On September 15th, Mexico will celebrate “Conmemoracion de la Proclamacion de la Independencia.”  This is a celebration of the end of the Mexican War of Independence and their freedom from Spain.  Throughout the country, at 11 pm, there is a communal shout “El Grito” in memory of Padre Hidalgo’s cry of independence from the Spanish in the town of Dolores.

Miguel Hidalgo had the unique distinction of being a father in three senses of the word: a priestly father in the Roman Catholic Church, a biological father who produced illegitimate children in defiance of his clerical vows, and the father of his country. Though Guadalupe Victoria was, like Washington, his country’s first president, Hidalgo was, like Washington, the man who launched a colonial independence struggle against a European mother country that had become excessively oppressive.

Miguel Hidalgo

The Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821) was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on September 16,1810. The Mexican War of Independence movement was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought independence from Spain. It started as an idealistic peasants’ rebellion against their colonial masters.

Miguel Hidalgo declared war against the colonial government on the late night of  September 15, 1810, in what has become known as the “Grito de Delores”. On the dawn of  September 16, the revolutionary army decided to strike for independence and marched on to Guanajuato, a major colonial mining center governed by Spaniards and criollos. There the leading citizens barricaded themselves in the granary. The rebel army captured the granary on  September 28, and most of the Spaniards and criollos were massacred or exiled.

On  October 30, 1810, Hidalgo’s army encountered Spanish resistance at the battle of Monte de las Cruces, fought them and achieved victory. However, the rebel army failed to defeat the large and heavily armed Spanish army in Mexico City. Rebel survivors of the battle sought refuge in nearby provinces and villages. The insurgent forces planned a defensive strategy at a bridge on the Calderon River, pursued by the Spanish army.

In January 1811, Spanish forces fought the Battle of the Bridge of Calderon and defeated the insurgent army, forcing the rebels to flee towards the United States-Mexican border , where they hoped to escape. However, they were intercepted by the Spanish army and Hidalgo and his remaining soldiers were captured in the state of Jalisco, in the region known as “Los Altos”.  He faced court trial of the Inquisition and was found guilty of treason.   He was executed by firing squad in Chihuahua on July 30, 1811.  His body was mutilated and his head was displayed in Guanajuato as a warning to Mexican rebels.

Following the death of  Hidalgo, the leadership of the revolutionary army was assumed by Hosea Maria Morelos.  Under his leadership the cities of Acapulco and Oaxaca were occupied.  In  1813 the Congress of Chilpancingo was convened and November 6 of that year the congress signed the first official document of independence, known as the Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America.

This was followed by a long period of war at the Siege of Cuautla.  In 1815, Morelos was captured by Spanish colonial authorities, tried and executed for treason in San Cristobal Ecatepec on December 22.

From 1815 to 1821, most of the fighting by those seeking independence from Spain was done by isolated guerrilla bands. Out of these bands rose two men, Guadalupe Victoria (whose real name was Manuel Félix Fernández) in Puebla and Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca, both of whom were able to command allegiance and respect from their followers. The Spanish viceroy, however, felt the situation was under control and issued a general pardon to every rebel who would lay down his arms.

After ten years of civil war and the death of two of its founders, by early 1820 the independence movement was stalemated and close to collapse. The rebels faced stiff Spanish military resistance and the apathy of many of the most influential criollos. The violent excesses and populist zeal of Hidalgo’s and Morelos’s irregular armies had reinforced many criollos’ (A Spanish American of European Spanish descent) fears of race and class warfare, ensuring their grudging acquiescence to conservative Spanish rule until a less bloody path to independence could be found. It was at this juncture that the machinations of a conservative military caudillo coinciding with a successful liberal rebellion in Spain, made possible a radical realignment of the pro-independence forces.

In what was supposed to be the final government campaign against the insurgents, in December 1820, Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca sent a force led by a royalist criollo officer, Augustin de Iturbide, to defeat Guerrero’s army in Oaxaca. Iturbide, a native of Valladolid, had gained renown for the zeal with which he persecuted Hidalgo’s and Morelos’s rebels during the early independence struggle. A favorite of the Mexican church hierarchy, Iturbide was the personification of conservative criollo values, devoutly religious, and committed to the defense of property rights and social privileges; he was also disgruntled at his lack of promotion and wealth.

Iturbide’s assignment to the Oaxaca expedition coincided with a successful military coup in Spain against the new monarchy of Ferdinand VII. The coup leaders, who had been assembled as an expeditionary force to suppress the American independence movements, compelled a reluctant Ferdinand to sign the liberal Spanish constitution of 1812. When news of the liberal charter reached Mexico, Iturbide saw in it both a threat to the status quo and an opportunity for the criollos to gain control of Mexico. Ironically, independence was finally achieved when conservative forces in the colonies chose to rise up against a temporarily liberal regime in the mother country. After an initial clash with Guerrero’s forces, Iturbide switched allegiances and invited the rebel leader to meet and discuss principles of a renewed independence struggle.

While stationed in the town of Iguala, Iturbide proclaimed three principles, or “guarantees,” for Mexican independence from Spain.  Mexico would be an independent monarchy governed by a transplanted King Ferdinand or some other conservative European prince, criollos and peninsulares would henceforth enjoy equal rights and privileges, and the Roman Catholic church would retain its privileges and religious monopoly. After convincing his troops to accept the principles, which were promulgated on February 24, 1821, as the Plan or Iguala, Iturbide persuaded Guerrero to join his forces in support of the new conservative manifestation of the independence movement. A new army, the “Army of the Three Guarantees“, was then placed under Iturbide’s command to enforce the Plan of Iguala. The plan was so broadly based that it pleased both patriots and loyalists. The goal of independence and the protection of Roman Catholicism brought together all factions.

Augustine Iturbide

Iturbide’s army was joined by rebel forces from all over Mexico. When the rebels’ victory became certain, the viceroy resigned. On September 27, 1821, representatives of the Spanish crown and Iturbide signed the “Treaty of Cordoba” which recognized Mexican independence under the terms of the Plan of Iguala.   Iturbide, a former royalist who had become the paladin for Mexican independence, included a special clause in the treaty that left open the possibility for a criollo monarch to be appointed by a Mexican congress if no suitable member of the European royalty would accept the Mexican crown.
Iturbide became emperor in the  First Mexican Empire.

This article is a compilation of information obtained from various sources, and was written by: Cancunsuz