Bustamante, Carlos María de, 1774-1848

Carlos María de Bustamante Merecilla (4 November 1774 – 29 September 1848) was a Mexican statesman, historian, journalist who played a political and intellectual role in support of Mexican independence, both before and during the Mexican War of Independence. From independence up until his death in 1848, Bustamante would participate in every Mexican congress. He played a role in developing a nascent Mexican patriotism and his historical "work early initiated an important Mexican national tradition of searching out and publishing basic materials on the Indian past and its fate in the colonial period." His writings in the 1820s shifted "the antiquarian bias of creole patriotism...into the ideology of a national liberation movement."