La insurgencia en la antigua Vera Cruz, 1812
Memórias de lo acontecido en Córdova en tiempo de la revolución para la historia de la independencia mejicana Open Access

These two slim volumes form part of the sizable series of varied works pertaining to Veracruz being published by Editorial Citlaltepetl. Both accounts result from a governmental request, soon after independence, that each bishop gather from his priests narratives of the events of the Revolution for Independence in the parishes. Apparently the only one to satisfy the request was the Bishop of Puebla. The chronicle by José Domingo Isassi, priest in Córdoba in 1821, was first printed in Xalapa in 1827 with municipal funds. The anonymous account, printed from a manuscript held by a local bibliophile, was written by a priest who, with a. colleague, cared for a seventy-mile coastal area near the city of Veracruz. The latter is the more interesting of the two. Both volumes are, for the most part, spare chronicles of the comings and goings of small groups of combatants, with precise details on the size of regiments, names of obscure leaders, and the various weapons used. Of general interest in the anonymous account are details on the religiosity of the troops and the great devotion in 1812 to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Both writers speak admiringly of Nicolás Bravo and, particularly, of Guadalupe Victoria, who, along with his other virtues, “said the rosary every night.” Unfortunately, however, there is very little here besides trifling military detail, which makes these accounts of limited use to the historian, even one specialized in the Revolutionary Era.