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To the memory of the Maya people whose lives were transformed

or cut short by these events, and

to their living descendants

INTRODUCTION

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On March 13, I697, ' Sp~t1is~trOO~~fromYtl- : ;',¢,atanattacked and occupied N6jpeten, the small jslartdciapitalofth(! ')ylaya people known as Itzas, the last unconquered nativ:e . New . World ~~l~gdom. The capture of this small island in the tropical forests of north- i~~rn Gu~temala, densely covered with whitewashed temples, royal palaces, . ~:arid thatched houses, turned out' t~ be the decisive mome.nt in the final ·' :; ~naptet of Spain's conquest of the Mayas. ClimaxiJ.).g more than two years ' '{df intensive preparations and failed negotiations, the moment only inaug- ';~tated several more years of struggle between Spaniards and Mayas for ;:'~oritrol over the vast tropical forests of what is now the central area of the ··. l)epartment of Peten, Guatemala (map I). . \;.~ The Itzas had dominated much of the lowland tropical forests around ~;i:ag9 Peten Itza sin~e at least the mid-fifteenth century, when their ances: ;;tbtS.,it was said, migrated therefrom Chich'en Itza in northern Yucatan; <~;rheir immediate neighbors, known as the Kowojs, were said to have ; mignlted from Mayapan to Peten at the time of the SpanIsh conquest of Yucatan, probably during the 1530S. The remoteness of these groups and

, the physical inhospitality of the land had undoubtedly contributed to ,·Spain's failure to pursue their conquest during the century and a half :Jollowing the relatively late final conquest of Yucatan in 1544. No less •• significant had been the Spaniards' fear of the Itzas, whose reputation as . !.fierce warriors who sacrificed their enemies gave pause to military ,con- '; q~erors and missionaries alike. " ;. In this book I examine with it critical eye the events that preceded and '.followed the 1697 conquest of the Itzacapital of Nojpeten and surround- ,jng regions, focusing on the short time between 169 5 and 1704. During :those years the Spanish Basque military man Martin de :Ursuay Ariz- :mendi, commanding an army of Yucatecan soldiers, planned and exe- ,c:uted the attack on the Itza capital. ~o.tJ.: d resistance from

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The Maya lowlands of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: '

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t~s ds of native inhabitan32?an~.t:~~_~~n!;!!lVoI.£~v.Q..--mn'Ve i~!nis.§i9.n. to~JP I704tfiese mission inhabitants staged an abortive [email protected] that threatene~ecapture Nojpeten from its conquerors. Be- ~ ,

cause these, events were deeply complex, this account includes details that enable us to grasp some of the layers of political intrigue and action that characterized every aspect of the conquest of the Itzas and its aftermath. t'.The Spaniards left documentation on the conquest that is staggering in its 'quantity and challenging to the scholar who tries to make sense of it. My goal in studying this documentation has been to understand these 'eVents as a series of unfolding interactions between conquerors and con- quered. The major challenge has been to understand theItzas as indepen- Aent actors who faced would-be Spanish conquerors with strategies of self-preservation developed over nearly two centuries of European domi- 'nation of thdands surrounding Itza territory. Far from being naive about ,Spanish methods of conquest and colonization, the Itzas demon.stta.t.e.9

'~awareness and understanding of their enem . At the same time they acted ~ntext otarii'ncient arulllIgfi y traditional culture, purposefully re-

,:~airiing political, military, religious, and social institutions that had served ~~hem . well even before the sixteenth-century conquests that isolated them iii a sea of Spanish colonies. ~~:'ILthis Ibn~mi1iari~I}"£' indirect contact with.EJJIQ12ean~_ID.is 'pne of th..c:. . .!!lC!1ZleatuEes ~i~guis~~g 5.he con u~.§.Lof th~~a_~~ r ,~:E!h-c~nt~EY .Spanisli conquests of the_ Aztecs,.Mayas,~Inca.s, J!na p ther complex New World societies. In contrast, the S ..e.n.iar.d.JLh. onlY.Jl ~e,bleun~.er~.tal!.diE.K£~ tp.e Itzas=and.their~immecl-i·a-te·H~ighb.m:~jn P~.n. :.;rhey held stereotypical images <:E~~-~ bLutal., .barhatic-, 1l:!12_~p~r­ ;,.Wtious ~ple...whose conques'fwas an inevitable and necessary part of the l~i¥ilizing mission of church and state. These images portrayed~at :;w~rk in the jungles, protecting the lasLuncon9...~a.yas-­ ~m the liberation of the gp..5p.eLand.the-enlight ened.adrninistration of the '}$'~~is~n. : " , ;~e late seventeenth century, conquests of this scale were a thing of [l*li~past. !lnfa zed-bYJh.e..a...naWonism, Ursua a descendant of sixteenth- ;1gentury military c:.0n~~~2£§., s~t abouLto,£ast hims,df in the image of his 1~l'istocrati.si.~~. Despite criticism from his more "modern" enemies ii¥:i:he colonial administration, he designed a program to subjugate the Itza ~~ihgdoin, first b a brief effort to em loy peaceful strategies of di lomacy )~I!.i. . --'....::'--"-'==:~~=;-=-=::c~£~;.::.:=;::;.;~~:::::....:~:::!.t:7=~ ~~d then~ e these failed .~y a costly an am_bitious project that reo, !is:Qrted to force of arms_and"V:IQlence.-. , ~" \"n ,,-'-- It}?The conquest of the Itzas became Ursua's obsession, not only because

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he hoped to enrich ,himself by collecting tribute fro~ the conquered, a goal

~ but also because ~e ?eili~i:me a~pro~w'.iliiIf ~ cgl£nial administrative system. His success ana notoriety in Spanish --circles earned him titles of nobility and, after the conquest, an C!.12p.oint- ~

ment as governor of the Philipp~. The price paid for his achievements, however, was high j both in monetary terms and in loss of human lives. No viable colony emerged from the conquest, and epidemics soon devastated the native population, leaving little for Spaniards to administer. Ursua quickly abandoned the project, and Peten was left under the care of mili- tary administrators and a handful of missionaries . The conquest of the Itzas was, in retrospect, one of the more poignant tragedies in Latin Amer- ican history.

This book offers the first detailed account of these events since the publication of Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor's massive Historia de ~ia de elltza in l70!,1 Villagutierr~r, prolific writer on Spanish-American colonial history, and official relator (chrorticler) of the Council of the Indies in Madrid, never visited.tbe Amer~

J&a.s. Although his book has been widely cited by recent scholars, who have had few other sources to rely on, its contents are often biased andunieli- able. Apparently his book was commissioned by the Council of the Indies in order to support Ursua, whose reputation was under attack by critics who regarded the conquest as a colossal error in judgment, an inhumane . application of colonial power, and a waste of scarce colonial funds.

The council made available to Villagutierre all of the documentation it ' had received on the conquest of the Itzas from Mexico, Yucatan, and Gua- . temala. He read and utilized this huge quantity of material thoroughly .. Because he almost never cited his sourcesJ however, it is impossible to sep- arate his ~faithful paraphrasing of original letters and other docu- ' ments from his equally common lengthy personal editorial comments. He often ini t anscribed the names of key personages and Qlac~, making it : difficult for modern readers to ma kecntfCa l connecr i; n;-;-mong peop~e, i locations, and events. 2 •.

As readers of the endnotes and bibliography in this book will discovet, t numerous other primary and secondary sources provide valuable infor- ·. mation on many pieces of the puzzle of this conquest. Until now, however, )

XXII it has been impossible to connect these pieces satisfactorily, primarily ; because the massive documentation that Villagutierre consulted· hadnoi: ;t been intensively restudied from a contemporary perspective. It is this doc~ \ umentation that forms the backbone of this book, although I have tried to :;)

. ····1 consult as many other sources as I could locate. .);

Introduction

.' ' My research for this book began in earnest in 1982-83 with a search for the extant documentation on the conquest of the Itzas and related events in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain. Assisted by the results of Nicholas Hellmuth's previous search for such materials,3 I found virtually all of the documents used by Villagutierre. During the summer of

. I9 88 I found a small number of additional materials in the Archivo Gen- eral de Centro America in Guatemala City, and during I9 88 - 89 I com- pleted the transcription and computer indexing of microfilmed and photo- copied relevant manuscripts . Since then I have identified other sources as well, including sources containing ethnohistorical evidence for Itza social ~hd political organization, which I studied intensively during 1995-9 6. .•.. .•• I do not pretend to present here a full ethnohistorical reconstruction of

:: the culture and social life of the Itzas and their immediate Peten neighbors. . any case, much of the information we now have about topics such as

trade, and material culture must be considered in lightof new ar- logical studies being carried out in central Peten by Proyecto Maya

onial, co-directed by Don S. Rice, Prudence M. Rice, R6mulo Sanchez . ; and myself. Although readers will find much ethnographic detail

'.' . only chapter 3 is devoted entirely to an ethnographic issue - the all- '. nt question of the social and political organization of the Itza

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One of this book provides ethnographic and historical back- to the conque~t of the Itzas. The first chapter gives an overview of

principal Yucatec-speaking groups that occupied Peten at the iiE~n:e:;()t the l697 conquest. Chapter 2 summarizes the history of Spanish

. cts with the Itzas and their neigh bors, beginning with the journey led '. Cortes across Peten in. I 5 25, during which he met with the dy-

'. Ttia ruler, Ajaw Kan Ek', and traveled south across Itza-controlled .. ' to the Gulf of Honduras. On that journey Cortes left a lasting . I of his contact - a horse, which later died and which the Itzas

transformed into an object of veneration. 3 describes what can be reconstructed of Itza Maya social

. organization, suggesting that the Itzas possessed a complex

.· s.ystem that stressed both maternal and paternal links and the . . of marriage ties between lineages. While patrilineal descent

.the most important organizing principle, a limited form of mat- may have constituted the critical marker of the nobility's

The ruling Kan matrilineage controlled, at least symbolically, ance of the capital and four territorial quarters that were also

the four quarters of the capital. Patrilineal affiliation seems

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Introduction

to have been called upon primarily to seal alliances between high-ranking noble groups. Intermatrilineage alliance - with the Kans controlling the top levels of governance and other lineages occupying second-level posi- tions -, created a system dominated by a single elite group that allowed others to share rule at lower levels.

Chapter 3 also proposes that military chieftains from outlying towns and regions represented their towns on the Itza ruling council. They may have doubled as the principal priests charged with the rituals concerned with calendrical prophecies for twenty-year periods known as k 'atuns. The incorporation of such nonroyal elites in the organization of the king- dom might be one way the Itzas succeeded in mounting such an effective military resistance to Spanish intrusions on their territorial edges for so many years.

Part Two considers the political, religious, and economic elements in- volved in decisions to construct a new road - a camino real- connecting Guatemala and Yucatan, as well as the road's initial impact on the native populations through whose lands it was routed. Chapter 4 presents the Spanish political background of the 1697 conquest: the elite Basque an- cestry of Martin de Ursua, his political connections to the Royal Council of the Indies in Spain, and his plans, in cooperation with the Guatemalan colonial hierarchy, for constructing the road from Yucatan that would reduce the threat of coastal piracy that had long plagued the coastal trade and mail routes. As interim governor of Yucatan, Ursua began work on the camino real in 1695. The Council of the Indies specifically ordered that the task not disrupt militarily the lives of natives who might be en.;. countered along its route . .

Chapter 5 recounts the failed first attempt by Spanish troops from Yucatan to open the new road, first through the territory of Kejach Mayas (see map 2) whose hostility discouraged them from proceeding further. Meanwhile, Guatemalan troops, coordinating their efforts with those of the Yucatecans, managed to occupy the Chol-speaking "Lacandon" tQwn .' of Sakb'ajlan in 1695. Subsequent actions by Guatemalans and Yucate- :', cans soon revealed, however, that they both hoped to conquer the Itzasi'; who lived far from the proposed road. A Guatemalan captain, accom/ '1 panied by Dominican missionaries, encountered Itzas near Lago Peten;,t Itza, but he and his officers abandoned any immediate thoughts of attack.;-i:~ ing Nojpeten when they realized the dangers and the magnitude of the'~ task. With a dramatic race toward the Itzas already under way, the Yuca", :j¥ .. , tecans soon rerouted the camino real directly toward Lago Peten Itza. 1 );~

Chapter 6 records the effects of Governor Ursua's decision to send;::f~

Introduction

Franciscan evangelists to accompany the troops and Maya workers from Nutatan as they opened the camino real southward through Kejach Maya .territory toward Nojpeten, the Itza capital. These missionaries; excited by prophetic reports that the Itzas were about to submit peacefully, competed :among themselves to reach them first. Working with captured Kejach "Mayas along the road, they also documented the horrors implemented by 'Ursua's military captain, who sent many of his captives to work as la- borers in his economic enterprises in Campeche. 5

. '.!-<': In r695 Spaniards in Yucatan received notice that the Itza ruler, Ajaw ' Kiln Ek', citing Itza prophecies, was willing to consider terms for surren-

,: dering his people to Spanish rule and Christian conversion. Reports of , '~: ,Maya prophecies that predicted the coming of a new age in which the Itzas .. . succumb to Christ and the Spanish king began to circulate in ear-

in Spanish circles. They were reinforced by the arrival AjChan, son of Itza ruler's sister, as his uncle's ambassador in Merida at the end of the

These events represented a brief effort by parties on both sides to a peaceful solution to the Itza "problem," the subject of Part Three.

7 details these events and the complex circumstances leading up royal nephew's declaration of his uncle's desire to join the Spanish and the decision by Ursua to demand the ruler's immediate sur-

on Spanish terms.

.'. . AjChan was committing the Itzas to Spain in Merida, the Fran- . n friar Andres de Avendano was traveling to Nojpeten, aware of the . er's decision to send his nephew as his emissary. Chapter 8 analyzes

""u.",,,·uv detailed account of his journey and visit to Nojpeten, his es in reinforcing the ruler's previous decision to surrender, and his in discovering that most Itzas regarded Ajaw Kan Ek' as a traitor

, '. own people. Avendano, a party to this treason, hastily slipped out of •. ' . with his companions and nearly died trying to find his way back

. -held territory. It soon became clear in both Yucatan and Guate- Spanish optimism for the peaceful surrender of the Itzas was and misinformed.

failure of peaceful initiatives led to a series of violent between Itzas and Spaniards. Ursua became convinced that the was military conquest, Part Four records the Spanish transi-

a mood of elation at the Itzas' imminent surrender to a fierce de- to meet the enemy in battle. In chapter 9 we learn that follow-

expulsion from Nojpeten, the Itzas attacked, captured, Iy murdered Yucatecan and Guatemalan soldiers and mis-

rushing separately to Lago Peten Itza . Ursua, infuriated, was

XXI

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Introduction

now determined to strike a military blow at the Itzas, whom he considered to be renegade subjects of the Spanish empire. Chapter 10 describes the costs of the massive preparations that Ursua engineered during the second half of 1696 and the first weeks of 1697 - political conflicts, financial debts, and sufferings imposed on the Mayas of Yucatan, His aims, which he pursued against great opposition in Merida, were not only to complete the camino real to Itza territory but also to move troops and heavy artillery to the lakeshore for a large-scale attack on Nojpeten, the island capital.

Ursua, surmounting opposition to his project in colonial circles,had achieved nearly all of his goals by the end of February 1697, when he arrived at the western port of Lago Peten Itza. There he commanded a large number of troops, Maya carriers, and boat builders who completed and launched a sizable oar-driven galeota(galliot) for use in the attack on Nojpeten. The twelve days between his arrival and the attack on March 13 are the subject of chapter II. This was an intense period during which Ursua received several important Itza visitors, some of whom may have wished to find a way to avoid bloodshed. The failure of Ajaw Kan Ek', who had either lost control over his enemies or was in hiding, to accept Ursua's invitation to participate in discussions incensed the commander. Ursua and his officers decided in a vividly recorded meeting that the Itzas would be punished for their failure to live up to the agreement reached with AjChan in Merida over a year earlier.

Part Five documents the Spanish capture of the Itza capital and ex- plores its tragic consequences. The Spanish occupation of Nojpeten on March 13, detailed in chapter I2, was brief and bloody, causing massive loss of life among the capital's defenders. The attackers raised the Span- ish flag over a nearly deserted island and immediately destroyed every "pagan" object they could find . They soon managed to capture and inter- rogate the ruler and other high-ranking Itzas. Finding themselves isolated , however, on their heavily fortified island presidio, the Spaniards now faced starvation and a sea of enemies. These conditions form the subject of chapter 13, which details the interrogation of the Itza high priest and the execution of the ruler of the Kowojs, the robbing of food from ltza cultiva- tions by Spanish soldiers, the abandonment of many surroundingtowns by their inha bitants, and the failure of the first resident missionaries to win

XXVI converts in the region. By the end of 1698 the "conquest" appeared to be on the. verge of

collapse. Morale reached a low ebb among the fifty soldiers stationed at the island presidio, long since abandoned to their own devices by Ursua. Chapter 14 focuses on a belated and tragic rescue mission, organized in

Introduction

Guatemala and designed to shore up this dismal situation. Ursua returned from Campeche to exercise joint command over the new military rein- forcements with the aging Guatemalan general Melchor de Mencos y Medrano. From March through May I699, when the surviving reinforce-

. ments abandoned the project, conditions went from bad to worse. The Guatemalans had brought with them a devastating epidemic, probably in- fluenza, that killed many soldiers and a large percentage of the Guate- malan families who had been brought to settle at the presidio. The epi- demic also ravaged the native population, already beleaguered by Spanish depredations of their food supplies. When the Guatemalans retreated, they took with them, in shackles, Ajaw Kan Ek', his son, and two of his cousins, one of whom was the high priest. The priest and the other cousin . both died on the long journey to Santiago de Guatemala (now Antigua Guatemala). The ruler and his son spent the rest of their lives in the capital under house arrest. With the Itza kingship in a state of collapse, bloody

:;wars broke out among Maya groups, reducing their numbers even further. News of new native rulers living deep in the forest intimated that the ;conquest was not over yet. U> Somehow, despite epidemics, constant food shortages, and threats of :pative rebellions, the Spanish presidio survived. In the final chapter we : . that during 1702 and 1703, secular clergy from Yucatan finally suc- ., ...... '" ... , .... in establishing several mission towns among the surviving Itzas

' . Kowojs. In I704, however, a well-planned rebellion by the mission .. ' . . ers broke out. The rebels ' aims, which they initiated successfully, were

.' murder the Spanish troops and recapture Nojpeten. The rebellion ulti- .. y failed, and the Spaniards stepped up efforts to concentrate the

. . in fewer, more compact towns. Despite military forays to cap- runaways and unconverted people to place in these towns, smallpox

cs quickly reduced the native population even further; by the mid- century only a small fraction of Peten Mayas had survived.

. . to the Itza kingship had established refugee followings in isolated ' . . of the forest. One of these, AjChan, the former ruler's nephew, held

". an independent ruler in southern Belize for some years. Yet he, too, y reached the end of his long life in a mission town, symbol of

irrevocability of a conquest by firepower and attrition.