Dolores Hidalgo

Oct. 22, 2007

Sooner or later we had to get to Dolores Hidalgo, the cradle of independence where Padre Miguel Hidalgo on September 16, 1810 rang the bells of the church you see here and proclaimed an end to bad government and the beginning of New Spain's struggle against the mother country. Each year at 11 PM on September 15, this Grito is repeated across Mexico. Here in the DF the event takes place in the Zócalo, where the president does the honors. This year, however, President Felipe Calderón's Grito was preceded by that of his rival in the 2006 elections, López Obrador, who still claims to be the legitimate president. So the fireworks between these two factions heated up the Zócalo before the spectacular Independence fireworks that closed the ceremonies.

We stopped by Dolores Hidalgo on our way to the Festival Cervantino in Guanajuato last weekend to see the heroic, hopeful beginning of the War for Independence. (OK, our second motivation was to check out the Talavera pottery made there.) And later, at the Alhóndiga de Granaditas (the old granary) in Guanajuato, we saw the place where for several years the Spanish displayed the heads of four of the rebel leaders, including Hidalgo's.