Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: Santa María Cuepopan; Part I - Battleground and Sacred Ground

Northwest Quarter of San Juan Tenochtitlan

We've already explored the southern part of Centro and tracked down key remnants of San Juan Moyotla and San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, two of the four parcialidades or indigenous quarters comprising the Indian Republic of San Juan Tenochtitlan. Now we're ready to investigate the third, Santa María Cuepopan, in the northwest corner of Centro.

Four Ancient Barrios of Tenochtitlan
Located on Map of Present-day Mexico City
Santa María Cuepopan: Upper Left
Small Black Square: Templo Mayor

Old Boundaries That Survive

Cuepopan lay north of San Juan Moyotla, separated from it by what is now Avenida Hidalgo, the former cuepotli (Nahuatl) or calzada (Spanish), the main avenue leading to the causeway to Tacuba, on the west shore of Lake Texcoco. Its eastern half was in what is now Centro North and its western half in present-day Colonia Guerrero.

As we have learned in our exploration of the quarters, the correspondence of their ancient boundaries with contemporary streets, especially major avenues and Ejes, is not coincidental. We know that the Calzada west to Tacuba and the roadway north from the Templo Mayor were two of the four cardinal axes of Tenochtitlan.

We wonder about the other two, the original western and northern boundaries. To the west was the western "bay" of Lake Texcoco, which the Mexicas (Me-SHE-kahs) called Lake Mexico after they came to dominate it. To the north of Colonia Guerrro lies Colonia Tlatelolco, what remains of that other major Mexica atepetl, the city-state that shared the island or, rather, what were originally two adjoining islands in the lake, as we learned in our study of San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan.

Location of the Barrio Cuepopan-Tlaquechiuhca
from: The Reassignment of Meaning to a Sacred Space in New Spain:

Cuepopan's boundaries are:

West: More or less at what is now Eje 1 Poniente, West Axis 1, aka Avenida Guerrero;
East: Republica de Argentina Street, which runs north from Templo Mayor;
North: What is now Eje 1 Norte, North Axis 1, aka Calle Mosqueta/López Rayón.

Eje Central, Central Axis, aka Lázaro Cárdenas, divides the former quarter in half;
Paseo de la Reforma cuts diagonally across the quarter's western half.

Santa Maria la Redonda

We begin our exploration of Cuepopan by continuing our search for the landmark churches erected by the Franciscans and other Catholic religious orders to undertake the evangelization or Spiritual Conquest of the indigenous residents of the Republic of the Indians.

So we enter Cuepopan from the Bellas Artes Metro station at the corner of Hidalgo and the Eje Central. We are little more than a block north of the Franciscans' home base, the Church of San Francisco, just east of the Eje Central on Madero Street. On the southwest corner of Hidalgo and the Eje, in late 19th century splendor sit the Palacio de Bellas Artes and, to its west, the Alameda Central park.

Five blocks up the Eje Central from the intersection with Hidalgo, on the west side of the noisy commercial thoroughfare, there is a narrow one-lane street that can be easily overlooked. It doesn't even seem to have a name. It is the entrance to the Barrio de Santa María Redondo, and it is the pathway to a world historically and culturally far from the one at the intersection of Hidalgo and the Eje Central.

Santa María la Redonda
St. Mary the Round  

The laneway leads past modest, nondescript residential buildings to a wider, circular street encompassing a small, but delightfully shaded traditional plaza. On the far side rises the simple tezontle, red volcanic stone, facade of an evidently old church. It is Santa María la Redonda, St. Mary the Round. We wonder about the qualifier "The Round".

The simple interior is from before the ornate Baroque period dating to the first half of the 18th century. The present church was built in 1677, replacing the original church built in 1524 by Franciscan Brother Pedro de Gante, Peter of Ghent, and named Asunción de María Santísima, the Assumption of the Most Holy Mary, that is, her bodily assumption into heaven upon her earthly death, whereupon she became Queen of Heaven. It is believed that it was built atop a destoyed Mexica teocalli, house of god, i.e., temple.

"In the year 1524, Friar Pedro de Gante (Peter of Ghent)
began this work.
Peace and Good

The Neoclassic-style round apse or rotunda was added in the 1730s, evidently leading to the attachment of la Redonda, the Round, to the church's name.

St. Mary of the Assumption

The statue's head and hands are said to have been brought from Spain by
Friar Rodgrigo de Sequera,
Commissioner General of the Franciscans,
in the mid-16th century.

So this is where the Franciscans and Catholic Spanish culture established themselves in indigenous, "pagan" Cuepopan.

Cuepopan/Colonia Guerrero: Ground of Many Battles

It turns out that Cuepopan, the neighborhood that is now the lower half of Colonia Guerrero, "Warrior", was the scene of some important battles in the development of Mexica/Azteca power. Mexican historians, Clementina Battcock and Claudia Andrea Gotta have documented that Cuepopan, and particularly one of its barrios, neighborhoods, Colpoco, was the site of two major conflicts. 

Location of the Minor Barrios
That Make up the Barrio of Cuepopan-Tlaquechiuhca

La resemantización de un espacio sagrado en la Nueva España:
Cuepopan, de mojonera y escenario ritual a Santa María la Redonda.

The Reassignment of Meaning to a Sacred Space in New Spain:
Cuepopan, from Battleground and Sacred Space to Saint Mary the Round, 
by Clementina Battcock and Claudia Andrea Gotta
Cuicuilco vol.18 no.51 México may./ago. 2011,
Journal of the National School of Anthropology and History of Mexico

Tenochtitlan Replaces Azcapotzalco

In 1427, war broke out between the Mexica of Tenochtitlan and the Tenocha of Azcapotzalco, the dominant altepetl, city-state on the western shore of Lake Texcoco, north of Tacuba to which Tenochtitlan was a tributary. The occasion was the death of the ruler of Azcapotzalco and an internal power struggle between potential replacements.The key battle occurred in the northern part of Cuepopoan called Copolco. The Mexica victory over the Tenocha led them to become the dominant power in the Valley of Anahuac, now the Valley of Mexico. During the next one hundred years, they expanded their rule over most of the center of what is now Mexico.

Tenochtitlan Subsumes Tlatelolco

In 1469 a series of battles erupted between the Mexica of Tenochtitlan and their Mexica cousins who had separated from them in the mid-1300s and established the separate altepetl of Tlateloloco just to the north. The decisive battle in 1473 took place in Copolco, located on the border between the two atepetls, separated by a canal, now Calle Mosqueta. Subsequently, Tlatelolco was incorporated into Tenochtitlan. What is today the Eje Central was orginally a canal and/or aqueduct carrying drinking water to Tlatelolco.

Evidently, Cuepopan was also a major Mexica religious site. Its priest was in charge of the Nuevo Fuego, New Fire ritual. Every fifty-two years, the beginning of the two calendars common to all Mesoamerican cultures—the 365-day solar calendar and the 260-day divinatory calendar—coincided. This was believed to be an especially vulnerable point of transition in time, when the sun might not rise and the present world could come to an end. Hence, special rituals were carried out at the top of a small, extinct volcano on the peninsula of Iztapalapa at the southeast end of Lake Texcoco. It was called Huixachtécatl. It is now Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star. We will get to it at a later time.

As a major religious site, Cuepopan was also where Moctuzuma's body was taken to be cremated just before the Night of Sorrows. That was the last battle the Mexica were to win and leads us to Part II of our post on Cuepopan.

Series on Mexico City's Original Indigenous Villages:

• Landmarks of the Spiritual Conquest
• Tepeyac and the Virgin of Guadalupe
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters - Introduction
• The Franciscans - Where It All Began
• Centro's Four Original Indigenous Quarters: San Juan Moyotla
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, Part I - Crossroads 
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan Part II - Southern Gateway
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan - Part III, La Merced
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: Santa Maria Cuepopan | San Hipólito, Church at the Crossroads of History
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Sebastian Atzacoalco—Martyrs, Death, Community and Hope

Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, Part III - La Merced

In our two most recent 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.

We start at the Church of San Pablo Nuevo, at the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Topacio Street. As it happens, this now apparently nondescript side street played a major role in the history and development of Mexico City.

From a Land of Lakes to the Royal Canal

When the Spanish took over, Tenochtitlan was surrounded by Lake Texcoco, one of five inter-connected lakes without an outlet. With the heavy rains of summer, flooding of the city was frequent; devastating floods took place an average of every twenty-five years. Although in 1555 the Spanish undertook to reconstruct the prehispanic Ahuitzotl dike, in 1579 the water again covered much of the east and center of the capital, causing great loss of life and property.

In 1607, Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco y Castile commissioned engineer Enrico Martínez with the herculean task of draining the Mexico Valley basin.  The ambitious project contemplated reversing the flow of the Cuautitlan River (main tributary feeding Xaltocan and Zumpango lakes to the north of Lake Texcoco) and connecting it to the Tula watershed (now in the state of Hidalgo) via a tunnel through the mountains.

The stoppage of the work in the 1620s by order of the viceroy was one of the factors that contributed to creating one of the greatest disasters suffered by Mexico City in the seventeenth century: the great flood of 1629. Subsequently, the Huehuetoca Royal Drainage project was resumed. (Translated from: "San Pablo Teopan: Survival and Metamorphosis of an Indigenous Quarter of Mexico City During the Viceroy Period", in Spanish, by Rossend Rovira Morgado)

With the drainage system completed, Lake Texcoco and the other lakes began to dry up and the new land became farm land. However, some canals from the time of the Mexica were retained and became major routes for goods to arrive in the city. What became known as the Acequia Real, the Royal Canal, continued to connect Lake Xochimilco with the center of the city. After Independence, it became known as La Viga, "The Beam".

The Viga (former Royal) Canal in 1850
superimposed on a map of Mexico City of 1970.
Heavy red line up the center is modern outer-ring expressway.
Thin red line up left side is Calzada de Tlalpan, 
the former Mexica cuepotli.
Inicio del Paseo, Beginning of the Promenade, (upper left)
is just south of San Pablo Nuevo Church.
The Paseo ended at Santa Anita.

La Garita, Tollbooth, of la Viga was actually just south of 

Santa Anita where the Royal Canal divided, 

with an eastern branch going up what is now

Congreso de la Unión.

From the blog: Historia: Geografía y Rarezas

La Viga Canal, early 20th century. 
From the blog: Historia: Geografía y Rarezas

Branch of La Viga at the Garita de la Viga, Viga Tollbooth, 1885.
Boat is a small trajinera
The garita, tollbooth, was near where Rio Piedad (River of Pity or Piety)
flowed into the canal. 
Rio Piedad is now covered by the Viaducto highway.
From the blog: Historia: Geografía y Rarezas

In 1789, at a point just below where San Pablo Nuevo church was under construction, a Paseo de la Viga, a promenade, was created by Viceroy Conde de Revillagigedo. It ran south for a mile to the point called Santa Anita. Here, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, city residents could take a Sunday paseo, walk, or a boat ride, much as they do now in Xochimilco or Chapultepec Woods.

Viernes de Dolores en el Canal de Santa Ana
Friday of Sorrows (before Palm Sunday)
on the Santa Ana Canal
Diego Rivera, Secretariat of Public Education

At the garita de la Viga, the canal divided into two channels going north. The western branch, still called la Viga, followed what is now the street, Calzada de la Viga, north to San Pablo Teopan, passing by where San Pablo Nuevo Church was erected. In fact, the church's construction was delayed, in part, because of the need to build a more substantial foundation to fend off waters from the canal.

Where San Pablo Avenue crossed the canal, the channel continued up either Topacio or Roldán Street. In either case, la Viga was the central axis, the "Beam" of San Pablo Teopan, now known as La Merced. 

Paseo por La Merced

So we for our paseo, stoll, through la Merced, we will follow the route of La Viga. We start next to San Pablo Nuevo, at the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Calle Topacio. Crossing San Pablo Avenue, we enter Topacio, which a few years ago was turned into a pedestrian walkway by the City of Mexico in an effort to attract tourists to the historic neighborhood, now an official Barrio Mágico, Magic Neighborhood. 

Calle Topacio

Plaza Juan José Baz: Where the Eagle Landed

A short block north, at Calle Misioneros, Missionaries Street, we enter Plaza Juan José Baz, which is essentially a widening of Topacio. Baz was a member of the Reform Movement of the 1850s and 60s, fought in the War of Reform and against the French Intervention. He was Head of the Government of the Federal District (Mexico City) at various times when the Reformists controlled the city.

On the south and east sides of the plaza stand nicely restored Colonial period buildings. Newer commerical buildings are on the west side. 

Plaza Juan José Baz
Statue commemorates the founding of Tenochtitlan

The plaza holds a significant symbolic place in Mexican history. According to tradition, it is the spot where the nomadic Mexica encountered the sign promised by their god, Huitzilopochtli: an águila real, royal or golden eagle, perched on a nopal cactus and holding a rattlesnake. The eagle represented the Sun god and powers of light. He has captured the rattlesnake, representing the Underworld and the powers of night and darkness. Thus, this revelation marked the spot where, in 1325, the Mexica were to settle and create their own atepetl, city-state, Tenochtitlan.

From the plaza we take a detour from our paseo up Topacio to go east on Misionerios to the Anillo de Circunvalación, Ringroad, one of those wide, one-way ejes, axis roads, built in the mid-20th century to facilitate auto traffic through the city. Across the Anillo is the huge modern Mercado de la Merced. 

But given our search for landmarks of the transformation of Tenochtitlan into the Spanish Ciudad de México, and how that was manifested in San Pablo Teopan, we have our eyes out for another objective. 

Iglesia de San Tomás Apóstol, la Palma: Church Fends Off Market

Given the continuous street-side wall of puestos selling, in this section, dulces, sweets, i.e., candies, it is a challenge to find the entrance we are looking for. But, with help, we wend our way through the stalls.

La Merced Mercado de Dulces, Candy Market

Passing through a traditional-style adobe archway, we enter the atrio, forecourt of an obviously old church.

Iglesia de San Tomás Apóstol y la Palma
Church of St. Thomas the Apostle and the Palm
(My visit here was as part of my photograhy club,
Club Fotográfico X Amor al Centro Historico)

Sometime after the Augustinian religious order was given control of the church of San Pablo Viejo in 1575, replacing the Franciscans, they built a chapel at this spot at the end of what is now Missionary Street and dedicated it to Santo Cristo de la Palma, Holy Christ of the Palm (Sunday). 

In 1772, when the Archbishop of Mexico, implementing the centralization reforms of the French Bourbon kings who now ruled Spain, took over the churches of the religious orders and placed them under "secular", i.e., diocesan priests, Santo Cristo was merged with another church in the area, San Tomás Apóstol. A new parish church was built on the site of the chapel. It was given the combined name, San Tomás Apóstol, La Palma. (From: Síntesis Histórica la Parroquia Santo Tomás Apóstol, La Palma, by Candy Ornelas y Clara Rodríguez)

Inside: spiritual tranquility

Outside: commercial bustle 

                   

Leaving the tranquility of San Tomás, we find our way back out to the hectic Anillo, cross and return along Misionerios to Plaza Juan José Baz.

Street of Inns, Street of Pleasure

The north end of the plaza is bounded by Calle de Mesones, Street of Inns. It was where farmers and artesans, bringing their goods into the city by trajineras on the Canal or by donkey up the Calzada de Tlapan, stayed for the night. It was also where they found some evening entertainment.

Casa de tolerancia, House of tolerance,
Brothel
Established in the 16th century

The presence of the chapel of Santa María Magdelena on Plaza San Lucas now makes more sense. If the butchers and tanners who worked in the neighborhood had their chapel, why not one for the ladies of the night?

Disguised Plaza, Hidden Answers

North of Calle de Mesones, Calle Topacio becomes Talavera, but its character remains the same. Locales, small shops, and puestos predominate. Two blocks up, we come to the corner with República de Uruguay. After the Mexican Revolution, many streets in Centro were given the names of Latin American countries. We notice on a wall an old street sign that tells us it used to be Calle de Consuelo, Street of Consolation, a clearly religious designation.

On the northwest corner is a large, soft-yellow Colonial building that appears to fill the block all the way to the next street, Calle Manzanares, Street of Apple Orchards, a name that is neither pre-revolutionary religious nor post-revolutionary political. Apple orchards in the middle of a market district. Hmm?

Calle Talavera at República de Uruguay

As we approach Manzanares, we come into the full bullicio, hubbub, of a sizeable street market. The space in front of the yellow building is shaded by big trees, indicating that it is, or was, some kind of plaza. But it is full of puestos, with their temporary roofs of hule, oilcloth or plastic. The history detective in us is intrigued by the archetypical combination: plaza, large old Colonial building and mercado, or actually, tianguis (Nahuatl for street market).

Plaza de la Belleza
Colonial building, with modern metal framework on top, sits to the rear, behind trees 

The tianguis is entirely devoted to beauty products. The sign on a building at one street corner tells us it is the Plaza de la Belleza, the Plaza of Beauty.

Getting your uñas done

Not being the type who gets our nails done—intrigued by the key combination of plaza, mercado and large Colonial building—we plunge ahead through the maze of puestos to see if we can uncover more clues about what this place is, or was. 

At the back, we come up against a wall of plywood, closing off the Colonial building. We are frustrated, but then, in front of the wall we spy a waterless fountain with a statue in the middle. It appears to be some men in a canoe. It is surrounded by chicken wire.

Trying to get a closer look we go round to the other end of the market. We can glimpse the fountain and the front of the statue behind one of the puestos. The merchant, a man in his 30s—noticing both our straining to see and our camera—invites us into his space. The lower half of the wire fence is covered with cloth. He offers us a stool to climb on. 

Alonso García Bravo 

carrying out his survey of the island of Tenochtitlan, 1521-22

He rides in a canoe propelled by Mexicas.

It is Alonso García Bravo carrying out his survey of the island of Tenochtitlan in 1521-22, from which he made a traza, outline, of what would be the Spanish quarters in the center and the four indigenous quarters around the outside. A plaque at the base tells us the story and that the statue was erected in 1976. The plaza was then named Alonso García Bravo Plaza. Virturally no one would know that now. 

In fact, it was originally La Plaza de la Merced and the mysterious, barricaded building is the cloister of the monastery or convent of the Order of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives, called Mercedarians, an order founded in Barcelona in 1218 to ransom Christians captured by the Moors (Muslims). They came to Mexico in 1593 and began construction of what was to become a major monastic complex here in San Pablo Teopan.

During the Reform Period (1857-76), the government took over the buildings and much of it was destroyed. The cloister is all that remains. My guide of the moment says the space in front of the cloister is now used as a parking lot and if I go to the driveway entrance and offer the guard 50 pesos (US$3.00), he may let me in to see the building. I only find the unmarked opening in the plywood wall because a car happens to be leaving. I make my request and offer to the guard, but he will have none of it and shuts the plywood panel firmly in my face.

So, later, when we return home, we have to resort to the Internet and Wikipedia once again to give us virtual access.

La Merced cloister
Lower level was built in early 1600s.
The ornate, Baroque second floor was added in the early 1700s.
Wikimedia

It is a gem. We are saddened that we couldn't gain entrance. Ojalá, algun día, God willing, some day.

In our Wikipedia exploration we learn that the emptied space created by the destruction of much of the convent was used to create the first Merced Mercado, an enclosed market built to bring vendors in off the streets, just as the San Pablo market was constructed in San Pablo Plaza at the same time. This evolved into the much larger Merced Market, the city's largest retail market, that today takes up several blocks east of the Anillo. 

It is an evident ritual in Mexico that, when indoor markets are built to get vendors off the streets, more street vendors simply appear to take their place. Witness the Plaza of Merced, aka Plaza de la Belleza! Oh, and la Calle Manzanares, the Apple Orchard. The convent had one, of course!

We also learn that cloister is now the property of the National Institute for Anthropology and History. It is closed and barricaded because a new glass roof, suspended from metal beams, has proved too heavy for the building. What is to be done about it seems unresolved. 

Tiniest Chapel

Leaving the unseen grandness of the Convent of La Merced, we walk east on Manzanares, again toward the Anillo, to what has to be the smallest, most charming and notorious chapel in Mexico City.

Capilla del señor de la humildad,
Chapel of the Lord of Humility
aka, Capilla de Manzanares

The tiny Chapel of the Lord of Humility sits right in the middle of narrow Manzanares Street. It seats perhaps twenty people. It was ostensibly founded on the orders of Hernán Cortés himself. The current structure—from the Baroque period of the late 17th or early 18th century—is tended by Sisters of the Trinitarian Carmelites, related to the Franciscans. They live in a small house attached to the rear of the chapel. 

The chapel is famous/notorious for serving prostitutes who work in and around the Merced Market. Mostly serving truck drivers delivering goods, it is the contemporary version of the business that used to be on Calle Mesones. It thus seems that the Chapel of the Lord of Humility has taken up the mission of the closed Santa María Magdelena. 

Carmelite sister praying to the Lord of Humility

Arriving at the Embarcadero: End of a Voyage Through Time

Returning to Calle Talavera, we continue our amble north. In one more block, we come to Calle Corregidora, the northern boundary of San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan. Here La Viga canal turned west to reach the Zócalo, little more than two blocks farther on.

Near the intersection, at the edge of what is now another pedestrian plaza, is the Alhóndiga, a Colonial period building for storing grain bought in on the canal. The name comes from an Arabic word the Moors brought to Spain.

Alhóndiga
The Bishop's mitre apparently comes from a time
when the building became a bishop's residence

   

The plaza was the site of an embarcadero, a landing for unloading grain and other goods. 

Looking west on Corregidora, we can see across five hundred years—all the way from this old and crucial quarter of the Colonial city, with its indigenous Mexica foundations, to the Mexico City of modern times.

Corregidora Street, looking toward the Zócalo
and the Torre Latinoamericana,
which sits next to the Church of San Francisco,
from which the Franciscans set forth to convert los indios
of San Juan Tenochtitlan and its four quarters.

Zócalo in the 18th Century
El Parián market, in the center, built in 1703,
the first covered market in Mexico City

The termination of the Royal Canal is to the right.
Painting in the Museum of Mexico City.

Barrio La Merced
San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan

Series on Mexico City's Original Indigenous Villages:

• Landmarks of the Spiritual Conquest
• Tepeyac and the Virgin of Guadalupe
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters - Introduction
• The Franciscans - Where It All Began
• Centro's Four Original Indigenous Quarters: San Juan Moyotla
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, Part I - Crossroads 
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan Part II - Southern Gateway
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: Santa María Cuepopan - Battleground and Sacred Ground
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Sebastian Atzacoalco—Martyrs, Death, Community and Hope

Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, Part II - Southern Gateway

Churches at Southern Gateway

Whenever we travel up the Calzada (Highway) de Tlalpan by taxi to get to the Zócalo in el Centro, just where the highway exits an underpass that curves below Pino Suárez Avenue in order to connect with 20 de Noviembre, 20th of November Avenue, which leads derecho, straight to the Zócalo, we always make note of a small, simple, charming and obviously very old chapel. And we always say that we'll have to check it out someday.

Well, as we began focusing our ambles on southeast Centro and the second of the four former indigenous parcialidades, quarters of the Indian Republic of San Juan Tenochtitlan, San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, it became time to do what we had so many times said we would. We wonder what its relationship might be with the Churches of San Pablo Viejo and Nuevo that we explored in our first post on this quarter and with two other old churches just down the Calzada.

To get to the chapel, we walk south from Pino Suárez Metro station, following Pino Suárez Avenue for a few blocks to where it becomes the Calzada San Antonio Abad, St. Anthony the Abbot. This is the northern end of Calzada de Tlalpan, the former Mexica (Me-SHE-ka) cuepotli, causeway south to Iztaplapa, Coyoacán and Xochimilco. We are approaching the southern limit of historic Tenochtitlan and its island, now Centro Histórico. As we cross Pino Suárez and head west, we wonder where exactly the lake-shore boundary was. On the modern map of the City, we are crossing into Centro Sur, South Center.

Across the multiple, multi-lane roads, interweaving via bridges and underpasses, we see the chapel.

Chapel of the Holy Conception Tlaxcoaque

Finding a pedestrian underpass, we emerge near the plaza that surrounds the chapel.

Chapel of the Holy Conception Tlaxcoaque

The Chapel of the Holy Conception, popularly called Conception Tlaxcoaque (Tlash-co-AH-kay), was built in the seventeenth century, a hundred and some years after the Spanish takeover, in what was still the indigenous barrio of Tlaxcoaque, at the southern gateway to Tenochtitlan and then the Colonial City of Mexico.

The chapel, built of tezontle, volcanic rock, by indigenous workmen, was originally dedicated to the Blood of Christ. In the late seventeenth century, it was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. In the 1930s much of the area was demolished to open wider roadways, including the Calzada de Tlalpan and 20th of November. The church was declared a national monument, which saved it from demolition, but it was isolated from pedestrians by the web of roads.

Despite its landmark status, the chapel was neglected and deteriorated. However, in 2009, with the coming bicentenary of Mexico's Independence and the centennial of the Mexican Revolution in 2010, the Federal District (City of Mexico) Government financed the restoration of the chapel and the plaza. The plaza now has a ground-level fountain system in which children of all ages can play and cool off from the intense Mexican sun. The plaza has also become a skateboard venue.

San Antonio Abad

A few blocks further south, on the east side of Calzada San Antonio Abad, stands the church of that name. A chapel was built here in 1530. The east side of the Calzada is now Colonia Tránsito. The present church, built in 1702, also served as hospital managed by the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony. As we learned in San Juan Moyotla, the religious orders frequently established hospitals to serve the indigenous people. The hospitals not only provided treatment of the ill but also refuge for widows, orphans and the disabled. They were the first institutions of charity in the Americas.

San Antonio Abad
The Church is currently being restored
and sits behind construction-site walls.

We wish we could see more and know more of San Antonio Abad. We've never before seen this style of architecture, with its series of six buttresses and the scalloped roofline. Its location, near the end of the highway into el Centro, seems strategic. It remains a secret out of reach, for now.

Santa Cruz Acatlán

But our frustration is soon to be assuaged. From the traffic-filled, eight-lane Calzada, we turn down the side street next to San Antonio Abad. A work crew is laying new sidewalk alongside the construction walls enclosing the church. Perhaps that is a sign of the site's future, ojalá, God willing.

We are now in Colonia Transito, a typical neighborhood of simple working-class houses, small apartment buildings and shops. In a couple of short blocks, we come to a classic Mexican plaza, filled with trees and park benches.

On one side is the Church of Santa Cruz Acatlán, Holy Cross of Acatlán, with its convent. Acatlán is the original indigenous name of the barrio. Walking a few blocks has taken us from noisy modernity to the tranquility of a past era and another landmark of the city's transition from Tenochtitlan to the City of Mexico.

Plaza, convent and church

Santa Cruz Acatlán

The original church was built in 1533 by the Franciscans, under the direction of Fray Pedro de Gante. The present building was erected in 1770, at the height of the Baroque period, but it retains the simplicity of its earlier Franciscan origins. It looks very much like its cousins, San Pablo Viejo and the small chapel of San Lucas, not far to the north.

The interior is equally simple

We love the red and blue trim,
traditional or not.

Outside, beside the door, stands a friar who could be from the Middle Ages.                   

Why So Many Churches So Close Together?

We wonder why so many churches were built so close together near the crossroads of 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. 
• South along or near Pino Suárez/San Antonio Abad are Concepción Tlaxcoaque, San Antonio Abad and Santa Cruz Acatlán. 

What might this have to do with the boundary between the island of Tenochtitlan and Lake Texcoco, the causeway that crossed it and the web of canals interweaving the island with the lake?

The answer comes in a gold mine of a paper by Dr. Rossend Rovario Morgado, Visiting Professor, Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He provides the enlightenment we are seeking.

Foundations of Tenochtitlan: Many Islands Made Into One—More or Less

Map 1: Características edáficas y ecológicas presentes en la isla de Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco.

Soil and ecological characteristics of the Island of Tenochtitlan-Tlatlolco
(based on data from Calnek 1972, 1976; González Aparicio 1980,
Reyes García et al. [eds.] 1996, Filsinger 2005, Sánchez Vázquez et al. 2007)
from:
SAN PABLO TEOPAN: PERVIVENCIA Y METAMORFOSIS VIRREINAL
DE UNA PARCIALIDAD INDÍGENA DE LA CIUDAD DE MÉXICO
by ROSSEND ROVIRA MORGADO
San Pablo Teopan: Survival and Metamorphosis
of an Indigenous Quarter of Mexico City
During the Viceroy Period
by Rossend Rovira Morgado

It turns out that Tenochtitlan or, more accurately, the island on which it was built over a two hundred year period (1325-1520) was not one island but a group of five islands (yellow circles) which the Mexica, you might say, cobbled together with mud from the lake and their sweat.

• Pile-driving: Starting from the largest island (central yellow circle, above), they extended their land and connected to two other islands by cimentación por pilotaje, driving log pilings into the lake-bed and filling the space with packed mud taken from the lake (light orange). 

Tlatelolco is the island (yellow circle) to the north, which the Mexica incorporated in the 15th century. The more rectangular island to the west of the central island was along the route to the atepetl, city-state of Tacuba on the western lake shore. Remnants of such wood pilings have been uncovered in archeological excavations in Centro Histórico. Even the central island was itself marshy and had to be shored-up. 

• Chinampas: Using essentially the same method of driving piles and filling the created space with soil, chinampas, small "islands", were created and used to grow fruits and vegetables. The lake's water became canals between the man-made "islands." This method continues to be used in the southern delegación, borough, of Xochimilco, but it was ubiquitous around Tenochtitlan, the other islands in the lakes and along the lake shores. From the map above, it can be seen that chinampas (dark-orange) constituted the majority of Tenochtitlan's "land."

A current archeological excavation in Colonia Transito,
where San Antonio Abad and Santa Cruz Acatlán are located,
has uncovered extensive chinampas and the small canals around them.
confirming that this was the nature of the area in the southeast of Tenochtitlan.
Statues of the gods Ehécatl-Quetzalcóatl 
(god of the wind, whose temple still stands at Pino Suárez Metro Station), 
and Chicomecóatl (goddess of corn)
have been found here, indicating rituals were performed
at times of cultivating, planting and harvest. 
Ateponazco was the indigenous name of this area.

Photo: National Institute of Anthropology and History, INAH

A woman poles her trajinera, flat-bottom canoe,
through the canals of Xochimilco.
Flowers and vegetables are still grown on the chinampas,
"floating gardens" of built-up soil (visible in background).
She is selling beer to tourists.

From Map 1, it's clear that Teopan-Zoquipan was an area primarily consisting of chinampas. Only its northwest corner was part of the solid ground of the original island and some extension via pile driving. Even those islands were crossed with canals. The remainder was the watery world of chinampas.

Computer rendering of Tenochtitlan at time of Spanish Conquest
View is looking east towards the Templo Mayor.
Calzada, with removeable bridges, leads west to Tlalcopan (now Tacuba), 
on the west shore of the lake.
Lower right are chinampas
Plantum

Teopan-Zoquipan: Where Land and Lake Intersected

Dr. Rovario Morgado provides another set of maps that answer the question regarding why the churches of San Pablo, and the Mexica temples that preceded them, were built where they were. They were erected at the edge of more or less solid land at the southern edge of the expanded island, at the verge with the larger region of chinampas.

Map 2: Evolución urbana de la parcialidad de San Pablo Teopan.
El templo de Huitznahuac y la parroquia de San Pablo
resaltados con un círculo rojo

Urban evolution of the quarter of San Pablo Teopan.
Mexica temple to Huitznahuac and the church of San Pablo Viejo
are marked by the red circle.

A Mexica temple to the god or gods called Huitznahuac or Centzon Huitznauhtin, the gods of the southern stars, stood at this southern point until the Spanish demolished it and the Franciscans built their chapel (red circle). The area of temples, of which the Altar to Ehecatl was a part, was known as Tocititlan.

The other churches, Concepción Tlaxcoaque, San Antonio Abad and Santa Cruz Acatlán, were built on dry ground extending south into the causeway, along Teopan-Zoquipan's western boundary. Another map we discovered on the Internet makes all of this very clear.

Map 3: Tenochtitlan with original islands incorporated into it.
Teopan-Zoquiapan quarter is the lower-right section.

El territorio excluido: Historia y patrimonio cultural de las colonias al norte del río de La Piedad, 

The Excluded Territory: History and Cultural Patrimony of the Colonias North of the River of Piety 

(Delegación Cuauhtémac), María Eugenia Herrera, Editor © Palabra de Clío, Aug. 2015

On Map 3 we can locate:

• Calzada: now Pino Suárez-San Antonio Abad-Tlalpan 
•  Royal Canal: long canal runs South to North, parallel to Calzada, up the middle of Teopan-Zoquipan and turns West to meet the Calzada at Templo Mayor/Zócalo
• Xoloco Canal: (Sho-LO-ko) runs West to East, crossing the Calzada to meet the Royal Canal. It is now Calle Chimalpopoca
• Xocongo Canal: short canal, runs South to North, just East and parallel to Calzada, connecting with Xoloco Canal. Today it is Calle Xocongo.
• Temple to Huitznahuac, razed by the Franciscans to build San Pablo Viejo Church: black rectangle and triangle between Calzada and Royal Canal, north of Xoloco Canal;
• Concepción Tlaxcoaque Chapel: small black square just West of the calzada and just North of Xoloco Canal; location of a prior Mexica temple.
• San Antonio Abad and Santa Cruz Acatlán churches: South of Xoloco Canal, between Calzada and Xoncongo Canal another rectangle indicates a Mexica edifice that matches the later locations of the churches.
• Calzada Chabacano, once the boundary of the chinampas of Teopan-Zoquipan, adjacent to the expanded island, is the current southern boundary of what was the indigenous parcialidad or quarter.

Strategic Crossing

Where the Xoloco Canal intersected with the Iztapalapa Causeway there was a removable bridge that served as a means of defending the city. (To visualize the canal-causeway intersection, see rendering of Tenochtitlan above) The former canal is now Calle Chimalpopoca.

Moctezuma II (the Younger) meets Hernán Cortés 
on the causeway from Iztapalapa, Nov. 8, 1519

Tile mural on wall of Jesús Nazareno Church, on Pino Suárez Ave., in Centro Historico,
reproduced from an 17th or 18th century oil painting.

In some accounts, it is recorded that it was at this bridge that Monteczuma came to meet Cortés in 1519, although other traditions say it was a few blocks north of the intersection of Pino Suárez and Izazaga, where another canal intersected the city from east to west. The Xoloco bridge was crucial in Cortés's subsequent attack on Tenochtitlan in 1521. Once he had control of this crossing, the way was clear for his troops to enter the city.

The crossing's strategic importance was revived in 1847, when the United States invaded Mexico. One of the last battles for Mexico City took place at the garita at Xoloco, the sentry gate on the old causeway road, primarily used to collect tariffs on products being brought into the city. Its location was approximately at the point where we began this account: the underpass where the Calzada crosses beneath Pino Suárez and one emerges along side the Chapel Concepción Tlaxcoaque.

So it is clear. The churches and markets of San Pablo Teopan replaced Mexica temples and markets and, like their predecessors, marked and continue to mark the importance of this southern gateway to Tenochtitlan/Mexico City.

Note: Information on the Xoloco barrio from: El territorio excluido. Historia y patrimonio cultural de las colonias al norte del río de La Piedad, The Excluded Territory: History and Cultural Patrimony of the Colonias North of the River of Piety (Delegación Cuauhtémac), María Eugenia Herrera, Editor © Palabra de Clío, Aug. 2015

Series on Mexico City's Original Indigenous Villages:

• Landmarks of the Spiritual Conquest
• Tepeyac and the Virgin of Guadalupe
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters - Introduction
• The Franciscans - Where It All Began
• Centro's Four Original Indigenous Quarters: San Juan Moyotla
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan - Part I  
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan - Part III, La Merced
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: Santa María Cuepopan - Battleground and Sacred Ground
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Sebastian Atzacoalco—Martyrs, Death, Community and Hope