Although the Spanish had succeeded in their conquest of Central America, & smallpox had a devastating effect on the indigenous peoples of the region, small Maya communities remained. Many converted to Christianity, & over the years their population slowly grew, though it never reached Pre-Colombian levels. The Maya were brutally oppressed by the Spanish colonists, & later, the states of Latin America. Tensions rose, & then finally, they came to a boiling point in the Caste War of Yucatán. The Maya took up arms, forming a ragtag rebel force, & by 1848 they had most of the Yucatán Peninsula under their direct control. The walled cities of Campeche & Merida were the only thing standing between the Rebels & victory, and after a grueling siege, the great walls of Merida had finally fallen, & Maya troops swarmed into the city. With his military in tatters, Governor Barbachano, leader of the Republic of Yucatán, fled to Campeche & sought aid from the Spanish, the British, and even the Americans, but all turned him away- though the Americans took his proposal seriously enough to debate the matter in Congress. With his territory shrinking daily, Barbachano was forced to turn to Mexico- and Mexico welcomed him with open arms. Mexican troops reinforced the battered & bloody Yucatán army at Campeche, & routed the Maya forces sieging the city. The rebels were forced to retreat, but the appearance of the ‘talking cross’ in 1850 led to the development of a new religious movement among Mayan troops. Chan Santa Cruz became the religious capital of the small Nation, & with the Maya Army now infused with both national and religious fervor, the rebels succeeded in retaking most of the Yucatán Peninsula. The city of Campeche, however, remained out of their grasp. A stalemate developed between the two states, & both made repeated attempts to recruit foreign allies. Indeed, in the early 1860’s, the Government of Mexico even offered the United States territory along the Gulf in exchange for aid, but they declined, having their hands full with the American Civil War. It was during this time that a new leader emerged among the Maya, a certain Crescencio Poot. He started by leading small raids against Mexican settlements & harassing Mexican troops, but his success continued, & he soon gained command of all Maya forces. It is possible that the stalemate would have continued for decades more, but in the late 1860’s, Mayan diplomats successfully convinced the British Empire to intervene on their behalf. Now the British Army was reinforcing the Maya Forces, the British Navy was blockading the Mexican coast, & the rebels were armed with British weaponry. On October 12, 1869, a joint Maya-British army captured the city of Campeche. Mexico was in full retreat. On June 4, 1871, Mexico City fell to the Maya, & the leaders of Mexico surrendered to the Rebels. Northern Mexico was partitioned into two halves, the western half going to the Maya, the eastern half going to the British Empire. But revolts soon broke out in northern Mexico, as the people there feared receiving the same treatment their ancestors had visited upon the natives. The Mayan Army spent nearly five years suppressing the revolts, until eventually most of the remaining Mexicans fled across the border to the United States. Finally, after almost 30 years of fighting, & a century after the Americans declared their independence from Great Britain, the Maya declared a Republic ‘By the People & For the People.’ Crescencio Poot, of the National Party, ran against Justo Sierra O'Reilly, of the Liberal Party, in the PRM’s first election. Poot won in a landslide victory, gaining 96.2% of the votes, & set about the work of forging the young country into a cohesive force. But barely a year into his administration, the Fall occurred. With civilization collapsing around the Globe, President Poot desperately tried to hold his nation together, declaring “I shall not let this country that has taken me two-thirds of a lifetime to build be lost to the Annals of History!” He was able to hold the country together through the worst of the Fall, & even managed to increase its borders following the collapse of British Authority in Northeastern Mexico. Now, the ageing leader is determined to restore civilization to the globe, & in doing so, change the People’s Republic of Mesoamerica into a World Power the nations of old would have envied.
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