Creoles felt they were not only in keeping with the times but were doing the Indians a favor by declaring them to be legally equal to other citizens, by refusing to even use the term “indio” in government records, and by placing their land on the market. However, the record does not indicate that indigenous people were consulted concerning these changes or that they desired to be incorporated into the new social order, where, in any event, they would occupy an inferior economic status. In fact, Indians almost unanimously opposed such changes. In Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, they protested their having being declared “equal” and demanded a return to Indian village government. Authorities rejected their petition, characterizing it as “illegal and unjust.”165
As non-Indians extended their landholdings at the expense of indigenous communities, Indians turned from formal protests to rebellion. In northern Veracruz, Indian rebels successfully fought government forces to a stalemate, thus ensuring continued control of their land and the survival of the tropical forest in which they lived. Usually, though, Indians did not prevail. In 1832, dozens of villages revolted, beginning with Nochistlan in Oaxaca. The revolt spread to southern Guerrero and Michoacan before it was finally suppressed. As historian John Lynch succinctly stated, “The Indians were losers from independence.”166
Ten years later an even more serious revolt spread over 60,000 square miles, extending from Michoacan to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Indians there violently rejected the changes in language, ecosystem, diet, work regimen, religion, politics, and local autonomy associated with commercial agriculture. In 1845, General Nicolas Bravo described the rebels as “miserable Indians, incapable of understanding the benefits of civilization, returned to a barbarous state worse than that of savage tribes.”167
Rebellions launched during the Mexican—American War often forced both the federal and the state governments to direct military forces away from advancing Americans and towards other Mexicans. After U. S. troops occupied Mexico City, villagers of Xochitepec, south of Cuernavaca, attacked the nearby hacienda of Chiconcuac to repossess lands, taking advantage of the breakdown of the Mexican army. Hacendados turned to the commander of the U. S. occupation force stationed in Cuernavaca, who sent troops. The U. S. troops drove away local insurgents and remained encamped at the hacienda to prevent further attacks. U. S. officers sought a stable Mexico, not social justice.168
In 1847, the most serious nineteenth-century Indian conflict broke out in Yucatan as the Maya also took advantage of the opportunity presented by the Mexican—American War. There, the lines were still sharply drawn between dominant Creoles and indigenous Maya. Debt servitude and civil and religious taxes were forced on the indigenous population. Creoles were rapidly increasing the area planted in sugar cane and henequen. They were also producing increased amounts of food for Yucatan’s population, which rose from 358,000 in 1800 to 580,000 in 1845. Creoles asserted control over land and water holes (cenotes) to which the Maya had previously enjoyed unrestricted access. This expansion of commercial agriculture deprived the Maya of land for growing corn.169
To bolster Yucatan’s secessionist movement against the central government, Indians had been offered land and tax exemptions to induce them to fight alongside Yucatan’s white elite. This provided Indians with arms and combat experience. Creoles then very unwisely broke the promises they had made to Indians. The Indians soon rebelled, hoping to expel or kill all whites, in a conflict named the War of the Castes.170
In one of first few recorded statements by Indian leaders at any time in Mexican history, an Indian wrote to a non-Indian priest, asking rhetorically:
Why didn’t you remember us or sound the alarm when the governor began to kill us? Why didn’t you protect us or protest when the whites killed so many of us? Why didn’t you react when Father Herrera abused poor Indians. He put a saddle on a poor Indian, and rode him, and began to whip him; and spurred him in the stomach. Why didn’t you complain when this happened? Now you appeal to the true god. Why didn’t you appeal to the true god when they were doing that to the Indians?171
By 1848, Indians controlled four-fifths of the Yucatan Peninsula, and had Merida, the capital, under siege. The Maya in Yucatan could effectively resist the Creole elite since they had access to rifles smuggled in from British Honduras (today’s Belize).172
The Creole-run government offered Great Britain, the United States, or Spain “domination and sovereignty” in exchange for protection against the Indians. When none of these powers accepted the offer, Yucatan’s Creole elite once again embraced the Mexican government.173
Just when the Maya forces appeared to be on the verge of taking Merida and some Creoles were fleeing by boat, the rebels turned back, for reasons that are still poorly understand. Suggested explanations include: 1) Maya peasants wanting to return to their fields at the beginning of planting season; 2) disagreement on goals; 3) the whites having received shipments of rifles, artillery, food, and money from Cuba, Veracruz, and New Orleans; and 4) the distance from Maya supply sources in British Honduras.174
Creole-led forces eventually drove the Maya into the jungle with the aid of guns from Spain and a shipment of U. S. arms and munitions brought from Veracruz by Commodore Matthew C. Perry— later to gain fame by opening up Japan to U. S. commerce. In the absence of an official response to the request for a U. S. military force, Yucatecans simply hired U. S. troops demobilized after the Mexican—American War. Several hundred of these troops served for $8 a month and the promise of 320 acres of land. Between 300 and 400 Americans fighting in Yucatan were killed or wounded. This casualty rate of almost 40 percent was roughly double the American casualty rate during the Mexican—American War.175
The 16,000-man army defending the Creoles triumphed in part due to the Creoles’ ability to recruit Maya living on haciendas. Rather than being strictly a race war, the War of the Castes pitted those tied to the modern cash economy against those tied to the indigenous subsistence economy.
Creoles took some 2,000 Maya prisoners and sold them into servitude in Cuba. They rationalized this as bringing an improvement to lives of the Maya, although they never scrutinized the deportees’ condition in Cuba. The Creoles in Yucatan were not only ridded of an enemy but received 25 pesos for each prisoner delivered.176
As advancing troops of the Yucatan government pushed the Maya back, Indian rebels embraced a Maya—Christian religious cult that had as a central icon a cross representing the ancient Maya world tree or flowering cross. They believed their crosses spoke, issuing instructions to followers of the movement. The crosses, called santos, were dressed in Maya garments, replacing the images of saints with Caucasian features and European clothing, which had previously been venerated.177
Inspired by the voices from the crosses, the Maya retired into the jungle of the eastern Yucatan peninsula and maintained their independent existence. Fighting continued at different levels of intensity for decades, with raids, massacres, and reprisals occurring repeatedly. The indigenous there were not subjugated until 1901, when Porfirio Diaz’s machine-gun equipped army occupied the last independent rebel town, Santa Cruz. The severity of the struggle is indicated by the fall in Yucatan’s population from 582,173 in 1837 to 320,212 in 1862.178
World History
