(with a rural base) chose to emphasize the autonomy of the state against centralist intervention. For them, the determination of Yucatecan destiny should be in the hands of Yucatecans. The giant flag that had been planted by the federal government, ostensibly to remind Yucatecans that they are all Mexicans, was a thorn in some Yucatecans' skin, confirming their belief that they have been subjected to Mexican interventionism and colonialism throughout their history.3
During those politically charged years, as a result of being mobilized by the polarization between regional and national sentiments, Yucatecans responded to the monumental flag and other nationalist measures with a proliferation of small Yucatecan flags (printed or stuck onto license plates or waving from car antennas) and larger flags (hung from balconies or at the entrances of businesses). Key chains and beer glasses were printed with the Yucatecan flag, as were T-shirts and baseball caps (along with the legends “Republic of Yucatán” and “Proudly Yucatecan”). At elementary schools and high schools, children chanted the Yucatecan anthem (sometimes instead of, sometimes before or following the Mexican anthem). Mexicans and those Yucatecans who had strong nationalist feelings were upset at this turn of events. Some wondered why Yucatecans were allowed to have their own flag and their own anthem. While Mexicans asked these questions, many Yucatecans waved their flags in the streets of Mérida.
Independence from Spain and the Conflict of the Elites
During colonial times, Yucatán had a shifting location within the territories of the recently conquered continent.4 At times, it was subordinated to the administrative powers of New Spain, located in the city of Mexico. Sometimes it was granted autonomy, and, for other short periods, it was under the authority of the province of Guatemala or under the administration of Honduras. Throughout their colonial history, Yucatecans were mostly left alone and functioned under de facto autonomous rule (Alisky 1980; Campos García 2002). Theirs was a position of fiscal privilege. Characterized by widespread poverty and infertile soils (especially around Mérida), the region was inhabited by Maya groups who resisted (some up to the present time) the presence of the Spanish conquerors. In response to the grievances of Spanish residents in the peninsula, the Spanish Crown granted them fiscal and customs exemptions to compensate for these and other obstacles to their economic welfare (no good soils to grow grains, no minerals to mine, no ‘Old World' products to market) (Moseley 1980). Positioned advantageously between the Caribbean basin and the Gulf of Mexico, Yucatecan ports slowly developed as trade posts. When groups of Creoles in New Spain and Yucatán (as well as in other regions of the American continent) began to discuss independence claims, the Spanish Crown promulgated the Constitution of Cadiz, seeking to ease trade and the administrative rule of the colonies and hence to deter the impetus toward independence. The Constitution of Cadiz preserved the Yucatecan privileges (Reid 1979).
New Spain declared its independence in 1810 and engaged in a brutal war of separation from Spain. Hostilities also took place between rival factions to secure power in the new republic. Yucatecans, still enjoying their privileges and autonomy, kept themselves to the margins of the Mexican War of Independence. In 1821, Spain finally conceded independence to Mexico and, a few months later, although the Yucatecans had neither requested nor fought for it, to the province of Yucatán.5 Yucatán was granted independence as a new republic—the Republic of Yucatán (Campos García 2002). Correspondingly, during a short period, Mexico and Yucatán related to each other as foreign nations, and Mexico levied import taxes and set trade barriers on products coming from Yucatán (Reid 1979: 33).
During the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Caribbean basin was beset by frequent commercial and military conflicts among different European powers. Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands were all vying for domination and commercial control of the region (Hinckley 1963; Sluiter 1948; Stern 1988). At an early stage, following its independence from Spain, Mexico promised to create a federation of republics, and when in 1821 Yucatán joined Mexico, it did so as the Republic of Yucatán, with autonomous power. However, elites in central Mexico fought with each other, and when the government adopted centralist measures subordinating the different regions, Yucatán declared its independence. Yucatán first remained independent from Mexico but then rejoined the Mexican Republic in 1823 without surrendering its autonomy. In 1841, when administrative policies shifted to enhance central powers, Yucatecans again declared their independence from Mexico, remaining independent until 1843, when the central government offered a new treaty of peace and reunion that, according to Williams (1929: 134; see also Alisky 1980), was dictated by Yucatecans and protected regional instead of Mexican interests. Since the Mexican government did not respect the terms of the treaty, Yucatecans voted again for their independence from Mexico in 1846. During this period of independence, a faction of the regional elites, overwhelmed by the so-called Caste War of Yucatán began flirting with the governments of Spain, England, and the United States, seeking annexation, while other factions sought outright independence. When their attempts failed, they were constrained to accept, in 1848, their reincorporation into Mexico, this time under central Mexican terms (Williams 1929: 143).
This final incorporation marked the beginning of the decline of Yucatecans' efforts at independence and the temporary silencing of their autonomous, regionalist identity. In 1862, the federal government of Mexico, recognizing the local power of factional elites located in both Mérida and the city of Campeche, first divided Yucatán into two different states, Campeche and Yucatán, the Campechanos having already declared unilaterally their autonomy from Yucatán in 1858 (see Wells and Joseph 1992: 182). Then, it granted portions of the Yucatecan territory to Guatemala and British Honduras and, as a strategy to deal with the Maya rebels of the peninsula, created in 1902 the federally administered territory of Quintana Roo, which became a full state in 1974 (Konrad 1991) at a time when the beach resort of Cancún was under construction. Since the time before independence, Yucatán was obligated to pay Mexico for military ‘protection', creating a fiscal debt that would later translate into the economic dependence of the region and its subordination to the Mexican Republic (Campos García 2004). However, in contrast to other Mexican states, where central elites overpowered regional ones, Yucatecan elites continued to develop their own strategies to control the resources of the state of Yucatán.
In a combination of global market forces that have been well-described and analyzed by different scholars (see, e.g., Brannon and Joseph 1991; Carstersen and Roazen 1992; G. Joseph 1986; Labrecque and Breton 1982; Moseley and Terry 1980b; Villanueva Mukul et al. 1990; Wells 1985; Wells and Joseph 1996), the Yucatecan elite of the late nineteenth century gained control of henequen production in Yucatán and dominated the global market for these natural fibers from the end of the 1800s to the first decade of the twentieth century. Their domination was approved of and encouraged by the US company International Harvester, which controlled prices and the marketing of Yucatecan fibers (used for twine and paper pulp) in the US (Carstersen and Roazen 1992; Wells 1985). The boom economy that emerged from the cultivation of henequen, from the local production of its fibers, and from the international market was important in supporting regional elites. Viewed as an exemplar of Yucatecan civilization and progress, their success was put on display by central Mexican científicos seeking to promote an enlightened image of Porfirio Díaz's dictatorship (Wells 1996; Wells and Joseph 1992).
During this period of economic expansion, Yucatecan elites sent their family members abroad, primarily to the United States, Cuba, and Europe, to obtain their education. The market with the Caribbean was enhanced, and when the central government had to deal with rebellions in the north, they sent Yaqui prisoners to work as indentured laborers in the henequen plantations. Similarly, when Yucatecans had to deal with the insurrection of Maya groups within the peninsula, they sold Maya prisoners as slaves to Cuban plantations (Rodríguez Piña 1990). To solve its labor shortage, the region attracted immigrants from Cuba, Germany, the Ottoman Empire (today Lebanon and Syria), Spain, and other Mexican regions. The arrival of these groups contributed importantly to the cultural mosaic that today characterizes Yucatecan society.6
The economic boom of the peninsula encouraged the import of commodities from Europe and the US. Some of the main ports in the Caribbean that were located in Cuba became
