A transitional man: Xavier Mina between Spain and America, 1789-1817

Francisco Xavier Mina was the physical embodiment of the essentially transitional nature of the Age of Revolutions. He was part of a new generation of leaders who had been born as the ancién régimes were dying and who had absolutely no sentimental attachment to monarchs, traditions, or special privileges. As a guerrilla leader in both Spain and Mexico, he and his men toppled hidebound institutions and cleared the way for others to come after them and do the work of building new societies. As a political thinker, Mina’s ideas were a sort of unschooled but enthusiastic liberalism based on the simple and self-evident truths that all people were equal before God and the law, and that everyone deserved a decent, dignified life.