On August 17, 1848, Miguel Barbachano, ruler of Yucatan back then, decreed the reincorporation of the peninsula into the Mexican federation.
By 1841, Mexico was experiencing a political conflict between the centralist government, which empowered the President to appoint governors as well as other decisions of the states, and the current that opted for a federal form of government that defended the division of powers and granted autonomy to the states. Yucatán was one of the states in which there was discontent with the centralist government that prevailed.
During the centralist government, the State Congress broke off relations with Mexico until the federal regime was reestablished. On October 1, 1841, the local Chamber of Deputies approved the Act of Independence of the Peninsula, establishing that “the people of Yucatan, in the full use of their sovereignty, established themselves as a free and independent republic of the Mexican nation”. At that time the Peninsula included the states of Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo.
The Mexican government did not accept this independence. On the one hand, it sent a military advance guard to confront the separatists in what today is known as Hacienda Pacabtún in Mérida; on the other hand, the closing of trade between Yucatecan and Mexican ports affected the economy of Yucatán. Finally, Antonio López de Santa Anna, then president, signed on December 5, 1843 the agreements that granted Yucatan full autonomy, with the condition that it be reintegrated to the national territory.
Towards the end of 1845 these agreements were suppressed and on January 1, 1846, the Legislative Assembly of Yucatan declared once again the independence of the Peninsula from Mexican territory. This second independent period did not last long, since the crisis generated by the Caste War between Mayas and mestizos, forced the Yucatecan government to request military aid from the Mexican government, even at the cost of its sovereignty, in exchange for the reincorporation of Yucatan.
In 1848, Governor Miguel Barbachano sent a commission to José Joaquín Herrera to deal with the matter and the Mexican government sent him arms and money to end the war. Thus, Yucatan was reincorporated into the Mexican federation, closing this separatist chapter definitively.
Currently, Yucatan has a territorial extension of 39,524 km², which represents 2.02% of the country’s surface. According to INEGI’s Intercensal Survey, it has a population of 2,097,175 people and is made up of 106 municipalities, of which its capital, Merida, is the most populated locality with 892,363 inhabitants.
In 2017, 32 municipalities in the state of Yucatán participated in the Agenda for Municipal Development Program, designed by the Ministry of the Interior through the National Institute for Federalism and Municipal Development (INAFED).
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