Manuel Abad y Queipo

Manuel Abad y Queipo (26 August 1751 – 15 September 1825) was a Spanish Roman Catholic Bishop of Michoacán in the Viceroyalty of New Spain at the time of the Mexican War of Independence.

[1] Manuel Abad y Queipo was born out of wedlock to an Asturian nobleman on 26 August 1751 in Santa Maria de Villarpedre.

Beginning in 1784 he resided in Valladolid (now Morelia), where Bishop Antonio San Miguel made him a judge in a canon law court.

[citation needed] In 1807, he traveled to Spain to seek his habilitation, since his status as a child born out of wedlock prohibited his promotion to the higher levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

[7] He critiqued economic inequality in New Spain, "in America there is no graduation or middle ground: everyone is either rich or poverty stricken, noble or infamous" leading to conflict.

[citation needed] His writings critiquing society in New Spain influenced Alexander von Humboldt, who spent a year in the viceroyalty 1803–04.

[10] Humboldt's Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain was one of his first publications from his five-year sojourn to Spanish America and drew heavily on Abad's memorials.

Their multiple languages, ties to their home communities, collective land tenure which the crown had protected now were their chains preventing individual advancement.

[12] Although Abad y Queipo deplored the situation of the Indians, he did not blame them for it, viewing it not due to inherent racial or character flaws but to crown protectionism.

[15] The increasing alienation of criollos from the Spanish crown flared into open rebellion in 1810 with the revolt of secular priest Miguel Hidalgo.

With the outbreak of violence led by Hidalgo in September 1810, Abad y Queipo himself came under suspicion and was denounced to the Inquisition by Fermín Peñalosa y Antón for his being "delinquent in matters of faith".

[citation needed] On 24 September 1810, Abad y Queipo published the decree excommunicating insurgents Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama, and Mariano Abasolo.

[21] In 1815 Abad y Queipo sent another report to the king (Ferdinand VII now), denouncing the mistakes of Viceroy Félix María Calleja and the lack of prudence of Lardizábal, minister of the Indies.

[25] Many of his writings were published in Semanario Político y Literario (Political and Literary Seminar) and in Observador de la República Mexicana (Observer of the Mexican Republic), the newspaper that José María Luis Mora edited.