On his mother's side, his grandparents were Antonio Roo y Font from Tenerife and Leonarda Rodríguez de la Gala, also from Campeche.

In July, Miguel González Lastiri, Yucatán's representative at the Cortes, arrived with seven copies of the new constitution, one of which fell into the hands of the Sanjuanistas.

[2] In 1814, King Fernando VII was restored to his throne and disavowed the constitution put forth by the Cortes of Cádiz and ruled as an absolute monarch.

With him he took a letter of recommendation from the Bishop of Yucatán and Tabasco, Pedro Agustín Esteves y Ugarte, that said he "always had a singular application and talent, performing his literary functions with all brilliance and contributing with modesty, Christianity and good bearing in his behavior.

[1] When Quintana Roo and Vicario met, she was engaged to marry Octaviano Obregón (though not of her own choice), the son of a colonel of high birth.

[1] In 1812, after leaving the employment of Agustín Fernández, and the side of his beloved Leona Vicario, Andrés Quintana Roo threw himself into his ideals.

López Rayón had been the private secretary of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the priest who had begun the fight for independence in Guanajuato just two years earlier.

He wrote for the insurgent newspaper El Ilustrador Americano (American Illustrator) created by José María Cos, and in July 1812 founded the more ideological El Semanario Patriótico Americano (The American Patriot Weekly) which he edited with Cos.[1] In September 1812 he wrote his most famous poem "Dieciséis de septiembre" (Sixteenth of September), a patriotic poem that decries tyranny.

After the defeat of Hidalgo, he gave structure to the army under the auspices of the Junta de Zitácuaro, one of the first governing bodies in Mexico not to recognize the authority of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

[6] Leona Vicario was deeply involved in the work of Los Guadalupes but in February 1813 one of her letters was intercepted by then royalist, and future President of Mexico, Captain Anastasio Bustamante.

[1] Quintana Roo heard of her imprisonment, and being unable to go himself, sent Francisco Arroyave, Antonio Vázquez Aldana, and Luis Alconedo to liberate her.

[1] With the power of the Junta de Zitácuaro waning after multiple military defeats, José María Morelos took the initiative in reorganizing the scattered insurgent armies and called for a congress to unite the opposition to Spanish rule.

On the first day, Morelos read the Sentimientos de la Nación (Feelings of the Nation), an outline of his ideas on how an independent Mexico should be governed.

Morelos' army was defeated by future Mexican Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, and his general, Mariano Matamoros, was captured and executed.

With the defeat of the French forces in Spain, Fernando was free to send more soldiers to Mexico, and so Iturbide redoubled his efforts against Morelos and the Congress.

En route to Tehuacán, on November 5, the caravan was intercepted by royal soldiers commanded by Manuel de la Concha.

While the bulk of the deputies of the Congress of Chilpancingo fled to Tehuacán, Andrés Quintana Roo and Leona Vicario remained in Michoacán.

Félix María Calleja del Rey had been judged too harsh and dictatorial in his rule and the much more temperate Juan Ruiz de Apodaca was sent to replace him.

After arranging their affairs and securing the confiscated property of his wife, Quintana Roo began the process of gaining admittance to the Ilustre y Real Colegio de Abogados (Royal Bar Association).

[1] In April 1820, the news reached Mexico of a revolution in Spain which had forced King Fernando VII to recognize the liberal Constitution of Cádiz.

[8] The aristocracy and the clergy met in secret, before the news of the Constitution became public, to discuss how to prevent knowledge of the revolution in Spain from spreading.

Their hopes to keep the news secret were dashed when word reached Veracruz and the intendant, José Dávila, swore to comply with the new law.

[14] Quintana Roo briefly served as Undersecretary of Foreign and Domestic Affairs under newly crowned Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, beginning in August 1822.

Antonio López de Santa Anna started an uprising in Veracruz in December which gained popularity after Iturbide imposed a 40% property tax on Mexicans.

The senate refused to act on these propositions and so it was passed to the Chamber of Deputies which formed a four-man commission, which included Quintana Roo, to resolve the issue.

On January 3, Quintana Roo founded the newspaper El Federalista Mexicano (The Mexican Federalist) to criticize and challenge Bustamante's legitimacy.

[18] Bustamante's popularity began to wane after he captured and executed Guerrero (despite having already orchestrated the Camera of Deputies to declare him morally unfit to govern).

[21] In October of that year he said, "Political discussions...must be entirely alien to the chair of the Holy Spirit and the character of a religion such as Christianity, whose fundamental basis is to dispense with governments.

Santa Anna took the side of the church and returned to Mexico City in April 1834 and asked the congress to repeal their anti-clerical laws.

[22] In 1838, in the midst of the Pastry War with France, Quintana Roo entrusted a letter to former Academía de Letrán member and current Minister of the Exterior Joaquín Pesado, to be delivered to his former enemy and current president (returned from exile) Anastasio Bustamante to offer a monthly stipend of 500 pesos to support the war effort.