Sisal

History

The Maya used this stretch of coast long before the Spanish. Sisal belonged to the province of the Ah Canul, and the Calkiní Codex records that a Maya priest kept four boats here for fishing and probably for trade along the Gulf. Fishing and salt-gathering villages on this shore were tied into the trade networks of Chichén Itzá.

The Spanish occupied the port in 1585 under Pedro de Ballesteros and called it Santa María de Zizal. Plans for the Fort of Santiago were drawn in 1596 by Juan Miguel Agüero, who also finished Mérida's cathedral, and the fort let Sisal survive the pirate raids that emptied other ports. Colonial law sent all trade through distant Campeche, so Mérida pushed for a closer harbor, and Sisal was officially declared a port in 1811. Cotton, dyewood, tobacco and above all henequen went out from here. A lighthouse was added in 1845.

Trade boomed after independence, and in 1865 Empress Carlota landed at Sisal on her visit to Yucatán. During the Caste War some families fled the peninsula through the port. Once the newer port of Progreso took over the henequen traffic, Sisal shrank to the fishing village it is today. It was named a Pueblo Mágico in 2020.