El Grito de Dolores: The Shout That Started Mexican Independence

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6 min read

Last updated October 20, 2026

Every year on the night of September 15, the Zócalo, the great central square of Mexico City, fills with people until there is barely room to stand. At about eleven o’clock, the president of Mexico steps onto the central balcony of the National Palace, takes hold of a bell rope, and rings the same bell a parish priest rang in a small town more than two hundred years ago. Then comes the shouting. The president calls out the names of heroes, and after each name a hundred thousand voices answer with a single word: “¡Viva!”

That ceremony is El Grito de Dolores, the Cry of Dolores, and it reenacts the moment Mexico’s war of independence began. If you have ever wondered why Mexican Independence Day is celebrated with a shout, a bell, and a crowd answering back, here is the story.

The Night It Happened

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was a Catholic priest serving in Dolores, a small town near Guanajuato in central Mexico. He was also part of a circle of conspirators who had been quietly planning a revolt against Spanish colonial rule. When word reached them that the conspiracy had been discovered, the plotters faced a choice: scatter and be arrested one by one, or rise immediately.

In the early hours of September 16, 1810, Hidalgo chose to rise. He rang the church bell to summon his parishioners, and when they gathered, he called on them to take up arms against the colonial government. That bell ringing and that call together are what Mexico remembers as the Grito de Dolores. The crowd that answered him that morning became the ragged first army of the independence movement.

Hidalgo himself did not live to see the end of it. He was captured and executed in 1811, less than a year after the Grito. But the movement he started outlived him, passing to other leaders, most notably José María Morelos, and the war ground on for eleven years. Independence was finally consummated in 1821, when the Army of the Three Guarantees entered Mexico City.

What Did Hidalgo Actually Say?

Here is the honest answer: nobody knows, word for word. No transcript of the Grito survives, and accounts written afterward differ in the details. Tradition renders his appeal as a call to defend the faith, rise against bad government, and reclaim the land, ending with loyalty to Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose image became the banner of his army. Schoolchildren in Mexico learn versions of the speech, but historians are careful to say the exact phrasing is lost.

What survives intact is the form: a leader calls, and the people answer. That call and response is the heart of the modern ceremony, and it is why the Grito is something a crowd does together rather than a speech a crowd listens to.

How Mexico Celebrates Today

The main ceremony happens on the night of September 15, not the morning of the 16th. The president rings the Campana de Dolores, the actual bell Hidalgo rang in 1810. The bell was brought from Dolores to the National Palace in 1896, under President Porfirio Díaz, and it has hung above the central balcony ever since. After ringing it, the president waves the flag and delivers the Grito, calling out the heroes of independence: Hidalgo, Morelos, Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, Allende, Aldama, Matamoros, and others, finishing with a triple “¡Viva México!” that the crowd returns at full volume. Fireworks follow.

The same ritual repeats in every state capital and nearly every town in Mexico, led by governors and mayors from their own balconies, which makes the Grito a genuinely national moment rather than a single show in the capital. September 16 itself is the public holiday, marked by military and school parades. And because no Mexican celebration is complete without food, families gather over pozole and chiles en nogada, the poblano pepper dish dressed in the green, white, and red of the flag.

The Grito is the high point of the Mes Patrio, Mexico’s patriotic month.

The Words of the Modern Grito

The ceremony follows a traditional pattern. The leader calls each line and the crowd answers “¡Viva!” after every one:

• ¡Mexicanos!
• ¡Vivan los héroes que nos dieron patria y libertad! (Long live the heroes who gave us homeland and freedom!)
• ¡Viva Hidalgo!
• ¡Viva Morelos!
• ¡Viva Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez!
• ¡Viva Allende!
• ¡Viva Aldama!
• ¡Viva Matamoros!
• ¡Viva la Independencia Nacional! (Long live national independence!)
• ¡Viva México! ¡Viva México! ¡Viva México!

Presidents sometimes add a line of their own, honoring a figure or a cause of the moment, but the skeleton of the ceremony has stayed the same for generations.

Not Cinco de Mayo

Americans often assume Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s independence day. It is not. Cinco de Mayo, May 5, commemorates the Mexican army’s victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, half a century after independence. In Mexico it is a relatively minor observance outside Puebla. The independence celebration is the Dieciséis de Septiembre, September 16, with the Grito the night before. If you want to wish a Mexican friend well on the right day, mid-September is when the country actually celebrates its birth.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is El Grito celebrated?

The reenactment takes place late on the night of September 15, at about 11 p.m., and September 16 is the official Independence Day holiday in Mexico.

Who was Miguel Hidalgo?

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811) was a Catholic priest in the town of Dolores whose call to arms on September 16, 1810 launched Mexico’s war of independence. He is honored as the father of the nation, though he was executed in 1811 and never saw independence achieved.

Where is the original bell?

The Campana de Dolores, the bell Hidalgo rang in 1810, hangs above the central balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City. It was moved there in 1896 and is rung by the president every September 15.

Did Mexico win its independence in 1810?

No. The Grito of 1810 started the war. Independence was not secured until 1821, eleven years later. September 16, 1810 is celebrated as the beginning of the struggle, the moment the nation was born.

After eleven years of teaching Spanish in Georgia classrooms, I can tell you that students forget dates and they forget vocabulary lists, but they never forget the Grito once they have stood up, answered “¡Viva!” at the top of their lungs, and understood what the shouting was for. Some lessons are carried by the heart louder than by the head. This is one of them.