#mexican history

[thesouthernsocialist]

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.

[destiel-news-channel]

[Image description: The Destiel confession meme edited so Cas says I love you' and Dean answers 'A lost Maya city has been found in the forest in Mexico' End ID.]

Archaeologists from the USA and Mexico have found a previously unknown Maya city by studying LiDAR data from a 2013 forest survey.

It is located in the state of Campeche, and the researchers named it Valeriana after a nearby lake.

The city had over 6600 structures, and at its peak (750 to 850 AD) it may have housed over 30 000 people. The density of the buildings is second only to Calakmul.

Source links:

The Guardian | BBC | CNN | Smithsonian Mag

[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

[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]

[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.

[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

[alpaca-clouds]

Olrox, the Conquest of the Nahua, and Why Hernan Cortez is one of the Biggest Assholes of History

One of my most liked posts here on tumblr - outside of some shitposts - is the one I did about the historical context of Olrox in season 1 of Nocturne. It just so happens that reading a lot of anthropological works during the last year, I also learned a lot about both the Nahua, the conquest of their culture, and about what a massive fucking dick Hernan Cortez was.

So, let me once again share this with you.

As I noted: In 1783 Olrox says he is 250 years old. While this might be a rounded number, this would mean he hsa been turned around the 1530s. Though given that in season 2 he speaks specifically about how the Nahua Empire fell, I would assume he was at least born around 1500, if not in the 1490s. Looking at the design I would guess he was around 30 years old when he was turned into a vampire.

While I would love to say: "As you know from history class", I am not kidding myself... History class has very probably not taught you much in terms of colonial history - it sure as hell has not taught me. So, I will rather say: "As you might remember from the well established bisexual masterwork The Road to El Dorado, it was the Spanish noble Hernan Cortes, who conquered the Aztec Empire" - though obviously I will keep refering to them by their Endonym, Nahua.

So, today let's talk about how that happened.

Let's Talk about the Nahua first

Let me say one thing first: Us white folks tend to go into one of two extremes when it comes to depicting indigenous people. Either as "wild savages" or as the "noble Indian". Which is why folks really know quite little about the Nahua, because most narratives about the Nahua tend to focus either 100% on the human sacrifice practiced in the Nahua culture, or on the genocide of the Nahua. And otherwise they might know about the Cortes conquest of the Nahua - in which most are not aware that there is a lot of Nahua living in Mexico to this day. More than two and a half million, to be exact. (I do not know how often I had to explain this to people when Black Panther 2 came out.)

The Nahua are an interesting case in terms of colonialism and imperialism - because they were themselves an expanding, imperialist empire. (And mind you, I am fairly certain Olrox being a Nahua is not accidental in this regard.)

By the time America was "discovered" by Europeans, the Nahua were expanding, and waging war against the cultures surrounding their lands. They were quite aggressive against some of the other indigenous cultures. And while they did not practice cattle slavery, they absolutely took war prisoners as slaves. Yes, those could be freed eventually, and usually the status of a slave was not to be inherited, it was still slavery. They also killed a lot of people from those other cultures.

In fact this was the reason why Cortés found support among other indigenous people, when he revealed he was planning on conquering the Nahua. Specifically the Tlaxcala and Cempoala helped Cortés and the conquistadors, because they (wrongly) assumed that the Spanish were safer for them than the Nahua.

This is not to say, that the Nahua were super evil or anything. Just that even among the indigenous cultures, there also were expansionist, imperialist cultures. And that history is more complicated than "good indigenous people" and "evil colonizers". And reducing the entire thing on "indigenous people are pure and good" is also a form of racism, removing the complexity from the indigenous people.

However, this fact does not remove that Hernan Cortés definitely is up there with the top historical assholes to ever do assholery.

Hernan Cortés was horrible, actually

One of the books I read on this tried to go a bit more into the worldview of the conquistadors. Basically going into why those people did those horrible things. And how basically they were so indoctrinated into the Catholic belief, that they thought that indeed if they forced their religion onto someone else on the tip of a sword, they were doing those people a favor. Because in their logic there was no question that people who did not worship the Christian God and Jesus would go to hell. And yes, that is messed up, but yeah, they got indoctrinated from birth, basically.

However, Hernan Cortés himself? He was a fucking asshole bastard, who very much was in for the money. A bit related to Castlevania Nocturne: He was related to the Spanish Governer to what later became Santa Dominque, which at this time was still Spanish controlled. And he wanted the supposed money of the New World. The gold and silver and gemstones.

So, he got some people - who for the most part really were religiously motivated - and was like: "Yeah, we gotta bring Christianity to those folks, and get some money from there. And everyone who comes with me will gets not only to go to heaven, but also a share of whatever profits we make." And then, when he arrived in America (mind you, against what he had been instructed to do - so he commited mutiny to be exact), he ordered his men to set their ships aflame, because he wanted to make sure that nobody is going to flee.

Then he made the deal with those other indigenous folks, before fighting the Nahua together with them and his own forces, who were miserable not being used to this climate. And then when he was done, he enslaved the Tlaxcala and Cempoala, while going to his own men like: "So, we got less money than expected. Everyone only will get 80 Pesos for this. Oh, by the way, you all owe me 300 Pesos for the equipment I provided to you, the food and everything. If you needed medical attention you owe me even more than that."

For reference, if I have not fully miscalculated today (it was hard to calculate, because I did not find a formular for direct calculation, so I had to go from Pesos into Real, from Real into Shilling, from Shilling into modern GBP, and from that to USD), 80 Pesos at the time are worth about 20 000 USD today, So not a whole lot for risking your life half on the other side of the world. And of course the money they supposedly owed him is then about 70 000 USD. Meanwhile he settled down in a nice pretty castle.

So yeah, Hernan Cortés, fucked everyone over. Literally EVERYONE.

Now, mind you. Because some of his people - who for the lack of money, now were stuck in the Americas - started to rise up against him, he basically calmed them by saying: "Yeah, you know what? Let enslave more indigenous people." And the fact that they were like: "I guess that is fine then" says a lot about their morals. But generally speaking... Yeah, fuck Cortés. I sure hope that asshole is somewhere deep, deep, deeeeeeeeep in hell.

And mind you, after Cortes took over what today is Mexico, it apparently got really bad. With a mixture of a famine, the slavery and the sicknesses the Spaniads brought to the place, apparently it was at times after this so bad, that there were literal dead bodies lining the streets. Some died of hunger, some of sickness, and some had been killed by the Spaniads.

[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

[nickysfacts]

Happy Dia de los Muertos to la Calavera Catrina!

🇲🇽💀🎀

[baebeylik]

Comala Dog Effigy

Precolumbian Mexico. Colima Culture. 100-400 CE.

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

[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 ]

[turtleislandhistory]

October 9, 1964

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

[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)