1. The Bajio—source of Mexican Independence…
…porque?

4. Stage 1
Your reading will tell you that the wealthy Creole and Peninsular elites conspired to gain domestic control of the economy in 1808 following Napoleon’s invasion of Spain.
Free trade, not independence (just like the US independence movement before the Decl of Independence)
But wealthy conservatives who made $ from Spanish mercantilist policies squashed the movement

5. Stage 2: Miguel Hidalgo Creole priest
Avid reader of Enlightenment literature
Victim of Inquisition
Sent to poor parish in the Bajio
Also—a radical member of creole cabal for independence

6. Sept 16, 1810—Miguel Hidalgo issues the Grito de Dolores
My children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once… Will not you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines!

7. The Virgin of Guadeloupe
Mestiza icon—
A blend of an Aztec Mother Goddess and the Virgin Mary
Supposedly seen by an Indian in the 16th century, right after the Conquest.
Became the symbol of Mexico—mestizaje—and of the importance of the Catholic Church

10. Guanajuato in 1910, one hundred years after the massacre

12. Guanajuato today

14. What were Hidalgo’s reforms?
In other words, what was the cause of the rebellion?

15. Abolition of slavery and taxes
Return of Indian communal lands that had been given to peninsulares

16. Hidalgo’s death
Perhaps horrified by the massacres, he refuses to allow his army into the capital—Mexico City
His army spends time looting the countryside and attacking isolated rancheros, and moves back up into the North
Hidalgo captured near US border in 1811, and executed by royalists
But his army fought on, under…

17. Jose Maria Morelos

18. 1813—Congress of Chilpancingo:
End to slavery and taxes, and an end to renting of Indian communal lands, but also…

19. Ban forced labor
End the caste system
And…
Divide up the great haciendas into smaller plots of land and this land distributed to the peasants
Almost Jeffersonian—a land of small farmers
And in 1814, at Apatzingan, Morelos announced a constitutional republic with civic equality of all citizens and freedoms of speech—that is, full independence from Spain and its recently returned king, Ferdinand VII, and a government like that of the US.
Morelos captured and executed in 1815, of course

20. Guadalupe Victoria Vicente Guerrero

21. Guerrilla Warfare, 1815-1821 Exhausting
Brutal—atrocities on both sides
Increasingly nasty Imperial Army begins angering even wealthy creoles
And of course, taxes
 …

22. Ferdinand VII—(painted by Goya)
So hated by his own subjects that it leads to a liberal revolt in Spain in 1820.
Creoles ask for equal representation for New Spain, are denied.
Furthermore, the new Cortes abolishes military and religious fueros and threatens other liberal reforms

23. Iturbide, the butcher
Plan de Iguala, 1821

24. Recognize our major players from the lower half of the mural?
From the epic murals at the Palacio Nacional