Mexican War of Independence Begins — Grito de Dolores
Miguel Hidalgo rang the bell of his parish church at Dolores before dawn on 16 September 1810 and called his congregation to revolt. He was a fifty-seven-year-old creole priest, a former college rector removed for unorthodoxy and debt, who had been running silk, pottery and viticulture enterprises in his parish — all technically illegal, since the colony was forbidden industries that competed with Spain, which is a fair summary of his politics. He belonged to a conspiracy of creole officers and officials at Querétaro planning a rising for December. It was betrayed, and the wife of the local magistrate got word to him; he chose to act immediately rather than be arrested. What he said is not recorded. Every version has him invoking the Virgin of Guadalupe, denouncing bad government, and — in most — still cheering Ferdinand VII, the captive king in whose name the whole of Spanish America was then rebelling. The banner he took from a church at Atotonilco carried the Virgin's image, which made the rising Mexican and Catholic at once. What followed was not the officers' coup they had planned. Tens of thousands of indigenous and mestizo villagers joined within weeks, and the sack of the granary at Guanajuato in September, where several hundred Spaniards and creoles were killed, terrified the creole elite into the arms of the crown. He was excommunicated, defeated at Calderón Bridge in January 1811, captured, defrocked and shot. The bell is at the National Palace, and the president rings it each 15 September.
- Year: 1810 CE
- Category: Political
