Despite its ambiguity and malleability, ideology can become a strong motivational force, mobilizing both rational and emotional energy for a specific cause. Yucatecan politicians cultivated the deep-rooted fear of a mass Indian uprising to attract followers to fight against the Caste War rebels. In their desperate situation during the first years of the war, the latter found moral support in the Cult of the Speaking Cross.The Yucatecan and Mexican elites coincided in their interpretation of the Caste War as a racial or ethnic conflict, a struggle between civilization and barbarism. This official discourse tied in with established images of Indians as savages, created at the time of the conquest to legitimize colonialism.While the Caste War rebels did not have an elaborated political program, their major concerns emerged from the sources, the most prominent of which were reduction of taxes and religious fees, free access to land for cultivation and equal rights. In contrast to the interpretation of the war as a racial conflict that pervaded official Yucatecan discourse, rebel statements demanded equality for all groups and were generally phrased in economic and political terms.