Aztec Rage (62 page)

Celaya

M
ARINA AND I
arrived in Celaya midday on the following day, hours ahead of the army. I had expected to find barricades and armed troops challenging the entry of anyone who ventured toward the city, but the opposite was true: There were no defenses. We arrived in time to see the regimental commanders and most of their troops evacuating the city.

“The militia and the gachupines are abandoning the city.”

“Some people are taking up arms,” she pointed out.

Criollos and their servants were setting up a barricaded corridor near the town square.

Rumors covering every possible scenario raced through the city. Many believed the rebels would rape the city and murder everyone. Others claimed only the gachupines would be harmed. Some said the Virgin Herself led the army, and no one would be harmed.

The only accurate intelligence I had to report to the padre concerned the futility of resistance, and the wildfire resistance could ignite.

“There's a small force of brave criollos willing to fight for the city, a few dozen. If they fire a volley, I fear what our troops will do.”

The question I left hanging in the air was whether the indios would run or rape the city.

The padre was relieved that the viceroy's troops had fled, but Allende was not. “I had hoped for the opportunity to address them and get them to join us,” Allende said.

The padre woke me after midnight with a written message that I was to carry to the city's administrators, the ayuntamiento.

“Delivering terms of surrender,” the padre said, “can be a lethal assignment. They sometimes shoot the messenger.”

I shrugged off the danger. From what I had seen of the city's panic, I believed the town fathers would welcome a peaceful surrender.

I was shocked, however, at the language of the message to the city fathers:

We have approached this city with the object of securing the persons of all the European Spaniards. If they surrender with discretion, their persons will be treated humanely. But should they offer resistance, and give the order to fire upon us, we shall treat them with corresponding rigor. May God protect your honors for many years.

Field of Battle, September 19,
1810
Miguel Hidalgo
Ignacio Allende

P.S. The moment that you give the order to fire upon our troops, we will behead the seventy-eight Europeans we have in our custody.

Miguel Hidalgo
Ignacio Allende

As the padre walked me to my horse, he said, “I'm saddened that I must behave barbarically while I wear the uniform of a soldier, but I am not the first man of God who had to take up the sword. Now that I have my own war to fight, I find myself more tolerant and understanding of a pope who sends an army to the Holy Land, knowing that thousands will die, many of them innocents.”

He squeezed my arm. “Please tell them in the strongest terms that they must surrender the city without firing a shot. If fighting erupts, I may not be able to control the army.”

In the predawn hours of September 20, I delivered the message to the alcalde.

“We need the response, pronto,” I told him, after emphasizing the gravity of the situation.

“We must meet and confer,” he responded.

I pointed at the steeple of a church. “Señor if there is any doubt in your mind, go to the top of that tower and open your eyes.”

I left, wondering if a nervous trigger finger would fire a musket ball into my back.

My suggestion to study us from a high tower was a good one; the city officials would see campfires by the thousands, underscoring the scope of the danger they faced. Allende had ordered that the fires remain lit until an hour after the message was delivered.

Finally, a messenger emerged from the city around midday and announced they would permit entry without a struggle. They asked for time to “prepare” for the entry, and the padre gave them until the next day.

“What do they prepare for?” I asked the padre.

“They need time to hide their treasures,” he said. “I don't blame them. And we need the day to organize a crude chain of command to prevent looting and to obtain supplies. With every passing hour, our ranks swell, increasing our need for food and weapons.” He shook his head. “It's an almost insurmountable task.”

We entered the city the next day. I was in the vanguard with Hidalgo, Allende, and Aldama. The lower classes cheered our arrival, but the criollos mostly stayed out of sight.

As we came into the main square, I looked up and saw a man on the top of a municipal building. Amid the cheers, I barely heard the shot but saw black-powder smoke billow from the gun. I don't know where the bullet hit, but the next moment all hell broke loose. Our people began returning fire for no discernible purpose since the person was already gone. Still the guns boomed, as did the passions of the Aztecs.

Surging in all directions, our indios looted as they had in San Miguel, but this time none of us, not even the padre, could stop them. They were too numerous and moved in too many directions. Allende tried to keep order. Galloping into the crowd, he slashed down with his sword at men breaking down the front gate of a house. His horse slipped on cobblestones and went down. I urged my own mount toward him. Clearing a path of indios away, I gave him a chance to remount, perhaps saving his life.

He drew his pistol, and I yelled at him, “No, it's no use. If you shoot, they'll tear you to pieces.”

Frustrated, he galloped off, but not out of fear. He knew if the indios turned on him, the rebellion would be lost. A man of incontrovertible courage, he would have willingly gone down fighting had it served his purpose.

I averted my eyes from the savagery as I rode away. A single shot had ignited a riot in a small town. What would happen when we reached Guanajuato, the largest city in the region—and actual fighting erupted? ¡Ay! a beast had been unleased, a wild thing that no one would be able to control.

EIGHTY-SEVEN

A
LLENDE'S DREAM THAT
criollos would flock to the revolution—an unrealistic goal from the outset—was shattered by the rioting at San Miguel and Celaya. Having been a Spaniard for most of my life—and a poor peon only recently—I understood the criollos and gachupines better than Allende, who was swayed by his hopes and dreams.

The criollos had had centuries to rip the spurs off the gachupines' boots and had not done so because it meant risking their own privileges and prerogatives. People with nothing to lose rose up, revolted, and died for a cause. Only a few idealists—the rare Hidalgo, Allende, and Raquel—would risk everything when winning meant nothing in their own pockets.

“The criollos will wait and see who wins,” I told Raquel. “They won't fight for what most of them already have. They don't trust the peons and wouldn't abide a government in which the lower classes participated, much less dominated.”

The truth hurt, but she agreed with me, saying that a few friends of hers in Méjico City—people like Andrés Quintana Roo and Leona Vicario—might risk their lives and fortunes for a free and equal society; the majority, however, would not.

“You're right, most will take a wait-and-see attitude. The criollos will make small gains if they force out the gachupines, but they could lose everything if the peons command the government.”

She reported that prominent criollos who were asked to join the insurrection had turned down the request.

“A militia officer in Valladolid, Agustín de Iturbide, is the latest. Allende didn't favor the man, but the padre was eager to have him join because, like Allende, he is a well-known and admired young officer. He would have brought his regiment to the revolution.”

I recognized the name. Iturbide's name had been linked romantically with Isabella.

Marina and I headed for Guanajuato to scout out the town's defenses while Raquel went to Méjico City to do the same. I sent two of the padre's trusted indio overseers with Raquel to protect her and to messenger her observations back to the padre. I had two more men follow behind me and Marina, so they could report back to the padre from Guanajuato.

One of the men I chose to follow us was Diego Rayu. He could read and write—an important skill in case we had to relay a written report—and he had been to Guanajuato before. For his companion, I chose an indio who was better with a knife than a pen. While Diego was a firebrand,
he fought his battles with his intellect. He might need someone who wasn't as bright but could cut a throat when necessary.

When Marina and I set out, we had to ride past most of the army. A remarkable sight—tens of thousands strong, miles long, like some enormous primeval beast—our army stretched forever, its teeth bared all the way. There were fewer than a couple hundred military uniforms in the entire horde. Wives and children accompanied many soldiers in this war. A man carrying a crude club with one hand might cradle a child in his other arm. Some herded sheep, carried a quarter of beef over a shoulder, or led a cow on a rope, all acquired from the haciendas we passed. Almost everyone carried sacks of maize. Others shouldered plunder from the previous towns: men and women carried chairs, tables, even doors on their backs.

Had I seen this ragtag army when I was a young caballero, I would have had a hearty laugh later with my amigos in a tavern. But now, having seen firsthand what rage simmered beneath the calm exteriors of the expressionless Aztecs, knowing what hopes and dreams were in their hearts and minds, I suspected that the padre was right, that the barefooted horde possessed a power that would surprise the criollo officers.

It was smart of the padre to send a spy mission to Guanajuato. One of the great cities of the Americas, one of the richest in all the world, the government and mine owners would be prepared to defend their hoard of silver.

On our way to the mining city, we stopped briefly to buy tortillas and beans from a pulquería hut on the roadway. Pretending to be ignorant peons—a condition not far from the truth—I listened to the conversation of two criollo merchants while Marina pretended to scowl over a feigned disagreement. What I heard was not surprising but still unsettling. New to both his office and Méjico City, the viceroy had put huge rewards out on the leaders of the insurrection—dead or alive—along with a pardon for anyone who killed or arrested them. The church had reportedly excommunicated the leaders as well.

“Excommunication will trouble them most,” Marina said. “Now they will not only risk their heads . . . but their souls.”

EIGHTY-EIGHT

W
HEN WE WERE
half a day from the city, I sold our mule and purchased a donkey. A mule was beyond the means of most poor people.

We arrived in Guanajuato on the Marfil road, the route I believed the padre would choose for his army. Soldiers had erected a checkpoint, questioning everyone who entered. I told them that my wife and I came from a
village between Guanajuato and Zacatecas. I chose the village because I was familiar with it. The hacienda I once owned was in the region.

“Who's the alcalde of your village?” the sergeant who questioned me asked.

“Señor Alonso,” I said.

“And your village priest?”

“Padre José.”

“Why have you come to Guanajuato?”

“To see a curandero for my wife.” A curandero was a healer who used magic to exorcise sickness.

Sitting on the donkey with her face down, Marina looked up and exposed red blotches on her face.

“
¡Dios mí!
Get along with you!”

Once we were out of the soldiers' sight, Marina got off the donkey and wiped berry juice off her face.

“It's a good thing you knew the alcalde and priest of that village,” she said.

“I knew nothing. I made up the names, but he didn't know them either. He wanted to see my reaction, to judge whether I was lying.”

“Fortunately, you are a seasoned liar.”

Panic reigned in Guanajuato. Major streets were barricaded, stores closed, doors and windows boarded up. People hurried here and scurried there. A rider in a military uniform galloped by, carrying a message to an outpost or perhaps the capital, no doubt relaying pleas for help.