Manuel Robles Pezuela

Manuel Robles Pezuela was a soldier and Conservative politician from Guanajuato, born in 1817. Before representing Mexico in Washington he served as minister of War and the Navy under Mariano Arista. His later career moved between diplomacy, military command, and the competing governments of the War of Reform. ¹

In Washington he protested the violence against Mexican cart drivers in Texas in 1857. His letters to Lewis Cass in October supplied reports from Mexican frontier authorities and extracts from Texas newspapers. Cass forwarded the protests to Governor Elisha Pease and called for protection of the victims' rights regardless of their citizenship. A later scholarly examination distinguishes the documented attacks from Robles's unconfirmed report that residents of Mexican origin had been expelled from San Antonio. ²

Back in Mexico, Robles supported the December 1858 movement that displaced the Conservative president Félix Zuloaga. He briefly assumed the presidency and issued appeals for reconciliation under the Plan of Navidad. Its proposed settlement failed to win either Benito Juárez, who defended the existing constitution, or Miguel Miramón. Robles continued on the Conservative side after losing power. ³

During the opening of the French intervention he sought to join Juan Nepomuceno Almonte. Republican forces captured him, and he was executed at San Andrés Chalchicomula in 1862 on Ignacio Zaragoza's orders. ¹