AHR Forum
The Process of Mexican Independence
VIRGINIA GUEDEA
THE PROCESS OF MEXICO'S EMANCIPATION BEGAN, as in other parts of Spanish
America, with the imperial crisis of 1808. Originating in the very heart of the
empire, when Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Spain, it precipitated a series of rapid
changes that, in the beginring, like the crisis itself, were fundamentally political.
The imperial crisis not only intensified political activities in New Spain but allo
generated new forms of political life and thought. Over time, this created and
nurtured a new political culture with which the new nation initiated its independent
existence. Yet there were two aspects to the country's emancipation: politicization
and militarization. The armed struggle, which began in 1810, opened the door to a
process of militarization that did not end after independence had been achieved.
This essay will be concerned more with the political tranformations than with the
accompanying war, however, because warfare did not envelop the entire Viceroyalty of New Spain, whereas the political changes did.
The foundations of the Spanish Empire's legitimacy disintegrated in 1808 when
the French invaded the Iberian Peninsula and forced father and son, the contending
kings Carlos IV and Fernando VII, to abdicate. There followed an important event
in the Peninsula that affected the entire subsequent process: the prominent
appearance upon the scene of the element on which the Spanish state would be
reconstituted: the people. Faced with the submission of their kings and many
officials to Napoleon, the people, that anonymous undifferentiated mass, el comícn,
as it was called, decided to take the initiative. The people fought with all means at
their disposal against the French invaders.l
The forms of struggle in the Peninsula, both in the battlefield and the political
arena, are enormously significant. First, the war of guerrillas, reinvented in Spain,
became the model adopted by the Americans, as they called themselves, during
their subsequent struggle against the military forces defending the colonial order.
Second, in defense of their king, their country, and their religion, the Spanish
people decided to take the government into their own hands. They created new
institutions—the governing juntas—in which the people participated. In Spain, the
movement, initially centrifugal because it started in the localities, soon became
An earlier version of this work was presented at the XX International Congress of the Latin American
Studies Association, Guadalajara, Mexico, April 17-19, 1997. I thank Professor Jaime E. Rodriguez O.
for translating this essay.
1 On the Spanish crisis of 1808, see Miguel Artola, Antiguo Régimen y revolución liberal (Barcelona,
1978); and Josep Fontana, La crisis del Antiguo Régimen, 1808-1833 (Barcelona, 1979).
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centripetal, first at the provincial level and later at the imperial level, when it sought
to include all the Spanish dominions. 2
Almost all the territories that constituted the Spanish Empire responded at first
in the same way. In defense of king, country, and religion, they, too, formed
governing juntas, because they shared goodwill as well as grievances toward the
mother country, owing to their common colonial relationship with the metropolis.
The different regions of the monarchy, however, held diverse autonomist interests,
which had been either initiated or strengthened by the eighteenth-century Bourbon
reforms, and which impelled and conditioned the response of each region's
inhabitants to the imperial crisis. That is why, while initially responding in the same
way, the various components of the Spanish Empire ultimately underwent different
experiences. 3
In New Spain, something unique transpired: the rupture of the social compact.
This occurred at the center of viceregal power in Mexico City, was carried out by
some of its highest authorities, and, as a result, affected everyone. The imperial
crisis initially appeared to provide an opportunity for New Spain's autonomists to
advance their interests. It was an occasion to undo the Bourbon reforms—which, in
order to exploit the viceroyalty more fully and efficiently, had sought to exclude
Americans from the government of New Spain—as well as to insist on equality with
the metropolis. The Ayuntamiento (municipal council) of Mexico City, which
became the vehicle for autonomist interests, proposed establishing a governing
junta for New Spain, justifying it on the same constitutional grounds used by the
people of the Peninsula in their struggle against the French, as well as by other
colonial ayuntamientos elsewhere in the empire. The Ayuntamiento of Mexico City
maintained that New Spain was a kingdom incorporated to the crown of Castile by
conquest; that, in the absence of the king, sovereignty reposed in the kingdom,
particularly in those superior tribunals that governed it, and in those corporations
that represented the public voice. 4 Although, in reality, the claims of the Ayuntamiento of Mexico City derived from legal ordinances not used for a long time,
colonial authorities considered the concepts very dangerous when applied to the
empire's perilous circumstances.
The defenders of imperial interests, European Spaniards with direct links to the
metropolis, and their voice, the Audiencia (high court) of Mexico, responded to the
claims of the autonomists by emphasizing the New World's colonial status and
demanding submission to the Peninsula. Earlier, New Spain's Creole and Peninsular elites had united in their opposition to the 1804 Law of Consolidation, which
required the church to recall its Joans to the public; now, faced with conflicting
aspirations, they divided and, in doing so, split the colony's society.
2 A recent and interesting study of these juntas is the work of Antonio Moliner, Revolución burguesa
y movimiento juntero en Espana (La acción de las juntas a través de la correspondencia diplomática y
consular francesa, 1808-1868) (Lleida, 1997).
3 These different experiences are analyzed by Jaime E. Rodrfguez 0., The Independence of Spanish
America (Cambridge, 1998).
4 "Representación del Ayuntamiento de México al virrey José de Iturrigaray," Mexico, July 19, 1808,
in Juan E. Hernández y Dávalos, Colección de documentos para la historia de la guerra de independencia
de México de 1808 a 1821, 6 vols. (Mexico City, 1878-82), 2: 479-81; and "Representación del
Ayuntamiento de México al virrey Iturrigaray," Mexico, August 5, 1808, in Enrique Lafuente Ferrari,
El virrey Iturrigaray y los ortgenes de la independencia de México (Madrid, 1940), 390-93.
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Viceroy José de Iturrigaray, who saw an opportunity to buttress his authority,
undermined by the collapse of the monarchy in the Peninsula, convened a series of
meetings to discuss the Ayuntamiento's proposal to establish a governing junta for
New Spain. Rather than reaching an agreement, however, the assemblies brought
into the open the two opposing positions: the Creole or American versus the
Peninsular or European. The gatherings also resulted in some interesting discussions, such as the nature and composition of the people and New Spain's place in
the imperial system.
The debate ended in violence on the night of September 15, 1808, when the
defenders of imperial interests imprisoned their own viceroy and the principal
autonomists. This coup d'état radicalized the confrontation between them. It also
marked the beginning of the definition and, later, the polarization, of the positions
adopted by New Spaniards toward the new circumstances the Spanish Empire and
particularly the Viceroyalty of New Spain were experiencing. The opposed positions
resulted from the orientation of their respective interests: the Europeans toward
the Peninsula and the Americans toward the interior of the colony. These were not
the only forces at work. The people also appeared upon New Spain's political scene,
in discourse as well as action. 5
The new circumstances that the Spanish Empire experienced opened up new
possibilities for action. One emerged within the system when liberals in the
Peninsula took the initiative in reorganizing the political structure of the Spanish
Empire. In March 1810, they convened the General and Extraordinary Cortes (or
parliament), which represented the entire Spanish Nation, as the empire was now
called. Later, in March 1812, they promulgated a constitution that recognized
sovereignty as residing essentially in the nation, which alone possessed the power to
establish its fundamental laws.
The first opportunity for Americans to participate in the political reorganization
occurred in January 1809, when the Supreme Central Governing Junta of the
Kingdom, which had been established in the Peninsula on September 25, 1808,
instructed New Spain to elect a deputy to represent the viceroyalty in the Junta
Central. New World representation in the highest organ of metropolitan government, besides validating the Americans' claim that the viceroyalty was an integral
part of the monarchy, reopened the path to representative government closed by
the coup d'état. The election decree, which placed the responsibility for holding the
elections in the hands of the various ayuntamientos, restored their authority. An
even more extensive opportunity to participate in restructuring the government of
the Spanish Empire occurred the following year when the Junta Central instructed
the ayuntamientos to hold elections for representatives from the provinces of New
Spain to the General and Extraordinary Cortes. 6
Other possibilities for action emerged outside the system. The use of force by
5 For the events of 1808, see Lafuente Ferrari, El virrey Iturrigaray; and Virginia Guedea, "Criollos
y peninsulares en 1808: Dos puntos de vista sobre lo espaflol," tesis de licenciatura (Mexico City,
Universidad Iberoamericana, 1994).
6 See Francois-Xavier Guerra, "Las primeras elecciones generales americanas (1809)," in Modernidad e independencias: Ensayos sobre las revoluciones hispánicas (Madrid, 1992), 177-225; and Virginia
Guedea, "The First Popular Elections in Mexico City, 1812-1813," in Jaime E. Rodriguez 0., ed., The
Evolution of the Mexican Political System (Wilmington, Del., 1993), 46-48.
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partisans of the regime led discontented New Spaniards to follow their example.
After the 1808 coup, almost all the opposition to the regime was organized at first
in secret. The general discontent was expressed by means of numerous anonymous
broadsheets and conspiracies organized under the cover of social gatherings
(tertulias) and other spaces of sociability that the cities and towns of the viceroyalty
provided. Nearly all the plots were urban; individuals from many social groups,
including Indians, took part; and all failed. A good example of these movements is
the conspiracy discovered in 1809 in the city of Valladolid in Michoacán. When the
colonial authorities, understandably afraid that such expressions of discontent
would spread, resorted to repression, they exacerbated the differences between the
defenders of the status quo and the autonomists.
THE DISCOVERY, IN SEPTEMBER 1810, of a conspiracy in the city of Querétaro and
elsewhere in the Bajio region led to an open and declared breach with the regime,
when one of its members, Father Miguel Hidalgo, initiated an insurrection.
Although Father Hidalgo did not at first offer clear alternatives to New Spaniards,
especially the viceroyalty's elites, it did appeal to many, particularly the lower
orders.? Because the people of New Spain shared a common political culture, all
agreed on the need to combat mal gobierno (bad government—a traditional slogan)
and to defend the realm, the king, and the Catholic religion from the French. In
addition, the leaders of the insurgency sought to create more opportunities for
Americans to govern themselves, an autonomist aspiration in the purest Creole
tradition. One goal that would remain constant during the entire emancipation
process was the establishment of an alternative organ of government—a governing
junta —an institution much desired by discontented Americans since 1808. But the
peasants and workers who formed the bulk of the insurgent ranks had very different
goals, such as access to land and improved working conditions. Moreover, many of
those who for one reason or another had not found a place within the social
structure of New Spain—the marginalized of every class and condition—joined the
insurgency and made their own imprint on the armed movement. These differences
caused important contradictions within the insurgency. 8
There were also regional differences. Insurgency broke out across New Spain, not
as a cohesive and integrated movement, but autonomously and, in most cases, to
seek relief for local and provincial grievances. Thus it would be more proper to
speak of various insurgencies, not just one. Moreover, leaders such as Ignacio
Rayón and José Maria Morelos, who attempted to provide unity and cohesion to
the movement, were on occasion themselves rather provincial. Rarely were other
insurgent commanders interested in the movement as a whole. All these factors
For the insurrection led by Miguel Hidalgo, see Hugh M. Hamill, Jr., The Hidalgo Revolt: Prelude
to Mexican Independence, 2d edn. (Gainesville, Fla., 1970); and Christon I. Archer, "Bite of the Hydra:
The Rebellion of Cura Miguel Hidalgo, 1810-1811," in Jaime E. Rodriguez 0., ed., Patterns of
Contention in Mexican History (Wilmington, Del., 1992), 69-93.
8 Eric van Young analyzes the agrarian origins of the insurrection in "Hacia la revuelta: Orígenes
agrarios de la rebelión de Hidalgo en la región de Guadalajara," in La crisis del orden colonial:
Estructura agraria y rebeliones populares de la Nueva Espana, 1750-1821 (Mexico City, 1992), 305-34.
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Father Miguel Hidalgo, the cura of Dolores. In 1810, his revolt began the war for Mexican independence.
Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.
made it extremely difficult for the principal leaders to establish a common front to
coordinate all of the insurgents. 9
Despite their efforts, the insurgency, particularly at the beginning, became
violent, disorderly, and destructive; it provoked opposition even among many of
those discontented with the colonial regime. Fear of and dismay at the insurgency
strengthened the authorities, whose response was coherent and uniform. The
regime rapidly organized the armed forces under its control and sought to crush the
9
An interesting study of the regions is Brian R. Hamnett, Roots of Insurgency: Mexican Regions,
1750-1824 (New York, 1986).
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Caricature of an insurgent. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación.
various insurgencies; indeed, it tried to eliminate all manifestations of discontent,
because it believed, and not without reason, that if allowed to fester they would gain
popularity, or, worse, that the disaffected would join the armed rebels.
Whereas the colonial regime had an army, the insurgents did not. In contrast to
their well-organized opponents, the few trained and capable insurgent military
leaders commanded disorganized and poorly armed forces. Moreover, the authorities and their supporters, in particular General Félix Maria Calleja, the most
capable royalist military officer, understood that they had to deploy local forces to
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confront a movement that appeared in various regions at the same time. Thus the
royalists reverted to the pre-Bourbon system of local militias, which proved to be
very efficient. During the first phase of the war, the organized royalist forces
defeated the disorganized insurgents on numerous occasions, made Hidalgo and his
followers flee north, and on March 21, 1811, captured the principal leaders, barely
six months after the movement began. Hidalgo was executed.'°
The war was bloody and destructive. As neither royalists nor insurgents possessed
many firearms, they fought at close quarters with lances, knives, slings, bows and
arrows, and clubs. And the war proved costly to the viceroyalty's economy—already
weakened by large sums sent to the Peninsula to fight the French—by destroying its
commercial networks. The provincial economies feit the cost as well: both the
insurgents and the royalists burned and destroyed crops, haciendas, and towns.
When traditional trade networks were destroyed, partisans on both Bides were
forced to establish new patterns of trade and new forms of exchange.
As if this were not enough, the Catholic church divided into supporters and
opponents. The higher clergy, allied with the colonial regime, assailed the
insurgents with anathemas and excommunications. Although such weapons eventually lost their potency, in part because the lower clergy in several cases supported
the insurgency, they nonetheless frightened many New Spaniards, particularly those
still neutral.
Several insurgent leaders, especially Rayón and Morelos, who understood very
early the problems inherent in a disorganized, unintegrated movement, decided to
transform it into a unified, coherent cause. In this effort, they gained the support of
discontented individuals living in regions controlled by the colonial regime,
primarily the cities. As a result, the insurgents began to receive more help from such
groups; for example, they obtained a printing press, which enabled them to publish
materials explaining their goals and to defend themselves from attacks by the
regime, which, until then, had controlled the media. Thus appeared many, if
ephemeral, insurgent periodicals. Professionals, above all lawyers, who joined the
insurgents helped form a more effective political organization. This, in turn, helped
create an image of an organized political and military movement, which attracted
greater support throughout the viceroyalty.
Shortly after the disastrous end of Hidalgo and other early insurgent leaders in
1811, Rayón, after informing Viceroy Francisco Xavier Venegas of his intention,
established a governing junta in August 1811 in the town of Zitácuaro. Although the
Supreme National American Junta, also known as the Junta of Zitácuaro, proposed
to represent the nation, from which it claimed to derive its authority, its formation
did not signify a complete break with the Spanish Empire; it continued to invoke the
name of the monarch. The Junta of Zitácuaro was to consist of five individuals
named by the representatives of the provinces of New Spain, but, given the urgency
10 Christon I. Archer has written extensively about the royalist army. See "The Army of New Spain
and the Wars of Independente, 1790-1821," Hispanic American Historical Review 61 (November 1981):
705-14.
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of the moment, only three were elected—Rayón, José Sixto Berdusco, and José
Maria Liceaga—by only thirteen insurgent commanders, though after widespread
consultation. Even partisans living in areas controlled by the colonial regime were
consulted. 11
The failure of the Supreme Junta to achieve the success its founders and
supporters had expected owed less to the opposition of the colonial regime than to
divisions among its members. At first, a war fought on various fronts kept the
leaders apart; later, personal enmities divided them and prevented the creation of
a unified center of authority. Even the appointment of Morelos as a fourth member
failed to prevent the insurgency from fragmenting into four large zones commanded
by independent captains-general, who did not always agree. After failing to end the
divisions among his colleagues, Morelos proposed replacing the Supreme Junta
with a congress elected by the inhabitants of each province, thereby more
completely representing the provinces of New Spain.
On the advice of the lawyer Carlos Maria de Bustamante, Morelos set up
extensive and lengthy elections in the territories under his control—the provinces
of Tecpan, Veracruz, Puebla, Mexico, and Michoacán. The province of Oaxaca,
which had already elected a representative to be the Junta's fifth and last member,
was allowed to send him as the first deputy to the new congress. The nature of the
elections varied in the different provinces; in some instances, the electoral practices
introduced by the Spanish Constitution of 1812 (also known as the Constitution of
Cádiz) were used. As a result, despite the different social structures among the
regions and difficulties that occurred in some, large sectors of the population
participated. 12
The Supreme National American Congress established in Chilpancingo in
September 1813 constituted a true alternative government. The influences of the
Constitution of Cádiz are apparent in its make-up and attributes. Composed of
representatives from several provinces that together covered a vast territory, the
Supreme Congress assumed national sovereignty, divided the government into
three branches, and coordinated its activities. It also confirmed the elections of the
executive, who would direct the military, as well as of the judiciary. Both had been
chosen in elections, albeit not direct popular ones, in which individuals and
corporations from various regions of New Spain had taken part. On November 6,
1813, the Supreme Congress finally declared independence from Spain and
proceeded to constitute a new nation; after extensive consultations with various
sectors throughout the country, it enacted a republican constitution in October
1814, which recognized the division of powers among the three branches of
government and established the sovereignty of the congress. The substitution of
the Supreme Congress for the Supreme Junta, however, did not end conflict
among the principal leaders. On the contrary, it multiplied the possibilities for
confrontation.
Insurgent leaders were concerned with another important question: recognition
1
' Virginia Guedea, "Los procesos electorales insurgentes," Estudios de Historia Novohispana 11
(1991): 201-49.
12
Guedea, "Los procesos electorales insurgentes."
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Image celebrating the 1813 elections to the Ayuntamiento of Mexico City. It shows an elected official and a
woman holding the Constitution of 1812. The caption reads, "The citizens of Mexico [City] in use of their
rights elected to the Ayuntamiento of the Noble City." A list of people elected follows. Courtesy of the
Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.
by foreign countries, which might lead to foreign aid. Although they employed a
variety of methods, they failed in the sense that they did not obtain aid of any
significance, except in the north. Appeals to the United States for assistance
resulted in the arrival of a largely Anglo-American expeditionary force but also in
the establishment of a governing junta, which, in April 1813, declared the
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independence of Texas in a document that echoed the United States' own
Declaration of Independence, and is indicative of future events in that region. 13
Spain was trying not only to get rid of the French but to establish
a new political order as well. The new order was important to New Spaniards
because it allowed the political participation of large sectors of the population
within the system. Thus it undermined the significance of the insurgency as an
alternative for the disaffected in the viceroyalty. The Constitution of Cádiz,
promulgated in New Spain in September 1812, introduced representative government at three levels—local (the constitutional ayuntamientos), regional (the
provincial deputations), and imperial (the Cortes). The constitution provided the
autonomists and the discontented with the means to achieve their goals legally.
Moreover, freedom of the press guaranteed by the new charter offered the
opportunity for open criticism of the colonial regime.
At the local level, the new constitutional ayuntamientos (which were established
in towns with a population of a thousand or more souls) introduced popular
representative government, became a mechanism for the expression of autonomist
interests, and contributed to the strengthening of local groups. Although the new
government was to be chosen through indirect elections, the first phase of those
elections included all those enjoying the rights of citizens, that is, large sectors of
the population. The constitution enfranchised all adult men of Spanish and Indian
descent: American as well as European Spaniards and mestizos could vote.
Although men of African descent and the colored castes were denied the franchise,
it proved difficult in New Spain to distinguish them when large popular sectors
participated in the elections. As a result, large numbers of men of African descent
and colored castes appear to have voted.
The elections held in November 1812 in Mexico City exemplify the varied nature
of popular participation in the new system. Large numbers voted, including the
Indians of the two native communities (parcialidades) of the capital and many of the
colored castes. The electoral results were unfavorable to the colonial regime; only
Americans, many of them known to be opposed to the regime or frankly
pro-insurgent, were elected. To compound the humiliation of the authorities, the
populace joyously celebrated the results for nearly two days, although they made no
further effort to undermine the colonial regime. Nonetheless, Viceroy Venegas
responded by suspending Mexico City elections and abolishing freedom of the
press. Even though elections were not resumed in the capital until April 1813, after
Félix Maria Calleja succeeded Venegas as viceroy, elections were held in other
cities, towns, and villages of the viceroyalty. 14
As a result of the efforts of some American deputies, most important among
them Miguel Ramos Arizpe and José Miguel Guridi y Alcocer from New Spain, the
IN THE MEANTIME,
13 I have dealt with this junta in "Autonomfa e independencia: La Junta de gobierno insurgente de
San Antonio de Béjar, 1813," in Virginia Guedea, ed., La independencia y la formación de las
autonomias territoriales mexicanas 1808-1824 (Mexico City, in press).
14 Guedea, "First Popular Elections in Mexico City, 1812-1813," 45-69; and Virginia Guedea, "El
pueblo de México y la politica capitalina, 1808 y 1812," Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 10 (Winter
1994): 27-61.
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Constitution of 1812 introduced a new institution, the provincial deputation, to
allow local groups to govern their regions. 15 Although not all of the six provincial
deputations allocated to the Viceroyalty of New Spain were elected during the first
constitutional period, and those that were functioned only a short time, large
sectors of the population took part in the first phase of the elections to establish
them. The election of deputies to represent New Spain at the Cortes, the first phase
of which was held at the same time as elections to the provincial deputations,
mirrored the other two elections: there was mass participation, and Americans won
all the seats.
So alarmed were the colonial authorities by the results of elections clearly
demonstrating discontent with the regime that they tried to overturn them. Besides
suspending some of the elections, they prosecuted well-known autonomists and
malcontents, as well as insurgent partisans. The authorities acted because many
New Spaniards took advantage of the opportunities offered both by the insurgency
and the introduction of the constitutional system to gain control of the government.
In addition, and this was extremely dangerous for the colonial regime, the new
political options permitted those who struggled from within the system to join
forces with those outside it. Secret societies were formed, at least two of them true
secret political organizations, an indication that a new political culture was
developing despite the difficulties experienced.
New Spaniards lacked experience with such organizations, which were forbidden,
and they could not keep a secret, even when they were plotting: on more than one
occasion, their Jack of caution led to discovery. The conspiracies of 1811 in the
capital provide a case in point. The first, an orthodox autonomist movement that
sought to establish a governing junta, was denounced in April. The second, which
sought to aid Rayón and the Junta of Zitácuaro, was discovered the following
August. 16
The secret society known as the Guadalupes, organized around a nucleus that
included distinguished Mexico City residents, coordinated the interests of many
malcontents, among them various Indians. Initially formed to help the insurgents
who were attempting to form an alternative government, the Guadalupes sent first
Rayón and, later, Morelos and Mariano Matamoros, money, weapons, men, and
information. At the same time, the Guadalupes advanced their autonomist goals
within the system by getting out the vote and successfully electing candidates to the
constitutional Ayuntamiento of Mexico City, the provincial deputation of New
Spain, and the Cortes during the elections of 1813 and 1814. The society remained
active until 1814, when the colonial authorities collected enough information from
captured insurgent documents to proceed against it. 17
Another secret society—modeled on the Society of Rational Knights, founded by
15
Manuel Chust has studied the participation of Americans in the Cortes; see "América y el
problema federal en las Cortes de Cádiz," in José A. Piqueras and Manuel Chust, compilers,
Republicanos y republicas en Espana (Madrid, 1996), 45-79; "La via autonomista novohispana: Una
propuesta federal en las Cortes de Cádiz," Estudios de historia Novohispana 15 (1995): 159-87; and La
cuestión nacional americana en las Cortes de Cádiz, 1810-1814 (Mexico City, 1999).
16 Virginia Guedea, "The Conspiracies of 1811 or How the Criollos Learned to Organize in Secret,"
paper presented at the conference "Mexican Wars of Independence, the Empire, and the Early
Republic," University of Calgary, April 4-5, 1991.
17 See Ernesto de la Torre Villar, ed., Los "Guadalupes" y la independencia, con una selección de
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Americans in Cádiz at the time the Cortes was meeting there—was established in
the city of Jalapa, and it also aided the local insurgents with money, weapons, men,
and information. It, too, established close ties with the local insurgent alternative
government, the Provisional Governing Junta of Naolingo. The society lasted
scarcely three months, however. When it was discovered, many of its members were
imprisoned, while others fied to join the Provisional Junta. 18
UNFORTUNATELY FOR BOTH the insurgents and the autonomists and malcontents, the
two groups could not form an effective alliance. Their failure to reach a consensus
proved not only detrimental to the opponents of the colonial regime but beneficia)
to the regime itself. Moreover, men of law clashed with men of arms in the highest
organ of the insurgent government. When the lawyers won and took control of the
armed struggle away from the soldiers, the result was, first, military defeat and later
the collapse of the insurgent movement.
Both Rayón and Morelos suffered grave losses while attempting to obey the
instructions of the Supreme Congress. Morelos's defeats had serious consequences.
He lost his most effective subordinate commanders, Mariano Matamoros and
Hermenegildo Galeana. The capture of his documents revealed the names of his
contacts and supporters to the authorities and enabled them to arrest and prosecute
many members of the secret society of Guadalupes. The insurgency, therefore, lost
important supporters. As a result of the defeats, the Supreme Congress stripped
Morelos of executive power; he ceased to command an important armed force and
became merely the chief of the escort of the legislative branch.
The year 1814 was marked by insurgent defeats but also by the return of King
Fernando VII to Spain from French captivity. He abolished the constitutional
system and restored the old regime, transformations that had grave repercussions
in New Spain. Freed of the restrictions imposed by the liberal legislation of the
Cortes, the colonial authorities proceeded against the autonomists and malcontents; the imprisonment and death of Morelos at the end of 1815 marked the
beginning of the end of the organized insurgency. In December, the insurgent
leader Manuel Mier y Terán dissolved the Supreme Congress in the city of
Tehuacán. Thereafter, the movement shattered into a thousand pieces.
According to Christon I. Archer, who disagrees with the majority of historians,
the disappearance of what I have called the organized insurgency did not signify the
end of the insurgent movement, or even the loss of its strength. Instead, he
maintains, the disintegration of a movement that had never been fully integrated
led to increased fighting and harmed a colonial regime forced to spend more money
and find more men to confront its many opponents. 19 Archer is correct, if the
documentos inéditos, 2d edn. (Mexico City, 1985); and Virginia Guedea, En busca de un gobierno
alterno: Los Guadalupes de México (Mexico City, 1992).
18
See Virginia Guedea, "Una nueva forma de organización politica: La sociedad secreta de Jalapa,
1812," in Amaya Garritz, comp., Un hombre entre Europa y América, Homenaje a Juan Antonio Ortega
y Medina (Mexico City, 1993), 185-208.
19
Christon I. Archer, "Insurrection-Reaction-Revolution-Fragmentation: Reconstructing the Cho-
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Virginia Guedea
128
insurgent movement is seen exclusively as a military phenomenon. As a political
movement, however, it virtually ceased to function after 1815.
Despite the dispersion and disintegration of the insurgents, efforts continued to
restore a united front to coordinate the movement and establish the principles upon
which a new political order could be formed. Thus the Governing Junta of the
Western Provinces, also known as the Subaltern Junta of Taretan, which had been
set up by the Supreme Congress before it was dissolved, continued to operate. Soon
afterward, it formed the Junta of Jaujilla, which recruited troops and lasted until
1818. Although Rayón refused to recognize the Junta, other insurgent leaders such
as Vicente Guerrero acknowledged its authority. The Spanish liberal Javier Mina,
who invaded New Spain in 1817 to try to restore the Constitution of 1812, consulted
with the Junta of Jaujilla and turned to it for weapons and men. Eventually, that
body suffered the same fate as its predecessors: royalist forces captured its
members. Although Guerrero established another junta in the hacienda Las Balsas
in an effort to coordinate insurgent activities, it too lasted only a short time.
The Jack of cohesion among the insurgents was clearly evident during Mina's
expedition. The presence of professional foreign troops commanded by a skilled
officer should have given the insurgent cause a tremendous impetus. Mina not only
failed to obtain much support, however, but on occasion he was harassed by
insurgent leaders who perceived him as a threat to their power bases in the regions
in which they had entrenched themselves. Despite causing panic among the colonial
authorities, the expedition utterly failed. 20
When the authorities counterattacked the dispersed and regionalized insurgency
with the offer of pardons as well as with troops, many insurgents laid down their
arms. At that point, the insurgency lost its military force and virtually ended as a
political movement. By 1820, it appeared that the Viceroyalty of New Spain had
been almost pacified.
GIVEN NEW SPAIN'S COLONIAL STATUS, its independence movement ended, as it
began, with events that occurred in the metropolis, where constitutionalists
managed to restore the constitution in March 1820. Secret societies, which played
a key role in the triumph of the constitutionalists, also began to proliferate in New
Spain, but how that occurred is not yet clear. With the exception of the Guadalupes
and the Jalapa society, which had been modeled on the one in Cádiz, none of the
secret societies in New Spain had direct ties with the insurgents. Masonic lodges,
organized by officers attached to units sent from Spain, were in existence very early
in a few urban centers, such as in Mexico City after 1813, and later in Campeche
and Mérida in the Yucatán Peninsula around 1818. Freemasons in the capital had
much to do with the restoration of the constitutional system in 1820, and with the
removal of Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca the following year. The Yucatecan
reography of Meltdown in New Spain during the Independence Era," Mexican Studies/Estudios
Mexicanos 10 (Winter 1994): 63-98.
20
The first account of Xavier Mina's expedition is given by William Davis Robinson in his Memoirs
of the Mexican Revolution; Including a Narrative of the Expedition of General Xavier Mina ...
(Philadelphia, 1820).
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129
The Process of Mexican Independence
Freemasons integrated into their ranks former members of earlier societies: both
the liberal sanjuanistas, who favored the constitutional system, and the principal
supporters of absolutism, the rutineros. The Freemasons also contributed to the
reestablishment of the constitution, and they removed the governor and captaingeneral of the Yucatán Peninsula.
Thereafter, Freemasonry's influence grew in the colony. It received added
impetus with the arrival in 1821 of a distinguished Freemason, Juan O'Donoju, to
be the last superior political chief (the office that replaced the viceroy under the
constitution) of New Spain. After independence had been attained and, particularly, after the establishment of a federal republic in 1824, Freemasonry and the
groups it organized would play a decisive role in the country's political life.
Although the return of the constitutional system in 1820 gave New Spaniards the
opportunity to further their interests through the numerous elections that were held
for constitutional ayuntamientos, provincial deputations, and the Cortes, the
majority also became convinced that to obtain the changes they desired, they could
no longer remain at the mercy of the political fluctuations of the Iberian Peninsula.
Thus autonomists, malcontents, and others began once again to organize against
the established order. An urban conspiracy, as in 1810, led to a new armed
movement, but the similarity of both movements ends there. The independence
movement was of a very different sort than the previous insurgency.
The rebels of 1821 were royalist troops led by distinguished officers and
commanded by Colonel Agustín de Iturbide: they were professional, disciplined,
and organized soldiers. Although Viceroy Apodaca had ordered him in November
1820 to crush the remnants of the insurgency in the south, Iturbide entered into
talks with its leaders early in 1821 to persuade them to declare independence. The
new rebels engaged in virtually no fighting because cities and towns rapidly
accepted the Plan of Iguala, as the independence program was called. There was
little bloodshed and destruction; moreover, practically all the former insurgents
joined Iturbide's movement. They were integrated at a much lower level, however,
than the royalists who had adhered to the cause.
The movement headed by Iturbide obtained consensus regarding one concrete
objective: independence. In part, that occurred because of war-weariness. After
more than a decade of warfare, everyone was exhausted. Although the Plan of
Iguala invited all the inhabitants of New Spain to unite, it left the church, the state
administration, and the courts intact, and its new army, the Army of the Three
Guarantees, was based on the former royal army. Interestingly, the Plan of Iguala
also provided for the establishment of a governing junta —the autonomists' goal
since 1808—to administer the country until a Cortes was convened and wrote a
constitution for the new Mexican Empire. 21
Upon his arrival in New Spain in July 1821, Superior Politica! Chief O'Donoju
ratified the Plan of Iguala by signing the Treaty of Córdoba, which recognized the
independence of the Mexican Empire. The treaty included precise details about the
21 "Plan de Iguala," 24 de febrero de 1821, in Diario politico militar mexicano, 6 septiembre 1821, t.
1, n. 6, pp. 21-24, and 7 septiembre 1821, n. 7, p. 25, in Genaro Garcia, Documentos históricos
mexicanos, obra conmemorativa del primer centenario de la independencia de México, 7 vols. (Mexico
City, 1910), vol. 4, s.p.
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130 Virginia Guedea
formation of the Provisional Governing Junta, which was to be composed "of the
most distinguished and notable men" of the realm, and stipulated that the Junta
would select a regency to act as the executive (while the Junta retained legislative
authority) until the Mexican Cortes met. 22
If the Plan of Iguala and the Treaty of Córdoba established the bases of
independence, the Provisional Governing Junta was entrusted with creating the
foundations on which the new state would be built. Chosen by Iturbide, the Junta
excluded both former insurgents and republicans; in fact, it consisted of the
capital's elite and officers of the new army. The Declaration of Independence of the
Mexican Empire is interesting not only because of its text but also because of its
signatories. It was signed by the members of the Provisional Governing Junta, which
included the most distinguished members of the capital's elite, former autonomists
and malcontents as well as the leading royalist commanders. But not a single former
insurgent was to be found among the signatories.
After finally achieving power, however, the elite of Mexico City proved unable to
unite and failed to consolidate its political power. The consensus soon began to
dissipate. Iturbide had used an army that relied more on persuasion than force to
convince New Spaniards to declare independence. He managed to bring together
the interests of autonomists, malcontents, and even insurgents, as well as the
majority of royalist military commanders because the Plan of Iguala offered
something to each group. But the apparent ease with which he was able to establish
a consensus, enter the hitherto impenetrable capital city, and establish the
long-desired governing junta would have grave consequences. He managed to
orchestrate a consensus on independence, but once it had been achieved, there was
no agreement about how to constitute the new nation. 23
22 "Tratados celebrados en la Villa de Córdoba el 24 de agosto de 1821 entre Juan O'Donoju, teniente
general de los ejércitos de Espafia, y Agustin de Iturbide, primer jefe del E. I. M. de las Tres Garantías,"
in Diario político militar mexicano, 3 septiembre 1821, t. 1, n. 3, pp. 11-12, 4 septiembre 1821, n. 4, pp. 13-16,
and 5 septiembre 1821, n. 5, pp. 17-18, in Garcia, Documentos históricos mexicanos, vol. 4.
23 The works of several historians of the first half of the nineteenth century continue to be
indispensable for understanding the process of Mexican independence. In particular, see the works of
Lucas Alamán, Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el
ano de 1808 hasta la época presente, 5 vols. (Mexico City, 1849-52); and that of Carlos Maria de
Bustamante, Cuadro histórico de la revolución mexicana, comenzada en 15 de septiembre de 1810 por el
ciudadano Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, cura del pueblo de los Dolores, en el obispado de Michoacán, 2d
edn., 5 vols. (Mexico City, 1843-46).
Virginia Guedea is Research Professor and Director of the Instituto de
Investigaciones Históricas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
She has published widely on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Her works include José Maria Morelos y Pavón (1981), En busca de un gobierno
alterno: Los Guadalupes de México (1992), and La insurgencia en el Departamento del Norte: Los Llanos de Apan y la Sierra de Puebla, 1810-1816 (1996).
She has also edited various volumes, among the most recent, La Revolución de
independencia (1995), Prontuario de los insurgentes (1995), El surgimiento de la
historiografía nacional (1997), and La independencia y la formación de las
autonomías territoriales mexicanas, 1808-1824 (in press). She is currently
studying the political processes of the early nineteenth century, particularly the
governing juntas and the popular elections of the independence decade.
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2000