Tadeo Ortiz, Mexican Emissary Extraordinary

Abstract

ADEO ORTIZ is best known as a Mexican intellectual of post-Independence period, author of a work on political economy entitled Mexico considerado como nacion independiente y libre (1832). Like his more influential contemporaries Alamaln and Mora, Ortiz witnessed new Mexican republic's struggles with problem of nationhood, and offered, as they did, constructive proposals for its political, social, and economic improvement. His book, which later became, according to Justo Sierra, the vade mecum of Benito Juarez,1 was product of a lifetime of travel, study, work, and adventure, including twelve years' experience as a revolutionary and an equal time as a colonizer of Mexico's frontiers. His adult life, from 1809 until his premature death in 1833, was dedicated to serving two principal goals: Mexico's political independence and its economic development. Ortiz' role in realizing first of these goals, which he regarded as a necessary prelude to second, is primary concern of this paper. Untold to date, story can be reconstructed with some degree of continuity by utilizing manuscript materials located in Seville2 and Buenos Aires.3