Iguala is a small city in the State of Guerrero in Mexico that is known for being the birthplace of the Mexican flag. The name means “place of the night” in a native language and the city started not in the modern-day location, but its surrounding mountains. During the Aztec era, the tribute paid to Tenochititlán from here was one of the highest, which was a reason for the Spanish to explore the area after their successful conquest. Throughout the colonial era, it was an important city as it was on the way between the capital and the port of Acapulco, where the ship from the Philippines was received annually.
Officially, the city is named “Iguala de la Independencia”, which means Iguala of the independence, and is the only city named in both the national anthem and the declaration of independence. The Mexican war of independence started with the Cry of Dolores by the Father of the Nation, the Reverend Miguel Hidalgo back in 1810. However, the independence movement was almost entirely wiped out twice, and by the late 1810s, the rebels held only very limited territories. Following a military coup in Spain in 1820, where King Ferdinand was forced to be a constitutional monarch under a liberal constitution, the royalists in Mexico switched side and also pushed for independence. Rebel General Agustín de Iturbide, later emperor, and General Vincente Guerrero, later president joined forces and agreed on “three guarantees”, which would guarantee the Catholic church’s privileges, the Spanish crown’s continued reign over an independent Mexico, as well as equality between all racial groups. After some other events, the Army of the Three Guarantees gathered in this city to swear to the Plan of Iguala, before marching into a largely disarmed Mexico City, one of the last Spanish strongholds at the time, and consummated Mexico’s independence. The first Mexican flag based on the idea of the three principles was created in this city as well.
In more recent times, a group of student-teachers, known now as “the 46” experienced a “forced disappearance” in 2014 while on their way to a peaceful protest. The incident shocked the nation and subsequent investigation uncovered that the brutal attack on unarmed students and journalists near Iguala was ordered by the mayor at the time, who used the municipal police, state police, as well as soldiers to massacre the group, in collusion with a regional gang. The incident continues to be a sour point in the country, with monuments commemorating them erected in numerous places. Till this day, only the remains of 9 victims have been found, with 40 still unaccounted for. It has led to the arrest of 280 police officers as well as federal action against the regional gang which ended with the suicide of its head. 2 mayors, 1 initially fled, have also been arrested, and the governor was pressured to resign. It also marked a turning point in President Enrique Pena Nieto’s presidency, whose unpopularity eventually led to the downfall of his Party of the Institutional Revolution, which was the ruling party for 86 years (only 2 presidents were not from this party up to this point, since the beginning of its dominance). It was later found that the mayor’s wife is the sister of gang members and did not want the students to disrupt a speech she was giving, so they ordered the torture and massacre of the students. There were many protests, including some where teachers and students burned down government offices in the state capital, the left-wing party offices that controlled the state, the Iguala city hall, and the door to the National Palace in Mexico City.
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