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.

The Appendices supply vital information on the dynamics of the Caste War. Voluminous tables summarize the quantitative information I found on rebel assaults and army attacks. Concise and in chronological order, they represent most of the data on which this book is based. Although some minor events may be missing due to the lack of relevant data, to my knowledge this is the most detailed and most extensive compilation on these issues to date. It presents information on targets, military strength, the number, gender and status of victims (Indian or vecino), the amount of booty taken, and the losses and casualties suffered by the respective attackers. These facts allow us to grasp the changing nature of the war and gain key insights into the structure of individual rebel assaults on Yucatecan settlements, on the one hand, and army thrusts into rebel territory, on the other.