He was born in Navarra, Spain in 1789. He studied law at the University of Pamplona, but dropped out to fight Napoleon's invading French forces.
He was taken prisoner in 1808, during his imprisonment he studied military tactics and mathematics. When Fernando VII returns to the throne of Spain, Mina leads a revolt to reestablish the deposed Cadiz Constitution of 1812. He is persecuted and flees to France and England where he meets Fray Servando Teresa de Mier who convinces him to organize an expedition to fight against the king from New Spain.
With the help of some financiers, he gathered three ships, weapons and money and set sail in May 1816. He disembarks in Norfolk (United States) where a hundred more men join his troops. He went to the English Antilles, Galveston and New Orleans and finally landed in Soto la Marina (Tamaulipas), in 1817.
He goes into Mexico, crosses the River Thames and has his first victory over the royalists at the Peotillos farm (San Luis Potosí). It takes Real de Pinos (Zacatecas) and arrives at the Hat Fort (Guanajuato) that was in the power of the insurgents. In Soto la Marina their ships were sunk by the enemy and the members of the garrison sent to the prisons of San Carlos, in Perote and San Juan de Ulúa, both in Veracruz.
Mina continues her successful campaigns until Viceroy Apodaca besieges Fort del Sombrero. When Mina goes out to look for provisions, he is captured in the nearby Rancho del Venadito and taken to the royalist camp where he is executed "from behind, as a traitor" in December 1817.
