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Mexico Travel :: Yucatan Peninsular

State of Yucatan

The earliest signs of humanity in the state of Yucatan are a pile of bones of extinct mammals, including horses, found in the Loltun Caves and dated 11,000-7,500 BC. Beginning in the 5th century BC, a Maya village culture centered in the Peten jungles of Guatemala spread as far as Dzibilchaltun, in northern Yucatan. Chichen Itza, Kabah and Acanceh also became population centers; a temple at the latter site was decorated with Teotihuacan-style reliefs, a testament to the long reach of that culture. After AD 600, the Puuc hills in southern Yucatan and northern Campeche gave their name to one of the most elaborate regional styles of the great Maya efflorescence. This style includes limestone veneer buildings, decorated along the upper stories with ornate stone mosaics and repeated sky-serpent faces. The Puuc reached its apogee about AD 750-800, but little is known about the history of Uxmal, the largest site, or Labna, Kabah and Sayil. What happened next in Yucatan is currently the subject of much debate among Mayanist scholars. The Puuc collapsed and, some time later, Chichen Itza became the most important city in Yucatan-but why and when has not been decided. Both sides use the Maya history of Yucatan, the Chilean Balam, which unfortunately was not written according to modern historiographic principles, in order to back up their arguments.

According to the traditional view, a chief named Kukulcan ('Feathered Serpent') defeated the Maya in a great battle around AD 987, and made his new capital in the once-Puuc city of Chichen Itza. This chief was Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, who had been ejected from the Toltec throne at Tula. In their new capital, the Toltecs merged their religion, customs and architectural styles with the Maya, introducing choc moots and warrior-columns among other things. Others claim that the Toltecs never arrived in Yucatan and that the chiefs who both founded Chichen Itza and presided over its most glorious era centuries later were descendants of the Itza, a seafaring tribe that established settlements in the eighth century on the coast of what is now Quintana Roo. They see a continuous line of development, not an abrupt change when a new culture moved in. What they do not explain is the origin of the Toltec-type objects. A major stumbling block to a full resolution of the issue is the fact that few of these ancient cities, particularly Chichen Itza, have been adequately excavated. After the abandonment of Chichen, probably in the 13th century, the center of power in northern Yucatan became Mayapan, a city of 12,000 inhabitants that was architecturally far inferior to its predecessors. Maya-pan's ruling Cocome lineage controlled the surrounding cities through force and intimidation, until it was overthrown in the mid-15th century. Yucatan was then broken into 16 feuding city-states, who were unable to unite against the Spanish invasion.

The first European contact with the Maya came in 1502, when Columbus' last voyage encountered several large trading canoes in the Gulf of Mexico. Juan de Grijalva and Cortes briefly stopped in the region in 1518 and 1519 respectively, but it was not until 1527 that the conquistadors, led by Francisco de Montejo, tried to conquer it. He was driven back, but his son, de Montejo the Younger, landed in Campeche in 1531 and defeated the Cocomes at Mayapan, followed by the Cupules at Chichen Itza. In 1542, Merida was founded at the site of T-hoo, a Maya city whose stones were used to build churches and mansions. The Franciscans were the first evangelists in Yucatan and built 30 convents across the peninsula. Bishop Diego de Landa destroyed 5,000 Maya idols, 197 sacred vases and 97 codices-nearly the entire written religion-in a huge bonfire at Mani, but later Spanish authorities forced him to 'atone' for his actions by writing his Relation de las Cosas de Yucatan, a primary source of information about Maya culture. Yucatan's Indians suffered greatly on the Spanish rice, vanilla, sugar cane and tobacco plantations; rebellions were frequent. In 1761, a convent-educated Indian named Jacinto Canek incited his people to kill whites and mestizos-the military responded by massa¬cring Indians. The rebellion spread through the peninsula until Canek was captured and executed along with eight others; 200 of his followers were flogged and had one of their ears cut off. For much of the Colonial era, Yucatan was so isolated from the rest of Mexico that the main political currents passed it by.

After the ejection of the Spanish, Yucatecan politicians flirted with the idea of independence, particularly when the Republic of Texas seceded in 1839. During the 1846-48 invasion, Yucatan signed a treaty of neutrality with the US. In 1847, inspired by Mexico's political turmoil, the Maya of southeastern Yucatan decided to oust the whites from their land. They took up arms, killed hundreds and captured many important towns, including Valladolid, in the conflict called the War of the Castes. Within a year, they were on the outskirts of Merida and the city of Campeche. Many whites fled and the local govern¬ment was forced to ask for Mexico's help, acknowledging its sovereignty in return. The Indians were pushed back to the eastern jungles, now Quintana Roo, where they formed their own state, which lasted until 1901. The late 19th century was a time of unparalleled prosperity in Yucatan, fueled by a boom in the henequen industry, which produced rope for sailing ships and twine for the new automatic hay balers. Merida became the most glittering state capital in the country, with electric lights before Mexico City and a bishop who drove around town in a bejeweled coach. The price of this boom was paid by Maya and Yaqui Indian laborers (forcibly moved here from Sonora), who were virtual slaves on the henequen plantations and were literally worked to death.

During the early years of the Revolution, Yucatan's reformist governor, Jose Maria Pino Suarez, became vice-president under Francisco Madero-and was assassinated with him in Mexico City. After the collapse of henequen and a brief boom in chicle (fueled by the US chewing gum craze), Yucatan's economy fell into a depression that lasted until tourists discovered the region's attractions in the 1960s. The Merida area has recently begun to attract maquiladoras, and many new factories ring the city.

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