New Spain Spain, at 42d north (now the northern boundary of the U.S. states of California, Nevada, and Utah). In the 1821 Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire, both Mexico and Central America declared their independence after three centuries of Spanish rule and formed the First Mexican Empire, although Central America quickly rejected the union. After priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's 1810 Grito de Dolores (call for independence), the insurgent army began an eleven-year war. At first, the Criollo class fought against the rebels. But in 1820, a military coup in Spain forced Ferdinand VII to accept the authority of the
Mexican War of Independence go to war happily! God wants us to finish off the Spaniards! We do not care if we die without confession! Is this not our land?" The viceroy attempted to address the apparent cause of the riot, higher maize prices that affected the urban poor. But the 1692 riot "represented class warfare that put Spanish authority at risk. Punishment was swift and brutal, and no further riots in the capital challenged the Pax Hispanica." The various indigenous rebellions in the colonial era were often to throw off crown rule, but they were not an independence movement as such. However, during