Archeologists in Mexico on Tuesday said that they have identified a ship that carried Mayan people into virtual slavery in the 1850s, the first time such a ship has been found.
The wreck of the Cuban-based paddle-wheel steamboat was found in 2017, but was not identified until researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History checked contemporary documents, and found evidence that it was the ship La Union.
The ship had been used to take Mayas captured during the 1847 to 1901 rebellion known as “The War of the Castes” to work in sugarcane fields in Cuba.
Photo: AP
Slavery was illegal in Mexico at the time, but operators of similar ships had reportedly bought captured combatants or deceived Mayas left landless by the conflict to “sign on” as contract workers, often in Cuba, where they were treated like slaves.
La Union was on a trip to Havana in September 1861 when its boilers exploded and it sank off the once-important Yucatan port of Sisal.
Institute archeologist Helena Barba Meinecke said that the inhabitants of Sisal had passed down through generations the account of the slave ship, and one of them led researchers to it.
“The grandparents and great-grandparents of the inhabitants of Sisal told them about a steam ship that took away Mayas during the War of the Castes,” Barba Meinecke said. “And one of the people in Sisal who saw how they led the Mayas away as slaves, told his son and then he told his grandson, and it was that person who led us to the general area of the shipwreck.”
The identification was based on the physical remains of the wooden-hulled side-wheeler, whose timbers bore signs of fire and whose boilers had exploded.
The location of the wreck also coincides with contemporary accounts of the accident, which killed half of the 80 crew members and 60 passengers aboard.
The team also found silverware with the emblem of the company that operated the ship.
In October 1860, a ship had been caught in neighboring Campeche state taking aboard 29 Mayas, including children as young as seven.
Authorities prevented the ship from leaving, but clearly that did not keep the trade from continuing. Mayas were often transported on ships taking sisal fiber and passengers to Cuba.
Sisal and henequen were fibers used in making rope, and were usually harvested by Mayas working in serf-like conditions on large plantations in the Yucatan.
It was unclear if there were any Maya aboard on the ship’s last voyage.
The records are unclear, because the Mayas would probably have been listed as cargo, not as passengers, or the ship might have tried to conceal their presence.
Barba Meinecke said that captured Mayan combatants were frequently sent to Cuba, from where many never returned.
“Each slave was sold to a middleman for 25 pesos and they resold them in Havana for as much as 160 pesos, for men, and 120 pesos for women,” she said.
However, she said the next stage of research would involve trying to find their descendants.
Researchers plan to travel to Havana, where there is a neighborhood called “Campeche.”
“These people, or some of them, could be descendants of the Mayas who were taken by force or deception,” she said. “Research has to be done so these [Mayan] people can know where their grandparents or great-grandparents are.”
The Maya launched one of North America’s last Indigenous revolts in the lower Yucatan Peninsula in 1847, fighting against domination by white and mixed-race Mexicans who exploited them.
The Mexican government fought the bloody rebellion with brutal repression, but could not wipe out the last resistance until 1901.
The ship was found about 3.7km off the port of Sisal in about 7m of water, after a local fisherman led archeologists to the wreck.
A few wrecks of African slave ships have been found in waters in the US and elsewhere, but no Maya slave ship had been identified.
HOUSES FLOODED: The ground shook in Tonga as explosions were heard, followed by gushing water and pelting rocks, sending people running to higher ground A massive volcanic eruption in Tonga that triggered tsunami waves around the Pacific caused “significant damage” to the island nation’s capital and smothered it in dust, but the full extent was not apparent with communications still cut off yesterday. The eruption on Saturday was so powerful that it was recorded around the world, triggering a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the US. Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, suffered “significant” damage, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding that there had been no reports of injury or death, but a full assessment was not possible with communication lines down. “The tsunami has
Two years ago, Qi Jiayao visited his mother’s hometown of Shaoxing in eastern China. When he tried to speak to his cousin’s children in the local dialect, Qi was surprised. “None of them was able to,” said the 38-year-old linguist, who teaches Mandarin in Mexico. The decline in local dialects among the younger generation has become more apparent in recent years as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has sought to bolster a uniform Chinese identity. Mandarin is now spoken by more than 80 percent of China’s population, up from 70 percent a decade ago. Last month, China’s State Council promised to
PORT CONGESTION: Ships heading for Omicron-affected Dalian and Tianjin are being redirected to Shanghai, which does not have the capacity for the sudden cargo influx China has detected the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in a second major port city, deepening concern that the vastly more infectious variant could spread quickly across the world’s largest trading nation, upending global supply chains. Chinese officials said yesterday that at least one person has Omicron in Dalian, a city of 7 million. A second person also tested positive for the virus, but the variant is unknown. Both are college students who returned home for the Lunar New Year holiday from Tianjin, where at least 137 other cases were traced as of Wednesday. Dalian joins Tianjin as the second crucial port city
DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS: Beijing is attempting to address its population decline, including considering raising the retirement age and allowing more than two children China’s birthrate has fallen to its lowest level in six decades, barely outnumbering deaths last year despite major government efforts to increase population growth and stave off a demographic crisis. Across China, 10.62 million babies were born last year, a rate of 7.52 per thousand people, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. In the same period 10.14 million deaths were recorded, a mortality rate of 7.18 per thousand, producing a population growth rate of just 0.34 per 1,000 people. The growth rate is the lowest since 1960, and adds to the findings of May last year’s once-per-decade census, which found
RSS