Between the Summit and the Sea

Central Veracruz in the Nineteenth Century

By Alfred H. Siemens
Categories: Geography, Geography, History
Publisher: UBC Press
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774856676, 254 pages, October 2007

Table of contents

Tables and Figures

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. The Travellers, the Lowlands, and the Times

2. Nearing the Coast

3. The Macabre Port

4. Guardian Dragon

5. "Hay que armarse para viajar"

6. Vegetable Drapery

7. Chaparral

8. Jarochos

9. Above the Oaks

10. Leaving Enchanted Ground

11. Round Unvarnished Tales?

References

Index

Description

For some time now, there has been a great deal of concerned
reflection on the ways in which the tropical lowlands of the Americas
have been perceived and exploited. This book addresses this concern. It
is also something of an appreciation of tropical lowlands, as they
emerge along one particular road, gathered from the accounts of early
nineteenth-century observers.

Aerial reconnaissance has shown that many wetlands in the lowlands
which these travellers crossed are patterned with the remains of
prehispanic platforms and canals, an old and effective system for the
cultivation of wetlands. These show particularly clearly in the
pastures of modern ranches -- a very different land use, and yet
perhaps governed by similar constraints. The pastures are dotted with
palms which eloquently indicate repeated burning and long use and
scored by drainage ditches cut according to contemporary practice, thus
giving evidence of both ancient and modern use. The travellers'
accounts throw light on this juxtaposition.

Early nineteenth-century visitors to Mexico usually entered the
country at Veracruz and proceeded inland along the Jalapa road. Their
impressions of the surrounding landscape have long been relied upon for
a contemporary interpretation of this region. They produced a rich
literature which reveals a great deal about what the European and North
American travellers thought about the tropics.

The reader is taken along the Veracruz-Jalapa road up to the summit
of the pass and on to the central tableland and allowed to see the
coastal landscape take shape from the commentary, step by step --
detailed and coloured by predisposition, the 'objective'
landscape often aggrandized and misperceived. The accounts are not
benign; they are tinged with an evaluation of tropical lowlands that
unfortunately persisted and proved prejudicial to actual development
here and elsewhere.

In this book, Alfred Siemens brings together a wide array of
commentary to coalesce as though it were a piece of landscape theatre,
always with the recognition that the fascinating and at times
entertaining observations carry venom.