Solitude In The Sierra Norte
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007In search of a little alone time yesterday, I drove 40 miles (but two hours) north of Oaxaca City up into lush, pine-clad crests descending deep into river canyons to the Sierra Juarez, the birth-land of Benito Juarez, Oaxaca’s beloved favorite son.
Born in 1806 in the municipio of San Pablo Guelatao in the village of Santo Tomas Ixtlan, his parents died tragically when Benito was three. His uncle took him in and his childhood was spent mostly herding his uncle’s flocks in the surrounding hills. But Benito left for Oaxaca city in 1818 to live with his sister in the genteel, well-to-do Maza family where his sister worked as a cook. He gained exposure to music, books, politics and people that was not possible for a poor boy in the country. He ended up studying law and eventually entered politics…rising from state to federal legislator, then Supreme Court judge, and finally was unanimously elected governor by Oaxaca’s legislature in 1849. He was elected Mexico’s president for three terms…interrupted first by civil war and then by the French Intervention. He toiled day and night to realize his dreams for Mexico but died “from exhaustion” in 1872.
I stopped in nearby Ixtlan de Juarez, quickly perused the small rotating Monday market but skipped the huge baroque church built with fortunes made with slave labor growing cochineal (used to make the magnificent red dye) where I would have seen this:
[read on]
Zoe