Introduction: Re-writing Guatemala's nineteenth century -- The transformation of Mam Quezaltenango from culahá to independence -- Disputing property : national politics and local ethnic conflict in the formation of a Guatemalan coffee zone -- Debt, labor coercion, and the expansion of commercial agriculture -- Intoxicating politics : gender, ethnicity and alcohol in the transition to liberal rule -- From Ladino state to Ladino nation : the malformation of Guatemalan national identity -- Popular insurrection, liberal reform, and nation-state formation : final reflections on Guatemala's nineteenth century
Summary
In the late 1830s, an uprising of mestizos and Maya destroyed Guatemala's Liberal government. Liberal partisans were unable to retake the state until 1871. In contrast to the late 1830s, they met only sporadic resistance. This work confronts this paradox of Guatemala's nineteenth century by focusing on the rural folk of the western highlands
