Mexican War of Independence

The Mexican War of Independence began on 16 September 1810, when the parish priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla issued his Grito de Dolores, calling for revolt against Spanish colonial rule with the cry Long live religion, long live Our Most Holy Mother of Guadalupe, long live Fernando the Seventh, and down with bad government, rallying a largely indigenous and mestizo insurgent army. Hidalgo was captured and executed in July 1811, and leadership of the insurgency passed to the priest Jose Maria Morelos, who issued the reformist Sentimientos de la Nacion in 1813 before his own capture and execution in 1815, after which the movement was sustained through years of guerrilla warfare led by figures including Vicente Guerrero. Independence was finally secured in 1821, when Guerrero allied with the former royalist commander Agustin de Iturbide under the Plan of Iguala to form the Army of the Three Guarantees, and Mexico's Declaration of Independence was signed on 28 September 1821, with Spain formally recognizing it through the Treaty of Cordoba, though full Spanish recognition did not come until 1836. The eleven-year struggle, which drew participation across Mexican society's social classes, ended three centuries of Spanish colonial rule and established Mexico as an independent state, initially as a short-lived empire under Iturbide.