Gesto, identidad y memoria

Los de abjo treats what is perhaps the saddest period in modern Mexican history, a period of aimless slaughter when a whole nation was plunged into strife by leaders who had few clear ideas of what they were striving for. The reader shares the same disillusionment that the author himself must have felt as he met leader after leader whose revolutionary zeal was merely a disguise for base passions and desires.

A fourteen-year-old boy sailing in 1568 with an English trading fleet is taken hostage by the Spanish while in the port of Vera Cruz, escapes during an Aztec uprising, and begins a dangerous journey to freedom.

Letter from Ramos Arizpe to the governor of San Luis Potosi, informs him that a chain of prisoners will soon be passing through San Luis Potosi on their way to promote colonies in Texas, and that the governor should add his prisoners to the chain.