Morelos was a muleteer prior to his studying for the priesthood, a line of work that many mixed race men pursued, including Vicente Guerrero. It is unclear why he became a priest, but he succeeded in seminary was assigned a parish of mixed in the "hot country" of southwest Mexico. Priests in relatively remote parishes often functioned as officials carrying out crown business. Morelos was tasked with carrying out a census of his parishioners, one component of which was determining the racial status of his parishioners; however, he declined to provide the racial information. Morelos's military campaign was based along the west coast of Mexico and its interior, a region that had a predominantly mixed-race population. Among those who distinguished themselves in his military campaign were Afro-Mexicans Hermenegildo Galeana and Vicente Guerrero. Galeana was killed in battle in 1814, much to the distress of Morelos. Upon Miguel Hidalgo's death the army declined and the future was not looking very promising. Guerrilla warfare seemed to be the main line of attack. The army was now under the command of Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña, more generally known as Vicente Guerrero. Born to a poor family of mixed-race farmers in 1782 in Tixtla, near Chilpancingo, in the Mexican state now named for him Guerrero (state) to a poor family of farmers, Guerrero came to distinguish himself as a leader due to his oratory skills and ability to speak different languages. Although he had little formal education he possessed other skills that helped him as a military leader, such as having knowledge of the geography of the region, this helped entering to towns where the access to main roads was difficult. Although his four-year command was mostly a holding action and the military was almost always on the brink of collapse, he was considered one of the greatest Mexican war heroes. He is identified as the “consummator of the Mexican independence”. When approached by former royalist officer Agustín de Iturbide to join forces against the Spanish, Guerrero did agree to the alliance under the Plan de Iguala and the combined forces, known as the Army of the Three Guarantees was formed. Spanish imperial rule collapsed, and Mexico gained its independence in September 1821.