Tag Archives: history

2020

The Afterlife and the Mexican Revolution

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By Randy Jackson

Concepts of the afterlife have shaped culture and behavior throughout human history, from the building of the Pyramids of Egypt, to the celebration of Día de los Muertos today. Whatever we think the afterlife is “like,” including the materialist concept of no afterlife at all, influences our worldview and how we interact with other people.

From Heaven and Hell to Spiritism

Western thought regarding the afterlife has evolved through time. The concepts of Heaven and Hell did not exist in early Christianity. Christian dogma evolved from the belief in an afterlife of deep sleep until the final judgment at the end of time. Over the centuries Heaven and Hell became eternal rewards or punishments based on the conduct of humans during their time on earth. This concept remained foundational through the centuries. Then in the late 1800’s, a movement that became known as Spiritism (Spiritualism in the U.S.), arose first in Europe and spread throughout the world, particularly among the elite and educated classes. Spiritism held a belief that the afterlife was a continuity of individual consciousness, a concept similar to Eastern religious thought. Spiritism also held the concept that spirits in the afterlife could be communicated with.

One adherent of this view was Francisco Madero, the elected president of Mexico after the downfall of Porfirio Díaz. Madero may have channeled the spirit of Benito Juárez for advice in the early days of the Mexican Revolution.

Madero and the Rise of Spiritism

For a variety of reasons, Spiritism flourished in popularity around the turn of the 20th century. A turn away from the orthodoxy of mainstream religion was a particularly strong cause in the United States. New religions, such as Mormonism and the Seventh Day Adventist Church, were founded in this period, in what is known as the “Second Great Awakening,” a religious revival movement in the U.S. (c. 1795-1835). (The original “Great Awakening” was similar and started in Great Britain, flourishing in the colonies from the 1730s-1770s.)

Another factor that moved western thought towards a different view of the afterlife was the groundbreaking publication in 1859 of “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin. The acceptance that life arose on earth through a natural process rather than divine creation was an intellectual paradigm shift that is still reverberating today. Spiritism, fully embracing evolution as a concept, holds that evolution of individual consciousness continues in the afterlife.

The spiritual beliefs of Francisco Madero were consistent with these concepts. Francisco Ignacio Madero González (1873-1913) was from one of the wealthiest Mexican families of the time. He was educated in France and the United States. In the international educated elite circles where Madero moved, the concepts of Spiritism were widely held. The Spiritist held that there were seven hierarchical realms in the afterlife; Spiritism postulated lower “hell-like” realms, up to realms very much like our physical realm, through to higher angelic realms, and ultimately a realm where individual consciousness (the soul) merged with the divine.

This afterlife view of Spiritism, in which individual consciousness can evolve to higher realms, is fundamentally intertwined with the concept of reincarnation. But reincarnation back into our physical realm wasn’t seen as something that happened immediately. Rather, there is time between lives where spirits are believed to exist in the afterlife realm of their evolutionary attainment. This “between lives” period of the afterlife enables mediums to connect to the spirit of the deceased. In the case of Madero’s mediumship, most of his initial contact, he believed, was with his younger brother Raul, who had died at age three.

In 2011 (paperback 2014), C.M. Mayo published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. In numerous interviews about the work, she makes the point that Madero’s spiritual beliefs are fundamental in understanding the motivations and actions of the person who is credited with initiating the Mexican Revolution.

Madero’s Spiritism and the Mexican Revolution

In 1908, Madero published La sucesión presidencial en 1910, after the long-serving president and dictator, Porfirio Díaz announced in an interview with American journalist James Creelman, that Mexico was ready for democracy and that he would retire in 1910. Díaz subsequently changed his mind, Madero organized the anti-reelection opposition, Díaz had Madero imprisoned, and proceeded to rig the election for yet another term. Madero escaped from prison and while residing in San Antonio, Texas, wrote a manifesto, the “Plan of San Luis Potosí,” considered the founding document of the Mexican Revolution. (Recall that the Mexican Revolution was more of a series of regional conflicts than a clear war; it might have ended in 1917, with the establishment of the Mexican Constitution, but fighting continued on for years.) Madero’s writing led to the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz and Madero’s winning the interim presidential election of 1911.

Historians have given Francisco Madero a couple of significant titles: “Apostle of Democracy” and “Father of the Revolution.” He has been frequently described as having been a decent and honest man. In 2013, Michael Benjamin Amoruso, a doctoral student at the University of Texas in Austin, published a paper for the American Academy of Religion annual meeting, “A Transcendental Mission: Spiritism and the Revolutionary Politics of Francisco I. Madero, 1900-1911.” (The author is now an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Occidental University in Los Angeles). Amoruso argued that Madero “understood his political action as the earthly component of spiritual struggle.” Madero expresses a

prescriptive Spiritist vision, in which democracy represents a triumph of human’s “higher nature” over the “base, selfish passions” of Porfirio Díaz and his regime.

In his memoir, Madero wrote that beings in the afterlife instructed him in moral and spiritual matters. The political documents that launched the ousting of Porfirio Díaz were likely channeled from a source noted by Madero as “Jose.” Other journals from his channeled works were noted as being from “BJ,” considered by some to be Benito Juárez, the president of Mexico who preceded Porfirio Díaz.

Madero’s beliefs and practices of Spiritism were not a secret in Mexican society of the time. There were cartoons in Mexico City newspapers lampooning the president performing seances; the press described Madero as a “loco que se comunicaba con los muertos” (a madman who talks with the dead). In 1913, a segment of the army rebelled against Madero, and General Victoriano Huerta joined them. Huerta had risen to General under Porfirio Díaz, and Madero apparently did not completely trust him but felt he needed him.

The rebellion resulted in a coup d’etat – aided by the U.S. – against Madero; Huerta had Madero and his Vice-President, José María Pino Suárez, murdered in an alley within the week. Madero was 39; Suárez 44. The New York weekly newspaper The Sun trumpeted huge headlines: “MADERO AND SUAREZ SHOT DEAD ON WAY TO PRISON.” Madero’s overthrow and execution seemed to have nothing to do with his beliefs in the evolution of individuals across lifetimes towards a selfless growth in divine love. His fate was rather a raw power grab by Huerta.

I can’t imagine that Madero and Huerta ended up in the same realm in anyone’s version of the afterlife.

Email: box95jackson@gmail.com

October 2023

We Are, Indeed, Stardust

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By Julie Etra

We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.
― Joni Mitchell, chorus to the song “Woodstock” (1969)

We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe
to figure itself out—and we have only just begun.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (2017)

It is totally 100% true: nearly all the elements in the human body
were made in a star and many have come through several supernovas.
― Ashley J. King, Ph.D., planetary scientist at the Museum of Natural History, London

Most of the elements of our bodies were formed in stars over the course of billions of years and multiple star lifetimes. It’s even possible that some of our hydrogen (which makes up roughly 9.5% of our bodies) and lithium, which our body contains in very tiny trace amounts (sorry, Elon, not cost effective), originated from the Big Bang. All this may be hard for some people to accept, the fact that we consist of elements of recycled stars. As visitors to or residents of Mexico, how do Mexicans think of this?

What did pre-Hispanic cultures think about the stars?

Numerous ancient (and not so ancient) cultures looked to the sky with wonder and perhaps puzzlement; the sky of course was the source of many origin stories: gods, goddesses, legends about the stars, what or who they were, and what they represented. In many ancient cultures, people believed that gods dwelt outside the realm of human experience, and that temples bridged the gap between the human and the divine, expediting access to their deities. This was true in Mexico, particularly among the Aztecs. In their architectural design, they mimicked what happened during the creation of the world as they knew it.

The Mayans had a sophisticated sacred calendar based on the stars. Days and months were represented by small glyphs (“the specific shape, design, or representation of a character”) and drawings. Chichen Itza, one of the most famous Mayan communities, included an observatory perfectly oriented towards the stars, the planets, and the cosmos. They believed that the history of their people was cyclical and was repeated according to the position of the stars in the sky. The 260-day calendar sacred to the Maya was governed by the path of Venus.

In the Aztec civilization, centered around the capital of Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City), three basic types of pyramids existed: the Twin Stair Pyramid, the Single Stair Pyramid, and the Round Pyramid. Twin and Single Stair Pyramids were four-sided constructions with a single or double staircase on one side. This staircase always faced west, which the Aztecs believed was the place where the sun descended into the underworld. These pyramids comprised four main platforms and a final fifth level containing one or two temples.

The temples were set back from the stairs and impossible to see from ground level, creating an illusion that the temples resided in the heavens. They were enormous in order to be as close as possible to the gods residing in the heavens. The Nahua people, who included the Aztecs, Chichimecas, and Toltecs, believed that the heavens had13 levels, usually called topan (“above us” or “the beyond”), with one to many gods living on any given level.

Closer to home (Huatulco)

The Zapotec culture’s preeminent population, agricultural, and religious center, Monte Alban, located in the Central Valleys on the outskirts of present-day Oaxaca City, was inhabited between 500 B.C.E. and approximately 900 C.E., when it was abandoned. At an elevation of 1940 m (6400 ft) above mean sea level, Monte Alban rises 400 m (1300 ft) from the valley floor. It was one of the first urban centers established in Mesoamerica. In the pre-Hispanic era, the three valleys were settled due to the rich soil and numerous productive rivers and intermittent drainages descending from the mountains. The valleys and eventually the flanks of the man-made plateau of Monte Alban were cultivated to support the growing population. Eventually, an estimated peak population of 35,000 resided among the temples, residences, and ballcourts.

Last winter, we learned from our elderly and sage local guide, Nezahualcóyotl (named after the scholar/poet/engineer who appears on the 100-peso bill), there was also a medical facility. Nezahualcóyotl referred me to some supporting documentation that postulated that the figures known as the danzantes (dancers) were in fact patients at a clinic, and their antic postures represented various maladies.

The ancient city was built on a site conducive to observing the celestial heavens, innately tied to the culture, since agriculture and other activities of daily life depended on the study and understanding of the stars. In Oani Báa, (Zapotec for Monte Alban), one of the first buildings to be built in the main square was Building I, a Mesoamerican observatory, erected to follow the movement of the stars, the moon, and the sun. The majority of the temples faced east or west, aligning with the sun’s path. The entire city was itself a great astronomical observatory, and for about1400 years the population observed the constellations and planets and perfected their calendars.

The Zapotecs, particularly the priests or shamans, were aware of alternative “realities,” discovered through the consumption of hallucinogenic drugs, particularly mushrooms, that allowed for communication with the gods. They were purported to practice “astral travel” and to be able to predict the future. The first time my husband and I visited the ruins in 2007, our guide explained (or hypothesized?) that priests would demonstrate their superhuman powers to the masses by disappearing through one of the underground tunnels and emerging on the opposite side of the temple. This would support the Zapotec belief that the sun, after hiding in the west, passed through the interior of the Earth and came out in the east, and thus the priests were able to follow or accompany the sun. (I have read several references to this “spectacle,” and if true it would have helped ensure the commoner’s awe of, and respect for, the ruling religious class.)

Around 1325 CE, the Mixtecs, coming from the north, invaded the valley of Oaxaca and re-occupied the site, along with the city of Mitla to the east.

Off topic, but interesting, the current conditions in the Central Valleys do not even vaguely resemble what it looked like in pre-Hispanic or post-Conquest/colonial time. Today the valley is somewhat denuded, and prominently marked by erosion; there are large stands of agave (mezcal or tequila, anyone?) and numerous large greenhouses.

When the Zapotec civilization emerged, although the climate was semi-arid as it is today, oak and pine woodlands covered the surrounding mountains (now decimated by logging). During the dry season from November until May, cultivation continued along the rivers, employing sophisticated systems of irrigation canals. It was through these systems, connecting to small streams, that water was provided to Monte Alban; archaeologists have found remains of a small irrigation system consisting of a dam and a canal on the south-eastern flank of the mountain. As there were no domesticated beasts of burden at that time, water and other supplies were most likely carried on the backs of peasants from the flanks of the mountain up to the city.

A little about the Zapotec inframundo (underworld)
A recent archaeological discovery about the underworld has been made in Mitla, a Zapotec religious center located east and south of present-day Oaxaca City (see Brooke O’Connor’s article elsewhere in this issue). A consortium of researchers discovered an extensive labyrinth beneath a colonial Catholic church – the temple of Lyobaa (Zapotec for “place of rest”). This ancient underground site is thought to be what the Zapotecs knew as the entrance to the underworld.

The ARX Project, a member of the research consortium, issued a report on the first year of investigation (2022); the report contains a description written by Francisco de Burgoa, a Dominican historian, at the time the church was built atop the Mitla ruins, noting that the site was

a vast subterranean temple consisting of four interconnected chambers, containing the tombs of the high priests and the kings of Teozapotlán. From the last subterranean chamber, a stone door led into a deep cavern extending thirty leagues below ground. This cavern was intersected by other passages like streets, its roof supported by pillars.

Although it was sealed off by Spanish missionaries centuries ago as part of the conquest and efforts to eliminate perceived pagan practices, rumors of its existence persisted for centuries. Recent high-tech methods were used to re-discover this archaeologically significant site.

An ancient legend of the stars

Finally, as a bittersweet ending, I have translated a Zapotec legend about the stars and cosmos, El Principe y la Estrella (The Prince and the Star). The original appears on the website Mexican Myths and Legends maintained by anthropologist Sonia Iglesias of the Mexican government’s General Directorate of Popular, Indigenous, and Urban Cultures (https://www.mitos-mexicanos.com/tag/xtagabne).

In the pre-Hispanic times of the Zapotec kingdom, there lived a warrior prince who was known for being very handsome and brave. His fame was not only known on Earth but also in Heaven. Alba (Dawn) learned of the extraordinary princely feats and related them to the daughters of the Lord of Heaven, who were actually stars.

The most beautiful of the goddess-daughter-stars fell madly in love with the warrior prince and descended to Earth, sitting patiently next to the river that flowed through Juchitán, waiting for the handsome young man to pass by. He arrived at the place where the star was waiting, and captivated by her beauty, immediately fell in love with her. Without thinking twice, he took her into his arms and swept her away to the royal residence.

Upon realizing the absence of one of his daughters, Heaven became very sad, the sky darkened, and the gray clouds rained tears. The divinities of Heaven, the stars, wanted at all costs to prevent their sister-star from marrying a mere mortal, no matter how brave he was, and they met to develop a plan to prevent the perceived disastrous romance. And so continues the story of the origin of the beautiful xtaga be’nye, the water lily.

The wedding between the goddess-star and the prince was held with many accompanying grand celebrations. One of the stars transformed herself into a breeze, descending to the earth and attending one of the celebrations. Stealthily, she entered the bedroom intended for the newlyweds. Once inside, she abandoned her disguise and turned to the now-married goddess-star to relay to her what her father, the Lord of Heaven, had decided: Sister Star, because of what you have done, our father, Heaven, has decided that you will remain forever on Earth and become a flower that will float on the waters of the lagoon. Your petals will remain closed during the day so that humans cannot see you, but at night they will open so that you can receive a visit from your sisters, the stars!

The star goddess then disappeared with her sister star, and no one would see her again. Moments later, a blackish green flower with a beautiful, slender stem appeared in the Chivele lagoon, which people began to call mudubina (Zapotec for water lily).

The prince, upon realizing the disappearance of his wife, began going crazy with grief. His father, seeing him so desperate, summoned his vinnigenda, travelers from all the winds, to go look for the missing goddess-star. Despite the Zapotec Lord being extremely powerful, he could do nothing against the power of the Lord of Heaven. One of the oldest vinnigendas told the Zapotec Lord that it was not possible to defeat Heaven. Then the old vinnigenda, seeing the suffering of the young warrior, turned him into a flower as well. This new flower was named xtaga be’nye, the water lily (nenúfar in Spanish).

Thus, the two lovers were able to meet. The mudubina with its beautiful petals open only at night and with a red heart from the fire of her love, and the xtaga be’nye that lives by day and shows its yellow heart full of melancholy. They could never see each other, but perhaps one day, the Lord of Heaven will take pity on the lovers so that they can love each other again face to face, forever and ever.

Postscript for the botanically inclined. The plants have male and female parts making them “perfect.” When the flowers first open, the female parts dominate, and nectar pools in their centers. On the second and third day, the flowers produce pollen, the male parts. The Zapotecs gave the flower two different names depending on the flowering stage.

For an interesting read, check out this link:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220928-mexicos-ancient-unknown-pyramids

¡Adiós! ¡Padiuxhi!

2023, July 2023

Naming the Mexican Schools– with People’s Names

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By Julie Etra

When you started school, what was the name of your school? How about middle school? High school? I attended Roosevelt Elementary School in New York, but for which Roosevelt was it named? I’d like to forget junior high entirely – like many teens! My high school, New Rochelle High, was obviously named for a place. University of Colorado, Colorado State, places.

For years I have driven around Huatulco and its environs, up to Pluma Hidalgo, on to Oaxaca City through San José del Pacifico, out to Bahía San Augustín, and down to the Bajos de Coyula. In all these places, I have seen escuelas (schools) with specific names, the great majority named after renowned historical figures. While the schools I’m listing here are all in the vicinity of Huatulco, these names appear on schools throughout Mexico. They give us a picture of people recognized as important to Mexican history, philosophy, culture, and communication. To emphasize that history, they are listed in the chronological order of their lives.

Juan Jacobo Rousseau (1712-78) is the name of an escuela secundaria (grades 7, 8 9) in La Crucecita. This might seem a bit perplexing, given that the Swiss philosopher, writer, and composer never visited Mexico. However, Rousseau’s book The Social Contract (1763) – famous for the quote “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” – greatly influenced those who led the national wars of independence and revolutions of the United States (1775-83), France (1789-99), and Mexico (1810-21).

Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (1753-1811) was his full name, but he is known as Father Miguel Hidalgo. He is the famous Catholic priest credited with the Grito de Dolores, the “shout of rebellion” given at midnight on September 15/16 in the town of Dolores Hidalgo. The grito marked beginning of the movement for Mexico’s independence from Spain. Miguel Hidalgo is considered the Father of the Nation and was very progressive for his time, including being anti-slavery. On 6 December 1810, Hidalgo issued a decree abolishing slavery, threatening death to those who did not comply. He abolished tribute payments that indigenous peoples had to pay to criollo lords (Creole, a European born in Mexico). He was excommunicated and executed by the Spanish government. Suffice it to say that you will see many places named after Miguel Hidalgo, including states, roads, and schools – a kindergarten in Palo Grande, on route 175 north of Pluma Hidalgo, bears his name.

José Miguel Ramón Adaucto Fernández y Félix (1786-1843)​​ was a Mexican general and political figure who fought in the Mexican War of Independence. He changed his name to Guadalupe Victoria after winning a battle in that town. After the adoption of the Mexican Constitution of 1824, Victoria was elected as the first President of the United Mexican States, an office in which he served from 1824 to 1829. There are at least two schools named for Guadalupe Victoria along the Oaxacan coast, a primaria (elementary school) in San Pedro Mixtepec, north of Puerto Escondido, and a primaria in Chahuites, near Salina Cruz.

Leona Vicario (1789-1842) was one of the most prominent figures of the War of Independence. From her home in Mexico City, she supported the insurrection by informing rebels of the movements of Spanish troops. She was wealthy, independent, a feminist, and a journalist, and provided substantial financial support to the insurgency. She received several postmortem recognitions, including the title of “Distinguished and Beloved Mother of the Homeland” by the Congress of the Union. Her name is inscribed in gold in the Mural of Honor in the lower house of the Mexican Congress. The year 2020 was declared the Year of Leona Vicario, Benemérita Madre de la Patria (Praiseworthy Mother of the Homeland).

Melchor Ocampo (1814-61) is one of the most intriguing individuals noted in this article. Ethnically he was a mestizo (mixed indigenous and European ancestry) and a radical liberal. He was abandoned as a child at the doorstep of a wealthy Mexican woman who not only raised him but to whom she bequeathed her estate. He was fervently opposed to the Catholic Church, reflected in his early writings that earned him the reputation as an intellectual. He served in the administration of Benito Juárez (the indigenous 26th president of Mexico) and negotiated a controversial agreement with the United States. The McLane-Ocampo Treaty, which dealt with transportation and commerce, gave the U.S. substantial rights in Mexico despite the recently fought Mexican-American War (1846-48), when Mexico lost 30% of its territory. In 1874, the state of Michoacán was renamed to honor Ocampo – its formal name is Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo (The Free and Sovereign State of Michoacán de Ocampo). Many schools throughout Mexico are named for Ocampo, including a primaria in Puerto Angel.

Agustín Melgar (1829-47), was a military cadet and major figure in the defense of Chapultepec Castle against invading American forces. The Battle of Chapultepec, one of the last major battles of the Mexican–American War, took place on September 13th, 1847. After finding himself alone, Melgar tried to stop the enemy on the north side of the castle, killing one American soldier and then taking refuge behind mattresses in one of the rooms. He was one of six cadets, aged 13 to 19, from the military academy located on Chapultepec Hill. All six died in battle that day. They are known as the Niños Héroes (Child Heroes), and are commemorated by a national holiday on September 13th. There is a kindergarten named for Melgar in Santa María Huatulco; several schools in the area named for the Niños Héroes.

Macedonio Alcalá Prieto (1831-69). For all the times I’ve walked the pedestrian corridor in Oaxaca City – the Andador de Macedonio Alcalá – I never really realized for whom it was named. A majestic theatre in the historic district – el Teatro de Macedonio Alcalá – was also named for him. Alcalá was born in Oaxaca City and showed an early interest in music, learning the piano, cello, viola, flute, and ophicleide (a keyed brass instrument in the bugle family), but he excelled on the violin.

He grew up to be a violinist, pianist, and composer. After completing studies in Mexico City he returned to Oaxaca, where he became a member of the Philharmonic Society of Santa Cecilia, an orchestra specializing in regional music and composers. Later he became the director of the Banda de Música de Oaxaca. Alcalá was said to be passionate and high-strung, characteristics that distinguished his playing and his compositions. He struggled with poverty, disease, and alcoholism. Few of his compositions survive since he was remiss in putting them on paper. Among the surviving works are “Marcha Funebre” (Funeral March), “Solo dios en los cielos” (Only God in Heaven), “El Cohete” (The Rocket), “Ave María,” and a well-known waltz “Dios nunca muere” (God Never Dies), which is the unofficial state anthem of Oaxaca. Oaxaqueños stand when they hear it. Macedonio Alcalá is the name of a preschool in Pluma Hidalgo sponsored by CONAFE (Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo, which sets up schools in rural areas); there is a Macedonio Alcalá primary school on Hwy 175, north of Pochutla.

Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari (1844-1919). Olavarría was a well-educated Spanish attorney who emigrated to Mexico in 1865, where he became a journalist, publisher, and educator. He briefly returned to Europe but made his way back to his final home in Mexico where he died. He collaborated on the short-lived (52 issues in 1869) literary magazine El Renacimiento (The Renaissance), considered essential to “awakening the interest in literature all over Mexico” after the chaotic period of the Mexican-American War and the French Intervention (1861-67).

Olavarría founded and collaborated on La Revista Universal and El Federalista, and worked as a columnist for a number of other journals and newspapers (El Constitucional, El Globo, and El Correo de México, among others). His teaching career in Mexico City included literature classes at the Conservatory of Music; geography, universal history, history of Mexico and declamation at the School of Arts and Crafts for Young Ladies; and mathematics at the Municipal Normal School and was administrator of the Colegio de las Vizcaínas. Many schools throughout the country are named for him.

Filomeno Mata Rodríguez (1845-1911) was a Mexican professor and journalist during the Porfiriato (the presidency of Porfirio Díaz) He is particularly noted as an opposition writer during this period, which resulted in his being incarcerated several times. He supported the candidacy for president of Francisco I. Madero at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. A primary school in Erradura, just outside of Santa María Huatulco on the way to Pluma Hidalgo, is named for Mata Rodríguez.

José Vasconcelos (1882-1959. Passing a kindergarten in Santa María Huatulco, I wondered, “Hmmm, who is José Vasconcelos?” José Vasconcelos Calderón is often called the “cultural caudillo” (leader) of the Mexican Revolution. He was a writer, philosopher, politician (and presidential candidate), an influential as well as controversial figure in the history of modern Mexico. Although he was born in the state of Oaxaca (along with Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz) he was raised in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, on the Texas border and attended school in Eagle Pass, USA, where he learned English. Vasconcelos served as Mexico’s minister of education after the Revolution; he is credited with starting the Mexican muralism movement, in which artists created large murals to give a largely illiterate population an understanding of its history. The muralism movement made Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco international famous in their own right.

Vasconcelos is particularly noted for penning the book entitled La raza cósmica (The Cosmic Race), which expressed the ideology of a future “fifth race” in the Americas, an agglomeration of all the races in the world with no respect to color. Vasconcelos espoused an anti-Anglo philosophy; he was also a bit of a rake. In addition to the kindergarten in Santa María, there is a Jose Vasconcelos secundaria in Santa María, and a Jose Vasconcelos primaria in Sector H3 in La Crucecita.

Adolfo López Mateos (1909-69) was a Mexican politician who served as Mexico’s president from 1958 to 1964. Born in Atizapán de Zaragoza in the state of México, he began his political career as a campaign aide to presidential candidate José Vasconcelos (who lost the 1929 election). López Mateos was the first self-declared left-wing politician to hold the presidency since Lázaro Cárdenas del Rio (President from 1934-40).

López Mateos said his political philosophy was “leftist, but within the Constitution.” In 1959, his administration created the Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers) and La Comisión Nacional de Libros de Texto Gratuitos (National Commission for Free Textbooks). In 1960, López Mateos created the CFE (Comisión Federal de Electricidad) during a time of economic growth, and opened the National Museum of Anthropology in 1964.

He was an advocate of non-intervention and settled a border dispute with the U.S. with the Chamizal Treaty, signed August 31, 1964. The treaty granted Mexico 630 acres of what was South El Paso. He advocated a course of independence from the U.S., but cooperated on some issues, despite his opposition to the hostile U.S. policy toward the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Along with Cárdenas and his predecessor, Adolfo Tomás Ruiz Cortines (1952-58), he is considered to be one of the most popular Mexican presidents of the 20th century. Many schools throughout Mexico bear his name, including a primaria in Santa María Huatulco.

October 2022

Jewish Stories

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Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Have you ever wondered why so many well-known writers, including Nobel Prize winners, are Jewish? From Isaac Asimov through Franz Kafka, Lillian Hellman, Emma Lazarus and J.D. Salinger to Elie Wiesel, to name a few, hundreds of Jewish authors have challenged our imaginations and shaped the course of literature. What is it about being Jewish that stimulates the creative impulse to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and pour out captivating tales? One answer may be that Jews are steeped in stories – stories that are thousands or at least hundreds of years old and passed on from generation to generation.

The primary source of these stories is the Hebrew Scriptures, which Christians generally refer to as “the old testament.” Jews refer to the first parts of these scriptures as the Torah, or the five books of Moses. The first book alone includes two creation stories, stories about the first humans, the flood that destroyed everyone except for Noah and his clan, the first generations of Hebrews headed by Abraham and Sarah, then Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and his wives (Leah and Rachel) and his concubines who gave birth to the twelve tribes of Israel. The second book is packed with stories about the Israelites becoming slaves in Egypt, their rescue with the leadership of Moses and his sister Miriam, and Mount Sinai where the ten commandments were received.

The whole collection of Hebrew scriptures is called the Tanakh. Included are the well-known stories of Jonah and the whale, the tragedy of Job, the lovely story of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi, the tale of the love between David and Jonathan, the story of brave Queen Esther who saved the Jews in Persia from being killed by the wicked Haman, and scores of other stories less well known among people who aren’t Jewish. Some of these stories are grim and grisly – stuff of which nightmares are made. Others are inspiring, some championing the rights of women. And there are others that are beautiful stories of erotic yearning.

Many Jews are raised on the stories from Tanakh, often from the beginning of their lives – the day they are born. Jewish children usually are given two names; one a popular name in the country in which they are born and the other a Hebrew name borne by a late relative – the latter is generally drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures. The first stories Jewish children generally hear, in addition to The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, are Bible stories about their biblical namesake, the person who bore their name in the Tanakh. The stories become deeply personified. Children named David know they are meant to be musicians and kings. Children named Rebecca love to hear how they were recognized for their kind acts. And little girls named Esther enjoy parading around with a crown acting brave.

Jewish children have been told stories from Tanakh for millennia and given beautifully illustrated books of these stories. The 20th century saw the addition of baby board books and easy reader books with brightly drawn short Bible stories. And stuffed toys such as a Noah’s ark and a little plush replica of a Torah introduce wee ones to stories as they hug them close. Traditionally, at age three Jewish children begin to learn how to read Torah themselves. A piece of honey is placed on the first word to learn; and when the child sucks on the honey while learning to read the letter, the sweet taste of honey becomes synonymous with the sweet taste of learning the stories in Torah.

Stories from Tanakh have for thousands of years stimulated other stories by being embellished. Spin-off stories written by rabbis and scholars have been collected in books called Midrash. Each major character in Tanakh has generated dozens of stories that help flesh out and provide insights into their personalities and motivations for their actions. Abraham is depicted as a child willfully destroying the idols in his home. Sarah is described as one of the most beautiful women in the world even in old age. And Moses as a shepherd, it is told, showed such great compassion for a little lost lamb that he was chosen as the leader to guide the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

Many Jewish children learn these elaborated stories along with the Biblical versions. And when they attend Sunday School or Hebrew School classes, they are encouraged to create their own interpretations of these stories. It is common to see preschoolers or those in the earliest grades of primary school proudly bringing home stories they have written about a character in a Torah story – their letters can be irregular, their words misspelled, and their sentences ungrammatical – but just as midrash written millennia ago is prized, so are these early efforts.

Older children and teens are often encouraged to write their own plays or music based on stories from tanakh and midrash. This creativity, continued into adulthood, has produced innumerable TV programs, movies, novels, poetry, and musical scores, not necessarily on Jewish or religious themes.

So, consider how much of current culture, including magazine articles, is founded on children learning stories.

October 2022

The Myths and Legends of the Conquest: Moctezuma II vs. Hernán Cortés

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By Julie Etra

Various myths and legends surround the arrival of Hernán Cortés at the court of the last Mexican emperor, Moctezuma II (there are many other spellings) in Tenochtitlán, located in present-day Mexico City. Perhaps the most interesting story is how Cortés was perceived. One version is that the Mexica (Aztec descendants, also called Nahua) perceived him as the long-lost god Quetzalcóatl.

Who was Quetzalcóatl?

Quetzalcóatl (“feathered serpent” or “plumed serpent”) is the Nahuatl name for the feathered-serpent deity of ancient Mesoamerican culture; Quetzalcóatl is not to be confused with Quetzalcoatlus, which is a member of the ancient group of flying reptiles called pterosaurs, and is the largest flying animal, with a wingspan up to 52 feet. It lived during the late Cretaceous period (from 145 to 66 million years ago) and was indeed named for the Nahua god.

Quetzalcóatl has a complicated genealogy, but was recognized as the creator god, creator of mankind, as well as the sun, wind, and air. According to one version (there are many) Quetzalcóatl was coerced by Tezcatlipoca, the god of the night sky (among other things), into getting drunk on pulque (fermented agave juice), and attempted to seduce his older sister, Quetzalpetlatl, a celibate priestess. The next morning, Quetzalcóatl, embarrassed and regretful, either fled in a canoe to the east or laid himself down in a stone casket and set himself on fire, and his ashes rose and traveled to the east, turning into the morning star. The Mexica awaited his return, and in theory mistook Cortés for the long-awaited god.

Cortés as Quetzalcóatl

The Mexica were already well aware of the Spanish army’s march from Veracruz, where Cortés’ ship had landed, and of his appearance leading the cabalgada (cavalry, i.e., soldiers on horseback) to the capital, where they arrived on November 8, 1519. Complicating the interpretation that he was perceived as a god is the assumption the Spaniards and the Nahua had a similar concept of what ‘god’ meant, which is certainly not true, as the Nahua world consisted of many gods.

History is always retold by the conqueror, so this myth was documented by the Spaniards in the 16th century, 50 years after the conquest (the most famous documentation is in Book XII of the Florentine Codex. (A codex [pl. codices], is a Mesoamerican manuscript, produced by the Aztecs, the Nahua, or Spanish priests. The Florentine Codex was written by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún working with native people – the text is in Nahuatl; it is now located in the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy.)

Moctezuma had warned the Spaniards not to enter the city and was trying to delay their arrival until a more auspicious date on the Nahua calendar. Legend has it that the Nahua were meek, and that Moctezuma was deferential to Cortés. The Spanish description of the Nahua as naïve and simple of course supports their rationale for the brutal conquest.

What do we know about the first meeting between the last monarch and the Spanish conquistador? A special issue of Arqueología Mexicana, a magazine put out by INAH, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, indicates that Moctezuma was fully aware of Cortés’ intent, but he was cordial (keep in mind that translations between Moctezuma and Cortés were conducted by Malintzin, a multilingual Nahua woman better known as La Malinche). According to Cortés, the Mexica kissed the ground in front of him, but they stopped him in his attempt to embrace Moctezuma (we know the Spaniards reeked; a humorous interpretation is that a returning and revered god would not smell that bad), but neither gesture is mentioned by indigenous accounts.

If Moctezuma’s entourage really believed they were facing Quetzalcóatl, their behavior does not make sense; they did, however, offer him garlands and covered him in flowers (perhaps a way of dealing with the stench) and other gifts. In a magical-religious context, it is possible that this was meant to placate an antagonist. Cortés offered glass beads known as margaritas.

Supposedly the first words spoken by Cortés were “Are you really Moctezuma?” manifesting his surprise at finally meeting this almost mythic figure. Moctezuma cordially answered “Yes, it is I.” According to some scholars, politeness in the Mexica culture was a way to assert dominance and show superiority. If indeed initially, or for a few months, Moctezuma thought Cortés was the returning feathered serpent, Cortés found Tenochtitlán to be mythical, a resplendent city glittering in the sun in the distance. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a conquistador with Cortés, wrote a memoir, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain in 1568; he wrote that upon approaching Tenochtitlán, “It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of things never heard of, or dreamed of before.”

Moctezuma already knew the Mexica were defeated, since the Spanish were accompanied by the Tlaxcaltecas (from the present-day state of Tlaxcala). The Tlaxcaltecas were skilled, fierce fighters who successfully resisted Moctezuma’s forces and greatly resented the tax collectors from Tenochtitlán. Cortés had subjugated the Tlaxcaltecas en route to Tenochtitlán, and convinced them to become allies in the conquest of Moctezuma.

There’s More to the Story

If you are interested in this remarkable history, I suggest you read Díaz del Castillo’s book (used copies are available on Amazon for less than $10 US). However, recall that the idea that Cortés was perceived as a returning god was not developed until after the conquest; also note that the carefully formulated, formal speech Moctezuma delivered to Cortés, which implies Moctezuma sees Cortés as some sort of divinity, has been misinterpreted. Even Wikipedia debunks the notion: “The legend of the returning lords, originated during the Spanish-Mexica war in Cortés’ reworking of Moctezuma’s welcome speech, had by the 1550s merged with the Cortés-as-Quetzalcóatl legend that the Franciscans had started spreading in the 1530s.”

So, there you have it, a post-conquest myth proliferated by the conquerors and religious figures, but on closer examination, we find its origins are more complicated.

March 2022

Mexico – The Money Tells Its Story

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By Julie Etra

In this part of southern Mexico, paper money – all issued by the central Banco de México – is colloquially known as lana, billete(s) or biyuyo. Change in coins is called moneda throughout Mexico, and locally you might hear chincastle and morraya.

I had often wondered about the historical figures portrayed on Mexican paper currency and their significance, as well as the landscapes and images on the opposite side of various denominations. Typically, one side commemorates an aspect of Mexican culture and prominent historical figures, with landscapes and flora and fauna featured on the reverse side. Mexican paper money is indeed artistic, colorful, beautiful, and instructive, so I’ve written about this in The Eye before (March 2019). But it’s been changed again, so here’s an update!

The $1,000 Peso Bill

This past November (2021) a new 1,000-peso bill was issued, although it is not widely circulated. Unlike its predecessors, it is printed on a plastic polymer. Honoring the Mexican Revolution on one side in multi -hues of teal and yellow are portraits of Francisco I. Madero, Carmen Serdán and Hermila Galindo in the foreground, while a steam locomotive, the modern transportation of the day, provides the background.

Madero was Mexico’s 37th president (1911-13) and a prominent leader in the history of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). He pushed for the ouster of Porfirio Díaz, the self-declared President for Life who had ruled off and on from 1876 to 1911. Although well-educated and from a wealthy family, Madero advocated for the social reforms that fomented the Revolution. He was assassinated during a right-wing military coup.

María del Carmen Serdán Alatriste took on organizing the logistics of Madero’s anti-reelection movement in the state of Puebla. She maintained and protected the family household in the city of Puebla, where the first armed battle of the revolution took place. Carmen and her sister had smuggled guns in their clothing into their house to support the anti-reelection battle, set for November 20; supporters of Porfirio Díaz discovered the conspiracy on November 18 and attacked the house. You can visit the ensuing bullet holes in what is now Museo Regional de la Revolución Mexicana, Casa de los Hermanos Serdán. at 6 Oriente 6 in the historical center of Puebla.

Hermila Galindo Acosta was a well-educated and outspoken feminist and advocate for women’s rights. She was a supporter of Venustiano Carranza and became his personal Secretary, among other titles and responsibilities. Carranza, after a complicated series of power plays and internal dissent, became President for three years after the assassination of Madero. He supported Galina and helped her efforts, including the 1915-16 publication of the review La Mujer Moderna (The Modern Woman).

The reverse side features the tropical wetland ecosystem of the Calakmul Reserve in the State of Campeche, Mayan ruins, and the endemic jaguar.

The $20 Peso Bill

The new pink and green 20-peso bill (which was supposed to be replaced by coins) was released on September 24, 2021, and on the horizontal side depicts the “Solemn and peaceful entry of the Army of the Three Guarantees to Mexico City on September 27 of the memorable year of 1821 and Consummation of the Independence of Mexico’ (the original artist is unknown). Also called the Ejérciito Trigarante, this newly formed unified (albeit briefly) army comprised Spanish troops led by Agustín de Iturbide and Mexican insurgent troops led by Vicente Guerrero. (Guerrero later became Mexico’s second president – for less than a year; he was betrayed and brought to Bahía de Entrega, one of the beautiful bays of Huatulco, then transported to Oaxaca City where he was executed.)

The opposite, vertical side celebrates Mexican coastal mangrove ecosystems, the Mexican crocodile, and the roseate spoonbill, portrayed at the Sian Ka’an Biosphere wetland preserve in the Yucatán state of Quintana Roo (mangroves, crocodiles and roseate spoonbills also inhabit the Pacific coast).

The $50 Peso Bill

Issued on October 28. 2021, the beautiful new 50-peso bill was printed on a polymer instead of paper and is predominantly mauve-purple in color. It is very complex, in part to eliminate counterfeiting. The images are vertically oriented on both sides of the bill; security features include areas on the bill that feel different to the touch, and areas that change color when you tilt the bill.

The bill was designed to honor both Mexico’s pre-Hispanic history and its diverse natural history.

On the mainly historical side, the primary motif in the foreground shows an eagle perched on a prickly-pear cactus holding the atl-tlachinolli (the Aztec symbol for “water-fire,” representing war as sacred; this motif is a bas-relief carving on the back of the monolith called El Teocalli de la Guerra Sagrada (the Temple – teocalli is Nahuatl for “temple” – of the Sacred War). The monolith was discovered in 1831 in the foundations of what is now the National Palace of Mexico in Mexico City, which was originally built with the remains of preceding Aztec architecture. The temple/throne has been moved to the National Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec Park.

The monolith is a scale model of an Aztec temple, and could have been created as early as 1200; however, it is also thought to have been commissioned as a throne by Moctezuma II, the Aztec ruler defeated in the conquest, which would put its origins in the early 1500s. Archeologist Alfonso Corso, in a journal article from 1927, gave the piece its name, and hypothesized that the depiction of the eagle “justified human sacrifice and warranted warfare” as a way to collect prisoners for sacrifice.

In the background of the eagle depiction, a representation of the city of Tenochtitlán appears. The eagle depiction bears a striking resemblance to the national coat of arms that appears on the Mexican flag, except the “water-fire-war” object has been replaced by a snake. While no one quite knows why, some historians suggest that Spanish efforts to remove indigenous symbols led to the eagle capturing the snake. the city of Tenochtitlán appears; it is based on a portion of the 1945 mural by Diego Rivera, The Great City of Tenochtitlán, in the National Palace. The top of the bill shows the symbol for ollin (Nahuatl for “movement” – this ollin may represent the four movements of the annual course of the sun); there is a small “50” atop the symbol, as well as in each corner of the bill.

Although the Rivera mural shows some natural heritage – Mexico’s famous twin volcanoes, Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl, the central image on the reverse of the bill is the Mexican axolotl, an endemic salamander endangered due to loss of habitat, urban encroachment, pollution, and predation. The remaining axolotls are now confined to Lago Xochimilco, the remnant “lake” of the former basin of México and the name given to the southern Mexico City neighborhood where Aztec canals connected the neighborhoods of Tenochtitlán and provided access to chinampas, artificial agricultural plots for growing produce and flowers.

Not to be confused with other salamander species in this genus, often dubbed “axolotls” as well, the scientific name of this particular axolotl is Ambystoma mexicanum. Named after the Aztec god of fire and lightning, Xolotl, the axolotl, aka ajolote in Spanish, has been important in Mexican culture for centuries. It was important in the diet of pre-Hispanic residents of the city of Tenochtitlan and especially the Xochimiltecos (No thanks! But they still turn up in real tamales, check the February 2022 issue of The Eye).

Although native to the system of lakes that comprised the basin, axolotls were particularly prevalent in the Chalco-Xochimilco sub-basin, because it was less brackish than the other three basins. This huge, up-to-a-foot-long salamander is unusual in that its final metamorphic stage is not completed, and its gills remain outside its body. It is sexually mature in the larval stage. Even more unusual is its ability to regenerate limbs, hearts, spinal cords, and even part of their brains, so this odd-looking animal holds huge medical and scientific significance.

On the 50-peso bill, the ajolote is surrounded by chinampas, where corn – perhaps Mexico’s most resonant cultural symbol – is shown being cultivated. The trees shown growing on the edges of the chinampas are ahuejote trees (Salix bonplandiana), an erect willow resembling a poplar. (Ahuejote comes from the Nahuatl words atl, or “water” and huexotl, or “willow.”)

The $100 Peso Bill

A new 100-peso bill was issued on November 12, 2020. The bill is slightly larger than the new 20-peso bill. What a concept! Different sizes for different denominations. The images are vertically oriented on both sides, with hues dominated by pink and turquoise. Doña Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana, a scholar, philosopher, and poet, is represented on one side. Born in 1648 on what is now the outskirts of Mexico City, she was raised by her wealthy criolla (Spanish, but born in Mexico) mother. Her intelligence and insatiable curiosity were recognized at a very young age, and she self-educated herself in the family library. Even girls of her economic stature and recognized capabilities were denied any formal education, typical for the era. Sor translates as “nun”, which she became in order to escape the confines and expectations of marriage, and to continue her studies and writings. She was considered a “proto feminist,” arguing for women’s education, and she risked being censured by the church for her outspokenness. For a more thorough description of this incredibly progressive woman, please see The Eye, “The Tenth Muse,” September 2013.

The temperate forests of the states of México and Michoacán de Ocampo, home to the Monarch Butterfly reserve, are featured on the other side. The butterfly is shown feeding on the nectar of a milkweed plant (Asclepias sp.), a symbiotic relationship essential for both the pollination of the plant and the reproduction of the Monarch. Loss of habitat and associated milkweed plants is the dominant reason for decline of this butterfly. In the background are oak-pine woodlands.

The $200 Peso Bill

In 2019 the Bank of Mexico issued the new 200-peso bill depicting Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the parish priest known as the Father of the Homeland, and José María Morelos y Pavón, known as “Servant of the Nation,” in commemoration of Mexico’s Independence. Pavón was also a Catholic priest and a revolutionary leader in the war of independence, who assumed leadership after Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla was executed.

To their left is La Campana de Dolores (the Bell of Dolores). The bell was rung at dawn on September 16, 1810, in the town of Dolores, Guanajuato, Mexico (known as the “Cradle of National Independence”), calling the population to rebel against the authorities of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The grito (shout) made by the parish priest, along with Ignacio Allende, a captain in the Spanish army who sympathized with independence, is known as the Grito de Dolores. Every year on September 15, the Mexican president rings the bell, which has been relocated to the central balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City, to commemorate the grito.

On the upper right side, the denomination 200 is multi-colored as it changes between blue and green depending on inclination and lighting. The bill is also friendly to the blind, containing tactile, three-dimensional lines. The opposite side of the bill celebrates desert ecosystems, represented by a golden eagle soaring over the El Pinacate Biosphere Reserve in the state of Sonora.

The $500 Peso Bill
In August 2018, a new blue 500-peso billete was issued, supposedly to fight counterfeit bills (one often sees checkout clerks inspecting 500-peso notes). Both front and back images are horizontally oriented. One side portrays Benito Juárez, the 26th president of Mexico, accompanied by an image of his triumphal arrival at Mexico City on July 15, 1867, symbolizing the victory of the Reformation, the separation of Church and State and the basic principle of equality before the law. Benito Juárez came from Oaxaca, and is Mexico’s only completely indigenous president (Vicente Guerrero’s father was of mixed Afro-Mexican and indigenous descent).

The opposite side of the bill features a ballena gris (gray whale) and her calf, representing the coasts, seas, and islands of Mexico’s varied marine worlds, and specifically the El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in Baja California Sur, a World Heritage Site.

2021, April 2021

Contrasting Transitions:Guerrero and Aguilar Among the Maya

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By Randy Jackson

The path of human history is a story of successive transitions. Few transitions are peaceful enough to allow the individuals affected to adjust without a personal cost. The greatest historical transitions are the collapse of civilizations. Pre-Conquest, and over the course of 3,000 years, Mexico has had seven major civilizations: The Olmec, the unknown culture or cultures that built Teotihuacán, Zapotec, Mixtec, the Maya, the Toltec, and the Aztec. The last of these civilizations, the Aztec, ended with the Spanish Conquest.

When wandering the ruins of some of these ancient civilizations, I believe one question intrigues us all: What was it like to be a person living in those ancient times? Anthropologists and archaeologists can articulate many aspects of the daily lives of people in these civilizations surprisingly well. These aspects are things people did, how they lived, even what they might have believed. But, except for the leaders of these civilizations, very little is known about any individual, especially individuals who had witnessed the transition of one civilization to another.

Two exceptions to this are Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero. These two Spanish men survived a shipwreck and were washed up on the shores of the Yucatan in 1511, eight years before the arrival of Cortés. There were between twelve and fifteen men in all who washed ashore that day. Some were killed (their leaders likely sacrificed); the remaining men were all enslaved. All but two died or were killed in the following years.

The only two men to survive, Aguilar and Guerrero, escaped their initial enslavement and ended up among a rival Mayan group. Among this second group the Spaniards were treated somewhat better. By working hard, over some years they were able to integrate with the Mayan people and learned to speak their language.

The different ways these two men integrated into the Mayan society seems to have been a function of the type of person each man was. Aguilar was educated in the Catholic Church and was a Franciscan friar. As a man of faith, he kept his Christian faith and persevered in his time among the Maya. He hung onto some hope that he might, one day, return to Spanish society and even Spain. Less is known about Guerero’s upbringing, except that he was likely a fisherman before joining a Spanish crew heading to the new world. Guerrero distinguished himself in battle fighting for his Mayan compatriots. He became a warrior chief, he married a woman named Zazil Ha, the daughter of the cacique (chieftain) and had a family.

When Cortés approached the Mexican coast, he first stopped on the island of Cozumel for some ship repairs. While there, the Spaniards were approached by a canoe of Mayans. To the Spaniards bewilderment and surprise one of the Mayans asked in Spanish, “Gentleman, are you Christians?” This person was Gerónimo de Aguilar, indistinguishable to the Spaniards from his Mayan companions.

Aguilar had adapted and survived his Mayan captivity. With Aguilar’s ability to speak Mayan he was of great service to Cortés and when teamed up with Malinche (an amazing former noblewoman with command of several Mexican languages – see The Eye, March 2021), Aguilar had a front row seat to the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The societal collapse Aguilar watched was from the perspective of a Spaniard and conqueror.

Gonzalo Guerrero’s perspective was fundamentally different. Before leaving for Cozumel to meet up with Spanish, Aguilar went to Guerrero to tell him about the Spanish ship and to see if Guerrero would join him in meeting with the Spanish. Guerrero refused, telling Aguilar he would never be accepted back into Spanish society. He was tattooed and had nose rings and ear plugs in the Mayan style. And besides, Guerrero added, “And look at how handsome these boys of mine are.”

Cortés and his conquistadors passed through the Yucatán and went on to defeat the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. The Mayan peoples proved much more difficult for the Spaniards to overcome. It took them decades, and the lives of hundreds of Spanish soldiers, to subdue the Yucatán. The successful Mayan resistance is likely the result of having Gonzalo Guerrero to advise them.

The first Spanish attempt to subdue the Mayan Yucatán was in 1527, six years after the fall of the Aztecs at Tenochtitlán. Francisco de Montejo led a group of Spanish soldiers on this mission; his first effort was to try to get Guerrero on his side. From a ship in the Bahia de Chetumal, Montejo was successful in getting a letter to Guerrero promising to “honor and benefit” him if he became one of Montejo’s “principal men.” Guerrero responded, writing on the back of the letter in charcoal. He once again refused to join his former countrymen.

Montejo’s attempt to conquer the Yucatán was unsuccessful. The Mayans used guerilla tactics, as well as craftily supplying the Spaniards with misinformation. These tactics were considered to have originated with Guerrero. The heat, mosquitos and the Yucatán jungle did the rest. There were further excursions and some battles with the Mayans, but by 1535 the only Spaniard living in the Yucatan was Gonzalo Guerrero. By this time Guerrero had been among the Maya for twenty five years. Earlier, in 1531, Guerrero’s former compatriot, Gerónimo de Aguilar, had died near Mexico City on his encomiendia (an estate allowed to exact tribute from the native population after the Conquest).

Then in 1536, the Spanish attacked and overwhelmed a Mayan cacique named Çiçumba at a fortress in Ticamaya, Honduras. After the battle, among the dead, Spanish soldiers found a bearded man in native dress killed by a shot from an arquebus, an early long gun. The Spanish commander, Alvarado, reported that the man was Gonzalo Guerrero. Stories say he arrived from Chetumal with 50 canoes of warriors to support Çiçumba.

The dictionary definition of “transition” is “the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.” It’s hard to imagine a greater transition than a civilization collapsed by conquest. Millions of people living in what is now Mexico at the time suffered unknown hardships and death. So many individual stories that will always remain unknown to us. As for Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero, we know the main structure of their lives, the decisions they made, some of the things they faced in life, even how they died. Their stories are grand and the transitions they faced are recorded for all times.

2021, March 2021

Malinche and the Spanish Conquest of Mexico

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By Randy Jackson

Up until 500 years ago, the civilizations of Mesoamerica and Europe had been unknown to each other, completely unconnected since the beginnings of human history. But on November 8, 1519, representatives of these two vastly different civilizations met face to face for the first time. They met on a causeway of the splendorous city of Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City).

There now exist many imagined illustrations of this historical event. Any such illustration is without merit unless it shows one of the most important people at that moment. The one person who could enable the representatives of these two civilizations to communicate. That person was a woman known as Malinche. She was the one person on earth who could speak both the language of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma, and the European language of the upstart conqueror Cortés.

Moctezuma and members of his court would have referred to this woman as Malintzin, as ‘tzin’ in Nahuatl denotes honour to the person. Malintzin / Malinche (Doña María to the Spanish) was more than a mere translator. She was from a family of high social standing. She was educated, she was trained in negotiation, and she had a tremendous ability to speak and learn new languages. And in a stroke of bizarre good luck for the Conquistadors, Malinche was a slave to the Mayan peoples when Cortés landed in what is now Mexico.

As Cortés approached the Caribbean coast of Mexico, he presumed he was arriving at a large island like Cuba. He was expecting the peoples of this land to be similar to those of Cuba and Dominica. He could not have imagined a land with a flourishing civilization, with roads and cities, with markets and armies, with engineers and tax collectors. Cortés, without any information about this society and its structures, might not have succeeded in his base desires for gold, conquest, and adventure. Cortés did not know it upon arrival, but he needed someone versed in the workings of this civilization, someone who understood the different peoples, languages, and societal structures, someone who could negotiate with the different peoples of this land. Malinche was uniquely qualified for this.

Upon their arrival in the Yucatan in 1519, after some initial skirmishes with the Mayans, the Spanish were given twenty women slaves to appease them and to secure an alliance. Among the women slaves, they immediately recognized that Malinche was special. Cortés was told of Malinche’s royal heritage. Bernal Díaz, a conquistador with Cortés, noted in his book The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, that Malinche’s noble heritage was very evident in her appearance and demeanor.

When Cortés arrived in the Yucatán, there were two Spaniards who survived a 1511 shipwreck, one was Gerónimo de Aguilar. He was presented to Cortés by the Mayans. By this time Aguilar had learned to speak the Mayan language. Cortés quickly realized that with Aguilar speaking Mayan, and Malinche’s ability to speak Mayan and other Mexican languages, he could communicate with, and learn about, the different peoples of Mexico, and use that knowledge to his advantage.

Besides Díaz’s book, there are few historical documents that provide the scant history of the person we know as Malinche. She was likely born in the year 1500. Evidence of Malinche’s privileged class rests in part with her ability to speak the royal court language of Tecpillatolli (“lordly speech”) which is significantly different from the common tongue. It was the language spoken by Moctezuma. Before the Spanish conquest, children of elite families of Mexico were educated starting at the age of seven. Girls and boys were taught Tecpillatolli, along with such subjects as geometry and religion. They were also taught negotiation and public speaking, as these skills were central to the functioning of their society. Malinche’s negotiations for Cortés have often been cited as significant in helping him obtain allies to oppose the Aztecs.

Around the age of twelve, Malinche’s father died and her mother remarried. Bernal Díaz wrote that Malinche was sold into slavery to favor the male child of her mother’s new marriage. Díaz reports that Malinche was taken away at night to avoid social censure of her parents. For seven years, until the time of Cortés’s arrival, Malinche was traded or exchanged as a slave. Women were often given as gifts or traded to secure alliances between groups, and Malinche would have been seen as a prize gift. She was 19 years old when she was given to Cortés. By the time Cortés met Moctezuma, 10 months later, Malinche could speak Spanish.

The significance of Malinche’s role in the conquest of Mexico seems indisputable. Various codices (contemporary illustrated manuscripts) depict Malinche being as significant a figure as either Cortés or Moctezuma. In fact, Moctezuma referred to Cortés as Malintzin. The life-story, talents, and courage of this intriguing woman suggests a person with real strength of character. All of Malinche’s strengths worked to Cortés’s advantage. The military advantages of Spanish guns, steel and horses would not have been sufficient to defeat the Aztecs without the help of tens of thousands of warriors from alliances – alliances negotiated by Malinche.

After the conquest and after having a son by Malinche, Cortés “gave” her to one of his officers: Juan de Jaramillo. Jaramillo married Malinche and together they had a daughter. Then in 1528 at the age of 28, Malanche died of a European disease along with tens of millions of her countrymen. There are no records of the words of Malinche, only a few second-hand accounts of her role in the Spanish Conquest.

Through the succeeding centuries the mythic Malinche has been interpreted in various ways. To the Spanish she was portrayed as the Mother of New Spain. To Mexicans, starting around the time of the struggle for independence from Spain, Malinche was seen as a traitor. In fact, the word malinchista, still used today, is an insult, meaning a traitor and a fornicator with foreigners.

Before the Spanish Conquest, the peoples of Mesoamerica did not see themselves as one people commonly opposed to this new European group. They were Tlaxcalans, or Aztecs or Mayans, or one of many very different groups that had distinctly different languages and were often in conflict with each other. In this context how should Malinche be remembered? As a traitor – to whom? She was a woman who was traded (no doubt raped and abused) by different groups until February 1519, when one of these groups gave Malinche to this new group – the Spaniards.

All interpretations of Malinche seem self-serving. To those who sought independence from Spain she represented a traitor. To the Catholic Church, Malinche was a temptress like Eve in the Garden of Eden – Diego Rivera portrayed her in an Aztec market, crowned with callas (an erotic symbol) and lifting her skirts, in one of the murals in the National Palace in Mexico City. To the Spanish Malinche represented the romantic notion that she was the mother of New Spain, or romantic partner of Cortés. In fact, Cortés had 4 children (that we know of) with different women of Mexico – two of which were with Moctozuma’s daughters.

None of these interpretations seem to hold any respect for this central person in such a fascinating chapter in the course of human history. Malinche was a woman of her times. Someone who used her unique talents, education and experience. She overcame unimaginable obstacles when discarded by her noble family and traded as a slave. She acted with agency in creating her own mark on the history of the world. Now, 500 years later, the life and experiences of this remarkable woman stands as one of the most enthralling characters in the Spanish Conquest of Mexico.

2021, January 2021

The History of the Cow in Mexico

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By Kary Vannice

In 1521, Capitan Gregorio de Villalobos set sail, probably out of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola, but there’s evidence he left from Cuba, heading for Veracruz, Mexico, with some heavy weight contraband on board – contraband that would forever change the culture and landscape of North America. Below decks he harbored six cows and one bull, at a time when cattle trading was strictly prohibited in Mexico.

Cattle, first brought to the Caribbean islands by Christopher Columbus, had not yet made their way to Mexico. Spanish stock raisers, afraid they would lose their monopoly for the supply of cattle to the Spanish settlements, had petitioned the crown to institute severe restrictions on the delivery of brood stock to Mexico. They had good reason – the vast landscapes of Mexico made for ideal grazing country.

Modern day cows come from a breed of animal that was domesticated about 10,000 years ago in Asia. This huge beast, called an auroch, was about twice the size of a cow today and originated in India, spread into China, then the Middle East, and eventually to northern Africa and finally to Europe.

When European sailors brought cattle to the Caribbean islands they were a thin-legged, wiry Moorish-Andalusian breed known as “black cattle” (ganado prieto). Turned loose and left on their own, it didn’t take long in their new lush surroundings for them to evolve into the heavy-boned, swift breed that Villalobos smuggled into Mexico.

These first cows arrived in Mexico just as Cortés and his men were completing their conquest of the indigenous peoples of Mexico. By the end of 1521, the conquistadors had all the money and power they could want, but they found the local meat supply not to their liking. Thus, Cortes himself petitioned King Charles V of Spain to lift the restriction on cattle importation.

To supply his men with the meat they desired, Cortés developed a breeding program in the high-altitude valley of Mexicalzimgo (around what is now San Mateo Mexicaltzingo, south of Toluca) and started the tradition of cattle raising in Mexico. The modern-day practice of branding is even attributed to Cortes, who it is said branded all his cattle with three crosses, the first brand recorded in North America.

Soon, missionaries also arrived on the shores of Mexico. As they established communities around their new age culture and religion, rich European landowners mounted native Indians on well-trained horses and began teaching them to handle cattle using methods originating from the Iberian Peninsula in Spain. Missions became the impetus for encouraging the local indigenous people to raise livestock, to supply a steady stream of meat to the growing population of Anglos arriving from Europe.

Native cow handlers quickly blended their local knowledge with their new skill of horsemanship and surpassed their European counterparts in both skill and precision. The wide open spaces of Northern Mexico became a major center for raising cattle. Ranching, farming and trading of livestock became the primary economic activity in that region, which we know today as Texas.

Over the next two hundred and fifty years, the cattle industry grew in Mexico, which at the time included New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Texas, and western Colorado. With such a vast territory and no way to contain herds to a specific tract of land, huge roundups were often held to collect cattle for sale and transport. With their expert horsemanship and roping skills, the hard-riding vaqueros and charros controlled the chaos and laid the foundation for our modern day cowboy culture.

During the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, the number of wild cattle increased as ranchers on both sides turned their attention toward the war effort and no longer had time to organize the huge roundups required to regroup the scattered herds.

After the war ended, with a newly established border, the two countries developed common routes for moving large amounts of cattle between the north and south. The most famous was the Chisholm Trail, which became the path for the greatest movement of cattle ever known. This established a trade network for cattle between the two North American countries and cemented a strong ranching culture in both countries that remains to this day.

An extension of ranching culture in both the USA and Mexico is the rodeo, where charros show off their skills in horsemanship, cow handling, and bull riding. Another Spanish tradition that would not exist without the cow, and is still practiced today in some Mexican cities, is the bull fight.

While the ranching and cowboy culture remain strong in many of the states in both Mexico and the United States, the cattle industry has largely become an industrial affair. Today, industrially raised cattle account for nearly half of the cattle in each country.

In 2016, Mexico reported over 16 million head of cattle within its borders, the vast majority of which would not be considered “open range” cattle, but instead are raised in feedlots to produce meat for both Mexican and foreign markets.

In 2019 beef ranked 58th among Mexico’s top 100 exports, bringing in over a billion dollars in revenue for the country. And that amount does not take into account any of the byproducts such as tallow, rawhide, bones, horns and hooves.

The 2020 beef export numbers may be even stronger because of the pandemic. When factories in the United States were forced to shut down due to COVID-19 protocols, Mexico beef producers came to the rescue. Between January and May, Mexico’s meat export numbers were 32.6% higher than they were in 2019.

So, from its first illegal origins on the shores of Mexico 500 years ago, the humble cow has not only shaped a distinct part of Mexican culture but has also become a major economic contributor to the Mexican economy.

2021, January 2021

Goliad, Texas:From “Remember the Alamo” to The Ox Cart Wars

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

Should your travels to Huatulco be by land, and should they take you through east Texas via the tiny town of Goliad, you will find some outsized Mex-Tex-Mex history.

Located a little over a hundred miles southeast of San Antonio on the San Antonio River as it flows to the Gulf of Mexico, Goliad (pop. 1,908 in 2010) is the site of Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía, a presidio, or fort, built to defend what was then the border between Mexico and the United States. Northerners don’t often think about this, but after the Mexican War of Independence (1810-21), Mexico included much of the southwest – nearly all of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

The Texas Revolution

In the governmental chaos that followed independence, Mexico started out with a short-lived empire, followed by a republic that set off a struggle between conservatives (“centralists”) and liberals (“federalists”). The centralist President Antonio López de Santa Anna enacted policies that ticked off the folks living in what is now Texas; the settlers in this area were both Mexican and Americans; the latter had settled there when Mexico opened up land to immigrant settlers shortly after the War of Independence. On October 2, 1835, the settlers declared their independence from Mexico, and the Texas Revolution was on.

The Texas Revolution was only one of several armed insurrections against Santa Anna’s conservative government, but it was the most dramatic, the most deadly, and the only one that worked. Santa Anna – not without evidence – saw a U.S. plot to annex Texas, and decided this was his war. Following several months of skirmishes along the San Antonio River between San Antonio (then called Villa de Béxar) and Goliad, on February 23, 1836, Santa Anna led his troops to rebel headquarters in the Misión San Antonio de Valero, known as “The Alamo.” Thirteen days later, Davy Crockett, James Bowie, and nearly 200 other Texas fighters lay dead.

About a month later, down the river in Goliad, Mexican General José de Urrea and about 1,400 soldiers approached the La Bahía presidio. Although the head of the Texas army, General Sam Houston, had retreated and warned Colonel James W. Fannin to evacuate his forces from Goliad, Fannin failed to do so in time. Despite fighting Urrea’s advanced forces fiercely over a day, and regrouping overnight, Fannin’s men woke up to find that Urrea’s main army had arrived. The Texans surrendered and were marched back to La Bahía, where they expected to be treated as prisoners of war. Santa Anna was having none of that. All the Texans who could walk were marched out in different directions from the presidio, where they were shot or had their throats cut. Wounded Texans were lined up against the wall or left in their beds to be executed. Over 350 Texans were killed in the Goliad Massacre.

Santa Anna was in serious error if he thought the fate of those who died at the Alamo and Goliad would bring the Texas rebellion to an end. Men flocked to sign up with Sam Houston’s army; he led them out of retreat and towards Santa Anna’s army, which had made it to present-day La Porte, on the Gulf southeast of Houston.

This time it was Santa Anna’s forces who weren’t ready. They had backed themselves into a corner to achieve high ground behind Buffalo Bayou on the San Jacinto River. At 3:30 on a clear afternoon on April 21, 1836, Houston massed his forces and gave the order to advance in silence. It’s been suggested that Santa Anna had no lookouts and that many of his soldiers were taking their afternoon siesta. For whatever reason, the 910 Texans who attacked, raging in revenge and screaming “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” met little resistance. They gave no quarter, slaughtering Mexicans who were crying “Me no Alamo, me no Goliad!” The Battle of San Jacinto lasted about 18 minutes. Houston’s army lost 9 men and had about 30 wounded. They killed 630 Mexicans, wounded 208, and took 730 prisoners.

The Mexican-American War

The independent Republic of Texas was born, the United States annexed it in 1845, Mexico declared that an act of war and started skirmishing along the border, and President Polk got the U.S. Congress to declare war on Mexico on May 13, 1846. The mostly volunteer army handily vanquished the Mexicans, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848.

When the treaty was ratified on May 26, 1848, Mexico ceded nearly half its territory to America, handing over all the lands that now make up the “lower 48” states. The U.S. compensated Mexico to the tune of a little more than $18 million.

The repercussions of the Texas Revolution did not end with the Mexican-American War, at least not in east Texas. As a tremendous influx of northerners and immigrants arrived, east Texas quickly became majority Anglo and began rapid development – creating complicated social, economic, and racial tensions that frequently ended in murdered Mexicans, a long and tangled tale for some other time.

The Mexican-American War also kick-started the regional transportation system. Because there was neither rail transportation nor navigable water routes, the war effort was a huge headache for the military quartermasters who built military outposts and sent supplies to the troops. What there was, was a wagon “trace” – a vague idea of a road marked out by wagon tracks and word of mouth.

The Chihuahua Road ran about 140 miles from Indianola on the Gulf of Mexico to San Antonio; from there, it ran westward to the rich silver, copper, zinc, and lead mines of Chihuahua; a northern section would soon reach what is now San Diego. Different sections of the 1100-mile road had different names; one of them was the Goliad Cart Road.

Cargo offloaded in Indianola and Lavaca a little up the river included millions of dollars worth of construction materials – lumber, shingles, and rails, ties, and equipment to build railroads. Barrels of retail goods headed for the growing number of stores along the route. There were loads of “mixed freight” – barrels of essential and then luxury goods for retail sale, and German, Swiss and French immigrants, not to mention two shipments of camels ordered up by the U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, a mere four years before he became President of the Confederate States of America. Coming back to Indianola from the interior were pecans, cattle, hides and horns, cotton, wool, salt, leather, sugar, molasses, and silver bullion bound for the U.S. Mint in New Orleans.

The Ox Cart Wars

And how did all that stuff get to and from San Antonio and points west? Overland freight drawn by horses, mules, and oxen. There were military wagons, commercial freight wagons, Wells Fargo wagons, stagecoaches, and the classic covered wagons called “prairie schooners,” drawn variously by horses, mules, and oxen. The Chihuahua Road made for a tough and dangerous trek. Wagons had to ford swollen streams and rivers during torrential rains, and were sometimes swept away. There were mountainous hills on the routes; teams and drivers sometimes died when carts slipped, overturned, and crashed over the side.

The star of them all in coping with the trip was the Mexican ox-cart driver, the carretero, whose teams of two, four, six, or eight oxen drew different-sized carretas. The smallest ox-carts were two-wheeled, drawn by a team of two oxen. The largest ox carts were about 6 feet wide and 15 feet long, with thick, 7-foot-high wooden wheels; these carts could carry up to three tons of freight.

Travelers at the time counted anywhere from 160 to 1,000 Mexican-driven ox carts during a day on Goliad Cart Road. The merchants of San Antonio were unsparing in their praise of Mexican carters, preferring them to Anglo teamsters. They were considered efficient, honest, and skilled at handling and caring for their oxen. America’s most famous landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, traveled widely – and wrote about it. In A Journey through Texas: Or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier (1857), Olmsted’s impression that Mexicans “with oxen and two-wheeled carts” carried “almost all the transportation of the country.” He noted that they cut travel expenses by living off the land, had their families working as assistants, and passed their businesses on to family members, increasing skills and efficiency as time went by, enabling them to charge less than the Anglo teamsters.

Mexican carreteros provided about two-thirds of the cartage services and comprised the largest occupational group in Bexar county, of which San Antonio was the county seat. Most carters lived in San Antonio, where the folks with Spanish surnames made up half the population. Few people of Mexican heritage lived in the towns along the Chihuahua Road between San Antonio and Indianola; for the Anglos who did, the carreteros’ success was galling – they “remembered Goliad” all too well. They went to war again, this time against the Mexican ox-cart drivers. The “cart-cutters” from Goliad betook themselves to ambushing the carreteros, cutting the axles and destroying the wheels of the carts, stealing or destroying the cargo, and escalating into shooting the drivers down.

From July through November of 1857, there were five documented attacks. On July 3, men in disguise attacked a train of six carts, wounding all six drivers. On July 14, about 20 cart-cutters attacked another train, cutting up the wheels of the carts. On July 31, three carreteros were wounded and an Anglo named C.G. Edwards, whose freight was being carried, was shot as he lay sleeping under one of the carts; he later died of his wounds. On September 12, about 40 men, most in masks, opened fire on a cart train carrying military supplies. Antonio Delgado, a prominent Tejano from San Antonio, was shot dead by 14 bullets. Finally, on November 20, cart-cutters opened fire on a cart train as the carreteros were “getting up” their oxen to start the day’s trek, killing either two or five of them.

The documented attacks account for four to seven dead. Several sources, including two letters from Manuel Robles Pezuela, the Mexican Ambassador to the United States, to Lewis Cass, the U.S. Secretary of State, put the number of Mexicans killed in the Ox Cart Wars at 70 to 75.

On the north side of the Goliad County Courthouse stands a huge southern live oak tree called either the “Cart War Oak” or the “Hanging Tree.” The missing Mexicans in the Cart War body count? Apparently, they were lynched on this tree. A Texas Historical Marker for the tree points out that when the court handed out a death sentence, the defendant was marched outside and strung up immediately. However, in a masterpiece of euphemism for “lynching,” the marker also says, “Hangings not called for by regular courts occurred here during the 1857 ‘Cart War.’ … About 70 men were killed, some of them on this tree.”

The Ox Cart Wars came to an end when Secretary of State Cass called on Texas governor Elishu Pease – who had received several letters about the attacks – to take care of business. On November 30, 1857, ten days after the last major attack, Pease said, “It is now very evident that there is no security for the lives of citizens of Mexican origin engaged in the business of transportation along the road from San Antonio to the Gulf, unless they are escorted by a military force. … It will require an appropriation of about fourteen thousand and five hundred dollars.”

The legislature forked over the money, the Texas Rangers took over, and the Ox Cart Wars came to an end. The Cart War Oak wasn’t done with its hanging duties, however; local citizens were suddenly outraged, and turned the cart cutters in. They were speedily tried, condemned to death, and hung from the limbs of the tree.

Remember all that freight with steel and wood to build railroads? The railroad from Indianola to San Antonio did get started, continuing in fits, starts, and foreclosures until it was bought by Charles Morgan, a New York shipping magnate who had been landing his steamships at Indianola since 1848, and railroad entrepreneur Henry S. McComb. They consolidated six rail lines into one company by 1871; in 1875, Indianola was wiped out by a massive hurricane. Morgan and McComb moved their railyards upstream and soldiered on. Other railways connected with San Antonio. The turbulent days of the Chihuahua Road and its Mexican ox carts were over.