Mexico on September 16, 1810, in Dolores, an Indian village in the
State of Guanajuato, by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the aged curate
of the town, with the co-operation of Allende, Aldama, and Abasolo,
three inferior officers of the Mexican militia, born in Mexico. His
undertaking had from the beginning all the leading classes of Mexico
arrayed against it. He collected a very large number of Indians and
peasants, and two or three regiments of the militia followed his lead.
To enlist public sympathy on his side, he had put his cause under the
protection of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who was supposed to have
miraculously appeared two hundred years before to an humble Indian,
as the patroness of his race, near the City of Mexico, and who was
greatly reverenced throughout the country. His men were disorgan-
ized, without arms or ammunition, and undisciplined, and although he
captured the important towns of Celaya, Guanajuato, Valladolid, and
Toluca, and under good military leadership might have accomplished
a great deal more, availing himself of the popular enthusiasm for inde-
pendence and of the surprise and discomfiture of the Spaniards, he
did not know how to make use of those advantages.
pbilosopbi? ot tbe /IDejican IRevolutious. 343
While Hidalgo was a great enthusiast, he had no military talents
and no disciplined army. His assistants, Allende, Aldama, and
Abasolo, who were only captains in the Spanish militia, proposed to him
a plan of operations, which, if adopted, might have been successful,
but he refused to accept it, and followed his own ideas which culmi-
nated in his complete defeat.
He marched against the City of Mexico, and fought a battle on
October 30, 1810, at Monte de las Cruces, within sight of the capital,
and, although he was successful, he did not enter the city, but remained
inactive for some days, thus giving the Viceroy time to concentrate his
troops, and when those coming from San Luis Potosi were approaching
under General Calleja, Hidalgo retreated to Queretaro, having been at-
tacked and defeated at Aculco on November 7th. Hidalgo retreated to
Valladolid, and from there to Guadalajara, where he arrived on Novem-
ber 26th, and established there a regular government. Calleja followed
him, and Hidalgo came out to fight Calleja and met him at Puente
de Calderon, and on January 17, 181 1, a battle took place in which
Hidalgo was completely defeated. His military lieutenant advised
Hidalgo not to offer a pitched battle to the enemy, as his forces could
not compete with the Spanish veterans, but he did not follow that
advice and this was the cause of his defeat, as the organization and
discipline of the Spanish army at last prevailed against his large but dis-
organized masses. Hidalgo finally was captured in Acatita de Bajan,
on May 21, 181 1, and after having been degraded by the Inquisition and
the higher clergy, he was shot at the City of Chihuahua on the 31st of
the following July.
While Hidalgo was in Guadalajara, in December, 1810, he sent to
the United States as his official representative Senor Don Pascasio
Ortiz de Latona, as stated in the paper entitled "Genesis of Mexican
Independence."
Morelos's Leadership. — Hidalgo was succeeded by another priest, a
full-blooded Indian, Jos^ Maria Morelos, who had in him the elements
of a great warrior.
Morelos, like Hidalgo, was a parish priest in the State of Michoacan,
whose capital, Valladolid, is now called Morelia in his honor. He re-
ceived his commission from Hidalgo when he passed through that
State, and Morelos marched with a few men to capture the port of
Acapulco, failing in that attempt, because that port was well fortified,
but he attacked and defeated the Spanish in several encounters,
capturing the towns of Chilpancingo, Tixtla, Chilapa, in the present
State of Guerrero, Chiautla and Izucar in the State of Puebla, and
Taxco in the State of Mexico. In the City of Cuautla, in the present
State of Morelos, he resisted with 3000 men the 12,000 that the Viceroy
had sent against him, from February 19th to May 2, 1812, fighting almost
344 Ibtstorical IRotes on /iDejico.
every day, and making that siege one of the most famous in the history
of Mexico. He finally broke the lines of the enemy, and retreated
with the remainder of his army.'
Morelos captured the city of Orizaba on October 26, 181 2, and de-
feated the Spanish army which was besieging the town of Huajuapan in
the State of Oaxaca, and also the city of Tehuacan in the State of
Puebla, and from there he marched against the city of Oaxaca, which he
captured on November 25, 1812. From Oaxaca he marched to Aca-
pulco, which city he captured on April 12, 1813, after which he laid
siege to the strong castle of San Diego, capturing it on August 20th of
the same year.
Morelos organized a regular government, and convened a Con-
gress, which met at Chilpancingo, on September 14, 1812, the first
Congress we ever had, which declared independence on the 6th of
November following. The Congress had to change the place of its
meetings according to the fortunes of war, and on October 22, 1814,
they issued a provisional constitution and established an executive
government of three members, electing for that purpose Morelos,
Liceaga, and Cos.
Morelos's fortunes began to wane at the end of 1813. On December
24th of that year he attacked the city of Valladolid and was repulsed
with very heavy losses; in the following year his lieutenants suffered
several defeats, Matamoros was defeated and captured at Puruaran, on
February 3, 18 14, and Galeana was defeated and killed at Coyuca on
May ist of the same year, and Don Miguel Bravo was also captured and
shot at Puebla. Congress decided to continue its sessions at Tehuacan,
and Morelos marched to that place escorting its members, but was over-
taken by the Spanish troops, and to save \\i^ personnel oi Congress he
offered battle under disadvantageous circumstances at Texmalaca, on
November 5, 1815, where he was defeated, captured, and taken to the
City of Mexico, and, after being degraded by the Inquisition and
higher clergy, he was shot at the Indian town of Ecatepec, near the
City of Mexico, on December 2 2d of that year.
Slavery in Mexico. — The views about slavery of the Mexican revolu-
tion and its leaders will be shown by stating that Hidalgo issued, on
December 6, 1810, not three months after he had proclaimed independ-
ence from Spain, a decree abolishing slavery in Mexico, and that our
first Congress, which met in Chilpancingo in 1813, adopted at Apat-
zingan, on October 22, 1814, a constitution and promulgated a decree
abolishing slavery. That decree, of course, could only be enforced in
the few places which were occupied by the insurgents; but when inde-
' Mr. Walter S. Logan spoke on the subject in an address before the New York
Historical Society, delivered April 4, 1893, entitled " Cuautla" which I consider well
worth reading.
Ipbilosopb^ of tbe /IDejican IRevolutions. 345
pendence was achieved, one of the first acts of the first Mexican
Congress, convened at the City of Mexico to adopt a Constitution, was
to issue a decree, on July 13, 1824, which abolished slavery, and it was
then actually abolished in the whole country. The fact that our
present Constitution of 1857 repeats the prohibition of holding slaves
in Mexico, a prohibition which has appeared in all of our Constitutions,
has caused the common opinion prevailing in this country, that we only
abolished slavery in 1857, a mistake which I have often had occasion to
to rectify/ In fact, every Mexican is born a strong anti-slavery man,
so much so that we could not understand why the United States should
have accepted slavery, and should have tried to sustain and extend it
even at the cost of a tremendous civil war which imperilled the very
existence of this country, and the great influence that it has to ex-
ercise upon the destinies of mankind, more especially when the very
Declaration of American Independence proclaims the principle that all
men are born free and equal, and when slavery is a contradiction of
that great principle. But, fortunately, slavery has been abolished here,
as it was in Mexico over seventy years ago, and the stain, which for a
time tarnished the fair name of this country, has thus been completely
effaced.
Bra7)o' s Magnanimity. — In speaking of General Bravo, it will not
be amiss to mention an incident which shows the magnanimity of the
Mexican character and the temper of the men who were engaged in
our war of independence. General Bravo had been detached by
Morelos to the Province of Veracruz, and he attacked at San Agustin
del Palmar, in December, 1812, a regiment of Spanish soldiers which
had just landed from Spain and was escorting a military train to the
City of Mexico, and defeated them, capturing three hundred men.
Under the rules of war prevailing there at the time, all prisoners of war
were shot without any mercy or discrimination. The Spaniards began
that barbarous system, and the Mexicans thought they ought to re-
taliate. Bravo did not shoot these men at once, and on the evening of
the day on which he captured them, he received the information from
Morelos that his father, who had taken a prominent part in the war of
independence, had been captured by the Spaniards and shot at the city
of Mexico, accompanied by positive orders from Morelos to shoot all his
Spanish prisoners. Bravo was a generous man, and while feeling deeply
the blow he had received in his father's death, he yet hesitated as to
' Senator Money, misunderstood the position of Mexico on the slavery question
when he said in his article : " Great Britain, lashed by the eloquence of Wilberforce,
paid for and manumitted her slaves in 1838. France followed a slow second in 1848,
and Mexico did not emancipate her own, of which she had very few, until several
years after the events here considered." As a])pears from this paper, slavery was
abolished in Mexico since 1810, and its abolition was carried into effect in 1824.
346 IF^istorical IFlotes on /IDej:ico.
what he should do, and, after a sleepless night, he decided not only to
pardon his prisoners, but to set them at liberty unconditionally. Such
an act of generosity can only be fully appreciated when we consider
the temper of the times, and the excitement under which both parlies
labored during that terrible struggle. It may be added that most of
the prisoners, deeply touched by this act of magnanimity, joined
Bravo's forces.
Mina s Expedition. — On April 15, 1817, General Francisco Xavier
Mina, a Spanish soldier who had fought gallantly in Spain against the
French, of broad-minded and liberal views, and a lover of liberty, went
to Mexico to fight for her independence, as Lafayette had done several
years before in the United States, landing in Soto de la Marina with
five hundred men, and leaving a small detachment to guard the place,
marched to the interior, defeating the Spanish army that opposed him.
The Viceroy had to organize a large army under General Linan to
fight Mina, who advanced as far into the interior as the city of Leon,
and, after several encounters in which he showed great military talent,
he was defeated and made a prisoner at Venadito on October 27, 1817,
and shot on the nth of November of the same year.
After the capture of General Mina the revolutionary war in Mexico
was almost ended, and in 1818 only small bands of disorganized men
remained in the field, Vicente Guerrero in the south, and Guadalupe
Victoria in the east, being almost the only leaders who had a regular
force under their command. Guerrero was a muleteer, who joined the
cause of independence from the beginning, fought under Morelos, and
finally established his base of operations in the southern part of Mex-
ico, which, favored by topographical conditions and climate, being very
mountainous and in some places unhealthy, did not allow the Spanish
regular troops to make much headway. He held his own until 1821
when the cause of independence finally succeeded.
Independence Achieved. — Such was the condition of things when, in
1820, the Spaniards at Madrid restored the Liberal Constitution adopted
by the Coites in 1812, when King Ferdinand VIL had fled from Spain
and the country was in possession of the French, and that fact greatly
alarmed the conservative Spanish element in Mexico, who, fearing that
liberal principles might find a foothold in the mother-country and
extend thence to Mexico, thought the best course they could pursue
would be to proclaim independence from Spain, and establish a
Catholic monarchy under a Spanish king, so that they would not be
subject to the obnoxious changes which liberal ideas, that had begun
to permeate Spain, might bring about. They addressed themselves,
therefore, to Iturbide, who, although a native Mexican, had been one
of the most successful leaders of the Spanish army against the insurrec-
tion, was a good soldier and an ambitious man. Iturbide fell in with
IPbilosopbi? of tbe /IDejican IRevolutions. 347
their views, and, when appointed by the Viceroy to command the army
sent to subdue the southern revolutionary leaders, he took all the
available forces and money which the Viceroy could spare and joined
Guerrero and the other revolutionary leaders, proclaiming on February
24, 1 82 1, a political platform called " Plan de Iguala," which was a
compromise between the revolution and its opponents, as it accom-
plished independence, but under a thoroughly Catholic monarchy, with
a Spanish prince on the throne, and forbidding the exercise of any
other religion. All the other commanding officers of the Spanish
army in other sections of the country soon accepted this platform,
and, as a consequence, independence was accomplished almost without
a blow.
An incoming Viceroy, Don Juan O'Donoju, accepted the Plan of
Iguala, and signed at Cordova, on August 24th of the same year, a
treaty with Iturbide by which he recognized in behalf of the Spanish
Government the independence of Mexico on condition that an empire
be established in Mexico, calling to the throne a member of the Spanish
family in compliance with the Plan of Iguala.'
It is a remarkable coincidence that only a little over three months
before the treaty of Cordova, General San Martin agreed with the
Spanish Viceroy, La Serna, on some terms of settlement, almost iden-
tical to the basis of that treaty. The Liberal Cabinet, organized in
Spain in 1820 after the restoration of the Constitution of 181 2, had sent
special Commissioners to the revolted colonies to offer them autonomy,
on condition that they take the oath of allegiance to the King. Don
Manuel Abreu was the Spanish Commissioner sent to Peru, and under
his authority the Spanish Viceroy, La Serna, met General San Martin
at Punchauca, north of Lima, on May 3, 182 1. San Martin offered to
accept peace under the following conditions: i. Spain to recognize the
independence of Peru; 2. to appoint a regency of three members, one
by San Martin, another by the Spanish Viceroy, La Serna, and the third
elected by the people; and, 3. to send to Madrid two commissioners
to ask the Spanish royal family to send one of its members as King
of Peru. These conditions were approved by General La Serna, subject
to the approval of the civil councils of Peru, but his army having dis-
approved of them, they were not carried out.
' It was reported that King Ferdinand VII. had written a confidential letter in
1820 to Viceroy Apodaca, tiie ruler of Mexico at that time, informing him that he
considered himself held in captivity by the Spanish Liberals, and that fearing to share
the fate of Louis XVI. of France, he had decided to go to Mexico to use there freely
his royal authority, and therefore requested him to keep New Spain free from the con-
stitutional movement, so that he could go there as absolute King. .Although some
have considered this letter as apocryphal, Alaman published the text of it in his History
of Mc-xico, Volume V., pages 61, 62, and perhaps this explains why, in the Plan of
Iguala and the treaty of Cordova, Ferdinand VII. was ofTcred the throne of Mexico.
348 Ibistortcal IRotes on /IDerico.
This short statement of facts shows that the first movement for in-
dependence, notwithstanding its popularity, was an apparent failure,
because it had not the support of the higher classes; but as soon as it
became for the interest of the higher classes themselves that Mexico
should be independent of the Spanish rule, their influence turned the
scale, and independence was at once achieved.
The ease with which the Spanish Government was overthrown in
Mexico by the defections of the Spanish army tended greatly to the
subversion of military discipline, which was instrumental in subsequent
military mutinies against the constituted authorities. One of the worst
effects of a successful rebellion is that it sanctions the principle that
brute force shall rule, and awakens the personal ambition of unscrupu-
lous and successful soldiers. All that was necessary to overthrow a
government was to induce the general-in-chief of the government forces
to join the rebels, and this offered so tempting a bait for promotion and
power that few could resist it. It brought about the complete de-
moralization of the old Mexican army, as will presently be seen, and
the overthrow of the several regular constituted governments, to the
very great detriment of the country.
REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
Itiirbide s Ephemeral Empire. — Iturbide entered victorious the City
of Mexico on September 27, 1821. A regency of three members was
established, of which he was elected President. He convoked a
National Congress on February 24, 1822, and the Spanish Cortes
having declared, on February 13th of the same year, null and void the
treaty of Cordova, Congress, under some military pressure, declared
Iturbide Emperor by 67 votes against 15, on May 19, 1822, and
on July 2ist he was formally crowned at the Cathedral. But the Mex-
ican patriots, who had been fighting for ten years in favor of indepen-
dence, material progress, and liberal principles, could not be satisfied
with the success of their former enemies and the establishment of an
empire. They thought that this was depriving the country and them-
selves of the fruits of their victory, and so they combined against
Iturbide, and having a majority in Congress, he had it dissolved. In
their efforts to overthrow the empire, the liberals were joined, strange
to say, by the ultraconservatives, who were either jealous, or disagreed
with Iturbide because he did not go as far as they intended, and they
joined in the conspiracy against him, and thus his overthrow was made
easy.
On December 6, 1822, Don Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, of
whom I shall presently have occasion to speak more at length, headed
a rebellion in Veracruz against Iturbide, proclaiming a republican form
pbilosopb^ of tbe ^ejican IRevolutions. 349
of government. Iturbide sent an army under General Echavarri, but
this General joined Santa Ana on February i, 1823, in a platform
(which we call plan) against Iturbide, called the " Plan of Casa
Mata," which was adopted in many other sections of the country.
Iturbide then restored the Congress that he had dissolved, and sent his
resignation as Emperor. On April 7th, Congress decreed that Iturbide
had not been regularly declared Emperor, that his resignation could not
therefore be accepted, and he was ordered out of the country and sailed
for Leghorn, Italy, on May 11, 1823, on the English brig Rawlins.
Iturbide was later induced by his friends to return to Mexico in the
supposition that he would find the people in his favor. He landed at
Soto de la Marina on the 14th of July, 1824, and the Legislature of the
State of Tamaulipas sentenced him to death, as he had previously been
declared an outlaw by an act of Congress, and he was shot at Padilla
on the 19th of the same month.
Establishjnent of a Republic. — After Iturbide's downfall a republican
form of government was unavoidable. Congress appointed an Execu-
tive Power of three members, electing for that position Generals
Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete.
About this time Masonic lodges were established in Mexico, the
first being of the Scottish Rite, which was joined by most of the con-
servative element of the country, but, unfortunately, that lodge was
turned into a political organization, and played a very prominent part
in the public disturbances of that period. The Liberal party was
divided into two wings: the extreme Liberals, or Federalists, who were
in favor of a government fashioned on the model of that of the United
States, the powers of the Federal Government being limited; and the
moderate Liberals, or Centralists, who favored a centralized republic,
with a stronger government. This wing of the Liberal party united
itself with the Monarchists and the friends of the Bourbons, and they
all joined the lodge of the Scottish Rite, and were called " Escoceses "
in Spanish. The Liberals were the old patriots who had fought for
independence from the beginning and they were assisted by Iturbide's
friends who out of hostility to the existing government had joined them,
in their turn, and to meet their opponents with similar weapons, organ-
ized a lodge of the York Rite, whose members were called " Yorkinos."
For some years the names by which the political parties were known in
Mexico were " Escoceses " and " Yorkinos," equivalent to Conserva-
tives and Liberals. Mr. Poinsett, the first United States Minister sent
to Mexico, was at the time accused of being the instigator of the
establishment of the lodges; but it seems that while he desired the
success of the Yorkinos, he was not the founder of that Lodge.
Federal Coftsfitufion of 1824. — A National Congress to organize the
country was convoked and met on November 7, 1S23, and it issued on
350 HDistorical IRotes on /IDejico.
January 21, 1S24, the primary bases of a Federal Constitution, and on
October 4th of the same year the final Constitution was adopted and
promulgated. It was modelled on the Constitution of the United
States, and was almost a copy of it, and I do not know whether, in
imitating so closely the Constitution of this country we did not make
a mistake. The Constitution of a nation should be adapted to the
conditions of that country. Here in the northern section of the con-
tinent, there were at the end of the last century thirteen colonies inde-
pendent of each other, which made war against England, achieved
their independence, and then found themselves little more than a
confederacy of infantile nations, with all the weaknesses which have
ever attended a simple confederation. They therefore decided to
consolidate themselves into a single nation, under the name of " The
United States of America." The Federal system of government was
the only solution of the problems which then confronted the people of
this country. It was the natural and inevitable outgrowth of the con-
dition of things existing before the adoption of the Constitution. In
Mexico there was a united country, subject to the same authorities and
laws, and with only one head. In adopting a republican federal system
there, the nation had to be artificially divided up into separate sections,
to be called States, which had no separate existence before, and no
individual history or experience in self-government. It is not to be
wondered at, therefore, that when this Constitution went into operation
it caused great disturbance. It is easy to find in this fact one of the
causes of our prolonged civil wars. We were not alone in suffering
such misfortunes, for almost every other nation on this continent,
following in our footsteps, tried to adapt the republican federal system
to a condition of things to which it was not suited. Brazil alone
escaped this period of turmoil and experiment by establishing an
empire, with a scion of the reigning house of Portugal on the throne,
and by not adopting a federal republican form of government until
nearly a century later, after the people had acquired some ideas of
self-government and some capacity for carrying it out; and it is prob-
ably for these reasons that she has suffered less by civil commotion
than any other country of similar origin in this hemisphere.
Unfortunately, very little regard was paid to the provisions of the
Constitution of 1824 immediately after its promulgation, as the men
then in power did not hesitate to infringe upon them, especially for