As governor, Hidalgo's former host had constructed an imposing stone building to serve as the city's alhóndiga, or granary. Located in the center of town, the two-story rectangular structure was built, fortresslike, around a central patio with a water well. The exterior was plain, except for three horizontal rows of small square windows evenly spaced about three yards apart. Each window marked the head of a grain bin, 50 of which opened off the lower and upper loggias in the courtyard. To facilitate making a stand against the rebel forces, Riaño fortified the alhóndiga, his regiment digging moats and erecting barricades in surrounding streets. With food stores sent in and the convenient well, he hoped to withstand a lengthy siege.

Very worried, he sent a fast courier to General Calleja in San Luis Potosí. 'My Most Esteemed Friend and Commander: I write you in an hour of dire necessity…Spies inform me Hidalgo's forces are now twenty-thousand strong….I am prepared to resist as best I can because I am an honorable man. [But] I beg you, my friend, in the name of God, to hasten to my aid: we can hope for no other succor short of a miracle!'

The governor ordered all the city's tax monies and administrative records stored safely inside the granary. Mine owners lugged in heavy bars of silver, then hastily buried costly heirlooms, family jewels and silver service deep in the golden grain of the bins. Both Riaño and Calleja knew the city itself was not defendable, since it was situated in bowl-shaped terrain with treeless hills ringing it on every side. Citizens boarded up windows and barred their doors, locking themselves inside to pray for deliverance. Above the town, the mines lay idle and abandoned. Mine workers watched from the hilltops. They knew the city's wealth exceeded 20 kings' ransoms, and if the rebels took it, the workers wanted first crack at the plunder.

As September 28 dawned, the town braced itself for the dreaded invasion, all eyes on the alhóndiga. Inside was the town regiment and all the civilian volunteers Riaño could muster and arm–a courageous but hopelessly outnumbered force of less than 500 men against an expected 20,000. In the early morning, final word came to Riaño from Hidalgo, now at the edge of town: 'Your Honor will be pleased to tell the Spaniards…with you in the alhóndiga that…if they do not obey my demand to surrender, I shall use every means to destroy them, leaving no hope of mercy or quarter.' When the governor relayed this message to his men, Spaniards and Creoles shouted as one, 'Victory or death, long live the king!' Back inside his command post, Riaño turned to an aide, tears in his eyes, and asked, 'Whatever is to become of my poor, dear child of Guanajuato?'

At noon Allende's regimental cavalry appeared and charged the alhóndiga. Repelled by a withering volley from the barricades, they broke down the doors of nearby homes whose flat rooftops overlooked the granary. Riaño hurried out to rally those manning the barricades, then raced back to re-enter the granary by a side door. A rooftop sharpshooter cut him down with a single bullet to the brain.

Inside the granary, their leader's death caused horror, but the defenders maintained a murderous fire and rained down deadly homemade grenades on the leaderless tide of Indians now engulfing the outer walls. Those in the forefront who tried to escape by turning back were driven forward by pressure from those behind. Rebel trod on rebel, dead or alive, but there were thousands more to replace those who fell. A group of Indians, farther away, released a blizzard of stones with slingshots, driving defenders on the granary roof inside. Meanwhile, Allende's men occupied a strategic hill above the alhóndiga and the riverbed below, supplying the slingers with stones. Hidalgo, having commandeered Royalist barracks, sipped hot chocolate while the battle raged.

From their windows, civilians saw the Indian horde torch the granary's wooden doors, smash them in and then, howling in triumph, race inside. The few defenders who survived the ensuing bloodbath were stripped and paraded through the streets. Riaño's naked body was hoisted up on a flagpole and exposed to public view for two days. At nightfall the sack of the city began, a drunken orgy of rape and looting, lasting well into the next day. Some women escaped by fleeing from rooftop to rooftop, many with infants in their arms. Mines and costly mining machinery were systematically wrecked, some so extensively that they remained inoperable for years. Horrified by the chaos, Allende denounced Hidalgo publicly for indulging his unruly, rampaging Indian rebels. Hidalgo retorted in front of his men–a slight Allende would not forget.

In mid-October, after having feverishly hammered groups of inexperienced recruits into a semblance of disciplined fighting units, General Félix Calleja marched this army out of San Luis Potosí–3,000 cavalry, 600 infantry and four cannons. When Calleja had first received Riaño's eleventh hour plea, he had to face the incontrovertible fact that his own small existing force would have been cut to pieces, along with Riaño's 500. He had had to swallow the grief and bitterness of abandoning his trusted friend to his fate, then set himself to the daunting task of building a military machine capable of destroying Hidalgo.

Meanwhile, flushed with victory, Hidalgo led his Indian horde toward Mexico City, many dressed in fine silks and velvets and lugging stolen carpets, wrought-iron window rejas (barred grillwork) and doors. Near the end of October, Allende positioned his small army in the mountain pass of Las Cruces, 30 miles west of the city. In the distance shone the bright, multitowered capital, the richest jewel in the Spanish colony's crown. Magnificent stone mansions and public buildings, shops, the mint, the viceregal palace, 2,000 coaches and hundreds of richly adorned churches, monasteries, convents and libraries were all waiting to be plundered. With a horde of 80,000 at the city gates and only 2,500 troops to defend them, the people of Mexico City were in a state of panic.

At Las Cruces, the Royalist defenders of the city fought furiously. Among Hidalgo's vast following, scarcely 1,000 had firearms, but weaponless and naïve Indians clambered fearlessly up steep hillsides to cover the mouths of cannons with their own straw sombreros, believing these would stop the deadly cannonballs from coming out. In two days and nights of savage combat, the carnage on both sides was horrible. Of the 2,500 Royalists, a mere 200 survivors straggled back to the capital to await the invasion.

Then, for some reason which neither Hidalgo nor Allende ever explained to anyone, no invasion followed. For two days they made an effort to negotiate with the commander of Mexico City's defenders, but he refused to talk or surrender. Some believe Hidalgo panicked, thinking Calleja–whom he greatly feared and whose whereabouts were unknown–might catch up to him unexpectedly. For whatever reason, he ordered his forces out of Las Cruces and turned them west toward Valladolid (now Morelia) in Michoacán.

Valladolid was the cathedral city of Bishop-elect Abad y Quiepo. Enraged that the prelate, reacting to Hidalgo's rebellion, had put him and his followers under an edict of excommunication, Hidalgo vowed to take him hostage, but Quiepo had already fled. An increasingly exasperated Allende panicked, and tried to assassinate Hidalgo by poisoning his wine, but the wily priest made his suspicions of Allende known by employing a taster.

The rebels moved on to Guadalajara, with Calleja in hot pursuit. Finally forced to make a stand, Allende dug in on the bank of the Calderón River with a steep bluff at his back and the river serving as a moat before him. The position was impregnable except by open attack across a grassy plain separating the armies. Spies informed Calleja that the rebels had 6,000 cavalry, but only 600 muskets, and 5,000 infantry-archers. The remaining members of Hidalgo's 80,000-man army carried lances, machetes or slings. Against Allende's military advice, Hidalgo deployed his infantry in cumbersome divisions of 1,000 men each. On the fateful morning of January 16, 1811, a puffed-up Hidalgo told his followers, 'I'll breakfast in Guadalajara, dine at the Bridge of Calderón and sup in Mexico City!'

Calleja divided his forces into three groups. General Flon would attack the rebels' left flank while a crack cavalry troop engaged their right. Calleja positioned himself in the center, poised to support either wing. As the Royalists charged across the open plain, a naked assault on a nearly unassailable position, rebel cavalry drove back Flon's attack against a strong enemy battery. Seeing Flon overwhelmed, Calleja hurled his reserves, supported by 10 artillery pieces, at the rebels' countercharge.

At that moment, Royalist artillery fire struck a loaded rebel ammunition wagon. It went up in a stupendous explosion, igniting the dry winter grass of the plain. Panic-stricken Indians scattered in a universal rout. Seizing the fortunes of battle, Calleja stormed the cliffs behind the rebel entrenchment, driving the enemy from the field. At Calderón, Calleja finally broke the back of Hidalgo's revolt.

With his sense of military honor outraged, Allende paused long enough in flight to strip Hidalgo of command, and the priest traveled on as his prisoner. The new commander hurried north to cross into the United States, convinced he could get financial aid, arms and diplomatic recognition from President James Madison, and bring 30,000 Yankee mercenaries back with him to Mexico. But there were rebel officers who bore professional grudges against Allende, believing he had denied them deserved promotions. One former Royalist regimental, a double turncoat, betrayed him.

On March 21, 1811, as the column of 14 coaches and 1,000 Allende followers neared the border, the traitor arranged for their ambush by telling Allende an 'honor guard' awaited him ahead at the Wells of Beltran. When Allende's coach stopped to water his horses and his men, a Royalist pulled open the door, pistol in hand, and cried, 'I order you to surrender in the name of the king!' Hidalgo, riding in a different section of the procession, was also taken prisoner soon after.

Following a trial, the key conspirators were convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad. Hidalgo was the last to die. He said he regretted the 'rivers of blood' he had unleashed, and admitted, 'None of us thought anything of sacrificing what others had legitimately earned or inherited.' But remorse for widows and orphans was one thing–recanting his sacred cause of independence from Spain and freedom for the poorest in the colony was another. To his final breath he swore he was destined to do exactly what he had done.

Antonio Riaño died at the alhóndiga. Calleja became viceroy, but later, embittered and traumatized by the revolt, retired to Spain. Proud Allende, convicted as a traitorous soldier, suffered the indignity of being shot in the back by his executioners.

The prelate Abad y Quiepo endured perhaps the cruelest martyrdom. With Ferdinand VII restored to the Spanish throne, Quiepo traveled to Madrid to report details of the revolt–whereupon that vengeful monarch accused him of inciting the revolt with his support for radical social reforms and ordered him incarcerated for life in a remote convento in Spain. The Hidalgo revolt began as opéra bouffe, but for five of its principal figures, it ended as tragedy.

---

This article was written by Diana Serra Cary and originally published in the October 2000 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

Pages: 1 2