Depicts the seal of the United Mexican States.

The Seal of the United Mexican States is a modified version of the national coat of arms, with the addition of the full official name of the country Estados Unidos Mexicanos, in a semi-circular accommodation in the upper part of the seal. Current and past Mexican peso coinage have had the seal engraved on the obverse of all denominations.

The coat of arms depicts a Mexican golden eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus devouring a rattlesnake. To the people of Tenochtitlan this would have strong religious connotations, but to the Europeans, it would come to symbolize the triumph of good over evil (with the snake sometimes representative of the serpent in the Garden of Eden).

José María Morelos y Pavón (1765-1815) was a Mexican Roman Catholic priest and revolutionary rebel leader who led the Mexican War of Independence movement, assuming its leadership after the execution of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1811. Morelos along with Ignacio López Rayón are credited for the organizational stage of the war of independence.

After a series of defeats he was captured by the Spanish royalist military, tried by the Inquisition, defrocked as a cleric, and executed by civil authorities for treason in 1815. Morelos is a national hero in Mexico and is considered a very successful military leader despite the fact that he never took a military career and was instead a priest.