Mexican Independence Day

Dia de La Independencia – El Grito de Dolores

Independence Day flag display

Mexico’s Independence Day is one of the country’s main patriotic holidays, or Fiestas Patrias. It falls officially on September 16th, and commemorates the throwing off of the yoke of Spanish rule. The celebration of the event begins on the evening of the 15th at 11:00 p.m., with “El Grito“, a reenactment of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s cry to the people to take up arms for independence.

Every year the president of Mexico stands on the balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City, facing the immense crowds on the Zocalo (the large, central plaza of the city) and rings the palace bells, just as Father Hidalgo did on that night so long ago, and calls out a version of the battle cry that is echoed by the public. A spectacular fireworks show ensues. This act is televised every year all around the country, and it is also reenacted on smaller scales in many other cities and municipalities, usually presided over by each community’s mayor or other major authority.

On the 16th itself, celebrations continue with an elaborate military parade that leaves the Zocalo to pass the monument to Miguel Hidalgo and carry on down the long Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City’s wide and beautifully treed main boulevard.

The entire month of September, in fact, is designated “el Mes de la Patria“, or “Month of Independence”, and starting the first days of the month and sometimes as early as the latter half of the month of August, you can see, whereever you go in Mexico, the colors of the flag: green, white and red, festooning public buildings, cars and homes. In virtually every town you’ll spot carts of miniature flags rolling down the street, or vendors at street corners with towers of wavering cloth or plastic – flags on little stick poles, flags on suction cups to stick onto your windshield, flags on fridge magnets and with ties to secure them to your car antenna; flag lapel pins, flag window stickers and bumper stickers… if you don’t have a flag on or very near your person during September, you can’t really be Mexican.

Dolores Hidalgo Church

A little historical background

The actual event of El Grito took place in the very early hours of the morning, just before the break of dawn on September 16th, 1810, in Villa Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, when Father Hidalgo gave orders to sound the church bells and, once the villagers were congregated, exhorted them to revolt against the foreign domination which had lasted for a full 300 years. This event sparked off a war that lasted a decade.

From the ensuing battles and struggles come the names of many of Mexico’s most beloved heroes. Three of Mexico´s states bear the names of three of these leaders of the Independence: José Maria Morelos y Pavón, Vicente Guerrero and the already-named Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. The war of independence culminated when Agustín de Iturbide’s Army of the Three Guarantees (Ejercito Trigarante), joined by rebel forces from all over the country, overcame the the Spanish royalists, leading to the resignation of the last Viceroy of New Spain on August 24, 1821. Mexico’s independence was finally recognized by Spain on September 27, 1821.

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