The role of the “caballo de Troya” in military annals may well be as old as the history of warfare itself. The Mexican movement for independence, not to be outdone by the other struggles, produced one of its own—a secret “quintacolumnista” organization of revolutionary partisans called the Guadalupes, who maintained headquarters in the viceregal capital of Mexico City. Its membership included government officials, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and other prominent Mexicans. The Guadalupes worked indefatigably for the cause of independence, spying on the viceroy, stealing his plans, forwarding information to the insurgent commanders in the field, influencing elections, spreading propaganda, sheltering insurgent refugees, and aiding the movement in every way possible. The period of their most intensive activity coincided with that of the Morelos movement at its height—late 1812 to early 1814—and the effectiveness of the organization can be measured by Viceroy Félix Calleja’s deep concern about it operations.
The chief source of information about this interesting group is the correspondence of its members with insurgent leaders, principally José María Morelos, Ignacio López Rayón, and Mariano Matamoros. Thirty-one letters written by the Guadalupes, covering the period from September 15, 1812, to January 15, 1814, most of them addressed to Morelos, were captured intact by the royalists at the Battle of Tlacotepec on February 19, 1814. These were inventoried, copied, forwarded to Spain, and deposited in the Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla. Except for portions of one letter which Carlos María Bustamante printed, this correspondence has remained unpublished to date.
The eminent Mexican bibliophile, Genaro García, who planned to write a monograph on the Guadalupes, made three copies of twenty-six of the letters; and they were among the materials in his library which were subsequently purchased by the University of Texas, to become the nucleus of its Latin American Collection. It was never believed that a copy of the correspondence existed in Mexico until Ernesto de la Torre Villar, serving as Director of the Archivo Histórico de Hacienda, found a file of Guadalupe correspondence in that depository; and it now appears in this volume for the first time. He has also published here some new material on the Guadalupes found in the Archivo General de la Nación, particularly in sections Operaciones de Guerra and Infidencias.
Unfortunately, the file which Torre Villar found is incomplete, assuming that he has published all the letters in it. The first eleven letters are apparently missing, though the first three of these have been published utilizing copies obtained from the Sevilla archives. A number of Calleja’s informes and proclamas dealing with the Guadalupes have been included in this volume, most of which are reprinted from the collection of Juan Hernández y Dávalos. One is surprised, however, not to find the viceroy’s informe of August 18, 1814, to the Ministro de Gracia y Justicia, with its particularly pertinent remarks about the organization. Nor are there any materials on the group’s relations with Rayón, especially those concerning Guadalupe efforts late in 1812 to obtain a cessation of hostilities. While some of this material was published in the treatment of Emilio Castillo Negrete, most remains among the manuscripts in the San Jacinto Museum of History.
Some valuable new information on the Guadalupes has been brought to light in this volume, but it is not a complete collection of the available source materials about the organization.
