The Maya community makes up 51% of the population of Guatemala. Although a few dozen cultural groups inhabited the area, they were considered one Maya culture under the Spanish Empire. Under colonial Spanish rule, the Maya people were forced to leave their homelands, work as slaves for the Spanish colonists, and convert to Christianity.
Although Spanish colonial rule in Guatemala ended in 1821, the oppression of the Maya community continued. Following independence, the Ladino community took control of the social, economic, and political hierarchies within Guatemala. Throughout the seventeenth century, the Ladino population forced the Indigenous communities to be forms of slaves or cheap labor, to give up their lands, and assimilate into Guatemalan society.
While there was social relief for the Maya community in the mid-eighteenth century, this was ended by the 1954 U.S-backed military coup that directly led to the Guatemalan Civil War, which is now widely considered a genocide carried out by the Guatemalan government against the Maya population.
Although the Civil War ended with the 1996 Peace Accords, Maya oppression within Guatemala still continues through the economic, social, and political disparities the Indigenous peoples face. While the Pan-Maya movement has attempted to establish equality for the Maya people, there is still debate over the amount of success the movement has achieved.
Historical oppression
Colonial oppression Until their conquest by the Spanish Empire, the Indigenous Maya identity was not unified, but separated amongst different Indigenous groups such as the Kaqchikel, the Mam, the K'iche, and the Tz'utujil. Using pre-existing conflicts, namely over territory, the Spanish used the divide and conquered tactic in order to achieve military victory over the Indigenous peoples.
Shortly after the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in 1524 brought by Pedro de Alvarado, the Spanish began to use the Indigenous people as a labor force to construct the pueblos de indios. The Spanish forcibly relocated the Indigenous people to the pueblos and put them under the control and administration of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish Empire allocated parceled lands to each community of peoples in order to provide subsistence and pay tribute to the empire in the form of taxes, cacao, maze and other agricultural products grown in the pueblos. The Empire also forced the communities to supply "reparto" where 1/3 of the Indigenous male populations from each community were made to work on Spanish plantations and haciendas. This male workforce would rotate with other male residents every 9 months.
While under the Spanish Empire, Mayas still garnered their own traditions, culture and religion. Nevertheless, the presence of the colonial rule interrupted many aspects of Indigenous life. One of the disruptions came from the Spanish induced social hierarchy which ranked citizens based on a racial caste system. The white citizens, or the blanks, held the highest status. The lowest status was held by the Mayas, or los Indios, and the black citizens and slaves, or los negros. However, in relation to los negros, los Indios was even lower on the totem pole. It was customary to remind the Indigenous people of this by using black men as a whipping post. This furthered the horror the Indigenous people felt towards the Spanish Empire using the idea that the black man was holding the Mayas down. One's status was determined by the purity of their blood line. People of mixed descent soon came to have the status of castas. Those of mixed Indigenous and European descent were not subject to all of the harsh realities that purely Indigenous people were.
Another type of disruption came from religious tensions. With the introduction of the Spanish Empire also came the imposition of Christian doctrine on the Maya communities. Christianity was taught in the pueblos, yet not greatly accepted until near the end of colonial rule in Guatemala. This was, in part, due to the oppression Indigenous people faced at the hands of the church and local administrations. By the 1550s, Indigenous communities began to write to the Spanish Empire to petition for relief from the harsh Spanish administration. These petitions would usually address high-ranking Spaniards and report on the struggles that the Indigenous communities faced under the empire. However, when authority figured from both the church and local government found out about the petition written, they would threaten the Mayas with skinning and burning them alive in order to force a retraction of the petition. This who wrote the petition would usually flee from the pueblos to escape punishment. A Catholic priest who visited different pueblos to report on the general acceptance of Christian doctrine amongst the Indigenous population states that "While the Indians ratify the petition, the priest threaten them, the mayors imprison and beat them, everyone tells them they'll be treated worse later and...the priest and the mayors end up vindicated.
Under the rule of Alvarado, an estimated 5 million Maya lives were lost due to many reasons such as slaughters, violence and injury, and, namely, disease (especially measles). In a letter from numerous Guatemalan Utatecan chiefs in Jocotenango, it was reported how the children were being abused, kidnapped and sold into slavery. Alongside this, the Indigenous populations suffered greatly, were beaten, and asked to pay so much in tribute to the crown that they were left impoverished. The macehules were forced into slave labor and the ones who were imprisoned were sold to Spanish households as more free labor.
The 1800s saw the ascension of the Bourbon Dynasty to the Spanish throne and the descension of Spanish colonial rule in Central America. With an increasing number of revolts across all of Central American and Northern Mexico, the Spanish Empire attempted to strengthen its rule by becoming even stricter with regards to controlling every aspect of colonial life. Nevertheless, as regional commerce increased and, alongside it, the wealth of Creole elites, the Spanish colonial holdings grew weaker and weaker. The Creole population also increased their aggression towards the Maya population. The elites began extracting more labor, revenue and land from the Mayas. In response to the increase aggression from the colonial elites, Maya likewise increase their aggression in rebelling against colonial rule. A series of at least 50 major Indigenous riots occurred from 1710 to the year of Guatemalan independence from colonial rule, 1821. These revolts were influences by the Mexican Revolution in 1819, led by Miguel Hildago, as well as the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution.
One of the largest uprisings was the Totonicapan Uprising of 1820 led by Atanasio Tzul and Lucas Aguilar. The Indigenous people held off the colonial troops for almost half a year. After hearing that the Constitution of 1812 set to be reinstated in 1816, which would bring back forced Indigenous labor and tribute payments to the Spanish crown, the K'iche people in Santa Maria Chiquimula and other neighboring cities took a stand and scared off and colonial authorities who demanded tribute payment. From April to June 1820, the rebels consolidated in San Miguel and publicly declares control over the town. On August 3, 1820, the rebellion was brought to an end when the Spanish army charged the town with little to no opposition from the Indigenous rebels. The Spanish army captured and imprisoned the movement's leaders. This revolt was reinforced Indigenous power and autonomy at the local level.
Post-colonial oppression The conclusion of colonial authority in Guatemala did not signify the cessation of oppression for the Maya people. The post-independence era witnessed a span of two decades marked by political conflict between the Liberal and Conservative factions within Guatemalan society. The Liberal faction, consisting of middle-class urban and provincial elites, advocated for modernization and the curtailment of ecclesiastical power. In contrast, the Conservative faction, representing the former colonial merchant class and government aristocracy, aimed to perpetuate colonial hierarchies and safeguard ecclesiastical influence. Certain Liberal-driven reforms had the effect of diminishing Maya autonomy, particularly through the privatization of lands held by Maya communities. By the year 1837, a countryside uprising led by Rafael Carrera ushered in a period of neocolonial Catholic rule. This resurgence of church authority further diminished Indigenous autonomy.
Forced labor returned with the emergence of the Planter class in the 1860s. This era saw the increase in coffee production. The increased demand for coffee resulted in the increased demand for land and labor, and, thus, increased oppression of Indigenous populations. The Liberal Revolution of 1871 consisted of a series of laws passed by the Guatemalan government that intruded on the autonomy of Maya communities and brought Indigenous back forced labor. In Decree 177, Mayas had to draft labor from their communities. Laborers were sent 60 at a time to coffee plantations to work in 15–30 day increments. Many different laws were passed at the benefit of the plantation owners to help them to control the Indigenous laborers and increase their landholdings and profits. These laws saw a deepened divide between the Maya and Ladino communities.
The idea of "ladinización" or "ladi" also emerged in the 1860s. This was the idea that Mayas could become Ladinos by giving up aspects of their identity that made them Maya. Although later condemned as "cultural genocide", this notion of Maya assimilation into Guatemalan society was believed to be good for both the Maya community and the nation's health overall.
Much remained the same throughout the end of the nineteenth century. The main focus of the Ladinos was to maintain control over the Maya. As a long-lasting effect of colonialism, many in Guatemalan society believed that the Mayas were the inferior population and didn't have the ability to assimilate to the white culture of the government. The industrial revolution weakened ties even further between the Maya communities and Guatemalan government. The Liberals pushed for the building of a railroad and other North American commodities which would, in turn, decrease the autonomy and amount of land that the Mayas had. The Liberals increasingly blames the Mayas for the lack of economic growth in Guatemala due to their tendency to choose to abide by tradition ways of life. Over the course of the twentieth century, tensions only furthered as Mayas became viewed with more and more negativity. Moreover, with the introduction of international corporations, such as the United Fruit Company, Indigenous people, most of whom were impoverished, became a major part of the exploited work force.
The "Guatemalan Democratic Spring" of the 1940s saw the greatest hope for change for the Maya peoples. With the rise to power of President Juan Jose Arevalo came the introduction of the rights of the peasants. The first national policy of land reform came in the early 1940s. The goal of this reform was to help peasants improve their economic status through the implementation of minimum wage laws and some land redistribution. Arevalo's predecessor, President Jacobo Arbenz, was elected in 1951. He pushed for even more radical change, such as the Congressional decree 900 in 1952. This decree redistributed unused land.