Melchor Ocampo, was born in Pateo, Michoacán in 1814.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Seminario de Morelia and a law degree from the University of Mexico. At the age of 26, he traveled through Europe and returned to dedicate himself to politics. He assumed the government of Michoacán and organized a military contingent to resist the Americans in 1848.
Banished by Santa Anna, he lives in New Orleans where he meets Benito Juárez. He returned to Mexico in 1854 at the triumph of the Ayutla Plan to serve as Minister of Foreign Relations.
In 1856, as President of Congress, he was part of the commission to draft a new constitution. When Juárez assumed the presidency, he carried out the Ministry of Relations, among others, signing the infamous Mac Lane-Ocampo Treaty that allowed North Americans free transit in perpetuity through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in exchange for financial support for the Juarista cause. This treaty was never ratified by the United States Congress thanks in part to the cunning of Juárez.
He retires to his farm Pomoca where he is arrested by a group of conservatives under the command of Félix Zuloaga and Leonardo Marquéz. Without any trial he is shot in May 1861 and his body is hung from a tree.
