OPPRESSED INDIANS

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 840, 11 June 1910, Page 5

OPPRESSED INDIANS

THE YUCATAN REVOLT. MAYAS PRACTICALLY SLAVES. Uy Telegraph—Press Association— CoDyrleht (Rec. June 10, 10.15 p.m.) London,. Juno 10. Tho secretary of the "Aborigines Protection' Society says he is not surprised at the Indian rising in the Yucatan provinco of Mexico, as the Maya Indians employed in the hemp plantations I are greatly oppressed and are practically slaves. .The "Globe" hopes that President Diaz of Mexico .will study the causes tliafc are driving tho Mayas to rebellion and murder. The paper says the Mayas are ground to the earth by their oppressors, and are denied the commonest justice by administering the law. , CHARACTERISTICS OF THE* MAYAS. A LONG; RESISTANCE. Recently cabled advices of the Indian rising referred to are" to the following ollect: —'"A serious Indian insurrection is reported in Yucatan, one of the southern Mates of Mexico, consisting of tho peninsula on the cast sido of tho Gulf of Campeche. Indian insurgents, under the leadership of Maximilian Bonitta, attacked the town of Valladolid (whose fine cathedral and Franciscan Convent were pillaged by Indians ip 1848). Tho Indiana killed forty police and Government employees at Valladolid, and destroyed tho railway. Five hundred civilians and soldiers are reported to have been killed in three days." Tho cablegrams farther stated that 7000 Mayas were on the warpath, but it was thought that the outbreak could be suspressed without great difficulty. Yucatan is still almost entirely inhabited by the same Maya race that was found in possession of the land at the time of the discovery. About five-sixths, of the population are of nearly pure Maya stock and speech, the Spanish and Mestizo elements being mostly confined to the large towns. The Mestizoes are said to be the handsomest on the continent, while the full-blood natives are, perhaps, the least characteristic of all the aboriginal populations. They havo the coarse black and straight hair, the arched nose, and the reddish-brown complexion common to most of the primitive inhabitants America. But" they can be readily distinguished from all of them by their regular features,' low checkbones, small mouth and ears, straight jaws, frank expression,'and a certain air of refinement, betraying descent from a highly-cultured people. "It would be difficult," says Charnay, l "to find among the rural classes of . Europe men of a build or. with more intelligent and open countenances."

■ Although generally peaceful, patient niubr oppression, and even somewhat indolent, their history, since the conquest (1547) has not been wholly uneventful. After more than two centuries of passive resistance there was a general revolt in 1761, brought about by the intolerable misrule of the Spanish, administration. The declaration of - independence (1821) was followed in 1824 by the union .with the Mexican Confederacy, which continued without interruption till' 1840. In that year an.independent republic was set up in Yucatan, which, however, was suppressed in 1843. Then eanin the general uprising of the natives in 1846, when Mexico was engaged in a disastrous war with tho United States. .To quell the revolt, _ the ruling classes, were obliged to call in the aid of the Mexicans (1847-53), whereby the peninsula again lost its autonomy and was divided (1861) into the two Federal States of Yucatan and Campeehe. But the rebellion 'was not , entirely suppressed, and many of tives, withdrawing eastwards to ■ the' coast-lands beyond ; the Sieara Alta, have never been' entirely reduced.