From “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The first great cultivation of corn were the Mayans, initially centered in present-day northern Guatemala and the Mexican state of Tabasco. Extending to the Yucatan peninsula, the Mayans of the tenth century built city-states – Chichen-Itza, Mayapan, Uxmal, and many others – as far south as Belize and Honduras. Mayan villages, farms, and cities extended from tropical forest to alpine areas to coastal and interior plains. During the five-century apex of Mayan civilization, a combined priesthood and nobility governed. There was also a distinct commercial class, and the cities were densely populated, not simply bureaucratic or religious centers. Ordinary Mayan villages in the far-flung region retained fundamental features of clan structures and communal social relations. They worked the nobles’ fields, paid rent for use of land, and contributed labor and taxes to the building of roads, temples, nobles’ houses, and other structures. It is not clear whether these relations were exploitative or cooperatively developed. However, the nobility drew servants from groups such as war prisoners, accused criminals, debtors, and even orphans. Although servile status was not hereditary, this was forced labor. Increasingly burdensome exploitation of labor and higher taxes and tribute produced dissension and uprisings, resulting in the collapse of the Mayan state, from which decentralized polities emerged.
Mayan culture astonishes all who study it, and it is often compared to Greek (Athenian) culture. At its core was the cultivation of corn; religion was constructed around this vital food. The Mayan people developed art, architecture, sculpture, and paintings, employing a variety of materials, including gold and silver, which they mined and used for jewelry and sculpture, not for use as currency. Surrounded by rubber trees, they invented the rubber ball and court ball games similar to modern soccer. Their achievements in mathematics and astronomy are the most impressive. By 36 BC, they had developed the concept of zero. They worked with numbers in the hundreds of millions and used extensive dating systems, making possible both their observations of the cosmos and their unique calendar that marked the passage of time into the future. Modern astronomers have marveled at the accuracy of Mayan charts of the movements of the moon and planets, which were used to predict eclipses and other events. Mayan culture and science, as well as governmental and economic practices, were influential throughout the region.