San Luis Potosí

“ The State of San Luis Potosi is another centre of mineral wealth, its silver mines having been known of old to the ancient Mexicans. Indeed, it was named by the Spaniards after the famous silver-bearing country of Potosi in Peru. It has a population to-day of over half a million, a delightfully mild climate, mountainous scenery in parts, and San Luis
Potosi. it is watered by several large rivers. Agriculture is in a high state of advancement, the sugar-cane and the maguey both yielding large returns, as do the native textile plants, the crops of which have a high annual value. ”

“ Santa Anna reached San Luis Potosi with but half his army remaining, and this force in a thoroughly demoralized condition. He had no time for rest, for the enemy was already at Vera Cruz, and he must turn upon a new army of the dreaded North Americans. He dispatched a portion of his troops in that direction, and hastened to the capital. There, all was strife. For a month the idiotic men in power had been wasting their energies and the energies of the nation in senseless contentions. ”

“ Every country has its Saint Louis, but only one has a Saint Louis of the Treasure, and that is San Luis Potosi, the capital of the state of that name. It lies in a spreading plain of great fertility—made so by irrigation—whose gardens extend to the encircling hills that are rich in the mineral treasures which give the city its name. The San Pedro mines near here alone produce an annual output of several millions. These mines were revealed to Spaniards by an Indian who had become converted to Christianity. There is a mint here that coins several millions of dollars each year. ”

“ San Luis Potosí has hardly proved a more fruitful field of archæological research. Mayer gives a cut representing a stone axe from this state; Cabrera reports some ancient tombs, or cuicillos,—which he calls cuiztillos; the word being written differently by different authors, and as applied to different states—in the suburbs of the city of San Luis Potosí; and according to a newspaper report two idols and a sacrificial basin, cut from a concrete sandstone, were found in the sierra near the city and brought to New Orleans. ”

“ Just beyond San Pedro, on the way to San Luis Potosi, when our men were passing through a defile with high mountains each side, a mine was sprung and showers of stones thrown down among us while we were fired upon from the other side. ”

“ The two intendancies New Biscay and Sonora, then part of San Luis Potosi, belonged to the provinces of Coahuila and Texas. The interior provinces of the viceroyalty were the intendancy of San Luis Potosi, including the provinces of New Leon and New Santander. The actual kingdom of New Spain was composed of the intendancies of Mexico, Puebla, Vera Cruz, Guadalajara, Valladolid, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Oajaca, Merida, and San Luis, proper, and the two Californias. ”

“ All these things you see at the market in San Luis Potosi, but you see them in hundreds, while I have only described them as individuals, and have not half turned the kaleidoscope yet.
The streets must be all vacated by eleven o’clock at night, and when the hour for closing has arrived, nothing is locked up. The thousand and one vendors have no care for their goods. A piece of canvas is spread over them and a brickbat placed on to keep the wind from interfering, and they go home.
The policeman does the rest—he never sleeps. Crime does not pay in Mexico. ”

“ In the low tropical valleys, sugar, coffee, tobacco, peppers and fruit are staple products. Stock-raising is an important industry and hides, tallow and wool are exported. Fine cabinet and construction woods are also exported to a limited extent. At one time San Luis Potosí ranked among the leading mining provinces of Mexico, but the disorders following independence resulted in a great decline in that industry. The Catorce district has some of the richest silver mines in the country. Other Well-known silver mining districts are Peñón Blanco, Ramos and Guadalcázar. ”

“ We are here fully six thousand feet above the sea level, in a wholesome locality, which, it is claimed, possesses the most equable climate in Mexico, the temperature never reaching freezing-point, and rarely being uncomfortably warm. There are several fine old churches in San Luis Potosi, containing some admirable oil paintings by Vallejo, Tresguerras, and others of less fame. The city is three hundred and sixty miles north of the national capital, and is destined, with the opening of the railroad to Tampico, which has so recently taken place, to grow rapidly. ”

“ San Luis Potosi, the rainless city, once world-renowned for wealth, and even now full of fine buildings, churches and palaces, and with a swarming population of white-clothed Indians squatting to sell their trumpery in the great market-square, loomed up amongst its fringe of gardens, irrigated lands, its groves of pepper-trees, its palms, its p. ”

“ It was said that the presence of so large a force at San Luis, under his orders, was dangerous to the liberties of the country, and the march towards the Gulf, to meet General Scott, Would have been the signal for a bloody revolution. ↑ The accounts are very conflicting in relation to the strength of the Mexican army. In his official report of the battle at Buena Vista, Santa Anna states that the force with which he left San Luis Potosi, including garrisons and detachments, amounted to 18,133, and that his artillery train consisted of seventeen pieces. ”

“ The average distance traversed is about 82 miles a day. The taverns along the road are very inferior, and the tourist is advised to provide himself with beef-tea, canned goods, red wine, etc. The route from San Luis Potosí to Saltillo may be briefly described as follows: The road leads northward from the former city over the broad and level valley, in which mesquite, maguey, and nopal grow for many miles. The picturesque sierra bounds the plain on the east, while a rolling country is seen to the westward. ”

“ By the end of December a force of twenty thousand men had assembled at San Luis Potosi, south of Monterey, and the centre of one of the richest mining regions of the country, under the command of General Santa Anna. ”

“ It is fair to say, however, that there are those who think the future metropolis may be farther to the north, as at San Luis Potosi.
If Mexico, then, is to be a great city, whither is it to spread? It is compactly built within, and much of the land about it is low, traversed by causeways. There is no better place to think about it, nor to look down upon the capital as a whole, than Chapultepec.
My first visit there was made on the tramway, where I fell in with a Mexican colonel, who told me that he liked the Americans very well. ”

“ One difficulty in this programme was the general hatred which he must have known the northern provinces entertained for him, because his policy had always sacrificed their interests; and he thought it wise to despatch a proclamation to San Luis Potosí, calling upon the people to see in him only a Mexican soldier fighting for the common country. ”

“ If a sense of loneliness comes over one when he rounds Cape Clear and steers straight into the harsh Atlantic, even though he is facing, and moving toward, home, so may a like sense affect one as he turns his back on the real Mexico of population, history, and power, and moves northward and homeward from San Luis Potosi. ”

“ Thirty-six thousand five hundred square leagues, comprising the States of Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Michoacan, Mexico, Puebla, Vera Cruz, Oajaca, Tabasco, Yucatan, Chiapas, were within the torrid zone; while New Mexico, Durango, New and Old California, Sonora and a great part of the old Intendancy of San Luis Potosi, containing in all eighty-six thousand square leagues, were under the temperate zone. ”

“ In the eastern provinces it spread with rapidity. After San Luis Potosi had thrown off the yoke, the neighboring district of Nuevo Santander was awakened by the spirit of independence. The governor, Lieutenant-colonel Manuel de Iturbe, [8] was compelled to retreat to Altamira by the revolt of troops which he had raised under the same delusive expectation indulged in by Abarca and Rendon. The country was now overrun by revolutionists. Spaniards were dragged from their homes and cast into dungeons from which the vilest criminals had been released ”

“ Many sought escape to the seacoast, or a refuge in some principal town. Great numbers flocked to Saltillo from the mining district of Catorce and neighboring places. Colonel Antonio Cordero was at that time governor of Coahuila, and was organizing a body of troops for the purpose of marching against San Luis Potosí, according to the plan formed by Calleja. [9] The arrival of so many Spaniards at a time so critical might have been turned to good account by an able and energetic commander; but Cordero was not such a man. ”

“ He urged the government to forward troops to the frontier without delay, and a force of 3,000 men was accordingly started from the capital on the 28th of September, with Santa Anna at its head, for San Luis Potosí. ”

“ That which he could not gain in this world by his persistent efforts and courteous appeals to men, he will gain, we trust, in the better land by his prayer to the Almighty—the regeneration of the conferences of San Luis Potosí. ”

“ Another revolution broke out, however, on the 15th of December, 1869, at San Luis Potosí, headed by generals Francisco Aguirre, Martinez, and Larrañaga, against Juarez' government, and was seconded on the 10th of January, 1870, in Zacatecas by Governor Trinidad García de la Cadena, who placed himself at the head of the whole movement. [33] The rebels, supported by a body of troops of the fourth division, seized a conducta of about $70,000. ”

“ Saturday, March 11, 1848.—This morning there is great excitement concerning the news from San Luis Potosi. The Indians are making great havoc among the Mexicans on the frontier. Gen. Paredas is at the head of the Mexican army, and is making great threats towards the American army if we should attempt to march on to Queretaro City. ”

“ The reactionists being now defeated, it was generally believed that with one more effort cominercial activity and public confidence would be revived; but it was not to be so. Another seditious act occurred at San Luis Potosí; over 1,000 men of Rosas Landa's brigades, returning from Nuevo Leon under the lead of Manuel María Calvo, revolted on the 10th of December, taking up the cry of religion and fueros, which compelled the rest of the force under General Echeagaray to leave the city. ”

“ Santa Anna, who, by first taking up arms, had contributed so largely to this result, thinking himself not duly considered in the new arrangements, sailed from Vera Cruz with a small force March 1823, and landing at Tampico, advanced through the country to San Luis Potosi, assuming to be protector of the new republic. But not possessing influence enough to maintain himself in this attitude, he was compelled to submit to the government, and to remain for several years in retirement at Manga de Clavo. ”

“ The more respectable families took refuge in the churches and convents, or barricaded themselves in their houses, while a large portion of the populace betook themselves to the hills. Allende was helpless to awaken resistance. As height after height was stormed by the victorious royalists, and aware that all was lost, accompanied by his brother officers and a few horsemen, he fled from the city in the direction of San Luis Potosi, taking with him what treasure he had remaining. ”

“ Localities within any one state are arranged from north to south. Chihuahua: Sierra Almagre, 6000 ft., 12 mi. S Jaco, 1. Coahuila: 17 mi. N and 8 mi. W Saltillo, 5200 ft., 2; 3 mi. SE Torreón, 3800 ft., 7. Durango: 1 mi. SSE Mapimí, 4100 ft., 1; 4 mi. WSW Lerdo, 3800 ft., [Pg 624] 1; 5 mi. SE Lerdo, 3800 ft., 1. Zacatecas: Conception del Oro, 7680 ft., 1. San Luis Potosí: 10 mi. NE San Luis Potosí, 6000 ft., 1.
Other records.—Coahuila: Jaral; Saltillo (Goldman, 1910:82) . San Luis Potosí: Cerro Peñon Blanco; Ventura; Santa Teresa; city of San Luis Potosí (Dalquest, loc. cit.) . ”

“ Navarro agrees with Humboldt that the slaves could not exceed ten thousand, the pure blacks forming two thirds of this number. [17]
Even without the impulse given by republican principles in modern times for the amalgamation of races, it is evident that the castes strictly speaking must gain in number by encroaching on the other classes, even if these were to show a constant increase—an increase which becomes somewhat fictitious when we consider
San Luis Potosí has really 14 partidos, of which 4 fall under the jurisdiction of the Provincius internus de Oriente. ”

“ There was also a public school supported by funds bequeathed by a resident of that town. Toward the end of the eighteenth century the population was rapidly increasing, [27] and mining, commerce, agriculture, and stock-raising had made great progress. Fresnillo had at this period about five thousand inhabitants and was governed by a lieutenant under the
Zacatecas, Aguas Calientes, San Luis Potosí alcalde of Jerez ”

“ The Southern Methodists, who entered the field in 1873, are strongly entrenched in Mexico city, San Luis de Potosi, Puebla, Oaxaca, Guadalajara, Monterey and Saltillo, besides scores of preaching-places and a large ministerial force, both native and foreign. They have a church-membership of 3022. In their central mission they report 65 Sunday-schools and 1300 children enrolled. A self-sustaining boarding-school for Mexican girls has been opened in San Luis de Potosi, and a free day-school. ”