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Land, Labor and Violence in Highland Guatemala: San Juan Ixcoy(Huehuetenango), 1893-1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

David McCreery
David McCreery*
Affiliation:
Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia
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Extract

“ A few days ago,” reported the newspaper El Bien Público (Quezaltenango), “in the town of San Juan Ixcoy…the Indians rose up, killing the ladinos, including several habilitadores (labor recruiters)”. As first news of this soon-to-be famous massacre filtered out of the Cuchumatán mountains, it became clear that some of the country's highland Indians had struck back, as many ladinos long had feared they might, against the intrusions of the rapidly expanding coffee economy. The sanjuaneros' tumulto was, in fact, simply a particularly dramatic instance of a struggle played out in various forms throughout the western highlands of Guatemala in the one hundred years after 1850. With the onset of the new crop of coffee, export monoculture threatened the integrity of Indian peasant agriculture as no crop before had done. If, in this case, the immediate target of the Indians' wrath was a hapless group of habilitadores, the more serious underlying problem for the indigenous population was access to and control of land. It is on land, and particularly on the land of San Juan Ixcoy as an example of the struggle, that this paper will concentrate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , October 1988 , pp. 237 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1988

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References

1 In Guatemala ladinos are individuals of European or “national,” as opposed to “Indian,” culture, regardless of their racial makeup: Colby, and den Berg, Van, Ixil Country: A Plural Society in Highland Guatemala (Berkeley, 1969), p. 1 ff.Google Scholar The author wishes to thank Angela Costa McCreery for her help with the research for this article which was carried out under grants from the Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Program and the Social Science Research Council.

2 El Bien Público (Quezaltenango), 28 July, 1898.

3 MacLeod, Murdo, Spanish Central America (Berkeley, 1973)Google Scholar; Pelaez, Severo Martinez, La patria del criollo (Guatemala, 1971).Google Scholar

4 Browning, David, El Salvador: Landscape and Society (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar, chap. 5.

5 Ingersoll, Hazel, “The War of the Mountain: A Study of Reactionary Peasant Insurgency in Guatemala, 1837–1873,” Ph.D. dissertation, The George Washington University, 1972 Google Scholar; Woodward, R.L., “Social Revolution in Guatemala: The Carrera Revolt,” Applied Enlightenment: Nineteenth Century Liberalism (New Orleans, 1972), 45–70.Google Scholar For a recent re-analysis see Braiterman, Jared, “A Conflict between Modernity and Peasant Society in 1830s Guatemala: The Galvez Reforms and the Carrera Uprising,” BA thesis, Harvard, 1986.Google Scholar

6 See, for example, Orellana, Sandra L., The Tzutijil Maya: Continuity and Change, 1250–1630 (Norman, 1984),Google Scholar chap. 11; Madigan, Douglas C., “Santiago Atitlán: a socioeconomic history,” Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1976, p. 73ffGoogle Scholar; compare Davis, Shelton, “Land of Our Ancestors,” Harvard University, Ph.D. dissertation 1970,Google Scholar chap. 2 on the similar situation in the north of the country.

7 On “ejidos,” see McCreery, David, “State Power and State Control in 19th Century Rural Guatemala,” paper given at annual meeting of Southeast Council of Latin American Studies, Mérida, Yucatan, April 3, 1987.Google Scholar

8 On “composition see de Solano, Francisco, Tierra y sociedád en el Reino de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1977),Google Scholar 114ff.

9 McCreery, “State Power.”

10 For examples of Indian attitudes toward land see Davis, , “Land of our Ancestor,” chap. 3 and Carmack, Robert, Historia social de los Quichés (Guatemala, 1979), pp. 204ffGoogle Scholar. and 247ff.; see also, Naylor, Robert, “Indian Attitudes Toward Land Tenure in Guatemala,” Journal of Inter-American Studies (October, 1967), 619–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Archivo General de Centro América (AGCA), Ministerio de Gobernación (MG), legajo (leg.) 28659, exp. 218, 17 May, 1884.

12 Montenegro, J.C. Méndez, “444 ańos de legislación agraria, 1513–1957,” Revista de la/acuidad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales de Guatemala. Epoca VI (Enero-Dic, 1960),Google Scholar 234ff.

13 Méndez Montenegro, “444 ańos,” 123ff., 150, and 153ff.

14 Méndez Montenegro, “444 ańos,” 133ff.

15 de Mont, Manuel Pineda, Recopilación de las leyes de Guatemala, T I: vol. 3 (Guatemala, 1869)Google Scholar [reprinted 1979], p. 658ff.

16 For example, Méndez Montenegro, “444 ańos,” 183 and 196.

17 AGCA -Sección de Tierras (AGCA-ST), Huehuetenango, paq. 11/exp. 10.

18 On coerced labor systems, see McCreery, David, “Debt Servitude in Rural Guatemala, 1876–1936,” Hispanic American Historical Review 63:4 (November, 1983), 735–759.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 McCreery, , “Debt Servitude,” 737 ff.Google Scholar

20 “Possession” did not necessarily imply legal title but de facto control and the rights under the law this entailed.

21 Jackson S. Lincoln, “An Enthographical Study of the Ixil Indians of the Guatemalan Highlands,” University of Chicago Mesoamerican Microfilms #1.

22 AGCA, MG, leg. 26602, exp. 274 and leg. 28610, exp. 370 document the conflict back to 1597.

23 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 22/exp. and paq. 20/exp. 5.

24 Indians were press-ganged into the regular army and into service batallions called zapadores officered by ladinos, but they did not usually serve in the reserve militia; on more enthusiastic Indian service in the regular army, see Carmack, , Historia social, pp. 277ff.Google Scholar

25 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 30/exp. 7.*

26 The original contract is not available and none of the references to it specifies how many day labor or how much money were involved.

27 The best descriptions of this event are to be found in AGCA-Archivo General de los Tridbunales, Ramo Criminal, Sala 4a de Apelaciones, 1899, legajo 3c, expediente 105. The author wishes to thank Angela Costa McCreery for finding this document. See also, El Bien Público, 28 July, 1898, AGCA, Ministerio de Gobernación, leg. 28961, 13 January, 1899, and Recinos, Adrian, Monografía de Huehuetenango, 2 ed. (Guatemala, 1954), pp. 363–4.Google Scholar

28 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 25/exp. 4.

29 AGCA, B119.21.00, leg. 47754, exp. 3.

30 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 20/exp. 5, paq. 25/exp. 4 and paq. 27/exp. 1.

31 Davis, “Land of Our Ancestors.”

32 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47801, exp. 19.

33 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47744, exp. 226.

34 For example, AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 28/exp.4 and 5.

35 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 22/exp. 7 and paq. 28/exp. 4.

36 A cuerda in rural Guatemala could be anywhere from 18 to 50 square varas (Spanish) yards, depending on local custom.

37 On agricultural wages, see McCreery, , “Debt Servitude,” 749.Google Scholar

38 Davis, “Land of Our Ancestors.”

39 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47747, exp. 339; he did, however, allow sales on land already denounced to go through: AGCA-ST, paq. 28/exp. 4.

40 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 30/exp. 7; AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47759, exp. 316.

41 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 30/exp. 7.

42 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47759, exp. 316.

43 AGCA-ST, Huehuetenango, paq. 30/exp. 7.

44 For an introduction to forms of peasant resistance other than open rebellion see the special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies, num 2/vol. 13, January, 1986.

45 AGCA, B. 119.21.0.0, leg. 47796, exp. 33.

46 The history of the 1920s conflict is to be found it: AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47781, exp. 24.

47 See Cancian, Frank, “Political and Religious Organizations, Handbook of Middle American Indians vol.6 Google Scholar, M. Nash, editor, 283–298.

48 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47781, exp. 24.

49 For example, Bunzel, Ruth, Chichicastenango (Seattle, 1959), p. 185ff.Google Scholar or LaFarge, Oliver, Santa Eulalia (Chicago, 1947), p. 136ff.Google Scholar

50 Womack, John, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

51 Davis, , “Land of our Ancestors,” 50.Google Scholar

52 Ménde, Rosendo, comp., Leyes vigentes de agricultura (Guatemala City, 1937), pp. 214–15.Google Scholar

53 Mendez, , Leyes, pp. 244–47.Google Scholar

54 See, for examples, the comments in Warren, Kay, The Symbolism of Subordination: Indian Identity in a Guatemalan Town (Austin, 1978), 150.Google Scholar

55 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47794, exp. 33. and leg. 47813, exp. 28.

56 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47801, exps. 19 and 23.

57 AGCA, B119.21.0.0, leg. 47813, exp. 29.

58 McCreery, , “Debt Servitude,” .759.Google Scholar

59 Interview with ex-manager of finca “Helvetia,” Guatemala City, 16 January, 1981.