Indigenous people did not just take change and oppression lightly, they found ways to fight back and negotiate. Two main ways stated in the readings are political action and violence. The Juchitan community played a big role in resisting the actions by the liberal government that they did not like such as the measures taken to privatize land, disrupting their traditional of communal land for the farmers. Indigenous leaders took political action by relating their concerns to higher powers, and eventually taking over their land with Melendez taking “control over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec , in effect taking over the role of the governor” (Chassen-Lopex: 2004, 320). When negotiation and political resistance did not work, the people resorted to violence in order to maintain their usos y costumbres. Chassen-Lopex argues against the assumption that their actions deem them barbarians and criminals, instead focusing on their motives and the role of community rebellion. Indigenous people, especially those of Juchitan, used uprisings to fight back against oppression, it was not just violence for the sake of violence, but collective action for a change. This violence took different forms of resistance, it could be “local and village- based, as in Yucuiti’s conflict” or “more general and include several villages, as on the Isthmus or the Mextica” rebellions (Chassen-Lopex: 2004, 335).
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