Río Blanco is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

located in the montane central zone of the Mexican

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Veracruz Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entit ...

, about 140 km from the state capital

Xalapa Xalapa or Jalapa (, ), officially Xalapa-Enríquez (), is the capital city of the Mexico, Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In 2020 census the city reported a population of 443,063 ...

. It has an area of 24.68 km². It is located at . The Decree of June 8, 1899 ordained that Tenango's municipal head-board create the municipality of Río Blanco designating it as Tenango de Río Blanco. In the same year French financiers initiated the construction of the largest textile factory in Latin America, which was inaugurated on October 9, 1892, by President

Porfirio Díaz José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915) was a General (Mexico), Mexican general and politician who was the dictator of Mexico from 1876 until Mexican Revolution, his overthrow in 1911 seizing power in a Plan ...

. One thousand seven hundred workers came to be employed at Rio Blanco, including only 60 women.

Geography

The municipality of Río Blanco is delimited to the north by Ixhuatlancillo and

Orizaba Orizaba (, Otomi: ) is a city and municipality in the Mexican state of Veracruz. It is located 20 km west of its sister city Córdoba, and is adjacent to Río Blanco and Ixtaczoquitlán, on Federal Highways 180 and 190. The city had a ...

to the south-east by Rafael Delgado and to the west by Nogales. The village of Tenango is very ancient and on the Independence having commemorated it constituted a municipality. On order of June 5, 1826 one declared that Huiloapan, Tenango and Nogales, they will have to form an alone municipality, but on November 4 24, 1859, the Minister of Government, it informed to the political chief that for instructions of the President of the Republic, the mentioned municipalities will have to remain again divided. The weather in Río Blanco is very cold and wet all year with rains in summer and autumn.

Agriculture

It produces principally

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

and

watermelon The watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Cucurbitaceae, that has a large, edible fruit. It is a Glossary of botanical terms#scandent, scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, and is plant breeding ...

Celebrations

In Río Blanco , in June takes place the celebration in honor to San Pedro y San Pablo, Patrons of the town, and in December takes place the celebration in honor to Virgen de Guadalupe.

History

Río Blanco's company store was leased to Victor Garcín, a Barcelonnette who had been in the region for some decades since 1897. He was already an important landowner in the Orizaba valley, since in that year CIVSA bought land from him to build a water channel. Eduardo Garcín, his brother, was CIDOSA's manager in 1903 and a member of the CIDOSA board in the General Assembly minutes of 1905 and 1906. The massacre of January 7 and 8 1907, known in Mexican history as the

Río Blanco strike Rio or Río is the Portuguese and Spanish word for "river". The word also exists in Italian, but is largely obsolete and used in a poetical or literary context to mean "stream". Rio, RIO or Río may also refer to: Places United States * Rio, Fl ...

, put company stores in the Orizaba valley on the national front stage as one of the main causes of workers discontent. Stores were the main target of workers’ attacks. This event was crucial in shaping the bad reputation of company stores during the Porfiriato. Thereafter, they became a symbol of both the injustices that prevailed during the period and workers’ opposition to it, a preamble to the Mexican Revolution.

References

External links

*
Municipal Official webpage
*
Municipal Official Information
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rio Blanco, Veracruz Municipalities of Veracruz