8 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF MEXICO - HISTORY - 2025

The independence of Mexico was an insurrectionary movement of civic-military participation that had as its main objective to detach itself from the control of the Spanish Crown, overcoming its colonial status and re-founding the Mexican nation (formerly known as New Spain) with an independent and sovereign character.

In 1821 independence was sealed through the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba, a document that gave Mexico recognition as a sovereign nation, leaving behind the condition of Viceroyalty under the power of the Crown.

Collage Independence of Mexico. Source: wikipedia.org

However, that achievement was not consolidated without more than a decade of armed conflict that took place since 1808.

The Mexican War of Independence was similar to that experienced by other Latin American countries during their independence ventures.

The case of Mexico is particular due to the privileged position it maintained as a colony; strategic position that European enemies of Spain, like France, also sought to exploit.

The independence of Mexico did not, however, bring an instant peace and new order. Like other Latin American nations, Mexico took decades to consolidate its republican structure, battling internal conflicts for many years.

The causes and consequences around the Mexican independence phenomenon are both internal, with machinations and movements within the national territory, and external, reflected in the influence exercised by the actions and currents of thought that developed in other countries, both American and Europeans.

Causes of the Independence of Mexico

The Enlightenment and the French Revolution

Decades ago, the news of the success of the French people in overthrowing a centuries-old monarchy and the establishment of a nascent Republic founded on the fundamental rights of man began to develop in the Mexican colonist the first thoughts of independence; the intention of claiming the territory he knows as his own for himself.

In the same way, the current of European thought known as Enlightenment begins to reach Mexican lands through publications and thinkers who sow in local thought the theories and reflections necessary to provoke in them a response towards their current environment.

The American Revolution

Being the closest territory, Mexico was able to observe first hand part of the development and success of the independence campaign undertaken by the United States against the English Empire.

North American independence was the first of all those of the American continent, and by the 19th century, Mexico witnessed the nascent development that the United States manifested as an independent nation.

Stratification and internal social gaps

The internal social conditions of the Viceroyalty of New Spain were not the most favorable for those who did not possess the most direct or pure Spanish lineage.

The mestizos, pardos, as well as some whites with few privileges, began to see in the impositions of the Crown and in their lack of access to public office and other benefits a high degree of social injustice.

It is not surprising that a large number of whites born in the American colonies were great participants in the planning and battles that took place during independence.

The laziness of the Spanish Crown

Over the years, Spain began to neglect its colonies, focusing its attention on the continuous appropriation of American wealth and resources.

Although the Viceroyalty that corresponds to Mexico was above that of the rest of the captaincies general, they also began to suffer the increasingly strict impositions of the Crown.

The settlers began to receive a smaller amount of local benefits compared to the heavy taxes that came from the other side of the ocean.

Faced with this considered exploitation, the spirits of the population were heated, who decided to face the monarchy.

Consequences of the Independence of Mexico

Internal political crisis and struggles for power

The consolidation of Mexican independence, while an achievement, only awakened in many individual interests in a new way of seizing power in the newly founded republic.

For decades, the establishment of a new form of government and political order generated internal conflicts for decades.

The armed combat went from facing an external enemy to an external one. The Mexican regions sought their share of power or equality in the face of a centralized order, through skirmishes and insurrections that took place frequently.

Economic crisis

The need to create an economic system of its own was necessary in Mexico, now independent.

The denial and blockade that the Spanish Crown imposed on the new independent nations greatly affected their economic development during their early years, and Mexico was no exception.

To sustain an economy, an internal productive apparatus was necessary that did not have solid foundations for the moment of independence.

Mexico had to go to the United Kingdom and even to the already developed North American nation to face its economic failures.

Elimination of royal castes

The social organization based on castes was left behind with the expulsion of the monarchy from Mexican territory, at least officially. However, this did not guarantee an equity scenario for the now independent Mexicans.

The social gaps opened this time in terms of the socio-economic conditions of the people in the cities and towns.

For some families, the division by castes was still on the surface, and internally it took years for men and women of poor condition to be recognized as equals and to have access to the same rights as others.

Abolition of slavery

Ending slavery was one of the first decisions made by the newly independent Latin American nations.

The case of Mexico was similar; With the abolition of slavery, blacks were allowed to be recognized as citizens, and to be able to go from forced to paid labor, although in principle they would find a negligible and incipient benefit.

Over time, the former slaves would begin to fight to improve their conditions in a society that was considered free from external yokes, but with many internal conflicts.

References

1. Bethell, L. (1991). Mexico since Independence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Escosura, LP (2007). Lost Decades? Independence and Latin America's Falling Behind, 1820-1870. Madrid: Carlos III University of Madrid.
3. Florescano, E. (1994). Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico: From the Aztecs to Independence. University of Texas Press.
4. Frasquet, I. (2007). The "other" Independence of Mexico: the first Mexican empire. Keys for historical reflection. Complutense Journal of the History of America, 35-54.
5. Tutino, J. (2009). BROKEN SOVEREIGNTY, POPULAR INSURGENCES, AND THE INDEPENDENCE OF MEXICO: THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCES, 1808-1821. Mexican History.