History With Lime and Salt – Part 4

…Or so they thought!

I am writing this chapter on Holy Saturday, 2020. This is more than a fortunate coincidence, as today marks the 495th anniversary of the Spaniard expedition led by Cortés de San Buenaventura, reaching what we now know as El Tuito.

So it was Holy Saturday (April 8 th : OK, I played with the dates) of 1525, and a bunch of raggedy conquistadors had just crossed the hills alongside the Pacific Ocean in what is now known as Mismaloya, arriving in a town not far away from today’s El Tuito. Sadly, both chroniclers and historians seem to miss the name of that town. Why is this important? Because of what they saw on arrival: they were received by a very strange procession of natives. They were walking behind a very large wooden cross, all of them were donning tonsures (the friars’ stylish haircuts) and, amazingly, the chieftain was wearing a tattered white habit of the Dominican order! Imagine the surprise!

Once again, this encounter was registered in a very succinct manner. I would have thought that the priests in the expedition would have written extensive notes on heresies. However, the chroniclers just point out that, on inquiry, the natives said that some time before, strangers arrived in that land, and they showed an old anchor and some nails. The natives learned how to make crowns (what kind of crowns?) and crosses from them, and, eventually, they killed them as they were “trying to enslave them and change their way of life”.

There is nothing else about the subject in many of the rather limited sources I consulted. After all, I am not married to History with a capital H, I am just her lover, and I don’t pretend to dwell into the finer points of the very hard work that is done by true historians. My not-so-educated guess is that, as there were no Spanish ports in the Mexican Pacific coast at the time, the missionaries must have come from Central America, probably Panama, as this was the oldest settlement in this coast of the world. Who were they? Why did they choose to land in such a rocky coast? Why didn’t they prosper? All of these questions are beyond my abilities and are best left to professional historians.

As we leave the Spaniards for now, let me just add a personal note, far from the realms of foggy history and back to our time and age. The commitment that the expat community, the core constituency of this site, has shown towards Bucerías, La Cruz and all the Bay area is truly commendable. For those of you who have made a home in this land, by taking care of your employees, and by staying home (I wish there was a good translation for Susana Distancia!), you have done a great service to this country and your community, and you have proven that despite the color on the cover of your passport, you are Mexicans who just happen to speak another language, and who we are immensely lucky to count as our brothers and sisters.
So please, stay safe, and we’ll be back next week.