Tabasco

Mexican State

Area: 25,337sq.km/9783sq.mi

Population: 1,748,800

The federal state of Tabasco, which is situated on the southern edge of the Gulf of Mexico, is bounded on the east by the state of Campeche and Guatemala, on the south by the state of Chiapas and on the west by Veracruz. The state is for the most part flat, with large numbers of lakes, rivers and swamps and in places covered with dense rain-forest. Two navigable rivers, the Usumacinta and the Grijalva, traverse the region before emptying into the Gulf. Tabasco is principally populated with mestizos and Chontal Indians. Many species of tropical animals inhabit the forest, savannas and inland waters. The most important of the pre-Columbian sites belonging to the Olmecs are La Venta and San Miguel, while those of the Mayas include Comalcalco, El Bellote, Jonuta and Balancán. Today the most important towns, apart from the capital Villahermosa, are Frontera, Emiliano Zapata, Tenosique, Huimanguillo and Teapa.

History

In the distant past Tabasco ("moist earth") and Veracruz formed the original home of the mysterious Olmecs. Later Tabasco was settled by the Chontal Indians, who played an important part in the population movements which took place between central and southern Mexico and Yucatán in the pre-Hispanic Spanish period.

Juan de Grijalva (1518) and Hernán Cortés (1519) were the first Europeans to land here although they were soon driven out again. It was not until 1540 that Francisco de Montejo successfully conquered part of the territory. In 1824 Tabasco became a federal state within the Republic of Mexico, while in the 1860s it became an arena for revolutionary battles and skirmishes with French troops who intermittently occupied parts of Mexico with the aim of propping up the Emperor Maximilian. In the 1920s and 1930s the radical governor Tomás Garrido Canabal waged a bitter struggle against the Church. Most of the churches were destroyed, the priests expelled, and worship at church was forbidden. It was these events which Graham Greene used as the backcloth to his novel "The Power and the Glory".

Economy

In this hot damp climate bananas, coconut palms, cacao, coffee and sugar cane are all crops which flourish and have an important part to play in the economy, as well as hard and precious woods and chicle. Cattle-rearing and fishing are also significant. But it is the abundant oil-wells which have had the greatest influence on the development of Tabasco's economy, albeit at the price of increasing pollution along the coast.