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"1810:
The Initial Spark of Mexico's Independence
Hidalgo left his parish with 600 followers but within a few days they had swelled to about 100,000 men, from mines, haciendas and construction sites. Although this multitude seemed to be more a mass demonstration armed with shovels and slings than an army, it encountered no resistance in San Miguel, Celaya and Salamanca. Guanajuato, the important mining city, fell after a bloody battle and was pillaged. The Bishop of Michoacán excommunicated Hidalgo, but he led his “army” on the Michoacán capital and forced the cathedral council to lift his excommunication. After Valladolid, he set out for Mexico City, which was relatively unprotected. He won the battle of Monte de las Cruces, requested a parley with the Viceroy and then, without waiting for a reply, ordered a retreat during which he was defeated in San Jerónimo Aculco by the Spanish General Felix María Calleja. A decisive strike at the capital might have ended the Wars for lndependence after only a month and a half of fighting. But the heavy losses at Las Cruces, that left Hidalgo very short on ammunition, made him decide to order a retreat rather than follow up. As a consequence the Wars for lndependence would drag on for eleven more years. Moving northwest toward Guadalajara many of the rebel troops began to desert. At the same time Spanish forces under General Félix Calleja started to regroup. Guadalajara fell to the insurgents unopposed, but in January 1811 the royalist troops from the south caught up with the rebels and engaged them at the Puente Calderón on the Rio Lerma. Again Hidalgo and Allende had the numerical superiority, but General Calleja conducted his operations superbly, aided by a battlefield accident. A Spanish artillery shot hit a rebel ammunition wagon, and the resulting explosion caused a grass fire in the midst of Hidalgo’s army. Panic ensued, and thousands of rebels broke rank and fled. The retreat turned into a rout. Hidalgo, Allende and a number of other leaders recognized the futility of trying to regroup their forces and moved northward, hoping to obtain relief in Cohahuila and Texas. But Hidalgo’s days were numbered. In March 1811, near the scorched desert town of Monclova, Coahuila, a Spanish detachment ambushed them. Hidalgo was captured by Govemor Manuel Salcedo of Texas. The rebels were marched in chains to Chihuahua, where Allende and the other nonclerical leaders were immediately executed as traitors. Hidalgo, because he was a priest, was subjected to an arduous trial conducted under the auspices of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Finding him guilty of heresy and treason, the court defrocked him and tumed him over the secular arm for execution. At dawn on July 31 the firing squad did its job. Hidalgo’s corpse was decapitated, and his head, fastened to a pole, was displayed on the charred wall of the granary in Guanajuato as an object lesson to potencial rebels. Almost eleven years
after the El Grito de Dolores, the lndependence of Mexico was achieved.
The consummation of independence produced great enthusiasm. In all the
villages, towns and cities there were parades with allegorical floats,
arches of triumph, fireworks displays and general rejoicing. Poets composed
odes, sonnets, songs, marches and verses in honor of the liberated nation.
Several newspapers appeared and pamphlets were published; leaflets and
letters obsessed with the subject of independence were circulated. There
was talk of the wealth and economic resources of Mexico. It was said
that the location, fortune and fertility of the new nation indicated
that it had been created to give law to the whole world; and it was
announced that the richest empire in the world was reestablished. With
very few exceptions, all closed their eyes to the obstacles and opened
them only to see the advantages of independence. Thus Mexico initiated
a new phase of its life. And it is that new beginning, started by Miguel
Hidalgo y Costilla, that is commemorated every 16th of September. |