AHR Forum

The Process of Mexican Independence

VIRGINIA GUEDEA

The process of Mexico's emancipation began, as in other parts of Spanish America, with the imperial crisis of 1808. Originating in the very heart of the empire, when Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Spain, it precipitated a series of rapid changes that, in the beginning, like the crisis itself, were fundamentally political. The imperial crisis not only intensified political activities in New Spain but also generated new forms of political life and thought. Over time, this created and nurtured a new political culture with which the new nation initiated its independent existence. Yet there were two aspects to the country's emancipation: politicization and militarization. The armed struggle, which began in 1810, opened the door to a process of militarization that did not end after independence had been achieved. This essay will be concerned more with the political tranformations than with the accompanying war, however, because warfare did not envelop the entire Viceroyalty of New Spain, whereas the political changes did.	1
The foundations of the Spanish Empire's legitimacy disintegrated in 1808 when the French invaded the Iberian Peninsula and forced father and son, the contending kings Carlos IV and Fernando VII, to abdicate. There followed an important event in the Peninsula that affected the entire subsequent process: the prominent appearance upon the scene of the element on which the Spanish state would be reconstituted: the people. Faced with the submission of their kings and many officials to Napoleon, the people, that anonymous undifferentiated mass, el común, as it was called, decided to take the initiative. The people fought with all means at their disposal against the French invaders.1	2
The forms of struggle in the Peninsula, both in the battlefield and the political arena, are enormously significant. First, the war of guerrillas, reinvented in Spain, became the model adopted by the Americans, as they called themselves, during their subsequent struggle against the military forces defending the colonial order. Second, in defense of their king, their country, and their religion, the Spanish people decided to take the government into their own hands. They created new institutions—the governing juntas—in which the people participated. In Spain, the movement, initially centrifugal because it started in the localities, soon became centripetal, first at the provincial level and later at the imperial level, when it sought to include all the Spanish dominions.2	3
Almost all the territories that constituted the Spanish Empire responded at first in the same way. In defense of king, country, and religion, they, too, formed governing juntas, because they shared goodwill as well as grievances toward the mother country, owing to their common colonial relationship with the metropolis. The different regions of the monarchy, however, held diverse autonomist interests, which had been either initiated or strengthened by the eighteenth-century Bourbon reforms, and which impelled and conditioned the response of each region's inhabitants to the imperial crisis. That is why, while initially responding in the same way, the various components of the Spanish Empire ultimately underwent different experiences.3	4
In New Spain, something unique transpired: the rupture of the social compact. This occurred at the center of viceregal power in Mexico City, was carried out by some of its highest authorities, and, as a result, affected everyone. The imperial crisis initially appeared to provide an opportunity for New Spain's autonomists to advance their interests. It was an occasion to undo the Bourbon reforms—which, in order to exploit the viceroyalty more fully and efficiently, had sought to exclude Americans from the government of New Spain—as well as to insist on equality with the metropolis. The Ayuntamiento (municipal council) of Mexico City, which became the vehicle for autonomist interests, proposed establishing a governing junta for New Spain, justifying it on the same constitutional grounds used by the people of the Peninsula in their struggle against the French, as well as by other colonial ayuntamientos elsewhere in the empire. The Ayuntamiento of Mexico City maintained that New Spain was a kingdom incorporated to the crown of Castile by conquest; that, in the absence of the king, sovereignty reposed in the kingdom, particularly in those superior tribunals that governed it, and in those corporations that represented the public voice.4 Although, in reality, the claims of the Ayuntamiento of Mexico City derived from legal ordinances not used for a long time, colonial authorities considered the concepts very dangerous when applied to the empire's perilous circumstances.	5
The defenders of imperial interests, European Spaniards with direct links to the metropolis, and their voice, the Audiencia (high court) of Mexico, responded to the claims of the autonomists by emphasizing the New World's colonial status and demanding submission to the Peninsula. Earlier, New Spain's Creole and Peninsular elites had united in their opposition to the 1804 Law of Consolidation, which required the church to recall its loans to the public; now, faced with conflicting aspirations, they divided and, in doing so, split the colony's society.	6
Viceroy José de Iturrigaray, who saw an opportunity to buttress his authority, undermined by the collapse of the monarchy in the Peninsula, convened a series of meetings to discuss the Ayuntamiento's proposal to establish a governing junta for New Spain. Rather than reaching an agreement, however, the assemblies brought into the open the two opposing positions: the Creole or American versus the Peninsular or European. The gatherings also resulted in some interesting discussions, such as the nature and composition of the people and New Spain's place in the imperial system.	7
The debate ended in violence on the night of September 15, 1808, when the defenders of imperial interests imprisoned their own viceroy and the principal autonomists. This coup d'état radicalized the confrontation between them. It also marked the beginning of the definition and, later, the polarization, of the positions adopted by New Spaniards toward the new circumstances the Spanish Empire and particularly the Viceroyalty of New Spain were experiencing. The opposed positions resulted from the orientation of their respective interests: the Europeans toward the Peninsula and the Americans toward the interior of the colony. These were not the only forces at work. The people also appeared upon New Spain's political scene, in discourse as well as action.5	8
The new circumstances that the Spanish Empire experienced opened up new possibilities for action. One emerged within the system when liberals in the Peninsula took the initiative in reorganizing the political structure of the Spanish Empire. In March 1810, they convened the General and Extraordinary Cortes (or parliament), which represented the entire Spanish Nation, as the empire was now called. Later, in March 1812, they promulgated a constitution that recognized sovereignty as residing essentially in the nation, which alone possessed the power to establish its fundamental laws.	9
The first opportunity for Americans to participate in the political reorganization occurred in January 1809, when the Supreme Central Governing Junta of the Kingdom, which had been established in the Peninsula on September 25, 1808, instructed New Spain to elect a deputy to represent the viceroyalty in the Junta Central. New World representation in the highest organ of metropolitan government, besides validating the Americans' claim that the viceroyalty was an integral part of the monarchy, reopened the path to representative government closed by the coup d'état. The election decree, which placed the responsibility for holding the elections in the hands of the various ayuntamientos, restored their authority. An even more extensive opportunity to participate in restructuring the government of the Spanish Empire occurred the following year when the Junta Central instructed the ayuntamientos to hold elections for representatives from the provinces of New Spain to the General and Extraordinary Cortes.6	10
Other possibilities for action emerged outside the system. The use of force by partisans of the regime led discontented New Spaniards to follow their example. After the 1808 coup, almost all the opposition to the regime was organized at first in secret. The general discontent was expressed by means of numerous anonymous broadsheets and conspiracies organized under the cover of social gatherings (tertulias) and other spaces of sociability that the cities and towns of the viceroyalty provided. Nearly all the plots were urban; individuals from many social groups, including Indians, took part; and all failed. A good example of these movements is the conspiracy discovered in 1809 in the city of Valladolid in Michoacán. When the colonial authorities, understandably afraid that such expressions of discontent would spread, resorted to repression, they exacerbated the differences between the defenders of the status quo and the autonomists.	11
The discovery, in September 1810, of a conspiracy in the city of Querétaro and elsewhere in the Bajío region led to an open and declared breach with the regime, when one of its members, Father Miguel Hidalgo, initiated an insurrection. Although Father Hidalgo did not at first offer clear alternatives to New Spaniards, especially the viceroyalty's elites, it did appeal to many, particularly the lower orders.7 Because the people of New Spain shared a common political culture, all agreed on the need to combat mal gobierno (bad government—a traditional slogan) and to defend the realm, the king, and the Catholic religion from the French. In addition, the leaders of the insurgency sought to create more opportunities for Americans to govern themselves, an autonomist aspiration in the purest Creole tradition. One goal that would remain constant during the entire emancipation process was the establishment of an alternative organ of government—a governing junta—an institution much desired by discontented Americans since 1808. But the peasants and workers who formed the bulk of the insurgent ranks had very different goals, such as access to land and improved working conditions. Moreover, many of those who for one reason or another had not found a place within the social structure of New Spain—the marginalized of every class and condition—joined the insurgency and made their own imprint on the armed movement. These differences caused important contradictions within the insurgency.8	12
There were also regional differences. Insurgency broke out across New Spain, not as a cohesive and integrated movement, but autonomously and, in most cases, to seek relief for local and provincial grievances. Thus it would be more proper to speak of various insurgencies, not just one. Moreover, leaders such as Ignacio Rayón and José María Morelos, who attempted to provide unity and cohesion to the movement, were on occasion themselves rather provincial. Rarely were other insurgent commanders interested in the movement as a whole. All these factors made it extremely difficult for the principal leaders to establish a common front to coordinate all of the insurgents.9	13
Father Miguel Hidalgo, the cura of Dolores. In 1810, his revolt began the war for Mexican independence. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.
Despite their efforts, the insurgency, particularly at the beginning, became violent, disorderly, and destructive; it provoked opposition even among many of those discontented with the colonial regime. Fear of and dismay at the insurgency strengthened the authorities, whose response was coherent and uniform. The regime rapidly organized the armed forces under its control and sought to crush the various insurgencies; indeed, it tried to eliminate all manifestations of discontent, because it believed, and not without reason, that if allowed to fester they would gain popularity, or, worse, that the disaffected would join the armed rebels.	14
Whereas the colonial regime had an army, the insurgents did not. In contrast to their well-organized opponents, the few trained and capable insurgent military leaders commanded disorganized and poorly armed forces. Moreover, the authorities and their supporters, in particular General Félix María Calleja, the most capable royalist military officer, understood that they had to deploy local forces to confront a movement that appeared in various regions at the same time. Thus the royalists reverted to the pre-Bourbon system of local militias, which proved to be very efficient. During the first phase of the war, the organized royalist forces defeated the disorganized insurgents on numerous occasions, made Hidalgo and his followers flee north, and on March 21, 1811, captured the principal leaders, barely six months after the movement began. Hidalgo was executed.10	15
Caricature of an insurgent. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación.
The war was bloody and destructive. As neither royalists nor insurgents possessed many firearms, they fought at close quarters with lances, knives, slings, bows and arrows, and clubs. And the war proved costly to the viceroyalty's economy—already weakened by large sums sent to the Peninsula to fight the French—by destroying its commercial networks. The provincial economies felt the cost as well: both the insurgents and the royalists burned and destroyed crops, haciendas, and towns. When traditional trade networks were destroyed, partisans on both sides were forced to establish new patterns of trade and new forms of exchange.	16
As if this were not enough, the Catholic church divided into supporters and opponents. The higher clergy, allied with the colonial regime, assailed the insurgents with anathemas and excommunications. Although such weapons eventually lost their potency, in part because the lower clergy in several cases supported the insurgency, they nonetheless frightened many New Spaniards, particularly those still neutral.	17
Several insurgent leaders, especially Rayón and Morelos, who understood very early the problems inherent in a disorganized, unintegrated movement, decided to transform it into a unified, coherent cause. In this effort, they gained the support of discontented individuals living in regions controlled by the colonial regime, primarily the cities. As a result, the insurgents began to receive more help from such groups; for example, they obtained a printing press, which enabled them to publish materials explaining their goals and to defend themselves from attacks by the regime, which, until then, had controlled the media. Thus appeared many, if ephemeral, insurgent periodicals. Professionals, above all lawyers, who joined the insurgents helped form a more effective political organization. This, in turn, helped create an image of an organized political and military movement, which attracted greater support throughout the viceroyalty.	18
Shortly after the disastrous end of Hidalgo and other early insurgent leaders in 1811, Rayón, after informing Viceroy Francisco Xavier Venegas of his intention, established a governing junta in August 1811 in the town of Zitácuaro. Although the Supreme National American Junta, also known as the Junta of Zitácuaro, proposed to represent the nation, from which it claimed to derive its authority, its formation did not signify a complete break with the Spanish Empire; it continued to invoke the name of the monarch. The Junta of Zitácuaro was to consist of five individuals named by the representatives of the provinces of New Spain, but, given the urgency of the moment, only three were elected—Rayón, José Sixto Berdusco, and José María Liceaga—by only thirteen insurgent commanders, though after widespread consultation. Even partisans living in areas controlled by the colonial regime were consulted.11	19
The failure of the Supreme Junta to achieve the success its founders and supporters had expected owed less to the opposition of the colonial regime than to divisions among its members. At first, a war fought on various fronts kept the leaders apart; later, personal enmities divided them and prevented the creation of a unified center of authority. Even the appointment of Morelos as a fourth member failed to prevent the insurgency from fragmenting into four large zones commanded by independent captains-general, who did not always agree. After failing to end the divisions among his colleagues, Morelos proposed replacing the Supreme Junta with a congress elected by the inhabitants of each province, thereby more completely representing the provinces of New Spain.	20
On the advice of the lawyer Carlos María de Bustamante, Morelos set up extensive and lengthy elections in the territories under his control—the provinces of Tecpan, Veracruz, Puebla, Mexico, and Michoacán. The province of Oaxaca, which had already elected a representative to be the Junta's fifth and last member, was allowed to send him as the first deputy to the new congress. The nature of the elections varied in the different provinces; in some instances, the electoral practices introduced by the Spanish Constitution of 1812 (also known as the Constitution of Cádiz) were used. As a result, despite the different social structures among the regions and difficulties that occurred in some, large sectors of the population participated.12	21
The Supreme National American Congress established in Chilpancingo in September 1813 constituted a true alternative government. The influences of the Constitution of Cádiz are apparent in its make-up and attributes. Composed of representatives from several provinces that together covered a vast territory, the Supreme Congress assumed national sovereignty, divided the government into three branches, and coordinated its activities. It also confirmed the elections of the executive, who would direct the military, as well as of the judiciary. Both had been chosen in elections, albeit not direct popular ones, in which individuals and corporations from various regions of New Spain had taken part. On November 6, 1813, the Supreme Congress finally declared independence from Spain and proceeded to constitute a new nation; after extensive consultations with various sectors throughout the country, it enacted a republican constitution in October 1814, which recognized the division of powers among the three branches of government and established the sovereignty of the congress. The substitution of the Supreme Congress for the Supreme Junta, however, did not end conflict among the principal leaders. On the contrary, it multiplied the possibilities for confrontation.	22
Insurgent leaders were concerned with another important question: recognition by foreign countries, which might lead to foreign aid. Although they employed a variety of methods, they failed in the sense that they did not obtain aid of any significance, except in the north. Appeals to the United States for assistance resulted in the arrival of a largely Anglo-American expeditionary force but also in the establishment of a governing junta, which, in April 1813, declared the independence of Texas in a document that echoed the United States' own Declaration of Independence, and is indicative of future events in that region.13	23
In the meantime, Spain was trying not only to get rid of the French but to establish a new political order as well. The new order was important to New Spaniards because it allowed the political participation of large sectors of the population within the system. Thus it undermined the significance of the insurgency as an alternative for the disaffected in the viceroyalty. The Constitution of Cádiz, promulgated in New Spain in September 1812, introduced representative government at three levels—local (the constitutional ayuntamientos), regional (the provincial deputations), and imperial (the Cortes). The constitution provided the autonomists and the discontented with the means to achieve their goals legally. Moreover, freedom of the press guaranteed by the new charter offered the opportunity for open criticism of the colonial regime.	24
Image celebrating the 1813 elections to the Ayuntamiento of Mexico City. It shows an elected official and a woman holding the Constitution of 1812. The caption reads, "The citizens of Mexico [City] in use of their rights elected to the Ayuntamiento of the Noble City." A list of people elected follows. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.
At the local level, the new constitutional ayuntamientos (which were established in towns with a population of a thousand or more souls) introduced popular representative government, became a mechanism for the expression of autonomist interests, and contributed to the strengthening of local groups. Although the new government was to be chosen through indirect elections, the first phase of those elections included all those enjoying the rights of citizens, that is, large sectors of the population. The constitution enfranchised all adult men of Spanish and Indian descent: American as well as European Spaniards and mestizos could vote. Although men of African descent and the colored castes were denied the franchise, it proved difficult in New Spain to distinguish them when large popular sectors participated in the elections. As a result, large numbers of men of African descent and colored castes appear to have voted.	25
The elections held in November 1812 in Mexico City exemplify the varied nature of popular participation in the new system. Large numbers voted, including the Indians of the two native communities (parcialidades) of the capital and many of the colored castes. The electoral results were unfavorable to the colonial regime; only Americans, many of them known to be opposed to the regime or frankly pro-insurgent, were elected. To compound the humiliation of the authorities, the populace joyously celebrated the results for nearly two days, although they made no further effort to undermine the colonial regime. Nonetheless, Viceroy Venegas responded by suspending Mexico City elections and abolishing freedom of the press. Even though elections were not resumed in the capital until April 1813, after Félix María Calleja succeeded Venegas as viceroy, elections were held in other cities, towns, and villages of the viceroyalty.14	26
As a result of the efforts of some American deputies, most important among them Miguel Ramos Arizpe and José Miguel Guridi y Alcocer from New Spain, the Constitution of 1812 introduced a new institution, the provincial deputation, to allow local groups to govern their regions.15 Although not all of the six provincial deputations allocated to the Viceroyalty of New Spain were elected during the first constitutional period, and those that were functioned only a short time, large sectors of the population took part in the first phase of the elections to establish them. The election of deputies to represent New Spain at the Cortes, the first phase of which was held at the same time as elections to the provincial deputations, mirrored the other two elections: there was mass participation, and Americans won all the seats.	27
So alarmed were the colonial authorities by the results of elections clearly demonstrating discontent with the regime that they tried to overturn them. Besides suspending some of the elections, they prosecuted well-known autonomists and malcontents, as well as insurgent partisans. The authorities acted because many New Spaniards took advantage of the opportunities offered both by the insurgency and the introduction of the constitutional system to gain control of the government. In addition, and this was extremely dangerous for the colonial regime, the new political options permitted those who struggled from within the system to join forces with those outside it. Secret societies were formed, at least two of them true secret political organizations, an indication that a new political culture was developing despite the difficulties experienced.	28
New Spaniards lacked experience with such organizations, which were forbidden, and they could not keep a secret, even when they were plotting: on more than one occasion, their lack of caution led to discovery. The conspiracies of 1811 in the capital provide a case in point. The first, an orthodox autonomist movement that sought to establish a governing junta, was denounced in April. The second, which sought to aid Rayón and the Junta of Zitácuaro, was discovered the following August.16	29
The secret society known as the Guadalupes, organized around a nucleus that included distinguished Mexico City residents, coordinated the interests of many malcontents, among them various Indians. Initially formed to help the insurgents who were attempting to form an alternative government, the Guadalupes sent first Rayón and, later, Morelos and Mariano Matamoros, money, weapons, men, and information. At the same time, the Guadalupes advanced their autonomist goals within the system by getting out the vote and successfully electing candidates to the constitutional Ayuntamiento of Mexico City, the provincial deputation of New Spain, and the Cortes during the elections of 1813 and 1814. The society remained active until 1814, when the colonial authorities collected enough information from captured insurgent documents to proceed against it.17	30
Another secret society—modeled on the Society of Rational Knights, founded by Americans in Cádiz at the time the Cortes was meeting there—was established in the city of Jalapa, and it also aided the local insurgents with money, weapons, men, and information. It, too, established close ties with the local insurgent alternative government, the Provisional Governing Junta of Naolingo. The society lasted scarcely three months, however. When it was discovered, many of its members were imprisoned, while others fled to join the Provisional Junta.18	31
Unfortunately for both the insurgents and the autonomists and malcontents, the two groups could not form an effective alliance. Their failure to reach a consensus proved not only detrimental to the opponents of the colonial regime but beneficial to the regime itself. Moreover, men of law clashed with men of arms in the highest organ of the insurgent government. When the lawyers won and took control of the armed struggle away from the soldiers, the result was, first, military defeat and later the collapse of the insurgent movement.	32
Both Rayón and Morelos suffered grave losses while attempting to obey the instructions of the Supreme Congress. Morelos's defeats had serious consequences. He lost his most effective subordinate commanders, Mariano Matamoros and Hermenegildo Galeana. The capture of his documents revealed the names of his contacts and supporters to the authorities and enabled them to arrest and prosecute many members of the secret society of Guadalupes. The insurgency, therefore, lost important supporters. As a result of the defeats, the Supreme Congress stripped Morelos of executive power; he ceased to command an important armed force and became merely the chief of the escort of the legislative branch.	33
The year 1814 was marked by insurgent defeats but also by the return of King Fernando VII to Spain from French captivity. He abolished the constitutional system and restored the old regime, transformations that had grave repercussions in New Spain. Freed of the restrictions imposed by the liberal legislation of the Cortes, the colonial authorities proceeded against the autonomists and malcontents; the imprisonment and death of Morelos at the end of 1815 marked the beginning of the end of the organized insurgency. In December, the insurgent leader Manuel Mier y Terán dissolved the Supreme Congress in the city of Tehuacán. Thereafter, the movement shattered into a thousand pieces.	34
According to Christon I. Archer, who disagrees with the majority of historians, the disappearance of what I have called the organized insurgency did not signify the end of the insurgent movement, or even the loss of its strength. Instead, he maintains, the disintegration of a movement that had never been fully integrated led to increased fighting and harmed a colonial regime forced to spend more money and find more men to confront its many opponents.19 Archer is correct, if the insurgent movement is seen exclusively as a military phenomenon. As a political movement, however, it virtually ceased to function after 1815.	35
Despite the dispersion and disintegration of the insurgents, efforts continued to restore a united front to coordinate the movement and establish the principles upon which a new political order could be formed. Thus the Governing Junta of the Western Provinces, also known as the Subaltern Junta of Taretan, which had been set up by the Supreme Congress before it was dissolved, continued to operate. Soon afterward, it formed the Junta of Jaujilla, which recruited troops and lasted until 1818. Although Rayón refused to recognize the Junta, other insurgent leaders such as Vicente Guerrero acknowledged its authority. The Spanish liberal Javier Mina, who invaded New Spain in 1817 to try to restore the Constitution of 1812, consulted with the Junta of Jaujilla and turned to it for weapons and men. Eventually, that body suffered the same fate as its predecessors: royalist forces captured its members. Although Guerrero established another junta in the hacienda Las Balsas in an effort to coordinate insurgent activities, it too lasted only a short time.	36
The lack of cohesion among the insurgents was clearly evident during Mina's expedition. The presence of professional foreign troops commanded by a skilled officer should have given the insurgent cause a tremendous impetus. Mina not only failed to obtain much support, however, but on occasion he was harassed by insurgent leaders who perceived him as a threat to their power bases in the regions in which they had entrenched themselves. Despite causing panic among the colonial authorities, the expedition utterly failed.20	37
When the authorities counterattacked the dispersed and regionalized insurgency with the offer of pardons as well as with troops, many insurgents laid down their arms. At that point, the insurgency lost its military force and virtually ended as a political movement. By 1820, it appeared that the Viceroyalty of New Spain had been almost pacified.	38
Given New Spain's colonial status, its independence movement ended, as it began, with events that occurred in the metropolis, where constitutionalists managed to restore the constitution in March 1820. Secret societies, which played a key role in the triumph of the constitutionalists, also began to proliferate in New Spain, but how that occurred is not yet clear. With the exception of the Guadalupes and the Jalapa society, which had been modeled on the one in Cádiz, none of the secret societies in New Spain had direct ties with the insurgents. Masonic lodges, organized by officers attached to units sent from Spain, were in existence very early in a few urban centers, such as in Mexico City after 1813, and later in Campeche and Mérida in the Yucatán Peninsula around 1818. Freemasons in the capital had much to do with the restoration of the constitutional system in 1820, and with the removal of Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca the following year. The Yucatecan Freemasons integrated into their ranks former members of earlier societies: both the liberal sanjuanistas, who favored the constitutional system, and the principal supporters of absolutism, the rutineros. The Freemasons also contributed to the reestablishment of the constitution, and they removed the governor and captain-general of the Yucatán Peninsula.	39
Thereafter, Freemasonry's influence grew in the colony. It received added impetus with the arrival in 1821 of a distinguished Freemason, Juan O'Donojú, to be the last superior political chief (the office that replaced the viceroy under the constitution) of New Spain. After independence had been attained and, particularly, after the establishment of a federal republic in 1824, Freemasonry and the groups it organized would play a decisive role in the country's political life.	40
Although the return of the constitutional system in 1820 gave New Spaniards the opportunity to further their interests through the numerous elections that were held for constitutional ayuntamientos, provincial deputations, and the Cortes, the majority also became convinced that to obtain the changes they desired, they could no longer remain at the mercy of the political fluctuations of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus autonomists, malcontents, and others began once again to organize against the established order. An urban conspiracy, as in 1810, led to a new armed movement, but the similarity of both movements ends there. The independence movement was of a very different sort than the previous insurgency.	41
The rebels of 1821 were royalist troops led by distinguished officers and commanded by Colonel Agustín de Iturbide: they were professional, disciplined, and organized soldiers. Although Viceroy Apodaca had ordered him in November 1820 to crush the remnants of the insurgency in the south, Iturbide entered into talks with its leaders early in 1821 to persuade them to declare independence. The new rebels engaged in virtually no fighting because cities and towns rapidly accepted the Plan of Iguala, as the independence program was called. There was little bloodshed and destruction; moreover, practically all the former insurgents joined Iturbide's movement. They were integrated at a much lower level, however, than the royalists who had adhered to the cause.	42
The movement headed by Iturbide obtained consensus regarding one concrete objective: independence. In part, that occurred because of war-weariness. After more than a decade of warfare, everyone was exhausted. Although the Plan of Iguala invited all the inhabitants of New Spain to unite, it left the church, the state administration, and the courts intact, and its new army, the Army of the Three Guarantees, was based on the former royal army. Interestingly, the Plan of Iguala also provided for the establishment of a governing junta—the autonomists' goal since 1808—to administer the country until a Cortes was convened and wrote a constitution for the new Mexican Empire.21	43
Upon his arrival in New Spain in July 1821, Superior Political Chief O'Donojú ratified the Plan of Iguala by signing the Treaty of Córdoba, which recognized the independence of the Mexican Empire. The treaty included precise details about the formation of the Provisional Governing Junta, which was to be composed "of the most distinguished and notable men" of the realm, and stipulated that the Junta would select a regency to act as the executive (while the Junta retained legislative authority) until the Mexican Cortes met.22	44
If the Plan of Iguala and the Treaty of Córdoba established the bases of independence, the Provisional Governing Junta was entrusted with creating the foundations on which the new state would be built. Chosen by Iturbide, the Junta excluded both former insurgents and republicans; in fact, it consisted of the capital's elite and officers of the new army. The Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire is interesting not only because of its text but also because of its signatories. It was signed by the members of the Provisional Governing Junta, which included the most distinguished members of the capital's elite, former autonomists and malcontents as well as the leading royalist commanders. But not a single former insurgent was to be found among the signatories.	45
After finally achieving power, however, the elite of Mexico City proved unable to unite and failed to consolidate its political power. The consensus soon began to dissipate. Iturbide had used an army that relied more on persuasion than force to convince New Spaniards to declare independence. He managed to bring together the interests of autonomists, malcontents, and even insurgents, as well as the majority of royalist military commanders because the Plan of Iguala offered something to each group. But the apparent ease with which he was able to establish a consensus, enter the hitherto impenetrable capital city, and establish the long-desired governing junta would have grave consequences. He managed to orchestrate a consensus on independence, but once it had been achieved, there was no agreement about how to constitute the new nation.23	46
Virginia Guedea is Research Professor and Director of the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She has published widely on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Her works include José María Morelos y Pavón (1981), En busca de un gobierno alterno: Los Guadalupes de México (1992), and La insurgencia en el Departamento del Norte: Los Llanos de Apan y la Sierra de Puebla, 1810–1816 (1996). She has also edited various volumes, among the most recent, La Revolución de independencia (1995), Prontuario de los insurgentes (1995), El surgimiento de la historiografía nacional (1997), and La independencia y la formación de las autonomías territoriales mexicanas, 1808–1824 (in press). She is currently studying the political processes of the early nineteenth century, particularly the governing juntas and the popular elections of the independence decade. Notes An earlier version of this work was presented at the XX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara, Mexico, April 17–19, 1997. I thank Professor Jaime E. Rodríguez O. for translating this essay. 1 On the Spanish crisis of 1808, see Miguel Artola, Antiguo Régimen y revolución liberal (Barcelona, 1978); and Josep Fontana, La crisis del Antiguo Régimen, 1808–1833 (Barcelona, 1979). 2 A recent and interesting study of these juntas is the work of Antonio Moliner, Revolución burguesa y movimiento juntero en España (La acción de las juntas a través de la correspondencia diplomática y consular francesa, 1808–1868) (Lleida, 1997). 3 These different experiences are analyzed by Jaime E. Rodríguez O., The Independence of Spanish America (Cambridge, 1998). 4 "Representación del Ayuntamiento de México al virrey José de Iturrigaray," Mexico, July 19, 1808, in Juan E. Hernández y Dávalos, Colección de documentos para la historia de la guerra de independencia de México de 1808 a 1821, 6 vols. (Mexico City, 1878–82), 2: 479–81; and "Representación del Ayuntamiento de México al virrey Iturrigaray," Mexico, August 5, 1808, in Enrique Lafuente Ferrari, El virrey Iturrigaray y los orígenes de la independencia de México (Madrid, 1940), 390–93. 5 For the events of 1808, see Lafuente Ferrari, El virrey Iturrigaray; and Virginia Guedea, "Criollos y peninsulares en 1808: Dos puntos de vista sobre lo español," tesis de licenciatura (Mexico City, Universidad Iberoamericana, 1994). 6 See Francois-Xavier Guerra, "Las primeras elecciones generales americanas (1809)," in Modernidad e independencias: Ensayos sobre las revoluciones hispánicas (Madrid, 1992), 177–225; and Virginia Guedea, "The First Popular Elections in Mexico City, 1812–1813," in Jaime E. Rodríguez O., ed., The Evolution of the Mexican Political System (Wilmington, Del., 1993), 46–48. 7 For the insurrection led by Miguel Hidalgo, see Hugh M. Hamill, Jr., The Hidalgo Revolt: Prelude to Mexican Independence, 2d edn. (Gainesville, Fla., 1970); and Christon I. Archer, "Bite of the Hydra: The Rebellion of Cura Miguel Hidalgo, 1810–1811," in Jaime E. Rodríguez O., ed., Patterns of Contention in Mexican History (Wilmington, Del., 1992), 69–93. 8 Eric van Young analyzes the agrarian origins of the insurrection in "Hacia la revuelta: Orígenes agrarios de la rebelión de Hidalgo en la región de Guadalajara," in La crisis del orden colonial: Estructura agraria y rebeliones populares de la Nueva España, 1750–1821 (Mexico City, 1992), 305–34. 9 An interesting study of the regions is Brian R. Hamnett, Roots of Insurgency: Mexican Regions, 1750–1824 (New York, 1986). 10 Christon I. Archer has written extensively about the royalist army. See "The Army of New Spain and the Wars of Independence, 1790–1821," Hispanic American Historical Review 61 (November 1981): 705–14. 11 Virginia Guedea, "Los procesos electorales insurgentes," Estudios de Historia Novohispana 11 (1991): 201–49. 12 Guedea, "Los procesos electorales insurgentes." 13 I have dealt with this junta in "Autonomía e independencia: La Junta de gobierno insurgente de San Antonio de Béjar, 1813," in Virginia Guedea, ed., La independencia y la formación de las autonomías territoriales mexicanas 1808–1824 (Mexico City, in press). 14 Guedea, "First Popular Elections in Mexico City, 1812–1813," 45–69; and Virginia Guedea, "El pueblo de México y la política capitalina, 1808 y 1812," Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 10 (Winter 1994): 27–61. 15 Manuel Chust has studied the participation of Americans in the Cortes; see "América y el problema federal en las Cortes de Cádiz," in José A. Piqueras and Manuel Chust, compilers, Republicanos y repúblicas en España (Madrid, 1996), 45–79; "La vía autonomista novohispana: Una propuesta federal en las Cortes de Cádiz," Estudios de historia Novohispana 15 (1995): 159–87; and La cuestión nacional americana en las Cortes de Cádiz, 1810–1814 (Mexico City, 1999). 16 Virginia Guedea, "The Conspiracies of 1811 or How the Criollos Learned to Organize in Secret," paper presented at the conference "Mexican Wars of Independence, the Empire, and the Early Republic," University of Calgary, April 4–5, 1991. 17 See Ernesto de la Torre Villar, ed., Los "Guadalupes" y la independencia, con una selección de documentos inéditos, 2d edn. (Mexico City, 1985); and Virginia Guedea, En busca de un gobierno alterno: Los Guadalupes de México (Mexico City, 1992). 18 See Virginia Guedea, "Una nueva forma de organización política: La sociedad secreta de Jalapa, 1812," in Amaya Garritz, comp., Un hombre entre Europa y América, Homenaje a Juan Antonio Ortega y Medina (Mexico City, 1993), 185–208. 19 Christon I. Archer, "Insurrection-Reaction-Revolution-Fragmentation: Reconstructing the Choreography of Meltdown in New Spain during the Independence Era," Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 10 (Winter 1994): 63–98. 20 The first account of Xavier Mina's expedition is given by William Davis Robinson in his Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution; Including a Narrative of the Expedition of General Xavier Mina . . . (Philadelphia, 1820). 21 "Plan de Iguala," 24 de febrero de 1821, in Diario político militar mexicano, 6 septiembre 1821, t. 1, n. 6, pp. 21–24, and 7 septiembre 1821, n. 7, p. 25, in Genaro García, Documentos históricos mexicanos, obra conmemorativa del primer centenario de la independencia de México, 7 vols. (Mexico City, 1910), vol. 4, s.p. 22 "Tratados celebrados en la Villa de Córdoba el 24 de agosto de 1821 entre Juan O'Donojú, teniente general de los ejércitos de España, y Agustín de Iturbide, primer jefe del E. I. M. de las Tres Garantías," in Diario político militar mexicano, 3 septiembre 1821, t. 1, n. 3, pp. 11–12, 4 septiembre 1821, n. 4, pp. 13–16, and 5 septiembre 1821, n. 5, pp. 17–18, in García, Documentos históricos mexicanos, vol. 4. 23 The works of several historians of the first half of the nineteenth century continue to be indispensable for understanding the process of Mexican independence. In particular, see the works of Lucas Alamán, Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808 hasta la época presente, 5 vols. (Mexico City, 1849–52); and that of Carlos María de Bustamante, Cuadro histórico de la revolución mexicana, comenzada en 15 de septiembre de 1810 por el ciudadano Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, cura del pueblo de los Dolores, en el obispado de Michoacán, 2d edn., 5 vols. (Mexico City, 1843–46).

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