When did Mexico win independence?

The Mexican War of Independence () was an armed conflict, and the culmination of a political and social process which ended the rule of Spain in 1821 in the territory of New Spain. The war had its antecedent in Napoleon's French invasion of Spain in 1808; it extended from the Cry of Dolores by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on September 16, 1810, to the entrance of the Army of the Three Guarantees led by Agustín de Iturbide to Mexico City on September 27, 1821. September 16 is celebrated as Mexican Independence Day.

Mexican War of Independence

The movement for independence was inspired by the Age of Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions. By that time the educated elite of New Spain had begun to reflect on the relations between Spain and its colonial kingdoms. Changes in the social and political structure occasioned by Bourbon Reforms and a deep economic crisis in New Spain caused discomfort among the native-born Creole elite.

The dramatic political events in Europe, the French Revolutionary Wars and the conquests of Napoleon deeply influenced events in New Spain. In 1808, Charles IV and Ferdinand VII were forced to abdicate in favor of the French Emperor, who then made his elder brother Joseph king. The same year, the ayuntamiento (city council) of Mexico City, supported by viceroy José de Iturrigaray, claimed sovereignty in the absence of the legitimate king. That led to a coup against the viceroy; when it was suppressed, the leaders of the movement were jailed.

Despite the defeat in Mexico City, small groups of rebels met in other cities of New Spain to raise movements against colonial rule. In 1810, after being discovered, Querétaro conspirators chose to take up arms on September 16 in the company of peasants and indigenous inhabitants of Dolores (Guanajuato), who were called to action by the secular Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo, former rector of the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo.

After 1810 the independence movement went through several stages, as leaders were imprisoned or executed by forces loyal to Spain. At first the rebels disputed the legitimacy of the French-installed Joseph Bonaparte while recognizing the sovereignty of Ferdinand VII over Spain and its colonies, but later the leaders took more radical positions, rejecting the Spanish claim and espousing a new social order including the abolition of slavery. Secular priest José María Morelos called the separatist provinces to form the Congress of Chilpancingo, which gave the insurgency its own legal framework. After the defeat of Morelos, the movement survived as a guerrilla war under the leadership of Vicente Guerrero. By 1820, the few rebel groups survived most notably in the Sierra Madre del Sur and Veracruz.

The reinstatement of the liberal Constitution of Cadiz in 1820 caused a change of mind among the elite groups who had supported Spanish rule. Monarchist Creoles affected by the constitution decided to support the independence of New Spain; they sought an alliance with the former insurgent resistance. Agustín de Iturbide led the military arm of the conspirators and in early 1821 he met Vicente Guerrero. Both proclaimed the Plan of Iguala, which called for the union of all insurgent factions and was supported by both the aristocracy and clergy of New Spain. It called for a monarchy in an independent Mexico. Finally, the independence of Mexico was achieved on September 27, 1821.

After that, the mainland of New Spain was organized as the Mexican Empire. This ephemeral Catholic monarchy changed to a federal republic in 1823, due to internal conflicts and the separation of Central America from Mexico.

After some Spanish reconquest attempts, including the expedition of Isidro Barradas in 1829, Spain under the rule of Isabella II recognized the independence of Mexico in 1836.

Mexican resistance and struggle for independence began with the brutal Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire when Spanish conquerors had considerable autonomy from crown control. Don Martín Cortés (son of Hernán Cortés), the second marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, led a conspiracy of holders of encomiendas against the Spanish crown after it sought to eliminate privileges for the conquistadors, particularly putting limitations on encomiendas. After the suppression of that mid-16th-century conspiracy, elites raised no substantial challenge to royal rule until the Hidalgo revolt of 1810.

Elites in Mexico City in the seventeenth century did force the removal of a reformist viceroy, the Marqués de Gelves, following an urban riot in 1624 fomented by those elites. He attempted to eliminate corrupt practices by creole elites as well as rein in the opulent displays of the clergy's power, but ecclesiastical authorities in conjunction with creole elites mobilized urban plebeians to oust the viceroy. The crowd was reported to shout, "Long live the King! Love live Christ! Death to bad government! Death to the heretic Lutheran [Viceroy Gelves]! Arrest the viceroy!" The attack was against Gelves as a bad representative of the crown and not against the monarchy or colonial rule itself.

There was also a brief conspiracy in the mid-seventeenth century to unite creole elites, blacks, and indigenous against the Spanish crown and proclaim Mexican independence. The man pushing this notion called himself Don Guillén Lampart y Guzmán, an Irishman born William Lamport. Lamport's conspiracy was discovered, and he was arrested by the Inquisition in 1642, and executed fifteen years later for sedition. There is a statue of Lamport in the mausoleum at the base of the Angel of Independence in Mexico City.

At the end of the seventeenth century, there was a major riot in Mexico City where a mob attempted to burn down the viceroy's palace and the archbishop's residence. A painting by Cristóbal Villalpando shows the damage of the 1692 "tumulto". Unlike the earlier one in 1624 in which elites were involved, the viceroy ousted, and no repercussions against the instigators, the 1692 riot was by plebeians alone and racially charged. The rioters attacked key symbols of Spanish power and shouted political slogans. "Kill the [American-born] Spaniards and the "Gachupines" [Iberian-born Spaniards] who eat our corn! We go to war happily! God wants us to finish off the Spaniards! We do not care if we die without confession! Is this not our land?" The viceroy attempted to address the apparent cause of the riot, higher maize prices that affected the urban poor. But the 1692 riot "represented class warfare that put Spanish authority at risk. Punishment was swift and brutal, and no further riots in the capital challenged the Pax Hispanica."

The various indigenous rebellions in the colonial era were often to throw off crown rule, but they were not an independence movement as such. However, during the war of independence, issues at the local level in rural areas constituted what one historian has called "the other rebellion."

American-born Spaniards in New Spain developed a special understanding and ties to their New World homeland, what has been seen the formation of Creole patriotism. They did not, however, pursue political independence from Spain until the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian peninsula and defeat of Spain destabilized the monarchy. With the implementation of the Bourbon Reforms starting in the mid-eighteenth century, the Spanish crown sought to impose restrictions on creole elites.

In the early 19th century, Napoleon's occupation of Spain led to an outbreak of numerous revolts against colonial government across Spanish America. After the abortive Conspiracy of the Machetes in 1799, a massive revolt in the Bajío region was led by secular cleric Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. His Grito de Dolores was the first stage of the insurgency for Mexican independence. Before 1810, there was no significant support for independence. Once the Hidalgo revolt was underway, it received major support only in the Bajío and parts of Jalisco.

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest and member of a group of educated "Criollos" in Querétaro City, hosted secret gatherings in his home to discuss whether it was better to obey or to revolt against a tyrannical government, as he defined the Spanish colonial government in Mexico. Famed military leader Ignacio Allende was among the attendees. In 1810 Hidalgo concluded that a revolt was needed because of injustices against the poor of Mexico. By this time Hidalgo was known for his achievements at the prestigious San Nicolás Obispo school in Valladolid (now Morelia), and later service there as rector. He also became known as a top theologian. When his older brother died in 1803, Hidalgo took over as priest for the town of Dolores.

Hidalgo was in Dolores on 15 September 1810, with other rebel leaders including commander Allende, when they learned their conspiracy had been discovered. Hidalgo ran to the church, calling for all the people to gather, where from the pulpit he called upon them to revolt. They all shouted in agreement. The people were a comparatively small group, and poorly armed with whatever was at hand, including sticks and rocks. On the morning of 16 September 1810, Hidalgo called upon the remaining locals who happened to be in the market, and again, from the pulpit, exhorted the people of Dolores to join him. Most did: Hidalgo had a mob of some 600 men within minutes. This became known as the "Grito de Dolores" or Cry of Dolores.

Hidalgo and Allende marched their little army through towns including San Miguel and Celaya, where the angry rebels killed all the Spaniards they found. Along the way they adopted the standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe as their symbol and protector. When they reached the town of Guanajuato on September 28, they found Spanish forces barricaded inside the public granary, Alhóndiga de Granaditas. Among them were some 'forced' Royalists, creoles who had served and sided with the Spanish. By this time, the rebels numbered 30,000 and the battle was horrific. They killed more than 500 Spanish and creoles, and marched on toward Mexico City.

The Viceroy quickly organized a defense, sending out the Spanish general Torcuato Trujillo with 1,000 men, 400 horsemen, and 2 cannons - all that could be found on such short notice. Ignacio Lopez Rayon joined Hidalgo's forces whilst passing near Maravatío, Michoacan while en route to Mexico City and on October 30, Hidalgo's army encountered Spanish military resistance at the Battle of Monte de las Cruces, fought them, and achieved victory. When the cannons were captured by the rebels, the surviving Royalists retreated to the City.

Despite having the advantage, Hidalgo retreated, against the counsel of Allende. This retreat, on the verge of apparent victory, has puzzled historians and biographers ever since. They generally believe that Hidalgo wanted to spare the numerous Mexican citizens in Mexico City from the inevitable sacking and plunder that would have ensued. His retreat is considered Hidalgo's greatest tactical error.

Rebel survivors sought refuge in nearby provinces and villages. The insurgent forces planned a defensive strategy at a bridge on the Calderón River, pursued by the Spanish army. In January 1811, Spanish forces, led by Félix María Calleja del Rey fought the Battle of the Bridge of Calderón and defeated the insurgent army, forcing the rebels to flee north towards the United States, hoping they would attain financial and military support.

But they were intercepted by Ignacio Elizondo, who pretended to join the fleeing insurgent forces. Hidalgo and his remaining soldiers were captured in the state of Coahuila at the Wells of Baján ("Norias de Baján"). All of the rebel leaders were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, except for Mariano Abasolo. He was sent to Spain to serve a life sentence in prison. Allende, Jiménez and Aldama were executed on 26 June 1811, shot in the back as a sign of dishonor. Hidalgo, as a priest, had to undergo a civil trial and review by the Inquisition. He was eventually stripped of his priesthood, found guilty, and executed on 30 July. The heads of Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama and Jiménez were preserved and hung from the four corners of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas of Guanajuato as a warning to those who dared follow in their footsteps.

After Ignacio Lopez Rayon — stationed in Saltillo, Coahuila with 3,500 men and 22 cannons — heard of the capture of the insurgent leaders, he decided to flee back south on 26 March, 1811 to continue the fight. He subsequently fought the Spanish in the battles of Puerto de Piñones, Zacatecas, El Maguey, and Zitácuaro.

Following the execution of Hidalgo, José María Morelos took over leadership of the insurgency. In January 1812 he arrived at Cuautla, after which followed the 72-day Siege of Cuautla. He achieved the occupation of the cities of Oaxaca and Acapulco. In 1813, he convened the Congress of Chilpancingo to bring representatives together and, on 6 November of that year, the Congress signed the first official document of independence, known as the Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America. In 1815, Morelos was captured by Spanish colonial authorities, tried and executed for treason.

From 1815 to 1821 most of the fighting for independence from Spain was done by small and isolated guerrilla bands. From these, two leaders arose: Guadalupe Victoria (born José Miguel Fernández y Félix) in Puebla and Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca, both of whom gained allegiance and respect from their followers. Believing the situation under control, the Spanish viceroy issued a general pardon to every rebel who would lay down his arms. After ten years of civil war and the death of two of its founders, by early 1820 the independence movement was stalemated and close to collapse. The rebels faced stiff Spanish military resistance and the apathy of many of the most influential criollos.

In what was supposed to be the final government campaign against the insurgents, in December 1820, Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca sent a force led by a royalist criollo Colonel Agustín de Iturbide, to defeat Guerrero's army in Oaxaca. Iturbide, a native of Valladolid (now Morelia), had gained renown for his zeal against Hidalgo's and Morelos's rebels during the early independence struggle. A favorite of the Mexican church hierarchy, Iturbide symbolized conservative criollo values; he was devoutly religious, and committed to the defense of property rights and social privileges. He also resented his lack of promotion and failure to gain wealth.

Iturbide's assignment to the Oaxaca expedition coincided with a successful military coup in Spain against the monarchy of Ferdinand VII. The coup leaders, part of an expeditionary force assembled to suppress the independence movements in the Americas, had turned against the monarchy. They compelled the reluctant Ferdinand to reinstate the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 that created a constitutional monarchy. When news of the liberal charter reached Mexico, Iturbide perceived it both as a threat to the status quo and a catalyst to rouse the criollos to gain control of Mexico. Independence was achieved when conservative Royalist forces in the colonies chose to rise up against the liberal regime in Spain; it was an about-face compared to their previous opposition to the peasant insurgency. After an initial clash with Guerrero's forces, Iturbide assumed command of the royal army. At Iguala, he allied his formerly royalist force with Guerrero’s radical insurgents to discuss the renewed struggle for independence.

While stationed in the town of Iguala, Iturbide proclaimed three principles, or "guarantees," for Mexican independence from Spain. Mexico would be an independent monarchy governed by King Ferdinand, another Bourbon prince, or some other conservative European prince; criollos would be given equal rights and privileges to peninsulares; and the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico would retain its privileges and position as the established religion of the land. After convincing his troops to accept the principles, which were promulgated on February 24, 1821 as the Plan of Iguala, Iturbide persuaded Guerrero to join his forces in support of this conservative independence movement. A new army, the Army of the Three Guarantees, was placed under Iturbide's command to enforce the Plan of Iguala. The plan was so broadly based that it pleased both patriots and loyalists. The goal of independence and the protection of Roman Catholicism brought together all factions.

Iturbide's army was joined by rebel forces from all over Mexico. When the rebels' victory became certain, the Viceroy resigned. On August 24, 1821, representatives of the Spanish crown and Iturbide signed the Treaty of Córdoba, which recognized Mexican independence under the Plan of Iguala.

On September 27, 1821 the Army of the Three Guarantees entered Mexico City, and the following day Iturbide proclaimed the independence of the Mexican Empire, as New Spain was henceforth to be called. The Treaty of Córdoba was not ratified by the Spanish Cortes. Iturbide included a special clause in the treaty that left open the possibility for a criollo monarch to be appointed by a Mexican congress if no suitable member of the European royalty would accept the Mexican crown. Half of the new government employees appointed were Iturbide's followers.

On the night of the May 18, 1822, a mass demonstration led by the Regiment of Celaya, which Iturbide had commanded during the war, marched through the streets and demanded their commander-in-chief to accept the throne. The following day, the Congress declared Iturbide Emperor of Mexico. On October 31, 1822 Iturbide dissolved Congress and replaced it with a sympathetic junta.

Despite the creation of the Mexican nation, the Spanish still managed to hold onto a port in Veracruz that Mexico did not get control of until 23 November 1825.

On 28 December 1836, Spain recognized the independence of Mexico under the Santa María–Calatrava Treaty, signed in Madrid by the Mexican Commissioner Miguel Santa María and the Spanish state minister José María Calatrava. Mexico was the first former colony whose independence was recognized by Spain; the second was Ecuador on 16 February 1840.

In 1910, as part of the celebrations marking the centennial of the Hidalgo revolt of 1810, President Porfirio Díaz inaugurated the monument to Mexico's political separation from Spain, the Angel of Independence on Avenida Reforma. The creation of this architectural monument is part of the long process of the construction of historical memory of Mexican independence.

Although Mexico gained its independence in September 1821, the marking of this historical event did not take hold immediately. The choice of date to celebrate was problematic, because Iturbide, who achieved independence from Spain, was rapidly created Emperor of Mexico. His short-lived reign from 1821–22 ended when he was forced by the military to abdicate. This was a rocky start for the new nation, which made celebrating independence on the anniversary of Iturbide's Army of the Three Guarantees marching into Mexico City in triumph a less than perfect day for those who had opposed him. Celebrations of independence during his reign were marked on September 27. Following his ouster, there were calls to commemorate Mexican independence along the lines that the United States celebrated in grand style its Independence Day on July 4. The creation of a committee of powerful men to mark independence celebrations, the "Junta Patriótica", organized celebrations of both September 16, to commemorate Hidalgo's grito and the start of the independence insurgency, and September 27, to celebrate actual political independence.

During the Díaz regime (1876–1911), the president's birthday coincided with the September 15/16 celebration of independence. The largest celebrations took place and continue to do so in the capital's main square, the zócalo, with the pealing of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City's bells. In the 1880s, government officials attempted to move the bell that Hidalgo rang in 1810 to gather parishioners in Dolores for what became his famous "grito". Initially the pueblo's officials said the bell no longer existed, but in 1896, the bell, known as the Bell of San José, was taken to the capital. It was renamed the "Bell of Independence" and ritually rung by Díaz. It is now an integral part of Independence Day festivities.

Mexican War of Independence

The Mexican War of Independence () was an armed conflict, and the culmination of a political and social process which ended the rule of Spain in 1821 in the territory of New Spain. The war had its antecedent in Napoleon's French invasion of Spain in 1808; it extended from the Cry of Dolores by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on September 16, 1810, to the entrance of the Army of the Three Guarantees led by Agustín de Iturbide to Mexico City on September 27, 1821. September 16 is celebrated as Mexican Independence Day.

The movement for independence was inspired by the Age of Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions. By that time the educated elite of New Spain had begun to reflect on the relations between Spain and its colonial kingdoms. Changes in the social and political structure occasioned by Bourbon Reforms and a deep economic crisis in New Spain caused discomfort among the native-born Creole elite.

The dramatic political events in Europe, the French Revolutionary Wars and the conquests of Napoleon deeply influenced events in New Spain. In 1808, Charles IV and Ferdinand VII were forced to abdicate in favor of the French Emperor, who then made his elder brother Joseph king. The same year, the ayuntamiento (city council) of Mexico City, supported by viceroy José de Iturrigaray, claimed sovereignty in the absence of the legitimate king. That led to a coup against the viceroy; when it was suppressed, the leaders of the movement were jailed.

Despite the defeat in Mexico City, small groups of rebels met in other cities of New Spain to raise movements against colonial rule. In 1810, after being discovered, Querétaro conspirators chose to take up arms on September 16 in the company of peasants and indigenous inhabitants of Dolores (Guanajuato), who were called to action by the secular Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo, former rector of the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo.

After that, the mainland of New Spain was organized as the Mexican Empire. This ephemeral Catholic monarchy changed to a federal republic in 1823, due to internal conflicts and the separation of Central America from Mexico.

After some Spanish reconquest attempts, including the expedition of Isidro Barradas in 1829, Spain under the rule of Isabella II recognized the independence of Mexico in 1836.

Mexican resistance and struggle for independence began with the brutal Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire when Spanish conquerors had considerable autonomy from crown control. Don Martín Cortés (son of Hernán Cortés), the second marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, led a conspiracy of holders of encomiendas against the Spanish crown after it sought to eliminate privileges for the conquistadors, particularly putting limitations on encomiendas. After the suppression of that mid-16th-century conspiracy, elites raised no substantial challenge to royal rule until the Hidalgo revolt of 1810.

There was also a brief conspiracy in the mid-seventeenth century to unite creole elites, blacks, and indigenous against the Spanish crown and proclaim Mexican independence. The man pushing this notion called himself Don Guillén Lampart y Guzmán, an Irishman born William Lamport. Lamport's conspiracy was discovered, and he was arrested by the Inquisition in 1642, and executed fifteen years later for sedition. There is a statue of Lamport in the mausoleum at the base of the Angel of Independence in Mexico City.

The various indigenous rebellions in the colonial era were often to throw off crown rule, but they were not an independence movement as such. However, during the war of independence, issues at the local level in rural areas constituted what one historian has called "the other rebellion."

American-born Spaniards in New Spain developed a special understanding and ties to their New World homeland, what has been seen the formation of Creole patriotism. They did not, however, pursue political independence from Spain until the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian peninsula and defeat of Spain destabilized the monarchy. With the implementation of the Bourbon Reforms starting in the mid-eighteenth century, the Spanish crown sought to impose restrictions on creole elites.

In the early 19th century, Napoleon's occupation of Spain led to an outbreak of numerous revolts against colonial government across Spanish America. After the abortive Conspiracy of the Machetes in 1799, a massive revolt in the Bajío region was led by secular cleric Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. His Grito de Dolores was the first stage of the insurgency for Mexican independence. Before 1810, there was no significant support for independence. Once the Hidalgo revolt was underway, it received major support only in the Bajío and parts of Jalisco.

Hidalgo and Allende marched their little army through towns including San Miguel and Celaya, where the angry rebels killed all the Spaniards they found. Along the way they adopted the standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe as their symbol and protector. When they reached the town of Guanajuato on September 28, they found Spanish forces barricaded inside the public granary, Alhóndiga de Granaditas. Among them were some 'forced' Royalists, creoles who had served and sided with the Spanish. By this time, the rebels numbered 30,000 and the battle was horrific. They killed more than 500 Spanish and creoles, and marched on toward Mexico City.

The Viceroy quickly organized a defense, sending out the Spanish general Torcuato Trujillo with 1,000 men, 400 horsemen, and 2 cannons - all that could be found on such short notice. Ignacio Lopez Rayon joined Hidalgo's forces whilst passing near Maravatío, Michoacan while en route to Mexico City and on October 30, Hidalgo's army encountered Spanish military resistance at the Battle of Monte de las Cruces, fought them, and achieved victory. When the cannons were captured by the rebels, the surviving Royalists retreated to the City.

Despite having the advantage, Hidalgo retreated, against the counsel of Allende. This retreat, on the verge of apparent victory, has puzzled historians and biographers ever since. They generally believe that Hidalgo wanted to spare the numerous Mexican citizens in Mexico City from the inevitable sacking and plunder that would have ensued. His retreat is considered Hidalgo's greatest tactical error.

Rebel survivors sought refuge in nearby provinces and villages. The insurgent forces planned a defensive strategy at a bridge on the Calderón River, pursued by the Spanish army. In January 1811, Spanish forces, led by Félix María Calleja del Rey fought the Battle of the Bridge of Calderón and defeated the insurgent army, forcing the rebels to flee north towards the United States, hoping they would attain financial and military support.

After Ignacio Lopez Rayon — stationed in Saltillo, Coahuila with 3,500 men and 22 cannons — heard of the capture of the insurgent leaders, he decided to flee back south on 26 March, 1811 to continue the fight. He subsequently fought the Spanish in the battles of Puerto de Piñones, Zacatecas, El Maguey, and Zitácuaro.

Following the execution of Hidalgo, José María Morelos took over leadership of the insurgency. In January 1812 he arrived at Cuautla, after which followed the 72-day Siege of Cuautla. He achieved the occupation of the cities of Oaxaca and Acapulco. In 1813, he convened the Congress of Chilpancingo to bring representatives together and, on 6 November of that year, the Congress signed the first official document of independence, known as the Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America. In 1815, Morelos was captured by Spanish colonial authorities, tried and executed for treason.

Iturbide's army was joined by rebel forces from all over Mexico. When the rebels' victory became certain, the Viceroy resigned. On August 24, 1821, representatives of the Spanish crown and Iturbide signed the Treaty of Córdoba, which recognized Mexican independence under the Plan of Iguala.

On September 27, 1821 the Army of the Three Guarantees entered Mexico City, and the following day Iturbide proclaimed the independence of the Mexican Empire, as New Spain was henceforth to be called. The Treaty of Córdoba was not ratified by the Spanish Cortes. Iturbide included a special clause in the treaty that left open the possibility for a criollo monarch to be appointed by a Mexican congress if no suitable member of the European royalty would accept the Mexican crown. Half of the new government employees appointed were Iturbide's followers.

On the night of the May 18, 1822, a mass demonstration led by the Regiment of Celaya, which Iturbide had commanded during the war, marched through the streets and demanded their commander-in-chief to accept the throne. The following day, the Congress declared Iturbide Emperor of Mexico. On October 31, 1822 Iturbide dissolved Congress and replaced it with a sympathetic junta.

Despite the creation of the Mexican nation, the Spanish still managed to hold onto a port in Veracruz that Mexico did not get control of until 23 November 1825.

On 28 December 1836, Spain recognized the independence of Mexico under the Santa María–Calatrava Treaty, signed in Madrid by the Mexican Commissioner Miguel Santa María and the Spanish state minister José María Calatrava. Mexico was the first former colony whose independence was recognized by Spain; the second was Ecuador on 16 February 1840.

In 1910, as part of the celebrations marking the centennial of the Hidalgo revolt of 1810, President Porfirio Díaz inaugurated the monument to Mexico's political separation from Spain, the Angel of Independence on Avenida Reforma. The creation of this architectural monument is part of the long process of the construction of historical memory of Mexican independence.

Mexican independence was officially achieved on September 27, 1821, under the Treaty of Córdoba. Spain did not recognize the treaties, arguing that the viceroy Juan O'Donojú had no authority to recognize the independence of any overseas province. This situation was dangerous to the newly acquired independent status of the nation, which had not yet been recognized by any of the European powers that could support it, and the threat of Spanish reconquest was a constant worry to the leaders of the nascent regime. On May 13, 1822 decrees were issued by the government to imprison anyone who conspired against Mexico's independence.

Spanish attempts to reconquer Mexico

The attempted Spanish reconquest of Mexico () was an effort by the Spanish government to regain possession of its former colony of Mexico, resulting in episodes of war comprised in clashes between the newly born Mexican nation and Spain. The designation mainly covers two periods: the first attempts occurred from 1821 to 1825 and involved the defense of Mexico's territorial waters, while the second period had two stages, including the Mexican expansion plan to take the Spanish-held island of Cuba between 1826 and 1828, and the 1829 expedition of Spanish General Isidro Barradas, which landed on Mexican soil with the object of reconquering Mexican territory. Although the Spanish never regained control of the country they did damage the fledgling Mexican economy.

The newly independent nation of Mexico was in dire straits after eleven years of fighting its War of Independence. There were no clear plans or guidelines established by the revolutionaries, and internal struggles by different factions for control of the government ensued. Mexico suffered a complete lack of funds to administer a country of over 4.5 million km², and faced the threats of emerging internal rebellions and of invasion by Spanish forces from their base in nearby Cuba.

In addition to its other problems, the main port of entry to the country, San Juan de Ulúa, remained under Spanish domination.

General José García Dávila, the governor representing the Spanish Crown in Veracruz, and General Antonio López de Santa Anna had been ordered to surrender the port to the Mexicans; however, the night before the appointed day of October 26, 1821, Gen. Dávila moved all the artillery and ammunition from the port, as well as 200 infantry soldiers, and over 90 thousand pesos belonging to the Spanish government, to the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa. Soon the number of soldiers increased to 2,000 with troops sent by Spain from Cuba to launch the reconquest of Mexico. Since the Mexican forces did not have the weapons and ships to counter these reinforcements, the putative Emperor of Mexico, Agustín de Iturbide, opted for negotiations with the Spanish. Although no agreement was reached, an uneasy peace continued between the two parties.

The arrival of then Brigadier General Antonio López de Santa Anna to the government of the city on September 10, 1822, marks another episode of negotiations between the Mexican authorities of Veracruz and the Spanish of San Juan de Ulúa; these became critical, even more so when the Spanish government relieved Gen. Davila of his charge and replaced him with Brigadier General Francisco Lemaur. The Mexican government, aware of the lack of boats, decided to create a naval force to defeat the Spanish garrison occupying Ulúa, mainly through a blockade. In 1822 it acquired from the United States and the United Kingdom the first ships of the Mexican Navy.

Despite internal political problems in Mexico resulting from the recent overthrow of the short-lived Empire of Mexico and the establishment of the Republic, the sight of the Mexicans remained fixed on Ulúa. The talks were suspended when on September 25, 1823, the Spanish bombarded the port of Veracruz, causing the displacement of more than 6,000 civilians who left the city.

After the Spanish bombardment of the port, the Mexican government resolved to end the Spanish assaults. Although at the time Mexico didn't have a proper navy, on October 8, 1823, a blockade on San Juan de Ulúa was planned. Secretary of War and Navy José Joaquín de Herrera made a speech before the First Congress of Mexico expressing the urgency of acquiring more warships to blockade and attack the Spanish troops who occupied the fortress.

On January 28, 1825, General Francisco Lemaur was relieved of command of San Juan de Ulúa by José Coppinger. On July 27, 1825, the frigate captain Pedro Sainz de Baranda was appointed commander of the Navy in the port of Veracruz; he immediately began the reorganization of the squadron commissioned to blockade San Juan De Ulúa.

The blockade was successful, and compelled the Spanish forces, who received little aid from Havana, to surrender. Coppinger requested the suspension of hostilities and negotiations for the surrender of his forces. The fighting, begun on October 26, 1821, was concluded by the Mexican Navy when it defeated the last Spanish stronghold in Mexico on November 23, 1825.

Despite the victory of Mexico over the last Spanish bastion in Ulúa, Spain refused to recognize the Treaty of Córdoba and hence the independence of Mexico.

The Mexican government, led by Guadalupe Victoria, came to the conclusion that Spain, by its refusal to recognize the treaties, still posed a threat, and could use Cuba as a platform to launch a campaign to recover Mexico. Lucas Alamán, who was then the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, assessed the threat posed by the military forces stationed in Cuba to Mexico. Since 1824, Alaman had held the belief that Mexico should seize Cuba, arguing that "Cuba without Mexico is aimed at imperialist yoke; Mexico without Cuba is a prisoner of the Gulf of Mexico." He believed that the Mexican forces, with the support of foreign powers such as France or England (which had been the first European power to recognize the independence of Mexico on July 16, 1836), could overcome the Spanish in Cuba.

The United States insisted upon the retention of Cuba by the Spanish government. To advance its ambitions to control the island and to prevent Spanish reconquest of the mainland, the Mexican government employed Commodore David Porter of the United States to command the Mexican navy in an attack on the maritime lines of Spain patrolling the island of Cuba. This was an effort to protect the Mexican territorial sea and ensure the continued success of its independence movement on all fronts. Thus began patrols of the Mexican squadron in Spanish waters, which culminated in the unsuccessful Battle of Mariel on February 10, 1828, in which Porter commanded the brig "Guerrero", mounting 22 guns, and one of the finest vessels in the small Mexican Navy. Porter's son, midshipman David Dixon Porter, later a Union hero of the American Civil War, was slightly wounded. He was among the survivors who surrendered and were imprisoned in Havana until they could be exchanged. Commodore Porter chose not to risk his son again, and sent him back to the United States by way of New Orleans.

One year after the Battle of Mariel, there was a new attempt at reconquest by Spain, from Cuba, confirming the suspicions of the Mexican authorities. Spain appointed Gen. Isidro Barradas, who left the port with 3,586 soldiers with the name "Spearhead Division" and on July 5, went to Mexico. The fleet consisted of a flagship, called the "Sovereign", two frigates, two gunships and 15 transport ships, each commanded by Admiral Laborde.

On July 26, 1829, the fleet arrived in Cabo Rojo, near Tampico (State of Tamaulipas), and from there began its operations on 27 trying to land 750 troops and 25 boats. The expedition began their advance towards Tampico while the boats were moored at the Pánuco River. The Battle of Pueblo Viejo, which developed between 10 and September 11, 1829, marked the end of the Spanish conquest attempts in Mexico. General Isidro Barradas signed the capitulation of Pueblo Viejo, in the presence of generals Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Manuel de Mier y Terán, and Felipe de la Garza.

Finally On December 28, 1836, Spain recognized the independence of Mexico under the Santa María–Calatrava Treaty, signed in Madrid by the Mexican Commissioner Miguel Santa María and the Spanish state minister José María Calatrava. Mexico was the first former colony whose independence was recognized by Spain; the second was Ecuador on February 16, 1840.

When Mexico achieved independence from Spain, Arredondo offered on July 3, 1821 to swear fealty to the new government if he could retain his office as commandant general; his offer was rejected by the citizens of Satillo, and Agustín de Iturbide's "Plan de Iguala" for Mexican independence led to his removal from power. Arredondo is remembered in Texas history as a "butcher" because of his executions of republicans.
When Mexico achieved independence from Spain, Arredondo endorsed the Plan of Iguala and swore allegiance to the Republic of Mexico on July 3, 1821. He surrendered his command, went into retirement in Havana, Cuba, and died in 1837 shortly after Texas had gained its independence.

José Joaquín de Arredondo

José Joaquín de Arredondo y Mioño (also known as Jose Arredondo y Miono Pelegrin y Oceja) (1776–1837) was a 19th-century Spanish and Mexican soldier who served during the last two decades of Spanish rule in New Spain. He was military commandant of the Texas province during the first Texas revolutions against Spanish rule.

Jose de Arredondo was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1776 to Nicolás Antonio de Arredondo y Pelegrín and Josefa Rosa de Mioño. His father served as Governor of Cuba and as Viceroy of Buenos Aires.

Arredondo entered the Royal Spanish Guards as a cadet in 1787 and was detached for service in New Spain. In 1810 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and given the command of the infantry regiment of Vera Cruz. In 1811 he was made military commandant of Huasteca and governor of Nuevo Santander. Arredondo enforced a rigid interpretation of the Laws of War regarding guerrillas, partisans and insurgents. He applied his rules of warfare in proactive campaigns against Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's revolt of 1811 and the criollos revolts of 1813, taking part in Ignacio Elizondo's plot to capture Miguel Hidalgo. Arredondo was rewarded for his actions in suppressing the revolutionaries with an appointment as commandant of the eastern division of the Provincias Internas (comprising the provinces of Coahuila, Texas, Nuevo Santander and the New Kingdom of León); the region had a predominantly royalist population (see below), and the independence movement would not be supported by a majority of the population in those provinces until the late 1810s, after Servando Teresa de Mier's fight for Mexican independence.

As part of the New Kingdom of León, the area of Texas then called Tejas was a bulwark against the large-scale marauding attacks of hostile Indian nations such as the Apaches and the Comanches. Because of long-term hostility between the Indians and the Europeans in the area, much of the New Kingdom of León and Tejas had a population almost wholly European in origin, unlike other parts of New Spain. Spanish authorities supported the settlement of Tejas, the frontier of the Kingdom between Indian territory and the growing American nation. Thus, while the southern areas of the New Kingdom of León remained royalist, the northern areas were mostly ambivalent about supporting either the revolution or the royalist cause. This neutrality disappeared when independence fervor spread among the population following brutal suppression tactics by the Spanish colonial authorities and the threat of an even more absolutist government in the province.

In 1811, José Bernardo Maximiliano Gutiérrez de Lara, an idealistic mestizo blacksmith from Nuevo Santander, dedicated himself to the Hidalgo Independence movement. With his substantial contacts in the region and his personal militancy he received a commission as a Lt. Colonel in Hidalgo's Army of the Americas and traveled to Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia to enlist aid supporting his own goals for the independence movement in Texas. In Washington and Philadelphia he met Caribbean adventurer José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois who was wanted by Spanish authorities in Texas. Upon both his departure and then his return trip through the Neutral Ground on the Texas-Louisiana border, Gutiérrez was encouraged by numerous sympathetic factions who supported the revolutionary cause. In Natchitoches, which had a long-standing predominantly American settlement, he made plans to invade the rest of Texas from the east. He enjoined another adventurer and former US Army Lieutenant, Colonel Augustus William Magee, to carry out the mission in the field. William Shaler, later an American consul to Havana, Europe and Algiers, as well as a writer, was attached to Gutiérrez's expedition by the United States government to oversee the revolutionaries' invasion of Spanish Texas. Shaler, a friend of Secretary of State Robert Smith, had been appointed by President James Madison as a confidential agent; he advised Gutiérrez and Magee with the direct involvement of upper levels of the American government as high as Secretary of State James Monroe; officially, however, the United States maintained a stance of disapproving the invasion.

From their headquarters in the Neutral Ground, Gutiérrez and Magee openly advertised for revolutionary recruits from Louisiana and Texas for the "Republican Army of the North". They mustered them to participate in the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition and adopted a solid emerald green flag, thought to have been introduced by Colonel Magee, who was of Protestant Irish descent. Volunteers were offered forty dollars a month and a square league (4,428 acres) of to-be-captured land. From San Antonio the Texas governor, Manuel María de Salcedo, followed developments through his intelligence network and lobbied intensively for more aid from his superiors and comrades-in-arms south of the Rio Grande to prepare for the invasion and limit distribution of rebel propaganda. Governor Salcedo was treated condescendingly by his protocol-oriented and bureaucratic uncle, Commandant General Nemesio Salcedo.

On 12 August 1812, the Republican Army of the North, consisting of about 150 men, crossed the Sabine River and took Nacogdoches with little opposition. Capt. Bernardino Montero, the commander of Nacogdoches, was unable to recruit a single civilian militiaman for the royalist cause, as the majority of the province erupted in support of the fledgling independence movement. When he retreated toward San Antonio, all but ten of his soldiers deserted and joined the revolutionary army. By late fall the Republican Army of the North controlled the area between the Sabine and Guadalupe Rivers.

After receiving reinforcements and conducting negotiations, Salcedo and Lt. Governor Muñoz de Echavarria deployed along the Guadalupe River east of San Antonio to meet the invading Republican Army. Learning of this, Gutiérrez and Magee turned south down the Guadalupe River valley, proceeded to La Bahia where they took control without much resistance; soon after Gov. Salcedo began a prolonged siege of the Presidio La Bahia where the rebels were grouped. Neither side could budge the other, tying up the meager forces of both armies.

Following several weeks of attrition warfare, stalemate, and negotiations, Col. Magee died under uncertain circumstances, probably related to actions by Gutierrez, who didn't trust him. Meanwhile, Gov. Salcedo and Col. Simon Herrera had lifted the siege and returned to San Antonio, leading to a further loss of confidence among the royalists and more defections. The main Republican army, now commanded by Virginian Col. Samuel Kemper, who had taken over after Magee's death, and buttressed by more recruits from the Neutral Ground and allied coastal Lipan and Tonkawa Indians, had moved along the San Antonio River towards the capital city of San Antonio, where they defeated Col. Herrera's royalist forces at the Battle of Rosillo Creek (also known as the Battle of Rosalis or the Battle of Salado Creek). When the Republican Army moved toward San Antonio, Gov. Salcedo composed a twelve-point plan of honorable surrender and delivered it to Col. Gutiérrez, who was encamped at Mission Concepcion.

The terms of the surrender were refused by Guttierrez, who ordered the execution of Herrera and several other officers even as they dined with several of the Anglo-Tejano and American officers. Gutierrez then released all the other rebel prisoners, formed a provisional government with himself as governor, and organized a tribunal which found Salcedo and Herrera guilty of treason against the Hidalgo movement, condemning them to death. The Anglo officers protested the decision and endeavored to convince the self-appointed generalissimo and governor to spare them and send them either to prison in southern Mexico or to exile in Louisiana. Instead, the prisoners were placed under the escort of the Mexican rebel Capt. Antonio Delgado who summarily executed them along with 12 others and mutilated the corpses, leaving them lying at the site without burial; even going so far as to steal their belongings. Delgado returned to San Antonio, where he boasted of the butchery, which was announced publicly on the military parade grounds.

The brutal atrocity of these events sickened most of the Anglo-Tejano and American forces supporting the independence movement; all the Anglo officers and recruits were horrified, and a party of them rushed to the execution site and gave the victims a Christian burial. Subsequently, most of the Anglo-Tejano and American officers immediately abandoned the cause and returned to eastern Texas, Louisiana and further points east. Samuel Kemper, James Gaines, Warren D.C. Hall and others were so shocked they took furloughs and returned to Nacogdoches. Nonetheless, the appeals of Col. Miguel Menchaca and other Mexican leaders persuaded some to stay and continue fighting for the cause of Mexican independence.

On 6 April 1813, Gutiérrez declared the province of Texas independent of Spain and on 18 April proclaimed the first Constitution of Texas, which was more Centralist than Republican. This only further demoralized the remaining Anglo-Tejano and American volunteers, who provided the backbone of the army. The Republican Army of the North, through influence of the putatively independent state of Texas, now initiated its plans for full-scale independence and prepared to meet a counter-offensive from the south, where outrage over the execution of Salcedo and Herrera caused previously neutral criollo forces to join the loyalist troops.

To meet the threat represented by the recently separated province, the Spanish crown appointed General José Joaquín de Arredondo to command the Eastern and Western Divisions of the Provincias Internas. He quickly re-organized the royalist forces, appointed new officers, drilled his troops, and awaited for additional supplies while planning for a vast implementation of his counter-insurgency tactics. The anger of the royalist criollos toward the Gutierrez regime, however, was such that many wanted quick and violent retribution by marching toward San Antonio to capture and execute the first "President Protector of the State of Texas."

Consequently, Lt. Col. Ignacio Elizondo, a one-time rebel who had been repelled by the revolutionaries' dishonorable behavior and now fought for the royalists, organized a volunteer regiment of criollos in June. Against orders, he marched his force toward San Antonio to engage the Republican Army. On 16 June, the Republican Army, under an Anglo-Tejano called Henry Perry, met and routed Elizondo's forces, which suffered 400 men killed and many prisoners taken at the Battle of Alazan Creek outside San Antonio. He retreated to the Rio Grande, where he was reprimanded by Gen. Arredondo, who nevertheless joined forces with him.

Meanwhile, the high-handed methods of Gutierrez, the mistreatment of the Spanish loyalists, and the anti-Republican policies of the Gutierrez regime had resulted in a total loss of confidence in President Gutierrez amongst the Anglo-Tejano and American community. On 4 Aug 1813, Gutiérrez was deposed by these elements, who installed their chief propagandist, a formal naval officer and member of the Spanish Cortes from Santo Domingo, José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois.

With the Texas government paralyzed by these events, Arredondo launched his campaign. Arredondo now had about 1,800 troops in his army, buttressed with criollos who were provoked by the senseless slayings of Salcedo and his company. He immediately left for San Antonio de Bexar, resolved to apply his concepts of counter-insurgency warfare on the entire Tejano population. Heavily supplied for a long campaign, his army marched forth.

On Aug 18, 1813, under José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois the Army of the North and the Royal Spanish forces under Arredondo met in the four-hour-long Battle of Medina. The Spanish Army completely destroyed the 1,400-man Army of the North. Arredondo listed enemy casualties as 600 killed, and several hundred were captured. Arredondo summarily gathered the names of the captured men, executed the rank and file, and tortured the officers for further information and then executed them, and ordered their corpses or parts of their bodies hung in trees. No effort was made to bury the remains of the Republican Army's dead, which lay on the battlefield for nine years. He later revised the number to 1,000 killed. In San Antonio, he quickly rounded up the families of the Texian soldiers, and had some of them publicly executed in the plaza of San Antonio and their heads posted on the plaza's perimeter. He spent the next year pursuing the remaining rebel leaders, including the civilian leadership of the Texas Republic, sparing few, and destroying all of the farms, buildings, and mills of the province except for a few located in San Antonio and newly built citadels such as that near Goliad. The approximately 2,500 men killed in the Republican Army's campaign exceeded the total number of Texians killed during the entire Texas Revolution twenty-three years later in 1836, and the death or expulsion of at least 3,000 other Anglo-Tejano and American settlers resulted effectively in an ethnic cleansing of the entire province.

After his victories, Arredondo appointed Cristóbal Domínguez as interim governor, and having completing his assignment in Texas, returned south to Monterrey. He subsequently crushed the filibustering expedition of Francisco Javier Mina by overrunning his defenses at the village of Soto la Marina in October 1817. He remained the primary military commander of the Coahuila and Texas area for the next several years.

The utter crushing of the Texas province had removed the primary obstacle to the marauding Indian nations further north. Between 1817 and 1821, expeditions of Comanche and Apache Indians numbering several thousand penetrated deep into the provinces further south of Texas. Ravaged by the war of Independence and the subsequent Indian raids, the Kingdom of León fell backward in wealth and population, and along with the rest of Mexico essentially entered into a period of intense depression and anarchy.

Consequently, on January 17, 1821 General Arredondo approved the petition of Moses Austin to bring three hundred settlers into an area of in Texas. They were required officially to convert to Catholicism and provide arms and men for defending the routes into Mexico further south, although only one tenth of the settlers ever converted. Later, this settlement was expanded to encourage more emigration by Americans from the United States into northern Mexico.

In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain, annexing the southwest of the present United States, including Arizona. As missions began to wither, Mexico began auctioning off more land, causing the Pimería Alta and the Apachería to shrink as territory expanded. In the meantime, American mountain men began to enter the region, looking to trap beavers for their pelts. In 1836, Texas declared independence from Mexico and claimed much of the territory in the northern lands of Mexico. When the United States annexed Texas in 1846 over the strong objections of the Mexican government, U.S. troops moved into disputed territory. The hostilities erupted in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). The U.S. occupied Mexico City and forced the newly founded Mexican Republic to give up its northern half, including the later Arizona.

History of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States

The history of Latinos and Hispanics in the United States is wide-ranging, spanning more than four hundred years and varyingday United States, too. Hispanics (whether criollo or mestizo) became the first American citizens in the newly acquired Southwest territory after the Mexican–American War, and remained a majority in several states until the 20th century.

As late as 1783, at the end of the American Revolutionary War, Spain held claim to roughly half of today's continental United States. In the Treaty of Paris France ceded Louisiana (New France) to Spain from 1763 until it was returned in 1800 by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. In 1775, Spanish ships reached Alaska. From 1819 to 1848, the United States and its army increased the nation's area by roughly a third at Spanish and Mexican expense, gaining among others three of today's four most populous states: California, Texas and Florida.

The first confirmed landing in the continental US was by a Spaniard, Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 at a lush shore he christened "La Florida". Within three decades of Ponce de León's landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the East Coast, penetrating to present-day Bangor, Maine, and up the Pacific Coast as far as Oregon.

From 1528 to 1536, four castaways from a Spanish expedition, including a "black" Moor, journeyed all the way from Florida to the Gulf of California, 267 years before Lewis and Clark embarked on their much more renowned and far less arduous trek.

In 1540 Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration of the present US, developing expeditions in Georgia, The Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana; and in the same year Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Mexican Indians across today's Arizona–Mexico border. Coronado travelled as far as central Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of what is now the continental United States and he was the first European that saw the Canyon´s Colorado. Other Spanish explorers of the US make up a long list that includes among others, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de Narváez, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Gaspar de Portolà, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Tristán de Luna y Arellano and Juan de Oñate. In all, Spaniards probed half of today's lower 48 states before the first English colonization attempt (Roanoke Island, 1585).

The Spanish didn't just explore, they settled, creating the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States, at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. Santa Fe, New Mexico also predates Jamestown, Virginia (of Pocahontas fame, founded in 1607) and Plymouth Colony (of "Mayflower", Pilgrims and Thanksgiving fame). In 1566 Pedro Menendez established Fort San Felipe on Santa Elena- which is present day Parris Island near Beaufort South Carolina. The fort was part of the Spanish King’s ongoing effort to establish a “Window on the Atlantic”. Spain needed a presence on the east coast of America to provide protection for the Spanish treasure galleons traveling back to Europe. From Santa Elena inland explorations, led by Captain Juan Pardo, were conducted in an attempt to establish an overland route from Mexico to Santa Elena, avoiding the pirate and French threat in the Caribbean. By 1571 Menendez had brought settlers, including farmers and craftsmen, and his own family to the settlement. Santa Elena was now the first European capitol on the American mainland, with Mendez as Governor. Santa Elena was a functioning settlement for 21 years, ending when Spain consolidated its Florida colony to St. Augustine. Later came Spanish settlements in San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to name just a few. The Spanish even established a Jesuit mission in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay 37 years before the founding of Jamestown.

Two iconic American stories have Spanish antecedents, too. Almost 80 years before John Smith's alleged rescue by Pocahontas, a man by the name of Juan Ortiz told of his similar rescue from execution by an Indian girl. Spaniards also held a thanksgiving, 56 years before the Pilgrims, when they feasted near St. Augustine with Florida Indians, probably on stewed pork and garbanzo beans.

Spanish claims to Alaska and the west coast of North America date to the papal bull of 1493, and the Treaty of Tordesillas. In 1513, this claim was reinforced by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean, when he claimed all lands adjoining this ocean for the Spanish Crown. Spain only started to colonize the claimed territory north of present-day Mexico in the 18th century, when it settled the northern coast of Las Californias (California).
They also explored Washington, Oregon (whose name derives from the Spanish "Orejón", but could also derive from "Aragón", which is further reinforced by the participation of Aragon soldiers in the expedition), Idaho, Montana (whose name derives from the Spanish "Montaña" (mountain)), and Wyoming. Thus, the Spanish explorer Manuel Lisa, first settler of Nebraska, left St. Louis, Missouri to head northwest toward Montana, inaugurating the Oregon Trail. The Spanish moved since the Missouri to eastern Montana, and along the Yellowstone to western and southern Montana.

Between 1779 and 1783 several Spanish troops helped to the Americans in their fight against the British Crown´s troops in the American Revolutionary War. Also had some Spanish who participated in the American troops. Some of the Spanish who participated in the war stayed in the US. Maybe the more notable case was starred by Jorge Farragut, the Spanish lieutenant of the South Carolina Navy in the war. He settled in Mississippi and his son, David Farragut, excelled in the American Civil War. Other many Hispanics and Latinos emigrated also in the former British colonies in the eighteen century. So between end of this century and early of nineteenth century, emigrated people of origins such as the Spanish and Honduran to the United States (some Hondurans that emigrated to early of nineteenth, emigrated in 1820 fleeing the violence of the Honduran war independence).

According to the United States Census of 1790, which are the more ancients census realized in the United States, had 20,000 people of origin Hispanic and Latino living in the former British colonies in these year. However, the census Bureau estimated the origins of the population basing in the last names of the inhabitants of the area.

Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish conquistador, named Florida in honor of his discovery of the land on April 2, 1513, during Pascua Florida, a Spanish term for the Easter season. From that date forward, the land became known as "La Florida." (Juan Ponce de León may not have been the first European to reach Florida. At least one native that he encountered in Florida in 1513 could speak Spanish. Alternatively, the Spanish-speaking native could have been in contact with areas where Spanish settlements already existed, and Ponce de León was indeed the discoverer).

Over the following century, both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success. In 1559, Spanish Pensacola was established by Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano as the first European settlement in the continental United States, but it had become abandoned by 1561 and would not be reinhabited until the 1690s. French Huguenots founded Fort Caroline in modern-day Jacksonville in 1564, but this fort was conquered by forces from the new Spanish colony of St. Augustine the following year. After Huguenot leader Jean Ribault had learned of the new Spanish threat, he launched an expedition to sack the Spanish settlement; en route, however, severe storms at sea waylaid the expedition, which consisted of most of the colony's men, allowing St. Augustine founder Pedro Menéndez de Avilés time to march his men over land and conquer Fort Caroline. Most of the Huguenots were slaughtered, and Menéndez de Avilés marched south and captured the survivors of the wrecked French fleet, ordering all but a few Catholics executed beside a river subsequently called "Matanzas" (Spanish for 'killings'). When St. Augustine, Florida was established by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, and hundreds of Spanish-Cuban soldiers and their families moved from Cuba to St. Augustine to establish a new life in 1565. St. Augustine came to serve as the capitals of the British and Spanish colonies of East and West Florida, respectively. The Spanish never had a firm hold on Florida, and maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the local tribes, briefly with Jesuits and later with Franciscan friars. The local leaders (caciques) demonstrated their loyalty to the Spanish by converting to Roman Catholicism and welcoming the Franciscan priests into their villages.

The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English colonies to the north and French colonies to the west. The English weakened Spanish power in the area by supplying their Creek Indian allies with firearms and urging them to raid the Timucuan and Apalachee client-tribes of the Spanish. The English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times, while the citizens hid behind the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos. The Spanish, meanwhile, encouraged slaves to flee the English-held Carolinas and come to Florida, where they were converted to Roman Catholicism and given freedom. They settled in a buffer community north of St. Augustine, called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first completely black settlement in what would become the United States. Great Britain gained control of Florida diplomatically in 1763 through the Peace of Paris (the Castillo de San Marcos surrendered for the first time, having never been taken militarily). Britain tried to develop Florida through the importation of immigrants for labor, including some from Menorca and Greece, but this project ultimately failed. Spain regained Florida in the Treaty of Versailles (1783) after helping defeat Britain in the American Revolutionary War. Finally, in 1819, by terms of the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain ceded Florida to the United States in exchange for the American renunciation of any claims on Texas. On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States of America.

In 1763, France ceded Louisiana to Spain to compensate for the loss of Florida, which had been ceded to the British in 1763 after losing the war of the 7 years (Spain and France were allies). The Government of Louisiana lived in New Orleans, capital of Lower Louisiana, but had representatives (or "commandants") in Saint Louis, Missouri, capital of Upper Louisiana (also named Illinois Country) since that Louisiana was obtained by Spain. During the Louisiana´s Spanish period, many Spanish settlers emigrated to this region (such was the case of Manuel Lisa´s father (who was from Murcia, Spain), an explorer and fur trader), but the more known Spanish emigration during this period happened between 1778 and 1783, when the Governor of Louisiana Bernardo de Galvez recruited groups from the Canary Islands and Malaga´s Spanish regions and sent them to Louisiana in order to populate regions of New Orleans. So, more than 2,700 Canaries and 500 Malaga´s natives emigrated to Louisiana in these period. In 1800, Spain returned Louisiana to France, although it sell it to the U.S. in 1803. The descendants of Spanish settlers still living there.

The first European explorers, flying the flags of Spain, sailed along the coast of California from the early 16th to the mid-18th centuries, but no European settlements were established. The most important colonial power, Spain, focused attention on its imperial centers in Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines. Confident of Spanish claims to all lands touching the Pacific Ocean (including California), Spain simply sent an occasional exploring party sailing along the California coast. The California seen by these ship-bound explorers was one of hilly grasslands and forests, with few apparent resources or natural ports to attract colonists.

The other colonial states of the era, with their interest on more densely populated areas, paid limited attention to this distant part of the world. It was not until the middle of the 18th century, that both Russian and British explorers and fur-traders began encroaching on the margins of the area.

About 1530, Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán (President of New Spain) was told by an Indian slave of the Seven Cities of Cibola that had streets paved with gold and silver. About the same time, Hernán Cortés was attracted by stories of a wonderful country far to the northwest, populated by Amazonish women and abounding with gold, pearls, and gems. The Spaniards conjectured that these places may be one and the same.

An expedition in 1533 discovered a bay, most likely that of La Paz, before experiencing difficulties and returning. Cortés accompanied expeditions in 1534 and 1535 without finding the sought-after city.

On May 3, 1535, Cortés claimed "Santa Cruz Island" (now known as the peninsula of Baja California), and laid out and founded the city that was to become La Paz later that spring.

"Also: Island of California"

In July 1539, moved by the renewal of those stories, Cortés sent Francisco de Ulloa out with three small vessels. He made it to the mouth of the Colorado, then sailed around the peninsula as far as Cedros Island.

The account of this voyage marks the first recorded application of the name "California". It can be traced to the fifth volume of a chivalric romance, "Amadis de Gallia", arranged by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo and first printed around 1510, in which a character traveled through an island called "California".

The first European to explore the coast was João Rodrigues Cabrilho, a Portuguese navigator sailing for the Spanish Crown. In June, 1542 Cabrillo led an expedition in two ships from the west coast of what is now Mexico. He landed on September 28 at San Diego Bay, claiming what he thought was the Island of California for Spain.

Cabrillo and his crew landed on San Miguel, one of the Channel Islands, then continued north in an attempt to discover a supposed coastal route to the mainland of Asia. Cabrillo likely sailed as far north as Pt. Reyes (north of San Francisco), but died as the result of an accident during this voyage; the remainder of the expedition, which likely reached as far north as the Rogue River in today's southern Oregon was led by Bartolomé Ferrer.

In 1602, the Spaniard Sebastián Vizcaíno explored California's coastline as far north as Monterey Bay, where he put ashore. He ventured inland south along the coast, and recorded a visit to what is likely Carmel Bay. His major contributions to the state's history were the glowing reports of the Monterey area as an anchorage and as land suitable for settlement, as well as the detailed charts he made of the coastal waters (which were used for nearly 200 years).

During the last quarter of the 18th century, the first European settlements were established in California. Reacting to interest by Russia and possibly Great Britain in the fur-bearing animals of the Pacific coast, Spain created a series of Catholic missions, accompanied by troops and ranches, along the southern and central coast of California. These missions were intended to demonstrate the claim of the Spanish Crown to modern-day California.

The first quarter of the 19th century continued the slow colonization of the southern and central California coast by Spanish missionaries, ranchers, and troops. By 1820, Spanish influence was marked by the chain of missions reaching from San Diego to just north of today's San Francisco Bay area, and extended inland approximately 25 to 50 miles from the missions. Outside of this zone, perhaps 200,000 to 250,000 Native Americans were continuing to lead traditional lives. The Adams–Onís Treaty, signed in 1819 set the northern boundary of the Spanish claims at the 42nd parallel, effectively creating today's northern boundary of California.

Spain had maintained a number of missions and presidios in its richer lands (not including California) since 1493. The Spanish claims to the Northern provinces of New Spain, excluding Santa Fe in New Mexico, were essentially ignored for almost 250 years. It wasn't until the threat of an incursion by Russia coming down from Alaska in 1765, however, that King Charles III of Spain felt such installations were necessary in Upper ("Alta") California. By then the Spanish empire could only afford a minimal effort. Alta California was to be settled by Franciscan friars protected by a few troops in California Missions. Between 1774 and 1791, the Crown sent forth a number of small expeditions to further explore and settle California and possibly the Pacific Northwest.

In May 1768, the Spanish Visitor General, José de Gálvez, planned a four-prong expedition to settle Alta California, two by sea and two by land, which Gaspar de Portolà volunteered to command.

The Portolà land expedition arrived at the site of present-day San Diego on June 29, 1769, where it established the Presidio of San Diego. Eager to press on to Monterey Bay, de Portolà and his group, consisting of Juan Crespí, sixty-three leather-jacket soldiers and a hundred mules, headed north on July 14. They moved quickly, reaching the present-day sites of Los Angeles on August 2, Santa Monica on August 3, Santa Barbara on August 19, San Simeon on September 13 and the mouth of the Salinas River on Octob. Although they were looking for Monterey Bay, the group failed to recognize it when they reached it.

On October 31, de Portolà's explorers became the first Europeans known to view San Francisco Bay. Ironically, the Manila Galleons had sailed along this coast for almost 200 years by then. The group returned to San Diego in 1770.

Junípero Serra was a Majorcan (Spain) Franciscan who founded the Alta California mission chain. After King Carlos III ordered the Jesuits expelled from "New Spain" on February 3, 1768, Serra was named "Father Presidente."

Serra founded San Diego de Alcalá in 1769. Later that year, Serra, Governor de Portolà and a small group of men moved north, up the Pacific Coast. They reached Monterey in 1770, where Serra founded the second Alta California mission, San Carlos Borromeo.

The California Missions comprise a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholic Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans, to spread the Christian doctrine among the local Native Americans, but with the added benefit of confirming historic Spanish claims to the area. The missions introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables, and industry into the California region.

Most missions were small, with normally two Franciscans and six to eight soldiers in residence. All of these buildings were built largely with unpaid native labor under Franciscan supervision. In addition to the "presidio" (royal fort) and "pueblo" (town), the "misión" was one of the three major agencies employed by the Spanish crown in an attempt to consolidate its colonial territories. None of these missions were completely self-supporting, requiring continued (albeit modest) financial support. Starting with the onset of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810, this support largely disappeared and the missions and their converts were left on their own.

In order to facilitate overland travel, the mission settlements were situated approximately 30 miles (48 kilometers) apart, so that they were separated by one day's long ride on horseback along the 600-mile (966-kilometer) long El Camino Real (Spanish for "The Royal Highway", though often referred to as "The King's Highway"), and also known as the "California Mission Trail". Heavy freight movement was practical only via water. Tradition has it that the priests sprinkled mustard seeds along the trail in order to mark it with bright yellow flowers.

Four presidios, strategically placed along the California coast and organized into separate military districts, served to protect the missions and other Spanish settlements in Upper California.

A number of mission structures survive today or have been rebuilt, and many have congregations established since the beginning of the 20th century. The highway and missions have become for many a romantic symbol of an idyllic and peaceful past. The "Mission Revival Style" was an architectural movement that drew its inspiration from this idealized view of California's past.

The Spanish (and later the Mexicans) encouraged settlement with large land grants which were turned into ranchos, where cattle and sheep were raised. Cow hides (at roughly $1 each) and fat (known as tallow, used to make candles as well as soaps) were the primary exports of California until the mid-19th century. The owners of these ranchos styled themselves after the landed gentry in Spain. Their workers included some Native Americans who had learned to speak Spanish and ride horses.

Substantial changes occurred during the second quarter of the 19th century. Mexican independence from Spain in 1821 marked the end of European rule in California; the missions faded in importance under Mexican control while ranching and trade increased. By the mid-1840s, the increased presence of White Americans made the northern part of the state diverge from southern California, where the Spanish-speaking "Californios" dominated.

By 1846, California had a Spanish-speaking population of under 10,000, tiny even compared to the sparse population of states in Mexico proper. The ""Californios"", as they were known, consisted of about 800 families, mostly concentrated on a few large ranchos. About 1,300 White Americans and a very mixed group of about 500 Europeans, scattered mostly from Monterey to Sacramento dominated trading as the Californios dominated ranching. In terms of adult males, the two groups were about equal, but the Americans were more recent arrivals.

The Mexican Congress passed "An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California" on August 17, 1833. Mission San Juan Capistrano was the very first to feel the effects of this legislation the following year. The Franciscans soon thereafter abandoned the missions, taking with them most everything of value, after which the locals typically plundered the mission buildings for construction materials.By 1846, the province had a non-Native American population of about 1500 Californio adult men (with about 6500 women and children), who lived mostly in the southern half. About 2,000 recent immigrants (almost all adult men) lived mostly in the northern half of California.

Most of the colonists left Arizona after Juan Bautista de Anza announced that the area was not rich in raw material; however, several settlers stayed and became subsistence farmers. During the mid-18th century, the pioneers of Arizona attempted expand their territory northward, but were prevented from doing so by the Tohono O'odham and Apache Native Americans, who had begun raiding their villages for livestock.

In 1765, Charles III of Spain doing a major rearranging of the presidios (military fortresses) on the northern frontier. The Jesuits were expelled from the area, and the Franciscans took their place at their missions. In the 1780s and 1790s, the Spanish began a plan of setting up Apache peace camps and providing the Apache with rations so that they would not attack, allowing the Spanish to expand northward.

The settlement began on July 11, 1598 the Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate came north from Mexico to New Mexico with 500 Spanish settlers and soldiers and a livestock formed by 7,000 animals. They founded "San Juan de los Caballeros", the first Spanish settlement in New Mexico. Onate also conquered the territories of Puebloan peoples and he became the first governor of New Mexico. 12 years later, the Pueblo Indian revolt forced the flight of the settlers and their descendants in New Mexico, but they returned to the province in 1692, when Diego de Vargas became the new governor of New Mexico. At that time, New Mexico was under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia of Guadalajara and belonging to the Viceroyalty of New Spain. However, with the creation in 1777 of the Commandancy General of the Provinces was included only in the jurisdiction of the Commandant-General. The mainland part of New Spain won independence from Spain in 1821 and in 1824 joined New Mexico to Mexico, belonging to same country.

Alonso Alvarez de Pineda claimed Texas for Spain in 1519. The main unifying factor for these separate regions was their shared responsibility of defending the Tejas frontier. The first Tejano settlers were 15 families from the Canary Islands arrived in 1731. Their family units were among the first to settle at the Presidio of San Antonio. Soon after, they established the first civil government in Texas at La Villa de San Fernando.
The Nacogdoches settlement was located in the North Texas region. Tejanos from Nacogdoches traded with the French and Anglo residents of Louisiana, and were culturally influenced by them. The third settlement was located North of the Rio Grande toward the Nueces River. These Southern ranchers were citizens of Spanish origin from Tamaulipas and Northern Mexico, and identified with both Spanish and Mexican culture. 1821, Agustin de Iturbide launched a drive for Mexican Independence. Texas became a part of the newly independent nation without a shot being fired.

In 1821 at the end of the Mexican War of Independence, there were about 4,000 Tejanos living in what is now the state of Texas alongside a lesser number of immigrants. In the 1820s many settlers from the United States and other nations moved to Texas from the United States. By 1830, the 30,000 settlers in Texas outnumbered the Tejanos six to one. The Texians and Tejanos alike rebelled against the attempts of centralist authority of Mexico City and the measures implemented by Santa Anna. Tensions between the central Mexican government and the settlers eventually led to the Texas Revolution. After the revolution, many were dismayed by the treatments they received at the hands of Texians/Anglos, who suspected and accused the Tejanos of sabotage and of aiding Santa Anna.

When war was declared on May 13, 1846 between the United States and Mexico, it took almost two months (mid-July 1846) for definite word of war to get to California. Units from the U.S.Army and Navy were poised to invade, and easily captured California against scattered resistance. Within days they controlled San Francisco, Sonoma, and Sutter's Fort in Sacramento as Mexican General Castro and Governor Pio Pico fled from Los Angeles.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, marked the end of the Mexican–American War. In that treaty, the United States agreed to pay Mexico $18,250,000; Mexico formally ceded California (and other northern territories) to the United States, and a new international boundary was drawn; San Diego Bay is the only natural harbor in California south of San Francisco, and to claim all this strategic water, the border was slanted to include it. About 10,000 Californios of Spanish descent lived in California, nearly all in the south. They were granted full American citizenship and voting rights. However the California Gold Rush, in the north, brought in over 100,000 men who far outnumbered the resident Californios. California became a state in 1850. Moreover, although the United States had promised to respect Mexican American property rights, the financial stability of the original Californio-Mexican residents decreased substantially due to elevated land values in the late 1860s and 1870s, high-interest loans and taxes, all of which contributed to widespread property loss and marginalization.
The Mexican–American War, followed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, extended U.S. control over a wide range of territory once held by Spain and later Mexico, including the present day states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California. The vast majority of Hispanic populations chose to stay and become full US citizens. Although the treaty promised that the landowners in this newly acquired territory would enjoy full enjoyment and protection of their property as if they were citizens of the United States, many former citizens of Mexico lost their land in lawsuits before state and federal courts or as a result of legislation passed after the treaty. Even those statutes intended to protect the owners of property at the time of the extension of the United States' borders, such as the 1851 California Land Act, had the effect of dispossessing Californio owners ruined by the cost of maintaining litigation over land titles for years.

The loss of property rights in New Mexico created a largely landless population that resented the powers that had taken their land. After the Santa Fe Ring succeeded in dispossessing thousands of landholders in New Mexico, groups such as Las Gorras Blancas tore down fences or burned down interlopers' farm buildings. In western Texas the political struggle even sparked an armed conflict in which the Tejano majority briefly forced the surrender of the Texas Rangers, but in the end lost much of their previous influence, offices, and economic opportunities.

In other areas, particularly California, the settled Hispanic residents were simply overwhelmed by the large number of Anglo settlers who rushed in, first in Northern California as a result of the California Gold Rush, then decades later by the boom in Southern California. Many Anglo 49ers turned to farming and moved, often illegally, onto the land granted to Californios by the old Mexican government.

During the California Gold Rush, at least 25,000 Mexicans, as well thousands of Chileans, Peruvians, and other Latin Americans immigrated to California. Many of these Hispanics were experienced miners and had great success mining gold in California. Many of these new Americans eventually rose to prominence within larger California society. However, in other cases, their initial success aroused animosity by rival groups of Anglo prospectors, who often intimidated Hispanic miners with the threat of violence and even committed violence against some. Consistent with the predominant racial attitudes of 19th century America, Anglo miners often drove Hispanic miners out of their camps, and barred Hispanics, along with Irish, Chinese, and other traditionally "non-Anglo" groups, from testifying in court and generally imposed exclusionary standards similar to Jim Crow laws in the case of African-Americans. Between 1848 and 1860, at least 163 Mexicans were lynched in California alone.

In addition to California, many Mexicans immigrated to other places of Southwest (mainly Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) since 1852. Also some Colombians, Paraguayans (who emigrated to the United States since 1841) and Cubans emigrated to the United States during the nineteenth. The more numerous were the Cubans. 100,000 Cubans (belonging to all social and racial groups) emigrated to the United States (mostly to Florida) during this period.

Despite integration, Hispanic Americans managed to retain their culture. They were most successful in those areas where they had retained some measure of political or economic power, where Jim Crow laws imposed a forced isolation or where they made up a significant percentage of the community.

Following the Spanish–American War, in 1898 Spain ceded Puerto Rico and Cuba to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. Cuba gained independence from the United States in 1902 and Puerto Rico became a commonwealth of the United States in 1917, so that Puerto Ricans were able to emigrate to the United States easily because of their American citizenship. During the 20th century many Hispanic immigrants came to United States fleeing the poverty, violence, and dictatorial regimes of Latin America and emigrated mainly to Southwest, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Florida, although the Hispanics and Latinos emigrated through the country. Most Hispanics who immigrate to the United States are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Salvadorans. There are currently over a million descendants of the last four groups in the United States. Throughout the twentieth century, the Hispanic population has been characterized by a high population growth, both for the emigration and the birth rate.

The Treaty of Córdoba established Mexican independence from Spain at the conclusion of the Mexican War of Independence. It was signed on August 24, 1821 in Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexico. The signatories were the head of the Army of the Three Guarantees, Agustín de Iturbide, and, acting on behalf of the Spanish government, "Jefe Político Superior" Juan O'Donojú. The treaty has 17 articles, which developed the proposals of the Plan of Iguala. The Treaty is the first document in which Spanish (without authorization) and Mexican officials accept the liberty of what will become the First Mexican Empire, but it is not today recognized as the foundational moment, since these ideas are often attributed to the Grito de Dolores (September 16, 1810). The treaty was rejected by the Spanish government. Spain did not recognize Mexico's independence until December 1836.

Treaty of Córdoba

In the treaty, New Spain is recognized as an independent empire, which is defined as "monarchical, constitutional and moderate." The crown of the Mexican Empire was offered first to Ferdinand VII of Spain. Should he not present himself in Mexico within the time to be determined by the Mexican Cortes (parliament) to take the oath of office, the crown would then be offered in sequence to his brothers, the Infantes Carlos and Francisco, and cousin, Archduke Charles or another individual of a royal house, whom the Cortes would determine. In the case that none of these accept the crown (as indeed did happen), the treaty then established that Cortes could designate a new king without specifying if the person needed to belong to a European royal house.

The idea in this last clause had not been considered in the Plan of Iguala, and was added by Iturbide to leave open the possibility of his taking the crown. At the same time, O'Donojú, as captain general and "jefe político superior", had no authority to sign such a treaty, but was interested in preserving Mexico for the Spanish royal family, and probably signed without considering that Iturbide might have designs on the crown.

On September 27, 1821, the Army of the Three Guarantees entered triumphantly into Mexico City and on the following day, the Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire was widely known. The Spanish Cortes refused to accept the validity of the Plan of Iguala or the Treaty of Córdoba. Spain did not recognize Mexico's independence until December 1836. Therefore, the Mexican Congress elected a Mexican monarch the following year. Iturbide was proclaimed emperor of Mexico on May 18, 1822. The monarchy lasted three years, and after the republican revolution of Casa Mata, the Congress no longer considered the Plan of Iguala or Treaty of Córdoba in effect.