Which Mexican priest launched the independence movement with the Grito de Dolores in 1810?

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla launched the independence movement with the Grito de Dolores in 1810.

Hidalgo was a Roman Catholic priest in the town of Dolores. On September 16, 1810, he issued the call known as the Grito de Dolores, urging resistance to Spanish colonial rule. The event is widely treated as the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence.

Hidalgo was captured and executed in 1811, but the rebellion continued under leaders including José María Morelos and Vicente Guerrero. Mexico achieved independence in 1821, decades before the French intervention commemorated by Cinco de Mayo.

Hidalgo is relevant to Cinco de Mayo mainly because his uprising is the source of Mexico’s Independence Day tradition. Cinco de Mayo honors a later conflict: Mexico’s 1862 defense against France at Puebla.