Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/309

Rh ecclesiastic, and like him a devoted lover of his country. His name was José María Morelos y Pavon. He was born on the 30th of September, 1765, on the rancho Tahuejo el Chico, near Apatzingan. His parents were honest and respectable people, the father, Manuel Morelos, being a carpenter, and the mother, Juana Pavon, the daughter of a school-master in Valladolid. José's education was the most elementary, and on the death of his father, his widowed mother was in so straitened circumstances that she gave the care of her son to his uncle Felipe Morelos, who owned a mule train, and trafficked between Mexico and Acapulco. The young man sometimes followed the train, and sometimes looked after the stock on the rancho; although his ambition, supported by his mother's wishes, had ever been a place in the church. At the age of thirty-two, by great effort and self-denial, he succeeded in gaining admission into the college of San Nicolás as a sizar, or servitor. Here he studied natural and moral philosophy under the guidance of Hidalgo, who was at that time the rector, and for whom Morelos ever afterward entertained the greatest regard and veneration. Having been ordained, he was appointed temporarily to the cures of Churumuco and Huacana; and later the benefice of the towns of Caracuaro and Nucupétaro, in the department of Tacámbaro, was conferred upon him. The stipend of this curato was small, but the hardships of his early life had instilled into Morelos habits of frugality, and he managed to save enough