San Cristóbal de las Casas

San Cristóbal de las Casas, the preeminent city (2005 population of 142,000) of the central highlands of the southernmost Mexican state of Chiapas. Founded in 1524 by Luis Marín, it was originally called La Chiapa de los Indios and renamed Ciudad Real de Chiapa in 1527. As the provincial capital of isolated Chiapas, Ciudad Real fell within the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Guatemala of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. It served as the diocesan center of Chiapas until 1744 despite the fact that its Spanish population never exceeded 250 during the seventeenth century.

When Chiapas joined the Mexican federation in 1824, this city became the state capital. During the nineteenth century its name changed from San Cristóbal (1829) to San Cristóbal de las Casas (1844), in honor of Chiapas' first bishop, Bartolomé de Las Casas. During the mid-nineteenth-century struggle between Liberals and Conservatives, San Cristóbal was the bastion of provincial Conservatives. As a delayed consequence of Liberal ascendancy in Chiapas, the powers of the state government were transferred definitively to Tuxtla Gutiérrez in 1892. Cristobalense malcontents attempted without success to exploit the national revolution of 1910–1911 by initiating a rebellion against the government in Tuxtla Gutiérrez in order to reestablish San Cristóbal as the state capital.

The political and economic marginalization of the city in the twentieth century has contributed to the preservation of the city's numerous colonial-era architectural monuments. Its colonial and Indian ambience has made it a popular tourist attraction in recent decades. In January 1994 the city was briefly seized by the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) during a regional uprising of Indians and peasants. In 2006 the EZLN launched its "Other Campaign" from San Cristóbal.

See alsoChiapas .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aubry, Andrés. San Cristóbal de las Casas: Su historia urbana, demográfica y monumental, 1528–1990 (1991).

De Vos, Jan. San Cristóbal ciudad colonial (1986).

Guillén, Diana. Chiapas: Una modernidad inconclusa. Mexico: Instituto Mora, 1995.

Meyer, Jean A., Federico Anaya Gallardo, and Julio Ríos. Samuel Ruiz en San Cristóbal, 1960–2000. Mexico: Tusquets Editores, 2000.

Womack, John. Chiapas, el Obispo de San Cristóbal y la revuelta zapatista. Mexico: Cal y Arena, 1998.

                                      Thomas Benjamin

                              Virginia Garrard-Burnett