September 12, 2008, cont. from front page, Symbols of independence may return home, By Jesús Ibarra, A death in the local jail

Over the protests of business owners, mostly of restaurants and bars, the city council agreed in 2007 to cease the popular event based partly on recommendations of UNESCO specialists that such an uncontrolled event would jeopardize the city’s bid for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Last year, Mayor Jesús Correa said that during his administration there would be no Sanmiguelada. One year later, many business owners and employees still resent the decision and feel the loss of income. Some local business owners are planning alternative events to replace it and others are still demanding that the Sanmiguelada be reinstated. During the city council session on September 5, Mayor Correa and the PRD, PT and PRI city councilors voted to reconsider and discuss reinstating the event.

Atención asked some business owners in Centro their opinions about the cancellation of the Sanmiguelada.

A whole new bull game

According to José Luna, owner of Mama Mía, businesses in San Miguel make most of their money during specific periods: weekends (especially long weekends).

For Luna the Sanmiguelada allowed himself and other business owners to cover the low season of October, November and part of December. “We could save up, which allowed us to afford to pay our expenses, even the aguinaldo (Christmas bonus for employees),” said Luna. With the cancellation of the Sanmiguelada, a crisis was felt in restaurants, bars, hotels and other businesses.”

The event enabled business owners to keep their entire staff without resorting to low season lay-offs. “Now, in my case, I have to lay off about 30 percent of my 115 employees because I cannot afford their wages during the low season.”

The cancellation of the event, Luna believes, generates unemployment and this could increase emigration and crime rates within the city.

Although Luna himself did not care for the Sanmiguelada, he concedes it became a tradition that generated a crowd. He thinks it was badly organized by the authorities and that a carefully planned alternative is in order. As he said, “we cannot let all those young people who came with gold credit cards to San Miguel get away.” Luna intends to propose an event located away from Centro in which the running of the bulls would only play an enticing part. “Income generated by the event would go toward a foundation we have formed to support low-income youth, Patronato Pro-Juventud Sanmiguelense,” he said. He thinks the event could take place in November.

For Mauricio Trejo, owner of El Grito, a popular disco and bar, income from the Sanmiguelada had a ripple effect at all levels; it not only generated additional income for business owners, but also for employees, and it reached families even in rural communities. In El Grito, the cancellation resulted in a 40 percent loss in September income.

“We have been wasting time trying to recover an event that the authorities have decided to bury,” he said. “Mayor Correa made the right decision in canceling the Sanmiguelada because an event like that could not be held in a World Heritage city, but their collaborators, specifically the Tourism Council of San Miguel and the Tourism, Economic Development and International Relations Department, should have worked to replace it with another major event to soften the economic crisis the cancellation caused.”

For Trejo, the restaurant and hotel owners have an obligation to propose something new to replace the Sanmiguelada and generate even more income than that event. “I am already working on a proposal that would include excellent bullfights with first-class bullfighters and events with horses; it would last a whole week, to keep tourists here for more than one day, as the Sanmiguelada did,” he said.

Marcelo Castro Vera, manager of Hotel Real de Minas and the new president of the Hotel Owners Association of San Miguel, said that the cancellation of the Sanmiguelada did decrease the hotel’s September income by about 10 percent. “I think the cancellation affected or will affect everybody in one way or another.” he said. However, Castro Vera thinks that it is not fruitful to keep thinking about the Sanmiguelada and hotel owners should work to replace it with some other source of income.

“A convention center would bring lots of visitors to the city. The convention rooms in Real de Minas have become an important part in the income of the hotel,” he said. Although the cancellation did not cause a drastic change for him and his employees, it has affected them. “With a decrease in the percentage of hotel occupancy, the tips also decrease,” he said.

No stampede to change

Benajmín Lara, president of the State Federation of Sellers of Wines and Liquors (Federación Estatal de Comerciantes de Vinos y Licores) and owner of the El Caporal bar, said that the Samiguelada should to be reinstated because it is a tradition.

“Its cancellation was really an economic calamity for San Miguel. Personally, the cancellation did not have a great impact. I can subsist without the Sanmiguelada since my bar is small and we are full on the weekends. I only lost about 10 or 15 percent of business. But we are not those most affected: there are waiters, taxi drivers, artisans and other workers who are indeed affected in a direct or indirect way.”

Lara said that he is leading a group of artisans, taxi drivers and schoolteachers who are trying to reinstate the event. “We approached the state government, and they are not opposed to holding it again; they would even send state police to have better control and organization. We have already submitted the logistics proposal to the governor, the state secretary of tourism and the state secretary of public security, and they agreed with it. We have also given a copy to all the city councilors.”

Lara’s proposal is the one Mayor Correa and some city councilors voted to discuss.

Ángel de Anda, owner of Casa Mariano Artesanías, a souvenir and crafts store in Portal Allende, said the cancellation of the Sanmiguelada resulted in an 80 percent drop in sales during that period. According to him, the high seasons are Holy Week, summer holidays and Christmas, but the most lucrative was the Sanmiguelada. He considers the Sanmiguelada to be a tradition. “The most popular article in my stores were the Sanmiguelada T-shirts, and now sales of the shirts have considerably decreased. We hardly sell any,” he said. He has not dismissed any employees as they are relatives.

Bulls in a china shop

Luz Macías, owner of Posada Las Monjas, said she has not been adversely affected by the cancellation of the Sanmiguelada. “I have the same number of guests with or without the Sanmiguelada. I was in fact negatively affected by the event because people leave without paying and overcrowd rooms. Six or more, completely drunk, stayed in rooms for only four people. The hotel restaurant was empty because the young people who came to the Sanmiguelada did not eat here. My hotel is for families,” she said.

Yolanda Lacarieri, owner of a boutique in Portal Guadalupe, said that she did not lose money owing to the cancellation of the Sanmiguelada.

“On the contrary, I came out ahead because I had to close my business during that weekend. Drunks would urinate inside my store and vandalize it. Now, I can open it without worrying,” she said.

The Sanmiguelada week:	2005	2006	2007

Occupation rates	35.62%	37.10%	24.54%

Total hotel guests	4,084	3,615	2,673

The month of September:	2005	2006	2007

Occupation rates	33.86%	33.95%	28.23%

Total hotel guests	13,969	12,066	11,263

Note: San Miguel authorities calculated that 40,000 attended the 2006 Sanmiguelada. Source http://datatur.sectur.gob.mx/

Two historic flags borne by the insurgent army at the beginning of the War of Independence in San Miguel will probably be returned to Mexico from Spain. On November 23 of last year, Luis Alberto Villarreal, senator from Guanajuato, proposed the Senate exhort the Mexican government to request the return of the banners. “The flags are the legal property of the Spanish government since they were seized from the insurgent army during a war,” said local historian Graciela Cruz.

During his last official visit to Spain, President Felipe Calderón formally asked King Juan Carlos I to return the flags as a gift in time for the bicentennial festivities in 2010.

Finding the flags

According to Cruz, historian Dr. Martha Terán uncovered the existence of the flags more than 10 years ago in a document from 1814 currently housed in the Archivo General de la Nación (National General Archive). In the document, Félix María Calleja, a brigadier in the Spanish army who fought against the Mexican insurgency, listed all the jewels, furniture and other items that had belonged to José María Morelos, one of the leaders of the insurgent movement, that he was sending in a trunk to Spain. Among the objects listed were “two flags made of sky-blue taffeta with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the front and the image of Saint Michael Archangel, the imperial eagle and several other symbols and markings on the back. These flags were the first ones with which the rebels began the revolt in the villa of San Miguel el Grande and were seized in the battle of Calderón on January 17, 1811.”

“Because these flags were sent to Spain along with Morelos’s belongings, they were wrongly associated with him,” said Cruz. The flags were placed in the Museum of the Army (Museo del Ejército), previously lodged at the Palacio del Buen Retiro in Madrid and afterward moved to the Alcázar of Toledo. According to Cruz, Terán found the flags in the Spanish museum and connected them with Calleja’s document.

After thorough research, Terán concluded that these flags could be considered “the first flags of the Independence movement, of military origin and actually Mexican.” Cruz said that the most acceptable theory, based on Terán’s studies and those of historian Dr. Guadalupe Jiménez Godinach and Cruz herself, is that the flags were the property of the military regiment settled in San Miguel de Allende known as Dragones de la Reina (Queen’s Dragons), commanded by Colonel Narciso María Loreto de la Canal and to which Ignacio Allende belonged. “There is also another hypothesis that the flags could have been sponsored by Ignacio Allende himself for the independence movement,” said Cruz. “However, there is no evidence to confirm these two hypotheses, although the first one is the most likely. What we can categorically confirm is that the flags belonged to San Miguel, which is mentioned by Calleja in his document of 1814, and they were never in Morelos’s possession.”

The symbols on the flags

In her report, Terán mentions that “these San Miguel flags have two faces bearing the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Archangel Saint Michael, the Mexican coat of arms (the imperial eagle standing on a nopal and eating a serpent), the Bourgogne crosses, lances, cannons, drums, and an arch with arrows, a complex composition symbolizing feelings of religion, loyalty and patriotism.”

“These emblems were similar to those of the Queen’s Dragons regiment,” said Cruz. “It is known that the villa of San Miguel el Grande lacked a coat of arms and requested a license to use the image of Saint Michael Archangel instead of the regiment’s emblems.”

Return of the natives?

Cruz said that during the centennial celebration of Independence in 1910 King Alfonso XIII of Spain generously returned to the Mexican government (at that time headed by Porfirio Díaz), through his ambassador, the Marquis of Polavieja, the items seized from Morelos by Calleja, then kept in the National History Museum in Chapultepec Castle. “Now, we decided to ask the Spanish government to continue the tradition of 100 years ago and give us the flags as a gift,” said Cruz, who added that upon their arrival in Mexico the flags would remain for a period of time at the National History Museum and then would permanently return to San Miguel to the Museo Casa de Allende, currently being restored as a museum of Mexican Independence.

The dawn of independence

According to research by Guadalupe Jiménez, the start of the independence uprising was originally planned for September 29, 1810, the day of Saint Michael Archangel. A group of criollos (of Spanish ancestry but born in New Spain) from San Miguel, headed by Ignacio Allende and the Aldama brothers, Juan and Ignacio, had been secretly meeting in San Miguel since 1809.

It was the most important and largely attended meeting in the area, with about 70 participants, including soldiers, priests and common citizens. Several other groups of conspirators in nearby cities such as Querétaro were in contact with them. Felipe González, one of the San Miguel conspirators and Allende’s personal friend, suggested that “a priest with light, probity and reputation should be invited to guide the movement in order that the liberty project should not be considered irreligious and illicit.” It was in the San Miguel meeting that the decision was made to invite Father Miguel Hidalgo to be the visible head of the independence movement,
and Ignacio Allende invited him personally.

When the meeting in Querétaro was discovered, Hidalgo and Allende, who were at the priest’s house in Dolores when they were advised they could be arrested at any moment, decided late in the evening of September 15 to begin the revolt early the next morning. Between 5 and 6am on September 16, Hidalgo rang the church bells to assemble the people of Dolores. The makeshift army, mostly residents armed only with sticks, along with a few soldiers, advanced to Hacienda La Erre, property of the Malo family, friends of Allende, and then to Atotonilco. From the shrine at Atotonilco they took up a banner bearing an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe as their battle standard. Upon their arrival in San Miguel, residents were waiting for them at the outskirts of the city with the two sky-blue flags bearing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Michael Archangel. The flags accompanied Hidalgo, Allende and their army until their defeat by Calleja in Puente de Calderón, near Guadalajara, on January 17, 1811, where they were seized by the Spanish brigadier.

A death in the local jail

City Secretary Cristóbal Finkelstein and Police Chief Daniel Trujillo announced that on Monday night a young woman attempted to commit suicide in the local jail. According to the report, the woman was found alive hanging in her cell a few minutes after the jail staff had made their rounds. She was taken to the hospital but died on the way.

The woman had been arrested in response to a report from her own mother, who called the emergency number 066 to ask for help from the police. She said her daughter was drunk and trying to seize her small grandson by force. The woman fought with police as she was being arrested. At the local jail, all her personal belongings such as belts or any object with which she might hurt herself were taken away from her. However, she found a way to attempt to hang herself. “The case is under investigation,” said Finkelstein. “And any omission or negligence that may be uncovered will be sanctioned.”