The Strange White Men December 3
The year was 1848.
Defying all expectations, the ultimate battle for Merida never happened. Instead, the anticipated invaders shouted “Shickanic“ in their native tongue, and they simply left. In English, it means “I need to walk.“ En Español, it means “Necesito Caminar.“ This I know well, because I say it everyday.
In June, flying ants emerged from dormancy. The winged drones filled the air with divine intervention and signified the pending arrival of the rainy season. The Maya had seized control of Yucatan, all but for the walled western cities of Campeche and Merida. Residents in the capital city waited for the final assault huddled in the churches and beneath the arcades of the grand plaza.
The assault never came. Instead, the Maya scattered into the forests, returning home to plant the corn that would feed their families for the coming year. So it is written. Shickanik is how it was said.
By the summer of ’48, the Mexican-American War was over, and expansionist fever gripped the Yanqui victors. Texas had successfully wrestled itself from Mexico to become one of those upstart United States—maybe a renegade tropical peninsula could do the same. Of course, the war-weary government in Washington had no intention of launching another land grab, so far from home, but this did not prevent patriotic entrepreneurs from forming their own mercenary force. Taken from the Dutch word for freeloaders, they were called filibusters. Today the term refers exclusively to US Senators.
The first filibuster was Captain Joseph White, a recent war veteran, who promoted himself to the more suitable title of colonel when he assembled 1000 men in New Orleans for launching an invasion. In September they sailed to Sisal, on Yucatan’s Gulf coast. They had come to tame the Maya revolt and the power vacuum it created. The goal was to establish a new American slave state. Mal idea, Si, Muy Mal.
Leandro Poot, son of a Maya leader during battle against those filibusters, described the slaughter:
“It was easy to kill the strange white men, for they were big and fought in a line, as if they were marching, while the white men from Merida and Valladolid fought as we do, lying down and from behind the trees and rocks. Their bodies were pink and red in the sunlight, and from their throats came a strange war cry, Hu Hu!“ Hurrah.
The private Yanqui army traveled the narrow jungle trails with heavy boots, loud banter, pipe smoking, flower picking, while apparently never suspecting they were already surrounded. When the foreigners attempted a fixed-bayonet assault, they fell into staked pits and were overrun by shirtless warriors with machetes. Thus did the Yanquis first learn what the Spaniards had discovered many years before: Watch your flanks, and, in the bush, your flanks are everywhere.
“Some died laughing,“ Poot recalled, “and some with strange words in their own tongue, but none died cowardly. I do not think that any escaped. I think they lay where they died, for in those days we had no time to eat or sleep or bury the dead.“