CHAPTER 7 MESOAMERICANS IN THE NEOCOLONIAL ERA 279Following independence, the Momostenango Indians rallied behind the mes-
tizo caudilloRafael Carrera, and during the 1840s they helped him seize the presi-
dency of the Republic and then maintain dictatorial hold over it. The Momostecans
considered Carrera to be their personal patron lord and served him faithfully as
client warriors and tributaries. In return, the conservative Carrera allowed the Mo-
mostecans to retain considerable political and cultural autonomy. Social conditions
for the Indians of Momostenango under Carrera’s rule are clearly revealed by a se-
ries of court cases dating from that period of time, the records of which are now pre-
served in the community’s archives (Carmack 1995).
The court records show, for example, that as late as the 1860s the ancient K’iche’
Mayan pattern of rural clans and districts had remained intact. Customary native law
was still operating in Momostenango, and it enjoyed the respect of all the Indian
sectors of the community. The Momostenango Indians were able to reconstitute
these cultural traditions despite the fact that the municipal and regional authorities
were now either creoles or mestizos (the latter were referred to as “Ladinos” in the
court records). Special Indian judges were introduced in important legal cases, as dur-
ing the colonial period, and Spanish colonial laws relative to the Indians were still in
use. Consistent with conservative thinking, the Indian judges dealt with the natives
in highly paternalistic ways. One judge, for example, stated that the Indians had the
right to receive special treatment because they were “ignorant, not ever having been
taught the Gospel.”
As a result of the liberal reforms carried out in Guatemala in the 1870s under the
caudilloJusto Rufino Barrios, the Indians in Momostenango lost nearly half of their
best agricultural lands, and this event facilitated the forced labor of hundreds of Mo-
mostecans on the new coffee plantations in the Pacific Coast. Liberal creole and mes-
tizo authorities were now put in charge of virtually all activities in Momostenango,
in a drastic reduction of the autonomy that the community had enjoyed during the
Carrera years. Momostenango’s Indians rose up against the liberal authorities in
1876 and fought a bitter guerrilla war to preserve their traditional privileges as In-
dians. The liberal armies ruthlessly quashed the native rebellion, after which they
executed several rebel leaders and burned the homes of collaborators. Momoste-
nango’s Indians were thenceforth subjected to years of suffocating control under a
series of subseqent liberal dictators.
The social conditions of the Momostenango Indians under the repressive lib-
eral regimes were dramatically cast into relief by a murder that took place in the
community in the early morning hours of a day in February 1899 (Figure 7.8). As an
Indian named Timoteo attended the wake of his sister at the house of his in-laws, an
Indian militia lieutenant named Fermín led a patrol of soldiers into the house, where
he embraced Timoteo and then plunged a knife into his heart. Lt. Fermín was taken
into custody a few hours later by the mestizo alcalde(mayor). Acting as justice of the
peace, the alcalde had the body examined by an “expert,” took testimony from the
many witnesses to the stabbing, and remitted the case and the prisoner to the Court
of First Appeal in the regional capital of Totonicapán (Atanacio Tzul’s home com-
munity). Timoteo’s father employed the services of a highly skilled and educated