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Location Information:
Cozumel (Mayan: Island of the
Swallows) is an island in the
Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast
of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula,
opposite Playa del Carmen, and close
to the Yucatan Channel. Cozumel is
one of the nine municipalities (municipios)
of the state of Quintana Roo.
Cozumel is a tourist destination for
its balnearios, scuba diving, and
snorkeling. The main town on the
island is San Miguel de Cozumel.
The
Maya are believed to have first
settled Cozumel by the early part of
the 1st millennium AD, and older
Preclassic Olmec artifacts have been
found on the island as well. The
island was sacred to Ix Chel, the
Maya Moon Goddess, and the temples
here were a place of pilgrimage,
especially by women desiring
fertility. There are a number of
ruins on the island, most from the
Post-Classic period. The largest
Maya ruins on the island were
bulldozed to make way for an
airplane runway during World War II.
The ruins of San Gervasio are
located approximately at the center
of the island and are the largest
remaining ruins.
The
first Spanish visitor was Juan de
Grijalva in 1518 , and in the
following year Hernán Cortés came
with a fleet and destroyed many Maya
temples. Some 40,000 Mayans lived on
the island then, but the smallpox
disease devastated them, and by 1570
only 30 were left alive. In the
ensuing years Cozumel was nearly
deserted, just used as a hideout by
pirates from time to time. In 1848,
the Caste War of Yucatán resulted in
resettlement by refugees escaping
the tumult. A plaque at the Museo
Cozumel states that Abraham Lincoln
as the American President came close
to purchasing the island of Cozumel
as a place to send the freed slaves.
The continued war in the Yucatan
caused him to change his mind.
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