Yaxché Casares

Yaxché Casares is a subcomisaría of Mérida municipality about 17 km east of the city centre, in the countryside beyond the eastern edge of the city. Its name combines the Maya word yaxché, the ceiba tree (Ceiba pentandra), with the Spanish surname Casares. Nearby are other old hacienda settlements of the municipality, such as San Juan Dzonot, under a kilometre away, and Santa María Chi, about 2 km away.

The village grew around a henequen hacienda. Haciendas came late to Yucatán compared with the rest of Mexico, because of thin soils and the lack of water for irrigation, and the area around Mérida was among the first where they spread, first for maize and later, after the mid-19th-century Caste War, for henequen on a large scale. After the agrarian reform decreed by President Lázaro Cárdenas in 1937, the land of Yaxché Casares became an ejido, held in common by its workers, while the main hacienda buildings stayed private.

It is a very small place: 41 people were counted in 1900, none in 1980, and 123 at the 2020 census. What there is to see is compact: the hacienda buildings, a small tree-shaded park and the comisaría building next to it. There are no visitor services, so Yaxché Casares is a brief stop for anyone exploring the hacienda country east of Mérida.