GUANAJUATO AND INDEPENDENCE

In all the territory under Spanish rule, life went on in a climate of utter inequality, strictly defined in economic, social and cultural terms.

New Spain was a country of ranches and plantations, excessive taxes and draconian laws that all worked to the extreme disadvantage of the least privileged groups in society. The Spanish colonists had a monopoly of the principal posts in the army, church, government, business and industry. Even "Criollos" - ethnic Spaniards born in the Colonies - had to struggle to obtain a foothold in the system. Then there were the natives and people of mixed race, who were by far the majority, living in the most miserable conditions, with no security of any kind and daily suffering the cruelest of treatment.

Conversely, business became more profitable by the day. Agriculture flourished and urban industry was in constant production. The area's development meant the arrival of great numbers of people in search of a better way of life, causing an unexpected population explosion and the towns and cities were transformed into centers of education in order to cope.

From around 1760 on, the inhabitants of the province of Guanajuato began to demonstrate their frustrations with the limitations of the colonial system. The first protests took place in 1766, when unhappiness about a number of reforms instituted by Judge Jose de Galvez was manifested in the cry "Long live the King! Death to the Government!", and six thousand people tried to storm the offices of the Crown. The protest had its origins in, among other things, the taxes on corn, flour, meat and firewood, as well as low quality tobacco and the organization of the militia.

The following July, saw events take a turn for the worse with the expulsion of the Jesuits. During three days of unrest, the citizens of Guanajuato stoned the Crown offices, along with those of the tobacco and gunpowder monopolies and took control of the public highway. Jose de Galvez imprisoned 660 people, forbade the possession of firearms to miners and the wearing of Spanish clothes to the natives, as well as reinstituting a poll tax on miners, natives and mulattoes.

In the face of the new government orders, the dissenters adopted another strategy. Young men from the towns of San Miguel el Grande, Guanajuato, San Felipe and Leon formed a 1700-strong "Prince's regiment", effectively forming their own militia.

The first organized plots were the work of members of the Royal Court in conspiracy with the rich merchants of Mexico City, the New Spanish capital. When, on July 8^th, 1808, news reached the city of Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the subsequent abdication of kings Fernando VII and Carlos IV. On hearing the news, the city council quickly announced that until the legitimate monarch was back on the throne, the kingdom of New Spain was the center of Spanish sovereignty and law with the Viceroy, Jose de Iturrigaray, encouraged to keep his position as head of government. Conversely, the Spanish faction, made up of members of the high clergy, court counselors and members of the Inquisition, were against the council's plan. On September 15^th of the same year, Gabriel Yermo imprisoned the Viceroy, his wife and children in the Inquisition cells, along with council members Francisco Primo de Verdad y Ramos, Juan Francisco Azcarate y Ledesma and Brother Melchor de Talamantes. Colonel Ignacio de Obregon was also captured but managed to escape.

A second plot was hatched in 1809 in Valladolid (modern Morelia) but this too was a failure. Then, in Queretaro in the year 1810, a group of conspirators began meeting in the house of Father Jose Maria Sanchez under the guise of a literature circle. These literary men were: Miguel Dominguez, the local magistrate; the lawyers Parra, Lazo and Altamirano; local businessmen Epigmenio and Emeterio Gonzalez; military men Joaquin Arias, Francisco Lanzagorta, Ignacio Maria de Allende and Ignacio Aldama, and the parish priest for Dolores, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla.

The rising was initially planned for September 26, 1810, but was put back to October 12 to give time for better organization. However, the conspiracy was unmasked, and under the threat of imminent capture by the authorities in Queretaro, San Miguel el Grande and Dolores, the rebellion swung into action at 2 a.m. on the 16^th of September, 1810.

The War of Independence had begun with an important contribution from Guanajuato. After the capture and subsequent execution by firing squad of Miguel Hidalgo, the rebellion in Guanajuato was carried on by Liceaga, Rayon and Verduzco with the council of Zitacuaro.

In the south of the state, the brothers Albino and Francisco Garcia took their native Salamanca as their base of operations, along with the village of Valle de Santiago.

Albino Garcia, known as "manco" - the one-armed man - was an intrepid guerrilla fighter, famed for the speed of his surprise attacks. Garcia developed a highly effective line in guerrilla tactics against the royalists. The rebels, riding two abreast, would launch what apparently was a frontal attack, and then suddenly, to the invariable surprise of the enemy, split into two lines, revealing a rope tied to their saddles. Then, at full gallop, they would bear down on the opposing lines, toppling the enemy soldiers. If the first riders did not get the required results, the operation was repeated as many times as necessary, with more ropes, until the Royalist lines were dispersed.

Albino was finally captured on June 15, 1812 and imprisoned in Valle de Santiago by Captain Agustin de Iturbide. From there, he was transported to Celaya, where he, along with 150 of his band of guerrillas, was executed by firing squad.

Jose Maria Liceaga was born in Guanajuato in 1780, the son of Manuel de Liceaga and Maria Josefa Rayon. Jose Maria was an officer in the Mexican Dragoons, joining Hidalgo in 1810 and taking part in the fighting at Monte de las Cruces and Aculco. Later, he joined Allende and marched on Guanajuato, Zacatecas and Guadalajara, subsequently becoming Ignacio Lopez Rayon's adjutant at Saltillo. Liceaga was at Valladolid on June 2, 1811, moving from there to Zitacuaro, where he sat on the council. He fought bravely in Guanajuato and Michoacan.

Liceaga signed the Declaration of Independence at the Congress of Chilpancingo in 1813. Following the Congress' subsequent defeat, he fled to his La Laja hacienda, where finally in 1818 he was assassinated.

Brother Luis Herrera served as Miguel Hidalgo's surgeon when the latter passed through Celaya.

Other famous guerrilla fighters were Encarnacion Ortiz and Jose Antonio Torres, better known as "Master Torres" for having been the administrator of a hacienda close to his home town of San Pedro Piedra Gorda, present day Ciudad Manuel Doblado.

After the execution of rebel military leader Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon in 1815, the insurgent struggle was reinforced by the arrival of Francisco Javier Mina, who landed at Soto La Marina, Tamaulipas, on April 15, 1817. A native of Otaño, in Navarra, Spain, Mina had abandoned his studies to join the defense against the French, who captured him and imprisoned him in a castle in France. After the war ended, he returned to Spain, where he began to agitate against the ideas of King Fernando VII. From there, he fled to New Spain, along with Brother Servando Teresa de Mier. Overseeing the construction of a fort at Soto La Marina, he left it in the hands of one Captain Sarda, who had accompanied him from Spain, and along with 308 followers headed for Guanajuato.

Pedro Moreno, born at the Hacienda de la Daga, near the Villa de Lagos (present-day Lagos de Moreno), was a commoner whose family owned several haciendas in the foothills of the Comanja area. He studied in Guadalajara, but was forced to return to Guanajuato before he could receive his degree. Convinced that Mexico's submission to Spain was harmful, he joined the insurrection in 1814, taking his wife, Rita Perez Franco and all his children with him. Together with Mina, Moreno managed to escape from the Sombrero fort, subsequently heading for Guanajuato with the intention of taking it. The operation was not a success and they were forced to flee but were captured en route to Penjamo at the Venadito Ranch on October 27, 1817. Moreno refused to be taken without a fight and died at the hands of the Royalists. Mina was taken alive and was executed shortly after by a firing squad in front of the Remedios fort on November 11.

Jose Maria Luis Mora was born in Chamacuero (now Comonfort) in 1794. He studied in Queretaro and the San Idelfonso College in Mexico City. He received his Bachelor's degree in 1819 and became a Doctor of Theology in 1820. He started in journalism as a writer of the Semanario Político y Literaro (Political and Literary Weekly), where his liberal ideas found an audience. He was elected as representative for the State of Mexico and helped draft the first State Constitution. His most notable contribution was as advisor to President Valentin Gomez Farias. He participated in the drafting of the laws governing public education, helping establish the General Office of Public Instruction, as well as legislation permitting the establishment of numerous centers of study, the public library and the abolishment of compulsory tithes (an ecclesiastical levy that obliged taxpayers to pay one tenth of their income to the Church).

He was subsequently exiled to Paris, where he wrote several works before dying in 1850. His remains were brought back to Mexico where they were laid to rest in the Rotunda of Illustrious Men in the Dolores Hidalgo civil cemetery and the people of Guanajuato changed the name of the town of Charcas in the Sierra Gorda to Doctor Mora in his honor.