The resistance of the rebels of Mezcala

Abstract

The work deals with the indigenous insurgencies, peasants and fishermen of the Chapala riverbank, and the heroic resistance that between 1812 and 1816 they presented to the Spanish. The center of this resistance was Mezcala Island. Although it does not appear in the official national and regional versions of the country’s history and is excluded from civic ceremonies, it was the most lasting and significant in the West of New Spain. It stands out how in this feat the weapons, the war strategies implemented by the natives, and the knowledge of the geographical environment had value; but what was decisive was the organization and resolution of the riverside peoples to free themselves from the oppression they had been subjected to and to defend their life, their culture and their territory. The island and what happened in the struggle for the emancipation of the riverside people constitute an identity reference point for the current Cokes of Mezcala and their struggle to defend the territory that they want to take from them.