The Bajio—source of Mexican Independence…

…porque?

Stage 1• Your reading will tell you that the wealthy Creole

and Peninsular elites conspired to gain domestic control of the economy in 1808 following Napoleon’s invasion of Spain.

• Free trade, not independence (just like the US independence movement before the Decl of Independence)

• But wealthy conservatives who made $ from Spanish mercantilist policies squashed the movement

Stage 2: Miguel Hidalgo

• Creole priest• Avid reader of

Enlightenment literature

• Victim of Inquisition• Sent to poor parish in

the Bajio• Also—a radical member

of creole cabal for independence

Sept 16, 1810—Miguel Hidalgo issues the Grito de Dolores

My children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once… Will not you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines!

The Virgin of Guadeloupe

Mestiza icon—

A blend of an Aztec Mother Goddess and the Virgin Mary

Supposedly seen by an Indian in the 16th century, right after the Conquest.

Became the symbol of Mexico—mestizaje—and of the importance of the Catholic Church

Guanajuato in 1910, one hundred years after the massacre

Guanajuato today

What were Hidalgo’s reforms?

In other words, what was the cause of the rebellion?

Abolition of slavery and taxesReturn of Indian communal lands that had been given to peninsulares

Hidalgo’s death

• Perhaps horrified by the massacres, he refuses to allow his army into the capital—Mexico City

• His army spends time looting the countryside and attacking isolated rancheros, and moves back up into the North

• Hidalgo captured near US border in 1811, and executed by royalists

• But his army fought on, under…

Jose Maria Morelos

1813—Congress of Chilpancingo:

End to slavery and taxes, and an end to renting of Indian communal lands, but also…

Ban forced laborEnd the caste system

And…

Divide up the great haciendas into smaller plots of land and this land distributed to the peasants

Almost Jeffersonian—a land of small farmers

And in 1814, at Apatzingan, Morelos announced a constitutional republic with civic equality of all citizens and freedoms of speech—that is, full independence from Spain and its recently returned king, Ferdinand VII, and a government like that of the US.

Morelos captured and executed in 1815, of course

Guadalupe Victoria Vicente Guerrero

Guerrilla Warfare, 1815-1821

• Exhausting• Brutal—atrocities on both sides• Increasingly nasty Imperial Army begins

angering even wealthy creoles• And of course, taxes

…

Ferdinand VII—(painted by Goya)

So hated by his own subjects that it leads to a liberal revolt in Spain in 1820.

Creoles ask for equal representation for New Spain, are denied.

Furthermore, the new Cortes abolishes military and religious fueros and threatens other liberal reforms

Iturbide, the butcher

Plan de Iguala, 1821

Recognize our major players from the lower half of the mural?

From the epic murals at the Palacio Nacional