The beginning of the Mexican War of Independence was dominated by the person and personality of Miguel Hidalgo. Even today, in both the historiography and the popular imagination, the character of Hidalgo and his role in starting the journey to independence is glorified and memorialized. The role of a “great leader” would characterize the history of the War of Independence, and its phases can be broken down into eras with the name of the preeminent leader attached to them. With the passing of the first phase of the war, now the second phase began, and with it, a new leader.
Morelos’ Formative Years
The second phase also began the way the first did, with a priest. José Morelos was born in Valladolid, a town later renamed Morelia in his honor. He grew up in a family of limited means, and upon being old enough, was put to work. He learned to be a teamster, driving mules along local roads. Like most children born in conditions of near poverty, he dreamed of something more. Unlike most, he did something about it. He would read every book he could find. He taught himself skills that no teamster would dream of needing. He was preparing himself for something more.
When old enough to work for himself, Morelos saved all the money he could to educate himself. Surviving on scraps of food, and taking all the work that he could find, he was able to save enough money to receive a formal education. He enrolled in the local institution of higher learning, the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo in his hometown. It was while here that he would come into contact with the most influential figure of his life. Teaching at the Colegio at the same time was Miguel Hidalgo.
While learning at the knee of Hidalgo, Morelos took in all of the Enlightenment learning that would later get Hidalgo into so much trouble. Ideas about freedom, the superiority of reason over superstition, and resentment against social distinctions. Morelos became enraptured by these ideas and would use them as guides for all his future endeavors. Like Hidalgo, he would accept Enlightenment ideals while still maintaining support for the Catholic Church and accepting its beliefs. Morelos would attack what he saw as superstition, like Hidalgo, but he would remain a Catholic until the end.
There was one way in which Morelos would differ from his teacher, and it would be a major, defining point in their characters. Hidalgo had a mind that was undisciplined. He was interested in everything and wanted to learn everything. This lack of discipline would lead to disaster when he neither had the desire nor the capacity to exert control over the baser instincts of his uprising. Morelos, however, was very disciplined. Perhaps it was the discipline required of being a self-made man, or perhaps it was something else. Whatever it was, when Morelos learned, he was able to systematize knowledge and apply it usefully. The importance of this would be seen to full effect later.
After graduating from the Colegio, Morelos was ordained a priest. However, due to his social standing, he was given the lowly position of curate at an even lesser backwater than Hidalgo ended up, the town of Carácuaro. For over ten years, from 1799 until 1810, Morelos would live and work in obscurity, eventually rising to the position of a parish priest. Living in the poor colonial town further fed into the resentment against the colonial authorities that his Enlightenment ideals helped foster. Morelos saw the same inefficiency and oppression in Carácuaro as Hidalgo saw in Dolores. Working and living next to the poor indios and mestizos gave Morelos a personal connection with these groups of people that only proved in his mind the philosophies he believed in.
Joining Hidalgo
When he heard of the rising under Hidalgo, Morelos rushed to join his old mentor. Here was the revolution that men like him had been waiting for. When he finally found Hidalgo, he was just as overjoyed as Hidalgo was. Hidalgo knew the restless genius that lay within Morelos; indeed, Hidalgo had done so much to foster and encourage Morelos’ intellectual upbringing.
Hidalgo was smart enough to know that he could not be in all places at once. He needed trusted lieutenants who could rally the people in the same way he could. Morelos was just such a man. Needing a man to raise the country in the south, Hidalgo directed Morelos to raise an army and operate along the Pacific coast. Setting out from the main army with only 25 men, the core of the next insurgent army grew.
Building a Movement in the South
In building this army, Morelos would show his true genius, building a movement. Hidalgo had raised an enormous army, the size of which New Spain had not seen since the days of the Aztecs. Unfortunately for the revolutionary cause, this army was poorly disciplined and even more poorly equipped. As any person of genius knows, more can be learned from negative examples than from positive ones. Seeing the chaos in the insurgent army convinced Morelos that a strong discipline was necessary for success, a belief that was only reinforced when Hidalgo’s army was destroyed. Further, Morelos knew that if a soldier was unequipped with the necessities of a soldier, he would be worse than useless. That unarmed soldier would simply be a wasted mouth to feed, draining the supplies of the army to no positive effect. Therefore, Morelos would allow no one into his army whom he could not provide arms for.
Morelos knew that a revolution could not be made from vague promises and lofty slogans. Order had to prevail, and law had to be established. On August 19, 1811, Morelos and Ignacio Rayón would establish a junta, the Junta de Zitácuaro. This junta would provide the new Mexican state with a government. It would create the Constitutional Elements, a set of principles that were meant to guide in the creation of a future constitution for the Mexican state. There were expressions for individual rights and the abolition of slavery. It was also still tied to the person of King Ferdinand VII, calling for an independent Mexico with Ferdinand VII as its king. The nation would be governed, not by the king, but by the people through a Congress.
People are led by principles as much as they are led by great leaders. Morelos, a believer in enlightenment philosophy, understood that the movement he was building had to have concrete principles that others could rally around, but also be broad enough to attract the fence-sitters and not chase away the indifferent. This is what the Constitutional Elements did, and they would become the basis of virtually every constitution in Mexico’s history.
Another lesson he learned from Hidalgo’s army was to select the right people to lead with him. Hidalgo had attracted a wide array of dissatisfied elements to his banner. Many of those had radically divergent views of what they wanted from the revolution. This led to the leadership of the insurgent army being at cross-purposes, and when that army began losing, it fell apart quickly. Morelos would not make the same mistake. He was a master at recognizing dormant talent and bringing out the best in others. Men like Vicente Guerrero and Mariano Matamoros were discovered and fostered by Morelos. Rising from humble origins, especially Guerrero, those with true talent were given progressively greater responsibility. Building this leadership cadre would help Morelos’ movement survive its creator.
Morelos Strikes the Royalists
While building his army, Morelos kept active. He would take his men and occupy large swaths of the south, including the city of Oaxaca. He would attack and defeat small units of the Spanish army, providing experience for his troops. Experience with hard marching, field living, and standing in the face of fire would discipline Morelos’ army and give them confidence and pride in themselves. Morelos knew that they would need these qualities when the day came to face the weight of the Spanish army.
Morelos left Hidalgo’s army in 1810. By the beginning of 1812, about 9,000 men were under his command. This was not Hidalgo’s disorganized mob. This was an army of disciplined and well-armed troops ready for campaign. They needed to be ready since it was at this time that the sword of the viceroy, General Félix Calleja, was ready to turn his attention to rooting out the insurgents in the south.
The mere presence of Morelos’ army in the south threatened one of the largest revenue streams of the government of New Spain, the trade with the Philippines. Long a Spanish colony, the Philippines provided Spain with a way to tap into the vast amounts of wealth in the Far East. Since going through the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope would be too dangerous, the trade from the Philippines had always been routed through the city of Acapulco, on the west coast of New Spain. It was in this area that Morelos operated, and if he could interdict the wagon trains that brought goods and treasure from Acapulco through Mexico City and then on the Veracruz, the tenuous financial supports that held up the viceroyalty would crumble.
Calleja: the Antithesis of Morelos
The man who would be Morelos’ nemesis and lead the campaigns against him, Félix Calleja, was also a man of exceptional talent. It was he who finished off Hidalgo. He had also defeated Hidalgo’s rebels in the north and he had fought in dozens of campaigns against the Indians. He was also a man of iron discipline and believed in supporting his soldiers with better food and equipment. In many ways, Morelos and Calleja were reflections of each other through a dark mirror. The best Spain had to offer would face the best Mexico could offer.
In February 1812, Calleja would strike. Morelos had fortified the town of Cuautla, and Calleja wanted to destroy this base. He further hoped that he could pin down the insurgents and destroy them in one siege. What Calleja did not count on was that he was not facing insurgents anymore, but a rebel army that could stand up to him. Both sides recognized the importance of the city and their respective positions. Calleja brought in 7,000 reinforcements to support his main army of 5,000 men. Morelos brought in as many troops as the rebels could muster, about 16,000, and fortified the town further. For Calleja, this was perfect. If he could catch the rebels in a siege, he could destroy them all at once. After surrounding Cuautla, he ordered a direct assault, believing that insurgents like those in Hidalgo’s army could not stand up to his trained regulars. The assault failed after a bloody back and forth. Morelos had trained his troops well and had even brought cannons for support.
Calleja was still unconcerned. Time was on his side since he was not the one surrounded. For the rebels, conditions inside Cuautla deteriorated. Food began to run out. As time went on, fear amongst the civilian populace set in. Calleja had a well-deserved reputation for brutality. By the common rules of war at the time, the longer a city resisted, the worse the city would be punished if the invader conquered. Murder, plunder, and rape were the least of what could be expected when the Spanish took the city. Morelos knew that he had to do something, but he was not willing to just give up and surrender.
The only possible solution for Morelos was to break out from the city and attempt to get away. At 2:00 am on May 2, 1812, after a siege lasting almost two months, the rebel army attacked Calleja’s lines. Complicating matters was that many of the civilians of the city, fearing Calleja’s wrath, broke out with the rebel soldiers. While most of the soldiers and men of Cuautla managed to escape, the women and children were not so lucky and would be killed indiscriminately by Calleja’s men. Unfortunately for Morelos, one of those men who was captured was Leonardo Bravo, one of his most trusted lieutenants.
Morelos Brings Success Militarily and Politically
Freed from defending a fixed position, Morelos showed his brilliance as a strategic commander. He operated in the mountains hitting Spanish positions repeatedly. In only a few months, he was able to return to Cuautla and push further toward Veracruz. Understanding the economics of warfare, Morelos occupied the tobacco-growing regions west of Veracruz and destroyed the government storehouses full of tobacco. The monopoly on tobacco was one of the main revenue sources for the viceregal government, damaging Calleja’s ability to logistically support his army.
The mentality of the two men facing each other, Morelos and Calleja, can be seen in the fate of two hundred prisoners taken. A detachment under Nicolás Bravo captured two hundred royalist troops in a lightning strike. Morelos, desirous of getting his friend back, and understanding the poetry of the son freeing the father, offered to Calleja to exchange the two hundred prisoners in exchange for one man, Leonardo Bravo, who had been sentenced to death for treason. Calleja refused and had Bravo executed forthwith. Morelos, finding this out, ordered the younger Bravo to execute all two hundred of the royalist prisoners. Bravo, however, would show himself more merciful than either of the antagonists and release all the prisoners.
Defeat brings dissension, and among the royalists, everyone was blaming the viceroy for their troubles. Calleja was victorious wherever he was, but he could not be everywhere at once. The army was beginning to suffer from insufficient pay and supplies. The government seemed to be collapsing. The Audiencia complained to the latest Spanish government in Cadiz, which authorized the replacement of Viceroy Venegas with the only man who seemed to have the spine to defeat the rebels and end the war once and for all, Calleja himself.
Taking control, Calleja would reorganize the entire New Spanish army, providing more consistent pay and supplies. Inefficient people were purged from the government. Needing more money, he seized the assets of the Inquisition, which had been abolished by the Spanish Junta, but this had never been enforced in New Spain. Wasteful spending was cut, and corruption was punished in the exceptionally cruel way that Calleja was known for. All people of any amount of European descent would now be subject to conscription. More than creating efficiency, Calleja was showing the people of New Spain that the royalist government could support the country and the army, and was a viable alternative to the rebels, offering order in place of the rebel’s freedom.
In 1813, Morelos’ army would see further success. Launching repeated hit-and-run attacks, time and again the royalists would be routed. He would even take Acapulco itself, depriving the viceregal government of its base on the Pacific. Clearly, Morelos was taking advantage of the opportunity presented by Calleja’s focus on governmental reform and not on the army. During this time of success, Morelos felt emboldened and wanted to begin creating not just a rebel government, as had been done earlier with Rayón. As Morelos put it “it is time to strip the mask from independence.” Until this time, the rebels, even under Hidalgo, had been fighting under the assumption that Ferdinand VII would still be king of Mexico. Morelos was never happy with this formulation, and now, at the peak of his success, he began pressing for a republic. He called the Congress of Chilpancingo, which met on September 13, 1813, and directed reforms, including removing all aristocratic and priestly privileges, racial equality, universal manhood suffrage, fair taxation, and opening service to men of all ranks. For the time, this was a radical formulation to base a government upon. Most importantly, the Congress passed Mexico’s declaration of independence. Unlike Hidalgo, who gave himself grandiloquent titles, the most Morelos would accept was “servant of the nation.”
Calleja Hits Back Hard
When Calleja had finally built the army he wanted and reorganized the government, he did not directly confront Morelos in the south. The rebels in the south were beginning to act as if they had already won. Calleja was down, but not out. Like Morelos, he knew that his newly raised army would have to be bloodied before the real confrontation took place. So, instead of attacking south, Calleja led his army north and struck at those who had thrown in their lot with the rebel leader.
The campaign in the north was no contest. The drive and ruthlessness of Calleja could not be stopped. The silver mines were immediately captured, providing an instant infusion of cash for the viceroy. Any and all groups of rebels were dealt with ruthlessly, with the commanders almost invariably being executed. When word reached Calleja that some Americans had crossed the border into Texas, he sent troops north and the Americans were crushed, scurrying back across the border. Anyone living in the province who had supported the Americans, Calleja ordered their throats to be cut. The 1813 campaign for Calleja was a long one and covered vast distances, but in the end, it was successful and by the new year, Calleja was ready for the final showdown with Morelos.
Morelos, consumed with the Congress of Chilpancingo, had not initially responded to Calleja’s advances. Rising from political concerns, Morelos decided to take his army and march on Michoacán. The target of Morelos’ campaign was Valladolid, which Morelos intended to proclaim his capital. Due to the royalist garrison in the city, he was obliged to surround it and proceed with a siege. Calleja, in response, sent an army to relieve the garrison.
It All Comes Tumbling Down
Upon arriving at the rebel camp, the royalist army prepared to strike. One member of the royalist army was a young colonel of cavalry, almost as ruthless as Calleja himself, Agustín de Iturbide. Iturbide, learning from spies and prisoners that the rebel troops were to blacken their faces so they could identify themselves during battle, Iturbide had his troops blacken their own faces. Then, violating his orders, Iturbide led his troops in an insane attack into the heart of the rebel army, aiming straight for Morelos’ headquarters, located at the top of a hill. The chaos and confusion caused by this attack broke all discipline in the rebel army. The attackers could not be royalists, some thought, no one would be stupid enough to attack like this. They had to be rebels who were betraying their own. Groups of rebels began firing into each other, and others broke and ran. Matamoros, Morelos’ best commander, tried to rally some troops but was defeated, captured, and shot. The army that Morelos had spent so much time building and training was gone.
Calleja, not one to pass up an opportunity, struck. He immediately began ordering his various forces throughout New Spain to attack any rebel forces they could get their hands on. City after city fell, including Chilpancingo, the site of the rebel Congress. Acapulco fell without a shot being fired. Hermenegildo Galeana, Morelos’ best commander now that Matamoros was gone, was captured and beheaded by the royalists.
Morelos had been the driving force behind the creation of the Congress of Chilpancingo. Now, it would be his downfall. As the most prominent and important leader of the rebels, he received all the honors when things were going well. Over two years, Morelos had taken a broken group of insurgents and transformed it into a movement that had declared itself an independent republic and had achieved many military victories. Now, it was Morelos who would receive all of the blame. The congress, now calling itself the Congress of the Republic of Anáhuac, demanded that Morelos resign from command of the army. He did, and the most brilliant of the rebel leaders was removed in this most trying time.
To handle the crisis, the political leaders of the Republic did what political leaders do best, issue meaningless proclamations backed by little but words. A new constitution was issued in October of 1814 but would never be implemented. The proclamation of new rights did not deter Calleja. He advanced further faster. Michoacán fell in its entirety. The royalist army was closing in. Congress had to flee. They needed troops to protect the congressmen. None were available since the bulk of the army was either fighting the royalists or had deserted and were at home. The members called on Morelos to escort them. Being an honest man with a sense of duty, Morelos agreed.
While escorting the congressmen, royalists found the convoy at Texmalaca. Morelos told his companions to save themselves and scatter. He took a few men and acted as bait for the royalists to let everyone else escape. Morelos was captured soon after by a man who had once fought in his army and changed sides. Morelos was brought to Mexico City under guard. Calleja would not make a spectacle of his new prisoner and had him smuggled into the city quietly.
The End
Just like Father Hidalgo, Morelos was a priest, and therefore, his captivity would be governed by the church, not the viceregal government. He was examined and interrogated for forty-six days. Morelos was not a man who took his vow of celibacy as a priest seriously and confessed to a few minor priestly infractions. The Inquisition had him defrocked, just like Hidalgo, and turned over to the secular authorities for punishment for treason. He was executed by firing squad on December 22, 1815.
The death of Morelos was a tragedy for Mexico. He was the genius of the Mexican War of Independence. Whereas many leaders of revolutions have goals that they want to attain, Morelos had a vision. He had a vision of a nation free of racial and class distinctions, free of foreign domination. A vision of a free people, with rights granted by God that no one else could take away. A vision of an orderly government that was balanced and not under threat from strongmen. When ordered to resign, he did. He was consistent in proclaiming the rights of the people of Mexico and understood the importance of merit, regardless of background.
With the death of Morelos, men of fewer principles would control the war of independence. Without Morelos, the vision of Mexico, strong and free, would melt away. A towering man without a desire for personal enrichment or power, he was the only person with the ability to stand above the rest and lead Mexico to something more. Instead, it would be to men of the next, lower, rank in ability, men who were jealous of each other, and feckless in their pursuits of wealth and power. The death of Morelos was the death of the vision. The greatest tragedy though was that no one quite knew it yet.
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Now, read about Francisco Solano Lopez, the Paraguayan president who brought his country to military catastrophe in the War of the Triple Alliance here.
