo, and promptly sent a lieutenant colonel after them, but Bravo was able to evade capture by simply bribing him.
Brigadier José Gabriel de Armijo, commander of the South, however, now went after them, and a skirmish ensued in the vicinity of Almolonga, where they were then defeated. Guerrero was shot through the lungs and his men fled the scene in panic, in spite of Bravo's efforts to stop them, believing Guerrero to be dead.
Bravo fled to the Santa Rosa ranch, and from here he sought to reorganize in the Mixteca region, where he intended to join Antonio Leon at Huajuapam. He fortified himself at a place called the Junta de los Rios. From there he headed towards Oaxaca. Bravo was in the process of arranging a governing junta when he learned of the Plan of Casa Mata. With the troops that he was able to gather at Oaxaca, he headed out and entered the capital with the rest of the insurgent army. Emperor Iturbide restored the congress and offered his abdication. When congress decreed that Iturbide be moved to Tulancingo, the former emperor chose Bravo to escort him and his family, although it later seemed Iturbide lost his trust in Bravo as he asked his guards to keep a watch over him.
First Republic After Iturbide was deposed, Bravo was made a member of the Supreme Executive Power, the triumvirate now serving as the executive. During this period he continued to pacify the country and carried out a victorious campaign in Jalisco against the Iturbidist General Luis de Quintanar.
Vice Presidency During the newly established First Mexican Republic, Bravo preferred a strong unitary government for the country and allied himself with the Centralist party, to which were also allied various conservative interests ranging from the remaining Spaniards in the country to the upper classes and the clergy. Politics in Mexico at this time was associated with Masonic lodges, and the conservatives met within lodges of the Scottish Rite, consequently being known as the Escoceses, in which Bravo acquired a position of leadership. The Escoceses were opposed by the federalists, who preferred the country to be governed by a federal system, and with which were associated various liberal causes. They too met within Masonic lodges but instead were followers of the York Rite, and so were known as Yorkinos. Mexico's constitution, modeled after that of the United States, decreed that the winner of the presidential election became president while second place became vice president. In the elections of 1824, Bravo finished in second place and thus was elected to be the nation's first vice-president, while the hero of the War of Independence, Guadalupe Victoria, finished in first place and was elected president, even though the two men belonged to opposite parties, with Victoria being a Yorkino and Bravo being an Escocés.
On 23 December 1827, the Escoceses, led by Vice President Bravo, proclaimed the , demanding the expulsion of the American ambassador Joel Poinsett, an end to secret societies, and the dismissal of the current cabinet, the latter measure due to the belief that the Yorkino-dominated government was about to take decisive measures to suppress the Escoceses. The insurrection was short-lived and Bravo was defeated at Tulancingo by his former ally Vicente Guerrero.
Bravo was tried before a grand jury, and the case went to the Supreme Court. Although the law prescribed a severe punishment for his treason, his services during the Mexican War of Independence won him sympathy from his old colleagues who asked for clemency, and even President Victoria preferred leniency, so the court simply condemned him to banishment for two years.
Further military career Bravo departed from Acapulco to South America and on the journey he lost his only child. His exile was shortened due to an amnesty granted by President Vicente Guerrero, and Bravo returned to Mexico in 1829.
He continued to be a supporter of the Conservative Party and joined the Plan of Jalapa against President Guerrero that same year. After personally going out to lead his troops against the insurrection, President Guerrero was deposed at the capital in January 1830 and replaced by the conservative Anastasio Bustamante. Guerrero, however, remained at large and continued to wage warfare against the government in the south of the country when Bravo occupied the port and fortress of Acapulco, hoping to remove an important source of wealth from Guerrero and his supporters, but Bravo was dislodged from the city. Bravo was later victorious at Chilpancingo in January 1831, for which congress granted him a sword of honor, considering that the victory was a decisive defeat against the ongoing operations of Guerrero.
Bustamante's conservative government fell to an insurrection known as the Plan of Veracruz in 1832, and Bravo was initially reluctant to recognize the rebels, but Santa Anna, who had played a key role in the Plan of Veracruz, eventually won him over.
Centralist Republic of Mexico In 1834, the nation experienced a revolution that eventually resulted in a new constitution and the inauguration of the Centralist Republic of Mexico. In 1836, shortly after Mexico lost Texas in the Texas Revolution, Bravo was in charge of the army of the north, but retired, disgusted by the events, to Chilpancingo.
First Presidency Anastasio Bustamante had meanwhile returned to the presidency, and in 1839, Bravo was invited to be a part of his council of state. When Bustamante temporarily stepped down from the presidency to lead the troops against the rebellion of José de Urrea, Bravo was named by congress the interim president of the Republic on 10 July 1839.
There was much dissatisfaction with the state of the country at this time and a great public clamor for constitutional reform, which included many generals and commanders. President Bravo wished for such concerns to be addressed through legal channels, and he directed his council of state to urge the Supreme Moderating Power, a governing council that according to the constitution was above even the president, to declare that it was the will of the nation to reform the constitution, at the direction of the national representatives, without waiting for a more suitable time.
This first presidency ultimately lasted only nine days, and yet Bravo attended to his duties with energy and dedication. When the criminal Yanez, condemned to death by hanging for highway robbery, slit his own throat to avoid the hangman, friends of the family pleaded that the body not be displayed in public, but Bravo decreed that the body be displayed on the gallows anyway to serve as a warning.
Second Presidency Bravo next became president in 1842, during which the Centralist Republic of Mexico experienced a constitutional change. In response to multiple national crises, on 8 August 1841, Mariano Paredes proclaimed against the government of Anastasio Bustamante, and when his insurgent troops reached the city of Tacubaya they were joined by Santa Anna. After failing to put down the insurgency, Bustamante officially surrendered power through the Estanzuela Accords on 6 October 1841. A military junta was formed which wrote the Bases of Tacubaya, a plan which swept away the entire structure of government, except the judiciary, and also called for elections for a new constituent congress meant to write a new constitution.
The subsequent congress, installed on 10 June 1842, was strongly federalist, against the wishes of the organizers of the Bases of Tacubaya who were strongly centralist. Santa Anna began to scheme to dissolve the congress, and left Bravo in charge of the presidency on 26 October 1842. Bravo was not in accord with Santa Anna's schemes for while he too was a centralist, he did not wish to overturn the results of the election which had led to the strongly federal congress. Tornel, the minister of war, was the real power at the capital at this time, being the favorite of Santa Anna.
President Bravo assured a commission sent by congress that he would accept the new constitution, and congress continued working on its draft until its work was interrupted by a pronunciamiento in the obscure town of Huejotzingo, calling for the dissolution of congress and demanding the installation of a council of notables to work on the new constitution. Minister Tornel was among the conspirators promoting the revolution. In spite of his earlier reluctance to go against congress and reassurance towards them, at the decisive hour, Bravo sided with the insurrectionists and on 19 December, he signed a decree signed by Bocanegra, Velez, Gorostiza, and Tornel dissolving congress and decreeing that they be replaced by a Junta of Notables.