Down Through History

The Nobility of Mazatlan

Text: Mario Martini

Not much time passed before the profits of the Mazatlan mercantile paradise became mining exploitation.  Almost all the Spanish, German and USA business men had stores at the mining centers.

By 1875 the German firm of Wohler-Bartning was the owner of the 10 most productive mines of Copala and San Jose de Gracia.  The Melcher family exploited the mines of El Rosario, San Dimas, Contra Estaca, Palmarejo, Las Rastras and some of the mines of San Jose de Gracia and Santa Gertrudis.  The Felton family from North America was proprietor of the mining funds of Concordia and some in Copala.  In 1860 the Echeguren family bought the mines of Guadalupe de los Reyes, the most productive in the area.  In fact, Pedro Echeguren was the main financer of the building of the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception downtown.

If the abundance of commerce had made some foreigners rich, mining was the divine touch that made the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Just a few families controlled mining and commerce and this meant that the elite could decide the immediate future of Mazatlan and the state.  They could dictate the economic direction, amplify labor, squash social squabbles, take down governments or impose fiscal political controls.  Some historians find the age old rivalry between Culiacan and Mazatlan as the root of this position of privilege.

“On January 1, 1852 colonel Francisco de la Vega, head of the De la Vega family of Culiacan, took possession of the government.  They had on various occasions openly confronted the merchants of Mazatlan.  Both factions accused each other of smuggling in the ports of Mazatlan and Altata, the port closest to Culiacan.  Once he became governor, de la Vega pretended to establish fiscal reforms designed to substitute the town governments in the interior of the state by imposing a tax that would be charged to the businessmen.  The application of this tax provoked disturbances in Mazatlan that were openly promoted by the businessmen.”

This imposition sparked a rebellion by merchants that ended in a military uprising commanded by Captain Pedro Valdes.  On July 11 they took the headquarters of the federal garrison in Mazatlan and the government house by storm, taking de la Vega and General Ramon Morales prisoner.

“Being prisoner, the governor was obligated to negotiate for his life and left all financial resources and arms in the hands of Valdes and retired to Culiacan.  General Santa Anna (leader of the country) recognized Valdes and initiated a campaign under the command of General Antonio Grosso that went to Culiacan and defeated Colonel de la Vega.  After this, Valdes transferred state powers to Mazatlan.”

To be continued