Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811), a Mexican revolutionary priest, is considered the foremost patriot of Mexican independence. He led a revolt against Spanish rule that inaugurated a series of military and political episodes culminating in the achievement of Mexican independence in 1821.

Miguel Hidalgo was born a Creole on May 8, 1753. His father was the administrator of a hacienda in the Bajío (in the present state of Guanajuato). Miguel was trained briefly in a Jesuit school before the order was expelled from the empire in 1767. Later that year he matriculated in the diocesan College of San Nicolás in Valladolid (now Morelia). Hidalgo was intellectually oriented and chose to remain part of the academic community long after he had earned degrees in theology and had been ordained. By 1776 he was a member of the San Nicolás faculty and remained in Valladolid until 1792 as an academician...