Crescencio Poot

José Crescencio Poot (* around 1820 in Dzemul , † 1885 in Chan Santa Cruz ) was a military and religious leader of the rebellious Maya ( Cruzoob ) during the Caste War in Yucatán .

Little is known about Crescencio Poot's youth. He was probably born in 1820 in northwestern Yucatán. In 1847 he was already known as a political leader and joined the Maya rebellion of Cecilio Chi and Jacinto Pat . He was made famous by the Maya and hated by the whites through an attack on Tekax in 1857, which killed 600 white residents, and the capture of Tunkas in 1861, which took 250 prisoners.

In 1864 he became one of the three political leaders of Chan Santa Cruz . Over the next decade, Poot directed several major military operations, including attacks in British Honduras . Poot's politico-military goal remained the same as at the beginning of the Maya uprising: driving the whites out of the Yucatán. In 1875, Poot finally became Tatich , the political and religious leader of Chan Santa Cruz. Crescencio Poot married a woman who had been captured in a raid.

Finally, Poot had to realize that the goal of liberating all of Yucatán's could no longer be achieved. For example, on January 11, 1884, he signed a peace treaty with the lieutenant governor of Yucatán in which he recognized the sovereignty of Mexico , but the Mexican government accepted him as governor of the new Mexican state of Chan Santa Cruz . Opponents from the ranks of the Cruzoob who, inspired by the Speaking Cross , wanted to continue the war, murdered Crescencio Poot in 1885 and reopened the fighting.

Crescencio Poot was one of the most feared figures among whites in Mexico in his day, but was also recognized as a great military leader. The Maya, on the other hand, admired him for it, partly to this day.

literature

• Alfonso Villa Rojas: Los elegidos de Dios - etnografía de los mayas de Quintana Roo. Capítulo III: La guerra de castas y el aislamiento de Quintana Roo. Capítulo IV: La pacificaicón de Quintana Roo. México, Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1987. ISBN 9-6882-2077-9 .
• Paul Sullivan: Xuxub Must Die . University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh 2006. 260 pages. ISBN 0-8229-7316-2 .
• Don E. Dumond: The machete and the cross - campesino rebellion in Yucatan . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (Nebraska) 1997. 573 pages. ISBN 0-8032-1706-4 .