Andrés Quintana Roo

Andrés Eligio Quintana Roo (Mérida, Yucatán, November 30, 1787 – Mexico City, April 15, 1851) was a Mexican liberal politician, lawyer and author, and the husband of Leona Vicario. Quintana Roo was one of the most influential men in the Mexican War of Independence and served as a member of the Congress of Chilpancingo. He presided over the Constitutional Assembly, which drafted the Mexican Declaration of Independence in 1813, and he served as a legislator and senator, and Secretary of State, numerous times. Quintana Roo also served as a member of the Mexican Supreme Court and as a member of the Gobierno tripartito ("Tripartite Government") (December 23–31, 1829), and edited and managed the Semanario Patriótico ("Patriotic Weekly"). The Mexican state of Quintana Roo was named after him.

Biography

Quintana Roo was born to Don José Matías Quintana and Doña María Ana Roo de Quintana. He studied in the Seminario de San Ildefonso de Mérida where he proved his great capacity as a writer; in 1808, he continued his studies in Mexico City, at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de Nueva España ("Royal and Pontifical University of New Spain").

The elder Quintana established the first printing press and printed the first newspapers on the Yucatán Peninsula. This was troublesome for the viceroys of New Spain, and José Matías Quintana was arrested and jailed.

Quintana Roo completed his studies and graduated as a lawyer, joining the law firm of Agustín Pomposo Fernández. There he met and fell in love with Leona Vicario, niece of Don Agustín. Because Don Agustín was a royalist and Quintana Roo favored Mexican independence, he was denied Leona's hand. Despite this, Leona financially supported the cause of independence. She was apprehended in 1813 and locked in the Colegio de Belén, but managed to escape in disguise, fleeing to Tlalpujahua, where she wed Quintana Roo.

Sanjuanistas

In 1802, Pablo Moreno and José María Velázquez founded a group called the Sanjuanistas with the goal of suppressing native slavery and ending taxes paid to the Roman Catholic church (the only religious body then allowed in present-day Mexico) and Spanish privileges. Don José Matías Quintana belonged to this group.

Independence

During the Mexican revolt against Spanish rule, Quintana Roo presided over both the National Constitutional Assembly of 1813–1814, which drafted the failed Constitution of Apatzingán, and the later Constitutional Congress which drafted the Constitution of 1824. He worked with Carlos María Bustamante in editing the newspaper Correo Americano del Sur.

After Independence

Quintana Roo served as Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs under Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, from 1822 to 1823. He also served as a Justice of the Supreme Court (1824–1827) and as a federal deputy representing the state of México. He founded the newspaper Semanario Patriótico and also wrote the book Dieciséis de septiembre ("The Sixteenth of September").

He died on April 15, 1851, in Mexico City. His remains lie next to those of his wife, Leona, in the mausoleum of the Column of Independence in Mexico City.