gion!”; it may also have included “Death
to the Spaniards!”
Although he was creole and had some
creole officers, Hidalgo’s was no creole
revolution, intended to replace one gov-
erning elite with another. It was a mass
uprising of the poor and oppressed, Native
Americans and mestizos, armed with
machetes, knives, stones, and sticks against
their oppressors. He led his rebel army
from town to town, opening the jails so
that prisoners could join them. Their ban-
ner was that of the Virgin of Guadalupe,
the dark-skinned amalgam of Catholic
piety and Aztec roots. Hidalgo’s army
sacked and looted the houses of the penin-
sulares, derisively called gachupines (which
roughly translates as “blockheads”) in
Mexico, and sometimes killed even those
who surrendered. Vowing to provide for
“the liberty of the nation and the rights
which the God of nature granted to all
men,” Hidalgo ordered an end to slavery,
an end to the system of exacting tributes
from Native Americans, and restitution of
lands to Native American communities.
Hidalgo’s revolution was frenzied and
chaotic, and in the end its chaos destroyed
it. Though he had a fair opportunity to
capture Mexico City, he turned aside and
set up his headquarters in Guadalajara
instead. In a climactic battle near the
bridge of Calderón in January 1811, his
disorganized army was routed by a much
smaller but more disciplined and better
equipped royal force. Captured and found
guilty of heresy and treason, Hidalgo was
executed. Mexicans still consider him the
father of their nation.
The independence movement did not
die but continued under another parish
priest, José María Morelos y Pavón
(1765–1815), a mestizo lieutenant of
Hidalgo’s. Relying largely on guerrilla tac-
tics, he gained control of a wide territory
on either side of Mexico City, capturing
Acapulco in 1813. That year he convoked
the Congress of Chilpancingo, which
issued Mexico’s first formal declaration of
independence and published a constitu-
tion, one that would have made Mexico a
republic and abolished all class distinctions
had it been implemented. Instead, starting
in 1813, royalist forces rolled back
Morelos’s conquests. When they finally
captured him in 1815, he too was convict-
ed of heresy and executed.
The guerrilla chief Vicente Guerrero
continued to carry out raids, but asidefrom such attacks the independence
movement seemed all but dead. Then, in
1820, events overseas tipped the balance.
Revolution in Spain restored the liberal
constitution that Ferdinand VII had
revoked, potentially threatening the priv-
ileges of Mexico’s ruling elite. Though
formerly hostile to the cause of inde-
pendence, Mexico’s conservative leaders
now embraced it as, ironically, the best
way to preserve the status quo. In 1821,
their representative, Colonel Agustín de
Iturbide (1783–1824), met with Guerrero
and agreed to fight jointly against Spanish
authority, under the terms of the Plan of
Iguala, which outlined three guarantees:
Mexican independence as a constitu-
tional monarchy; establishment of Cath-
olicism as the state religion; and full
equality under the law, without respect
to race. It also promised no interference
with property rights. By appealing to
both conservatives and liberals, the plan
broke remaining Mexican support for
Spanish rule; most military units changed
sides, and the last appointed viceroy, Juan
O’Donojú, realized that his position was
no longer tenable. In the Treaty of
Córdoba, signed August 24, 1821, the
viceroy recognized Mexico’s independ-
ence. After 300 years, New Spain had
ceased to exist.74 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
Augustín de Iturbide (Library of
Congress)Father Miguel Hidalgo (Library of Congress)