Jalisco

“ From the hill above Santa Anna Acatlan, we had a fine view of the immense Hacienda del Plan, the largest and finest sugar estate in the State of Jalisco. The house stands upon a hill overlooking the Laguna de Zacoalco, and is surrounded by the sugar-works and other buildings, with vast fields of sugar-cane, now twothirds grown—it requires from one year to fourteen months to come to full maturity—in all directions. The house is like a great square castle in appearance, with columns and verandah all around, and looks like a fit place for the residence of a prince. ”

“ PLAZA OF QUADALAJARA. The city of Guadalajara, 150 leagues from Mexico, the capital of Jalisco, is situated upon an extensive plain. Its handsome streets are airy, and many of the houses well built. There are fourteen squares, twelve fountains, and a number of convents and churches, the principal of which is the magnificent Cathedral, whose towers were injured by an earthquake in 1818. An Alameda is beautifully laid out with irregular alleys, planted with trees, interspersed with flowers, while, in the centre, a fountain throws up a constant stream of excellent water. ”

“ As night descended we began to pant upward through low hills, wooded, but free from the rocks and boulders of a mining region, and in the first darkness drew up at Guadalajara, second city of Mexico. It is a place that adorns the earth. Jalisco State, of which this is the capital, has been called the Andalusia of Mexico, and the city is indeed a Seville of the West, though lacking in her spontaneity of life, for this cruder people is much more tempered with a constant fear of betraying their crudeness and in consequence much weighed down by "propriety." ”

“ Jalisco (1,250) , a maritime state in Mexico facing the Pacific; consists chiefly of elevated plateau; enjoys a fine climate; has long-established mining industries, some agriculture, and a growing trade in cotton and woollen goods, tobacco, &c.; capital, Guadalajara.
Jamaica (“Land of Springs”) (640, of which 15 are whites) , a British crown colony, the largest and most important of the British West India Islands; is one of the Greater Antilles group, and lies some 90 m. ”

“ This proposal met with decided opposition, [27] and Tepic continued to remain in its abnormal position, although certain deputies in congress, from time to time, demanded its restoration to the state of Jalisco. In March 1873 the government of Jalisco inquired of the federal government if it could organize the ayuntamientos and appoint officials in the district. The reply was, that Tepic was a military federal district, and would remain such until the congress decided otherwise. ”

“ This gave Arteaga control over Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato, Querétaro, and part of Mexico — that is, so far as republican influence extended. The four divisions of this army were intrusted to Echeagaray, Ortiz, Salazar, and Herrera y Cairo, governor of Jalisco, the latter acting only in absence of Arteaga. ”

“ The gubernatorial changes in Mexico, Michoacan, Oajaca, Puebla, and Guanajuato were in favor of the new order, to which Querétaro and San Luis Potosí also adhered. Petty provinces like Colima and Tlascala bent for the sake of autonomy, and even Yucatan and Tabasco declared for the plan of Jalisco; while Vera Cruz, followed by Tampico, pronounced for Santa Anna, but with a federal system. ”

“ As in Durango, the intervention of the Supreme Government was found necessary, in order to prevent the too great eagerness with which ecclesiastical reforms were pushed by the liberal party, from being productive of very serious consequences. By the seventh Article of the Constitution of Jalisco, the State sequestered the whole property of the church, and undertook in return to make an adequate provision for the ministers of religion. ”

“ On the south, however, those parts of the Ávalos provinces that lay south of Autlan and Zayula, now forming part of Jalisco, appear to have then belonged to New Spain, and were subject to the viceroy, while in the north-east Nueva Galicia included the western portion of what is now San Luis Potosi, the boundary line running near Charcas and Matehuala. The territory was under the political rule of a governor, who was also president of the audiencia of Guadalajara, and was appointed by the king, though nominally subject to the viceroy. ”

“ So many difficulties only served to add strength to the reactionists, whose numbers were daily increasing, and necessitated the despatch of large bodies of troops to keep them in check. It was even considered perilous that the government should continue residing in Mexico, Jalisco recommending its transfer to some second-rate town. ”

“ The agricultural productions of Jalisco combine those of the tierras calientas and the tierras templadas. On the upper plateaus, grain and agaves are chiefly planted, and on the coast, sugar and cotton. A small quantity of cochineal is also raised, and in the district of Autlan de la Grana, plantations of the cacao-tree have been made. All the fruits of the tropical and temperate zones are readily grown; sheep, mules, horses, goats, neat-cattle, are raised in great abundance, and not less than 10,000 head of cattle are found on many haciendas de Gañado. ”

“ The integral parts of the Federation are: the States of Aguascalientes, Colima, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico, Michoacan, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, Oajaca, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlascala, Valle de Mexico, Veracruz, Yucatan, Zacatecas, and the Territory of Lower California. Article 44. The States of Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Mexico, Puebla, Queretaro, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and the Territory of Lower California shall preserve the limits which they now have. ”

“ At the beginning of the seventeenth century the extension of the order had assumed such dimensions that, in 1604, the provincia de San Francisco de los Zacatecas was established, and in 1607 that of Santiago of Jalisco. [42] To illustrate how vast was the influence of the Franciscan provincials at Mexico, I may mention that on several occasions the king requested them to support viceroys in their administration. [43] Indeed, such was the appreciation of the order by the crown, that the authorities in New Spain were instructed not to interfere in the least with its internal government. ”

“ The middle mountainous divide crosses from Durango to Coahuila, while the third rises in the state of Jalisco and taking an easterly and afterward northerly direction, traverses the table-land and merges into the Sierra Madre in the state of San Luis Potosí. On these broad table-lands are numerous lakes fed by the streams which have their rise in the mountains adjacent ”

“ Thus, in parts, it is mountainous and even volcanic; in others, Jalisco. it is agricultural and well watered; it embraces a wide variety of climates; cattle-raising is carried on with advantage and on a large scale; the cotton manufactory is on a firm basis; and last, but not least, the mining industry is one of the most important in the Republic. Amidst all these natural resources, one is surprised to find the serious handicap of a backward railway system ”

“ The Lake of Chapala, lies about fifteen leagues from the city of Guadalajara, and forms a basin among the mountains of 36 to 40 leagues in length by 5 to 8 in breadth. Its usual depth is about six and a half fathoms. Its scenery is remarkably beautiful, and it supplies the neighborhood plentifully with fish and water-fowl.
Jalisco is divided into eight Cantons or Departments:—Guadalajara, Lagos, La Barca, Sayula, Etzatlan, Autlan, Tepic and Colotlan;—containing 8 large cities and towns, 318 small villages, 387 haciendas or plantations, and 2,534 ranchos or farms. ”

“ The primary schools of the city contain five thousand pupils, and the schools for the two sexes are separate. The children are bright, intelligent, and ready to learn, and the schools absolutely free to all. There are one hundred and four Municipalities in the State of Jalisco, outside of the City of Guadalajara, and each of them supports one or more of these schools. The girls in addition to the usual lessons with us, are taught sewing, knitting, and other useful and necessary accomplishments. ”

“ The agricultural products of Jalisco include Indian corn, wheat and beans on the uplands, and sugar-cane, cotton, rice, indigo and tobacco in the warmer districts. Rubber and palm oil are natural forest products of the coastal zone. Stock-raising is an important occupation in some of the more elevated districts. The mineral resources include silver, gold, cinnabar, copper, bismuth, and various precious stones. There are reduction works of the old-fashioned type and some manufactures, including cotton and woollen goods, pottery, refined sugar and leather. ”

“ In the middle zone of the Pacific slope rises the large city of Guadalajara, capital of Jalisco state; and along the coast below may be found a number of seaports, the most important of which are Guaymas, far to the north, Mazatlán opposite the point of Lower California, San Blas a little farther down, and Acapulco in the south. [1]
THE PEOPLE
Exactly how large the population of Mexico was in 1845 one cannot be sure, and it included quite a number of racial mixtures ”

“ The audience of Guadalajara, originating in 1548, had jurisdiction over this Nueva Galicia; in 1786 the latter became the intendency of Guadalajara; and after 1792 the Provincias Internas were judicially subordinate to the audience of Guadalajara. Pike's "administration of Guadalaxara" corresponds inexactly to the present State of Jalisco or Xalisco. This lies on the Pacific coast, bordered by the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, Aguas Calientes, Guanajuato, Michoacan, and Colima; area, 27,261 sq. m.; pop., 1,280,500; capital, Guadalajara. The situation of this city is lat. ”

“ Jalapa, i. 147. ↑ Bustamante, Suplem., in Cavo, Tres Siglos, iii. 42; Alaman, Disert., iii. app. 71. ↑ Mayorga announced it in a letter to the minister of state. It was believed that Saavedra came to spy the viceroy's acts. Bustamante, Suplem., in Cavo, Tres Siglos, iii. 42. ↑ From that time the people of Jalisco began to show a spirit of independence from the central authority, which in later years became more developed, and caused untold evils. Id. ”

“ They entered the large plaza around which were many of the important buildings of the capital. Here ran in full stream the life of early California. Indian women, gay in colored shawl and gown, edged their way among the fiery steeds drawing the carreta of the grandee's family. The Mexican smoking his corn-paper cigarito touched elbows with the hidalgo's son who was clad in velvet and fine linen, with inlaid gold on his hat-band and gold spur on his heels.
Skins brown, skins red, skins white intermingled. Wealth and lack of it walked side by side. ”

“ But Sonora and Mexico are rapidly passing into a new day whence all that has been will be as yesterday, and to-morrow will be bright with promise.
The world now touches the sunshine of Southern California, eating its sun-kissed oranges, its sun-dried figs, its new seedless raisins, and the fruit of its alligator pear trees, transplanted from Mexico. Its deep valleys are raising the finest cotton; its motor highways are jewels in the crown of a State promoting intercourse over wide reaches betwixt its peoples. ”

“ Somewhat farther to the south, the eye passes across the beautiful plains lying around the city of Puebla de los Angeles, founded by the old Spaniards, and still rivalling, in the splendor of its churches, the most brilliant capitals of Europe; and far in the west he may behold the Valley of Mexico, spread out like a map, with its diminished lakes, its princely capital rising in still greater glory from its ruins, and its rugged hills gathering darkly around it, as in the days of Montezuma. ”

“ Mexico, forgetting her old debt to Spain, when she explored her then heathen shores, had revolted against Spanish rule and set up an empire of her own, making Augustin Iturbide, a man of half Indian blood her Emperor. Immediately Mexico claimed California, as well as Texas, Arizona and New Mexico as a portion of her empire, although the people of California, with the exception of a handful of Mexicans, had never shown the least desire of change of government, for the greatest number of her settlers were Spaniards or their children who were intensely loyal to the Crown of Spain. ”

“ We of California are doubly rich in the matter of names, since, in addition to the Indian nomenclature common to all the states, we possess the splendid heritage left us by those bold adventurers from Castile who first set foot upon our shores. In these names the spirit of our romantic past still lives and breathes, and their sound is like an echo coming down the years to tell of that other day when the savage built his bee-hive huts on the river-banks, and the Spanish caballero jingled his spurs along the Camino Real. ”

“ Happy California! The cross here preceded the sword. No blood stains the Easter lilies of the sacrifice. The Dons and Donnas greet each other in stately fashion, as the gathering disperses. Governor Alvarado gives a feast to the notables. The old families are all represented at the board. Picos, Peraltas, Sanchez, Pachecos, Guerreros, Estudillos, Vallejos, Alvarados, De la Guerras, Castros, Micheltorrenas, the descendants of "Conquistadores," drink to Mexico. High rises the jovial chatter. Good aguadiente and mission wine warm the hearts of the fiery Californian orators. ”