HISTORY153 - Isthmus of Tehuantepec
Recently I gave a talk at the Hacienda at the Canyon retirement community in which I live about my Great Grandfather Eugene Ring’s adventures during his unplanned travels to the California Gold Rush in 1848 - 1850. Part of those travels included crossing southern Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec (see map below), under duress, in 1850, after being abandoned with nine other shipmates on the Pacific coast by his sailing ship while they were ashore looking for much-needed water . (For those interested, my Great Grandfather’s memoir of his complete travels is attached.) The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is a narrow land bridge in southern Mexico. After giving my presentation, I realized that there was still a lot I didn’t know about the overall history of this fascinating place where my Great Grandfather was so sorely tested. So, this blog will cover the History of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. After an introduction, I will discuss the Isthmus’s early Mesoamerica...