Zacatecoluca

Zacatecoluca is a city, municipality and in turn is the departmental Head or Capital of the Department of La Paz, in El Salvador. It has a population of 75,100 inhabitants for the year 2016. Its origins date back to pre-Hispanic times, and during the Spanish colonization it was the second most important town in the San Vicente district. In 1844 it acquired the title of city with the recognition of Noble, Generous and Loyal, City of Santa Lucía de Zacatecoluca. The Central American hero José Simeón Cañas is from this place.

Toponymy

Zacatecoluca is a word of Nahuat origin, which means «Place of grasses and owls», since it comes from the roots tzakat (grass), and Tekulut (owl or Tecolote) and Kan (place). Its place name is Tzacatekulukan.

History

Around the 11th and 12th centuries, Nahua groups arrived from the Valley of Mexico, who would be known as the Nahuas of Kuskatan and among them the Nonualcos.

During the time of the Spanish colonization, the president of the Real Audiencia de los Confines, lawyer Alonso López de Cerrato, ancestor of Manuel José Arce, along with lawyers Pedro Ramírez de Quiñónez and Juan Roxel, carried out of the encomendero Juan de Medina in 1548, the appraisal of the town of Zacatecoluca, which consisted of "400 tributary Indians, that is, around 2000 people".

In 1576, the oidor Diego García de Palacio made reference to the fact that cocoa was cultivated in the area, while ten years later, Fray Alonso Ponce, in his Brief and True Report, described Zacatecoluca as a «big town».

On March 6, 1658, the Royal Audience of Guatemala granted the rank of town to San Vicente; for this reason it was allowed to have its own council and therefore be the head of its own province under the Mayor of San Salvador; Zacatecoluca became one of the towns of the new Province of San Vicente and was under the jurisdiction of its council.

In the year 1673, the president-governor and captain general of Guatemala Fernando Francisco de Escobedo enlisted the troops of the kingdom of Guatemala, so that Zacatecoluca would have an infantry company.

Already in 1740, the mayor of San Salvador, Don Manuel de Gálvez Corral, stated that in Santa Lucía de Zacatecoluca lived «twelve Spanish neighbors, and four hundred and ten Indians, and four hundred and fifty mulattoes and mestizos, who are soldiers of two companies that serve for the guard and custody of that (coast), and the few Spaniards already mentioned are the Military Officers of the two companies, who are neighbors and residents of this town, and are owners of the haciendas that are immediate; [in addition] the aforementioned town has corn, chickens, sow cattle, cotton for fruits; [and] it is red mud terrain, very hot.”

In this way, Zacatecoluca had grown to become the second most important town in the Province of San Vicente, behind the capital, San Vicente.

In 1751, Mayor Domingo Soto Bermúdez appointed José García as deputy mayor in the Zacatecoluca district.

By 1768, Zacatecoluca was the head of the Zacatecoluca Parish, under whose jurisdiction were the annexed towns of Analco and Tecoluca, 19 haciendas plus one on the coast and several salt flats. That same year the priest of the Parish of Zacatecoluca was Don Antonio Macal, who had previously been the priest of Suchitoto; Also in that year, Archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz visited Zacatecoluca as part of his visit to the parishes of the Diocese of Guatemala. According to the archbishop, the majority of the population was ladinos; the land, in his opinion, was abundant and fertile for several crops, the main one being "inks" (jiquilite) and corn; there were plenty of cattle ranches and several salt pans on the seashore. Despite the good land, he said that it was little worked.

In 1786 it became the head of the district that included San Juan, San Pedro and Santiago Nonualco, Santa María Ostuma, San Sebastián Analco and Tecoluca. It was governed by two ordinary mayors.

The Ordinary Mayors elected on January 1, 1803 to govern that same year were Don Fernando de la Cotera, Mayor with the first vote, and Don José Miguel Villacorta, Mayor with the second vote.

By the year 1807, according to a report by the mayor Don Antonio Gutiérrez y Ulloa, «5955 souls lived in Zacatecoluca and the entire district, which included or villages, 25 haciendas, 2 sites and 3 islands or estuaries with cattle, was inhabited by 107 Spaniards, 8,029 Indians and 5,816 mulattoes or ladinos".

He also noted the following: «its inhabitants do not stop being active, dedicating themselves to the cultivation of corn, beans, rice, plantains and farinaceous roots, with a specialty of sugarcane, cotton and indigo which they trade, the latter being one of the one of the richest, although since the year 1800 it has suffered considerably from the plague of locusts, in whose terrain it has tenaciously fixed itself. Its arts and manufactures are reduced to cotton fabrics and palm hats, lacking the most precise trades".

By the year 1811, Don Bartolomé Cañas was the first mayor; as parish priest, the presbyter Francisco Salazar, and as coadjutors, the presbyters Domingo Cañas, Rafael Cornejo, Pedro Souza and Juan Antonio Hoyos. There were in the party "four primary schools each served by a tutor, who earned six pesos a month, with a total attendance of 200 students".

That same year, the independence movement of San Salvador broke out on November 5. When the conspirators seized power in the capital of the mayor's office, one of those involved, Manuel José Arce, sent a letter to his friend Serapio Meléndez, postmaster in the Zacatecoluca district, in which he invited him to encourage the villagers to join the uprising. The letter arrived on November 10, and it is said that the emissary changed his destination for that of the house of the Spanishist Don Agustín de Yturburúa.

Through Yturburúa, the authorities became aware of the exhortation of the letter. They soon dispatched mail to neighboring San Vicente, a nucleus of peninsulars, as well as to the authorities of the Captaincy General in the capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala. In the office they made clear their loyalty to the crown. Part of its content read: "...we will follow the path of virtue, and our breath will only breathe repeated cheers for Religion, King and Homeland!".

On the contrary, by the year 1814, when the second independence movement of the intendancy took place, uprisings occurred in the town. The priest Don Mariano José de Larra is credited with having provoked the natives, who, according to Francisco Gavidia:

...they took the City of Zacatecoluca and took over the headquarters: all the colonial authorities fled and only the mayor was held in prison to whom they demanded to proclaim Independence. He was the object of displeasure of the peoples, what was called tributaries, which were suppressed until the province of San Salvador of the other provinces was declared disdained, in times of the Empire's war. The Nonualcos called for the delivery of the proceeds of those taxes, which they paid. They threatened the mayor, and made him stumble on the street, disposing of what seems to be, to finish it; but, the people of the market, mainly some women, whose names have been preserved -Josefina Varaona, La Dulcera, the name with which Mica Jerezela was known, and Feliciana Jerez-, armed with knives, stones and sticks, who were left with some victims and had to withdraw to the higher ends. Later, the priest, Don Mariano José de Larra, who brought the Nonualcos, accused of promoting, was taken to Guatemala, where he remained until after 1821.

Post-independence

Seven years later, the Independence Act of September 15, 1821 would be signed, and the documents that notified the event arrived in Zacatecoluca on September 23, being received by the parish priest Miguel José Castro. The religious informed the local authorities about the event and in a session held the following day, he himself opened the writings before them. Subsequently, the neighbors were summoned and the news was proclaimed in a public square and it was decided to write a proclamation that would be made known to the entire party.

In 1823, Zacatecoluca acquired the title of villa. As of June 12, 1824, it was included in the department of San Vicente.

In 1833 an indigenous revolution led by Anastasio Aquino occurred; in Zacatecoluca he was tried and sentenced to death and was executed in San Vicente.

Between 1836 and 1838 it was part of the Federal District of Central America, and after this period it returned to the district of San Vicente. By 1839, at the request of the inhabitants of Zacatecoluca, the government united the district of Zacatecoluca with that of Olocuilta to create the department of La Paz, with the town of Santa Lucía Zacatecoluca as its head. However, the department was suppressed in 1842 as a result of a revolution by indigenous people from Santiago Nonualco.

On May 11, 1844, by executive decree, it acquired the title of city with the name of «Noble, Generous and Loyal City of Santa Lucía Zacatecoluca», in gratitude for the help provided by neighbors due to an invasion led by Manuel José Arce. In 1845, it again took the rank of departmental head to return to be dependent on San Vicente in 1846.

In 1852 the department of La Paz was refounded, so that Santa Lucía de Zacatecoluca once again became its head.

In a report on material improvements in the department of La Paz made on January 16, 1854, Governor Eustaquio Guirola noted that the part of the town hall that had been ruined up to 36 yards long had been rebuilt in the city, with its corresponding corridor, made of tile and carved wood; also, in the cemetery, a considerable wall canvas was made that had fallen. In the town of Analco, a wall canvas was worked on in the cemetery and a school house made of tiles and adobe walls, materials were also being gathered for a road that was being worked on inside the town. In a report made on May 16, Governor José Rafael Molina noted that a section of street had been leveled that was impassable at the exit of the town towards the haciendas on the coast. In Analco, a causeway 46 varas long and 8 varas wide had been built on the main street and the path of the little horse had been made, which was almost impassable.

It is estimated that by 1858, Zacatecoluca had a population of 5,061 inhabitants, housed in 160 tiled houses, 623 palm and 30 straw houses.

In 1890 its population amounted to 5,210 inhabitants. There were five neighborhoods: «El Calvario, Santa Lucía, Candelaria, San José and Los Remedios», and according to Guillermo Dawson: «Its main public buildings are the town hall, the parish church, the hospital, the school houses and the temple of El Calvario...", as well as "a beautiful public fountain in the main square".

On January 9, 1901, the Public Instruction Portfolio of the Ministry of Public Instruction and Charity agreed to create a School for Boys and another for Girls for the neighborhoods of San Sebastián and El Carmen.

On January 16, 1913, during his official visit to the city of Zacatecoluca, President Manuel Enrique Araujo decreed that a monument consecrated to his memory be erected in Plaza José Simeón Cañas because "he distinguished himself for his high intellectual merits and for his constant and valuable services in favor of the Independence of Central America and for having initiated the abolition of slavery, in the famous Congress of 1823". The laying of the first stone of the monument was held in accordance to the decree the following day, January 17; at the event, the young lawyer Dr. José Leiva gave a speech.

Identity elements

Gentilic

The official name of people who are born or live in Zacatecoluca is «Zacatecoluquense», derived from the name of the city.

Although the inhabitants of Zacatecoluca are also known as «Viroleño/s». There are two versions of the origin of this word: the first refers to the baskets made of castilla rods that are made by artisans from the San Sebastián Analco neighborhood, which were called virola b>».

The other explanation relates to the workers on the Guirola family haciendas in the XIX century, who identified themselves as workers of "los Guirola", which could have become "virola" over the years.

There is another version, popular by the way; that there was an outbreak of smallpox among the settlers of the Guirola hacienda, who began to be called "virueleños" in a contemptuous or innocent way. They are popular versions, since there is no historical document of the time that attests to these stories, but rather they have been part of the oral tradition.

So the names of Zacatecoluca are: Zacatecoluquese and Viroleño. The inhabitants of this city can be called or referred to in any of these two ways.

Physical geography

The municipality of Zacatecoluca has a geographical area of 425.69 km², and the headwaters are 210 meters above sea level. Several rivers irrigate the territory, among which are: Amayo, El Guayabo, Uluapa, San Antonio, Liévano, Ichanmichen and Suchilamaco; the ravines: Campanario, Amayo, Los Micos, El Barrancón, Las Tinajas, San Faustino, and Capulín, among others; the lagoons: Chiliguda, La Pancha, El Astillero, Contreras and El Palmo. It also includes the Estero de Jaltepeque, the Hotel, Santa Cruz, El Astillero, Madre Vieja and Deserts; the manglosa islands: Monte Tamarindo, Monte Chapetón, Monte El Zanate, Monte Cureña, La Tasajera, and El Garrobo, among others; as well as the Costa del Sol, Los Blancos and El Zapote beaches; and Punta Cordoncillo, and La Bocana Cordoncillo.

The foothills comprise the Central Coastal chain with the hills: Marroquín, Las Víboras and Los Soldados; the mountains: Escuintla, Chichima, El Iscanal, El Merendón, and the Maneadero hill. It has a very warm climate.

Climate

Zacatecoluca has a dry tropical climate (Köppen classification: Am).

Average climate parameters of Zacatecoluca
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Average temperature (°C)	32.1	32.2	33.3	33.1	31.7	30.2	31.4	30.8	29.7	29.8	30.5	31.0	31.3
Average temperature (°C)	24.4	24.5	26.0	26.5	26.0	25.0	25.4	25.0	24.4	24.3	24.2	23.8	25
Temp. medium (°C)	16.7	16.8	18.7	19.9	20.3	19.8	19.5	19.2	19.2	18.9	17.9	16.7	18.6
Total precipitation (mm)	9	3	14	47	200	379	318	327	412	328	60	8	2105
Source: Climate-Data.org

Location

Limits of the municipality of Zacatecoluca

Northwest: San Juan Nonualco, Guadalupe and Volcano de San Vicente	North: San Juan Nonualco, Tecoluca, Guadalupe, Tepetitan, Saint Vincent and Volcano de San Vicente	Northeast: Tecoluca, Saint Vincent and Volcano de San Vicente
West: San Juan Nonualco, Santiago Nonualco and San Luis La Herradura		This: Tecoluca
Southwest: San Juan Nonualco, Santiago Nonualco, San Luis La Herradura, Jaltepeque estuary and Pacific Ocean	South: San Luis La Herradura, Tecoluca, Jaltepeque estuary and Pacific Ocean	Sureste: Tecoluca, Jaltepeque estuary and Pacific Ocean

Demographics

In the 2007 population and housing census, Zacatecoluca had a population of 65,826 inhabitants, of which 42,127 lived in the urban area and 23,699 in the rural area. For the year 2017, it is estimated that they live in the municipality more than 75,100 people.

Zacatecoluca.

Administration and Form of Government

Legal basis

Zacatecoluca is governed by a Municipal Council, which is pluralistic since there is representation of more than one political party, who make economic, technical, and administrative decisions on the territory, made up of the Mayor, a Trustee, 10 Proprietary Councilors and 4 Substitute Councilors. Its headquarters are in the Municipal Mayor's Office of Zacatecoluca.

Its current mayor Orsy Swadhy Moreno López since May 1, 2021.

Members that make up the Municipal Council of Zacatecoluca

N - New Ideas
FMLN - Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
ARENA - Nationalist Republican Alliance
WIN - Great Alliance for National Unity

Mayor

The current Municipal Mayor of Zacatecoluca is Orsy Swadhy Moreno López, since May 1, 2021.

Trustee

Aldermen (Councillors) by Political Party

Owner councilors by Political Party

Party		Regivers
	New Ideas	5
	Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional	3
	Great Alliance for National Unity	1
	Nationalist Republican Alliance	1
Source: Supreme Electoral Court of El Salvador. Detail of votes by municipality and political party of Municipal Councils 2021[6]

Substitute councilors by Political Party

Party		Regivers
	New Ideas	2
	Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional	1
	Great Alliance for National Unity	1
Source: Supreme Electoral Court of El Salvador. Detail of votes by municipality and political party of Municipal Councils 2021[7]

Aldermen (Councillors)

Cultural Heritage

Cathedral of Zacatecoluca

Since the Spanish colonization, the town had an adobe and tile hermitage, which was later replaced by another wooden construction that had influences from the Renaissance and Baroque styles. It was known as the Santa Lucía church, but the year 1965 gave way to the erection of the current building. This temple rose to the category of cathedral with the title of Our Lady of the Poor, and became the seat of the diocese of Zacatecoluca. In 2001, it suffered deterioration due to the earthquakes of that year. The style of the cathedral is eclectic with Renaissance tendencies, and its 60 m high façade stands out.

Tramo located on 6th Avenue North, Barrio Analco.

San Sebastian Analco Church

This Catholic temple is located in the Analco neighborhood of Zacatecoluca. Its origin dates back to the Spanish colonization, its construction took place in the year 1552 and its completion in the year 1554. In 2001 it was destroyed by the earthquakes of that year, for which reason it underwent a reconstruction that began in 2003 and ended in 2012.

Plaza Cívica Presbítero and Doctor José Simeón Cañas y Villacorta

Plaza Civica Presbyter and Doctor José Simeón Cañas y Villacorta, Zacatecoluca (Vista desde la Catedral de Zacatecoluca)

Donated by President Rafael Zaldivar in 1884, this source is located right in the center of Zacatecoluca Square.

It is located in front of the cathedral and has a monument dedicated to the Salvadoran hero José Simeón Cañas. It also highlights a neoclassical-style Neptune fountain, which was brought to the country from England in 1884 as a gift from President Rafael Zaldívar on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Zacatecoluca obtaining the title of city.

Ichanmichen

It is a spa that was built during the administration of the president of the National Tourism Board, Raúl Contreras, in the 1950s. It has an area of 43 blocks, and contains five ponds of water from natural springs and two from artificial sources. Its name in Nahuatl means: "Abode of the Little Fishes" or "The Cave of the Little Fishes".

Shield of Zacatecoluca

The shield of Zacatecoluca is the heraldic emblem that since 1947, the year of its adoption, represents the city.

The Coat of Arms of the city of Zacatecoluca was issued through the promotion made by the then municipal mayor Mariano Ávalos Córdova; but to date the author is unknown.

Territorial organization

In Zacatecoluca there are 45 cantons: Amayo, Ánimas Abajo, Ánimas Arriba, Azcualpa, Buena Vista Abajo, Buena Vista Arriba, Buena Vista Cornered, El Amate, El Callejón, El Carmen, El Copinol, El Despoblado, El Escobal, El Espino Abajo, El Espino Arriba, El Maneadero, El Socorro, Hatos de los Reyes, La Herradura, La Isla, La Isleta, La Joya, La Lucha, Las Tablas, Liévano, Los Blancos, Los Platanares, Penitente Abajo, Penitente Arriba, Piedra Grande Abajo, Piedra Grande Arriba, Pineda (San Faustino), San Francisco los Reyes, San José de la Montaña, San Josecito, San Lucas, San Marcos de la Cruz, San Rafael, San Rafael Tasajera, Santa Lucía, Tapechame, Earth Blanca, Ulapa, Ulapa Abajo and Ulapa Arriba.

In addition, in the city there are the following neighborhoods: El Centro, San Sebastián Analco, El Calvario, Candelaria, San José, Los Remedios, La Cruz, El Carmen Analco and Santa Lucía.

Map of the Zacatecoluca Political Division including the Metropolitan Area and the Cantons.

Intangible cultural heritage

Festivities

Acoustic shell located on the south side of the Cathedral of Zacatecoluca.

The patron saint festivities of Zacatecoluca are celebrated in the month of December in honor of Saint Lucia and the Virgin of Nuestra Señora de los Pobres. For this occasion, the election of the queen of the festivities is held, as well as cultural and artistic events. There is also a religious festival in honor of the Virgin of the Poor, which coincides with that of Santa Lucía, whose devotion began, according to the popular tradition, in 1770, when a group of villagers decided to protect themselves from hurricane winds by placing the image of the Virgin Mary in the path of this threat, which finally deviated from the town.

Featured Characters

• José Simeón Cañas
• José Damián Villacorta
• Dionisio Villacorta
• Juan Vicente Villacorta Díaz
• Camilo Minero
• Julio Adalberto Rivera
• Angel Guirola