Signals in time: The optical telegraphy project of Bonifacio de Tosta of the route by Xalapa of the Camino Real de Veracruz, 1811-1820

Abstract

This article discusses the viceregal government’s attempts to install an optical telegraph line on the Xalapa-Veracruz route as part of the defense structure of the Camino Real. It describes the project of Commander Ciriaco del Llano, which was proposed in the first phase of the uprising; and particularly, that of sailor Bonifacio de Tosta, as far as is known, the only one of its kind in continental Spanish America, an almost unknown episode in the War of Independence and the history of telecommunications in Mexico, as well as an invaluable testimony to a technology now forgotten.