Aztec Rage (58 page)

“It's too late. We can only hope that the authorities will blunder in their investigation.”

“I—”

“No, you can't get involved. I'll see to that.”

He locked her in upstairs. She was furious but helpless. Worried, she paced back and forth. The conspirators had to be warned. Allende had to be told that his arrest was imminent. He had to get to Dolores and protect the padre. If he didn't, the revolt was doomed.

“Ignacio,” she said to herself. Because her husband Miguel was the chief judicial officer, Ignacio Pérez, the alcalde of the jail, lived beneath them. She took the broom handle and tapped on the floor a code she and Ignacio had selected in case she or her husband needed him. He came upstairs quickly and spoke to her through the keyhole.

Leading a spare mount by a long braided mecate, Pérez rode to San Miguel with the wind at his back and fear in his chest. His world was crashing down around him. He had talked treason with others, and now he feared his own jail would imprison him. Not only was his life at stake, he also had compromised the welfare of his family by attending meetings in which he, Doña Josefa, Allende, and others dreamed of a New Spain where people were free and equal. Now, he was an outlaw.

Ignacio Allende was not in San Miguel when Pérez arrived, but he located Allende's friend and coconspirator, Juan Aldama.

“Allende has gone to Dolores to speak to Padre Hidalgo,” Aldama told Pérez.

“Then we must flee there.”

EIGHTY

I
WAS IN
a deep sleep when pounding on Marina's door awoke us. I jumped out of bed, grabbing my sword.

Someone shouted from outside, “Señorita, it's Gilberto.”

“The padre's stableman,” Marina said. “Something must have happened.”

“The viceroy's men must have tracked me here.”

“If so, you must leave. The padre will not tell them you were here, but others might have spotted you.”

I quickly dressed as she went to the door, a blanket wrapped around her nakedness.

When she came back, she said, “He brought a message from the padre.”

“In the middle of the night? What is it?”

“The padre says it's time to wet our feet in Caesar's river.”

EIGHTY-ONE

I
REALIZED AFTER
midnight that we'd crossed the Rubicon. That we crossed it in Dolores was fitting: In our poignantly poetic Spanish tongue,
dolores
can convey both pain and sorrow.

When Marina and I reached the padre's house, the war council was going full tilt. The padre huddled with two criollo militia officers, Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldama, and the alcalde of the jail in Querétaro, Ignacio Pérez. ¡Ay! The jail master didn't even give me a second glance when the padre introduced me. Raquel arrived on our heels. En route to visit a friend in Querétaro, she had come directly to Dolores when her amiga warned her away.

Rumors abounded as to the betrayal of the plan. One person said a foolish friend had confessed the plan to a priest. Another said that a militia officer, whom Allende had recruited, betrayed it to his superiors. Whatever the source, the conspirators had to flee or fight. Flight meant leaving their families, homes, and possessions and turning outlaw.

“It's time to fight,” the padre said.

Captain Allende shook his head. “We're not ready. We lack sufficient soldiers, training, weapons, supplies—”

“They're not ready either. The Spanish regulars are all deployed in Spain fighting the French, not here in the colony. The viceroy has only the militia. When other militia officers hear that you and Captain Aldama are part of the revolt, many of them will join us.”

“The viceroy has ten thousand militia he can field, perhaps even more,” Pérez said.

“But not all at once. Isn't that true, Ignacio?” the padre asked Allende.

“Our units are scattered all over the colony,” Allende said, “a few hundred here, a thousand there. The viceroy would need weeks to deploy a substantial force. One plan might work.”

“And that is?” the padre asked.

“The one you have advocated: your Aztecs. They're not trained soldiers, but they have courage, and they will follow you. A company of musketeers would cut down a thousand, but ten or twenty thousand . . . ?”

“How do we know that many will respond?” Aldama asked.

“They've done it before,” Padre Hidalgo said. “Hatred of the gachupines runs deep in the indio. Each time there's been a spark of resistance, they've flocked together by the tens of thousands. Their memories of the terrible punishment meted out to them for objecting to being starved by corn manipulations or other injustices run deep.”

“My people have only their memories,” Marina said. “Three hundred years of degradation seared into our souls.”

“I regret that we must rely on untrained indios, but they'll follow the padre,” Allende said. “I suspect that you already have a significant number waiting for your command.”

The padre didn't respond, but I too assumed he did. He and his Aztecs wouldn't have created that weapons cache if they'd had no way to use them. Furthermore, the padre had needed a small battalion of Aztecs to make those weapons, and those indios would have friends. If a hundred Aztecs had produced the weapons, a hundred times that number could be ready and waiting.

It surprised me that men like Allende and Aldama, who served the viceroy and had so much to lose, would plot against the government. I didn't personally know either of them, but Allende's name was known to me. He had a reputation throughout the Bajío as a fearless hombre, a caballero who earned his spurs in the saddle, not at fancy balls. It surprised me that men who had spent most of their lives wearing the fancy military uniforms of the viceroy would have enough depth of character and social awareness to demand social change. The fact that Allende had well-thought-out suggestions, ideas that even the brilliant and courageous priest lent an ear to, was not something I expected from a career officer of a militia that was known to be lackadaisical and incompetent.

Other than occasional pirate attacks along the coast, which the militia defended against poorly, and occasional riots by the poor, which the militia put down brutally, in three centuries there had been little to defend against. Despite many threats, there had never been a serious invasion of the colony. The distances and terrain an invading army would have to cover, with the core of the wealth and population occupying the high plateau in the middle, made the colony an undesirable place for foreign powers to invade. Since much of the colony's wealth ended up being shipped to Spain, it was much easier to lie in wait for Spanish ships sailing from Veracruz.

“But what will happen when the viceroy fields eight to ten thousand trained troops?” Pérez asked. “Remember the great Cortés conquered millions of indios with a few hundred Spanish soldiers.”

“Cortés had thousands of indio allies,” the padre said, “and the Mejica were poorly led. If they had had a competent military leader instead of the confused and superstitious Montezuma, the war would have gone the other way.”

“If we raise ten thousand indios—enough to overwhelm the few hundred troops the viceroy has in the Bajío—our fellow criollos will flock to our cause,” said Allende. “I know militia officers and caballeros. They won't risk their lives and property until they smell victory. But when a militia officer joins us, he'll bring fifty or a hundred trained soldiers with him. Once we have two or three thousand trained troops, backed by our Aztec multitudes, the viceroy and his gachupines will have to give up the fight.”

“And we will collect the gachupines and ship them back to Spain,” Aldama said.

The padre stood up. “Then it's time.”

“Time for what?” Aldama asked.

“To go forth and seize the gachupines.”

I saw fear, wonderment, and even puzzlement on the faces of the men in the room. Only the padre and Allende appeared to be in total command of their emotions and resolve. They were the leaders, the two men of vision. The resolve of the others depended upon them.

Well before dawn, the bell of the Church of Our Lady of Sorrow rang. A church bell was not just an invitation to a religious service; it could also be a call to arms. From the time the church built the first missions, its priests relied on the mission walls and loyal indios for protection. In rural areas like Dolores, where an indio village had grown into a small town, the church bell was still a summons for help. When danger threatened, the priests rang the bell repeatedly, and those indios loyal to the mission, who often worked the nearby fields, gathered to defend it.

In a church whose name evoked sorrow and pain, the padre now tolled the bell as a call to arms. The date was September 16, 1810.

When light of the new day glowed in the east, we gathered in front of the church to wait for the padre to step out and announce why he had sounded the alarm. Besides those who had been at the council of war, at least a hundred peons had gathered.

The padre came out and spoke in a strong, firm voice: “My good friends, we have been owned by faraway Spain and treated as mindless children to obey and do the bidding of the gachupines sent to govern us, to pay taxes without representation, to be lashed when we question their actions. But in all families, the children grow up and must find a path in life that suits them.

“They force our indio americanos to pay a shameful tribute that arose as a tax on a conquered people by a merciless despot. For three centuries that tax has been a symbol of tyranny and shame. During that same time, africanos have been kidnapped and brought to the colony to work as slaves.

“No one born in the colony has been treated with the rights and dignity to which all men are entitled under God, not even those with Spanish blood. Instead, spurwearers are sent to rule us, to collect unjust taxes, to stop us from developing crafts and trades that would bring us prosperity. We stay as bonded servants to feed their bottomless greed.

“Now that the French have usurped the throne of Spain it won't be long before the godless Napoleon sends a viceroy who speaks only French to rule us, to collect tribute from all of us. When the French seize us, they'll destroy our churches and trample our religion.”

His voice rose in intensity, his features growing dark with the knowledge
of injustice. My vaqueros would say that there was fire in his belly, the kind of fire that gives a champion bull the courage and determination to charge.

“The gachupines have failed in their duties. They rule and rob us and give nothing in return. The time has come when we must no longer be subjected to these bandidos who come over from Europe and whose only interest is to steal our wealth, tax us, and force us to serve them.

“The time has come for us to keep the French from seizing the colony, to force the gachupines to return to Spain, and to rule the land ourselves, in the name of Ferdinand VII, the rightful King of Spain.”