1 - To Live without King or Castle

Summary

Chapter 1 opens with an 1865 rebellion led by the elderly Q’eqchi’ commoner Jorge Yat, who was charged with wanting to return to an era of republican democracy and dissolve caste hierarchy. The chapter uses that event as a window into the social, economic, and cultural worlds of nineteenth-century Alta Verapaz on the eve of coffee capitalism and the 1871 liberal revolution. In particular, it demonstrates how indigenous communities distant from the centers of state power maintained a political and territorial autonomy. It further demonstrates how Q’eqchi’ society was composed of tensions between republican values of representative government and caste hierarchy, between solidarity and individualism, and how Q’eqchi’ patriarchs faced democratic challenges from below.