The Caste War of Yucatán: The History and Legacy of the Last Major Indigenous Revolt in the Americas

Yucatán was not a wasteland when the first shipwrecked, battered Spaniards arrived on its shores. In fact, they found the descendants of an ancient civilization who refused to be conquered and who, when they finally succumbed to the steel and germs of the Europeans, refused to assimilate and instead disappeared into the jungle. By the mid-19th century, virtually all the native peoples of America had been defeated or were fleeing in small bands from canyon to canyon, only for the Maya to lea...