Mexico City

Mexico

City

Martin Stieber

SOCY 344

T,Th 1:30-2:45

Like an enormous living museum, Mexico City provides an extraordinary showplace for the thousands of years of human cultural achievement that Mexico has attained. It ranks as one of the world's great capitals and is a must for anyone craving to understand Mexico's complex past, its fast-paced present, and its ever challenging future. The size and grandeur of the city are staggering. It is not only the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Western Hemisphere, but, by some accounts, has also become the largest city in the world. Before we look at present day Mexico City, let us look into it deep and storied past.

La Ciudad de los Palacios

Mexico City was founded over 700 years ago by the Aztecs. Instructed by their god of war, Huitzilopochtli, they journeyed to Lake Texcoco, where they were to look for an eagle eating a snake perched on a cactus growing from a rock or cave surrounded by water. They found this in 1325, and so began the city of Tenochtitlan. Although the land surrounding them was marshy and snake infested, the Aztecs came up with an ingenious way a planting crops. They created chinampas, or floating gardens, by bunching twigs together and stacking mud on top. These gardens were placed in shallow lake areas and rooted down by the crops or small trees planted in the middle. The Aztecs were a very religious people, as well, and built many temples, including the great Templo Mayor. Cannibalism was a key element of their religion, as they believed that it was necessary to feed human hearts to the gods to ensure that the sun would rise everyday. The Aztecs would find these less than willing human hosts in the numerous battles they fought. Due to an increasing population, estimated to be at 250,000 in the late 1400’s, the Aztecs were forced to expand their empire well beyond the cities original boundaries. As the Aztec warriors conquered these other outlying tribes, tribute payments were gained, leading to the cities massive wealth.

The Aztecs lived like this for 200 years until Spanish settlers, under Hernan Cortes, came and conquered the Aztecs in 1521. The Spanish were in awe of the cities tremendous wealth, and, thanks to superior weapons and tactics, easily defeated the Aztecs. Upon victory, the Spanish were quick to raze the entire city. The city was rapidly reconstructed as a Spanish city, and in the 1550’s, emerged as the prosperous and elegant capital of Nueva Espana. For nearly 300 years the Spanish flourished in Mexico City. Many buildings and streets were constructed, and it served as cultural and social center of North and South America. When 1810 came, however, a Mexican Independence movement, started by Miguel Hidalgo, caused Mexican peasants to fight against the Spanish government. After 11 years, the fight was successful, and Mexico declared its independence.

Mexico City was the center of many more conflicts in Mexican history. In 1847, the city was captured by U.S. forces under Winfield Scott to end the Mexican-American War. The price for Mexico was the loss of the land that is now most of the southern U.S. In 1863, the city was captured again, but this time by French forces, upset that Mexico refused to pay its debt to France on time. The French controlled the city for a year until Mexican forces retook it in 1864.

Over the next 30 years, Mexico City really began to thrive. Under Porfirio Diaz, more roads and telegraph lines were constructed. Rail lines into the U.S. and other provinces of Mexico were built, and foreign investment greatly increased, as well. In 1910, Mexico City had grown to a population of 471,000. The following 10 years saw all of Mexico in a state of disarray as a revolution was taking place.

During the 1920’s, many young artists, suck as Diego Rivera, David Alfonso Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco were commissioned to decorate numerous public buildings with dramatic large scale murals. These were done to try and convey a new sense of Mexico’s past and future. Although Mexico City was still experiencing a tremendous growth in its economy, its population was rising faster than anything could keep up with. Factories and skyscrapers were now prominent in the Mexico City landscape, but so were shantytowns. By 1940, Mexico City would claim 1.7 million people as residents. Continued growth through the rest of the century would result in some of the worst traffic and pollution problems in the world.