The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom 9780804779326

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THE CONQUEST OF THE LAST MAYA KINGDOM

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 1998 by the Board of Trustees ofthe Leland Stanford Junior University

CIP

data appear at the end of the book

To the memory of the Maya people whose lives were transformed or cut short by these events, and to their living descendants

Acknowledgments

The board of managers and staff of the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, provided a stimulating working environment during a fellowship year and two following summers that I spent there writing portions of this book. I wish to thank in particular Douglas W. Schwartz, Cecile Stein, and Jonathan Haas for their efforts in making life at SAR so pleasant and productive. Charles A. Hofling, the principal authority on the contemporary ltzaj Maya language, spent many hours generously assisting me in questions of orthography and how best to represent and interpret colonial-period ltza place names, personal names, titles, and other terms. My appreciation for his critical acumen and skepticism cannot be overstated, although I recognize that he may well discover that some of my interpretations fall short of his own high standards. I also thank his colleague Fernando Tesucun for assistance in identifying contemporary Itzaj place names. I thank the administration of Davidson College, especially Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Robert C. Williams, for financial assistance and personal support for background research and the actual preparation of this manuscript. Mayanist and Davidson colleague William M. Ringle read major portions of the manuscript of this book and offered valuable criticism. Mary Gilreath, now a Davidson College graduate, as a student research assistant provided extensive and expert assistance in the preparation of the manuscript. Daniel Ruggiero, also now a Davidson College graduate, helped analyze eighteenth-century church records from San Luis, Peten, Guatemala. Charles Houck, a Davidson College graduate and currently a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Tulane University, composed the maps in this book. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided major support for the research and writing of this book by means of a resident fellowship at the School of American Research, a sabbatical fellowship for college

VII

Acknowledgments

vm

teachers and independent scholars while in residence at Davidson College, and a summer research fellowship for work at the Archivo General de Centro America in Guatemala City. My earlier work at the Archivo General de Indias was supported by a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and assistance from Hamilton College. Without the assistance of the administrations and staff members of these archives, none of this research would have been possible. The National Science Foundation has generously supported the continuing archaeological and ethnohistorical research of Proyecto Maya Colonial. Numerous other individuals contributed ideas, read portions of the manuscript, and commented on presentations concerning its progress. Although I cannot possibly recognize separately all of these generous persons, none of whom bears any responsibility for what is written here, I wish especially to thank Anthony P. Andrews, Nancy M. Farriss, Lawrence Feldman, Elizabeth Graham, Richard M. Leventhal, Jorge Lujan Munoz, David M. Pendergast, R6mulo Sanchez Polo, Norman Schwartz, George Stuart, and Rosemary Levy Zumwalt. For his insights in questioning the authenticity of certain manuscripts concerning these events, especially the Canek Manuscript, I recognize the special contribution of Hanns Prem. For the expertise and critical eye that Temis Vayinger-Scheer brought to her reading of the final manuscript, I am most grateful. In particular I wish to express appreciation for the intense and productive assistance of DonS. Rice and Prudence M. Rice in the interpretation of archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence for the Itzas and their Peten neighbors. To the reviewers of the manuscript, including George Lovell, I owe special thanks for offering helpful suggestions for revision. I owe a major debt of gratitude to Jane Kepp, whose editorial skills and analytical grasp of such a complex topic improved this book immeasurably. Without her insights and high standards for consistency and clarity this would have been a far less satisfactory work. My wife, Mary Armistead Jones, has tolerated long periods of concentrated work that have all too frequently interfered with normal life. She has also served as a tireless and critical editor of earlier drafts of the manuscript, and I cannot express the depth of my appreciation for her assistance and affection throughout the years of work that have resulted in this final product.

Contents

Maps and Tables xi Spelling and Pronunciation in Mayan Languages Introduction xix Part One

r 2

3

4 5 6

8

9 o

I I

3 I4

I

I87

Prelude to Conquest

ltza-Spanish Warfare 223 The Costs of the Camino Real The Eve of Conquest 26 5 Part Five

I 2

The Peace Seekers

The Itza Emissaries I67 Avendano and Ajaw Kan Ek' Part Four

I

Road to the Itzas

Power Politics I r I The Birth of the Camino Real I 29 Franciscans on the Camino Real 148 Part Three

7

The Itza World

The Itzas and Their Neighbors 3 Itza -Spanish Encounters, I 52 5- I 690 29 Itza Society and Kingship on the Eve of Conquest Part Two

xm

24 5

Victims and Survivors of Conquest

Occupation and Interrogation 29 5 Prisoners of Conquest 3 2 3 Reconquest, Epidemic, and Warfare 3 56

6o

Contents

r5

Missions, Rebellion, and Survival Notes 425 Glossary 523 References Cited Index 539

X

52 7

3 87

Maps and Tables

Maps r

The Maya lowlands of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

xx

2

Lowland Maya language distribution during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 4

3

Major Maya political regions in central Peten on the eve of Spanish conquest 6

4

The Itza core region

5

The Kowoj region

17

6

The Yalain region

r8

8

7

Street plan of modern Ciudad Flores, Peten

8

The route of the camino real

9

English translation of sketch map of Lago Peten ltza and surrounding regions drawn by Fray Andres de Avendano y Loyola, r696 193

ro

70

130

Early eighteenth-century missions in the vicinity of Lago Peten Itza

390

Tables I. I

Distribution of Peten Surnames by Territory and Location

24

3.1

List of Towns Dictated in I702 by Ajaw Kan Ek' and Others

3.2

ltza Men and Women in the Chunuk'um Matricula, Belize River, I 6 55

3·3

Individual ltza Names by Type in the Chunuk'um Matricula, Belize River,

3·4

I655 77 Original and Edited Transcriptions of Avendano's List of Twenty-two Parcialidades of Nojpeten, I 696 8 5

62

76

3·5

Tentative Breakdown of Titles and Names of Twenty-two Itza Leaders Listed by Avendano, r696 86

XI

Maps and Tables 3 o6 Tentative Reconstruction of Equivalent Persons and Positions Among the Highest-Ranking Itza Nobility, 169 5-1702, Based on Comparison of Principal Sources 90 3 o7 Principal Pairs of Itza Rulers

96

3 OS Proposed Paired Principals of Nojpeten, with Associated Year bearers, Directions, Quarters, and New Year Days 98 I4oi Comparison of Three Censuses of Guatemalan Settlers Who Went to Peten, Indicating Effects of Epidemic Disease I 699 3 6o I 5o r Numbers of Mission Families at Founding (Late r 702-Early I 703) and of Mission Houses in June 1703 394 I5o2 Reconstruction of Mission Population Growth, I702-3

395

15 o3 Population Change in the Mission Settlements, r 703 -I6

407

I 5 04 Census of the Maya Population of the Colonial Towns of Petcn, 17 I 2 410 I 5o 5 Population of Peten Towns and Cattle Ranches, I 766

XII

4r6

Spelling and Pronunciation in Mayan Languages

This book uses the orthography for the writing of Mayan languages approved by the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala (AMLG). I decided to employ this orthography in place of the more familiar one developed during the sixteenth century only after consulting extensively with the Mayan linguist Charles A. (Andy) Hofling, whose dictionary of the modern Itzaj language, written with Fernando Tesucun, has recently been published. 1 A principal advantage of the AMLG orthography is that it has already become a standard in Guatemala for the writing and teaching of Mayan languages. Therefore, both Mayan- and Spanish-speaking readers in that country will find the orthography familiar once this book is available in Spanish translation. The AMLG orthography will probably become the standard in Mexico as well, and ir bears close similarities to that employed in the widely consulted Cordemex dictionary of Yucatec Maya. 2 It is also widely used by Mayan epigraphers. Another advantage of AMLG, in comparison with the colonial orthography, is the greater accuracy with which it reflects the spoken language. This advantage, of course, cannot be fully realized when working with colonial sources in their original orthography. We cannot be certain that seventeenth-century ltzas pronounced all words the same way as their modern Itzaj descendants, whose speech can be recorded in accurate detail. An example is the name of the people who are the subject of this book, which I have written Itza. Hofling writes it Itzaj, whereas in r697 it may have been Itza'; the final j in the modern language may be borrowed from the Spanish pronunciation of the name. Because Spaniards, however, never recorded glottal stops following vowels and frequently omitted the consonants j and I following vowels, we cannot be certain how the name was pronounced. For this reason I follow a modified version of AMLG when recording

XIII

Spelling and Pronunciation Consonants in Mayan Languages

Stops voiceless glottal voiced Affricates voiceless glottal

Labial

Dental

p p' b'

t'

Alveolar

Palatal

Velar

Glott,ll

k

k'

tz tz'

Fricatives voiceless

ch ch' X

Liquid Vibrants

XIV

Nasals

m

Semi vowels

w

n

y

colonial-period Maya names, places, and other terms. I omit glottal stops and other consonants that follow vowels unless the consonant is indicated in the original spelling. For similar reasons I do not distinguish long vowels (such as aa) from short ones (a), nor do I distinguish a from a (or u, with which it was sometimes confused). In some cases, however, when a colonial-period name has an obvious modern Itzaj counterpart, I indicate this in parentheses using all distinguishing features as written by Hofling. Those who recorded the ltza language in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were primarily Yucatecan military men and priests. They often made errors as they heard the names of persons and places that were unknown in Yucatan. This led to wide variations in spelling. Deciding how to write such names today has been difficult, and I am indebted to Andy Hofling for his tireless assistance in working them out. Some of these problems have no absolute solution. I have made many decisions myself, and as a nonlinguist I take full responsibility for the errors that remain. The accompanying tables list the basic phonetic elements of Mayan languages as they are recorded in the AMLG orthography, omitting the sounds d', f, and g used in Spanish loan words. 3 The only incidence of gin the seventeenth-century ltza area was in the toponym Gwakamay, where it was pronounced like gin good or gato. I have drawn the following pronunciation guide from Hofling and

Spelling and Pronunciation

Vowels in Mayan Languages Front High

Central

Back

u,uu

1, ll

ii

Mid

e, ee

Low

o,oo a, aa

Tesucun's dictionary, again omitting the Spanish borrowings d', f, g. Although the sound r occurs infrequently as a native Mayan sound, it is included. Sounds foreign to many English speakers include the vowel a and the glottalized consonants, indicated by' an apostrophe. The vowel a is similar to, but higher than, the schwa in English words, such as the underlined vowels in th~ sofq_. The other vowels have values similar to those of Spanish vowels, but vowel length is distinctive. The glottal stop(') is produced by closing and opening the glottis, as in the catch in English uh-uh. Other glottalized consonants are produced by closing the glottis and allowing pressure to build before release. In the case of b', the air flows inward on release (is imploded). In the cases of the other glottalized consonants (ch', k ', p ', t', tz') the air flows outward (is ejected). a

a aa b'

low back vowel, like the English a in father or Spanish a in gato. amid-high central vowel, somewhat higher than the schwas in th!!_ sofq_. long low back vowel. glottalized bilabial stop, like English b, but imploded.

ch

palatal affricate, like English ch in church or Spanish ch in chile.

ch'

glottalized palatal affricate.

e

mid front vowel, ranges from English e in met to Spanish e in dedo.

ee

long mid front vowel. high front vowel, ranges from English i as in pin to Spanish i as in pino.

11

long high front vowel.

J

glottal fricative, like English h in house or Spanish gin gent e.

k k'

voiceless velar stop, like English k in keep or Spanish c in copa. glottalized voiceless velar stop.

m

lateral liquid, like English lin look or Spanish I in libra. bilabial nasal stop, like English m in many or Spanish m in mana.

XV

Spelling and Pronunciation n

dental nasal stop, like English or Spanish n with tip of tongue against upper front teeth.

o

back vowel like English o in bold or Spanish o in coco.

oo

long mid hack vowel.

p

voiceless bilabial stop, like English p in pen or Spanish p in poco.

p'

glottalized voiceless bilabial stop.

r

alveolar vibrant flap, like tt in English kitty or Spanish r in pero. alveolar sibilant, like English sin some, or Spanish s in son. voiceless dental stop, like English or Spanish t with tip of tongue against upper front teeth.

t'

glottalized voiceless dental stop.

tz

voiceless alveolar affricate, like English ts in cats.

tz'

glottalized voiceless alveolar affricate.

u

high back vowel, like English oo in moon or Spanish u in nuda.

uu

long high back vowel.

w

labio-velar glide, like English win wood or Spanish hu in huevo.

x

voiceless palatal fricative, like English sh in shell, or Spanish x in Uxmal.

y

palatal glide, like English yin yell, or Spanish yin yerba. glottal stop, like the catch in English uh-uh.

In this book the colonial orthography is used when a Mayan word appears in a direct quotation from a colonial source. It is also used for most towns with names of Mayan origin in Guatemala that fall outside the Peten region (e.g., Huehuetenango, Comitan). On the other hand, in order to maintain consistency in the writing of Yucatecan Maya (of which Itza is a member), I have converted the names of Maya towns throughout the Yucatan peninsula to AMLG (e.g., Oxkutzcab to Oxk'utzkab'). Because these variations may be confusing, the following may serve as a general equivalency guide to the colonial and ALMG orthographies:

XVI

ALMG

Colonial

a

a, u

a

ALMG

Colonial

a

11

l, II

aa

a,aa

J

j,h

h'

k

c

k'

k

ch'

b ch ch

e

e

m

m

ee

e, ee

n

n

ch

Spelling and Pronunciation ALMG

Colonial

ALMG

Colonial

0

0

tz

tz

00

o,oo

tz'

=>,dz

p

p

u

p'

pp,p

uu

r

r

w

u,v u,uu u,v

s, .,:, z

X

X

y

y

t'

rh, rn

absent

XVII

INTRODUCTION

On

March J3, I697, Spanish troops from Yucatan attacked and occupied Nojpeten, the small island capital of the Maya people known as ltzas, the last unconquered native New World kingdom. The capture of this small island in the tropical forests of northern Guatemala, densely covered with whitewashed temples, royal palaces, and thatched houses, turned out to be the decisive moment in the final chapter of Spain's conquest of the Mayas. Climaxing more than two years of intensive preparations and failed negotiations, the moment only inaugurated several more years of struggle between Spaniards and Mayas for control over the vast tropical forests of what is now the central area of the Department of Peten, Guatemala (map I). The Itzas had dominated much of the lowland tropical forests around Lago Peten ltza since at least the mid-fifteenth century, when their ancestors, it was said, migrated there from Chich'cn Itza in northern Yucatan. Their immediate neighbors, known as the Kowojs, were said to have migrated from Mayapan to Peten at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatan, probably during the I 5 30s. 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 following the relatively late final conquest of Yucatan in 1544. No less significant had been the Spaniards' fear of the ltzas, whose reputation as fierce warriors who sacrificed their enemies gave pause to military conquerors and missionaries alike. In this book I examine with a critical eye the events that preceded and followed the I 697 conquest of the ltza capital of Nojpeten and surrounding regions, focusing on the short time between I 69 5 and I 704. During those years the Spanish Basque military man Martfn de Ursua y Arizmendi, commanding an army of Yucatecan soldiers, planned and executed the attack on the Itza capital. Despite protracted resistance from

XIX

YUCATAN

·r..~imin ABI:' B'alam

Ish> de

Cozumel Bahia de h> AscMch>n Bahia de Espiritu Santo

Bahia de Campeche

Gol(o de Honduras

•Huehuetenanto

G U A T

X X X X

X

X

X

X

X X X

X

Jola Kab' Kan Kanchan Kanche

X X

X

Kanek'

X

X

Kante Kanul

X

X X

X X

X

X X

Kanyokte

X

Kamal Kawich Kawil (also Kawij) Kech

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

Keliz Ketz (also K'etz)

X X

X

TABLE I.I

(continued )

Surname"

Core Itza

Yalain

Tipuj Itzas

Ki

X

Kib'

X

Kowoj

Mopan

San Andres&

X

Kischan (also Kixchan) Kitkan

X

X

Kitis (also K'itis)

X

X X

Kob' Kokom Kol

X

Kowoj (also Kob'ow, Kob'ox)

X

X

X

Kwa

X

K'in

X

?K'inchil

X

X

X

X

K'inyokte K'ixab'on

X

X

X

K'ixaw (Kejach: Kixaw)

X

K'ixchan (also Kixchan, Kischan)

X

X

X

X

K'u

X

K'unil (also K'umil) X

Mas Matab' (also Matuh')

X

X

X

Mis

X

Mo (also Moo)

X

X

Muk'ul

X

X

May

Musul

X

Muwan (also Moan)

X

Naa

Kejach

X

X

X

X

TABLE I.I

(continued )

Surname"

Core ltza

Yalain

Tipuj Itzas

Kowoj

Mop an

Nojk'ute X

Pana (also Panob', Panub', Punab')

X

X X

X

X

X

Pix Poor

X

Puk

X

X

P'ol

X

X

Sab'ak

X

X

X

Sakwan

X X

X X

Tek Tesukun (also Tcsukan (Pipil)

Kejach

X

Ob'on (also Ab'on)

Sima

San Andres"

X

X

Tina!

X

X

Tun (also Tunich?)

X

X

Tut

X

X

Tutz (Tus?) Tzak (also Tz'ak)

X

X

Tzakal

X

Tzakwam Tzam Tzawi

X X

X X

Tzel Tzin (Chontal)

X

X

X

X

Tzuk Tzu! (Kejach:

X X

Zul)

Tzuntekum (Pipil) Tz'ib' (also Tzib')

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

The Itzas and Their Neighbors TABLE I.I

(continued )

Surname'

Core Itza

Yalain

Us

Tipuj Itzas

Kowoj

Mopan

San Andres"

Kejach

X

Xiken (also Chik'en)

X X

Xok Xulu (also Sulu)

X

X

SOURCES: Tipuj names are from Scholes and Thompson, 1977, pp. 63-64. Most of the Mopan patronyms are from AGI, Escribania de Camara 339A, Memoria on Peten ltza by Fr. Diego de Rivas, 26 May 1702, ff. 3H-33v, and AAICFP, Santo Toribio, baptismal register, 1709-49· Only the names of "pagan" Mopan parents in the Santo Toribio baptismal register are included here. The register also includes a few cases of clearly non-Mopan names (including Itza, Kowoj, and Chol names), which are not included here. Chantal names are from Scholes and Roys, 1968, pp. 48 r-90. They consider Tzin to be a Nahuatl-derived honorific suffix, but it seems clear that it served as a surname among the Chontals. Pipil names are from Schumann, 1971, p. r8, 125; Schumann lists some names that existed at San Andres and San Jose in recent times but have not appeared in the historical documentation. Other names may well be shared with other groups, and this is not intended to be a complete examination. Not included here are four possible unusual names found in Table 3.1, the statuses of which are not clear. These are Je, K'en, Matza, and Matzin. Other sources are too numerous to list. a Names in italics are not listed by Roys ( 1940) as surnames found in Yucatan. When these are known to be used by other Maya groups, the name of the groups is indicated in parentheses. "A small x indicates that the name occurred three times or fewer among marriage partners during the years examined.

Only two Kowoj surnames, in the next column, are known with certainty, although there were undoubtedly more than these. The column labeled "San Andres" comprises names of marriage partners recorded in church records for the Itza missions San Andres and San Jose during the mid-seventeenth century. These people probably included not only some Kowojs but also a few Mopans and perhaps some Kejaches and some recent immigrants brought as workers by the Spaniards from northern Yucatan. The Kejach column, based on the two matriculas (censuses) made by Franciscan missionaries in I 696, indicates some overlap with the ltza core area data (in the two known Itza surnames shared by the Kejaches) but much commonality with San Andres and San Jose (six names).

l7

The Itza World

Mopan surnames represent a highly distinct set, suggesting that this may have been a much older local population. Names on the list that are apparently not also found in Yucatan are indicated by italics. Not surprisingly, this number is quite small for the Itza core area. Names, therefore, provide confirmation, although hardly exact, of the political and ethnic regions of Peten. They also indicate that boundaries among these groups were not absolute. Names were shared across groups, owing to many years of intermingling and intermarriage resulting from both peaceful and violent encounters. Now, in the early sixteenth century, both kinds of encounters were about to involve people with a new kind of name- Spanish.

28

chapter two

ITZA·SPANISH ENCOUNTERS,

1515-1690

The

first Spaniards to visit Itza territory arrived near the shores of Lago Peten Itza on about Thursday, March r6, 1525. These men, runners sent ahead by Hernan Cortes with a Chontal guide from Akalan, told Cortes that they had seen "a very large lake that looked like an arm of the sea ... and on a small island in it they saw a town, which that guide told them was the central town of that province ofTaiza [Tai