September 16, 1810

Grito de Dolores

Miguel Hidalgo launches the Dolores uprising

Before Hidalgo said a word to the crowd, his followers had already opened the jail and arrested the local Spaniards.

The morning of 16 September 1810

After learning that the Querétaro conspiracy had been discovered, the parish priest Miguel Hidalgo began the insurgent movement in Dolores, in the intendancy of Guanajuato, on 16 September 1810. The conspirators had contemplated a later date; exposure forced them to act.

Before the public address, Hidalgo's adherents freed prisoners and detained local Spaniards.

INEHRM's chronology places his address to the assembled people in the parish atrium at about 7:30 a.m. — not at 2:30 in the morning, as the listing has it.

A speech with no script

Hidalgo called the population to join and defend the patria. The spoken appeal, later called the Grito de Dolores, began the armed insurgency traditionally identified as the start of Mexico's war for independence.

No authenticated text survives. It was spoken rather than written, and later witnesses and political traditions produced differing versions, so every familiar quotation is a reconstruction.

Accounts disagree over whether he invoked Fernando VII, the Virgin of Guadalupe, America, religion, the end of tribute, opposition to bad government, or hostility toward peninsular Spaniards.

More than seven hundred by eleven o'clock

By about 11 a.m. more than 700 people led by Hidalgo had left Dolores for Atotonilco, where he took an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe as the insurgents' standard.

Five days later the insurgent strength reported at Celaya was more than 4,000.

Ringing the parish bell is the established national tradition, repeated by the Library of Congress and INAH, but the evidence does not establish whether Hidalgo rang it himself or had someone else do it.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

No authenticated text of Hidalgo's address survives. It was spoken rather than written, and later witnesses and political traditions produced differing versions.
The precise sequence and timing are reconstructed. INEHRM places the public address around 7:30 a.m.; the article's 2:30 a.m. time is not supported by the consulted institutional chronology.
Ringing the parish bell is the established national tradition and is repeated by the Library of Congress and INAH, but the evidence does not securely establish whether Hidalgo personally rang it or ordered someone else to do so.
Later versions differ over whether Hidalgo invoked Fernando VII, the Virgin of Guadalupe, America, religion, the end of tribute, opposition to bad government or hostility toward peninsular Spaniards.