Chapter 5 focuses on nineteenth-century positivism in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. It disagrees with some scholars who claim either that the movement’s diverse expression across the region precludes classification as a single philosophical tradition, or that its practical implementation only had negative consequences. Against the first claim, the chapter looks at the work of Lastarria from Chile, Justo Sierra from Mexico, andBenjamin Constant from Brazil to show that Latin American positivists shared the substantive doctrines of secularism, anti-ultramontanism, philosophical eclecticism, and a pluralistic form of consequentialism according to which order, prosperity, and freedom are the highest values. Against the second claim, the chapter shows that not all the consequences of positivism were bad. For example, positivism succeeded in introducing the study of the natural sciences and social sciences with empirical methods in public education, where it overturned Thomism and its Scholastic method after more than three centuries of dominance. Furthermore, positivism produced a much-needed critical evaluation of the legacy of the conquest. This, whatever some scholars want us to believe, had nothing to do with the ‘Black Legend,’ a false story promoted by rivals of the Iberian expansion during the sixteenth century.

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.