On This Day In History: Declaration Of Independence Of The Mexican Empire Is Drafted – On Sep 28, 1821

AncientPages.com  - On September 28, 1821, the Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire from the Spanish Empire was drafted in the National Palace in Mexico City. It was made public on October 13.

On September 27, 1821, eleven years and eleven days after the Grito de Dolores, the Army of the Three Guarantees headed by Agustín de Iturbide entered Mexico City, concluding the Mexican War of Independence.

This vital document existed in three copies. One of the copies was destroyed in the fire of the Chamber in 1909.

The second copy of the act was stolen and sold in 1830.

Decades later, the third copy of the document was acquired by Emperor Maximilian I, although it is unknown how and where he got it. The act contains in the back the figure of the ex libris of Maximilian's library. After Maximilian's execution, Agustin Fischer, confessor of the Emperor, took the document out of the country.

Maximilian, I of Mexico was an Austrian archduke who reigned as the only Emperor of the Second Mexican Empire from April 10, 1864, until his execution on June 19, 1867.

Sometime later, the act appeared in Spain in the library of antiquarian Gabriel Sánchez, and it is again unknown how he got i. Sánchez sold the document to the Mexican historian Joaquín García Icazbalceta, who preserved it and passed it down to his son Luis García Pimentel. Pimentel offered to sell the Declaration of Independence to Florencio Gavito Bustillo, who lived in France. After buying the act for 10 thousand pesos, Gavito returned to Mexico intending to deliver the document to the Mexican government, but he died of leukemia in 1958. In his last will, he said that the act should be given to the president

The Mexican government sent the document for opinions of authenticity. The opinions were ready on November 14, 1961, stating that the act is one of the two originals drafted in 1821. On November 21, Florencio Gavito Jáuregui gave the document to President López Mateos.

This document was passed down through generations from Nicolás Bravo. The Ruiz de Velasco family owned the third copy for 128 years. On August 22, 1987, Pedro Ruiz de Velasco gave the document as a gift to Mexico. José Francisco Ruiz Massieu accepted this gift and secured this historical document in the Museo Historico de Acapulco Fuerte de San Diego in Acapulco in the State of Guerrero.

The document, which has a long history, is 20½ inches wide and 28¾ high, and is currently kept at the General Archive of the Nation.

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