On September 15, 1808, more than 300 militiamen entered the royal palace in Mexico City and deposed the Spanish viceroy, José de Iturrigaray. The coup ended what John Tutino calls an unprecedented “summer of politics” in New Spain's capital. Upon learning that Napoleon had invaded Spain and sent its monarchs into exile, Iturrigaray called for a general junta of the viceroyalty's Spanish pueblos (towns) and most prominent subjects. As those events unfolded behind closed doors, Mexico City residents took to the streets to proclaim their loyalty to King Ferdinand VII and assert the sovereignty of “el pueblo”—the people. While other historians of Mexico's independence era have alternately pinpointed Napoleon's 1808 invasion of Spain, the outbreak of Miguel Hidalgo's rebellion in 1810, the passage of the Cádiz Constitution in 1812, or its restoration in 1820 as the decisive moment in New Spain's turn toward nationhood, Tutino asserts that the...
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