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Yeam Imperialism Mexican Revolt of 1810 The Mexican Revolt of 1810 represented the first stage in a three-part war of independence from Spain that ended in 1821. The first phase involved a rebellion of the castas, those categorized as mixed blood or American Indian by the Spanish authorities. The second phase involved a disorganized but popular guerrilla war against the colonial authorities. The final and ultimately successful phase of the revolt pitted conservative creoles (full-blooded Spaniards born in America) against a temporarily liberal Spanish government. The initial call for independence came from the small town of Morelos, where the progressive parish priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, helped to organize a movement devoted to Mexican liberation. After being discovered by authorities, Hidalgo issued his famous call for independence, the "Grito de Dolores" on September 16, 1810. His call to arms attracted large numbers from the castas, who attacked local authorities and sacked many large towns and cities. The movement appeared on the verge of success when its disorganized troops suffered defeat at the hands of smaller but more disciplined armies of creoles and Spaniards. After the Inquisition condemned Hidalgo to death, another parish priest, José María Morelos, unsuccessfully carried on the struggle in the name of Mexico's downtrodden masses. After his 1815 capture, colonial authorities executed Morelos for treason. After the deaths of Hidalgo and Morelos, the independence war settled into a protracted guerrilla struggle where neither the authorities nor the rebels proved strong enough to gain an upper hand. The rebel leader Guadalupe Victoria commanded a force of 2,000 troops in Puebla and Veracruz, while Vicente Guerrero directed another 2,000 in Oaxaca. Despite ongoing guerrilla warfare, the Spanish viceroy felt secure enough in his position by 1819 to write Spain that he would need no new reinforcements for the foreseeable future. In 1820, a rebellion of troops in Spain led to an unexpected change of events, as the mutineers demanded that King Ferdinand VII honor the liberal Constitution of 1812. Conservative Mexican creoles looked at those events with horror and mobilized to maintain the traditional social and political system that had benefited them since conquest. Augustín Iturbide, a creole officer who had fought against both Hidalgo and Morelos, switched his allegiance to the independence movement rather than accept a liberal government in Spain. In consultation with Guerrero, he issued the Plan de Iguala, which declared Mexico an independent constitutional monarchy, gave Catholicism a monopoly on religion, and guaranteed equal treatment for creoles and Spaniards. The plan succeeded in winning conservative creoles over to the independence movement, and by 1821, the last Spanish viceroy, Juan de O'Donojú had accepted the inevitability of defeat. Iturbide's September 1821 victory march through Mexico City signaled the end of the prolonged war of independence that had begun as a radical lower-class movement and ended in a highly conservative declaration of independence. "Mexican Revolt of 1810." World History: The Modern Era. 2009. ABC-CLIO. 22 Feb. 2009 <http://www.worldhistory.abc-clio.com>.