have migrated here, too. Rural-to-urban migration is a key regional
feature in Latin America.
Diego's siblings face the same problems.
“Poquito nos tocó a cada uno y por eso que cada uno...”
TRANSLATOR:
Since we each got very little land, each one has to move wherever they
can to support one's family.
That is why we are scattered all over the
place.
NARRATOR:
The same forces that push Indians out of the highlands also led to the
violence.
What are those forces, and what are the prospects for
change?
The future for these children will grow out of Guatemala's
troubled past. For a historical geographer, the past is fertile ground.
George Lovell is researching patterns in both time and space to explain
the collapse--and now the explosion--of Maya population.
After the conquest in the 16th century, the Spaniards had little interest in
highland resources. They saw something in the hills more valuable than
land. It was labor. The Spaniards saved Mayas' souls and forced their
bodies to work silver mines and lowland plantations.
LOVELL:
To supply them with ready pools of labor, Spaniards forced Maya Indians
to build and to live in compact towns like this...
NARRATOR:
And this...and this. The new settlements, called “congregaciones”, were
laid out in classic Spanish-American grids and located in valleys. The
dense urban settlement pattern helped decimate Maya population. The
conquistadors brought from Europe a host of exotic diseases, like
smallpox.
The close living quarters and poor sanitation just accelerated
the devastating illness.
Lovell estimates that the Guatemala Maya numbered two million before
the Conquest and fell to 128,000 by 1625. It was part of the largest
population collapse in human history, but when the Spanish Empire itself
collapsed here, many Indians left the congregaciones to return to their
age-old pattern of dispersed rural settlement. Gradually, their numbers,
too, rebounded, to the point where many now fear a dangerous
population explosion. George Lovell wants to know why.
The year 2000, and Doña Magdalena is now 92.
With Diego now
working in Guatemala City, she relies on one of her other grandsons,
Paulino, still living in the compound.
George Lovell visits the Gonzales farm to see if growth of their family
provides insights into the larger Maya society.
Why did Diego have to
leave?
Why can't the land support the whole family? Harvests of corn
have sustained life here for thousands of years. The size of Maya
population was limited largely by the size of the corn harvest.
The land
has been good to the Gonzales family.
Doña Magdalena now has 24
great-grandchildren. She has just divided the land into separate plots for
her six grandchildren.
But are the plots big enough for each family?
“Aquí es... ya empieza el de Diego Ezequiel...”
LOVELL (\translating\):
This is the boundary marker between my land, which lies behind me,
here, and over here, in front of me, is my brother Diego's land.
You can
see just how narrow the strip of land is.
