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A Diplomatic Disaster: The Mexican Mission of Anthony Butler, 1829-1834

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Quinton Curtis Lamar
Quinton Curtis Lamar*
Affiliation:
Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi
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Extract

On Christmas Day, 1829, in a room in the National Palace in Mexico City, Joel Roberts Poinsett received official Mexican acknowledgement of his resignation as the United States minister to Mexico. Two days earlier, Poinsett had requested his passport, and this meeting was merely a diplomatic formality. Across the table from Poinsett were Lucas Alamán, Pedro Vélez, and Luis Quintanar, representing General Anastasio Bustamante, who on December 23 had forcefully ousted Vincente Guerrero from the Mexican presidency. Alamán, Vélez, and Quintanar were serving as an interim executive body until Bustamante's impending entry into the capital. The gathering was a cordial one, at which time Poinsett and Alamán in particular expressed admiration for one another. Such had not been the case in their previous dealings.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , July 1988 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1988

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Footnotes

*

The author is deeply grateful to Professors Roland E. Duncan, J. Leon Helguera, and Lester D. Langley for their comments and suggestions regarding this article.

References

1 Valadés, José C., Alamán: Estadista e historiador (Mexico, D. F., 1938), 270.Google Scholar

2 For an account of this significant diplomatic episode, see Lamar’s, Curt, “Genesis of Mexican-United States Diplomacy: A Critical Analysis of the Alamán-Poinsett Confrontation, 1825,” The Americas, 38(1981):1, 87–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Rippy, J. Fred, Joel R. Poinsett, Versatile American (Durham, N. C., 1935), 115.Google Scholar

4 Rives, George Lockhart, The United States and Mexico, 1821–1848: A History of the Relations Between the Two Countries from the Independence of Mexico to the Close of the War with the United States (2 vols.; New York, 1913), 1:235–236.Google Scholar

5 Anthony Butler Papers (hereafter cited as ABP), University of Texas Library, Austin; Jackson to Butler, October 10, 1829.

6 Jackson to Butler, October 19, 1829, ibid.

7 Bassett, John Spencer in The American Secretaries of State ami Their Diplomacy, ed. Bemis, Samuel Flagg (10 vols.; New York, 1927–1929), 4:197.Google Scholar

8 Valadés, , Alamán, 205.Google Scholar

9 Alamán’s account of these events is found in his “Autobiografia” in volume 4 of his Documentos diversos (inéditos y muy raros) (4 vols.; compilación de Rafael Aguayo Spencer; Mexico, D. F., 1945–1947).

10 U.S., National Archives, Department of State MSS, Record Group 59, Diplomatic Despatches, Mexico (hereafter cited as DDM), Butler to Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, January 5, 1830.

11 Jackson to Butler, March 23, 1830, ABP.

12 Ibid.

13 James, Daniel, Mexico and the Americans (New York, 1963), 56 Google Scholar; Rives, , The United States and Mexico, 1:193 Google Scholar; Alamán to the Mexican Congress, February 8, 1830, DDM. For the Spanish text of the speech see Alamán, , Documentos diversos, 2:523 ff.Google Scholar

14 Mares, José Fuentes, Poinsett: historia de una gran intriga (Mexico, D. F., 1958), 127.Google Scholar

15 Alamán, , Documentos diversos, 2:523–543.Google Scholar

16 Butler to Van Buren, April 15, 1830; May 19, 1830; June 29, 1830; October 6, 1830, DDM.

17 Valadés, , Alamán, 276.Google Scholar

18 Jackson to Butler, February 15, 1831, ABP.

19 Archivo Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico, Mexico City, MSS 1741, Sujeto Tejas, Colonel Mejia to Alamán, July 1831.

20 Jackson to Butler, August 24, 1831, ABP.

21 Butler to Jackson, October 6, 1831, ibid.

22 Butler to Jackson, January 2, 1832, ibid.

23 Butler to Jackson, June 21, 1832, ibid.

24 Minutes of Discussions Between Butler and Alamán, July 2, 1832; July 10, 1832, DDM.

25 Butler to Jackson, July 18, 1832, ABP.

26 Butler to Jackson, August 12, 1832, ibid.

27 Open Letter from Bernardo Gonzalez, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mexico, to Secretary of State Louis McLane, Niles’ Weekly Register, 44 (April 20, 1833):118.

28 Butler to Jackson, September 26, 1833, ABP.

29 Butler to Jackson, February 6, 1834, ibid.

30 Butler to Jackson, November 21, 1834, ibid.

31 Reeves, Jesse S., American Diplomacy Under Tyler and Polk (Baltimore, 1907), 67.Google Scholar

32 McCormac, Eugene I. in American Secretaries of State, ed. Bemis, , 4:318.Google Scholar

33 U.S., National Archives, Department of State MSS, RG 59, Consular Dispatches-Mexico City, Wilcocks to McLane, February 15, 1833.

34 Wilcocks to McLane, December 24, 1833, ibid.