Lucas Alaman and the Historians

Abstract

This study considers the life, thought, and work of Lucas Alaman, Mexican statesman and historian of the early nineteenth century, as seen by historians from his time to the present with reference to his political attitudes, his political activities, and the political philosophy revealed in his historical writings, with note also of his economic and cultural concerns. Other Mexican thinkers and leaders of the period wanted to cast off the Spanish past, whereas Alaman believed that the Mexican future should be built on that past. Considered by some the greatest mind of the era, even his enemies acknowledged his brilliance and erudition, but they considered him to be an unreconstructed reactionary. Most historians, however, have noted that, in such fields as education and economics, Alaman was years ahead of his time, that in many areas he was creative and innovative. It is the thesis of this paper that, in the consensus of the historians, Alaman was shaped by the enlightened and progressive, yet authoritarian regimes of the last Bourbon kings of Spain; that his ultimate commitment was a patriotic loyalty to Mexico, which nation he believed best served by law and order and peace under the exclusive and paternalistic control of an authoritarian central government. The historical evidence, as a whole, is compatible with the thesis.