VICTORIA, GUADALUPE

original name Manuel Flix Fernndez born 1786, Tamazuela, Mex. died 1843, Perote Mexican soldier and political leader who was the first president of the Mexican Republic. Victoria left law school to join the movement for independence from Spain, fighting under Jos Mara Morelos in 1812. He changed his name to show his devotion to the cause of Mexican independence (the image of the Virgin of Guadelupe, the patron saint of Mexico, had been adopted as a symbol of the insurgency). After the death of Morelos, Victoria waged guerrilla war against the Spaniards from the mountains around Veracruz and Puebla. When Agustn de Iturbide came to power (1821), Victoria at first supported him, but by 1822, as Iturbide arrested all political opponents and dissolved the legislature, Victoria denounced him and joined Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna's successful revolt in 1823. Victoria became Mexico's first elected president (182429), but, while honest, unassuming, and a courageous general, he was not particularly suited for the presidency. The inexperienced administrator was not able to deal effectively with the constant political bickering and Byzantine machinations of government rivals, often being taken advantage of by those he trusted. It is small wonder that little progress was made domestically and the economy was in a shambles. During Victoria's tenure in office, Iturbide was executed. In foreign affairs, Victoria managed much better and established relations with all the major powers. The bitterest blow of his term came in 1827 when his vice president, Nicols Bravo, led a revolt against Victoria. It was easily suppressed by his comrades from revolutionary times, Generals Santa Anna and Vicente Guerrero. History The Aborigines The Aborigines had been living in Victoria for at least 40,000 years before white contact. They arrived from the north and settled along the coast and around large western rivers and freshwater lakes. Between 15,000 and 17,500 years ago the climate changed drastically: the mountains lost permanent ice and snow, and some rivers and lakes dried up. The land bridge to Tasmania was flooded some 13,500 to 8,000 years ago. Aboriginal hunter-gatherer society as it was at the time of white settlement emerged about 5,000 years ago. On contact there were three main Aboriginal groups in Victoria: the Kurnai of Gippsland, the Yotayota of the eastern Murray, and the Kulin of the Central Divide. These groups were subdivided into about 34 distinct tribes, each with its own territory, customs, laws, language, and beliefs. The basic unit was an extended family of 50100 members. The Aborigines exploited the land efficiently by firestick farming: the use of fire to regulate and maintain their plant and animal food sources. They had a range of specialized tools and weapons, and, while groups did not wander far from their own territory, they occasionally met in large gatherings for gift giving, bartering, and religious ceremonies. A sophisticated religious culture had developed based on an intimate relationship with the land and the elements. According to Sylvia Hallam, A rich fabric of life mattered more than numbers or objects: knowledge and control of ritual lore and ecological lore, not possessions, were the basis of respect and status in Aboriginal societies. There is debate over the two types of Aborigines who inhabited Victoria: both were homo sapiens, but skeletons discovered in Kow Swamp in the Murray River valley are deemed more archaic. The work of the economic historian Noel George Butlin suggests that the accepted Aboriginal population of Victoria in 1788 (15,00020,000) could be increased to about 100,000, given the richness of the land. It also appears that at the time of the first European penetration into Victoria in the 1820s, Victorian Aborigines had already been decimated by European diseases, particularly smallpox, measles, and venereal diseases, which had spread overland from Botany Bay during the preceding 30 years. European exploration and settlement European Victoria was founded by groups of pastoral pioneers who crossed Bass Strait from Van Diemen's Land in the 1830s in search of fertile grazing land. The occupation of the area was made in defiance of a British government edict forbidding settlement in the territory, which was then part of the colony of New South Wales. In November 1834 the Henty family landed stock and stores at Portland, on the south coast, and in 1835 John Batman landed at Port Phillip. Batman's venture led the way to the pastoral occupation of Victoria. In the same year John Pascoe Fawkner established a colony on the banks of the Yarra River. From Batman's colony grew Victoria's capital city, Melbourne. Exploration by sea and land had preceded white settlement. Captain James Cook made the first recorded sighting of the Victorian coast at Point Hicks in 1770. George Bass (1798), James Grant (180102), John Murray (1802), and Matthew Flinders (1802) explored and charted Victorian waters and penetrated Western Port, Portland, and Port Phillip bays. In the 1820s and '30s overland expeditions from New South Wales had opened up the hinterland. Hamilton Hume and William Hilton Hovell struck south and reached the coast of Port Phillip in 1824; Charles Sturt plotted the full reach of the Murray in 1829; Major Thomas Livingstone Mitchell crossed the central and western plains in 1836; several parties penetrated the mountainous Gippsland district by 1840. Early attempts to establish convict settlements near Sorrento in 1803 and on Western Port in 1826 failed. But the Port Phillip settlement flourished. In December 1836 Captain William Lonsdale was appointed first resident magistrate. Lacking domestic animals, cultivation, technology, and an apparent receptivity to Christianity, the Aborigines suffered the full blast of European expansion. From 1830 to the mid-1840s brutal frontier guerrilla war was waged. Massacres such as that by the White brothers at Koonungwootang in the Western Districtwhere only one member of a group that included men, women, and children escaped slaughterwere not uncommon. By 1850 there were barely 3,500 Aborigines left in the colony. From 1837 mission stations were established, but they were largely unsuccessful, as was the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate established under George Augustus Robinson in 1839. In 1862 some of the broken remnants of the Aboriginal population were gathered on reserves, but most of these were eventually usurped for European farming and their inhabitants dispersed. In 1886 the Aboriginals Protection Act defined categories of Aborigines and forced mixed-bloods off the reserves. By 1917 all full-blooded Aborigines were concentrated on the mission stations, against their will, and children were separated from their parents and placed in children's homes or with white families. After the 1840s Victoria became a prosperous pastoral community, as squatters extended their grazing runs. The population rose rapidly, as British migrants arrived and more settlers crossed from Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania in 1856) or drove their flocks and herds south from New South Wales. By 1850 Victoria had 76,000 people and 6,000,000 sheep. Melbourne (pop. 23,000), Geelong, and Portland were its main urban centres.