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San Miguel de Allende, the Birthplace of Mexico’s Independence

By Marion Bayer, Siesta Tours, Inc.

As a tour operator specializing in cultural immersion programs to Mexico’s colonial cities, I have had several opportunities to observe and even participate in some wonderful días de fiestas or holidays. The Mexican people cherish their holidays, both secular and sacred, and they celebrate with absolute enthusiasm.

My favorite Mexican holiday is Independence Day, or Día de la Independencia, the day that commemorates Mexico’s declaration of independence from Spain. On September 15^th, in every community in Mexico, people gather in their town or village squares to listen as someone reads Father Miguel Hidalgo’s famous grito or “cry” for independence. This holiday is celebrated with gusto and grace throughout all of Mexico, but nowhere is it celebrated with the passion that I have seen in San Miguel de Allende.

Today San Miguel de Allende is a city of approximately 100,000 people. It is a National Historic Monument and considered one of Mexico’s prettiest and most well-known cities. For 50 years the celebrated Allende Institute has attracted art and language students from all over the world, and the atmosphere of the city reflects the artistic nature of its inhabitants. But in 1810, San Miguel had another distinction. It played a pivotal role in Mexico’s struggle for independence from Spain.

The history of Mexico’s independence from Spain is a history shared by all the colonial countries of Latin America. The differences lie in the timing and the battles fought, but the ideals behind independence were the same throughout the New World. In Mexico, the movement for independence was concentrated in three cities: San Miguel, Morelia and Querétaro. Father Miguel Hidalgo, the parish priest of the town of Dolores, San Miguel’s nearest neighbor, was one of the initiators in this movement. Earlier discussions of independence were largely ignored by the Spanish governors of Mexico. However, when the Spanish in nearby Querétaro learned of the conspiracy, they took this latest threat seriously. The wife of Querétaro’s mayor (to this day one of the heroines of Mexico) sent a warning to Father Hidalgo that the Spanish were on to them, thus forcing Hidalgo and his followers into immediate action.

At midnight on September 15, 1810, Hidalgo rang the church bell to call the people together and then read his Grito de Dolores, an impassioned speech wherein he declared Mexico’s right to freedom from Spanish rule and asked his followers to gather up whatever weapons they could find and follow him to San Miguel. Hidalgo left the town of Dolores with a rag-tag group of 700 followers, mostly farmers and peasants, miners and slaves, armed with pickaxes and machetes.

Mexico’s tiny army stopped first at the village of Atotonilco, located just outside San Miguel, grabbed a cloth picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe (the patron saint of Mexico) and picked up more followers. When Hidalgo left Atotonilco and marched up the streets of San Miguel, he carried the standard of Guadalupe before him and led an army that now comprised 5,000 peasants. The taking of San Miguel (La Toma de San Miguel) took just a few minutes. The mayor, upon seeing the flood of insurgents coming up the street, turned the city over to Father Hidalgo and the first battle was won.

There is much more to the story, of course. Father Hidalgo and his army then marched north, taking the town of Celaya and then Guanajuato, where the first really decisive battle in the struggle for independence was fought. By now Hidalgo’s army was 20,000 strong.

Hidalgo envisioned a relatively bloodless war where the Mexican people would unite and stand firm against the injustices of the Spanish throne. Instead, the struggle for independence became a class war, the landless poor against the landed gentry. Hidalgo was captured during the first months of the campaign, ex-communicated from the Catholic Church and executed. Other heroes picked up the banner of Guadalupe and led the fight. The struggle for independence dragged on for 11 years, and in September 1821, the last Spanish viceroy returned to Spain. In December, 1822, Mexico officially declared itself a republic.

It is almost two centuries later and San Miguel’s historic center has changed little from the days of Father Hidalgo, if you overlook the cars parked along the streets and the stores now occupying historic buildings. The buildings themselves have remained as true to the times as a National Historic Monument can keep them. The Casa de Canal now houses a bank. There are dozens of American tourists sitting on benches along the Gringo side of the Jardín, San Miguel’s main plaza. But the cobblestones of today are the same cobblestones that Hidalgo and his army of peasants trod upon when entering the town on September 16, 1810.

Several days before the festivities begin, the townspeople of San Miguel are busy putting together enormous Catherine wheels of fireworks in front of the Gothic-steepled parish church. Groups of schoolchildren are put through their paces. They will march in a parade through the streets of San Miguel on September 16^th. Vendors are set up on all four sides of the plaza, selling Mexican flags, toy “pop” guns and hats banded in red, white and green. Paper buntings in red, white and green festoon the buildings downtown and criss-cross the streets leading to the plaza.

On the evening of September 15^th I join the crowd gathering in front of the Allende House, the birthplace of another hero of the initial struggle, Ignacio Allende, who posthumously gave his last name to San Miguel. From the balcony above the portal, where it is inscribed “He who was born here is known everywhere,” a man dressed as Father Hidalgo reads the Grito de Dolores and the crowd goes wild. Minutes later, the fireworks start and go on for more than an hour. Not just the Catherine wheels, which are whizzing around emitting sparks of fire and light, but fireworks are also going off over our heads. My neck is stiff from staring straight up. I slap at embers that rain down on my head and arms. The closely packed crowd keeps the danger of fire to a minimum.

By the next morning the mood is still festive and getting more so by the hour. People line the streets and those lucky enough to have access to the buildings lining the plaza gaze down from balconies and rooftops. First the parade of school children, marching bands, firefighters, policemen, army drill teams and the Coca Cola delivery vans pass by. Everyone is waving their red, white and green flags. Babies are wearing red, white and green hats. The crowd overflows onto the street as soon as the parade passes by.

Now for the re-enactment - the moment we have all been waiting for. I am lodged against the doorway on the top step of the San Francisco Hotel. Up the street leading to the plaza comes Father Hidalgo, dressed in priestly garb and carrying the standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe, followed by his “rag-tag” army of peasants. And they are a rag-tag bunch indeed, dressed in the typical white pyjamas and sandals that we think of when we think of the Mexican peasantry of yore. Some ride on donkeys but most are on foot. All are carrying some form of tool as a weapon - pick axes, hoes, machetes and pitch forks. Some actually carry replicas of ancient firearms. We are enthralled.

From the opposite direction come the town officials, likewise in costume. There is some dickering between Hidalgo and the town mayor and something changes hands. Now the peasant army is jubilant. The town has been taken. But wait! Here comes trouble. Other re-enactors, dressed in the royal blue uniforms of the Spanish army, arrive on horseback. They are attacking the insurgents and herding them down the street. Obviously they are now re-enacting what happens on another day, because this is not actually a part of San Miguel’s history today, but it certainly is impressive to see.

The State of Guanajuato, which encompasses the cities of San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Hidalgo, Celaya and Guanajuato, is known as Mexico’s “Cradle of Independence.” The route that the insurgent army first followed is the Route of Independence. This historic area is of primary importance to the Mexican people. Busloads of school children come to these cities daily, just as children in the U.S. come to Washington D.C. on field trips. The Mexican people are proud of their heritage, of their 11-year struggle for independence.

The celebration goes on. Throughout the city there are public and private fiestas, dances, bands playing in the Jardín and even a rodeo. Arts and crafts vendors vie with sellers of roasted corn on the cob, cotton candy, and hot dogs. Mylar balloons bounce above the crowd. Mimes pass the hat to those who’ve stopped to watch. San Miguel’s Día de la Independencia is an occasion to be savored, and savor it I did.

Marion Bayer is founder and director of Siesta Tours, Inc., a Knoxville, Tennessee-based tour operator specializing in cultural immersion tours of Colonial Mexico. She has lived and traveled in Mexico for almost 40 years.