Mexican nobility

The Mexica, Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Purépecha, Tlaxcaltec, and many other Indigenous peoples of present-day Mexico developed strong hierarchical societies based on hereditary privileges and obligations which were passed down to individuals in regards to the historical roles played by their ancestors in politics, war and religion.

[citation needed] When the Spanish first arrived in present-day Mexico (1518), indigenous rulers and nobles headed the defense of their territories against the invaders, soon after signing peace treaties and alliances to ensure the survival of their people.

[citation needed] While numerous indigenous families and individuals were recognized as nobles by the Crown of Castile, certain populations who were specially active in the conquest and colonization of what was later known as the New Spain were also distinguished with collective nobility, this included the Tlaxcalan and Quauhquecholan peoples, who collectively gained the condition of hidalgos, a privilege that had only been received by the Basque people of the Iberian Peninsula.

In addition to the titles and other privileges the King Charles I of Spain (also Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire) offered the descendants of Emperor Moctezuma II a compensation of five-hundred ducats to be paid every year in perpetuity for the use by the capital city of water sources and lumber in their private estate in Mexico City.

[8] The Spanish conquest of present-day Mexico brought with it the implementation of its political, religious, economical and social system, which included the legal division of society between nobles and plebeians ("sociedad estamental", see Estates of the realm), a system which subsisted during the entirety of Spanish rule (in present-day Spain the distinction was only abolished at the second half of the 19th century).

[9] In this process, the conquistadors, founders, first settlers, and all their male but also female descendants, received recognition of the same noble condition as their European and indigenous counterparts ("hijosdalgo y personas nobles de linaje y solar conoçido"),[9] forming a diverse and multicultural elite that has been known to historians as "Nobleza de Indias", or "Nobility of the Indies".

Nobles from both ethnic extractions shared territorial, political and military power, and participated together in religious and public ceremonies, nevertheless, marriages between both groups where rare after the 16th century, with both units responding to different interests and unique set of traditions.

Initially, members of the provincial nobility such as Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, and others, were amongst the first to form an insurrection against the Napoleonic control over Spain and its Empire.

The independence of the Mexican Empire from Spain happened as an emancipation of powers with a continuity of the precedent political, social, economical and religious system.

The first treaty of independence, known as the Treaty of Córdoba, proposed the transferral of King Ferdinand VII of Spain from Europe to Mexico (with the title of Emperor of Mexico), emulating the transferral of Don Pedro IV of Portugal to Brazil a few months before, due to the rise of liberalism in the Iberian Peninsula.

The King however, never embarked for Mexico, for which a regency was appointed, and after a social uprising, a new Emperor was sought and later proclaimed in the figure of Agustín de Iturbide.

The new Emperor recognized all pre-existing titles of nobility, as well as nobiliary conditions prescribed under Spanish law, and only granted a few princely dignities to members of his family (including his children and his father, who was proclaimed Prince of the Union), as well as three other titles of nobility, all of which were ratified by the Congress, such as that of Marqués de Samaniego del Castillo (which was already under application with the Spanish Crown).

The headship of the house passed then to his eldest son Don Agustín Jerónimo de Iturbide, who had been proclaimed Prince Imperial by the Mexican Congress of 1822.

[13] In 1865, one year after the proclamation of the Second Mexican Empire under the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (see below), Don Agustín (son of Agustín Jerónimo), Don Salvador, and Doña Josefa de Iturbide were proclaimed Princes of Iturbide with the treatment of Highness, ranking just below the new Imperial Family, and put under the tutelage of the new Emperor (never adopted, contrary to popular belief).

During the Porfiriato, Agustín, Prince of Iturbide, Agustin I's grandson and Maximilian I's adopted son, who had graduated from Georgetown University, renounced his claim to the throne and title.

But in 1890, after publishing articles critical of President Porfirio Díaz, he was arrested on charges of sedition and sentenced to fourteen months of imprisonment.

After having lost more than half of its territory to the United States of America, and facing excruciating financial debt, some believed the restoration of a stable monarchy was the best option forward for the restitution of order in a country devoured by its irreconcilable differences.

The quest of restitution of the monarchy had begun long before, ever since the deposition of Emperor Agustín I by General Antonio López de Santa Anna (styled His Serene Highness by the Mexican Congress), who preferred, as many others the candidacy of a Bourbon or Habsburg prince (for their historical relation with the Spanish Empire), instead of that of a local provincial hidalgo.

He invited liberal politicians to his government and his court, and often gave them membership in the Imperial Orders, as well as appointing their consorts as ladies-in-waiting to the Empress.

Throughout the 19th century several Mexican individuals and their descendants received titles of nobility from foreign nations, including the Vatican, the Kingdom of Spain, and others.

[18] Princess Maria Beatrice of Savoy, daughter of the last King of Italy, Umberto II, also settled in Mexico after the fall of the Italian monarchy, having married Argentinian diplomat Luis Reyna-Corvallán in Ciudad Juárez.

[19] French-born Mexican author Elena Poniatowska (nicknamed The Red Princess) is the daughter of Prince Jean-Joseph Poniatowski and Mexican-born María Dolores Amor e Yturbe, herself a cousin of Carlos de Beistegui.