Sánchez Magallanes

Sánchez Magallanes is a small fishing town and port located in the far northwest of the state of Tabasco, Mexico in the municipality of Cárdenas. It is named after a leader in the French Intervention in Mexico, Coronel Andrés Sánchez Magallanes. The town is located on small peninsula which is between the Gulf of Mexico and a lagoon called Del Carmen, which the port faces. Fishing is the main economic activity here, especially the production of oysters, although there is tourism and oil production as well. The last has been problematic for fishing and tourism due to pollution. The most serious environmental problem is the erosion of the area’s fragile beaches, especially the thin strips of land between the Gulf and the lagoons.

Located in the far northwest of the municipality of Cárdenas 93 km from the municipal seat, the full name of the town is Coronel Andrés Sánchez Magallanes. It has an altitude of ten meters above sea level. The town is one of the municipality’s 25 “regional centers of social and economic development.”

Sánchez Magallanes has 7,827 people. The average schooling is only four years, with only 992 over the age of 15 with education beyond middle school. There are 441 people who are illiterate. There are 1,777 residences in the community, almost all of which are independent houses. Two hundred have packed earth floors and 456 consist of only one room.

The parish is named after Saint Anne, the grandmother of Jesus and established in 1959 by the Diocese of Tabasco . The patron saint is honored from the 24th to 26 July with religious activities as well as sporting and cultural events, a beauty pageant and exhibition of regional products. An Oyster Fair is held in conjunction with the other festivities. The town has a Virgin Mary statue called “Madre Patria” (Mother of Country) because at her feet is a serpent being devoured, similar to that of the national seal. It was chosen to receive a thirteen-meter sculpture of the Virgin Mary donated by the town of Benito Juárez. The sculpture is made of black volcanic stone and part of a series of seven Virgin Mary statues that define the “Chinandega Route” from Tenosique to Sánchez Magallanes.

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Wikipedia