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253

Revolution in New Spain

A California Romance

On an April day in 1806, a ship flying the two-headed eagle, emblem of the Russian Empire, sailed into California’s Golden Gate, braving the guns of the Presidio de San Francisco. A message sent from shipboard to the Spanish com-mander announced the arrival of the Russian ship Juno, and her master, Nikolai

Petrovich Rezánov, an agent of the Russian-American Fur Company and chamberlain to His Majesty, the Tsar.

Rezánov had sailed from Alaska that spring on a desperate mission. The Russian trading settlement of Sitka was suffering from hunger and was near to collapse. Unable to get sup-plies from elsewhere, and intent on saving the settlement, Rezánov looked south, to California, known to be a land of plenty. There, he thought, he could get supplies for the struggling colony — and scout out a location for a Russian settlement.

The Spanish authorities were not naïve; they under-stood the desirability of California and, moreover, they knew how ill-defended it was. From San Diego to San Francisco there were no more than 210 soldiers, sta-tioned at four presidios at San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco. What’s more, these pre-sidios had few working cannon, and their defenses were in poor repair. The Spanish crown knew that any nation with enough resolve could easily conquer this languid country; and it was for this reason, in part, that it for-bade trade with foreign countries.

The meeting between the Spanish commander at San Francisco, Captain José Dario Argüello, and Rezánov, was somewhat comic: Argüello was anxious lest the Russian discover the weakness of the presidio, and Rezánov was trying to hide the conditions at Sitka while he negotiated for a shipload of food. The Spanish commander showed Rezánov generous hospitality, and the lighthearted Californios made his stay pleasant; nevertheless, Argüello said there would be no question of trade, even for food.

Meanwhile, the courtly Rezánov charmed the gente de razón (members of the upper class) in San Francisco and the local clergy, who all took his part. Still, neither Argüello nor the governor, José Arillaga, would bend. They were not to be corrupted; they would main-tain the king’s law. But Rezánov found one very powerful advocate — Argüello’s 16-year old sister, Doña Maria de la Concepción.

San Francisco presidio, 1817

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254 LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

Concepción, or Conchita, as she was called, was courted by sons of the first families of California, for she was very beautiful. Still she fell in love with the charming Russian noble-man, though he was 35 years her senior. Rezánov courted Conchita and finally asked for her hand in marriage. This presented a difficulty; since Rezánov was Russian Orthodox and Conchita was Catholic, their marriage would need permission from the pope and the king of Spain, as well as the Russian church and the tsar. Captain Argüello, however, accepted Rezánov as Conchita’s suitor, and the lovers were betrothed.

Matters now were different. Rezánov was not just a Russian agent; he was a member of the Argüello family. The governor could not refuse him the supplies. In May, with the Juno’s holds filled with food, Rezánov set sail for Sitka. Before his departure, Concepcíon vowed she would never marry another man, and Rezánov promised that he would return for her after he received permission for his marriage from the tsar.

Years passed, and Concepcíon heard nothing from her betrothed, nor any news about him. She remained true to her vow, however, and never married; instead, she entered the third order of the Franciscans and devoted herself to works of charity, finally taking formal vows in 1851, when she was 60 years old. By all accounts she was a joyful, even jolly, sister.

Thirty-six years after Rezánov’s departure for Sitka, a famous English traveler named Sir George Simpson visited Monterey. At a banquet given in his honor, Simpson revealed what had happened to Rezánov — he had been killed many years before in Siberia when he was thrown from a horse. He had been riding to Moscow to seek permission for his marriage. As related in the verse version of the story by California author Bret Harte, Sir George, not knowing that Sister Concepcíon was at the banquet, commented, in passing — left a sweet-heart, too, they tell me. Married, I suppose, of course!

“Lives she yet?” A deathlike silence fell on banquet, guests, and hall, And a trembling figure rising fixed the awestruck gaze of all.

Two black eyes in darkened orbits gleamed beneath the nun’s white hood; Black serge hid the wasted figure, bowed and stricken where it stood.

“Lives she yet?” Sir George repeated. All were hushed as Concha drew Closer yet her nun’s attire. “Señor, pardon, she died, too!”

The “Golden Age” of CaliforniaThe story of Conchita and Nikolai Rezánov is the stuff of legend, but it epitomizes a period that has been called California’s “golden age,” stretching from the late 1780s to the end of the Mexican era in 1848. It is a period yielding a rich harvest for the imagination — an era of holy padres teaching docile Indian converts, proud rancho dons, caballeros in colorful costume, and beautiful, dark-eyed doñas and señoritas. Of course, this picture is somewhat exaggerated and only partially true, like all legend; but like all legend, it reveals something of the truth.

As the story of Conchita and Rezánov illustrates, California was a hierarchical society with clearly demarcated levels of authority. At the pinnacle of the social/political structure was the Spanish governor. Though appointed by the viceroy in Mexico and formally subject to him, the California governor, because of the great distance from Monterey to Mexico City, was practically independent. Hardly any checks were placed on his actions. His power was absolute over all California society, except the missions, which answered to the padre presidente alone. Under the governor were the captains of the presidios and civil officers, called comisionados.

California’s social structure was aristocratic. At the top of the social pyramid were the gente de razón, the families of more or less pure Spanish blood. The families of government officials, like the Arillagas and the Argüellos, belonged to this group, as did the increasing

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain 255

number of rancho dons. Indians who married into this group became members of the gente de razón by association, their children thus suffering no stigma. As the story of Conchita illustrates, the gente de razón were closely related, and claims of kinship were held sacred — contravening, at times, even the king’s law.

The Californio aristocrats were noted for their generosity and love of ease. Money meant little to them; they measured their wealth in lands and cattle. The Californio don was a proud man who despised all manual labor as beneath his dignity. The only occupations he would countenance were herding cattle and military service. John Bidwell, an American who settled in California, wrote in 1842, “it is a proverb here . . . that a Spaniard will not do anything which he cannot do on horseback.”

With such interests, few Californios bothered themselves with learning, though there were some educated dons and doñas. No public system of education existed in California. Some families employed friars to teach their children, while others sent them to school in Hawaii or the United States.

Below these aristocrats were other “whites,” many of whom were illiterate, some of whom were released criminals. The latter made the pueb-los of Los Angeles, San José, and the short-lived Branciforte wild, unruly places. The number of these “whites,” including the gente de razón, was never large. Inhabiting only the coastal strip from San Diego to San Francisco, their numbers reached only 970 in 1790, and 3,270 in 1820 — and this in an area where millions live today!

The Indians of California were divided between those who lived on the missions and those who did not. Of the former, there were 7,353 neophytes in 1790; over 10,000 by 1800. The number of Indians outside the missions is hard to estimate, since the total number of Indians in California has been in dispute. Earlier estimates reported around 133,000 souls; more recent estimates, about three times that number.

Governor Borica, who ruled California for Spain from 1794 to 1800, wrote that the “great country” of California had a good climate, “good bread, excel-lent meat, tolerable fish . . . plenty to eat.” It was “the most peaceful and quiet country in the world.” Theoretically, the king of Spain held all land titles to this country; in practice, land was dealt out to its inhabitants. According to Spanish law, the Indians were to receive all land necessary to sustain them. Indeed, the vast mission lands, the best in California, were to be turned over to the Indians when the process of civilizing and Christianizing them was complete. Beginning in 1786, the king’s government began giving land grants to non-Indians, having distributed 16 ranchos by 1795. Eventually, the rancho would become the predominant social institution in California.

California inevitably attracted the eyes of foreigners. Beyond founding a Russian settlement in California to supply the pelt-hunting settlements far-ther north, Nikolai Rezánov wanted a base from which Russia could conquer all of California. Alexander Baranov, the head of the Russian American Fur Company, took up Rezánov’s plan and executed the first part of it. In March 1812, a large ship flying the double-headed eagle flag appeared off the coast north of San Francisco. It brought native Alaskan fur hunters and a small number of Russian overseers, who began to construct a fort and settlement

A view of old Los Angeles, made in 1860

A California Indian, by Louis Choris


on a bluff overlooking a stream that became known as the Russian River. When finished, this settlement, called Fort Ross (probably a shortened form of Rossiya — Russia) consisted of a palisade built from large tree trunks surrounded by sixty buildings, orchards, gardens, grain fields, and villages for Alaskans and the local Kashaya Pomo people. Later, the settlers built a Russian Orthodox chapel.

Until 1820, the Russians and Alaskans at Fort Ross were reaping a rich harvest of valuable sea otter pelts. When the number of sea otters drastically decreased because of overhunting, the settlers turned to growing grain and vegetables, which they sent north to the frigid Alaskan settlements. Most of the settlers were not Russian, and among those that were, many intermarried with the Alaskans and the local natives.

It was this Russian settlement, in part, that induced President James Monroe to issue the Monroe Doctrine (see Chapter 13). Americans, at first, were not interested in California, though as the years passed American interest in California would grow quite intense. Most foreign ships, including American ships, that visited the coast of California in the late 18th century were whalers. As the 19th century progressed, however, merchant smugglers increasingly visited California waters, engaging in an illegal trade with the Californios.

This contraband trade increased significantly after 1810, when revolutions in Mexico and Central America cut off shipments of goods from Mexico. Californios had to fall back on their own resources, which were good, because, due principally to the missions, California was self-sufficient in essentials. Other goods that had been supplied by trade with Mexico were gotten from trade with foreigners.

For Californios, the revolutions rocking Latin America in the early 19th century were a distant rumor, and they remained untouched by them for many years. Loyal to the king, the Californios assumed the revolutionaries would sooner or later be defeated and effective royal rule restored. One effect of the revolutions was to stop further Spanish settlement into inland California. The great Central Valley and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada had been explored in the period of 1805 to 1811 with an eye to the establishment of more missions; but, without the support of the Spanish crown, nothing further could be done.

California’s first brush with revolution came in 1818 when two ships under the French captain, Hippolyte de Bouchard, appeared off the coast. Flying the colors of the rebellious government of Chile, Bouchard might have come as an “agent of liberation” for the people of California, though he behaved more like a pirate. Having sailed from Hawaii with a crew mostly Hawaiian, though sprinkled with other nationalities, all under French offi-cers, Bouchard arrived at Monterey and demanded the surrender of the presidio and of all California. The Spaniards responded that they would fight to the death rather than submit. After firing a cannonade, however, the Spanish garrison retreated inland, leaving Monterey to the mercy of the invader, who sacked the presidio, plundering and burning the settlement. Sailing south, Bouchard repeated the same performance at Santa Barbara. The inhabitants,

Sketch of Fort Ross, 1841, by Ilya Gavrilovich Voznesenskii


as at Monterey, made no counteroffensive, though one José de Guerra marched his handful of men several times around a hill to make his force appear much larger than it was. Continuing southward, Bouchard left California waters, never to return.

Progress and Decline in the MissionsIn 1801, a Chumash Indian said Chupu, the god of the Channel Coast, had appeared to him in a dream. The god revealed that the Chumash of the Channel Coast were dying of an epidemic because they worshiped a new god, the god of the Spaniards. All baptized Chumash would die, said Chupu, unless they made offer-ings to him and washed their faces in sacred water. The message of Chupu’s visitation spread secretly among the Chumash of San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara missions — anyone who revealed his coming to the padres would die, said the god. When the padres did find out about Chupu’s appearance, the Chumash were alarmed. They feared the god would kill them.

Such was missionary work among the Indians of California: the Franciscans not only had to teach the Gospel to the natives, but to draw them from their stone-age cultures into a highly complex European civilization. Not only native religion but the loosely structured character of native life contrasted sharply with European life. No wonder that, from 1790 to 1800, 700 to 800 neophytes fled from the regimen of mission life to seek refuge among the “gentile” tribesmen; the hardships involved in adapting to new ways were immense. Moreover, bloody feuds among the gentile Indians often involved tribes to which mission Indians were connected, and the friars had to be on the watch to make sure that their con-verts did not run off and to join their kindred’s conflicts.

Though some have charged the mission system with cruelty, there is little evidence of it, at least until 1810. Despite the runaways, the Indians displayed no violent opposition to the missionaries. True, some tribes resisted the friars’ invitations to join the missions, but even these showed no deadly hate — and others asked that missionaries be sent among them. The first charges of cruelty, however, came in 1798 when Fray Antonio de la Concepción Horra, a friar who had been dismissed on charges of insanity after having stayed only two months in California, published an attack on the missions. He, along with four Spanish military commanders (including Felipe de Goycoechea, the commander at Santa Barbara presidio — whose interest, the friars said, was to circumvent their authority and get cheap Indian labor), charged that the friars forced pregnant women to work in the fields from six to nine hours a day and to engage in other hard labor. The friars, too, said Horra, did not give Indians sufficient time to gather wild fruits, punished them with the stocks and heavy floggings, and deprived them of water.

In 1800, the viceroy in Mexico City ordered Fray Fermín Lasuen, third president of the missions, to respond to these charges. Not only Fray Fermín, but three other California mis-sionary friars wrote refutations of Horra’s claims. The friars denied that pregnant women were compelled to perform hard labor; rather, only light labor was required of them, either in the fields or the the mission compound, for only four to six hours a day. Frequently, said the friars, the women were dismissed from work altogether for health reasons. Not only were

Mission Santa Barbara, in an 1876 photograph by Carleton Watkins


Indians allowed to gather wild fruits, but every Sunday, one-fifth of them were allowed to visit their native rancherías for as long as a week or two. As for flogging, deprivation of water, the stocks — these were indeed applied, but only after repeated offenses; and only at Santa Barbara had women been flogged. After an investigation, the viceroy exonerated the missionaries.

By today’s standards, any use of the lash seems excessive; at that time, however, corporal punishment was very common and thought unremarkable. California’s governor Don José Joaquin Arillaga wrote that the friars treated their Indian neophytes as they would their own children. Indeed, for the friars, the Indians were children, and like children had to be protected from their own foolish actions and punished for their correction. In his refutation of Horra and Goycoechea, Fray Fermín wrote that the “chastisement which we inflict on the Indians is in keeping with the judgment with which parents punish their own beloved children.

We have begotten the neophytes for Christianity by means of our labors for them, and by means of Baptism in which they received the life of grace. We rear them by means of the Sacraments and by means of the instruction in the maxims of Christian morals. We therefore use the authority which Almighty God concedes to parents for the educa-tion of their children, now exhorting, now rebuking, now also chastising when necessity demands it.

For the most part, the friars corrected Indians with words alone; but more serious infractions (such as sexual sins, theft, or violence) would receive 12 to 25 lashes. Though Governor Felipe de Neve had rarely allowed friars to use soldiers to pursue and capture fugitive neophytes, under later governors, the use of soldiers for this purpose increased, and the captured runaway was flogged. According to Lasuén, a captured, first-offense runaway was “reproached for the transgression of not complying with the obligation of hearing holy Mass on a day of obligation. He is made to see that he has freely subjected himself to this and other Christian duties, and is then warned that he will be chastised if he repeats the transgression.” Only if he runs away again does he experience “the chastisement of the lash or the stocks”; and if these punishments are not sufficient, “he is made to feel the shackles, which he wears for three days while he is kept at work.” As for women offenders, they “are punished,” says Lasuén, “with one, two, or three days in the stocks, according to the gravity of the offense; but if they are obstinate in their evil intercourse, or run away, they are chas-tised by the hand of another woman in the apartment for the women. Sometimes, though exceedingly seldom, the shackles are put on.”

A sketch of Mission San Buenaventura from Life in California, ca. 1839, by Alfred Robinson


Fray Fermín did not deny that “defects” existed in the California missions and among the missionaries. “We are aware,” he wrote, “that we have faults which we hope will be forgiven us.” Perhaps among Lasuén’s own personal faults was an inability to see the good in native cultures, apart from their faults. While Fray Junípero Serra and other missionaries could praise native peoples, Lasuén, in explaining the difficulties he and colleagues faced, described the California Indians in dark terms, as “a people without education, without government, religion, or respect for authority, and they shamelessly pursue without restraint whatever their brutal appetites suggest to them. Their inclination to lewdness and theft is on a par with their love for the mountains.”

Whatever difficulties the mis-sionaries had with their neophytes were compounded by the Spanish settlers, whose encroachments on mission lands the friars had peri-odically to oppose. Though the friars did not oppose, and even encouraged, the founding of white settlements in California, they came to have a poor opinion of the non-Indian settlements that were established. The settlements did not add to the country’s prosper-ity, they said, and were a detri-ment to missionary work. How could the friars teach their con-verts about the importance of attending Mass and other ser-vices, when the Spaniards often themselves neglected them — while they would never miss a fandango. Though Indians could be flogged for missing some ser-vices, the Spaniards received no punishment for the same infraction. It was extremely dif-ficult to convert the heathen in the midst of such Christians, said the friars.

The death rate among the California Indians remained extremely high in the first two decades of the 19th century. Diseases such as dysentary, pleurisy, pneumonia, and measles decimated Indian populations in California. A major cause of sickness and death was syphi-lis, which, the friars said, was spread by the Indians’ promiscuous habits. But whatever the causes, “the Indian popularion is declining,” wrote Fray Mariano Payeras, in 1820:

. . . They live well free but as soon as we reduce them to a Christian and community life they decline in health, they fatten, sicken and die. Women are particularly affected. It is the sorrowful experience of 51 years that Indians live poorly in the missions. Even when healthy the women lose fertility and their sterility is not apparent in annual reports because in most areas of the prov-ince gentiles are still being baptized, one is confused with the other, and the total always increases.

In all missions hospitals have been built, potions have been purchased and medicines

A sketch of Mission San Luis Rey, from Life in California, ca. 1839, by Alfred Robinson

The interior of Mission San Miguel Arcángel, 1939


acquired from surgeons of the province and from books. The best curanderos and curan-deras have been procured. In all, it forms a somber calculation of diminution. The popu-lation decline is made more notable since in 24 years I have known only two epidemics, that of 1801 and the measles of 1806.

As the number of the coastal Indians that were yet unconverted decreased, missionaries had to go farther afield to find pagan tribes. Soldiers and friars began making expeditions over the Coast Range mountains into the great Central Valley to search out sites for new missions and to roundup fugitive neophytes. In the Tulares, among the lakes and sloughs of the Central Valley, were gentile rancherías; some of these were willing to receive the Gospel and welcomed the prospect of missions, but not all.

But with the onset of revolution in Mexico in 1810, government payments and support for the California military garrison ceased. The missions, with their abundant crops, numerous livestock, and general prosperity, began to supply the garrisons. Such conditions seem to have brought added strain on the Mission Indians, and the second decade of the 19th cen-tury witnessed an atmosphere of greater tension in the missions. Also many, if not most, of the Indian oral traditions alleging cruelty on the part of the friars date back to this period.

During the second decade of the 19th century, discontent among neophytes and the number of runaways from the missions so increased that the missionaries were alarmed. At Mission San Gabriel, neophytes seemed to be angry over the continued imprisonment in the Santa Barbara presidio of certain Indians who in the past had been hostile. The angry Gabrielleños (as the neophytes of San Gabriel Mission were called) joined with gen-tiles in stealing cattle and breaking into mission storehouses. In 1818 there were numerous runaways from the central coast missions, from Santa Barbara to San Miguel. These escaped to the Tulares, in the San Joaquin Valley — a place that the missions’ prefect, Fray Mariano Payéras, called “a republic of hell and a diabolical union of apostates.”

In a letter written in 1819 to Governor Solá of California, Fray Mariano complained that “a con-siderable number [of neophytes] have withdrawn from the mild rule of the friars and have become one body with the savages with whom they carry out whatever evil their heart and malevolent soul dictates. . . . The spirit of insolence and idle-ness is spreading and affecting even the more staid of the neophytes.” Payéras wrote that the Indians were losing their fear of the soldiers and all respect for the friars; he predicted the speedy end of the missions if the state of things were to continue. Fearing raids on the missions if nothing were done (the gentiles had learned to use the horse), Payéras called for a grand expedition to col-lect all the runaways and to punish those Indians guilty of depredations. Indeed, he said, “the whole cause of the desertions lies in the fact that the [presidial] troops have ceased

An 1873 map showing the Tulares and San Joaquin Valley. Tulare Lake is now gone, its waters having been diverted for agriculture.


to go after the culprits who are unmindful of their duties.” Payéras, however, pleaded with Solá that he “merely restrain the Christians and savages within the bounds of what is just; for in keeping with our sacred calling, which demands kindness and mildness, we solemnly protest that in such expeditions we abhor deaths, mutilations, and whatever is opposed to Christian gentleness.” Though delayed that year (for the Santa Barbara runaways had returned), the expedition began in 1819. It was, however, only partially successful.

In a letter written on September 17, 1819, Fray Luis Martínez, a missionary at San Luis Obispo, gives other reasons for the problem of runaway neophytes. “Never before,” says Martínez, “has so much watchfulness been necessary with regard to the soldiers. They have come to us without discipline and religion. They have been taught to suffer many hard-ships, but never for God and the king. They should be relegated to the presidios, and an eye should be kept upon them. They should be given some occupation that is not useless and that is calculated to banish idleness, the mother of all vices.” Idle soldiers were especially troublesome because they seduced native women or even raped them. Another effect of the soldiers’ (as well as of the civilian settlers’) idleness was that the burden of the material sup-port of California fell on the missions. “The viceroy ought to be notified with some energy that a territory that cannot support itself, will be still less able to sustain others,” Fray Luis complains:

The missionary is expected to furnish shoes, boots, and even gunsticks. They want him to be tailor, weaver, mason, carpenter, and everything else without having learned it, and this too without support, without aid. Whence shall he obtain the infused science? Then, how can a poor Indian be cheerful, who throughout the year is occupied at work in a mission, when his labor procures for him nothing more than a poor suit of clothes and a blanket since he must labor for others?

But, even if such complaints were not lost on the viceroy in far off Mexico City, there was little he could do to address them. Since 1810, the viceroyalty of New Spain had had to weather waves of violent revolution, and it was all the viceroy could do to preserve his gov-ernment from complete and utter collapse.

Revolution in MexicoFor many years California remained untouched by events farther south in New Spain. Being a relatively young settlement, California was neither burdened nor blessed with all that had developed since the days of Cortés. As we have seen in a previous chapter, a great and cultured society had grown up in Nueva España. Grand cities had arisen, adorned with beautiful churches, universities, and theaters. In New Spain, Europe had been transplanted in American soil and modified by the native influences of the new continent.

But like in any society, the glory of New Spain was tarnished by injustice and structural problems. By 1800, the peninsulares or gauchupines, those born in Spain, were still rela-tively few in number (about 300,000) but they controlled the majority of all political offices in New Spain. Next there were the creoles, American born persons of Spanish blood; yet, though these numbered about 3 million souls — about ten times the number of the gauchu-pines — they had nowhere near the gauchupines’ power and influence in government. This, of course, was a source of deep discontent among the creoles, who had come to think they should occupy a position in society that accorded with their dignity and their numbers. The mestizos — those of mixed Indian and Spanish blood — had even less political power than the creoles, though the number of mestizos reached about 6 million. It is not surprising that they thought themselves oppressed by the Spanish colonial system. The lot of the Indians


had changed little since the days of Cortés — they remained, for the most part, laborers with little chance of social advancement.

Political corruption was commonplace in New Spain. Offices were bought and sold, and bribery was widespread. Taxation was heavy. Both the government and the Church levied taxes. This hindered private initiative and inspired ill will among some towards both gov-ernment and Church. The Spanish government maintained economic controls on New World dominions, forcing them to trade almost exclusively with the mother country. Colonial industries that would compete with established industries in Spain were forbidden.

Though from the beginning the Church had sponsored schools and universities, illiteracy remained high in New Spain. Folk traditions — song, legend, and plastic art — however were vibrant, forming a rich cultural substratum from which a refined civilization could arise. Enlightenment and republican philosophies had begun to influence the ruling classes and the creole intellectuals; but because of the Inquisition they had to hold meetings in secret. And because of the Index of Forbidden Books, the works of French, Yankee (such as Jefferson and Tom Paine), and other Enlightenment thinkers could not be sold or distributed publicly. But like many a contraband item, these books were smuggled in, abridged into pamphlet form, and widely distributed. The examples of the American and French Revolutions drew many, especially creoles, to embrace Liberal republican political philosophies.

The foregoing paints a somewhat bleak pictures of Spanish colonial society. Care, how-ever, must be taken in evaluating the time. Injustices there were, but also widespread con-tentment. As in the English colonies, the majority in Spanish America were not seething with revolutionary anger. Most were faithful to the king, even loved the king, while they ignored his laws. People today will chastise the Church for her taxation; but, in the mindset inherited from the Middle Ages, it was thought that, since the Church contributed to the common good (which was both spiritual and material), it was the duty of those who ben-efited from the common good to support the Church. And the people of New Spain did ben-efit from the Church, not only spiritually but materially as well. It was the Church after all that provided what we today call “social services” — relief for the poor, hospitals, and schools.

An 1810 French map of New Spain (Mexico)


Modern people will condemn the Inquisition and the Index — but the Spanish saw them as necessary to protect society from false opinions. Error, it was thought, is worse than pov-erty, worse than death, for error leads men away from what gives life to the soul — truth and moral virtue. Since, according to Catholic tradition, human society exists not simply to ensure material benefits but to help men become good and attain eternal life, error undermines the very purpose of society and govern-ment and thus destroys both. In a society that accepted the Catholic faith as absolutely true, it was thought necessary to protect from opinions that would lead men away from the truth and, perhaps, condemn their souls to eternal death.

Prelude to RevolutionIt was not conditions in New Spain that finally precipitated revolution, but events across the Atlantic. The mother coun-try, Spain, was rocked with civil war.

Carlos IV, who had occupied the Spanish throne since 1788, had become inconvenient to France’s Emperor Napoleon, who had brought nearly all of Europe under his sway. An indepen-dent Spain did not serve Napoleon’s purposes; so, on May 6, 1808, he pressured Carlos IV and his son Fernando VII to relin-quish all claim to the Spanish throne, and, in their place, made his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king. Popular indignation broke out against the new king, and all over Spain, juntas were formed to oppose the French. At the end of September 1808, the juntas formed themselves into one body, called the Junta Central Gubernativa del Reino (Central Governing Body of the Kingdom) and formed a cortes (parliament) to represent both Spain and America.

Like the mother country, New Spain rejected Joseph’s rule. When Joseph Bonaparte ascended the Spanish throne, the town council of Mexico City asked the viceroy, José de Iturrigaray, to assume the powers of government of New Spain in the name of Fernando VII. The viceroy was willing; a greedy man who had amassed a fortune by illegal means Iturrigaray hoped to take advantage of the situation and to make himself king of New Spain. The viceroy’s essentially illegal action, however, drew the opposition of the audien-cia of New Spain and a group of 300 gauchupines who called themselves the Volunteers of Fernando VII.

The Volunteers wanted to overthrow the viceroy without all the blood and trouble of an armed revolution. So, on the night of September 15, 1808, they broke into the viceregal palace and took Iturrigaray prisoner. The audiencia replaced Iturrigaray with a feeble man, nearly 80 years old, Pedro de Garibay.

In the wake of these disturbances, groups called Caballeros Racionales (Rational Gentlemen) began meeting throughout Mexico. Since they met to discuss revolutionary doctrines, their meetings were secret for fear of the government’s informants and spies. At the same time, agents of Napoleon were active, trying to induce Mexicans to revolt in favor of France.

Knowing Garibay was incompetent to deal with this dangerous situation, the Volunteers petitioned the Junta Central in Spain to appoint a new viceroy. The Junta complied and chose Archbishop Francisco Xavier de Lizana y Beaumont; but he was little better than Garibay, and, in December 1809, some creoles formed a plot to overthrow the government. The plot failed, and the archbishop was recalled to Spain. In August 1810, the new viceroy, an army officer named Francisco Xavier Venegas, arrived in Mexico. It would not be long before he was embroiled in a contest that would shake Mexico to its foundations.

King Fernando VII of Spain, by Luis de la Cruz

junta: (pronounced HOON-tah) a group controlling a govern-ment, especially fol-lowing a revolution


Priest RevolutionaryA group of creole intellectuals and army officers had been meeting secretly in Querétaro, about 200 miles northwest of Mexico City. Calling themselves the Academia Literaria (Literary Academy), the group’s aims were ostensibly literary; but their work was really political, for they were working for the overthrow of the gauchupines and a Mexico indepen-

dent of Spain (though ostensibly at least still faithful to Fernando VII.) Among their number were the army officers Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldana, and a priest,

the 57-year old cura of the nearby village of Dolores, Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla.

Padre Hidalgo had long had a reputation for radicalism. Having stud-ied at the Colegio de San Nicolás in Valladolid, not far from Mexico

City, he had been ordained a priest in 1778 and later served as rec-tor of San Nicolás. A French scholar, Hidalgo had been drawn to the works of French Enlightenment thinkers, such as Rousseau and Montesquieu — an interest he shared with a close friend, Manuel Abad y Queipo. Because of this interest, in 1800 accusations of heresy were leveled against Hidalgo and Abad, and the Inquisition secretly investigated them both in 1800. Hidalgo, it was charged, among

other errors, denied the virgin birth, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the sinfulness of fornication. (That Hidalgo had children by two

different women lends credence to the last charge.) But nothing came of the investigation, and both Hidalgo and Abad were never formally

accused of heresy. When in 1803 Hidalgo became cura of the village of Dolores in

Guanajuato, he took great interest in the material welfare of the Indians. Leaving the spiritual concerns of the parish to one of his assistants, Hidalgo

worked to promote the cultivation of grapevines and olive trees among the Indians and introduced the silk worm. He taught the Indians to make pottery and tan leather — all industries forbidden in America by Spanish law.

By August 1810 Hidalgo and the Querétaro group had a plan in place. In a coup d’état they would capture key Spanish government officials and set up a revolutionary govern-ment. The date set for the coup was October 1. One of the members of the group, however, turned traitor and revealed the plan to the government. On September 16, an order was issued to seize all the members of the Academia Literaria.

Learning of the betrayal, Doña Josefa Ortiz, the wife of the corregidor of Querétaro, but a supporter of the revolutionaries, hurried to Dolores and warned Hidalgo. This was the crucial moment for the cura — would he flee, would he surrender and beg clemency, or would he call for resistance? Hidalgo chose the last course. Ringing the bell of the village church, he gathered his Indian parishioners, and from the pulpit, he gave the grito de Dolores, the“Cry of Dolores”:

My friends and countrymen: neither the king nor tributes exist for us any longer. We have borne this shameful tax, which only suits slaves, for three centuries as a sign of tyranny and servitude; [a] terrible stain which we shall know how to wash away with our efforts. The moment of our freedom has arrived, the hour of our liberty has struck; and if you recognize its great value, you will help me defend it from the ambitious grasp of the tyrants. Only a few hours remain before you see me at the head of the men who take pride in being free. I invite you to fulfill this obligation. And so without a fatherland or liberty we shall always be at a great distance from true happiness. The cause is holy and God will protect it. . . .

Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Perish the Government! Perish the gauchupines!

An image of Miguel Hidalgo, made between 1890 and 1913

cura: a priest who has the charge or care of a parish

corregidor: a chief magistrate

Mural of Miguel Hidalgo Costilla, by Clemente Orozco, Government Palace, Guadalajara, Mexico


Five hundred to 600 men gathered around the priest, and as this band marched from village to village, hundreds and thousands more joined them. By September 21, 50,000 Indians, mesti-zos, and a few creoles were marching with Hidalgo under a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe that Hidalgo had taken from a church. Armed, some with guns but more with farm tools, the peasant army brutally slaughtered any Europeans, gauchupines, or creoles they found in the villages. Hidalgo (now called “Captain General of America”), Ignacio Allende, and Juan Aldana led this ill-disciplined and rag-tag mob toward the city of Guanajuato.

When the army reached Guanajuato on September 28, Hidalgo pledged that he would spare all Europeans if the city surrendered; but the com-mandante had heard of the atrocities committed by the peasant army and refused. Gathering all the royalists and the city treasury into the Alhóndiga de Granaditas (a building to store grain) the com-mandante prepared for a siege. At first the royalists held off their assailants, firing down from the stout stone walls of the granary on the ill-disciplined peas-ant army. The Alhóndiga was strong enough to hold off the insurgents but for one weak point — its great wooden door. Hidalgo’s force set fire to the door and broke into the granary. A bloodbath followed.

“When the insurgents had taken the Alhóndiga,” wrote Lucas Alamán, an eyewitness who survived the slaughter, “they gave rein to their vengeance. In vain those who had surrendered begged on their knees for mercy. . . . The building presented a most horrible spectacle. The food that had been stored there was strewn about everywhere; naked bodies lay half-buried in maize, or in money, and everything was spotted with blood.”

Alhóndiga Granadítas (right) in Guanajuato

Priest RevolutionaryA group of creole intellectuals and army officers had been meeting secretly in Querétaro, about 200 miles northwest of Mexico City. Calling themselves the Academia Literaria (Literary Academy), the group’s aims were ostensibly literary; but their work was really political, for they were working for the overthrow of the gauchupines and a Mexico indepen-

dent of Spain (though ostensibly at least still faithful to Fernando VII.) Among their number were the army officers Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldana, and a priest,

the 57-year old cura of the nearby village of Dolores, Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla.

Padre Hidalgo had long had a reputation for radicalism. Having stud-ied at the Colegio de San Nicolás in Valladolid, not far from Mexico

City, he had been ordained a priest in 1778 and later served as rec-tor of San Nicolás. A French scholar, Hidalgo had been drawn to the works of French Enlightenment thinkers, such as Rousseau and Montesquieu — an interest he shared with a close friend, Manuel Abad y Queipo. Because of this interest, in 1800 accusations of heresy were leveled against Hidalgo and Abad, and the Inquisition secretly investigated them both in 1800. Hidalgo, it was charged, among

other errors, denied the virgin birth, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the sinfulness of fornication. (That Hidalgo had children by two

different women lends credence to the last charge.) But nothing came of the investigation, and both Hidalgo and Abad were never formally

accused of heresy. When in 1803 Hidalgo became cura of the village of Dolores in

Guanajuato, he took great interest in the material welfare of the Indians. Leaving the spiritual concerns of the parish to one of his assistants, Hidalgo

worked to promote the cultivation of grapevines and olive trees among the Indians and introduced the silk worm. He taught the Indians to make pottery and tan leather — all industries forbidden in America by Spanish law.

By August 1810 Hidalgo and the Querétaro group had a plan in place. In a coup d’état they would capture key Spanish government officials and set up a revolutionary govern-ment. The date set for the coup was October 1. One of the members of the group, however, turned traitor and revealed the plan to the government. On September 16, an order was issued to seize all the members of the Academia Literaria.

Learning of the betrayal, Doña Josefa Ortiz, the wife of the corregidor of Querétaro, but a supporter of the revolutionaries, hurried to Dolores and warned Hidalgo. This was the crucial moment for the cura — would he flee, would he surrender and beg clemency, or would he call for resistance? Hidalgo chose the last course. Ringing the bell of the village church, he gathered his Indian parishioners, and from the pulpit, he gave the grito de Dolores, the“Cry of Dolores”:

My friends and countrymen: neither the king nor tributes exist for us any longer. We have borne this shameful tax, which only suits slaves, for three centuries as a sign of tyranny and servitude; [a] terrible stain which we shall know how to wash away with our efforts. The moment of our freedom has arrived, the hour of our liberty has struck; and if you recognize its great value, you will help me defend it from the ambitious grasp of the tyrants. Only a few hours remain before you see me at the head of the men who take pride in being free. I invite you to fulfill this obligation. And so without a fatherland or liberty we shall always be at a great distance from true happiness. The cause is holy and God will protect it. . . .

Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Perish the Government! Perish the gauchupines!

An image of Miguel Hidalgo, made between 1890 and 1913

cura: a priest who has the charge or care of a parish

corregidor: a chief magistrate

Mural of Miguel Hidalgo Costilla, by Clemente Orozco, Government Palace, Guadalajara, Mexico


It is said that Hidalgo was at first shocked by his “army’s” violence but that he came to accept it as a necessary evil. He issued a proclamation, ostensibly to rein in the violence — “Nine Laws to Avoid Disorder and Bloodshed.” These “laws” forbade the seizure of “eccle-siastics except in case of high treason” and offered to “respect the security” of the “life and wealth” of the “European [presumably gauchupine or creole] who spontaneously surrenders to us.” The European, however, who spoke against the revolt or who resisted with arms would be “put to the sword.” More bloody was the fifth law, decreeing that “when we are menaced by siege and combat, before engaging in it, and at the same time that we begin hostilities, we shall put the many Europeans who are in our hands to the sword.” Americans (creoles, mestizos, and Indians) fared no better. Those who defended with arms or “maliciously” hid a European would be “put to the sword.” Those “who simply through compassion” hid a European would “suffer the pain of exile and the confiscation of his property.” Anyone who informed about “any of the aforementioned crimes” would be rewarded 500 pesos.

Following the capture of Guanajuato, Hidalgo’s old friend, Manuel Abad y Queipo, now bishop-elect of Michoacán, excommunicated the cura of Dolores and all his follow-ers. In his decree of excommunication, Abad lamented that Hidalgo’s rebellion threatened to visit on New Spain the same atrocities that had stained the revolution in France, where “two million people . . . a tenth of the French population, young people of both sexes in the prime of life had been killed.” Abad raised the spectre of a rebellion in Haiti in 1810, where “anarchy liquidated all the whites, leaving not a single one alive, then liquidated four fifths of the other inhabitants, leaving the final fifth, composed of blacks and mulattos, locked in a mortal struggle.” And now, Abad continued, “a minister of the God of Peace, a priest of Jesus Christ, a pastor of souls (I hate to say), the cura of Dolores village, Don Miguel Hidalgo (who until now had merited my confidence and friendship) . . . [has] raised the banner of rebellion, lit the torch of discord and anarchy, and persuaded a number of unsophisticated peasants to take up arms.” Abad deplored the inscription Hidalgo had attached to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe: “Long Live religion! Long Live our Holy Mother, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! Long live Fernando VII! Long live América! Death to Bad Government!” Abad continued:

Because our religion condemns rebellion, murder, and the mistreatment of innocents, and because the Mother of God cannot protect criminals, the cura of Dolores committed two grave acts of sacrilege when he put that inscription on a banner with the image of Nuestra Señora. He likewise insulted and attacked our government and, thereby, insulted our sovereign, Don Fernando VII. He mistreated the king’s vassals, disrupted law and order, and violated the oath of fidelity to king and country.

Perhaps ironically, only a few months before Hidalgo’s rebellion began, Abad had sent to the king a document in which he called for abolishing Indian tribute payments and class distinctions, as well as for a redistribution of royal lands among the natives. But now that he and other bishops who followed his lead were condemning Hidalgo’s rebellion, the Church was made to appear the enemy of the people and the friend of the “oppressive” government. Using the power of religion against Hidalgo (just as Hidalgo had used religion to further revolution), Abad and his brother bishops accomplished little more than to alienate the pro-Hidalgo masses.

During October 1810 Hidalgo gained control of much of central Mexico west of Mexico City. Everywhere, the same mob violence was repeated — which disgusted Hidalgo’s commanding general, Ignacio Allende. A professional soldier, Allende val-ued discipline; Hidalgo, however, could be too lenient with his followers — as when he rebuked Allende for cruelty to the Indians, when Allende was trying to stop the violence of the mob by striking out at them with the f lat of his sword. But when it came to the enemy, Hidalgo did not show such complaisance. At Valladolid, a priest canon of the

Map of Mexico showing the major cities in 1810

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cathedral bravely approached Hidalgo unarmed and made him promise to spare the city. The city was spared, but Hidalgo was so stung to anger that the cathedral (where he wanted to offer thanks) was locked against him that he imprisoned all the gauchupines and seized the city treasury. Such arbi-trary actions and Hidalgo’s tolerance of violence convinced creoles, whom Hidalgo had hoped would rise with the Indians, to instead joined forces with the gauchupines.

From Valladolid, Hidalgo moved against Mexico City. On October 3, at Monte de Las Cruces in the foothills overlooking the capital, Hidalgo’s 80,000 joined battle with 6,000 Spaniards under General Torcuato Trujillo. Though vastly outnumbered, Trujillo’s force inflicted heavy losses on the rebels; still, Hidalgo’s overwhelming numbers forced the Spaniards to retreat to Mexico City. That night the lurid glow of the rebels’ campfires illumined the hills surround-ing the capital.

What to do next? The soldier Allende and others encouraged Hidalgo to strike the city, but Hidalgo hesitated and instead decided to retreat northwest, toward Guadalajara. Demoralized by the loss of a victory that seemed so clearly within their reach, thousands abandoned the rebel army. On November 7, 1810, Spanish troops under General Félix Calleja defeated Hidalgo’s remnant of 40,000 men at Aculco.

Yet, despite the defeat, the people of Guadalajara greeted Hidalgo and his army with fiestas and proclaimed the priest the liberator of his country. Gradually new recruits began to swell the numbers of Hidalgo’s diminished force until it once again boasted over 80,000 men. At Guadalajara, Hidalgo, with the lawyer Ignacio López Rayón, established a government and issued a proclamation granting freedom to slaves and the surrender to the Indians of the lands they cultivated. The Guadalajara government pledged its fidelity to King Fernando VII.

Meanwhile, General Calleja, with 6,000 well-trained and well-armed men, had retaken Guanajuato and was moving against Guadalajara. Against the advice of Allende, Hidalgo chose to meet Calleja’s advance by concentrating his entire force at Calderón bridge on the eastern outskirts of Guadalajara. There, on January 14, 1811, Calleja attacked the rebels; his disciplined campaigners held their own against the unruly, concentrated native force. A cannon ball, flying over the heads of the rebels, struck their munitions dump. An explosion rocked the insurgents from behind while angry flames clawed at the heavens. The explo-sion sparked a grass fire that threw the rebels into confusion. Hidalgo, Allende, and a small remnant of their force retreated through Guadalajara and fled northeast, toward Zacatecas. Calleja entered the city in triumph.

At Zacatecas, a disgusted Allende removed Hidalgo from command of the army. Hoping to connect with rebels in the north and elicit aid from the United States, Allende, with Hidalgo and 1,000 men crossed into the hot and barren deserts of northern Mexico enroute

It is said that Hidalgo was at first shocked by his “army’s” violence but that he came to accept it as a necessary evil. He issued a proclamation, ostensibly to rein in the violence — “Nine Laws to Avoid Disorder and Bloodshed.” These “laws” forbade the seizure of “eccle-siastics except in case of high treason” and offered to “respect the security” of the “life and wealth” of the “European [presumably gauchupine or creole] who spontaneously surrenders to us.” The European, however, who spoke against the revolt or who resisted with arms would be “put to the sword.” More bloody was the fifth law, decreeing that “when we are menaced by siege and combat, before engaging in it, and at the same time that we begin hostilities, we shall put the many Europeans who are in our hands to the sword.” Americans (creoles, mestizos, and Indians) fared no better. Those who defended with arms or “maliciously” hid a European would be “put to the sword.” Those “who simply through compassion” hid a European would “suffer the pain of exile and the confiscation of his property.” Anyone who informed about “any of the aforementioned crimes” would be rewarded 500 pesos.

Following the capture of Guanajuato, Hidalgo’s old friend, Manuel Abad y Queipo, now bishop-elect of Michoacán, excommunicated the cura of Dolores and all his follow-ers. In his decree of excommunication, Abad lamented that Hidalgo’s rebellion threatened to visit on New Spain the same atrocities that had stained the revolution in France, where “two million people . . . a tenth of the French population, young people of both sexes in the prime of life had been killed.” Abad raised the spectre of a rebellion in Haiti in 1810, where “anarchy liquidated all the whites, leaving not a single one alive, then liquidated four fifths of the other inhabitants, leaving the final fifth, composed of blacks and mulattos, locked in a mortal struggle.” And now, Abad continued, “a minister of the God of Peace, a priest of Jesus Christ, a pastor of souls (I hate to say), the cura of Dolores village, Don Miguel Hidalgo (who until now had merited my confidence and friendship) . . . [has] raised the banner of rebellion, lit the torch of discord and anarchy, and persuaded a number of unsophisticated peasants to take up arms.” Abad deplored the inscription Hidalgo had attached to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe: “Long Live religion! Long Live our Holy Mother, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! Long live Fernando VII! Long live América! Death to Bad Government!” Abad continued:

Because our religion condemns rebellion, murder, and the mistreatment of innocents, and because the Mother of God cannot protect criminals, the cura of Dolores committed two grave acts of sacrilege when he put that inscription on a banner with the image of Nuestra Señora. He likewise insulted and attacked our government and, thereby, insulted our sovereign, Don Fernando VII. He mistreated the king’s vassals, disrupted law and order, and violated the oath of fidelity to king and country.

Perhaps ironically, only a few months before Hidalgo’s rebellion began, Abad had sent to the king a document in which he called for abolishing Indian tribute payments and class distinctions, as well as for a redistribution of royal lands among the natives. But now that he and other bishops who followed his lead were condemning Hidalgo’s rebellion, the Church was made to appear the enemy of the people and the friend of the “oppressive” government. Using the power of religion against Hidalgo (just as Hidalgo had used religion to further revolution), Abad and his brother bishops accomplished little more than to alienate the pro-Hidalgo masses.

During October 1810 Hidalgo gained control of much of central Mexico west of Mexico City. Everywhere, the same mob violence was repeated — which disgusted Hidalgo’s commanding general, Ignacio Allende. A professional soldier, Allende val-ued discipline; Hidalgo, however, could be too lenient with his followers — as when he rebuked Allende for cruelty to the Indians, when Allende was trying to stop the violence of the mob by striking out at them with the f lat of his sword. But when it came to the enemy, Hidalgo did not show such complaisance. At Valladolid, a priest canon of the

Map of Mexico showing the major cities in 1810

Parras

Guadalajara

Saltillo

Victoria

San LuisPotosi

Tampico

MexicoCity

Puebla

Jalapa

Zacatula

Valladolid

Guanajuato Delores

Chihuahua

Comargo

MontereyMatamo

El Paso

M E X I C O

EL SALVADOR

GUATEMALA

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Mis

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to Texas. On March 21, 1811, near Saltillo, in the wastes of Coahuilla, the small rebel force, betrayed by one of their own, encountered a Spanish force. The Spaniards defeated the rebels and seized Allende and Hidalgo, killing on the spot many of the lesser officers. Allende was later executed ignominiously — he was shot through the back — while Hidalgo, because he was a priest, was delivered over to the bishop of Durango for trial.

“Oh that someone would give water to my head and fountains of tears to my eyes! Or that someone even now would shed the very blood that flows through my pores, not only did I weep day and night for those of my countrymen who have died, but weeping can only bless the unending mercies of the Lord.” So began a recantation, dated May 1811, written allegedly by Hidalgo (some have called it a forgery). In it the writer expresses his fear of divine punish-ment and begs the forgiveness and prayers of those he has wronged. Hidalgo implored those who had joined his revolution to desist and told them to honor the king and obey the priests, “because they watch over you as those who must give account to the Lord for your affairs.”

After trying Hidalgo, the bishop of Durango removed his priestly dignity and delivered him to the state for execution. Standing before a firing squad on July 30, 1811, Hidalgo calmly instructed them to shoot him through his right hand, which he placed over his heart. His head, with the heads of Allende and Aldana, were displayed on the walls of the Alhóndiga in Guanajuato, where for the next ten years they remained, a grim warning to all would-be revolutionaries.

Guerrilla Warfare in the JunglesBut severed heads could not stop the revolution. Rebel leaders who had risen in the wake of Hidalgo —Vicente Guerrrero, Manuel Félix Fernández (who called himself Guadalupe Victoria, in honor of the Virgin), and Padre Mariano Matamoros — still troubled the peace of the country. Another priest, José María Teclo Morelos y Pavón, had since after the fall of Guanajuato in 1810 been causing trouble. Hidalgo had appointed him to lead the revolution

in the south.Unlike Hidalgo, who had come from a creole family,

Padre Morelos was a poor mestizo from Valladolid. He had worked as a mule driver until, in his twenty-fifth year, he began his studies for the priesthood at the Collegio San Nicolás in Valladolid. There he studied natural and moral philosophy under the direction of the rector — Padre Miguel Hidalgo — for whom Morelos conceived a pro-found respect. After he was ordained a priest, Morelos took a parish in Michoacán.

Morelos had been a priest for over ten years when he was roused by Hidalgo’s grito de Dolores. Sent by Hidalgo to Zacatula on the Pacific coast, Morelos organized a small force there. A skilled commander, Morelos favored the hit-and-run methods of guerrilla warfare (a strat-egy well suited to the dense, jungle-like forests where he fought) rather than Hidalgo’s pitched battle strategy. The rebels were anonymous. Many of Morelos’ soldiers were farmers who worked their fields until they were called — then they became rebel insurgents. When a battle ended, they returned to their fields. To punish and kill off these unknown insurgents, the Spaniards began destroy-ing entire villages. In 1811, Morelos carried out several successful campaigns against Spanish forces and, with fewer than 5,000 men, captured the regions from the val-ley of Mexico City to the Pacific Coast, failing only to take

Padre José María Teclo Morelos y Pavón


the highly fortified port of Acapulco. Joined by Padre Matamoros and other rebel leaders, Morelos organized four armies and sent them to various parts of Mexico.

In March 1812, General Calleja marched with an army of 8,000 against Morelos’ position at Cuautla, a town about 50 miles southeast of Mexico City. Besieged at Cuautla, an unforti-fied city built on a low hill, Morelos, Matamoros, and their force of 4,000 resisted Calleja for 73 days. The insurgents were reduced to starvation and forced to eat vermin, soap, and tree bark. Morelos awaited the coming of the spring rains that, he hoped, would spread disease and contagion among the Spanish army, who were not used to jungle conditions. But the rains did not come, and, on May 2, Morelos and the remainder of his army fought their way out of Cuautla. Calleja marched into the city and, finding no rebels, began slaughtering women and children. Meanwhile, Morelos moved south and west, capturing the towns of Huajuapan, Orizaba, and Oaxaca.

Unlike Hidalgo, Morelos had a genius for government. On September 1, 1813, he, with Ignacio Rayón, Carlos María Bustamante, and other revolutionary leaders, assembled a revolutionary congress at Chilpancingo. In November, Morelos delivered to the congress the document, Sentiementos de La Nación, in which he laid out his ideas for the government of an independent Mexico. Morelos abandoned any pretense that he was fighting for the rights of King Fernando VII; instead he proclaimed that Mexico’s “dependence upon the Spanish Throne has ceased forever and been dissolved.”

In line with Liberal republican thought, Morelos declared that the sovereignty of the state proceeds “immediately from the people.” Like the revolutionaries leaders who won U.S. independence, he said the government should be divided into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Laws, said Morelos, “should be such that oblige fidelity, patriotism, moderating opulence and misery.” Congress should pass laws to “increase the wages of the poor” and improve “their standard of living, removing ignorance, violence and theft.” The congress must abolish torture, said Morelos, and slavery should be “prohibited forever and also distinction between classes, leaving everyone equal, and Americans distinguished from one another only by their vice or virtue.”

But unlike Anglo America’s revolutionary leaders, Morelos opposed the disestablishment of religion. It is true that he wanted to end tax support for the Church; her ministers, he said, should “be supported by all with only their tithes and offerings, and the people” should not “need to give any more than their devotion and offerings.” Yet, Morelos said the new state “neither professes nor recognizes any religion but the Catholic, nor will it permit or tolerate the practice, public or private, of any other.” The decree pledged that the government “will protect with all its power, and will watch over, the purity of the Faith and its dogmas and the maintenance of the regular bodies.” He further proclaimed December 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, “the Queen of our liberty,” a national celebration. And while he forbade military expeditions outside the country, an exemption was granted to those who would “extend our faith to our brothers in far away lands.”

The congress adopted the Sentiementos, proclaimed Mexico independent of Spain, and set about drawing up a constitution. The tide of war, however, began to turn against the rebels. In December, Morelos tried to take the city of his birth, Valladolid; but its able young royalist commander, a creole colonel named Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide, drove off the more numerous rebel force. The battle was a disaster for Morelos; Iturbide had even captured Padre Matamoros, Morelos’ right-hand, and ordered his execution. Morelos’ army disintegrated. In January 1814, government forces under Iturbide forced the rebel army and the new representative congress to flee. When the congress reassembled at Tlacotepec, it removed Morelos as head of the army; after Valladolid, it had lost confidence in him. Morelos, whose chief interest had been to serve the revolution, not himself, complied. Yet, without his leadership, the rebel forces began to break down into factions.

In the fall of 1815, the congress decided to move southeast to Puebla, where the Spanish government forces were weaker. To reach Puebla, however, the congress had to pass through


a stretch of royalist-controlled territory, and Morelos took command of the military convoy. On November 5, the convoy met 600 royalist troops. Morelos fought them off long enough to permit the congress to escape but was himself unable to elude capture. Loading him with chains, the royalists marched Morelos in triumph into Mexico City.

Both military and ecclesiastical tribunals tried Morelos. He was charged with treason and with failing in fealty to the king; of ordering the execution of prisoners; of ignoring the excommunication leveled against him by the bishops and the Inquisition; and of hav-ing celebrated Mass after commanding troops in battle. (Canon Law forbade clerics to shed blood.) Morelos denied that he had failed in fidelity to the king; rather, he said, Fernando VII had failed in his duty to Mexico and so, in effect, had abdicated. Morelos admitted he had ordered the execution of prisoners but said he had done so by order of the congress and as a reprisal against the vice-regal government. Morelos denied the validity of the excommu-nications, saying that they were declared against an independent nation, and only the pope or an ecumenical council had the authority to impose such an excommunication. Finally, he denied having celebrated Mass during the revolution.

Condemned by the military tribunal, Morelos was delivered over to the Church court that would degrade him from the dignity of priest. Here the Inquisition intervened and demanded its own trial against Morelos, even though, as an Indian, he did not fall under its jurisdiction. Moreover, since he had already been tried and condemned by another tribunal, the Inquisition should not have tried him again. On November 27, 1815, the court of the Inquisition repeated the old charges and added four new ones: having received communion while under excommunication; failure to recite the divine office while in prison; lax moral conduct (Morelos had had a mistress, who had borne him children); and sending his son to the United States to be educated by Protestants. Morelos answered that he did not recognize the validity of the excommunication, that he had sent his son to a Catholic college in the United States, and that the darkness of the prison would not allow him to read his breviary. As to his lax conduct, he admitted it, though he claimed it had caused no scandal.

The Inquisition condemned Morelos: he was “a formal heretic, a favorer of heretics, a persecutor and disturber of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, a profaner of the holy sacraments, a traitor to God, the king, and the pope.” The sentence deeply affected the priest; fearing not the condemnation of death he expected from the viceroy but the damnation of his soul, he gave information on the state and location of the rebel forces and on the qualities and aptitudes of the rebel commanders.

On November 28, 1815, the viceroy condemned Morelos to die by firing squad. After making his confession, Morelos was blindfolded and led to an enclosure. Commanded to kneel, he fell to his knees, and prayed, “Lord, you know if I have done well; if ill, I implore your infinite mercy.” Four shots rang out, and Morelos crumpled to the earth. Seeing his body still moving, the commander ordered another volley.

An Interim of Troubled PeaceFor a time it seemed as if revolution had run its course in Mexico. In 1814, Napoleon was defeated by an alliance of European kingdoms, and Fernando VII returned to the Spanish throne. Though he swore to uphold the Liberal constitution adopted by the Spanish Cortes in 1812, Fernando suppressed the constitution as soon as he had attained enough power. In New Spain this meant that the local juntas that had grown up during the revolution, along with the freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed by the Constitution of 1812, were were swept away. In Mexico, restoration of Bourbon rule annoyed not only the Liberals but also the conservative creoles who had come to enjoy certain of the new liberties. But a simple Liberal/conservative divide did not characterize Mexico in this period; instead, Mexican

breviary: a small book containing the divine office: the Psalms, hymns, and prayers said daily by priests and religious


society was divided between four factions: gauchupines, who wanted the old monarchical order; conservative creoles, many of whom opposed the Liberal Constitution of 1812; Liberals who wanted this constitution restored; and radicals who favored independence.

The year 1816 saw the dissolution of Morelos’ revolutionary con-gress by the rebel general Luis Mier y Terán. In April, Juan Ruiz de Apodaca became viceroy and offered amnesty to the remaining revolutionaries, and many accepted it. In January 1817, Luis Mier and José Francisco Osorno surrendered; only small guerrilla bands under Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria con-tinued the struggle. Eventually, even Victoria’s men abandoned him, and the rebel leader wandered alone in the mountains, evading capture for two-and–a-half years.

However, rebellion in Spain in 1820 forced Fernando VII to restore the Constitution of 1812. Once again Liberal reforms calling for, among other things, the seizure of Church property, an end to the Inquisition, and the abolition of special privileges for clergy and military including the fueros (traditional privileges) that preserved the clergy and military from trial except in the ecclesiastical and military courts were imposed on Mexico. The Liberals, of course wel-comed the law; but many “clericalists” — conservative creoles and members of the clergy — began to fear that the older order they so loved would be entirely destroyed. Union with Spain, they determined, was dangerous to that order. They began to plot independence.

One of these conspirators was Don Agustín de Iturbide. In the period after the death of Morelos, Iturbide had gained notoriety for his harsh treatment of captured revolutionaries, having ordered the execution of over 900 insurgents. In 1816 he commanded a regiment that protected wagon trains conveying silver from the mines; but when he was accused of extorting money from the wagon drivers for protection, Viceroy Apodaca removed him from command. For the next four years, Don Agustín remained inactive.

During his forced retirement, Iturbide underwent a kind of religious conversion and attended a retreat at the Jesuit convent at La Profesa, a church in Mexico City. It so hap-pened that La Profesa was a meeting place for influential conservatives, churchmen, and government officials, who, with Don Agustín, began discussing the possibilities for Mexican independence. Iturbide made valuable friendships with many prominent clergymen, who became his advocates with the viceroy. Upon their recommendation, Apodaca gave Iturbide the command of a military expedition against the insurgent, Vicente Guerrero.

The “Bloodless” RevolutionLate one night, shortly before departing for the south to fight Guerrero, Iturbide confided to a friend that he longed to be the liberator of his country — the Napoleon of Mexico. Iturbide’s friend was deeply moved — the handsome Don Agustín, his aristocratic bearing, the convic-tion that seemed to inspire his defense of the Church and the traditional order, drew the admiration and confidence of this friend and many others. He handily became the leader of a party that sought to preserve the old ways, oddly enough, by revolution.

Iturbide marched out to do battle with Guerrero in December 1820. After suffering defeat from rebel forces, Iturbide changed his tactics and began negotiating with the rebel chief-tain. Seizing a silver train bound for Acapulco, Iturbide moved on to the town of Iguala. There, in February 1821, he published his Plan de Iguala, a blueprint for independence. The plan convinced even the wary Guerrero. The rebel leader met Iturbide at Teloloapán, and the two clinched their alliance with a public embrace.

Agustín Iturbide


The genius of the Plan de Iguala was the way it could unite rebels (like Guerrero) with conservatives, and conservatives with Liberals, in a common cause. It had something for everyone. Its guarantee that the Catholic Church would remain the sole religion of Mexico, that the clergy would maintain their status and properties, and that the head of government would be King Fernando VII (or, if he refused, another member of his family or a member of another Catholic ruling house of Europe) pleased the conservatives. The old insurgents were won over by the plan’s abolition of all distinctions between the American born and the gauchupines, assuring citizenship to all classes and opening the “door of advancement” to “virtue and merit.” The Liberal creoles applauded the plan’s design for a representative con-gress and a constitution. Notably absent was any mention of the rights of Indians and mes-tizos; nor did the plan speak of the redistribution of hacienda lands to the poor. The revolution had changed from an Indian and mestizo uprising to a predominately creole war for independence.

Iturbide named his force the Army of the Three Guarantees, after the three guarantees of the Plan de Iguala: independence for Mexico, the preservation of the Church, and the equality of gauchupines and creoles. Iturbide was not successful at first. Deserted by many of his own troops, Don Agustín faced a stiff royalist opposition. Organized in Masonic lodges, these rich gauchupines and pro-Spanish creoles were formidable. But it was not long before it became apparent to them that they would fare better under a conservative Mexican gov-ernment than a Liberal Spanish regime; and, in April, many royalists and Liberals cast their lot with Iturbide. In May, the rebel army marched into Guanajuato, then into Vallodolid. Guadalajara joined the rebel movement, as did all of the north. By August, only the cities of Mexico, Veracruz, Perote, and Acapulco remained faithful to Spain.

In late July 1821, a new Spanish viceroy, Juan O’Donojú, arrived in Veracruz but could not leave the besieged city. In the hot, humid summer weather, yellow fever struck O’Donojú’s family and attendants. Powerless to move on Mexico City and threatened by plague if he remained in Veracruz, O’Donojú agreed to meet Iturbide at Córdoba. There, in September,

Agustín Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero embrace


O’Donojú agreed to the Plan de Iguala. The revolution was over, and Mexico was indepen-dent. O’Donojú went to Mexico City to oversee the withdrawal of Spanish troops from what once had been New Spain.

Independent MexicoOn September 27, 1821, Iturbide led his Army of the Three Guarantees in triumph into Mexico City. With flamboyant chivalry, Don Agustín, mounted on a black horse, marched his army in review past the most beautiful woman in the city. He then proceeded to the viceregal palace, where O’Donojú received the conqueror. In thanksgiv-ing for victory and independence, the archbishop of Mexico offered Masses in the cathedral that had been built by Cortés, almost 300 years before.

At first all seemed to go well for Iturbide. In October the Spanish sur-rendered Veracruz, Acapulco, and Perote, and their forces retired to the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, built on an island in the bay of Veracruz. The entire mainland of New Spain, from Guatemala to San Francisco, was inde-pendent of Spain.

Yet though Mexico seemed peaceful and unified, factions and dissensions threatened the new country.

Iturbide’s revolution established creole dominance in Mexico; yet, the creole class was deeply divided. Many creoles admired the federal system of the United States and wanted to establish a similar government in Mexico. These “Liberals” met opposition from “conservative” creoles, who favored a centralized regime and still hoped that Fernando VII or some other Bourbon prince would take the throne of Mexico. Iturbide, at first, won the support of the more radi-cal Guerrrero and of the Liberal creoles and, in accord with the Plan de Iguala, called for the election of a congress. It was not long, however, before Don Agustín began to ally him-self with the conservative centralists. Thus he alienated old revolutionaries like Guadalupe Victoria and Nicolás Bravo.

The revolution encouraged mestizo ambitions, and many mestizos were influenced by Liberal republicanism. They favored the abolition of class distinctions and were eager to occupy places in the national bureaucracy. Mestizos were powerful in the mountainous south and in the north where ranchos rather than haciendas — the large agricultural estates of the wealthy — predominated. Chieftains rose to power in these regions and, despite the central government, held nearly absolute sway. One of these, Juan Álvarez, once a follower of Morelos, was master of the south for 50 years. A check to Liberal republican aspirations, however, was the army. It maintained the fueros it held under Spanish rule. Military men were tried in their own courts, which did not respect civilian rights when they were violated by military men. After the revolution, in many parts of Mexico, the military robbed and murdered civilians. Iturbide could maintain the loyalty of the military only as long as he could pay them, but this became a problem for him; for Mexico had very little money.

San Juan de Ulúa


One target of the Liberals was the Church, which had survived the revolution with all her lands and fueros intact. Clergy retained the right to be tried only in their own courts and were free from taxation. The bishops were eager to maintain this state of things and allied themselves with the more conservative and wealthy creoles.

It had long been the contention of Catholic theologians and, indeed, of the Church’s magisterium, that the Church is not and cannot be subject to the power of the state. The argument goes like this. Since the Church is a true society, through which the greatest good comes to mankind — eternal salvation, union with God — the Church is supernatural, and thus superior to the state, a society whose purpose is merely to help citizens attain natural goods: peace, access to the means of subsistence, cultural achievement, and, finally, natural moral and intellectual virtue. Though she is ultimately a spiritual society, the Church nev-ertheless needs material goods to carry out her mission. The Church, for instance, could not decently conduct divine worship without church buildings and liturgical appurtenances. If she is to serve the poor, she needs a certain amount of wealth. In Mexico and throughout the world, the Church operated hospitals and schools, which are and obviously require material goods. Because the Church is superior to the state, the state has no direct authority or power over what belongs to the Church. The state, thus, may not justly confiscate Church property. The difficulty was, however, that at times in New Spain and elsewhere churchmen abused their great wealth and the power great wealth inevitably endows on those who possess it. Liberals claimed that to curtail such abuses, the Church should be divested of her wealth; yet, this claim was often disingenuous, for wealthy Liberals were more interested in seizing Church wealth for themselves than they were in righting the wrongs perpetrated by corrupt and incompetent churchmen.

Liberalism, too, was fundamentally anti-Catholic, for it held that religion is merely a matter of personal opinion and thus should not impinge on the life of society and the state. For Liberals, the state is the highest society to which all things, including religion, should be subject. As we have seen, for Liberals, the greatest human good is individual liberty; all individuals are born in freedom and thus should be free to express, even publicly, whatever religious, philosophical, or ethical ideas they wish. Since, too, all people are fundamentally free, government derives its authority from the people alone, not God.

The Church opposed such ideas. Human beings, said the Church, are created to live in society; they are bound to acknowledge the truth about God and man and, thus, have a moral obligation to confess the true religion, the Catholic faith. Even though they might be established by the people, governments, said the Church, rule by God’s authority. And since they derive their authority from God, governments are bound to acknowledge the true God and the religion he has established — the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, in Mexico, the Church’s opposition to Liberalism led churchmen to ally themselves with a particular political faction, with which the Church came to be identified. For their part, Liberals had to temper their criticism of the Church, for most Mexicans were faithful Catholics. Even many Liberals (Morelos, for instance) were devoted to the Catholic faith. For this reason, the public stance of Mexican Liberals was to maintain the Catholic faith as the sole religion of Mexico even while they sought to confiscate Church property.

Emperor AgustínFollowing his victory, Iturbide began to set up his government — a regency, because ostensi-bly he only awaited the establishment of a kingdom in Mexico. Taking for himself the titles of generalissimo and high admiral, Iturbide nominated a junta of five regents, with himself as president. He then began preparations for the election of a congress, as promised in the Plan de Iguala.

The congress was elected according to a formula that favored wealthy creoles — most of whom were Borbonistas (supporters of the royal Bourbon family and Fernando VII). But by the time the congress first met, in February 1822, it was well known that neither Fernando


VII nor any member of his family intended to ascend the throne of an independent Mexico; the Spanish king, in fact, refused to recognize Mexican independence, and a Spanish gar-rison remained at the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa as a symbol of his claims. Disappointed in their hopes of a Bourbon king, the Borbonistas in congress began calling for a centralist republic. They joined forces with the Liberals in congress. Together, they opposed Iturbide.

Political tensions were growing in Mexico City. Gauchupines in Mexico City were plotting with the Spanish at San Juan de Ulúa to restore Spanish rule. Life had not been comfort-able for gauchupines since the revolution. Many among both the creoles and the mestizos were turning against all things Spanish — Congressman Carlos María de Bustamante had written a proclamation calling on the Army of the Three Guarantees to avenge the Aztecs whom Cortés had slain at Otumba and Cholula! The conqueror of Mexico had become quite unpopular in the capital — a mob of poo r beggars, called léperos, stormed the cathedral in Mexico City to desecrate his tomb. They found an empty grave. Cortés’ bones had been removed to a secret location.

Not only the gauchupines but the congress itself was causing trouble. It delayed writing up a constitution to focus its attacks on Iturbide. The conservatives (Borbonistas and others) had long been organized in Masonic lodges of the Scottish rite; now the Liberals (republi-cans), under the influence of the United States minister, Joel Poinsett, organized themselves in Masonic lodges of the York rite. Both groups of Masons turned their fire on Iturbide. In May, the congress moved to reduce the number of generals in the army and remove mem-bers of the regency from military command. It was time for Iturbide to act.

On the evening of May 18, 1822, Pio Mancha, a sergeant in Iturbide’s army, raised the cry: “Viva Agustín I!” Other soldiers took up the cry, and as they marched through the streets towards Iturbide’s dwelling, crowds of léperos and others joined them. Gathering around Iturbide’s house, the mob demanded that he take up the government of Mexico in place of the Bourbons. This was not the first time there had been calls for Iturbide to assume the crown; ever since September 1821, such calls had been frequent — and Iturbide had issued a manifesto rejecting them. Now, appearing on the balcony of his house, Iturbide again refused the offered kingship. He withdrew into the house to consult the regents; when he

centralist republic: a republic where the preponderance of power lies in the central government rather than in local or state governments

Viva Agustín El Primero!


returned to the balcony, he announced his decision — he would accept the crown. Bells rang and guns were fired into the air in honor of the new king. The next day, the mobs waited in the streets outside the hall where congress gathered and inside mingled with the congressmen, crying viva! to Iturbide and threatening death to any who opposed him. No wonder the congress at last voted to proclaim Iturbide the emperor, Agustín I, of Mexico!

In July, Iturbide and his wife, adorned with jewels, in state entered the cathedral of Mexico City, where the archbishop anointed Agustín I with holy oil. The emperor and empress then mounted their thrones where he, like Napoleon Bonaparte, placed the crown on his own head. For the next month, Don Agustín occupied himself in making Mexico a full-fledged empire, with all the imperial trappings. He established the honorary Order of Guadalupe, endowing 50 grand crosses on favored recipients, along with 100 knighthoods.

Congress, however, remained the emperor’s enemy, and now in their midst was the famed Liberal clergyman, Fray Servando de Teresa y Mier. Fray Servando had been deported from Mexico late the previous century for denying the miraculous origin of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He had returned to Mexico in 1821 and taken the seat in congress to which he had been elected. As a congressmen, Fray Servando virulently and effectively attacked Don Agustín, ridiculing the emperor’s pomp and the empty titles he had bestowed on his favorites. In retalia-tion, the emperor imprisoned Fray Servando and 15 other congressmen. This outrage united congress against the emperor. In October 1822, Don

Agustín dissolved the congress and replaced it with a smaller, 45-member Junta Nacional Instituyente, handpicked by the emperor from the old congress.

But this new reduced congress also bucked and kicked against the emperor; it refused to write up a constitution and vote for taxes. Don Agustín now said he himself would write up

a constitution, but he found he had to face more serious problems. His generals were still not happy — without tax revenues, they were not receiving their salaries.

The emperor issued paper money to pay them, but this only caused prices to rise, fanning public discontent with the emperor. Agustín’s empire

tottered; it needed only a slight push to topple it.That push came from an army officer, the 27-year old Antonio

López de Santa Anna. A native of Jalapa, Santa Anna had served in the royalist army, but hearing opportunity knock, had switched sides and joined Iturbide in 1821. When Iturbide became emperor, Santa Anna went to Mexico City to congratulate him and took to courting Iturbide’s unmarried sister, thought he was 27 and she over 60 years old. The emperor and Santa Anna had a falling out, however, and Don Agustín dismissed him in disgrace to Veracruz. In the fall of 1822, Santa Anna sent out a call for the overthrow of the empire and the establishment of a republic. (The formal plan that Santa Anna issued, however,

made no mention of ending the empire.) He organized an army of liberation, to which Vicente Guerrero, Nicolás Bravo, and

Guadalupe Victoria joined their names and their power. At first, the rebellion was a failure, and Santa Anna planned to flee to Texas.

But then everything changed.Don Agustín’s generals began to desert him. In February 1823, one

general, José Antonio Echávarri, who had been conducting a desultory siege

Emperor Agustín I

Antonio López de Santa Anna


against Santa Anna at Veracruz, issued the Plan de Casa Mata, which laid out two demands: Don Agustín must restore the full congress and the insurgent armies must “attempt no act against [the emperor’s[ august person, which they respect as inviolable.” All of the emperor’s generals soon signed on to the plan; even his troops in Mexico City deserted him. On March 4, Emperor Agustín gave in to the inevitable; he summoned the old congress, which met on March 7.

But by the time the congress met, it was clear to Iturbide that he could not continue to exercise his office as he thought he should be able to do. During the rebellion, provincial governments throughout Mexico had begun taking on powers that weakened the control of the central government. Moreover, it was clear that the reformed congress would likely begin debates on whether to maintain the monarchy and the place of the Catholic Church in Mexico. To Emperor Agustín, this placed both the Church and his office at the mercy of the congress; thus, on March 19, 1823, he offered his resignation. The congress accepted it and sentenced him to perpetual banishment. That spring Iturbide and his family took ship for Europe.

The Republic of MexicoThirteen years of war had taken its toll on Mexico. About half a million people had been killed, and thousands were maimed and crippled or impoverished or homeless. Fields had been trampled; mines, flooded or abandoned; roads, destroyed. The new government had an enormous task of rebuilding ahead of it; but, as events would prove, it was unequal to the task.

The fall of Iturbide, left conservatives divided and weak. Moderates took control of the government and declared Mexico a republic. In November 1823, Miguel Ramós assumed leadership of a new congress and drafted a constitution patterned on the constitution of the United States. The new constitution, proclaimed on October 4, 1824, divided Mexico into 19 states and four territories; each state was to elect its own governor and legislature. Unlike the U.S. constitution, however, the Mexican constitution made no provision for trial by jury — it had never been part of Spanish jurisprudence. Though it forbade the practice of any other religion except the Catholic, the constitution abolished the Church’s exclusive control of schools.

Return of the Emperor

Don Agustín’s abdication in 1823 was not the end of his dealings with Mexico. A year later, Iturbide, who had gone first to Italy and then to England, informed the Mexican

congress that Spain was planning a reconquest of Mexico. Encouraged by reports that the people and the army were behind him, Iturbide offered his services to the Mexican govern-ment. He did not await a reply but took ship from England. At sea he likely passed the ship from Mexico that brought the government’s reply: if Iturbide should return to Mexico, he must die.

The emperor, his wife, and two youngest children, landed at Soto La Marina on the Tamaulipas coast in the spring of 1824. Proceeding inland to Padilla, Iturbide was arrested by local authorities and immediately sentenced to be shot. With great dignity and cour-age, Don Agustín took his place before the firing squad. “Fellow Mexicans,” he said, “in the moment of my death I recommend to you the love of our country and the observance of our holy religion. . . . I die happy, for I die among you!” Shots rang out, and Don Agustin de Iturbide, the first emperor of Mexico, fell dead to the earth.


Summary

• From the late 1780s to 1848, California enjoyed what is called its “golden age” and attracted the interest of foreigners. In 1812, the Russians came to California and built a settlement at Fort Ross.

• In the early 1800s, the California missions went through a period of progress during which many Indians were converted. The missions experienced difficulties resulting from runaway neophyte Indians and the bad influence of lax Spanish Catholics. In 1810 government payments and sup-port for the California military garrisons ceased, so the missions began to supply the garrisons, bringing strain on the Mission Indians.

• The society of Spanish America was tarnished by injustice, structural problems, and political corrup-tion. The ideas of the Enlightenment and the exam-ples of the American and French Revolutions drew people to embrace Liberal republican political philosophies.

• In the mother country, Spain, civil war was begin-ning. Napoleon pressured Carlos IV and his son, Fernando VII, to relinquish all claim to the Spanish throne, and made his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain. Indignation broke out against the French, and juntas were formed to oppose them.

• New Spain also rejected Joseph Bonaparte’s rule, and the town council of Mexico City asked the viceroy, José de Iturrigaray, to assume the powers of government of New Spain in the name of Fernando VII. Iturrigaray was a greedy man, however, and his action drew the opposition of the audiencia of New Spain, as well as of the Volunteers of Fernando VII, who broke into the viceregal palace and took Iturrigaray prisoner.

• During this early period of unrest in New Spain, Caballeros Racionales began meeting in Mexico to discuss revolutionary doctrines.

• In August of 1810, the priest, Miguel Hidalgo, and the Querétero group of Caballeros Racionales planned to capture key government officials and set up a revolutionary government. They were betrayed, but Hidalgo still chose to call for resistance, and by September 21, Hidalgo had amassed an army of 50,000. The army marched on Guanajuato on September 28 and slaughtered many inhabitants of the town. By October, Hidalgo had gained control of much of central Mexico. Hidalgo was captured in March 21, 1811, and later tried and executed.

• After the death of Hidalgo, Padre José María Morelos took command of the revolution. In 1813 Morelos abandoned any pretense that he was fight-ing for the rights of Fernando VII. He proclaimed that Mexico’s dependence on the Spanish throne had ceased forever and been dissolved. He laid out his ideas for the government of an independent Mexico. The congress adopted his plans and set about drawing up a constitution.

• In 1814 Napoleon was defeated, and Fernando VII returned to the Spanish throne. He suppressed the constitution adopted by the Spanish Cortes in 1812.

• In 1816 the rebel general Luis Mier y Terán dis-solved Morelos’ revolutionary congress. In April of that same year, Juan Ruiz de Apodaca became viceroy and offered amnesty to the remaining revo-lutionaries.

• Revolution in Spain in 1820 forced Fernando VII to restore the Constitution of 1812. Liberals then demanded reform and determined that union with Spain was dangerous. They began to plot independence.

Chapter 12 Review

According to the new constitution, state legislatures were to elect the president and vice president of the republic. Their choice in 1824 was Guadalupe Victoria for the first office and Nicolás Bravo for the second. Victoria’s administration was peaceful, but not on account of his administrative abilities. During his tenure, conservative and Liberal forces were organiz-ing themselves into factions that would over the next 40 years visit confusion on the country. Though his administration was unremarkable, President Victoria did have this distinction, shared by no other 19th century Mexican president: he completed his term and left office as poor as when he entered it.


• Agustín de Iturbide published his Plan de Iguala with its “Three Guarantees,” a blueprint for inde-pendence, in 1821. In July of that year a new Spanish viceroy, Juan O’Donojú, arrived in Veracruz, but the city was besieged, so he could not leave. In September he agreed to the Plan de Iguala, and the revolution was over, leaving Mexico independent.

• Iturbide began to set up his government, but the Spanish king would not recognize an independent Mexico. In 1822 a mob demanded that Iturbide take up the government of Mexico as emperor. Things did not go well with the new government, and Agustín’s empire was falling apart. Congress began calling for a centralist government. Antonio López de Santa Anna organized a rebel army against the new emperor, and on March 19, 1823, Emperor Agustín offered his resignation.

• After the fall of Iturbide, moderates took control of the government and declared Mexico a republic. Miguel Ramós assumed leadership of a new con-gress and drafted a constitution patterned on that of the United States. The constitution was proclaimed on October 2, 1824.

Key Concepts

junta: a group controlling a government, especially following a revolutionPlan de Iguala: the blueprint for independence in Mexico, written by Agustín de IturbideThree Guarantees: the assurances of the Plan de Iguala: independence for Mexico, the preservation of the Church, and the equality of gauchupines and creoles. centralist government: a republic where the prepon-derance of power lies in the central government rather than in local or state governments Constitution of 1824: Mexico’s first republican con-stitution, modeled on the Constitution of the United States of America

Dates to Remember

1808: Carlos IV and his son Fernando VII relinquish all claim to the Spanish throne, and Joseph Bonaparte becomes king of Spain.

In Spain juntas are formed to oppose the Bonapartist government.

1810: Padre Hidalgo begins the Mexican Revolution.1812: Padre Morelos takes over from Hidalgo and

publishes his Sentiementos de La Nación, his ideas for the government of Mexico. The Mexican congress adopts the Sentiementos.

1814: Napoleon is defeated, and Fernando VII returns to the Spanish throne and abolishes the Constitution of 1812.

1820: Fernando VII is forced to restore the Constitution of 1812. The Liberals in Mexico begin to plot independence.

1821: Iturbide publishes his Plan de Iguala, and the new Spanish viceroy, Juan O’Donojú, agrees to it, thus establishing Mexican independence.

1822: Iturbide becomes emperor of an independent Mexico.

1823: Iturbide resigns as emperor. Mexico becomes a republic.

1824: The Mexican congress proclaims the Constitution of 1824.

Central Characters

Fernando VII (1784–1833): king of Spain during the Mexican revolution of 1810Miguel Hidalgo (1753–1811): Catholic priest who first led the rebellion for Mexican independenceJosé María Morelos (1765–1815): revolutionary priest who assumed leadership of the Mexican independence movement after Hidalgo’s deathVicente Guerrero (1782–1831): a Liberal rebel leader who joined with Iturbide to institute the Plan de IgualaGuadalupe Victoria (Manuel Félix Fernández) (1786–1843): Liberal rebel leader who became the first president of the republic of MexicoAgustín de Iturbide (1783–1824): Mexican officer who became the leader of the Mexican indepen-dence movement and, as Agustín I, briefly reigned as emperor of Mexico

Chapter 12 Review (continued)


Chapter 12 Review (continued)

Questions for Review

1. Describe the chief characteristics of the “golden age of California.”

2. How was California a hierarchical society? 3. What were some of the difficulties the missionar-

ies were experiencing with the Indians of the mis-sions in California?

4. What conditions led to the Mexican revolution? 5. How did Napoleon’s actions in Europe encourage

the Mexican revolution? 6. What did Hidalgo achieve during the Mexican

revolution? 7. Describe Morelos’ idea of government. 8. Describe the Plan de Iguala and its Three

Guarantees. 9. What were the factions and dissensions that

threatened the newly independent Mexico?10. Explain why the Church cannot be subject to the

power of the state.11. What events led to Agustín I’s resignation as

emperor.12. Describe the 1824 constitution of Mexico.

Ideas in Action

1. Read the 1824 Constitution of Mexico (this can be found in the Internet) and compare it to the American Constitution. How do they differ and how are they alike?

2. Choose one of the California missions and research its founding, the region wherein it was built, the Indians who inhabited it, and the work the mis-sionaries and the Indians did.

Highways and BywaysThe Green, White, and Red

During Mexico’s war for independence, a number of flags were used to represent the struggle. When the country finally achieved its independence under the Plan de Iguala, the tricolor of green, white, and red became the official flag of Mexico. The design may have been influenced by the French flag, also a tri-color (of red, white, and blue); but the colors of the Mexican flag were thoroughly Mexican. The green symbolizes independence; white, the Catholic reli-gion; and red, union. These three elements represent the “Three Guarantees” of the Plan de Iguala: inde-pendence from Spain, preservation of the Catholic Church, and the equality of all Mexicans. In the center of the flag, on the white field, is an emblem that depicts the foundation myth of the ancient Aztec empire: an eagle with a snake in its talons and beak, standing on a cactus that grows out of rocks in the middle of water. Over the years, various renditions of this scene have been used by the many different regimes. In one version, when Mexico was an empire, the eagle is depicted wearing a crown.

Documents

12_CTP_LHP_(253-280) CZ