Exploring Old Jalisco: The ruins of a mysterious hacienda

The hacienda's capilla is framed by the the old carriage gate. Finding this old site was an unexpected treat. After we left Hacienda La Capilla, we headed for Hacienda Vieja del Castillo, another site I had previously visited and photographed. Unfortunately, I missed the turn and we ended up approaching from the north rather than the west. I asked my cousin Terry to use her GPS to guide us. When we breezed right by the correct turnoff, I was really confused. However, Terry was confident she had it right. Soon, we turned down a side road and found the ruins of an old hacienda. However, it wasn't Hacienda Vieja del Castillo!

This site is not in any of my hacienda research materials and its identity stumped me. The ruins are very near to an old railroad station marked El Castillo. In addition, the name of a nearby church is San José del Castillo. Since churches and railroad stations were often closely associated with old haciendas, the most likely name for this mysterious site is Hacienda San José del Castillo. If anyone out there can supply a more accurate title for the site, please do so. In the mean time, that is the name I will use. To find the site on a Google map, click here.

Part of the casco wall that once surrounded the site. As I noted in my last posting, the casco is the nerve center of a hacienda. Its walls protect the casa grande (big house) which is both the residence of the hacendado (owner) and the headquarters of the whole operation. The casco wall seen above is adobe except for some red bricks which are set along the top. Nearly all the other structures we examined are also adobe. This indicates that the site may be quite old, possibly dating back to the 18th century or even earlier. It wasn't until the 19th century that red brick became a common building material in haciendas.

A hacendado seated on a fine horse declines a drink offered by a subordinate. A demure, well-dressed female stands nearby. I thought it might be difficult for some people to relate to a site completely in ruins. So, I searched my hacienda photo files for old paintings and photos showing the sort of people who would have lived and worked at a place like this. Seated on his spirited white horse, the hacendado wears a broad-brimmed sombrero, a serape, and sharp Mexican spurs on his boots. The woman, probably a member of his family, wears a blue rebozo (shawl) and skirt with multiple petticoats. Their clothing places the scene somewhere in the 19th century. (Photo from mural at Hacienda Buena Vista, in Michoacan).


The Chapels, New & Old

The new capilla (chapel) stands just outside the casco wall. "New" is a relative term. I would guess that this structure was built in the late 19th to early 20th century. It is possible that the hacendado felt the old capilla was too small or dilapidated. It may also be that he wanted to use the old capilla structure for some other purpose.

There is still another possibility. After the 1910 Revolution, many haciendas were broken up and their lands distributed to the campesinos  (farm workers). Many old haciendas evolved into the current pueblos that dot the countryside. The rural people were, and still are, very religious. It is possible that it was they who decided to replace the crumbling old capilla with a new church. This is another of the many mysteries of this site.

The old capilla's entrance is choked with brush. At first, I wasn't certain what this structure was. The roof is missing and the interior is filled with debris. However, haciendas follow a fairly consistent architectural pattern. Four clues strongly suggest that this was the old capilla. 

First, it has a long, rectangular shape, typical of the nave of a church. Second, the structure's physical relationship with the rest of the complex is typical of a capilla. Third, although the entrance is now filled with brush,  it is similar to other hacienda chapels I have seen. Finally, the new capilla stands only a few feet away. My good friend Jim B has accompanied me on almost 100 hacienda visits. After comparing notes, we agreed that this had to be the old capilla.

A young woman reverently kisses the hand of a cura (priest). Typically, curas would make regular circuits of the haciendas in their parroquias (parishes). If a hacienda was large and rich enough, it might have a resident priest. However, the relatively small size of Hacienda San Jose del Castillo indicates it was probably part of the circuit of a non-resident cura.

The cura took confessions and gave absolution for sins, performed marriages, baptisms, and funerals, and presided over a host of religious fiestas. This gave him a great deal of power over the people within the parroquia, and they paid him substantial fees for each of these services. Sometimes, a hacendado would loan a worker the money to cover these fees. This, along with the tienda de raya (company store), became one of the ways in which the system of "debt slavery" was established on haciendas to maintain a stable labor force.

A cura, whether visiting or in residence, would always attempt to stay on the right side of the hacendado and his family. In fact, the priest might well be a relative, perhaps a son who was not the heir. Hacendados would often pledge a stipend to support a relative who entered the church. That, in turn, was a way for the hacendado to stay on the right side of the Church. (Photo of a mural at Hacienda del Carmen, in Jalisco)

The Courtyard

View through the carriage gate into the courtyard of the casa grande. This is one of the courtyard's two primary entrances. Through it would pass the carriages of visiting hacendados, government officials, or traveling merchants. The gate stands just to the left of the old capilla's entrance. The carriage entrance would have had a large, wooden gate, studded with iron bolts, hinges, and other fittings. The arch and its pillars appear to be built with red brick, but the walls around it are adobe.

A carriage waits for its passengers in a hacienda courtyard. A small dog lounges in the shade by the wheels. The hand-written caption below the photo reads: "Carriage for trips to the Hacienda de San Ignacio (2.8 km) in the interior patio of the Hacienda El Carmen." Without a doubt, similar scenes regularly occurred in the courtyard of Hacienda San José del Castillo. A hacendado's family would often travel to a neighboring hacienda to visit friends and would receive visits in return. Note the arched portales supported by columns with large square blocks at their base. (Photo on display at Hacienda del Carmen in Jalisco)

The casa grande's courtyard has space sufficient to handle multiple, simultaneous activities. The large, arched doorway on the left was part of the main entrance to the whole complex. Most of the rooms of the casa grande are entered through doors set in the walls of this courtyard. You can see several of them to the right of the large entrance.

The main courtyard of the casa grande was the center of life on a hacienda. Visitors arriving in carriages or on horseback would be greeted here. Household staff might use the space to perform tasks related to their jobs, such as husking corn, cleaning clothes, repairing saddles, etc. On social occasions, the hacendado's family might entertain guests here, including dances to which the families of neighboring haciendas would be invited.

One of the square bases on which the portales columns rested. They are similar in appearance and function to those seen in the old photo of the carriage. When I found the first one, I wasn't sure of its purpose. Then I noticed the second, third, and fourth. The brush probably concealed even more. From their positions in a line several feet from the walls, it was clear that these were the bases of the now-vanished portales. 

The covered walkways allowed a person to move around the perimeter of the courtyard without exposure to rain or the harsh mid-day sun. They also created a comfortable space to work or just to relax and socialize. Similar portales can still be found throughout Mexico, not only at haciendas but in the plazas of old colonial towns and cities.

A couple of dashing young vaqueros pay court to several local señoritas. The men can be identified as vaqueros (cowboys) by their clothing and the lariat one carries. In general, vaqueros were fairly well paid and higher in status than simple farm laborers. However, they would still have ranked well below the hacendado or even the hacienda's administrator and mayordomos (section heads)

The women's clothing also indicates that they occupy a higher status than farmworkers' daughters. However, they are probably not members of the hacendado's family. It is likely that they are the daughters of the hacienda's other skilled workers. The higher an individual's status, the more formal the courtship process would be. Normally, the young people in the scene above would be discreetly observed by an older female family member who would ensure nothing even mildly scandalous occurred. (Photo from mural at Hacienda Buena Vista in Michoacan)


Main Entrance, Zaguan, & Courtyard Rooms

The main entrance and the zaguan, viewed from the courtyard. A zaguan is the passage or hallway between the courtyard and the outside door. It is one of the distinguishing features of a casa grande's main entrance. The carriage entrance, in contrast, doesn't have a zaguan. These passageways are often decorated with photos, religious images, and other wall hangings. Sometimes hacendados  commissioned murals on the zaguan walls to impress visitors.

Mural on the wall of the zaguan showing Utah's Monument Valley. It is not unusual to find fragments of painted designs or even murals on hacienda walls. However, when I looked closely, I recognized the scene as Monument Valley, the Navajo Tribal Park in southern Utah. The Monument Valley area, along with the rest of the Southwest US, once belonged to Mexico. Then, in 1846, the United States invaded and seized the Southwest at the point of a gun.

Because of its remoteness, it is unlikely that many in Mexico were aware of this remote desert with its spectacular buttes and mesas, even when it was part of their country. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the mural was painted before 1846. In fact, Monument Valley remained obscure even in the US until well into the 20th century. Just how and why this mural was painted in such an important location is yet another of the ruin's many puzzles.

Courtyard Rooms

The courtyard walls are lined with a series of doors opening into rooms. The arch in the background was part of the arcade that once ran along this wall. The only way to move from one room to another would have been to walk along the covered arcade, since there is no evidence of internal doorways between rooms.  Uses of the rooms included bedrooms, offices, and storerooms. In addition, the doorway just beyond the arch leads into a kitchen.

All of the rooms have high ceilings, which would have made them cooler. The thick adobe walls are covered with painted plaster. In addition to rooms for the hacendado's family and high-status permanent staff (administrator, teacher, priest, etc.) there would have been several rooms set aside for guests.

In Mexico, the old tradition of hospitality is "mi casa es su casa" (my house is your house). This custom is still very much in effect today. Throughout the colonial period and most of the 19th century, there were few hotels. Those that existed were mostly in the larger towns and cities. Travelers through the countryside would often stop at a hacienda for the night. In return for the hospitality they received, they provided news of the outside world and a welcome break from routine.

High-status travelers such as government agents, church officials, well-to-do merchants, and other hacendados would generally stay in the casa grande. Persons of lesser status might also be allowed to stay the night on hacienda property. However, it is likely that they stayed outside the casco walls, either in the cottages of the peones acasilados (workers with housing as a benefit) or in a convenient campsite.

A sink and counter space indicate that this was once a kitchen. Both are tiled, along with the wall behind them. I noticed a small chimney on the roof, another clue that this room was used for cooking. Under the tile is plaster and below that is adobe.

A woman grinds maiz (corn), using a mano and metate. When the flour is fine enough, she will add water to form masa, the dough used to prepare tortillas. Just beyond her, three tortillas cook on a comal (griddle). The tray on which she grinds the maiz is called a metate and the cylindrical roller is a mano. This would have been a common scene in the hacendado's kitchen, as well as in the cottages of all of his workers.

The use of manos and metates dates back far into pre-hispanic times, possibly even pre-dating the development of agriculture. Very primitive versions were apparently used to grind seeds more than 10,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Era (Old Stone Age). Implements virtually identical to those in the painting have been found in Olmec sites dating back to 1400 BC. As old as this technology is, manos and metates are still sold in Mexican stores for use in today's kitchens. As they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." (Photo of a painting by Mexico's great muralist Diego Rivera, in Mexico City).

Work Areas

The adobe walls of a workroom still contain the holes where the ceiling rafters were inserted. Absent tools or equipment, it is difficult to determine the function of any specific room. However, we know that the area around Guadalajara was devoted primarily to ranching in the early part of the colonial era. Beginning in the 18th century, many haciendas gradually shifted over to agricultural production, primarily maiz and trigo (wheat). The transition to farming gained speed as Guadalajara and other markets grew, and as the labor force recovered from the devastating epidemics of the first 150 years of the colonial period.

Adjacent to the casco wall, I found this curious little maze of brick structures. The brick indicates a 19th or early 20th century date of construction. The spaces inside the structures are too small for horses and the overall layout does not resemble any stable I have ever seen. It is possible they are storage areas for produce or tools. On the other hand, they could have functioned as pens for pigs or chickens, although their proximity to the casa grande makes me doubt that. Still another mystery, I guess.

A worker with a two-wheeled carreta chats with a hacendado while a woman draws water. The carreta, pulled by a brace of oxen, was the primary vehicle for transporting produce and other goods from the earliest colonial times until well after the Revolution. Yokes for a brace of oxen are often used as decoration on the walls of restored haciendas. With the advent of railways and paved roads, carretas have largely disappeared. However, you can still find them on the backroads in rural Mexico, usually with with rubber tires rather than wood wheels rimmed with iron.

In the early centuries, the pots the woman is filling would have been made from local clay and she would have draw the water from a nearby stream or pond. Hand pumps for wells and factory-made pots came into fashion in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the scene, the woman works industriously, while the men idly chat. Apparently, some things change very slowly. (Mural from Hacienda Huejotitán, near Lake Chapala in Jalisco)


The Railroad Connection

An old railroad station stands only a block away from the hacienda ruins. An empty set of tracks runs in front of the graffiti-covered, 19th century building. In back, a train passes on another set. The station was clearly intended to handle the produce of Hacienda San José del Castillo. At the time of its construction, there would have been nothing else in the immediate area to justify a stop. The name El Castillo is painted on one end of the building, further reinforcing my belief that the station got its name from the hacienda.

A number of other haciendas I have visited have train stations in close proximity. Some historical records show that the stations were built at the behest of hacendados anxious to gain an easy way to ship their goods to market. The Hacienda San Isidro Mazatapec (west of Guadalajara) is an example of this The hacienda owner had enough wealth and power to force the railroad to make a considerable diversion from its intended direction so that a station could be built on his property.

Steam engines like this hauled cargo all over Mexico, enriching haciendas in the process. During the last quarter of the 19th century, there was a frenzy of railroad construction in Mexico. Porfirio Diaz, the country's dictator, used his power to push his nation from feudalism into modernity. He invited US and British corporations to build the rail networks, as well as to modernize the ports. Rail transport enormously increased the capacity of haciendas to get their products to market and similarly increased their profits.

Ironically, the overthrow of Diaz came about, in part, because of the railroads he pushed for so strongly. Revolutionaries like Pancho Villa quickly recognized the value of trains for rapid troop movements. Less than a year after the revolt started, Diaz was on his way to exile. The importance of railways can be seen in many old photos taken during the Revolution in which trains or railroad tracks appear in the background. (Photo taken at the Railroad Museum in Aguascaliente, Mexico).

This completes my posting on Hacienda San José del Castillo. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email them to me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section PLEASE include your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim