abundis3. san angel

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“Have you been in San Angel?Have you seen it fromsome where high up, from a

tower? Is it not a paradise? Its orchards,

its gardens, its tuneful little fountains; onits network of crystal-clear waters a blan-ket of flowers unfolds, flowers of everycolor, of every kind, like a multi-coloredknitted shawl thrown over a mirror. Haveyou seen its village, its bell towers peep-ing over the balcony onto the Valley of

Mexico among the trees? And there inthe background, where the double chainof mountains that circle the valley, thering in whose setting sparkle thePopocatépetl and the ‘White Woman’like two diamonds, are lost from view,disappearing in the milky distance of the

San AngelThe Garden of the Valley of MexicoJaime Abundis*

* Mexican architect. Researcher at the Na tion -al Institute of Anthopology and History,INAH.

Panoramic view of the towers anddomes of the El Carmen Monasteryand church.

The Splendor of Mexico

VOICES ofMEXICO• 51

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horizon, there, very far away, on a back-ground striped with the blue transparen-cy of the lakes, have you seen the yel-lowish outline of the city that a reverentAlexander von Humboldt called the Cityof Palaces? Forgive these descriptions. Iam overwhelmed by the spectacle, it wasso beautiful...!”1

These little known words were writ-ten by a visitor to nineteenth-centurySan Angel, Don Justo Sierra, to describethe pleasing emotions evoked by a place

that today survives only in literature, inthe faded photos and the memories ofthe few people who had the good fortuneto enjoy it as it was. Now, it is a justanother part of the city, but it used to bea town with a visage of its own, the prod-uct of specific history and geography.

About 12 kilometers from downtownMexico City, central San Angel is in thefoothills of what eventually to the southand west becomes the Ajusco Mountainstopped with Ajusco Peak and, at its feet,

the Xitle volcano that a little more thantwo millennia ago formed the San AngelPedregal, or “stony crags”. The hills’ manyglens nurtured innumerable streams andbrooks, the most important of which arethe Magdalena or Coyoacán. Criss crossingeach other, they fertilized San Angel andits surrounding land. Thick oak, fir andpine forests covered not only the moun-tains, but the foothills, enriching thearea with resources. The Pedregal lavamalpais that physically separates Tlalpanfrom San Angel was the only jarring notein the landscape, but it also meant moreresources.

It was these resources that in theremote past attracted men to the Mexicobasin. The archeological remains atCuicuilco and Copilco el Bajo testify to thedegree of development achieved by theancient inhabitants before the Xitleerupted.

The lack of systematic archeologicalexploration and the growth of the urbanarea limit our knowledge of San Angel’spre-Hispanic past. Historic sources, on theother hand, do allow us to know mo reabout the post-classical period. With theNahua invasions, the Tepanecs becamelords of the western river bank of the Mex - ico Lake in the twelfth or thirteenth cen-tury. They set up their capital in Az ca pot -zalco and occupied Tacuba, Ta cu ba ya,M i x coac and Coyoacán. And so it remaineduntil the reign of Maxtla, defeated by theMexicas around 1428, who then becamethe new masters of the riverbank and, soonthereafter, the valley itself.

Coyoacán was made up of several ham-lets, two of which were Tenanitla (meaning“next to the stone walls”) and Chimalistac(“white shield”); this dominion came underthe tutelage of Tenochtitlan after the

Carlos Nebel lithograph of the Battle of Padierna, which culminated in the occupation of San Angel by U.S. troops.

The Valley of Mexico in the nineteenth century, as painted by José María Velasco.


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Tepanec defeat at the hands of theMexicas.

In contrast with Coyoacán, the seat ofthe dominion, which boasted a ceremo-nial center with tall pyramids and tem-ples and more than 6,000 houses, half onthe land and half in the water —knownas chinampas, or floating gardens— asdescribed by Bernal Díaz del Castillo,Tenanitla and Chimalistac were full oforchards and gardens, sprinkled withhuts and a house or two, to the west,where what is now San Angel lies. Itsresources had made them importanthamlets since they contributed agricul-tural products, animals, wood, charcoal,basaltic rock and, of course, water inabundance. When the Spanish tookTenochtitlan and made Coyoacán theirtemporary headquarters in 1521, manyof them unleashed their greed on theserich lands.

In 1529, Hernán Cortés became themarquis of the Valley of Oaxaca and wasgranted the tribute of the indigenous peo-ples of many towns in New Spain. He

decided to place the capital of his mar-quisate in Coyoacán, that includedtowns and hamlets like Mixcoac, LaMagdalena, Coajimalpa, Tacubaya, LosRemedios, Tenanitla and Chimalistac.Their abundant resources attracted theSpaniards and the congenial surround-ings favored the building of an incipientsettlement that began to be calledTenanitla, still a part of Coyoacán.

The missionary friars were a centralpart of the appropriation process andcultural transformation in this initialstage of the colonial period. In 1524 theYounger Brothers arrived to Coyoacánand shortly thereafter a small Franciscanmonastery was set up in the town.However, in 1529, the Dominicansarrived and founded their convent dedi-cated to Saint John the Baptist. For 40years, the two religious orders shared theCoyoacán area, establishing small chapelsin the towns and hamlets. The Domi -nicans set up two chapels, dedicated toSaint Sebastian in Chimalistac and to OurLady of the Rosary in Tenanitla, among

others. From 1569 on, only the fri ars ofSanto Domingo de Guzmán remained tocover Coyoacán and its envi rons. Theyused its bounty to turn Tenanitla into aplace of rest and convalescence for the sickand the aged in the sixteenth century. Thefame of Tenanitla as somewhere healthybegan there, rooted in its wonderful natur-al conditions.

In 1596 in Mexico City, the Domi ni -cans loudly celebrated the canonization ofthe Saint Hyacinth, the missionary ofPoland and Northeastern Europe. As partof their festivities, they agreed to dedi-cate a house to the canonization, found-ing it in Tenanitla. Soon, the house beganto be called Tenanitla de San Ja cin to(Spanish for Hyacinth) or San Jacinto Te -nanitla, and the original Marianist ori-gins of the name, Our Lady of theRosary, were forgotten. A short time laterthey turned this small mo nas tery into theHospice for Missionaries of the East,where the friars who came and went fromthe Philippines recovered from the hard-ships of their ocean voyage; the church

Chapel door, San Jacinto Church. Patio of the San Jacinto Tenanitla cloister, founded by the Dominicans in the late sixteenth century.


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also served as a parish church. The townwas given a new name that would not last,but not for any reason the Dominicanscould control.

Meanwhile, San Jacinto Tenanitla con -tinued to grow and its visage changed slow -ly but profoundly. The great flowing Mag - da lena River, the most important in thesouth west of the Mexico basin, was perfectfor wheat mills, textile workshops andfulling mills, where wool and other clothwas shrunken and smoothed. Ranches,haciendas, gardens and seed plantationsalso used its waters to irrigate their crops.The peasants began to add their num-bers to the workshop and mill laborers,as did a few city dwellers who enjoyedthe benefits of such a magnificently wellprovided-for natural wilderness.

The barefoot Carmelites, founded bytwo such outstanding mystics as SaintTeresa de Jesús and Saint John of theCross in the second half of the sixteenthcentury, had arrived in New Spain in1585 to become part of the evangelizingefforts of the new lands that were being

discovered and colonized, at the sametime that they maintained their originalcontemplative goals. Although they werenot destined to evangelize, their religios-ity and spiritual values led them to found16 houses during the colonial period,that formed the Saint Albert Province.

The seventh of these was the San AngelCollege for which they received a landgrant in Tenanitla and Chimalistac in1597.

In 1614, the barefoot Carmelites decid -ed to move their provincial college. Thistime they paid no heed to the obstacles put

Oil of Saint Teresa of Avila, El Carmen Museum.

Facade of the San Jacinto Church, one of the first places of worship built by the Dominicans in San Angel.


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in their path by the Dominicans andfound ed an ecclesiastic hospice inTenanitla to prepare for the definitiveestablishment of the college. Most of thecollege’s facilities were built between1615 and 1617. Their lands were so vastthat they reached from the college to the

Magdalena River and even included partof the Pedregal. Soon they began to turnpart of their lands into a model fruit andvegetable garden, surrounded by a highstone wall.Cart loads of mulch and manureto fertilize the ground, dikes and damsto store water, apantles (open water ditch-

es) and aqueducts, a selection of apple,pear and peach trees, as well as vegeta-bles, plus enormous amounts of labor bythe local population brought forth a gar-den and orchard that produced goodyields for them in that very century. Thefamous fruit of the San Angel orchardsold easily in Mexico City and elsewhere.

The Carmelites were already estab-lished in San Jacinto Tenanitla; their col-lege functioned very well; and the orchardand garden produced enough to supportthem. The local population benefited fromthe employment offered by the Car melitesand, in imitation, they also covered thetown with gardens and orchards. Theboom was beginning and was soon reflect -ed in continual visits by viceroys, arch-bishops, bishops and other civic and eccle -siastic dignitaries to the college. Thenumber of summer houses owned by citydwellers increased as the town graduallybecame a favorite resting place.

The Dominicans, on the other hand,were in decline: the local populace tookmore to the Carmelites; the zeal of the

Chimalistac Chapel, built by the Dominicans in the mid-sixteenth century in honor of Saint Sebastian.

Saint John of the Cross, El Carmen Museum.


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Eastern missions declined; they had lessproperty; and, to top off all their difficul-ties, their parish was secularized in 1754,leaving them only the hospice for themissionaries of the East and no contactwith the population. A gradual but irre-sistable change was taking place in thetown’s name; slowly the name “SanJacinto Tenanitla” was forgotten and“San Angel” came into use. At the sametime, the economic boom that camewith the Carmelites meant that the ham-let stopped being considered a neighbor-hood of Coyoacán and began to be con-

sidered a town in its own right. The rec-ognized border was an accident ofnature, the Magdalena River. San Angelwas emerging as a town made prosper-ous by its vegetable fields and orchards,with its summer houses surrounded byspacious gardens, encircled by otherhamlets, haciendas and the Pedregal. Thisprosperity was characteristic of the eigh-teenth century.

Liberalism emerged at the end of theeigh teenth century as a result of the En -light enment. Carlos IV’s royal decree of1804 deprived the clergy of much of its

economic wealth and influence, but thiswas only the first indication of the whirl-winds that were to come. Inde pendencebrought significant changes. With thefederal Constitution of 1824, San Angelbecame a municipality of the State ofMexico, ending all political links to Co -yoa cán. When in 1828 the law was passedexpelling the Spanish, the Carmelites real -ized their future was uncertain. The fewreligious who remained in San Angelwere those born in Mexico and a few illor incapacitated Spaniards.

During the first attempted reformunder Valentín Gómez Farías in 1833, theSan Angel Carmelites sold some propertyto avoid a debacle in their entire province.The vegetable fields and orchards weresaved, but their income dropped signifi -can t ly, and with it, the livelihoods of manyof those who depended on them. Otherprob lems came that checked the town’sprosperity: the continual coup d’états andthe political changes they brought withthem, the foreign wars of 1836 and 1838,the shifts resulting from political divisionand the chronic scarcity of public funds toname just a few. The main stage of the finalphase of the war against the United States(1846-1848) was the Valley of Mexico.The battle at the Padierna Ranch and itscontinuation, the assault on ChurubuscoAugust 19 and 20, 1847, were two furtherdefeats for the Mexicans, in addition tothe occupation of San Angel for severalmonths. This period did a lot of damage tothe population; the invading troops sackedand destroyed property and abused theinhabitants. The college was a favorite tar-get, while the little San Jacinto monasterywas used to jail the foreign soldiers of theSaint Patrick’s Battalion and then to carryout their sentences.2

The former Goicoechea hacienda was converted into one of San Angel’s most exclusive restaurants.

San Angel and Contreras in a nineteenth-century oil painting by José María Velasco.


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The Liberal reform brought othercalamities. In 1856, Friar Rafael del Sa -gra do Corazón Checa, the last rector of theCarmelite college, divided up and sold partof the vegetable garden and orchard to pri -vate buyers; these lots were used for newhouses that changed the appearance ofthe heart of San Angel. Finally, as a resultof the laws of 1859 the San Angel Collegeno longer belonged to the friars and theirgarden and orchard were sold to a privateindividual. The church remained openfor worship; the college was managed bythe local authorities and the garden and

orchard continued to be worked. Thingswould not stay like that for long, however.

The college began to fall into disre-pair: one part of it was used to housetroops and police, another as a municipaljail. Still other parts were torn down toput in new streets, or divided up into lotsand sold off. This turbulent period washarmful to the town that one way oranother was linked to the Carmelites.

Some peace and progress did exist,however. Although the deplorable state ofthe roads made using it a torment, stageservice between Mexico City and San

Angel was established in the second halfof the nineteenth century, with a house inthe Carmen Plaza as its terminal. When in1865 it became known that the Valley ofMexico Circle Railroad Line would extendto San Angel, people hoped for bettertransportation service. The day the railroadline from Tacubaya to San Angel was inau-gurated in July 1866 was the only timeEmperor Maximilian and Empress Carlotaever visited San Angel. The steam locomo-tive sped urbanization of the area, and itbecame possible to travel comfortablyfrom the city.

Amazingly enough, sunsets like this one can still be enjoyed in San Angel.


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The railroad also facilitated the area’sindustrialization. In the nineteenth cen-tury, the old workshops and fulling millsfrom the colonial period gave way to newtextile factories that continued to use theRiver Magdalena’s waters. Although itonly reached Tizapán, the project of con-tinuing the Valley Railway to Contreraswas undertaken, demolishing part of theold Carmelite buildings in its wake.

The dawn of the twentieth centurybrought more changes to the town.Electric streetcars came in 1901, makingpas senger and freight transportationcheaper and easier. The streetcar lineswere flanked on both sides by cornfields, flowering hillsides and vegetablegardens and orchards, but soon, the newsettlements began to fill with people. TheGoicoechea hacienda, as well as the Gua - dalupe hacienda and San José Ranch, weredivided up to make way for the new SanAngel Inn neighborhood. The old Car m -e lite vegetable garden and orchard final-ly gave way to the push of progress whenit was divided and sold off to private buyersbeginning in 1906. And then, suddenly,automobiles made their appearance.

The incipient industrial transforma-tion of the nineteenth century sped upwith the new means of transportation.One of the textile factories, the OurLady of Loreto Plant, was refitted to pro-duce paper instead of fabric, thanks tothe enterprising Don Alberto Lenz.Tizapán became an offshoot of SanAngel, but with a difference: its inhabi-tants depended more on manufacturingthan on agriculture. Workers floodedTizapán and San Angel, changing thelocal social structure.

Despite the transformations, SanAngel stuck tenaciously to its tradition of

being a summering place. The new cen-tury brought with it a rather differentambiance to San Angel due to the facto-ries, the streetcars, the automobiles andthe new neighborhoods, but the flavor ofa provincial town and a place for spiritu-al and physical renovation remained.

And just when everything was peace-ful came the Revolution. This period hadno important direct repercussions in SanAngel until the clash between Zapataand Carranza. Zapatista forces belea-guered the south and west ends of thevalley and at one point took San Angel in1916. But despite the overall remotenessof the armed conflict, the general politi-cal situation gravely affected normal lifein the town.

Culminating the revolutionary periodwas the 1917 Constitution and the laterattempts by Presidents Alvaro Obregónand Plutarco Elías Calles to implementit to the letter. The result was the break-out of the religious conflict that led tothe closing of the churches between1926 and 1929.

Finally, something unexpected hap-pened in San Angel’s Bombilla Res -taurant: Alvaro Obregón, president-electfor a second term, was assassinated thereby José León Toral. León was taken tothe local jail, situated on part of whathad been the Carmelite college, wherehe was imprisoned together with thenun, Concepción de la Llata, or MotherConchita, also charged with the assassi-nation, and they were tried in the localmunicipal building. The affair put theold town in the national spotlight andsparked rapid changes.3

San Angel was a town in the environsof Mexico City. Today, it is part of it, and,as such, shares both its defects and its

virtues. It has this process of assimilationin common with many other parts of thecity that used to be individual towns:Coyoacán, Tlalpan, Tacuba, Tacubaya,Mixcoac, Xochimilco, Azcapotzalco andothers. Despite their similarities, howev-er, it had its own traits that made itunique. The purpose of this article hasbeen precisely to give the reader anoverview of how those traits have devel-oped from the remote past to the twenti-eth century. No one can appreciate whathe or she is not familiar with.

Now, when you return from south-west Mexico City, remember the wordsof Justo Sierra, “Imagine! I’ve just beento San Angel!”

Photography: Luis A. Aguilar

NOTES

1 Justo Sierra, Obras completas. Prosa literaria, vol. 2(Mexico City: UNAM, 1977), p. 394.

2 See the article by Jim Fogarty about the battalion inthe “History” section of this issue of Voices of Mexico.

3 María García Lascuráin deals with this process inher article in this issue.

FURTHER READING

Abundis Canales, Jaime, Antiguo colegio carmelita deSan Angel. Museo de El Carmen (Mexico City:Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Histo -ria/Museo de El Carmen, 1992).

_________ “El Colegio de San Angel: árbol fructíferoy ejemplar del Carmelo mexicano,” Historia de unhuerto. Historia de la colonia Huerta del Carmen,San Angel, D.F. (Mexico City: Centro de Es -tudios de Historia de México Con dumex/ De -legación Alvaro Obregón, 1992), pp. 31-55.

Correa Duró, Ethel and Roberto Zavala Ruiz, Re cuen -to mínimo del Carmen descalzo en México. De laantigüedad a nuestros días (Mexico City: InstitutoNacional de Antropología e Historia, 1988).

Fernández del Castillo, Francisco, Apuntes para la his-toria de San Angel y sus alrededores (San JacintoTenanitla); tradiciones, historia y leyendas (MexicoCity: Editores Porrúa, 1987).

abundis3. san angel

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