CAVO, ANDRÉS

Mexican historian; b. Guadalajara, Jan. 21, 1739; d. Rome sometime after 1794, although some biographers give 1800. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 20 and a few years later was sent to the missions in the northwest, where he performed excellent service as a catechist until the expulsion of the Jesuits (1767) compelled him to leave Mexico. Cavo went to Veracruz to take passage, and there he formed a close friendship with Father José Julián Parreño, a distinguished citizen of Havana, former rector of the College of San Ildefonso in Mexico City, and one of the highest authorities in the Province of Mexico. Both established their residence in Rome. Since expatriation became unbearable to both Cavo and Parreño, they decided to be secularized; therefore, their names do not appear in the catalogues made up at that time of the Mexican Jesuits resident in Italy. Cavo wrote De vita Josephi Juliani Parreni, Havanensis (Rome 1792), a tract written in good Latin that contains some details of the calamities suffered by the expelled Jesuits on their voyage to Rome, and Historia civil y política de Méjico, left in manuscript form and dedicated to the municipal government of Mexico City. The only evidence of the existence of the latter work was the brief mention of it by Beristaín in his Biblioteca, until Carlos María Bustamante found a copy in the library of the bishop of Tenagra and published it in Mexico in 1836, under the title Los tres siglos de Méjico durante el gobierno español. It covers the period from the conquest of Mexico by Cortés in 1521 to the end of the Vice-royalty of the Marquis of Cruillas, who preceded Croix, in 1766. It is written in an easy simple style, without pretension or presumption. Cavo appears to have been a person of a gentle and peaceful nature, sincerely pious, studious, modest, faithful, and constant in his friendships.

[m. dela paz pani carral]