22/08/2026
Hermanos Mayas de Belice
CECILIO CHI
Cecilio Chi ( 1820 - 13 of December of 1848 ) was a Batab (leader) Maya Máasewal, born in the village of Tepich in the Yucatecan Peninsula .
In 1842 he had participated in the defense of Campeche which allowed him to get to know the military organization. In 1846 he was chief of his native town. He participated in the organization of a rebellion against the domination and exploitation of the Criollos (Whites) in the region. He coordinated the insurrection with Manuel Antonio Ay, the Cacique de Chichimilá, and Jacinto Pat, among others, with the purpose of constituting a Maya nation independent from Mexico, which would respect the rights of indigenous people .
The rebellion, the Maya Yucatec Independence movement which was wrongly called the Caste War by the Spanish, began on July 30, 1847, after the firing of Manuel Antonio Ay in Valladolid, once the conspiracy was discovered when the police found a letter from Cecilio Chí, in which they discussed strategies of the fight.
The ex*****on of Ay was what precipitated the beginning of the hostilities, when the Yucatan government army entered Tepich looking for his accomplices, burning the houses and severely punishing the Maya population of the town. That was what moved Cecilio Chi to take action on the appointed date.
The Maya Máasewal (Yucatec Maya) people of Yucatan Peninsula refused to continue being exacted by the white population and fought to get out of the regime of oppression in which they lived. As part of their fight, they violently attacked and seized various localities controlled by the Criollos (Whites), including Chemax and Valladolid, both in Yucatan, and took refuge in the east of the peninsula. The purpose of a large part of the freedom fighters was to achieve the total expulsion of the whites from the lands formerly under Maya rule in the Yucatan peninsula .
The 13 of December of 1848 , Cecilio Chi was assassinated . The war was to last for more than half a century, until in 1901, when all the Maya Máasewal (Yucatec Maya) initiators of the war died, the Mexican federal government army recovered the last stronghold of the Maya freedom fighters : the holy city of Noj Kaj Santa Cruz. Throughout the struggle that ensued, indigenous leaders and their followers were discredited by whites, who portrayed them as bloodthirsty, sadistic, enemies of progress and culture . Simply because they were defending their land and their rights which were taken from them over 300 years ago . The Whites called this event The Caste War (La Guerra de Castas). In reality it was more like the Maya Independence War or Maya Social war .
Long live Cecilio Chi !!!
