The Burgos Enigma
Fr. Jose Burgos (1837-1872) P erhaps, it was his "kastila" features, his creole background, and not counting even his intellectual gifts, that led to his undoing. Spain of 19th Century mistrusted so much her sons born in the colonies. The experience Spain had in the Americas, with this great wave of new thinking brought by the Enlightenment which resulted to revolution and subsequent ind ependence of many of her colonies, had made her weary if not too cautious of this criollos and mestizos, that sector she at first relied so much on spreading "Pax Hispanica". With Burgos, Spain saw the events in Mexico reverberating. Burgos was another potential Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the Mexican clergy who led the "Grito de Dolores' -the Mexican Cry of Independence and like Fr. Hidalgo, Burgos championed the cause of the native clergy. The pamphlets and writings Burgos spread were like papers for bonfires that potentially could burn the colonial authoriti