[2][3][4] It ended in 1835, when conservatives under Antonio López de Santa Anna transformed it into a unitary state, the Centralist Republic of Mexico.

The republic was proclaimed on November 1, 1823[5] by the Supreme Executive Power, months after the fall of the Mexican Empire ruled emperor Agustin I, a former royalist military officer-turned-insurgent for independence.

Political controversies, ever since the drafting of the constitution tended to center around whether Mexico should be a federal or a centralist state, with wider liberal and conservative causes attaching themselves to each faction respectively.

The First Republic would finally collapse after the overthrow of the liberal president Valentín Gómez Farías, through a rebellion led by his former vice-president, General Antonio López de Santa Anna who had switched sides.

The cleric Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who had long been part of a circle of intellectuals who sought to reform the colonial system triggered the Mexican War of Independence in 1810 by accusing the Spanish ruling classes of seeking to recognize Joseph Bonaparte, while proclaiming loyalty to the imprisoned Ferdinand VII.

The newly liberated Mexican press however simply inflamed anti-Spanish sentiment, Morelos' rebellion continued, and on the pretext of necessity for subduing the rebels, the constitution was suspended in New Spain the same year it was proclaimed, making Mexican liberals lose hope of attaining reform within the colonial system, while not forgetting the local provincial autonomy that they had temporarily been granted.

The Emperor immediately however began to clash with legislature and showed himself determined to have supreme authority over the government, even shutting congress down and replacing it with a body of loyalists.

Iturbide struggled to pay the army, and eventually Santa Anna pronounced in favor of a Federal Republic in his Plan of Casa Mata.

The provisional government was led by a triumvirate consisting of Nicolas Bravo, Pedro Negrete, and Guadalupe Victoria, the latter who would eventually go on to become the first president of Mexico.

[14] For historian Timothy Anna, "the transition to a federal republic [as opposed to the initial triumph of independence] was the real 'revolution' because the old gave way to the new in Mexican history.

"[15] Mexico decided upon federation as a practical compromise between the need for effective national government and the desire for granting the provinces a voice.

The leading liberal intellectual, José María Luis Mora, was opposed to Spaniards' expulsion as a matter of principle, but also on practical grounds, since Spanish merchants had been vital to the flourishing of the colonial economy.

"[24] In his first address to congress, he pledged that "the administration is obliged to procure the widest possible benefits and apply them from the palace of the rich to the wooden shack of the humble laborer."

Lucas Alamán, the preeminent conservative intellectual of the time, would also be added to the cabinet and would play a notable role in guiding government policy.

Strong measures were taken in response to the emerging separatist crisis in Texas, where the amount of American settlers was making it difficult for Mexico to administer the area.

Opponents of Gómez Farías had long sought help from vice-president Santa Anna in overthrowing the government, and after initially ignoring them, even participating in campaigns against the rebels, he eventually acquiesced in April, 1834.

The president was overthrown and prominent liberal and federalist thinkers José María Luis Mora and Lorenzo de Zavala were exiled from the nation.

[37] The Constitution of 1824 began by declaring the absolute independence of the country, confirming the Roman Catholic religion as the only one permitted in the nation, and formally establishing the states that were to make up the republic [38] Government was then divided into the three separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

[43] Throughout the era of the First Republic, the institutions of the Lancasterian Society struggled to make ends meet through private contributions and had to increasingly rely on government support.

The expedition was led by Manuel de Mier y Terán and among its scientific staff were Rafael Chovell and the Swiss naturalist Jean-Louis Berlandier.

[46] The journalist, playwright, and pioneering Mexican novelist José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi spent the final years of his career and life during the period of the First Republic.

[47] The Mexican dramatist Don Fernando Calderón y Beltrán, began his career during the First Republic with a steady output of plays in the theaters of Guadalajara and Zacatecas between 1827 and 1836.

[49] The Liberal statesman, historian, and political theorist José María Luis Mora began his first period of literary output during this period laying out the ideological foundations of the Liberal Party and of president Valentín Gómez Farías’ first administration through his Political Catechism of the Mexican Federation and the Dissertation on the Nature and Use of Ecclesiastical Income and Wealth, the latter laying out the case of nationalization of Catholic Church properties.

[50] The Yorkino Rite of Freemasonry, an element of the nascent Liberal Party, published multiple newspapers during this time, notable among them being El Aguila Mexicana (The Mexican Eagle), El Amigo del Pueblo (The People's Friend) and Correo de la Federacion (The Federal Mail), the latter of which served as a mouthpiece for Lorenzo de Zavala.

The Escocés Rite of Freemasonry, an element of the nascent Conservative Party, notably published El Observador (The Observer) among its staff was Francisco Manuel Sánchez de Tagle.

In November 1824, congress dissolved the old revenue department and organized a new more thorough one led by the newly established office of the treasury general of the federation.

[53] In 1830, a Banco de Avío was founded by Lucas Alaman, with a capital of one million dollars, aimed at granting loans and machinery to manufacturers and agriculturists.

[66] The Mexican state followed the practice of its Spanish colonial predecessor, with inadequate military resources to suppress the northern indigenous groups that did not recognize outsiders sovereignty over their territory.

[67] With these ineffective policies in place, combined with an ever-evolving and adapting Comanche Empire,[68] the Early Republic faced a formidable foe with an inadequate infrastructure.

The lack of appropriate defense against raids might not have been so large of a problem for the Republic, if establicimiento had not all but been forgone by the 1830s, with post-independence 1820s economic instability causing many regions to drastically reduce rations to the Apaches de Paz.