1810 Was the Beginning, Not the Finish: Mexico’s Eleven-Year Independence Struggle

A bell makes a powerful beginning. It does not explain eleven years of war, political change, defeat, survival, negotiation, and the complicated birth of a new country.

We remember beginnings because they are easier to tell

A bell rings. A priest calls people into revolt. A date goes into every schoolbook: September 16, 1810.

It is a clean opening scene. The problem is that independence did not arrive with the sunrise.

Mexico’s break from Spanish rule was a long and changing process. Historian Roberto Breña describes the period from 1808 to 1821 as politically complex: what began amid a crisis of the Spanish monarchy did not start as one unified independence project, changed character over time, and ultimately reached independence through a very different political arrangement than the early insurgents imagined.

The movement changed when its leaders changed

Hidalgo’s insurgency exploded quickly and violently. After his defeat and execution, José María Morelos carried the struggle into a more organized political phase, including a congress and formal declarations. After Morelos was executed in 1815, resistance did not disappear, but it became more regional and fragmented. Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria were among those who sustained armed opposition.

By 1820 and 1821, the political context changed again—this time on both sides of the Atlantic. Liberal constitutional change in Spain unsettled elites in New Spain. Agustín de Iturbide, previously a royalist officer, negotiated with Guerrero and promoted the Plan of Iguala. Former enemies converged inside the Ejército Trigarante.

September 27, 1821

On September 27, 1821, the Army of the Three Guarantees entered Mexico City. The next day, an Act of Independence was signed. That is the point Mexican official history commonly calls the consumación de la Independencia.

But even that clean ending needs a little humility. Research on the regional process shows that independence did not unfold identically across every part of the former viceroyalty. Political authority, allegiance, and the timing of independence varied by region.

Why the longer timeline matters

When we compress eleven years into one heroic morning, we lose the politics. We lose the changes in leadership. We lose the fact that independence was not one coherent movement marching in a straight line toward a predetermined ending.

And maybe more importantly, we lose a useful lesson about history itself: big social changes are rarely one moment. They are coalitions, ruptures, reversals, arguments, survival, and new arrangements that nobody at the beginning could fully predict.

For a heritage audience, that is not less inspiring. It is more human.

September 16 deserves the celebration. But add 1821 to the mental map. Hidalgo is the beginning of the story we commemorate—not the last page.

CTA: Save the 1810→1821 visual. If your history class stopped at Hidalgo, this is the timeline to keep.

Sources & further reading:

Breña, Roberto. 2020. “From Emancipation to Independence: New Spain/Mexico, 1808–1821.” In The Oxford Handbook of Mexican History. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190699192.013.9.

Frasquet, Ivana, and Josep Escrig Rosa. 2021. “Los rostros de la revolución. Ideas y proyectos políticos en el México independiente (1821–1822).” Signos Históricos 23(46): 154–201.

Secretaría de Cultura / INEHRM. 2021. “El INEHRM conmemora la consumación de la Independencia de México.” Gobierno de México.

Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional. 2025. “27 de septiembre de 1821, Consumación de la Independencia de México.” Gobierno de México.