Caste War of Yucatán
Encyclopedia
The Caste War of Yucatán (1847–1901) began with the revolt of native Maya people of Yucatán
, Mexico
against the population of Europe
an descent, called Yucatecos, who held political and economic control of the region. A lengthy war ensued between the Yucateco forces in the north-west of the Yucatán and the independent Maya in the south-east. It officially ended with the occupation of the Maya capital of Chan Santa Cruz
by the Mexican army in 1901, although skirmishes with villages and small settlements that refused to acknowledge Mexican control continued for more than a decade.
colonial times, Yucatán (like most of New Spain
) was under a legal caste
system, with peninsulares (officials born in Spain) at the top, the criollos of Spanish descent in the next level, followed by the mestizo
population, then the native hidalgos
(descendants of the Pre-Columbian
nobility who had collaborated with the Spanish conquest of Yucatán
) and at the bottom were the other native indios
.
Although Spanish peninsulares frequently left Mexico following the patriots victory, Yucatan's Spanish population largely remained and continued to exercise local rule. Although there had long been tensions between the peninuslares and criollos in the Yucatan as elsewhere, the two groups cooperated because they feared the potential power of the mestizos and the natives.
The indigenous population was particularly concentrated in the Campeche
-Mérida
region, known as the Camino real, because the majority of the peninsulares and criollos lived in that area. Mayas roughly outnumbered other groups by three to one throughout the Yucatan, but in the east this ratio was closer to five to one. The elites maintained the strictest discipline and control over the Maya population in the east. The Church, generally allied with the stronger classes, also had a preponderant role where the military organization was strongest.
During the Mexican War of Independence
, the intelligentsia of Yucatán watched the events to the north, and following 1820 organized their own resistance to Spain, forming the Patriotic Confederation, which declared its own independence from Spain in 1821. The confederation subsequently joined the Mexican Empire that same year, then in 1823 became a part of the federal Mexican government as the Federated Republic of Yucatan. The government of the republic tended towards centralization, and several provinces revolted against it, including Guatemala in the south and Texas in the north. To bear the costs of the war against Texas, the government imposed a variety of taxes including raising importation duties on many items, and indeed put taxation of the movement of even local goods.
In response to this, on 2 May 1839, a federalist movement led by Santiago Imán created a rival government in Tizimín
, which soon took over Valladolid
, Espita, Izamal
and, finally Mérida
. To increase his strength, Imán appealed to the Maya population, providing them with arms for the first time since the conquest, and promised that he would give them land free of tribute and exploitation. These forces allowed him to prevail in battle, and in February 1840, he proclaimed Yucatan's return to a federal regime, then in 1841, an independent republic.
However, the Mexican government of Antonio López de Santa Anna
, did not accept this independence and invaded Yucatán in 1842, establishing a blockade. Land invasion followed, but the Mexican forces were frustrated in their attempts to take either Campeche or Mérida,and thus withdrew to Tampico
.
As Yucatán was struggling against Mexican authority, it was also divided into factions. One faction, based in Mérida, was led by Miguel Barbachano
which leaned toward reintegration with Mexico, and the other faction, based in Campeche, was led by Santiago Méndez
and feared reintegration would expose the region to attack by the United States, as the Mexican–American War
loomed. By 1847, in fact, the Yucatan Republic had effectively two capitals in the two cities. At the same time, in their struggle against the central government, both leaders had integrated large numbers of Maya into their armies as soldiers. The Maya, having taken up the arms given them in the course of the war, decided not to set them down again.
, or agave which was an important industrial fiber used to make rope. After discovering the value of the plant, the wealthier Yucatecos started plantations, beginning in 1833, to cultivate in on a large scale. Not long after the henequen boom, a boom in sugar production led to more wealth. The sugar and henequen plantations encroached on Maya communal land, and Maya workers recruited to work on the plantations were mistreated and underpaid.
However, rebel leaders in their correspondence with British Honduras (Belize) were more often inclined to cite taxation as the immediate cause of the war. Jacinto Pat, for example, wrote in 1848 that "what we want is liberty and not oppression, because before we were subjugated with the many contributions and taxes that they imposed on us." Pac's companion, Cecilio Chi added in 1849, that promises made by the rebel Santiago Imán, that he was "liberating the Indians from the payment of contributions" as a reason for resisting the central government, but in fact he continuing levying them.
In June 1847, Méndez learned that a large force of armed Mayas and supplies had gathered at the Culumpich,a property owned by Jacinto Pat, the Maya batab (leader), near Valladolid. Fearing revolt, Mendez arrested Manuel Antonio Ay, the principal Maya leader of Chichimilá, accused of planning a revolt, and executed him at the town square of Valladolid. Furthermore, Méndez searching for other insurgents burned the town of Tepich and repressed its residents. In the following months, several Maya towns were sacked and many people arbitrarily killed. In his letter of 1849, Cecilio Chi noted that Santiago Mendez had come to "put every Indian, big and little, to death" but that the Maya had responded to some degree, in kind, writing "it has pleased God and good fortune that a much greater portion of them [whites] than of the Indians [have died].
Cecilio Chi, the Maya leader of Tepich, along with Jacinto Pat attacked Tepich on 30 July 1847, in reaction to the indiscriminate massacre of Mayas, Chi ordered that all the non-Maya population be killed. By spring of 1848, the Maya forces had taken over most of the Yucatán, with the exception of the walled cities of Campeche
and Mérida
and the south-west coast, with Yucatecan troops holding the road from Mérida to the port of Sisal
. The Yucatecan governor Miguel Barbachano
had prepared a decree for the evacuation of Mérida, but was apparently delayed in publishing it by the lack of suitable paper in the besieged capital. The decree became unnecessary when the republican troops suddenly broke the siege and took the offensive with major advances.
Historians disagree on the reason for this defeat. According to some, the majority of the Maya troops, not realizing the unique strategic advantage of their situation, had left the lines to plant their crops, planning to return after planting. It is said that the appearance of flying ants swarming after heavy rains was the traditional signal to start planting for the Maya rebels, leading them, in this instance, to abandon the battle. Others argue that the Maya had not laid up enough supplies for the campaign, and were unable to feed their forces any longer, and their break up was in fact a search for food.
Governor Barbachano sought allies anywhere he could find them, in Cuba (for Spain), Jamaica (for England) and the United States, but none of these foreign powers would intervene, although the matter was taken seriously enough in the United States to be debated in Congress. Subsequently, therefore, he turned to Mexico, and accepted a return to Mexican authority. Yucatán was officially reunited with Mexico on 17 August 1848. Yucateco forces rallied, aided by fresh guns, money, and troops from Mexico, and pushed back the Maya from more than half of the state. By 1850 the Maya occupied two distinct regions in the southeast.
In the 1850s a stalemate developed, with the Yucatecan government in control of the northwest, and the Maya in control of the southeast, with a sparsely populated jungle frontier in between.
In 1850, the Maya of the southeast were inspired to continue the struggle by the apparition of the "Talking Cross". This apparition, believed to be a way in which God communicated with the Maya, dictated that the War continue. Chan Santa Cruz, or Small Holy Cross became the religious and political center of the Maya resistance and the rebellion came to be infused with religious significance. Chan Santa Cruz also became the name of the largest of the independent Maya states, as well as the name of the capital town which is now the city of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo
. The followers of the Cross were known as the "Cruzob".
The government of Yucatán first declared the war over in 1855, but hopes for peace were premature. There were regular skirmishes, and occasional deadly major assaults into each other's territory, by both sides. The United Kingdom
recognized the Chan Santa Cruz Maya as a "de facto" independent nation, in part because of the major trade between Chan Santa Cruz and British Honduras
, now the present day Belize
.
The Ixcanha Maya community had a population of some 1,000 people who refused the Cruzob's break with traditional Catholicism. In the years of stalemate, Ixcanha agreed to nominal recognition of Mexico in exchange for some guns to defend themselves from Cruzob raids and the promise that the Mexican government would leave them alone. As Chan Santa Cruz was more of a worry, the Mexicans let Ixcanha govern itself through 1894.
Another important group was the Icaiche Maya, in the jungles of the lower center of the peninsula, who in the 1860s battled against the Mexicans, the Cruzob, and made raids and invasions against British Honduras
as well, under their leader Marcos Canul. Canul's forces occupied Corozal Town
in 1870 and attacked Orange Walk Town
on 1 September 1872. The British mounted a retaliatory raid, including in their weaponry incendiary rockets which set the houses of Icaiche on fire from a good distance away, to the awe of Icaiche's residents. Canul was deposed and the new Icaiche leaders promised respect and friendship with the British. They soon made an agreement with Mexico similar to that of Ixcanha.
Negotiations in 1883 led to a treaty signed on January 11, 1884 in Belize City
by a Chan Santa Cruz general and the vice-Governor of Yucatán recognizing Mexican sovereignty over Chan Santa Cruz in exchange for Mexican recognition of Chan Santa Cruz leader Crescencio Poot
as Governor of the State of Chan Santa Cruz, but the following year there was a coup d'état
in Chan Santa Cruz, and the treaty was declared cancelled.
administration, and British investment in Mexico had become of much greater economic importance than the trade between the Cruzob and Belize. The UK signed a treaty with Mexico recognizing Mexican sovereignty over the region, formalizing the border between Mexico and British Honduras, and closing their colony's border to trade with the Chan Santa Cruz "rebels". As Belize merchants were Chan Santa Cruz's main source of gunpowder
, this was a serious blow for the independent Maya.
The Mexican army had twice before managed to fight their way to the town of Chan Santa Cruz in previous decades, but was driven back both times. In 1901 Mexican general Ignacio Bravo led his troops to the town to stay, occupying with a large force and over the next years subduing surrounding villages. Bravo telegraphed the news that the war was over on 5 May (the Cinco de Mayo
) that year. While this is the date most frequently given for the end of the war, fighting continued, although on a smaller scale. With their capital lost, the Cruzob split into smaller groups, often hiding in small hamlets in the jungle, and their numbers were seriously lessened by the epidemics of measles
and smallpox
that came with General Bravo's troops.
The Chan Santa Cruz Maya, under the influence of the persistent Talking Cross Cult, remained actively hostile well into the Twentieth Century. For many years, any non-Maya who entered the jungles of what is now the Mexican state of Quintana Roo
would have been killed. The combination of new economic factors such as the appearance of the Wrigley Company's chicle
hunters and the political and social changes resulting from the Mexican Revolution
eventually reduced the hatred and hostility. In one form or another, war and armed struggle had continued for more than 50 years and an estimated 40,000 – 50,000 people had died in the hostilities.
The war was officially declared over for the final time in September 1915 by General Salvador Alvarado
. General Alvarado, sent by the revolutionary government in Mexico City to restore order in Yucatán, implemented reforms which more or less eliminated the conflicts that had been the cause of the wars.
Although the war had been declared over many times before in previous decades, records show that the last time the Mexican army considered it necessary to take by force one of the area's villages which had never recognized Mexican law was in April 1933, when five Maya and two Mexican soldiers died in the battle for the village of Dzula – the last skirmish of a conflict lasting over 85 years.
Yucatán
Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
against the population of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an descent, called Yucatecos, who held political and economic control of the region. A lengthy war ensued between the Yucateco forces in the north-west of the Yucatán and the independent Maya in the south-east. It officially ended with the occupation of the Maya capital of Chan Santa Cruz
Chan Santa Cruz
Chan Santa Cruz or U Noh Kah Balam Nah Chan Santa Cruz is the Maya town now known as Felipe Carrillo Puerto in what is now the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. This name is often assigned to the Maya free state ruled from Chan Santa Cruz for much of the second half of the 19th century...
by the Mexican army in 1901, although skirmishes with villages and small settlements that refused to acknowledge Mexican control continued for more than a decade.
Background
In SpanishSpanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
colonial times, Yucatán (like most of New Spain
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...
) was under a legal caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
system, with peninsulares (officials born in Spain) at the top, the criollos of Spanish descent in the next level, followed by the mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
population, then the native hidalgos
Hidalgo
Hidalgo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Hidalgo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 84 municipalities and its capital city is Pachuca de Soto....
(descendants of the Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
nobility who had collaborated with the Spanish conquest of Yucatán
Spanish conquest of Yucatán
The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities, particularly in the northern and central Yucatán Peninsula but also involving the Maya polities of the Guatemalan highlands region...
) and at the bottom were the other native indios
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
.
Although Spanish peninsulares frequently left Mexico following the patriots victory, Yucatan's Spanish population largely remained and continued to exercise local rule. Although there had long been tensions between the peninuslares and criollos in the Yucatan as elsewhere, the two groups cooperated because they feared the potential power of the mestizos and the natives.
The indigenous population was particularly concentrated in the Campeche
Campeche
Campeche is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Located in Southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the states of Yucatán to the north east, Quintana Roo to the east, and Tabasco to the south west...
-Mérida
Mérida, Yucatán
Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...
region, known as the Camino real, because the majority of the peninsulares and criollos lived in that area. Mayas roughly outnumbered other groups by three to one throughout the Yucatan, but in the east this ratio was closer to five to one. The elites maintained the strictest discipline and control over the Maya population in the east. The Church, generally allied with the stronger classes, also had a preponderant role where the military organization was strongest.
During the Mexican War of Independence
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on 16 September 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought...
, the intelligentsia of Yucatán watched the events to the north, and following 1820 organized their own resistance to Spain, forming the Patriotic Confederation, which declared its own independence from Spain in 1821. The confederation subsequently joined the Mexican Empire that same year, then in 1823 became a part of the federal Mexican government as the Federated Republic of Yucatan. The government of the republic tended towards centralization, and several provinces revolted against it, including Guatemala in the south and Texas in the north. To bear the costs of the war against Texas, the government imposed a variety of taxes including raising importation duties on many items, and indeed put taxation of the movement of even local goods.
In response to this, on 2 May 1839, a federalist movement led by Santiago Imán created a rival government in Tizimín
Tizimín
Tizimín is one of the 106 municipalities of Yucatan with a municipal seat of the same name. The municipality is located in the north-east of the Mexican state of Yucatán, and it is the largest municipality in the state with a territory that is 11% of the total area of the state...
, which soon took over Valladolid
Valladolid, Yucatán
Valladolid is a small city in Valladolid Municipality in the southeastern part of the Mexican state of Yucatán. Valladolid is in the inland eastern part of the state....
, Espita, Izamal
Izamal
Izamal is a small city in the Mexican state of Yucatán, 72 km east of state capital Mérida. Izamal was continuously occupied throughout most of Mesoamerican chronology; in 2000, the city's estimated population was 15,000 people...
and, finally Mérida
Mérida, Yucatán
Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...
. To increase his strength, Imán appealed to the Maya population, providing them with arms for the first time since the conquest, and promised that he would give them land free of tribute and exploitation. These forces allowed him to prevail in battle, and in February 1840, he proclaimed Yucatan's return to a federal regime, then in 1841, an independent republic.
However, the Mexican government of Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón , often known as Santa Anna or López de Santa Anna, known as "the Napoleon of the West," was a Mexican political leader, general, and president who greatly influenced early Mexican and Spanish politics and government...
, did not accept this independence and invaded Yucatán in 1842, establishing a blockade. Land invasion followed, but the Mexican forces were frustrated in their attempts to take either Campeche or Mérida,and thus withdrew to Tampico
Tampico
Tampico is a city and port in the state of Tamaulipas, in the country of Mexico. It is located in the southeastern part of the state, directly north across the border from Veracruz. Tampico is the third largest city in Tamaulipas, and counts with a population of 309,003. The Metropolitan area of...
.
As Yucatán was struggling against Mexican authority, it was also divided into factions. One faction, based in Mérida, was led by Miguel Barbachano
Miguel Barbachano
Miguel Barbachano y Tarrazo was a liberal Yucatecan politician, who was 5 times governor of Yucatán between 1841 and 1853....
which leaned toward reintegration with Mexico, and the other faction, based in Campeche, was led by Santiago Méndez
Santiago Méndez
Santiago Méndez Ibarra was governor of Yucatán, Mexico 3 times from 1840 to 1857: 1840 - 1844; 1847 - 1848; 1855 - 1857, alternating that office with Miguel Barbachano mainly during his first and second terms....
and feared reintegration would expose the region to attack by the United States, as the Mexican–American War
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known as the First American Intervention, the Mexican War, or the U.S.–Mexican War, was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S...
loomed. By 1847, in fact, the Yucatan Republic had effectively two capitals in the two cities. At the same time, in their struggle against the central government, both leaders had integrated large numbers of Maya into their armies as soldiers. The Maya, having taken up the arms given them in the course of the war, decided not to set them down again.
War begins
The War seemed rooted in the defense of communal lands against the expansion of private ownership, which was pronounced with the boom in the production of henequenHenequen
Henequen is an agave whose leaves yield a fiber also called henequen which is suitable for rope and twine, but not of as high a quality as sisal. Alternative spellings are Henequin and Heniquen. It is the major plantation fiber agave of eastern Mexico, being grown extensively in Yucatán,...
, or agave which was an important industrial fiber used to make rope. After discovering the value of the plant, the wealthier Yucatecos started plantations, beginning in 1833, to cultivate in on a large scale. Not long after the henequen boom, a boom in sugar production led to more wealth. The sugar and henequen plantations encroached on Maya communal land, and Maya workers recruited to work on the plantations were mistreated and underpaid.
However, rebel leaders in their correspondence with British Honduras (Belize) were more often inclined to cite taxation as the immediate cause of the war. Jacinto Pat, for example, wrote in 1848 that "what we want is liberty and not oppression, because before we were subjugated with the many contributions and taxes that they imposed on us." Pac's companion, Cecilio Chi added in 1849, that promises made by the rebel Santiago Imán, that he was "liberating the Indians from the payment of contributions" as a reason for resisting the central government, but in fact he continuing levying them.
In June 1847, Méndez learned that a large force of armed Mayas and supplies had gathered at the Culumpich,a property owned by Jacinto Pat, the Maya batab (leader), near Valladolid. Fearing revolt, Mendez arrested Manuel Antonio Ay, the principal Maya leader of Chichimilá, accused of planning a revolt, and executed him at the town square of Valladolid. Furthermore, Méndez searching for other insurgents burned the town of Tepich and repressed its residents. In the following months, several Maya towns were sacked and many people arbitrarily killed. In his letter of 1849, Cecilio Chi noted that Santiago Mendez had come to "put every Indian, big and little, to death" but that the Maya had responded to some degree, in kind, writing "it has pleased God and good fortune that a much greater portion of them [whites] than of the Indians [have died].
Cecilio Chi, the Maya leader of Tepich, along with Jacinto Pat attacked Tepich on 30 July 1847, in reaction to the indiscriminate massacre of Mayas, Chi ordered that all the non-Maya population be killed. By spring of 1848, the Maya forces had taken over most of the Yucatán, with the exception of the walled cities of Campeche
Campeche, Campeche
San Francisco de Campeche is the capital city of the Mexican state of Campeche, located at,...
and Mérida
Mérida, Yucatán
Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...
and the south-west coast, with Yucatecan troops holding the road from Mérida to the port of Sisal
Sisal, Yucatán
Sisal is a seaport town in the municipality of Hunucmá in the state of Yucatán, Mexico. It was the principal port of Yucatán during the henequen boom, later overshadowed when the more modern port of Progreso was built to the east. It lent its name to the agave-derived sisal fiber which was shipped...
. The Yucatecan governor Miguel Barbachano
Miguel Barbachano
Miguel Barbachano y Tarrazo was a liberal Yucatecan politician, who was 5 times governor of Yucatán between 1841 and 1853....
had prepared a decree for the evacuation of Mérida, but was apparently delayed in publishing it by the lack of suitable paper in the besieged capital. The decree became unnecessary when the republican troops suddenly broke the siege and took the offensive with major advances.
Historians disagree on the reason for this defeat. According to some, the majority of the Maya troops, not realizing the unique strategic advantage of their situation, had left the lines to plant their crops, planning to return after planting. It is said that the appearance of flying ants swarming after heavy rains was the traditional signal to start planting for the Maya rebels, leading them, in this instance, to abandon the battle. Others argue that the Maya had not laid up enough supplies for the campaign, and were unable to feed their forces any longer, and their break up was in fact a search for food.
Governor Barbachano sought allies anywhere he could find them, in Cuba (for Spain), Jamaica (for England) and the United States, but none of these foreign powers would intervene, although the matter was taken seriously enough in the United States to be debated in Congress. Subsequently, therefore, he turned to Mexico, and accepted a return to Mexican authority. Yucatán was officially reunited with Mexico on 17 August 1848. Yucateco forces rallied, aided by fresh guns, money, and troops from Mexico, and pushed back the Maya from more than half of the state. By 1850 the Maya occupied two distinct regions in the southeast.
In the 1850s a stalemate developed, with the Yucatecan government in control of the northwest, and the Maya in control of the southeast, with a sparsely populated jungle frontier in between.
In 1850, the Maya of the southeast were inspired to continue the struggle by the apparition of the "Talking Cross". This apparition, believed to be a way in which God communicated with the Maya, dictated that the War continue. Chan Santa Cruz, or Small Holy Cross became the religious and political center of the Maya resistance and the rebellion came to be infused with religious significance. Chan Santa Cruz also became the name of the largest of the independent Maya states, as well as the name of the capital town which is now the city of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo
Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo
See also Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Oaxaca, for the town in Oaxaca.Felipe Carrillo Puerto or simply Carrillo Puerto is the name of a municipality for which the city of the same name serves its the municipal seat. The municipality is located south-central part of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It...
. The followers of the Cross were known as the "Cruzob".
The government of Yucatán first declared the war over in 1855, but hopes for peace were premature. There were regular skirmishes, and occasional deadly major assaults into each other's territory, by both sides. The United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
recognized the Chan Santa Cruz Maya as a "de facto" independent nation, in part because of the major trade between Chan Santa Cruz and British Honduras
British Honduras
British Honduras was a British colony that is now the independent nation of Belize.First colonised by Spaniards in the 17th century, the territory on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, became a British crown colony from 1862 until 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became...
, now the present day Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
.
Maya independence
The Chan Santa Cruz state, stretching from north of Tulum to the Belize border and a considerable distance inland, was the largest of the independent Maya communities of the era but not the only one. When Jose Maria Echeverria, a sergant in the army taken captive by the Maya, resided in the town in 1851–53, it had about 200 Maya and 200 whites, all well armed and apparently fighting together, with the whites under their own commander, a man "of reddish complexion". They also had several outlying communities under their control, one contained about 100 people the others unknown numbers. An English visitor in 1858 thought they had 1,500 fighting men in all. He noted that the Santa Cruz went with them and that priests of it were prominent.The Ixcanha Maya community had a population of some 1,000 people who refused the Cruzob's break with traditional Catholicism. In the years of stalemate, Ixcanha agreed to nominal recognition of Mexico in exchange for some guns to defend themselves from Cruzob raids and the promise that the Mexican government would leave them alone. As Chan Santa Cruz was more of a worry, the Mexicans let Ixcanha govern itself through 1894.
Another important group was the Icaiche Maya, in the jungles of the lower center of the peninsula, who in the 1860s battled against the Mexicans, the Cruzob, and made raids and invasions against British Honduras
British Honduras
British Honduras was a British colony that is now the independent nation of Belize.First colonised by Spaniards in the 17th century, the territory on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, became a British crown colony from 1862 until 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became...
as well, under their leader Marcos Canul. Canul's forces occupied Corozal Town
Corozal Town
Corozal Town is a town in the nation of Belize, capital of Corozal District. Corozal Town is located about 84 miles north of Belize City, and 9 miles from the border with Mexico. The population of Corozal Town, according to the main results of the 2010 census, it is 9,871...
in 1870 and attacked Orange Walk Town
Orange Walk Town
Orange Walk Town is the second largest town in the nation of Belize, with a population of about 13,400 . It is the capital of the Orange Walk District...
on 1 September 1872. The British mounted a retaliatory raid, including in their weaponry incendiary rockets which set the houses of Icaiche on fire from a good distance away, to the awe of Icaiche's residents. Canul was deposed and the new Icaiche leaders promised respect and friendship with the British. They soon made an agreement with Mexico similar to that of Ixcanha.
Negotiations in 1883 led to a treaty signed on January 11, 1884 in Belize City
Belize City
Belize City is the largest city in the Central American nation of Belize. Unofficial estimates place the population of Belize City at 70,000 or more. It is located at the mouth of the Belize River on the coast of the Caribbean. The city is the country's principal port and its financial and...
by a Chan Santa Cruz general and the vice-Governor of Yucatán recognizing Mexican sovereignty over Chan Santa Cruz in exchange for Mexican recognition of Chan Santa Cruz leader Crescencio Poot
Crescencio Poot
- Life as a rebel :He began raids on white-owned haciendas in 1864. In the next several years his troops would raid, but rarely occupy, various villages. This meant generally avoiding government troops, but he did achieve a major victory in the Yucatán. Later Bernardino Cen, the commander of the...
as Governor of the State of Chan Santa Cruz, but the following year there was a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
in Chan Santa Cruz, and the treaty was declared cancelled.
End of the war
In 1893 the United Kingdom was enjoying good relations with Mexico's Porfirio DíazPorfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican-American War volunteer and French intervention hero, an accomplished general and the President of Mexico continuously from 1876 to 1911, with the exception of a brief term in 1876 when he left Juan N...
administration, and British investment in Mexico had become of much greater economic importance than the trade between the Cruzob and Belize. The UK signed a treaty with Mexico recognizing Mexican sovereignty over the region, formalizing the border between Mexico and British Honduras, and closing their colony's border to trade with the Chan Santa Cruz "rebels". As Belize merchants were Chan Santa Cruz's main source of gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
, this was a serious blow for the independent Maya.
The Mexican army had twice before managed to fight their way to the town of Chan Santa Cruz in previous decades, but was driven back both times. In 1901 Mexican general Ignacio Bravo led his troops to the town to stay, occupying with a large force and over the next years subduing surrounding villages. Bravo telegraphed the news that the war was over on 5 May (the Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo is a holiday held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla...
) that year. While this is the date most frequently given for the end of the war, fighting continued, although on a smaller scale. With their capital lost, the Cruzob split into smaller groups, often hiding in small hamlets in the jungle, and their numbers were seriously lessened by the epidemics of measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
and smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
that came with General Bravo's troops.
The Chan Santa Cruz Maya, under the influence of the persistent Talking Cross Cult, remained actively hostile well into the Twentieth Century. For many years, any non-Maya who entered the jungles of what is now the Mexican state of Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 10 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal....
would have been killed. The combination of new economic factors such as the appearance of the Wrigley Company's chicle
Chicle
Manilkara chicle is a tropical evergreen tree native to Mexico and Central America. The tree ranges from Veracruz in Mexico south to Atlántico in Colombia...
hunters and the political and social changes resulting from the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
eventually reduced the hatred and hostility. In one form or another, war and armed struggle had continued for more than 50 years and an estimated 40,000 – 50,000 people had died in the hostilities.
The war was officially declared over for the final time in September 1915 by General Salvador Alvarado
Salvador Alvarado
Salvador Alvarado is a municipality in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. It stands at.The municipality reported 76,537 inhabitants in the 2005 census and has an areal extent of 1,197.5 km² . Its municipal seat is the city of Guamúchil...
. General Alvarado, sent by the revolutionary government in Mexico City to restore order in Yucatán, implemented reforms which more or less eliminated the conflicts that had been the cause of the wars.
Although the war had been declared over many times before in previous decades, records show that the last time the Mexican army considered it necessary to take by force one of the area's villages which had never recognized Mexican law was in April 1933, when five Maya and two Mexican soldiers died in the battle for the village of Dzula – the last skirmish of a conflict lasting over 85 years.
Further reading
- Don E. Dumond, The Machete and the Cross: Campesino Rebellion in Yucatan(University of Nebraska Press, 1997).
- Nelson Reed, The Caste War of Yucatan (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1964.)
- Terry Rugeley, Yucatan's Maya Peasantry and the Origins of the Caste War (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996).
- Terry Rugeley, ed., Maya Wars: Ethnographic Accounts from Nineteenth-Century Yucatan(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001).
- Paul Sullivan, Xuxub Must Die: The Lost Histories of a Murder on the Yucatan (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004).