The Tragic Story of Star-Crossed Lovers Forever Linked to the Yucatán

A Valentine's Day tale of fated love that enlists all the elements of Greek tragedy

Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Alma Reed

Two names forever linked to the Yucatán are Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Yucatán’s progressive governor, and San Francisco journalist Alma Reed. Their love affair fueled pages in newspapers on both sides of the border but the unlikely outcome of their very public romance enlisted all the elements of Greek tragedy.

Reed, a San Francisco native, became one of the city’s first women reporters. An advocate for the poor, she assisted a Mexican family in commuting their 17-year old son’s death sentence in 1921. The story was picked up by the Mexican press. Due to heightened publicity, Mexico President Alvero Obregon invited Reed to visit his country.

Enter Edward Thompson

As a stringer correspondent for The New York Times Reed was sent to interview Edward H. Thompson, lead archeologist excavating Chichen Itza. During the visit, Reed met Felipe Carrillo Puerto, governor of the State of Yucatán.

Carrillo had commissioned a road from Merida to Chichen Itza, opening the budding archeological site to tourists and scientists. To commemorate the event, he’d organized a welcome ceremony inviting North American journalists and archeologists.

At the site, Reed interviewed Thompson who’d traveled to Yucatán specifically to excavate Chichen Itza. Thompson took a liking to Reed and recklessly divulged he had dredged Chichen Itza’s sacred cenote and taken gold and jewelry from its sacrificial victims. Astonished by the enormity of Thompson’s admission, like the true-born paparraza she was, Reed asked Thompson to sign a confession. He did.

Uxmal and Carrillo

After Chichen Itza, the entourage left for Uxmal. During this leg of the journey Reed and Carrillo got acquainted. Reed was fascinated with the charismatic governor who had been called both a Bolshevik and a Marxist for his sweeping reforms.

In Reed’s interview, Carrillo explained Yucatán had been inhabited by a handful of powerful families dating to Merida’s founding in 1542. The wealthy landowners were basically slave masters and notorious for their cruel treatment of the Maya.

Revolutionary in the making

In 1910 Carrillo had fought alongside Emiliano Zapata, leading figure of the Mexican Revolution, in Central Mexico. From their association he took Zapata’s battle cry, Tierra y Liberdad, for his own. Back in Yucatán, he claimed part Maya, part Creole heritage and began his reforms by setting up feminist leagues that legalized birth control and the first family planning clinics in the western hemisphere. As governor, he seized uncultivated land from powerful hacendados and distributed it to the Maya, stating it was their birthright. He built schools. He reformed the prison system.

Felipe Carrillo Puerto in Yucatán.

It was no small wonder Reed named him the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico. As a liberal she agreed with his reforms; on a personal note, she was smitten. But as a divorceé and Catholic she tried to ignore feelings she was developing for the married father of four. She left for the U.S., vowing never to return, hoping to sever ties in what was becoming amor calido (romance of the steam).

The New York Times had other plans however, and sent her back to Mexico to cover the archeology scandal that had erupted due to Edward H. Thompson pillaging the sacred Chichen Itza cenote. Reed had a job to do.

On her second round in Mexico, neither Reed nor Carrillo could ignore their feelings. In the ultimate taboo, Carrillo divorced his wife to become engaged to Reed. He even had a romantic love song composed for her, La Peregrina (The Pilgrim).

The two idealists prepared for their wedding that would take place in San Francisco. Reed hastened back to the city to make arrangements before her permanent move to Mexico.

Send lawyers, guns and money

Shortly after Reed’s departure, however, another revolution seemed imminent. Fighting had broken out in the Yucatán where henequen planters and hacendados wanted to overthrow Carrillo. President Obregon’s right hand man, de la Huerta, was opposing him and because Carrillo backed Obregon, he was also at risk. Carrillo was forced to find guns to fight both the planters and de la Huerta’s forces. To make matters worse, he now had a $250,000 reward on his head.

To secure guns and ammo, Carrillo went to the Progreso coast at night with three brothers and six friends as guards. Just as they waded out to the launch they would sail to New Orleans where they’d acquire firearms, a Navy captain signaled to soldiers lying in wait on shore. The soldiers rowed out and captured Carrillo who told his small group not to fight but to go peacefully.

De la Huerta’s forces took them back to Merida, jailed them and planned an arraignment the next morning. Carrillo refused to make a plea. He was, after all, governor of the Yucatán and refused to recognize a kangaroo court. They condemned him Janurary 3, 1924, and took him to Merida Cemetery where he, his brothers and friends were lined up against the wall to await the firing squad. The first round of volleys was sent over their heads; the soldiers didn’t want to kill them, so fiercely loyal were the Yucatecans to Carrillo.

The commander ordered those soldiers to be shot, and over the dead bodies of the first soldiers, Carrillo, his brothers and friends were executed as they stood with their backs against the cemetery wall.

In San Francisco, Alma Reed had been alerted and knew trouble was at hand. She heard the news shortly after Carrillo died in the Yucatán, a martyr’s death, at 49.

She returned to Merida to see the spot where Carrillo fell. She stayed but briefly; on arriving back in the U.S., she was sent on assignment to Carthage to explore ancient ruins. She would never re-marry. Her reporting life eventually took her back to Mexico where she helped establish the artist José Clemente Orozco.

In time, Reed divulged one of her fears was that Obregon had a hand in Carrillo’s death. He had, after all, assassinated Emiliano Zapata after luring him to a truce along with Pancho Villa. Reed thought Carrillo’s radicalism may have aroused opposition from the Mexican president, but she could never prove it.

The pueblo Chan Santa Cruz, south of Tulum, changed its name to honor the Yucatán governor and is now known as Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Alma Reed died undergoing surgery in Mexico City, November, 1966. She was 77.

Merida Cemetery Monument to Felipe Carrillo Puerto at His Assassination Site. Photo Barbra Bishop.

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Antoinette May’s Passionate Pilgrim: The Extraordinary Life of Alma Reed, 1993, was used as a reference in this post.