Anastasio Bustamante
(1780-1853), México, Statesman

President of México. Originally Vicepresident to President Santa Anna. He was born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán. His parents were Spaniards. He studied arts at the Seminario de Guadalajara and then he went to Mexico City to study medicine, where he met Valentín Gómez Farias.

With out a degree, he went to San Luis Potosi. He was attracted by the army more than by medicine. When the movement of independence began, Bustamante joined the Plan de Iguala. During the Government of Iturbide he performed several government functions and after the defeat, Bustamante maintained his Iturbide political affiliation.

In 1829, Vicente Guerrero assumed the Presidency and Anastacio Bustamante was named vice-president. With the same weapons that Guerrero entrusted to him, Bustamante defeated the president and assumed the presidency from January, 1, 1830 to August 14, 1832. During his first administration, an attempt was carried out against Vicente Guerrero. In 1833 he was exiled to Europe. At the end of 1836, because of the war in Texas, he was called by the government back to Mexico.

In January 1, 1837, Bustamante was designated president of the Republic from April 19, 1834 to March 20, 1839. During his administration, France declared war on Mexico which came to be known as the “Guerra de los Pasteles”. On July 19, 1839 he came back to the presidency, during this government and had to put out the revolution of 1840, headed by Valentín Farias and General Uranga. On September 22, 1841, with a rebellion in Guadalajara, General Paredes joined Santa Anna and removed Bustamante from power.

Once again he went to Europe where he stayed until 1844. Later he was named Senator, but he could not perform the position because of the resistance against him. He also took charge of some military missions like the expedition to California in 1847. In 1848 he was ordered to pacify the states of Guanajuato and Aguascalientes. At the end of his military career, he retired to San Miguel de Allende where he died.

Source: Information collected by the National Institute of Historical Studies of the Mexican Revolution, from the Porrúa dictionary of History, Biography, and Geography of Mexico, Porrúa, México City 1986.