Guanajuato

“ Guanajuato is built on the sides of a deep, broad gorge, surrounded by rolling hills, the ravine, the mouth of which commences at Marfil, being terraced on either side to make room for adobe dwellings. Here and there a patch of green is to be seen, a graceful pepper tree, an orange, or stately cypress relieving the cheerless, arid scene. The narrow, irregular streets are roughly paved; but the clouds of dust which one encounters in the dry [Pg 102] season are almost suffocating. ”

“ It may be mentioned that this State of Guanajuato is the most densely populated in the Mexican republic. It has an area of a trifle over twelve thousand square miles, or it is about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut united. The town is reached through the suburb of Marfil, along the precipitous sides of whose mountain road large adobe and stone mills are constructed, resembling feudal castles ”

“ Nothing can be worse than the road to Villalpando: from the moment that you quit Guanajuato, all traces of its vicinity are lost, and you traverse ravines as wild as those of Zĭmăpān or Zitācŭarŏ, with as little to remind you of the neighbourhood of man. There is not a tree to be seen in the whole four leagues, and many of the ascents are so steep that we were glad to be provided with animals accustomed to face them, instead of trusting to our own. ”

“ The State of Guanajuato, with an area of about 11,000 square miles, supports one of the largest of populations of any state, reaching to 1,065,000 inhabitants, and this is increasing, due to the growing industries of the region. ”

“ Guanajuato; 4th Celaya; whose capitals or chief towns bear the same names. The possession by this State of the great and celebrated Veta Madre which passes nearly through its centre, and of the wide and prolific plains of the Bajio and of San Felipé renders it equally valuable as a mining and agricultural region, and divides it fairly between the two branches of industry. Its population may be estimated at about 560,000; twenty-five per cent, of which comprises the whites, thirty-six per cent, the mixed races, and thirty-nine per cent, the Indian. ”

“ In the cool morning air, with a wind full of ozone sweeping across the high country, the trail lay across tumbled stretches of rocky ground, range behind range of mountains beyond and a ruined stone hut or corral here and there carrying the memory back to Palestine. For a half hour we had Guanajuato in full sight in its narrow gully far below. Many donkeys pattered by under their loads of encinal fagots, the ragged, expressionless drivers plodding silently at their heels. ”

“ CHAPTER IV BOUND ABOUT LAKE CHAPALA With the coming of November I left Guanajuato behind. The branch line down to Silao was soon among broad plains of corn, without rocks even along the flat, ragged, country roads, bringing to mind that it was long since I had walked on level and unobstructed ground. The crowding of the second-class car forced me to share a bench with a chorus girl of the company that had been castilianizing venerable Broadway favorites in Guanajuato's chief theater. ”

“ The climate is semi-tropical and healthy, and the rainfall is sufficient to insure good results in agriculture and stock-raising. In the warm valleys sugar-cane is grown, and at higher elevations Indian corn, beans, barley and wheat. The southern plains are largely devoted to stock-raising. Guanajuato has suffered much from the destruction of its forests, but there remain some small areas on the higher elevations of the north. The principal industry of the state is mining, the mineral wealth of the mountain ranges of the north being enormous. ”

“ Guanajuato (1,007) , a central province of Mexico; is rich in minerals, especially silver, and mining is the chief occupation; but stock-raising is of some importance, and large cotton and woollen factories have of recent years been introduced. The capital, Guanajuato (52) , is built on both sides of a deep ravine traversed by a dashing torrent; it is the centre of the mining industry. ”

“ He has also built terraced promenades and seats all around the reservoirs, and thus furnished Guanajuato with one of the great requisites of a Mexican city, a place of social public resort for its population at evening and morning; he has fine natural taste, and has made the peculiar architecture best fitted for this country and climate, a thorough study; and whenever he sees a man about to build a house of any pretension, he at once offers to superintend its entire construction, free of charge. ”

“ The road to Guanajuato winds through a ravine of interminable length called Cañada de Marfil, and it was far on in the afternoon before we reached that city, whose steep streets we traversed rapidly in the direction of the Cerro del Gigante. The road that we followed on leaving the town was cut with ravines and full of ruts. I was not long in regretting that I had entangled myself in such a defile as this, especially as night was coming on, and we were on an unknown road. As we advanced the scenery became wilder and more desolate ”

“ Let us wind out of Guanajuato, and see its antipodes. One need not go half round the world to find his opposite. He meets him often at the next door, nay, usually in himself. So we find the antipodes of Guanajuato fifteen leagues off. Leon is said to be the second city of the republic in size. ”

“ This abandonment of Guanajuato by the more wealthy inhabitants completed its ruin. The mortality occasioned by war and typhus fever, which raged in the city during this period, the departure of great numbers of the populace with the insurgent leaders and the flight of others, caused within a few months a depopulation amounting to over 25,000. The mining and agricultural industries were for years next to nothing, and stillness and stagnation reigned in the once busy and thriving city. [30]
At Silao, a town five leagues from Guanajuato, Calleja halted his army for several days. ”

“ Irapuato is ninety-two leagues from Mexico. To reach Guanajuato I had still twenty leagues to travel. It occurred to me that Guanajuato was the town to which the Biscayan nobleman had conveyed Donna Luz. Besides the certainty of there meeting Don Tomas, I had the hope of learning the fate of a man in whom I already felt an interest as intense as if he had been an old friend. This double consideration determined me.
"Well," said I to Cecilio, "we must go and wait upon Don Tomas in his own house, which he seems in a great hurry to reach." ”

“ The city is built in the Cañada de Marfil at the junction of three ravines about 6500 ft. above the sea, and its narrow, tortuous streets rise steeply as they follow the ravines upward to the mining villages clustered about the opening of the mines in the hillsides. Guanajuato is sometimes described as a collection of mining villages; but in addition there is the central city with its crowded winding streets, its substantial old Spanish buildings, its fifty ore-crushing mills and busy factories and its bustling commercial life. ”

“ How is it in Guanajuato? Not very hopeful. Like most mining towns, it is more free than religious. It has several Roman churches, some of which are rather handsome. But there is little power, even of this church, over the city. Making money too easy, it is feverish, gambling, dissipating, indifferent to the Church. There is room here for work of the right kind, much room. It would do no harm, but much good, if every Christian church had earnest missionaries among this half a hundred thousand population.
One thing does flourish, if the Church does not—the liquor saloons. ”

“ The plan of Salamanca, as it was called, was submitted to the legislature of Guanajuato by Antillon, and approved. Lerdo's position as president of the republic was no longer recognized, and the president of the supreme court assumed the executive office, supported by a strong force which was daily increasing. Proceeding to Guanajuato, October 31st, with two of his newly appointed ministers, Guillermo Prieto and Berriozábal, [39] Iglesias made a triumphal entry into that city, being received with all the honors due to the president of the republic. ”

“ We left Guanajuato by the gate of Marfil, and proceeded to Silao, a "Pueblo Ranchero," surrounded with maize fields, about four and a half leagues off, and from thence to the Hacienda de Chĭchĭmĭqūīllăs, situated in a barranca full of Aguacates, fig-trees, oranges, and magnificent Palma Christi. The climate was almost "templado," for the road from Silao, which is itself 1,389 feet lower than Mexico, is a gradual slope, and the Hacienda is protected by surrounding hills. ”

“ A preliminary measure was to seize all the funds he could lay hands upon at the mint and public offices of Guanajuato and other towns, [67] and to impress additional men at the settlements en route, all of which swelled the popular outcry. A force was left at Guanajuato to check the speeding outbreak, and as a further precaution Governor Cortazar was inveigled and made a prisoner, after having rejected the different offers of Santa Anna for obtaining his adhesion, [68] while a partial concession was made at Querétaro by reinstalling the assembly and governor. ”

“ The last days of the year saw the French leaving the mining state of Guanajuato, joining at Querétaro the columns from San Luis Potosí, and thence retiring during January toward Vera Cruz. In Guanajuato, however, the imperialists could safely make a stand by themselves; and sustained by the number here accumulating under Mejía and other leaders who had retreated from the provinces north and west, they were able to check the local movement inaugurated since spring by Antillon and his patriot companions ”

“ During the same period revolution raged in the provinces of its birth, left scantily garrisoned when Calleja abandoned Guanajuato. The chief towns were fortified, but had no available troops for distant expeditions. Calleja, after taking Zitácuaro, sent a division of the central army against the parties over running the Bajío or plains of Guanajuato. [18] Colonel Diego García Conde, the chief commander, displayed great activity. ”

“ The youths found that the site of Guanajuato (pronounced Gwan-a-what-o) was given by one of the early viceroys to Don Rodrigo Vasquez, who was one of the conquerors who came with Cortez; the gift was a reward for Don Rodrigo's services in assisting to add this valuable possession to the crown of Spain. According to tradition, the discovery of silver was made here by accident some time in 1548, and it immediately brought a crowd of adventurers in search of fortunes. For a long time Guanajuato was one of the most productive silver districts of Mexico ”

“ Thus the mines, and the mining districts, by aggregating a large laboring population, in a country in which there were, until recently, but few manufactures, and in which the main body of the people engaged either in trades or in tending cattle, became the centre of some of the most active agricultural districts. "The most fertile portions of the table land are the Baxio, which is immediately contiguous to Guanajuato, and comprises a portion of Valladolid, Guadalajara, Queretaro, and Guanajuato. ”

“ In Guanajuato and Michoacan the condition of affairs was far different, and the revolution was assuming alarming proportions. Calleja was fully alive to the grave difficulties of his position. In a letter addressed to Venegas from Guanajuato on the 20th of August, he describes to him in strong colors the inextinguishable vitality of the insurrection and its strong recuperative power; [12] and again on the 26th of September he reports that the forces of his division occupying the district between Lagos and Querétaro were insufficient to keep under control the ubiquitous guerrilla bands. ”

“ Among the manufactures are cottons, prints, soaps, chemicals, pottery and silverware, but mining is the principal interest and occupation of the population. The silver mines of the vicinity were long considered the richest in Mexico, the celebrated Veta Madre (mother lode) even being described as the richest in the world; and Guanajuato has the largest reduction works in Mexico. The railway outlet for the city consists of a short branch of the Mexican Central, which joins the trunk line at Silao. Guanajuato was founded in 1554. ”

“ Fred will tell the story of the excursion.
A TON OF SILVER.
"While waiting for the pass from the administrador," said Fred, "we took a look at the city, which has a population variously placed at from fifty to seventy thousand, mostly dependent on the mines for their support. The city stands in a ravine, and reminded us of Zacatecas. All the world over, mining towns are almost always in mountain ravines or valleys, and Guanajuato is no exception to the rule.
"The streets are narrow, and badly paved with cobble-stones, and locomotion with carriages is not at all easy. ”

“ Guanajuato, Querétaro, and Hidalgo form a group of smaller states which have held a prominent place in the earlier history of Mexico, due principally to the extraordinary production of silver and gold from their mines, which has made the names of these famous the world over. These have been touched upon in the chapters devoted to mining, and the capital cities spoken of elsewhere. Most of the important mines are again producing mainly under modern methods, and the value of the output for the State of Guanajuato last year is calculated as fourteen million dollars. ”