Andrés Eligio Quintana Roo (30 November 1787 – 15 April 1851) was a Mexican liberal politician, lawyer, and writer. He was the husband of fellow independence activist Leona Vicario.
Quintana Roo was one of the most influential men in the Mexican War of Independence and served as a member of the Congress of Chilpancingo, where he presided over the National Constituent Congress, which drafted the Mexican Declaration of Independence in 1813. He served multiple terms in the Chamber of Deputies, serving as its president twice. Quintana Roo also served as a member of the Mexican Supreme Court. He edited and founded many newspapers, including El Ilustrador Americano ("The American Illustrator"), El Semanario Patriótico Americano ("The American Patriot Weekly"), and El Federalista Mexicano ("The Mexican Federalist"). The Mexican state of Quintana Roo was named in his honor.
Early life Quintana Roo was born to Don José Matías Quintana and Doña María Ana Roo de Quintana, descendants of Canarians who settled in the Yucatán Peninsula. They were married on 20 June 1786 in Mérida. His paternal grandparents were Gregorio Quintana from Galicia and Martina Tomasa de Campo from Campeche. On his mother's side, his grandparents were Antonio Roo y Font from Tenerife and Leonarda Rodríguez de la Gala, also from Campeche.
Sanjuanistas
In 1805, the elder Quintana became part of a group known as the Sanjuanistas. The group met to discuss social and political issues, in particular the slavery of the indigenous population. The group took their name from their meeting place, the Ermita de San Juan Bautista (Hermitage of Saint John the Baptist) where the group leader, José María Velázquez, was a priest.
In 1808, the Napoleonic Army invaded Spain and overthrew the Bourbon dynasty. In 1810 in Cádiz, Spain — one of the last cities free from the French armies — an assembly (cortes) of the Spanish peninsular and overseas provinces met to discuss the future of the Spanish Empire without a monarch. This was the political climate the Sanjuanistas found themselves in.
In March 1812, the Cortes of Cádiz issued a new Spanish constitution. In July, Miguel González Lastiri, Yucatán's representative at the Cortes, arrived with seven copies of the new constitution, one of which fell into the hands of the Sanjuanistas. Having read the document, they quickly became its promoters and opened their group to anyone who wanted to join. By October, the Sanjuanistas had pressured the hesitant governor of Yucatán, Manuel Artanza y Barrial, to enforce the new constitution.
Still, many were opposed to the changes in the new Spanish constitution. The primary group that formed to oppose the changes and the Sanjuanistas were the Rutineros. Where the Sanjuanistas wanted social change and liberty from the Spanish crown, the Rutineros sought to maintain the social and political order. When the first printing press came to Yucatán in 1813, the two groups confronted each other through newspapers and pamphlets.
In 1814, King Fernando VII was restored to his throne and disavowed the constitution put forth by the Cortes of Cádiz and ruled as an absolute monarch. With the triumph of the conservative forces, the environment quickly turned hostile for the Sanjuanistas, and Quintana was arrested and jailed in the fort of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz, along with fellow Sanjuanistas Lorenzo de Zavala and José Francisco Bates.
Education Andrés Quintana Roo studied in the Seminario de San Ildefonso de Mérida where he proved his great capacity as a writer. In 1802, at the age of 15, he finished his Latin studies at San Ildefonso. He continued his studies, receiving certifications in Arts in 1805 and Theology and Doctrine in 1808. His instructor of the arts, D. Pablo Moreno, said of him that "he had always manifested a judgement and maturity superior to his age".
In December 1808 (only two months after the overthrow of Viceroy José de Iturrigaray by ultra-conservative elements), he arrived in Mexico City to continue his studies at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de Nueva España ("Royal and Pontifical University of New Spain"). With him he took a letter of recommendation from the Bishop of Yucatán and Tabasco, Pedro Agustín Esteves y Ugarte, that said he "always had a singular application and talent, performing his literary functions with all brilliance and contributing with modesty, Christianity and good bearing in his behaviour."
In early February 1809, he had earned his Bachelor of Arts, and by the end of the month he had earned his Bachelor of Doctrine. The latter degree was awarded by Dr. Agustín Pomposo Fernández. Following his graduation, Quintana Roo interned at the law firm of Fernández, practising jurisprudence for two years.
Leona Vicario
During his time working for Agustín Fernández, Quintana Roo met Leona Vicario (María de la Soledad Leona Martín y Vicario), the niece of Fernández. Her father, Gaspar Martín Vicario, had worked for Fernández before his death. Her mother, Fernández's sister, was Camila Fernández, whose death in 1807 left Vicario in the care of her uncle.
When Quintana Roo and Vicario met, she was engaged to marry Octaviano Obregón (though not of her own choice), the son of a colonel of high birth. After the Crisis of 1808, the younger Obregón left for Spain, and the following year she met Quintana Roo. The two were an excellent match, both being interested in writing, the arts, politics, and liberation. They fell in love, and around 1811, Quintana Roo asked Fernández for permission to marry Vicario. Fernández refused, and Quintana Roo left his law practice.
Independence
In 1812, after leaving the employment of Agustín Fernández and the side of his beloved Leona Vicario, Andrés Quintana Roo threw himself into his ideals. Along with José Ignacio Aguado and Manuel Fernández, the son of his former employer, Quintana Roo travelled to Tlalpujahua, Valladolid (in present-day Michoacán) west of Mexico City to join the army of Ignacio López Rayón. López Rayón had been the private secretary of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the priest who had begun the fight for independence in Guanajuato just two years earlier. After the defeat of Hidalgo's army at the Battle of Calderon Bridge, López Rayón escaped and rejoined the rebel army in Zacatecas, while Hidalgo and his top generals were captured and executed in late July 1811.
Much like his father, Andrés Quintana Roo would use the pen as his chosen weapon. He wrote for the insurgent newspaper El Ilustrador Americano (American Illustrator) created by José María Cos, and in July 1812 founded the more ideological El Semanario Patriótico Americano (The American Patriot Weekly), which he edited with Cos. In September 1812 he wrote his most famous poem "Dieciséis de septiembre" (Sixteenth of September), a patriotic poem that decries tyranny.
Los Guadalupes
As a lawyer, one of Ignacio López Rayón's great gifts was organization. After the defeat of Hidalgo, he gave structure to the army under the auspices of the Junta de Zitácuaro, one of the first governing bodies in Mexico not to recognize the authority of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In addition to military and administrative organization, López Rayón organized a group of spies and propagandists which came to be known as Los Guadalupes. They took their name from the Virgin of Guadalupe to juxtapose themselves from the Spaniards who venerated the Virgin of the Remedies. In order to protect their identities, Los Guadalupes would use various pseudonyms in their communications.
Very few people are known for certain to have been in this group, but it is likely they centred their operations in Mexico City, and most of them were lawyers. Still, they were a diverse group that included women, priests, and nobles as well. They maintained regular communication with López Rayón, sent him current newspapers and publications from Spain and the U.S., and weapons, money, and men. Perhaps most importantly, they set up a line of communication between López Rayón and José María Morelos y Pavón.
Leona Vicario was deeply involved in the work of Los Guadalupes, but in February 1813 one of her letters was intercepted by then royalist and future President of Mexico, Captain Anastasio Bustamante. Being warned that her arrest was imminent, Vicario fled Mexico City on foot. Her uncle discovered her whereabouts and convinced her to return to Mexico City, where she was brought to the Colegio de San Miguel de Belén as a prisoner.
Quintana Roo heard of her imprisonment, and being unable to go himself, sent Francisco Arroyave, Antonio Vázquez Aldana, and Luis Alconedo to liberate her. They arrived at the Colegio de Belén on the night of 23 April 1813. They were disguised as viceregal officers and demanded to interrogate Vicario privately. Instead, they sneaked her out of the Colegio and smuggled her out of Mexico City disguised as mule drivers, carrying with them supplies for the insurgents.
Andrés Quintana Roo and Leona Vicario were married soon after in Tlalpujahua.
Congress of Chilpancingo
With the power of the Junta de Zitácuaro waning after multiple military defeats, José María Morelos took the initiative in reorganizing the scattered insurgent armies and called for a congress to unite the opposition to Spanish rule. This congress met in September 1813 in the city of Chilpancingo in the province of Tecpan (present-day Guerrero).
Initially, Quintana Roo was elected to vice president of the congress, but when José María Murguía y Galardi couldn't fulfil his duties, Quintana Roo assumed the presidency in his stead. The primary end of the congress was the drafting of a constitution. On the first day, Morelos read the Sentimientos de la Nación ("Feelings of the Nation"), an outline of his ideas on how an independent Mexico should be governed. Then, on 6 November, the congress signed the Acta Solemne de la Declaración de la Independencia de la América Septentrional ("Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of North America"), which was written in part by Quintana Roo.
After the Declaration, Morelos moved to retake the city of Valladolid as a permanent seat for the Congress. The attack was a disaster. Morelos's army was defeated by future Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, and his general, Mariano Matamoros, was captured and executed. Morelos attempted to ransom Matamoros in exchange for 300 Spanish prisoners, a negotiation that failed. Morelos was ordered by the Congress to Acapulco to carry out the execution of the Spanish soldiers and then stripped of his command.
Following these defeats, Quintana Roo and the Congress were forced to relocate frequently. On 22 October 1814, in the city of Apatzingán, the Congress issued the Decreto Constitucional para la Libertad de la America Mexicana ("Constitutional Decree for the Liberty of Mexican America"), better known as the Constitution of Apatzingán, drafted by Quintana Roo, Carlos María de Bustamonte, and José Manuel de Herrera.
In May 1814, Fernando VII had regained his throne and abolished the liberal Constitution of Cádiz. With the defeat of the French forces in Spain, Fernando was free to send more soldiers to Mexico, and so Iturbide redoubled his efforts against Morelos and the Congress. Much of the territory that had been won by Morelos was lost, and the Congress was kept always on the move. In July 1815 Oaxaca and Acapulco fell to José Gabriel de Armijo. In late September, the Congress agreed to move to Tehuacán, Puebla, guarded by the armies of Morelos and Nicolás Bravo.
En route to Tehuacán, on 5 November, the caravan was intercepted by royal soldiers commanded by Manuel de la Concha. Morelos covered the retreat of the Congress and was captured, taken to Mexico City, and executed on 22 December. Though the Congress reached Tehuacán, it was dissolved shortly after.
Amnesty