Murder in Mérida, 1792: Violence, Factions, and the Law (Diálogos Series)

By: Mark W. Lentz

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Synopsis: During the summer of 1792, a man wearing the rough garb of a vaquero stepped out of the night shadows of Mérida, Yucatan, and murdered the province&’s top royal official, don Lucas de Gálvez. This book recounts the mystery of the Gálvez murder and its resolution, an event that captured contemporaries&’ imaginations throughout the Hispanic world and caused consternation on the part of authorities in both Mexico and Madrid.In this work Lentz further provides a readable introduction to the Bourbon Reforms as well as new insights on late colonial Yucatecan society through the vast depictions of the cross-section of Yucatecan people questioned during the decade it took to uncover the assassin&’s identity. These suspects and witnesses, from all walks of life, reveal the interconnected layers found in colonial Yucatecan society and the social networks of Mérida&’s urban underclass as well as their unexpected ties to the creole elites and rural Mayas that have previously been unexplored.