ABSTRACT
After the death of Miguel Hidalgo, a second major revolutionary movement developed in southern Mexico under the leadership of Jose Maria Morelos, also a priest. Morelos was a mestizo, although he was sometimes described as a mulato of relatively humble origins who had at one time worked as a muleteer. He proved to have greater military skill than Hidalgo, and he also articulated a more cohesive political program than Hidalgo had ever advanced. Both factors allowed him to recruit supporters from all classes in the region of the Pacific lowlands. In 1813 he organized a governmental congress to convene in Chipalcingo. In November 1815, the royalist forces captured Morelos, and he was defrocked and executed. He had generated the ideas in dialogue with Hidalgo and other revolutionary leaders, including Ignacio Lopez Rayon, one of Hidalgo’s lieutenants. Many of Morelos’s ideas served as a foundation for the development of Mexico’s first comprehensive legal code.
