Zapopan

• 1. Introduction

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  Zapopan is a city in the Mexican state of Jalisco whose name translates, quite literally, as "among the sapote trees." That name comes from the Nahuatl word tzapotl, and it points to a place shaped as much by what grew from its soil as by the people who settled it. Today Zapopan is the most populous municipality in all of Jalisco, and it ranks seventh in Mexico. Yet centuries ago it was a small settlement in decline, caught between warring nomadic tribes, until a single statue of the Virgin Mary arrived and changed everything. How did a modest colonial outpost become a sprawling metropolis of over a million people? And what does a 16th-century corn-stalk figurine have to do with any of it? Those are the questions this story sets out to answer.

• 2. Before the Spanish Arrived

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  Between 1160 and 1325, groups including Zapotec, Nahua, and Maya peoples migrated into the Zapopan area from the south, drawn toward the ravines and arroyos of the region. Over generations they intermingled with later arrivals, including the Aztecs, but the dominant local group was the Tecuexes, still called "Tecos" today. Small religious shrines known as cues dotted the landscape, built primarily for the worship of the sun. The deity Teoplitzintli, connected with maize, held particular importance. By the time the Spanish arrived, however, the settlement of Tzapopan had shrunk. Wars with surrounding nomadic tribes had eroded its population, and it sat in a subordinate political position, under the authority of the Atemajac, which itself answered to the Hueytlatoanazgo of Tonalá. Some historians actually dispute that a formal pre-Hispanic settlement existed at the precise site of modern Zapopan at all, noting that unlike nearby Ixcatán, Tesistán, and Tónala, Tzapopan goes unmentioned in contemporary documents. The people who lived in the area subsisted on maize, beans, fruits, hunting, and fishing. That reliance on corn would eventually give the place another name: ex Villa Maicera, the former corn village.

• 3. A Statue and a Founding

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  On the 8th of December 1541, friars Antonio de Segovia and Ángel of Valencia placed an image of the Virgin Mary in the settlement of Zapopan. That date marks what the region now treats as its formal founding. The friar Miguel de Bolonia had carried the statue there with it tied to his body. The image itself is remarkably small, only 34 cm tall, and was made in Michoacán by native artisans from corn stalks, known in Spanish as caña de maíz. Only her hands are made of wood. The timing of the statue's arrival was no accident. The Mixtón War had just ended in 1541, and Francisco de Bobadilla, an encomendero from the region of Tlaltenango, relocated approximately 130 Indigenous people from his lands to resettle the area and stabilize it after the conflict. The statue came with them, and colonial authorities intentionally positioned it at a site that had already been a common religious gathering place for local leaders. The strategy of replacing indigenous sacred sites with Christian imagery was standard colonial practice. Construction of a proper sanctuary to house the image began in 1689, and the present basilica was completed in 1892. The statue, however, had been accumulating a remarkable biography long before the basilica was finished.

• 4. La Generala

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  Tradition holds that the Virgin of Zapopan played a role in ending the Mixtón War in the 16th century, and that she was associated with relief from epidemics that swept through Guadalajara in the 17th century. In 1734, the image was named the patron of Guadalajara and designated the protector against epidemics, storms, and other calamities. What followed from that designation was an annual procession that continues to this day. Every year on the 12th of October, starting at 6 am, the image is carried from the Guadalajara Cathedral to the Basilica of Zapopan along streets packed with traditional dancers, mariachi bands, vendors selling food, and thousands of spectators. Traditional dances performed along the route include Los Tastoanes, La Danza del Águila Real, La Conquista, and Los Huehuenches. The statue also carries a military title: in 1821 she was named "La Generala," the General of the Army of the Three Guarantees. That title was formally ratified in 1852 and again in 1894 by both federal and state governments. In 1919, Pope Benedict XV crowned her Queen of Jalisco. Pope Pius XII designated the church a basilica in 1940, and Pope John Paul II visited in 1979. His bronze likeness now stands in the basilica's atrium, depicted with a child dressed as a charro, representing Jalisco.

• 5. The Basilica and Its Walls

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  The Basilica of Zapopan's facade is Plateresque, a style blending Spanish Gothic with early Renaissance ornamentation, and its entrances are flanked by Ionic columns. The main altar inside is made of marble from Carrara and Cyprus, with the statue of the Virgin displayed in a glass case at the top. A sculpture of the Holy Family, created by Victoriano Acuña, has been in the church since 1832. Parts of the basilica building now hold two museums: one dedicated to the Huichol people's art and culture, with displays also covering the Tepehuán and Cora peoples, and one dedicated to the Virgin herself, where centuries of offerings, mantles of silver and gold thread, and ancient paintings are on display. A 17th-century painting called "The Baptism of Jesus," attributed to Juan Correa, hangs in the nearby Temple of San Pedro Apóstol, a Neoclassical church completed at the end of the 19th century. Inside that same temple is a sculpture of Saint Peter by J. Cruz de la Mora, a native of Zapopan, completed in 1931. The atrium of the basilica also contains bronze statues of Antonio de Segovia, the friar who donated the Virgin's image in the 16th century. The municipal seal, designed by José Trinidad Laris in 1941, was created to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Zapopan's founding, and it depicts the zapote tree from which the city takes its name.

• 6. From Villa to City

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  On the 27th of March 1824, under the newly proclaimed Free State of Jalisco, Zapopan was designated a state department and its settlement formally recognized as a villa. The state of Jalisco had been proclaimed on the 21st of June 1823, following the collapse of the brief imperial government of New Spain. Zapopan was attached to the first Canton of the state, with Guadalajara as its administrative head. A territorial reform on the 6th of April 1837 absorbed Zapopan into the Guadalajara District, though a reorganization in 1846 restored its department status. An event at La Mojonera Ranch on the 28th of January 1873 brought the wider region into sharp relief: General Ramón Corona fought rebel forces there led by Manuel Lozada, known as "El Tigre de Álica." That battle now gives the site its name, the Battle of La Mojonera. Municipalities became the primary territorial unit of Mexico in 1914, and the 1917 Political Constitution of Jalisco established Zapopan as a free municipality. Its population in 1950 stood at 27,115. Within ten years that figure had doubled to 54,562. By 1970 it had tripled again to 163,185. The growth rate during the 1970s alone was 238.5%, bringing the population to 389,081 by 1980. By 2000, it had exceeded one million. State decree 14358, issued on the 7th of December 1994, formally elevated Zapopan from a villa to a ciudad, a city.

• 7. A City of Many Layers

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  Major corporations including Intel, Grupo Bimbo, Kodak, Motorola, Jaguar Cars, Flextronics, and Coca-Cola all maintain facilities in Zapopan. About one-third of the population works in industry and manufacturing, while agriculture, despite covering roughly three-quarters of the municipality's land, employs less than three percent of its people. The principal crops are corn, sorghum, squash, tomatoes, chickpeas, avocados, mangos, and plums. The municipality is bordered by nine other municipalities including Tequila to the northwest and Guadalajara to the east, and it governs roughly 750 communities across a territory of 893.15 km2, with close to ninety percent of residents living in the city proper. Natural attractions outside the urban core include the La Cola de Caballo waterfall, which drops 150 m as part of the Blanco Arroyo, and the Geysers of Ixcatan, a geothermic zone where geysers shoot water at 45 degrees Celsius as high as 5 m. The Bosque de la Primavera covers 30,500 hectares over the Sierra de la Primavera. Archaeologically, the site of Ixtépete contains a Teotihuacan-style pyramid that measures 20 m long by 16 m wide and 1.83 m high, with construction phases running from the fifth century to the tenth century. In May 2009, construction workers doing maintenance work at Ciudad Granja uncovered pre-Hispanic objects including a pot, a vase, and anthropomorphic figures belonging to the Shaft Tombs Tradition, which developed in western Mexico between 100 BCE and 500 CE.