Don Miguel Hidalgo, in full Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Mandarte Villaseñor y Lomelí (8 May 1753 – 30 July 1811) also known as Cura Hidalgo (Priest Hidalgo), was the chief instigator of Mexico's war of independence against Spain.

Don Miguel Hidalgo was a criollo (Mexican of solely Spanish ancestry, that is no native or African ancestors), and the parish priest of Dolores, now called Dolores Hidalgo, a small town in the modern-day central Mexican state of Guanajuato. His father and mother were respectively Cristóbal Hidalgo y Costilla and Ana Maria Gallaga. Hidalgo was a keen reader of banned French literature and was an avid nonconformist. He learned several indigenous languages and openly defied many aspects of Catholic rule including that of sexual abstinence for the clergy. In the mining/farming region of central Mexico Miguel Hidalgo and other Creoles of high society started conspiring for a considerable uprising of mestizos and indigenous peasants.

Alerted by Doña Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez ("La Corregidora") that his revolutionary plot had been discovered and that he would soon be arrested for his conspiring, he brought his plans forward and, with the Grito de Dolores delivered in religious language and from the belfry of his defence against the usurpers of authority and the enemies of Fernando VII. Doing this Hidalgo started the great revolt of 1810. His battle cry was: "Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Death to the Spaniards!" Hidalgo, and his unruly followers dispersed after only a few months. Hidalgo himself was captured, forced publicly to repent, and then was executed for his crimes. Hidalgo is remembered even today as the great liberator of Mexico and the Father of the Nation.

He was apprehended in a battle along with other leaders of the revolution, among them Ignacio Allende, José Mariano Jiménez and Juan Aldama. The four leaders were executed in Chihuahua, three of them on June 26, 1811 and Miguel Hidalgo on July 30, 1811. Miguel Hidalgo was executed later because he was the main leader and because they had a bit of trouble executing a clergyman, so they had to excommunicate him first. The four leaders were decapitated and their heads were put in the four corners of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato as a way to scare of the revolution.

An important fact thas has been actually in conflict was the real birthplace of this person. Because he born in the Corralejo Hacienda when this was asigned to the Zamora Michocacan district, so there was a conflict between Michoacan and Guanajuato to define which was the original birthplace.

1753 births | 1811 deaths | Colonial Mexico | Mexican War of Independence people | Mexican Roman Catholic priests | Rebels

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