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C H A P T E R T H R E E The Political Economy of Yaxcabá 37 F or most of the Colonial period, Yucatán was an economic backwater of the Spanish overseas empire. The conquest had been a more protracted and less lucrative endeavor than most colonizers admitted (Restall 1998). The declining Maya population and the tendency for flight beyond the boundaries of the colonial system effectively limited profits,and both the church and the crown encountered difficulty in extracting sufficient labor and resources from the peninsula. This situation often led to abuse and prompted authorities to develop additional ways of appropriating surplus. Ideological conformity was another matter, and the church’s attempts to convert the Maya masses and to reduce the political influence of native leaders and priests were not greeted with easy compliance. In the late eighteenth century,the crown made a final attempt to recoup some returns from the colony by stimulating the economy with free trade and more efficient fiscal management. These efforts eventually failed, and Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821.Liberalism and progressive reforms, however, continued to dominate the postindependence period, as Yucatecan Creoles attempted to make the new republic economically viable within the global economy. Their efforts at decolonization, reducing the power and influence of the church, and expanding landed estates, however, only created an agrarian crisis in the countryside. The liberal experiment ended abruptly in 1847 with the onset of the Caste War. The purpose of this chapter is to use documentary sources to specify the conditions of domination and locate potential arenas of struggle in Yaxcabá over the long term. The following discussion describes how the 38 / CHAPTER THREE collapse of the Spanish overseas empire and the program of decolonization reworked the methods of extraction in the countryside. When compared to the Early Colonial period, the organization of Yaxcabá’s political economy in the nineteenth century reveals a drastic restructuring in the relations of production. New forms of exploitation altered the pressures and stresses on the agrarian system. Although the documentary evidence implies a range of “resistant” practices ,such actions clearly occurred within a broad social milieu of Spanish Creoles,clergy,Maya agriculturalists, and Maya leaders. Individuals within these groups had varying interests, and seldom was one group consistently and diametrically pitted against another. Most importantly, not all Maya communities in the parish faced the same set of pressures, nor did they present a unified response. The Early Colonial Period In the sixteenth century, the inhabitants of Yaxcabá experienced wrenching changes in their way of life.Spanish colonization ushered in political reorganization,settlement relocation,drastic population loss, and a dual system of tribute and taxation by the church and state. These policies, in turn, caused radical changes in local leadership, agricultural production, religious practices, and the strategies by which households and communities managed their relationships with the Spanish administration. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the people of Yaxcabá lived within the Province of Sotuta and owed loyalty and tribute to Nachi Cocom, the halach uinic, or native leader of the province (Roys 1939, 1957).1 The Province of Sotuta was hierarchically organized. The halach uinic resided in the capital and presided over individual batabs,who were members of the Maya nobility that governed the constituent towns within the jurisdiction. Each batab was assisted by a council of ahcuchcabs (later known as principales), leaders of the extended family groupings or wards that together comprised the jurisdiction of the batab. Before the arrival of the Spaniards,Sotuta was quite effective in making war on its neighbors,especially the Xiu of Mani, and this bellicose stance continued throughout the conquest. Between 1532 and 1534 Sotuta had united with its eastern neighbors to defeat the Spaniards at Chichén Itzá (Chamberlain 1948:237). Consequently, it was not one of the provinces that allied itself with the Spanish forces during the final conquest. In 1542 Montejo the Younger moved against Sotuta and rapidly subjugated the area,but Nachi Cocom,along with the leaders of neighboring provinces of Cupul,Cochuah, and Uaymil, again rose against the Spaniards in the Great Maya Revolt of 1546–47. After the suppression of the revolt, Nachi Cocom was baptized Juan Cocom and continued to rule under Spanish authority as the batab (or cacique) in the pueblo of Sotuta until his death in 1561 (Roys 1939; Scholes and Roys 1938). Even before the Spaniards consolidated...

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