Yaxcaba and the Caste War of Yucatan: An Archaeological Perspective (review)

Alexander uses a blend of historical documentation and archaeological fieldwork to address the causes and consequences of the nineteenth-century Caste War, when the Yucatec Maya rose up against the Creoles who had dominated political and economic life in the decades following Mexican Independence. Her specific focus is the parish of Yaxcabá, some 100 km southeast of Mérida. Prior to the Caste War, the parish had a peak population of more than 11,000 distributed among 30 settlements, the largest of which was the cabecera (administrative seat) of Yaxcabá itself (with a population exceeding 3,000). Creoles controlled local politics and owned a growing number of ranches dedicated to the raising of livestock. The parish experienced its first attack by Maya rebels in December 1847. The cabecera itself was occupied by rebels in February 1848 but was retaken by a Creole army six months later. Over the next twenty-two years, the parish was attacked eight more times, resulting in severe infrastructural destruction and a population decline of more than 90 percent. Even today, population in the area has not returned to its prewar peak. As Alexander points out, the historical record has been interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the Caste War was caused by an agrarian crisis, itself the product of population pressure on arable land and an economic system that favored Creole cattle ranching over indigenous agriculture.

To explore the agrarian crisis hypothesis further, Alexander draws upon historical archaeology. In 1988/89, she conducted a settlement-pattern survey in the Yaxcabá region, followed by more intensive fieldwork at selected sites. During her survey, she sought to link every archaeological site with a historically known occupation. After defining four settlement types using archaeological criteria, she discusses the points of disagreement with the historical record, the most notable of which is that many of her category III sites (livestock establishments) show much less architectural elaboration than might be expected from the documents—indicating to her a lack of success for these haciendas and ranchos. She also uses the documentary record to organize her archaeological data into seven phases of occupation in the region, from 1547 to 1900. Intensive mapping and surface collecting were conducted at three archaeological sites. Her analyses of data on site size, house-lot size, garden size, artifacts, and such ancillary features as animal pens reveal considerable variability among these sites, which appear to reflect differences in the adaptive strategies pursued by their inhabitants.

The agrarian-crisis hypothesis requires some modification in view of Alexander's study. She sees little support for an overarching condition of population pressure, though she does find evidence of a growing imbalance between land allocated to cattle raising (which was largely unsuccessful) and subsistence agriculture. Indigenous peoples responded to this imbalance by altering their productive activities (more house-lot gardening and pig raising, for example), especially in settlements that were less subject to Creole control. Such responses, she argues, were part of a long-standing pattern of "resistance adaptation" in the region. Noting similarities between the aftermath of the Caste War and the late Colonial period (1600 to 1750), Alexander suggests that the demographic and economic declines seen in both periods resulted from unsuccessful attempts by outsiders to impose a commercialized regime upon the Yucatecan hinterland.