A fundamental shift in the governance of New Spain occurred as a result of the War of the Spanish Succession, when Bourbons replaced Habsburgs on the Spanish throne. Ruling by divine right, the Bourbon kings were enlightened despots whose major interests lay in increasing the economic returns from the Spanish Empire; they introduced many French practices and ideas into overseas administration. Having strung a series of mission-forts across northern Mexico, authorities in Madrid and Mexico augmented the few regular Spanish troops that could be spared from the peninsula by fostering a local militia with special exemptions granted to Creole officers. Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Spain in 1808, imprisoned King Ferdinand VII, and attempted unsuccessfully to impose his brother Joseph Bonaparte as monarch. Rebelling, the Spanish resurrected their long-defunct Cortes to govern as regent in the absence of the legitimate king, and, with representation from the overseas realms, the Cortes in 1812 promulgated a liberal constitution in the King's name. Continental events stimulated rivalries in Mexico as contradictory commands were being received from the mother country. On Sept. 16, 1810, Hidalgo issued the "Dolores", calling for the end of rule by Spanish peninsulars, for equality of races, and for redistribution of land. Mexican Independence Day commemorates this event. Warning that the Spaniards would deliver Mexico to the godless French, Hidalgo exhorted his followers to fight and die for the Mexican Virgin, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Hidalgo captured the warehouse on September 28, but he quickly lost control of his rebel army. The Guanajuato massacre swung moderate and undecided support behind the viceroy's efforts to crush the Hidalgo rebellion, lest a full-scale caste war ensue. Royalist forces defeated Hidalgo at the Bridge of Calderon on Jan. 18, 1811. The Hidalgo cause was taken up by his associate Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, another parish priest, who won control of...