MEXICO’S ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE 175
solution that would have retained ties with Spain
but granted New Spain and the other American
“kingdoms” autonomy within the empire. The
Spanish majority in the Cortes rejected the pro-
posal and sealed the doom of the empire.
The radical reforms that the Cortes adopted
in 1820, including the abolition of the ecclesiasti-
cal and military fueros, antagonized conservative
landlords, clergy, army offi cers, and merchants,
whether creole or peninsular. Fearing the loss of
privileges, they schemed to separate Mexico from
the mother country and to establish independence
under conservative auspices. Their instrument
was the creole offi cer Agustín de Iturbide, who
had waged implacable war against the insur-
gents. Iturbide offered peace and reconciliation to
the principal rebel leader, Vicente Guerrero. His
plan combined independence, monarchy, the su-
premacy of the Roman Catholic Church, and the
civil equality of creoles and peninsulars. Guerrero
was a sincere liberal and republican, Iturbide an
unprincipled opportunist who dreamed of placing
a crown on his own head. But for the moment Itur-
bide’s program offered advantages to both sides,
and Guerrero reluctantly accepted it. The united
forces of Iturbide and Guerrero swiftly overcame
scattered loyalist resistance. On September 28,
1821, Iturbide proclaimed Mexican independence,
and eight months later, an elected congress sum-
moned by Iturbide confi rmed him as Agustín I, em-
peror of Mexico.
Despite its tinsel splendor, Iturbide’s empire
had no popular base. Within a few months, Agustín
I had to abdicate, with a warning never to return.
Hoping for a comeback, Iturbide returned from
England in 1824 and landed on the coast with a
small party. He was promptly captured by troops of
the new republican regime and shot.
The liberation of Mexico brought the struggle
for Latin American independence to a successful
conclusion. The story of that struggle would not
be complete without mention of the contribution
made by Latin American women to its outcome.
A Mexican heroine is Doña Josefa Ortiz de Domín-
guez, wife of the creole corregidor of Querétaro, the
courageous woman who warned Miguel Hidalgo
and other conspirators of their impending arrest
by Spanish authorities and thereby saved the revo-
lution from destruction before it had even begun.
The lands freed under Simón Bolívar’s leadership
remember his bright and saucy mistress, Manuela
Saenz, who left her prosy British husband to join
the Liberator and saved him from death at the
hands of assassins. “That she shared his thoughts,
consoled him, and encouraged him to fi ght for his
beliefs cannot be denied,” writes Harold Bierck.
“In many respects she was, as many called her, La
Libertadora.”
In every part of Latin America, women, often
drawn from the middle and lower classes, took
part in the armed struggle. Bolívar praised the
“Amazons” of Gran Colombia; among them was
the heroic Policarpa Salvarrieta, who was only
twenty-three when the Spaniards executed her for
aiding the revolution. In Brazil, María Quiteira deThe illegitimate daughter of a Spanish aristocrat,
Manuela Saenz was expelled from a Catholic
convent and later became a fi erce proponent of
political independence and women’s rights. During
the struggle for independence, she met and fell
in love with Simón Bolívar, whose life she saved
in 1828. [Photo courtesy of Gregory Kauff man, author of
Manuela, published by RLN & Company, Seattle]