Countless lakeshore inhabitants and visitors have traveled streets or come across schools bearing the names Marcos Castellanos, Encarnación Rosas and José Santana. Few are well versed in the historical background of these designations.
They refer to three bold men who led the insurgency movement based on Lake Chapala’s Mezcala Island that took place during Mexico’s prolonged struggle to gain independence from Spanish rule.
Chapala government officials revived the memory of the local heroes during this year’s Independence Day festivities, calling out their names during the September 15 “Grito” ceremonies. They were also honored in a spectacular memorial display mounted in the lobby of Chapala City Hall.
The Mezcala standoff against Royalists forces unfolded between 1812 and 1816, following the Battle of Calderon Bridge at Zapotlanejo on January 16, 1811 and the subsequent capture and execution of Miguel Hidalgo, the father of Mexican independence. By then the seeds rebellion had taken root in the Lake Chapala region, inspiring lesser known heroes of the era.
Among them were Marcos Castellanos, a creole born in the south shore town of La Palma, Michoacan who grew up to become a Catholic priest officiating in Ocotlán and Sahuayo; José Encarnacion Rosas, a fisherman from the village of Tlachichilco; and Mezcala native José Santana.
They led a wily band of rebels who took refuge on Mezcala Island after a series of bloody skirmishes along the lake’s northern corridor in the fall of 1812. From there they waged a relentless and cunning guerilla fight to help free the nation.
Despite a dearth of provisions, dire living conditions, recurrent health epidemics and the slaughter of loved ones who remained on shore, the courageous fighters managed to hold their own while running ragged the better trained and heavily armed enemy forces until an armistice was finally reached in November 1816.
As part of the negotiations to surrender the island, Castellanos was guaranteed a full pardon and assignment to the curacy of the Ajijic parish. There he lived the rest of his life in abject poverty, still staunch in his passionate patriotism. Following his death in February 1826, he was buried in the atrium of Jocotepec’s main church.
Biographies of the other two heroes remain sketchy. After the truce, Santana was named governor of the island and San Pedro Itzicán, a post he held until the island was turned into a prison one year later. He died in 1852. The fate of Rosas remains a mystery. It presumed that he died during the early stages of the Mezcala siege from unknown causes.