Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was in charge of the parish of Colima in 1792. This would lead to a friendship with Father José Antonio Díaz, who would be an insurgent leader in the area during the Mexican War of Independence. The Battle of el Llano de Santa Juana took place on 12 July 1811, with the city taken by the insurgents under Ignacio Sandoval and El Lego Gallaga. Insurgents under José Antonio Torres and Rafael Arteaga arrived to the city, bringing twenty Spanish hostages from Guadalajara. Eleven would be killed but nine were saved by Francisco Ramírez de Oliva. When royalist troops retook the city in March 1811, about three hundred insurgents and sympathizers were executed.