CHAPTER 7 MESOAMERICANS IN THE NEOCOLONIAL ERA 285Figure 7.9 Drawing of the town layout at Chan Santa Cruz, the capital of the rebellious
Mayas of Yucatán. Reprinted from The Caste War of Yucatanby Nelson Reed with the
permission of the publishers, Stanford University Press. © 1964 by the Board of Trustees
of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
portant political point as a result of their fifty-year struggle: They were determined to
survive as Mayas in spite of all attempts by Mexican overlords to destroy their way of life.
In a recent study of the Caste War of Yucatán, Terry Rugeley (l996) points out
that one of the main differences between Yucatán and other parts of Mexico is that
in Yucatán there was a particularly close relationship between the Catholic priests
and the landlords on the one hand, and the liberal politicians on the other hand.
When the Liberals reimposed the Church tax system on the Mayas, the Indian rebels
“seized upon the opportunity to end their participation in the Spanish Catholic sys-
tem altogether” (p. l82). As with the Hidalgo independence rebellion in northern
Mexico, creole divisions in Yucatán had created a power vacuum. By bringing the
peasant and peon Indians and mestizos into the frey, the liberals were prepararing
these underclasses for a complete break with the state government: “... leaders who
began separatist revolts soon found themselves overtaken by newer and more radi-
cal movements” (p. l84). The Mayan Indians in Yucatán, like the Otomí Indian fol-
lowers of Hidaglo, were just acculturated enough to adopt nontraditional social
means, but sufficiently near frontier zones to be free of excessive creole vigilance
and to have access to weapons and areas of refuge.
For an account of an additional nativist movement in Mexico, see Box 7.5 on the
Yaqui rebellions.