Yaxcopoil, which in the Mayan language means "Place of the Green Poplars", brings together in its history the three great periods of yesterday's Yucatan: pre-Hispanic life, colonial life, and the henequen boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

It is located within the limits of Umán, municipality of Mérida and is surrounded by rural establishments of advanced antiquity, it is repeatedly mentioned in various documents of surveys and demarcations since 1703, leading us to suppose that it already functioned as a ranch for cattle, cattle and horses since earlier times, despite which we have not heard about its owners until 1780.

 

Since ancient times, due to its strong lineage, it is considered one of the most important country estates due to its size and great magnificence. In 1853 it had an area of ​​eleven thousand hectares of land and more than two thousand head of cattle, not to mention horses, pigs, etc. Later, the hacienda was transformed into a henequen factory, having two teams for the industrialization of henequen, as well as its own mule transportation system that pulled unique platforms with which work continues even in our times. The scattered Mayan ruins formed by their pyramidal structures, distributed around Yaxcopoil, are vestiges inherited from the pre-Hispanic period.

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The majestic main house with spacious rooms, high ceilings, large windows and doors, is surrounded by colourful green gardens  and exuberant vegetation. The European atmosphere is still breathed thanks to the conservation of original furniture from that time. On the side façade, we can see a double Moorish arch that symbolizes the two thousand head of cattle that at some point came to populate the green pastures that surround the hacienda. In the main hall, two beautiful paintings can be seen: Don Donaciano García Rejón and his wife Mónica Galera, who in 1864 acquired the hacienda and from then on the property was passed from father to son until its current owners - the Cervera family - descendants of those. It shelters a colonial painting in which a Via Crucis scene, a wooden cross and the image of San Jerónimo de Yaxcopoil, Patron Saint of the hacienda, can be seen and his image is still venerated in the typical existing chapel in the main house with original paintings. from the colonial era.

 

One of the hacienda's beautiful rooms, the so-called Mayan Room, transports us even further into its history, as it contains many vessels and archaeological pieces found in the Mayan ruins of Yaxcopoil. The hacienda has a huge central plaza around which are the machine room, the shredder, the warehouses, the ray store, the school and the infirmary.

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Yaxcopoil's landowners imported from Germany the machinery with which they worked for decades throughout the industrialization process of henequen: cultivation, scraping and making strings. From the mechanical, blacksmith and carpentry workshops that operated at that time, the structure of the buildings and some tools survive. The sumptuous architecture is not only characteristic of the main house, as the workshops are dominated by a sober classical pediment escorted by four female sculptures that represent the seasons of the year. Reminiscences of the Mayan culture are exhibited in a separate room. The collection consists of pots, glasses and some stones with inscriptions and carved figures. All this invites us to live the time when hard-working and lively people built these outstanding constructions, emblems of a brilliant past that refuses to die.

 

Today, you can visit the Yaxcopoil Hacienda since it is offered as a historical museum. A  45-minute (36 K) drive from Merida