Nonfiction Narrative Project - Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

By Kenyon Geetings

While some believe that greatness is either something provided to them, or something that they are born with, that would be a disservice to Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla where passiveness had nothing to do with his greatness. Miguel Hidalgo, also known as Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Gallaga Mandarte y Villaseñor, recognized a way to considerably improve the lives of those around him and was fully committed to his beliefs. It was this commitment that would later give him the courage to stand up against bad government control and become the leader of the Mexican War of Independence. Hidalgo's vision for the future would eventually earn him the rightful title of Father of the Nation.

Miguel Hidalgo was born May 8, 1753, in a hacienda (a large estate) near Guanajuato, a city known for its silver mining. His parents, Ana María Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor and Cristóbal Hidalgo y Costilla Espinoza de los Monteros were both criollos (Kirkwood 81). This meant that Miguel, his three brothers, and his parents lived in comparative luxury to those around them in the middle class. Below them were the mestizos and the Indians, who scraped by so that the criollos could live their lives. But just because Miguel and his family lived comfortably did not mean that they were the apex of the class structure. Above the criollos were the Peninsulares, the Europeans who were born in Spain itself who generally held elite positions such as generals and archbishops.

During this time the power structure was mostly based on where one was born. This meant that no matter how much money you had, you could not advance or regress through the ranks. This was a contentious policy among both the rich and poor criollos. For Miguel and his family, this meant the more poor side of the middle class. His father did not actually own a hacienda, but rather helped manage one where Miguel would spend most of his life. It was during his time living at this hacienda that he got to interact with the servant Indians and mestizos in a way that enabled him to foster an appreciation for the lower class.

While his family may not have been rich, they were still criollos, and as such Miguel was able to study philosophy and theology at a well respected school. This degree paved the way for his education in becoming a priest. While he never became a priest for the Catholic Church, after being ordained he went to teach at Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo, an extraordinarily prestigious school for viceroyalty.

Miguel Hidalgo had always been rather clever and analytical, even earning the nickname “El Zorro,” also known as “The Fox” during his time in school (Vázquez-Gómez 56). This perspicaciousness followed him through his time teaching and learning at Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo who gave him the ability to read heretical books in hopes that he would write papers debunking and disproving them. But armed with the knowledge and understanding of the lower class, Miguel did the exact opposite. Rather than refute these papers, he dove head first into the social issues that these important enlightenment thinkers had to offer (Kirkwood 81).

In 1803, after leaving his teaching job behind, Miguel finds himself in a town called Dolores. It is here that he finally becomes a parish priest despite the one thing no one expects, the Spanish Inquisition, attempting to stop his temporal practices. After settling into his new home in Dolores, Miguel quickly handed one of his vicars, Francisco Iglesias, an extensive amount of his clerical duties so that he could spend more time in philanthropic undertakings and intellectual debates.

Much of these occupations consisted of Hidalgo developing and advocating for economic activities for the lower class citizens of Dolores. With his wide range of knowledge, he trained the indigenous people how to work with leather, how to keep bees for honey, and how to make bricks and ceramics. His ultimate goal was to make the mestizos and Indians more self-sufficient. This of course struck a bad chord with the wealthy Peninsulares, as they were not a big proponent of these activities that they claimed went against mercantilist policies and therefore demanded that Miguel stop these projects. Hidalgo was not pleased with this response, and his resentment towards the Peninsulares only grew.

The Spanish Peninsulares and merchants did not just stop there. In 1807 there was a drought that lasted almost a year which caused famine throughout the area, and it undoubtedly negatively affected the lower class in a way that was unparalleled with the slight hardships of the middle and upper classes. The reason for this was not entirely due to nature, but rather a man-made issue where the merchants refused to release the stored grain to the open market, instead opting to conjecture on price increases for their own monetary gain. Miguel, not fully deterred from his previous encounter with the Peninsulares, attempted to protest this blatant collusion but was ultimately unsuccessful.

While this outcry against an ineffective government would certainly gain Miguel public attention for which he would later receive support, it also gained the attention of the officials in Querétaro. Eventually these officials began making arrests to those who spoke out against the colonial government (Kirkwood 83). Word reached Miguel that some of his supporters were being taken, and he swiftly set out a plan to get them back. On the night of December 15, 1810, Hidalgo in addition to Mariano Abasolo, Ignacio Allende, his brother Mauricio, and several others went to the prison armed with weapons. That night they successfully freed eighty inmates and fellow supporters.

Miguel knew that this was the critical turning point for a rebellion to begin. So instead of playing it safe and hiding from the officials who were most assuredly coming after him, he decided to go big. On December 16, the very next day after the prison break, Hidalgo did the unthinkable and attended his own church service in plain sight. At this point Hidalgo was too far into this to turn back now, and he ordered the church bells to be rung with the intention to call upon his congregation.

While he might not have known it at the time, it was only then that he gave one of the most significant speeches in Mexican history. This speech became known as the “Grito de Dolores” which means the “Cry of Dolores.” Speaking directly from the heart, Miguel passionately expressed his concerns about the bad government and called upon their currently imprisoned King, Ferdinand VII, in hopes to transform the government (Kirkwood 83).

In addition to his disapproval of the government, the absolute genius in his delivery of this speech was his ability to accentuate the necessity to remain loyal to Christianity. He was quoted as saying “Will you be slaves of Napoleon or will you as patriots defend your religion, your hearths, and your rights?” (Cloud 54). This statement was what helped unify both the lower and middle class. His speech was met with an enormous amount of support from people ranging from positions of power such as priests and other intellectuals, to the common class of the mestizos and indigenous.

But Hidalgo knew that the fight did not stop there, and that the real battle had only just begun. With his newly constructed army of roughly eight-hundred men and the help of Ignacio Allende, these undisciplined rebels started their trek out of Dolores. At each stop along their way they gathered more and more peasants and loyal followers for their movement. One of their first villages was San Miguel where Miguel's army quickly took the authorities by surprise with little struggle.

In late September of 1810, they arrived at Guanajuato where Hidalgo devised the slogan "Long live religion! Long live our most Holy Mother of Guadalupe! Long live America and death to bad government!" and imprinted it on the rebel's flags (Cloud 54). Once again the insurgents quickly overran the peninsulares and officials with almost no resistance. But it was here that Miguel started to lose control of his army. Even if he wanted to, Miguel knew that there was no way for him to stop the rioting and looting that transpired (Alamán 370). Nevertheless Hidalgo decided to continue on his journey to the focal point of his attack, Mexico City.

By the time that Miguel arrived, his army had surpassed 100,000 in number, and at this point most of the surprise attacks had come to an end. Mexico City, under recently new leadership, was determined not to fall to these rebels. The new leader Viceroy Francisco Venegas did not only prepare military defenses by fortifying the city for this attack, but also went to work creating anti-Hidalgo propaganda. This misinformation campaign hoped to undermine the work that Hidalgo was leading, and for the most part it worked.

Ignacio Allende urged Hidalgo to continue the attack on the capital but was unsuccessful in his debate. Miguel instead decided to retreat and with this decision lost over 60,000 men who deserted. His decision to stop the attack on Mexico City was certainly a surprise for his troops and leaders, and even today his reasoning for this is still debated. On his return back, he and his shrunken army were stopped by General Felix Calleja who defeated Miguel's forces on November 7, 1810.

After this devastating loss, Hidalgo and Allende split up, and with them so did their troops. Miguel decided to head towards Guadalajara, and with his barely adequate 7,000 men, worked to install a new form of government (Sosa 291). He worked towards most of the same goals as he did when he was a priest, creating a newspaper company, ending slavery, and stopping unnecessary taxes on the lower class. While it might not have seemed obvious at the time, this would be the first glimpse at what the new independent Mexican government would look like.

Unfortunately this sliver of hope was just that, a small morsel of what was to come. For Hidalgo this meant needing to flee from Guadalajara in early January of 1811 during a battle against royalist forces where defeat was imminent. Miguel's small army would arrive in Acatita de Baján on March 21, 1811. This would prove to be a fatal mistake for Hidalgo, as the people living there had seen and read the propaganda against him, and therefore took him under arrest for trial.

Hidalgo and Allende were taken to Durango, where they would be put on trial and subsequently found guilty of treason. The process for killing these traitors was gruesome by today's standards. Because Hidalgo was an ordained priest, they first flayed his hands as a symbolic way of removing the ointment he would have had during ordination. They then proceeded to kill him with a firing squad on July 30, 1811. His last words were said to be “Though I may die, I shall be remembered forever; you all will soon be forgotten." (Cloud 206). His head was then decapitated and presented on display as a warning to those who would come after him (Vázquez-Gómez 52).

While some might argue that Hidalgo's story ends there, the real ending of his story is ten years later when the Mexican War of Independence was finally won. The dream that started because of a priest in Dolores would finally see the fruits of its labor as the Mexican government would conclusively be out of the reach of Spain's control. The legacy that Hidalgo left behind is complex in nature. While he may not have gotten to see his dreams come to fruition, those that came after him certainly attempted to keep his beliefs alive. Without this one single parish priest who decided to grab ahold of the greatness that was hurled at him, the world that we live in today would undoubtedly look vastly different.