Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/600

580 and that the retaliation, publicly announced, was no worse than the methods of the foe, which lay constantly on the watch for stealthy descents on exposed settlements, leaving smoking ruins and bereaved families to mark their visits. Not long after, San Luis Potosí arranged a coalition between the suffering states for joint action against the savages, supported by a common fund and a certain proportion of troops.

The most distinct war of races was that waging at this time in Yucatan. The reoccupation of Valladolid

and that of Tihosuco by white men were the culminating achievements in the campaign of 1848, which secured to them the supremacy and the possession of the gulf coast of the peninsula. The Indians had been driven back into the forests and deserts, and could claim absolute is way only in the region south, or rather southeast, of the great central cordillera, where their three great leaders, Florentine Chan, Cecilio Chí, and