THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Francisco Canton had, through his long tenure, condescended to think of himself as a protector of the indians. His barber was an indian, or nearly so, as was the man who brought his newspaper and the boy who groomed and exercised his horses. But, invited to the office of a General he disrespected; one about whom rumors of corruption already circled, Canton observed an indian such as he seldom saw in Merida... an ancient savage whose eyes, black and narrow, glittered like sunbeams on the black flint of a sacrificial knife.

"If this is information of interest or value, let my Captains also have the pleasure of the hearing," he expressed himself to Bravo, hoping that the General would not detect the apprehension in his throat. The image of Olegario Molina reciting a eulogy over his grave... "a great men, but one whose rank could not protect him from ambush by the hand of a ruffian yet unpacified..." floated before him like a bad dream from the evening past, but Bravo gave an order to locate the captains at once for, unknown to Canton, he had reasons of his own to avoid giving more offense. And as they waited, the General repeated his invitation.

"Ask him anything; he is a veritable well of superstitious lore!" Chankik affected a stupid, yet pitiless grin, which only compounded Canton's feeling of unease. "The first rebellion of the Maya, for example, it was not in 1847, when appeared the Talking Cross, but earlier by nearly a century."

Chankik turned to Bravo speaking humbly, softly, like a maid to the spoiled but favorite son of an estanción she does not dare to strike. "The Talking Cross did not first appear in 1847, mi General, nor is merely it a century older. It is far older than that."

"You see?" the General declared triumphantly. "What things this fellow knows! Perhaps our guest would like you to explain this," and Canton nodded for the man to continue.

"The Speaking Cross," Chankik said, "is many years older than even the Spanish Governor Montejo, who arrived in Xelha in the Christian year 1527, leaving twelve dying at Chuaca before returning to his island. The True Cross was at Cozumel, and in the land which you now call Haiti. After Juan de la Cruz was hanged by the whites in 1597, at Sotuta, the Cross appeared on a ceiba there. In our time, there has not been one cross but many; the true cross and its daughters, one of whom appeared at Chumpom and another at Tulum in the days when Maria Uicab was queen."

Canton cleared his throat. "Very well. A quarter century ago," he informed the General, "the Federal government did appoint sublevado officials to honorary Mexican positions, allowing them some independence in their trading if, for their part, these indians would agree to let their children receive Christian educations and to learn the Spanish language. This did not occur."

"Governor," Bravo interrupted, "if there is another cross at Tulum, a delegation must be appointed to go there immediately to destroy it."

"The Cruzob of Tulum were defeated by General Aniceto Dzul fifteen years ago," Chankik informed them, "shortly before his own death in 1890. After him Roman Pec ruled six years, then Felipe Yama, upon whose fall Santa Cruz was captured by yourselves."

Captains Baquiero and Solis now entered and, to them, Governor Canton directed his next words.

"The history of this territory between the caste war and General Bravo has indeed been varied," he said. "It begins in 1850, after the secessionists in Yucatan allowed the Mexican army to do that which they could not achieve themselves, ensure the safety of their citizens to a point that is now the boundary between the state and the territory. Then, as now, a Mexican General, Romulo Diaz de la Vega entered and occupied this village of Santa Cruz on his way to Bacalar. It was a small place, and de la Vega clearly did not understand the importance of it to the Cruzob. However, sir," he nodded towards Chankik, "it would seem that they merely picked it up bodily... Barrera's cross, I mean, or perhaps its daughters... little crosses that replaced it," he added for the benefit of the Captains."

"Yes," Chankik said mildly, "that is the way it happened."

"And then, in 1852, de la Vega occupied Bacalar and, in the following year, a peace was made with the jefe of Chichanja," Canton said. "Those of the Cruzob who did not support the peace retreated northwards and, by 1854, it was apparent that Chan Santa Cruz had become the center of ongoing rebellion, for de la Vega did not think to hold the village after passing through it."

"The Mexicans attacked the city that year," Chankik said, "but failed, and left their dead behind. This successful defense, achieved at great loss of life, much encouraged the mazehualob."

"Inspiring them to attack Valladolid again!" concluded Bravo.

"Actually," Governor Canton said, "if my memory is correct, that attack was at Calotmul, forty kilometers north of Valladolid. The battle for Valladolid came later. Those indians came to Calotmul upon the dawn of New Years' Day in 1856. The battle was a fierce one, but the invaders finally were driven back and this put an end to the danger in the north."

Miguel Chankik spoke deferentially to the two Mexicans. "Your army nailed its prisoners alive to the cathedral there, where they remained like flies upon a wall until they died." He nodded for emphasis.

"War never is kind," Bravo said dismissively. "And it was after this that we made another siege of Santa Cruz del Bravo. Although it was unsuccessful, we did manage to kill a number of the chiefs, including I believe Juan Bautista Yam and Venancio Pec."

Miguel Chankik shook his finger from side to side as if correcting a child who has not learned his lesson. "Venancio Puc was killed after Bacalar. And it was not you Mexicans who made his death for him, it was the mazehualob."

"I remember Bacalar," said the young Captain Solis. "Well, what I meant to say was that I remember what we were told about it, at the Colegio. You had six hundred people put to death, six hundred captives whose lives were in your hands. They were slaughtered... men, women and children alike, their corpses were piled in a heap and covered with dirt so that when the Army recaptured Bacalar the following year they sunk their shovels into a hill of bones."

"Venancio Puc had eighty four put to death," Chankik answered. "The others, if any, were Mexican soldiers with orders to kill or be killed. They were put to death as you would have captured Maya shot, or set afire."

"That's different," Solis said, shaking his head. "The Mexican Army is a lawfully constituted body, whose men are subject to the protections decreed by President Benito Juarez... a Zapotec, if you will. No such protection is given to those who take up arms against it."

"Captain!" Governor Canton warned and Solis sputtered to a halt.

"Well, the officials still had Venancio Puc condemned. They met nine times after the killing there at Bacalar. He had gone too far in murder so they tied a rope around his neck and brought him before the governors and he bowed down and asked for mercy. He jumped on a mule with a saddle and bridle, but his foot was tangled in the ropes and the mule dragged him through the monte until his leg was pulled out. That's how he died," said Chankik.

"And that is where the march began, that would lead up to Valladolid," Canton said. "After the recapture of Bacalar the Maya turned north, back to Yucatan. They took the high ground of Tekax, eighty kilometers southwest of Valladolid and an equal distance northwest to Merida and southeast to this place. They devastated the countryside and finally attacked the city but, while the battle was as fierce as that ten years previously, the Mexicans prevailed."

"Fortune shows favor to one side for two years," Chankik noted, "than the other side was favored and for two years there is nothing but defeat and hardship to all."

"Was it then that the Acerato entered Santa Cruz for the last time?" asked Bravo. Canton nodded. "Agustin Acerato, then the Governor of Yucatan, his brother Antonio and his son Pedro were the last Mexicans to hold this place, although General Traconis entered it briefly in 1871. Resolved to pacify the East forever, Agustin Acerato raised an army of three thousand men who overwhelmed the sublevados and raised the banner of the Republic over this place in January of 1860. The rebels fled for their lives, undoubtedly carrying their Talking Cross off with them." He looked to Chankik for confirmation.

The old indian nodded. "Pedro Acerato maintained the military command," Bravo continued. "His uncle Antonio, the Governor's brother, was a man of great ideals and, from his position of strength, offered to discuss terms of peace, at first through intermediaries, chicle traders, woodchoppers. He even conferred with the British," the General added, with a show of distaste. "And Agustin Acerato felt so confident that he gave his approval to a meeting with the Cruzob for December 17th of that year. The indians had something else in mind, however, an ambush. Antonio Acerato was treacherously murdered and his nephew barely escaped, making a resolution to drive the insurgents from the territory for good."

"Yes, I have heard of this," Chankik said. "There were many families among the mazehualob; some sensible, who wished an end to the war, others not. The Aceratos had the misfortune of contacting an implacable branch of the rebellion."

"Rather like the present," Captain Solis spoke up. "Isn't it so that there are many divisions among the Maya today?"

"Who knows?" Chankik replied.

"Certainly it would have been a savage branch that held the upper hand after that assassination," Governor Canton said. "Demoralized by the treachery, Pedro Acerato's expedition of peace straggled back to Merida with half its forces killed along the way. Bacalar was retaken and sacked as thoroughly as Carthage, the church destroyed, anything of value carried back here, even the doors and windows of some buildings, as I've noticed. And having many Mexican uniforms at hand from those whom they had killed, the sublevados attired themselves in these and ranged throughout the peninsula, knocking on doors, asking for hospitality owed to the army and murdering, without quarter, those who accommodated them. I believe the slaughter at Tunkas numbered... what was it, old man, seven hundred?"

"Very bad, those killings," Chankik shook his head, "very bad."

"Most of these were marched back to this plaza, killed, and buried beneath the soil here."

"Perhaps that is why the fruit that grows here is so bitter," General Bravo suggested.

Canton failed to find humor in the comment. "The only thing in favor of the indians is that they treated Maximilian's emissaries no different than the Mexicans."

"They did?" said Captain Baquiero, a stocky young man whose fair skin had already reddened mightily from the fierce Yucatec sun.

"Quite so. That was part of the reason we are in the fix we find ourselves in today," Bravo said. "Forty years ago Mexico was bankrupt. The circumstances... well, being what they were, the French sailed over and put that damned dandy Maximilian in the capital. The Americans would have done so first, but they were in the midst of their own Civil War at the time. Acerato just ran out of money, otherwise Quintana Roo would have been pacified many years ago, and as the Governor wishes, would probably still be a part of Yucatan."

"Probably so," Canton reflected.

"Colonel Blanquet, here, took Maximilian prisoner before and set him up against the wall at Queretaro. The French tried to worm their way into the confidence of the sublevados, but your people show loyalty only to England," he taunted Chankik. "Maximilian sent an ambassador to the indians, José Salazar Ylarragui was his name. The Emperor was a fool, but not fool enough to send a Frenchman... or maybe he asked around and nobody would go. Well, this Ylarragui came to Santa Cruz on the eleventh of November, 1864, and what he did was to request that the indians surrender to him, in the name of France. He's buried around here somewhere, parts of him, I think. Anyway, Maximilian sent no further missions to the jungle but turned the matter of the insurgence over to some of his commissioners in Mexico City; Austrians, I suspect, who stayed out of harm's way and, as I've heard, held a number of remarkable parties. So that was it for the French. As I said, the rebels here jump only at the sound of English."

Miguel Chankik looked up. "I will not deny what you have said about the French men, my General. They did not approach this place respectfully and then..." the old man made a swift gesture of dispatch. "But do not think that, among all the mazehualob, there is nothing but loyalty to the British. They, too, have tasted of the judgement of the Cross. There is an old story that may be of interest. Shall I tell it to you?"

Bravo tilted an eyebrow towards Francisco Canton. "Why certainly," the Governor of Yucatan declared. "Anything that casts light upon the English presence here is of interest to me. I only wish," he added, "the good Molina were here with us, although I fear that tradition and history would be wasted on his banker's soul. That one is a merchant, who will sell to anyone. Proceed!" he ordered and Chankik began his tale.

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