The War of the Pants
THE UPRISING IN JUQUILA BEGAN ON APRIL 6, 1896. Before it was put down by the army on April 18, over 1,000 Chatinos from Nopala and other communities had beheaded with machetes 22 townspeople, including two judges, the prefect (jefe político), the municipal president and other officials. They put the head of the city’s telegraph operator on a pike and marched it down the streets. They also burned the city hall and the archives and sacked and pillaged the local businesses. Their battle cry was “Death to All Who Wear Pants” (referring to Whites and Mestizos dressed in European garb as opposed to the calzón de manta (loose-fitting trousers of the Indigenous men made with one cloth). This event has gone down in history as the War of the Pants (Guerra de los pantalones).
Today the Chatinos mostly live in the Sierra Sur (Southern Mountains) of Oaxaca, in the municipios of Juquila, Yaitepec, Nopala and Sola de Vega, among other communities. Before the Spanish Conquest, they also occupied the part of the Coast that includes Chila and Puerto Escondido and were part of the Empire of Tututepec. Although Chatino refers to the language spoken in this zone, there are many regional dialects.
During the colonial era and up to the late 1800s, in the State of Oaxaca there were (and still are) land conflicts among the communities, but very little contact with the State or Federal government. That all changed in the 1870s when, under the presidency of Porfirio Díaz, coffee became an important export crop, communal land was privatized, and the people of the region were forced into peonage to work on the plantations. Nevertheless, Some Chatinos were able to hold on to their land and grow their own coffee. This did not sit well with the large plantation owners since it deprived them of workers in a very labor-intensive industry. To discourage small producers, Juquila, the district capital, imposed a tax of three pesos per arroba (12.5 kg) of coffee. The uprising was the response to this tax.
After the army came in, 30 of the Chatino leaders were executed and many others were exiled to Quintana Roo, then the Siberia of Mexico. The new jefe político, Carlos Woolrich, decreed that no one could enter Juquila in their traditional garb—huipiles for women or camisa y calzón de manta (rough cotton shirts and pants) for men. But the tax on private land valued at less than 100 pesos was repealed. The dress code problem was solved by merchants renting shoes, jackets, and pants at stalls at the entrance to Juquila.
Sources:
- Francie Chassen-Lopez, From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca, 1867–1911, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
- Gloria Lara Millán, Heladio Reyes Cruz, Kitse Chat’nio, Chatinos de la Costa y Sierra Sur de Oaxaca, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Ecosta Yutu Cuii, 2012.
Santiago Yaitepec
THE MUNICIPIO AND TOWN OF SANTIAGO YAITEPEC IS IN the mountains bordering on Sta. Catarina Juquila. Most of its inhabitants speak Chatino and it is well known as a center of Chatino culture. At present it is in conflict with Juquila and with the Catholic Church over ownership of the Pedimento, a site where pilgrims to Oaxaca went to ask favors from the Virgin of Juquila. The Pedimento has been closed for the last four years and is now covered with wild vegetation.
