While the jealous gachupines and the ambitious creoles thus quarrelled in New Spain over the question of the extension of privileges a great socio-economic upheaval of the masses developed under the leadership of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a mem ber of the lower clergy who had been profoundly influenced by the doctrines of the French Revolution. This movement had as its object the extension of human rights and privileges to the great mass of Indians and mestizos whose claim to such privileges was equally revolutionary to creoles, gachupines and the higher clergy. At the outset the uprising, which assumed the character of a race war under the patronage of the Virgin of Guadalupe, was led by Hidalgo and Allende, a captain of cavalry. Their greatest success was the capture of the wealthy city of Guanajuato, after which they threatened the capital. But the revolutionists were de cisively defeated at Calderon in 1811 and soon afterward the leaders were executed. Another liberal member of the lower clergy, Morelos, continued the movement. Although he met with serious reverses in the terrible siege of Cuautla in 1812 he rallied the south to his cause and in 1813 was able to convoke a congress which issued a declaration of independence and drafted a republi can Constitution. Morelos was captured and executed at Mexico City in 1815. Thereupon, the revolutionary movement disinte grated into guerrilla warfare. The tide had already begun to turn when in 1820 the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 was pro claimed after a military uprising in Spain. Its promulgation in Mexico caused the high clergy and the gachupines to fear that a liberal Government in Spain would force upon them toleration and the loss of privileges, disestablishment and disendowment, all of which they had successfully opposed, first, in the period from 1808-1o, when the ambitious creoles had demanded reforms, and second, in the period since 181o, when the social upheaval of the masses had largely caused the creoles and the gachupines tempo rarily to forget their differences. Accordingly the clerical and
gachupine opponents of liberalism resolved upon the absolute separation from the Spanish monarchy as the only means of pre serving their position.
The first move of the conservatives was the selection of a suit able military leader in the person of Agustin de Iturbide, a creole ex-officer in the Spanish army. He easily induced the un suspecting viceroy to send him into the field against the rebels. His real purpose, however, in case he could not defeat Guerrero, was to win him over to the separatist movement. This was finally accomplished when, without informing the viceroy, Iturbide signed with Guerrero on Feb. 24, 1821, the Plan de Iguala—a crude pronunciamiento which laid down as the bases of the new State the continuation of the Roman Catholic Church as the established church of Mexico, the establishment of an independent limited monarchy, and the equality of rights for Spaniards and native-born Mexicans. Thus the Plan de Iguala was, in theory, a compromise, but one which was destined to bid successfully for the support of the various classes in New Spain. In the interest of the proposed plan, Iturbide first sought the co-operation of the viceroy, Apo daca, who refused, but was powerless to stem the flood of spon taneous support given the plan. When Juan O'Donojia, the last viceroy, arrived in July he was unable to get beyond Veracruz, and, accordingly, recognized the independence of Mexico in the Treaty of Cordoba. Iturbide triumphantly entered Mexico City on Sept. 27, 1821. The following day a provisional governing Junta, named by Iturbide, signed the "Act of Independence of the Mexican Empire," and appointed a regency of five, with Iturbide as its president. These acts marked the beginning of the national period of Mexican history.