Political State of Yucatan.--Alliance with Texas.--Presentation to the
Governor.--His Character and Personal Appearance.--A Cordial
Reception.--An Arrival of Strangers.--A Citizen of the World.--Another
old Acquaintance.--Population of Merida.--Climate.--General Aspect of
Merida.--An interesting Edifice.--Mode of naming Streets.--Sculptured
Figures.--Churches.--Franciscan Convent.--A Memorial of the
Past.--Ruined Cities of America.--Former Conclusions confirmed.
From the time of the conquest, Yucatan existed as a distinct
captain-generalcy, not connected with Guatimala, nor subject to the
viceroy of Mexico. So it continued down to the Mexican revolution. The
independence of Yucatan followed that of Mexico without any struggle,
and actually by default of the mother-country in not attempting to keep
it in subjection.
Separated from Spain, in an evil hour Yucatan sent commissioners to
Mexico to deliberate upon forming a government; and on the return of
these commissioners, and on their report, she gave up her independent
position, and entered into the Mexican confederation as one of the
states of that republic. Ever since she had been suffering from this
unhappy connexion, and, a short time before our former visit, a
revolution broke out all over the country; in the successful progress
of which, during that visit, the last Mexican garrison was driven out
of Yucatan. The state assumed the rights of sovereignty, asserting its
independent powers, at the same time not disconnecting itself entirely
from Mexico, but declaring itself still a component part of that
republic upon certain conditions. The declaration of its independence
was still a moot question. The assembly had passed a bill to that
effect, but the senate had not yet acted upon it, and its fate in that
body was considered doubtful. In the mean time, a commissioner had been
sent to Texas, and two days after our arrival at Merida the Texan
schooner of war San Antonio arrived at Sisal, bringing a proposition
for Yucatan to pay $8000 per month toward the support of the Texan
navy, and for the Texan vessels to remain upon the coast of Yucatan and
protect it against invasion by Mexico. This proposition was accepted
immediately, and negotiations were pending for farther co-operation in
procuring a recognition of their mutual independence. Thus, while
shrinking from an open declaration of independence, Yucatan was
widening the breach, and committing an offence which Mexico could never
forgive, by an alliance with a people whom that government, or rather
Santa Ana, regarded as the worst of rebels, and whom he was bent upon
exerting the whole power of the country in an effort to reconquer. Such
was the disjointed and false position in which Yucatan stood at the
time of our presentation to the governor.
Our visit to him was made at his private residence, which was one
befitting his station as a private gentleman, and not unworthy of his
public character. His reception-room was in the sala or parlour of his
house, in the centre of which, after the fashion of Merida, three or
four large chairs covered with morocco were placed facing each other.
Don Santiago Mendez was about fifty years of age, tall and thin, with a
fine intellectual face, and of very gentlemanly appearance and
deportment. Free from internal wars, and saved by her geographical
position from the sanguinary conflicts common in the other Mexican
states, Yucatan has had no school for soldiers; there are no military
chieftains and no prepossessions for military glory. Don Santiago
Mendez was a merchant, until within a few years, at the head of a
respectable commercial house in Campeachy. He was so respected for
uprightness and integrity, that in the unsettled state of affairs he
was agreed upon by the two opposite parties as the best person in the
state to place at the head of the government. His popularity, however,
was now somewhat on the wane, and his position was neither easy nor
enviable. From a quiet life and occupations, he found himself all at
once in the front rank of a wide-spread rebellion. An invasion from
Mexico was constantly apprehended, and should it prove successful,
while others would escape by reason of their insignificance, his head
would be sure to fall. The two great parties, one in favour of keeping
open the door of reconciliation with Mexico, and the other for
immediate and absolute separation, were both urging him to carry out
their views. The governor shrank from the hazard of extremes, was
vacillating, undecided, and unequal to the emergency. In the mean time,
the enthusiasm which led to the revolution, and which might have
achieved independence, was wearing away. Dissatisfaction and discontent
prevailed. Both parties blamed the governor, and he did not know
himself to which he belonged.
There was nothing equivocal, however, in his reception of us. He knew
the object of our return to the country, and offered us all the
facilities the government could bestow. Whatever was to be the fate of
Yucatan, it was fortunate for us that it was then free from the
dominion of Mexico, and repudiated entirely the jealous policy which
threw impediments in the way of strangers seeking to explore the
antiquities of the country; and it was also fortunate, that on my
former visit Yucatan had impressed me favourably; for, had it been
otherwise, my situation might have been made uncomfortable, and the two
journals of Merida, the "Commercial Bulletin" and the "Nineteenth
Century," instead of giving us a cordial welcome, and bespeaking favour
for us, might have advised us to return home by the same vessel that
brought us out.
Our only business in Merida was to make inquiries about ruins and
arrangements for our journey into the interior, but in the mean time we
had no lack of other occupation.
The house of the Dona Micaela was the rendezvous of all strangers in
Merida, and a few days after our arrival there was an unprecedented
gathering. There were Mr. Auchincloss and his son, Mr. Tredwell, Mr.
Northrop, Mr. Gleason, and Mr. Robinson, formerly United States consul
at Tampico, who had come out passengers by the Lucinda, all citizens of
the United States; and, besides these, the arrival of the schooner of
war San Antonio, from Texas, brought among us a citizen of the world,
or, at least, of a great part of it. Mr. George Fisher, as appeared by
his various papers of naturalization, was "natural de la ciudad y
fortaleza de Belgrada en la provincia de Servia del Imperio Ottomano,"
or a "native of the city and fortress of Belgrade, in the province of
Servia, in the Ottoman Empire." His Sclavonic name was Ribar, which in
the German language, means a Fischer, and at school in Austria it was
so translated, from which in the United States it became modified to
Fisher. At seventeen he embarked in a revolution to throw off the yoke
of the sultan, but the attempt was crushed, and forty thousand
Sclavonians, men, women, and children, were driven across the Danube,
and took refuge in the Austrian territory. The Austrian government, not
liking the presence of so many revolutionists within its borders,
authorized the organizing of a Sclavonic legion. Mr. Fisher entered it,
made a campaign in Italy, and, at the end of the year, in the interior
of the country, where there was no danger of their disseminating
revolutionary notions, the legion was disbanded. After expeditions of
various kinds along the Danube, in Turkey, to Adrianople, and along the
Adriatic, he traded back, most of the way on foot, until he reached
Hamburgh, where, in 1815, he embarked for Philadelphia. Hence he
crossed over to the Ohio River, and in the State of Mississippi, by
five years' residence, and abjuring all other allegiance, became a
citizen of the United States. Mexico obtained her independence, and he
moved on to that country, becoming, by due process of law, a Mexican
citizen. Here he established a newspaper, which, during the presidency
of Santa Ana, became so conspicuous for its liberal opinions, that one
fine morning an officer waited upon him with a paper containing
permission for him to leave the country "por el tiempo necessario,"
which being translated, meant, not to return very soon. With this he
"sloped" for Texas, and became a citizen of that young republic. It was
strange in that remote and secluded place to meet one from a region
still more distant and even less known, speaking every language in
Europe, familiar with every part of it, with the history of every
reigning family, the territorial limits of every prince, and at the
same time a citizen of so many republics.
His last allegiance was uppermost; his feelings were all Texan, and he
gave us many interesting particulars touching the condition and
prospects of that country. He was, of course, soon at home in the
politics of Yucatan, and he had some little personal interest in
watching them closely; for, should Santa Ana regain the ascendancy, the
climate would be altogether too warm for him. He had saddle and bridle,
sword and pistols--all that he needed except a horse--hanging up in his
room, and at a moment's notice he was ready to mount and ride.
Our meeting with this gentleman added much to the interest of our time
in Merida. In the evening, when we had settled the affairs of Yucatan,
we made an excursion into Illyria or the interior of Turkey. He was as
familiar with the little towns in those countries as with those in
Mexico. His knowledge of persons and places, derived from actual
observation, was most extensive; in short, his whole life had been a
chapter of incidents and adventures; and these were not yet ended. He
had a new field opened to him in Yucatan. We parted with him in Merida,
and the next that we heard of him was of his being in a situation quite
as strange as any he had ever been in before. Yet there was nothing
reckless, restless, or unsettled about him; he was perfectly fixed and
methodical in all his notions and modes of action; in Wall-street he
would be considered a staid, regular, quiet, middle-aged man, and he
was systematic enough in his habits to be head director of the Bank of
England.
I must not omit to mention, among those whom we were in the habit of
seeing every day, another old acquaintance, of the Spanish Hotel in
Fulton-Street, Don Vicente Calera, who, at the time of our former
visit, was still travelling in the United States. In the mean time he
had returned, married, and was again domesticated in his native city.
Under his escort we traversed Merida in every direction, and visited
all the public buildings and institutions.
The population of Merida is probably about twenty-three thousand. Two
tables are published in the Appendix; but both purport to give the
population of the district, and neither that of the city alone. The
city stands on a great plain, on a surface of limestone rock, and the
temperature and climate are very uniform. During the thirteen days that
we were in Merida the thermometer varied but nine degrees; and,
according to a table of observations kept for many years by the
much-esteemed Cura Villamil, it appears that during the year beginning
on the first of September, 1841, which included the whole time that we
were in the country, the greatest variation was but twenty-three
degrees. By the kindness of the cura, I have been furnished with a copy
of this table, from which I extract the observations for the days that
we passed in Merida. The entire table is published in the Appendix. The
observations were made by a Fahrenheit thermometer kept in the open air
and in the shade, and noted at six in the morning, midday, and six in
the afternoon.
|------------------------------------|
| | 6 A.M. | 12 M. | 6 P.M. |
| |--------|-------|--------|
| Oct. 30 | 78 | 81 | 81 |
| " 31 | 81 | 82 | 82 |
| Nov. 1 | 82 | 83 | 82 |
| " 2 | 80 | 82 | 81 |
| " 3 | 78 | 80 | 80 |
| " 4 | 80 | 77 | 77 |
| " 5 | 77 | 78 | 78 |
| " 6 | 74 | 77 | 76 |
| " 7 | 74 | 76 | 76 |
| " 8 | 75 | 78 | 78 |
| " 9 | 75 | 78 | 78 |
| " 10 | 74 | 79 | 79 |
| " 11 | 76 | 79 | 79 |
|----------|--------|-------|--------|
I may remark, however, that in the interior of the country we found a
much greater variation than any noted in the table published in the
Appendix.
The general aspect of the city is Moorish, as it was built at a time
when the Moorish style prevailed in Spanish architecture. The houses
are large, generally of stone, and one story in height, with balconies
to the windows and large courtyards. In the centre of the city stands
the plaza major, a square of about six hundred feet. The whole of the
east side is occupied by the cathedral and the bishop's palace. On the
west stand the house of the municipality and that of the Dona Joaquina
Peon. On the north is the palace of the government, and on the south a
building which on our first visit arrested our attention the moment we
entered the plaza. It is distinguished by a rich sculptured facade of
curious design and workmanship. In it is a stone with this inscription:
Esta obra mando hacerla el
Adelantado D. Francisco de Montejo
Ano de MDXLIX.
The Adelantado Don Francisco Montejo caused this to be made
in the year 1549.
The subject represents two knights in armour, with visors,
breastplates, and helmets, standing upon the shoulders of crushed naked
figures, probably intended to represent the conquering Spaniard
trampling upon the Indian. Mr. Catherwood attempted to make a drawing
of it, and, to avoid the heat of the sun, went into the plaza at
daylight for that purpose; but he was so annoyed by the crowd that he
was obliged to give it up. There is reason to believe that it is a
combination of Spanish and Indian art. The design is certainly Spanish,
but as, at that early period of the conquest, but five years after the
foundation of Merida, Spaniards were but few, and each man considered
himself a conqueror, probably there were none who practised the
mechanic arts. The execution was no doubt the work of Indians, and
perhaps the carving was done with their own instruments, and not those
furnished them by the Spaniards.
The history of the erection of this building would be interesting and
instructive; and, with the hope of learning something about it, I
proposed to examine thoroughly the archives of the cabildo; but I was
advised that all the early archives were lost, or in such confusion
that it would be a Herculean labour to explore them, and I saw that it
would consume more time than I should be able to devote to it.
Besides the inscription on the stone, the only information that exists
in regard to this building is a statement in Cogolludo, that the facade
cost fourteen thousand dollars. It is now the property of Don Simon
Peon, and is occupied by his family. It has been lately repaired, and
some of the beams are no doubt the same which held up the roof over the
adelantado.
Eight streets lead from the plaza, two in the direction of each
cardinal point. In every street, at the distance of a few squares, is a
gate, now dismantled, and beyond are the barrios, or suburbs.
The streets are distinguished in a manner peculiar to Yucatan. In the
angle of the corner house, and on the top, stands a painted wooden
figure of an elephant, a bull, a flamingo, or some other visible
object, and the street is called by the name of this object. On one
corner there is the figure of an old woman with large spectacles on her
nose, and the street is called la Calle de la Vieja, or the Street of
the Old Woman. That in which we lived had on the corner house a
flamingo, and was called the Street of the Flamingo; and the reason of
the streets being named in this way gives some idea of the character of
the people. The great mass of the inhabitants, universally the Indians,
cannot read. Printed signs would be of no use, but every Indian knows
the sign of an elephant, a bull, or a flamingo.
In the front wall of a house in a street running north from the plaza,
and also in a corner house near the square of the Alameda, are
sculptured figures from the ruins of ancient buildings, of which Mr.
Catherwood made drawings, but, in the multiplicity of other subjects,
we do not think it worth while to present them to the reader.
The great distinguishing feature of Merida, as of all the cities of
Spanish America, is in its churches. The great Cathedral; the parish
church and convent of San Cristoval; the church of the Jesuits; the
church and convent of the Mejorada; the chapels of San Juan Bautista;
of Our Lady of Candelaria; of the Santa Lucia and the Virgin, and the
convent de las monjas, or the nunnery, with its church and enclosures
occupying two whole squares, are all interesting in their history. Some
are of good style in architecture, and rich in ornaments; but there is
one other, not yet mentioned, which I regard as the most interesting
and remarkable edifice in Merida. It is the old Franciscan convent. It
stands on an eminence in the eastern part of the city, and is enclosed
by a high wall, with turrets, forming what is now called the Castillo.
These walls and turrets are still erect, but within is ruin
irretrievable.
In 1820 the new constitution obtained by the patriots in Spain reached
the colonies, and on the 30th of May Don Juan Rivas Vertiz, then Gefe
Politico, and now living in Merida, a fine memorial of the olden time,
published it in the plaza. The church sustained the old order of
things, and the Franciscan friars, confident in their hold upon the
feelings of the populace, endeavoured to put down the demonstration of
liberal feeling. A mob gathered in the plaza; friars appeared among
them, urging them on; field-pieces were brought out, the mob dispersed,
and Don Juan Rivas marched to the Franciscan convent, opened the doors,
drove out the monks, above 300 in number, at the point of the bayonet,
and gave up the building to destruction. The superior and some of the
brothers became seculars or regular priests; others turned to worldly
pursuits; and of this once powerful order, but eleven are now left who
wear the garb of the Franciscan monks.
It was in company with one of these that I paid my last visit to this
convent. We entered by the great portal of the castle wall into an
overgrown courtyard. In front was the convent, with its large corridors
and two great churches, the walls of all three standing, but without
doors or windows. The roof of one of the churches had fallen, and the
broad glare of day was streaming into the interior. We entered the
other--the oldest, and identified with the times of the conquerors.
Near the door was a blacksmith's forge. A Mestizo was blowing at the
bellows, hauling out a red-hot bar of iron, and hammering it into
spikes. All along the floor were half-naked Indians and brawny
Mestizoes, hewing timber, driving nails, and carrying on the business
of making gun-carriages for artillery. The altars were thrown down and
the walls defaced; half way up were painted on them, in coarse and
staring red characters (in Spanish), "First squadron," "Second
squadron;" and at the head of the church, under a golden gloria, were
the words "Comp'y Light Infantry." The church had been occupied as
barracks, and these were the places where they stacked their arms. As
we passed through, the workmen stared at my companion, or rather at the
long blue gown, the cord around his waist, and the cross dangling from
it--the garb of his scattered order. It was the first time he had
visited the place since the expulsion of the monks. To me it was
mournful to behold the destruction and desecration of this noble
building; what, then, must it have been to him? In the floor of the
church near the altar and in the sacristia were open vaults, but the
bones of the monks had been thrown out and scattered on the floor. Some
of these were the bones of his earliest friends. We passed into the
refectory, and he pointed out the position of the long table at which
the brotherhood took their meals, and the stone fountain at which they
performed their ablutions. His old companions in their long blue gowns
rose up before him, now scattered forever, and their home a desolation
and ruin.
But this convent contains one memorial far more interesting than any
connected with its own ruin; one that carries the beholder back through
centuries of time, and tells the story of a greater and a sadder fall.
In one of the lower cloisters going out from the north, and under the
principal dormitory, are two parallel corridors. The outer one faces
the principal patio, and this corridor has that peculiar arch so often
referred to in my previous volumes, two sides rising to meet each
other, and covered, when within about a foot of forming an apex, by a
flat layer of stones. There can be no mistake about the character of
this arch; it cannot for a moment be supposed that the Spaniards
constructed anything so different from their known rules of
architecture; and beyond doubt it formed part of one of those
mysterious buildings which have given rise to so much speculation; the
construction of which has been ascribed to the most ancient people in
the Old World, and to races lost, perished, and unknown.
I am happy thus early in these pages to have an opportunity of
recurring to the opinion expressed in my former volumes, in regard to
the builders of the ancient American cities.
The conclusion to which I came was, that "there are not sufficient
grounds for belief in the great antiquity that has been ascribed to
these ruins;" "that we are not warranted in going back to any ancient
nation of the Old World for the builders of these cities; that they are
not the works of people who have passed away, and whose history is
lost; but that there are strong reasons to believe them the creation of
the same races who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish
conquest, or of some not very distant progenitors."
This opinion was not given lightly, nor without due consideration. It
was adverse to my feelings, which would fain have thrown around the
ruins the interest of mystery and hoary age; and even now, though
gratified at knowing that my opinion has been fully sustained, I would
be willing to abandon it, and involve the reader and myself in doubt,
did circumstances warrant me in so doing; but I am obliged to say that
subsequent investigations have fortified and confirmed my previous
conclusions, and, in fact, have made conviction what before was mere
matter of opinion.
When I wrote the account of my former journey, the greatest difficulty
attending the consideration of this subject was the absence of all
historical record concerning the places visited. Copan had some
history, but it was obscure, uncertain, and unsatisfactory. Quirigua,
Palenque, and Uxmal had none whatever; but a ray of historic light
beams upon the solitary arch in the ruined convent of Merida.
In the account of the conquest of Yucatan by Cogolludo it is stated,
that on the arrival of the Spaniards at the Indian town of Tihoo, on
the site of which, it will be remembered, Merida now stands, they found
many cerros hechos a mano, _i. e._, hills made by hand, or artificial
mounds, and that on one of these mounds the Spaniards encamped.
This mound, it is stated, stood on the ground now occupied by the plaza
major. East of it was another large mound, and the Spaniards laid the
foundation of the city between these two, because, as it is assigned,
the stones in them were a great convenience in building, and economized
the labour of the Indians. These mounds were so large, it is added,
that with the stones the Spaniards built all the edifices in the city,
so that the ground which forms the plaza major remained nearly or quite
level. The buildings erected are specified, and it is added that there
was abundance of material for other edifices which the Spaniards wished
to erect.
Other mounds are mentioned as obstructing the laying out of streets
according to the plan proposed, and there is one circumstance which
bears directly upon this point, and, in my opinion, is conclusive.
In the history of the construction of the Franciscan convent, which was
founded in the year 1547, five years after the arrival of the Spaniards
in Tihoo, it is expressly stated that it was built upon a small
artificial mound, one of the many that were then in the place, on which
mound, it is added, were _some ancient buildings_. Now we must either
suppose that the Spaniards razed these buildings to the ground, and
then constructed this strange arch themselves, which supposition is, I
think, utterly untenable, or that this corridor formed part of the
ancient buildings which, according to the historical account, stood on
this artificial mound, and that for some purpose or other the monks
incorporated it with their convent.
There is but one way to overthrow this latter conclusion, and that is
by contending that these mounds were all ruined, and this building too,
at the time when it was made to form part of the convent; but then we
are reduced to the necessity of supposing that a great town, the fame
of which reached the Spaniards at Campeachy, and which made a desperate
and bloody resistance to their occupation of it, was a mere gathering
of hordes around the ruined buildings of another race; and, besides, it
is a matter of primary importance to note that these artificial mounds
are mentioned, not in the course of describing the Indian town, for no
description whatever is attempted, but merely incidentally, as
affording conveniences to the Spaniards in furnishing materials for
building the city, or as causing obstructions in the laying out of
streets regularly and according to the plan proposed. The mound on
which the convent stands would perhaps not have been mentioned at all
but for the circumstance that the Padre Cogolludo was a Franciscan
friar, and the mention of it enabled him to pay a tribute to the memory
of the blessed father Luis de Villpando, then superior of the convent,
and to show the great estimation in which he was held, for he says that
the adelantado had fixed upon this mound for the site of one of his
fortresses, but on the application of the superior he yielded it to him
readily for the site of the convent; and, more than all this, even in
the incidental way in which these mounds are referred to, there is one
circumstance which shows clearly that they were not at that time
disused and in ruins, but, on the contrary, were then in the actual use
and occupation of the Indians; for Cogolludo mentions particularly and
with much detail one that completely obstructed the running of a
particular street, which, he says, was called El grande de los Kues,
adoratorio que era de los idolos. Now the word "Kues," in the Maya
language, as spoken by the Indians of Yucatan at the present day, means
their ancient places of worship, and the word "adoratorio," as defined
in the Spanish dictionary, is the name given by the Spaniards to the
temples of idols in America. So that when the historian describes this
mound as El grande de los Kues el adoratorio de los idolos, he means to
say that it was the great one, or the greatest among the places of
worship of the Indians, or the temples of their idols.
It is called the "great one" of their places of worship, in
contradistinction to the small ones around, among which was that now
occupied by the Franciscan convent In my opinion, the solitary arch
found in this convent is very strong, if not conclusive, evidence that
all the ruined buildings scattered over Yucatan were erected by the
very Indians who occupied the country at the time of the Spanish
conquest, or, to fall back upon my old ground, that they were the work
"of the same race of people," or "their not very distant progenitors."
Who these races were, whence they came, or who were their progenitors,
I did not undertake to say, nor do I now.