Why go
This period helps make sense of the gap between independence and a stable republic. Mexico City’s authority was contested across distant regions, while federalists and centralists disagreed over power. Following those tensions gives Texas and Yucatán a place in the national story rather than treating them as disconnected episodes.
The full story
Agustín de Iturbide became emperor after independence, but a revolt in 1823 ended the First Mexican Empire. A republican constitution followed in 1824, and Guadalupe Victoria became the first president. The new country then faced persistent disagreement between supporters of federal government and those favoring centralized authority. Distance complicated government from Mexico City. Northern frontier communities developed under different conditions from the center, and Mexico encouraged immigration into Texas. Settlers arriving from the United States changed the region’s population. Texas declared independence in 1836, and a later border dispute led to the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848. Yucatán had its own conflicts with central power. The Maya uprising known as the Caste War began in 1847, and rebel communities maintained considerable independence for decades. These regional struggles show why the end of Spanish rule was the beginning of a difficult process of building a state.