Central America · Conquest and the Spanish colonial era
Mexicans
1810/1811–1821
The Mexican War of Independence began with the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's "Grito de Dolores" on 16 September 1810 (Mexico's Independence Day), a mass uprising of indigenous and mestizo people against Spanish colonial rule in New Spain. After Hidalgo's capture and execution in 1811, leadership passed to another priest, José María Morelos, who convened the Congress of Chilpancingo (1813), which declared independence, before he too was captured and executed in 1815.
- Existed
- 1810/1811–1821
- Shown on the map
- 1811–1819
- Peak area
- 312k km²
- Region
- Central America
Overview
The Mexican War of Independence began with the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's "Grito de Dolores" on 16 September 1810 (Mexico's Independence Day), a mass uprising of indigenous and mestizo people against Spanish colonial rule in New Spain. After Hidalgo's capture and execution in 1811, leadership passed to another priest, José María Morelos, who convened the Congress of Chilpancingo (1813), which declared independence, before he too was captured and executed in 1815. The insurgency then subsided into a guerrilla resistance sustained by figures such as Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria.
Decline and legacy
The war ultimately concluded through an elite realignment rather than insurgent victory: the royalist creole officer Agustín de Iturbide, alarmed by the liberal turn of the 1820 revolution in Spain, allied with the insurgent Guerrero under the Plan de Iguala (February 1821), whose "Three Guarantees" were independence, the primacy of Catholicism, and equality of Spaniards and Americans. The Treaty of Córdoba (24 August 1821) recognized independence, and the Army of the Three Guarantees entered Mexico City on 27 September 1821. Iturbide had himself crowned Emperor Agustín I of the short-lived First Mexican Empire (1822–1823), which briefly incorporated Central America before a republican revolt (the Plan de Casa Mata) toppled him, leading to the federal republic of 1824.
Common questions
- What were the Mexicans?
- The Mexican War of Independence began with the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's "Grito de Dolores" on 16 September 1810 (Mexico's Independence Day), a mass uprising of indigenous and mestizo people against Spanish colonial rule in New Spain. After Hidalgo's capture and execution in 1811, leadership passed to another priest, José María Morelos, who convened the Congress of Chilpancingo (1813), which declared independence, before he too was captured and executed in 1815.
- When did the Mexicans exist?
- The Mexicans existed 1810/1811–1821. On this map they are drawn 1811–1819.
- How large were the Mexicans?
- At their greatest extent drawn on this map, the Mexicans covered about 312,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives them across the years they are drawn, not necessarily their greatest extent in history.
- How did the Mexicans end?
- The war ultimately concluded through an elite realignment rather than insurgent victory: the royalist creole officer Agustín de Iturbide, alarmed by the liberal turn of the 1820 revolution in Spain, allied with the insurgent Guerrero under the Plan de Iguala (February 1821), whose "Three Guarantees" were independence, the primacy of Catholicism, and equality of Spaniards and Americans.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity and for the key figures and events as the basis of these profiles, supplemented by Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, EBSCO Research Starters and academic sources. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Mexicans en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicans
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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