Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (1765-1827)

Fray Servando Teresa de Mier was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León in 1765 and joined the Dominican Order when he was sixteen years of age. He studied philosophy and theology and earned his doctorate at age 27. When in 1794 he gave a speech which ended up being misinterpreted by many, who thought he cast a dubious light on the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint. Thus he was exiled to Spain, where he spent several years in prison. He managed to escape but was later re imprisoned for his speeches favoring the independence of what was referred to as New Spain. Given that he converted two rabbis to Catholicism, the Pope granted him his freedom.

Father Mier traveled around Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and England, sometimes as a free man and other times as a fugitive. He was imprisoned many times and he escaped a lot as well. From London, he contributed to the cause for the independence of Mexico and other Latin American countries, but was imprisoned by the royalists. From there he was taken to Havana but escaped to Philadelphia in the US. He stayed there until Mexico’s independence was a known fact.

He was elected deputy for Nuevo León in the First National Congress and tried to help establish a republican system of government. However he was imprisoned and spent time in the Inquisition prison, until he was released in 1823. He was then reelected by Nuevo León, as again as deputy for the Second National Congress, where he supported the theory that the ideal political organization for Mexico would be something in between centralism and federalism, but neither extreme.

He also participated in a project titled “The Plan for the Political Constitution of the Mexican Nation, May 16, 1823”. Father Mier wrote “the History of the Revolution of New Spain, using the pseudonym José Guerra, which was published at the Glindon Press in 1913. He was also the author of many other controversial literary works which dealt with either religious or political issues.