Why was miguel hidalgo executed

Obviously no one wanted to kill a priest. In the telenovela, the commanding officer shot Father Hidalgo several times on the upper left side. It took 16 bullets to kill Father Hidalgo y Costilla. As for his own future, he had married into a prominent Creole family and was looking forward to enjoying a comfortable old age on his country estate. His awakening to the political realities in the fall of would be a rude one.

A close friend of Bishop Abad y Quiepo and of General Calleja, he had come to the Americas as a Spanish officer in the mids, and between and he had fought the British in Louisiana and Alabama as an ally of the North American colonists in their war for independence. In the early morning hours of September 16, , a courier who had ridden all night brought Hidalgo and Allende the dismaying news that their planned revolt had become known.

The messenger advised them to flee before the governor could order them hanged for treason. Father Hidalgo, so legend has it, then buckled on a sword and dramatically declared in ringing tones: All may seem lost, but in action, all can still be saved! We now have no choice but to go out and seize the Spaniards! When his parishioners, mostly farmers and workers from the countryside around Dolores, gathered for the early Sunday Mass, Hidalgo addressed them. I cannot speak longer, for all is being done in great haste and I must go!

Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe! Down with bad government! Now let us go and seize the Gauchupines! At the same time, his Indian factory workers came racing through the plaza bearing torches and brandishing machetes. Within minutes, the town regiment defected en masse to Captain Allende. The jail was emptied of potential rebel recruits, and shops and businesses owned by Spaniards were broken into and plundered. Bewildered Spaniards were dragged from their beds as the mob rushed in to loot their homes.

They merely threatened to slit the throats of the or more Spanish hostages if city gates were not opened to him. Everywhere, Spaniards were jailed or taken hostage, their money and properties seized to fund the burgeoning rebel war chest. In the process, Hidalgo dropped his false posture of loyalty to Ferdinand VII, instead declaring openly for an independent Mexico. Located in the center of town, the two-story rectangular structure was built, fortresslike, around a central patio with a water well.

The exterior was plain, except for three horizontal rows of small square windows evenly spaced about three yards apart. Each window marked the head of a grain bin, 50 of which opened off the lower and upper loggias in the courtyard. With food stores sent in and the convenient well, he hoped to withstand a lengthy siege. I am prepared to resist as best I can because I am an honorable man.

Mine owners lugged in heavy bars of silver, then hastily buried costly heirlooms, family jewels and silver service deep in the golden grain of the bins. Citizens boarded up windows and barred their doors, locking themselves inside to pray for deliverance. Above the town, the mines lay idle and abandoned. Mine workers watched from the hilltops. Repelled by a withering volley from the barricades, they broke down the doors of nearby homes whose flat rooftops overlooked the granary.

A rooftop sharpshooter cut him down with a single bullet to the brain. Father Hidalgo fled north but was captured and executed in The anniversary of his call is celebrated as Mexico's Independence Day, with Hidalgo remembered as the "Father of Mexican Independence. Despite his vows to the Church, Father Hidalgo was not interested in following the accepted path of an 18th century Mexican Catholic priest.

He espoused the works of European Enlightenment thinkers, socialized freely, acquired properties and reportedly fathered several children out of wedlock. Outside of his parish duties, Father Hidalgo studied languages, cultivated vineyards and olive groves and opened a pottery-making plant. He also showed his compassion for underprivileged members of the community by holding workshops for them to learn skills like carpentry and blacksmithing.

Meanwhile, Hidalgo became prominently involved in intellectual circles that harbored increasing concerns over political control of New Spain. After Napoleon Bonaparte forced out King Ferdinand VII in and placed his brother Joseph in charge of Spanish territories, Hidalgo and his allies formulated plans to overthrow the regional viceroy and establish a ruling body loyal to the imprisoned Ferdinand. When word of his impending rebellion leaked to the Spanish, Hidalgo was forced to speed up his plans.

Her first major A leader in the Indian campaign for home rule, Gandhi worked all his life On September 16, , the largest land run in history begins with more than , people pouring into the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma to claim valuable land that had once belonged to Native Americans.

With a single shot from a pistol the mad dash began, and land-hungry Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Durant, a high-school dropout, had made his fortune building horse-drawn carriages, and in fact he hated cars—he thought they were noisy, smelly, and The Burke-Wadsworth Act is passed by Congress on September 16, , by wide margins in both houses, and the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States is imposed.

Selective Service was born.