Note: Versions
of this have run previously in this blog, but we are posting it again as a
public service. Mexico has a real
history and tradition that is deeper than a taco and tequila festival from
Gringos.
Quick, what’s Mexican
Independence Day? If you answered Cinco de Mayo, you’d be wrong.
That is a minor provincial holiday in Mexico that has
become a celebration of Mexican pride
in the United States. It celebrates the victory of the
Mexican Army over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, during the French invasion of Mexico. The correct answer is Diez y Seis de Septiembre—September 16—which commemorates
El Grito de Delores, the rallying cry which set off a Mexican
revolution against Spanish colonial rule and the caste of
native born Spaniards who ran roughshod over the people in 1810.
Early in the morning
of that fateful day Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla,
a respected priest and champion of the Mestizos—mixed Spanish and
Indian blood—and the Indios. Both classes
were held in virtual serfdom by
a system in which native born Spaniards—Gachupines—held
ruthless sway. Hidalgo had for sometime been part of a plot by Criollos to stage a coup d’état by Mexican born Spaniards who were the middling level officers and
administers of the system.
The Criollo plot was to take advantage of resentment of the imposition
of Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne
by Napoleon to declare Mexican independence within
a Spanish Empire under Ferdinand VII, considered by the Spanish
people as the legitimate heir to the throne. But Ferdinand was held
in France by the Emperor, so if it had succeeded the plot would
have created a de-facto republic.
The Gachupines, who had accepted Bonaparte, would be driven out of
Mexico.
Plotters decided
on a date in December to stage their coup. In the meantime they were quietly trying to line
up the support of Criollo officers and by extension the Army. But the plot was betrayed and orders
were sent out to arrest the leaders, including Hidalgo.
The wife
of Miguel Domínguez, Corregidor of Queretaro (chief administrative official of the
city of Queretaro) and a leader of the plot, learned of the pending arrests and
sent a warning to Hidalgo in the village
of Delores near the city of Guanajuato, about 230 miles northwest of the capital of
the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Mexico City. The late in the
evening of September 15, Hidalgo asked Ignacio Allende, the Criollo officer who had brought the warning, to arrest all of the Gachupines in the
city.
It was apparent to Hidalgo and Allende that the Criollos had not had time to solidify their support in the army, and indeed that many Criollo officers refused to join. The revolution would inevitably be crushed. Sometime in the early morning hours of September 16, Hidalgo made a fateful decision—he would call on the mestizo and Indio masses to rise up.
At about 6 A.M. Hidalgo assembled the people of the pueblo by tolling the church bell. When they were together he made this appeal, which he had hastily drafted:
My children: a new dispensation comes
to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover
the lands stolen by three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated
Spaniards? We must act at once… Will you defend your religion and your rights
as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government!
Death to the Gachupines!
This is the
famous Grito de Delores which sparked the revolt. Runners
went out to nearby towns carrying the message. The long oppressed people flocked to the
cause armed with knives, machetes, homemade spears, farm
implements, and what few fire arms
that they could take from the Gachupines.
Indios, Meztizos, and Criollos on the march in this mural by Juan O'Gorman.
With Hidalgo
and Allende at their head, the peasants began
the march on Mexico City. Along the way
they acquired an icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe—Mary
depicted as a dark skinned Indian—which
became the banner of the revolt.
Along the
way a regular Army regiment under
the command of Criollos joined the march, but the swelling ranks of
peasants—soon to number up to 50,000, was out
of control by any authority.
The first major battle of the war began at Guanajuato, a substantial provincial town, on September
28. Local officials rounded up
the Gachupines and loyal Criollos and their families and made a stand in
the town’s fortified granary.
Hundreds of peasants were killed in wild frontal assaults on the
position until rocks thrown from above caused the collapse of the
granary roof, injuring many. When
a civil official ran up a white flag of surrender, the garrison
commander countermanded the order and opened fire on the native
forces coming forward to accept it. Scores were killed. After that there was no quarter. With the exception of a few women and
children, the 400 occupants of the granary were massacred. Then the town was pillaged and
looted, with Criollo homes faring no better than the native
Spaniards.
Of course
Hidalgo had unleashed an unmanageable and ferocious anger among the people.
Along the march any Gachupines unfortunate enough to fall into the hands
of the rebels were brutally killed,
as were any Criollos who sided with them—or were simply assumed to be European born. The revolt was not just a national one—it was
a virtual slave revolt with all of
the attendant horror that implied.
Word of the
fate of Guanajuato
mobilized forces in Mexico City and caused most wealthy Criollos to side
with the government or try to remain neutral.
Hidalgo and
his closest supporters later abandoned the army and returned to Delores. He was frightened
and disillusioned by what he had
brought about. A year later he was captured by Gachupine forces and hanged.
It took 11
years of war to finally oust the
Spaniards. A triumphant revolutionary
army finally entered Mexico City on September 28, 1821, issued an official Declaration of the Independence of Mexican Empire, and established a government of imperial
regency under Agustín de Iturbide.
But Mexicans mark the beginning of the struggle—the Grito de Delores—as the true anniversary of independence.
Eventually the church bell from Delores was broug ht to the capital. Customarily each year on the night of September 15, the President of Mexico rings the bell at the National Palace and repeats a Grito Mexicano based upon the Grito de Dolores from the balcony of the palace to the hundreds of thousands assembled in the Plaza de la Constitución. At dawn on September 16 a military parade starts in the Plaza passes the Hidalgo Memorial and proceeds down the Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s main boulevard. Similar celebrations are held in cities and towns across Mexico.
But this year President Andrés
Manuel López Obrador perform the Grito but in front of a select number of invited guests at the Palace with the subdued ceremony telecast due to the Coronavirus
pandemic which has hit Mexico hard.
Heavily armed troops patroled the Plaza and other gather spots across
the county to prevent crowds from assembling.
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