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San Blas | |
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Coordinates: 21°32′23″N105°17′8″W / 21.53972°N 105.28556°W | |
Country | Mexico |
State | Nayarit |
Founded | 1530 |
Founded by | Nuño de Guzmán |
Seat | San Blas |
Government | |
• Presidente municipal | José Antonio Barajas López ( ) |
Area | |
• Municipality | 823.6 km2 (318.0 sq mi) |
Highest elevation | 30 m (100 ft) |
Population | |
• Municipality | 37,478 |
• Density | 46/km2 (120/sq mi) |
• Urban | 10,187 |
Time zone | UTC-7 (MST (Zona Pacífico)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (MDT (Zona Pacífico)) |
Postal Code | 63740 |
Area Code | 323 |
Website | sanblas |
San Blas is both a municipality and municipal seat located on the Pacific coast of Mexico in Nayarit.
San Blas is a port and popular tourist destination, located about 160 kilometres (99 mi) north of Puerto Vallarta, and 64 kilometres (40 mi) west of the state capital Tepic, and three hours drive from Guadalajara. The town has a population of 8,707. [1]
The municipality had a population of 37,478 in 2005. [1] The Islas Marías, the site of the former Islas Marías Federal Prison, are part of the municipality. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced in 2021 that the former prison would be rehabilitated as the environmental and cultural education center "Muros de Agua-José Revueltas" in honor of the writer who was imprisoned there. [2]
In 1768, the Bourbon Visitador José de Gálvez decided to found the port of San Blas as a jumping off point for military expeditions to Sinaloa, Sonora, Baja California and Alta California. [3] The military nature of San Blas distinguished it from the commercial port of Acapulco to the south. A subtext to the founding of San Blas may have been Gálvez' desire to curtail tax evasion on trade with Asia out of Acapulco, which was controlled by businessmen of Mexico City. [4] Both Acapulco and San Blas tied New Spain to Asia through Manila. Gálvez also founded a shipyard in San Blas, with the next shipyard being Cavite in the Philippines. From 1774, navy ships delivered mail from San Blas to Manila. By tradition, the crew could carry private merchandise, so there was a small commercial subtext to San Blas from its inception [5] In the 1790s, the Bourbon monarchy approved special permits for private ships to sail from Cadiz to San Blas. [6] In 1801 and 1807, two ships of the Royal Philippine Company stopped in San Blas, though they were officially permitted only to sail to Lima. [7] It was not until crisis broke out in the Spanish Empire in 1810 that San Blas opened its ports to trade between Lima, Panama, San Blas, Guaymas, Monterey and Manila. Silver mined in Mexico's northwest was shipped out of San Blas to pay for imports of goods, particularly from Panama, which was flooded with British products that entered through Jamaica on the other side of the isthmus.
At first, only two ships were assigned to the port: the packet ship San Carlos , commanded by Juan Pérez, and El Principe, commanded by Vicente Vila. Gálvez ordered four new vessels to be built, one of which was the schooner Sonora, later sailed in 1775 by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra to Alaska. [8]
In many ways, San Blas was a poor choice for a deep sea harbor and settlement. The harbor was so small that it could never hold more than four ships at a time. Silting caused by the nearby Río Grande de Santiago resulted in the need for the harbor to be regularly dredged. The climate's stifling humidity and torrential rains from July to October, coupled with extensive mangrove swamps that surrounded the settlement, resulted in San Blas being plagued by clouds of voracious mosquitoes. A variety of sicknesses were endemic, including dysentery, typhoid fever, malaria, and other fevers. [8] Naval officers and workers regularly complained about the climate. When Alessandro Malaspina visited in 1791, he found San Blas's climate so unhealthy that he refused to stay there, instead transferring his operations and some of San Blas' ships and personnel to Acapulco. San Blas's location was useful and logical, however, because it minimized travel time from Guadalajara and Mexico City without increasing the total distance to the Californias. Also, the area around San Blas had a plentiful supply of hardwoods useful for ship building and repair. Fresh water was also available year round. [8]
A hillside fort was built in 1770 to defend the town's sea trade with the Philippines. Its front has stone carvings of the kings of Spain. On the hill behind the fort are the ruins of the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, built in 1769. The ruins once contained the bronze bells that are said to have inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Bells of San Blas". The ruins of a 19th-century customs house are on Calle Benito Juárez, three blocks from the main plaza.
During the colonial period, hardwood forests provided the raw materials for ships that did a brisk trade with the Philippines and the Manila galleon until the shipping moved to the port at Manzanillo, and later to Acapulco.
In 2021, ejidatarios (farmers) from Jolotemba and nearby communities blocked access to the luxury tourist complex "Limoncitos Hills" owned by Canadian developer Angela Birkenbach. The complaints go back to 2019, when the developer deforested virgin land, without permission. Birkenbach's latest move was to take over an access road and 1.6 kilometres (0.99 mi) of virgin beach, one of the last along the Nayarit coast. [9]
Spain's colony in California was supplied by two supply ships out of San Blas which arrived once a year. on March 12, 1768 Junípero Serra, Father President of the California Missions, departed for California on the locally built barque Purísima Concepción.
On March 16, 1775, the San Carlos was set to depart San Blas, Mexico, for San Francisco Bay, stopping in Monterey to unload supplies for the mission there. The vessel was a product of the shipyard established on the Santiago River. Her length was 58 feet, the officers and men numbered 30.
San Blas also became the base for Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest. The Chinese were willing to pay up to $120 per otter hide ($3069 in 2023 dollars) which stimulated exploration of the Northwestern Pacific. From 1789 to 1795, San Blas was responsible for establishing and maintaining the Spanish post at Nootka Sound and Fort San Miguel (in present day British Columbia). For about twenty years in the late 18th century, San Blas was one of the busiest ports and shipbuilding centers on the Pacific coast of the Americas, rivaling Acapulco, the eastern terminus of the trans-Pacific Manila galleon convoy. [8]
At its height, the town had 30,000 inhabitants and became headquarters of Spain's General of the Southern Seas.
During the 1900s, San Blas served as the arrival port for thousands of Yaqui men, women and children forcibly removed from their lands and sold into slavery. [10] At San Blas, these families were forcibly marched 200 miles to San Marcos and its train station. [10] Those who did not die on the march were sold into slavery at San Marcos, where they were deported to the sugar cane plantations in Oaxaca, the tobacco planters of the Valle Nacional, and the henequen plantation owners of the Yucatán for use as slave labor. [10] Most of the enslaved workers died within the first year of their captivity. [10]
Term | Municipal president | Political party | Note |
---|---|---|---|
1917-1918 [11] | Jesús N. Jiménez | ||
1919-1920 | Luis Jordán | ||
1921-1922 | Leonardo Quirarte | ||
1923 | Daniel F. Martínez | ||
1924 | Francisco L. Camberos | ||
1925 | Guillermo A. Martínez | ||
1926 | Rufino Quintero | ||
1927 | Narciso de León | ||
1928 | Maximiliano Morales | ||
1929-1931 | Narciso Corona Tamayo | PNR | |
1932-1933 | Leonardo Quirarte | PNR | |
1933-1934 | Basilio Flores Moreno | PNR | |
1935-1936 | Francisco González García | PNR | |
1937-1938 | Antonio Parra | PNR | |
1939-1940 | Lázaro Llanos | PRM | |
1941-1942 | Ramón López Rentería | PRM | |
1943-1944 | Ignacio Benítez Arias | PRM | |
1945 | Leonardo Pérez | PRM | |
1946-1948 | Pedro Betancourt Ramírez | PRI | |
1949-1951 | Narciso Corona Tamayo | PRI | |
1952-1954 | Manuel Yerena Alatorre | PRI | |
1955-1957 | Florentino Neza Plantillas | PRI | |
1958-1960 | Eugenio Plantillas Grajeda | PRI | |
1961-1963 | Juan García Gutiérrez | PRI | |
1964-1966 | Joel Robles Uribe | PRI | |
1967-1969 | Jorge R. Careaga Pérez | PRI | |
1970-1971 | Marcelino Márquez Uribe | PRI | |
1971-1972 | José Cruz Pacheco | PRI | |
1973-1975 | Rafael Gutiérrez Villaseñor | PRI | |
1976-1978 | Armando Trigueros Guerrero | PRI | |
1978 | Daniel Ibarra Guerrero | PRI | |
1978-1981 | Ponciano Bugarín Villa | PRI | |
1982-1983 | Ismael Hermosillo Hernández | PRI | |
1984-1987 | José Luis Lizaola H. | PRI | |
1987-1990 | Raúl Hermosillo Hernández | PRI | |
1990-1993 | Abelino Márquez Estrada | PRI | |
1993-1993 | Anselmo Hernández Sojo | PRI | |
1996-1999 | Carlos Luna Quirarte | PRI | |
1999-2002 | Alejandro Dávalos Valdés | PAN | |
2002-2005 | Eduardo Bernal Regalado | PRI | |
2005-2008 | Miguel Bernal Carrillo | PAN | |
2008-2011 [12] | Hilario Ramírez Villanueva "Layín" | PAN | |
2011-2014 | Porfirio López Lugo | PRI | |
2014-2017 | Hilario Ramírez Villanueva "Layín" | Independent candidate | |
2017-2021 | Candy Anisoara Yescas Blancas | PRI | |
2021-2024 [13] | José Antonio Barajas López | PAN PRI PRD | Coalition "Va por Nayarit" |
Climate data for San Blas | |||||||||||||
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Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 28.0 (82.4) | 28.2 (82.8) | 28.8 (83.8) | 30.2 (86.4) | 31.9 (89.4) | 33.3 (91.9) | 34 (93) | 34.1 (93.4) | 33.8 (92.8) | 33.8 (92.8) | 31.7 (89.1) | 29.0 (84.2) | 31.4 (88.5) |
Daily mean °C (°F) | 22.1 (71.8) | 22.1 (71.8) | 22.5 (72.5) | 24 (75) | 26.3 (79.3) | 28.8 (83.8) | 29.3 (84.7) | 29.4 (84.9) | 29.2 (84.6) | 28.8 (83.8) | 26.2 (79.2) | 23.4 (74.1) | 26 (79) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 16 (61) | 15.9 (60.6) | 16.2 (61.2) | 18 (64) | 20.7 (69.3) | 24.3 (75.7) | 24.7 (76.5) | 24.8 (76.6) | 24.7 (76.5) | 24 (75) | 20.6 (69.1) | 18 (64) | 20.6 (69.1) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 20 (0.8) | 13 (0.5) | 5.1 (0.2) | 0 (0) | 20 (0.8) | 130 (5.1) | 340 (13.3) | 390 (15.4) | 360 (14.2) | 120 (4.9) | 13 (0.5) | 23 (0.9) | 1,440 (56.8) |
Source: Weatherbase [14] |
The area is noted for its surfing. Playa de Matanchen was famous for having the longest surfable wave in the world, as listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. A hurricane and subsequent storm surge filled part of the bay with sand, greatly reducing the size of the waves.
The area has an abundance of migratory birds in the surrounding estuaries and lowland palm forests, attracting significant numbers of birders. The Christmas Bird Count regularly finds well over 200 species, with a record 292 species in 1983. [15]
The town is also a gateway, along with the nearby village of Matanchen, to the La Tovara park, an extensive mangrove forest and federally protected nature preserve accessible by small boat.
The formerly elegant Playa Hermosa, built in 1951, is on a lonely and beautiful stretch of beach about a mile from the plaza. In the 1960s, Hollywood had a brief hideaway flirtation with San Blas when actors, including Lee Marvin, discovered San Blas for its fishing. The hotel is now abandoned.
The economy is based on agriculture, fishing, and the tourist industry. The main crops are beans, sorghum, tobacco, corn, watermelon, and citrus fruits. There is a substantial cattle herd, and shrimp are raised in the extensive marshlands.
The San Blas Pier is the inspiration for the hit song "En el muelle de San Blas" by the Mexican rock band Maná. The song was inspired by Rebeca Méndez Jiménez who waited at the pier for 41 years for her fiancé to come back from a fishing trip. It is believed he died in a sea storm.
Nayarit, officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Nayarit, is one of the 31 states that, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 20 municipalities and its capital city is Tepic.
The Manila galleon, originally known as La Nao de China, and Galeón de Acapulco, refers to the Spanish trading ships that linked the Spanish Crown's Viceroyalty of New Spain, based in Mexico City, with its Asian territories, collectively known as the Spanish East Indies, across the Pacific Ocean. The ships made one or two round-trip voyages per year between the ports of Acapulco and Manila from the late 16th to early 19th century. The name of the galleon changed to reflect from which city the ship sailed, setting sail from Cavite, in Manila Bay, at the end of June or first week of July, starting the return journey (tornaviaje) from Acapulco in March–April of the next calendar year, and returning to Manila in June–July.
The Nootka Sound Conventions were a series of three agreements between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, signed in the 1790s, which averted a war between the two countries over overlapping claims to portions of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America.
The human history of the west coast of North America is believed to stretch back to the arrival of the earliest people over the Bering Strait, or alternately along a now-submerged coastal plain, through the development of significant pre-Columbian cultures and population densities, to the arrival of the European explorers and colonizers. The west coast of North America today is home to some of the largest and most important companies in the world, as well as being a center of world culture.
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra was a Spanish Criollo naval officer operating in the Americas. Assigned to the Pacific coast Spanish Naval Department base at San Blas, in Viceroyalty of New Spain, he explored the Northwest Coast of North America as far north as present day Alaska. Bodega Bay in California is named for him.
Juan Manuel de Ayala y Aranza was a Spanish naval officer who played a significant role in the European exploration of California, as he and the crew of his ship the San Carlos were the first Europeans known to have entered the San Francisco Bay, having sailed there from the Port of San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico.
Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa was a Spanish military officer, governor of Cuba, and Viceroy of New Spain from 1771 until his death in 1779. His military service included campaigns in Italy and Portugal. He rose to the rank of lieutenant general while serving as inspector of coastal fortifications in Granada. In 1766, Bucareli entered the Spanish colonial administration as governor and captain general of Cuba. His record there earned him appointment as viceroy of New Spain in 1771.
Manuel Quimper Benítez del Pino was a Spanish Peruvian explorer, cartographer, naval officer, and colonial official. He participated in charting the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Sandwich Islands in the late 18th century. He was later appointed a colonial governor in his native Peru at the beginning of the fight for independence there. He retired to Spain, but was able to return to Peru where he served as a naval officer in the new republic and pursued a literary career, publishing over 20 books about his experiences before his death there in Lima.
Jesús Vidaña is a fisherman from Mexico. He, together with Lucio Rendón and Salvador Ordóñez, left a Mexican fishing port in October 2005 and survived nine months adrift in a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued in August 2006.
During the Age of Discovery, the Spanish Empire undertook several expeditions to the Pacific Northwest of North America. Spanish claims to the region date to the papal bull of 1493, and the Treaty of Tordesillas signed in 1494. In 1513, this claim was reinforced by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean, when he claimed all lands adjoining this ocean for the Spanish Crown. Spain only started to colonize the claimed territory north of present-day Mexico in the 18th century, when it settled the northern coast of Las Californias.
Francisco de Eliza y Reventa was a Spanish naval officer, navigator, and explorer. He is remembered mainly for his work in the Pacific Northwest. He was the commandant of the Spanish post in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, and led or dispatched several exploration voyages in the region, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia.
Pedro de Alberní y Teixidor; Tortosa, January 30, 1747 – Monterrey, New Spain, March 11, 1802) was a Spanish soldier who served the Spanish Crown for almost all his life. He spent most of his military career in colonial Mexico. He is notable for his role in the exploration of the Pacific Northwest in the 1790s, and his later term as ninth Spanish governor of Alta California in 1800.
José María Narváez was a Spanish naval officer, explorer, and navigator notable for his work in the Gulf Islands and Lower Mainland of present-day British Columbia. In 1791, as commander of the schooner Santa Saturnina, he led the first European exploration of the Strait of Georgia, including a landing on present-day British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. He also entered Burrard Inlet, the site of present-day Vancouver, British Columbia.
Costa Grande of Guerrero is a sociopolitical region located in the Mexican state of Guerrero, along the Pacific Coast. It makes up 325 km (202 mi) of Guerrero's approximately 500 km (311 mi) coastline, extending from the Michoacán border to the Acapulco area, wedged between the Sierra Madre del Sur and the Pacific Ocean. Acapulco is often considered part of the Costa Grande; however, the government of the state classifies the area around the city as a separate region. The Costa Grande roughly correlates to the Cihuatlán province of the Aztec Empire, which was conquered between 1497 and 1504. Before then, much of the area belonged to a dominion under the control of the Cuitlatecs, but efforts by both the Purépecha Empire and Aztec Empire to expand into this area in the 15th century brought this to an end. Before the colonial period, the area had always been sparsely populated with widely dispersed settlements. The arrival of the Aztecs caused many to flee and the later arrival of the Spanish had the same effect. For this reason, there are few archeological remains; however, recent work especially at La Soledad de Maciel has indicated that the cultures here are more important than previously thought. Today, the area economically is heavily dependent on agriculture, livestock, fishing and forestry, with only Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa with significantly developed infrastructure for tourism. The rest of the coast has been developed spottily, despite some government efforts to promote the area.
Juan Carrasco was a Spanish naval officer, explorer, and navigator. He is remembered mainly for his work in the Pacific Northwest during the late 18th century. He was second in command of the 1791 voyage of José María Narváez, the first European exploration of the Strait of Georgia.
Francisco Antonio Mourelle de la Rúa was a Spanish naval officer and explorer from Galicia serving the Spanish crown. He was born in 1750 at San Adrián de Corme, near A Coruña, Galicia.
La Princesa was a Spanish frigate or corvette built at the Spanish naval base at San Blas and launched in 1778. She is sometimes called a frigate and sometimes a corvette. At the time a corvette was similar to a frigate in that both were three-masted, ship-rigged warships, but corvettes were slightly smaller and had a single deck instead of two. The exact specifications of La Princesa are not known. La Princesa was designed with storage enough to sail for a year without having to restock. She was built for durability rather than speed. Like La Favorita, a similar corvette stationed at San Blas, La Princesa was heavily used, serving for over three decades, playing an important role in the exploration of the Pacific Northwest as well as the routine work of provisioning the missions of Alta California. During her 1779 voyage the Princesa carried six four-pounder cannons and four three-pounders, and had a crew complement of 98. The Princesa carried 26 cannons in 1789 when Esteban José Martínez took control of Nootka Sound.
Sutil was a brig-rigged schooner built in 1791 by the Spanish Navy at San Blas, New Spain. It was nearly identical to Mexicana, also built at San Blas in 1791. Both vessels were built for exploring the newly discovered Strait of Georgia, carried out in 1792 under Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, on Sutil, and Cayetano Valdés y Flores, on Mexicana. During this voyage the two Spanish vessels encountered the two British vessels under George Vancouver, HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham, which were also engaged in exploring the Strait of Georgia. The two expeditions cooperated in surveying the complex channels between the Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Strait, in the process proving the insularity of Vancouver Island. After this first voyage Sutil continued to serve the San Blas Naval Department, making various voyages to Alta California and the Pacific Northwest coast.
The Mexicana was a topsail schooner built in 1791 by the Spanish Navy at San Blas, New Spain. It was nearly identical to the Sutil, also built at San Blas later in 1791. Both vessels were built for exploring the newly discovered Strait of Georgia, carried out in 1792 under Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, on the Sutil, and Cayetano Valdés y Flores, on the Mexicana. During this voyage the two Spanish vessels encountered the two British vessels under George Vancouver, HMS Discovery and Chatham, which were also engaged in exploring the Strait of Georgia. The two expeditions cooperated in surveying the complex channels between the Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Strait, in the process proving the insularity of Vancouver Island. After this first voyage the Mexicana continued to serve the San Blas Naval Department, making various voyages to Alta California and the Pacific Northwest coast.
Hurricane Orlene was a powerful tropical cyclone that caused minor damage to the Pacific coast of Mexico in October 2022. The cyclone was the sixteenth named storm, ninth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 2022 Pacific hurricane season. Orlene originated from a low-pressure area off the coast of Mexico. Moving towards the north, Orlene gradually strengthened, becoming a hurricane on October 1 and reaching its peak intensity the following day with winds of 130 mph (215 km/h). Orlene made landfall just north of the Nayarit and Sinaloa border, with winds of 85 mph (140 km/h). Soon afterward, Orlene rapidly weakened and became a tropical depression, eventually dissipating over the Sierra Madre Occidental late on October 4.