The Hidalgo Revolt was a 1810 uprising led by the priest Father Miguel Hidalgo whose course shaped elite opposition to both constitutional reform and independence in Mexico. After Hidalgo’s forces sacked Guanajuato and killed its senior colonial official, they began killing white residents indiscriminately; the revolt thus appeared to local elites less as a movement for independence than as class or ethnic warfare, uniting them against popular participation in politics.

Background and Course

The revolt unfolded amid the crisis caused by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and the collapse of Spanish authority. As disputes spread over whether to recognize the Junta Central, Latin Americans began forming their own governing juntas, and the possibility of independence came into view. The first declaration, in La Paz in 1809, was quickly suppressed by Spanish troops sent from Peru. In Mexico, meanwhile, elite political attitudes had been shaped by Hidalgo’s uprising in 1810.

On September 23, Hidalgo’s army sacked Guanajuato, killed the intendant, the senior colonial official there, and then began killing white people indiscriminately. The book emphasizes the consequences of this course for how the revolt was understood: it looked more like class or ethnic warfare than an independence movement. The violence therefore did not draw Mexican elites toward a broader struggle against Spain; it helped consolidate their opposition to political change that might include popular participation.

Elite Opposition and Constitutional Change

The Cádiz Constitution, produced by the Cortes in 1812, proposed a constitutional monarchy based on popular sovereignty, the end of special privileges, and equality before the law. These measures threatened an order shaped by the encomienda, forced labor, and authority concentrated in colonial elites and the state. In the aftermath of the Hidalgo Revolt, Mexican elites regarded the constitution with particular skepticism: if independence opened politics to ordinary people, they opposed it, not only Spanish rule.

The sequence later turned on renewed constitutional pressure. Ferdinand VII abrogated the Cádiz Constitution after returning to power in 1815. In 1820, however, an army assembled to sail to the Americas mutinied against him, prompting the king to restore the constitution and recall the Cortes. This Cortes proposed abolishing all forms of labor coercion and challenged special privileges, including the military’s right to try crimes in its own courts. Faced with the prospect of the more radical constitution being imposed in Mexico, the elites chose to declare independence rather than accept it. The revolt’s significance thus lies partly in the reaction it helped produce: fear of popular politics made elite opposition to constitutional reform a force in the eventual break with Spain.

Significance in the Book’s Argument

The book presents the revolt as an example of how political outcomes emerge from conflict rather than following an inevitable route. The wider argument is that critical junctures can unsettle existing balances of power, but their outcomes depend on the institutions and social forces already in place. The Hidalgo Revolt shows that an uprising associated with independence could also strengthen elite resistance to inclusive politics when its course seemed to threaten established groups.

This distinction between mobilization and lasting empowerment recurs in the book’s discussion of later political change. It contrasts the revolt’s effect on Mexican elites with Brazil’s labor movement and social coalitions in the 1970s, which helped build grassroots participation and support a transition to democracy. In the broader account, a revolt or crisis does not by itself guarantee pluralism: the decisive question is whether political conflict weakens elite control and broadens participation, or instead unites elites against it.