Prelude to the Caste War, Chapter 2, Yucatán, the Maya, Mexico and Spanish Colonialism

Yucatán, the Maya, Mexico and Spanish Colonialism 

Prelude to the Caste War,  Chapter 2

Caste War Museum, Tihosuco

By 1700 the population of the isolated Yucatán Peninsula was reduced to 150,000 due to disease, displacement, and starvation. By 1845 the Yucatán population had rebounded and risen to 580,000 including the Spanish minority.

When Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821 and Yucatán a former Spanish territory joined the Mexican Union, the following history began.

The cultivation of the henequen era in Yucatán, beginning in 1833, changed the economy politically and even climatically.

Henequen is a natural plant fiber grown in Yucatán and is used in the production of sisal rope. It was in huge demand during the two world wars making several multimillionaires among Mérida's wealthy class known as the “casta divina.”

Profitable sugarcane, prohibited under Spanish rule, was also introduced to the peninsula.

Rum produced from sugar cane known as caña became very popular and had tax free status in Yucatán which continues to this day.
These two products were extremely labor intensive so naturally the white Spanish land owners kept the Maya in an oppressed state of servitude indefinitely. Serfdom, and slavery was perpetuated.

In the book Incidents of Travel in Yucatán by John L. Stephens, Stephens in 1840 relates a remark made to him by one of the hacienda owners from Yucatán; “I am so lucky to be here and not in Cuba or Louisiana where they have to buy their slaves”.

In 1839 a native of neighboring Campeche state, political activist, Miguel Barbachano moved to Mérida in Yucatán wanting to establish autonomy from Mexico.

Santiago Iman, a state militiaman, initiated a revolt of independence from Mexico beginning in the Yucatán city of Tizimin, then the third largest city in the north central part of the peninsula. Santiago armed and enlisted the Maya to battle the Mexican troops promising them an end to federal tax and church tributes. Credibility of politicians making propaganda promises was unthinkable. They were not to be trusted. 

Previously the Maya had been forbidden to serve in the military.
Next the Mayan insurrectionists captured the second largest city, Valladolid south of Tizimin and after that victory thousands of Indigenous Maya united to join Santiago Iman.
Federal troops were driven from the last city on the Yucatán Peninsula at Campeche by June of 1840, and that made Yucatán state an independent country and isolated.

By March 31, 1841, Yucatán was a fully functional entity with Santiago Mendez as president and Miguel Barbachano as his vice president.
This state of affairs irked and angered the Mexicans who immediately barricaded Yucatecan shipping.
Yucatán in turn enlisted the independent Republic of Texas to guard their ports with its navy for a monthly fee of $8,000 just to keep those Mexicans out.

To this day in Yucatán if you ask a local if they are Mexican they will emphatically say, NO! I am a Yucatecan!

Officially on October 1, 1841 Yucatán was declared its own Republic.

Mexican President Santa Anna attempted a negotiated return of Yucatán to Mexico which failed. Mexico invaded.

General Santa Anna was the president that led the battle of the Alamo in 1836 where his Mayan troops led the charge as cannon fodder. Santa Anna was defeated shortly thereafter at nearby San Jacinto, Texas, where he had attempted to slip away disguised as a women and was the solitary survivor of the battle. He was captured and shipped off to Washington, D. C.

His next political caper to save his hide was to sell away a huge portion of Mexican territory to the U.S.A. which made him grossly unpopular at home. He could have cared less, the U. S. navy would deliver him back to Mexico in style at the Port of Veracruz with stacks of gold.

In 1843 Yucatán reunited with Mexico and political balance disappeared as long time grievances of renewed resistance escalated among the poorer impoverished peasants.

1845, General Santa Anna who had no love for the quarrelsome Yucatecans but needed their money reneged on open port agreements and heavily taxed sugar and rum.

Yucatán again split off from Mexico in this ongoing shell game of political alliance.
By 1846 Yucatán voted neutrality in the war between the U. S. and Mexico. The governor, Miguel Barbachano capitulated and sold out to the Mexicans, and at the same time claimed neutrality with the U.S. and begged for annexation.

In a crafty ploy Yucatán president Menendez sent Justo Sierra O’Reilly to the U.S. to negotiate for arms to help keep the Mexicans out, lift the blockade, and end the extortionately unjust duties.
During this war Mérida armed the Mayas for the third time and promised special considerations, but as soon as the conflict ended it was back to business as usual with the Indians.

Instability, centuries of degradation and deceit, dislocations, territorial disputes and extreme economic hardships set the stage for this tit-for-tat Caste War that raged for eighty seven years and still smolders on to this day.

In 1847 the disgruntled Mayan troops rebelled in a Caste War that they started in Valladolid, machete murdering 85 people to avenge ancient wrongs.

The Maya recognized the white man as their true enemy for robbing their land, imposing slavery, whippings, and many other degrading brutalities. The Maya then resorted to gorilla war tactics, bequeathed to them by their benefactor Gonzalo Guerrero, father of the first mestizo nearly three centuries earlier. 

 In retaliation, the white Yucatecans invaded the ranch of one of the Mayan leaders and raped a 12 year old Indian girl. This drove the Mayan factions to unite against a common enemy. They pushed the white Yucatecans back to Mérida burning towns and pillaging as they went.

The Maya pushed south and east in Yucatán and Quintana Roo to Bacalar and established their capital of Chan Santa Cruz, presently known today as Felipe Carrillo Puerto.

This war became a vindictive bloody and brutal political shell game of opportunistic alliances because now independent Yucatán could not ask estranged Mexico for assistance.

In 1848 president Menendez asked U.S. president Polk for two thousand troops to save the white Yucatecans from the heathen Indian savages also known as the Indigenous Mayan.

The British supplied guns and ammunition to the Mayas through Belize in exchange for exotic hard woods such as mahogany and zapote and later formed an alliance with the Mexicans abandoning the Maya which then led to the stifling but not eradicating the Indigenous cause.

In 1848 the Mexicans exploited this unrest and divided the peninsula into to three parts, Quintana Roo territory, Campeche, and Yucatán states, leaving Yucatán to fend for itself.

In 1849 Yucatán governor Miguel Barbachano began the practice of expelling Mayan men between the age of 12 and 30 to Cuba as slaves to work on sugarcane plantations.
Barbachano’s mandate was; “All Indians will be taken from their homes who had taken up arms against the Yucatán and be deported.”

The Maya were considered inhuman savages by the white Spanish and had been since the first Inquisition driven Conquistadors set foot in the Americas.

In 1849 the first load of 140 slaves was sent off to Cuba. Self-serving Cuban merchants conspired with the Yucatecan authorities for guns and ammunition in exchange for the Mayan slaves.

There was a growing demand for slaves in Cuba due to the fact that the Spanish had outlawed slavery.
Ultimately this unscrupulous business took all Mayan regardless of whether they had been rebels or not. This despicable trade in human flesh continued until 1861.

Here is yet another example of America’s zealous enthusiasm for ridding the planet of Indians with their invasion of Yucatán. The above information is from the Caste War Museum in Tihosuco, Quintana Roo. Ironically the Caste War Museum in nearby Spanish held Valladolid, Yucatán, depicts the Maya as heathen savages who were not allowed to enter the city of Valladolid. The following is a rough translation of a sign display in th Tihosuco Caste War Museum.

“Certification of North American soldiers wounded. In 1848 at the port of Sisal, Yucatán, 938 American soldiers arrived to annihilate the Mayas. In May of 1849 the Americans returned home after suffering the loss of 70 dead and 170 wounded.

Looking out from the church in Tihosuco.

The Spanish colonial town of Tihosuco on the jungle frontier south of Valladolid was abandoned for eighty years and ultimately the Maya slowly moved in to reclaim it. The huge catholic church of Tihosuco had been literally blown apart and stood forlorn. The returning Maya left it as it was with a gaping hole in its roof as a testament to the ravages of war. They did restore the chapel end of the church and put it back into service. Read the story of Tihosuco and the incredible church in the book Yucatán for Travelers.

Excerpts from Nelson Reed’s book; The Caste War of Yucatán p.110-114;
The Thirteenth Infantry Regiment, US Army, had been mustered out of Mobile, Alabama, in the summer of 1848, following the end of the Mexican War…they accepted an offer of the Yucatecan Government-8 dollars a month for enlisted men plus 320 acres of land after peace…they were the first American filibusters…shipped from New Orleans to Sisal in several schooners, 938 of them, and were sent down to the city of Tekax in southern Yucatán. The advance party was committed in September 1848.

The noise of their heavy boots as they marched, the constant load talking in the ranks, the pipe smoking and flower picking, all of this was noted with uneasiness by the Yucatecan veteran Juan de Dios Novelo, who was accustomed to more cautious deportment on that ambush-laden trail. And there they met their first barricade, they laughed at Novelo’s suggestion of the usual flanking infiltration, fixing bayonets to make a frontal assault, knowing that no Mexican, much less an Indian, could face cold steel. They were wrong. The first volley caught them point blank, and Novelo had his hands full bring out forty casualties, one slung on either side of a mule.

Many of the American officers resigned after a week of such fighting, but others stayed on and gave a good account of themselves. Instead of easy loot and frightened Latins, they had suffered 70 killed and 170 wounded, and had nothing to show for it except a revised opinion of Yucatecans.”
Nelson Reeds’s well documented adventuresome book filled with real life intrigue reads like a novel and you will find it an unforgettable volume tremendously impressive and memorable.

Centuries of degradation brought this situation to the boiling point and the Caste War exploded.

When is enough finally enough?

Next A Brief History of the Caste War, Chapter 3.

Links to: The Maya, Mexico and Spanish Colonialism:

Introduction and Chapter 1.

Prelude to the Caste War, Chapter 2.

A Brief History of the Caste War, Chapter 3.

While the Caste War still Smoldered, the Mexican Revolutionary War Commenced, Chapter 4.

Juan Bautista Vega, Chapter 5.

Lázaro Cárdena's Years, Chapter 6.

Recommended Reading and Notable Authors.