the territory of New Mexico, towards Texas on the one side, and the head of the Californian Gulf on the other, the general level of the ground rapidly sinks, the Sierra Madre or mother-ridge, known further northward as the Rocky Mountains, stretching away in solitary grandeur. vicinity of Buenos Ayres. These things, and much more of the like sort, might have been borne, but the bitterest fruits of tyranny are not always political grievances. To be a native of American soil stamped the brand of social degradation, even on a man who traced his descent from the conquerors; the Creoles were regarded by the "Conformably to the law of nature, which Europeans much as the free-colored popumakes the climatic effect of an elevation of lation of the United States now are by their 3000 feet, equal to a difference in latitude of white countrymen. Even ties of blood ten degrees, we find in Mexico all imaginable variations and shades of climate, piled above could not overcome this insensate prejuone another, as it were, in stories; and may in dice, which led often to the disinheritance a few hours, often several times in the course of a son by a father, in favor of some adof a day's journey, descend from the world of venturer from Europe. For the Indians hyacinths, mosses, and lichens, from the region again were reserved the dregs of the cup of of ever-benumbing cold, of perpetual snow and ice, into that ever-dissolving heat, where the oppression! In the continental provinces inhabitant goes naked, his brown skin anointed they were too numerous to be extirpated, with grease, to make it less sensitive to the as in the Spanish West Indian Islands; sun's burning rays, and dwells in bird-cage- there they continued to form the bulk of the shaped huts, open to the air.. ... Situations population. In Mexico, it is calculated, more or less sheltered from the wind, especial- that four-sevenths are Indians, two-sevenths ly the north-west wind, more or less exposed persons of mixed blood or mestizoes, and to the influence of the sunbeams; greater ap-only one-seventh whites. They were reproximation to the west coast, where the air is duced by the system of repartition among perceptibly milder than on the east; want or abundance of wood and water; are all circum- the landed proprietors to a bondage, of stances which modify the temperature in the which the negro slavery of the present day most surprising manner, at the same height exhibits no inexact parallel ;* but they above the sea and in the same parallel." cherished the memory of the greatness of their race, and a vengeful sense of the suf ferings they had so long endured. At this source, too, it was fated that the Erinnys of retribution was to light her torch! It was the crafty policy of the Spanish court to retain the Mexicans in a state of intellectual childhood, teaching them to The colonial system of Spain was one of the most curious engines of oppression ever devised by human avarice and rapacity; its only palliation, perhaps, is to be found in the ignorance and folly of the Spanish rulers, from the days of Philip II., who squandered the resources and ruined the prosperity of Spain herself. The nine- * "All the property of the Indians, moveable teenth century found the same maxims and and immoveable, was considered as belonging to principles in vigor, which had prevailed ment, of 600 yards in diameter, was conceded to the conquerors, and only a very limited allotunder the most cruel and imbecile of the them for a residence in the neighborhood of the successors of Charles V. Not only were newly-built churches. At a time when it was the interests of the colonists sacrificed in gravely disputed whether the Indians were to be every point, by a political exclusiveness, that a benefit was conferred upon them by placing counted among reasonable beings, it was believed which practically interdicted to every Amer- them under the guardianship of the whites. Duican the exercise of any but the most infe- ring a succession of years the Indians, whose rior offices in the public service,-a spiritual freedom the king bad fruitlessly promised, were tyranny, which threatened with the penal- indiscriminately, and frequently quarrelled about the slaves of the whites, who appropriated them ties of the Inquisition all freedom of thought their right. To avert this, and, as it imagined, to or speculation-and a commercial monopoly give the Indians protectors, the court of Madrid enforced with such unrelenting rigor, that introduced the encomiendas, by which the Indians, the punishment of death was denounced in divisions of several hundred families, were against all who were detected in trafficking descendants, or to the jurists sent from court to assigned to the soldiers of the conquest and their with foreigners, whilst the vines and olives administer the provinces, or counterpoise the enof Mexico were rooted out, that its inhabit-croaching powers of the viceroys, and other favorants might be compelled to draw their sup-ites. A great number of the best commanderies plies from Spain; and the wheat which the colonists of La Plata were forbidden to export, was applied to fill up marshes in the were given to the convents. This system did not look upon Spain as the sovereign power of which were in some instances favorably lisEurope, and keeping them studiously in ig-tened to by the viceroys. The old Spannorance of the very existence of other na-iards beheld with alarm the awakening tions. Yet they had long entertained the sense of popular rights and the national design of throwing off the Spanish yoke, spirit which these proceedings evinced; the and waited but the opportunity of effecting Audiencias, or supreme courts, charged their design. We have the testimony of among their other functions to watch over Humboldt in his Essay on New Spain,' as the interests of the crown, became the orto the existence of discontent among the gans of the Europeans, and strenuously higher classes, and the American General resisted the efforts of the colonists to assert Pike, who travelled through the northern their right of sharing actively in the vindiprovinces in 1807, speaks still more strongly cation of Spanish independence against of its diffusion and intensity among the in- French invasion. Had Spain at this time ferior clergy and the officers of the provin- possessed public servants with heads and cial army, who were debarred by the acci- hearts competent to appreciate the justice dent of birth from all chance of promotion and expediency of a conciliatory policy, the to the higher grades. Insurrections and enthusiasm of the Creoles might have been isolated revolts had not been wanting in the diverted to her own service; and the latent course of the two centuries and a half desire of independence, to which, undoubtwhich had elapsed since the conquest. edly, the movement above mentioned was Such was the revolt of the Indians in the in part to be ascribed, might possibly have north-western provinces during the latter been extinguished by judicious concessions. half of the last century; and the insurrec- But this was not to be looked for, save in a tions of Mexico in 1624, 1692, and in few isolated instances, among men hard1797, under the vice-royalty of Count Gal-ened in the traditions of a depraved despotvez, whose conduct in several particulars, ism, and practised in all the mysteries of notwithstanding his apparent zeal in its fraud and corruption under the flagitious suppression, gave the greatest umbrage to administration of Godoy. A striking obthe Spanish court, and is said to have re-servation of the Duke of Wellington's is on sulted, after his recall, in his death by poi- record, to the effect, that in all his extenIn such a state of society as we have sive experience of Spanish official men, acdescribed, the materials of explosion were quired during the Peninsular war, he met rife, and a concurrence of extraordinary with hardly a single man, whose abilities events which had their spring in the ambi-rose above the meanest order of mind, or tion of Napoleon, at length sounded the knell of Spanish domination in America. The renunciation of the crown of Spain by Charles IV., and his son Ferdinand VII., into the hands of the French emperorthat basest of treasons, unparalleled even in the annals of royal infamy-and the subsequent invasion of the Peninsula by his armies, were the signal of a general fermentation throughout all the transatlantic dominions of that country. Spain being now left without a regular government, propositions were made by the Creoles for the formation of executive juntas, and the assembly of provincial congresses, to act in the name of the absent sovereign, and to strengthen the hands of the mother-country in its struggle against foreign aggression, son. who possessed a respectable share of politi cal knowledge. If such men there were, their influence was neutralized by the swarm of court-drones and noodles by whom they were surrounded. The preva lent feeling of the Spaniards towards their American dependencies may be gathered from the fact, that in the Cortes of 1812 there were many orators who denied the colonists to be superior in any respect to brutes, or entitled to any better treatment, and found not only patient hearing, but favor and applause in that assembly. Whatever administrative talent the Spaniards possessed, indeed, seems to have been employed in the colonies. Iturrigaray, Venegas, and Calleja, were men far abler than any of those who composed the government of the mother-country at the same time. Many of their measures were conceived * In 1823, Bullock found it difficult to persuade with a skill, and executed with a vigor unthe natives that England, France, Germany, Hol-known in the contemporary annals of Spain; land, and Italy, were any thing else than so many paltry provinces, with governors set over them by the King of Spain. (Travels in Mexico, p. 53.) and such state-papers of the colonial government as we have seen (for instance, Calleja's Report on the State of Mexico in 1814,') are far superior to those which emanated from the Central Junta and the Regency. Hi itary men. Dr. Hidalgo, curate of the small town of Dolores, was the leader of the conspiracy in the province of GuanaIturrigaray, the vice-king of Mexico, juato, which with that of Mechoacan or had gained great popularity among the na- Valladolid, continued throughout to be the tives by his conciliatory demeanor through- main support of the insurgent cause. out the pending crisis; and was disposed, dalgo was an intelligent, and, for his counfrom whatever motives, to accede to the try and profession, well-informed man; endemand of the Creoles for the convocation terprising, and of an austere turn of mind; of a Mexican Cortes. He is said to have of engaging conversation and manners, suspected the fidelity of some of the Span- some of his chroniclers tell us, yet showing ish officials around him, and looking to the himself both cruel and vindictive in the shameful desertion of the national cause, of sequel. He had private as well as public which so many examples had been wit- injuries to avenge, for having, among other nessed in the Peninsula, and the intrigues projects for encouraging the industry of his of French emissaries in America, it is prob- parishioners, formed large plantations of able he might have good reason for suspi- vines, he had the mortification of seeing cion. His claim to be regarded as the sole them rooted out by order of the governdepository of the royal power and authority ment. The viceroy obtained information gave deep offence to the Audiencia, and the of the plot, and issued orders for the arrest European faction pretended that he favored of Hidalgo, with his associates Allende and the natives from a desire to make himself other Creole officers in garrison at Guanaan independent sovereign. However this juato. Hereupon, the daring priest remay have been, the Audiencia determined solved instantly to raise the standard of reto have him arrested and deposed; and, on volt. On the 16th of September, 1810, he the night of the 15th of September, 1808, commenced the struggle by the seizure of accordingly, a band of Europeans, chiefly seven Europeans resident in the town of merchants, entered his palace, and seized Dolores, whose inhabitants, mostly of Inhis person as he lay in bed. After a short dian descent, immediately joined his banconfinement in a neighboring convent, he ner. The news of the outbreak spread like was removed to Spain, and the Audiencia wildfire, and was hailed by the Indians of invested with the vice-regal functions Liza- the neighboring territory as the dawning of na, Archbishop of Mexico, whose vacilla- their deliverance from their ancient opting and feeble policy tended only to exas-pressors. For them, it seemed, the day of perate the eagerness of the Mexicans for the contest which it was now evident had become inevitable. retribution was come, and they obeyed with eagerness the call which their leader addressed to them for a sanguinary vengeance. Two years elapsed from the date of Itur- In less than a fortnight 20,000 joined him rigaray's arrest, during which the absence -a proof of the intolerable nature of the of any concessions on the part of the gov- sufferings under which they had so long ernment, and the insolence of the Europe- groaned, and of the tenacious memory of ans, aggravated the irritation produced by wrong which distinguishes their race, imthat event among the natives f An exten- passive and resigned in outward seeming. sive conspiracy against the Spanish domi- To the incitement of patriotism and the nation was organized, composed chiefly of prospect of revenge were added the figecclesiastics and lawyers, with some mil-ments of superstition; and the Virgin of * It was at least not from any natural aversion to arbitrary measures, for in his former post, of Administrador des Obras Pias, or steward of pious donations in Mexico, the severity of his exactions gave rise to loud complaints. + Iturrigaray was released by the Central Jonta, afterwards arrested by the Regency, and again set at liberty by a decree of the Cortes. This did not save him, however, from being condemned by the council of the Indies, in a residentia, to a ruinous fine of 284,241 dollars, which absorbed all his capital. His wife, who was afflicted with palsy, and family, were reduced to absolute destitution in the town of Jaen, where they resided. Guadalupe, under whose standard they marched, was invoked as the patroness of their cause, and the guide of their arms. Hidalgo was soon joined by two Creole regiments, and found himself strong enough to march upon Guanajuato. This city, the second in the kingdom of Mexico, and the depository of immense treasures, the produce of the neighboring mines, fell an easy prey into his hands; the Europeans, with not a few of the Creoles, who made common cause with them, were put to the sword, and their property given up to plun der. So eager were the Indians in the steel or the club, the use of fire-arms being work of destruction that, in less than forbidden for the sake of secresy. But twenty-four hours, not one stone of their houses was left standing. An enormous booty, to the amount of five millions of dollars, rewarded the zeal of the insurgents, who committed many excesses which their leader made no attempt to restrain. Like the Jacquerie of France, the Indians were infuriated by the thirst of vengeance, and Hidalgo was but too well inclined to give loose to their passions. cruelty is always as impolitic as it is inhuman, and Hidalgo soon found that he had committed a fatal and irremediable error. The Creoles of wealth and influence, connected, many of them, by ties of affinity with the old Spaniards, were alarmed and disgusted by proceedings which outraged humanity, and seemed to menace with ruin all the possessors of property; the old Spaniards were reduced to despair, and seeVarious reasons have been assigned for ing war to the knife was proclaimed against the conduct of the rebel leader in encour-them, were not slow in resorting to retaliaaging the outrages which an ignorant and tory measures, which equalled or surpassed undisciplined rabble, such as that which those of the insurgents in atrocity. followed his banner, is always prone to In Felix Maria Calleja, the military comcommit. Resentment for his personal mandant of San Luis Potosi, to whom the grievances may have had its share; a pow-new viceroy, Venegas, committed the erful motive was supplied in the first in- charge of suppressing the rebellion, they stance by the wish to commit his followers found a hand ready to execute whatever irrevocably in the struggle with the Euro- their direst malevolence could prompt. He peans. To these we may add the sangui-was a soldier of fortune, who had passed nary instinct which the Spaniard has al- his life in the military service of the crown ways betrayed in civil dissensions; more in America, where, by the vigor of his operemarkable with that nation since the rations, and the relentless spirit in which times of Ferdinand and Isabella than he crushed disaffection, he approved himin days more ancient, and, perhaps, derived self a worthy disciple of the school of Corfrom the Arabs, so long the denizens of tes and Pizarro. He knew and cared little their soil.* Hidalgo's war cry was' Death for any other rule of government than the to the Gachupins,' and he scrupled not to sword; the extermination of the disaffectact up to its fearful import. One of the ed,' and the reduction of the country to ordarkest tragedies of the revolution, was the der by the establishment of martial law, massacre shortly afterwards perpetrated by was the 'heroic remedy' which he unceashis orders at Guadal axara; here the Euro-ingly urged on the adoption of the Spanish peans, to the number of 800, were shut up government. Hidalgo, with an army of in the convents, and conducted at the dead more than 50,000 men, Indians, with the of night, in parties of twenty and thirty, exception of the Creole regiments already to lonely places amidst the hills lying mentioned, armed principally with bows, round, where they were despatched by the clubs, slings, and such other weapons as are used at times when furor arma minis* The Audiencia of Mexico, in their memorial trat,' had advanced upon the capital, but to the Cortes (paragraphs 40 and 41), attributed shrank from attack, defended as it was by the ferocious spirit that characterized Hidalgo's rebellion, exemplified in the massacres of Guana- 7000 regular troops and numerous batteries. juato, Valladolid,' &c., to the motive of getting On a disorderly and ill-conducted retreat, into his hands the resources of the Europeans; as he fell in with Calleja's force, composed if he could not have obtained them but by whole- almost entirely of Creoles. The fidelity of sale shedding of blood Without the riches of these to the royalist standards, in a contest Europeans, he could not pay his own debts, much less undertake an expensive war; without these with their countrymen, was doubtful, and, same riches as a bait, he could not gratify that but for the imprudence and mismanagethirst for plunder which possessed the immense meut of the insurgents in precipitating hoslegions by which he was followed. But the tilities, the result of the ensuing battle, Spaniards have generally shown themselves incompetent to conceive the attainment of a politi- fought on the 7th of November, in the cal object without the most violent and extreme plains of Aculco, might have been very difmeans. So far they have not even yet shaken off ferent. The royalist troops are said to have wavered in coming into action, and would probably have refused to open their fire on the opposite ranks. But the unwieldy array of the rebels, struck with ter barbarism. · Gachupin, a nickname for a European Span iard, from the Aztec word, gatzopin, a being, half half horse, applied by the Indians to their man, conquerors. ror at the spectacle of a regular army, ar- pletely routed. Their army broke up. ranged in five columns, performing its evo- Hidalgo, Allende, and other leaders, enlutions with silent and orderly celerity, fell deavored to gain the frontiers of the Uniinto confusion on their approach, and fired ted States, but being betrayed by one of upon them at random. This insult pro- their adherents, were taken and shot at voded the Creole troops to take a bloody Chihuahua. revenge, and from the day of this battle Morelos, also a Creole ecclesiastic, was their line of action was decided against the the next leader of the revolutionary troops, rebels throughout the whole of the first pe- whose movements he conducted with greatriod of the revolution. The latter fought er forecast, skill, and success, than his prewith desperation, the Indians rushing with decessor. He disciplined his troops, and their clubs upon the bayonets of the regu- showed more of forbearance and humanity lars, and, so ignorant were they of the na- than belonged to Hidalgo. Fortune smiled ture of artillery, trying to stop the mouths for a considerable time on the patriot of the guns with their straw hats. They cause. Collecting a considerable force in fell in heaps; in the battle and pursuit, not the south-west territory, he advanced to less than 10,000 perished. Calleja re- Cuautla, within thirty miles of Mexico. It entered Guanajuato after an ineffectual re- is an open town, but by availing himself of sistance from a part of the rebel army un- the advantages of the ground, and constructder Allende. His stay there was signalizing trenches, and barricades, he rendered ed by a tragedy equalling in horror any it defensible against attack, and was enabled that can be found even in the blood-stained for more than two months to resist all the annals of Spanish warfare. The populace efforts of Calleja to dislodge him. After a of the town, furious at their desertion by resistance signalized by many brilliant acts Hidalgo's troops, had wreaked their rage of heroism, want of provisions forced him to on a body of 239 Europeans, the survivors evacuate the place. In Puebla, Oaxaca, of the first assault and capture of the place, and the south and west, however, he rewho were put to death to a man. Calleja tained the ascendency for some time, deexacted a terrible retribution by the deci- feating several Spanish divisions, and redumation of the inhabitants of this unfortu- cing Acapulco after a six months' siege. nate town. Without believing the incred- A congress of representatives of the Mexiible tale of Robinson, that 14,000 of the inhabitants had their throats cut in the great square, while its fountains ran with blood, though Mayer and other recent writers have been incautious enough to repeat the statement, we may conclude that the amount of carnage was sufficiently great to glut even the wolfish appetite of the Spaniard, and almost to rival the atrocities of Cortes at Cholula. can people met at Chilpanzingo, in September, 1813, under his protection, and issued the declaration of Mexican independence. With 7000 men and 100 pieces of artillery he arrived before Valladolid, intending to besiege it. His lieutenant, Matamoros, imprudently ordered a review of the troops within half a mile of the town. The gallantry of Iturbide, then a colonel in the royalist army, improved the opportunity Hidalgo, after his defeat, had occupied by a sally which threw the insurgents into Guadalaxara in the western country, in de- confusion. A party of confederates arrived fence of which he resolved to make another at the moment to the assistance of Morelos, stand against Calleja. With this view he whom his troops unfortunately mistook for fortified the bridge of Calderon, about four- enemies. Iturbide immediately charged teen leagues north-east of the city, on the them in flank, and put them to the rout road by which the royalist general was ap- with great slaughter. Another defeat by proaching from Guanajuato. It is thrown the same officer completed their disorganiacross a branch of the Rio Lerma, a swift-zation. Matamoros was taken prisoner ly-flowing stream with precipitous banks and shot, and after a year of ineffectual and hills rising upon the side of Guadalaxa- struggles against the tide of adverse fortune, ra. Here Calleja attacked the insurgents which every where overwhelmed the arms on the 16th of January, 1811. They fought gallantly and repulsed several assaults, but, being thrown into confusion by the explosion of an ammunition waggon in their ranks, and having their flanks turned by the royalist cavalry, were in the end com of the patriots, Morelos shared the same fate. A Mexican historian relates a curious anecdote of Calleja, who had now replaced Venegas in the vice-royalty. He visited Morelos in disguise, while a prisoner in the cells of the Inquisition, and being entreated |