8 - Conclusion

Summary

The revolutionary movement launched by Hidalgo and led subsequently by Morelos briefly transformed scattered, sporadic local conflicts into the semblance of a national movement. It is feasible to argue that Guadalupanismo, which symbolised Mexican national identity, constituted a surrogate ideology. The roots of insurgency, though, lay precisely in the localised tensions which the broader movement often subsumed. When the official leadership receded, the revolutionary movement fragmented into its component elements. In some regions, this process led to an insurgency of long duration. It was not inevitable, though, that local conflicts would in themselves generate an insurgency. It did not necessarily follow that all such conflicts became subsumed into the broader insurgency. Many did, although it is impossible to determine in what proportion. Several localities remained trouble spots of long duration, in view of their specific problems. Such recurrence of conflict suggests that transition to the status of independent nation in 1821 involved no concurrent resolution of the type of popular grievances, upon which the insurgency of the 1810s had once thrived. Not for another hundred years, however, until the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s, did a broad enough rạnge of grievances on many levels combine with central government political failures to produce a generalised insurrection. In 1810 a variety of circumstances, long-term and short-term factors, dearth and dislocation, political loss of control and military lack of preparedness, came together. By doing so, an opportunity for insurrection was created, such as had not existed previously.