Pronunciamientos by date

Date

1821 (3)

1822 (4)

1823 (6)

1824 (4)

1827 (7)

1828 (4)

1829 (12)

1830 (8)

1831 (1)

1832 (99)

1833 (24)

January (4)
May (1)
Plan de Escalada
(Michoacán, 26 May 1833)
June (10)
July (4)
August (1)
October (2)
November (1)
December (1)

1834 (260)

1835 (91)

1836 (19)

1837 (33)

1838 (33)

1839 (12)

1840 (26)

1841 (77)

1842 (114)

1843 (53)

1844 (94)

1845 (20)

1846 (109)

1847 (15)

1848 (9)

1849 (5)

1850 (1)

1851 (6)

1852 (15)

1853 (40)

1854 (11)

1855 (28)

1856 (29)

1857 (15)

1858 (67)

1859 (17)

1860 (3)

1862 (1)

1868 (1)

1871 (1)

1872 (1)

1876 (3)

Plan de Escalada

26 May 1833

Region: Michoacán
Place: Morelia

Pronunciamiento text

Plan de Escalada, 26 de mayo de 1833

l°. Esta guarnición protesta sostener a todo trance la santa religión de Jesucristo y los fueros y privilegios del clero y del ejército, amenazados por las autoridades intrusas.

2°. Proclama, en consecuencia, por protector de esta causa y por supremo jefe de la nación, al ilustre vencedor de los españoles, general D. Antonio López de Santa Anna.

3°. Son nulos todos los actos de los gobernadores intrusos A. Amescua y Salgado, así como las últimas elecciones hechas en el estado.

4°. Este quedará regido por un jefe político nombrado por una junta de los vecinos honrados de esta capital, y que durará hasta que la mayoría de la nación designe las bases de la regeneración política de la república.

5°. A nadie se molestará por opiniones políticas que haya tenido, y en consecuencia serán escrupulosamente respetadas la seguridad individual y las propiedades.

Morelia, mayo 26 de 1833.

A las dos y tres cuartos de la mañana.

Ignacio Escalada

Context

As a result of the Treaty of Zavaleta of 23 December 1832, Bustamante stood down, and Gómez Pedraza served as President until 1 April 1833. By making Gómez Pedraza president, Santa Anna and the Zacatecan federalists succeeded in giving constitutional legitimacy to their revolt and created the right circumstances for a new round of elections. Not surprisingly, the two favoured candidates were Santa Anna and Dr Valentín Gómez Farías, both of whom had played a major part in leading the revolution. Indicative of Santa Anna’s popularity at the time is that sixteen of the eighteen state legislatures voted for him. Only Chihuahua and Guanajuato did not. Suggestive of his absence of ambition is that he claimed he was unwell and was unable to be in Mexico City for the start of his term in office on 1 April 1833. Some contemporary observers suspected he already knew that he was going to have a hard time presiding over a radical Congress he did not entirely sympathise with. With Santa Anna allegedly convalescing in Manga de Clavo and Gómez Farías serving as acting president, it took only one month for Congress to provoke a major political crisis. In what was a chaotic series of proposals, Congress put Bustamante’s cabinet on trial for the execution of Guerrero (contravening the agreements made in the Treaty of Zavaleta), nationalised the duke of Monteleone’s properties, and decreed that the Mexican government could appoint all ecclesiastical posts (thus exercising the patronato). The press exacerbated the increasing tension by either advocating truly radical measures such as the abolition of military and church privileges (proposing an end to the fueros) or embracing an aggressive reactionary agenda, inviting the regular army to close down Congress in the name of their sacred religion. Less than two months after the new government had been formed, on 26 May 1833, Ignacio Escalada, at the head of the garrison in Morelia, issued the plan that carried his name demanding that the Church and Army fueros were protected, and that Santa Anna act as the protector of his cause. As may be seen in this document, he also used the pronunciamiento to attack local state governors Amezcua and Salgado.

Escalada’s pronunciamiento was to be the first of three that called upon Santa Anna to defend the military and ecclesiastical fueros. On 1 June another similar plan, launched in Tlalpan by General Gabriel Durán, took the pronunciados’ demands further. And on 8 June 1833, in the town of Huejotzingo, Mariano Arista espoused Durán’s cause and issued his own plan promising to defend the privileges of both army and church, and to make Santa Anna “Supreme Dictator […] to cure all the ills that the nation suffers today”.

Santa Anna refused to back this pronunciamiento series. Although he was taken captive by the pronunciados in June, he managed to escape, and spent the next three months, from June to October 1833, quelling the revolt, whilst a particularly devastating cholera epidemic struck the capital.

WF

Notes

Boletín de la Secretaría de Gobernación, 1923, p.158.

Also in Josefina Zoraida Vázquez (ed.),/Planes en la nación mexicana. Libro dos. 1831-1834/(Mexico City: SRE/El Colegio de México, 1987), p. 178.

Transcribed by Natasha Picôt and Revised by Will Fowler.

Original document double-checked by Germán Martínez Martínez on 06/02/2009. Colección Josefina Z. Vázquez/Planes y Documentos, 1833, Archivo Histórico del Colegio de México, Caja 8.

Participants (1):

Author and signatory role:
Ignacio Escalada

Related pronunciamientos

Child pronunciamientos
Carta y plan del señor general don Gabriel Durán (reactive-cum-proactive, supporting)
1 June 1833 ; Tlalpan, Estado de México
Plan de Huejotzingo (reactive-cum-proactive, supporting)
8 June 1833 ; Huejotzingo, Puebla
Acta del Mineral de Nieves (reactive, opposing)
17 June 1833 ; Nieves, Zacatecas
Pronunciamiento de las tropas de Matamoros (reactive-cum-proactive, supporting)
19 June 1833 ; Matamoros, Tamaulipas
Pronunciamiento del ayuntamiento de Matamoros (reactive, supporting)
22 June 1833 ; Matamoros, Tamaulipas
Acta de la villa del Carmen (reactive, opposing)
25 June 1833 ; Villa del Carmen, Yucatán
Acta del Rancho de la Ensenada (reactive, opposing)
23 July 1833 ; Rancho de la Ensenada, Tamaulipas
Plan de Ocotlán (reactive-cum-proactive, supporting)
27 July 1833 ; Ocotlán, Jalisco
Plan de la Coalición de los Estados de Occidente (reactive-cum-proactive, opposing)
30 July 1833 ; Guadalajara, Jalisco
Plan de conciliación del general Bravo (reactive-cum-proactive, opposing)
2 December 1833 ; Chichihualco, Guerrero

Pronunciamiento grievances

National (pro-clerical)

Local (anti-government)

Political (anti-government)

Proactive

Reactive

Personal (in favour of Antonio López de Santa Anna)

PDF Download

Click here to download a PDF version of this pronunciamiento