Ethnic segregation was the core of the economic system. SomeMartinez (2023, Personal Communication) believe that this is an over-simplification of the situation as it pertains to San Cristobal de Las Casas and the surrounding Tsotsil communities, especially those in the Chamula region. Since colonial times and until recently the Los Altos indigenous population provided a steady flow of labor to other regions and to the non indigenous living within the region. San Cristobal was described as a "parasitic city that used its political, administrative, and religious powers to strip the Indians of the fruits of their labors." The city was key in establishing an exploitation system in the region which exploited long term ethnic divisions between local indigenous populations (mostly Tsotsiles and Tseltales) and the historically dominant hispanic groups in chiapas: the ladinos (who had historically lived in Los Altos and in particular San Cristobal since colonial times) and mestizos (Hispianics originating from other parts of Chiapas or from elsewhere in Mexico). While it is certainly no longer a situation that can easily be characterized as "exploitation", those changes are fairly recent. Brown, (1993) talks extensively about the inequalities faced by indigenous people, inequalities that (as of 1993) still persisted despite various attempts by the Mexican government to help the indigenous groups in the region integrate socially and economically with modern Mexican society.
