HOW MEXICO'S SILVER RENAISSANCE WAS IGNITED BY TAXCO AND WILLIAM SPRATLING'S GENIUS

 

Taxco at Night  (By Viator)

Imagine a city on a hill, the surrounding countryside brimming with the precious metal, silver. That would be Taxco in Guerrero, Mexico, situated between Mexico City and Acapulco. By some estimates, a third or more of all the silver ever mined in the world has come from Mexico's mountains with production still rising. Mexico and silver are synonymous.

Though silver has filled the coffers of great civilizations since 3000 BC— from Anatolia, now modern Turkey, to Greece, the Roman Empire, and Spain, no single event in history rivals the discovery of silver by European conquerers in the Americas following Columbus's landing in the New World in 1492. Those events changed the face of silver and the world forever.

Between 1500 and 1800, Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico accounted for over 85 percent of world silver production and trade as it bolstered Spanish influence worldwide. But long before the Spanish arrived in the Americas, according to author William H. Prescott in his sweeping 1843 epic History of the Conquest of Mexico, the Aztecs used silver to make ceremonial gifts for their gods while also producing ornaments, plates, and jewelry.

Gems Recovered from Spanish Galleons 

AZTEC JEWELRY

Along with the precious metals of silver and gold, equally prized by the Aztecs were brightly colored feathers from quetzals and hummingbirds that accentuated the metals. The feathers were difficult to come by and required trade from far away places. Aztec jewelers were incredible craftsmen but unfortunately not much of their work survived the Spanish conquest. Most pieces were melted down but what relics do remain are of excellent quality and design. 

Author Prescott paints a picture of the splendors of Montezuma's court where silver and gold ornaments were on full display. And though silver wasn't readily found near the Aztec capitol, it was mined in the northern central highlands towns of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi. Then around 1558, one of the richest silver veins ever was uncovered in an area near what would become Guanajuato, which led it to become the world's leading silver producer of the day.

In not only Guanajuato but also Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi, grand, faded colonial buildings still stand as the indirect legacies of indigenous slave laborers who worked under horrific conditions to extract vast quantities of silver, along with gold, copper, lead, and iron, for greedy prospectors and wealthy robber barons. 

ENTER TAXCO

By the end of the 16th century, Guanajuato had faded and Taxco came to be known far and wide as the silver capital of the world, supplying Europe with the precious metal for many years. But new deposits in Latin America pushed Taxco into obscurity for more than two hundred years until José de la Borda, a Spaniard who immigrated to Mexico, rediscovered silver veins in Taxco in 1716. De la Borda learned the mining trade from his older brother. Taxco was built between 1751 and 1758 by de la Borda who made a great fortune in the silver mines surrounding the town and was considered to be the richest man in Mexico. 

Guanajuato Cityscape

WANING INFLUENCE

Taxco de Alcaron, known as Taxco, is Mexico's silver capital and considered a national historic monument, home to 300 silversmiths selling wares throughout the city. Though it's recognized today as an outstanding center for silver production, after de la Borda's death in 1778, Taxco's prominence waned. 

Then in the 1930s, Taxco's ancient silver crafts were revived by US resident William Spratling, who hired a master goldsmith to create his first range of items, before engaging a local silversmith, Artemio Navarette—considered the best in Guerrero—to teach him silversmithing. With the combination of Spratling's innovative designs and his mentor's skills, by the early 1940s Taxco became known as a center for silver jewelry, not only in Mexico but also abroad.

SPRATLING'S ARRIVAL

River of Life Spratling Bracelet

As an architect and artist who had taught in Tulane University's School of Architecture in New Orleans in the mid-1920s, Spratling's appearance in Taxco was an accident waiting to happen. During summers from 1926 through 1928, Spratling lectured on colonial architecture at the National University of Mexico's summer school and had grown familiar with nearby Taxco's winding cobblestoned streets and colonial charm.

In Mexico during the 1920s, worlds collided when painters, writers, and musicians confronted a brave new Mexico after its bloody revolution. Mexico was ready to embrace renewal after the ten-year torment of war that had raged from 1910 to 1920. Artists and artisans across the newly democratized nation were inspired, ready to re-examine their national identity and cultural traditions, having defied the ruling class. It was time to empower the impoverished rural people by embracing their folk traditions and crafts. Both Mexican and American intellectuals began to collect and promote the jewelry and crafts of Mexicana history. 

HISTORY AWAITS

Amethyst Brooch by Spratling

Artists, including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Juan O'Groman, descended upon colonial Taxco. Spratling, a one-time literary hopeful, had already come into contact with others on the writing scene—William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson—and he soon became friends with Rivera whose friendship broadened his cultural understanding. He began to explore the rugged, unmapped regions of southern Mexico. He moved permanently to Taxco in 1929 and began designing furniture, jewelry, and homewares based on the indigenous motifs he uncovered. 

BRINGING IT HOME

As Spratling settled into life in a colonial village, he was inspired by Dwight Morrow, American ambassador to Mexico, who told him that while Taxco's silver mines yielded thousands of pounds of silver over the centuries, little remained in Mexico. That motivated Spratling to establish his first studio in Taxco. The legend of what was to become Mexico's silver capital had begun. Spratling's ability to create stunning pieces of jewelry, flatware, and decorative objects was born.

Spratling in his studio in Taxco 

PRE-COLUMBIAN INFLUENCES

While at Tulane, Spratling had been introduced to pre-Columbian and Mesoamerican art and along with his Mexican travels, these motifs proved a strong influence on his early silver jewelry designs. His studio, named Taller de las Delicias (Workshop of the Delights) grew rapidly and by the late 1930s he employed several hundred artisans to produce his designs. From Mexico, those pieces found their way north of the border through Montgomery Ward catalogs, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Gump's in San Francisco.

Feather of Quetzalcoatl Sterling and Brass Bracelet

Known in time as the father of contemporary Mexican silver, Spratling incorporated native materials like amethyst, turquoise, coral, rosewood, and abalone into his creations. Depictions of real and pre-Columbian motifs of discs, balls, and rope designs were typical in his pieces. Art historians say that his use of aesthetic vocabulary based on pre-Columbian art can be compared to the murals of Diego Rivera, in that both artists, along with Frida Kahlo, were involved in the creation of a new cultural identity for Mexico. Spratling's silver designs drew on pre-conquest Mesoamerican motifs with influence from other native and Western cultures. His work served as an example of Mexican nationalism and gave Mexican artisans the freedom to create designs in non-European forms. For this reason, because of his influence on the silver design industry in Mexico, the monicker, "Father of Mexican Silver," came into being. 

Example of William Spratling Silver Bracelet

A MAN OF THE PEOPLE

Besides pioneering a new concept of Mexican silver design, Spratling developed an apprenticeship system to train new silversmiths. Those with promise worked under the direction of the maestros and in time would go on to open their own shops.

Through Spratling's innovation and artistic expertise, Taxco is the most famous silver town in the world's leading silver-producing country. "Probably eight out of every 10 houses in Taxco has its own silver workshop—there's the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom, the living room and the workshop," said Brenda Rojas, director of the William Spratling Museum. "Ninety-five percent of the people in Taxco live from silver. Taxco grew because of silver."

Spratling's work was recognized throughout Mexico for its originality and superior quality. Dr. Taylor Littleton, author of William Spratling: His Life and Art, is the definitive Spratling biography, creating a portrait of the fascinating, intensely driven icon of the mid-20th century, said one reviewer. And from Littleton, "His whole life flowed into everything that he designed." 

Reneé d'Harnoncourt, director of New York's Museum of Modern Art and longtime friend, praised 'the climate of understanding' Spratling built that contributed to the acceptance of Mexican art. "I know of no one person who has so deeply influenced the artistic orientation of a country not his own," she said. 

As his business grew, Spratling moved his taller to a large mansion and to manage the costs, incorporated in 1945 to provide cash flow for the company. He sold a majority of the shares to a US investor, Russell Maguire, who ultimately took the company into bankruptcy. William Spratling died in a car accident returning to Taxco from Mexico City in 1966. Spratling was 66.

Parting words soon after his death were solicited from friends and associates. Artist Helen Escobedo said this, "Although he was isolated in Taxco, he was always au jour. The man was an adventurer and nothing was too much for him. He couldn't squeeze enough out of life. He was an extraordinary character. He made his own rules. He was a rough diamond and never attempted to polish it. His charm consisted in being ridiculously generous, extremely interesting...a story teller. His silversmiths respected him. They knew he knew his job. They understood him because he thought in their ways."

Spratling Bracelet circa 1940s

In Taxco, the William Spratling Museum holds his collection of indigenous artifacts. 

Spratling Broach with Amethyst

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where you can find my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy.

MEXICO'S MYSTERY OF PAQUIMÉ—THE WORLD HERITAGE SITE RUINS IN NORTHERN CHIHUAHUA

Paquimé Building Complex (By DesertUSA)

Paquimé, also known as Casas Grandes, an archeological zone in northern Mexico's dusty terrain, stood at an intersection—where the Puebloan people from the north and the Mesoamerican peoples from the south and southwest met. It's the largest archeological zone representing the peoples and cultures of the Chihuahua Desert. To date, only half the site has been excavated. As new technologies have been introduced, multiple theories about it have evolved, and it's become somewhat of a mystery that has yet to be solved.

Paquimé Site (By Viator.com)

Declared a World Heritage site in 1997, leading archeologists theorize that the northern Chihuahua site was occupied for thousands of years after finding crude stone hammers and scrapers commonly used by hunter-gatherers before agriculture began. Fortified hilltop terraces or cerros de trincheras were used as home and farming sites from as early as 1000 BC to 500 AD.

But when southwestern archeolgists gather at conferences to discuss Paquimé, the more they try to unravel its mysteries, the less clear their findings become.

PIT HOUSES

Early on, partially underground pit houses were constructed, eventually leading to one-story adobe homes and finally multi-story pueblos as in the Four Corners area in the US southwest. Though slow to start, its real development evolved between 700, and in 1300 AD, it emerged from shadowy origins and became the most culturally complex settlement in northern Mexico, the southwest, and the great Mesoamerican cultures of southern Mexico and Central America. It reached its height in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it served as a cultural beacon for pre-historic peoples within a 30,000 square mile area. 

Pit House (From Worldhistory.org)

Then, around a century before the arrival of the Spanish who first spoke of it in 1560, things seemed to fall apart.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

Established on the west bank of the Casas Grandes River, the people who lived there raised several clusters of multi-story terraced buildings and a number of religious monuments. This was shortly after a 1340 fire that destroyed Paquimé. Did it rise from the ashes? Apparently so. Excavated buildings had mud-adobe walls and were smoothed in the suavé technique, including curved corners. Collectively, the buildings housed around 1600 rooms and the largest building covered nearly an acre. 

Chihuahua Desert 

With this in mind, Paquimé marked an epoch in the development of human settlement in a vast region of Mexico and illustrated an outstanding example of the organization of space in architecture.

The site bears testimony to an important element in the cultural evolution of North America and in particular to pre-Hispanic commercial and cultural institutions. People began to congregate in small nearby settlements to take advantage of the wide fertile Paquimé valley with its rivers, raw materials, and the practicality of its major trade route between north and south. Because of its location, merchant traders became an important component of the city. 

Scarlet Macaw

The people of Paquimé raised corn, beans, squash. They hunted buffalo, antelope, and deer, harvested agave, nuts, prickly pear cactus, and wild plants. They raised and domesticated scarlet macaws, an oddity being so far from any type of jungle. But macaws were a necessary item for rituals and there is evidence Paquimé was the source for the macaw trade and likely controlled macaw production and distribution. Along with their agricultural leanings, they created high quality ceramics (Mata Ortiz pottery is very popular), wove textiles, created exquisite jewelry, and apparently well maintained their inspired trade network.

Mata Ortiz Pottery

Though the natives knew no written language, by relying on artifacts, archeologists have pieced together this much of the Paquimé story. At its height, several thousand people lived there and from archeological findings, they were deeply spiritual and that influence spread across the hundreds of pueblos that lay within their cultural sphere.

Evidence also showed the complexity of an infrastructure complete with underground drain systems, reservoirs, channels for water to reach homes, and a sewage system. After the 1340 fire, Paquimé was rebuilt and archeologists believe this disaster may have spurred on the golden age that was to come, bringing with it Mesoamerican ball courts, stone-faced platforms, effigy mounds, and a market area.

CULTURAL CROSSROADS

But who exactly energized Paquimé in the 13th century, building it into a cultural crossroads? Some archeologists believe the Mesoamerican missionary traders had a hand in it while others suggest elite groups migrated to the area in the wake of failing pueblo cultures from more distant areas. And others credit Puebloan people of southwestern New Mexico. What no one can agree on was its essence—was it primarily a manufacturing and trade center, which could have certainly been the case with its skilled artisans and wealth of raw materials. Or was it merely a consumer of imported exotic goods due to a location that attracted traders with extravagant lifestyles? And then there's the question of the religious aspect—it may have been a draw for those searching for meaning, a staple supplied by the spiritual aspect of Paquimé, as evidenced by the number of religious artifacts found in various excavations. 

Effigy Vessel from Paquimé Used for Rituals

Archeologists believe the area of Paquimé itself was relatively small, but its network reached far, far away as evidenced by the extensive commercial networks that had been forged with Mesoamerica, including finds of bead making, copper bells, copper armlets, copper ceremonial axes, Pacific Coast seashells, spindle whorls, ceramic drums, and ceramic shards. In my previous blog on Mata Ortiz pottery, those shard fragments instigated the widely popular and distinctive ceramic pottery known and lauded today as Mata Ortiz, with a white reddish surface featuring elongated sharp-edged designs, and named after a present day town that lies within the Paquimé area. Paquimé products were no doubt distributed in the extensive trade network that stretched throughout northern Mexico and as far north as present-day Arizona and New Mexico.

RELGION

Not to be forgotten was the messianic draw of religion. Even at the far reaches of Paquimé territory, the prehistoric people felt the mystic winds of Mesoamerican religious beliefs and rituals. Numerous icons found in excavations validated Paquimé's religious status. Across the region touched by its base, Puebloan peoples created a gallery of religious art and connections to the spirit world, including plumed or horned serpent-like Quetzalcoatl figures, strange Tlaloc figures, step-sided rain pyramids, zigzag lightning symbols, and sacred macaws. Also in excavations, the presence of large numbers of monumental ritual architecture, which show patterns of social integration, suggest Paquimé was a religious center.

COLLAPSE

Scholars postulate the fall of Paquimé began in the 15th century possibly due to a warlike Mesoamerican empire, Tarascans, that cut through their trade routes. While commerce dwindled, a drought tip-toed in. Also possible could have been that cultural alliances in the US southwest and northern Mexico may have realigned or fallen apart, thus depleting the influence that Paquimé once wielded. Also there was the possibility of nomadic warriors from the north, who could have sacked the city, bringing an end to a two hundred year cultural phenomenon in the northern Mexico desert land.

Yet in spite of the vast evidence of this highly advanced civilization in northern Mexico, why has it not received more acclaim? From Expedition Magazine of the Penn Museum, an article by Paul Minnis and Michael Whalen states, "The image of the prehistoric southwest as a place where small kin groups lived in pastoral settings, unfettered by the trappings of "civilization," all generations part on an endless, unchanging, and millennia-long cultural tradition is common. However Casas Grandes, or Paquimé, was one of the largest and most influential communities of its day in the North American Southwest, covering 36 hectares and had over 2000 rooms, many ritual structures, a sophisticated water system and an accumulation of extravagant wealth, and evidence of mass production of goods."

Early Dig at Paquimé

Though their thoughts were never recorded because they had no written language, their deeds speak for themselves in the visible remains of massive multi-story adobe constructions along with artistic fragments of the innovative workings of an advanced society that held reign over an immense portion of the northern Chihuahua desert in the 14th and 15th centuries.

PAQUIMÉ CULTURAL CENTER

Located on the site is Paquimé Cultural Center showing the evolution of the site and the excavations that helped recognize it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My Mata Ortiz blog is here: https://jeaninekitchel.blogspot.com/2022/04/how-thrift-shop-find-revived-nearly.html

Paquimé Cultural Center

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where you can find my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy.