Guanajuato City was the place of the first major battle of the Mexican Revolution in 1810. There had been a famine in Guanajuato, and in response, the Spaniards built a massive granery fortress to hold the grain and control its distribution. Just months after the granery was completed, the revolution started. Most of Guanajuato’s military, 300 of Guanajuato’s richest Spaniards, along with their riches and millions of pesos, locked themselves in the granery for safety. A group of 20,000 Mexican rebels gathered to attack the granery. There were only two doors, and both were heavily guarded. The Guanajuato army shot guns and arrows at the revolutionaries, and dropped large rocks from the top windows. The revolutionaries, armed with only improvised weapons, were having a hard time getting in. Then one of the miners, “El Pipila” strapped a flat slab of stone on his back and crawled on his belly to the granery door. He painted it with tar and set it on fire. The revolutionaries rushed the building, and took the granery and then the city. Neighboring cities heard about this and surrendered quickly.
There is a funicular that goes up to this statue of Pipila:
“Aún hay otras Alhóndigas por incendiar” (There are still other Alhóndigas [graneries] to burn)
The granery houses a museum that includes a massive mural by Jose Chavez Morado, a renowned muralist and contemporary of Diego Rivera. The mural, “Abolición de la Esclavitud” (Abolition of Slavery) depicts key moments from Mexico’s fight for independence.
