ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on colonialism in Yucatan and specifically at Tahcabo, a community in eastern Yucatan that is the locale of an ongoing community-archaeology project. The fact that Spaniards had invaded Yucatan may not have been as difficult to accommodate as were the single-minded efforts of Spanish friars and bureaucrats to rework the religious ideology and settlement patterns of native peoples. While use of the term “development” is problematic, the assertion of control through dominance and inequality is foundational to Spanish colonialism in Yucatan. Archaeology provides a grounded method for understanding colonial entanglements and also has the potential to shed light on more nuanced responses to the imposition of colonial authority in Yucatanparticularly responses that sought to limit the authority of colonizers. The Caste War laid waste to eastern Yucatan; many towns were depopulated as people fled the violence and terror of guerilla warfare.
