In addition to the fascinating discussion of Mayan wars to drive out all non-indigenous residents of the Yucatan Peninsula, there are three other fascinating points of history not mentioned.
(1) After Texas gained independence from Mexico, it formed a confederation with the Republic of Yucatan. The Texas Navy protected Yucatan from attacks by the Mexican Navy. However, Great Britain intervened and dispatched a fleet of large Ships of the Line to drive out the Texas gunboats and schooners.
(2) During the 1861-1863 phase of the American Civil War, when the South won many military victories, rebels in Yucatan, opposed the autocratic, French-dominated regime of Emperor Maximillian, were in diplomatic contact with Confederate leaders. They invited the Confederacy to annex Yucatan after the South had formally won independence from the United States.
(3) The 19th century division of the Yucatan Peninsula into the Mexican states of Campeche, Yucatan and Quintano Roo, plus British Honduras (now Belixe) was a direct result of the region’s Pro-Mexican, Mayan and Pro-United States factions.
(4) When I was traveling through this region for the first time in August 1972, the Territory of Quintana Roo, eastern Campeche, eastern Chiapas and southeastern Tabasco were at least 98% Maya and contained very few aspects of 20th century civilization. The FLN (now Zapatistas) planned to create an independent Maya nation in that region through military force.
(5) Even among Mestizo Mayas in urban Yucatan and Campeche in 1970, there was strong support for the Mexican states and territory in the Yucatan Peninsula seceding from Mexico and becoming an autonomous territory of the United States, perhaps confederated with Puerto Rico!
(6) My Maya guide in Yucatan offered me a 50% discount, if I agreed to let his teenage son and daughter practice their English. He looked forward to the day when Mayas did not have to speak a single Spanish word.
(7) That following year the Mexican government forcibly purchased all of the land around Cancun to create a large city devoted to tourism, which would attract ethnic Mexicans to outnumber the Mayas in Quintana Roo.
Richard L. Thornton
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