Yucatán Peninsula: History

Pre-20th-Century History

The Maya - inventors of the concept of zero; accomplished astronomers and mathematicians; sophisticated artists, writers and philosophers; architects of some of the grandest monuments ever known - created their first settlements in (what is now) Guatemala as early as 900 BC. Over the centuries, the expansion of Mayan civilization moved steadily northward and by AD 550 great Mayan city-states were established in southern Yucatán. In the 9th century, and most likely because of political upheaval, the great cities of southern Yucatán were slowly abandoned, though by 850 new Mayan civilizations began to flourish in the north.

The last of the great Mayan capitals, Mayapán, started to collapse around 1440 when the Xiú Maya and the Cocom Maya began a violent, protracted struggle for power. In 1540, Spanish conquistador, Francisco de Montejo the Younger (son of legendery conquistador Francisco de Montejo the Elder) utilised the tensions between the still-feuding Mayan sects to finally conquer the area. The Spaniards allied themselves with the Xiú against the Cocom, finally defeating the Cocom and gaining the Xiú as reluctant converts to Christianity.

Francisco de Montejo the Younger, along with his father, Francisco de Montejo the Elder and cousin (named, you guessed it, Francisco de Montejo) founded Mérida in 1542 and within four years brought most of the Yucatán Peninsula under Spanish rule. The Spaniards divided up the Mayan lands into large estates where the natives were put to work as indentured servants.

When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, the new Mexican government used the Yucatecan territory to create huge plantations for the cultivation of tobacco, sugarcane and henequén (agave rope fibre). The Maya, though legally free, were enslaved in debt peonage to the rich landowners.

In 1847, after being oppressed for nearly 300 years by the Spanish and their descendants, the Maya rose up in a massive revolt, massacring whole towns full of ladinos (whites). This was the beginning of the War of the Castes, the most organised rebellion the Americas had witnessed since the time of the Spanish Conquest.

Modern History

Finally, in 1901, after more than 50 years of sporadic, often intense violence, a tentative peace was reached; however, it would be another 30 years before the territory of Quintana Roo came under official government control. To this day some Maya do not recognise that sovereignty.

The commercial success of Cancún in the early 1970s led to the selling off of hundreds of kilometres of public beach along the Caribbean coast to commercial developers, displacing many small fishing communities.

Recent History

While many indigenous people still eke out a living by subsistence agriculture or fishing, large numbers now work in the construction and service industry. Some individuals and communities, often with outside encouragement, are having a go at ecotourism, opening their lands to tourists and/or serving as guides.

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