Mexico and Its Religion / With Incidents of Travel in That Country During Parts of the Years 1851-52-53-54, and Historical Notices of Events Connected With Places Visited

by Robert Anderson Wilson

THE AMERICAN CEMETERY.

Adjoining the English cemetery on the south side is the American burying-ground, which has been established since the war, where have been collected the remains of 750 Americans, that died or were killed at Mexico, and a neat monument has been erected over them. Here Americans that die henceforth in that city can be buried. An appropriation of $500 a year would make this more attractive than the English cemetery, but the place has been wholly neglected by Congress since that worthy man, the Rev. G. G. Goss, completed his labors. There is a pleasure in observing the natural affinities which, in foreign countries, draw close together these two branches of the Anglo-Saxon family. A common language and a common religion overmaster political differences, and the English and American dead are laid side by side to rest until the judgment. At the south of the American cemetery is a vacant lot, which the King of Prussia should purchase, so that the Germans may no longer be dependent on Americans for a burying-place, and that the three great Protestant powers of the world may here, as they every where should, be drawn close together.

MONUMENT TO THE AMERICANS.

Tacuba is a very small village, and is not in any wise noted except for an immense cypress-tree, that must have been a wonder even in the time of Cortéz. Tacuba has the historical notoriety of being the place where hostilities first broke out between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, and the spot where the night retreat of the latter terminated. Here the land is quite fertile, and a little way from the village are several water-mills, where the grain raised in this part of the valley is ground into flour.

THE VIRGIN OF REMEDIES.

A little way beyond Tacuba is the hill and temple of the Virgin of Remedies. It was upon this hill, within the inclosure of an Indian mound, that the retreating party of Cortéz made their first bivouac, and built fires and dressed their wounds. Hence they gave to the hill the name of Remedios, and the church afterward erected was dedicated to our Lady of Remedies. Diaz tells us that it became very celebrated in his time. The story about Cortéz finding a broken-nosed image in the knapsack of one of his soldiers is not mentioned either by himself or Bernal Diaz, and must therefore be an afterthought, to give plausibility to a subsequent imposition. From this point Cortéz and his party, without their women or treasures, trudged along to the foot of the hills to Tepeac, or Guadalupe, and thence around the foot of Tezcuco to the plains of Otumba.

The story is, that while Cortéz and his men were resting here, a soldier took from his knapsack an image, with nose broken and an eye wanting, which Cortéz made the patron saint of the expedition, and held it up to their adoration, and that this little incident so encouraged the men that they started off with renewed vigor. The whole of this story is probably a very silly modern invention. The bulk of the forces of Cortéz was most probably composed of that class of reprobates that to this day can be found about almost any of the West India sea-ports, ready for any enterprise, however hazardous. They have no religion; they are not even superstitious, but yield a nominal acquiescence to the forms of the Catholic religion. Cortéz speaks often of his efforts to effect the conversion of the Indians, but it is in such a business sort of way as to lead to the impression, that it was all done to make an impression at home, but was really a matter that he did not care much about. The famous image, according to the current story, disappeared soon after the Conquest, but was found about 150 years afterward in a maguey plant, and was as much dilapidated as if it had been exposed to the weather for the whole of that century and a half.

Such, in substance, is the tradition of the Virgin of Remedies, who for a century divided with the Virgin of Guadalupe the adoration of the people in the most amicable manner. But when the insurrection of 1810 broke out, these two virgins parted company. "Viva the Virgin of Guadalupe!" became the war-cry of the unsuccessful rebels, while "Viva the Lady of Remedies!" was shouted back by the conquering forces of the king. The Lady of Guadalupe became suspected of insurrectionary propensities, while all honors were lavished upon the Lady of Remedies by those who wished to make protestations of their loyalty. Pearls, money, and jewels were bestowed upon her by the nobility and the Spanish merchants; and as one insurrectionary leader after another was totally defeated, the conquering generals returned to lay their trophies at the feet of the Lady of Remedies, to whose interposition the victory was ascribed. They carried her in triumphant procession through the streets of Mexico, singing a laudamus. Then it was that the Lady of Remedies was at the zenith of her glory. Her person was refulgent with a blaze of jewels, and her temple was like that of Diana of Ephesus, and all about the hill on which it stood bore marks of the greatest prosperity.

RISE AND FALL OF THE VIRGIN.