Abstract

SANCHEZ MOO, Wilberth Gabriel. Calamity Times. The 1799-1810's Conjuncture in the Yucatán Province. ¿Overmortality by Famines or Epidemics?. Estud. hist. novohisp [online]. 2022, n.67, pp.173-203.  Epub Jan 20, 2023. ISSN 2448-6922.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iih.24486922e.2022.67.77728.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, with a detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative primary documentary sources, like parochial books, reports and correspondence exchanges delivered by the authorities of the time, what was the real reason for the mortality rate in Yucatán in the early nineteenth century. Were the so called famines the main reason for an increase in burials, as indicated on the documentation and defended by the regional historiography? Or is it that epidemics had something to do with crises besides being just another variable to consider? This work employs a demographic-historical approach to juxtapose the calamities that hit the structure and the agrarian production of Yucatán, such as subsistence crises and famines, with the epidemics registered in that period. The death toll in three corn producer towns, with a lot of indigenous population and calamities chronologically identified and bounded to the proposed periodization (1799-1810) are the ones that will show objectively if the deaths responded to the famines or the yellow fever, measles, and other current illnesses in the region.

Keywords : Yucatán; Epidemics; Subsistence Crisis; Famines; Calamities; Over Mortality; Corn.