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HISTORY

Before Columbus

One of the earliest record of Manzanillo comes from a story of Ix, king of ancient Coliman, now the state of Colima. The legend states that Ix received visits from Chinese trader-emissaries at a shore village, which became the present town of Salagua, on Tzalahua Bay (now the Bay of Manzanillo). It's not surprising the dream of riches gained by trade propelled the Chinese across the Pacific hundreds of years before the Spanish conquest. The same goal drew Columbus across the Atlantic and pushed Hernán Cortés to this gateway to the Orient a generation later.

Conquest and Colonial Times

Cortés heard of the legend of the Chinese at Manzanillo Bay from the emperor of the Tarascan Kingdom in Michoacán. With the riches of China tantalizingly within his grasp, Cortés sent his lieutenants to conquer Pacific Mexico, on whose sheltered beaches they would build ships the realize Columbus's elusive quest.

In 1522, Gonzalo de Sandoval, under orders from Cortés, reconnoitered Manzanillo Bay, looking for safe anchorages and good shipbuilding sites. Before he left a year later, Sandoval granted and audience to local chieftains at the tip of the Santiago Peninsula, which to this day retains the name Playa Audiencia.

Cortés himself visited Manzanillo Bay twice, in pursuit of a Portuguese fleet rumored to be somewhere off the coast. Cortés massed his forces at the northern day of Manzanillo, which he christened Bahía de Santiago on July 24, 1535. Although Cortés's enemy failed to appear, the foreign threat remained. Portuguese, English, Dutch and French corsairs menaced Spain's galleons as they repaired, watered, and unloaded their rich cargoes for 10 generations in Manzanillo and other sheltered Pacific harbors.

Independence

The hope generated by independence in 1821 soon dissipated in the turbulent civil conflicts of the next half century. Manzanillo languished until President Porfirio Díaz orderly but heavy-handed rule (1876-1910) finally brought peace. The railroad arrived in 1889; telephone, electricity, drainage, and potable water soon followed. During the 1950s and ‘60s the harbor was modernized and deepened, attracting ships from all over the Pacific and capital for new industries. Anticipating the demand, the government built a huge, oil-fueled (but unfortunately smelly and smoky) generating plant, which powered a fresh wave of factories. By the 1970s, Manzanillo had become a major Pacific manufacturing center and port, thousands of local jobs in dozens of mining, agricultural, and fishing enterprises.

Recent Times

Although Mexican tourists had been coming to Manzanillo for years, international arrivals grew rapidly after the opening of the big Club Maeva and Las Hadas Resorts in the 1970s. The new jetport north of town increased the steady flow to a flood; then came the 1980s, with Bo Derek starring in her fabulously successful movie 10, which rocketed Las Hadas and Manzanillo to the stars as an international vacation destination.

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