THE MAYA STRUGGLE THAT LASTED GENERATIONS—THE CASTE WAR OF YUCATÁN

      

Original mural depicting Caste War from Belize.com at Corozal Board Building

                                               

Living in the land of the Maya one takes for granted the solemn undercurrent of a revered, majestic culture that built pyramids, developed the concept of zero, and for centuries, quietly held their ground against the Spanish when their Aztec cousins had succumbed to The Conquest in a heartbeat.

While sunbathing on endless white sand beaches, snorkeling off the Great Meso-America Reef or simply kicking back to enjoy Mexico’s gracious hospitality, it’s easy to forget to whom one owes allegiance in Quintana Roo. But just beneath the surface of a postcard perfect existence lies a Yucatán tale that isn’t much talked about but has set the tone for the past century: the Caste War of Yucatán.

When cultures collide, history requires a winner and a loser. But in Quintana Roo after the Caste War, which began in 1847 and ended first in 1901 and again in 1935 with a half-hearted truce, it’s difficult to determine who won the battle and which side lost the war.

UNSAFE PASSAGE

From 1847 until the 1930s, the Caste War made it impossible for a light-skinned person to walk into the eastern Yucatán or the territory of Quintana Roo and come out alive. This was a place where only indigenous Maya could safely roam. Anyone with light skin was killed on sight. What caused the fierceness of this Maya uprising that lasted nearly a century?

No single element alone instigated the rebellion, but as in most revolutions, a long dominated underclass was finally pushed to its limits by an overbearing ruling class that had performed intolerable deeds. Indentured servitude, land grabbing, and restrictive water rights were but a few issues that pushed the Maya into full-fledged revolt against their Yucatan overlords.

MEXICAN WAR AND THE MAYA

Mural of Caste War in Municipal Building in Valladolid

The history of the Caste War, not unlike Mexico’s dramatic history, is complicated. Mexico’s successful break with Spain led to changes in the Yucatán government, including arming the Maya to help fight the Mexican war against the US in Texas. Maya numbers were needed to assure victory. Armed with rifles and machetes, this tactic backfired in Valladolid, considered the most elitist and race conscious city in the Yucatán.

After a decade of skirmishes, in 1847, when the newly armed Maya heard one of their leaders had been put to death by firing squad, a long simmering rebellion broke out into full-fledged battle. The Maya rose up and marched on Valladolid, hacking 85 to death by machete, burning, raping, and pillaging along the way.

VALLADOLID MASSACRE

Merida braced itself, sure to be the next staging ground for what was fast becoming a race war. In retaliation for the Valladolid massacre, Yucatecans descended on the ranch of a Maya leader and raped a 12-year old indigenous girl. With this affront, eight Maya tribes joined forces and drove the entire white population of Yucatán to Merida, burning houses and pillaging as they went. So fierce was the slaughter that anyone who was not of Maya descent prepared to evacuate Merida and the peninsula by boat.

But just as the Maya tribes approached Merida, sure of victory, fate intervened when great clouds of winged ants appeared in the sky. With this first sign of rain coming, the Maya knew it was time to begin planting. They laid down their machetes against the pleadings of their chiefs and headed home to their milpas (cornfields). It was time to plant corn—a thing as simple and ancient as that.

YUCATECANS STAGE COMEBACK

In 1848 the Yucatecans staged a comback, killed Maya leaders, and reunified. But as the Maya harvested corn planted in hidden fields, they kept fighting, relying on guerrilla tactics to preserve the only life they knew.

Throughout it all, the Maya were pushed to the eastern and southern regions of the Yucatán Peninsula and Quintana Roo, as far south as Bacalar. Mexico slowly gained control over the Yucatán, but rebel Maya held firmly onto QRoo, using Chan Santa Cruz (Felipe Carrillo Puerto) as their base.

Tired from years of struggle, the Maya regained confidence from an unlikely source: a talking cross found deep in the jungle near a cenote.

CHURCH OF THE SPEAKING CROSS

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Caste War of Yucatán—The Church of the Speaking Cross and the Chan Santa Cruz Maya, in my next post, January 8. To learn more on the subject, The Caste War of Yucatán by Nelson Reed, one of my reference materials, is an excellent read.

Painting by Mario Jiminez

Nelson Reed's The Caste War of Yucatán

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon as are books one and two of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, also on Amazon. For you Mayaphiles, my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar is also on Amazon–-Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy. 

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A MEXICO ADVENTURE TALE: THE LOST WORLD OF QUINTANA ROO

 

Today’s Cancun radiates luxury, flash, and all things civilized. When I first traveled there in the 1980s, though it wasn’t the sophisticated resort city it is today, it was no backwater. It had a Club Med, a spiffy hotel zone, and in 1989 played host to the Miss Universe pageant. At the time, Cancun, in the state of Quintana Roo, was not well known, but its clear turquoise waters and white sand beaches served as an enticing backdrop to a world-wide audience. Cancun was ready for its close-up.

Back then, you could venture a mere five miles north or south and find yourself traipsing through tangled jungles or walking alone on desolate beaches. Though I considered myself a seasoned Mexico traveler I’d never ventured to the Yucatán Peninsula, and my introduction to its eastern shores came unexpectedly. I found an out-of-print book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo, in a vintage book shop in Moss Landing, California.

Along with a compelling cover, the dust flap intrigued me. “This is the true story of a remarkable adventure. Michel Peissel, a young Frenchman with an international background, was stranded on the coast of Quintana Roo in eastern Yucatán, abandoned by boatmen he had engaged to take him southward.” 

I was hooked.

Peissel's tale was a tall adventure indeed. Sixty years ago he walked the land, and considered Quintana Roo to be "the most savage and wild coast on the American continent."

It was a mere territory, with no laws, no government, no roads— accessible only by sea or on foot.

In 1958 this was how Peissel, then just 21-years old, discovered it. Through a strange set of circum-stances, Peissel’s fate led him on a solo walk through thick mangroves and dense jungles from the northern tip of Quintana Roo to Belize.

MEXICO SABBATICAL

On graduating from Harvard in 1958, Peissel planned a six-month sabbatical in Mexico before entering grad school for a business career. After meeting a well-traveled German writer in Mexico City, he became fascinated with a little known territory on the Yucatán Peninsula, Quintana Roo. Peissel first headed to Merida, then Progreso, where he chartered a boat to Cozumel. From there he planned to sail down the Quintana Roo coast. After arriving in Cozumel he hired two young Maya boys with an 11-foot vessel, bamboo mast and rag sail, to take him to the QRoo mainland.

After a harrowing eight-hour crossing, they arrived at Puha, a coco plantation or cocal, on the mainland. At that time the coast was entirely uninhabited except for Puha, Puerto Morelos, and Tankah. Exhausted, Peissel fell asleep and missed the second half of the journey on the Maya sailboat, which left him with a fateful decision—how to get to Chetumal in a land with no roads and virtually no people. After being abandoned, his only hope to exit the jungle was to travel on foot from cocal to cocal, relying on the assistance of the Maya who lived there for food, water, and direction.

LONG JOURNEY

Wearing only sandals as his boots left with the boat, he began his two hundred mile journey through dense jungle and mangrove swamps. He was chased by chiclero bandits (chickle cutters for gum trees) and encountered Chan Santa Cruz Indians, who until then killed any light-skinned person on sight as the Caste War of Yucatán had ended just twenty years earlier. He partook in religious ceremonies with indigenous Maya and stumbled onto unknown pyramid sites. Peissel became the first person known to walk the coast of Quintana Roo, arriving in Belize forty days later.

RETURN TRIP

It would be three years before Peissel made a return trip and in that time he found many things had changed along the QRoo coast. In 1974 Quintana Roo became a state of Mexico and shortly thereafter the Mexico Tourist Council devised a project for a planned resort community which is now present day Cancun.

Years later Peissel again returned to Quintana Roo. He paddled and sailed his way down the coast on a Maya seagoing dugout canoe. After his early adventure to Quintana Roo, he abandoned his plans to become a banker and went on to write fifteen books and produce twenty documentary films. Because of his journey to Quintana Roo, journeying to other outback destinations like Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan would become his life’s passion. Peissel died in Paris October 7, 2011. At 74, his was an adventurous life well lived.

On a personal note, I was contacted by the author after I wrote a review of the 1963 Lost World publication in 2000 for the Miami Herald. The review reached Peissel in Paris; he located me through email and thanked me for it. He mentioned the book was out of print and if f I knew of a publisher who might want to re-publish, to let him know. I had few publishing contacts, but I was excited to have been contacted by Peissel. I later heard from his brother Bernard who explained he'd read the review and forwarded it to Michel. We remained in contact and it was Bernard who informed me of Michel's passing.  

                                        

But my six degrees of separation with Michel did not stop with the review. I traveled to Paris and one of my stops was Shakespeare & Company. Owning a bookstore in Mexico as an expat drew me to this famous Parisian landmark. By chance I met the owner, George Whitman. Though an ocean apart, we were kindred spirits—expats with bookstores on foreign soil. When I told him about Alma Libre Libros, he asked what part of Mexico it was in.

I said Quintana Roo. And then the conversation got real interesting. "Quintana Roo? Quintana Roo! I walked Quintana Roo when I was young."

"You've been there?"

"Oh yes, in the thirties I traveled through Mexico. My visa ran out and I helped build a bridge between Chetumal and Belize to get my papers in order." 

"Have you read The Lost World of Quintana Roo?" I asked. "By Michel Peissel?" 

"Michel, of course. He'd come into the bookshop when he wa a student at the Sorbonne. We often talked about my travels in Quintana Roo."

So Peissel had piggy-backed onto Whitman's true life adventure. Whitman was his game changer as Peissel was mine. I'd come full circle, from finding an out-of-print book in California that became the heart of my Mexico desire, inspiring me to travel south and settle as an expat in Mexico. To top that off, I accidentally met Whitman in Paris, who connected the dots with Peissel. Aaah, life can be sweet.

Though the book is out of print, it's possible to find copies through various sellers. It's a compelling tale. Climb aboard and be ready for a fascinating armchair adventure. 

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon as are books one and two of my cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, also on Amazon.

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 Vintage photographs are taken from The Lost World of Quintana Roo.