Nicolás Bravo: liberator, sí - liberal, no! (1786–1854)
Of the leaders of the Mexican independence movement, the one who most resembled Nicolás Bravo was Ignacio de Allende. In my coverage on Allende, I described him as a "law-and-order" rebel, one who believed in independence from Spain but rejected radical transformations of society and detested mob violence. Nicolás Bravo was in the same mold, favoring an end to Spanish domination but consistently placing himself on the conservative side of the rebel movement.
Bravo was born in 1786, on a hacienda owned by his family near Chilpancingo, Guerrero. Though of affluent creole background, he did not sympathize with the Spanish colonial regime. When the independence movement began in 1810, he was pressured by the colonial authorities to furnish men to put down the rebellion. He refused to do so and in May 1811 joined General Hermengildo Galeana, a leader of rebel forces in the neighboring state of Morelos. During the Independence War he campaigned mainly in Morelos and in his home state of Guerrero. On one occasion he was in the vanguard of an attack on Chichihualco, the village where his family hacienda was located. During the siege of Cuautla he distinguished himself for valor and was then named military commander for the state of Veracruz.
Throughout the Independence War, Bravo gained a reputation for humane behavior in a savage brother-v-brother conflict where brutality was widely prevalent. At Palmar, near the port of Veracruz, he defeated an enemy for
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