RATING: ♦♦♦♦
Our next stop after Jamay was the town of La Barca, which has a current population of 70,000. On the way into town, we had a nice lunch at the La Barca Restaurantes. Then it was into the town center.
“La Barca” means “the boat.” It was founded in the early 1500’s as a place to cross the Lerma River on the road between the city of Guadalajara and the towns in Michoacán. It’s still a major transportation route. The Lerma River feeds into Lake Chapala.
The official name of the city is Santa Monica de la Barca, and the main church in the center of town on the plaza is Parroquia Santa Mónica (Parish of Santa Monica). It’s a huge church building, filling up a city block. It was built by the Augustinians starting in 1780 and ended in 1797. Amazingly, it survived the quake of 1847 and still stands today.
The plaza is surrounding by a graceful series of colonnades full of shops and restaurants. Surrounding the gazebo in the center of the plaza are busts of Mexico’s great revolutionary heroes. In fact in every city we visited there were busts or statues of Mexican heroes. America has George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; Mexico has Miguel Hidalgo and Benito Juárez.
Of special interest in La Barca is the Museo “La Moreña”. Originally the grand home of a extravagantly wealthy landowner named Don Francisco Velarde, it is now a museum.
Don Francisco had many mansions, and called this one in La Barca his “farm house.” Several of the rooms in the home have furniture from the period, but the main attraction is the interior courtyard, which is lined with wonderful paintings showing scenes from Mexico of the 1800s.
There are 28 paintings in all. The murals were done by the Jalisco painter Gerardo Suarez, who was one of the three painters that painted the ceiling at the Delgado Theater in Guadalajara, that shows the fourth Circle of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The La Morena murals were based on lithographs by Casimiro Castro, published in 1855.
The murals were commissioned by Don Francisco Velarde, who was a legendary character from a rich Guadalajara family. He epitomized the extravagance and splendor of the landed gentry during this time. He essentially owned the whole town, and he was hated by the people. They called him the “Golden Burro” (El Burro de Oro) because he had so many gold doubloons.
Ultimately, Don Francisco met a tragic end. He was a strong supporter of the French occupation of Mexico during the mid-1800s. But the Mexican people rebelled. Don Francisco was captured and executed on June 14, 1867 at the age of 58. His property confiscated and returned to the people.
Of the three larger towns we visited today, La Barca was our favorite. It has a wonderful plaza, a magnificent church, and a beautiful museum, all wrapped in Mexico’s struggle for freedom and equality.
In closing, it should be mentioned that Mexico voted overwhelmingly for a new president just a few days after our tour. They elected Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador along with a new majority party, the Movement for National Regeneration (MORENA). The new president and his party have promised to stamp out corruption and subdue drug cartels.
There is definitely a sense in the country that Mexico is ready for a change. Obrador sees himself in the line of revolutionary heroes like Hidalgo, Juarez, and Zapata. And many Mexican do as well. We wish Mexico well and hope the election brings a change for the better.
