Guanajato Revisited Part 5 of 17: Ex-Hacienda del Cochero's peaceful garden conceals a torture center

Carole stands at the entrance of the Museo Ex-Hacienda del Cochero. In my last posting, we looked at the Templo Belén, the last remains of a convento run by a Catholic religious Order known as the Brothers of Our Lady of Bethlehem or the Betlemites. They were responsible for building and running hospitals for the poor in Guanajuato and elsewhere in Mexico and Latin America. These efforts provided great benefits to the communities in which the Betlemites worked.

In this posting we will take a look at the dark side of Catholicism in Spain and Spanish colonial Mexico. In 1954, Manuel Valenzuela found implements of torture and human remains hidden in tunnels under Ex-Hacienda del Cochero (Hacienda of the Coachman). These were the remains of a secret torture center linked to the Spanish Inquisition. For a Google map showing the location of Museo Ex-Hacienda del Cochero, click here.

The Ex-Hacienda's peaceful garden

Statue of San Francisco de Assisi. San Francisco was a peaceful, acetic man who established a religious Order devoted to charity, benevolence, and selflessness. He is reputed to have loved animals and is usually shown accompanied by birds or small mammals, like the squirrel at his feet. The statue is within the lush garden just inside the entrance of the 17th century hacienda. 

The museum has a fee of $45 pesos/person ($2.47 USD) and is open from 10 AM to 7 PM, Monday to Sunday. There are guides dressed as monks who will conduct you on a short tour, but we decided to just wander through on our own.

A font for holy water hangs on the wall near the entrance. These containers are also called stoups. It appears to be of the 17th century Baroque style, although it is not clear that this was its original location. I was intrigued by the small, winged creature crouched in the conch shell above the bowl. What it represents and why it is in a holy water font is a mystery to me.

A possible sundial stands in the middle of the garden. I wasn't sure what this was at first, but finally decided it must be an old sundial. The placement of sundials in hacienda gardens and courtyards was a common practice, both as a decoration and as a practical way to tell time on a sunny day.

Hacienda del Cochero was established in 1696 in the hills to the north of Guanajuato. The founder was José de Sardaneta Legaspi y Muños del Castillo. Like many Spaniards in the 17th century, he and his family and various relatives had emigrated to Nueva España (Mexico) to seek their fortunes in the mining business. In 1715, José's wife Rosa Maria gave birth to a son, Vicente Manuel de Sardaneta y Legaspi, under whom the family's fortunes skyrocketed.

Carts like this moved ore from deep in the mines to the surface. Hacienda del Cochero was the type of operation known as a hacienda de beneficio. These were operations which refined ore into ingots, in this case silver. Most of the ingots were sent by mule train to Mexico City and then on to Spain. About a third of it went to the Far East to purchase the luxury goods brought back on the Manila Galleons. The vast amounts of silver produced in Guanajuato and other mining centers transformed Spain into a superpower. 

The Spanish Crown directly benefited both from a percentage of each ingot produced and from monopoly control over mercury, which was vital to the refinement process. Thus, success in the mining business not only made a man rich but won him great favor with Spanish kings. José's son Vicente was one of these and in 1774 he was elevated by King Carlos III to the position of 1st Marqués de San Juan de Raya. A marqués is the second highest rank of nobility, just below duke. 

A small cemetery occupies one corner of the garden. It isn't clear who is buried here, but the graveyard is described as "particular", which may indicate that these are family graves. A close examination of this gravestone reveals only three undamaged and intelligible words of Spanish: Fallecio...(Died...) and Recuerdo de... (Memory of...). The stone is decorated with an angel clutching a child to its breast and two shells with small, writhing snakes nearby.

In addition to owning mines and haciendas de beneficio, Vicente possessed agricultural and livestock haciendas which he used to provide supplies to his mining operations. To protect and enhance all this, he held various powerful positions within Guanajuato's government between 1743-87. These included city council member, ordinary mayor, and attorney general. In fact, his father and uncles had occupied similar positions, as did his sons after him, all as part of the Sardaneta family business. 

 

A pretty girl and her best friend, the mummy. This was the first sign of the bizarre world we were about to enter. This photo hung on the wall near the entry to the dungeon below the garden. A caption below the photo identified the live girl as Magdalena Moreno and the photo as taken in the Tricolor studio. The mummy's identity was not given. Given the live girl's clothing, the shot was probably taken in the mid-20th century. Apparently photos like this were popular at that time.

Vicente was also connected to the Church in important ways. His brother Joaquin was a Jesuit priest and Vicente himself held the position of mayor of the Holy Brotherhood during various periods between 1755 and 1770. He soon became a friend of Fernando de Miera, Inquisitor of the Holy Office. Blasphemers, heretics, witches, and anyone suspected of opposing Catholicism were brought before the Holy Office Tribunal for trial. In those days, such trials were preceded by torture.

Descent into a nightmare

Armor, weapons, and torture tools were set into a wall niche. We left the garden above and proceeded down a winding stone stairway. Part way down we encountered this display. A  steel breastplate decorated with a coat-of-arms and two fleur-de-lys occupies the center space. It is surrounded by a manacle dangling from a chain, a candelabra (symbolizing the Church?), a flintlock pistol, and a hand bellows used to make torture instruments red-hot.

The Inquisitor Fernando de Miera needed someplace quiet, secret, and just outside the city for convenience. Somewhere that the screams of his victims would not unduly disturb the citizenry. His friendship with Vicente Sardaneta led to the offer of the cellar under Hacienda del Cochero. It would be the perfect site for eliciting the confessions that nearly always followed de Miera's interrogation style.

At the bottom of the stairs, we encountered this cell. In it, a figure dressed in a rough robe hunches over a table lit with a single lamp. The figure's outstretched right hand shows that it is a skeleton. While various human remains were found when the cellar was excavated in 1954, few of the remains displayed today are real. However, the torture tools are original and almost certainly were used to their full potential. In the background is a brazier for heating the tools. 

One source claims the cellar was being used for torture as early as 1700. However, Vicente was born in 1715 and didn't become a friend of Fernando de Mieda until many years later, so that early date seems unlikely. Another source sets the date for the beginning of torture at 1764 and this seems to better fit the overall timescale. Apparently the site was used for these purposes for a relatively short period and this probably accounts for the fact that its secret was kept for 210 years. 

The Garrotte was used for both torture and execution. The man sitting on the chair has his hands bound behind a wooden post. He has been fitted with a collar of iron (or possibly leather) around his neck, called a garrotte. The collar is attached through the post to a lever behind it. As the lever is pulled back the collar tightens around the throat, slowly strangling the victim. Pressure can be applied or released at will by the torturer, thus prolonging the suffering or causing a quick death. 

The Inquisition was first implemented by Pope Lucius III in 1184 against the Cathars, a non-Catholic sect of Christians based in southern France. Its purpose was to enforce adherence to Catholicism and the Church found this method so useful in exerting its power that the practice lasted until 1834. In Spain, the Inquisition was first used in 1480, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella forced the Jews to convert to Catholicism or be deported. Those who back-slid faced the Inquisitors.

A metal pot hangs over a table waiting for the next victim. The pot may have been filled with hot liquids or glowing coals meant to be spread over a naked, strapped-down body. Two more implements of torture are shown against the wall in back. The chair on the left appears to be another version of a garrotte, while the device on the right is one of the infamous "racks" often referred to in medieval torture literature.

Fernando de Aragon and Isabela de Castille had married in 1469. A decade later, they linked their kingdoms and unified Spain for the first time in 700 years. Under their leadership, the Reconquista (Re-conquest) finally captured Moorish Granada in 1492. Isabella was a religious fanatic and used the Inquisition to persecute not only Jews but the remaining Moors. Shortly after Granada, the royal pair agreed to finance a speculative voyage by an obscure Italian named Christopher Columbus. 

The Rack was a device used to pull people apart at their joints. The body is stretched along the rack, with manacles on its wrists and ankles. These are, in turn, connected to chains at the top and bottom of the rack. The top chains extend to a winch. When wound, the winch pulls the arms and legs in opposite directions and the body is ultimately disarticulated at every joint. If done gradually, the agonizing effect was considered a good way to get the Inquisitor's questions answered.

Members of the Dominican Order arrived in Nueva España in 1525, and were viewed at the time as both intellectuals and agents of the Inquisition. However, the colony's first Bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, was a Franciscan and it was he who initiated the first prosecution under the Inquisition in 1536. It was not against a Spanish heretic, but an indigenous shaman named Ocelote ("ocelot"). He had continued to practice his traditional beliefs, but these were viewed by the Spanish as devil worship.

A Head Crusher could also result in a slow and agonizing death. The head crusher used a metal cap that was fitted over the top of the victim's skull, with a strap under the chin. A winch was turned from above, gradually forcing the cap down and crushing the skull, teeth, mandible and facial bones. Bored torturers would sometimes amuse themselves by tapping on the metal cap with a hammer.

During the early years of colonization, mass evangelization was far more prevalent than the use of the inquisition method. However, both were aimed at ensuring the success of the "Spiritual Conquest", which provided the ideological underpinning of the military conquest. Fundamentally, both had the same aim: enforcing Spanish civil and religious power. As time went on, native resistance to the new religion lessened and the authorities turned their attention back to heretics.  

The Breaking Wheel was widely used for centuries. The first reported use of the Breaking Wheel was in the 6th century and its last victim was in 1841. The victim would be strapped to a large wheel, sometimes taken from a wagon. As the wheel was turned, he would be savagely beaten with clubs on the arms and legs until all were thoroughly broken. While this ultimately caused death, the process was very slow and sometimes the person survived for 3 or 4 days before expiring.

The context of the Spanish Inquisition is important. Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517, only two years before Cortéz invaded the Aztec Empire. The rise of Protestantism led to the Catholic Counter-Reformation of 1545. Torture and executions for adhering to the wrong side were widespread on both sides during the following two centuries. The 17th century Spaniards were recognized at the time as particularly avid and creative in these practices.

A skeleton of a prisoner was left chained to the wall in this cell. Probably this represents someone who was tortured until he confessed, then sentenced to death by the Holy Tribunal, and finally left to die in his cell. A modern person might ask, how could human beings do these things to one another? Were people so different several hundred years ago? 

We have only to remember the 21st century torture centers run by the C.I.A. to understand that ordinary people will commit the most heinous acts against helpless victims when they perceive they are doing it under "proper authority". In fact, the C.I.A. used similar, and sometimes identical, torture methods as the Spanish Inquisitors. These included waterboarding, stress positions, and savage beatings. The only difference was that the C.I.A usually didn't kill their victims. 

The guillotine above was meant for execution, not torture. The hole in the block was for the victim's neck. The top half of the block would be raised so that the head of the reclining person could fit through. The top was then dropped down to pin the person in place. The angled blade was pulled to the top of the slide and, at a signal, was dropped. The heavy blade neatly sliced the neck and dropped the head into a basket between the legs of the device. 

The guillotine had been invented as a more humane method of execution than the Breaking Wheel, which it replaced. The new device did bring almost instant death, but it also enabled many rapid executions in a row, such as occurred during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution. The revolutionaries viewed the guillotine favorably, not because of its "humanity" but because it eliminated social distinctions in how people were executed. King or peasant, your head ended up in the same basket.

The mummy in the coffin may be part of the original remains. It appears to be a real mummy, but there was no sign indicating whether this is true. If it is real, it is also not clear whether the mummy was part of the human remains found when the cellar was excavated in the 1950s.

So, was Vicente Manuel de Sardaneta y Legaspi, 1st Marqués de San Juan de Raya, directly involved in the torture activities conducted in the cellar of his hacienda? Certainly, he would have known about it. However it is most likely that he was an occasional spectator rather than a hands-on participant. Any questioning of the victims would have been conducted by the Inquisitor, Fernando de Miera. The pain of the victims would have been inflicted by specialists.

We finally exited the dark cellar into the sunlit cobblestone street. After walking through all those horrific exhibits, I wondered at the advertisements for this museum that encouraged families to visit. I can hardly imagine how parents might explain to their small, bug-eyed children exactly what was going on in those cells.

This completes Part 5 of my Guanajuato Revisited series. If you have any thoughts or questions, please leave them in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments, please remember to leave your email address so that I can respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim