Lucas Ygnacio José Joaquín Pedro de Alcántar Juan Bautista Francisco de Paula de Alamán y Escalada (Guanajuato, New Spain, 18 October 1792 – Mexico City, Mexico, 2 June 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 Klemens von 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."

Lucas Alamán was born to a wealthy family of Guanajuato on October 18, 1792. His father was Juan Vicente Alamán 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.

He studied 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 Alamán how to write. In gratitude for the education that was provided, Alamán's father funded a renovation of its building.

Alamán 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 Alamán expected his son to work in one day. In 1808, a sixteen year old Alamán visited Mexico City where he learned French and then returned to Guanajuato where he continued to study mathematics, music, and drawing, while also reading the Latin classics. The Alamán family was wealthy and socially prominent through Alamán's early youth, but mining was an uncertain and volatile industry, and his father eventually suffered financial losses and died when Alamán was sixteen.

It was at this time that Alamán would witness decisive historical events that would forever change the future of Mexico. In 1808, the Spanish king Ferdinand VII was deposed by Napoleon who replaced him with his brother Joseph Bonaparte, sparking a constitutional crisis throughout the Spanish Empire, as rejection of the new king was almost universal. The government of New Spain chose to remain loyal to the imprisoned Ferdinand, but an uprising against the Spanish was triggered by the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on September 16, 1810, a date which would eventually be commemorated as the Mexican Independence Day

He witnessed the sack of Guanajuato after the capture of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in the early stages of the Mexican War of Independence during which the unorganized and ragged troops of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla killed those taking refuge inside. Alamán fled with his family to Mexico City in December, 1810. At Mexico City he continued his studies in mining. He studied chemistry, mineralogy, calculus, and crystallography. It was amidst his discussions with the well travelled faculty that he also began to desire to travel to Europe where he wished to perfect his French and learn Italian and English.