He was an eyewitness to the early fighting in the Mexican War of Independence when he witnessed the troops of insurgent leader Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla sack Guanajuato City, an incident that informed his already conservative and antidemocratic thought.

[1] He has been called the "arch-reactionary of the epoch...who sought to create a strong central government based on a close alliance of the army, the Catholic Church and the landed classes.

According to historian Charles A. Hale, Alamán was "undoubtedly the major political and intellectual figure of independent Mexico until his death in 1853 ... the guiding force of several administrations and an active promoter of economic development.

[5] His father had immigrated from Navarre and accumulated a fortune in mining, while his mother was member of a distinguished American-born Spanish family,[6] and held the title of the fifth marchioness of San Clemente.

[9] In 1808, a sixteen year old Alamán visited Mexico City where he learned French and then returned to Guanajuato where he continued to study mathematics, music, and drawing, while also reading the Latin classics.

The government of New Spain chose to remain loyal to the imprisoned Ferdinand, but an uprising against the Spanish was triggered by the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on September 16, 1810, a date which would eventually be commemorated as the Mexican Independence Day He witnessed the sack of Guanajuato after the capture of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in the early stages of the Mexican War of Independence during which the unorganized and ragged troops of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla killed those taking refuge inside.

He continued his studies in Paris under René Just Haüy, Jean-Baptiste Biot, and Louis Jacques Thénard, and attended late night sessions of the Atheneum where he also began to learn German.

He visited the battlefields of Pavia and Marengo and headed towards Milan, passing through Bologna and Florence before arriving in Rome where he was present for the Feast day of St. Peter which he spent with the family of the Spanish Cardinal Bardaji.

Spain at this time through the Constitution of 1812 had granted representation to its colonies in the Spanish Cortes and Alamán was among the Mexican deputies sent to Madrid that year representing the province of Guanajuato.

[23] Alamán defended the rights of his district's mining interests and amidst ambiguous news regarding the progress of the Plan of Iguala, he also with the rest of the deputies lobbied the Spanish Cortes to establish in New Spain a more independent government.

[25] Alamán was administering his family's mining interests during which he witnessed the fall of the First Mexican Empire and the establishment of the provisional government known as the Supreme Executive Power.

He allotted funds to the dying San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, and saved from destruction the Equestrian statue of Charles IV of Spain, which still survives to this day in Mexico City.

He also hid the remains of Hernán Cortés, which were threatened by the popular anti-Spanish fury that erupted in the wake of independence[27] Alamán also successfully attracted British capital to Mexico.

Alamán was a member of the triumvirate that briefly governed Mexico in 1829 after the Plan de Jalapa with the aim of installing conservative Anastasio Bustamante as president.

Alamán helped pave the way for Santa Anna's return to power with conservative support "if he agreed to a program of cessation of political activity against the Church and security for the holders of large propertied interests.