MEXICO'S SILVER RENAISSANCE EMERGED FROM THE GENIUS OF WILLIAM SPRATLING'S VISION

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.

Treasures 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. 

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

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.

Amethyst brooch by Spratling

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

Spratling with Diego Rivera, 1940s

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.

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.

Spratling in his Taxco studio

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. 

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' Spratliling 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. 

Silver fertility bracelet by Spratling

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.”

In Taxco, the William Spratling Museum, a three-story building, holds his collection of indigenous artifacts.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is 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 also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

CHOCOLATE'S COLORFUL HISTORY TRACES BACK TO ANCIENT MEXICO

The devilishly addictive treat like no other—chocolate—came from Mexico. Anthropologist Sophie Coe knew it, studied it, and wrote about it in The True History of Chocolate. In her book, Coe draws on botany, archeology, and culinary history to present chocolate's complete and accurate beginnings. "Essential reading for anthropologists as well as scholars in a variety of other disciplines, and Coe's book brings serious pleasure reading to lay readers who are cooks, eaters, and students of food ways," said a review in American Anthropologist.

CULINARY ANTHROPOLOGIST

Sophie Coe's interest in the food and drink of pre-Spanish peoples of the New World first inspired her to write America's First Cuisines in 1994. During that research, she discovered the important position given to chocolate in Mesoamerica. She became smitten with a love of chocolate's history since 1988 while preparing a paper titled "The Maya Chocolate Pot and Its Descendants" for a seminar. 

Unfortunately, Coe died before the book was finished. Having amassed thousands of pages of reference materials and having outlined the first eight chapters, so near and yet so far, she couldn't complete the task. Her husband, famed archeologist and Maya scholar Michael D. Coe, promised he would see it through to publication. 

MICHAEL COE STEPS IN

Cacao Pods After Harvest

In the introduction, Michael Coe explains that writing about food and drink has only become a 'respectable' and scholarly subject in recent decades, at least in the Western world, As a consequence, culinary history was left to amateur enthusiasts, he wrote, who usually promoted one food, drink, or cuisine.

Coe goes on to say that is especially the case with chocolate and the cacao from which it was manufactured. This is because the substance's origins lay in the cloudy area of New World pre-history and ethnographic-history. Sophie Coe's book on the subject is fascinating because as a culinary anthropologist, she looked at her subject with a worldwide view. And along with husband Michael Coe, archeologist, we the reader could not have a better pair to guide us through the long, fascinating world of cacao and its origins.

Sophie Coe (By SophieCoePrize.com)

Sophie had spent hundreds of hours in both American and European libraries tracking down all possible references to chocolate and cacao as well as vast amounts of time in her husband's enormous Mesoamerican library for her research. With her scientific background and a doctorate in anthropology, she left no stone unturned.

After her death in 1994 Michael continued to organize her notes. Even though the first chapters had been outlined, the book did not see the light of day until 2003. The second edition came out in 2013 bearing a wealth of new information not only on cacao and chocolate, but what it meant to ancient Mesoamerican cultures, thanks to the recent decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic texts. 

CACAO FOUND IN BURIAL SITES

Cacao Glyph in Mayan

One thing that was determined in the decade between the book's first and second publication was this: the royal and noble occupant of every Maya tomb went to the next world accompanied by Mesoamerica's most valued drink. This is known due to numerous pyramid site excavations in recent years that have given archeologists an abundance of insights into the importance of chocolate to these civilizations.

The cacao tree, named Theobroma cacao in the 1700s, is picky. It refuses to bear fruit outside a latitude of 20 degrees north or south of the equator. Nor is it happy with this tropical range if the altitude is too high— it will shed its leaves. It's a magnet to rodents of all kinds—squirrels, monkeys, rats—who steal the pods for the sweet white pulp around the seed. 

Cacao Pod's Pulp Surrounded Seeds

FINICKY CACAO 

It gets diseases: pod rots, wilts, and fungus produced extraneous growth called witches' brooms. A botanical problem child for sure. A young tree can begin to bear fruit within its third or fourth year. At first it was thought that it needed the shade of taller trees to produce, but actually, cacao also needs the litter underneath found on rainforest floors of old leaves, dead animals, and rotten cacao pods to create a rich soil base. 

Cacao Grove 

The young pods, green in color can turn yellow, red, or green when ripe. They cannot open on their own and need humans or animals to do the deed. Animals were originally drawn to the sweet pulp surrounding the acidy bean, and would break the bean out of its pod-like shell for the meat.

It takes four steps to produce cacao 'nibs' or kernels so that the beans can be ground into chocolate: fermentation, drying, roasting or toasting, and winnowing. For three thousand years, this is how the production has gone. 

CACAO'S ROOTS

Though not one hundred percent certain, it's thought the species Theobroma cacao originated in the Amazon River Basin below the eastern slopes of the Andes. Researchers do not believe it was used by South Americans. It's thought that it could have been transported as an already domesticated fruit plant from South America to Central America and Mexico, with the discovery of the intricate chocolate process made by Mesoamericans. 

Map of Mexico Cacao Country (By eps.com)

COLUMBUS'S ENCOUNTER

It's well known that the first European encounter with cacao took place on Columbus' fourth Atlantic voyage when his son Ferdinand came across a Maya trading canoe with cacao beans in its cargo in 1502. 

Coe states it was known that chocolate was used among the Aztecs both as a drink and currency. And, he writes, Spanish invaders derived their earliest real knowledge of cacao, and the very word cacao, not from the Aztecs but from the Maya of the Yucatán and neighboring Central America. 

In fact, one thousand years before the Spaniards landed on their shores, the Maya were writing 'cacao' on magnificent pottery and vessels used in preparation of chocolate for their rulers and nobles, both living and dead. 

THE OLMEC CONNECTION

Calakmul Noble Gestures Towards Foaming Chocolate

But before the Maya, there were the Olmecs. Their complex culture flourished in Mexico's humid Gulf coast lowlands near Veracruz about 1500 to 400 BC. Prodigious builders of massive ceremonial centers, they left behind their famous collossal stone heads—multi-ton portraits of their kings—along with exquisite jade carvings. Sadly they left behind no writings that ethnographers were able to decode. They did have a script, and scattered hieroglyphs were left on inscribed serpentine blocks, but it is currently indecipherable. Linguists however did decipher a data point to an ancestral form of a family of languages, Mixe-Zoquean, still spoken by thousands of peasants near the lands covered by Olmec remains. It is thought that at the height of their influence over less advanced cultures, the highly civilized Olmecs used 'loan words' that are still in use to this day. 

And one of those loan words happens to be cacao, from the Mixe-Zoquean language and originally pronounced kakawa, linguists say. 

Colossal Stone Olmec Head Near Veracruz

So it might be said, Coe continues, that the Olmecs first domesticated the plant or at least discovered the chocolate process. Hershey Foods, U.S. purveyor of chocolate, got involved with discovering chocolate's history by scraping archeological ceramics used for liquids and detected alkaloids found in Theorbroma cacao as far back as 38 centuries, which pre-dates the Olmecs. 

16th Century Indigenous Woman Prepares Chocolate

Sedentary village culture in Mesoamerica, it was discovered, did not begin near the Gulf Coast lowlands but the Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas and adjacent Guatemala. Excavations show the first pottery producing culture of Mesoamerica, dubbed Barra, dedicated sophisticated neckless jars, so delicate they must have been used for the display of valued drinks rather than cooking, archeologist say. Radio-carbon dates were from 1800 to 400 BC, and the Barra were pre-Olmec. Some of the pieces found the compounds and/or alkaloids of cacao, proving positive for the tell-tale theobromine. 

Excavators for Hershey's lab found a stone bowl in San Lorenzo (Olmec) region dating to 1350 BC to be positive for theobromine, meaning that the Olmec kingdom knew of chocolate, had a Mixe-Zoquean word for it, and could well have been adapted from another emerging culture in Mesoamerica eventually passing that cacao knowledge on to the Maya. The Maya not only consumed the chocolate but revered it. Maya written history and art displays chocolate drinks being used in celebration and to finalize important transactions. Carvings on pots discovered in royal burial tombs show drawings of a drink being prepared, undoubtedly chocolate. 

A MAYA TRADITION

Despite chocolate's importance in Maya culture it wasn't reserved for the wealthy and powerful but was readily available to anyone. Pre-conquest, it was prepared in a number of ways: as drink, gruel, powder, possibly even as a solid substance like we know it today. In many Maya households, chocolate was served with every meal, it is believed. When used as a drink it was thick and frothy and often combined with chili peppers, honey, or water and the Maya liked to drink it hot. They also liked foam in their chocolate, not unlike a fine cappuccino, and would create it by pouring the liquid from one vessel to another like a Starbucks barista. They were as creative as modern chefs.

Ethno-historic accounts point to widespread use throughout Maya culture, in betrothal and marriage ceremonies, especially among the wealthy. In this way, chocolate drinks occupy the same niche as expensive French champagne in other cultures. In the Quiché kingdom, there were three lords whose function was to give wedding banquets. Quiché specialist Dennis Tedlock noted one of the things people did at these festivities was to 'chokola'j,' or drink chocolate together, a possible source of our English (and Spanish) word chocolate. 

A GIFT FROM THE GODS

The Aztecs took chocolate admiration to another level. They believed cacao was a gift from their gods. Like the Maya, they enjoyed the caffeinated kick of hot or cold and spiced chocolate beverages served in ornate containers, but they also used the beans as currency. In their culture, cacao beans were considered more valuable than gold. 

Cacao Beans As Currency

For Aztecs, it was an upper class extravagance though lower classes enjoyed it occasionally at weddings or celebrations. And Moctezuma II supposedly drank gallons of chocolate each day for energy and as an aphrodisiac. It's said he also reserved some beans for his military. 

CORTÉS AND CHOCOLATE

Cortés was introduced to chocolate by the Aztecs of Moctezuma's court. After returning to Spain, cacao beans in tow, he supposedly kept his chocolate knowledge a well-guarded secret. One story claims that the friars who presented Guatemalan Maya to Phillip II of Spain in 1544 also brought cacao beans along as a gift. No matter how chocolate got to Spain, by the late 1500s it was a much-loved indulgence by the court and Spain began importing chocolate in 1585. 

By 1639, a colonial source said of Mexico, "The business of this country is cacao." The Yucatec Maya had even learned how to grow cacao trees in the damp environment of cenotes, and the Spanish haciendados saw cacao pods dangling from sinkhole roofs in a form of 'silvi-culture.'

EUROPE GOES WILD FOR CHOCOLATE

Though it took a while for the European palate to embrace chocolate due to Spain keeping cacao a secret for so long, Europeans got a taste of it little by little while Phillip II was king. It was the highlight at his daughter's wedding to Louis XIII of France. Her gift to her husband was chocolate. Drinking hot chocolate became a fashionable trend in France before spreading throughout Europe. It's craze was nudged along by a pirate-botanist, William Hughes, who spent a good deal of time in the New World. A natural historian, he began to document plants and the foods he came across. In 1672 he wrote the first plant book on the New World titled The American Physician. In it he outlined a recipe for hot chocolate, adding ideas on what could be added to it, including rum or brandy.

William Hughes in the New World (By AtlasObscura)

Chocolate was ready for its close-up. And for the past 400 plus years, its popularity has skyrocketed. So we can thank the Olmecs, the Maya, the Aztecs, the traders and growers and marketers of chocolate for our long tasty love affair with a delectable and lovely treat.

If you enjoyed this post, check out Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is 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 also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy is on Amazon.