José María Morelos

The Reverend José María Morelos
Portrait of Morelos, c. 1812 Portrait of Morelos, c. 1812
President of the Supreme Mexican Government
In office 24 October 1814 – 5 November 1815
Preceded by	Post established
Succeeded by	Ignacio Alas
Chief of the Congress of Anáhuac
In office 15 September 1813 – 24 October 1814
Preceded by	Post established
Succeeded by	Himself as president under the Constitution of Apatzingan
Member of the Council of Zitacuaro
In office 19 August 1811 – 15 September 1813
Personal details
Born	30 September 1765 Valladolid, Michoacán, New Spain
Died	22 December 1815 (aged 50) San Cristóbal Ecatepec, State of México
Cause of death	Firing squad
Resting place	Angel of Independence, Mexico City
Children	Juan Nepomuceno Almonte
Alma mater	Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
Profession	Arriero, Priest, Military leader, Politician
Military service
Allegiance	Mexico
Branch/service	Mexican Insurgency
Years of service	1810–1815
Rank	Generalissimo, Captain General, Colonel
Battles/wars	Mexican War of Independence Battle of El Veladero Battle of Tenancingo Siege of Cuautla Siege of Huajuapan de León Battle of Escamela Battle of Zitlala Capture of Orizaba Capture of Oaxaca Siege of Acapulco Battle of Lomas de Santa María Battle of Temalaca

José María Teclo Morelos Pérez y Pavón (Spanish: [xosemaˈɾi.a ˈteklo moˈɾelos ˈpeɾes i paˈβon] ^ⓘ; 30 September 1765 – 22 December 1815) was a Mexican Catholic priest, statesman and military leader who led the Mexican War of Independence movement, assuming its leadership after the execution of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1811.

Born in Valladolid, Michoacán, Morelos studied at Colegio de San Nicolás and was appointed priest of Carácuaro in 1799. He joined Miguel Hidalgo's Cry of Dolores, soon becoming an insurgency leader. Aided by local peoples, along with revolutionary leaders Mariano Matamoros and Ignacio López Rayón, Morelos occupied territories in southern and central New Spain, leading the Siege of Cuautla and capturing Acapulco, New Spain's main port in the Pacific Ocean. His campaigns galvanized regional insurgencies against Spanish rule, which made him the royalist army's main rival.

In 1813, Morelos wrote Sentimientos de la Nación, a document influenced by the Constitution of Cádiz where he outlined his program for the Mexican nation. Under his leadership, the Congress of Anáhuac was installed in Chilpancingo, and on 6 November 1813 declared the independence of Mexico. On 22 October 1814, the Constitution of Apatzingán drafted by Congress declared that Mexico would be a Republic.

After a series of defeats, Morelos was captured by the royalist army in Temalaca, Puebla. He was tried by the Inquisition, defrocked as a cleric, and executed by civil authorities in San Cristóbal Ecatepec on 22 December 1815. Morelos is considered a national hero in Mexico, who despite not having a military background became a successful insurgency leader, credited with organizing and bolstering the War of Independence. The Mexican state of Morelos and city of Morelia are named after him.

Early life

Morelos was born in Valladolid, since renamed Morelia. Although often portrayed as being of "mixed" or "indigenous" descent, Morelos was classified as a Spaniard (español) in his baptismal register, a system in which the Catholic Church kept separate registers for ethnic affiliation. Although ethnic affiliation was fluid in colonial Spanish America, his family was considered as Spaniard according to the social categories of the time. His paternal ancestry included Spaniards, Africans, and Mestizos, whereas his maternal family was fully Spanish.

His father was José Manuel Morelos y Robles, a carpenter originally from Zindurio, a village west of Valladolid. His mother was Juana María Guadalupe Pérez Pavón, originally from San Juan Bautista de Apaseo, also near Valladolid. Valladolid was the seat of a bishop and of the government of the colonial Intendency of Valladolid. It was known as the "Garden of the Viceroyalty of New Spain" because of its prosperity.

Through his paternal line, Morelos was related to Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. Both insurgents shared a common ancestor, Diego Ruiz de Cortés, who was a descendant of the conquistador Hernán Cortés. Hidalgo was the descendant of Ruiz de Cortés through his mother, Ana María Gallaga.

Morelos worked as a muleteer (arriero) in the area where he fought in the insurgency, on the ground experience of the terrain that would be valuable. He is also said to have worked on a ranch rented by his uncle for nearly ten years.

Morelos had ambitions for something more than working with his hands, and assiduously studied; his maternal grandfather was a school teacher. In 1789, he enrolled in the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo in Valladolid, where Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was rector. When he was ordained a priest, he, as with many others without connections, had no benefice to guarantee any income as a priest. However, as a secular cleric, he took no vow of poverty and could freely pursue business activities to make a living.

As a priest, he could not marry, but he did form a relationship with at least one woman, Brígida Almonte. He is known to have fathered three children: two sons and a daughter. His first born was Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, who played a significant role in Mexican military history. Lucas Alamán, a fierce nineteenth-century opponent of the insurgency and after independence a conservative politician and historian, asserted that Morelos "fathered various children with anonymous women of the people." This charge of promiscuity might simply be a slur without foundation on the insurgent-priest. At Morelos's trial, the Inquisition accused him of sending his son to the United States. He testified at his trial that "while he had not been completely pristine for a priest, he had not acted in a scandalous manner" and that he had sent his son away for education and for his safety, acknowledging his paternity.

Insurrection against the Spanish monarchy

The former rector of the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo (where Morelos attended seminary), Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was planning with others for the independence of New Spain from the Spanish empire. About 6:00 a.m. on 16 September 1810, Hidalgo, then the parish priest of Dolores, Guanajuato (since renamed Dolores Hidalgo in his honor), ordered the church bells to be rung, and gathered his congregation. Flanked by Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldama, Hidalgo addressed the people in front of his church, urging them to take up arms, with the Cry of Dolores (El Grito de Dolores, now celebrated every year on 15 September at 11:00 p.m.) that called for armed revolt after the Spanish colonial authorities had discovered the Conspiracy of Querétaro, a clandestine movement seeking Mexican independence. Like Allende and Aldama, Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, popularly known as La Corregidora, was one of the famous initial supporters of the revolt. Miguel Hidalgo and his followers rose in open rebellion against the Spanish colonial authorities launching what became the Mexican War of Independence.

With the imperial government taken by surprise, operatives took important cities of the Bajío region without an organized response. The insurgency proclaimed Hidalgo captain general of Mexico in Celaya on 21 September. Hidalgo y Costilla advanced to Guanajuato; and on 28 September, the rebels captured the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in battle, killing at least 400 Spaniards who had taken shelter. Among the dead was the crown's highest official in Guanajuato, Intendant Juan Antonio Riaño, an old friend of Hidalgo y Costilla.

The bishop of Michoacán, Manuel Abad y Queipo, excommunicated the insurgents. Hidalgo y Costilla and his army marched on to Valladolid, where the locals feared that the slaughter of Guanajuato would be repeated, prompting many people to abandon the region, particularly elites. Valladolid was taken peacefully on 17 October 1810.

In Tacámbaro, Hidalgo y Costilla was proclaimed general, and Allende captain general. Hidalgo ordered a rest for his troops in Indaparapeo, where a few minutes before their departure, Morelos, who had read about his excommunication and his triumphs, found him. Morelos had heard of the revolt in October 1810 and determined to join it. Hidalgo asked his former student to recruit troops in the south of the colony and capture the port of Acapulco, the west coast port for the Pacific trade to the Philippines, also a Spanish colony. Unlike Hidalgo, who was a poor tactician leading a huge and undisciplined following, Morelos quickly demonstrated military skills, gathering and training a small core of fighters. He sought allies in the region, and obtained cannons and other war materiel.

Morelos's objectives for the rebellion called for the creation of a republican government that "all Mexican people would participate, the abolition of slavery, and the elimination of divisions between races and ethnicities."

Campaigns

Morelos soon showed himself to be a talented strategist, and became one of the greatest revolutionary military commanders of the war. In his first nine months, he won 22 victories, defeating the armies of three Spanish royalist leaders and capturing almost all of what is now the state of Guerrero. In December, he captured Acapulco for the first time, except for the Fort of San Diego. Spanish reinforcements forced him to raise the siege in January. By quick marches, he was able to capture most of the Spanish possessions on the Pacific coast of what are now Michoacán and Guerrero. On 24 May 1811, he occupied Chilpancingo and on 26 May he took Tixtla.

In his second campaign, Morelos divided his army into three groups. The most important engagement of this campaign was at Cuautla. On Christmas Eve 1811 the townspeople welcomed Morelos to the town. The next year his forces were besieged by the Spanish army under general Félix María Calleja del Rey. On 2 May 1812, after 58 days, Morelos broke through the siege, and started his third campaign.

Major victories on this third campaign were at Citlalli on 8 June 1812, Tehuacán on 10 August 1812, Orizaba, Oaxaca and Acapulco. Morelos arrived at Orizaba with 10,000 soldiers on 28 October 1812. The city was defended by 600 Spanish soldiers. Negotiation led to a surrender without bloodshed. He entered Oaxaca in triumph on 25 November 1812. Acapulco fell on 12 April 1813, forcing the Spanish army to take refuge in the Fort of San Diego.

Congress of Chilpancingo

In 1813, Morelos called the National Constituent Congress of Chilpancingo, composed of representatives of the provinces under his control, to consider a political and social program which he outlined in a document entitled Sentimientos de la Nación (Sentiments of the Nation). The Congress called itself the Congress of Anáhuac, in reference to the Aztecs.

On 31 September 1813, the Congress, with Morelos present, endorsed Sentiments of the Nation. This document declared Mexican independence from Spain, established Catholicism as official religion and created the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. It declared respect for property and confiscated the productions of the Spanish colonial government. It abolished slavery and racial categories in favor of the title "American" for all native-born individuals. Torture, colonial monopolies and the system of tributes were also abolished. Morelos was offered the title "Generalissimo" with the style of address "Your Highness", but he refused these and asked to be called "Siervo de la Nación" (Servant of the Nation). On 6 November 1813, the Congress declared independence in the Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America.

After several military defeats, the Congress organized a meeting in Apatzingán, and on 22 October promulgated the "Decreto Constitucional para la Libertad de la América Mexicana" (Constitution of Apatzingán). This established a limited executive and a powerful legislature, the opposite of what Morelos had called for. He nevertheless conceded that it was the best he could hope for under the circumstances.

Capture and execution

Shortly thereafter, Morelos began his fourth military campaign, a series of defeats beginning at Valladolid in late 1813. While escorting the new insurgent Congress in November 1815, he was defeated in Temalaca by royalist forces. Morelos and his guard were surrounded; rather than have all taken prisoner, Morelos told his men to each save himself. This left Morelos to be captured alone. As a Catholic priest, the church had jurisdiction for his imprisonment and trial; he was jailed in the Inquisition building in Mexico City. Although Morelos was a huge prize for the royal government, the viceroy decided not to make a public spectacle of his journey of incarceration, but rather slipped him into the capital before dawn.

The royal government had experience with the trial and execution of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, which was done far from the capital and in rushed fashion; but Morelos's trial was conducted in the capital with the highest officials presiding, with the outcome of a guilty verdict and execution by civil officials. Inquisition officials drew up 23 charges against Morelos, and following proper procedure, Morelos had a defense attorney, José Quiles. He was charged with treason, disloyalty to the crown, and transgressions in his personal life, namely, sending his natural sons to the United States for education.

He was tried and sentenced to death for treason. Morelos was executed by firing squad on 22 December 1815, in San Cristóbal Ecatepec, north of Mexico City in order that his execution not provoke a dangerous public reaction. He was later judged to be reconciled to the church, lifting his excommunication, as he was seen praying on his way to his execution. After his death, his lieutenant, Vicente Guerrero, continued the war for independence.

Legacy

Morelos is considered a national hero of Mexico; the state of Morelos and city of Morelia are named after him. Morelos has been portrayed on the 50-peso note since 1997, and on 1-peso coins during the 1940s, 1970s and 1980s. The Estadio Morelos in Morelia, Puerto Morelos in the state of Quintana Roo, the Morelos Station on the Mexico City Metro, the city of Ecatepec de Morelos in Mexico State where he was executed, Insurgente José María Morelos y Pavón National Park in Michoacán, and the Morelos Satellite from the Communications company Satmex are also named after him. His remains were transferred to the Monument to Independence El Ángel in Mexico City, along with those of other heroes of the insurgency. The Presidential aircraft Boeing 787 TP-01 was named José María Morelos y Pavón.

See also

• Equestrian statue of José María Morelos, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
• List of people from Morelos
• Reward offered for Morelos y Pavón's head

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

José María Morelos — Mexican patriot, b. at Valladolid (now called Morelia in his honour), Mexico, on 30 September, 1765; shot at San Cristóbal Ecatepec on 22 December, 1815. His father died while he was still a youth, and, being left destitute, he worked for some time as a muleteer, until he succeeded in obtaining admission, as an extern, to the College of San Nicolas at Valladolid, the rector of which institution was at that time the reverend Don Miguel Hidalgo. Having been ordained priest, he was appointed parish priest of Carácuaro and Nucupétaro in Michoacan. When Hidalgo left Valladolid for Mexico City, after uttering his Grito de Dolores, Morelos offered himself to him at Charo, and Hidalgo commissioned him to raise troops for the cause of Independence on the southern coast, and to get possession of the port of Acapulco. Returning to his parish, he collected a few ill-armed men, marched towards Zacatula, and, following the coast, reached Acapulco with some 3000 men whom he had recruited on the way and supplied with arms taken from the royalists. After defeating Paris, who had come from Oaxaca with the object of relieving Acapulco, he left part of his forces to continue the siege and made for Chilpancingo. Forming a junction there with the brothers Galiana and Bravo, he marched to Chilapa and captured that town. As the viceroy, Venegas, was keeping all the colonial troops occupied with the siege of Zitacuaro, Morelos, who had been joined at Jantetelco by his fellow-priest Mariano Matamoros-thenceforward his right hand in almost every enterprise-organized four armies, which he distributed in various parts of Mexico. But the easy surrender of Zitacuaro to Calleja, and the approach of that commander with all his forces, placed Morelos, with some 4000 men, in the situation of being besieged at Cuautla by 8000 of the best troops of the viceroyalty. With indomitable courage, fighting day after day, Morelos held out for seventy-three days, until at last he succeeded in breaking away with all that remained of his army. He then passed over to Huajuapan, from thence to Orizaba and so on to Oaxaca, capturing all those places, and defeating every body of troops that encountered him.

On 14 September, 1813, the first Independent Congress assembled at Chilpancingo and there passed the decree: "That dependence upon the Spanish Throne has ceased forever and been dissolved. That the said Congress neither professes nor recognizes any religion but the Catholic, nor will it permit or tolerate the practice, public or private, of any other; that it will protect with all its power, and will watch over, the purity of the Faith and its dogmas and the maintenance of the regular bodies". From Chilpancingo he turned towards his native Valladolid, which was then held by the royalist leaders Iturbide and Llano; driven back there he moved on Chupio. At Puruarán his brave companion Matamoros was captured, and was shot at Valladolid, 3 February, 1814. These reverses were followed by the recapture of Oaxaca by the royalist troops. The independent Congress of Chilpancingo had removed to Apatzingan, where it promulgated the Constitution of 22 October, 1814. Then it determined to remove again from Apatzingan to Tehuacán, Morelos accompanied it to protect it, and engaged in the Battle of Tesmalaca, where he was made prisoner.

Having been taken to Mexico City, on 22 November, 1815, proceedings were instituted against him by both the military and the ecclesiastical tribunal, and an advocate was appointed for him. The principal charges against him were: (1) Having committed the crime of treason, failing in his fealty to the king, by promoting independence and causing it to be proclaimed in the Congress assembled at Chilpancingo. Morelos answered to this that, as there was no king in Spain (Ferdinand VII having been taken to France, a prisoner), he could not have been false to the king; and that, as to the declaration of independence, of the said Congress, he had concurred in it by his vote because he believed that the king would not return from France and that, even if he should return, he had rendered himself unworthy of fealty by handing over Spain and its colonies to France like a flock of sheep. (2) Having ordered a number of prisoners to be shot. He declared that he had done this in obedience to orders sent first by the Junta at Zitacuaro and then by the congress at Chilpancingo, by way of reprisals, moreover, because the viceregal Government had not accepted the exchange of prisoners proposed instead of General Matamoros. (3) Having ignored excommunication fulminated against him and the Independents by the bishops and the Inquisition. He declared that he had not considered these excommunications valid, believing that they could not be imposed upon an independent nation, such as the insurgents must be considered to constitute, so long as they (the sentences) were not those of a pope or an oecumenical council. (4) Having celebrated Mass during the time of the Revolution. He denied this, since he had regarded himself as under irregularity from the time when blood began to be shed in the territory under his command.

The case having been concluded in the military tribunal that court requested of the ecclesiastical tribunal the degradation and surrender of the condemned priest, in accordance with the formalities prescribed by the canons; the ecclesiastical tribunal granted both requests, and communicated its decision to the viceroy. It was at this point that the tribunal of the Inquisition intervened, requesting the viceroy, Calleja (who had succeeded Venegas) to delay execution of the sentence four days, and citing Morelos to a public auto de fe on 27 November. On that occasion, with all the formalities proper to such proceedings, twenty-three charges were preferred against him: the Inquisitors added to the charges brought at the former trial others which they believed themselves competent to try, as implying, according to them, suspicions of heresy. These were: (1) Having received Communion in spite of the excommunications which he had incurred. Morelos answered that he had communicated because he did not believe the excommunications valid. (2) Not reciting the Divine Office while he was in prison. He declared that he could not recite it in the dungeon for want of light. (3) Having been lax in his conduct. This he granted, but denied that scandal had been given, since it was not publicly known that he had begotten children. (4) Having sent his son to the United States to be educated in Protestant principles. He declared that, so far from wishing the son whom he had sent to the United States-as he could not place him in any institution within the kingdom-to be brought up in the doctrines of the Reformation, he had directed him to be placed in a college where he would not run that risk. In spite of these arguments, the tribunal decided: "that the priest Don José Morelos was a formal negative heretic, a favourer of heretics, a persecutor and disturber of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, a profaner of the holy sacraments, a traitor to God, the king, and the pope, and as such was declared forever irregular, deposed from all offices and benefices, and condemned to be present at his auto in the garb of a penitent, with collarless cassock and a green candle, to make a general confession and a spiritual retreat; and that, in the unexpected and very remote case of his life being spared, he was condemned for the remainder of it to confinement in Africa at the disposition of the inquisitor general, with the obligation of reciting every Friday in the year the penitential psalms and the rosary of the Blessed Virgin, and to have his sambenito (penitential inscription) placed in the cathedral church of Mexico as that of a reconciled formal heretic".

It was one of the decrees of the Inquisition which have done most to damage the reputation of that tribunal in New Spain. The proceedings lacked the legality and judicial correctness which should have marked them. Morelos was out of the jurisdiction of the Inquisition both as an Indian and as having been already tried and condemned by another, competent, tribunal; nor was there any reason in condemning him for charges to which he had made satisfactory replies. It may be that the tribunal, re-established in New Spain only a little more than one year before this, and carried away by an indiscreet zeal, was unwilling to miss the opportunity presented by so famous a case to ingratiate itself with the Government and call attention to its activity.

Morelos, degraded in pursuance of his sentence, according to the ritual provided by the Church in such cases, was transferred from the prison of the Inquisition to the citadel of Mexico and put in irons. On 22 December he was taken from the city to San Cristobal Ecatepec, where he was shot. As a guerilla leader, Morelos must occupy a prominent place among those who struggled and died for Mexican independence. He appeared at the moment when the first great army of the Independents had been routed at the Bridge of Calderon, and when its first leaders were being executed at Chihuahua, and he achieved his first successes in the rugged mountains of the south. He began his campaigns without materials of war of any kind, expecting to take what he needed from the enemy, and no one ever used the resources of war better than he did, for the extension of the national territory. Profoundly astute and reserved, he confided his plans not even to those of his lieutenants for whom he felt the most affectionate regard. The stamps of genius is discernible in the astonishing sagacity with which he handled the most difficult problems of government, and in multiplied instances of his rapid and unerring insight into actual conditions. When, after the ill-starred campaign of Valladolid, the hour of adversity came upon him, he faced disaster as serenely as he had previously accepted good fortune, and, in that famous retreat upon Tehuacan, deliberately gave his own life to save the lives of his associates in the Independent Government.

Mexico a traves de los siglos, III (Barcelona); Alaman, Historia de Mexico, I, II, III, IV (Mexico, 1851); Zamacois, Historia de Mexico, VIII, IX (Mexico, 1879); Verdia, Compendio de la Historia de Mexico (Mexico, 1906); Leon, Compendio de la Historia de Mexico (Mexico, 1902).

Further reading

• Archer, Christon I. "Death's Patriots – Celebration, Denunciation, and Memories of Mexico's Independence Heroes: Miguel de Hidalgo, José María Morelos, and Agustín de Iturbide" in Death, Dismemberment, and Memory in Latin America, Lyman L. Johnson, ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2004 pp. 63–104.
• Guedea, Virginia. "José María Morelos" in Encyclopedia of Mexico, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, pp. 948–950.
• Hamnett, Brian R. Roots of Insurgency: Mexican Regions, 1750–1824. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986.
• Lemoine Villacaña, Ernesto. Morelos, su vida revolucionaria a través de sus escritos y de otros testimonios de la época. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 1965.
• Timmons, Wilbert H. Morelos: Priest, Soldier, Statesman of Mexico, revised edition. El Paso: Texas Western College Press 1970.

External links

Media related to José María Morelos at Wikimedia Commons

• Wallace L. McKeehan, "José María Morelos Man of God, Warrior & Patriot"
• "Mexico Builds Her Own Statue Of Liberty" Popular Science Monthly, February 1936