Tzendal Rebellion

Tzendal Rebellion, amajor Indian revolt among the Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Chol Indians of the highlands of Chiapas (1712–1713). Opinions vary as to the causes of the revolt, but most versions agree that the period after 1690, and especially 1700, had been one marked by economic crises, epidemics, and locust plagues in the province. The Indian population was at its demographic nadir, Spanish tribute and labor demands were on the increase, a rapacious generation of civil and clerical leaders was in control in San Cristóbal, the provincial capital, and, under the pressure, divisions began to appear in Indian village society as lesser elites showed discontent not only with their worsened circumstances but also with their own leadership, whom they accused of being unable to defend them.

In the 1690s the alcaldes mayores of Chiapas were charged with assessing and collecting the tribute, a task they turned into a monopolistic personal enterprise. To this must be added the activities of Bishop Juan Bauptista Álvarez de Toledo, who set about financing an aggressive program of monumental building in San Cristóbal with a series of money-collecting visitas to the countryside.

In 1708 the Chiapan highlands were stirred by the first of a series of Indian cults which the Spanish clergy condemned as heretical. A messianic hermit also disturbed the peace until he was seized and exiled to Mexico. In June 1712 the Virgin Mary appeared to a young girl in Cancuc, and, within weeks, the village had defied attempts to destroy the cult and had summoned over twenty Indian villages to rise up and expel the Spaniards.

Spanish, pardo, and loyal Indian militias were unable to contain the revolt, but relief arrived from two sources. From Guatemala came an army led by Governor and Captain-General Toribio de Cossío. Another column led by the local alcalde mayor advanced from Campeche.

After a series of battles Cancuc was taken and mopping-up operations pacified the other villages. During their brief independence the Cancuc leaders, helped by Sebastián Gómez de la Gloria, an Indian from San Pedro Chenalhó, attempted to establish legitimacy, set up a government, and ordain a new native clergy. The Spanish authorities were seriously alarmed by this, and the defeat of the revolt was so thorough that it left the province devastated and in deeper poverty.

See alsoChiapas; Indigenous Peoples; Mexico: The Colonial Period.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Robert Wasserstrom, "Ethnic Violence and Indigenous Protest: The Tzeltal (Maya) Rebellion of 1712," in Journal of Latin American Studies 12 (1980): 1-19.

Victoria R. Bricker, The Indian Christ, the Indian King: The Historical Substrate of Maya Myth and Ritual (1981), pp. 55-69.

Kevin M. Gosner, Soldiers of the Virgin: An Ethnohistorical Analysis of the Tzeltal Revolt of 1712 (1992).

Additional Bibliography

Moscoso Pastraño, Prudencia. Rebeliones indígenas en los altos de Chiapas. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Investigaciones Humanísticas de Mesoamérica y del Estado de Chiapas, 1992.

Orozco Zuarth, Marco A. Chiapas: Geografía, historia, y patrimonio cultural. Tuxtla Gutiérrez: Ediciones y Sistemas Especiales, 2005.

Viquiera Albán, Juan Pedro. Maria de la Candelaria, india natural de Cancuc. México: Fondo de la Cultura Económica, 1993.

                                    Murdo J. MacLeod