Explore The Bajío
Fifty kilometres or so from both Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Higaldo is as ancient and as historically rich as either of its southern neighbours. This was Father Hidalgo’s parish, and it was from the church in the main plaza here that the historic Grito de la Independencia (“Cry of Independence”) was first issued in 1810. The town celebrates the event annually with the Fiestas de Septiembre, ten days of cultural and sporting events, music and fireworks, culminating with the Grito around dawn on the sixteenth.
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The Grito de la Independencia
The Grito de la Independencia
On the night of September 15, 1810, Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and some of his fellow leaders of the Independence movement, warned by messengers from Querétaro that their intention to raise a rebellion against Spanish rule had been discovered, decided to bring their plans forward. At dawn on September 16, Hidalgo, tolling the church bell, called his parishioners together and addressed them from the balcony of the church with an impassioned speech ending in the Grito de la Independencia, “¡Mexicanos, Viva México!” This cry is now repeated every year by the president in Mexico City and by politicians all over the country at midnight on September 15, as the starting point for Independence Day celebrations. September 16 remains the one day of the year when the bell in Dolores Hidalgo’s parish church is rung; however, the bell in place today is a copy of the original, which was either melted down for munitions or hangs in the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, depending on which story you believe.
