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Business As Usual: Maya and Merchants on Yucatán-Belize border at the Onset of the Caste War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2017

Rajeshwari Dutt
Rajeshwari Dutt*
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India
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Extract

On September 13, 1849, Yucatecan forces at Chac Creek, near the port city of Bacalar (in present-day Quintana Roo), stopped and searched a vessel named Four Sisters, owned by the Belizean merchant, Austin W. Cox. Inside they uncovered kegs containing 73 arrobas (25-pound kegs) of gunpowder and 16 arrobas of lead. Manned by three black men, the vessel also carried a Maya on whom the search party found incriminating evidence, in the form of a letter from Cox to Maya rebel leader Jacinto Pat. The letter made it clear that the gunpowder was meant for the Maya insurgents who were fighting against Mexican authorities in the Yucatán's raging Caste War. Historians of the Caste War period have consistently recognized that the Belizean authorities ignored the munitions trade that flourished between Mexico and Belize during the conflict. Largely unexplored has been the critical role that merchants and munitions traders played in shaping the British government's attitude, and consequently its policies, toward Maya groups during this volatile period.

Type
Articles
Information
The Americas , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 201 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2017 

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References

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33. On the borders of Belize and Mexico, Maya of southern and eastern Yucatán engaged in hostilities starting in 1847. After initial defeats, the rebels regrouped in 1850 and founded their capital in the forests of Quintana Roo, in what came to be called Chan Santa Cruz. Thereafter the Cruzo.b Maya became the most potent enemies of the Mexican state. The southern Maya (bordering and within the state of Campeche) had by late 1850 become pacíficos, making peace with the Mexican government.

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36. Belmopan Archives and Records Services (hereafter, BARS), Superintendent to C. O. Garrison, March 4, 1848, R.22b, 253–254.

37. González, El Bosque, 29.

38. Ibid., 34.

39. Bolland, Formation, 31.

40. González, El Bosque, 29.

41. BARS, Superintendent to Governor of Jamaica, April 27, 1848, R.25, 358–360.

42. Ibid.

43. BARS, Superintendent Fancourt to Governor of Jamaica, May 9, 1848, R.25, 362–364.

44. Ibid.

45. BARS, Superintendent to Governor of Jamaica, April 27, 1848, R.25, 358–360.

46. BARS, Governor of Yucatan to Superintendent Fancourt, December ? 1847, R.27, 445–448.

47. Ibid.

48. BARS, Superintendent Fancourt to Governor of Jamaica, May 9, 1848, R.25, 362–364.

49. BARS, Superintendent Fancourt to Governor of Jamaica, June 7, 1848, R.25, 381.

50. Ibid.

51. BARS, Superintendent to H. B. M. Consul, Mexico, November 10, 1849, R.32b, 36–37.

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58. BARS, Superintendent Fancourt to Governor of Jamaica, June 7, 1848, R.25, 377–378.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. BARS, Superintendent to Authorities, Bacalar, July 12, 1848, R.22b, 307–308.

62. BARS, Fancourt to Charles Grey, July 8, 1848, R.25, 407–408. Angel Cal who has also examined Anglo-Maya relations finds Fancourt to be apprehensive of the Maya threat from the very beginning. My own interpretation is different: I find a change over time, with Fancourt initially (after receiving intelligence from Cox) regarding the Mayas as less of a threat but by July 1848 clearly becoming worried about possible repercussions of the Caste War in Belize. See Cal, Angel, Anglo-Maya Contact in Northern Belize: A Study of British policy toward the Maya during the Caste War of Yucatán, 1847–1872 (Master's thesis: University of Calgary, 1983)Google Scholar.

63. BARS, Fancourt to Charles Grey, July 8, 1848, R.25, 407–408.

64. Ibid.

65. BARS, Superintendent to Authorities, Bacalar, July 12, 1848, R.22b, 307–308.

66. BARS, Fancourt to Charles Grey, August 10, 1848, R.25, 422.

67. BARS, Governor of Jamaica to Superintendent Fancourt, May 21, 1848, R.30, 40–44.

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. BARS, Superintendent to Authorities, Bacalar, June 24, 1848, R.22b, 295–296.

71. Ibid.

72. BARS, Superintendent to Governor of Jamaica, April 10, 1848, R.25, 344.

73. BARS, T. Rhys to Superintendent, April 4, 1848, R.29, 68.

74. BARS, B. H. M. Consul, Mexico, to Superintendent, forwarding correspondence from the Mexican government, September 15, 1848, R.29, 100.

75. BARS, Percy Doyle to Superintendent Fancourt, March 21, 1849, R.29, 235.

76. BARS, Percy Doyle to the Mexican government, April 18, 1849, R.29, 279.

77. BARS, T. Rhys to Superintendent, December 28, 1848, R.29, 174.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. BARS, Superintendent to Dr. Rhys, December 28, 1848, R.22b, 383–384.

81. Ibid.

82. BARS, Superintendent to Governor of Jamaica, January 11, 1849, R 25, 473–477.

83. Dumond, Don, The Machete and the Cross (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 148 Google Scholar.

84. BARS, Superintendent to Comandante, Bacalar, January 5, 1849, R.22b, 398–399.

85. BARS, Superintendent to Governor of Jamaica, January 11, 1849, R.25, 473–477.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. Superintendent to Commandant of Militia, Bacalar in Burdon, Archives of British Honduras, February 24, 1848.

89. BARS, Superintendent To Governor of Jamaica, January 11, 1849, R.25, 473–477.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid.

92. Vito Pacheco had what can be termed a checkered career. Before entering the political scene in Yucatán as a lieutenant in the federalist Imán revolt of 1839, he had been involved in smuggling as well as a murder. His political opponents accused him of joining the revolt to “escape punishment for his ”horrendous crimes.” Terry Rugeley, Yucatán's Maya Peasantry, 120–121. Rugeley calls him an “assassin, bandit, and poster child of pueblo anticlericalism, who had an uncanny knack for organizing peasant guerrillas.” Rugeley, Rebellion Now and Forever, 50.

93. BARS, Magistrate, Punta Consejo, to Superintendent, January 22, 1849, R.29, 201–202.

94. BARS, Superintendent to Commandant, Bacalar, May 21, 1849, R.22b, 451–452.

95. Dumond, The Machete. 153.

96. BARS, Fancourt to Chief Magistrate, Bacalar, May 9, 1848, R.30, 181.

97. Ibid.

98. BARS, Governor of Jamaica to Superintendent, forwarding instructions for the return of the reinforcements to the garrison to Jamaica, and related papers, August 9, 1849, R.30, 169–172, 216–219, 257–259.

99. BARS, Governor of Mérida to Superintendent, forwarding correspondence from Mexico and complaining that the British continue to supply the Indians with munitions, September 12, 1849, R.33, 89–93,127–138, 183–184, 189–194.

100. Ibid. October 3, 1849.

101. Ibid.

102. Ibid., November 3, 1849.

103. Ibid., November 4, 1849.

104. BARS, Letter from John C. Fancourt to Jacinto Pat, Chief, September 17, 1849, II, 21–24.

105. BARS, Superintendent to H. B. M. Consul, Mexico, November 10, 1849, R.32b, 36–37.

106. Ibid.

107. Ibid.

108. Dumond, The Machete, 174.

109. Ibid., The Machete, 456 note 55.

110. BARS, Superintendent to Commandant, Bacalar, May 6, 1850, R.32b, 52–55.

111. BARS, Fancourt to Captain Meehan, July 23, 1850, R.32b, 72.

112. Bolland, Formation, 120.

113. Ibid., 122.

114. September 1851, Burdon, Archives of British Honduras.

115. BARS, Superintendent to H. B. M. Consul, Mexico, December 10, 1849, R.32b, 39–41.

116. Quoted in Dumond, The Machete, 174.

117. BARS, Statement of Mr. George Fantesie, May 4, 1850, R.33, 684.

118. Nicholas Robins, Native Insurgencies, 160.