It is a common misconception among the non-Mexican community in the United States to mistake Cinco de Mayo, or May 5th, with the Mexican Independence Day, which occurs on September 16th; Cinco de Mayo actually commemorates the victory of the Mexican Army over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, during the French invasion of Mexico.
Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a voluntarily-observed holiday that commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. It is celebrated primarily in the state of Puebla and in the United States.
While Cinco de Mayo has limited significance nationwide in Mexico, the date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day, the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico.
The Grito de Dolores ("Cry of Dolores") was the battle cry of the Mexican War of Independence also known as El Grito de la Independencia ("Cry of Independence"), uttered on September 16, 1810 by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Roman Catholic priest from the small town of Dolores, near Guanajuato.
Hidalgo and several criollos were involved in a planned revolt against the Spanish colonial government, and the plotters were betrayed. Fearing his arrest, Hidalgo commanded his brother Mauricio, as well as Ignacio Allende and Mariano Abasolo to go with a number of other armed men to make the sheriff release the pro-independence inmates there on the night of 15 September. They managed to set eighty free. Just before midnight on September 15, 1810, Hidalgo ordered the church bells to be rung and gathered his congregation. Flanked by Allende and Juan Aldama, he addressed the people in front of his church, encouraging them to revolt:
My children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once… Will you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines!This event has since assumed an almost mythic status. Since the late 19th century, Hidalgo y Costilla’s "cry of independence" has become emblematic of Mexican independence. Each year on the night of September 15, the President of Mexico rings the bell of the National Palace in Mexico City. He repeats a cry of patriotism (a Grito Mexicano) based upon the "Grito de Dolores" from the balcony of the palace to the assembled crowd in the Plaza de la Constitución, or Zócalo, one of the largest public plazas in the world.
This event draws up to half a million spectators. On the dawn of September 16, or Independence Day, the national military parade starts in the Zócalo, passes the Hidalgo Memorial and ends on the Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City’s main boulevard.
The following day, September 16 is Independence Day in Mexico and is considered a patriotic holiday, or fiesta patria (literally, holiday of the fatherland).
A statue of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in front of the church in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato.
...I Grew Up in TEXAS.
And, I grew up with our society, peddling Cinco De Mayo as Mexican Independence Day.
They taught this in school!!! (like how they teach Malcom X was a Black Panther in OR.)
So, the moral of the story is: this country has made a national holiday out of Indigenous Meso-Americans beating up the French, but not the revolt and insurrection against Spanish Colonial rule....that resulted in their subsequent liberation. Smacks of celebrating Martin Luther King's Birthday, minus Arizona, just not ON his birthday ;)HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!
The Day Mexico Kicked Some Unlikely French Butt :) !?
HERO MECHALITH / MECHALITH MILLENNIUM MEDIA℠
http://heromechalithmillennium.blogspot.com/
http://mechalithmillenniummedia.wordpress.com/
...a new age has begun.™
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