Centuries of a deeply racist colonial system resulted in the extreme marginalization of the indigenous populations of Chiapas. While the rest of Mexico benefited from revolutionary land redistribution, enacted under Article 27 of the Mexican constitution, after 1917, Chiapas remained under the strict control of a few cattle ranching families. By the late 1980’s Chiapas was the Mexican state with the most applications for land redistribution, yet it was the state in which the least amount of land had been distributed. Not only were the indigenous peoples of Chiapas marginalized off their land they also ranked last in literacy and income and dead-first in poverty and infant mortality. This has led some analysts to suggest that these problems are a result of Chiapas historically not having been included in the Mexican economy. However, the facts lead us to conclude otherwise; Chiapas has been Mexico’s number one source for hydroelectric energy and its third and fourth largest source for gas and oil production thus making Chiapas central to the Mexican economy for decades.

In response, many indigenous communities organized to petition the state and national government for land and basic social services. These communities were met with repression by state and local authorities working with private landowners. They organized paramilitary groups to persecute organizers. The extreme marginalization caused by colonialism, and recent neoliberal programs (i.e. GATT, NAFTA), led many indigenous communities of Chiapas to openly declare organized rebellion on January 1st, 1994, under the auspice of the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army).