Churubusco
Churubusco is a district of Mexico City . The name Churubusco is an interpretation of the Spanish conquistadors . In the language of the Aztecs ( Nahuatl ) the place was called Huītzilōpōchco, so place of the Huitzilopochtli .
history
In pre-Hispanic times, Huitzilopochco was an independent town and was located on an island in Lake Texcoco . Together with Mexicaltzinco and Ixtapalapa as well as the main town of Culhuacan, it formed the dominion zone of the Colhua . Huitzilopochco (colonial: San Mateo) included the smaller districts of Ahuehuetitlan (San Miguel), Atlauhco, Cotzotlan (San Pedro), Huecohuacan (San Juan), Chilac, Pochtlan (Santa María delos Angeles), Teopanzolco, Tzapotlan, Xcalco and., Aticpacco Tepetocan. The important sanctuary of Huitzilopochtli, which gives the place its name, was in Teopanzolco ( Nahuatl : where the old / great temple stands). The causeway, which connected Tenochtitlan , the capital of the Aztecs, with the mainland in the south, ran over the island of Huitzilopochco .
The first known ruler of the city was Huitzilatzin , a grandson of Huitzilíhuitl . At that time, the city had around 15,000 residents who made their living growing fruit, flowers, extracting salt from Lake Texcoco, and processing hummingbird feathers .
When Hernán Cortés besieged Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Aztec city of Huitzilopochco was razed to the ground. Cortés awarded the encomienda to the conquistador Bernardino Vázquez de Tapia , the author of a report on the events of the conquest, in whose family the encomienda remained with a brief interruption. Since 1580 the Franciscans have built a monastery on the island in Pochtlan using the stones from the destroyed Huitzilopochtli temple.
On August 20, 1847 there was a battle between General Winfield Scott and General Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Mexican-American War .
Under President Benito Juárez , the monastery was taken over by the state in 1869 and a hospital for infectious diseases was set up. In 1917 work began on converting the former monastery into a museum , which was opened in 1921. The theme of the museum is the armed intervention of foreign powers in Mexico from 1829 to 1916. The Franciscan monastery has also been made accessible again and contains an important collection of sacred art from the 17th and 18th centuries. There the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia also maintains the National School for Conservation, Restoration and Museography.
When Mexico City expanded in the middle of the 20th century, the place Churubusco was enclosed by the capital and became a district. Today Churubusco is located in the south of the capital district and belongs to the Coyoacán district .
Web links
- Battle of Churubusco (engl.)
- Museum Churubusco (span.) ( Memento from May 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 19 ° 21 ′ N , 99 ° 9 ′ W