Vicente Guerrero in the context of "Guerrero"

The Plan of Iguala, also known as the Plan of the Three Guarantees ("Plan Trigarante") or Act of Independence of North America, was a revolutionary proclamation promulgated on 24 February 1821, in the final stage of the Mexican War of Independence from Spain. The Plan stated that Mexico was to become a constitutional monarchy, whose sole official religion would be Roman Catholicism, in which both the Peninsulares (people born in Spain and residing in Mexico) and the Americanos (people born in Mexico, that is, the Americas) would enjoy equal political and social rights. It took its name from the city of Iguala in the modern-day state of Guerrero.

The two main figures behind the Plan were Agustín de Iturbide (who would become Emperor of Mexico) and Vicente Guerrero, revolutionary rebel leader and later President of Mexico. The Army of the Three Guarantees was formed by the unified forces of Iturbide and Guerrero to defend the ideals of the Plan of Iguala. On 24 August 1821, Iturbide and Spanish viceroy Juan O'Donojú signed the Treaty of Córdoba in Córdoba, Veracruz, ratifying the Plan of Iguala, and thus confirming Mexico's independence.

Juan Nepomuceno Álvarez Hurtado de Luna, generally known as Juan Álvarez, (27 January 1790 – 21 August 1867) was a general, long-time caudillo (regional leader) in southern Mexico, and president of Mexico for two months in 1855, following the liberals' ouster of Antonio López de Santa Anna. His presidency inaugurated the pivotal era of La Reforma.

Álvarez had risen to power in the Tierra Caliente, in southern Mexico with the support of indigenous peasants whose lands he protected. He fought along with heroes of the insurgency, José María Morelos and Vicente Guerrero in the War of Independence and went on to fight in all the major wars of his day, from the "Pastry War", to the Mexican–American War, and the War of the Reform to the war against the Second French Intervention. A liberal reformer, a republican and a federalist, he was the leader of a revolution in support of the Plan de Ayutla in 1854, which led to the deposition of Santa Anna from power and the beginning of the political era in Mexico's history known as the Liberal Reform. According to historian Peter Guardino: "Álvarez was most important as a champion of the incorporation of Mexico's peasant masses into the polity of [Mexico] ... advocating universal male suffrage and municipal autonomy."

The military history of Mexico encompasses armed conflicts within that nation's territory, dating from before the arrival of Europeans in 1519 to the present era. Mexican military history is replete with small-scale revolts, foreign invasions, civil wars, indigenous uprisings, and coups d'état by disgruntled military leaders. Mexico's colonial-era military was not established until the eighteenth century. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the early sixteenth century, the Spanish crown did not establish on a standing military, but the crown responded to the external threat of a British invasion by creating a standing military for the first time following the Seven Years' War (1756–63). The regular army units and militias had a short history when in the early 19th century, the unstable situation in Spain with the Napoleonic invasion gave rise to an insurgency for independence, propelled by militarily untrained men fighting for the independence of Mexico. The Mexican War of Independence (1810–21) saw royalist and insurgent armies battling to a stalemate in 1820. That stalemate ended with the royalist military officer turned insurgent, Agustín de Iturbide persuading the guerrilla leader of the insurgency, Vicente Guerrero, to join in a unified movement for independence, forming the Army of the Three Guarantees. The royalist military had to decide whether to support newly independent Mexico. With the collapse of the Spanish state and the establishment of first a monarchy under Iturbide and then a republic, the state was a weak institution. The Roman Catholic Church and the military weathered independence better. Military men dominated Mexico's nineteenth-century history, most particularly General Antonio López de Santa Anna, under whom the Mexican military were defeated by Texas insurgents for independence in 1836 and then the U.S. invasion of Mexico (1846–48). With the overthrow of Santa Anna in 1855 and the installation of a government of political liberals, Mexico briefly had civilian heads of state. The Liberal Reforms that were instituted by Benito Juárez sought to curtail the power of the military and the church and wrote a new constitution in 1857 enshrining these principles. Conservatives comprised large landowners, the Catholic Church, and most of the regular army revolted against the Liberals, fighting a civil war. The Conservative military lost on the battlefield. But Conservatives sought another solution, supporting the French intervention in Mexico (1862–65). The Mexican army loyal to the liberal republic were unable to stop the French army's invasion, briefly halting it with a victory at Puebla on 5 May 1862. Mexican Conservatives supported the installation of Maximilian Hapsburg as Emperor of Mexico, propped up by the French and Mexican armies. With the military aid of the U.S. flowing to the republican government in exile of Juárez, the French withdrew its military supporting the monarchy and Maximilian was caught and executed. The Mexican army that emerged in the wake of the French Intervention was young and battle tested, not part of the military tradition dating to the colonial and early independence eras.

Liberal General Porfirio Díaz was part of the new Mexican military, a hero of the Mexican victory over the French on Cinco de Mayo 1862. He revolted against the civilian liberal government in 1876, and remained continuously in the presidency from 1880 to 1911. Over the course of his presidency, Díaz began professionalizing the army that had emerged. By the time he turned 80 years old in 1910, the Mexican military was an aging, largely ineffective fighting force. When revolts broke out in 1910–11 against his regime, a rebel forces scored decisive victories over the Federal Army in the opening chapter of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Díaz resigned in May 1911, but Francisco I. Madero, on whose political behalf rebels rose against Díaz, demobilized the rebel forces and kept the Federal Army in place. "This single decision cost [Madero] the presidency and his life." Army General Victoriano Huerta seized the presidency of Madero in 1913, with Madero murdered in the coup d'état. Civil war broke out in the wake of the coup. Huerta's Federal Army racked up one defeat after another by the revolutionary armies, with Huerta resigning in 1914. The Federal Army ceased to exist. A new generation of fighting men, most of whom with no formal military training but were natural soldiers, now fought against each other in a civil war of the winners. The Constitutionalist Army under the civilian leadership of Venustiano Carranza and the military leadership of General Álvaro Obregón were the victors in 1915. The revolutionary military men were to continue to dominate Mexico's postrevolutionary period, but the military men who became presidents of Mexico brought the military under civilian control, systematically reining in the power of the military and professionalizing the force. The Mexican military has been under civilian government control with no President of Mexico being military generals since 1946. The fact of Mexico's civilian control of the military is in contrast the situation in many other countries in Latin America.

At the end of the Mexican War of Independence, the Army of the Three Guarantees (Spanish: Ejército Trigarante or Ejército de las Tres Garantías) was the name given to the army after the unification of the Spanish troops led by Agustín de Iturbide and the Mexican insurgent troops of Vicente Guerrero, consolidating Mexico's independence from Spain. The decree creating this army appeared in the Plan de Iguala, which stated the three guarantees which it was meant to defend were religion, independence and unity. Mexico was to be a Catholic empire, independent from Spain, and united against its enemies.

Trinidad Anastasio de Sales Ruiz Bustamante y Oseguera (Spanish pronunciation: [anasˈtasjo βustaˈmante]; 27 July 1780 – 6 February 1853) was a Mexican physician, general, and politician who served as the 4th President of Mexico three times from 1830 to 1832, 1837 to 1839, and 1839 to 1841. He also served as the 2nd Vice President of Mexico from 1829 to 1832 under Presidents Vicente Guerrero, José María Bocanegra, himself, and Melchor Múzquiz. He participated in the Mexican War of Independence initially as a royalist before siding with Agustín de Iturbide and supporting the Plan of Iguala.

Bustamante was a member of the Provisional Government Junta, the first governing body of Mexico. After the fall of the First Mexican Empire, his support for Emperor Iturbide was pardoned by President Guadalupe Victoria. The controversial 1828 general election sparked riots forcing the results to be nullified, as a result, Congress named him vice president while the liberal Vicente Guerrero was named president. Bustamante's command of a military reserve during the Barradas Expedition in 1829 allowed him to launch a coup d'état ousting Guerrero.

Guadalupe Victoria (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡwaðaˈlupe βikˈtoɾja]; 29 September 1786 – 21 March 1843), born José Miguel Ramón Adaucto Fernández y Félix, was a Mexican general and politician who fought for independence against the Spanish Empire in the Mexican War of Independence and after the adoption of the Constitution of 1824, was elected as the first president of the United Mexican States. He was a deputy in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies for Durango and a member of the Supreme Executive Power following the downfall of the First Mexican Empire, which was followed by the 1824 Constitution and his presidency. He later served as Governor of Puebla.

Born in Nueva Vizcaya, New Spain (now Durango), he graduated from the College of San Ildefonso with a Bachelor of Laws degree. He joined the Mexican War of Independence under general José María Morelos. During the war, he became one of the most prominent independence generals, participating in numerous battles, including the siege of Cuautla, the capture of Oaxaca, and many battles in Veracruz. In 1817, his troops deserted him, and he stayed in hiding until 1821, when the independence movement was reinvigorated by generals Vicente Guerrero and Agustín de Iturbide, and he helped re-capture Veracruz.

Vicente Florencio Carlos Riva Palacio Guerrero better known as Vicente Riva Palacio (16 October 1832 – 22 November 1896) was a Mexican liberal politician, novelist, journalist, intellectual, historian, and military leader.

Riva Palacio was born in Mexico City. His father was Mariano Riva Palacio, a moderate liberal, and his mother was María de los Dolores Guerrero Hernández, daughter of independence hero and president of Mexico Vicente Guerrero and María de Guadalupe Hernández. Vicente's father worked for the Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico in Querétaro during the Second French intervention, but Riva Palacio led forces in defense of the Mexican Republic against the French-backed empire.