Vicente Riva Palacio

Vicente Riva Palacio (1832–1896) was a general, a state governor, a supreme court justice, a cabinet minister and a diplomat, and a writer through all of it. Born in Mexico City, he was the grandson of Vicente Guerrero, the independence hero who became president of Mexico.

He fought against the French intervention, and in 1865 he was made a general and given command of the Republican Army of the Center, which he later led at the siege of Querétaro. He governed the State of Mexico in 1863 and Michoacán from 1865 to 1867. Later he sat on the supreme court and served as minister of development from 1876 to 1880. From 1886 he represented Mexico in Spain and Portugal.

He wrote about the country’s past in more than one form. He was the author of El virreinato, the volume on the viceroyalty in the five-volume history México a través de los siglos. With Juan de Dios Peza he published Tradiciones y leyendas mexicanas in 1885. He died in Madrid in November 1896, and his Cuentos del general came out there the same year.