First edition, a rare and influential revolutionary journal edited by Carlos María de Bustamante (already editor of the Diario de México, el Juguetillo, and the Semanario Patriotico Mexicano); it’s aim was to perpetuate the memory of the first Congress established there in 1813, known as the Congress of Anahuac, by Jose Maria Morelos, this was the intellectual battlefield, so important for the nascent nation. The Congress of Anahuac was fundamentally represented -at least ideologically- by Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, author of Sentimientos de la Nacion, the publication where he expressed the ideals of the nation: division of powers, abolition of slavery, equality of social classes, etc., these ideals were published in the Decreto Constitucional para la Libertad de la America Mexicana (given in Apatzingan, 1814). Bustamante had joined Morelos originally, but after his capture, he was intermittently imprisoned.
The Abispa was ideologically opposed to the Empire of Iturbide, and highly critical of the Plan de Iguala, even though Bustamente admired Iturbide personally as liberator. The contents are varied, it includes subjects such as the adhesion of Chiapas, Quetzaltenango and Nicaragua to Mexico, and aspects of the sale of Florida to the United States. It also shows his admiration for the United States war of Independence; in it Bustamente also requested freedom of press and included his interventions in Congress.
This copy is added with the “Respuesta del Coronel Lanuza al Numero 20 de la Abispa de Chilpancingo” inserted between numbers 20 and 21, with separate pagination, printed by Alejandro Valdes, 1822, very rare, we can only locate a reference to it at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Colección de Panfletos Mexicanos de Sutro, none in OCLC.
Provenance: bookplate on front pastedown of Monsignor Joseph M. Gleason (1869-1942), a Californian Catholic priest, educationalist, historian and collector of books and photographs (The University of Auckland note), with an ownership inscription and his signature.
