Chiapas Highlands

Economic activity in Los Altos is constrained by a high degree of marginalization. The region's total population is 601,190 distributed in 1,182 villages of which only two have more than 15,000 inhabitants. The vast majority of people live in communities with less than 2,500 inhabitants. In fact there are more than 900 communities with less than 500 inhabitants.[9] The largest population center is San Cristobal de las Casas with 158, 000 inhabitants. This city is the regional economic and political center of the region.[10] San Cristobal or 'Jovel' (in Tsotsil) was founded in 1528 as "Ciudad Real" by Spanish conquerors as the capital of the province and the headquarters of Hispanic control in the highlands. In colonial times the Chiapanecan region was a marginal territory due to its lack of precious metals and its long distance to the main commerce routes or the sea making it an unattractive region for Spanish conquers to settle in.[11] In Los Altos the social order was composed of extreme castes, the majority of the inhabitants were impoverished Indians while few Spanish concentrated the social and economic power.[11]

Ethnic segregation was the core of the economic system. Some[12] believe that this is an over-simplification of the situation as it pertains to San Cristobal de Las Casas and the surrounding Tsotsil communities, especially those in the Chamula region. Since colonial times and until recently the Los Altos indigenous population provided a steady flow of labor to other regions and to the non indigenous living within the region. San Cristobal was described as a "parasitic city that used its political, administrative, and religious powers to strip the Indians of the fruits of their labors."[11] The city was key in establishing an exploitation system in the region which exploited long term ethnic divisions between local indigenous populations (mostly Tsotsiles and Tseltales) and the historically dominant hispanic groups in chiapas: the ladinos (who had historically lived in Los Altos and in particular San Cristobal since colonial times) and mestizos (Hispianics originating from other parts of Chiapas or from elsewhere in Mexico). While it is certainly no longer a situation that can easily be characterized as "exploitation", those changes are fairly recent. Brown, (1993) talks extensively about the inequalities faced by indigenous people, inequalities that (as of 1993) still persisted despite various attempts by the Mexican government to help the indigenous groups in the region integrate socially and economically with modern Mexican society.

However, the 1995 Zapatista Rebellion marked a turning point in this regard as tensions that had simmered for decades finally boiled over, and members of the leftist armed resistance movement EZLN overran much of the area, seizing control of most of the Los Altos region including the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Remarkably, and for reasons which are as complex as everything else about the politics of Los Altos, it was a largely bloodless insurrection; within a week of the initial mobilization, a ceasefire was negotiated with the Mexican Army, a ceasefire which both sides continue to honor as of this edit, 2023. Many highland communities continue to publicly declare their support for the EZLN and operate with considerable autonomy in local matters, as agreed in 1995 and then reaffirmed over several more recent negotiations; federal forces operate military bases close to Zapatista strongholds in Los Altos (including one just a few miles outside of Altamirano, the de facto "capital' of the movement and home to several EZLN bases and military training facilities for armed Zapatista fighters).

However, law enforcement in the Zapatista areas is almost entirely the responsibility of local authorities; civil defense and law enforcement agencies such as Guardia Nacional and the Policia Estatal typically do not have a presence outside of major cities such as San Cristobal; this includes larger communities such as Altamirano where the support for Zapatista policies and seccessionist ideology is unwritten, or where the EZLN is not very popular due to people supporting different socialist-leaning groups or systems of local government based around ethnicity. These places will typically have a system of government that is much more decentralized than the rest of Mexico or modern republics such as the US; as do many other Tsotsil and Tseltal communities in the Los Altos region which are NOT known as being supporters of that rebellion. Typically, however, indigenous communities in Los Altos are far closer to true autonomy ("self government") than those in Canada and the US. They also compare favorably in this regard to most other parts of Mexico and other Latin American countries, with some notable exceptions.

As of 2023, if you travel along any of the common routes between San Cristobal, Altamirano, and Comitan / Las Margaritas, communities which officially support the movement announce this with large, colorful signage at the entrance or the offramp from the panamerican highway.

The legacy of this includes a remarkably local system of government; most of these places, and other communities which are not EZLN-affiliated but have adopted similar policies, are what a Westerner would call "hyperlocal". Each community will typically have its own legal code, which can vary significantly between towns that are often only a few miles apart; for example, some of these communities do not allow outsiders to enter, unless they have a specific reason to be there, while others actively court tourists and the majority are silent on the matter. Some places have banned alcohol and drugs (including marijuana), completely, with strict enforcement of these laws. Others, like the city of San Cristobal, has very little restriction on alcohol and has decriminalized all illegal drugs, for reasons that are not known for the policy remains unwritten - but even conservatives will tend to agree that there is an overall social benefit to doing so, in the current situation where the transnational drug cartels which move product north along the Panamerican highway have not taken over the city itself, and therefore it remains a much safer place for all residents than other places in Mexico that are situated along major smuggling routes. And despite the official guidance given to tourists about roadblocks and political instability in the Los Altos region, the reality is very different: the "roadblocks" between San Cristobal and Palenque are usually just tolls that are collected by communities when they need to fix the road. Even when the road is blocked for reasons of political protest, like the road to Comitan, it does not present any particular safety hazard to the foreigner - if your Spanish is good, they may even let you through, because you are obviously not part of whatever conflict is going on at the time, and there's no reason you should be inconvenienced.

Starting in the 1940s the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) run a program aimed at "integrating" the indigenous people to the modern world. The public policy was known as indigenismo. Acculturation took place through the training of promotores -indigenous instructors- that taught Spanish, hygiene and cultural norms to indigenous communities. Another important component of the program was to introduce much needed infrastructure like roads, schools health clinics and commerce to the communities since as pointed out by Lewis,[10] during the 1950s modern infrastructure was virtually non existent outside of San Cristobal. Despite many difficulties and the use of controversial approaches, the program created a rudimentary highway system in which some of the communities are connected by all weather roads while most have access through dirt roads that are unusable during the rainy season or no road at all.[8][3] As a consequence bringing products to the communities can be a difficult task.