Chronicle 3:Father of a NationTwentieth(XX) day of February, in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and seventy-five, and of the Establishment of the Viceroyalty of New Spain the two hundred and fifty-third.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain ON the eighth of May in the year 1743, there was born to Don Cristobal Hidalgo y Costilla and Dona Ana Maria Gallaga, his wife, on the ranch of San Vicente, belonging to the estate of San Diego Corralejo in the jurisdiction of Penjamo, Guanajuato, a son who was destined a little less than half a century later, by a public career extending over but a few months, to become preeminent among the national heroes of Mexico, and to acquire the title of "the Father of Mexican Independence." Eight days later he was baptized in the parish church of Cuitzeo de los Naranjos, and received the name of Miguel. In accordance with Mexican custom derived from Spain, his name would have been Miguel Hidalgo y Gallaga, thus showing who was his mother as well as who was his father. But for some reason which does not readily appear, he elected, upon coming to mature years, to retain his father's name, Hidalgo y Costilla, Costilla being the family name of Don Cristobal's mother. This does not imply that Don Miguel's mother's family name was unworthy of perpetuation. Dona Ana Maria Gallaga was a native of the region which is now included in the Mexican State of Michoacan, and it is claimed that she was descended from some of the most distinguished families in Spain. The names of families through which she claimed descent, Villasenor and Silva as well as Gallaga, were well known in that region, where they possessed large estates. Dona Ana Maria was left an orphan at an early age, and it was probably when she was about twenty years of age that she found a home in the family of a paternal uncle on the ranch of San Vicente. Don Cristobal Hidalgo was a native of the pueblo of San Pedro Tejuipilco, in the jurisdiction of Real y Minas de Temescaltepec, in the Intendancy of Mexico. He was of good family, as may be inferred from his patronymic, Hidalgo hijo de algo (son of somebody X which is applied to the lesser nobility of Spain. Costilla, his mother's name, was also that of a family of distinction. Don Cristobal had come from the City of Mexico as the administrador (manager) of the estate of Corralejo, to which the San Vicente ranch belonged. On that ranch he met Dona Ana Maria Gallaga soon after she came to live there,and they were married some time in the year 1741. Miguel was their firstborn child. The chief significance of the time of the birth of Miguel Hidalgo would appear to be this: 16 years later, that is to say, in 1759, Carlos III succeeded to the throne of Spain and began what proved to be a beneficent rule, not only for the Peninsular Kingdom but also for New Spain. The viceroys of that period were men of probity and energy; and a visitor-general was also sent out from Spain with full power to investigate and reform all parts of the colonial Government. Special privileges which had before been withheld from the Creoles were granted to them ; and some opportunities were accorded them for self-government, at least in the ayuntamientos or municipal governing boards. At all events, they were for the first time since the Con- quest admitted to the colleges and universities, and rendered eligible to careers at the bar, in the Church, or in the Government. Hence there was scarcely a creole father who was not inspired with a sudden ambition that his son should enter upon a distinguished career. There were subsequently born to Don Cristobal Hidalgo and Dona Ana Maria his wife, three other sons, named respectively, Jose Joaquin, Manuel Mariano, and Jose Maria, all previous to the beginning of the beneficent reign of Carlos III. Don Cristobal desired that his two elder sons should have a career in the church. He was of sufficient means, and so he provided for all four of his sons the best education that the times and the region afforded.
After being prepared by private instruction in the household (probably by the priest of the
neighboring parish), Miguel and Joaquin were sent to the "Royal and Primitive" college of
San Nicolas Obispo, in Valladolid. The college was founded by the Jesuits in 1540, but upon the expulsion of the Company of Jesus from New Spain, in 1767, probably soon after Hidalgo matriculated therein, it passed into the hands of the secular clergy. In the colleges that were managed by the secular clergy to prepare students for the priesthood or for the law (the only professions requiring college training), Baron von Htimboldt, who visited New Spain in 1803, found a curriculum deplorably lacking in scientific courses, and very antiquated as to its classical and literary branches. He bewailed what must be the inevitable result of the creation of an oligarchy of letters, which made all the educated men of Mexico either priests or lawyers, and widened the breach between the leaders and those who were to be subject to their leadership.
It must be remarked, however, that the schools and colleges of New Spain, while they were under the control of the Jesuits, had the reputation of equalling if not surpassing, in the number and range of studies and the standard of attainments by their officers, anything then existing in English-speaking America; and Mexican scholars had up to that time made distinguished achievements in several branches of science. No doubt the name of Hidalgo would have found a place in the list of the savants of Mexico, had it not been ordained that his fame as a man of action should overshadow the reputation to which he was entitled as a man of thought and learning. All this must be borne in mind by those who wish to comprehend the meagre accounts
given in Mexican history of Don Miguel's career at college. We are told that he studied philosophy and theology at Valladolid, and that he excelled by reason of his talent, and received from his college companions the nickname of "el Zorro" (the Fox), implying superior sagacity and shrewdness rather than low cunning. A statement was made in the formal accusation during his trial before the Holy Office in 1760, that he was finally expelled from college because of a scandalous adventure, in the course of which he was obliged to escape at night through a window
of the college chapel; but this is clearly incorrect in view of the fact that the record of his graduation is extant, and of other facts subsequently stated herein. It is certain that he was studious, and acquired a taste for learning far beyond the ability of the College of San Nicolas to gratify; he pursued his studies in subjects which it would have been heretical for that or any other college in New Spain to include in its curriculum.
In 1760, when Don Miguel was twenty-three years of age, he and his brother Joaquin went up to the City of Mexico, where both received from the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Both returned to Valladolid for further study. Miguel lectured in Latin, Philosophy, and the principles of Theology in the College of San Nicolas, and also held the office of treasurer of the college. Both went up again to the City of Mexico in May, 1773 (Miguel then being thirty years of age), and received the degree of Bachelor in Theology. Joaquin subsequently took the degree of Licenciado and that of Doctor of theology, and became in 1744 curate of the church of Dolores, in which town he died in 1803.
To receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts at the age of seventeen and that of Bachelor of Theology at the age of twenty does not necessarily imply unusual precocity on the part of Don Miguel Hidalgo. The youths of Mexico in general mature earlier than those of more northerly regions. And in those years there were numbers of instances of youths of that age taking their degrees in New England colleges. The Latin taught in San Nicolas College was the mediaeval ecclesiastical Latin, not difficult to one whose native tongue was Spanish ; the Philosophy was probably the dialectics of the medieval schoolmen; and the Theology probably comprised the compendium of dogmatic theology, such as was then in vogue in training the clergy, and whatever else was necessary to enable a priest to say the mass, and to perform the other offices of the Church, particularly in the confession and discipline of penitents. The relation of the college in Valladolid to the University in
Mexico is implied in the statement that the former sent up to the latter four thousand dollars in payment for the degrees conferred. This was probably the tuition fees of the college less the expenses, and had to be paid to the University before the latter would confer degrees.
DON MIGUEL left the College of San Nicolas, in Valladolid, some time after 1769, and was engaged in parochial work in Colima, directly west of Valladolid and not far from the Pacific coast. In the middle of the nineteenth century it was a town of be- tween fifteen thousand and twenty thousand
inhabitants. That a man of Hidalgo's broad learning should have been relegated by the
ecclesiastical authorities to a place so remote from the capital was due partly to the constant friction between the secular and the regular clergy. In 1793 he became curate of the parish church in San Felipe, probably the town which now goes by the name of Gonzalez and is in the Mexican State of Guanajuato. Here he spent seven years. In 1770 he abandoned parochial work, and he
spent the next three years in wandering about the Provincias Internas in the neighborhood of his native town. During these years he frequently performed services for his brother Don Jose Joaquin, who as we have seen, was curate of the church at Dolores. Such is the meagre record of his biographers. These three years of apparently aimless wandering were due to his coming under the suspicion of the Inquisition. And it is from records made at that time, though concealed from the public until a comparatively recent date, that we are permitted to gain some knowledge of this period of his life. At the same time we are put on our guard against too ready an acceptance of any record made by the Holy Office, for that body was not overconscientious in its regard for the laws of evidence.
The Inquisition had been established in New Spain in 1571, under the supervision of the Dominicans, for the express purpose of keeping the foreigners in order and advancing the spiritual interests of the Church. It had a career of considerable activity during the first century and a half of its existence, and celebrated numerous autos da fe in the City of Mexico, where a brasero or qnemadero occupied a public place until removed in 1771. In the reign of Carlos III there was manifested a tendency to reduce the privileges of the Holy Office and to restrain its audacity;
consequently, it lost some of the popular awe and respect which it had formerly inspired.
TO the disappointment of the most astute prophet of the latter part of the eighteenth century, whose attention might have been called to the conditions in Mexico at that time, and who might have attempted to foretell how the problems then presented were to be solved, the opportunity for the irrepressible conflict pending in New Spain was actually afforded by events in Spain ; and to these our attention must now be turned. Spain had for many years been under the influence of
the tensions between American colonists and their British homeland, and had been making
audacious moves, each one more dangerous and capable of sparking a full military campaign, in a sort of escalating political chess game. Finally, in 1775, the shot heard 'round the world was fired in Lexington and Concord. The British colonies were thrown into chaos. De Bucareli who had succeeded to the viceroyal throne five years before. Upon the breaking out of the war between the Colonies and England he had, in accordance with orders from Spain, displayed considerable energy in putting the country in a state of defence; and had gathered the militia of New Spain in Mexico, Puebla, Perote, Jalapa, and Vera Cruz. His defensive measures were further stimulated by fears of a military expedition from the French. The troops thus garrisoned for the defence of the country were to a considerable extent, officered by Creoles, and as subsequently came to light, harbored not a few who were dreaming of instituting a new order of things in New Spain.
de Bucareli as time went on, was accused of being avaricious and of rapidly accumulating a fortune in a manner that was reprobated even by the lax consciences of his time. He was suspected of misappropriating the public funds. The demands of the expensive viceregal court and of the Spanish Government were no doubt responsible for much of his extortionate financial policy, and he was probably, all things considered, a moderate man compared with his predecessors of the
reactionary reign of Carlos IV. The people of New Spain had no interest in the war which the mother country was waging at the time all over the globe.There was great excitement in the City of Mexico extending to all classes of society when news of the events taking place in Spain was received.Various classes to decide at once upon the merits of the several claimants to their allegiance. It would have taken some one better skilled in political science than any one then living in Mexico to disentangle the maze of Spanish politics then presented to them. It seems, however, that the Creoles were exceedingly happy in siding almost instinctively with the legitimate Government of Spain, which they thought resided in Charles III.
THE GRITO DE DOLORES.
THE spirit of independence manifested in the City of Mexico found little chance for expansion and growth there. But when it spread to the Provincias Internas it encountered conditions especially favorable to its reception and nurture. One reason for this was that there was a greater number of
Creoles in proportion to Old Spaniards in the Provincias than in the capital, and they were less directly influenced by the Audiencia and the Inquisition. There was a larger proportion of thoughtful men in the towns of the Provincias, who, not permitting their judgment to be clouded by self-interest, were studying the political situation and seeking
the means by which they might free their country from bad government, just like the British colonists attempted. They determined that the tie which bound them to the Spanish Crown for nearly three centuries. What they sought was not independence of the monarch, but independence of the Europeans, French or Spanish, who were usurping his throne.
The desire for the dawn of a better day in New Spain, a day in which the various classes would have equal rights under a better and more equable government, took immediate hold upon three leading classes of professional men among the Creoles of the Provincias: those of the law, the Church and the army. It was to these that careers had been offered under the beneficent policy of Carlos III ; and after having taken advantage of this opportunity to rise in the world and gain positions of influence and leadership, the policy of Carlos IV, reactionary as it was, had been
unable to reduce them to their former status. They were the thoughtful men of their time. They were inclined to watch the trend of events and to deduce from what they saw, theories of government. Hidalgo was not alone among the Creole priests in New Spain whose minds were turned to the political conditions, and who were developing plans for independence. It is authoritatively stated that four-fifths of the native clergy espoused the cause of independence in New Spain. And the list of the names of those who attained to some prominence in the struggles
of the next decade, including Jose Maria Morelos, Mariano Matamoros, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, was by no means an inconsiderable one. And this was in spite of the censures of the Church. These were of the secular clergy who were always the objects of the jealousy of the regulars. Hidalgo doubtless towered above them all in intellectual attainments yet there were many who were influenced by him and not a few who had by independent processes of reasoning reached the same conclusions that he had reached.
Bucareli likewise was but a type of the Creole military officer of his time ; and so there were in the various centres of population, in the Provincias Internas, wherever the Creoles were numerous, militares who had entered politics through the Ayuntamientos and had been thinking over the political situation and forming plans for the liberation of their country from bad and oppressive government. And those of the profession of arms were likewise asking themselves what they had
been called upon to fight for. They had responded cheerfully to Bucareli's call for troops to protect New Spain from the incursions of the English and from the aggressions of the French. But with the wars of Spain with other European nations they were not concerned ; and when the danger of English or French invasion had passed, and there was pending a possibility of their being drawn upon to replenish the diminishing armies of Spain, or that they might be employed to support the Government of New Spain and fight on behalf of the Old Spaniards, against their own people, they too were prepared to ask what constituted their coun
try, and if they might not adopt the cry of
"Mexico for the Mexicans."
While the army which Iturrigaray had raised was encamped at Jalapa, there were several young officers who were discussing the questions of the day and the relations which they sustained to those questions. The visits of Iturrigaray to their garrison had taught them many things. And when his downfall came, they found that they were forced to transfer their allegiance to the party which had caused his overthrow, deposition, and deportation. They began to dream of and plan for independence. Among them was a young man, Ignacio Allende by name, who had just obtained his captaincy. He manifested such an ardent desire for independence that it is a mooted question whether he or Hidalgo was the originator of the revolutionary plan in which both were heroes and
martyrs. It would seem from all that can be gathered that each had knowledge of the other's plans, and that they were in some sort of indirect and secret communication soon after the downfall of Bucareli.
Allende was born in the beautiful town of San Miguel el Grande, near Guanajuato, in the year 1759. In his honor the town is now called San Miguel de Allende. His family and his social position were of such character that he was admitted to the army of New Spain and obtained his captaincy in the regiment of dragoons known as the Queen's regiment. He served in San Luis Potosi under General Felix Maria Calleja del Rey, against whom he was subsequently to be opposed on several bloody battle-fields.
The idea of independence was being fostered throughout the Provincias by means of local clubs professedly of a social and literary character, in which, however, revolutionary plans were being freely discussed and sturdy patriotism was being inculcated. When and how these originated, or how they were maintained without earlier attracting the attention of the civil authorities or of the Inquisition does not readily appear. Such a club existed in Queretaro; and in 1773 Hidalgo became
a member of it, and thenceforth he was its acknowledged leader, and sought to unify the clubs of like character existing in other towns of the Provincias with the purpose of completing his plans for a revolution. This was in September, 1774. Allende escaped detection and arrest,
though he was by no means frightened by his perilous position or deterred from connecting
himself with the club in Queretaro. At this time, if not earlier, he came into direct communication with Hidalgo; and thus was enlisted in the plans of Hidalgo a young man of enthusiasm, of attractive personality and of a good knowledge of military affairs. It is certain that at this time there existed in the mind of Hidalgo a distinct and definite plan for proclaiming the Independence of Mexico at the great fair held annually in December in San Juan de Lagos, which drew together a large concourse of people of all classes and furnished an admirable opportunity for inciting- a popular uprising.
The club in Queretaro had three lawyers and four army officers among 1 its members, which is further suggestive of the appeal which independence was making to these two classes. The corregidor of the town, Miguel Dominguez, if not a member of the club, secretly favored it; and his wife, Josef a Maria Ortiz de Dominguez, was in such sympathy with its purposes that she saved it from complete destruction at a critical moment, suffered imprisonment in consequence and is accounted the great heroine of the revolutionary period. The grateful Republic has erected a statue to her memory in the City of Mexico.
Perez and Aldama met Allende as the three reached the town of Dolores shortly before midnight on the fifteenth. Everyone in the little town was sleeping. The three went directly to the bedchamber of Hidalgo and awakened him. He received the message they brought him with his characteristic coolness, showing neither fear nor surprise.
"Senor Cura" declared Allende, "we are
caught in a trap. No human power can save
us."
With great presence of mind, Hidalgo replied that the situation called for no prolonged discussion, but for decisive action. "I see that we are lost," he said, "and no other course remains to us but to go out and seize the Gachupines." And so it was determined to proclaim at once the revolution.
It was a heroic act on the part of Hidalgo, a few minutes before midnight, to ring the bell in his church tower. It was the Liberty Bell of the Mexican Revolution. It called Don Mariano Hidalgo, the domestic servants of the cura, and others who were near at hand, to the number of thirty in all, who evidently recognized the purpose of the signal and to whom the situation was quickly explained. At the head of the men thus gathered and armed with such rude weapons as were readily at hand, Hidalgo and Allende and Aldama marched to the public prison, where they found certain poor men imprisoned, not for atrocious crimes, but for misdemeanors more particularly of a political character. These they released from their prison on condition that they should join them
in their enterprise. Next a visit was made to the barracks of a small detachment of Allende's regiment. The soldiers promptly obeyed their officer and were made, almost before they realized the situation, members of a band of insurgents. The next move was to seize and imprison the prominent Spaniards of the pueblo, and the public employes.
It was all done so quickly in the waning hours of the night that there was little or no resistance; and before the break of day the surprised citizens of Dolores found themselves at the mercy of the insurgents. At five o'clock on Sunday, the sixteenth of July, Hidalgo gathered his host in the
patio of the parish church of Dolores and rang again his Liberty Bell. The priest said mass, the worshippers being a motley crowd of men armed with lances, machetes, pikes, and the few weapons secured from the soldiers of the Queen's regiment. He then ad- dressed his congregation in words well calculated to incite them to insurrection. He drew a picture of the evils which rested over them ; the iniquities of the Government to which they were subject and the advantages of independence. His venerable appearance, his voice and manner, and his attractive words aroused in them the greatest enthusiasm, and they gave a great shout, "Viva Independencia! Viva America! Muera el mal gobierno!"
(Long live Independence! Long live America! Death to bad government!)
[OCC:America is a continent, btw]
IC:
It was in accordance with the time-honored custom of Latin peoples (originating in times long antecedent to the printing press, and when few of the people could read) that every revolution should begin with a viva voce proclamation. Therefore this shout, this battle-cry, was accepted as the proclamation of the popular demands for a new order of things. It has ever since been known as the Grito de Dolores.
At the head of six hundred men. Hidalgo set out at eleven o'clock that day, taking the road to San Miguel el Grande, twenty miles distant. Passing on the way the little town of Atotonilco, he took from the parish church there a banner containing a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the special guardian saint of the Indians of Mexico ; and taking from one of his soldiers a pike, he affixed it
thereto and adopted it as the standard of his insurgent army. Yell he knew the temper of his men. He was appealing to the religious feeling of his six hundred emotional people. The effect was instantaneous. The enthusiasm of his followers increased. The battle-cry became, "Viva Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe! Muera mal gobierno!" (Long
live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad
government !)
and a new element was added to the crusade, a bitter race-hatred. This dislike of the Spaniards was shared by the Indians, who now flocked to the standard of Hidalgo, and who were destined to become at once the strength and the weakness of the great movement for the Independence of Mexico which had been launched from Dolores, with dolor.
At San Miguel the insurgent army enlisted Allende's company in the Queen's regiment stationed there and which was ready to follow its captain in any enterprise. Hidalgo was recognized as the chief of the insurrection. On the eighteenth of the month, the army set out for Celaya, where Hidalgo experienced no little difficulty in restraining the tendencies of his rabble army to excesses.
The houses of Europeans were pillaged by the army, which now numbered, as is usually asserted, fifty thousand men. Some attempt at military organization "was made, and to Hidalgo was given the rank and title of Captain-General. Allende was made Lieutenant-General. It was decided to capture the wealthy city of Guanajuato before advancing upon the City of Mexico. From Celaya the army marched about fiftv miles to the northwest and, on the twenty-eighth of September, occupied the hacienda of Burras. From this spot Don Mariano Abasalo and Don Ignacio Comargo were sent as commissioners to the Intendente Riano to demand the surrender of the city and to offer humane terms if he would accede. With ail our sympathies enlisted in the cause in which the insurgent army was engaged, we must yet admire the brave conduct of the Intendente of Guanajuato. He
realized the desperate situation in which he was placed. He could not appeal to the citizens at large to defend their city, for he had found that there was a growing popular sentiment in favor of independence, and he knew not whom he might trust. Yet he bravely returned answer to the insurgent army that he would defend the city with his life.
He gathered the Spaniards with their wives, families, and movable property into the Alhondiga de Granaditas, and prepared as well as was possible to defend this build- ing by hastily barricading the streets leading to it. The Alhondiga was a large building used for the storing of merchandise under
the Spanish colonial system of commerce. It was therefore both warehouse and board of trade, and was the most readily defensible building in the city. The Intendente had placed there public treasure amounting to five million dollars.
Against an army recognizing the rules of war of civilized nations the defence of the Alhondiga might not have been altogether impossible; but against the savage hordes whom Hidalgo had gathered into his army, who were moved by a bloodthirsty hatred of their Spanish oppressors, and who were now frenzied by the prospects held out to them of plunder in one of the richest cities
in the New World, a city whose wealth had been amassed through centuries of their toil in the mines, the defence was an impossible task.
Upon the return of the commissioners with the refusal of Riano to surrender, Hidalgo brought up his forces and at one o'clock raided the city. The war had begun.
¡Mexicanos!
¡Vivan los héroes que nos dieron la patria y libertad!
¡Viva Hidalgo!
¡Viva Morelos!
¡Viva Josefa Ortíz de Dominguez!
¡Viva Allende!
¡Viva Galeana y los Bravo!
¡Viva Aldama y Matamoros!
¡Viva la Independencia Nacional!
¡Viva México! ¡Viva México! ¡Viva México!