FROM MAYANS TO WHITE AMERICANS THE YUCATÁN SLAVE TRADE AFTER ABOLITION
- Ishmael Bey
- 1 hour ago
- 7 min read
How Indigenous Slavery Persisted, Fueled American Markets, and Ensnared a U.S. Citizen in 1911
Herbert Williams, an American citizen from Indiana, reported in 1911 to have been held as a slave in Yucatán.
Introduction: Slavery After It Was Supposed to Be Over
By the early twentieth century, slavery was officially illegal across the Americas. Mexico abolished it in 1829. Britain outlawed it in 1833. The United States ended chattel slavery in 1865. And yet, American newspapers continued to report openly, repeatedly, and unambiguously on a thriving system of slavery in the Mexican peninsula of Yucatán.
These were not vague accusations or distant rumors. U.S. papers used the word slaves without apology. They described forced labor, beatings, starvation, child bondage, deportation of Indigenous peoples, and a plantation economy built on coercion. Even more damning, they documented how American agriculture, American markets, and American officials were fully aware of the system and in some cases economically dependent on it.
At the center of this record is one extraordinary case: Herbert Williams, an American citizen from Indiana, reported in 1911 to have been held as a slave in Yucatán. His case reveals how the United States responded when slavery ensnared one of its own and how differently it behaved when tens of thousands of Indigenous people suffered the same fate.
Yucatán as a Post-Abolition Slave Zone
American newspapers consistently identified Yucatán as a region where slavery persisted long after abolition.
In 1909, The Houston Post ran a front-page exposé under the blunt headline “YUCATAN SLAVES.” Drawing on eyewitness reporting by journalist John Kenneth Turner, the paper described a system in which plantation laborers:
received no wages
were half-starved
were beaten routinely, sometimes to death
were forced to work even while sick, without medical care
were locked up at night in compounds resembling jails
were compelled to marry within plantations, binding families into hereditary bondage
The article rejected euphemisms outright, stating:
“In the last analysis it is slavery, but the fictional distinction is kept up all the same.”¹
This “fictional distinction” often labeled peonage or debt service was the legal disguise that allowed slavery to persist after abolition. The condition remained unchanged; only the paperwork differed.
The Herbert Williams Case: When Slavery Touched an American
Against this backdrop of mass Indigenous enslavement, the 1911 case of Herbert Williams stands out.
On April 26, 1911, The Reporter-Times reported that Williams, a former Indianapolis resident, was “said to be held as a slave in Yucatán.”⁶ He had left home in 1906 and disappeared for five years. Only later did his family learn that he was allegedly trapped in peonage described by the paper as practical slavery.
What happened next is telling.
Williams’s brother, James J. Williams, president of an Indiana state bank, traveled to Washington, D.C. He met with members of Congress. A U.S. senator promised to take the case up with the State Department. Diplomatic channels were activated immediately.
Notably, there was no debate about whether slavery existed in Yucatán. The concern was not theoretical. It was procedural: how to secure the release of an American.
The resolution of Herbert Williams’s case has not yet been conclusively located in surviving newspaper records. What is clear and what matters is the contrast:
When Indigenous Maya and Yaqui were enslaved by the tens of thousands, the system remained intact.
When one American citizen was allegedly enslaved, it became a diplomatic issue.
This is not an argument. It is an observable pattern.
“Apprentices in Name, Slaves in Fact: The Yucatán–Havana–New Orleans Pipeline”
By the 1850s, as African slave imports declined and Asian contract labor proved insufficient, planters turned to Indigenous populations as a replacement workforce. U.S. newspapers openly acknowledged this shift. In 1858, the Weekly Telegraph described the “Yucatán Slave Trade,” reporting the arrival of Indigenous Maya labeled as “apprentices” in Havana but held “as essentially slaves.” The article made clear that these apprentices were worked harder and cared for less than African slaves, precisely because they were treated as expendable. This system mirrored practices already familiar in the Gulf South, where apprenticeship and indenture served as legal covers for de facto slavery especially in New Orleans, the epicenter of the post-1808 domestic slave trade.
Scale and Structure: Slavery as an Economic System
The evidence shows that Yucatán slavery was not marginal. It was systemic.
A 1913 reprint in The Kansas City Star estimated that more than 100,000 people out of a population of roughly 300,000 were enslaved on henequen plantations.² The article identified an oligarchy of roughly fifty plantation magnates, the so-called “henequen kings,” who controlled not only land and labor but also the political machinery of the state.
The enslaved population was explicitly identified as Indigenous:
Maya, many of whom had previously owned the land
Yaqui Indians, forcibly deported from Sonora in northern Mexico
Smaller numbers of other coerced laborers, including Chinese workers
The pipeline was clear: land dispossession created debt, debt became hereditary, and entire families were absorbed into permanent bondage.
Forced Deportation: Sonora to Yucatán
One of the most revealing patterns was state-organized deportation.
In 1911, The Spokesman-Review reported that Yaqui Indians were sent “as slaves to Yucatán by Díaz.”³ Sonora the Yaqui homeland—lies in northern Mexico near the U.S. border, more than a thousand miles from Yucatán. This was not migration. It was forced removal.
The article quoted a U.S.-connected plantation owner describing how the Yaqui, once in control of their valley, were captured, transported, and enslaved to clear land for plantation expansion. Many died en route. Others disappeared into the Yucatán labor system, never to return.
Yucatán thus functioned as a penal slave colony, absorbing Indigenous resistance from across Mexico.
The Apprentice Lie: A Replacement Slave Supply
As African slave imports declined and abolition laws tightened, planters turned to new labels to maintain forced labor.
An 1858 article in The Weekly Telegraph titled “The Yucatan Slave Trade” described the importation of Yucatán Indians into Cuba as so-called apprentices. The paper immediately exposed the fraud:
“Of course they are to be held as essentially slaves…”⁴
These “apprentices” were described as being worked harder and cared for less than Africans held in open slavery, precisely because they were considered expendable. Havana, Jamaica, and the Gulf world including New Orleans formed an interconnected labor market where apprenticeship and indenture served as legal covers for de facto slavery.
American Complicity: Slavery Feeding U.S. Agriculture
The United States was not merely observing this system. It was benefiting from it.
In 1916, The Waterloo Press ran a story headlined “SLAVE LABOR BINDER TWINE.”⁵ The article explained that binder twine essential to American grain harvesting was manufactured from sisal hemp grown on Yucatán plantations.
During a U.S. Senate investigation into the Mexican sisal industry, a witness rejected the euphemism of peonage. When asked, “You mean peonage, don’t you?” he replied:
“No, I mean slavery.”
The article made clear that U.S. officials knew slave labor was embedded in American agricultural supply chains and that trade continued anyway.
COERCION, CULTURE AND DEBT CONTRACTS: THE HENEQUEN INDUSTRY IN YUCATAN, MEXICO, 1870-1915
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 March 2008
Selective Enforcement and the Architecture of Erasure
Taken together, the articles establish a consistent framework:
Slavery persisted after abolition, by design
Indigenous peoples were the primary targets
Debt, apprenticeship, and peonage served as legal disguises
The system was protected by political and judicial power
The United States knew, reported on it, and traded with it
Intervention occurred only when Americans were directly affected
Education reforms and “industrial training” schemes such as Tuskegee-modeled institutions later proposed for Indigenous populations did not emerge in opposition to this system. They emerged after slavery became politically dangerous to defend, functioning as the next phase of control.
Conclusion: Slavery Hidden in Plain Sight
The story of Yucatán slavery is not a forgotten colonial relic. It is a modern, documented system that operated openly in defiance of abolition laws, reported in American newspapers, and sustained by international trade.
The Herbert Williams case exposes the moral fault line at the heart of this history. Slavery was recognized when it endangered Americans. It was tolerated when it consumed Indigenous lives.
What ended slavery in Yucatán was not law, not awareness, and not humanitarian outrage. It was political expediency. And the legacy of that selective enforcement still shapes how Indigenous histories and identities have been erased, reclassified, and denied.
Selected Sources (Primary Newspapers)
Houston Post, “Yucatan Slaves,” Oct. 31, 1909.
Kansas City Star, extracts from John Kenneth Turner, Feb. 26, 1913.
Spokesman-Review (Spokane), “Guaymas Planter Here,” July 29, 1911.
Weekly Telegraph, “The Yucatan Slave Trade,” July 6, 1858.
Waterloo Press (Iowa), “Slave Labor Binder Twine,” May 11, 1916.
Reporter-Times (Indiana), “Will Look Into Case of Herbert Williams,” Apr. 26, 1911.
🗺️ Map: Forced Deportation of Maya Indians — Yucatán → Cuba, Jamaica, and the United States
This schematic map shows documented slave-trafficking routes originating in Yucatán, the Maya homeland, and extending into:
Cuba (Havana)
Jamaica
The U.S. South (Carolinas & Virginia)
Timeframe: 1850s–1910s — decades after abolition
Key Ports & Nodes
Progreso (Yucatán): Primary export port for sisal and human cargo
Havana: Cuban sugar plantations replacing African imports
Jamaica: British plantation system
U.S. South: Carolinas & Virginia (as documented in U.S. press and scholarship)
Forced Deportation of Maya Indians, 1850s–1910s.
This map illustrates documented maritime routes by which Maya people from Yucatán were trafficked to Cuba, Jamaica, and the southern United States decades after the legal abolition of slavery. These routes formed part of a transnational system of post-abolition Indigenous enslavement sustained by reclassification, debt bondage, and international trade.
🔍 What This Map Proves Visually
1️⃣ This Was a Maritime Slave Trade
Maya were shipped by sea, not “locally employed”
Routes mirror the earlier Atlantic slave trade
This is human trafficking, not labor migration
2️⃣ The United States Was a Destination
This map directly supports the documented claim:
“Some Mayans were also sold to slave masters in the southern states of the United States, especially North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.” — Godfrey Mwakikagile, British Honduras to Belize, p. 25
That places the U.S. inside the trade network, not outside it.
3️⃣ Cuba and Jamaica Were Intermediate and Parallel Markets
Cuba absorbed Maya as African importation declined
Jamaica received Indigenous captives under British colonial systems
The same bodies fed multiple empires
4️⃣ This Occurred After Slavery Was Illegal
When paired with abolition dates, the map shows:
Mexico abolished slavery: 1829
Britain abolished slavery: 1833
United States abolished slavery: 1865
Yet these routes remained active.
➡️ This is illegal post-abolition slavery, sustained by:
reclassification
debt schemes
cross-border trade
willful blindness
FIRST TRIBE
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