500 year anniversary

[El Graduado]

May 3, 2018, will mark the 500th year since the traditional date of the discovery of Cozumel by the Spanish explorer Juan de Grijalva.

I say traditional, since there are maps that were made prior to 1518 that show Yucatan and the islands off its eastern shore, indicating that some Portuguese or Spanish ships must have visited the area, but no documents are known to still exist that detail these early expeditions.

Anyway, the island is starting to think of ways to celebrate this anniversary.

What would you like to see in way of a celebration?

And… have you entered the Cozumel Museum’s underwater video contest yet?

 

[flyboy08]

Free Tequila for all visitors for 2018

 

[Dave Dillehay]

Given that is my birthday as well I vote for a HUGE celebration!

Dave

 

[DandyDon]

Have you asked the Mayans for ideas...??

 

[MargaritaMike]

Have you asked the Mayans for ideas...??

They may be the perfect ones to ask.

Cheers - M²

 

[El Graduado]

Have you asked the Mayans for ideas...??

They may be the perfect ones to ask.

It is not so much a "Maya thing" or a "Spanish thing", as it is a “Cozumel thing". By Cozumel, I mean the people who live here now. The 1518 date is not the date the Spanish first encountered the Maya; that happened years before. In fact, the Maya on the Q. Roo coast were holding Spaniards as slaves as early as 1511.

It is almost a certainty that the Maya who were living on Cozumel in 1518 have no descendants still living here. By 1570, the population of the island had been reduced to under 400 due to disease. (Not by hostilities; there are no records of any Maya on Cozumel ever being killed by a Spaniard. The got along pretty well on the island from the beginning, unlike other places in Yucatan.) By 1670, Englishmen had set up a logwood-cutting settlement on Cozumel and that stayed active through 1848, the year a small group of refugees from the War of the Castes were carried over from Dzilam de Bravo to settle on the island. By their accounts, the only inhabitants on the island by that time were the English log cutters. The Maya of Cozumel had migrated across the mainland to Xcan well before 1750.

These new refugee/settlers of 1848 were a mix of Mestizo, Maya, American, Irish, African, Virgin Islanders, and others. Today’s residents of Cozumel are descendants of these 1848 settlers, plus the migrants, prison escapees, ex-pats, fugitives, and assorted others who came to live on Cozumel since then, or the descendants of these latecomers. Just being Maya doesn’t give you a special vote on how the Cozumeleños of today want to celebrate the “Traditional Date of the Spanish Discovery of Cozumel”, just like being the descendant of a Spaniard doesn’t give you a special vote.

Some on Cozumel are trying to reshape the anniversary as "The First Encounter Between the Two Cultures", but that is far from what it was. Other European expeditions had already landed on Yucatan (and Cozumel) prior to 1518. Celebrating 1518 as "The First Encounter" would be similar to trying to celebrate the date of the "Founding of Jamestown" as the "European Discovery of America". 1518 was more like the year that a Spaniard named Cozumel "Isla Santa Cruz", before he got back on the ship and left. It was a name that didn't stick very long.

 

[The Chairman]

I think we'll celebrate by invading!

 

[heavierthanlead]

Now, you're on to sumpn...

 

[sharky60]

Thanks for the heads up May is our time to come! We're still looking at dates, probably won't come that early though.

p.s. should have my eye fully back from the retina re-attachment surgeries by the first of the year and be more up to reading, so I can finally get to your 2 books I have. (True History of Coz & San Gervasio guide)


p.s.s. video contest?!