You’ve probably seen the paintings. A balding, elderly priest with a halo of white hair, clutching a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe and looking like the personification of righteous fury. That’s the image of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla most of us carry around. It’s the official version. The "Father of the Nation" version.
But honestly? The real man was a lot more complicated—and a lot more interesting—than the statues in the town squares suggest.
Hidalgo wasn't just some pious old man who woke up one day and decided to start a war. He was a gambler. He was a businessman who defied the law to plant forbidden vineyards. He was an intellectual rebel nicknamed "The Fox" because he could argue circles around his professors. He also happened to father several children while wearing the collar.
Basically, if you think you know the story of the Mexican War of Independence, you’re likely missing the grit and the contradictions that made Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla who he was.
The Rebel Intellectual Named "The Fox"
Long before the Grito de Dolores, Hidalgo was a star student. He wasn't just reading the Bible; he was devouring the banned books of the French Enlightenment. We're talking Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. These weren't exactly "priest-approved" reading materials in the 1700s.
His peers at the Colegio de San Nicolás called him El Zorro (The Fox) for a reason. His mind was quick. Sharp. Dangerous. He didn't just accept the status quo of New Spain. He questioned why the Spanish-born peninsulares got all the best jobs while criollos like him—Spaniards born in Mexico—were treated like second-class citizens.
He eventually became the rector of the college, but his "extracurriculars" got him in trouble. He was accused of mismanaging funds and, more tellingly, for his "unorthodox" beliefs. The Church eventually shuffled him off to the backwater town of Dolores. They thought they were silencing him.
They were wrong.
More Than a Priest: The Entrepreneur of Dolores
When Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla arrived in Dolores in 1803, he didn't just stick to the pulpit. He turned the town into a laboratory for social and economic reform.
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He didn't just preach about the poor; he tried to make them self-sufficient. He started:
- Pottery factories
- Brick-making shops
- Silk cultivation (raising silkworms)
- Bee-keeping
- Leather tanning
He even planted olive groves and vineyards. This was a direct middle finger to the Spanish Crown, which had banned the production of wine and olives in the colonies to protect the monopolies back in Spain. When the government sent people to rip out his vines, Hidalgo’s resentment only grew.
You've got to understand that for Hidalgo, independence wasn't just a political theory. It was about the right to make a living without a king thousands of miles away telling you what you could or couldn't grow in your own soil.
The "Grito" That Wasn't Supposed to Happen Yet
The famous Grito de Dolores on September 16, 1810, was actually a plan B.
Hidalgo and a group of fellow conspirators, including the military captain Ignacio Allende, had been plotting an uprising for December. They were part of a "literary club" in Querétaro that was secretly a revolutionary cell. But the plot was leaked. The authorities were closing in.
On the night of September 15, Allende rode to Dolores to warn Hidalgo. They had two choices: run or fight.
Hidalgo chose to fight.
At around 2:30 AM, he rang the church bells. He didn't give a polished, written speech. He gave a raw, desperate call to arms. While the exact words are debated by historians, he didn't actually scream "Long live Mexico!"—mostly because Mexico as a unified country didn't really exist yet. He likely shouted for the death of "bad government" and for the protection of religion.
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The Dark Side of the Revolution
This is the part the textbooks often gloss over. Hidalgo’s "army" wasn't an army. It was a mob. Within weeks, he had tens of thousands of indigenous people and peasants following him, armed with nothing but machetes, slings, and pitchforks.
They were fueled by centuries of rage.
When they reached Guanajuato, things turned ugly. The Spanish and wealthy criollos holed up in a massive stone granary called the Alhóndiga de Granaditas. When the rebels finally breached the doors—legend says a miner named "El Pípila" carried a stone slab on his back to protect himself from bullets while he torched the gate—it became a massacre.
Women, children, and men were slaughtered. The city was looted.
This violence horrified Ignacio Allende and many of the middle-class supporters who wanted independence but didn't want a race war. It’s one of the great "what ifs" of history: if Hidalgo had maintained stricter discipline, would the revolution have succeeded a decade earlier?
The Hesitation at the Gates of Mexico City
By October 1810, Hidalgo’s forces had won the Battle of Monte de las Cruces. Mexico City was right there. Defenseless. The capital was within his grasp.
And then, he turned around.
Historians still argue about why. Maybe he was afraid of another Guanajuato-style massacre. Maybe he knew his ragtag army was running out of ammunition. Or maybe he just lost his nerve. Regardless, that retreat was the beginning of the end.
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The Royalist forces regrouped. Hidalgo was eventually defeated at the Bridge of Calderón, stripped of his command by his own officers, and captured while trying to flee to the United States.
The Execution and the Legacy
In July 1811, after being defrocked and excommunicated, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was executed by a firing squad in Chihuahua.
He died with a dignity that reportedly shook his executioners. He even thanked his jailers for their kindness before he was shot. After his death, the Spanish cut off his head and hung it in a cage at the four corners of the granary in Guanajuato. It stayed there for ten years.
They wanted his head to serve as a warning. Instead, it became a shrine.
Actionable Insights: How to Honor the History
If you want to truly understand Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla beyond the myth, here are a few things you should do:
- Visit the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato: Standing in that building gives you a visceral sense of the scale and the tragedy of the first days of the revolution.
- Read the "Sentiments of the Nation": While written by his successor, José María Morelos, it codifies many of the Enlightenment ideals that Hidalgo died for.
- Look for the "Fox" in the Art: When you see murals by Diego Rivera or Orozco, look for how they portray Hidalgo. They often capture the "Zorro" energy—the intellectual fire—rather than just the "grandfatherly" image.
- Differentiate the Grito from Independence: Remember that September 16th marks the start of the fight, not the victory. Independence wasn't actually achieved until 1821, ten years after Hidalgo was killed.
Hidalgo was a man of deep flaws and incredible courage. He was a priest who broke his vows, a general who couldn't control his troops, and a visionary who couldn't see his dream through to the end. But without his willingness to ring that bell in the middle of the night, the modern nation of Mexico might never have been born.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Knowledge
To see the direct results of Hidalgo's influence on Mexican law, research the Decree of Guadalajara, where he officially abolished slavery in 1810—one of the earliest such proclamations in the Americas.
For those interested in the military side of the struggle, compare the tactics of Hidalgo’s "mob" with the disciplined, professional guerrilla warfare later used by José María Morelos, which nearly brought the Spanish to their knees just a few years later.