The Grito de Dolores ("Cry of Dolores") was the call issued by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, on 16 September, 1810 in the small town of Dolores (Therefore the Grito "de Dolores"). It is also called the Grito de la Independencia or the Cry of Independence against the traditional Spanish Government, which had become catastrophically distorted by the Napoleonic invasion of the Peninsula in the preceding two years.