Rebellion in Chiapas

An acclaimed historian of Mexico traces the roots of the current crisis in Chiapas--including primary source documents. Once again, the rebellion in Chiapas has made headlines everywhere with revelations of harsh governmental repression against Indian villagers sympathetic to the five-year-old uprising of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN). In this new book, America's leading scholar of Mexico looks not only at these last five years of conflict but at 500 years of struggle and uneasy accommodation between Chiapas's primarily Maya population and the Spanish conquerors and criollo landowners. Rebellion in Chiapas opens with a major new essay by John Womack, Jr., examining the Zapatista revolt and chronicling the attempts at a negotiated peace. It goes on to reveal the roots of the rebellion through a range of primary source materials and other documents, most newly translated, and all placed in context by the author. The result is a compelling picture of the forces that have shaped Chiapas, and an indispensable resource for anyone attempting to understand the dramatic events there. Selections include: the writings of Subcomandante Marcos and Bishop Samuel Ruiz, as well as EZLN communiques; contemporary and archival oral histories of Chiapas Indians; newspaper and historical accounts of pivotal events in the region; accounts of the conquest and colonial period by Thomas Gage, Cristubal de las Casas, and others.