12 - CTP - LHP - (253-280) CZ

12 Revolution
in New Spain
A California Romance
n an April day in 1806, a ship flying the two-headed eagle, emblem of the
Russian Empire, sailed into Californias Golden Gate, braving the guns of the
Presidio de San Francisco. A message sent from shipboard to the Spanish commander announced the arrival of the Russian ship Juno, and her master, Nikolai
Petrovich Reznov, an agent of the Russian-American Fur Company and chamberlain to
His Majesty, the Tsar.
Reznov 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 supplies from elsewhere, and intent on saving the settlement, Reznov looked south, to
California, known to be a land of plenty. There, he thought, he could get supplies for the
struggling colony
a nd scout out a location for a

Russian settlement.
The Spanish authorities were not nave; they understood 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, stationed at four presidios at San Diego, Santa Barbara,
Monterey, and San Francisco. Whats more, these presidios 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 forbade trade with foreign countries.
The meeting between the Spanish commander at San
Francisco, Captain Jos Dario Argello, and Reznov,
was somewhat comic: Argello was anxious lest the Russian discover the weakness of the
presidio, and Reznov was trying to hide the conditions at Sitka while he negotiated for a
shipload of food. The Spanish commander showed Reznov generous hospitality, and the
lighthearted Californios made his stay pleasant; nevertheless, Argello said there would be
no question of trade, even for food.
Meanwhile, the courtly Reznov charmed the gente de razn (members of the upper
class) in San Francisco and the local clergy, who all took his part. Still, neither Argello nor
the governor, Jos Arillaga, would bend. They were not to be corrupted; they would maintain the kings law. But Reznov found one very powerful advocateA
rgellos 16-year old
sister, Doa Maria de la Concepcin.
San Francisco presidio,

1817
253
254
LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America
Concepcin, 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 nobleman, though he was 35 years her senior. Reznov courted Conchita and finally asked for
her hand in marriage. This presented a difficulty; since Reznov 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 Argello, however, accepted
Reznov as Conchitas suitor, and the lovers were betrothed.
Matters now were different. Reznov was not just a Russian agent; he was a member of
the Argello family. The governor could not refuse him the supplies. In May, with the Junos
holds filled with food, Reznov set sail for Sitka. Before his departure, Concepcon vowed
she would never marry another man, and Reznov promised that he would return for her
after he received permission for his marriage from the tsar.
Years passed, and Concepcon 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 Reznovs 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 Reznovhe 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 Concepcon was at the banquet, commented, in passingleft a sweetheart, 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 nuns 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 nuns attire. Seor, pardon, she died, too!
The Golden Age of California

The story of Conchita and Nikolai Reznov is the stuff of legend, but it epitomizes a period
that has been called Californias 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 imaginationan era
of holy padres teaching docile Indian converts, proud rancho dons, caballeros in colorful
costume, and beautiful, dark-eyed doas and seoritas. 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 Reznov 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.
Californias social structure was aristocratic. At the top of the social pyramid were the
gente de razn, the families of more or less pure Spanish blood. The families of government
officials, like the Arillagas and the Argellos, belonged to this group, as did the increasing
Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain
number of rancho dons. Indians who married into this group became members of the gente
de razn by association, their children thus suffering no stigma. As the story of Conchita
illustrates, the gente de razn were closely related, and claims of kinship were held
sacredcontravening, at times, even the kings 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 doas. 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 pueblos of Los Angeles, San Jos, and the short-lived
Branciforte wild, unruly places. The number of these whites, including the gente de razn,
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 1820and 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, excellent 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 kings 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 farther north, Nikolai Reznov wanted a base from which Russia could conquer
all of California. Alexander Baranov, the head of the Russian American Fur
Company, took up Reznovs 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
255
A view of old Los

Angeles, made in 1860
A California Indian, by
Louis Choris
256
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 RossiyaRussia) 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.
Sketch of Fort Ross,
1841, by Ilya Gavrilovich
Voznesenskii
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.
Californias 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 officers, 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,
257
as at Monterey, made no counteroffensive,

though one Jos 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 Missions
In 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 offerings to him and washed their faces in
sacred water. The message of Chupus
visitation spread secretly among the
Chumash of San Buenaventura and Santa
Barbara missionsa nyone who revealed his coming to the padres would die, said the god.
When the padres did find out about Chupus 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 converts did not run off and to join their kindreds 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 hateand others asked that missionaries be sent among them.
The first charges of cruelty, however, came in 1798 when Fray Antonio de la Concepcin
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
presidiowhose 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 Fermn Lasuen, third president of the
missions, to respond to these charges. Not only Fray Fermn, but three other California missionary friars wrote refutations of Horras 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
258
A sketch of Mission San

Buenaventura from Life
in California, ca. 1839,
by Alfred Robinson
Indians allowed to gather wild fruits, but every Sunday, one-fifth of them were allowed to
visit their native rancheras for as long as a week or two. As for flogging, deprivation of
water, the stocksthese 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 todays standards, any use of the lash seems excessive; at that time, however, corporal
punishment was very common and thought unremarkable. Californias governor Don Jos
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 Fermn 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 education 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 Lasun, 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 Lasun, 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 chastised by the hand of another woman in the apartment for the women. Sometimes, though
exceedingly seldom, the shackles are put on.
Fray Fermn 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 Lasuns own personal faults was an inability to see the good in native
cultures, apart from their faults. While Fray Junpero Serra and other missionaries could
praise native peoples, Lasun, 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 missionaries had with their neophytes
were compounded by the Spanish
settlers, whose encroachments on
mission lands the friars had periodically 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 countrys prosperity, they said, and were a detriment to missionary work. How
could the friars teach their converts about the importance of
attending Mass and other services, when the Spaniards often
themselves neglected themwhile
they would never miss a fandango. Though Indians could be flogged for missing some services, the Spaniards received no punishment for the same infraction. It was extremely difficult 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 syphilis, 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 province 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
259
A sketch of Mission San

Luis Rey, from Life in
California, ca. 1839, by
Alfred Robinson
The interior of Mission

San Miguel Arcngel,
1939
260
acquired from surgeons of the province and from books. The best curanderos and curanderas have been procured. In all, it forms a somber calculation of diminution. The population decline is made more notable since in 24 years I have known only two epidemics,
that of 1801 and the measles of 1806.
An 1873 map showing

the Tulares and San
Joaquin Valley. Tulare
Lake is now gone, its
waters having been
diverted for agriculture.
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 rancheras; 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 century 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 Gabrielleos (as the neophytes of San Gabriel Mission were called) joined with gentiles 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 Valleya place that the missions prefect, Fray
Mariano Payras, called a republic of hell and a diabolical union of apostates.
In a letter written in 1819 to
Governor Sol of California, Fray
Mariano complained that a considerable 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 idleness is spreading and affecting even
the more staid of the neophytes.
Payras 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), Payras
called for a grand expedition to collect 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
to go after the culprits who are unmindful of their duties. Payras, however, pleaded with
Sol 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 Martnez, a missionary at San Luis
Obispo, gives other reasons for the problem of runaway neophytes. Never before, says
Martnez, 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 hardships, 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 support 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 government from complete and utter collapse.
Revolution in Mexico
For 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 Corts. As we have seen in a previous chapter, a great
and cultured society had grown up in Nueva Espaa. 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 relatively 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 soulsabout ten times the number of the gauchupinesthey 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
mestizosthose of mixed Indian and Spanish bloodhad 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
261
262
An 1810 French map of

New Spain (Mexico)
had changed little since the days of Cortsthey 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 government 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 traditionssong, legend, and plastic arthowever 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, however, must be taken in evaluating the time. Injustices there were, but also widespread contentment. 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 benefited from the common good to support the Church. And the people of New Spain did benefit from the Church, not only spiritually but materially as well. It was the Church after all
that provided what we today call social servicesrelief for the poor, hospitals, and schools.
263
Modern people will condemn the Inquisition and the Indexbut the Spanish saw them
as necessary to protect society from false opinions. Error, it was thought, is worse than poverty, worse than death, for error leads men away from what gives life to the soultruth 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 government 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 Revolution
It was not conditions in New Spain that finally precipitated
revolution, but events across the Atlantic. The mother country, Spain, was rocked with civil war.
Carlos IV, who had occupied the Spanish throne since 1788,
had become inconvenient to Frances Emperor Napoleon, who
had brought nearly all of Europe under his sway. An independent Spain did not serve Napoleons purposes; so, on May 6,
1808, he pressured Carlos IV and his son Fernando VII to relinquish 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 Josephs rule. When Joseph Bonaparte
ascended the Spanish throne, the town council of Mexico City asked the viceroy, Jos 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 viceroys essentially illegal action, however, drew the opposition of the audiencia 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 governments 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 government, especially following a revolution
264
cura: a priest who has

the charge or care of a
parish
An image of Miguel
Hidalgo, made between
1890 and 1913
corregidor: a chief
magistrate
Priest Revolutionary
A group of creole intellectuals and army officers had been meeting secretly in Quertaro,
about 200 miles northwest of Mexico City. Calling themselves the Academia Literaria
(Literary Academy), the groups aims were ostensibly literary; but their work was really
political, for they were working for the overthrow of the gauchupines and a Mexico independent 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 studied at the Colegio de San Nicols in Valladolid, not far from Mexico
City, he had been ordained a priest in 1778 and later served as rector of San Nicols. A French scholar, Hidalgo had been drawn to
the works of French Enlightenment thinkers, such as Rousseau and
Montesquieuan 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 leathera ll
industries forbidden in America by Spanish law.
By August 1810 Hidalgo and the Quertaro group had a plan in place. In a coup dtat
they would capture key Spanish government officials and set up a revolutionary government. 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, Doa Josefa Ortiz, the wife of the corregidor of Quertaro, but
a supporter of the revolutionaries, hurried to Dolores and warned Hidalgo. This was the
crucial moment for the curawould 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, theCry 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!
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, mestizos, 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 commandante had heard of the atrocities committed
by the peasant army and refused. Gathering all the
royalists and the city treasury into the Alhndiga
de Granaditas (a building to store grain) the commandante 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 peasant army. The Alhndiga was strong enough to hold off
the insurgents but for one weak pointits great wooden
door. Hidalgos force set fire to the door and broke into the
granary. A bloodbath followed.
When the insurgents had taken the Alhndiga, wrote
Lucas Alamn, 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.
265
Mural of Miguel
Hidalgo Costilla, by
Clemente Orozco,
Government Palace,
Guadalajara, Mexico
Alhndiga Granadtas
(right) in Guanajuato
266
It is said that Hidalgo was at first shocked by his armys 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 ecclesiastics 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, Hidalgos old friend, Manuel Abad y Queipo,
now bishop-elect of Michoacn, excommunicated the cura of Dolores and all his followers. In his decree of excommunication, Abad lamented that Hidalgos 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 Seora
de Guadalupe! Long live Fernando VII! Long live Amrica! 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 Seora. He likewise insulted and attacked our government and, thereby, insulted
our sovereign, Don Fernando VII. He mistreated the kings vassals, disrupted law and
order, and violated the oath of fidelity to king and country.
Perhaps ironically, only a few months before Hidalgos 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 Hidalgos 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 proHidalgo masses.
During October 1810 Hidalgo gained control of much of central Mexico west of
Mexico City. Everywhere, the same mob violence was repeatedwhich disgusted
Hidalgos commanding general, Ignacio Allende. A professional soldier, Allende valued discipline; Hidalgo, however, could be too lenient with his followersa s 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 flat of his sword. But when it came to the
enemy, Hidalgo did not show such complaisance. At Valladolid, a priest canon of the
Co
lo
rad
oR
.
NORTH
AMERICA
267
95W
Rio
cathedral bravely approached

Hidalgo
115W
110W
105W
100W
El Paso
unarmed and made him promise to
spare the city. The city was spared, but
30N
Hidalgo was so stung to anger that the
30N
cathedral
(where
he
wanted
to
offer
Guadalupe
thanks) was locked against him that
Chihuahua
he imprisoned all the gauchupines and
de
seized the city treasury. Such arbitrary actions and Hidalgos tolerance
M E X I C O
of violence convinced creoles, whom
Comargo
Hidalgo had hoped would rise with the
Saltillo Monterey
Parras
Matamo
Indians, to instead joined forces with
25N
25N
the gauchupines.
From Valladolid, Hidalgo moved
against Mexico City. On October 3, at
Victoria
Monte de Las Cruces in the foothills
overlooking the capital, Hidalgos 80,000
Tampico
San Luis
Potosi
joined battle with 6,000 Spaniards under
General Torcuato Trujillo. Though
Guanajuato
Delores
vastly outnumbered, Trujillos force
Pacific
Guadalajara
Mexico
inflicted heavy losses on the rebels; still,
20N
20N
City
Jalapa
Valladolid
Hidalgos overwhelming numbers forced
Ocean
Zacatula
the Spaniards to retreat to Mexico City.
Puebla
0
200 miles
That night the lurid glow of the rebels
0
200 kilometers
campfires illumined the hills surround110W
105W
100W
ing the capital.
What to do next? The soldier Allende
Map of Mexico showing
and others encouraged Hidalgo to strike the city, but Hidalgo hesitated and instead
the major cities in 1810
decided to retreat northwest, toward Guadalajara. Demoralized by the loss of a victory that
15N
seemed so clearly within their reach, thousands
abandoned the rebel army. On November
15N
7, 1810, Spanish troops under General Flix Calleja defeated Hidalgos 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 Hidalgos diminished force until it once again boasted over
80,000 men. At Guadalajara, Hidalgo, with the lawyer Ignacio Lpez Rayn, 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 Callejas advance by concentrating his entire force at Caldern 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 explosion 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
Gr
an
ul
of
al
if
or
ni
Gu
o
Tehuan
268
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 ignominiouslyhe was shot through the backwhile 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 punishment 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
Alhndiga in Guanajuato, where for the next ten years they remained, a grim warning to all
would-be revolutionaries.
Guerrilla Warfare in the Jungles
Padre Jos Mara Teclo

Morelos y Pavn
But severed heads could not stop the revolution. Rebel leaders who had risen in the wake
of HidalgoVicente Guerrrero, Manuel Flix Fernndez (who called himself Guadalupe
Victoria, in honor of the Virgin), and Padre Mariano Matamorosstill troubled the peace
of the country. Another priest, Jos Mara Teclo Morelos y Pavn, 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
Nicols in Valladolid. There he studied natural and moral
philosophy under the direction of the rector
Padre
Miguel Hidalgofor whom Morelos conceived a profound respect. After he was ordained a priest, Morelos
took a parish in Michoacn.
Morelos had been a priest for over ten years when he
was roused by Hidalgos 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 strategy well suited to the dense, jungle-like forests where
he fought) rather than Hidalgos pitched battle strategy.
The rebels were anonymous. Many of Morelos soldiers
were farmers who worked their fields until they were
calledthen they became rebel insurgents. When a battle
ended, they returned to their fields. To punish and kill off
these unknown insurgents, the Spaniards began destroying 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 valley of Mexico City to the Pacific Coast, failing only to take
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 unfortified 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 Rayn, Carlos Mara Bustamante, and other revolutionary leaders, assembled a
revolutionary congress at Chilpancingo. In November, Morelos delivered to the congress the
document, Sentiementos de La Nacin, 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 Mexicos 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 Americas 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 Agustn Cosme Damin 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
269
270
breviary: a small
book containing the
divine office: the
Psalms, hymns, and
prayers said daily by
priests and religious
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 having 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 excommunications, 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 Peace

For 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
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 congress by the rebel general Luis Mier y Tern. 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 Jos Francisco Osorno surrendered; only small guerrilla
bands under Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria continued the struggle. Eventually, even Victorias men abandoned
him, and the rebel leader wandered alone in the mountains,
evading capture for two-anda-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 welcomed the law; but many clericalistsconservative creoles and members
of the clergybegan 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 Agustn 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 Agustn 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 happened that La Profesa was a meeting place for influential conservatives, churchmen, and
government officials, who, with Don Agustn, 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 Revolution

Late 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 countrythe Napoleon of Mexico. Iturbides
friend was deeply movedthe handsome Don Agustn, his aristocratic bearing, the conviction 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 chieftain. 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 Teloloapn, and the
two clinched their alliance with a public embrace.
Agustn Iturbide
271
272
Agustn Iturbide and

Vicente Guerrero
embrace
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 plans 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 plans design for a representative congress and a constitution. Notably absent was any mention of the rights of Indians and mestizos; 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 Agustn 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 government 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 ODonoj, arrived in Veracruz but could not
leave the besieged city. In the hot, humid summer weather, yellow fever struck ODonojs
family and attendants. Powerless to move on Mexico City and threatened by plague if he
remained in Veracruz, ODonoj agreed to meet Iturbide at Crdoba. There, in September,
ODonoj agreed to the Plan de Iguala. The revolution was over, and Mexico was independent. ODonoj went to Mexico City to oversee the withdrawal of Spanish troops from what
once had been New Spain.
Independent Mexico
On September 27, 1821, Iturbide led his Army of the Three Guarantees in triumph into
Mexico City. With flamboyant chivalry, Don Agustn, 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 ODonoj
received the conqueror. In thanksgiving for victory and independence, the
archbishop of Mexico offered Masses in
the cathedral that had been built by
Corts, almost 300 years before.
At first all seemed to go well for
Iturbide. In October the Spanish surrendered Veracruz, Acapulco, and
Perote, and their forces retired to the
fortress of San Juan de Ula, built on
an island in the bay of Veracruz. The
entire mainland of New Spain, from
Guatemala to San Francisco, was independent of Spain.
Yet though Mexico seemed peaceful
and unified, factions and dissensions
threatened the new country.
Iturbides 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 radical 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 Agustn began to ally himself with the conservative centralists. Thus he alienated old revolutionaries like Guadalupe
Victoria and Nicols 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 haciendasthe large agricultural estates
of the wealthypredominated. Chieftains rose to power in these regions and, despite the
central government, held nearly absolute sway. One of these, Juan lvarez, 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 Ula
273
274
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 Churchs
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 mankindeternal salvation, union with Godthe 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 nevertheless 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 Gods authority. And
since they derive their authority from God, governments are bound to acknowledge the true
God and the religion he has establishedthe Catholic Church. Unfortunately, in Mexico,
the Churchs 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 Agustn
Following his victory, Iturbide began to set up his governmenta regency, because ostensibly 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 creolesmost 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 garrison remained at the fortress of San Juan de Ula 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 Ula to restore Spanish rule. Life had not been comfortable for gauchupines since the revolution. Many among both the creoles and the mestizos
were turning against all things SpanishCongressman Carlos Mara de Bustamante had
written a proclamation calling on the Army of the Three Guarantees to avenge the Aztecs
whom Corts had slain at Otumba and Cholula! The conqueror of Mexico had become quite
unpopular in the capitala mob of poor beggars, called lperos, stormed the cathedral in
Mexico City to desecrate his tomb. They found an empty grave. Corts 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 (republicans), 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 members 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 Iturbides army, raised the cry:
Viva Agustn I! Other soldiers took up the cry, and as they marched through the streets
towards Iturbides dwelling, crowds of lperos and others joined them. Gathering around
Iturbides 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 frequentand 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
275
centralist republic:
a republic where
the preponderance
of power lies in the
central government
rather than in local or
state governments
Viva Agustn El Primero!
276
Emperor Agustn I
Antonio Lpez de Santa

Anna
returned to the balcony, he announced his decisionhe 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,
Agustn I, of Mexico!
In July, Iturbide and his wife, adorned with jewels, in state entered
the cathedral of Mexico City, where the archbishop anointed Agustn
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 Agustn 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 emperors 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 Agustn, ridiculing the emperors
pomp and the empty titles he had bestowed on his favorites. In retaliation, the emperor imprisoned Fray Servando and 15 other congressmen.
This outrage united congress against the emperor. In October 1822, Don
Agustn 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 Agustn now said he himself would write up
a constitution, but he found he had to face more serious problems. His generals were
still not happywithout 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. Agustns empire
tottered; it needed only a slight push to topple it.
That push came from an army officer, the 27-year old Antonio
Lpez 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 Iturbides unmarried sister, thought he
was 27 and she over 60 years old. The emperor and Santa Anna
had a falling out, however, and Don Agustn 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, Nicols 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 Agustns generals began to desert him. In February 1823, one
general, Jos Antonio Echvarri, who had been conducting a desultory siege
against Santa Anna at Veracruz, issued the Plan de Casa Mata, which laid out two demands:
Don Agustn must restore the full congress and the insurgent armies must attempt no act
against [the emperors[ august person, which they respect as inviolable. All of the emperors
generals soon signed on to the plan; even his troops in Mexico City deserted him. On March
4, Emperor Agustn 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 Agustn, 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.
Return of the Emperor
on Agustns 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 government. He did not await a reply but took ship from England. At sea he likely passed the ship
from Mexico that brought the governments 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 courage, Don Agustn 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.
The Republic of Mexico

Thirteen 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 Rams 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 juryit had never been part of Spanish jurisprudence. Though it forbade the practice
of any other religion except the Catholic, the constitution abolished the Churchs exclusive
control of schools.
277
278
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
Nicols Bravo for the second. Victorias administration was peaceful, but not on account of
his administrative abilities. During his tenure, conservative and Liberal forces were organizing 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.
Chapter 12 Review
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 support 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 corruption. The ideas of the Enlightenment and the examples of the American and French Revolutions drew
people to embrace Liberal republican political
philosophies.
In the mother country, Spain, civil war was beginning. 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 Bonapartes rule,
and the town council of Mexico City asked the
viceroy, Jos 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 Quertero 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 Jos Mara
Morelos took command of the revolution. In 1813
Morelos abandoned any pretense that he was fighting for the rights of Fernando VII. He proclaimed
that Mexicos 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 Tern dissolved Morelos revolutionary congress. In April
of that same year, Juan Ruiz de Apodaca became
viceroy and offered amnesty to the remaining revolutionaries.
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.
279
Chapter 12 Review (continued)

Agustn de Iturbide published his Plan de Iguala
with its Three Guarantees, a blueprint for independence, in 1821. In July of that year a new Spanish
viceroy, Juan ODonoj, 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
Agustns empire was falling apart. Congress began
calling for a centralist government. Antonio Lpez
de Santa Anna organized a rebel army against the
new emperor, and on March 19, 1823, Emperor
Agustn offered his resignation.
After the fall of Iturbide, moderates took control
of the government and declared Mexico a republic.
Miguel Rams assumed leadership of a new congress 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 revolution
Plan de Iguala: the blueprint for independence in
Mexico, written by Agustn de Iturbide
Three 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 preponderance of power lies in the central government rather
than in local or state governments
Constitution of 1824: Mexicos first republican constitution, 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 Nacin,
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 ODonoj, 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 (17841833): king of Spain during the
Mexican revolution of 1810
Miguel Hidalgo (17531811): Catholic priest who first
led the rebellion for Mexican independence
Jos Mara Morelos (17651815): revolutionary priest
who assumed leadership of the Mexican independence
movement after Hidalgos death
Vicente Guerrero (17821831): a Liberal rebel leader
who joined with Iturbide to institute the Plan de
Iguala
Guadalupe Victoria (Manuel Flix Fernndez)
(17861843): Liberal rebel leader who became the
first president of the republic of Mexico
Agustn de Iturbide (17831824): Mexican officer
who became the leader of the Mexican independence movement and, as Agustn I, briefly reigned as
emperor of Mexico
280
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 missionaries were experiencing with the Indians of the missions in California?
4. What conditions led to the Mexican revolution?
5. How did Napoleons 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 Agustn Is 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 missionaries and the Indians did.
Highways and Byways

The Green, White, and Red
During Mexicos 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 tricolor (of red, white, and blue); but the colors of the
Mexican flag were thoroughly Mexican. The green
symbolizes independence; white, the Catholic religion; and red, union. These three elements represent
the Three Guarantees of the Plan de Iguala: independence 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.

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12 Revolution

a nd scout out a location for a

San Francisco presidio,

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

The Golden Age of California

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

A view of old Los

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

as at Monterey, made no counteroffensive,

Progress and Decline in

Mission Santa Barbara,

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

A sketch of Mission San

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

A sketch of Mission San

The interior of Mission

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

An 1873 map showing

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

An 1810 French map of

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

King Fernando VII of

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

cura: a priest who has

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

cathedral bravely approached

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

Guerrilla Warfare in the Jungles

Padre Jos Mara Teclo

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

An Interim of Troubled Peace

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

The Bloodless Revolution

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

Agustn Iturbide and

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

San Juan de Ula

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

Viva Agustn El Primero!

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

Antonio Lpez de Santa

returned to the balcony, he announced his decisionhe would accept

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

Return of the Emperor

The Republic of Mexico

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

During this early period of unrest in New Spain,

Chapter 12 Revolution in New Spain

Chapter 12 Review (continued)

In Spain juntas are formed to oppose the

LANDS OF HOPE AND PROMISE: A History of North America

Chapter 12 Review (continued)

2. Choose one of the California missions and research

Highways and Byways

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