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ACAPULCO - MEXICO
Acapulco, also known as Acapulco de Juárez, is a
city and major sea port in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast of
Mexico, 190 miles S.S.W. of Mexico City, at 16.85°N, 99.92°W. Acapulco is
located on a deep, semicircular bay, almost land-locked, easy of access, and
with so secure an anchorage that vessels can safely lie alongside the rocks
that fringe the shore. It is the best harbour on the Pacific coast of Mexico,
and it is a port of call for shipping lines running between Panama and San
Francisco, California. In 2003 the estimated population was 638,000 people.
The town is built on a narrow strip of low
land, scarcely half a mile wide, between the shore line and the lofty
mountains that encircle the bay. There is great natural beauty in the
surroundings, but the mountains render the town difficult of access from the
interior, and give it an exceptionally hot and unhealthy climate. The effort
to admit the cooling sea breezes by cutting through the mountains a passage
called the Abra de San Nicolas had some beneficial effect.
History
Acapulco has been well known as a traveler's crossroads for at least a
millennium. Its name is Nahuatl, meaning "plane of dense reeds."
The earliest local remains, stone metates and pottery utensils, were left in
the 3rd millennium BC. Much later, sophisticated artisans fashioned
curvaceous female figurines. Some hypothesize that there was early
Polynesian or Asian influences in Pacific Mexico as early as 1500 years
before the arrival Christopher Columbus.
Other artifacts resemble those found in highland Mexico. Although influenced
by Tarascan, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Aztec civilizations, sometimes paying
tribute to them and frequented by their traders, Acapulco never came under
their direct control, but instead remained subject to local caciques until
the Spanish conquest.
After conquering the Aztecs, Hernán Cortés sent expeditions south to build
ships and find a route to China. The first explorers sailed from Zacatula,
near present-day Lazaro Cardenas on the coast 250 miles north-west of
Acapulco. By a royal decree dated April 25, 1528, "Acapulco and her land ...
where the ships of the south will be built...." passed directly into the
hands of the Spanish Crown. Voyages of discovery set sail from Acapulco for
Peru, the Sea of Cortez, and to Asia. None returned across the Pacific,
however, until Father Andres de Urdaneta discovered the northern Pacific
tradewinds, which propelled him and his ship, loaded with Chinese treasure,
to Acapulco in 1565.
For more than 200 years after that, a special yearly trading ship, known to
the English as the Manila Galleon, set sail from Acapulco for the Manila and
the Orient. Its return started an annual merchant fair in Acapulco where
traders bargained for the Galleon's cargo of silks, porcelain, ivory, and
lacquerware.
Acapulco's yearly treasure soon attracted marauders, too. In 1579, Francis
Drake attacked but failed to capture the Galleon, but in 1587, off Cabo San
Lucas, Thomas Cavendish seized the Santa Anna. The cash alone, 1.2 million
gold pesos, severely depressed the London gold market.
After a Dutch fleet invaded Acapulco in 1615, the Spanish rebuilt their fort,
which they christened Fort San Diego in 1617. Destroyed by an earthquake in
1776, the fort was rebuilt by 1783. Mexico's War of Independence (1820-21)
stopped the Manila Galleon forever, sending Acapulco into a century-long
slumber.
By the early 20th century, the town was chosen as the terminus for two
railway lines seeking a Pacific port -- the Interoceanic and the Mexican
Central. The port city grew greatly in the 20th century.
The town suffered considerably from earthquakes in July and August 1909.
There are exports of hides, wood, and fruit, and the adjacent district of
Tabares produces cotton, tobacco, cacao, sugarcane, Indian corn, beans, and
coffee.
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