Antonio Ochoa Carrillo papers and Benito Juárez correspondence

The papers of Antonio Ochoa Carrillo, 1852-1871, with letters that provide extensive information about the European Intervention in Mexico and limited documentation related to the Reform War in Mexico. Includes 56 letters from Mexican president Benito Juárez, as well as 12 letters from others, including future Mexican presidents Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada and José María Iglesias, as well as Mexican General Ramón Corona. The collection also includes five draft letters written by Ochoa.

Letters by Juárez offer accounts of the political, military, and financial conflicts, from the flight of the government into exile in 1863 through the defeat of Maximilian and the Mexican Empire in 1867. They document his part of a weekly correspondence with Ochoa Carrillo, sharing news of troop movements, battles, political maneuvers, and foreign diplomacy.

Printed material includes three printed circulars published in July-August 1859 by Manuel F. Ruiz, the Minister of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction, Santos Degollado, Commander in Chief of the Federal Army; and Melchor Ocampo, Minister of the Interior, as well as a supplement of the Del Siglo XIX newspaper, which prints a letter from Juarez to the citizens of Mexico after the invasion by the French Army.

Most letters are accompanied by typescripts created by a former unidentified owner of the Spanish text, as well as English translations. However, many of these contain transcription and translation errors.