Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

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 2020 April 17 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico

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Coloniality and emancipation in the

streets of Mérida, Mexico

 April 17, 2020

 0

Noragric PhD Fellow Noé Manuel Mendoza Fuente walks us through a

visual history of colonialism and indigenous resistance from the
Mexican city of Mérida. 

Compared with other cities founded by the Spanish Empire, which are
superimposed over previously densely populated indigenous territories, the city of
Mérida (the capital of Yucatán) openly displays an unusual pride in its colonial
heritage and the racial segregation it implies.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Mérida’s main square.

It was common for Mexican historiographers of the past century to depict the
tricentennial colonial period as a sort of dark age between the majestic
Mesoamerican civilization and the consolidation of the modern nation-State
between the 19th and and 20th century. Contrary to this stance, which was
manufactured by intellectuals from northern and central Mexico, for the elite of the
Yucatán Peninsula, the colonial heritage emanated dignity and honour. Today the
streets of Mérida echo a loud, colonial joy.

Built over the pre-Hispanic Mayan city of Tho, Mérida was founded on 6 January
1542, 21 years after the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, as a remembrance of the
Spanish city with the same name.

The ‘White’ City

Today the Yucatecan capital is an urban mix of nearly a million inhabitants,

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

nationally known as the white city – a nickname now used as a touristic slogan,
inherited from colonial times when Mérida was predominantly a settlement of
white skinned people of European descent, segregated from the Mayan peasantry
communities that surrounded the city.

Francisco de Montejo y León was the Spanish conquistador who commanded the
domination of the Mayan peoples in the area, and was responsible for the
foundation of the city. His name is commonly used in the titles of public spaces and
private brands, starting with Mérida’s main avenue, Paseo Montejo. This
complementory use of a conquistador’s name is a phenomenon rarely seen in
settlements with a similar Indigenous-Spanish heritage, such as Mexico City or
Cuzco in Peru, since the family names of the conquerors Cortés and Pizarro are still
largely regarded as anti-heroes of national identities or at least, as protagonists of a
contradictory and traumatic episode of local history.

Montejo as a street name.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Montejo as a restaurant name.

The Caste War

One of the most dramatic episodes experienced by the city occurred in 1847 when
Mayan rebels from the village of Tepich, located 100 miles away from Mérida,
ignited a rebellion that sought to shake away the brutal subjugation that the
Meridian elite exerted over the indigenous peasantry, as the latter were forced into
slave labour and were constantly dispossessed from their territorial tenures
throughout the Yucatán Peninsula. The Mayan rebels’ offensive approached Mérida
in a storm of violence that expanded its social force with staggering speed, easily
collecting sympathies in every village it encountered on its way to Mérida.

The Mérida elite, whose identity was largely forged by its relative isolation from the

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

rest of Mexico, found itself abandoned by a tumbling Mexican State that was in the
middle of an invasion by the United States. After a few months of the initial Mayan
offensive, the imminent fall of the city was prevented by the incoming of the rainy
season which motivated the peasant rebels to head back home in order to sow their
Milpas (agricultural plots cultivated mainly with corn, beans and squash). The
aftermath of the almost-sieged Mérida episode was a 54-year war that was
consummated by the Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1901. Remembrances of the
Caste War are symbolically confined to museums, while the glorious days of wealth
accumulation by the Mérida elite constitute one of the main touristic sightseeing
locations in the city.

The Caste War (1847-1901) depicted inside a public building.

The majestic mansions that line Paseo Montejo symbolize the affluence provided by
the commodity export boom propelled by the production and export of sisal fiber,
obtained from a subspecies of Agave – the same plant from which Tequila is

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

obtained. Sisal was produced in Yucatecan haciendas (agro-industrial facilities),

which controlled hundreds and even thousands of acres of Agave plantations and
were operated by barely-payed indigenous labour.

The old mansions of Paseo Montejo belonged to 19th Century wealthy Mérida’s
citizens, and are one of the main touristic sights.

In terms of foreign currency incomes, sisal exports shifted the Yucatecan economy
from being last place nationally in the mid 19th century to number one in the first
decade of the 1900’s. Today, these mansions no longer serve as residences, and
instead host banks, museums and private social events.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Many old mansions now host banks and other private companies.

Elite symbolism

The Yucatecan elite has a distinctive category, complement of the Caste War – they
are known as the Divine Caste. Even today, the folk of Mérida refer to
pretentiousness and snobbishness as characteristics of la Casta Divina. Despite the
racism and cynical social stratification associated with the term, the Divine Caste
seems to be functional as a brand that communicates exclusivity and locality in
private businesses.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Restaurant in downtown Mérida with a name that symbolises elitism.

In spite of the astonishing display of elite symbolism, traditional Mayan culture still
permeates and defines Yucatecan culture through the spicy flavours and radiant
colours of its revered dishes, most of which rely on the main foods obtained in the
Mayan Milpas: corn, squash, beans, sweet potatoes, and chilis, among other foods.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Milpa of a Mayan family in a village of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Yucatán entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the powerful appeal that

indigenous exoticism generates from foreign visitors. A classic strategy in many
restaurants is to showcase women elaborating tortillas in a semi-traditional way,
resembling a Mayan k’óoben or kitchen. These tortillas have a superior flavour
compared to massively manufactured ones, and the experience of eating Yucatecan
food next to a k’óoben seems to provide a perceived authentic immersion into local
culture for tourists .

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Restaurant in Mérida showcasing an approximation to a traditional Mayan

kitchen.

Latin America’s first socialist governor

Another turning point in the history of Yucatán was the brief administration of the
governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto, who was proposed by the Southeast Socialist Party
and elected in 1922 becoming the first socialist governor to win an election in Latin
America. His most remarkable decisions included providing the Yucatán with its
first public university, reducing fiscal privileges to commodity exports and being
the first governor to attempt the enactment of the land reform established in the
Mexican Constitution of 1917.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Main building of the first university in Yucatán (now Autonomous University of

Yucatán).

At the national level, land reform initiated a decade later when president Lázaro
Cardenas imprinted a socialist character to the post-revolutionary Mexican State in
the late 1930’s. Carrillo Puerto’s pioneering attitude had a high price: he was
deposed by a military coup and shot to death on 3 January, 1924. Few public spaces
in Mérida evoke his memory and legacy, compared with the projection of the Divine
Caste and its splendid delights. Depictions of Carrillo Puerto are secluded in hidden
corners of the city.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Lázaro Cárdenas in a mural paint inside a museum in
downtown Mérida.

Colonial pride and glances of emancipation are interwoven in the

heated and radiant streets of Mérida, a city whose character is defined by its
rural surroundings – which undoubtedly belong to the Mayan culture. At the same
time, the fate of the Mayan peoples of Yucatán has thrived, according to the
decisions and struggles experienced by the elite of Mérida. The current Mexican
government has plans of building a ‘Mayan’ Train that will connect the touristic
cluster of the Mexican Caribbean with Mérida and other regions in the Peninsula.

Indigenous resistence

Major Yucatán entrepreneurs are rubbing their hands already, expecting to increase
the influx of visitors and reducing the cost of commodities’ transportation. Most of

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

the people in the rural surroundings of Mérida expect social assistance programs in
exchange for allowing the government to build the train across their communal
lands. But there are also small groups of resistance, striving for emancipation from
business as usual. Although the streets of Mérida try to eclipse it, an indigenous
memory of emancipation awaits in a dark corner.

Delegates of Yucatán exposing their opposition to the Mayan Train in a forum of

the National Indigenous Congress.

All photographs are by Noé Manuel Mendoza Fuente.

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Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Mexico - Noragric blog

Noé Manuel Mendoza Fuente is a PhD Fellow at Noragric, NMBU. His research
aims to understand the relationship between economic inequality and
environmental change, with a geographical focus on the Mayan Rainforest in
Mexico.

Related Posts:
1. The Dreamers vs The Wall
2. Indigenous Peoples: Moving beyond the UNFCCC Platform
3. Winners and Losers at COP25
4. Long read: A Mayan quest for a market economy

 Posted in Civil Society, Colonialism, Coloniality, Indigenous peoples

 Tagged Architecture, Colonialism, Coloniality, Elitism, Mayan civilization, Mérida, Mexico, Racism,
The Caste War, Yucatán

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