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Juan de La Cruz, Venancio Puc, and the Speaking Cross

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Nelson A. Reed
Nelson A. Reed*
Affiliation:
Washington UniversitySt. Louis, Missouri
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Extract

The Caste War of Yucatán, beginning in 1847, was the most successful revolt by a native people in the new world. The Maya almost drove the whites from the peninsula, and although they were in turn forced back into the uninhabited forest of eastern Yucatán, they defended themselves there for many years, maintaining a certain independence to this day. Their successful resistance was based on the refuge zone of dense forest, on the availability of weapons and munitions from adjoining British Honduras, on the appearance of a prophet who created a new religion and on the subsequent appearance of a leader who used that religion to form an independent society. New information has become available in recent years on this important nativistic movement; this article reviews the origins of the Cross, the nature of its prophet, Juan de la Cruz, and the achievements of his successor, Venancio Puc, without whom the new religion would not have survived.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , April 1997 , pp. 497 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1997

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