Editing Our Lady of Guadalupe (section)

===Symbol of Mexico===
[[File:Casta_Painting_by_Luis_de_Mena.jpg|thumb|left|[[Luis de Mena]], [[Virgin of Guadalupe]] and [[castas]], 1750, a frequently reproduced painting, uniquely uniting the image Virgin and a depiction of the [[casta]] system]]

''Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe'' became a recognized symbol of Catholic Mexicans. [[Miguel Sanchez (writer)|Miguel Sánchez]], the author in 1648 of the first published account of the vision, identified Guadalupe as ''Revelation's'' [[Woman of the Apocalypse]], and said:

<blockquote>... this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary&nbsp;... who had prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this, her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image.{{sfn|Brading|2001|p=58}}</blockquote>

Throughout the Mexican national history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Guadalupan name and image have been unifying national symbols; the first [[President of Mexico]] (1824–1829) changed his name from José Miguel Ramón Adaucto Fernández y Félix to [[Guadalupe Victoria]] in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe.<ref name="krauze"/> Father [[Miguel Hidalgo]], in the [[Mexican War of Independence]] (1810), and [[Emiliano Zapata]], in the [[Mexican Revolution]] (1910), led their respective armed forces with Guadalupan [[flag]]s emblazoned with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Galeano |first=Eduardo |title=Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent |date=January 1997 |isbn=978-0853459910 |pages=46}}</ref> In 1999, the Church officially proclaimed her the ''Patroness of the Americas'', the ''Empress of Latin America'', and the ''Protectress of Unborn Children''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T9beDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT988|title=The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities|date=2016|isbn=9780190614171|publisher=Oxford University Press|editor1=Jonathan M. Dueck|editor2=Suzel Ana Reily|page=988}}</ref>

In 1810, [[Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla]] initiated the bid for Mexican independence with his ''[[Grito de Dolores]]'', with the cry "[[Death]] to the [[Spaniards]] and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!" When Hidalgo's mestizo-indigenous army attacked [[Guanajuato]] and [[Morelia|Valladolid]], they placed "the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was the insignia of their enterprise, on sticks or on reeds painted different colors" and "they all wore a print of the Virgin on their hats."<ref name="krauze" >Krauze, Enrique. Mexico, Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico 1810–1996. HarperCollins: New York, 1997.</ref> After Hidalgo's death, leadership of the revolution fell to a [[mestizo]] priest named [[José María Morelos]], who led insurgent troops in the Mexican south. Morelos adopted the Virgin as the seal of his [[Congress of Chilpancingo]], inscribing her feast day into the [[Chilpancingo]] constitution and declaring that Guadalupe was the power behind his victories:

<blockquote>New Spain puts less faith in its own efforts than in the power of God and the intercession of its Blessed Mother, who appeared within the precincts of Tepeyac as the miraculous image of Guadalupe that had come to comfort us, defend us, visibly be our protection.<ref name="krauze" /></blockquote>

[[Simón Bolívar]] noticed the Guadalupan theme in these uprisings, and shortly before Morelos's execution in 1815 wrote: "the leaders of the independence struggle have put [[fanaticism]] to use by proclaiming the famous Virgin of Guadalupe as the queen of the patriots, praying to her in times of hardship and displaying her on their flags... the [[veneration]] for this image in Mexico far exceeds the greatest reverence that the shrewdest prophet might inspire."{{sfn|Brading|2001|p=58}}

In 1912, [[Emiliano Zapata]]'s peasant army rose out of the south against the government of [[Francisco Madero]]. Though Zapata's rebel forces were primarily interested in [[land reform]]—"tierra y libertad" ('land and liberty') was the [[slogan]] of the uprising—when his peasant troops penetrated [[Mexico City]], they carried Guadalupan banners.<ref>Documentary footage of Zapata and Pancho Villa's armies entering Mexico City can be seen at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_wAoEqeHKU YouTube.com], Zapata's men can be seen carrying the flag of the Guadalupana about 38 seconds in.</ref> More recently, the contemporary Zapatista National Liberation Army ([[EZLN]]) named their "mobile city" in honor of the Virgin: it is called Guadalupe Tepeyac. EZLN spokesperson [[Subcomandante Marcos]] wrote a humorous letter in 1995 describing the EZLN bickering over what to do with a Guadalupe statue they had received as a gift.<ref>Subcomandante Marcos, [https://web.archive.org/web/20000523012900/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/marcos_virgin_mar95.html Flag.blackened.net], "Zapatistas Guadalupanos and the Virgin of Guadalupe" March 24, 1995, accessed December 11, 2006.</ref>