LUPERIOS...OR FLYING WITH ARMANDO -DOING OF DUDLEY DOOLITTLE 9TH IN SERIES

Doings of Dudley Doolittle: This is the name I use in the sometimes hilarious, outrageous, or cynical short stories posted monthly on https://bingsbuzz.blogspot.com/

A fictitious name will be used in most of the stories. It is there to protect the identity of the guilty.

These true stories are over half a century old or more. 

LUPERIOS…OR FLYING WITH ARMANDO - 

In 1925 in Mérida, Yucatán, México. Armando Troyo Canton G. was born into a very special place in time.

In those years the Yucatán Peninsula was an island within an island, cut off from the rest of the world except for ship travel. It wasn’t until 1961 that the first paved road to the Yucatán was built, and even today the peninsula can be cut off from the rest of the world in the fall when the hurricanes take out the incoming road.

The Yucatán today is still different from the rest of México in many ways, the climate, the food, the dress, and for sure the way of life…slower, kinder and gentler.

Back in the 1920’s the mix of cultures was very distinct, the Mayan Indians lived in their palapas or palm thatched roof homes as they had thousands of years earlier and their distinct costume was uniquely their own. The colonial settlers had been in the area for more than four hundred years, the Spanish first, then followed by the French and Lebanese and many others. Each brought with them a distinct culture and home style, and all were business people.

The family of Armando was well to do and had a large “Quinta” or country place hacienda named Petcanche within a walled compound not far from the city center. In those days Mérida was known throughout México as “Cuidad Blanca”, or the “white city”. All of the people of class in those days had lots of servants and an elegant standard of living.

When Armando was a teenager his parents moved to México City, but each summer they would make the two-day boat trip from Veracruz to the Yucatán for summer vacations.

I had a chance to glimpse some of the wonders of that place that held so many fascinating curiosities of centuries gone by when I first arrived on their shores in the early nineteen seventies.

So vividly I can picture the very early morning sun casting its first rays of light on the shore of the Yucatán as hundreds of small fishing boats slipped into the water and caught the offshore breezes to fill their sails and carry them out to sea.

In days gone by, the coast of the Yucatán was in its tropical splendor with endless miles of towering coconut palms forever swaying in the breezes, and that gave the place a magical feeling of an isolated tropical island, which it was.

In the 1920’s when Armando and his family made the trip to Mérida from the coastal port town of Progreso, it was a twenty five-mile ride on a narrow gauge steam train. That train was finally out of service by the 1970’s.

In Mérida the train depot bustled with commerce, the streets surrounding the large white colonial style structure were filled with venders hawking their produce, beggars both blind and lame filled the exits with outstretched hands and pathetic pleading expressions. Lined up and waiting were the “calesas”, horse drawn carriages that were the taxis of the day…at present in some of the out lying towns calesas are still in use as taxis.

I fell in love with the strange charm of this place that gave a glimpse of a time gone by, a kinder, gentler place that Armando had the good fortune to spend his younger years in.

The world was not going to stand still for Armando, an eager reader, and a good student…he excelled. While still a teenager he was enrolled in the Mexican Air Force as a pilot trainee.

As Armando has later related, those were the days of real pilots. He first trained in a DC-3, and on one of his first training missions while carrying some dignitaries and military brass and flying through the Mexican mountains, Armando lost his way. In those days navigation was with a compass and chart that marked significant landmarks. In trying to get back on course to their destination, the fuel supply was exhausted. The option of going on was lost. Armando had been trained that if a crash landing was eminent it was better to go down with power than to just glide in. The plane was put down in a cornfield without personal injuries. In a nearby village the priest was able to find a guide and round up some mules. The expedition set out headed to the nearest road some two days away. Armando said that each night he had to be lifted from his burro because his legs had become so crippled into that unnatural position, and his posterior so red and raw that he just didn’t have the resolve or strength to dismount by himself. One thing good came out of all of this and that was: Armando never again in his long flying career had any accidents.

Just to add insult to injury Armando was put under house arrest for destroying government property, and he was restricted to the base for two weeks. The airplane had to be totally dismantled and taken out in pieces

Years later, when Armando had gained the position of a commercial pilot, he enjoyed greeting the oncoming passengers. One day as Captain Armando stood at the entry door, who should appear but the old general from the ill-fated trip down in the cornfield. The general looked Armando straight in the eye and told Armando that he was going to México City and that he didn’t want to go on a burro!

Armando was assigned to fly with the United States Air Force towards the end of World War II. He was stationed at Napier Air Field in Dothan, Alabama. There he met a “gringa”, American girl, and had his first romance. Neither could speak the other ones language at that time. Armando had to learn English later in life when his flying took him to many corners of the world.

While stationed at Dothan, Alabama, an idea took shape to have a real Mexican fiesta complete with all of the authentic Mexican food and drink…well Armando to the rescue!

A special flight was made to the place to buy the real stuff…México!

I was told that the “fiesta” was a huge success, but this time, as a reprimand for his unauthorized flight he was restricted to base for two weeks over Christmas

In 1947 Armando married in México City when the city had one and a half million people…one of the most fantastic cities in the world at the time. Today the population has risen to in excess of 24 million.

Armando took a flying job with Mexicana Airlines and over the years had an accident free record while he flew every type of aircraft that the airline had to offer, up to and including the DC-10. Flying to Puerto Rico, LA, Chicago and New York to name a few, he especially liked those two-day layovers.

A couple of stories that he especially liked to tell were, for example, of his time as co-pilot flying into LA International when the pilot got on the radio and informed the control tower that he didn’t speak much English and that he was coming down…you can rest assured that radio message got lots of prompt attention. Flying with the same pilot Armando often would mention that they were not flying at the prescribed altitude and the captain’s response was always, nobody ever pays any attention to the control tower!

Coming or going from the Yucatán, Armando loved to catch a glimpse of his favorite beach getaway spot in Chabihau on the Gulf of Mexico. There can be no mistake that Armando had a fondness for the place and also loved his beer as well, he fondly referred to the place as “Chevas House”, a real English-Spanish corruption of the language, but it could only mean, beer drinking house…and later in life it was just that!

When headed to México City form Yucatán in the late afternoons he used to joke that when altitude, speed, and direction were attained, it was customary to put the newspaper over the windshield to keep out the offensive afternoon sun…a true Yucatecan, the afternoons were meant for shade.

I can’t help but think of a story that Armando told that was a real classic. On a two day layover and after lots of party making and celebrations and as Armando was sleeping off his excesses in the nude in a very fancy hotel in Puerto Rico, he had the urge to urinate. He got up, half awake, and staggered to the bathroom to relieve himself. Then when he turned on the light there was in the same bathroom with him a naked stranger…terrified he took flight and found himself out in the hallway. Only after the door had slammed shut behind him did he realize what had happened. As he stood stark naked in the hallway of this plush hotel, the whole thing came into focus. It had been himself that he had seen in the ceiling to floor mirrors…that terrifying, naked stranger, and he was locked out of his room!

I must admit that in all of my life and in all of my travels I have never met a person that truly loved the out of the way cantinas and could savor cool beer quite as much as my good friend Armando. A whole book could be dedicated to the cantina experiences that I have shared with this man.

Armando loved to read and discuss the books and authors, to travel and discuss the culture, and when we got around to it to practice his English. Drink, drank, drunk, sink, sank, sunk and with his last gasps he would grab the tall necked beer bottle and blow across the top to make the toot, toot, toot of a ships horn and announce that “this ship is sinking”.

In México, one of the most popular beers of all is “Superior”. On the label at that time the name was written in a very fancy scroll type and upon close scrutiny it is easy to see that the “S” is written like a capitol “L” and at the end of the word as the scroll trails off the final “S” is there…and that is how LUPERIOS is formed and in the cantinas across all of México if you asked for LUPERIOS you are sure to get a Superior beer and perhaps even my old friend Armando as his nickname is Luperios!

The label from a Superior beer bottle with its distinctive scrolled letters.

Note; 1992 was the last year that Superior beer used this scroll type lettering.  

Captain Armando Troyo’s business card with his México City phone number.

Mexicana Airlines was joking known as “Aero Lata” or tin-can airlines. and had the distinction of unlimited drinks included in the fare…we got our share.

John Grimsrud's author's page

Lázaro Cárdenas Years, Chapter 6, Yucatán, the Maya, and Mexico and Spanish Colonialism

 

Lázaro Cárdenas Years, Chapter 6

Gift shop souvenir of El Pensamiento. 

Protracted political upheaval and instability made for a socialist turn by 1934 when México elected the social minded Lázaro Cárdenas president. He took immediate steps beginning with the establishment of the Territory of Quintana Roo and social oriented reforms including the nationalization of Mexico’s petroleum industry that became known as Pemex. Unfortunately the oil money that could have had a huge beneficial impact for the citizens such as Norway’s state-owned petroleum company, didn’t happen. Mexico’s unchecked corruption channeled the money to a select few and has kept Mexico a third world country burdened by poverty and inequality.

Under Mexico’s President Lázaro Cárdenas isolated Chetumal in the extreme southern end of the Territory of Quintana Roo became the capital of the Territory and received its first modern infrastructure. The population of Chetumal was then 2,790, and the only way to get there was by open boat south down the Caribbean coast from Cozumel Island or on horseback through the dense jungle which took five days from the end of the Mérida railroad line at Peto in the State of Yucatán. A paved road into Chetumal would not materialize for nearly forty years.

Big things began to happen in little Chetumal in 1937 when newly elected Méxican President Lázaro Cárdenas together with the socialist governor of Quintana Roo, Rafael E. Melgar, consummated public works projects.. Schools, a hospital, and a capitol building materialized with more on the way.

The elegantly ornamented and sculpted constructions stand to this day as a testimonial to successful social reform. The world famous artist and sculptor Rómulo Rozo made it a sensation.*

The Territory of Quintana Roo predominantly consisted of native Mayan who possessed and practiced as a collective community policing themselves from within where none ever went hungry unless all were hungry. With this political system they lived in peace and harmony with nature while maintaining their territory ecologically pristine.

In all of the Americas Quintana Roo was the last hold out against the intrusion of Spanish colonialism.

*Note; a truncated story about creative Rómulo Rozo in Mexico’s years of reform:

Born and raised in Columbia, South America, Rómulo Rozo took to art at an early age and went on to become an internationally acclaimed sculptor. At Seville, Spain, attending an art exhibition Rómulo met Manuel Amábilis Domínguez an iconic Yucatecan character of neo-Mayan architecture who lured Rómulo Rozo to Mexico to participate in the new socialist movement spearheaded by President Lázaro Cárdenas. This lasting friendship next lured Rómulo Rozo to Chetumal, Quintana Roo territory where he has become memorialized by his sensational artistic works of stone sculpture.

After completion of his work in Chetumal he was again lured onward by his friend Manuel Amábilis. Next it would be to the State of Yucatán at Mérida in the 1940s to work his sculpture art in the Park of The Americas that covered two square blocks near the city center designed by Manuel Amábilis.

In Mérida Rómulo took up the Yucatecan attire of a sombrero, white Guayabera shirt, long white trousers, sandals with Mayan style x-canche hule sandals that had thick heavy stacked leather soles that made a distinctive che-che-che sound and are still worn by the dancers of the Mérida Mayan folkloric ballet to this day. His greatest claim to fame in Mérida, the Monumento de la Patria on Paseo de Montejo is the centerpiece of a traffic circle on the avenue.

It took eleven years to complete this intricately detailed memorial depicting Mexican history, and the last two years Rómulo Rozo received no governmental financial support completing the Monumento de la Patria work by financing it out of his own pocket...a thankless endeavor.

Rómulo Rozo also left a lasting impression of Mexico with his sculpture El Pensamiento (the thinker). 

Photo from Wikipedia
Sculpture by Rómulo Rozo originally displayed in the Museum of Art in La Paz, Bolivia.

This is the image that was plagiarized after it was shown in an exhibition in the National Library in Mexico City in 1932. When it was on exhibition, somebody placed a bottle of tequila in front of it, took a photo, and it was widely circulated in newspapers around the world as the drunken or sleeping Mexican…an image still thought of today.

It is hard to find a Mexican gift shop that does not have a knockoff for sale. Few ever get to know the real story behind this eye-catching Mexican icon.

Monuments carved in stone leave a lasting memory and are difficult to eradicate.

Back to the story of Chetumal and what happened to social reform:

Here is what happened next after Juan Batista Vega paved the way to open up the territory of Quintana Roo to the non-Mayan. The spark of expansionism was ignited with Cancun as rich Spanish developers rushed in to build mega resorts. Construction cranes littered the landscape and it looked like the sky was the limit as resorts marched their way south along the beautiful Caribbean coast.

A surprise came in 1985 when a flood of refugees resulting from a catastrophic earthquake in Mexico City sent nearly 50,000 displaced persons into Yucatán. All needed housing and employment.

Three years later in 1988 a category five hurricane named Gilberto came ashore at Cancan driving ocean-going freighters into the downtown, flattening all the tall construction cranes like an angry giant whipping them frantically to the earth and completely removing windows, doors and furnishings including inlaid carpet from the already finished resorts up to the third floor. The storm didn’t quit here and flattened every electrical pole, tower, and wire from Cancun to Mérida. The hurricane also eroded the Gulf of Mexico beach front inland for two or three hundred meters, washed out the coastal road in thirteen places and wiped out all the coconut palm plantations along the Coconut Coast from Dzlam de Bravo to Sisal. Some coastal places along this north coast of the Yucatán peninsula would be without electric service for six months.

The devastation appeared at first glance like a golden opportunity for construction workers. Anyone wanting work got it. After six weeks with no pay the disgruntled workers became aware of the word shyster. We did have, however, one acquaintance that made millions on the disaster. The supplier of plate glass and mirrors from Mérida.

Now with the collapse of the tourist industry due to the Covid 19 virus we see that these resort owners to this day are also shysters of the very worst kind. Absolutely no social benefits are available to displaced workers. Rich resort developers have found that it is much cheaper to buy politicians than to pay employees.

My wife Jane and I have two Mexican children, Grisel,  36, and Guero, 45, both were working in the tourist related economy. Now they are desperately struggling to survive with no workers compensation or commodity assistance. Grisel had nine years employment with an all inclusive mega resort and they paid no unemployment or medical benefits after layoff. She has painfully became aware of the shyster. Guero on the other hand was a tourist guide and holds certification as a scuba diver. He lost two restaurants and a small hostel hotel due to Covid 19. He now ekes out a meager amount fishing off of the Caribbean beach where he had a jungle fishing camp.

Mexico has the very best politicians that money can buy.

Social justice and governmental integrity mix like oil and water.

There you have a brief overview of where colonialism has taken Mexico and the Maya from the Inquisition to capitalistic takeover. The last hold out, the Maya. are mostly overwhelmed.

Next read Notable visitors to Cozumel, and my recommended reading list.   Recommended Reading and Notable Authors.

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.

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.

Yucatán, the Maya, Mexico and Spanish Colonialism: Introduction and Chapter 1

Introduction

Yucatán, the Maya, Mexico and Spanish Colonialism: A six part report on how and why one stand alone Mayan faction was the only group of Indigenous in all of the Americas to hold out against Spanish conquistador colonialism. I start this report in Chetumal, State of Quintana Roo, Mexico, situated on the Caribbean Sea coast in extreme southeastern Mexico, a focal point of this history.

CHETUMAL, the state capital of Quintana Roo is a new city to the Americas and has the distinction of being the second least populated capital in all of México with nearly 200,000. It recently came into existence after many years of political strife and drawn-out war.

The history surrounding Chetumal reaches far back in time when Gonzalo Guerrero trained as a military combatant in the Spanish Inquisition era of King and Queen Ferdinand and Isabella. He fought in the bloody military action to drive the last of the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula by 1492, ending eight centuries of Islamic occupation. Then courageous Gonzalo Guerrero took up his next position of soldier/sailor on Columbus’s first ocean crossing expedition, one of three ships aboard the small open caravel vessel named Niña.

He does not appear in the annals of history again until 1511 when Gonzalo on a September day set sail in good weather from the Gulf of Darien on the Colombian coast of South America north bound with looted treasure and slaves.

What happened next is one of the worst nightmare stories that could happen to anyone.

Gonzalo was forty years old at the time. Blasted by a fierce September hurricane his ship floundered, and he was plummeted into the sea. Aboard a makeshift raft with no food or water, Gonzalo and the seventeen men and two women survived the wrath of a hurricane that had dismasted and sunk their ship. They drifted to the Yucatán Peninsula. Gonzalo and his shipmates were taken as slaves by the local Maya.

Read the rest of Gonzalo Guerrero’s fascinating story that ultimately brought him to Chetumal next.

An examination of political maps of the America’s showing Spanish dominance since 1500 discloses the one exception to Spanish imperialistic colonial control. The Caribbean Sea coast of the Yucatán Peninsula was never conquered due to one exceptional individual who left a lasting legacy.
Before the prolonged Caste War, a British Admiralty chart of 1840 described the jungle area of the Caribbean coast of eastern Yucatán Peninsula as “Parts said to be very thinly populated”. This Mayan holdout against Spanish conquistador takeover endured through a multitude of conflicts you will next read about in the following six parts of this presentation.

IN SEARCH OF GONZALO GUERRERO, FATHER OF THE FIRST MESTIZO* Chapter one

This is a true story of an exceptional man who left a legacy enduring over centuries, from the 1400s until the present.
*(In Yucatán, Mexico, a mestizo is a person of mixed Spanish and Mayan parentage.)

Gonzalo Guerrero was trained as a Spanish military combatant. He fought with savagery having acquired the subversive military tactics of Inquisition motivated Spanish to drive the last of the Moors off of the Iberian Peninsula by 1492, which was a seven century undertaking. This ended the Islamic occupation of the Iberian Peninsula and countless bloody conflicts where the Spanish military honed and polished their crafty military tactics. They were then geared up for imperialistic colonialism and the American indigenous had no idea what awaited them.

Gonzalo Guerrero next took up a position of soldier/sailor on Columbus’s first ocean crossing expedition aboard one of three ships, the smallest an open caravel vessel named Niña.
This soldier of fortune’s story did not reappear again in the annals of history until 1511 when Gonzalo set sail in good weather from the Gulf of Darien on the Colombian north coast of South America with a cargo of looted treasure and slaves from the Inca Empire heading northbound back to his homeland in Spain.
What happened next is one of the worst nightmare stories that could happen to anyone.
Forty year-old Gonzalo was plummeted into the sea aboard a makeshift raft with no food or water, one of eighteen men and two women to survive a hurricane that had dismasted their ship and sunk it.
Only eight lived to make landfall, having to resort to cannibalism to survive.
Salvation did not happen.

The group of eight survivors were apprehended and enslaved by their Mayan Cocom captors on the Yucatán coast. The Cocom were one of twelve separate Mayan groups that never managed to unify among themselves into a nation.
Four of these survivors were sacrificed and eaten immediately. The others were caged and fattened for a future festival of flesh feasting. The fattening gave the remaining four the strength to escape to the Tutul Xiues tribe of Mayas who were enemies of the Cocom’s.
Tutul Xiues made slaves of these surviving Spaniards. Due to extreme hard work and exhaustion, only Gonzalo Guerrero and Geronimo de Aguilar survived.
Geronimo de Aguilar kept his Catholic religion and cultural ways, but Gonzalo Guerrero took up the Mayan ways and became a military adviser and trainer teaching the Maya the combat tactics he acquired in the Spanish military. This instruction would enable these Maya to remain out of the clutches of the Spanish Conquistadors for nearly five centuries.

It has been speculated that this Spanish combat training gave the Mayan people of the eastern jungle of the Yucatán Peninsula the ability to drive out the conquistadors. Because of this military tactical training the Mayan of the Quintana Roo region, (eastern jungle) had the advantage of never being completely subdued. It wasn’t until Méxican federal forces attempted to put down the protracted Caste War in the early 1900’s that this area became a territorial part of México.

A note: The protracted Caste War did not end here and that story is expanded upon in the next chapter.
Back to the Gonzalo Guerrero story: He left an enduring legacy with his newly adopted countrymen.
Next Gonzalo kills an alligator attacking his master and gains his freedom from slavery. He then engaged in the Mayan ritualistic custom of mutilation and tattooing that included piercing his ears and cheeks. These acts assimilated him into the Mayan way of life.
Gonzalo next took a Mayan princess named Zazil Ha as his wife, had three children and was granted temples of Ichpaatún north of Chetumal on the bay front, presently designated on maps as Oxtankah.

Chetumal Bay, Gonzalo’s newly acquired home site, had for thousands of years been a major route of commerce since the days of the ancient Chontal Maya because it linked their sea-going trade routes to rivers incorporating man-made canals. Lamanai is only one of the three most prominent Mayan settlements that remained continuously active through the post-classic period and even after European arrival that is linked by river/canal system into Chetumal Bay.

These seagoing Maya were from the Tabasco area. Tabasco has a huge extensive river system extending into the Guatemalan mountains and connecting to the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico. The Chontal Maya developed far-reaching trade routes from their riverfront kingdoms using huge dugout cargo canoes.

An excerpt from the book The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America by James Wilson: Anthropologists point to the many similarities of belief, mythology and ceremony among different peoples as proof that, far from being becalmed in a kind of changeless, timeless prehistory, Native American societies were open, vital and dynamic, pragmatically accepting new cultural practices from each other. This appears to be borne out by the evidence of extensive trade networks, linking areas as far apart as present-day Mexico and Canada, which carried, presumably, not only materials and artifacts but people and ideas back and forth across the continent.

In Comalcalco, Tabasco, the land of the ancient Olmec Indians ancestors of the Mayan civilization and the cradle of American civilization is located the western most Mayan temples of the Chontal Maya, uniquely built of brick.

These Olmec ancestors of the Chontal Maya were the ones to discover chocolate, corn [maize], and the nixtamalization of it that unlocked its nutrients for human consumption and provided the abundance of sustenance that laid the foundation for this stand alone civilization to expand and excel in medicine, mathematics, and astronomy. They developed a maritime fleet of large sea going sailing canoes that ranged to all points around the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and to South America. The Chontal were known as the “Phoenicians” of the new world. Products of their commerce included chocolate, copper, corn [maize], cinnabar, salt, rubber, and native medicines ranging from hallucinogenics to curatives uniquely discovered by them. More than twenty-five of their miraculous medications are still listed in the present Pharmacopoeia.

Their knowledge base and commerce were spread to all points of their trading territories. An example is their agricultural influence around the entire Gulf of Mexico, that flourished due to their influence. Corn, Squash, and bean, cultivation were exactly the same as that found all across Mexico. Remarkably the Indigenous surrounding the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico not only replicated Mayan agriculture but actually began building pyramids. They engaged in the trade of copper mined on far away Lake Superior. The Chontal Mayan then traded the copper across their expansive trading territory.

July 30, 1502, Christopher Columbus during his fourth voyage arrived at the Bay Islands of Honduras. While exploring he spotted a large sailing trading canoe and approached. Columbus along with his crew members boarded and discovered this vessel to be a Maya trader from Yucatán, with elegantly clothed Mayan crew members, and an impressive shipment of quality merchandise. Columbus pillaged whatever took his interest and abducted the captain for an interpreter. The vessel was set free, and this became the first recorded encounter of Europeans with Chontal Maya.

A note: Christopher Columbus never did actually set foot on the North American continent though he is credited with its discovery.

In 1519 Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conqueror who had plundered the Aztec Empire, arrived at the island of Cozumel and attempted to rescue the two Spanish survivors, Geronimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero from the Maya. Gonzalo Guerrero replied; “I married a Mayan woman, have three children, am chief and captain, taken their ways with tattoos, pierced ears and scared face…this is my place.”

Geronimo de Aguilar went with Cortés taking a job as translator.
Gonzalo’s fate would soon be determined in battle against these disgruntled vindictive Spanish Conquistador crusaders who would go to any extreme to stamp out anything or anyone not in accordance with their Spanish Inquisition crazed mentality.

Gonzalo’s temple home north of Chetumal was plundered by the conquistador Spanish, and a Catholic chapel constructed over it. A stone fortress of similar design to those found in St. Augustine, Florida, Havana, Cuba, and Campeche was begun. The San Juan Felipe fort began construction at nearby Bacalar but it was not completed for nearly two hundred years until the 1720s when its finishing was inspired by plundering pirates. After all the Spanish went through to steal all the Indigenous gold in the first place, they certainly didn’t want any one stealing it from them. These stone monuments exist to this day as a testament to the unrelenting Spanish Inquisition.

In spite of this Spanish incursion into the Caribbean Sea coast of Mayan territory, it would be nearly five centuries before the Spanish would dare to set foot or return to present day Quintana Roo.

The Catholic chapel at Oxtankah and stone fort at nearby Bacalar north of Chetumal stand to this day, and little is currently known of this monumentally historic story.

After the independence of Mexico, a change took place. Some Mexicans descendants of the conquerors now began to feel a real passion for the Mayan culture. From the Maya, one name that symbolizes the struggle in opposition to colonial imperialist power and the struggle for independent freedom was Gonzalo Guerrero.

Ultimately Guerrero would go from villain to hero and from traitor to a champion of freedom.
The Mayan ruins and Church at Oxtankah in the jungle north of Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico, have been restored and memorialize this extraordinary man and his wife, Zazil Ha, the parents of the first mestizos. An adjacent lagoon in the area of the Oxtankah ruins near Bacalar bears his name.
On the prestigious Paseo de Montéjo in Mérida a monument now commemorates his memory. On the boulevard entering Chetumal a Gonzalo Guerrero memorial depicting Gonzalo, his wife Zazil Ha, and their three children sits atop a large pedestal These bronze monuments sculpted by Raul Ayala are also found on the Island of Cozumel and at Akumal, a tourist spot north of Tulum.

Note: A word about the Maya. There are at least twelve distinct Mayan groups that occupy the Yucatán area with a common language and similar cultural attributes. A common thread that bound them was their collective rule of land ownership. There were no land titles or profiting from land sales and the land belonged to those who worked it. People in need were provided for without question or exception. The different Maya factions have never been able to get along as a united nation, and therefore were easy for the Spanish Conquistadors to divide and conquer.

Note: A word about the Spanish. The people occupying the Iberian Peninsula are united and have been for centuries under the strick dictates of the  Roman Catholic church. Their doctrine of confession of sins and simple absolution instilled a mentality of bribery and graft that is ingrained in them. Indigenous people even after conversion to Catholicism were still unable to assimilate into this discriminatory system.

Another item that the Spanish Conquistadors couldn’t resist commandeering from the Maya was the extensive salt production of the Yucatán peninsula. Due to an anomaly of nature the north and northwestern coast of the Yucatán peninsula is semiarid six months of the year, and this coast is also surrounded by low barrier islands creating shallow bays ideal for the natural evaporation of sea water making the extraction of sea salt a natural industry. The Chontal Maya developed this labor intensive salt production into a lucrative commerce that they carried on for centuries.

The Spanish conquistadors found no gold or silver in Yucatán, but the sea salt production was a great substitute especially accompanied by the availability of free labor by the Indigenous Maya. That sea salt production continues to this day, though now it has become mechanized and corporate owned. When my wife and I first took up residence in Yucatán back in the 1980s several primitive Mayan sea salt evaporation operations were still in production along what was then known as the Coconut Coast of Yucatán.

Next we will take a look at the Prelude to the Caste War. 

Prelude to the Caste War, Chapter 2

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.

Dead Zones of the Seas - Plus Red Tides

Fishermen selling their catch on the waterfront at Progreso, Yucatan.

Dead zones and red tides have similar attributes but are different entities; both feed on sea born nutrients and destroy marine life.

Dead zones are hypoxic areas.  Hypoxic refers to low oxygen concentration that cause living creatures to suffocate and die.

The world’s largest dead zone is in the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is surrounded by ten countries including St. Petersburg, Russia St. Petersburg has a population of eight million.

The Gulf of Mexico is in second place.

Rain water runoff from the Midwest washes nutrient rich fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides plus excrement into rivers causing inorganic deserts down stream. Eventually the runoff reaches the Mississippi River and then the Gulf of Mexico.

Dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico have occurred naturally. Spanish Conquistadors observed red tides associated with dead zones when they arrived in the Gulf of Mexico. They were caused by rain driven purges of rivers and wetlands in the early 1500s.

Nutrient pollution is the cause of dead zones. Excess nutrients running down rivers stimulate growth of algae, which then sink and decompose. This process consumes oxygen resulting in a deadly imbalance.

Dead zones are found along the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes.

A dead zone begins in Sarnia, Ontario, known as Canada’s chemical valley in southern Lake Huron. This dead zone flows south in the St. Claire River to Lake St. Claire, the Detroit River, and south into Lake Erie.

There is no part of the country or the world that is immune.

Global warming expands the growth of ocean dead zones. Warmer water holds less oxygen, and the world's dead zones are in areas where yearly temperatures are increasing.

In 1960 there were 49 dead zones world-wide, now there are well over 400 according to the Scientific American. Some say the count is 1,000-plus globally.

More land has been converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.  Synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides made expansion of agriculture possible.

Excess nitrogen from burning coal, oil, and natural gas plus all fecal matter add destructive amounts of nitrogen to marine ecosystems.

Phytoplankton and seaweed expand explosively. Discharges from the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers of South America where deforestation coupled with reckless agriculture practices generate out-of-control growth of Sargassum seaweed. This is naturally carried across the Caribbean Sea by the currents to the Yucatan Peninsula, 1,700 miles away. Recently the Sargassum piled up to three meters high on the beaches from Cancun south to Belize. It dried, rotted and killed tourism.

Toxic algal blooms known as “red tide” create conditions where most marine life cannot survive.

In high concentrations, the toxin of the bloom paralyzes the central nervous system of marine life.

Red tide is harmful to human health. Eating contaminated shellfish can kill. It even kills manatees and dolphins, warm blooded mammals breathing air.

These algae- phytoplankton are single-celled organisms that form thick surface patches. Some of the many species are brown to red or discolored and murky.

Eye and respiratory irritation are serious but lung disease or asthma suffers fare worse.

In Yucatan, Mexico, our second red tide passed this year devastating marine life. Hordes of people rushed to scoop up dead or dying lobsters and fish. Some of this pestilence found it its way to markets and restaurants. The health department issued statements regarding the danger of eating seafood contaminated by red tide but they were largely ignored.

In July my wife and I swam in the first red tide contaminated waters, became extremely sick, and are still recovering after potent medications.

Amazingly the tourist industry lobby trumps the health department so no warnings are posted on the beaches.

We love the sea and seafood…but can’t trust it!

MAYAN TRADITIONAL FOODS SOLD IN THE MARKETS AND STREETS OF YUCATAN

For those of us who cherish the food from bygone days before bar-coded chemically embalmed ersatz convenience cuisine:

This Mayan lady brings the produce of her home garden plus traditional baked goods, native honey, chaya and whatever else is in season to her spot in Colonial Alemán. This location is about three kilometers northeast of Mérida’s center. You are sure to see Mayan ladies at various market places and in the villages of Yucatan selling their goods.

All is top quality, ecologically friendly, and reasonably priced.  

The flat crackers to the left in the photo are known as ish waaj.  They are made from new corn. There are two varieties: salted or sweet.  The midget bananas are exceptionally sweet.

The white shucked beans in the front of this photo are known as ibes and the black ones are xpelón. A delicicous food favorite in Yucatan are vaporcitos (tamales) made with xpelón. The brown bags contain ground roasted squash seeds (pepita molida).  Pepita molida is the main ingredient in Si-Kil Pac, a tasty dip made with the ground squash seeds, tomatoes, sour orange, cilantro, and Yucatan’s hot chile habanero.

A treasure trove of fun to sample foods not found in the super stores can be found in the markets and along the streets of Yucatan..

So, what are you waiting for?

Sample some of the real Yucatan that tourists miss most.