(Did you hear?
It’s the sound of their world collapsing.
It’s the sound of ours rising again.
The day that was day was night.
And night will be the day that will be day.)
The continuity of Indigenous peoples after the arrival of the Spanish invaders defies demographic calculations and the predictions of violent colonization, as well as the progress that excluded them in all subsequent eras. Development, modernization, and the relentless urban and industrial onslaught continue to devastate their territories and the essence of their most authentic agricultural, cultural, and sacred traditions. Recent academic estimates suggest that by the end of the 16th century, almost all of the original inhabitants of these lands had disappeared. It is argued that this was not so much due to war, but rather to epidemics. This, as if epidemics and germs were not weapons of war wielded by the invaders.
Bernardino de Sahagún himself recorded the mortality rate: “People are dying off with great speed, not so much from the mistreatment they receive, but from the plagues God sends them. In 1520, when the Spaniards were driven out of Mexico by war, there was a smallpox epidemic that killed countless people. After the Spaniards conquered New Spain, in 1545 there was a great and widespread plague, which killed most of the people who lived there. Now, in August 1576, a great and widespread plague began, which has been going on for three months now, and many people have died, and more are dying every day.”
Researcher Gisela von Wobeser, from the Institute of Historical Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, stated a few years ago (in UNAM Global, November 2019): “At that time, there were few Spaniards, and their cities were few and very small, so the rest of the territory remained almost unchanged in terms of administration, the economy, and the administration of justice. However, in that brief period, around 90 percent of the indigenous population died; millions of cattle, sheep, and mutton roamed virgin plains, destroying the environment to satisfy their hunger; and extensive European-style agriculture took over immense areas, something never before seen, since Mesoamericans cultivated intensively in small plots” (https://unamglobal.unam.mx/global_revista/laconquista-provoco-la-muerte-de-casi-el-90-de-losindigenas/).
Let’s agree. It is strange, surprising, extraordinary that this almost vanished population recovered from its meager ten percent without losing a hundred languages, without exterminating, despite everything, the various peoples or nations—not to mention the Nahua and Otomi, the first to bear the brunt of the invasion and conquest, but so many more who survived the colonial period to the present day. Only in certain regions of the present-day country was the annihilation of the indigenous population almost absolute, such as the Gran Chichimeca and the vast northern territories. And yet the Rarámuri, Yaqui, and others still live intensely in the present. And in the heart of the 20th century, the dwindling communities of Baja California reside near a large migrant and day laborer indigenous population.
If they almost disappeared, then where did so many distinct indigenous people come from? How did they endure chemical warfare, warfare with the sword, warfare with the cross, warfare with language, and warfare with their customs? The internal colonization following independence also led to their extermination and the denial of a civilization that, 150 years later, Guillermo Bonfil was still calling “denied.”
How can we explain that in the 21st century, some 70 completely distinct languages with easily recognizable dialectal variations remain alive?
What secret do they hold for this incessant renewal, despite having everything stacked against them? This occurs within the context of integration into “national society,” “Mexican identity,” promoted by the State in the 20th and 21st centuries. The discourse is more favorable than before, but just as ideological and institutional as during the PRI era, which established the monetary “resource” system as the lever of well-being. A corporatism persists among the working and peasant classes, recycled throughout the decades and presidential terms of office.
Aggressive and permanent urbanization, tourist developments, vast transportation networks, the appropriation or commercialization of natural resources, and educational policies that are both integrationist and often divisive. In recent times, Indigenous communities have gained visibility and respect like never before, not through state handouts, but through struggles, resistance, and negotiations that are never easy for them.
Another constant challenge has been the lack of recognition for the agricultural, environmental, and medicinal practices of these communities, which are in a perpetual process of dispossession and displacement, both physical and cultural. Put this way, one might think that these communities are constantly losing, trapped in the cyclical fate of the vanquished.
If they remain here and persevere despite everything, if they resist, creating new forms of governance learned from their ancestors, from tradition and experience—in short, if they preserve their gifts and fight to maintain their systematically threatened languages—then they are victorious. They triumph beyond death because they live. Autonomy, self-determination, the possibilities of care, and the creative defense of the commons, as the Maya of Guatemala and the Zapatistas of Chiapas uphold today. The appropriation of the Latin alphabet, of constantly evolving technologies, and of platforms for documentary recording and communication on a global scale.
The interpretation that Indigenous peoples make today of what is happening and convulsing the world comes from the simple yet proven lucidity of those who have always managed to resist and endure. In this dark hour that the hemisphere is experiencing due to the imperial resurgence of capitalism, it is necessary to support persistence and listen to the wisdom of the peoples of the sea, the rivers, and the land on the continent.
Original article at Ojarasca, January, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.