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A French Traveler in Mexico in 1768: The Journey of the Vicomte de pages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Edwin A. Davis*
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Abstract

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Type
Documents
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1954

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References

1 Biographie Universelle, 45 tomes (Paris, 1842–1865), XXXI, 612. See also Monsieur De Pages, Travels Round the World, in the years 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 3 tomes (London, 1793), I, 2.

2 Pages, Travels Round the World, I, 5.

3 Biographie Universelle, XXXI, 612.

4 Pages, Travels Round the World, I, 5–6.

5 Pages, op. cit., I, vi.

6 Pages, op. cit., I, v.

7 Biographical sketches of Pages will be found in: Biographie Universelle, XXXI, 612; Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, 70 tomes (Barcelona, n. d.), XL, 1487–1488; La Grande Encyclopedie, 31 tomes (Paris, n.d.), XXV, 791; Nouvelle Biographie Generale, 46 tomes (Paris, 1862), XXXIX, 42–43.

8 Pages crossed the Rio Bravo at the village of Rheda, which was some twenty or twenty-five kilometros above the present town of Nuevo Laredo, on the north bank of the river.

9 He referred to the Sierra Madre Oriental, which runs in a northwesterly direction, and probably more particularly to the Sierras de la Iguana, de la Santa Clara, de Pichachos and de Papagallos.

10 The Río Salado empties into the Río Bravo about seventy kilometros south of Nuevo Laredo. The Río Sabinas flows into the Río Salado some thirty kilometros above its mouth.

11 There are several hot springs in the state of Nuevo León.

12 He probably referred to the zorrilla.

13 He may have meant the zarigueya.

14 Probably small mining villages in the vicinity of the Sierra Minas Viejas, some fifty or sixty kilometros northwest of Monterrey.

15 Small villages northwest of Monterrey.

16 Apparently a large mesa, large enough for grazing cattle in some numbers.

17 A village north of Saltillo.

18 He probably referred to the Rio Salinas.

19 He probably meant the town of Saltillo, which had been founded in 1586, partly by the Tlascaltecs, and aided by the Jesuits.

20 He probably referred to the Tlascaltecs, originally from the vicinity of Tlascala.

21 A long-bladed hunting knife.

22 Provinces lying west and east of Saltillo.

23 Tampico.

24 Charcas was about eighty kilometros north of San Luis Potosí.

25 The Manila galleon usually arrived at Acapulco in either December or January and departed on its return voyage in March. Delay after April 1 exposed it to contrary winds.

26 Pages may have referred to the present-day village of Venado, about twenty-five kilometros south of Charcas.

27 This was a common punishment for the offense at that time. The insurrection was probably caused by the stern, harsh measures of the Viceroy, José de Gálvez.

28 Banishment from the native city or locality and exile to a distant area was practiced during the entire colonial period.

29 San Luis Potosí had been founded in 1576 by Don Luis de Leixa. The friar Diego de la Magdalena is also claimed as its founder. Twenty years after the visit of Pages it had a population of about 22,000.

30 The rich mines of San Luis Potosí had been discovered about the middle of the sixteenth century.

31 Guadalajara had been founded during the early 1530’s by Don Juan de Oñate. Its coat of arms had been granted by the king in 1529.

32 Zacatecas had been founded about 1546. The first municipal houses were built in 1559.

33 San Miguel el Grande, now San Miguel Allende, had been founded in 1552 by Captain-general San Luis de Montañez, a Christianized Otomi cacique.

34 Pages probably referred to Querétaro, which had been founded about 1551 by the Christian Otomi cacique, Don Fernando de Tapia, who was one of the Captains of San Luis de Montañez. The town had been an old Aztec fortification and outpost against the Chichimecas.

35 San Juan del Rio was originally a Chichimecan village. It was first occupied by Fernando de Tapia in 1531.

36 It had been created a town in 1751.

37 In 1768 Juan Manuel de San Vicente gave the city’s population as 140,000; over thirty years later Humboldt estimated its population at 137,000.

38 Pages probably referred to the Parian, located in the southwest portion of the Zócalo. The building had been completed in 1757 by Don Juan de Dios de Medina, and was torn down in 1843 by Santa Ana in order to beautify the Zócalo.

39 Pages probably referred to the Yaqui, and their kinsmen the Apaches. It has been said that the Yaqui was the only tribe of North American Indians that was never conquered.

40 Pages may have been writing of the mines near the present town of Prietas, in Sonora.

41 Matanchel was a Pacific port west and a little south of Guadalajara.

42 The road to Acapulco had been opened by the Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco in 1592. The section north of Taxco was considerably improved during the eighteenth century by Don José de la Borda.

43 Pages probably referred to the village of Ajusco, a few kilometros south of San Augustin de las Cuevas, present-day Tlalpam, on the road to Cuernavaca.

44 The Spanish city dated from 1529.

45 Taxco was an old Indian town, and was first occupied by the Spanish in 1521 or 1522. The colonial road to Acapulco missed Taxco, going through Jocolotha, which lay a few kilometros southeast.

46 A village just north of the present-day town of Mexcala.

47 Chilpancingo had been founded about 1750. The First Mexican Congress was later to meet there in 1813.

48 Acapulco had been founded in 1550 by Don Fernando Anna. At the time of the visit of Pages it was Mexico’s most important Pacific port.

49 Sonsonate lay south of Acapulco in what is now the Republic of El Salvador.

50 San José lay at the southern end of Baja California, a few kilometros east of Cape San Lucas.

51 Acapulco had been almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1732. The tremors mentioned by Pages were of a minor nature.

52 During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Acapulco fair, held during January and February, was one of the most important fairs in New Spain.

53 Pages landed in the Philippines, south of Cape Spiritu-Santo, on August 1. Owing to contrary winds he did not reach Manila until October 15.