Yucatán is the name of one of the 31 states of Mexico, located on the north of the Yucatán Peninsula. The term The Yucatán refers to the three states on the peninsula: Yucatán, Campeche, and Quintana Roo; all three modern states were formerly part of the larger historic state of Yucatán in the 19th century.

This Mexican state borders the states of Campeche to the south west, Quintana Roo to the east and southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west.

The state capital is Mérida. The state of Yucatán also contains the cities of Izamal, Maní, Motul, Muna, Progreso, Tekax, Ticul, Tizimín, Umán, and Valladolid; numerous towns including Celestun, Chemax, Kanasín, Oxcutzcab, Peto, Sisal, Tecoh, and Telchaquillo, villages including Xtul, and many important ruins of the Maya civilization including Acanceh, Aké, Chacmultun, Chichen Itza, Dzibilchaltun, Kabah, Labná, Mayapan, Sayil, Uxmal and Yaxuna.

See also: Municipalities of Yucatán

History

Pre-Columbian era

Before the arrival of the Spanish in the area, the Yucatán was the home of the Mayan civilization, and in particular the Yucatecan Maya people. Archaeological remains show ceremonial architecture dating back some 3000 years; some Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions found in the area date back to the Maya Pre-Classic era (before Christ 200). Maya cities of the Yucatán continued to flourish after the central and southern lowland Classic-era Maya cities collapsed (c. 900); some continued to be occupied up to and beyond the 16th Century arrival of the Spanish. The ruins of well over a hundred Maya sites of varying sizes can still be found on the peninsula, such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal; most of these have not been extensively investigated. Other important ancient Maya cities were built over by the Spanish, and their sites are still occupied today, such as Izamal (Itsmal in Yucatecan Maya) and Mérida (T'ho in Yucatecan Maya).

The lords of Chichen Itza ruled with extensive influence in the Yucatán region for centuries until 1221 when revolt and civil war broke out. Not long after lords of the region set up a new capital at the walled city of Mayapan. Mayapan was the major center of Yucatán until a revolt against the dominant Cocom dynasty in 1441 resulted in the burning of the city; the Yucatán region then broke apart into smaller states, which remained the situation until the Spanish conquest.

Arrival of the Spanish

Main article: Spanish conquest of Yucatán

The origins of the name Yucatan are unknown. An apocryphal etymology, perpetuated by generations of local guides, alleges that when Spaniards arrived and asked about the name of place, natives answered something along the lines of "I don't understand your talk", which was rendered as Yucatan by the Spaniards which weren't used to the phonetics of Mayan.In the Yucatec Maya language, na'at means understanding, reasoning, and t'aan means language, word, talking. Source: Universidad Autónoma De Yucatán (Yucatan Autonomous University). Mayan-Spanish dictionary

The conquest of the Mayan city-states took decades of long fighting. Three expeditions explored the coastal areas from 1517 to 1519, but no major effort was made to conquer the country until 1527 when the first expedition under Francisco de Montejo landed with Spanish crown authority to conquer and colonize Yucatán. While the chiefs of some states quickly pledged allegiance to the Spanish crown, others waged war against the Spanish. Montejo was forced to retreat from Yucatán in 1528. He came back with a large force in 1531, briefly established a capital at Chichén Itzá, but was again driven from the land in 1535. Montejo turned over his rights to his son, also named Francisco, who invaded Yucatán with a large force in 1540. In 1542 the younger Montejo set up his capital in the Maya city of T'ho, which he renamed Mérida. The lord (also known as Tutul Xiu in the Yucatec Maya language) of Mani converted to Roman Catholicism and became an ally, which greatly assisted in the conquest of the rest of the peninsula. When the Spanish and Xiu defeated an army of the combined forces of the states of eastern Yucatán in 1546, the conquest was officially complete.

As of 1564 Yucatan became a Captaincy General and from 1786 an Intendencia, as a result of the Bourbonic Reforms in the administration of the Indies.

The Spaniards were granted land and natives to work it for their benefit. Priests and monks set to bringing the population into the Roman Catholic Church. The first Bishop of Yucatán, Diego de Landa, burned all the Maya books that could be located (saying "they contained nothing but the lies of the Devil") and suppressed any remnants of pagan beliefs with such vigour that he was for a time recalled to Spain to answer charges of improper harshness. The book he wrote (in the 1560s) in his defense, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán ("Relation of the Things of Yucatán"), is one of the single-most detailed accounts of Yucatán and of indigenous life from the time of the Conquest. Segments of this work would much later prove to be of instrumental value in the much-later decipherment of the pre-Columbian Maya writing system.

While the Maya embraced Christianity, many took it on as an addition to rather than a replacement of Pre-Columbian beliefs, and some Christian Maya continue to offer prayers to the ancient agricultural deities in addition to the Christian God and saints.

There were periodic native revolts against Spanish rule, including a large one led by Can Ek in 1761.

See also: Archdiocese of Yucatán

Independence and the turbulent 1840s

In February 1821, Mexico achieved independence from Spain. On 2 November of that year, Yucatán became part of independent Mexico. The State of Yucatán at that time included the territory of what is now the states of Campeche and Quintana Roo as well.

In 1835, a conservative unitary system of government was instituted in Mexico. Yucatán became a department, and authority was imposed from the center. Discontent increased and an insurrection erupted in Tizimín in May 1838, advocating Yucatecan independence. In 1840, the local Congress approved a declaration of independence of Yucatán. At first, Governor Santiago Méndez blocked it, saying that Yucatán would again recognize the rule of the central government in Mexico City if the Mexican Constitution of 1824 were reinstated. Andrés Quintana Roo, sent to Mérida in 1841 by President Antonio López de Santa Anna, succeeded in settling the differences and signed a treaty with the local government. But when Santa Anna later ignored the provisions of this treaty, hostilities resumed, and Governor Méndez ordered all Mexican flags removed from Yucatecan buildings and shipping in favor of the flag of the "sovereign nation of the Republic of Yucatán", two red and one white stripe, with a quincunx of stars in a green field. The Yucatecan Constitution was modeled in part on the 1824 Mexican Constitution and the Yucatán state constitution of 1825.

Santa Anna refused to recognize Yucatán's independence, and he barred Yucatecan ships and commerce in Mexico and ordered Yucatán's ports blockaded. He sent an army to invade Yucatán in 1843. The Yucatecans defeated the Mexican force, but the loss of economic ties to Mexico deeply hurt Yucatecan commerce. Yucatán's governor Miguel Barbachano decided to use the victory as a time to negotiate with Santa Anna's government from a position of strength. It was agreed that Yucatán would rejoin Mexico so long as various assurances of right to self-rule and adherence to the 1825 Constitution within the Peninsula were observed by Mexico City. The treaty reincorporating Yucatán into Mexico was signed in December 1843.

Once more, the central government rescinded earlier concessions and in 1845 Yucatán again renounced the Mexican government, declaring independence effective 1 January 1846. When the Mexican American War broke out, Yucatán declared its neutrality.

In 1847 the so-called "Caste War" (Guerra de Castas) broke out, a major revolt of the Maya people against the Hispanic population in political and economic control. At one point in 1848, this revolt was successful to the point of driving all Hispanic Yucatecans out of almost the entire peninsula other than the walled cities of Mérida and Campeche.

The government in Mérida appealed for foreign help in suppressing the revolt, with Governor Méndez taking the extraordinary step of sending identical letters to Britain, Spain, and the United States of America, offering sovereignty over Yucatán to whatever nation first provided sufficient aid to quash the Mayan revolt. The proposal received serious attention in Washington, D.C.—the Yucatecan ambassador was received by US President James K. Polk and the matter was debated in the Congress, with no action taken other than an invocation of the Monroe Doctrine to warn off any European power from interfering in the peninsula.

Map of the Yucatán, made circa 1910.

After the end of the Mexican-American War, Governor Barbachano appealed to Mexican President José Joaquín de Herrera for help in suppressing the revolt, and in exchange Yucatán again recognized the central government's authority. Yucatán was again reunited with Mexico on 17 August 1848.

Frequent skirmishes and occasional large battles between the forces of the Yucatecan government and independent Maya of the eastern part of the peninsula continued through 1901, when the Mexican army occupied the Mayan capital of Chan Santa Cruz. Some Mayan communities in Quintana Roo continued to refuse to acknowledge Ladino or Mexican sovereignty as late as the 1910s.

See also: Caste War of Yucatán

Mid 19th century through mid 20th century

In 1857 Campeche broke off from Yucatán to become a separate state. On 24 November, 1902, President Porfirio Díaz proclaimed the creation of the territory of Quintana Roo, separating that territory from the state of Yucatán.

Sisal for making rope was probably the first major export crop of the Yucatán Peninsula. The region prospered from this lucrative crop until alternative rope materials came into wider use after World War I and henequen (sometimes called "green gold") was planted in other places around the world, setting up competing industries. The decades of the henequen boom was a fairly progressive era for Yucatán; the city of Mérida had electric streetlights and trolley cars before Mexico City. It is said there were more millionaires in Mérida at that time than anywhere else in the Americas. Today, the Paseo de Montejo, an avenue patterned after the Champs-Élysées in Paris, is lined with both abandoned and renovated mansions from that era.

Late 20th century: An end to relative isolation

Until the mid 20th century most of Yucatán's contact with the outside world was by sea; trade with the USA and Cuba, as well as Europe and other Caribbean islands, was more significant than that with the rest of Mexico. In the 1950s the Yucatán was linked to the rest of Mexico by railway, followed by highway in the 1960s, ending the region's comparative isolation. Today the Yucatán still demonstrates a unique culture from the rest of Mexico, including its own style of food.

Commercial jet airplanes began arriving in Mérida in the 1960s, and additional international airports were built first in Cozumel and then in the new planned resort community of Cancún in the 1980s, making tourism a major force in the economy of the Yucatán peninsula.

The first Maya governor of Yucatán, Francisco Luna Kan, was elected in 1976.

Today, the Yucatán Peninsula is a major tourism destination, as well as home to one of the largest indigenous populations in Mexico, the Maya people.

Footnotes

External links

*Yucatan Today
*Yucatan Living
*Yucatan Regional Directory
*Picture from Space
*Towns, cities, and postal codes in Yucatán (in Spanish)
*Yucatan Wildlife

Yucatán: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents

Yucatán