The Henequen Ports of Yucatan’s Gilded Age

Over the last two centuries, the coast has played a major role in the economy of Yucatán, and has served as a key venue in its growing engagement in the global economy. A prominent chapter in this history took place during the Gilded Age (1860–1915), which saw the emergence of a powerful plantation class whose wealth was based on meeting international demand for the fiber of the agave, or henequen plant, which was used to manufacture rope, cordage, and twine. The cultivation of this plant gave rise to hundreds of plantations, and an accompanying infrastructure of haciendas, fiber processing plants, and an extensive regional network of railways for transporting henequen to the port of Progreso, from whence it was exported to North America and Europe. As part of this infrastructure, several plantation owners laid rail lines from their haciendas to the coast and built small ports for shipping their henequen to Progreso. These ports, which are documented in these pages, represented a substantial capital outlay, and were built under the shadow of the gathering clouds of the Mexican Revolution. Viewed in retrospect, they offer an insightful perspective on the economic outlook of the Yucatecan elites in the dawn of the modern age.