Little more than twelve months after its first breaking out--that is,
about the close of the year 1811--the Mexican revolution might have been
compared to one of those great fires of the American prairies, whose
destructive range has been checked by the hand of man. In vain the
flames jet out on all sides, seeking fresh element. A wide space has
been cleared around them. Soon the crackling of the large trees, and
the hiss of the burning grass, cease to be heard; and the whole plain
becomes enveloped under a cloud of smoke rising upward from the
blackened ashes.
Such was the fate of the insurrection stirred up by the priest Hidalgo.
From the little hamlet of Delores it had spread like fire over all the
vice-kingdom of New Spain; but very soon the leaders were almost to a
man made captives and shot--the venerable Hidalgo himself undergoing the
same sad fate. A remnant of the insurgents, pressed on all sides by the
royalist troops under General Calleja, had taken refuge in the little
town of Zitacuaro, where they were commanded by the Mexican general, Don
Ignacio Rayon. There they had established a _junta_, independent of the
government; and continued to launch forth their proclamations, powerless
as the glow of the prairie fire after its flames have been extinguished.
When such a fire, however, has been the work of men--when kindled by
man's will and for man's purpose--and not the result of accident or
spontaneity, then, indeed, the flames may be expected to burst forth
anew at some other point of the prairie or the forest.
Just so was it with the Mexican revolution. Another champion of
independence, of origin even more obscure than his predecessors--if that
were possible--soon appeared upon the arena which they had quitted, and
with an _eclat_ likely to eclipse any of those who had preceded him.
This was the curate of Caracuaro, he whom historians designate as "_El
insigne Morelos_" (the illustrious Morelos). The Mexican writers do not
state in what year Morelos was born. Judging from the portraits I have
seen of him, and comparing the different dates that have been assigned
to his birth, he should have been about thirty-eight or forty years old,
at the commencement of his career as a revolutionary leader. His native
place was Talmejo, a small hamlet near the town of Apatzingam, in the
state of Valladolid--now called _Morelia_, after the most illustrious of
its sons. The only patrimony of the future heir of the Mexican
independence was a small _recua_ of pack-mules, left him by his father,
who was a muleteer.
For a long time the son himself followed this humble and laborious
calling; when, for some reason or other, the idea came into his head to
enter holy orders. History does not say what was his motive for this
resolution; but certain it is that Morelos proceeded to carry it out
with that determined perseverance which was an essential trait in his
character.
Having sold off his mules, be consecrated his whole time to acquire
those branches of education, rigorously indispensable to the attainment
of his purpose--that is to say, the study of Latin and theology. The
college of Valladolid was the scene of his student life.
Having gone through the required course, orders were conferred upon him;
but Valladolid offering to him no prospect of advancement, he retired to
the little _pueblo_ of Uruapam, where for a time he subsisted upon the
scanty means supplied by giving lessons in Latin.
About this time the curacy of Caracuaro became vacant. Caracuaro is a
village as unhealthy as poor, where no one could be supposed to reside
from choice; and yet Morelos, lacking powerful friends, had great
difficulty in getting appointed to the living.
In this miserable place had he resided in a state of obscure poverty, up
to that hour, when, accidentally introduced to the reader, at the
hacienda Las Palmas. Under the pretence of visiting the Bishop of
Oajaca, but in reality for the purpose of fomenting the insurrection,
Morelos had travelled through the province of that name; and at the time
of his visit to Las Palmas, he was on his way to offer his services to
Hidalgo, as chaplain of the insurgent army. The result of that
application was, that instead of a chaplaincy to his army, Hidalgo
bestowed upon the _cura_ of Caracuaro, a commission to capture the
fortified seaport of Acapulco. It was in reality rather as a jest, and
to disembarrass himself of the importunities of Morelos, that Hidalgo
bestowed this singular and important commission. How much Morelos
merited the honour will appear in the sequel.