In 1839 the explorer John Lloyd Stephens was named special ambassador in Central America by the American president Martin van Buren with the commission to register in detail the forms of life, customs and history of Central America and the South of Mexico.
Together with illustrator Frederick Catherwood, Stephens toured the region from 1839 to 1841 spanning more than 3,000 miles on its journey. The result of this trip is the publication between 1837 and 1843 of the adventures of both in four books: Travel Incidents in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, leaving chronicles rich in details of society, the political moment he witnessed and, especially, A valuable documentation of archaeological sites from Mexico to Honduras. It is widely recommended to read that despite the almost 200 years since it was written, it has not lost its charm.
In 1895 the American vice-consul in the area, Edward H. Thompson (1856-1935) who had read the books of Stephens and was also an amateur archaeologist, was very interested in the area where Chichen Itzá was settled. Stephens had widely documented his passage through the city and the importance it had in ancient times. It should be remembered that when Stephens entered Chichen, it was nothing more than a pile of stones and just a few remains of some pyramids wrapped in the jungle as Catherwood's drawings attest. In any case the consul was extremely interested in the place, especially in the sacred cenote since Stephens had described that it was a place of Mayan pilgrimage and was used for ceremonial sacrifices and religious offerings, reason why it decided to buy the henequen plantation that Included the archaeological site of Chichen for the fabulous amount of $ 75!
The consul Thompson rebuilt the hacienda that during the Caste War had been destroyed and installed there and with the book of Stephens in hand he explored the region supported by the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology of Harvard University, concentrated In Loltún and in the grave of the Great Priest in Chichén Itzá, by the promise that all the objects found were to be given to the Columbian Exposition, this treasure was later transferred to the Field Museum of Chicago.
Continued its explorations in Labná and Uxmal, which apparently aroused many protests. Regardless of the opinions of others, and because the 1890s had begun with a great fever of foreign interest in Mayan antiquities, Thompson did not want to lose any time and decided to dredge the Sacred Cenote in two batches: one from 1904 to 1907 and another From 1910 to 1911 finding hundreds of pieces of gold and jade, which, of course, he took out of the country, which can be seen today at the Peabody Museum.
The success of this adventure is evident in the illegal departure of around 30,000 archaeological pieces of various materials, without being detected during three decades, thanks to the complacency of President Porfirio Diaz, Governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto and other smaller officials . In 1926 the government of President Plutarco Elias Calles filed civil and criminal charges against the American, but years later the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Thompson's heirs, since he had died in 1935, leaving unpunished an attack on cultural heritage from Mexico.
In the 30's while the litigation for the possession of Thompson lands was settled in the Mexican courts, he decided to sell them to one of the richest men in Yucatan called Fernando Barbachano Peón, who acquired the properties of the American and began to build Hotels (Hacienda Chichen Resort and Mayaland) within Chichen, these being the only ones in the world that are within an archaeological area.
Today the Barbachano own the land where Chichen Itzá is located but they do not own the archaeological remains that are under the legal figure of the lending.
Due to this particular situation, when visiting Chichen Itza during the day, visitors will find besides the ruins with an immense army of street vendors installed in their positions within the archaeological zone. Without a doubt, a true tianguis.
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