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—— ON THIS DAY ——
SEPTEMBER 16, 1810
Dolores, Guanajuato, Mexico
216 years ago
The Grito de Dolores of September 16, 1810, the call to arms issued by the priest Miguel Hidalgo that began the Mexican War of Independence.
Before dawn on September 16, 1810, a parish priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the bell of his church in the town of Dolores, in what is now the state of Guanajuato, and called his parishioners together. A conspiracy he belonged to had been discovered, and the choice was to act immediately or be arrested. He addressed the crowd from the church, denouncing bad government and calling on them to rise. The speech is remembered as the Grito de Dolores, the Cry of Dolores.
The rebellion he set off was not what the plotters had planned. Hidalgo's original circle were mostly creoles, people of Spanish descent born in the Americas, who resented their exclusion from the highest offices by peninsular Spaniards and who saw an opportunity in the chaos caused by Napoleon's occupation of Spain. What Hidalgo actually raised was a mass movement of indigenous and mestizo people with grievances of their own, tens of thousands strong within weeks, armed largely with farm tools.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The Mexican War of Independence, the eleven-year conflict beginning with Hidalgo's call to arms in 1810 and ending with Mexican independence from Spain in 1821.
The army swept through the Bajío, taking Guanajuato in a bloody assault on the granary where Spanish residents had barricaded themselves, and then San Miguel and Guadalajara. Hidalgo adopted a banner bearing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an emblem with deep resonance for indigenous Mexicans, and issued decrees abolishing slavery and ending tribute payments by indigenous communities. The violence of the campaign alarmed many creoles, who had wanted a change of rulers rather than a social revolution, and pushed some of them toward the royalist side.
Hidalgo's forces reached the edge of Mexico City in late October 1810 and, for reasons still debated, he chose not to attack. The army withdrew, was defeated at Calderón Bridge in January 1811, and disintegrated. Hidalgo was captured in March, stripped of his priesthood, and executed by firing squad in July 1811. His head and those of three other leaders were displayed on the corners of the granary at Guanajuato for a decade as a warning.
The war continued without him. José María Morelos, another priest, took up the leadership and pushed a more clearly defined program of independence, abolition of slavery, and an end to legal racial categories before he too was captured and executed in 1815. The struggle carried on in fragmented form until 1821, when a royalist commander, Agustín de Iturbide, changed sides and negotiated independence on terms conservative enough to bring the creole elite along. Mexico marks its independence not from that settlement but from the night Hidalgo rang his bell. Every year on September 15, the president repeats the cry from the balcony of the National Palace, ringing the same bell, which was moved to Mexico City in 1896.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
It began the movement that ended three centuries of Spanish rule in Mexico. The revolt Hidalgo launched in 1810 opened an eleven-year struggle that ended with independence in 1821 and the emergence of one of the largest countries in the Americas.
It was a social uprising, not only a political one. Hidalgo's decrees abolishing slavery and ending indigenous tribute made the rebellion a challenge to the whole colonial social order, which is why it frightened many of the creoles who had first conspired with him.
It gave Mexico its founding ritual. Every year the president rings Hidalgo's bell and repeats the cry from the National Palace balcony, one of the most direct annual reenactments of a founding moment anywhere in the world.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
Before dawn on September 16, 1810, a village priest rang his church bell because the conspiracy he belonged to had been betrayed and there was no time left. The army he raised nearly took Mexico City and then fell apart, and he was shot the following July. Mexico still rings his bell every year.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“Long live Mexico.”
— The closing words of the Grito, repeated annually by the president of Mexico
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the Grito de Dolores, Miguel Hidalgo, the army he raised, and the eleven-year war that ended in Mexican independence?
