CHAPTER I. 1809–1810.

The original rebellion was thus thrown from the hands of the creoles into those of the Indians. A war of races was about to break out; and although there were not among the insurgents more than a thousand muskets, yet the mere numerical force of such an infuriate crowd, was sufficient to dismay the staunchest. The viceroy Venegas, and the church, therefore, speedily combined to hurl their weapons against the rebels. Whilst the former issued proclamations or decrees, and despatched troops under the command of Truxillo to check Hidalgo who was advancing on the capital, the latter declared all the rebels to be heretics, and excommunicated them in a body. Venegas ordered all the higher clergy "to represent from the pulpit, and circulate the idea privately, that the great object of the revolution was to destroy and subvert the holy Catholic religion, while he directed the subaltern ministers to sow discord in families by the confessional."⁶ But the arms of the Spanish chiefs and the anathemas of the Roman church, were unequal to the task of resistance. Hidalgo was attacked by Truxillo at