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Campeche, Campeche Mexico Photography
Photography by Bill Bell
Campeche (Ahk'ěin Pech in Modern Maya) is the capital city of the Mexican
state of Cam peche,
The city was founded in 1540 by Spanish conquistadores as San Francisco de
Campeche atop the pre-existing Maya city of Canpech or Kimpech. The
Pre-Columbian city was described as having 3,000 houses and various monuments,
of which little trace remains.
The city retains many of the old colonial Spanish city walls and fortifications
which protected the city (not always successfully) from pirates and buccaneers.
The state of preservation and quality of its architecture earned it the status
of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Orig inally,
the Spaniards lived inside the walled city, while the natives lived in the
surrounding barrios of San Francisco, Guadalupe and San Román. These barrios
still retain their original churches;
History
Campeche was the principal port of Yucatán until the mid-19th century, when it
was overtaken by Sisal, and then Progreso. It was historically the second
largest and most important city in the Peninsula (after Mérida) until the end of
the 20th century and the increased development in Quintana Roo.
A burial ground in Campeche, discovered in 2006, suggests African slaves had
been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of
Aztec and Mayan Mexico. The graveyard had been in use from about 1550 to the
late 1600s [1].
In the 1840s Campeche had a population of about 21,000.
More Campeche Photography by Bill Bell Click Here
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