Chiapas

“ The ancient capital of Chiapas rises on a narrow plateau more than 7,000 feet above the level of the ocean, with a population of some 12,000 inhabitants; its climate is colder and damper than that of Mexico, and if we except the church of S. Domingo, possesses no edifice of interest. The houses are all built on the same pattern, and few are more than one story high, with no outer ornamentation of any kind. It looks what it really is, a poor, miserable place.
The market of S. Cristobal is the only one in Mexico where bags of cocoa are still used as currency, as in the time of Montezuma. ”

“ The Chiapanecs inhabit the interior of the state of Chiapas. 'Dans l'intérieur des provinces bordant les rives du Chiapan, à sa sortie des gouffres d'où il s'élance, en descendant du plateau de Zacatlan.' (Guatemalan name for Chiapas,) and they extended over the whole province, later on. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 87. 'À l'ouest de ce plateau, entre les Zotziles ou Quélènes du sud et les Zoqui du nord, habitaient les Chiapanèques.' Id., Popol Vuh, introd., pp. 157, 199. Also in Laet, Novus Orbis, p. 325; Ludewig's Ab. ”

“ As has been said, the nucleus of Maya power and culture is probably to be found in that part of Chiapas which slopes down from the steep Cordilleras. Here the ruined sites of Palenque, Piedras Negras, and Ocosingo are eloquent of that opulence of imagination and loftiness of conception which go hand in hand with an advanced culture. The temples and palaces of this region bear the stamp of a dignity and consciousness of metropolitan power which are scarcely to be mistaken, so broad, so free is their architectural conception, so full to overflowing the display of the desire to surpass. ”

“ Chiapas, which is geographically the most northerly portion of Central America, though politically it belongs to Mexico, was inhabited in its northern part by the Tzendales and Zoques, in its central and southern region by the Chiapanecs, Zotziles, and Quelenes. ”

“ Until the year 1833 the territory comprised in this division belonged to Guatemala, when it joined the Mexican confederacy. Comprehending the northern declivities of the Cordilleras and table lands of Central America, Chiapas is, throughout a considerable part of its territory, cut up into successions of ridges and valleys, which are rich in many of the finest tropical productions. Corn, cacao, sugar and garden vegetables are produced readily. Tobacco of good quality grows in the district of Sandoval, and in the neighborhood of Oajaca. ”

“ I have found no very definite information about the antiquities of Chiapas, except the ruins of Palenque and Ococingo. In a statistical work on Chiapas and Soconusco by Emilio Pineda there are the following brief mentions of scattered monuments: In one of the hills near Comitan is a stone table; and a sun, sculptured in stone, serves as a boundary mark on the frontier. 353 Remains are still visible of the cities which formerly stood in the valleys of Custepeques and Xiquipilas, including remains of giants ”

“ Tuxtla Gutierrez is a town of some thousands population, with a central plaza where the local band plays almost every evening, and a market place of exceptional interest. Here, as nowhere else, we saw crowds of the purest indians in native dress. Chiapas is the home of at least thirteen tribes, each with its own language. ”

“ As to the other part, i.e., the perfect title of Mexico to the state of Chiapas, including the department or district of Soconusco, of which it has been in possession for so many years, the Mexican Government has several times declared that it does not and can not decorously admit any question. What it has consented to discuss among the claims of Guatemala, and for which it has been surveying and mapping out the frontier, is the matter of the boundaries of Chiapas and Soconusco, on the Guatemala side. ”

“ It has a varied climate and is fertile, and its people are intelligent and peace-loving. There are Chiapas. indications of rich mineral deposits, but railway communication is, as elsewhere in Mexico, sadly lacking. The cattle trade is in a flourishing condition, and coffee is grown to great advantage in the district of Soconusco. ”

“ Chiapas and Honduras. Weeks—
And then a city that no man
Had even seen; so dim and old
No chronicle has ever told
The history of men who piled [393]
Its temples and huge teocallis
Among mimosa-blooming valleys;
Or how its altars were defiled
With human blood; whose idols there
With eyes of stone still stand and stare.
So old, the moon can only know
How old, since ancient forests grow
On mighty wall and pyramid.
Huge ceïbas, whose trunks were scarred
With ages, and dense yuccas, hid
Fanes 'mid great cacti, scarlet-starred.
I looked upon its paven ways
And saw it in its kingliest days ”

“ It is not improbable that an intercourse existed between the inhabitants of these districts, prior to the Spanish Conquest. We believe that these architectural remains and nearly all of those in Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala, were the abodes and temples of the Indians who dwelt in Mexico and the adjacent countries when Grijalva and Cortez first landed on our continent. The distance from Oajaca, through Chiapas and Tabasco, to Yucatan is not too great to have prevented even a rapid communication from Mitla to Uxmal, or Palenque. ”

“ But the cities of Yucatan and Chiapas, though geographically not far removed from the Mexican plateau, are brought by their small elevation above the sea into a very different climate. They are in the land of tropical heat and the rankest vegetation, in the midst of dense forests where pestilential fevers and overwhelming lassitude make it almost impossible for Europeans to live, and where the Indians who still inhabit the neighbourhood of the ruined cities are the merest savages sunk in the lowest depths of lazy ignorance. ”

“ The Indians of Chiapas and its district were the terror of surrounding towns, and were incessantly at war with those of Cinacantlan and of the towns about Lake Quilenayas, robbing, killing, reducing to slavery, and sacrificing captives. They even waylaid merchant trains on the roads between Tehuantepec and other provinces. Bernal Diaz states that without exception they were the greatest warriors of all New Spain, superior even to the Tlascaltecs and Mexicans. ”

“ Diego Ramirez, juez visitador to Chiapas in 1548, writes Las Casas under date of April 20, 1549, that so excessive had been the tribute imposed by the settlers, that many of the natives had nothing left, not even a mantle, and their condition was that of slavery or even worse. Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., vii. 204. Cerrato, writing to the emperor, Sept. 28, 1548, says that in Guatemala and Chiapas the encomenderos observed neither the law nor the prescribed tribute, but destroyed the natives without pity. Squier's MSS., xxii. 82. ”

“ After the separation of Central America from the Mexican federation in 1824, and the decision of Chiapas to cast her lot with Mexico, the Central American federation still laid claim to Soconusco, [29] which was a department of Chiapas. Instigated by agents and partisans of the Central American government, the discontented portion of the inhabitants of Soconusco pronounced at Tapachula July 24, 1824, against annexation of the department to Mexico, and the Central American congress thereupon passed a decree incorporating it into that republic. ”

“ Comitan, the frontier town of Chiapas, contains a population of about 10,000. It has a suburb church, and well-filled convent of Dominican Friars. It is a place of considerable trade, and has become so by the effect of bad laws; for, in consequence of the heavy duties on regular importations at the Mexican ports of entry, most of the European goods consumed in this region are smuggled in from Balize and Guatimala. ”

“ The disorders in Yucatan and Sierra Gorda affected tumultuous spirits elsewhere, which were encouraged by the weakness of the government, as displayed in coping with these troubles. Chiapas had been greatly disturbed by a faction hostile to the local government, and which sustained itself for a long time, despite several defeats, with aid from Guatemala and from the adjoining state of Tabasco. ”

“ Chiapas, Las (270) , a Pacific State of Mexico, covered with forests; yields maize, sugar, cacao, and cotton.
Chiaroscuro, the reproduction in art of the effects of light and shade on nature as they mutually affect each other.
Chibchas or Muyscas, a civilised people, though on a lower stage than the Peruvians, whom the Spaniards found established in New Granada in the 16th century, now merged in the Spanish population; they worship the sun. ”

“ In particular Chiapas can never be said to have been conquered. Still, in this reign the Aztec power reached its furthest extent, and the influence of Tenochtitlan was felt from the Panuco valley to northern Guatemala, and from Tuxpan to Acapulco. In the city itself Auitzotl completed the great pyramid-temple to Uitzilopochtli, the tribal god of the Aztec, which his predecessor had commenced, and also constructed an aqueduct which supplied water from Coyoacan. ”

“ During the revolutionary wars of Mexico, Chiapas, owing to her isolated position, was not a seat of war; and even when Morelos' troops from Oajaca visited Tonalá, as above stated, there was no resistance. This country enjoyed peace during the struggle in New Spain. Larrainzar, Chiapas, in Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin, iii. 100.
[I-26] Letters were constantly sent to the Spanish government, and to private persons, which were published in the newspapers friendly to the Spanish cause, representing the independents as banditti and murderers, and the Spaniards as exemplars of moderation. ”

“ It is probable that, as early as 1520, Spaniards penetrated into this region under the auspices of Montezuma, while friendly relations were still maintained between that monarch and Cortés. After the fall of the Mexican capital, dismay at the achievements of the great conqueror was so widely spread that many independent tribes sent in their allegiance, and among them the Chiapanecs. [XIII‐5] These different territories were soon portioned out in repartimientos, and Chiapas was assigned with other districts to the Spanish settlers in Espíritu Santo. ”

“ The Southern Mexicans, under which name I group the people inhabiting the present states of Oajaca, Guerrero, Chiapas, the southern portion of Vera Cruz, Tabasco, and Yucatan, constitute the second and last division of this chapter. Much of this territory is situated within the tierras calientes, or hot lands, wherein every variety of tropical vegetation abounds in luxuriant profusion. The heat, especially along the coast, to the unacclimated is most oppressive. ”

“ The river Usumacinta, and its numerous tributaries flowing in a northern direction through Chiapas, is regarded as the original home of the civilization whose ruins we are now to describe. From whence the tribes came that first settled in this valley is as yet an unsettled point. We notice that we have here another instance of the influence that fertile river valleys exert upon tribes settling therein. ”

“ I make no mention of the compilations and general collections containing references to Chiapas. They are not numerous.—Gregorio García in his book, "Origen de los Indios," has probably the earliest mention of the ruins of Ocosingo, and even perhaps, some indication about those of Palenque.—Cortez who, accompanied by Bernal Diez, passed very near Palenque in 1525, did not take any notice of the pueblo,—which at that time was certainly not inhabited. ”

“ This we learned due to the fact that we lived and worked for many years with the Tojolabal Mayans, our contemporaries in Chiapas, who taught us their language and culture, which we learned for a reason that we consider important to explain. We had studied and taught in several countries in Europe and in this continent. We had excellent teachers from whom we learned a great deal, who still command our respect. ”

“ There is a region lying between Chiapas, Tabasco, Yucatan, and the Republic of Guatemala, and comprising a considerable portion of each of those States, which, if not entirely blank, is only conjecturally filled up with mountains, lakes, and rivers. It is almost as unknown as the interior of Africa itself.... ”

“ Bandelier (Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., i. 95) has indicated the leading sources of the history of Chiapas, so closely associated with Guatemala. To round the study of the aboriginal period of this Pacific region, we may find something in Alvarado’s letters on the Conquest; [939] in Las Casas for the interior parts, and in Alonso de Zurita’s Relacion, 1560, [940] as respects the Quiché tribes, which is the source of much in Herrera. [941] For Oajaca (Oaxaca, Guaxaca) the special source is Francisco de Burgoa’s Geográfica descripcion de la parte septentrional del Polo Artico de la América, etc. ”

“ Lord, yonder in Chiapas there is a ruined temple that the antiguos built, and to that temple have come a man and a woman, his daughter. The man is old and fierce-eyed, a terrible man, and the girl is beautiful exceedingly. There in the ruins they have dwelt these four months and more, and the man practises the art of medicine, for he is a great doctor, and has wrought many cures, though he takes no money in payment for his skill, but food only. ”

“ Returning to Tampico, a trip by steamer across the gulf brought us to Yucatan. Progreso and Mérida were visited, and our work was done upon the Mayas living near the town of Tekax. A second trip on the gulf brought us to Coatzacoalcos, whence the railroad was used to Tehuantepec and San Geronimo. From the latter point, an ox-cart journey of ten nights, across the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, brought us to Tuxtla Gutierrez. By horse we continued through Chiapas to El Salto, where we took steamer for Frontera. ”