Almonte, Juan Nepomuceno (1803–1869)

Juan Nepomuceno Almonte (b. 1803; d. 1869), regent of Mexico's Second Empire (1863–1864). The illegitimate child of José María Morelos y Pavón—a leader of Mexico's independence movement—Almonte was awarded the rank of brigadier general before the age of thirteen by the Congress of Chilpancingo. In 1815 he was part of the commission sent by Morelos to the United States, the first of many diplomatic posts he would hold. After serving as part of a commission to establish the border between Mexico and the United States (1834), Almonte fought against the rebellion in Texas at the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto, where he was captured. Freed in 1836, Almonte served as minister of war (1839–1841) before returning to the United States as ambassador in 1842.

When the United States admitted Texas as a state, Almonte returned to Mexico to support the war effort. Originally a federalist, he became a conservative and a monarchist. He served as Mexico's minister to London and later to Paris. After the republican forces won the War of the Reform (1858–1861), Almonte openly sought European intervention to establish a monarchy in Mexico. He returned to Mexico with the support of the French army in 1862 and was selected as one of the executive triumvirate of the Council of Notables and later regent. Emperor Maximilian gave Almonte various honors, including a cabinet post, before naming him as the Mexican Empire's representative to Napoleon III (1866). On the fall of the Second Empire, Almonte remained in Paris, where he died.

See alsoSan Jacinto, Battle of; Napoleon III; French Intervention (Mexico).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alberto María Carreño Escudero, Jefes del ejército mexicano en 1847 (1914).

Alfred Jackson Hanna and Kathryn Abbey Hanna, Napoleon III and Mexico: American Triumph over Monarchy (1971); Diccionario Porrúa de historia, biografía y geografía de México, 5th ed. (1986).

Additional Bibliography

Almonte, Juan, Jack Jackson, and John Wheat. Almonte's Texas: Juan N. Almonte's 1834 Inspection, Secret Report and Role in the 1836 Campaign. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, Center for the Study of Texas History, University of Texas at Austin, 2003.

Gutiérrez Ibarra, Celia. Cómo México perdió Texas: Análisis y transcripción del Informe secreto (1834) de Juan Nepomuceno Almonte. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1987.

                                        D. F. Stevens