The Nahuatl language and culture of the Aztecs of central Mexico are among the best-documented sources of information we have for understanding the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Aztec society was abruptly interrupted and brought to an untimely end by the Spanish invasion and conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1521. Nevertheless, it is from this very […]
Continue Reading
How do we really know what happened in ancient Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards and the introduction of writing? Many articles and books have been written on the history of ancient Mexico from Prescott’s popular but biased Conquest of Mexico in 1521, to innumerable studies of the Aztecs, the Maya, and other indigenous folk in scholarly […]
Continue Reading
The story of the Conquest of Mexico in 1521 by Cortés and the Spanish Conquistadores has been told many times, but usually from the standpoint of the victors. An notable exception is The Broken Spears (Boston, 1962), an attempt by the Mexican scholar Miguel Leon-Portilla to give voice to the victims and survivors of the […]
Continue ReadingThe city of Los Mochis (“Mochees”, as locals call it) in the northern state of Sinaloa, is one of Mexico’s newest cities. It dates back only as far as 1872, when a U.S. engineer, Albert Kimsey Owen (1847-1916) arrived. Owen envisaged the city as a U.S. colony centered on sugar-cane production in this previously unsettled […]
Continue ReadingThe Cruz Roja Mexicana functions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Like the American and Canadian Red Cross, it assists at disasters, but additionally acts as an Emergency Medical Service. By Mexican law, it is the only organization, outside of big cities, authorized to render first aid to anyone injured in an auto […]
Continue ReadingSealed off by mountains to both the East and West, and arid, desert-like land to the North, Mexico’s central altoplano, for eons was home to Nahua, Otomi, Huichol, Cora, Tepehua and Coyutec Indians. Only the Chichimecs, who lived in the foothills of the Eastern mountain range were warlike. It was a fertile, peaceful region, never dominated […]
Continue Reading
Its name is better suited to a Musical Comedy than a conflict between Nations and calls up visions of armies bombarding each other with Éclairs, Fruit Tarts, Napoleons and even Strudel. But on April 16, 1838 a French Fleet began the blockade of Mexico’s east coast seaports, launching a war. It was based on a […]
Continue ReadingHistorians dismiss Agustín Itúrbide with a few lines and most Mexicans have never heard of him. He deserves better. Factually, he was the one who cut the chains that bound Mexico in servitude to Spain. Perhaps historians are uneasy with him because he proposed an Empire rather than a Republic. In fairness to him we […]
Continue ReadingAsked to identify Francisco “Pancho” Villa, most people living North of the Rio Grande and even some Mexicans would call him a “bandido” but a careful examination of his career reveals simply a man willing to break the law to further a cause. In many ways, he remains an enigma. Born in San Juan del Rio, Durango, […]
Continue Reading“The evil men do lives after them, the good is often interred with their bones.” These words of Shakespeare may well describe the future of U.S. President Bill Clinton, but in writing about Mexican President Benito Juarez I would paraphrase these words to read, “The good that he did lives after him, the damage was […]
Continue Reading