The beginning of the twentieth century coincided with the end of kruso’b autonomy. The authoritarian Mexican President Porfirio Díaz sent regular armed forces under General Ignacio Bravo to Yucatán to attack the Caste War rebels. The massive and long campaign began in 1899. Protected by three Mexican army battalions and Yucatecan militia units, peons drove a path into the area controlled by the kruso’b with clearings of up to 300 meters in width to avoid assault. Military posts were set up every ten kilometers. Although they provided some resistance, the kruso’b were unable to stop the advancing government forces. The military campaign endured for three years. Chan Santa Cruz was occupied on May 4, 1901.

Freed from constant persecution by army squads, rebel society consolidated in the late 1850s. Chan Santa Cruz and other villages in the surroundings and in the direction of Bacalar were transformed into more solid settlements. The Caste War rebels (kruso’b) gradually regained the initiative in the struggle with Yucatán and maintained it up to the end of the century. The reduction in military pressure opened up new opportunities to assault frontier settlements. In contrast to the first phase of the war and as a result of their reduced military capacity, the rebels refrained from the notion of conquering or controlling territory. Instead, they developed a pattern of surprise attacks to loot cattle, pigs, mules, horses and valuables, selling them in Belize in exchange for arms, ammunition and other essential supplies.

The chronological outline of the principal events and phases of the uprising serves as guideline and contextualization for the more topical discussions in subsequent chapters. This chapter discusses the origins of the Caste War in the strife between two Yucatecan political factions in 1847 and describes the advance of the rebels up to mid 1848, their retreat to the southeast of the peninsula due to internal discord and the arrival of government troop reinforcements. Particular attention is given to the most intense combat period that saw a ruthless counterinsurgency campaign lasting until the mid 1850s. The rebels were indomitable, however, and created independent polities whose autonomy endured until 1901, when Mexican forces finally crushed rebel resistance in a massive military offensive.

The use of physical force was a common experience among the kruso’b in the second half of the nineteenth century. Up to the 1870s, they suffered repeated assaults by government forces. In turn, they exerted violence for practical and expressive purposes against Yucatecan soldiers and civilians, as well as against various pacífico groups, searching for loot, scaring Yucatecans away from their frontier settlements, demoralizing soldiers etc. The chapter discusses the changes in the armament of the rebels and their guerrilla tactics. Kruso’b assaulted settlements in Yucatán ranging from small, entirely Indian hamlets to haciendas, villages and larger towns. Obvious targets were army soldiers, National Guard members, those involved in the self-defense of settlements, and Indians in positions of authority. The kruso’b killed or captured Indians, vecinos, men and women, children and the elderly indiscriminately. Kruso’b behavior during and after raids on Yucatecan or pacífico settlements did not follow a uniform pattern. While members of a certain age, gender or administrative category were slain in some cases, they were spared in others. The taking and the treatment of captives depended on a number of factors, changing rebel needs for labor being one of the most important.

Although Caste War rebels were frequently despised as “barbarians” or “savages”, their culture, their society and their military organization were strongly reminiscent of rural Yucatán. Kruso’b and soldiers were both victims and perpetrators of internal and external violence. They employed force to attack the enemy, defend themselves, appropriate valuable commodities (food, booty) and take prisoners. Soldiers and rebels used similar tactics on their thrusts into enemy territory, mostly assaulting settlements with surprise attacks. Looting was a key incentive for both soldiers and kruso’b when it came to combat. Both rebels and government forces rarely distinguished clearly between combatants and non-combatants and both employed strategies of terror to induce inhabitants of frontier settlements to abandon their homes, thereby expanding the no man’s land between rebel territory and areas under government control. Internal violence occurred in both groups, although the underlying causes differed. Force served to maintain obedience of subalterns to superiors in army and militia units; violence was vital among the rebels to establishing and upholding the political hierarchy.

The chapter discusses the results from the anthropology and sociology of violence that seem most significant for the topic of this book. These help to understand the dynamics of the Caste War and to recognize the key structural and social contexts in which violent acts evolved. Rather than interpreting it as an irrational outburst of atavistic instincts, violence should be understood in most cases as a multi-faceted means to achieve certain ends. It can be used to obtain material gain, establish dominance or express ideas. Violence and war have strong transformative qualities, so that the composition of the contending parties as well as their motives for fighting can undergo change over time. In addition, the reasons why leaders take part in the struggle may differ radically from those of the rank and file.

Warfare is not only about exerting military force but also about logistics. Men need arms to fight efficiently and, above all, they have to eat. Thus to a significant degree the struggle for survival and foodstuffs determined the Caste War during its first two decades. Although government forces often suffered as a result of insufficient supplies, they could at least rely on existing structures of production, distribution and transport, such as haciendas, trades and roads. The Caste War rebels, on the other hand, had to create their own economic system from scratch. While insurgents were mostly in a position to live “off the country,” commandeering or plundering the required resources in the areas under their control during the first year of the conflict, provisioning combatants and their families became more trying after their withdrawal to the eastern and southeastern parts of the peninsula. Firearms, powder, lead and other desired items had to be procured either by looting in the government-controlled area or purchasing them in Belize.