Gorostiza, Manuel Eduardo de (1789–1851)

Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza (b. 1789; d. 1851), Mexican military officer, diplomat, cabinet minister, and dramatist. Gorostiza was born in Veracruz, but his family returned to Spain after the death of his father, a colonial governor, when he was five. Because of his liberalism, Gorostiza was forced to flee from Spain to Mexico in 1822. He served as a Mexican representative in London, where he kept the British Parliament and public well informed about U.S. designs on Texas in the late 1820s. In 1830 he was named Mexico's minister plenipotentiary in London and minister to all the European countries. In 1933 Gorostiza was recalled to Mexico, where he served on Gómez Farías's commission on educational reform and was named the first director of the National Library and the National Theater.

After the fall of Gómez Farías, Gorostiza wrote and produced plays to support himself, reviving the theater in Mexico and becoming famous for his comedies in Spain as well. He later served as Mexican minister in Washington (1836), treasury minister (1838, 1842–1843, 1846), and foreign relations minister (1838–1839). During the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1847, Gorostiza organized and paid for a battalion, which he led at the Battle of Churubusco.

See alsoGómez Farías, Valentin .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carlos González Peña, History of Mexican Literature, translated by Gusta Barfield Nance and Florence Johnson Dunstan, 3d ed. (1968); Diccionario Porrúa de historia, biografía y geografía de México, 5th ed. (1986).

Additional Bibliography

Gayón Córdoba, María. La ocupación yanqui de la Ciudad de México, 1847–1848. México, D.F.: INAH: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1997.

                                            D. F. Stevens