#mexican history

[riotcowgrrl]

also the no history thing just is blatantly untrue

there was a trans Zapatista general who would threaten to shoot anyone who didn’t refer to him as male.

this is him, Amelio Robles Ávila, recognized as male by friends, family, and the Mexican government. he was male not out of safety, but out of a strong desire to be male.

[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Frida Kahlo!

Frida was born in Mexico City on 6 July 1907. Her art draws on both European and Mexican traditions to focus on themes including gender, revolutionary politics, and Mexican nationalism.

Frida’s works were exhibited during her lifetime in several countries, including at the USA’s MoMA. In 1939, the Louvre purchased one of the portraits, making her the first Mexican artist included the their collection.

Frida was married for much of her life to fellow artist Diego Rivera, and also had relationships with several women.

Check out our podcast on Frida to learn more!

[alwaysbewoke]

"...the first cowboys lived in Mexico and the Caribbean, and most of them were Black. That’s the conclusion of a recent analysis of DNA from 400-year-old cow bones excavated on the island of Hispaniola and at sites in Mexico. The work, published in Scientific Reports, also provides evidence that African cattle made it to the Americas at least a century earlier than historians realized. The timing of these African imports—to the early 1600s—suggests the growth of cattle herds may have been connected to the slave trade, says study author Nicolas Delsol, an archaeozoologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “It changes the whole perspective on the mythical figure of the cowboy, which has been whitewashed over the 20th century.”

x

[longliveblackness]

Known as the Primer Libertador de America or “first liberator of the Americas,” Gaspar Yanga led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful slave uprisings and would go on to establish one of the Americas earliest free black settlements.

Rumored to be of royal lineage from West Africa, Yanga was an enslaved worker in the sugarcane plantations of Veracruz, Mexico. In 1570 he, along with a group of followers, escaped, fled to the mountainous regions near Córdoba, and established a settlement of former slaves or palenque. They remained there virtually unmolested by Spanish authorities for nearly 40 years. Taking the role of spiritual and military leader, he structured the agricultural community in an ordered capacity, allowing its growth and occupation of various locations.

During that time, Yanga and his band, also known as cimarrónes, were implicated in the disruption and looting of trade goods along the Camino Real (Royal Road) between Veracruz and Mexico City. They were also held responsible for attacking nearby haciendas and kidnapping indigenous women. Perceived as dangerous to the colonial system of slavery through their daring actions against royal commerce and authority, New Spain’s viceroy called for the annihilation of Yanga’s palenque. Destroying the community and its leader would send a message to other would-be rebellious slaves that Spain’s authority over them was absolute.

In 1609, Spanish authorities sent a well-armed militia to defeat Yanga and his palenque but were defeated. Yanga’s surprise victory over the Spanish heightened the confidence of his warriors and the frustration in Mexico City.

After defeating other Spanish forces sent again the palenque, Yanga offered to make peace but with eleven conditions, the most important being recognition of the freedom of all of the palenque’s residents prior to 1608, acknowledgment of the settlement as a legal entity which Yanga and his descendants would govern, and the prohibition of any Spanish in the community. Yanga, in turn, promised to serve and pay tribute to the Spanish crown. After years of negotiations, in 1618, the town of San Lorenzo de Los Negros was officially recognized by Spanish authorities as a free black settlement. It would later be referred to as Yanga, named after its founder.

•••

Conocido como el primer libertador de las Americas, Gaspar Yanga lideró exitosamente una de las primeras revueltas de esclavos en el México colonial y estableció una de las primeras ciudades negras y libres de América.

Se rumoreaba que era del linaje real de África Occidental. Yanga fue un esclavo que trabajó en las plantaciones de caña de azúcar de Veracruz, México. En 1570, él junto con un grupo de sus partidarios, se escaparon y huyeron hacia las montañas ubicadas en las regiones cercanas a Córdoba y estableció la primer ciudad o asentamiento para antiguos esclavos, también llamado palenque. Prácticamente permanecieron ahí por casi cuarenta años, sin ser molestados por las autoridades Españolas. Tomando el rol de guía espiritual y militar, él organizó la comunidad agrícola con una capacidad ordenada, así permitiendo el crecimiento y ocupación de varias ubicaciones.

Durante este tiempo, Yanga y su banda, también conocidos como cimarrones, estuvieron implicados en la interrupción y saqueo de bienes comerciales a lo largo del Camino Real entre Veracruz y Ciudad de México. También se les responsabilizó por los ataques a las haciendas cercanas y de secuestrar a mujeres indígenas. Percibido como un peligro para el sistema colonial de la esclavitud, sus audaces acciones contra el comercio y la autoridad real hicieron que el virrey de Nueva España pidiera la aniquilación del palenque de Yanga. El destruir a la comunidad y a su líder enviaría un mensaje a otros posibles esclavos rebeldes de que la autoridad de España sobre ellos era absoluta.

En 1609, las autoridades españolas enviaron una milicia fuertemente armada para derrotar a Yanga y su palenque, pero fueron derrotadas. La sorpresiva victoria de Yanga sobre los españoles aumentó la confianza de sus guerreros y la frustración en la Ciudad de México.

Después de derrotar a otras fuerzas españolas enviadas nuevamente al palenque, Yanga se ofreció a hacer las paces pero con once condiciones, siendo la más importante el reconocimiento de la libertad de todos los que residían en el palenque desde antes de 1608, el reconocimiento del asentamiento como entidad legal que sería gobernado por Yanga y sus descendientes, y la prohibición de cualquier español en la comunidad. Yanga, a su vez, se comprometió a servir y rendir homenaje a la corona española. Después de años de negociaciones, en 1618, el pueblo de San Lorenzo de Los Negros fue reconocido oficialmente por las autoridades españolas como un asentamiento negro y libre. Más tarde se la conocería como Yanga, en honor a su fundador.

[dailyhistoryposts]

[Image description: a clip of a headline that reads: Mexican history> Mexican government acquires long-lost Aztec manuscripts a out the rise and fall of Tenochtitlan]

The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City has announced the discovery of the Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco, three codices nearly 500 years old, telling the history of the city of Tenochtitlán. It includes details of life before and after European contact and conquest, written in a mix of Nahuatl, Spanish, and Indigenous Mesoamerican painting styles.

The indigenous people of Mexico and Central America, including civilizations before the Aztecs, had a very complete written history. However, most of these texts were burned by Spanish conquistadores, making findings like this very exciting.

[Image description: a page of the Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco, showing the inventory of a church on bark paper via imagery. It is faded and ripped in many places]

[qqueenofhades]

Hello! I think your blog title is absolutely lovely (do flowers go down to the realm of the dead?) and I’d like to ask if that’s a quote of your own or if it’s from something else? It’s such a beautiful quote either way!

It's actually a quote from a late-medieval (15th century) Aztec philosopher-king named Nezahualcoyotl. As I first encountered it:

"Truly do we live on Earth?" asked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualcoyotl (1402-72), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: Not forever on earth; only a little while here. Be it jade, it shatters. Be it gold, it breaks. Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart. Not forever on earth; only a little while here. In another verse assigned to Nezahualcoyotl this theme emerged even more baldly: Like a painting, we will be erased. Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth. Like plumed vestments of the precious bird, That precious bird with the agile neck, We will come to an end. Contemplating mortality, thinkers in many cultures have drawn solace from the prospect of life after death. This consolation was denied to the Mexica [Aztec], who were agonizingly uncertain about what happened to the soul. "Do flowers go to the region of the dead?" Nezahualcoyotl asked. "In the Beyond, are we still dead or do we live?" Many if not most tlamantine saw existence as Nabokov feared: "a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." -- Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York: Vintage Books, 2011), p. 138.

This quote hit me in the heart the first time I read it, as a lovely and achingly poignant question on the nature of eternity, especially since it came from a member of a world and a culture scoured totally out of existence by the conquering, colonizing Spaniards. It is a timeless impulse to wonder whether loved ones are ever truly gone, if beautiful things survive after we have lost them, if they go on existing somewhere, even when we can no longer see or touch them. Astute and/or comprehensive readers may know that this quote is directly referenced in both a Sandman and a Shadow and Bone fic of mine, so yes.

[city-of-ladies]

"As in previous wars, women aided both Mexican and foreign troops during the French Intervention. Some women fought alongside their male counterparts, while others looked at French troops as employers and marriage partners. The invasion by France started when Spain, England, and France occupied the customshouse in Vera Cruz in 1861-1862 in order to collect revenue to pay claims against Mexico. The French decided to stay in Mexico and create a new French empire in America. It was not until 1867 that the Mexicans were able to expel them.

Ignacia Reachy distinguished herself in the ranks. Reachy, who was born in Guadalajara about 1816, started a women's battalion to defend the city against the French. Col. Antonio Rojas gave her a pair of riding boots while Colonel Gonzalez presented her with the uniform of a second lieutenant. She left Guadalajara to join the Army of the East. Her friend Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza put her in the Second Division under Gen. Jose Maria Arteaga. She fought well in the Battle of Acultzingo on April 28,1862. Reachy was captured by the French while covering the retreat of General Arteaga. After a year in prison she escaped and presented herself to Arteaga for more combat duty. She became a commander of the Lancers of Jalisco and continued to fight with great valor until killed in action in 1866. Reachy's story shows that there were soldiers and even some officers who welcomed women in the ranks.

Soldaderas were part of the successful Mexican forces that defeated French forces in Puebla on May 5, 1862. Every year the battle is re-created by the Zacapoaxtla Indians to commemorate the event. Yet by a strange twist of fate, only men are allowed to play all the roles, including those of the soldaderas. Each man "carries on his back a doll to represent a baby, and a small basket with food and water." The men dressed as soldaderas and carrying rifles also take part in the fighting. An antecedent for this "men only" ritual battle re-creation goes back to Mexica times when the Cihuacoatl (Snake Woman) or war chief had to dress in women's clothing when entering cities recently conquered. The continuation of this ritual shows that some native groups dominated by patriarchal views still distort woman's role in warfare."

Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History, Elizabeth Salas

[arkipelagic]

In truth, Spanish presence was minimal outside of a handful of urban settlements. Spain's outlandish claim to the entirety of the Pacific was actualized almost solely through the passage of a couple of ships sailing in either direction each year. Strictly speaking, the Spanish presence in the Pacific during most of the colonial period existed within a narrow navigational corridor, a transpacific space "as shallow as the amount of seawater displaced by the weight of Iberian sailing vessels." In the words of [Christina H. Lee] and [Ricardo Padrón], "Spanish Pacific studies begins by recognizing that Spain's presence in the Pacific was always slim, tenuous, and contested."

Despite the extremely limited scope of the Spanish encounter with the Pacific, it sufficed to facilitate "an unprecedented global mestizaje [intermingling and intermixture]" in the movement of thousands of free and enslaved Asians to the Americas for the first time. During their 250 years of operation, the Manila galleons confronted the most challenging seafaring conditions of their era to ferry merchandise and people between Cavite in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico. The survivors of this arduous journey were forever marked by it.

The people disembarking in Mexico's torrid Pacific port had come from Gujarat to the southwest, Nagasaki to the northeast, and everywhere in between. Most sailors and free migrants were born on Luzon in the Philippines, while captives had often been ensnared throughout the Philippines or ... by Portuguese enslaving operations in the Indian Ocean World. Smaller concentrations came from elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Japan, or China.

Excerpt from The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History (2024) by Diego Javier Luis

[historynerdj2]

History memes #49

So, fun fact, most of the army that conquered the Aztecs were actually made up of other peoples in Mexico who decided they hated the Aztecs more than the newly arrived Spanish

[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Frida Kahlo!

Frida was born in Mexico City on 6 July 1907. Frida is best known for her iconic self-portaits, and her art draws on both European and Mexican traditions to focus on themes including gender, revolutionary politics, and Mexican nationalism.

Frida’s works were exhibited during her lifetime in several countries, including at the USA’s MoMA. In 1939, the Louvre purchased one of the portraits, making her the first Mexican artist included the their collection.

Frida was married for much of her life to fellow artist Diego Rivera, and also had relationships with several women.

Learn more

[Image: Frida in traditional Mexican dress including a headscarf, pink shawl, and jewellery ]

[tuulikki]

I’m intrigued by your tags re: how the Inquisition invented race and would like to know more, do you have any book recommendations? (potentially that one you mentioned in the tags, if you remember it haha)

I do! By which I mean I remembered, lol. It’s Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico by María Elena Martínez. I’m not sure if that’s the most direct source but it’s the one I know.

But basically, the Spanish really fucking hated Jews, Muslims, et. al. And, after forcing them to convert, they racialised religious suspicion about the insincerity of that “convert or die” conversion. Limpieza de sangre was state-enforced blood purity. It really is the moment where “race”, arguably, was invented. And it wouldn’t have been possible under a Medieval, purely religious system.

TL;DR the Spanish hated Jews and Muslims so much that Spaniards invented racism and we still are stuck with “race” to this day. ¡Muchas gracias, España!

[turtleislandhistory]

October 9, 1964

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

[baebeylik]

Comala Dog Effigy

Precolumbian Mexico. Colima Culture. 100-400 CE.

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

[city-of-ladies]

"The woman, carved in pale stone, wears a peaked headdress, circular earrings and the wide hip belt and kneepads of an ancient Mesoamerican athlete. Her expression is fierce, her pose triumphant. In her right hand, she grips the severed head of a sacrificial victim by the hair.

The sculpture is the first life-size representation of a ritual ballplayer found to date in the Huasteca, a tropical region spanning parts of several states along the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Like virtually every other Mesoamerican society, the inhabitants of the Huasteca played what is simply known today as “the ballgame,” in the time before the Spanish conquest. Despite its name and ties to modern soccer, this game was more sacred rite than sport.

For the players, who bounce a solid, dangerously heavy rubber ball off their hips, it was a means of communing with the gods, one that sometimes culminated in human sacrifice.

The ballplayer will be among the most important artifacts in an exhibit, “Ancient Huasteca Women: Goddesses, Warriors and Governors,” at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, opening Friday. This is the first time the piece, which was discovered by landowners about 50 years ago near Álamo, Veracruz, has been on public display.

“It is a totally atypical sculpture,” said David Antonio Morales, an archaeologist with the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Veracruz, who stumbled upon it last November when he was visiting private collections.

He contacted María Eugenia Maldonado, one of the few archaeologists specializing in the pre-Columbian past of the Huasteca. At first, she didn’t think the figure could be real. It would be the first stone sculpture of a ballplayer found in the region, the first female ballplayer and the first at this scale holding a decapitated head.

“It’s putting all the elements into a single sculpture that had never been seen together before,” she said. “That is the importance of this sculpture.”

Kim N. Richter, a historian of pre-Columbian art at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and an expert on female statues from the region, had not seen the piece. It “would be really important because we don’t have any monumental sculptures of ballplayers in the Huasteca to date, male or female,” she said. “So that would be a huge discovery in itself.”

Dr. Maldonado says she hopes the exhibition, with 100 artifacts, will challenge what she calls “superficial” interpretations of women’s roles that have riddled scholarship of the region. For decades, archaeologists have described sculptures of men as individuals in positions of power, like priests or rulers. They’ve tended to brush aside sculptures of women as images of a fertility goddess.""

[crisss09]

Ayuda no tengo ideas de qué dibujar :’v

Dejó estos dos garabatos tontos que hice en receso :3

1-.Agustin de Iturbide

2-. A. Bustamante y A. De Iturbide yipies :3 (me gusta un ship krikoso ayuda :’v)

[portrait-paintings]

Portrait of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

Artist: Miguel Cabrera (Mexican, 1695–1768)

Date: c. 1750

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Museo Nacional de Historia, Chapultepec Park, Mexico City, Mexico

Description

This medium-sized oil painting painted in the mid-18th century is the Museo Nacional de Historia's masterpiece in terms of portraits. The Oaxacan painter Miguel Mateo Maldonado y Cabrera depicted Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the Tenth Muse, based on the portrait by the Spanish artist Juan de Miranda, painted a little more than half a century after the death of the famous writer. Cabrera modified it by placing the nun in a large cell full of books to highlight the wisdom and eagerness to study that characterized the life of the poetess and passionate scientist. Among the books in the library, one can identify the works of the wise Jesuit of the 17th century Athanasius Kircher, who had an important influence on the thinking of his contemporaries. Sor Juana's sharp fingers, which are as white as her face, give the figure an appearance full of spirituality and intelligence. Dressed in the simple habit of the Order of the Jerónimos and wearing on her chest the so-called “shield of nuns”, she is seated in a high-backed chair; her right hand rests on a book, while her left hand holds a rosary in allusion to her piety. Miguel Cabrera, one of the artists who enjoyed the greatest fame among the many painters who flourished during the 18th century in the viceroyalty of New Spain, completed the painting with legends or texts in Latin in a game of intelligence that marks the most important moments of Sor Juana: her birth, her consecration to the convent of San Jerónimo and her death. In it she also expresses her admiration for the Tenth Muse. It is likely that the work was commissioned by the superior of the Jeronymite order.