Costa Grande of Guerrero - History - Mexican War of Independence To The Present

Mexican War of Independence To The Present

The abuses of the hacienda system and the caciques made the area ripe for the insurgent movement under Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. In 1810, José María Morelos y Pavón passed through the Costa Grande from Michoacán in order to take Acapulco, having little trouble recruiting soldiers. However, many hacienda owners were also recruited, especially in Tecpan and Coyuca, mostly due to strong nationalist and anti-Spanish sentiment among criollos in the area. For the most part, the Costa Grande would remain in insurgent hands, with a major insurgent headquarters in Tecpan, which was a province created by Morelos himself in 1811.

During and after the Independence, the Costa Grande initially became part of the Capitania General del Sur, but then the area became part of the states of Michoacán and Mexico. It would remain such until the creation of the state of Guerrero in 1849. After the end of the reign of Agustín de Iturbide, the process of dividing the Costa Grande into municipalites began with Tecpan in 1824. which was far larger than it is today. The rest were created between then and 1953 the last being José Azueta(Zihuatanejo) by separating territories from Tecpan, and then by dividing these. Some municipal seats, such as Coyuca, Petatlán and Zihuatanejo would achieve city status over time. Despite the imposition of the municipality system by liberal elements of the Mexican government, real political and economic power remained uninterrupted in the hand of cacique families, a number of whom are still honored for their roles in the War of Independence. After independence, the most powerful cacique was Juan Álvarez, who would keep economic, political and military power concentrated in this family and those affiliated with it. Independence and the liberal reforms of the 19th century would have little to no effect on the daily lives of the vast majority of people in the Costa Grande.

During the Porfirio Díaz era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the cacique system again co-opted, in this case with the federal government selling lands very cheaply to foreign interests and contracting with caciques to provide labor. In the Costa Grande area, much of the land came under the control of a family named Miller. Intensive agriculture based on cash crops such as cotton, coconuts, coffee and citrus fruit were introduced. Many workers became indentured servants, a situation which would continue until the Mexican Revolution.

During this war, the area was mostly sympathetic the Liberation Army of the South as was the rest of Guerrero; however, fighting was mostly done in the state’s central valleys. The major effect of the war was the redistribution of land and the institution of the ejido system afterwards, with the aim of giving “campesinos” (peasant farmers) lands that could not be taken away from them. However, their formation did not do away with the old caciques, which still exerted considerable influence. One example of this was Silvestre Mariscal, who controlled the municipality of Atoyac starting in 1914.

For the rest of the 20th century to the present, the history of the area has been dominated by the struggles of campesinos against local and regional caciques, along with national and international interests which have worked with caciques for their own ends. Early efforts, to strengthen campesino rights included a league established in 1925, in Atoyac by Amadeo Vidales. In the 1930s, the ejido system gained the support of the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas, and it was strengthened with thirty six created in the municipality of Atoyac alone. However, large estates still remained such as the lands belonging to the Guerrero Land and Timber Co. which included parts of La Unión, Petatlán, Técpan, Atoyac, as well as Ajuchitlán, Coyuca de Catlán and even Chilpancingo in the interior. This left large parts of the Costa Grande still under the control of a few landholders. Labor movements in general were active from the 1930s to the 1950s, culminating is a strike by workers on coconut plantations from Acapulco to Zihuatanejo in 1952, which blocked roads. In the 1990s, guerrillas of the EZLN based in Chiapas gained footing in the Costa Grande, especially in the municipalities close to Acapulco such as Coyuca. These fought police and military forces for a number of years during this decade along with local groups such as the Comando Armado Revolucionario del Sur (CARS). This fighting lead to the militarization of many of the roads in the Costa Grande, including Highway 200. This fighting also coincided with the political struggles between the PRD party and the then-ruling PRI. Another struggle has been between local farmers and logging interests, especially in Petatlán. In the 1990s, arrangements with national and local leaders to log forests located on ejido land in the area. The logging quickly began to exceed legal limits and began seriously damaging the ecology of the area, such as causing rivers and streams like the Coyuquilla River to dry up. Local farmers depend on these resources and in the late 1990s, banded together to form the Campesino Environmentalist Organization of Petatlan and Coyuca de Catalan (OCEP). The group is best known for blocking logging roads, which had an effect on the industry. In 1998, two of the movement’s leaders, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrerea and made to confess to charges leveled against them by the federal government. With the support of Amnesty International, Greenpeace and others, the two were released in 2001. Since then, there has been continued sporadic violence, including killings, leading to human rights condemnations. Another activist, Felipe Arriaga Sanchez, was detained on charges of murder and criminal association in 2004. Amnesty International believes that it is politically motivated. The OCEP continues to exist and fight deforestation mostly through legal channels, although some are still accused by authorities of drug trafficking and membership in a guerrilla group. The group states the charges come from local caciques when the group pushes for new legal actions. The group has had more success in the Petatlan Valley than in Coyuquilla Valley, but in both areas there continues to be large scale illegal cutting, with cleared areas then being used for pasture or to grow drugs. The environment destruction forces many local farmers to become part of the drug production in order to survive.

In addition to this violence, efforts to curb the drug trade in Mexico have had serious effects on the area. Since 2005, the Costa Grande has been dominated by drug related violence according to the Procuraduría General de la República and state authorities. Incidents have included kidnappings and executions; including those of police and local political figures as local criminal organizations ally themselves with rival Sinaloa and Gulf cartels fighting for dominance in the region. Petatlán has been especially hard hit by the violence. Federal Highway 200 between Acapulco and Zihuatanejo remains militarized, with soldiers manning checkpoints along the stretch looking for guns and weapons. These checkpoints randomly search private and commercial vehicles, including tour busses.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the development of Acapulco as a resort began the Guerrero’s coast tourism economy, bringing it an international reputation as well as major infrastructure such as the highway linking the Costa Grande with Mexico City via Highway 200.(enchhistoria) On the Costa Grande proper, the government developed the beach area of Ixtapa, near Zihuatanejo in the 1970s. The two are promoted together, but with two very different atmospheres. Ixtapa is promoted as a world class luxury resort and Zihuatanejo is promoted as a more “typical” Mexican experience. The rest of the coast has only spotty tourism development, with the next most developed area being Troncones, with its bed and breakfasts and bungalows.