Guadalupe Victoria - Mexico’s first President
Guadalupe Victoria was born in 1786 in Tamazula, Durango. Though little is known about his origins and early life, he was teaching school at the time the Independence War began. He took part in the attack on Oaxaca on November 25, 1812. In 1814, on orders from the Chilpancingo Congress that declared Mexico's independence, he assumed the leadership of the rebel movement in Veracruz. After being defeated at Palmillas in 1817 he was forced to go into hiding.
Victoria reappeared in April 1821, two months after the Plan de Iguala that called for Mexico to become an independent constitutional monarchy. He urged that Mexico be led by a revolutionary leader who would serve as president rather than by a king or emperor. This greatly displeased Iturbide, When Iturbide was forced to abdicate, Victoria arranged his passage into exile. Though Mexico was now independent, a Spanish army remained at the Fort of San Juan de Ulua in Veracruz harbor. Victoria organized resistance and then negotiated an armistice so that the soldiers in the garrison could be sent back to Spain. 
 After Iturbide's fall, Victoria, Nicolás Bravo and Pedro Celestino Negrete formed a triumvirate that held temporary executive power until October 1824, when Victoria took office as Mexico's first president.
 Victoria's main distinction as president was that of being the only chief executive in the first fifty years of Mexico's history to serve out his full term. But he was hampered by severe financial problems. His expenses averaged eighteen million pesos annually but he was only collecting half that amount in revenues.
 So Victoria was forced to seek foreign aid -- in this case from Britain. These loans avoided bankruptcy and contributed toward social peace, factors that undoubtedly enabled Victoria to serve out his full term. At the same time, they turned Mexico into an economic satellite of the British empire.
 Despite these financial problems, there were some highly positive aspects to Victoria's administration. Two of the first president's most positive achievements were establishment of the National Treasury and abolition of slavery. In addition, he improved education, accorded amnesty to political prisoners, laid plans for a canal in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, opened new ports for shipping, began construction on the National Museum, and unmasked a conspiracy led by a monk named Joaquin Arenas to restore Spanish rule.
 During Victoria's reign there was a political struggle that was remarkably similar to that waged in the American colonies between supporters of independence and Tories, or, as they preferred to be called, Loyalists. Independence-minded Mexicans were continually accusing rightists of subversive activity aimed toward restoration of Spanish rule. 
 Victoria was only forty-two when he finished his term of office. But years of strenuous military campaigning and political activity had taken their toll. Withdrawing from public life, he retired to his estate at El Jobo, on the coast of Veracruz. There he died in 1843, at the age of fifty-seven.
Tuck, Jim. PRESIDENTE DESCONOCIDO: MEXICO'S UNKNOWN FIRST PRESIDENT GUADALUPE VICTORIA. http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/jtuck/jtfirstpres.html