outlying communities under their control; one contained about 100 people and the others unknown numbers. An English visitor in 1858 thought the Maya had 1,500 fighting men in all. He noted that they took the Santa Cruz with them and that its priests were prominent in the society. The Ixcanha Maya community had a population of some 1,000 people, who refused the Cruzob's break with traditional Catholicism. In the years of stalemate, Ixcanha agreed to nominal recognition of the government of Mexico in exchange for some guns to defend themselves from Cruzob raids and the promise that the Mexican government would otherwise leave them alone. Mexico City gave Ixcanha autonomy to govern itself through 1894 (following a treaty with the United Kingdom that recognized Mexico's rule over the Yucatán), as it was more worried about the Chan Santa Cruz. Another important group were the Icaiche Maya, who dominated the jungles of the lower center of the peninsula. In the 1860s under their leader Marcus Canul, they battled against the Mexicans, the Cruzob, and the British from the nearby settlement of British Honduras. Marcus Canul and the Icaiche Maya routed a detachment of British troops on December 21, 1866, at the Battle of San Pedro Yalbac. In 1867 the British mounted a counter-offensive, equipped with newly-arrived Congreve rockets. This counter-offensive burned down the villages of San Pedro, Santa Teresa, San José, Naranjal, Cerro, Santa Cruz, and Chunbalche. The Maya briefly took Corozal Town in 1870 and their last major attack was on September 1, 1872, when Canul was mortally wounded at the Battle of Orange Walk. The new Icaiche leaders promised friendship with the British. They soon agreed with the Mexican central government similar to that of the Ixcanha. Years after, the Belize Estate and Produce Company (BEC) began a series of campaigns to forcibly remove Maya from the Yalbac area. Negotiations in 1883 led to a treaty signed on January 11, 1884, in Belize City by a Chan Santa Cruz general and the vice-Governor of Yucatán. It recognized Mexican sovereignty over Chan Santa Cruz in exchange for Mexican recognition of Chan Santa Cruz leader Crescencio Poot as Governor of the State of Chan Santa Cruz. The following year a coup d'état took place in Chan Santa Cruz, and the government declared the treaty cancelled. 20th century and the end of the war In 1893, the United Kingdom maintained good relations