Our Man in Mexico: Churubusco September 16, 2021
“Churubusco proved to be about the severest battle fought in the valley of Mexico.”
Ulysses S. Grant
The Churubusco River is covered with a carpet of green algae like a narrow fairway. Some years back, city planners grew tired of the flooding hazard and installed earthen berms and a series of locks, which effectively stopped the flow and removed any trace of the ancient flood plain. Instead, residents of this crowded barrio are treated to a pleasant strip of wooded parkland along each side, a perfect place to jog, walk dogs, and let children play, safe from the crazy street traffic that halts for no pedestrian.
Located 7 miles south of downtown Mexico City, this was once a sleepy hamlet of its own, but, like everything else in this vast valley of Mexica, it was swallowed by urbanization. Today it presents itself as an inexpensive residential alternative to neighboring Coyoacán, bisected by mad freeways that funnel travelers into the heart of the beastly metropolis. Crime and violence, of course, are no strangers here, requiring high walls and double padlocks, but nothing in the modern era compares to historic Churubusco when the uniformed gringos came to conquer in 1847.
The decisive battle ended at the Convent of San Diego de Churubusco. By that time, much of the fighting was with sabers and bayonets, as the remains of the Saint Patrick’s Brigade had mostly run out of ammunition. Officers of the US Army were particularly targeted. When Mexican militia troops tried to raise white flags of surrender at the convent, they were allegedly shot by the Irishmen, their brothers in arms, so determined was the battalion to kill as many Yanquis as possible.
Los Patricios paid the ultimate price for their inspired desertion. Fifty were hung at Chapultepec Hill, the largest mass execution in US military history. Despite the bleak descriptions by General Ulysses Grant, however, the Army did not actually acknowledge the scale of brutality until 1915, following a Congressional investigation.
The old bullet-pocked Convent has since been converted into the Museum of Interventions, to commemorate the bloody battle at the site and teach school children to distrust all foreign interlopers. In an earlier time, this museum might have been a place to teach indigenous students to distrust the Franciscans invaders, who in 1580 dismantled the Aztec temple that once stood here and replaced it with a Catholic convent. Fortunately, in Churubusco, the losers get to write the history:
Me locks had gone greasy, me beard it had greyed
When we found Churubusco and a blue barricade
We pounded them Yankees and we solemnly paid
When we joined Los Patricios lead cannonade
And we served in Saint Patrick’s Brigade.
In the distance, breaking through the clouds, lies the sleeping Aztec princess, Iztaccíhuatl. Her dormant figure rises above 17-thousand feet and is frosted with fresh snow. Tonight is the eve of Independence, but, due to the pandemic, the Zocalo will be vacant for El Grito de Dolores. Amid the proverbial rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air, Mexicans celebrate at home, five hundred years after the Conquest, seven hundred years after the rise of Tenochtitlán. Alone but together, sharing the same piece of earth, we all will cry, “Viva!” Freedom from Spain, from France, from America—from the tyranny of empires—Viva Mexico!