Latin America's history was marked by violence in the nineteenth century. The freshly established independent nations were disturbed by civil wars, military coups, and frequent popular rebellions. The absence of colonial governments and the collapse of colonial institutions took center stage. Even though independence wars brought freedom from the oppression of colonial rule, the wars did less to improve indigenous peoples living status. Laborers were oppressed, and the indigenous people were forced to work in privately owned plantations.
That state of affairs was common in several regions of Latin America, and Mexico was not exempted. From 1840, the common and frequent rural uprisings unsettled Mexico. The contemporary elites depict the wars to be caste or race wars. That suggests that the conflicts were fought between indigenous peoples and the rest of Mexico's population. The most significant of such disputes was the Caste War of Yucatan, which happened in the southeast of Mexico. The war began in 1847 when the armed Maya group attacked Hispanic inhabitants. The indigenous Maya people were infuriated by land explorations, tax burdens, and frequent political violence on their people. That marked the beginning of decade’s long fights and the killing of people.
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Moreover, there have been several attempts to document and capture the entirety of the indigenous Maya community and their role in the Yucatan caste war. Motivated by regional pride and focus on important historical events in Latin America, numerous scholars have synthesized and brought the events closer to the new generations. Besides, the scholars have researched and presented crucial facts that we can learn and comprehend from the most significant war in the history of Latin America. This paper presents a historiographical essay on what various scholars have established about the indigenous involvement in the Caste War in Yucatán.
Diserens Morgan, K., and R. M. Leventhal. "Maya of the past, present, and future: Heritage, anthropological archaeology, and the study of the Caste War of Yucatan." Heritage 3, no. 2 (2020), 511-527. doi:10.3390/heritage3020030.
In the article, the authors examine the relationship between Maya heritage and archeology. The authors, Morgan and Leventhal, trace the background of Maya to understand the significance of the war today. 1 The authors confirm that the Caste War was the most successful indigenous uprisings in the history of Latin America. The Maya community led the battle and made the Maya remain semi-autonomous for more than fifty years. 2 According to Morgan and Leventhal, the Yucatan war was a war of reactions. The war comprised of indigenous Maya against other groups in Yucatan. The war began in Yucatan that had become an economic and political focus for the colonial administration. According to the authors, the Yucatan Caste War will be remembered across generations, and that is why they studied the project to establish an archaeological Maya.
The study is essential in understanding the nature of the caste war. The authors used Maya language sources to establish that the central theme of the war was on equity. They argued that the indigenous wanted the laws to be applied equally to all people regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. In that sense, the indigenous Maya people adopted social revolutions to eradicate caste distinctions. 3 Morgan and Leventhal established that the Maya demands began by dismantling the colonial orders. A successful war was regarded as the most violent, and the war consequences were the most profound. The war was beneficial in achieving equality but adversely affected the people's economic practices and caused deaths to thousands of people.
The study of the war is a central aim for various authors. Morgan and Leventhal being not an exception, studied it to establish an archaeological project that documents the historic Maya community and the whole Caste War in Yucatan. The young generations need to study past events, and historical archaeology like the one being reviewed by Morgan and Leventhal is essential. I find it necessary to understand how the marginalized Maya could plan and execute the most successful uprising. Despite the significance of the study by Morgan and Leventhal, several questions remain unanswered in their research. First, I find it crucial to establish how the lived experiences of the war and the historical memory affect today's people. The war had a significant impact on the indigenous people at the time. However, the precise effect of the war on present and future generations has not been studied. In my opinion, research on that can expand the ideas and concepts presented by Morgan and Leventhal.
Gabbert, Wolfgang. "Violence and the Caste War of Yucatán." 2019. doi:10.1017/9781108666930.
In this book, Gabbert presents eye-opening research on the Yucatan war. The author establishes that the Caste War was the most important to the indigenous people for various reasons. First, the author argues that the war was of long duration and significant magnitude. 4 According to Gabbert, the war assumed characters of civil war and affected large populations. 5 Gabbert notes that the war continued to the beginning of the twentieth century though it took a different form of raiding and guerilla warfare. Second, the tremendous warsaw loss of property and human life. 6 The author estimates that the Yucatan population reduced by more than 40 percent from 1846 to 1862. Thus, the war lasted longer; it was fierce and claimed more victims than Mexico's rebellions in the nineteenth century. And lastly, the Caste War had severe consequences. 7 The Maya community’s lower classes forcefully retreated to isolated eastern and southern areas of Yucatan, where they formed independent polities. That happened after the initial success of the rebels in the war between 1846 and 1862. Together with their descendants, the insurgents became kruso’b, which means crosses in the Mayan language. 8 The rebels used religious cults to successfully maintain their independence from the Yucatan government for almost half a century. All these grounds qualify the Caste War as the most significant in all Mexico’s local uprising, and the war's violence is worth studying.
Gabbert opted to approach the war from a different perspective on violence. 9 The author notes that violence mostly appears chaotic, irrational, and random. However, in his book, the author establishes that certain motives, patterns, and critical underlying issues lead to rebellions like the Yucatan caste war. 10 According to Gabbert, the Maya community had several underlying issues that motivated them to use violence in the caste war. The problems are diverse and include oppression, poverty, racial hatred, and tax impositions. All the indigenous groups joined the battle to fight against the oppression, and thus all the indigenous groups had one goal for the war, to fight against oppression.
Dutt, Rajeshwari. "Business As Usual:Maya and Merchants on Yucatán-Belize border at the Onset of the Caste War." The Americas 74, no. 2 (2017), 201-226. doi:10.1017/tam.2017.8.
There is a need to understand how the leadership abilities of the indigenous people influenced the war. 11 Rajeshwari Dutt investigates the effective indigenous leadership on the success of the Caste War. Several other authors have researched and studied the Caste War from diverging and unique perspectives. Dutt's work is essential in understanding how indigenous leaders, particularly Angelino Uicab, led and mobilized the Mayan community to actively participate in the uprisings against tax impositions, racial hatred, and oppression. 12 According to Dutt, Uicab was a strategist who played a pivotal role in shaping the political alliances and significantly influenced people to join the uprisings at the grassroots. The indigenous Mayan leader traveled to Merida and presented his demands to the highest authority led by Governor Miguel Barbachano. The brave leader condemned why he and the Mayan people were uncomfortable with colonial leadership handling the indigenous people.
Other scholars focus on the causes of the Caste War and how the war was carried out but offer little emphasis on various leaders such as Uicab. 13 According to Dutt, Uicab was not motivated by racial concerns but rather a strategist who wanted to have a just, equal, and free society for all residents. In his presentations to the Governor, Uicab accused the colonial leader of Teya of forcing indigenous people to work in privately owned plantations. 14 Uicab accused the colonial leadership of jeopardizing his relations with the indigenous communities he represented. The leader increasingly became a prominent figure in leading the indigenous people to condemn and reject oppressive orders, an approach that led to well-strategized local uprisings across the region.
While other scholars on the Yucatan war emphasized the racial concerns of the conflict between the whites and the independent Maya, Dutt challenges that and suggests that alliances were formed across racial lines and not the racial nature of the uprisings. The author advances the work of Gabbert and supports that the poor vecinos formed alliances with the independent Maya to attack wealthy vecinos. Dutt's work is thus essential in deconstructing the common arguments of other scholars that the Caste War was based on racial concerns. However, the Caste War understanding must go beyond the rebels and encompass a wider knowledge of the Yucatan society. Dutt's work has over-concentrated and limited itself to Uicab’s strategies, the Mayan rebels, the alliance between poor vecinos, and the Mayan rebels. Therefore, it is essential that future researches can use a more inclusive approach, where the central focus is on the Yucatan society. That way, crucial aspects of the impact and influence of the war on the larger community can be established and viewed from a different dimension. Nevertheless, Dutt’s article provides an essential and comprehensive understanding of the significance of strategic leadership and the importance of diverse alliances in the success of the caste war. The reader can comprehend and relate how the essential strategies and involvement of well-executed plans contributed to the war's success.
Paola Peniche Moreno. "Armed conflict, disease and death: health in the Caste War (Yucatán, Mexico) in the second half of the nineteenth century." História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro 28, no. 3 (2021).
Scholars are taking various perspectives and comparing historical events with the present way of human life. Moreno used the Caste War in Yucatan to study the analysis of the relationship between health and conflict. Moreno reconstructs important health events and argues that the health process in the nineteenth century can be better explained concerning variables directly connected to the war conflicts. 15 According to Moreno, such variables include displacements, arms trafficking, food shortages, violence chaos, and frequent human migrations. The author argues that war is above all other human tragedies, and its most visible signs are death, hunger, loss, and diseases. The author investigates and presents essential conclusions on the relationship between the Caste War and diseases, health of the indigenous people. That is a commendable approach in enlightening the current generations on how the effects of war and conflicts adversely lead to health problems and the long-lasting implications for society.
Moreno investigates a challenging yet very essential topic that has not previously been researched. Therefore, he offers an excellent connection on how the Caste War adversely affected the health status of the indigenous people. 16 According to Moreno, the various approaches adopted to contain the epidemic were hampered by people's ongoing movement and displacement. That consequently led to the spread of cholera and the deaths of thousands of people. In his research, 17 Dutt highlighted that the war had adverse health and psychological effects on the present and future descendants of the war victims. However, his findings were not as conclusive and elaborate as the ones presented by Moreno. For that reason, I find it essential for scholars to advance Moreno's research and establish other war aspects. For instance, research on how the Caste War led to the growth of health infrastructure in Yucatan can provide a more practical approach on how the war affected health and related matters. Regardless, Moreno's study provided essential knowledge that helps the reader to understand the Caste War from a different perspective, the health perspective.
Gabbert, Wolfgang. "Of Friends and Foes: The Caste War and Ethnicity in Yucatan." Journal of Latin American Anthropology
9, no. 1 (2008), 90-118. doi:10.1525/jlca.2004.9.1.90.
In his article on Gabbert investigates how conflicting views led to the emergence of the war. 18 According to Gabbert, there were significant differences in Yucatan social categories during the 19 th century. The different social types had varying and contrasting experiences during the war and to succeeding generations. Gabbert analyzes the composition of the indigenous during the war, an investigative approach that other scholars have least used. 19 According to Gabbert, the social categories employed during the war constituted a complex system. The complex system consisted of several sets of people while complimentary views and ideas on the war. While analyzing the rebels’ social composition, Gabbert notes that the insurgents consisted of the poor vecinos and the indigenous people. That is an observation that another author made. 20 Dutt argued that the poor veceinos helped the rebels to stage a war on the wealthy veceinos. The author's approach to the war from the social composition context is commendable and insightful. I find it appropriate for the author to investigate the compositions of the various parties. Other authors suggested that the war comprised not just the indigenous Mayans vs. the authority. However, Gabbert goes beyond that and provides evidence and figure of how the warring parties were diverse.
Dutt, Rajeshwari. "Business As Usual:Maya and Merchants on Yucatán-Belize border at the Onset of the Caste War." The Americas 74, no. 2 (2017), 201-226. doi:10.1017/tam.2017.8.
The Mayans played a significant role in advancing local rebellions in Yucatan. Dutt studies the merchants' influence on Mayans living at the Yucatan-Belize border at the onset of the war. 21 During the initial years of the war, the Belizean government supported the traders and merchants promoting cross-racial alliances. At the time, the Maya merchants were portrayed as positive people, even in extreme cases where they fought alongside the merchants against the Mexican regime. 22 However, due to racial differences, the Mayans differed with nearly all parties present in the area and decided to free themselves from taxes and forced laboring April 1948, Mayor Fancourt explained how Mayan insurgents planned and attacked Bacalar. According to the governor, more than six thousand Mayans battered Belize, and the thousands of Yucatecan Hispanics were already feeling the effect of the war spearheaded by Mayans. The author presents an exciting investigation on various ways the indigenous executed the war on multiple groups who differed in ideas and leadership approaches.
The article by Dutt is crucial in understanding how the Yucatan Caste war was executed. The author mainly focuses on the indigenous group, the Mayan insurgents’ approach the study in a comprehensive and detailed manner. 23 The author elaborates the events that culminated in the war and how the war effects spread rampantly to other areas such as Belize. Even though the author does not significantly address the war effects on the indigenous group, he mentions that thousands of Mayans and their properties were destroyed during the war period.
Harrison-Buck, E., B. A. Houk, A. R. Kaeding, and B. Borden. "The strange bedfellows of northern Belize: British colonialists, Confederate dreamers, Creole loggers, and the caste war Maya of the late nineteenth century." International Journal of Historical Archaeology
23, no. 1 (2018), 172-203. doi:10.1007/s10761-018-0461-6.
The indigenous Maya community used various approaches to target and attack other groups during the Caste War. This article investigates the relationship between the Maya community and other groups such as the British, Creole, and Ex-Confederate. 24 According to the authors, the Maya community frequently raided the British and the Creole logging camps during the peak of the Caste war. 25 The authors cross-examine ethnohistoric data to understand the myriad relationships between the Mayans and other groups. Besides, the authors elaborate on the role of each group in the Caste war. The author’s work enables the reader to acquire new knowledge on how the groups organized themselves and executed their plans, either in support of the war or in efforts to compact the war.
The author's article is essential and complements other studies on the involvement of the Maya community in the war. The authors extensively explain how each group participated in the war, an aspect that other scholars have mostly ignored. Every group had divergent agendas, particularly the Mayas, who wanted to protect their properties and fight oppression. 26 During the war, the displaced Maya fled to Belize in Central America. At the new destination, they explored other avenues for growth and development. Unlike other scholars, Harrison Buck. et al. explore the relationship between the Maya, African Creole with both the ex-Confederate settlers and the British. Despite their varying ideas, the groups interacted, and later the interactions changed over time to time. The study concludes that the Mayans remained relatively independent at the end of the 19th century where they practiced agriculture and other subsistence farming. The author's work is critical in understanding how the indigenous Maya community, despite their radical views, interacts with other groups in the region.
Inomata, Takeshi, and Daniela Triadan. "Culture and Practice of War in Maya Society." Warfare in Cultural Context
, 2009, 56-83. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1jf2ctn.5.
In Latin America during the 19 th century, cultural practices and beliefs played an essential role in advancing rebellion uprisings. 27 The author investigates the impact of cultural beliefs and practices that influenced and shaped the caste war. 28 Takeshi establishes that cultural codes and logic are held consciously and unconsciously in individuals' minds and shape their bodily practice, transforming and reproducing their values and beliefs. 29 In addition, the author examines practices not limited to physical battles in wars but also cultural mindsets that motivated the Mayans to pursue the war efforts. Besides, warfare occupied an essential place in the mind of Mayans. War was a prominent theme of art, rituals, and inscriptions. Therefore, the author diverts from other scholarly approaches and presents essential facts on how cultural practices and beliefs influenced the indigenous to stage and execute one of the most significant uprisings in the history of Latin America.
Even though the article is mainly concerned with how cultural aspects influenced the war, it does address other issues, such as the influential role of the Maya people in the war. 30 The Mayan culture encouraged wars to fight against oppression, forced labor, and other issues that dissatisfied the indigenous. Besides, the author approached the study with a different eye that led the audience into learning essential facts that might have been missed in other articles. However, it would be necessary also to investigate the impact of cultural practices and beliefs from the opponent side. This research significantly is centered on how culture influenced the Mayans but did little to address the plight of the opponents. That is a fantastic opportunity for current and future scholars to explore studying the Caste war in Yucatan and other uprisings in Latin America during the 19 th century.
Conclusion
Various scholars have adequately researched, investigated, and studied the Caste War in Yucatan. It is essential that the multiple authors discussed in this paper approached their articles from different perspectives and focused on opening the current and the future generations to the significance and impact of past histological events. Across the authors, there are common and easy to agree on arguments. First, the scholars agree that the 19 th century in Latin America was characterized by violent war periods. The indigenous people staged uprisings across regions to condemn oppressive laws, racial hatred, and lack of equity in government institutions. Besides, In Yucatan, the indigenous were forced to work in privately-owned plantations, and this, among other issues, contributed to the rise of the longest uprising in Latin America.
Furthermore, the scholars acknowledge the war is the most successful and most significant in the history of Latin America. The war lasted for over fifty years and was fought by people from diverse social contexts. Other than the common belief that the Mayas were the only rebels, the various researchers have established that the rebels' composition was more diverse than what is portrayed. They argued that the poor veceinos teamed with the indigenous people to fight against the wealthy veceinos. That means the war was well planned and executed, and that is why it was a success for more extended periods and achieved great significance for both past, present, and future generations.
Nevertheless, the scholars acknowledge that the Caste War was instrumental and brought essential changes that improved the lives of the indigenous people. Other than the deaths, spread of diseases, and mass destruction of property, the war is considered a success and achieved the indigenous leaders' demands. However, there is a significant acknowledgment that the war demands more investigations and studies. It is also essential to analyze and synthesize historical events based on the changes and dynamics of society. Scholars may advance the researches of the previous scholars and come up with more comprehensive and conclusive findings. That will be an essential milestone to focus on the significance of historical events such as the Caste War of Yucatan and how they impacted the indigenous people of Latin America during the 19 th century.
Bibliography
Diserens Morgan, Kasey, and Richard M. Leventhal. "Maya of the Past, Present, and Future: Heritage, Anthropological Archaeology, and the Study of the Caste War of Yucatan." Heritage 3, no. 2 (2020), 511-527. doi:10.3390/heritage3020030.
Dutt, R. "Crossing Over: Caciques, Indigenous Politics, and the Vecino World in Caste War Yucatan." Ethnohistory 61, no. 4 (2014), 739-759. doi:10.1215/00141801-2717849.
Dutt, Rajeshwari. "Business As Usual:Maya and Merchants on Yucatán-Belize border at the Onset of the Caste War." The Americas 74, no. 2 (2017), 201-226. doi:10.1017/tam.2017.8.
Gabbert, Wolfgang. "Violence and the Caste War of Yucatán." 2019. doi:10.1017/9781108666930.
Gabbert, Wolfgang. "Of Friends and Foes: The Caste War and Ethnicity in Yucatan." Journal of Latin American Anthropology 9, no. 1 (2008), 90-118. doi:10.1525/jlca.2004.9.1.90.
Harrison-Buck, E., B. A. Houk, A. R. Kaeding, and B. Borden. "The strange bedfellows of northern Belize: British colonialists, Confederate dreamers, Creole loggers, and the caste war Maya of the late nineteenth century." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 23, no. 1 (2018), 172-203. doi:10.1007/s10761-018-0461-6.
Inomata, Takeshi, and Daniela Triadan. "Culture and Practice of War in Maya Society." Warfare in Cultural Context , 2009, 56-83. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1jf2ctn.5.
Paola Peniche Moreno. "Armed conflict, disease and death: health in the Caste War (Yucatán, Mexico) in the second half of the nineteenth century." História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro 28, no. 3 (2021).
