Lucas Ignacio Alamán y Escalada (Guanajuato, New Spain, October 18, 1792 – Mexico City, Mexico, June 2, 1853) was a Mexican scientist, conservative statesman, historian, and writer. He came from an elite Guanajuato family and was well-traveled and highly educated. He was an eyewitness to the early fighting in the Mexican War of Independence when he witnessed the troops of insurgent leader Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla sack Guanajuato City, an incident that informed his already conservative and antidemocratic thought. He has been called the "arch-reactionary of the epoch...who sought to create a strong central government based on a close alliance of the army, the Catholic Church and the landed classes." He has been considered the founder of the Conservative Party. He has been compared to Metternich, and was one of the prime voices advocating for the establishment of a monarchy in Mexico. According to historian Charles A. Hale, Alamán was "undoubtedly the major political and intellectual figure of independent Mexico until his death in 1853 ... the guiding force of several administrations and an active promoter of economic development." Early life Lucas Alaman was born to a wealthy family of Guanajuato on October 18, 1792. His father was Juan Vicente Alaman and his mother was Maria Ignacia Escalada. His father had immigrated from Navarre and accumulated a fortune in mining, while his mother was member of a distinguished American-born Spanish family, and held the title of the fifth marchioness of San Clemente. Alamán's father was his mother's second husband, following the death of her first husband, Brigadier Gabriel de Arechederreta. Alamán had an older sister, María de Luz Estefanuia Anna José Ignacia Alamán y Escalada, born 1782, and an older half-brother, Juan Bautista Arechederreta. His started his schooling at the amiga, a children’s school, run by Dona Josefa Camacho, and continued his studies at the Bethlehem School where Fr. Jose de San Geronimo taught Alaman how to write. In gratitude for the education that was provided, Alaman’s father funded a renovation of its building. Alaman moved on to learn Latin and mathematics, and his father began introducing him to the management of the mining industry, a field in which the elder Alaman expected his son to work in one day. In 1808, a sixteen year old Alaman visited Mexico City where he learned French and then returned to Guanajuato where he continued to study mathematics, music, and drawing, while also