Peoples Republic of Maya summary

[Kaiser Kirk]

Peoples Republic of Maya

Current Ruler  : Balam-Qitzé, Speaker of the Central Committee. 
Government : Communist Republic. , Founded 1799
Government Model : Jacobian France under the National Convention 1795 (after reign of terror, before Napolean)
Historical Departure Point(s): ~400BCE, 200AD, 1200AD, 1511AD, 1789.
Historical Countries: Southern Mexico, Central America
Friendly Power(s): Roman Empire, Iberia
Hostile Powers(s): Aztec, Wilno.

Overall viewpoint : Alarm. The Aztec are traditional foes, who have only minor superiority. The Appearance of Rome and Wilno in force has alarmed them. They know not quite what to make of these new foes, but their conquests indicate they are Imperialists more like the Aztec, than like minded egalitarians.

Military Goals : They maintain a large mass army, making defense of the homeland against the Aztec a priority. They had been advancing borders slowly south, but Wilno forces have suddenly occupied that area. Rumor is the Wilno engineers are building a canal to compete with the Mayan Overland route, threatening the revenue.

Naval Goals : Swarms of light attack craft to offer defense against the Aztec (Jeune Ecole), some few fast raiders and cruisers for trade protection/attack on the commerce lines linking the Aztec elsewhere.


Settlements in Central America started at least 2,600 BCE, but much of that is lost to time. About 750BCE, cities began to take form, as kinglets rose to power. In the Yucatan, the City of El Mirador started conquering her neighbors around 400 BCE. This gave rise to the First Mayan Empire, a lowland Empire of city states, a powerful priesthood and god-kings.  The lowlands have poor soils, and the watertable is deep down. Intensive irrigation, hording soil, and clearing of land for firewood and charcoal amendments allowed large populations which made heavy demands on the deep water. A long drought in 150AD brought famine and then civil war to the land, and the Empire collapsed. The Mayan ways continued in the independent highland city states which still had water.

The City-state of Kaminaljuyu became the center of the 2nd Mayan Empire, asserting loose dominion over the other highland city states and spreading the Empire south. This was the Mayan Classical period, where arts and science flourished. By 900, they had even recolonized the lowlands. This was brought to an end by revolts in the far flung city states, and by 1200 the Empire had fallen, fractured into scattered kingdoms, beginning the Warring States period. 

To the North, the founding of the Aztec Empire and it's subsequent growth and links to the African Mali Empire happened against the backdrop of these warring City states.

In 1511, a treasure ship returning to Mali wrecks on the Mayan coast, and it's crew is captured and largely sacrificed by the God-king of a Mayan City. The Aztec and Mali effort to reclaim the lost wealth leads to a series of raids. The Aztec find the Mayans ill equipped and disorganized, easy to play off each other, and the raids turn to invasion. By 1527 the Mayan cities had fallen.

The Maya were reorganized into a puppet kingdom, Mali Islam imposed and in 1542, An Aztec capital for the area founded, Merida.  A jewish colony, as neutral traders, is established as middlemen. The 1600's and 1700's see increased trade with the African Muslim states and sugar plantations spring up in the Caribbean fueled by a slave trade, and the Mayan prosper along with the Aztec. A glorious period of trade and learning lifts the upper classes further. The common mayan finds himself unable to compete with the cheap slave labor, leading to a large number of desperately poor.

In the mid 1700s, sugar production in Indian Laksmanivati becomes more organized, starts using 'modern' agricultural approaches and early mechanization, output starts dramatically increasing. Prices fall, and the distant Mali Empire, already with internal problems, finally collapses. The Aztec economy suffers disruption and internal unrest. With their plantations unprofitable, and trouble at home, the various nobles and their companies withdraw from the Carribean. The Mali puppet kingdom suffers similarly, reacting by taxing the peoples wealth to support the lifestyles of the nobles. A philosopher gains fame with a new set of philosophies about historical materialism, and inevitable class conflict destroying the current system and replacing it with a new classless one. Executed for heresy, his ideas live on. 


In 1789 revolution hits the former Mayan Empire, fed up with the excesses of the Aztec Emperor, the Immans, and their own 'nobles' the lower classes revolt. The Aztecs are consumed with their own domestic problems and are merely wary bystanders. Their puppet kings prove unable to stop the unrest, which continues to buid. In 1799 the new Mayan People's Republic is declared under a charismatic general and begins a series of short wars of Independence against the Aztec Empire to liberate the Mayan lands. The Aztec factions rally to fight this common foe and the war of Independence sees periodic campaigns by both sides as the Mayan rebels "liberate" land. 

When not at war with the Aztec, the General then leads his troops against other neighboring states, conquering to the South.  Relying on masses of highly motivated troops, the Mayan forces prove capable of destroying the small professional armies led by a warrior elite the Aztec send. The wars lasts for 16 years. Finally at the Battle of Puebla in 1815 the Aztec are decisively defeated, their Emperor captured and slain. The Aztec splinter in civil war, while the exhausted Mayan find their southern provinces in revolt and their economy in ruins. Within a couple years they retreat to their current borders.

The Maya have continued to further the revolution, eschewing Kings, Queens and religion for the Will of the People, as expressed through the Speaker and the Central Committee. The satellite committees and state intelligence agency supposedly supply this information, and then execute the Central Committee's intepretation of the People's Will...taking their best interests to heart. A bureaucratic elite have formed, garnering extra benefits in thanks of their difficult work. The Maya are partially industrialized, and are struggling to transition their economy to a more complex one requiring "managers".   Prominent and accomplished people are given social honors and held up as 'Common Heroes', also earning benefits..and if conformist...may be placed on committees. The state relying on centralized education, and tailoring their historical narrative to suit. Rigorous testing of the young tries to identify both the clever, and the unruly. One is rewarded, the others encouraged to fail. This allows a form of social mobility which the masses view as aspirational.

The Mayans consider it desirable to export their ideology, to share with the oppressed peoples who have not thrown off their shackles and deposed their false leaders. They will provide refuge for those that flee oppression, and may be more active in destabilizing distasteful regimes. Despite their prospering greatly from taxes on commerce on the easy overland route from the Pacific to Atlantic, they view capitalism and mercantilism poorly. To this end, they are rumored to have long covertly given refuge to "Egalitarians" (pirates) who need to sell cargo, and there have been rumors their cruisers occasionally liberate a freighter crew from the tyranny of it's captain and owner. 

The peoples are Native American, the religions are primarily Mesoamerican with a significant Agnostic/Atheistic minority, and a small subsets of Judaism and Islam as the other major constituents.