Mexico produced the Western Hemisphere�s first printed materials when Juan Pablos set up a press in 1539, but his and subsequent printing shops were tightly controlled by the Spanish government and the Catholic Church. For almost two centuries only religious materials or occasional notices of remote or innocuous events appeared, and no newspaper surfaced. In 1722 Juan Ignacio de Castorena established Gaceta de Mexico, but neither it nor its immediate successors displayed much journalistic zeal. It was the war for independence from Spain that produced vitriolic political journalism, led by El Despertador Americano, which was founded in 1810.