Who Was Miguel Hidalgo? The Priest Who Started Mexico's War of Independence

An unusual priest

Hidalgo did not live the way an eighteenth-century priest was expected to. He questioned the absolute authority of the Spanish king and challenged Church teachings, including clerical celibacy; he owned haciendas and fathered several children. He was called before the Inquisition, though the court did not find him guilty. He was also an egalitarian who opened his house to indigenous people and mestizos as well as criollos.

Why Dolores mattered

In 1803 Hidalgo became parish priest of Dolores, in the region of Guanajuato. He left most church duties to an assistant and threw himself into helping the poor: he set up workshops for bricks and pottery, trained indigenous people in leatherwork, promoted beekeeping and raised silkworms. He also taught people to grow olives and grapes, but colonial rules discouraged or banned these crops to protect Spanish imports, and he was ordered to stop. When a drought caused famine in 1807–1808, Spanish merchants held back stored grain to raise prices. Experiences like these turned Hidalgo against the Spanish-born elite who ran New Spain.

Meanwhile, events in Europe shook the colony. Napoleon forced the Spanish kings to abdicate and made his brother Joseph king of Spain. In the city of Querétaro, a group that included the mayor Miguel Domínguez, his wife Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez and the officer Ignacio Allende began plotting a revolt, and Allende persuaded Hidalgo to join.

What was the Cry of Dolores?

Fearing arrest, Hidalgo acted early. On the night of September 15, 1810, his brother, Allende and others made the local sheriff free some eighty prisoners. On the morning of September 16, Hidalgo celebrated Mass for about 300 people and called on his parish to leave their homes and join a rebellion against the government, in the name of King Ferdinand VII. The Cry did not reject monarchy itself. It attacked "bad government" and stressed loyalty to the Catholic faith, which both criollos and Spaniards could share.

At the sanctuary of Atotonilco, Hidalgo took an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and raised it on a lance as his banner. His flags read: "Long live religion! Long live our most Holy Mother of Guadalupe! Long live America and death to bad government!"

A huge army without training

Hidalgo and Allende left Dolores with about 800 men. Poor farmers, indigenous people and mestizos joined in such numbers that the movement grew far beyond the original plan. On September 28, the rebels, armed mostly with sticks, stones and machetes, stormed the fortified granary of Guanajuato, the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, where Spanish and criollo families had taken refuge, and killed an estimated 400 to 600 people. The violence horrified Allende and pushed many liberal criollos to side with the Spanish.

After defeating royalist troops at Monte de las Cruces on October 30, 1810, Hidalgo had around 100,000 followers and was close to Mexico City. Allende wanted to attack the capital, but Hidalgo turned away; historians still debate why. In Guadalajara he set up a rebel government, and on December 6, 1810, he issued a decree abolishing slavery and ended the tribute that indigenous people had to pay.

Defeat, capture and execution

In January 1811, at the Battle of Calderón Bridge near Guadalajara, Hidalgo's 80,000 to 100,000 men and 95 cannons were decisively beaten by about 6,000 well-trained royalist soldiers. The other leaders took military command away from him, and as they fled north hoping to find support in the United States, they were betrayed and captured at the Wells of Baján on March 21, 1811.

Hidalgo was stripped of his priesthood and found guilty of treason by a military court. The most common account says he was shot by a firing squad on the morning of July 30, 1811, in Chihuahua. Before he died he thanked his two jailers for treating him kindly, and he is reported to have said: "Though I may die, I shall be remembered forever; you all will soon be forgotten." His head and those of Allende and two other leaders were hung at the corners of the Alhóndiga in Guanajuato, where they stayed for ten years.

Why is he the Father of the Nation?

Mexico did not become independent until 1821, and it was Agustín de Iturbide, not Hidalgo, who became its first head of state. For a while the country celebrated independence on either September 16 or September 27, the day Iturbide's forces entered Mexico City. Later governments preferred the liberal Hidalgo to the conservative Iturbide, and September 16, 1810, became the official date, because Hidalgo is seen as the forerunner of all the other heroes of independence.

It has been said that Hidalgo was a father in three senses: a priest, a biological father, and the father of his country. The muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco painted him, his town was renamed Dolores Hidalgo, and a Mexican state bears his name.

Learn with Miguel Hidalgo: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
a call to arms	an urgent request to fight	The Cry of Dolores was a call to arms.
to rise up	to rebel against those in power	The people of Dolores rose up.
to spread like wildfire	to grow very fast	The revolt spread like wildfire.
to turn the tide	to change the direction of events	Calderón Bridge turned the tide.
to pave the way	to make something possible later	Hidalgo paved the way for independence.

Try this: Write three sentences about a historical event in your country, using "to rise up" and "to pave the way".