Risen Lands - Isla Bermeja,

Mexico

Bermeja Island (Spanish: Isla Bermeja, Mayan:

Teene' ki'ibok) is a low-lying atoll northwest of
the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico.
Being the largest non-coastal island in the Gulf of
Mexico, Bermeja has a long history of disputed
claims from various colonial powers throughout
its history, finally settling into the hands of
Mexico after the Border Treaty of 1970, although
it had been treated de facto part of Mexico since
1932. The island is host to a single settlement,
San Joaquin de Bermeja, and is politically part of
the State of Yucatán, though the majority of it is
encompassed by the Bermeja Biosphere Reserve.
Because of this, Bermeja Island is an exceedingly
popular tourist destination and is one of the most
popular destination for cruise ships in the Gulf of
Mexico, along with a storied history of drug
smuggling and political conspiracy which gives
the people of the island a strong sense of place,
although this in and of itself is sometimes a
problem for the way that people treat it like a
tourist attraction rather than a real place.

Isla Bermeja is unusual in that it was "invented"

before it was discovered. The first mention of the
island was by Alonso de Santa Cruz in El Yucatán
e Islas Adyacentes (The Yucatan and Adjacent
Islands) in 1539, who described the island as
"reddish in color", giving it its name. Although
this was almost certainly meant to be a "trap
island" to catch counterfeit mapmakers, in 1545
a group of Spanish sailors were wrecked on the
atoll at what is now Isla Desetora, at which point
the name "Bermeja" was retroactively given to
the assemblage even though it was roughly 134
km (83 mi) from the given location of Alonso's
Bermeja. Nonetheless the island quickly became
a haunt for pirates and smugglers, not least for
the fact that it sat almost directly in the path of
the main shipping lanes which traveled to the
main Mexican port at Veracruz. Such was the
strategic importance of the islands that in 1590
Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to claim the island
for England as a base to raid against Spanish
treasure ships, but this faltered quickly.

By the advent of the 1700s Bermeja had been

formally claimed by Spain, England, France, and
the Netherlands, who all saw an opportunity to
claim what was essentially uncolonized land in
the Gulf of Mexico, but no one had yet acted on
it. Then as now much of Bermeja was low-lying
sandbars and reefs covered in dense mangrove
forests and with a tendency to have large parts of
itself be swamped during storms, as its highest
point was a mere 6 m above sea level. The only
permanent inhabitants were pirates who
gathered primarily in Chica Bay along its
southern coast, many of whom were escaped
slaves and Maya who had taken to attacking
Spanish shipping. The island gained a reputation
as one of the "pirate capitals" of the Caribbean,
although not to the same extent as places like
Port Royal, Tortuga, or New Providence.
Regardless, the "Bermeja Free State" was such a
problem for Spain that in 1722 they embarked on
the "Siege of Bermeja", leading a thirty day
blockade of the island that only ended when the
pirates agreed to parlay with the Spanish
authorities.

After this, the island was again abandoned, only

inhabited by the occasional castaway or
smuggler. In 1761, Jacinto Canek attempted a
revolt of the Maya that ultimately failed but led to
a number of his followers fleeing to Bermeja,
which they dubbed Teene' ki'ibok (a Maya
translation of the Spanish name), and attempted
to rebuild support with other Maya who fled to
the island in an attempt to prepare for a new
revolt against the Spanish, but after a major
storm three years later the revolt was quietly
canceled and the survivors returned to the
mainland. The island continued to be a source of
refuge for Mayan rebels in the long-restless
Yucatán even after the Mexican War of
Independence, and especially when the Caste
War broke out as Yucatán attempted to declare
its secession from Mexico. Formally, Bermeja was
rejoined to Mexico when Yucatán was in 1848,
but by then the fallout of the Mexican-American
War had complicated matters yet again.

In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United

States had offered to purchase Bermeja
alongside the rest of what became the Mexican
Cession, but the Mexican diplomats refused.
Exactly how the matter was confused varies from
telling to telling, with some saying that Miguel de
Atristain crossed out the mention of Bermeja on
the Mexican copy, while others say that Nicholas
Trist had provided a Spanish copy excluding
Bermeja while the English copy included it. Either
way, from 1848 the United States exercised a
formal claim to Bermeja despite Mexico also
claiming it, but in practice the United States
simply "deferred" the matter and acted as if
Mexico's claim was still some unresolved border
issue that would be handled at a later date. As an
example of this, in 1861 President Lincoln offered
to buy Bermeja from Mexico to settle freed
slaves, but the matter was rejected by President
Juárez. Legal experts point to this as an example
of the US recognizing Mexico's ownership of the
island despite the claim, but in the end since no
one lived there it was a moot point.

In fact settlement of Bermeja only began in 1925

after the end of the Mexican Revolution. Under
direction from Álvaro Obregón and his successor
Plutarco Elías Calles an effort to fully settle and
colonize Bermeja was undertaken as a means of
asserting Mexico's territorial waters in the Gulf of
Mexico, something that was a matter of
increasing concern between the United States
and Mexico. The settlers, numbering 78 mostly
Mayan men and women from nearby Chicxulub
Puerto, arrived on 26 July 1924 and named their
settlement San Joaquin de Bermeja, in honor of
that being the feast day of Saint Joachim. Plans
were also made to establish new settlements at
other parts of the island, but ultimately San
Joaquin remained the only full settlement of the
island and began to develop as a center of
fishing, while also garnering a burgeoning tourist
industry. By then the island was already famous
as a past haunt for smugglers and pirates, and in
1927 a Mexican team of engineers attempting to
clear mangroves near what's now the Tweed
Lagoons uncovered a chest full of 17th Century
silver coins.

Some legal experts in the United States raised

the issue of the U.S.'s dormant claim to Bermeja
not long afterward, and in 1929 President Hoover
offered again to purchase the island and grant
U.S. citizenship to the islanders, who by now
numbered 143. Some progress was made on
negotiations, but the Crash 0f '29 scuttled the
matter and again left the issue dormant
throughout much of the remainder of the mid
20th Century. In this time the town developed as
a fully self-sustaining settlement and was
separated from Progreso Municipality in 1947,
and had grown to 500 people by 1950. The
tourist boom of the 1950s further increased the
population and drove further growth, with the
island's untamed wilderness and local culture
proving a major draw that made Bermeja and San
Joaquin de Bermeja popular destinations for
anyone traveling to Yucatán. It should be noted,
though, that the issue of who claimed what was
still technically on the table, and this reached its
final chapter in 1973.

By then the island had become a haunt of drug

smugglers, with many Bermejans joking that a
rite of passage was finding lost or abandoned
bags of cocaine floating in the mangrove
swamps. The United States naturally wanted to
crack down on the matter, which in many cases
required cooperating with Mexican authorities,
but Bermeja in particular became a problem
when a high school geography professor from
Los Angeles put forward the argument that the
United States was the legal owner of Bermeja
and could intervene militarily to deal with the
drug smugglers. The argument gained traction
and may have had some legal grounds, but in the
aftermath of Nixon's resignation President Ford
was not in a mood to raise a territorial dispute
with Mexico. Instead, the Boundary Treaty of
1970 was cited and Bermeja was formally
"ceded" to Mexico. This did, though, lead to the
unusual incident of a man attempting to claim
U.S. birthright citizenship on these shaky
grounds, and although his case was rejected his
deportation was overturned.

With the matter formally ended Bermeja was

solidly in Mexican hands, and through the 1980s
and 1990s drug smuggling declined as new
routes were developed and Yucatán settled into
becoming one of the more stable and peaceful
states in Mexico in an age troubled by cartels.
Being one of the most popular tourist
destinations in the region, Bermeja has been on
the cutting edge of the ecotourist industry as the
Mexican government has placed most of the atoll
into a Biosphere Reserve that remains the
island's primary tourist draw, with mangrove
forests, lagoons, and submerged reefs that are
host to a number of colorful flora and fauna.
Tragically, though, this is under threat. Ever-more
powerful storms and rising sea levels pose an
existential threat to Bermeja, which may likely be
wholly flooded before 2100 and is already
suffering losses of biodiversity through coral
bleaching and overfishing. The Mexican
government has made efforts to reverse this, but
in such a troubled age as the 21st Century
whatever efficacy this can have remains to be
seen.