Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: Introduction
After Cortés had defeated the Mexicas of Tenochtitlan, he removed all the city's indigenous inhabitants and razed the central section of temples and palaces in order to build a Spanish city. It was known as la Traza Español, the Spanish quarter. But then he was faced with a question, "What do we do with los indios, the Indians?" Cortés's answer was to adapt the existing the Mexica (Azteca) organization of the city to Spanish purposes.
The Mexica had divided the city into four campan, quadrants or quarters around the central governmental-religious center. In these four campan, now around the Traza española, Cortés settled the indigenous tribes who had been his allies in defeating the Mexica. This entire area was named the Indian Republic of San Juan (St. John the Baptist) Tenochtitlan. Each of the four original campan, called parcialidades by the Spanish, was assigned a Catholic saint's name appended to its existing Nahuatl name.
Centro's Four Original Indigenous Quarters: San Juan Moyotla
What is now officially West Centro contains most of what was the parcialidad, quarter, of San Juan Moyotla. In Nahuatl, moyotla apparently means "place of the mosquitos" because it was swampy. Here the Franciscans built a church at the north end of the existing central plaza, which was the quarter's tianguis, open-air market.
Whether there were temples there is unknown, but is is likely there were, as that was the standard pattern of indigenous cities, as it was of Spanish ones. Buildings for the ayuntamiento, government center, were erected nearby. Thus was established the triumverate of powers that are present, in varying forms and combinations, at the center of every Mexican pueblo, be it city, village, hamlet or barrio: a Catholic Church, government offices and a marketplace built around a central plaza.Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, Part I - Crossroads
San Pablo Teopan, also called San Pablo Zoquipan, is the second of the parcialidades, the four quarters of the Indian Republic of San Juan Tenochtitlan. Now the southern part of East Centro, the core of the area is now called Barrio de la Merced.
On first visits, La Merced appears to be another batiburrillo, a hodge-podge of buildings and open spaces of various epochs in various states of repair and disrepair, full of, if not overwhelmed by, merchants selling and customers buying, a kind of marketplace gone viral. There is no single, central plaza, but several smaller ones; no single, main original church, but a number of Colonial churches and convents. Thus, it presents a challenge to uncover any underlying indigenous framework or coherence in its Spanish Colonial transformation.Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan Part II - Southern Gateway
We wonder why so many churches were built so close together near the crossroads of Ave. Pino Suárez and Izazaga/San Pablo Avenues.
- East of the intersection are San Lucas, Santa María Magdelena, then San Pablo Viejo and San Pablo Nuevo, explored in our first post on San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan.
- South along or near Pino Suárez/Calzada San Antonio Abad are three more churches: Concepción Tlaxcoaque, San Antonio Abad and Santa Cruz Acatlán. We wonder: what might their locations have to do with the boundary between the island of Tenochtitlan and Lake Texcoco, with the causeway that crossed it and the web of canals linking the island to the lake? In this post we visit the second set of churches and seek answers to this question.
In our two previous posts on what was the Colonial indigenous quarter of San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, we explored the southeast Centro crossroads of Izazaga/San Pablo Avenue and Pino Suárez Avenue, and Pino Suárez's southern extension, San Antonio Abad. These ambles have led us to some understanding of the importance of this crossroads in the life of Mexica (Me-SHE-ka) Tenochtitlan and, hence, to the Spanish transformation of the city. So now we are ready to proceed north into the heart of San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, today called La Merced. One of our many questions is how it came to have its present name, Mercy.Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters | San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan Part IV: Island of Tultengo
Our exploration of the southern portion of San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan ended at the Church of Santa Cruz Acatlán, in what is now the Colonia Tránsito. At the time, we were aware from our research that farther south in what had been the parcialidad, there were two other churches from the early Colonial period. They sit on what was, at the time of the Conquest, the Island of Tultengo. However, tired from our amble, we did not continue south to find them. Recently, we were able to rectify that omission. While searching for the site of the Paseo de la Viga, a Colonial-era promenade along the former Royal Canal, informally called La Viga, The Beam, we realized that we were very near these other two churches. So after locating the southern end of the Paseo at what is now Parque La Viga at the intersection of Calzada de la Viga and Calzada Chabacano, we headed northwest, up the diagonal Calle José T. Cúellar, to find these other two churches.
Here we investigate the third indigenous quarter, Santa María Cuepopan, in the northwest corner of Centro, now part of Colonia Guerrero. In our search for landmark churches erected by the Franciscans and other Catholic religious orders, we enter Cuepopan from the Bellas Artes Metro station at the corner of Hidalgo and the Eje Central. Five blocks up the Eje is a narrow one-lane street that can be easily overlooked. It is the entrance to the Barrio de Santa María Redondo, the pathway to a world historically and culturally far from the early 20th century one at the intersection of Hidalgo and the Eje Central.Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters | Santa María Cuepopan, Part II: San Hipólito, Church at the Crossroads of History
In our prior post, Santa María Cuepopan; Part I - Battleground and Sacred Ground, we began our exploration of the northwest quarter of ancient Tenochtitlan, called Cuepopan, where, after the Conquest, the Franciscans built a church to St. Mary, and added her name to that of the barrio. There is another significant church in the quarter, the Church of San Hipólito, St. Hippolytus. The church is now a huge Baroque stucture, marking it as built in the 18th century. It sits at the site of the battle of La Noche Triste, The Night of Sorrows, June 30, 1520, when Hernán Cortés and his men were caught by the Mexica trying to flee Tenochtitlan. Cortés and a few troops survived and escaped. When they returned a year later with thousands of indigenous allies, beseiged the city and defeated the Mexica, Cortés ordered the building of a Chapel of the Martyrs at the site. As the final defeat of the Mexica occurred on August 13, 1521, the church was dedicated to San Hipóloto, as that is his feast day.Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Sebastian Atzacoalco—Martyrs, Death, Community and Hope
San Sebastián Atzacoalco was the smallest of the four indigenous quarters. It retains the fewest significant landmarks from the period of the transformation of Tenochtitlan into Mexico City. It is now part of Centro North and Centro East. We head first for the Church of San Sebastián Martir Atzacoalco, about five blocks northeast of the Zócalo, the huge central plaza of the city. We wonder about the Franciscan choice of San Sebastián as the patron saint for this church and this parcialidad. Why St. Sebastian, an early martyr for the Faith?Tlatelolco: Where Empires Clashed
When Hernán Cortés and his Spanish troops arrived in the Valley of Anáhuac (now the Valley of Mexico) in 1519, Tlatelolco was the sister city of Tenochtitlan. Its excavated remains are located two kilometers (about a mile) north of Tenochtitlán (the Templo Mayor, in Centro Histórico). Today, Tlatelolco is surrounded by modern apartment buildings and major boulevards. After the Spanish conquered the Mexica in August, 1521, they immediately razed to the ground all the temples and pyramids of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco. They claimed the center of Tenochitilan for themselves and built their own temples and palaces above the ruins. Tlatelolco was assigned as a barrio for the defeated Mexica. The Franciscans soon built a church, convent (monastery) and colegio
(school) to educate indigenous boys in Catholicism and Spanish culture at the sacred and now culturally and politically crucial site.
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