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Guatemala
Slide Show
These photographs were taken by famed landscape and science
photographer Eadweard Muybridge during his visit to Guatemala
in 1876. They provide a look at life, much as it appeared
in colonial times, and reflects the use of Maya Indian
labor on 19th century coffee plantations (17 slides).
Click the NEXT or PREVIOUS button to display each slide
and text. As you move through the show, try to answer
the questions asked in the text. As you view the slides,
also ask yourself, how have things changed? How have they
stayed the same?
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In the five years prior
to Muybridge's arrival, Guatemalan President Justo Rufino Barrios implemented
policies aimed at turning Guatemala into a modern capitalist economy. He passed
laws that usurped Indian lands and turned them into coffee plantations.
By the mid-1960s, just
3% of Guatemala's farmers controlled 2/3 of the arable land. Plantation
owners and wealthy landowners (primarily English and German Europeans or "Ladino"
people of Spanish descent) colluded with the military to displace native peasants
in an effort to use their land for export crops such as coffee.
The remaining Maya land
had to support an exploding population. Those Maya with access to land primarily
plant beans and maize, two staples of Maya subsistence that are entrenched
in their culture. Squalid housing, impoverishing wages, and little land of
their own led many Indians to want to better their situation. And with that
desire came conflict. Despite a peace accord signed in 1995, the debate over
land issues continues. What
do you know of the conflict in Guatemala?
This is the city of Antigua,
Guatemala. Founded by Don Pedro de Alvarado in 1543 as Santiago de Guatemala,
Antigua served as the seat of Spanish colonial government for the Kingdom of
Guatemala, which included Chiapas (southern Mexico), Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Antigua has a traditional
Spanish city plan featuring a central plaza surrounded by a grid of streets.
Once the third most important Spanish colony in the Americas, with 60,000
residents, Antigua is nestled between three volcanoes, Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango.
It remained capital until repeated earthquakes forced the Spanish to move
their capital in 1776 to its location in present-day Guatemala City. What
other city plans can you think of that are associated with particular cultures?
The plaza has a square
design and was the center of city life. On the plaza's north boundary lays
City Hall, to the south, the Palace of the Captains General. On the east is
the Metropolitan Cathedral and Bishop's Palace, and the west features an entrance
portal and merchant's shelter for merchants visiting from distant locations.
On weekdays, Antigua's plaza served as a marketplace, as indicated in the
photograph, and on special occasions was the seat of public celebrations,
military parades and even bullfights. What
do the functions of the structures bounding the central plaza say about Spanish
culture at that time?
The
City Hall was the seat of Spanish colonial government.
The
Palace of the Captains General served as military headquarters.
More
than 30 monastic orders called Antigua home and built monasteries, convents
and cathedrals. This is what remains of the Metropolitan Cathedral and Bishop's
Palace, inaugurated in 1680 and partially destroyed in earthquakes in 1773.
Today it is a local parish church. The Lent and Easter celebrations in Antigua
are among the largest in the western hemisphere.
A
coffee plantation is called a "Finca", Spanish for farm. German immigrants initiated
serious coffee cultivation in Guatemala in the 19th century. Today the country's
high-grown beans, particularly those grown on the southern volcanic slopes,
are among the world's best. As a world commodity, coffee is surpassed only by
oil. What are some examples of large-scale agriculture initiated by non-native
peoples? What factors - geographic, economic, cultural - are necessary for such
agriculture to take root? What effects might such cash crops have on local cultures?
Here,
plantation workers clear the surrounding forest in preparation for planting
coffee trees. Technically shrubs, but colloquially called trees, coffee plants
take three to five years to produce fruit.
These
Maya workers are sowing coffee plants. Coffee trees bear a small red fruit that
is called the coffee "cherry."
Workers,
predominantly Maya Indian women, harvest the coffee beans. Today, most coffee
is still harvested by hand. Coffee cultivation is one of the most labor intensive
of agricultural commodities. The coffee cherries ripen over the course of several
months, thus the fields must be picked repeatedly as unripened fruit is passed
over and left on the branches to ripen. Each cherry yields two beans.
The
coffee processing plant is called a "beneficio." After harvesting, the coffee
cherry must be "pulped" to remove the skin and fleshy fruit surrounding the
beans.
Drying
the coffee beans outside in the sun is called "patio drying." This method takes
about six to eight days. Patio drying is still used today and is said to produce
better coffee than more modern "hot drums." Can you think of any other agricultural
goods that are processed much as they were 150 years ago? What factors might
account for this?
The
dried beans still retain a thin skin called "parchment." The parchment is removed
through a milling process.
After
having been roasted, sorted and graded, the beans are ready for sacking and
export. When these photographs were taken, the processed coffee beans were loaded
onto ox-carts for the journey to the shore for export.
The
west coast of Guatemala has few deep-water ports. In order to transport goods
to ocean-going ships, a system of ferrying must be used. The coffee must be
taken by small boat to the larger cargo ship. Why was shipping by sea important?
What factors might preclude land transport?
This is Lake Atitlan. Referred to by Aldous Huxley as the most beautiful lake
in the world, it is ringed by volcanoes, lying in the heart of coffee growing
country.
In the five years prior
to Muybridge's arrival, Guatemalan President Justo Rufino Barrios implemented
policies aimed at turning Guatemala into a modern capitalist economy. He passed
laws that usurped Indian lands and turned them into coffee plantations.
By the mid-1960s, just
3% of Guatemala's farmers controlled 2/3 of the arable land. Plantation
owners and wealthy landowners (primarily English and German Europeans or "Ladino"
people of Spanish descent) colluded with the military to displace native peasants
in an effort to use their land for export crops such as coffee.
The remaining Maya land
had to support an exploding population. Those Maya with access to land primarily
plant beans and maize, two staples of Maya subsistence that are entrenched
in their culture. Squalid housing, impoverishing wages, and little land of
their own led many Indians to want to better their situation. And with that
desire came conflict. Despite a peace accord signed in 1995, the debate over
land issues continues. What
do you know of the conflict in Guatemala?
