García Salinas, Francisco (1786–1841)

Francisco García Salinas (b. 1786; d. 1841), Mexican cabinet minister and governor of the state of Zacatecas. García was born on a hacienda in the state of Zacatecas. As a young man he was involved in the mining business in Zacatecas. In 1821, he was the regidor (president) of the ayuntamiento (city council) of Zacatecas and was elected to represent the state in the First Constituent Congress of Mexico in 1822. García continued to serve in the Congress as deputy and then as senator from Zacatecas from 1823 to 1827, taking a special interest in financial matters and helping to reestablish Mexico's foreign credit. President Guadalupe Victoria selected García as his minister of the treasury, a post he held for only a few months (2 November 1827 to 15 February 1828) prior to his election as governor of the state of Zacatecas in 1828.

García's administration of Zacatecas was a model of liberal reform that made the state, with its strong militia, one of the bulwarks of the federal system. García attempted to use church property to create a bank for agricultural credit and to use state funds to redistribute agricultural land by dividing large properties for sale. His administration also sought to develop the mining industry and the manufacture of cotton, silk, and woolen textiles. The state of Zacatecas opened new schools under the Lancasterian system of "utilitarian" education and vaccinated thousands of children against smallpox. The defeat of the Zacatecas militia by conservative and centralist forces in 1832 and 1835 marked a turning point in the early republican history of Mexico. After stepping down as governor in 1834, García continued in command of the state's militia. He retired to his hacienda, where he died.

See alsoVictoria, Guadalupe; Zacatecas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jesús Romero Flores, Historia de los estados de la República mexicana (1964).

Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora (1968); Diccionario Porrúa de historia, biografía y geografía de México, 5th ed. (1986).

Additional Bibliography

Delgado Wise, Raúl, and José Luis España Téllez. El federalismo de Francisco García Salinas: Una visión no presidencialista. Zacatecas: Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas: Centro de Estudios para la Reforma del Estado, 1997.

Salinas Novoa, Carlos. Francisco García Salinas: Gobernante modelo, modelo de gobernante: Zacatecas 1824–1835. Zacatecas: Legislatura del Estado de Zacatecas, Gobierno del Estado de Zacatecas, 1991.

                                           D. F. Stevens