El Pipila
El Pipila is a colossal monument of a young Indian who is a great hero in Mexico and especially in Guanajuato. At the time that Mexico started its fight for independence from Spain in 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo led an insurgency of some 20,000 Mexicans, mostly Indians and Mextizos. Most of the Spaniards in Guanajuato shut themselves up behind the massive walls of the Alondiga de Granaditas, a large stone granary. The Mexicans were unable to break in until a young miner, as legend has it, nicknamed El Pipila with a slab of stone as a shield and a lighted torch in his hand ran up to the huge wooden doors and set them on fire. Male Spaniards were slaughtered out of revenge for the persecution that the people had endured since the conquest.
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