The Little Republic of Opichén: Militarization, Maya Identity, and Memory in a Western Yucatecan Town, 1900–33

Early in the morning of April 15, 1933, thirty Maya villagers were killed by federal troops in the small, remote town of Opichén. Although the massacre became a national scandal, the perpetrators never faced justice or punishment. Contemporary newspaper coverage, an inconclusive and unpublished federal instigation, and occasional mentions in the historiography describe the tragic event variously as an ethnic conflict (federal army against Maya victims or Indigenous rebels against legitimate authorities), class violence (hacendados fighting agrarian reform), or—most improbably--a failed Communist uprising. While acknowledging the role of state violence, this paper focuses on the long history of intra-communal violence in Opichén to more fully understand what took place that bloody day. By analyzing a series of clashes, dispossessions, and expulsions pitting Maya peasants and petty merchants that ardently identified with the Mexican Revolution against white landowners and other Indigenous peasants, it follows the rise of Opichén Revolutionary Guard, politically savvy and experienced Maya guerrilla fighters who dared to resist the federal army.