Known for his battlefield heroics during the late 1840s United States Invasion of Mexico, he is also remembered as Mexico's eleventh President. He assumed the presidency in 1839 and was again in power in 1846 and from 1842 to 1843.
During the second decade of the Nineteenth century, he fought with legendary soldier Hermenegildo Galeana in the Mexican War of Independence.
In 1822, he became Regent of the Mexican Empire; from 1824 to 1827, he served as Vice President of Mexico.
He and his wife died in Guerrero, Mexico on the same day, a circumstance that led to rumors of their poisoning.
During the 1847 Battle of Chapultepec, he became an American prisoner-of-war after being captured by a United States army that included, in its lower ranks, Future American Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
