Gustavo Pérez Rodríguez, Xavier Mina, the Spanish insurgent. Guerrilla for the freedom of Spain and Mexico, Mexico, UNAM, 2018

Abstract

The guerrilla and freedom My venerable father: within three hours I will be in the world of truth, this is the time I am given to prepare to die a Christian death in the hands of Fernando's subordinate soldiers, after having worked what the entire nation knows to rescue the crown that he left at the disposal of Bayonne of Napoleon Bonaparte. My Father, do not forget that this will be the last sorrow that your son who loves him. This was the last written testimony of the guerrilla Xavier Mina before being shot for traitor on November 11, 1817.   Gustavo Pérez offers a meticulous historical reconstruction of the life of Xavier Mina to through the search and discovery of rich sources of information. The axis of his research is freedom, and the guerrilla as a means to achieve it; what a young Navarrese man understood, assumed and from my enerable father: within three hours I will be in the world of truth, this is the time I am given to prepare to die a Christian death. in the hands of Fernando's subordinate soldiers, after having worked what the entire nation knows to rescue the crown that he left in Bayonne at the disposal of Napoleon Bonaparte. My father, don't forget that this will be the last sorrow that his son who loves him will give him. This was the last written testimony of the guerrilla Xavier Mina before being shot as a traitor on November 11, 1817. Gustavo Pérez offers a meticulous historical reconstruction of the life of Xavier Mina to through the search and discovery of rich sources of information. The axis of his research is freedom, and the guerrilla as a means to achieve it; what a young Navarrese man understood, assumed and deenerable my father: within three hours I will be in the world of truth, this is the time I am given to prepare to die a Christian death in the hands of Fernando's subordinate soldiers, after having worked what the entire nation knows to rescue the crown that he left at the disposal of Bayonne of Napoleon Bonaparte. My Father, do not forget that this will be the last sorrow that your son who loves him. This was the last written testimony of the guerrilla Xavier Mina before being shot for traitor on November 11, 1817. Gustavo Pérez offers a meticulous historical reconstruction of the life of Xavier Mina through the search and discovery of rich sources of information. The axis of his research is freedom, and the guerrilla as a means to achieve it; what a young Navarrese man understood, assumed and defended, in a period marked by political upheavals, debates over sovereignty, Napoleon's usurpation of the peninsula Ibérica, the return of absolutism, loyalty and betrayal of the homeland and the orbit of freedom. The author shows the years of intense learning of the young Mina about Napoleon's political and military strategies, the struggles for the supremacy of power, the whirlwind in which events took place in Spain between 1808 and 1816, the abdications of the Crown, the peninsula raised in arms. The reconstruction of Mina's life in this volume shows how the war environment led the Navarrese to join to the Zaragoza uprising, abandon his academic training and participate in the guerrilla struggle inspired since popular reactions, ignoring war tactics. As the author maintains, from beginning with sporadic demonstrations, the guerrilla ended up representing a movement of struggle and social resistance.