In the night from 15 to 16 September at the central balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City, where the official residence of the head of state, there is a president of the republic with tricolor ribbon over his shoulder and hits the old bell that hung in the church once a small town of Dolores (now Dolores Hidalgo ). After that, turning to a festive crowd of thousands filling the vast Plaza de la Constitucion, he loudly exclaimed: "Long live independence! Viva Mexico! ". At the same time the state soared up up green-white-red flag.
This day the Mexican Congress in 1824 decided to declare a national holiday. Beginning next year, the celebration was conducted on a national scale.
The first president of Mexico, which took a direct personal participation in the celebrations (and thus began a tradition continued to the present time), was the eminent statesman Benito Juarez, who led in 1862 - 1867. armed struggle against the French invaders. In the last years of the last century, the government ordered the bell to move from Dolores to the capital. And then finally there was the ceremony described above.
Repeated annually according to established tradition, it symbolizes the event, the anniversary of which celebrate the Mexicans for more than a half century.
The cradle of the ancient Mayan culture, the Aztecs, Toltecs  , Zapotec, Tarascan - Mexico in the XVI century. was conquered by the Spanish conquistadors, violently interrupted the original development of the Indian peoples.
Barbarously destroying civilization developed there, European invaders seized the land, plundered, enslaved or exterminated the indigenous inhabitants were brutally suppress any attempt at resistance. Mass deaths of Indians, overwork on plantations and mines, systematic malnutrition, frequent epidemics of plague, smallpox, typhus and other diseases listed in Europe, Africa and Asia, the sharp decline in fertility and increase in infant mortality rates have led to a drastic reduction in the number of Aboriginal people.