Just ask Mrs. Lisk
Did he even study for this exam? (c) Gwyn’s History School Report, 1988
The sad thing is I did. Anyroad, I’ve been all over the interweb and in and out of books researching the history of the Royal Inland Road and also listening to the Top of the Pods podcast (I even got me name read out on it the other day. And it has upwards of 1600 listeners…). So here is the natural conjunction of those two pasttimes: my
Top 10 historical things I’ve learnt about El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro:
10. The whole thing about Moctezuma thinking (Conquistador) Cortes was Quetzalcoatl- their lightning god- returning was probably a convenient myth made up by the priests to showcase once again that God was a Spaniard.
9 Guadalajara was founded in 4 separate places. Injuns was the usual excuse for upping camp and starting again down the road.
8 Guadalajara is named after renowned sadist/explorer Nuo de Guzmán’s home town in Spain.
7 Nomadic Indians were a lot harder to fight than the settled ones, hence the 40+ year Chichimeca War from 1550 to 1590ish. ‘Chichimeca’ is what the Aztecs (not the most peace-loving of nations) named them. It means, depending on which source you use, ‘of dog lineage’, ‘language of dogs’, ‘dog people’. Basically sons of bitches…
6 The camino was originally used for sucking all the mineral wealth out of Zacatecas and surrounding area and supplying them with vittles from Guadalajara. Cos the land round them parts weren’t none too fertile.
5 The Chichimecas found it very easy to attack these convoys and used their impressive bow and arrow skills to take out the muleteers and who they reckoned were atrespassin’ on their land. Hence the swift change of route to go via San Miguel de Allende to Mexico City and stay well away from Gwod.
4 The Chichmecas only started playing nicely when the Spanish/Mestizos stopped attacking and enslaving them and started trading trinkets and baubles instead. Half Chichimeca/ half Spanish Miguel Caldera spearheaded the operation of ‘Paz por compra’ (peace by purchase) which replaced the previous tactics of ‘Guerra a sangre y fuego’ (War of blood and fire, or more roughly, shock and awe…)
3 Juan de Oate extended the route from Zacatecas up to Santa Fe, New Mexico once the Chichimecas had calmed down a bit. But he still had troubles when he had to finance the whole thing and there wasn’t much in the way of gold/ silver/ docile natives to find. His brutal reprisals in Acoma at his mutinous men and indignant indigenous peeps by cutting off feet and suchlike made him few friends, even the Spanish Virreyes stripped him of all kinds of titles and fined him.
2 The Camino Real was later important for all kinds of historic events. Which I’m still getting to… Independence, Revolution, Cristero War. And ting.
1 Wikipedia is more useful than any other site on the interweb for historical research. If I earned a living wage, I’d donate… I read the founder’s personal appeal, and he says it’s there for ‘the child in Africa who is going to use free textbooks and reference works produced by our community and find a solution to the crushing poverty that surrounds him.” And I’m sure if he’d pondered it further, he’d have continued ‘and impoverished Brits trying to research background material for a documentary of trinational importance in Mexico”.
And also, thanks, Amy, the latest Guestmappee who’s no longer in manateeville but NYC with a predilectation for audience participation in Comedy Central satirical news shows.