Offices

The organization’s headquarters are located in the Ex-Hacienda ‘La Soledad’. This Ex-Hacienda belongs to the governmental agency of ‘Rancho La Soledad’, one of the 13 agencies that form the territory of Ocotlán de Morelos, a small town located 40 kilometers South of the Capital of the State. Nevertheless, the institution has other administrative offices in different areas.

Unfortunately we have only a limited space for in this section to describe the uncountable years and formidable facts of its history. The territories around ‘La Soledad’ are characterized by the semiarid soil, and as we can tell by the large amount of streams in the area, it used to be a humid region with rich vegetation. Findings in this area prove that is was populated by different prehispanic tribes, who later emigrated to other places. According to several observations and opinions, apparently these groups were Mayolic and Zapotec nomads, who periodically came to a hill called ‘El Cerro de la Mina’ by today’s inhabitants. As we can tell by its geographic location and the remnants found on its peak (a platform and kind of lateral staircases similar to a field for the ‘pelota’ game), this place was destined for the celebration of ceremonial rituals dedicated to the moon. On this elevation, lots of fragments of earthen utensils were found, some of them simple, some with an esthetic touch; and there seem to be a couple of graves and closed tunnels inside its summit. The older inhabitants of the place know that there had been three large prehispanic stone idols on this small peak, which were robbed when the ‘gringos’, who liked to buy this kind of antique treasures for a handful of coins or in exchange for arms (a common practice in those days), came in the fifties and sixties.

Some time later, these lands became battlefields of opposing local ethnic groups and afterwards against the Spanish conquerors, narrated in the history compendium ‘Mexico through the centuries’ as follows: “For that reason the Mixtec people, in agreement with the King of Tututepec, tried to defeat those two kings (Cosijoesa and Cosijopi) to obtain their own freedom in order to be able to fight against the Spaniards in case they attempted to conquer Oaxaca. But they didn’t have enough time to carry out this military operation, because when besieging Cosijoesa in his last entrenchment on the peak of a hill today called ‘María Sánchez’, the Spaniards arrived in Oaxaca.”  The hill ‘María Sánchez’, referred to in the text, is located two kilometers from the Ex-Hacienda ‘La Soledad’.

After the times of the conquest and many more years, in the middle of the 19th century, families came to settle down in the region, as a result of the flourishing exploitation of the mines of San Jerónimo Taviche. During the period of the French intervention, during the battle of Miahuatlán against General Porfirio Díaz Mori, to be exact, Don Basilio Carreño arrived to the place which today accommodates this Civil Association. Being of French-Spanish background, his origin isn’t very clear, since in these times it was common to keep quiet about the personal life even with relatives and close friends. According to the few facts we know, Don Basilio Carreño came to this region when he left the French army, where he had served as a simple soldier. After settling down in the Ocotlán valleys, he started a transport business for minerals from San Jerónimo Taviche and San José de Progreso (both part of the district of Ocotlán) to the State’s Capital. As time passed, he became one of the most prosperous hacienda owners in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, in the business of high-scale stockbreeding, dairy products and cultivation.

After the Mexican revolution and the following land distribution at the beginning of the 20th century, this man managed to keep only one of his two haciendas. One named ‘Guegonivalle’ was distributed between the settlers of the area; the second one was ‘La Soledad’. As an inheritance of the latter, the main building of the hacienda, the building that accommodates CONGREGACIÓN MARIANA TRINITARIA today, remained. It’s a late 19th century construction. Its rustic Mexican architecture includes the perfect use of the region’s typical construction materials, such as adobe, tiles, bricks, reed, wood, stone and lime.

Here we can still find the wide rooms that once were warehouses for grains that fed the settlers of nearby towns during the famine of 1914, caused by a locust plague; or later, they were used as a refuge against revolutionaries assaulting haciendas to support the guerilla movement and as barracks for the military troops in charge of protecting the inhabitants. And now they have been transformed into noble areas for therapy and medical attention that are growing into a center of altruistic support for people in need.

Among the important areas, there is a perfectly adapted chapel, a pool adjusted to the original type of construction; furthermore, a bathtub for hydro-massage, a sauna and the traditional Temazcal.

The administrative offices of CONGREGACIÓN MARIANA TRINITARIA, A.C., on the other hand, are located in: PALMERAS No. 613, COLONIA REFORMA, OAXACA, OAXACA, MEXICO.  C.P. 68050.  All kinds of petitions are attended here, whereas in its headquarters other types of programs are dealt with.

The telephone and fax numbers for attention are: (951) 132.53.65, 132.53.67, 132.53.68, 132.53.72, 132.53.73 y 513.79.84

E-mail: cmt@cmt.org.mx

México a través de los siglos.  Vicente Riva Palacio. Editorial Cumbre, S.A. Volume III, Chapter III, Page 38.