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On Sept. 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo gave the grito (shout) and launched the Mexican war for independence from Spain. Meanwhile, a convention in the Kingdom of Spain was debating a constitution for representative government for the homeland and the colonies. Similarities appear in having debates in Spain for a constitution for Mexico, and debating one for Iraq, not in Iraq proper, but in the Green Zone, under the watchful eye of the U.S. top representative. 

Significantly enough, the U.S. top man in Iraq a year ago was Paul “the Viceroy” Bremmer. Other similitudes between Mexico then and Iraq today include the actions of, and propaganda about, the insurgents, the home-grown ones, that is, Mexico had only a brief period with any notable number of foreign ones. 

The delegates to the constitutional Cortes (assembly) in Spain in 1810 were under intense pressure to produce, due to political developments which found their King held captive by the French of Emperor Napoleon. They felt they needed to reach out broadly for support, or Spain might be lost to the French. Thus, the constitution was to apply to the colonies as well as the homeland. 

Delegates from the colonies who swore allegiance to the Empire were allowed at the Cortes. They were only some 20 percent of those in attendance, when by population count the numbers should have been reversed. And the colonial delegates were an elite group of the wealthy and well educated. The stringent qualifications were such that no candidate was found to represent the province of Texas. 

Hidalgo initially had support within the elite, but quickly lost it. His peasant followers reacted with violent enthusiasm to his decrees abolishing tribute taxes, the discriminatory laws of the caste system and the institution of slavery. He ordered that masters must free their bond-servants immediately upon receipt of the decree or suffer the penalty of death. 

Mansions of Spaniards and rich Mexicans alike were attacked and many residents hacked to death by Hidalgo’s mobs. Spain’s Royal defenders said the insurgents functioned merely on hatred. A more nuanced assessment came from a cleric in Puebla who said the problem with the rebels was that they lacked a coherent program. Some “wanted democracy, others aristocracy and others monarchy.” It was three years into the war before rebel leadership found agreement on complete independence under a representative government.  

In Spain, the delegates were divided among those who genuinely desired a modern republic, and others who sympathized with the King and wanted safeguards in the constitution that ensured that the lower orders would not jeopardize power. The debates dragged through 1811. The option of granting Mexico self-rule was rejected. Supposedly, without Spain’s guidance, Mexicans would destroy one another. 

As one Royalist wrote, if warfare was so bloody between “enlightened countries among citizens of the same color, the same laws, religion and interests, what can we expect ... where there are European Spaniards, American Spaniards ... (and) Indians, Mulattos, Lobos, Negroes and other castes at odds among themselves.” 

Hidalgo was captured in the Summer of 1811 and beheaded and his skull hung in public to dissuade other European-looking Mexicans from siding with the insurgents. Talk in the mansions of Mexico City was that the revolution was in its last gasp. But the Mexican cause had been carried by a plentiful group, small town priests devoted to the poor, and after Hidalgo the revolution was rebuilt and given new strength by Father Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, a small town priest who was of mixed African, Indigenous and Spanish heritage. 

The constitution appeared ready for passage in 1812. Agreement was reached on articles for free elections, freedom of assembly, a free press and voting rights. Then came Article 22. It denied the designated rights to anyone with any African ancestry. Members among the delegations from the Americans were irate. They pointed out, more than once, that in mixed race Spanish America, counting all the territories, those with at least a little bit or more of African blood were the biggest single group. To deny them rights would disenfranchise whole regions, for lack of qualified voters to fill a quorum—the province of Veracruz, for instance. American delegates warned that anger over Article 22 could cost Spain its colonies. The delegates intimated, but would not say directly, that the black exclusion meant that political office holders in the colonies would come from the ranks of those with little respect for representative government.  

On the matter of exclusion, the Spanish delegates circulated a petition that the Cortes had received from Spaniards living in Mexico City. The petitioners said their experience showed them that it was questionable to even give White Mexicans rights; that the Indigenous should be excluded by reason of a lack of intelligence for self-rule; and as for the blacks, they were deemed a devious people, who “congregate in the dark corners of our cities forming a class of unproductive ruined poor. They should not be given access to improve, for with more money they will only be better able to satiate their vicious indulgent habits...” 

To this, a delegate from Lima, Peru, a city with a sizable African population, declared that the petition should be burned for spreading discord and disturbing the peace of the Empire. 

The black exclusion article passed with overwhelming Spanish support. The constitution was promulgated. In Mexico, the grant of free press and assembly lasted only a few months before the Viceroy declared those clauses void. 

The insurgency spread. Royal propagandists declared Morelos an insane fanatic who promulgated a blasphemous religion. Morelos was indeed a fiery orator; his bushy hair made the scarf he always wore appear like a turban. “God is on our side,” he railed, “Stand in fear Gachupines (Spaniards in Mexico). Your end is near. Stand in fear of America, not only because of our bravery, a good amount of which you have experienced, but also because of the righteousness of the cause which we defend with all our hearts...” 

Morelos’s war program called for infrastructure destabilization: Mine shafts were flooded, haciendas torched, tobacco and cane fields set ablaze, bridges blown up. Belongings of Royalists were distributed half to the revolution and half to the local people in need. 

Morelos was captured and executed late in 1815. Many now quit the insurgency, believing it had fallen into chaos, and that the chances for success were slim. But Spain spent the next few years in continual mopping up exercises in which Royal troops descended upon “insurgent strongholds” with reportedly much success, only to repeat at the same place a few months later. Spanish soldiers tired of the chase, and increasing numbers of Mexicans had to be conscripted to fight for the empire. 

In 1820, Spain’s king, back on his throne, ordered a widespread conscription of his countrymen, declaring it was time to end the colonial uprisings once and for all. But great numbers of his soldiers and officers refused to get on the boats for the New World. The military revolt led to the dormant Cortes being called back in session. The delegates decided that the only way to keep the colonies was to give them genuine democratic power at the local level. It was granted. 

Across Mexico, newly formed town councils voted not to fund the militia, militia members being the majority of Spain’s fighters in Mexico. Guns piled up in the town squares. A top Spanish general was the Mexican Agustin Iturbide, who decided to seek out the Mexican Commander in Chief, Vicente Guerrero, for a deal unifying their armies against the foreigners. Significantly enough, Guerrero, a descendant of slaves and a former lieutenant under Morelos, insisted that he and Iturbide’s unity plan of Iguala include an equality clause. 

It read, “All inhabitants of New Spain, without distinction to their being Europeans, Africans, or Indians are citizens ... with the option to seek all employment according to their merits and virtues.” With the plan’s publication, conscripted Mexicans on the Spanish side deserted in massive numbers. 

In September 1821 the joint army of Iturbide and Guerrero marched into Mexico City. The war was over. Mexico was free. But the economy was in ruin; hundreds of thousands had been displaced from their homes; and handling the problems would create a long period of political instability. 

During the years of recuperation, eleven individuals who fought against Spain would serve as presidents of Mexico. Only one of the 146 Mexican delegates to the sessions of the Spanish Cortes received that honor. 

The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero: Mexico’s First Black Indian President (University Press of Florida, 2001) was the source for most of the history in this article.  

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