Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821): From Dolores to Freedom

The Mexican War of Independence was the eleven-year struggle, from 1810 to 1821, that ended three centuries of Spanish rule in New Spain and created the independent state of Mexico. It began with the Grito de Dolores, the call to revolt made by the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on 16 September 1810, and ended when a coalition of former royalists and insurgents led by Agustín de Iturbide entered Mexico City in September 1821.

Background: a divided colony

In 1810 New Spain was the richest part of the Spanish Empire, famous for its silver mines. It had about six million inhabitants. Power and the best offices were held mainly by peninsulares, Spaniards born in Europe. American-born Spaniards, called criollos, were often wealthy but resented being passed over. Below them were mestizos of mixed ancestry, a large Indigenous majority, and smaller numbers of people of African descent, many of whom suffered heavy tribute, poverty and periodic famine.

The trigger for revolt came from Europe. In 1808 Napoleon’s armies occupied Spain and forced King Ferdinand VII to abdicate in favour of Napoleon’s brother Joseph, beginning the Peninsular War. With the legitimate king a prisoner, people across Spanish America debated who held authority in his absence. In Mexico City, peninsulares overthrew Viceroy José de Iturrigaray in September 1808, fearing he would favour criollo self-rule.

Criollos began meeting in secret circles to plan a takeover. One of these, in the city of Querétaro, included the army officers Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldama and the parish priest of nearby Dolores, Miguel Hidalgo.

The Grito de Dolores

The Querétaro conspiracy was discovered in September 1810. Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, wife of the town’s magistrate, managed to warn the plotters. Rather than flee, Hidalgo decided to act at once. Early on the morning of 16 September 1810 he rang the church bell in Dolores and addressed his parishioners, calling on them to rise against the colonial government.

No exact record of his words survives. Accounts agree that he invoked the Virgin of Guadalupe, attacked bad government and the peninsulares, and professed loyalty to Ferdinand VII. Taking a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe from a church at Atotonilco, Hidalgo led a growing crowd of farm workers, miners and Indigenous villagers through the Bajío region.

Hidalgo’s campaign

The movement grew with astonishing speed, reaching tens of thousands of poorly armed followers within weeks. On 28 September 1810 the insurgents stormed the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, a fortified granary in the mining city of Guanajuato where Spaniards and their families had taken refuge. Most of the defenders were killed, and the city was looted. The violence horrified many criollos, who had wanted reform, not social upheaval, and pushed them towards the royalists.

On 30 October 1810 Hidalgo’s army defeated royalist troops at Monte de las Cruces, within reach of Mexico City, but he withdrew rather than attack the capital, a decision still debated. Royalist forces under General Félix María Calleja defeated the insurgents at Aculco in November. In Guadalajara Hidalgo decreed the abolition of slavery and of Indigenous tribute, but on 17 January 1811 Calleja crushed his much larger army at the Bridge of Calderón.

Hidalgo, Allende and other leaders fled north and were captured in March 1811 at Acatita de Baján. Hidalgo was executed by firing squad in Chihuahua on 30 July 1811. The heads of Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama and Mariano Jiménez were hung from the corners of the Alhóndiga in Guanajuato, where they remained for about ten years as a warning.

Morelos and the insurgent congress

Leadership passed to José María Morelos, another priest, who had been a student of Hidalgo. Morelos was a far more disciplined commander. He built a smaller, better organised army in the south and won control of much of the region. His forces withstood a long royalist siege at Cuautla in 1812, captured Oaxaca in November 1812 and took Acapulco in 1813.

Morelos also gave the movement a clear political programme. In September 1813 he convened a congress at Chilpancingo and presented a document known as the Sentiments of the Nation, calling for full independence, popular sovereignty, the abolition of slavery and of caste distinctions. On 6 November 1813 the congress declared independence from Spain, and in October 1814 it issued the Constitution of Apatzingán.

The royalists, led by Calleja, now viceroy, steadily wore the insurgents down. Morelos was captured in November 1815 and executed on 22 December 1815. After his death the rebellion broke into scattered guerrilla bands, led by figures such as Vicente Guerrero in the southern mountains and Guadalupe Victoria in Veracruz. A Spanish liberal, Francisco Javier Mina, landed in 1817 to support the cause but was captured and shot within months.

Iturbide and the Plan of Iguala

The decisive change again came from Spain. In 1820 a military revolt forced Ferdinand VII to restore the liberal Constitution of Cádiz of 1812. Conservative clergy, landowners and officers in New Spain feared that liberal reforms would reduce the privileges of the church and army, and they began to see independence as a way to protect them.

Agustín de Iturbide, a criollo royalist officer who had fought hard against the insurgents, was sent to defeat Guerrero. Instead, he negotiated with him. On 24 February 1821 Iturbide proclaimed the Plan of Iguala, which promised three guarantees: the Catholic faith as the only religion, independence under a constitutional monarchy, and union and equality between Spaniards and Americans. Guerrero accepted, and their combined forces became the Army of the Three Guarantees, whose red, white and green colours inspired the Mexican flag.

Garrison after garrison went over to the new movement. On 24 August 1821 the newly arrived Spanish official Juan O’Donojú signed the Treaty of Córdoba, accepting independence. The Army of the Three Guarantees marched into Mexico City on 27 September 1821, and the Act of Independence of the Mexican Empire was signed the following day.

Key people

• Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811), parish priest of Dolores who launched the revolt; honoured as the Father of the Nation.
• Ignacio Allende (1769–1811), criollo army officer and co-leader of the first rising.
• José María Morelos (1765–1815), priest and military leader who gave the movement a programme of independence and social reform.
• Vicente Guerrero (1782–1831), insurgent commander who kept the struggle alive and later became president.
• Agustín de Iturbide (1783–1824), royalist officer who switched sides, achieved independence and briefly ruled as emperor.

Aftermath and memory

Independence did not bring stability. Iturbide was proclaimed emperor as Agustín I in 1822 but was forced to abdicate in March 1823, and a federal republic was established under the Constitution of 1824. Spain held the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa off Veracruz until 1825, attempted a reconquest in 1829 and recognised Mexican independence only in 1836.

The war left the economy, especially silver mining, badly damaged. Historians’ estimates of the dead vary widely and commonly run into the hundreds of thousands, including deaths from disease and hunger. The new nation faced deep divisions between liberals and conservatives, which contributed to decades of conflict and to the loss of half its territory in the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848.

The insurgent leaders soon became national heroes. In 1823 the remains of Hidalgo, Allende, Morelos and others were brought to Mexico City and honoured in the cathedral, and in 1925 they were moved to the Column of Independence, the monument known as El Ángel, inaugurated for the centenary in 1910. The town of Dolores was renamed Dolores Hidalgo in his honour.

Every year on the night of 15 September, the president of Mexico appears on the balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City, rings the bell from Dolores, which was moved to the capital in 1896, and repeats a version of the cry, naming the heroes of independence. Local officials perform the same ceremony in towns and cities across the country, and in Dolores Hidalgo itself.

Myths and facts

Myth: Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day. Independence Day is 16 September. Cinco de Mayo marks a victory over the French at Puebla in 1862.

Myth: Hidalgo shouted a clear call for independence. Hidalgo’s words were not recorded, and contemporary accounts suggest he still proclaimed loyalty to Ferdinand VII. The demand for full independence was made explicit later, especially by Morelos.

Myth: The insurgents who began the war won it. Independence was finally achieved through an alliance led by a former royalist officer, Iturbide, with the surviving insurgents under Guerrero.

Timeline

• 1808, September: Peninsulares depose Viceroy Iturrigaray in Mexico City.
• 1810, 16 September: Hidalgo issues the Grito de Dolores.
• 1810, 28 September: Insurgents storm the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato.
• 1811, 17 January: Royalists defeat Hidalgo at the Bridge of Calderón.
• 1811, 30 July: Hidalgo is executed in Chihuahua.
• 1813, 6 November: The Congress of Chilpancingo declares independence.
• 1815, 22 December: Morelos is executed.
• 1821, 24 February: Iturbide proclaims the Plan of Iguala.
• 1821, 24 August: The Treaty of Córdoba is signed.
• 1821, 27 September: The Army of the Three Guarantees enters Mexico City.

Why it matters

The Mexican War of Independence created the largest independent nation of Spanish America and ended Spain’s rule over the heart of its American empire. Part of the wave of independence movements that included the May Revolution in Buenos Aires, it gave Mexico its founding heroes and its national day, while leaving unresolved social and political tensions that shaped the country throughout the nineteenth century.