HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Zinacantepec is a
municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...
located just west of the city of
Toluca Toluca , officially Toluca de Lerdo , is the state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca. With a population of 910,608 as of the 2020 census, Toluca is the fifth most populous city in Mexico. The city ...
in
Mexico State The State of Mexico ( es, Estado de México; ), officially just Mexico ( es, México), is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Commonly known as Edomex (from ) to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is ...
, Mexico. The municipal seat is the town of San Miguel Zinacantepec. Zinacantepec is
Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...
for "bat mountain" and its
Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...
glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
is a bat on a mountain. It is named after a small mountain which contained two caves which used to be filled with thousands of bats. In the 18th century, the residents of this mountain moved to settle alongside the
Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...
monastery established here in the 16th century. This monastery is the best preserved of a network of missionaries established in the
Toluca Valley The Toluca Valley is a valley in central Mexico, just west of the Valley of Mexico (Mexico City), the old name was Matlatzinco. The valley runs north–south for about , surrounded by mountains, the most imposing of which is the Nevado de Toluca Vo ...
in the mid 16th century. Today, the complex functions as the parish church, with the
cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against ...
dedicated as the colonial era museum of the state of Mexico.


History

The history of the town and municipality begins about 1500 years ago at an elevation now named "Cerro de Murciélago" or Bat Mountain. The hill contained two caves that used to be filled with thousands of bats. The presence of these animals was considered a sign of fertility. The hill remained populated until the 18th century, when a plague pushed the population toward the Franciscan monastery, which functioned as a hospital. A deity named Zinacan was associated with the mountain. Shortly after the Spanish Conquest, this deity would be believed to be an incarnation of the
Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...
. Today, the bat population of the area is limited to a few caves in the
Nevado de Toluca National Park The Nevado de Toluca National Park is located southwest of the city of Toluca, Mexico State. It was decreed a park in 1936, primarily to protect the Nevado de Toluca volcano, which forms nearly the park's entire surface and is the fourth highest ...
. The mountain is mined for gravel and alongside it is the Hacienda de Santa Cruz de los Patos, which is now part of the Mexiquense College, as a research center and library. The earliest known ethnicity in the area is the Otomi, who still are present, especially in smaller communities in the municipality such as San Luis Mextepec and Acahulaco. In the south of the municipality, there are Matlatzincas; however, there are very few. The area was conquered by the Aztecs in the latter 15th century by
Axayacatl Axayacatl (; nci, āxāyacatl ; es, Axayácatl ; meaning "face of water"; –1481) was the sixth of the of Tenochtitlan and Emperor of the Aztec Triple Alliance. Biography Early life and background Axayacatl was a son of the princess Ato ...
. Zinacantepec was then ruled from Tlacopan as a tributary province. During the
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...
, the Otomis sided with the Spanish and the Matlazincas against Aztecs.
Gonzalo de Sandoval Gonzalo de Sandoval (1497, Medellín, Spain – late in 1528, Palos de la Frontera, Spain) was a Spanish conquistador in New Spain (Mexico)Diaz, B., 1963, The Conquest of New Spain, London: Penguin Books, and briefly co-governor of the col ...
came to the Toluca Valley with 18 cavalry and 100 infantry. They were joined by 60,000 Otomi and conquered the Matlatzincas. The area around what is now the city of Toluca, including Zinacantepec, came under the rule of
Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
administrated by his cousin in what would become the County of Santiago de Calimaya. The west part of the valley became part of the
encomendero The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...
of Juan de Sámano. This same family founded the Hacienda de la Gavia which owned much of the arable land in the municipality. While no battles were fought here during the
Mexican War of Independence The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...
, many here joined the army of
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (8 May 1753  – 30 July 1811), more commonly known as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or Miguel Hidalgo (), was a Catholic priest, leader of the Mexican W ...
against the colonial government, with many fighting at the
Battle of Monte de las Cruces The Battle of Monte de las Cruces was one of the pivotal battles of the early Mexican War of Independence, in October 1810. It was fought between the insurgent troops of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and Ignacio Allende against the New Spain royalist ...
. After the war, Zinacantepec became a municipality in 1826. During the Reform War, vandalism and general lawlessness gripped the municipality as well as neighboring Toluca. This was finally put to an end by Felipe Berriozabal in the 1860s. During the
Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, Zinacantepec was taken in 1912 by General José Limón and Alberto Sámano in support of Francisco I. Madero. The
Zapatistas Zapatista(s) may refer to: * Liberation Army of the South, formed 1910s, a Mexican insurgent group involved in the Mexican Revolution * Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), formed 1983, a Mexican indigenous armed revolutionary group based ...
camped in some of the smaller communities of the municipalities, confronting federal forces and sacking homes. The 2000s to the present are marked by political and economic problems for the municipality. Starting in 2005, the municipality has had serious financial difficulties, mostly due to its debt. These financial problems have caused inadequacies in the drainage, garbage collection and health services. In 2007, residents protested the lack of adequate garbage collection by bringing their garbage to the municipal palace and threatened to leave it there. They claim that in some areas, garbage had not been collected for months, requiring children to wear masks on their way to school. In 2008, councilman Leonardo Bravo Hernandez was sentenced to 18 months for the misappropriation of 100 million pesos during the city council session of 2003–2006. José Consuelo González Xingú, a municipal delegate was shot and killed in January 2010 in San Antonio Acajhualco, a community in the municipality. Gonzalez Xingú had presented a complaint to the Mexico State Commission of Human Rights for acts of intimidation and abuse among the municipal police force. Prior to this, Gonzalez Xingu had also made a formal complaint to the state about the municipal president for nepotism, which was ratified. The municipal president denies involvement. The municipal president, Gustavo Vargas Cruz, has been under investigation for the murder of Jesus Consuelo Xingú. One of the reported gunmen has been apprehended. Until 2008, Zinacantepec was the only municipality with roads with no right-of-way markers. In that year, the direction and signaling of all the roads was reworked in a systematic way. Zinacantepec will be the western terminus for the Toluca–Mexico City commuter rail when service commences in 2018.


Town

Although just west of the city of Toluca, Zinacantepec remains mostly rural, preserving much of its traditions and customs from over 300 years ago. Major religious festivals include one in honor of the Virgin of Los Dolores (also called Del Rayo) from May 21 to 23 and one for the patron of the town, the Archangel Michael on December 3. One legend associated with the Virgin was that the image was left at the local monastery by a woman who had been cured of the plague. In 1762, a bolt of lightning struck and destroyed the church tower, but the Virgin, who was inside, was unharmed. The town’s main church, the Parish of San Miguel, was the monastery church until the monastery church was closed during the Reform War. The church remained open but with non-monastic priests. The structure dates from the 17th century, and has typical features for constructions from that time such as a cruciform plan, a central dome and an ornate two tier bell tower. Since it was Franciscan, the facade is a sober
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
with minimal ornamentation. Inside, on the south wall is a stone pulpit decorated with carved scales. It also contains an unusual ceramic baptismal font which dates from the early colonial period. The rest of the church is fairly modern but colonial paintings and church furnishings from earlier periods can be found in the sacristy. Market day is Sunday when the street fill with vendors and local specialties such as red and green mole, local produce, tamales and small tacos made with corn tortillas about 6 cm in diameter. Local drinks include pulque and fruit liquors. Universidad Politécnica Del Valle de Toluca has its secondary campus in the town. It offers programs of study in engineering and business.


Monastery complex

The Toluca Valley was evangelized by the Franciscans starting from the 1520s. During the 1550s and 1560s, a network of missions was built spreading out from Toluca, where missionaries would begin by studying the languages and customs of the native peoples of the valley. Of these missions, the monastery at Zinacantepec is the best preserved. The mission with its open chapel was begun in 1550, with the rest of the monastery built between 1560 and 1570. The modern town of Zinacantepec was built around it when the local populace abandoned the nearby hill and settled around the monastery in the 18th century. The monastery remained in operation from the early colonial period until the Reform War when it was closed by the government. It is said that it was occupied by Zapatista forces during the Mexican Revolution. Later in the 20th century, part of it was used to house priests who ran the still functioning Parish of San Miguel. It was declared a national monument in 1933. In 1976, the State of Mexico took over the cloister portion of the complex (leaving the church open for worship) and began to renovate it with the purpose of founding a museum, along with the Fondo Nacional para Actividades Sociales (FONAPAS). The museum was opened in 1980 as the Museo del Virrenato del Valle de Toluca (Museum of Viceregal Art of the Valley of Toluca. The collection is housed in the rooms of the cloister with the open chapel area serving as the main entrance. The oldest portion of the complex is the
open chapel A capilla abierta or “open chapel” is considered to be one of the most distinct Mexican construction forms. Mostly built in the 16th century during the early colonial period, the construction was basically an apse or open presbytery containin ...
, which dates from the time when the structure began as a small mission. The chapel is integrated into a ''porteria'' (a porch like entrance or arcade) in the front of the building, which was added in the 1560s. The altarpiece of the chapel is recessed into the back wall which has a pediment and contains ten panels. The central figure is of the
Archangel Michael Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), also ...
, the original patron saint of the mission. Above him is a female saint, possibly Saint Clare, with archangels and luminaries of the Church on the surrounding panels. God, the Father looks down from the pediment with the Four Evangelists at the base. In a small room on the south end of the porteria is the original mission baptistery. Here is the first baptismal font, which is a huge monolithic basin cut from gray volcanic stone. The outside is carved with both Christian and indigenous symbols. Carved medallions illustrate episodes in Christ’s life, and there is a relief of the Archangel Michael casting
Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passa ...
from heaven. The indigenous symbolism includes Aztec speech markers and pre-Hispanic water imagery. Encircling the cord rim is a Spanish and Nahuatl inscription which says, “This baptismal font and the room in which it is found was mandated by the venerable guardian Fray Martin de Aguirre in the village of Zinacantepec in the year 1581.” This font is one of the most important pieces at the museum. Above the low main door into the cloister, there is a mural from the 16th century called the “Tree of Life” which illustrates a genealogical tree of the Franciscan Order, growing from the chest of
Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianit ...
. Unlike many of the other frescos, this one contains various colors, including red and green accents, flesh tones and framed by bands of color. This murals as well as the font and the panels of the altarpieces were designed for the early evangelical efforts of the monastery. Inside the main entrance is a vestibule which leads to the main courtyard of the cloister. This area is plainer than the porteria, with only black and white 16th-century frescos adorning the walls and some gray gargoyles on the upper parts of the columns. Many of the frescos and gargoyles are now fragmentary. The cloister has two floors and courtyard surrounded by 20 arches supported by Tuscan columns. The ceilings are made from large wood beams and the floors are paved in local stone. On the north and south sides of the upper cloister there are two
sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a f ...
s. One is meant to be used in the summer and the other in winter. The cloister complex is now the Museo Virreinal de Zinacantepec (Viceregal Museum of Zinacantepec). It has twenty exhibition halls, with more than 275 works of art over the three centuries of the colonial period in Mexico. The collection also include more ordinary items such as cooking utensils, weapons, furniture and clay objects. The collection includes sixty paintings of
viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning " ...
s and archbishops of New Spain, wood sculptures of religious figures, Spanish armour and a Christ figure made of “pasta de cana” or meshed corn stalks. Most of the paintings have been classified an anonymous due to the lack of signatures. The museum is considered to have one of the most important colonial era collections in the state, along with the Ex Monastery of Acolman and the Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlan. More than 300 pieces of the collection were the subject of a major restoration project in 2003 at a cost of 500,000 pesos. Another important aspect of the museum is its library. This library contains 1,587 volumes about 43 subjects including theology, philosophy, law, history and others. The oldest book here is a copy of the Suma Teologia by
Thomas of Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...
. The books had been in the care of the Museum of Bellas Artes in Mexico City than the Municipal Library of Toluca before coming to Zinacantepec, The books have been available to academics since 2005. The bookshelves and some other furniture are original to the monastery.


Municipality

As municipal seat, the town of Zinacantepec is the local governing authority for more than 130 other named communities, which together form a territory of 308.68km2. About one third of the municipality’s population lives in the town proper. Despite its rural and traditional nature, very few speakers of indigenous languages are left. The municipality is bordered by the municipalities of Almoloya de Juárez, Texcaltitlán, Toluca,
Calimaya Calimaya is a town and municipality located just south of Toluca, the capital of the State of Mexico in central Mexico. The settlement was probably established around 800 BCE, when the city of Teotenango was in existence. It remained an importa ...
,
Temascaltepec Temascaltepec is a municipality located in the Ixtapan Region of the State of Mexico in Mexico. Temascaltepec has an area of 547.5 km2. It borders the municipalities of Valle de Bravo, Amanalco de Becerra, Tejupilco, San Simón de Guerrero, ...
, Amanalco, Villa Guerrero and
Coatepec Harinas Coatepec Harinas is one of 125 municipalities in the State of Mexico, Mexico. The municipal seat is the town of Coatepec Harinas. The original name is "Coauhtepetl" which means 'serpent hill' in Náhuatl. Around 1825 because of a boom in flour ...
. The dominating geographical feature here is the
Nevado de Toluca Nevado de Toluca () is a stratovolcano in central Mexico, located about west of Mexico City near the city of Toluca. It is the fourth highest of Mexico's peaks, after Pico de Orizaba, Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. The volcano and the area ar ...
volcano, with a significant part of the National Park being located in the municipality. Elevation here varies between 3,200 and 2750 meters above sea level and the soil is made of composites from past lava flows and ash deposits from the nearby volcano, which is now dormant. Some other smaller volcanoes exist here, such as the Molcajete, which were formed by the Nevado’s third stage of eruptions. Surface water is mostly in the form of the Tejalpa River, some small streams and some fresh water springs, all of which are fed by the runoff from the Nevado de Toluca. The area has a temperate, mildly wet climate with freezes common in the foothills of the volcano. Highs in the summer are around 28C with lows in the winter can get to −5C. Most rains falls between the months of June to October. Much of the wild vegetation is forest with pines, cedars and fir trees, which mostly exist in the national park, along with most of the wildlife, which includes squirrels, opossums, coyotes, eagles, crows and some snakes and other reptiles. Agriculture is still the main economic staple of the municipality, employing the vast majority of residents. Crops grown here include corn, potatoes, fava beans, carrots, spinach, onions, radishes and other vegetables, mostly grown on family farms. The raising of livestock is important here with cattle, pigs and sheep being the principle animals. A few haciendas still exist including the San Juan de la Huertas and the San Pedro Tajalpa, where
Porfirio Díaz José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
and his wife spent time in its large mansion, which still exists. There is one small industrial zone which contains a number of industries with the largest being BIMBO, Coca-Cola and Gas CIMSA. Commerce is mostly limited to basic needs. There are sand and gravel mines such as San Juan de las Huertas and Loma Alta in the community of San Cristobañ Tecolit.


See also

* Raíces, Zinacantepec, a village in the municipality


References

{{Authority control Municipalities of the State of Mexico Matlatzinca settlements