Ocampo, Melchor (1814-1861)
Born January 6, 1814 in Pateo, Michoacán, the son of Francisca Javiera
Tapia, the rich owner of the hacienda. The father's identity is unknown. He was
tutored in Tlalpujahua and Maravatío by Catholic priests. In 1824, he was sent
to Morelia (then Valladolid) to study law in the Seminario Conciliar de Morelia.
He also studied botany, astronomy, agriculture, and linguisitics. When he
graduated in 1831, he went to Mexico City where he worked in a law firm. When Francisca Javiera
Tapia died, he inherited property. In 1840, he went to France, the United
Kingdom, and Italy, studying his first love, science. He would write Viaje de un mexicano a Europa,
a book of observations he had made while abroad. When he returned to Michoacán,
he settled on his hacienda, Pomoca, and applied scientific principles to
cultivation.
He became a liberal politician. He got elected to the
national congress in 1842, and then to the governorship of the state for the
1846-48 term. As governor, he extended public education and worked on economic
development. In 1847, he reestablished El Colegio de San Nicolás in Morelia but
as a civil not a clerical institution. He established a law college. When the
United States declared war on Mexico in 1846, he raised the Matamoros battalion
to fight. He tried to get the legislature to scale down the fees of the clergy
so that ordinary citizens could do such things as bury their dead. He had been
made aware of the issue when he discovered that a priest had told a poor widow
when she said she could not afford the Church fees to bury her husband and asked
the priest what to do with the corpse, had replied "eat it." Agustín
Dueñas, curate of Maravatío, publicly criticized Ocampo in writing.
Ocampo responded with five points, similar to the ideas in the Laws of the
Reform. Infuriated, clerical supporters threatened Ocampo with death if he ever
became governor again. Some time afterwards, Ocampo served as Senator oh
is state in Querétaro, the city to which the national government had retreated
when the US occupied Mexico City. When the government returned to Mexico
City, he was named Finance Minister by President General Mariano Arista. In
1852, he again became governor of Michoacán. When the Conservative Party won,
he retired to his hacienda. Antonio Santa Anna, the Conservative president and
dictator, had him imprisoned, taken to the fortress San Juan de Ulúa in
Veracruz harbor, and then sent into exile, first to Cuba and then to New
Orleans in the United States. Together with Benito Juárez, Ponciano Arriaga y José María
Mata, he plotted the overthrow of Santa Anna and the Conservatives.
This Junta Revolucionaria, led by Juárez and Juan Alvarez,
pushed Santa Anna from power in 1855 and established a Liberal government. In
the Junta de Representivas was created to elect a president, Ocampo represented
Michoacán and was elected vice president of the Junta. When Alvarez was elected
President of the Republic, Ocampo joined his Cabinet as Minister of Foreign
Relations. The government split and Ignacio Comonfort became president. When
Comonfort allied with the conservative Félix Zuloaga because they could not
stomach the Ley Lerdo, the Ley Juárez, and the Constitution of 1857, he
resigned. Benito Juárez became president but had to flee Guanajuato in the face
of a Conservative army. Ocampo supported Juárez and served as his minister of
Government, Finance, and Foreign Relations. Juárez, Ocampo, and some of his
government fled west across Mexico where they boarded a ship to Panamá. They
crossed Panamá and eventually went to the Liberal bastion of Veracruz in May,
1858.From this city, they would struggle to beat the Conservatives in what is
known as the War of the Reform. They were so desperate that Ocampo negotiated
the McLane-Ocampo Treaty with the United States in December, 1859, a treaty
which, if ratified by the US, would have given land in the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec to the US in exchange for money.
The Liberals won the war by 1861 and Ocampo began
implementing the Liberal agenda designed to create equality before the law. He resigned
over policy differences and went home to his estate. The Conservative guerrilla
Lindoro Cagigas captured him on June 1, 1861. On June 3, 1861 he was executed by
firing squad.
His views on marriage can be seen in the Epístola de Melchor Ocampo,
Julio de 1859.
Don Mabry
120503
