The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's RecordBartlett, Paul Alexander
History
The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record
Bartlett, Paul Alexander
Bartlett, Paul Alexander, 1909-1990; Haciendas -- Mexico -- Pictorial works; Haciendas in art
Cabezón has a single treasure: the Virgin of Candelaria, protected by a
plate-glass case. Her face seems Andalusian. Colored scrolls,
garlands, and angels frame her as she stands on a silver crescent moon,
her figure the center of a gilded _reredo_. About 18 inches tall, she
wears a white satin gown sewn with gold. A jeweled pearl crown rests
on her hair, making her the perfect madonna. Close by, under the dark
mesquite floor, members of the hacienda family are buried: Ignacio
Cañedo de Valdivierlos (1836); Estanislao Cañedo (1887); Manuel Calixto
Cañedo (1905).
According to a chiseled inscription, the floor was laid in 1858 and
cost 166 pesos.
[Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand]
The land belonging to the famous ecclesiastical hacienda, Santa Lucía,
was purchased by the Jesuits on December 4, 1576. Legally, the
estate's area measured 18.8 square miles, an area populated by Otomi,
Tepaneca, and Chichimeca Indians. At the time of its purchase it had
16,800 sheep, 1,400 goats, 125 brood mares and colts, 1 stallion, 1
saddle horse, 2 donkey mares, 2 donkey stallions, and 8 slaves.
During the 1580s, construction work was carried out on residences,
offices, storage buildings, corrals, sheds, and quarters for the
slaves. A chapel was built in 1592. The hacienda produced barley,
oats, beans, wheat, corn, chickpeas, and livestock: cattle, sheep,
goats, mules, and horses, in increasing numbers each year. Santa Lucía
prospered for nearly two centuries.
[Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand]
Cuisillos is another Jalisco hacienda, a place of jacaranda, palms,
eucalyptus, ash, and mesquite, near Cabezón. Horizon hills are often
steel blue, and a low-lying volcano is often misty gray. Cuisillos,
deeded in 1620, first belonged to Juan González de Apodaca, chief
constable under Cortéz. During the sixteenth century it was one of the
largest estates in Mexico and added substantial revenues to the Crown.
Neoclassic, its _casa principal_ (main house) and chapel form an L, and
fronting the L is a grove of palms. The main house has thirty rooms,
two tiled patios with a fountain in each; in the main patio there are
fourteen fresco panels painted in 1910 of seascapes, landscapes, and
scenes of women in the eighteenth century.
The grilled patio gate bears the renovation date 1910 and the hacienda
brand and family monogram. All rooms are still roofed and floored.
The house is putting up a valiant struggle. Its primitive kitchen has
an igloo-shaped oven with a charcoal basket dangling from its chimney
pipe. A corkscrew limestone stairway leads to the chapel tower where
there are bronze bells whose skirt dates are 1895, 1895, 1896, and
1896; the fifth bell has no date. The chapel façade is ornate. The
interior is simple: a small _coro_ (choir gallery), with a small
darkwood organ that is badly battered. The walls of the chapel are
white and gold.
[Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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