Encountering Mexico City's Many Volcanoes, Part II: Little Volcanoes With Big Histories

The huge volcanoes of Popocatéptl, Iztaccíhuatl and Ajusco, and the other volcanoes of the Cordillera de Chichinautzin dominate the Valley and the interest of residents and visitors. We wrote about them in our first post on the many volcanoes of the Valley of Mexico, Giants on All Sides.

There are, however, other volcanoes within the current city limits. They are small ash cone volcanoes, but despite their diminutive size, at least four of them have played prominent roles in the development of human settlements in the Valley and in the history of Mexico City.

Xitle, a small volcano that buried a city

Cuicuilco, now an archeological site in the south of Delegación Tlalpan, just south of the modern campus of the University City of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), was established around 1200 BCE. By the year 800 BCE, Cuilcuilco was a prosperous civic-ceremonial center, the first such urban center in the Valley of Mexico.

But sometime around 150-200 CE, Xitle, a small ash cone volcano near the slopes of Ajusco, erupted, and Cuicuilco was completely buried by the resulting flow of ash and lava. (See our spouse's post: Cuicuilco, Volcanoes and the Fragility of Life in Mesoamerica.)

Xitle is the now innocent appearing, forested low hill to the left, below Ajusco.

Xitle, with some of its lava flow.
The City of Mexico invades, building on the Pedregal, "stony ground" of lava.
Ajusco rises in the background.

Circular 'pyramid' of Cuicuilco.
Note the depth of the surrounding excavation trench below the current ground level;
It is all lava that buried the city when Xitle erupted

Cerro de la Estrella , Hill of the Star: Sacred and Strategic Center in Indigenous History

From our balcony in Colonia Parque San Andrés, in Delegación Coyoacán, we can see a wooded hill, a little less than four miles away to the East. This hill, over which easterly summer storms arrive, is an extinct ash cone volcano called Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star. It sits in what is now Delegación Iztapalapa.

If you look carefully, with the help of binoculars or a telephoto lens, at the north end (to the left) of the fairly flat summit, you can see a large white cross and a flat structure behind it. Both have stories to tell.

Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star
It was called Huizachtecatl (Náhuatl) by the Mexicas
Telephoto from the roof of our apartment building.

The cross obviously has to do with a Christian narrative. (See: Iztapalapa's Holy Week Passion Play). The flat structure is a temple. The temple, in its final form, was built by the Mexicas (Aztecs) of Tenochtitlán, after they took over the surrounding area in 1430 BCE.

The temple had existed there, however, since the end of the first millennium of the Common Era. It was built by the Toltec residents of the town of Culhuacán (also spelled Colhuacán, "place of the Culhua"—"the ancient or venerable ones"). Coming from the Toltec city of Tula, north of the Valley of Mexico, they settled on the south side of the hill around 600 CE.

Temple on the summit of Cerro de la Estrella

The first settlements around the base of the extinct volcano date from 500 BCE. At some time around 150 CE, an influx of people arrived fleeing the Xitle eruptions on the southwest side of Lake Texcoco that buried Cuicuilco.

When the Mexicas of Tenochtitlán took the peninsula, they rebuilt the temple on the summit of what they called Huizachtecatl and made it the site of one of their most important rituals, xiuhmolpilli (sheeoo-mol-PEEL-yee), the Binding of the Years. In Spanish it is called Nuevo Fuego, the New Fire. (See our post: Cerro de la Estrella and the Origins of Culhuacán and Iztapalapa.)

La Sierra de Santa Catarina

Southeast of la Estrella is a chain of ash cone volcanoes called la Sierra de Santa Catarina. Although they are now totally surrounded by the urban development of Delegaciones Iztapalapa, to the north, and Tláhuac, to the south, they have been emblematic over the centuries in images of the Valley of Mexico.

Sierra de Santa Catarina
runs southeast of Cerro de la Estrella 

Tecuauhtzin and Guadalupe,
the two volcanoes at the east end of la Sierra Santa Catarina

that forms the boundary between Delegaciones Iztapalapa  and Tlahuac.

The Valley of Mexico
by José María Velasco 
Wikipedia

In front of snow-capped Iztac and Popo
lies the Sierra de Santa Catarina

Sierra de Santa Catarina in the 1920s.
Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl are in the background.
From Facebook: Cronista de Nuestra Antiguo Iztapaluca-Chalco

Mexico City and Its Many Volcanoes.
(Mexico City's boundaries and sixteen component delegaciones are outlined in white.)

The "stepping stone-like row of islands" across what was once lake bed (taupe) are:
Cerro de la Estrella (alone, in dead-center of the map) and
la Sierra de Santa Catarina (the middle "island", right-center).

Actually, they were on the Iztapalapa peninsula
separating Lake Texcoco to the north
from Lake Xochimilco to the south.

The biggest "stepping stone," to the east, outside City limits
is Volcán Pino, the Pine, in the State of Mexico.

Hill of Tepeyac

Mexico City is shaped rather like a lumpy pear (see map above). At its wide bottom are the largest delegaciones of Tlalpan and Milpa Alta, which contain the large volcanoes of la Sierra de Chichinautzin. In the pear's narrow neck sits the City's Centro Histórico, now in Delegación Cuauhtémoc. At the top is the "stem", which is the northern end of Delegacion Gustavo Madero. This "stem" is so narrow because it is bounded by another set of hills, la Sierra de Guadalupe. 

La Sierra de Guadalupe.
The tallest, and most northern hill is Zacateco (2,475 meters, 8,120 ft.)
(white line shows the boundary between Mexico City and the State of Mexico.)

The group of small hills to the south are called Los Gachupines
(a derogatory word used by natives in Colonial New Spain for the Spanish).
At the southern end of these is the Hill of Tepeyac,
at the base of which sits the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Like la Sierra de Santa Catarina, la Sierra de Guadalupe is composed of a chain of cinder cone volcanoes that originally extended south as a peninsula into Lake Texcoco. At the tip of that peninsula was a hill known as Tepeyac. 

The Hill of Tepeyac is one of the most famous of hills in all of Christendom, certainly in the Roman Catholic world. It is here that, according to legend, in December of 1531, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared several times to the indigenous peasant, now saint, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. She told him that she was personally adopting the people of Nueva España as her own and directed him to go to the bishop of Mexico City to request that a chapel be built for her on the site, previously the site of an indigenous temple to the mother goddess, Tonantzin. From this sacred place, the Virgin promised that she would look after her pueblo (people). 

The first, temporary chapel built for her was replaced a number of times over the centuries by larger churches. The last two were given the status of basilicas (churches of special importance) by the Pope. Over time, a complex of additional churches was built around the base of Tepeyac and on its summit. The Basilica is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world, and one of the world's most-visited sacred sites of any religion. (Wikipedia. See our post: Tepeyac and the Virgin of Guadalupe)

Hill of Tepeyac
Chapel of the Hill is at the top.

Chapúltepec Hill, Hill of the Grasshopper

Chapúltepec Hill, Hill of the Grasshopper, is a small cinder cone volcano that originally sat near the West shore of Lake Texcoco. Freshwater springs arose from its base, making it valuable for human settlements. It was a sacred site for the indigenous peoples who lived in the area before the arrival of the Mexicas in the Valley of Anahuac in 1225 CE. In their search for a place to settle in the Valley, the Mexica were able to live on Chapultepec from 1279 to 1299, when they were attacked by other altepetls (city-states) and forced to move on further south along Lake Texococo.

The glyph identifies Chapultepec Hill (Hill of the Grasshopper)
The glyphs at the top name the years 13 House, 1 Rabbit and 2 Reed, 
(1297, 1298 and 1299 CE)
The attack on the Mexica occurred in 2 Reed, 1299.From Codex Aubin
written by a Mexica in the mid 16th century, at the request of Spanish monks,
it presents the history of the Azteca/Mexica
 from their migration out of their legendary home of Aztlan in the year 1 Flint, (1168 CE)
through the foundation of Tenochtitlan in 1325,
to the cataclysmic events of the Spanish conquest in 1521.
(Wikipedia) (Photograph and translation of Nahuatl from Fordham University)

Two hundred years later, after the Mexicas defeated the Tepanecas of the altepetl Azcapotzalco, located just north of Chapúltepec, they took over Chapúltepec and made it into a private reserve for royalty. They built baths and an aqueduct to carry spring water to their island city of Tenochtitlán. When the Spanish defeated the Mexicas, they rebuilt the aqueduct and continued its use as a preserve for the ruling class. 

In 1775, the Spanish Viceroy, Bernardo de Gálvez, ordered the construction of a stately home for himself on top of Chapúltepec Hill. Construction began the same year. However, in November 1786, the viceroy died suddenly, and the Spanish Crown ordered the building to be auctioned. For twenty years there were no buyers. In 1806, the building was finally bought by Mexico City's municipal government. However, it remained empty throughout the War for Independence (1810-21) and the early years of Mexico's new government.

Sometime between 1833 and 1840 (different sources give different dates), the Military Academy, founded in 1823, was moved to the Castle. This move set the stage for the Castle's major role in Mexican history.

Chapúltepec Castle
sits on Chapúltepec (Grasshopper) Hill
above the Monument to the Niños Héroes, the Boy Heroes,
military cadets who fought to their deaths against U.S. forces
taking Mexico City in the Mexican-American War in 1847.

In  May 1846, the United States declared war against Mexico, based on an armed conflict it had provoked along the Rio Grande River. The river was the disputed border with Mexico after the secession of Texas from Mexico in 1836 and its entrance into the Union as a state in 1845. President James Polk, who took office in March 1845, wanted Mexican territory west of what had been the Louisiana Purchase, all the way to California, to gain U.S. access to the Pacific Ocean. He offered to buy it from Mexico. When Mexico refused to sell it, Polk sent troops into the disputed territory along the Rio Grande. When Mexican forces attacked those troops, Polk obtained a declaration of war from Congress.

As part of a three-pronged strategy, U.S. troops invaded Mexico from Texas, went west into Nueva México and Alta California, and, in March 1847, undertook an amphibious attack on the port of Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico. Led by Gen. Winfred Scott, U.S. marines and army seized the port city and marched inland toward Mexico City.

After a series of battles, U.S. troops arrived at the doorstep of the capital in August. On Sept. 12, 1847, the final battle was fought at Chapúltepec Castle. There, young Mexican Army cadets fought to the last man. Five of them, los Niños Heroes, the Boy Heroes, are honored for their sacrifice by a large monument at the base of Chapúltepec Hill.

Encountering the Small but Mighty Volcanoes

While they lack the geologic awesomeness of the big volcanoes ringing the Valley of Mexico, the small volcanoes within the city make up for their size via their impact on human history in the Valley. They are also relatively easy to visit. 

Xitle and Cuicuilco

Xitle now lies within El parque ecológico de la ciudad de México, The Ecological Park of the City of Mexico, in Delegación Tlalpan. Cuicuilco, the city buried by Xitle, is an archeological park, also in Tlalpan. Both are reachable only by car.

Cerro de la Estrella

Cerro de la Estrella is within a park in Delegacion Iztapalapa. You can take Metro line 8 (green line) to the Iztapalapa station and get a taxi from there or take a taxi from other parts of the City. Part way up the hill is the Museo del Nuevo Fuego, Museum of the New Fire. It is small but with excellent exhibits explaining the ritual of the Binding of the Years and its significance. From there, you can walk up a roadway, through the park to the base of the summit. There you climb stairs to the temple at the top. On a clear day, you have a view of the entire Valley of Mexico, including the big volcanoes of Popocatépetl, Iztaccíhuatl and Ajusco. You also get a good view of the nearby Sierra de Santa Catarina. 

Hill of Tepeyac

The Hill of Tepeyac is easy to visit. La Villa Basílica is a station on Line 6 (red) of the Metro. Depending on where you start, you will have to make some changes between Metro lines. The hill is, of course, within the Villa Guadalupe, the complex of churches associated with the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Delegación Gustavo Madero. The Hill, itself, has been transformed into a beautiful garden with flowering trees, roses and a waterfall. At the top is the Chapel of the Hill.

Chapúltepec Hill

Chapúltepec Hill is near the main entrance to Chapúltepec Woods, down the Paseo de la Reforma from Centro Histórico. The main walkway from the Chapúltepec Metro Station on Line 1 (pink) leads directly to the Monument to the Boy Heroes. From there, you can walk up a wide roadway or take a tram to the top of the hill. 

The Castle now contains the National Museum of Mexican History. Exhibits include original portraits of many of the Spanish viceroys, rooms as they were decorated by Emperor Maximillian I, and the dramatically contrasting carriages of Maximillian (ornate) and President Bentio Juárez (simple), who defeated him. There are also stunning murals by David Siqueiros portraying aspects of the Mexican Revolution. We think they are the best work by Siqueiros in the City. There is also a wonderful roof garden and a large porch where, on clear days, visitors can get a great view of Paseo de la Reforma and Mexico City.

See also: Encountering Mexico City's Many Volcanoes, Part I: Giants on All Sides

Green Spaces | Chapúltepec Woods: From Bustle to Tranquility, Present to Past

      

A Shift in Perspective

Up until now, our focus in Mexico City Ambles has been on how the cityscape embodies the city's long and complex history. We have concentrated on whole neighborhoods (called colonias, pueblos or barrios depending on their origins) and the buildings and other features that give them their unique character and identify their place in the development of the city's narrative. Where those features include plazas, parks or other forms of "green space", such as tree-lined boulevards, like Paseo de la Reforma, we have presented them, but we have not looked at them from a generic perspective.

Occasionally, we have written posts about generic qualities of the city, such as its efforts to communicate grandeza (grandeur), its Baroque and "California" Neo-colonial architecture, the range of markets and street commerce and the role of ritual in maintaining communal identity. So it occurred to us that looking at the city's wide variety of green spaces as a topic in and of itself would be not merely interesting, but perhaps even revealing of another aspect of the city's character. 

From that perspective, we reviewed the posts we have published over the past two years to see which included presentations of some form of green space: plazas, parks, boulevards, gardens, interior courtyards (patios). Only one, on Chapultepec Woods, the huge park west of Centro, is solely about such a space. However, a dozen or so other posts include such green spaces as a significant part of their urban character. The colonias developed during the Porfirato (dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, 1876-1911) and the first decades after the Revolution (1911-17), such as La Roma and Condesa, sought to imitate Parisian elegance, including arboladas (tree-filled) plazas, parks and boulevards. 

Other colonias, such as Villa Coyoacán, Mixcoac and San Ángel, which have maintained their Spanish Colonial design, centered around central plazas and large church atrios (atriums), thereby also contain significant green space. Xochimilco, with its indigenous chinampas, man-made islands, and its evergreen-covered foothills, is particularly green. 

So we begin our new perspective on the City's green spaces, and a new series of posts, by republishing the one on Chapúltepec Woods.

Chapúltepec Woods

Two things drew us to the Bosque de Chapúltepec (Chapúltepec Woods): one was our ongoing search for a tranquil retreat within the bullicio, the bustle of the city. The other was to see how chilangos, Mexico City residents, spend their leisure time on a Sunday afternoon. Interestingly, we found that tranquillity and leisure time don't necessarily go together in Mexican culture.

Exiting the Chapúltepec Metro Station on Line 1, the Pink Line, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, we are caught up in a stream of families headed for the park. It is rush hour for relaxation. Typical of many Metro stations, the street level is thick wtih vendors selling food, caps, binoculars, bottled water and any number of other items. As elsewhere, we have to wend our way through this labyrinthian mercado to reach our destination.

Entering Chapúltepec Park

Inside, families are headed for a wide pedestrian bridge across a major expressway to enter the main part of the park. This promenade was originally the route of the Paseo de la Reforma which Emperor Maximilian had built during his brief and conflictual reign (1864-67) to connect his chosen residence, Chapúltepec Castle, with the city center, now the Centro Histórico, to the northeast. Reforma has been re-routed along the north side of the park and extended west to the city's boundary with the State of Mexico.

Chapúltepec Castle
above the Monument to the Niños Héroes, the Boy Heroes,
military cadets who fought to their deaths against U.S. forces
taking Mexico City in the Mexican-American, War 1847.

Paseo de la Reforma
seen from Chapúltepec Castle.
Six White Columns are the
Monument to the Boy Heroes
Photo by Carlos Cortés
Wikipedia

Family relaxing in the shade of the park's many trees.

The Bosque de Chapúltepec (Chapúltepec Woods) is one of the largest city parks in the Western Hemisphere, measuring in total just over 1,695 acres (686 hectares) (Central Park in New York City is half its size, with 843 acres, 341 hectares). The name "Chapúltepec" means "grasshopper hill" in Nahuatl and designates a volcanic formation called Chapúltepec Hill.

Aztec glyph of Chapúltepec,
in Capúltepec Castle

Perhaps the America's Oldest Continuously Used Park

The park area has been inhabited and held apart as special since the Mesoamerican era. Remains of Teotihuacan (500 BCE to 500 CE) and Toltec (800 to 1000 CE) cultures have been uncovered. When the Mexicas/Aztecs arrived in the Valley, then called Anáhuac, in the mid-thirteenth century, they settled here first, until they were kicked out by the Tepanec lord of Azcapotzalco, just to the north.

When the Mexicas/Aztecs became established in their island city of Tenochtitlán and defeated Azcapotzalco in the 15th century, they turned Chapultepec into a royal retreat. One notable site, of which there are some ruins, is the Baths of Moctezuma, a system of cisterns, reservoirs, canals and waterfalls. Because of its springs, the Mexicas built aqueducts across the saline lake to supply Tenochtitlán with fresh water. A temple sat atop Chapúltepec Hill.

After the Conquest in 1521, the Spanish King declared that it should remain a natural space for Spanish residents of the new city. It was not open to its original indigenous peoples or to any mestizo, mixed-race offspring of the two razas, races.

Fountain that marked the beginning of the aqueduct built by the Spanish
to carry fresh water from Chapúltepec's springs to the city on the island.

Today Chapúltepec is every chilango's backyard, one of the few constants in a city that has otherwise changed dramatically over nearly five centuries. Immediately to the west of the park, along Reforma, are the upper-middle class colonias, neighborhoods of Cuauhtémoc and Benito Juárez. To the south are La Roma and Condesa, the colonias developed at the end of the Porfiriato period (1876-1911) and after the Mexican Revolution. We have spent considerable time exploring and comparing them. To the northwest are wealthy colonias built in the mid-20th century: Polanco and the various Las Lomas, part of the Delegación, Borough, of Miguel Hidalgo, to which the park also belongs.

Today, the park is divided into three sections. The first section is the original. Still the most visited, it contains most of the park's attractions including a zoo, the Museum of Anthropology, the Rufino Tamayo Museum and the Museum of Modern Art along Reforma.  Chapúltepec Castle, about which we´ve written, now serves as the National History Museum (its website provides a virtual tour).

Un Paseo ... Stroll Through the Park

Following the crowd along the former Reforma, we turn right past the Monument to the Niños Héroes and come to a wide promenade, la Gran Avenida, Grand Avenue, an oval that circles through the first section of the park. In earlier days, carriages could be driven around it; later, automobiles traveled on it during Sunday drives, but today it is reserved for pedestrians. It is lined with puestos, stalls selling various kinds of souvenirs. 

3 T's for 150 pesos, about $9

Lucha Libre, Free Wrestling masks

Payaso, Street Clown

Farther along the Avenida, we come to Chapúltepec Lake, or is it Central Park Lake?

Past the lake is the Zoo. At this point, the park's ambience changes dramatically. The promenade of families reaches its destination and virtually disappears. Beyond this point lies the tranquility that we are seeking. The park becomes a quiet wooded retreat, an almost private space. La Gran Avenida becomes a path for a quiet stroll.

Tranquillity Amidst Millions

                             

Yes, this is Mexico City with its 8 million people, in a metropolitan area of 21 million. By the way, when we visited it was December!

Chapultepec Castle: The U.S. Army vs. Santa Anna and The Boy Heroes

My search in Mexico City for physical remnants of the country's 19th century history, particularly the period from the War for Independence to the Porfiriato (1810-1876), led me to a castle on a hill, Chapultepec Castle. I had seen it from below in Chapultepec Park, but a 19th century castle in Mexico didn't initially pique my interest. As a castle evidently built after Mexican Independence, it seemed an historical anomaly. But as I sought answers to the missing pieces of the urban history puzzle, it turned out to be a key.

Chapultepec Castle
Wikipedia

In 1775, Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez ordered the construction of a stately home for himself at the highest point on Chapultepec Hill. Construction began the same year. However, on November 8, 1786, the viceroy died suddenly. The Spanish Crown ordered the building to be auctioned. There were no buyers. In 1806 the building was finally bought by Mexico City's municipal government. It remained empty throughout the War for Independence and the early years of Mexico's new government.

Sometime between 1833 and 1840 (different sources give different dates), the Military Academy, which had been founded in 1823 at the end of the War for Independence, was moved to the Castle. This move sets the stage for the Castle's major role in Mexican history.

In 1833. Antonio López de Santa Anna, originally an officer in the Spanish Army, came out on top of a series of coups d'état among caudillos, military strongmen who had fought in the War for Independence. He was named president by the Congress. Initially, he allowed some liberal reforms; namely, reducing the powers of both the Army and the Catholic Church. When conservatives rose up against these reforms, Santa Ana switched sides (as he did a number of times during his lifetime), disbanded Congress, suspended the Constitution of 1824 and imposed the Seven Laws by which he centralized power in the presidency.

t

Antonio López de Santa Anna

The Seven Laws included replacing the "sovereign" federal states with centrally controlled "departments" on the French model. Several states and provinces rebelled against this power grab. Among these was the state of Coahuila y Tejas, which Santa Anna had divided into two departments: Coahuila in the south; Tejas in the north. In October 1835, acting under the leadership of Stephen Austin and Sam Houston, settlers in Tejas who had arrived from the United States initiated the Texas Revolution.

Santa Anna vowed personally to retake Texas and led his Army of Operations into Texas in February 1836. After initial victories against the rebels at Goliad and the Alamo, he was defeated on April 21 at the Battle of San Jacinto by troops led by Sam Houston. Captured, Santa Anna was forced to agree to the independence of Texas, which became the Republic of Texas.

However, the Mexican government rejected the "Treaties of Velasco" and threatened to go to war if the United States annexed Texas. After being held captive in Washington, D.C., Santa Anna was returned to Mexico in 1837. By 1839, in a context of internal chaos, Santa Anna again became president. In 1844, a revolt against him led Santa Anna to go into exile in Cuba.

Meanwhile, on the U.S. side there was also resistance to annexing Texas, since it would provoke war with Mexico. But more importantly, it also raised the issue of upsetting the delicate balance between slave and free states achieved with the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Annexation became a central issue in the 1844 presidential election.

When pro-annexation Democrat James Polk won, lame-duck President John Tyler convinced an equally lame-duck Congress to accept the annexation of Texas and make it a state. The legislation was signed by Tyler the day before Polk took office on March 4, 1845.

President James K. Polk

Polk was an aggressive proponent of expanding U.S. territory west, all the way to the Pacific, which meant confronting Mexico, whose territory extended north through California to the Oregon Territory.

The border of Texas as an independent country had not been settled. Based on the Treaties of Velasco, the Republic of Texas claimed land up to the Rio Grande [Rio Bravo], but Mexico claimed the border to be the Nueces River, northeast of the Rio Grande. While the two rivers come close together as they approach the Gulf of Mexico, upstream, it is quite a different matter.

Rio Grande River is southern boundary of territory in green;
Nueces River is southwest boundary of territory in yellow.

President Polk claimed the Rio Grande boundary and in July 1845, he sent General Zachary Taylor with 3,500 U.S. troops to camp on the Nueces River. With that "stick" in hand, Polk then offered Mexico a "carrot". In November he sent a secret mission to Mexico City with an offer to buy Upper California and New Mexico, which included present-day Arizona, for $25 million dollars. Mexican authorities refused.

Mexican-American War: United States Invades Mexico

Polk then ordered Taylor to move his troops across the Nueces River into the disputed territory. Taylor set up a makeshift fort, Ft. Texas, later Ft. Brown, on the banks of the lower Rio Grande River, opposite Matamoros in Tamaulipas, Mexico. On April 25, 1846, Mexican General Mariano Arista led 2,000 Mexican cavalry across the river and attacked a 70-man U.S. patrol under the command of Captain Seth Thornton. In what became known as "The Thornton Affair", sixteen U.S. soldiers were killed.

Claiming that "American blood" had been shed "on American soil," on May 11, President Polk sent a message to Congress asking for a declaration of war against Mexico. On May 25, war was declared.

To try to stop the U.S. invasions, Mexican authorities allowed Santa Anna to return from exile to lead the Mexican Army.

The U.S. forces undertook a three-pronged strategy:

• First, Taylor crossed the Rio Grande and fought his way south to Monterrey in northeastern Mexico; 
• Second, troops were sent west from Kansas across New Mexico into California, while at the same time the U.S. Navy took up positions along the Pacific Coast of California in order to seize ports;
• Third, General Winfield Scott transported troops to the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, to begin an invasion of the Mexican heartland.

On March 9, 1847, Scott performed the first major amphibious landing in U.S. history. Included in the invading force were Robert E. Lee, George Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. After twelve days of seige, the port was taken, and Scott began his march toward Mexico City.

General Winfield Scott

On April 18, the opposing forces met at Cerro Gordo near Xalapa, Veracruz. Scott outmaneuvered Santa Anna's defensive positions and defeated his troops. The Mexicans retreated toward Mexico City. On May 1, the city of Puebla surrendered. The way to Mexico City was open.

On August 19 and 20, battles were fought between Scott's and Santa Anna's forces at Contreras and Churubusco, just south of Mexico City. With the Mexicans defeated, the capital city was next.

Churubusco is settlement at bottom of this U.S. Army map of the battle.
Mexico City lies straight north, connected by a roadway that follows the old Aztec causeway,
now the Calzada de Tlalpan.
Photo: JRB

On September 12, 1847, U.S. troops attacked Chapultepec Castle, the last obstacle to their entrance into Mexico City. It stood

Chapultepec Castle, viewed from what is now Colonia Juárez
Photo taken in 1875

The Battle of Chapultepec takes on near mythic proportions in both U.S. and Mexican history. For the U.S., it is enshrined in the words of the Marine Hymn, "From the Halls of Montezuma...". For Mexicans, it is sanctified by the sacrifice of the Niños Heroes, the Boy Heroes.

"Battle of Chapultepec"
by Adolphe Jean-Baptiste Bayot
Wikipedia

Chapultepec Castle was defended by Mexican troops under the command of Nicolás Bravo, who had fought in the War for Independence. His forces included cadets from the Military Academy. The number of cadets present has been variously given, from 47 to a few hundred. The greatly outnumbered defenders battled General Scott's troops for about two hours before General Bravo ordered retreat. 

However, as the story goes, six cadets refused to fall back and fought to the death. Legend has it that the last of the six, Juan Escutia, leapt from Chapultepec Castle wrapped in the Mexican flag to prevent the flag from being taken by the enemy. 

Mural on ceiling of entrance to Chapultepec Castle
depicts Cadet Juan Escutia plunging to his death,
holding the Mexican flag.
Photo: JRB

The bodies of the six youths were buried on the grounds below the Castle. One hundred years later, in 1947, their remains were exhumed and on September 27, 1952, they were re-interred at the Monument to the Boy Heroes which stands below the Castle of Chapultepec.

Photo: JRB

Monument to the Boy Heroes
Photo: JRB

In any event, the United States had conquered Mexico. On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe (named for the Villa of Guadalupe, also the site of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe) was signed between U.S. and Mexican officials. Mexico accepted the loss of Texas and ceded half its territory to the United States, including what are now the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. The U.S. paid Mexico 15 million dollars and assumed any Mexican debts to U.S. citizens.

U.S. General Winfield Scott (on white horse) enters the Zócalo
and takes control of the government of Mexico.
The U.S. flag flies over the National Palace.

Santa Anna once again went into exile, first to Jamaica and then to Colombia. In 1853, conservatives called him back to be president to oppose liberal, democratic forces. In 1855, he was overthrown by these forces. Santa Anna again fled first to Cuba; later, he lived for awhile on Staten Island in New York.

Upon implementing democratic reforms limiting the powers of the Church and Army, the liberals, who included Benito Juárez, were, in turn, attacked by conservative forces in the so-called War of Reform (1857-61). But that is another chapter, which will lead us back to Chapultepec Castle.