Planters as Collectors: The Role of Plantation Owners in Collecting, Interpreting, and Circulating Mayan Material Culture in Guatemala during the 19th Century

After independence, many Latin American states attempted to control and protect the pre-Columbian material heritage on their territory through institutional and legal means. These usually included the creation of national museums and export restrictions. However, non-state actors were equally crucial in collecting artifacts and determining their meaning and circulation. In Guatemala, it was a transnational network of plantation owners, rather than the state, that became increasingly interested in Maya material culture from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.

These ‘planters-cum-collectors’ undertook expeditions to archaeological sites and collected artifacts from neighboring indigenous communities. Thereby they relied heavily on networks of local government officials, porters and guides. They then stored, prepared, displayed and interpreted these collected objects on their plantations; exchanged them with other planters; and sometimes sold them. Further, by reading and exchanging a growing number of magazines and books devoted to the pre-Columbian past and the interpretation of its artifacts, they not only became part of a global scientific community, but also shared a certain meaning of this material culture. Ultimately, because these ‘planters-cum-collectors’ agreed that neither the Guatemalan state nor the indigenous communities were capable of caring for, preserving and interpreting this material culture, they transferred most of these objects to collections in European and American museums.

While most of the recent historiography has focused on state institutions and large, often publicly funded scientific expeditions, it has largely ignored actors like the aforementioned ‘planters-cum-collectors’ operating outside state-directed institutions. Yet, in nineteenth century Guatemala it was precisely these non-state actors who significantly shaped not only the meaning of Mayan material heritage, but also the way in which the circulation of these artifacts was legally regulated and how they were institutionally embedded.