Conquest of Guatemala

Conquest of Guatemala
Part of Spanish colonization of the Americas
Map of the Conquest of Guatemala
Date 1528–1691 Location Guatemala 15.500000°N 90.250000°W / 15.500000; -90.250000 Result Spanish victory End of the independent indigenous kingdoms Territorial changes Incorporation into the Captaincy General of Guatemala
Belligerents
Spanish Empire Natives, such as Tlaxcaltecs or Cholultecs Kaqchikel and Tz'utujil kingdoms	K'iche', Mam, Poqomam, Chajoma, Ixil, Chuj, Q'anjob'al, Q'eqchi', Itza', Ko'woj, Kejache, Yalain, Lakandon Ch'ol, Manche Ch'ol, Nahua and Xinca kingdoms.
Commanders and leaders
Charles I Hernán Cortés Pedro de Alvarado Bernal Díaz del Castillo Gonzalo de Ovalle Jorge de Alvarado Gómez de Alvarado y Contreras Diego de Alvarado Gonzalo de Alvarado Pedro Gómez de Don Benito Diego de Holguín Luis de Moscoso Diego de Rojas Martín de Ursúa	Tecún Umán  † Oxib-Keh  † Beleheb-Tzy  † Belehe Qat  † Cahi Imox  † Tepepul  † Azumanché  † Kayb'il B'alam ( †?) Ah Kaan Ek   Ixmukané

The conquest of Guatemala was a conflict that forms part of the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the territory of what is today the republic of Guatemala in Central America. Before the conquest, this territory comprised several Mesoamerican kingdoms, most of which belonged to the Maya civilization. The first contact between the Maya and the Spanish explorers took place in the 16th century, when a Spanish ship sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo was wrecked on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in 1511. In 1517 and 1519 several Spanish expeditions followed that made landfall on different parts of the coast of Yucatán. The Spanish conquest of the territory of the Maya was a prolonged conflict that lasted nearly two centuries because of the tenacity of the Maya kingdoms' resistance to their integration into the Spanish Empire.

Spanish and native technology and tactics were very different. The indigenous peoples of Guatemala not only lacked key elements of Old World technology such as a functional wheel, horses, iron, steel and gunpowder, but they were also highly susceptible to Old World diseases, against which they had no resistance whatsoever. Many Maya preferred raids and ambush to large-scale warfare, and used spears, arrows and wooden swords with obsidian blades. Those of the highlands resorted to digging pits with wooden stakes. The Xinca of the southern coastal plain used poisoned arrows. In response to the Spanish cavalry, The Spanish did not look favorably on taking prisoners; the Maya, on the other hand, did, and also the seizure of booty.

Pedro de Alvarado arrived in Guatemala in early 1524 in command of a mixed force made up of Spanish conquistadors and their native allies, mostly from Tlaxcala and Cholula. Geographic names throughout Guatemala have Nahuatl toponyms due to the influence of these Mexican allies, who also served as guides and translators for the Spanish. The Kaqchikel joined them. Meanwhile, each of the other highland Maya kingdoms had been defeated by the Spanish and their allied warriors, both from Mexico and from previously subjugated Maya kingdoms. The Itza' and other lowland Maya peoples in the Petén Basin made contact with Hernán Cortés for the first time in 1525, but the Itza' kingdom was hostile to the Spanish invasion and maintained its independence until 1697, when a determined Spanish attack finally defeated the last independent Maya kingdom.

Historical sources

A page of the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, showing a Spanish conquistador accompanied by Tlaxcaltec allies and a native porter.

The sources describing the Spanish conquest of Guatemala consist, among others, of the writings of the Spanish themselves, including two of the four letters written by the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado to Hernán Cortés in 1524, in which he describes the first campaign to subjugate the highlands of Guatemala. These letters were sent to Cortés in Tenochtitlan, but their author knew that their ultimate recipient was the King. Two of these letters were lost. Gonzalo de Alvarado y Chávez was a cousin of Pedro de Alvarado. He accompanied him on his first campaign in Guatemala and in 1525 was appointed Alguacil Mayor of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, the newly founded Spanish capital. Gonzalo wrote an account that generally supports that of Pedro de Alvarado. Pedro de Alvarado's brother, Jorge, wrote another account to the King of Spain, asserting that it was his own campaign of 1527–1529 that established the Spanish colony. Bernal Díaz del Castillo wrote a lengthy account of the conquest of Mexico and the neighboring regions, the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. His account of the conquest of Guatemala generally coincides with that of the Alvarados. He finished writing his account in 1568, some forty years after the campaigns it describes. Hernán Cortés narrated his expedition to Honduras in the fifth of his Cartas de Relación, in which he details the crossing of what is today the Petén Department in Guatemala. The friar Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., wrote a far more critical account of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and included accounts of some incidents in Guatemala. His book, titled Brevísima Relación de la Destrucción de las Indias, was first published in 1552 in Seville.

The Tlaxcaltecs also wrote their own accounts. These included a letter to the Spanish King in which they complained of the mistreatment they had received from the Spanish once the campaign was over. Other accounts were forms filled out before colonial magistrates in order to protest and submit a petition for reward for their services. Two pictorial accounts have also survived, painted in the stylized indigenous pictographic tradition: the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, which was probably painted in Ciudad Vieja in the 1530s, and the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, made in Tlaxcala.

The point of view of the defeated Maya is expressed in several indigenous documents, such as the Annals of the Cakchiquels, which constitute the Xajil chronicle narrating the history of the Kaqchikel from their mythical creation until 1619, including the Spanish conquest. Another example is the letter to the Spanish King written in 1571 by the defeated nobility of the Tz'utujil of Santiago Atitlán, which describes the intense exploitation of the subjugated peoples.

Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán was a colonial Guatemalan historian of Spanish origin who wrote La Recordación Florida, also called Historia de Guatemala. The book, written in 1690, is considered one of the most important works of the history of Guatemala and is the first written by a criollo author. The information presented by De Fuentes y Guzmán regarding the size of the indigenous population and of their respective armies has often been corroborated by field research.

Background to the visit

Christopher Columbus discovered the New World for the Crown of Castile in 1492. Subsequently, private adventurers entered into agreements with the Spanish Crown to conquer the newly discovered lands in exchange for tax revenue and the authority to govern them. In the first decades after the discovery of the new lands, the Spanish colonized the Caribbean and established a center of operations on the island of Cuba. After hearing rumors of the riches of the Aztec Empire, which extended across the mainland to the west of the island, Hernán Cortés set out in 1519 with eleven ships to explore the Mexican coast. In 1520 a Spanish soldier arrived in Mexico carrying smallpox; as a consequence, devastating epidemics swept through the native populations of the Americas. By August 1521, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had already fallen into the hands of the Spanish. In less than three years after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the Spanish managed to conquer much of Mexico, extending their campaigns southward as far as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The newly conquered territory became New Spain, headed by a Viceroy, who answered to the King of Spain through the Council of the Indies. Hernán Cortés received reports of rich and populous lands to the south and sent Pedro de Alvarado to explore the region.

Guatemala before the conquest

Relief map of Guatemala showing the three main geographic areas: the southern lowlands, the highlands, and the Petén lowlands in the north

In the 16th century, the territory that today makes up Guatemala was divided into several city-states continually embroiled in conflicts. The most important were the kingdoms of the K'iche', Kaqchikel, Tz'utujil, Chajoma, Mam, Poqomam and Nahua peoples. All were Maya peoples, with the exception of the Nahuas (also called Pipil), a people related to the Aztecs who had a series of small city-states along the Pacific coast on the southern plain of Guatemala and El Salvador. In Guatemala, the capital of the Nahuas was located at Itzcuintepec. The Xinca, another indigenous people who did not belong to the Maya culture, lived in the southeast of the Pacific coastal zone. At the arrival of the Spanish, Maya civilization had already existed for thousands of years and had seen the rise and fall of great cities. However, the Maya had never been unified into a single empire.

On the eve of the conquest, the highlands of Guatemala were dominated by several powerful Maya states. In the centuries preceding the arrival of the Spanish, the K'iche', supported by the Kaqchikel, had created a small empire that encompassed much of the western highlands of Guatemala and the Pacific coastal plain. However, in the 15th century, the Kaqchikel allies rebelled against K'iche' hegemony and founded a new kingdom in the southeastern highlands, whose capital was Iximché. In the decades before the Spanish conquest, the Kaqchikel kingdom managed to erode K'iche' supremacy. Other groups of the western highlands were the Tz'utujil of the territories near Lake Atitlán, the Mam of the western highlands, and the Poqomam of the eastern highlands.

The most powerful city-state in the Petén lowlands, in northern Guatemala, was the kingdom of the Itza', centered on their capital, Nojpetén, located on an island in Lake Petén Itzá. The second most important kingdom in the Petén was that of the Ko'woj people, located to the east of the Itza', around the eastern lakes of Salpetén, Macanché, Yaxhá and Sacnab. Of the other peoples in the region, neither their territorial extent nor their political composition is known; among them are the Chinamita, Kejache, Icaiche, Lacandon, Mopan, Manche Ch'ol and Yalain peoples.

Indigenous weapons and tactics

For the Maya, the objective of war was not the complete destruction of the enemy, but rather the taking of captives and the acquisition of booty. According to Spanish descriptions, the weapons of war of the Petén Maya included bows and arrows, sharpened stakes, flint-headed spears, and two-handed swords made of strong wood with cutting blades of obsidian, similar to the Aztec macuahuitl. Pedro de Alvarado described how the Xinca of the Pacific coast attacked the Spanish with spears, stakes and poisoned arrows. Maya warriors wore body armor made of quilted cotton that had been soaked in salt water to harden it; the resulting armor was more resistant than the steel armor used by the Spanish. Historically, the preferred war tactics of the Maya included ambushes and raids, and their use put the Spanish in difficulties. To counter the Spanish use of cavalry, the highland Maya dug pits in the roads, lining them with sharpened, fire-hardened stakes, concealed with grass and weeds, a tactic that killed numerous mounts according to Kaqchikel accounts.

Battle between an indigenous warrior and a conquistador

The Spanish

The conquistador Pedro de Alvarado led the first attempts to conquer Guatemala.

Many of the Spanish were experienced soldiers who had taken part in military campaigns in Europe, and they shared a portion of the spoils of victory, in the form of precious metals, land grants and native labor, with other natives. The initial incursion earned Pedro de Alvarado the military title of adelantado in 1527; he was answerable to the Spanish Crown through Hernán Cortés in Mexico. The first conquistadors also included three brothers of Pedro de Alvarado: Gómez de Alvarado, Jorge de Alvarado and Gonzalo de Alvarado, as well as his cousins Gonzalo de Alvarado y Chávez, Hernando de Alvarado and Diego de Alvarado. Pedro Portocarrero was a nobleman who joined the initial invasion. Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a minor nobleman who accompanied Hernán Cortés when he crossed the northern lowlands and also took part in Pedro de Alvarado's invasion of the highlands.

Spanish weapons and tactics

Spanish weaponry and tactics were very different from those of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala. They included the use of bows, crossbows, firearms (muskets and cannons), attack dogs and war horses. For the Mesoamerican peoples, the capture of prisoners was an important objective of war, whereas for the Spanish the taking of prisoners was an obstacle to final victory. Despite the level of sophistication of their culture, the inhabitants of Guatemala lacked key elements of Old World technology, such as the use of iron and steel and functional wheels. The use of steel swords was perhaps the greatest technological advantage of the Spanish, although on occasion the deployment of cavalry also contributed to the triumph over the indigenous troops. On the other hand, the Spanish were so impressed by the quilted cotton armor of their Maya enemies that they preferred it to their own steel armor.

At first their allies were Nahuas from Mexico, but later they also included Maya. It is estimated that each Spanish soldier was accompanied by at least ten natives, sometimes as many as thirty, and it was their participation that proved decisive.

Impact of Old World diseases

The epidemics accidentally introduced by the Spanish included smallpox, measles and influenza. These diseases, together with typhus and yellow fever, had a great impact on the Maya populations. Catastrophic epidemics decimated the indigenous armies and populations, even before the first battles were fought. It is estimated that ninety percent of the indigenous population had perished in the epidemics that swept the region in the first century after contact with Europeans.

In 1519 and 1520, before the arrival of the Spanish in the region, a series of epidemics swept through southern Guatemala. While the Spanish were occupied with the overthrow of the Aztec Empire, a terrible plague had already struck Iximché, the Kaqchikel capital. The City of Q'umarkaj, capital of the K'iche', may also have suffered the same epidemic, and it is likely that the same combination of smallpox and pneumonic plague spread throughout the Guatemalan highlands. Based on modern knowledge of the impact of these diseases on populations that had not previously been exposed to them, it is estimated that 33–50 % of the highland population perished as a result of the epidemic. The population level in the Guatemalan highlands did not recover to its pre-conquest state until the mid-20th century. In 1666 plague or murine typhus affected what is today the department of Huehuetenango. Smallpox was recorded in San Pedro Saloma in 1795. When the Spanish captured Nojpetén in 1697, it is estimated that sixty thousand Maya lived around Lake Petén Itzá, including a large number of refugees from other areas. It is calculated that 88 % of them died during the first ten years of colonial rule, due to the effects of disease and war.

The conquest of Guatemala

Summary timeline of the conquest of Guatemala
Date	Event	Modern department (or Mexican state)
1521	Conquest of Tenochtitlan.	Mexico
1522	Allies of the Spaniards explore the Soconusco Region and receive delegations from the K'iche' and the Kaqchikel.	Chiapas (Mexico)
1523	Pedro de Alvarado arrives in Soconusco.	Chiapas (Mexico)
February–March 1524	The Spaniards defeat the K'iche'.	El Quiché, Quetzaltenango, Retalhuleu, Suchitepéquez and Totonicapán
February 8, 1524	Battle of Zapotitlán, Spanish victory over the K'iche'.	Suchitepéquez
February 12, 1524	First battle of Quetzaltenango, which ends with the death of Tecún Uman, the legendary K'iche' commander.	Quetzaltenango
February 18, 1524	Second battle of Quetzaltenango.	Quetzaltenango
March 1524	The Spaniards under the command of Pedro de Alvarado raze Q'umarkaj, the capital of the K'iche'.	El Quiché
April 14, 1524	The Spaniards enter Iximche and ally themselves with the Kaqchikel.	Chimaltenango
April 18, 1524	The Spaniards defeat the Tz'utujil in a battle on the shores of Lake Atitlán.	Sololá
May 9, 1524	Alvarado defeats the Pipil of Panacal or Panacaltepeque near Izcuintepeque.	Escuintla
May 26, 1524	Alvarado defeats the Xinca of Atiquipaque.	Santa Rosa
July 27, 1524	Iximche is declared the first colonial capital of Guatemala.	Chimaltenango
August 28, 1524	The Kaqchikel abandon Iximche and break the alliance with the Spaniards.	Chimaltenango
September 7, 1524	The Spaniards declare war on the Kaqchikel.	Chimaltenango
1525	The Poqomam capital falls into the hands of Pedro de Alvarado.	Guatemala
March 13, 1525	Hernán Cortés arrives at Lake Petén Itzá.	Petén
October 1525	Zaculeu, the capital of the Mam people, surrenders to Gonzalo de Alvarado y Contreras after a prolonged siege. (see: Expedition to the territory of the Mam)	Huehuetenango
1526	The Chajoma people rebel against the Spaniards.	Guatemala
1526	Spanish captains sent by Alvarado succeed in conquering Chiquimula.	Chiquimula
February 9, 1526	Spanish deserters burn Iximche.	Chimaltenango
1527	The Spaniards abandon their capital at Tecpán Guatemala.	Chimaltenango
1529	San Mateo Ixtatán is granted in encomienda to Gonzalo de Ovalle.	Huehuetenango
September 1529	The Spaniards are defeated at Uspantán.	El Quiché
April 1530	Rebellion in Chiquimula suppressed.	Chiquimula
May 9, 1530	The Kaqchikel surrender to the Spaniards.	Sacatepéquez
December 1530	The Ixil and Uspanteko surrender to the Spaniards.	El Quiché
May 2, 1537	The Capitulations of Tezulutlán are concluded, the agreements signed by Friar Bartolomé de las Casas and Alonso de Maldonado to conquer peacefully the territories of Tezulutlán (made up of what would later be Alta Verapaz) and the Lacandon Jungle (Chiapas)	Alta Verapaz and Chiapas
1543	Founding of Cobán.	Alta Verapaz
1549	First reductions of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al peoples.	Huehuetenango
1555	The lowland Maya kill Francisco de Vico.	Alta Verapaz
1560	Reduction of Topiltepeque and of the Ch'ol of Lacandón.	Alta Verapaz
1618	Franciscan missionaries arrive at Nojpetén, capital of the Itza'.	Petén
1619	Further missionary expeditions to Nojpetén.	Petén
1684	Reduction of San Mateo Ixtatán and Santa Eulalia.	Huehuetenango
January 29, 1686	Melchor Rodríguez Mazariegos leaves Huehuetenango, leading an expedition against the Lacandon.	Huehuetenango
1695	The Franciscan friar Andrés de Avendaño tries to convert the Itza'.	Petén
February 28, 1695	Spanish expeditions against the Lacandon people set out simultaneously from Cobán, San Mateo Ixtatán and Ocosingo.	Alta Verapaz, Huehuetenango and Chiapas
1696	Friar Andrés de Avendaño is forced to flee from Nojpetén.	Petén
March 13, 1697	Nojpetén surrenders to the Spaniards after a fierce battle.	Petén

The conquest of the highlands

Map of the Guatemalan highlands on the eve of the Spanish conquest.

Map of the main expeditions and battles of the conquest of Guatemala: in 1524 Pedro de Alvarado entered Guatemala from the west, along the Pacific plain, and then turned north, fighting a series of battles to penetrate the highlands; he then described a wide circle north of Lake Atitlán, fighting more battles along the way, before descending south once again into the Pacific lowlands; two more battles were fought when his troops headed east into what is now El Salvador. In 1525 Hernán Cortés entered Guatemala from the north, crossed Lake Petén Itzá and continued southeast to Lake Izabal before turning east to the Gulf of Honduras.

The conquest of the highlands was made difficult by the multitude of independent polities in the region that the conquistadors had to subdue, instead of having to face a single, albeit powerful, enemy, as had happened in central Mexico. After the Spaniards conquered Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztecs, in 1521, the Kaqchikel of Iximche sent emissaries to Hernán Cortés to declare their loyalty to the new ruler of Mexico. It is even possible that the K'iche' of Q'umarkaj sent a delegation. In 1522, Cortés sent his Mexican allies to explore the region of Soconusco, in the lowlands of Chiapas, where they met with new Maya delegations at Tuxpan, from both Iximche and Q'umarkaj. At this meeting the emissaries of both powerful Maya kingdoms declared their loyalty to the King of Spain. Nevertheless, Cortés's allies in Soconusco soon informed him that the K'iche' and Kaqchikel were not keeping their word, but were instead harassing the allies of the Spaniards in the region. In response, Cortés sent Pedro de Alvarado with a cavalry of one hundred eighty mounted men, an infantry of three hundred soldiers armed with crossbows and arquebuses, four cannons and a large quantity of ammunition and gunpowder, and hundreds of allied Mexican warriors from Tlaxcala and Cholula. They arrived in Soconusco in 1523. Pedro de Alvarado was already known for the infamous massacre of the Aztec nobles in Tenochtitlan and, according to Bartolomé de las Casas, he committed further atrocities during the conquest of the Maya kingdoms of Guatemala. Some groups remained loyal to the Spaniards once they had accepted the conquest, among them the Tz'utujil and the K'iche' of Quetzaltenango, and provided them with warriors to help extend their dominions. However, other groups were quick to rebel, and in 1526 numerous insurrections broke out in the highlands of Guatemala.

Subjugation of the K'iche'

Advancing along the coastal plain of the Pacific, Pedro de Alvarado encountered no opposition until he reached the Samalá River in western Guatemala. This region formed part of the K'iche' kingdom, and K'iche' troops tried to prevent the crossing of the river. Nevertheless, the conquistadors managed to cross it and sacked the nearby settlements in order to terrorize the population and dissuade it from further acts of resistance. On February 8, 1524, after forcing their way across the river, Alvarado's army fought a battle at Xetulul, called Zapotitlán by his Mexican allies and today known as San Francisco Zapotitlán. Although they suffered many wounds inflicted by the K'iche' archers defending it, the Spaniards and their allies took the town by storm and set up camp in the central plaza. Alvarado then headed upriver again into the Sierra Madre, crossing the pass into the fertile valley of Quetzaltenango, in the heart of the K'iche' kingdom. On February 12, 1524, Alvarado's Mexican allies were ambushed in the pass and driven back by the K'iche' warriors, but the Spanish cavalry charge that followed made a deep impression on the K'iche', who had never before seen horses. The cavalry managed to scatter the K'iche' troops, and the Spaniards approached the City of Xelajú (Quetzaltenango), which they found abandoned by its inhabitants. Although the common view is that the K'iche' Prince Tecún Umán died in the battle near Olintepeque north of Quetzaltenango, the Spanish accounts make it clear that at least one and possibly two of the lords of Q'umarkaj died in the fierce fighting during the initial approach to Quetzaltenango. However, according to the common notion, Tecún Umán died during the battle of El Pinar, and, according to local tradition, he died on the Llanos de Urbina southeast of Quetzaltenango, near the present-day town of Cantel.

In his third letter to Hernán Cortés, Pedro de Alvarado described the death of one of the four lords of Q'umarkaj in the vicinity of Quetzaltenango. The letter, dated April 11, 1524, was written during his stay in Q'umarkaj. Almost a week later, on February 18, 1524, the K'iche' army again confronted the Spanish forces in the Valley of Quetzaltenango. The K'iche' were defeated and suffered heavy losses, including many of their nobles. So high was the number of dead among the K'iche' combatants that Olintepeque was given the new name Xequiquel ("bathed in blood"). This battle exhausted the military forces of the K'iche', who finally sued for peace and offered to pay tribute, inviting Pedro de Alvarado to their capital Q'umarkaj. Alvarado was deeply suspicious of the K'iche' intentions, but he accepted the invitation and marched with his army to Q'umarkaj, called Utatlán Tecpan by the Nahuatl-speaking allies of the Spaniards.

Q'umarkaj was the capital of the K'iche' kingdom until it was burned by Pedro de Alvarado's troops in 1524.

In March 1524, Pedro de Alvarado arrived at Q'umarkaj, having accepted the invitation of the K'iche' leaders after their catastrophic defeat in the Valley of Quetzaltenango. Although he feared a trap on the part of the K'iche', Alvarado entered Q'umarkaj, but instead of accepting lodging inside the city, he preferred to set up his camp on the plain outside the city. Faced with the threat posed by the large number of K'iche' warriors gathered outside the city, and fearing that his cavalry would not be very effective in the narrow streets of Q'umarkaj, Alvarado invited the highest leaders of Q'umarkaj—Oxib-Keh, the ajpop or king, and Beleheb-Tzy, the ajpop k'amha or king-elect—to visit him in his camp. As soon as they did so, he seized them and held them prisoner in his camp. When the K'iche' warriors realized what had happened, they attacked the Spaniards and their indigenous allies and managed to kill one of the Spanish soldiers. At this point Alvarado ordered the captured lords to be burned alive and, after repelling the attack, proceeded to set fire to the entire city. After the destruction of Q'umarkaj and the execution of its rulers, Pedro de Alvarado sent messages to Iximche, the capital of the Kaqchikel, proposing an alliance to neutralize the resistance of the remaining K'iche' strongholds. Alvarado wrote that Iximche sent four thousand warriors to help him in his campaign, although the Kaqchikel writings mention that they sent only four hundred.

Kaqchikel alliance

On April 14, 1524, shortly after the defeat of the K'iche', the Spaniards were invited to Iximche, where they were well received by the rulers Belehe Qat and Cahi Imox. The Kaqchikel kings provided warriors who helped the conquistadors in the campaign they undertook to crush the resistance of the K'iche' and to defeat the neighboring kingdom of the Tz'utujil. The Spaniards stayed only briefly in Iximche before continuing their march and passing through Lake Atitlán, Escuintla and Cuscatlán. They returned to the Kaqchikel capital on July 23, 1524. On July 27 (1 Q'at in the Kaqchikel calendar), Pedro de Alvarado declared Iximche the first capital of Guatemala, calling it Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. The Spaniards called Iximche "Guatemala," a word derived from the Nahuatl Quauhtemallan, meaning "forested lands." Since the conquistadors chose Iximche to found their first capital in the region, they took the Nahuatl name used by their Mexican allies and applied it both to the new Spanish city and (by extension) to the captaincy general. This is the origin of the country's present name.

Conquest of the Tz'utujil kingdom

The capital of the Tz'utujil kingdom stood on the shore of Lake Atitlán.

The Kaqchikel also went with the Spaniards to defeat their other enemies, the Tz'utujil, whose capital was Tecpán Atitlán. At the request of the Kaqchikel rulers, Pedro de Alvarado sent two Kaqchikel emissaries to Tecpán Atitlán; both were executed by the Tz'utujil. When the Spaniards in Iximche received news of the emissaries' deaths, they marched with their Kaqchikel allies against the Tz'utujil. Pedro de Alvarado set out only five days after having arrived in Iximche, with a cavalry of sixty mounted men, one hundred fifty Spanish infantrymen and an undetermined number of Kaqchikel warriors.

The Spaniards and their allies reached the shore of the lake without encountering opposition, after a hard day's march. Seeing the absence of resistance, Alvarado rode ahead along the lakeshore with a cavalry contingent of thirty horsemen. Opposite an inhabited island, the Spaniards finally encountered hostile Tz'utujil warriors and launched a cavalry charge, scattering them and pursuing them to a narrow causeway across which the surviving Tz'utujil fled. As the causeway was too narrow for the horses, the conquistadors dismounted and crossed to the island before the inhabitants could destroy the bridges. The rest of Alvarado's army arrived to reinforce the vanguard and succeeded in seizing the island. The surviving Tz'utujil fled across the lake, swimming to another island. As the three hundred canoes sent by the Kaqchikel had not yet arrived, the Spaniards could not pursue them. This battle took place on April 18.

The following day, the Spaniards entered Tecpán Atitlán but found the city deserted. Pedro de Alvarado set up camp in the center of the city and sent out scouts to find the enemy. They managed to catch some locals, whom they sent as messengers to the Tz'utujil rulers, ordering them to submit to the King of Spain. In response, the Tz'utujil kings decided to surrender to Pedro de Alvarado and swore loyalty to Spain; Alvarado then considered them pacified and returned to Iximche. Three days after his return to Iximche, the kings of the Tz'utujil presented themselves before Pedro de Alvarado to swear loyalty and offer tribute to the conquistadors. Shortly afterward, a number of noble lords from the Pacific lowlands arrived to swear loyalty to the King of Spain, but Alvarado did not include their names in his letters. They confirmed the reports of the Kaqchikel indicating that, beyond their own lands, on the Pacific plain, there was a kingdom, called Izcuintepeque in Nahuatl and Panatacat in Kaqchikel, whose inhabitants were warlike and hostile toward their neighbors.

Kaqchikel rebellion

The ruins of Iximche, the city that was burned by Spanish deserters.

Pedro de Alvarado soon demanded tribute from the Kaqchikel, souring the friendship between the two peoples. He demanded that the Kaqchikel kings hand over a thousand gold leaves, each worth fifteen pesos. When a Kaqchikel priest predicted the destruction of the Spaniards by the Kaqchikel gods, the Kaqchikel population abandoned the city on August 28, 1524 (7 Ahmak in the Kaqchikel calendar), taking refuge in the forests and hills. Ten days later, the Spaniards declared war on the Kaqchikel. Two years later, on February 9, 1526, a group of sixteen Spanish deserters burned the palace of the Ahpo Xahil, sacked the temples and kidnapped a priest, acts that the Kaqchikel attributed to Pedro de Alvarado. The conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo related that in 1526 he returned to Iximche and spent the night in the "old city of Guatemala," together with Luis Marín and other members of Hernán Cortés's expedition to Honduras. He mentioned that the houses of the city were still in excellent condition. His account was the last description of the city while it was still habitable.

The Spaniards founded a new town nearby, which they called Tecpán Guatemala; tecpán is the Nahuatl word for "palace," and the name of the new town means "the palace among the trees." However, owing to continuous Kaqchikel attacks, the Spaniards abandoned Tecpán in 1527 and moved to the Valley of Almolonga, to the east, where they founded a new capital on the site now known as the neighborhood of San Miguel Escobar in Ciudad Vieja, near Antigua Guatemala.

The Kaqchikel insurrection lasted several years, but on May 9, 1530, exhausted by the war that had caused the death of their best warriors and the forced abandonment of their crops, the two kings of the most important lineages returned from their refuges. A day later, many nobles and their families joined them, followed by many other people, finally surrendering at the new Spanish capital of Ciudad Vieja. The former inhabitants of Iximche were dispersed, some moved to Tecpán, others to Sololá or other settlements around Lake Atitlán.

Siege of Zaculeu

Zaculeu fell to Gonzalo de Alvarado after a siege of several months.

Although a state of war had existed between the Mam and the K'iche' of Q'umarkaj after the rebellion of the Kaqchikel against their former K'iche' allies, the political landscape changed with the arrival of the conquistadors. Pedro de Alvarado describes how the Mam King Kayb'il B'alam was received with great honor in Q'umarkaj while he was there. The Spanish expedition against Zaculeu apparently began as a result of K'iche' bitterness over their inability to control the Spaniards in Q'umarkaj, while the plan to trap the conquistadors inside the city was said to have been suggested by the Mam King. Since the failed stratagem had come from the Mam and not from the K'iche', the execution of the K'iche' kings was considered unjust. The K'iche' suggestion to march against the Mam at Zaculeu was quickly adopted by the Spaniards.

At the time of the conquest, the largest concentration of the Mam population was at Xinabahul (also written Chinabjul), today the city of Huehuetenango, but the fortifications of Zaculeu were used as a refuge during the conquest. In 1525, Zaculeu was attacked by Gonzalo de Alvarado y Contreras, brother of the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, with a group of forty horsemen, eighty Spanish infantrymen, and some two thousand Mexican and K'iche' allies. Gonzalo de Alvarado left the Spanish camp at Tecpán Guatemala in July 1525 and marched to the town of Totonicapán, which he used as a supply base. From Totonicapán the expedition headed north to Momostenango, although its advance was slowed by heavy rains. The Spaniards quickly took Momostenango after a four-hour battle. The following day, Gonzalo de Alvarado marched on Huehuetenango, but was confronted by an army of five thousand Mam warriors from Malacatán (now known as Malacatancito). The Mam army advanced across the plain in battle formation and met a Spanish cavalry charge that caused much confusion and chaos; the infantry then attacked the Mam warriors who had survived the onslaught of the cavalry. Gonzalo de Alvarado killed the Mam leader Canil Acab with his lance, thereby breaking the resistance of the Mam army, after which the surviving warriors fled to the hills. Alvarado met no opposition on entering Malacatán, finding that the town was occupied only by the sick and the elderly. Messengers from the community's leaders came down from the hills and offered their unconditional surrender, which Alvarado accepted. The Spanish army rested for a few days and then pressed on to Huehuetenango, which it found deserted. Kayb'il B'alam had received news of the Spanish advance and had withdrawn to his fortress of Zaculeu. Alvarado sent a message to the fortification, proposing terms for the peaceful surrender of the Mam King, who chose not to reply.

Kayb'il B'alam defended Zaculeu at the head of some six thousand warriors from Huehuetenango, Cuilco, Ixtahuacán and Zaculeu itself. The fortress was surrounded by deep ravines on three sides and defended by a formidable system of walls and ditches. Despite being greatly outnumbered, by a ratio of two to one, Gonzalo de Alvarado decided to attack the northern approach to Zaculeu, where the defenses were weakest. Initially the defenders held their control over the northern approaches against the Spanish infantry, but they finally withdrew under the repeated charges of the cavalry. Although some two thousand warriors from the core of Zaculeu came to reinforce the Mam defenses protecting the approach to the fortress, the Mam realized that they could not drive back the Spaniards. Seeing that victory in the open field was not possible, Kayb'il B'alam withdrew his army within the walls of Zaculeu. While Alvarado's forces dug in and laid siege to the fortress, a Mam relief army, with some eight thousand warriors from towns allied with Kayb'il B'alam, headed toward Zaculeu from the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes in the north. Alvarado left the supervision of the siege to Antonio de Salazar and marched north to confront the Mam army. This army was able to hold its own against the Spanish infantry and their allies, but it was disorganized and vulnerable to the repeated charges of the experienced Spanish cavalry. Thus, the relief army was routed and annihilated, which allowed Alvarado to return to tighten the siege of Zaculeu. After several months, the Mam were reduced to starvation. Finally Kayb'il B'alam surrendered the city to the Spaniards in mid-October 1525. When the Spaniards entered the fortress, they found one thousand eight hundred dead natives and the survivors eating the corpses to survive. After the fall of Zaculeu, a Spanish garrison was established at Huehuetenango under the command of Gonzalo de Solís. Gonzalo de Alvarado returned to Tecpán Guatemala to inform his brother of his victory.

Conquest of the Poqomam kingdom

In 1525, Pedro de Alvarado sent a small contingent to conquer Mixco Viejo (Chinautla Viejo), the capital of the Poqomam kingdom. When the Spaniards approached, the inhabitants shut themselves inside the fortified city. The conquistadors and their allies tried to attack from the west through a narrow pass, but suffered heavy losses and were forced to withdraw. Alvarado launched the second assault with two hundred Tlaxcalan allies, but it too was repulsed by the defenders. The Poqomam received reinforcements, possibly from Chinautla, and the two armies clashed in the open field on the outskirts of the city. The battle was chaotic and lasted for most of the day, but in the end the Spanish cavalry decided the outcome of the fight by forcing the Poqomam reinforcements to withdraw. The leaders of the reinforcements surrendered to the Spaniards three days after the withdrawal and revealed that the city had a secret entrance, a cave leading into it from a nearby river, which allowed the inhabitants to come and go without being observed by the besiegers.

With the knowledge obtained from the prisoners, Alvarado sent forty men to cover the exit of the cave and launched a new assault along the ravine from the west, in single file because of the narrowness of the passage, with crossbowmen alternating with soldiers armed with muskets, each with a companion protecting him from arrows and stones with a shield. This tactic allowed the Spaniards to get through the pass and storm the entrance of the city. The Poqomam warriors fell back in disorder through the city and were pursued by the conquistadors and their allies. Those who managed to retreat into the neighboring valley were ambushed by the Spanish cavalry that had been sent to block the exit of the cave. The survivors were captured and brought to the city. The siege had lasted more than a month because of the site's good defenses; Alvarado ordered the fortified city to be burned and its inhabitants moved to the new colonial settlement of Mixco.

Resettlement of the Chajoma people

There are no primary sources describing the conquest of the Chajoma kingdom by the Spaniards, but it was probably a prolonged campaign rather than a quick victory. The only description of the conquest of the Chajoma kingdom is an account from a secondary source that appears in the work of Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán in the 17th century, long after it took place. After their victory, the conquistadors ordered the eastern population of the Chajoma kingdom to be resettled in San Pedro Sacatepéquez, including some of the inhabitants of the archaeological site now known as Mixco Viejo (Jilotepeque Viejo). The rest of the population of Mixco Viejo, together with the inhabitants of the western part of the kingdom, had to settle in San Martín Jilotepeque. The Chajoma rebelled against the Spaniards in 1526, fighting a battle at Ukub'il, an unidentified place in the vicinity of the modern towns of San Juan Sacatepéquez and San Pedro Sacatepéquez.

In the colonial period, most of the surviving Chajoma population was advised to move to San Juan Sacatepéquez, San Pedro Sacatepéquez and San Martín Jilotepeque. This resettlement was part of the Spanish policy of "congregations," and, of the three, the population moved to the town that was closest to the lands it had held before the conquest. Some Kaqchikel from Iximche also seem to have been relocated to these towns. However, part of the Chajoma population returned to their pre-colonial territories, where they created new informal settlements and fought with the Poqomam of Mixco and Chinautla along the old border between the two pre-Columbian kingdoms. Over time, some of these settlements received official recognition, such as that of San Raimundo near Sacul.

Chiquimula

At the time of the conquest, the Region of Chiquimula de la Sierra, which occupied the area of the present-day department of Chiquimula east of the old Poqomam and Chajoma kingdoms, was inhabited by the Ch'orti' Maya population. The first Spanish reconnaissance of this region was carried out in 1524 by an expedition in which Hernando de Chávez, Juan Durán, Bartolomé Becerra and Cristóbal Salvatierra, among others, took part. In 1526, three Spanish captains, Juan Pérez Dardón, Sancho de Barahona and Bartolomé Becerra, invaded Chiquimula on the orders of Pedro de Alvarado. The indigenous population soon rebelled against the excessive demands of the Spaniards, but the rebellion was quickly put down in April 1530. However, the region was not considered fully conquered until the campaign led by Jorge de Bocanegra in 1531–1532, which also covered some parts of Jalapa. The afflictions of Old World diseases, war and overwork in the mines and encomiendas deeply affected the native inhabitants of eastern Guatemala, to such an extent that the indigenous population never recovered to pre-conquest levels.

Conquest of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes

The difficult terrain and remoteness of the Cuchumatanes made their conquest difficult.

In the ten years following the fall of Zaculeu, various Spanish expeditions headed into the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes to contribute to the complex and gradual conquest of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al peoples. The hope of extracting gold, silver and other riches drew the Spaniards to the mountainous region, but its remoteness, the difficulty of the terrain and the relatively low population density made its conquest and exploitation difficult. It is estimated that the population of the Cuchumatanes reached two hundred sixty thousand inhabitants before contact with the Europeans. By the time the Spaniards arrived in the region, however, the population had already fallen to one hundred fifty thousand inhabitants as a result of the Old World diseases that had preceded them.

Uspantán and the Ixil

Even after the western part of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes was conquered by the Spaniards, the Ixil and Uspanteko (Uspantek) were sufficiently isolated to avoid attracting their attention. The Uspanteko and Ixil were allies, and in 1529, four years after the conquest of Huehuetenango, Uspanteko warriors harassed the Spanish forces while Uspantán tried to foment rebellion among the K'iche'. Uspanteko activity became troublesome enough that the Spaniards decided military action was necessary. Gaspar Arias, magistrate of Guatemala, penetrated the eastern Cuchumatanes with an infantry column of sixty Spanish soldiers and three hundred allied indigenous warriors. By early September, he had succeeded in temporarily imposing Spanish authority over the Ixil towns of Chajul and Nebaj. The Spanish army then marched east toward Uspantán. At that moment, Arias received word that the acting governor of Guatemala, Francisco de Orduña, had removed him as magistrate. Arias then handed command over to the inexperienced Pedro de Olmos in order to return to Guatemala and confront Orduña. Although his officers advised against it, Olmos decided to launch a frontal assault on the town, which proved disastrous. As soon as the Spanish assault began, more than two thousand Uspanteko warriors fell upon the attackers from the rear. The Spanish forces were defeated and suffered heavy losses; many of their indigenous allies were killed, and many more were captured alive by the Uspanteko warriors to be sacrificed on the altar of the Maya deity Ixbalanqué. The survivors who managed to escape returned, harassed, to the Spanish garrison at Q'umarkaj.

A year later, Francisco de Castellanos set out from Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala at the head of a new military expedition against the Ixil and Uspanteko, made up of eight corporals, thirty-two horsemen, forty Spanish infantrymen and hundreds of allied indigenous warriors. The expedition rested at Chichicastenango, where it recruited additional forces before marching seven leagues north to Sacapulas and ascending the steep southern slopes of the Cuchumatanes. Near the summits, it clashed with a force of between four and five thousand Ixil warriors who had come from Nebaj and other nearby settlements. A long battle followed in which the Spanish cavalry managed to outflank the Ixil army and force it to retreat to its fortress on the summit of the Mountain of Nebaj. The Spanish forces besieged the town, and their indigenous allies managed to scale the walls, penetrate the fortress and set it on fire. Many Ixil warriors withdrew to put out the fire, which allowed the Spaniards to storm the entrance and break the defenses. The attackers captured the surviving defenders, and the next day Castellanos ordered them all to be branded as slaves to punish them for their resistance. The inhabitants of Chajul immediately surrendered to the Spaniards on receiving news of the outcome of the battle. The Spanish column continued east toward Uspantán, which it found defended by ten thousand warriors, among them the forces of Cotzal, Cunén, Sacapulas and Verapaz, which had come to its aid. The Spaniards had barely managed to prepare their defense when the enemy army attacked. Although the Spaniards were greatly outnumbered, the deployment of the cavalry and the use of their infantry's firearms finally tipped the victory in their favor. The victors occupied Uspantán and again branded all the captured warriors as slaves. The surrounding towns surrendered, and in December 1530 the military phase of the conquest of the Cuchumatanes came to an end.

Reduction of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al

In 1529 the Chuj town of San Mateo Ixtatán—then known by the name of Ystapalapán—was given in encomienda to the conquistador Gonzalo de Ovalle, a companion of Pedro de Alvarado, together with Santa Eulalia and Jacaltenango. In 1549, the first reduction of San Mateo Ixtatán was carried out under the supervision of Dominican missionaries, at the same time that Santa Eulalia, the settlement for the reduction of the Q'anjob'al, was founded. Further Q'anjob'al reductions were established in 1560 at San Pedro Soloma, San Juan Ixcoy and San Miguel Acatán. Q'anjob'al resistance was largely passive, expressed in the abandonment of the Spanish reductions and flight to inaccessible areas, such as the mountains and forests. In 1586, the Order of Mercy built the first church of Santa Eulalia. The Chuj population of San Mateo Ixtatán resisted Spanish rule for longer than their highland neighbors. Chuj resistance was made possible by their alliance with the Lacandon of the northern lowlands. Their resistance was so determined that the Chuj remained "pacified" only as long as the immediate effects of the Spanish expeditions lasted.

In the 17th century, the Spanish missionary Friar Alonso de León reported that some eighty families in San Mateo Ixtatán neither paid tribute to the Spanish Crown nor attended Catholic Mass. He described the inhabitants as quarrelsome and complained that they had built a pagan temple in the hills among the ruins of ancient pre-Columbian temples, where they burned incense and sacrificed turkeys as offerings. He also reported that every March, two leagues from the town, they built bonfires around wooden crosses and set them on fire. Friar de León informed the colonial authorities that the practices of the natives were such that they were Christians in name only. Eventually, the locals of San Mateo Ixtatán decided to expel Friar De León.

The ruins of Ystapalapán.

In 1684, a council led by Enrique Henríquez de Guzmán, then governor of Guatemala, decided to dissolve the reduction of San Mateo Ixtatán and Santa Eulalia, both within the jurisdiction of the colonial administration of the corregimiento of Huehuetenango.

On January 29, 1686, Captain Melchor Rodríguez Mazariegos, on the governor's orders, left Huehuetenango for San Mateo Ixtatán, where he recruited indigenous warriors from the nearby villages, including sixty-one men from San Mateo itself. The Spanish colonial authorities believed that the inhabitants of San Mateo Ixtatán sympathized with the still unsubjugated and very hostile population of the Lacandon region, which included parts of the territory of what in the 21st century is occupied by the Mexican state of Chiapas and the western part of the Petén basin. In order to prevent news of the Spanish advance from reaching the inhabitants of the Lacandon region, the governor ordered the capture of three leaders of the community of San Mateo—Cristóbal Domingo, Alonso Delgado and Gaspar Jorge—and sent them under guard to be imprisoned in Huehuetenango. The governor himself arrived in San Mateo Ixtatán on February 3, where Captain Rodríguez Mazariegos was already waiting for him. The governor ordered the Captain to remain in the town and use it as a base of operations to penetrate the Lacandon region. The Spanish missionaries Friar Rivas and Friar Pedro de la Concepción also stayed in the town. Governor Enríquez de Guzmán then left San Mateo Ixtatán, heading for Comitán in Chiapas, in order to enter the Lacandon region through Ocosingo.

In 1695, the Spaniards launched the invasion of the Lacandon Jungle with three military contingents that marched simultaneously from San Mateo Ixtatán, Cobán and Ocosingo. Captain Rodríguez Mazariegos, accompanied by Friar Rivas, six other missionaries and fifty Spanish soldiers, left Huehuetenango bound for San Mateo Ixtatán and succeeded in recruiting two hundred indigenous warriors from Santa Eulalia, San Juan Solomá and San Mateo itself. They followed the same route as the expedition of 1686. On February 28, 1695, the three groups left their respective bases of operations to conquer the Lacandon Jungle. The San Mateo group headed into its northeast.

The Pacific lowlands: Nahuas and Xincas

Illustration from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala showing a scene from the conquest of Izcuintepeque.

Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the western part of the Pacific plain was dominated by the K'iche' and Kaqchikel states, and the eastern part was occupied by the Nahuas and Xincas. The Nahuas inhabited the area now known as the department of Escuintla and part of that of Jutiapa. The main Xinca territory lay east of the main Nahua population in what is now the department of Santa Rosa, although the Xincas also lived in Jutiapa. In the half-century preceding the arrival of the Spaniards, the Kaqchikel were frequently at war with the Nahuas of Izcuintepeque (now known as Escuintla). In March 1524, the K'iche' kingdom had been defeated by the Spaniards, which was followed by an alliance between Spaniards and Kaqchikel in April of the same year. On May 8, 1524, shortly after his arrival in Iximche, and immediately after his subsequent conquest of the Tz'utujil at Lake Atitlán, Pedro de Alvarado continued south to the Pacific coast, where he defeated the Nahuas of Panacal or Panacaltepeque (called Panatacat in the Annals of the Cakchiquels) near Izcuintepeque on May 9. Alvarado described the terrain around the town as very rugged, covered with dense vegetation and swamps that prevented the deployment of the cavalry, so he decided to send the men equipped with crossbows in the vanguard. Because of the heavy rain, the Nahuas had withdrawn their scouts, believing that the Spaniards and their allies would not be able to reach the town that day. However, De Alvarado pressed on, and when the Spaniards entered the town, they surprised the defenders, who were not prepared at all, since the Nahua warriors were sheltering from the torrential rain in their houses. In the battle that followed, the Spaniards and their indigenous allies suffered minor losses, and the Nahuas managed to flee into the forest, sheltered from Spanish pursuit by the dense vegetation and the rain. De Alvarado ordered the town to be burned and sent messengers to the Nahua rulers demanding their surrender, since otherwise he intended to lay waste to their lands. According to De Alvarado's letter to Cortés, the Nahuas returned to the town to submit and accepted the King of Spain as their lord. The Spanish force camped in the captured town for eight days. Years later, in 1529, Pedro de Alvarado was accused of having used excessive brutality in the conquest of Izcuintepeque, in addition to other atrocities.

De Alvarado described his encounter at Guazacapán, now a municipality of Santa Rosa, with a population that was neither Maya nor Nahua and that spoke an entirely different language; this population was probably Xinca. At that time, De Alvarado's force consisted of two hundred fifty Spanish infantrymen accompanied by six thousand indigenous allies, mostly Kaqchikel and Cholutec. De Alvarado and his army defeated the forces of the main Xinca town, called Atiquipaque, whose location is generally placed in the area of Taxisco, and took it. Alvarado described the defenders as very fierce warriors in hand-to-hand combat and mentioned that they used spears, stakes and poisoned arrows. The battle took place on May 26, 1524 and resulted in a considerable reduction of the Xinca population. After the conquest of the Pacific plain, the inhabitants paid tribute to the Spaniards in the form of valuable products, such as cotton, salt, vanilla and, above all, cacao.

The northern lowlands

Main article: Conquest of Petén

The period of contact between the conquistadors and the Petén lowlands in northern Guatemala before their conquest lasted from 1525 to 1700. The superiority of Spanish weaponry and the use of cavalry, which had been so important in the victories in northern Yucatán, did not confer such a great advantage in warfare in the dense forests of the Guatemalan lowlands.

Cortés in Petén

Hernán Cortés, conqueror of the Aztecs, crossed the lowlands of Petén in the 16th century.

In 1525, after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, Hernán Cortés led an overland expedition to Honduras, crossing the Itza' kingdom, whose territory extended over what is now the northern department of Petén in Guatemala. The aim of this expedition was to subdue the rebellious Cristóbal de Olid, whom Cortés had sent to conquer Honduras. However, Cristóbal de Olid had set himself up independently once he had reached that territory. Cortés took with him one hundred forty Spanish soldiers, ninety-three of them mounted, three thousand Mexican warriors, one hundred fifty horses, a herd of pigs, artillery pieces, ammunition and other supplies, together with six hundred Chontal porters from Acalan. The column reached the northern shore of Lake Petén Itzá on March 13, 1525.

Aj Kan Ek', the King of the Itza', invited Cortés to Nojpetén (also known as Tayasal). Cortés accepted and crossed to the Maya city with twenty Spanish soldiers, while the rest of his army went around the lake to meet him on the southern shore. When he left Nojpetén, Cortés left behind a cross and a lame horse. The Spaniards had no further official contact with the Itza' until the arrival of Franciscan priests in 1618, who noted that Cortés's cross was still standing in Nojpetén. From the lake, Cortés continued south along the western slopes of the Maya Mountains, a particularly arduous journey that took twelve days to cover thirty-two kilometers and in which he lost more than two-thirds of his horses. When he came to a river swollen by the constant torrential rains that continually hampered the expedition, he headed upstream toward the Gracias a Dios rapids, which the expedition members took two days to cross and in which they lost even more mounts.

On April 15, 1525, the expedition reached the Maya community of Tenciz. With local guides they headed into the hills north of Lake Izabal, where the guides abandoned them to their fate. The soldiers got lost in the hills and were on the verge of perishing when they managed to capture a young Maya who led them to safety. Cortés found a village on the shore of Lake Izabal, which may have been Xocolo. He crossed the Río Dulce and headed for the settlement of Nito, which lay on the Bay of Amatique, together with about a dozen of his companions, and there he waited for the rest of his army to regroup over the course of the following week. By then the expedition had been reduced to a few hundred soldiers. Cortés finally managed to make contact with the Spaniards he was looking for and discovered that Cristóbal de Olid's own officers had already put an end to his rebellion. He then returned to Mexico by sea.

Land of War: Verapaz

The Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas promoted the peaceful conversion of the native peoples.

In 1537 the area immediately north of the new colony of Guatemala was known as the "Land of War" (Tierra de Guerra). Paradoxically, it was at the same time known as "Verapaz" ("True Peace"). The "Land of War" comprised an area that was in the process of being conquered. It was a region of dense jungle that was difficult to penetrate militarily. Whenever the Spaniards found a population center in this region, they moved its inhabitants and concentrated them in a new colonial settlement near the edge of the jungle, where they could be controlled more easily. This strategy led to the gradual depopulation of the jungle, which at the same time became a deserted refuge for those fleeing Spanish rule, both individuals and entire communities, especially those "congregations" that were far from the centers of colonial authority. From the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century, the Land of War included a vast territory that stretched from Sacapulas in the west to Nito on the Caribbean coast and from Rabinal and Salamá northward, and was an intermediate zone between the highlands and the northern lowlands. This region comprised the modern departments of Baja Verapaz and Alta Verapaz, Izabal and Petén, as well as the eastern part of Quiché and part of the Mexican state of Chiapas. The western part of this zone was the territory of the Q'eqchi'.

The Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas arrived in the colony of Guatemala in 1537 and immediately campaigned to replace violent military conquest with peaceful missionary work. De las Casas offered to conquer the Land of War through the preaching of the Catholic faith. It was the Dominicans who promoted the use of the name "Verapaz" instead of "Land of War." De las Casas had played a crucial role in the approval of the New Laws in 1542, established by the Spanish Crown to check the excesses of the conquistadors and settlers toward the indigenous inhabitants of America. However, the Dominicans had to face considerable resistance from the Spanish settlers, who saw their own interests threatened by the New Laws; this distracted the Dominicans from their efforts to peacefully establish control over the Land of War.

In 1543, the new colonial reduction of Santo Domingo de Cobán was founded at Chi Mon'a to receive the Q'eqchi' of Chichen, Xucaneb and Al Run Tax Aj. Santo Tomás Apóstol was created the same year nearby at Chi Nim Xol and was used in 1560 as a reduction to resettle the Ch'ol communities of Topiltepeque and Lacandon coming from the Usumacinta Valley. In 1555, the Acala and their Lacandon allies killed the Spanish friar Domingo de Vico. In response, a punitive expedition was sent from Chamelco led by Juan Matalbatz, a Q'eqchi' indigenous leader. The natives captured by the Q'eqchi' expedition were taken to Cobán and then resettled in Santo Tomás Apóstol.

Lake Izabal and the lower Motagua River

In the mid-16th century, the Dominicans established themselves at Xocolo, on the shore of Lake Izabal. By 1574 the town had already become the most important staging post for European expeditions into the interior. Xocolo became notorious among the Dominican missionaries for the witchcraft practices of its inhabitants. It remained an important European staging post until 1630, but was abandoned in 1631.

In 1598 Alfonso Criado de Castilla was appointed Governor of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Because of the poor condition of Puerto Caballos on the coast of Honduras and its exposure to repeated pirate attacks, he sent a vessel to explore Lake Izabal. As a result of the exploration, and after royal permission had been granted, Criado de Castilla ordered the construction of a new port, called Santo Tomás de Castilla, at a favorable spot on the Bay of Amatique, near the lake. He then began the construction of a road from the port to the new capital of the colony, located at Antigua Guatemala, following the course of the Motagua Valley up into the highlands. The indigenous guides who explored the route from the highlands refused to continue downriver beyond three leagues below Quiriguá, because of the hostility of the Toquegua who lived in this area.

In April 1604, the leaders of Xocolo and Amatique, their argument reinforced by the threat of Spanish reprisals, succeeded in persuading a community of one hundred ninety Toquegua to move to the coast of Amatique. The new settlement immediately suffered a loss of population but, although some sources indicated its extinction before 1613, the Mercedarian friars were still ministering to the Toquegua of Amatique in 1625. In 1628 the towns of the Manche Ch'ol were placed under the administration of the governor of Verapaz, with Francisco Morán as their ecclesiastical head. Morán favored a more decisive approach to the conversion of the Manche and ordered the deployment of Spanish soldiers to protect the region from Itza' attacks from the north. However, the establishment of the new Spanish garrison in an area that had not previously seen a strong Spanish military presence provoked a rebellion of the Manche, which was followed by the abandonment of the indigenous settlements. By 1699, the Toquegua had ceased to exist as a people, owing to the combination of high mortality and intermarriage with the natives of Amatique. At this time the Spaniards decided to begin the reduction of the independent (or "savage," from the Spanish point of view) Mopan populations living north of Lake Izabal. At that time, the northern shore of the lake, though fertile, was almost uninhabited. Taking advantage of this circumstance, the Spaniards planned to bring the Mopan out of the jungle in the north into an area where they would be easier to control.

During the campaign to conquer the Itza' kingdom in Petén, the Spaniards also sent expeditions to harass and resettle the Mopan of the north of Lake Izabal and the Ch'ol of the forests east of Amatique. They moved them to the doctrine of San Antonio de las Bodegas, in the charge of the Dominicans, on the southern shore of the lake, and to the colonial reduction of San Pedro de Amatique. By the second half of the 18th century, the indigenous population of these towns had disappeared. The inhabitants of the area were solely Spaniards, mulattos and others of mixed race, all associated with the Castle of San Felipe, the fortress that guarded the entrance to Lake Izabal. The main cause of the drastic depopulation of Lake Izabal and the Motagua Delta was the constant slave raids of the Mosquito Zambos of the Caribbean coast, which wiped out the Maya population of the region; the captured Maya were sold as slaves in the British Crown colony of Jamaica.

Conquest of Petén

Main article: Conquest of Petén

Map of the northern lowlands of Guatemala at the time of contact with the Spaniards.

Spanish colonization of the Yucatán Peninsula increased from 1527 onward; by 1544, some colonies and towns had already been founded, such as Campeche and Valladolid in what is now Mexico. The impact of the Spaniards on the Maya of northern Yucatán—including the effects of the invasion, epidemic disease and the capture and deportation of some fifty thousand of them as slaves—was so strong that it caused many of them to move south, where they joined the Itza' living around Lake Petén Itzá, within the boundaries of what is now Guatemala. The Spaniards were aware that the Itza' Maya kingdom had become the center of anti-Spanish resistance on the peninsula and, over nearly two hundred years, pursued a policy aimed at encircling the kingdom and cutting its trade routes. The Itza' resisted this gradual invasion by recruiting neighboring peoples as allies against the slow Spanish advance.

From the late 16th century to the late 17th, Dominican missionaries carried out peaceful conversion work in Verapaz and southern Petén, but achieved only modest results. In the 17th century, Franciscan missionaries came to the conclusion that the pacification of the Maya and their conversion to Christianity would not be possible as long as the Itza' kingdom on Lake Petén Itzá remained independent. Indeed, the constant flow of people fleeing the territories under Spanish control to take refuge in Itza' territory was undermining the encomiendas. Friar Bartolomé de Fuensalida visited Nojpetén in 1618 and 1619 accompanied by other Franciscan friars. During their stay in Nojpetén, the Franciscan missionaries tried to use their own reinterpretation of the k'atun prophecies to persuade Aj Kan Ek' and his priests that the time had come to convert to Christianity. However, the Itza' priests were not convinced and maintained a different interpretation of the prophecies, stating that the time for conversion had not yet come, and the missionaries were lucky to escape with their lives.

In 1695, the colonial authorities decided to connect the province of Guatemala with Yucatán. To this end, Guatemalan soldiers conquered a number of Ch'ol communities, the most important of which was Sakb'ajlan, on the bank of the Lacantún River in eastern Chiapas, now in Mexico, which was renamed Nuestra Señora de Dolores or Dolores del Lacandón. In 1695, the Franciscan friar Andrés de Avendaño led a second attempt to convert the Itza' and tried to convince the Itza' King that k'atun 8 Ajaw, a twenty-year cycle in the Maya calendar that began in 1696 or 1697, was the right moment for the Itza' finally to embrace Christianity and accept the King of Spain as their lord. However, the Itza' had local Maya enemies who opposed this conversion, and in 1696 Avendaño once again had to flee for his life. By then, the prolonged resistance of the Itza' had become an embarrassment for the Spanish colonial authorities, who sent soldiers from Campeche to conquer Nojpetén once and for all.

Fall of Nojpetén

Martín de Ursúa and his soldiers reached the western shore of Lake Petén Itzá in February 1697. Once there, the Spaniards built a galiot, a large, heavily armed oar-driven attack boat. On March 13, 1697, the Itza' capital was subjected to a bloody amphibious attack. The Spanish bombardment caused numerous deaths on the island, and many of the Itza' who threw themselves into the lake to escape by swimming were killed in the water. After the battle, the surviving defenders melted away into the forests and allowed the Spaniards to occupy the abandoned city. However, the Spaniards soon captured the Itza' and Ko'woj kings (Ajaw Kan Ek' and Aj Kowoj), together with other Maya nobles and their families. Once Nojpetén was firmly in Spanish hands, Ursúa returned to Campeche. He left a small garrison on the island, isolated among the hostile Itza' and Ko'woj who still dominated the mainland. The Spaniards renamed Nojpetén "Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo, Laguna del Itza." The garrison was reinforced in 1699 by a military expedition sent from Guatemala, accompanied by civilians of mixed race, or ladinos, who came to found a settlement around the military camp. The settlers brought diseases that caused the death of many soldiers and civilians and that also affected the indigenous population. However, the Guatemalans stayed only three months before returning to Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, taking with them the captive King of the Itza', together with his son and two of his cousins. The latter died during the long journey to the capital of the colony; Ajaw Kan Ek' and his son spent the rest of their lives under house arrest in the capital.

Final years of the conquest

In the 17th century the small Ch'ol (Ch'ol) population of southern Petén and Belize was deported to Alta Verapaz, where it was absorbed by the Q'eqchi'. The Ch'ol population of the Lacandon jungle was resettled in Huehuetenango in the 18th century. In 1702–1703, Catholic priests from Yucatán founded several mission towns around Lake Petén Itzá. The survivors of the Itza' and Ko'woj population were relocated to the colonial settlements by a mixture of persuasion and force. In 1704, the Ko'woj and Itza' caciques in these towns rebelled against the Spaniards. Although it was well planned, the rebellion was quickly crushed and its ringleaders executed; most of the mission settlements were abandoned as a consequence of the conflict. Of the sixty thousand Maya that central Petén had in 1697, only about six thousand remained in 1708. Although contagious diseases caused most of the deaths, Spanish expeditions and internal wars between indigenous groups also played a notable role in the process of depopulation.

Legacy of the Spanish conquest

The initial shock of the Spanish conquest was followed by decades of intensive exploitation of the indigenous peoples, both allies and defeated enemies. Over the following two hundred years, the colonial government gradually imposed Spanish cultural norms on the subject peoples. Through the reductions, encomiendas and doctrines, new settlements were created, laid out on a Spanish-style grid pattern, with a central plaza, a church and a town hall where the civil government resided. This style of settlement is still visible in the villages and towns of the area. Local civil government was directly in the hands of the Spaniards and their descendants or closely controlled by them. The introduction of Catholicism was the main means of cultural change and gave rise to religious syncretism. Some cultural elements of the Old World came to be fully adopted by the Maya population, such as the marimba, a musical instrument of African origin.

The greatest change was the replacement of the pre-Columbian economic order by European technology and livestock; this included the introduction of iron and steel tools, which replaced Neolithic tools, and of cattle, pigs and chickens, which replaced hunting. New crops were also adopted; the introduction of sugarcane and coffee led to the economic exploitation of native labor on the plantations.

It is estimated that sixty percent of the modern population of Guatemala is Maya and that this group is concentrated in the western and central highlands. The eastern part of the country, by contrast, has been the object of intense Spanish immigration and Hispanicization. Guatemalan society is divided into a class system largely based on race, with Maya peasants and artisans at the bottom layer, wage laborers and bureaucrats of mixed race (ladinos) forming the middle and lower-middle class, and the Criollo elite of European descent above them. Only a few privileged indigenous castes managed to maintain a certain prestige in the colonial period, such as the Xajil family, a lineage of the Kaqchikel nobility that related the history of the Kaqchikel.

See also

• Catholic Church in Guatemala
• History of Guatemala
• Conquest of Mexico
• Conquest of Yucatán
• Conquest of El Salvador
• Conquest of Honduras
• Conquest of Costa Rica

References

• Recinos, Adrián (1986) [1952]. Pedro de Alvarado: Conquistador de México y Guatemala (in español) (2nd ed.). Guatemala: CENALTEX Centro Nacional de Libros de Texto y Material Didáctico "José de Pineda Ibarra". OCLC 243309954. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Recinos, Adrián (1998). Memorial de Sololá, Anales de los Kaqchikeles; Título de los Señores de Totonicapán (in español). Guatemala: Piedra Santa. ISBN 84-8377-006-7. OCLC 25476196. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Polo Sifontes, Francis (1981). Francis Polo Sifontes and Celso A. Lara Figueroa (ed.). "Título de Alotenango, 1565: Clave para ubicar geográficamente la antigua Itzcuintepec pipil". Antropología e Historia de Guatemala (in español). 3, Época II. Guatemala City: Dirección General de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, Ministerio de Educación: 109–129. OCLC 605015816. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Polo Sifontes, Francis (1986). Los Cakchiqueles en la Conquista de Guatemala (in español). Guatemala: CENALTEX. OCLC 82712257. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Pons Sáez, Nuria (1997). La Conquista del Lacandón (in español). Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ISBN 968-36-6150-5. OCLC 40857165. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Feldman, Lawrence H. (1998). Motagua Colonial. Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.: Boson Books. ISBN 1-886420-51-3. OCLC 82561350. Archived from the original on January 21, 2015. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Feldman, Lawrence H. (2000). Lost Shores, Forgotten Peoples: Spanish Explorations of the South East Maya Lowlands. Durham, North Carolina, U.S.: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2624-8. OCLC 254438823. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Jones, Grant D. (2000). "The Lowland Maya, from the Conquest to the Present". In Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J. Macleod (eds.) (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Vol. II: Mesoamerica, part 2. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 346–391. ISBN 0-521-65204-9. OCLC 33359444. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jones, Grant D. (2009). "The Kowoj in Ethnohistorical Perspective". In Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice (eds.) (ed.). The Kowoj: identity, migration, and geopolitics in late postclassic Petén, Guatemala. Boulder, Colorado, U.S.: University Press of Colorado. pp. 55–69. ISBN 978-0-87081-930-8. OCLC 225875268. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Lovell, W. George (2000). "The Highland Maya". In Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J. Macleod (eds.) (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Vol. II: Mesoamerica, part 2. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 392–444. ISBN 0-521-65204-9. OCLC 33359444. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lovell, W. George (2005). Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatán Highlands, 1500-1821 (3rd ed.). Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2741-9. OCLC 58051691. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Sharer, Robert J.; Traxler, Loa P. (2006). The Ancient Maya (6th ed.). Stanford, California, U.S.: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4817-9. OCLC 57577446. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Restall, Matthew; Asselbergs, Florine (2007). Invading Guatemala: Spanish, Nahua, and Maya Accounts of the Conquest Wars. University Park, Pennsylvania, U.S.: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-02758-6. OCLC 165478850. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Bibliography

• Batres, Carlos A. (2009). "Tracing the "Enigmatic" Late Postclassic Nahua-Pipil (A.D. 1200-1500): Archaeological Study of Guatemalan South Pacific Coast". Carbondale, Illinois, U.S.: Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Retrieved October 2, 2011. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Carmack, Robert M. (2001a). Kik'aslemaal le K'iche'aab': Historia Social de los K'iche's (in español). Guatemala City: Cholsamaj. ISBN 99922-56-19-2. OCLC 47220876. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Carmack, Robert M. (2001b). Kik'ulmatajem le K'iche'aab': Evolución del Reino K'iche' (in español). Guatemala City: Cholsamaj. ISBN 99922-56-22-2. OCLC 253481949. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Caso Barrera, Laura; Aliphat, Mario (2007). "Relaciones de Verapaz y las Tierras Bajas Mayas Centrales en el siglo XVII" (PDF). XX Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2006 (edited by J.P. Laporte, B. Arroyo and H. Mejía) (in español). Guatemala City: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología: 48–58. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 17, 2013. Retrieved January 22, 2012. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Castro Ramos, Xochitl Anaité (2003). "El Santo Ángel. Estudio antropológico sobre una santa popular guatemalteca: aldea El Trapiche, municipio de El Adelanto, departamento de Jutiapa" (PDF) (in español). Guatemala City: Escuela de Historia, Área de Antropología, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 27, 2012. Retrieved January 25, 2012. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Coe, Michael D. (1999). The Maya. Ancient peoples and places series (6th ed.). London, England and New York, U.S.: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28066-5. OCLC 59432778. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Coe, Michael D.; Koontz, Rex (2002). Mexico: from the Olmecs to the Aztecs (5th ed.). London, England and New York, U.S.: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28346-X. OCLC 50131575. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cornejo Sam, Mariano (n.d.). Q'antel (Cantel): Patrimonio cultural-histórico del pueblo de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción Cantel: Tzion'elil echba'l kech aj kntelab "Tierra de Viento y Neblina" (in español). Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Cortés, Hernán (2005) [1844]. Manuel Alcalá (ed.). Cartas de Relación (in español). Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa. ISBN 970-07-5830-3. OCLC 229414632. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dary Fuentes, Claudia (2008). Ethnic Identity, Community Organization and Social Experience in Eastern Guatemala: The Case of Santa María Xalapán. Albany, New York, U.S.: ProQuest/College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology: University at Albany, State University of New York. ISBN 9780549748113. OCLC 352928170. Archived from the original on October 31, 2014. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• de Las Casas, Bartolomé (1997) [1552]. Olga Camps (ed.). Brevísima Relación de la Destrucción de las Indias (in español). Mexico City: Distribuciones Fontamara. ISBN 968-476-013-2. OCLC 32265767. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• del Águila Flores, Patricia (2007). "Zaculeu: Ciudad Postclásica en las Tierras Altas Mayas de Guatemala" (PDF) (in español). Guatemala City: Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes. OCLC 277021068. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 21, 2011. Retrieved August 6, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (2005) [1632]. Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (in español). Mexico City: Editores Mexicanos Unidos. ISBN 968-15-0863-7. OCLC 34997012. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Drew, David (1999). The Lost Chronicles of the Maya Kings. London, UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-81699-3. OCLC 43401096. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Fowler, William R. Jr. (Winter 1985). "Ethnohistoric Sources on the Pipil-Nicarao of Central America: A Critical Analysis". Ethnohistory. 32 (1). Duke University Press: 37–62. ISSN 0014-1801. JSTOR 482092. OCLC 478130795. Retrieved September 19, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Fox, John W. (August 1981). "The Late Postclassic Eastern Frontier of Mesoamerica: Cultural Innovation Along the Periphery". Current Anthropology. 22 (4). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research: 321–346. ISSN 0011-3204. JSTOR 2742225. OCLC 4644864425. Retrieved September 19, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Fuentes y Guzman, Francisco Antonio de; Zaragoza, Justo (notes and illustrations) (1882) [1690]. Luis Navarro (ed.). Historia de Guatemala o Recordación Florida (in español). Vol. I. Madrid, Spain: Biblioteca de los Americanistas. OCLC 699103660. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gall, Francis (July–December 1967). "Los Gonzalo de Alvarado, Conquistadores de Guatemala". Anales de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia (in español). XL. Guatemala City: Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala. OCLC 72773975. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Guillemín, Jorge F. (1965). Iximché: Capital del Antiguo Reino Cakchiquel (in español). Guatemala: Tipografía Nacional. OCLC 1498320. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Guillemín, George F. (Winter 1967). "The Ancient Cakchiquel Capital of Iximche" (PDF). Expedition. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: 22–35. ISSN 0014-4738. OCLC 1568625. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 22, 2023. Retrieved September 12, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hill, Robert M. II (1996). "Eastern Chajoma (Cakchiquel) Political Geography: Ethnohistorical and archaeological contributions to the study of a Late Postclassic highland Maya polity". Ancient Mesoamerica. 7. New York, U.S.: Cambridge University Press: 63–87. ISSN 0956-5361. OCLC 88113844. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hill, Robert M. II (June 1998). "Los otros Kaqchikeles: Los Chajomá Vinak". Mesoamérica (in español). 35. Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala: El Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica (CIRMA) together with Plumsock Mesoamerican Studies, South Woodstock, VT: 229–254. ISSN 0252-9963. OCLC 7141215. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hinz, Eike (2010) [2008]. Existence and Identity: Reconciliation and Self-organization through Q’anjob’al Maya Divination (PDF). Hamburg and Norderstedt, Germany: Universität Hamburg. ISBN 9783833487316. OCLC 299685808. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 22, 2012. Retrieved September 25, 2011. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• INFORPRESSCA (April 2009). "Reseña Historia del Municipio de San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango" (in español). Guatemala. Archived from the original on April 30, 2009. Retrieved April 23, 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• ITMB Publishing Ltd. (1998). Guatemala (map) (3rd ed.). 1:500,000. International Travel Maps. ISBN 092146364-2. OCLC 421536238.
• Jiménez, Ajb’ee (2006). "Qnaab'ila b'ix Qna'b'ila, Our thoughts and our feelings: Maya-Mam women's struggles in San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán" (PDF). University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved September 4, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Josserand, J. Kathryn; Hopkins, Nicholas A. (2001). "Chol Ritual Language" (PDF). Los Angeles, California, U.S.: FAMSI (Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies). Retrieved January 30, 2012. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lara Figueroa, Celso A. (2000). "Introducción". Recordación Florida: Primera Parte: Libros Primero y Segundo. Ayer y Hoy (in español) (3rd ed.). Guatemala: Editorial Artemis-Edinter. ISBN 84-89452-66-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lehmann, Henri; McIntyre, Andrew; Kuh, Edwin (1968). Guide to the Ruins of Mixco Viejo. Guatemala: Piedra Santa. OCLC 716195862. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Letona Zuleta, José Vinicio; Carlos Camacho Nassar; Juan Antonio Fernández Gamarro (2003). "Las tierras comunales xincas de Guatemala". In Carlos Camacho Nassar (ed.). Tierra, identidad y conflicto en Guatemala (in español). Guatemala: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO); Misión de Verificación de las Naciones Unidas en Guatemala (MINUGUA); Dependencia Presidencial de Asistencia Legal y Resolución de Conflictos sobre la Tierra (CONTIERRA). ISBN 9789992266847. OCLC 54679387. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Limón Aguirre, Fernando (2008). "La ciudadanía del pueblo chuj en México: Una dialéctica negativa de identidades" (PDF) (in español). San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico: El Colegio de la Frontera Sur – Unidad San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 2, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lutz, Christopher H. (1997). Santiago de Guatemala, 1541-1773: City, Caste, and the Colonial Experience. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806125977. OCLC 29548140. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• MINEDUC (2001). Eleuterio Cahuec del Valle (ed.). Historia y Memorias de la Comunidad Étnica Chuj (in español). Vol. II (School version ed.). Guatemala: Universidad Rafael Landívar/UNICEF/FODIGUA. OCLC 741355513. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ortiz Flores, Walter Agustin (2008). "Segundo Asiento Oficial de la Ciudad según Acta" (in español). Ciudad Vieja Sacatepéquez, Guatemala: www.miciudadvieja.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved October 25, 2011. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Phillips, Charles (2006, 2007). The Complete Illustrated History of the Aztecs and Maya: The definitive chronicle of the ancient peoples of Central America and Mexico - including the Aztec, Maya, Olmec, Mixtec, Toltec and Zapotec. London, England: Anness Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-84681-197-X. OCLC 642211652. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Putzeys, Ivonne; Flores, Sheila (2007). Laporte, J.P.; Arroyo, B.; Mejía, H. (ed.). "Excavaciones arqueológicas en la Iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad de Chiquimula de la Sierra: Rescate del nombre y el prestigio de una iglesia olvidada" (PDF). XX Simposio de Arqueología en Guatemala, 2006 (in español). Guatemala City: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología: 1473–1490. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 14, 2011. Retrieved January 24, 2012. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Rice, Prudence M. (2009). "Who were the Kowoj?". In Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice (eds.) (ed.). The Kowoj: identity, migration, and geopolitics in late postclassic Petén, Guatemala. Boulder, Colorado, U.S.: University Press of Colorado. pp. 17–19. ISBN 978-0-87081-930-8. OCLC 225875268. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rice, Prudence M.; Rice, Don S. (2009). "Introduction to the Kowoj and their Petén Neighbors". In Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice (eds.) (ed.). The Kowoj: identity, migration, and geopolitics in late postclassic Petén, Guatemala. Boulder, Colorado, U.S.: University Press of Colorado. pp. 3–15. ISBN 978-0-87081-930-8. OCLC 225875268. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rice, Prudence M.; Rice, Don S.; Pugh, Timothy W.; Sánchez Polo, Rómulo (2009). "Defensive Architecture and the Context of Warfare at Zacpetén". In Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice (eds.) (ed.). The Kowoj: identity, migration, and geopolitics in late postclassic Petén, Guatemala. Boulder, Colorado, U.S.: University Press of Colorado. pp. 123–140. ISBN 978-0-87081-930-8. OCLC 225875268. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schele, Linda; Peter Mathews (1999). The Code of Kings: The language of seven Maya temples and tombs. New York, U.S.: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-85209-6. OCLC 41423034. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Smith, Carol A. (1997). "Race/Class/Gender Ideology in Guatemala: Modern and Anti-Modern Forms". In Brackette Williams (ed.). Women Out of Place: The Gender of Agency, the Race of Nationality. New York, U.S. and London, England: Routledge. pp. 50–78. ISBN 0-415-91496-5. OCLC 60185223. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Smith, Michael E. (2003) [1996]. The Aztecs (2nd ed.). Malden, Massachusetts, U.S. and Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-631-23016-8. OCLC 59452395. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Webster, David L. (2002). The Fall of the Ancient Maya: Solving the Mystery of the Maya Collapse. London, England: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05113-5. OCLC 48753878. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• The conquest of Central America at Historia del Nuevo Mundo

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Guatemala.