Hidalgo's Dolores cry began eleven years to Mexican independence
Mexico's War of Independence (16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was a patchwork of regional fights, not one coherent campaign, ending Spanish rule after Napoleon's invasion of Spain destabilized imperial legitimacy. Parish priest Miguel Hidalgo's Cry of Dolores opened a massive, poorly organized first phase that ended with his 1811 capture and execution.
Challenges to Spanish rule were rare before 1810 but not unknown. When Charles V's New Laws of 1542 threatened to end encomienda grants, a plot drew in Martín Cortés, son of the conquistador, who was exiled while fellow conspirators died. In 1624 elites stirred a Mexico City crowd to oust the reforming viceroy, the Marquess of Gelves. In 1642 an Irishman born William Lamport schemed to unite Creoles, Black and Indigenous people and castas behind independence; the Inquisition seized him and he was executed fifteen years later, and a statue of him now stands beneath the Angel of Independence.
Pressure built under the eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms, which favoured Spanish-born officials over American-born ones, squeezed Creole elites and stripped clergy of legal privileges, hurting the lower, mostly American-born priesthood from which Hidalgo and Morelos came. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 sent elite sons into exile and provoked riots. Drought and population growth brought food riots in 1785 and 1808, though historians find no direct line from them to the 1810 rising.
Once Napoleon installed his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, juntas across the empire claimed to govern for the absent Bourbon king, and legitimacy itself came into question. After Hidalgo, the priest José María Morelos led the second phase until his capture and execution in 1815. The fight then became guerrilla war under Vicente Guerrero, with neither side able to win, and in rural areas so many local grievances flared that some historians speak of the other rebellion.
A declaration of independence for a Mexican Empire was drafted in Mexico City on 28 September 1821. Agustín de Iturbide's short-lived monarchy gave way to a federal republic in 1823, and Spain, under Isabella II, finally recognised Mexico in 1836.
Source: Mexican War of Independence
