La Alhondiga en Guanajuato

After Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a parish priest, led the poor of this region to rise up in 1810 and take their independence, thousands attacked this building in downtown Guanajuato. An estimated 500 upper-class Spaniards and criollos, men, women and children, were killed. The building originally was a grain warehouse, and had been used by the elite to take refuge. Those taking part were mostly indigenous people of the region who had long since tired of their colonial masters. Mexico is preparing a year-long celebration of the 1810 Independence and the 1910 Revolution.