Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

Street in downtown Mérida

Compared with other cities founded by the Spanish Empire superimposed over previously
densely populated indigenous territories, the city of Mérida - capital of the subnational state
of Yucatan in Mexico - openly discloses a remarkable pride of its colonial heritage and the
racial segregation it implies. Among Mexican historiographers of the past century it was quite
common 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 XIX
and XX centuries. Contrary to this hegemonic historiographic stance manufactured by
intellectuals from northern and central Mexico, for the elite of the Yucatan Peninsula the
colonial heritage emanated dignity and honor. Today the streets of Mérida echo a vociferous
colonial joy.

Mérida’s main square

 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

Built over the pre-Hispanic Mayan city Tho, Mérida was founded on January 6, 1542 – 21
years after the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan - as a remembrance of the Spanish city with the
same name. Today the Yucatecan capital is an urban conglomeration of nearly a million
inhabitants, nationally known as “the white city”: a nickname nowadays used as a touristic
slogan inherited from colonial times when Mérida was predominantly a settlement of white
skinned people with European descent segregated from the Mayan peasantry whose
communities surrounded the city.

Monument of Francisco de Montejo and his son at the beginning of Paseo Montejo

Francisco de Montejo y León was the Spanish military who commanded the domination of
the Mayan peoples in the area, and responsible for the foundation of the city. His name is
commonly used as a label for public spaces and private brands starting with Mérida’s main
avenue: Paseo Montejo. This handy use of the Conquistador’s name is a phenomenon rarely
seen in settlements with a similar Indigenous-Spanish heritage like 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 versatile label

 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

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 supplied slave labor and were constantly dispossessed from
their territorial tenures throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. The Mayan rebels’ offensive
approached Mérida as a thunderstorm of ravaging violence which expanded its social force
with vertiginous speed, easily collecting sympathies in every village it encountered on its way
to Mérida.

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

The Mérida elite, whose identity was largely forged by its relative isolation from the 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 years war that was consummated by the Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz in
1901. Remembrances of the “Caste War” are symbolically confined in museum saloons while
the glorious days of wealth accumulation by the Mérida elite constitute one of the main
touristic sightseeing locations in the city.
 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

The old mansions of Paseo Montejo belonged to XXI century wealthy Mérida’s citizens

The majestic mansions that delineate Paseo Montejo symbolize the affluence provided by the
commodity export boom propelled by the production and exports of sisal fiber, obtained from
a subspecies of Agave – the same plant from where Tequila is obtained. Sisal was produced
in Yucatecan haciendas (agro-industrial facilities) that controlled hundreds and even
thousands of acres of Agave plantations and were operated by barely payed indigenous labor.

Paseo Montejo's old mansions are one of the main touristic sights
 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

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

Many old mansions nowadays host banks and other private service companies

The Yucatecan elite has a distinctive category which is complement of the emancipation
pulse of the Caste War: they are the “Divine Caste”. Still today the common folk of Mérida
identifies attitudes of pretentiousness and snobbism as behaviors that characterize people
belonging to “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.
 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

Restaurant in downtown Mérida

In spite of the astonishing display of elite symbolism, traditional Mayan culture still
permeates and defines Yucatecan culture remarkably through the spicy flavors and radiant
colors 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.

Milpa of a Mayan family in a village of the Yucatan Peninsula

 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

Yucatecan entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the powerful appeal that indigenous
exoticism generates on 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. From a business perspective it is a smart arrangement to locate a woman wearing a
traditional dress to elaborate tortillas all day long. These tortillas have a superior flavor
compared to massively manufactured ones, and the experience of eating Yucatecan food next
to a k’óoben, very likely provides an experience that the tourist can perceive as a real
immersion into local culture.

Restaurant in Mérida showcasing an approximation to a traditional Mayan kitchen

Another turning point in the history of Yucatan was the brief administration of the governor
Felipe Carrillo Puerto, who was posed 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 Yucatan 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.
 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

Main building of the first university in Yucatan precedent of nowadays’ Autonomous University of Yucatan

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

Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Lázaro Cárdenas in a mural paint inside a museum in downtown Mérida
 Coloniality and emancipation in the streets of Mérida, Yucatan.

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 Yucatan has thrived according to the
decisions and struggles experienced by the elite of Mérida. The current national government has plans
of building a “Mayan Train” that will connect the touristic cluster of the Mexican Caribbean with
Mérida and other regions of the Peninsula. Major Yucatecan entrepreneurs are rubbing their hands
already expecting to increase the influx of visitors and reducing the cost of commodities’
transportation. Most of the people in the rural surroundings of Mérida are expecting 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 Yucatan exposing their opposition to the Mayan Train in a forum of the National Indigenous Congress