Episode list

In the distant past, what is now the territory of the State of Mexico was inhabited by different peoples who fought, traded and intermingled. As centuries went by, two great empires were born--Teotihuacán and Tenochtitlán-as well as powerful dominions including Matlatzinco, Texcoco and Chalco. After the Spanish conquest, indigenous peoples formed part of a new social order under the viceroy ship. At the heart of New Spain, a prosperous society had emerged from two great civilizations: the Mesoamerican and the European.

The State of Mexico was born out of the War of Independence, but it took over fifty years for it to adopt its final configuration. While the nation experienced federalist centralist regimes, foreign interventions, the War of Reform and the Restoration of the Republic, the broad territory of the State of Mexico, which stretched at first from the Pacific Ocean to the border with Veracruz, suffered dismemberments that gave rise to the nation's capital and various states. Despite these divisions, the State of Mexico was destined to progress by virtue of its solid foundations, both material and cultural.

After a half century of wars and conflicts, the Porfiriato or Porfirio Díaz regime was seen as an era of economic progress and political tranquility. The expansion of railroads, the growth of mining and agricultural production, and capable, stable governance brought prosperity to many corners of the State of Mexico, although the masses remained immersed in poverty and political rights were infringed. Toward the end of the Porfiriato, economic progress in the State of Mexico was evident. The railroad communicated it both internally and with neighboring states, mining and agricultural production grew, and commerce, banking, and industry expanded. However, old grievances would soon lead to popular rebellion.

After the 1910 Revolution, a capable political class governed the State of Mexico, encouraging its economic development until it had become the state with the highest growth nationwide. Urban expansion and proximity to Mexico City gave rise to a megalopolis that would eventually comprise Querétaro, Cuernavaca, Pacuca, Tlaxcala, and Puebla. Although there are considerable drawbacks in terms of housing, health, and education, and more recently, broad industrial revamping, the State of Mexico will continue to perform a key role in national progress. Today, the State of Mexico is a laboratory in which the possible destinies of the nation are being tested.

Electric energy was one of the pillars of progress within the context of peace sustained during the Porfirio Díaz era. The electric industry was first backed by national private enterprise, but over the years, foreign investment made it flourish. Following the 1910 Revolution, the Federal Government launched a plan to achieve nationalization. Thus, the Federal Commission of Electricity (CFE in Spanish) was born. 74 years after it was founded, it is still the only company in charge of providing Mexicans with electric energy and with creating infrastructure for its generation and transmission, as well as the modernization of the industry and the exploration of environmentally friendly energy sources.

To commemorate the Bicentennial of Mexican Independence, Fomento Cultural Banamex proudly presented the exhibition "Painting of the Kingdoms. Shared Identities in the Hispanic World", which was shown at the Prado Museum and Madrid Royal Palace in 2010, before being sent to Mexico City in 2011. This vast research effort, compiled in four volumes, tells the story of a profound historic and cultural relationship: one that brings together Spain, Mexico, and Peru as three nations that formed part of the great Spanish Empire. Thus, visual works were exhibited with an aesthetic language that manifests the bonds of identity between these countries, as well as the details that distinguish their artistic production from the 16th to 18th centuries. This program bears witness to the exhibition and Fomento Cultural Banamex's genuine interest in the development of Mexican culture.

In this first episode of the series "The Conquest of Mexico", two empires divided by an ocean, with a parallel vision of the world, are found in a moment of fusion and clash: the Spanish Empire, coming out from the Reconquista ("reconquest"), with a christian philosophy and with a declining crown thirsty of wealth, and the Aztec Empire, -ruled by Moctezuma, feared and respected by foreigners-, who had extended over a vast territory of discontented and divided nations.

In this chapter, the arrival of the Spaniards to Mesoamerica is interpreted as the prophecy that warned of the return of an important deity, this marked the outcome of the Conquest of Mexico. Moctezuma, sacred governor, has no option but to live with the invader as a form of defense. This decision not only cost him his life, but his empire, thus the foundations of the New Spain were built atop the ruins of the Aztec Empire.

In this chapter two different notions, on how each empire saw the world converge and yet differ in one equally important aspect for both cultures: religion. The spiritual conquest was an even more complicated task than the military conquest, where the role of the friars and humanists was pivotal in this transformative process. The permanence and merge of beliefs became the religious basis for the modern Mexicans.

From the colonial hispanism, to the most adverse expressions of the indigenismo (value of the indigenous identity) in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Conquest of Mexico and its protagonists have been valuated differently through time. In this final chapter of the series, we make a journey through these expressions, appreciating the legacy left through the centuries and the symbolisms that were written in the history of Mexico, from the 16th century to the present.

Among the many Mexican pasts that subsist today, the history of our Indians has been the most profound, the most complex, and also the most painful. The proud symbol of a modern nation, a pre-Hispanic past, and its mythical figures-Moctezuma, Cuauhtemoc- has set off fiery debates throughout the centuries, no less fierce than the tragic condition of Indians today. Over the course of four hundred years, what have our most notable historians and writers thought about the glory and fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan? What polemics have the endless agony of its descendants sustained? The drama of the Conquest and its aftermath are not confined to the past: even today they gravitate over Mexico and Mexicans alike.

From the time of the Conquest, the history of Mexico has reflected the passions and interests of those who interpreted it and made it possible. In search of the truth, historians frequently added on other motives: the defense of an ideological or partisan position, or the legitimization of the State they had helped consolidate. Many of the strongmen, politicians, and writers who are remembered by statues, streets, towns, and cities across the nation date back to the 19th century. However, almost no one recalls the heroes of historiography, the few who miraculously conserved the memory of our past. This program is a tribute to all those friars, lawyers, generals, engineers, and regular citizens who literally sacrificed their own personal histories in order to rescue the collective history of Mexicans as a whole.

From colonial times, the jails of Mexico have reflected the country's poverty and deprivation better than anyplace else. Toward the end of the 19th century-during the boom of the Porfirio Díaz regime-overcrowding and extortion, sexual abuse and murder marked the lives of thousands of convicts locked up in improvised prisons, where the worst kind of criminal was thrown in with those who had committed misdemeanors, or even those who were innocent. The inauguration in 1900 of an impressive new penitentiary facility in Mexico City, modeled after the most advanced institutions of the day, led Mexicans to believe that the frightful reality of jails in our country had ended. Yet the name of that prison, located on the plains of San Lázaro, would become a key to 20th century Mexico: Lecumberri.

When the closing of the Lecumberri prison was decreed in 1976, the so-called Black Palace was already synonymous to corruption, violence, and crime. Together with thousands of common criminals, students and teachers had occupied its cells, not to mention some of Mexico's most outstanding painters, writers, and politicians. Finally, rescued from destruction by a group of notable humanists, the transformation of Lecumberri into the General Archives of the Nation opened a formidable new chapter in the cultural history of our country. Today, thirty years after its relocation to San Lázaro, the archives that guard the memory of Mexico must face new and pressing challenges.