Qʼeqchiʼ ( /qʼeqt͡ʃiʔ/ ) (Kʼekchiʼ in the former orthography, or simply Kekchi in many English-language contexts, such as in Belize) are a Maya people of Guatemala , Belize and Mexico . Their indigenous language is the Qʼeqchiʼ language .
214-694: Before the beginning of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in the 1520s, Qʼeqchiʼ settlements were concentrated in what are now the departments of Alta Verapaz and Baja Verapaz . Over the course of the succeeding centuries a series of land displacements, resettlements, persecutions and migrations resulted in a wider dispersal of Qʼeqchiʼ communities into other regions of Guatemala ( Izabal , Petén , El Quiché ), southern Belize ( Toledo District ), and smaller numbers in southern Mexico ( Chiapas , Campeche ). While most notably present in northern Alta Verapaz and southern Petén, contemporary Qʼeqchiʼ language-speakers are
428-400: A factor , who guarded weapons and supplies belonging to the king, and disposed of tribute collected in the province; and a veedor (overseer), who was responsible for contacts with native inhabitants of the province, and collected the king's share of any war booty. The veedor , or overseer, position quickly disappeared in most jurisdictions, subsumed into the position of factor . Depending on
642-453: A Maya city named Quezalli by his Nahuatl-speaking allies with a force of fifty Spaniards; his Mexican allies also referred to the city by the name Sacatepequez. De León renamed the city as San Pedro Sacatepéquez in honour of his friar, Pedro de Angulo. The Spanish founded a village nearby at Candacuchex in April that year, renaming it as San Marcos. On 14 April 1524, soon after the defeat of
856-714: A complex, hierarchical bureaucracy, which in many ways was decentralized. The crown asserted is authority and sovereignty of the territory and vassals it claimed, collected taxes, maintained public order, meted out justice, and established policies for governance of large indigenous populations. Many institutions established in Castile found expression in The Indies from the early colonial period. Spanish universities expanded to train lawyer-bureaucrats ( letrados ) for administrative positions in Spain and its overseas empire. The end of
1070-549: A crude fort built on his first voyage in 1492, had been abandoned by the time he returned in 1493. He then founded the settlement of La Isabela on the island they named Hispaniola (now divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic ). Spanish explorations of other islands in the Caribbean and what turned out to be the mainland of South and Central America occupied them for over two decades. Columbus had promised
1284-757: A highly critical account of the Spanish conquest of the Americas and included accounts of some incidents in Guatemala. The Brevísima Relación de la Destrucción de las Indias ("Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies") was first published in 1552 in Seville . The Tlaxcalan allies of the Spanish who accompanied them in their invasion of Guatemala wrote their own accounts of the conquest; these included
1498-472: A labor force. Spaniards continued to expand their presence in the circum-Caribbean region with expeditions. One was by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba in 1517, another by Juan de Grijalva in 1518, which brought promising news of possibilities there. Even by the mid-1510s, the western Caribbean was largely unexplored by Spaniards. A well-connected settler in Cuba, Hernán Cortés received authorization in 1519 by
1712-527: A letter to the Spanish king protesting at their poor treatment once the campaign was over. Other accounts were in the form of questionnaires answered before colonial magistrates to protest and register a claim for recompense. Two pictorial accounts painted in the stylised indigenous pictographic tradition have survived; these are the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan , which was probably painted in Ciudad Vieja in
1926-639: A long campaign that took decades of fighting to subdue the mightiest empire in the Americas. In the following years, Spain extended its rule over the Empire of the Inca civilization . The Spanish took advantage of a recent civil war between the factions of the two brothers Emperor Atahualpa and Huáscar , and the enmity of indigenous nations the Incas had subjugated, such as the Huanca , Chachapoyas , and Cañaris . In
2140-605: A machine of war. For the conquest era, the names of two Spaniards are popularly known because they led the conquests of two indigenous empires, Hernán Cortés , leader of the expedition involved in the conquest of the Aztec Empire , and Francisco Pizarro , leader of the conquest of the Inca in Peru. Spanish conquerors took advantage of indigenous rivalries to forge alliances with groups seeing an advantage for their own goals. This
2354-544: A major metropolis, it held no interest for Spaniards and the 1535–36 settlement failed and was abandoned by 1541. Pedro de Mendoza and Domingo Martínez de Irala , who led the original expedition, went inland and founded Asunción, Paraguay , which became the Spaniards' base. A second (and permanent) settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay , who arrived by sailing down the Paraná River from Asunción , now
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#17327720625742568-505: A makeshift roof; this site was chosen to build the first church in Guatemala, which was dedicated to Concepción La Conquistadora. Tzakahá was renamed as San Luis Salcajá. The first Easter mass held in Guatemala was celebrated in the new church, during which high-ranking natives were baptised. In March 1524 Pedro de Alvarado entered Qʼumarkaj at the invitation of the remaining lords of the Kʼicheʼ after their catastrophic defeat, fearing that he
2782-457: A phase of inland expeditions and conquest. In 1500 the city of Nueva Cádiz was founded on the island of Cubagua , Venezuela, followed by the founding of Santa Cruz by Alonso de Ojeda in the present-day Guajira Peninsula . Cumaná in Venezuela was the first permanent settlement founded by Europeans in the mainland Americas, in 1501 by Franciscan friars , but due to successful attacks by
2996-407: A port city so that inland settlements could be connected by sea to Spain. In Mexico, Hernán Cortés and the men of his expedition founded of the port town of Veracruz in 1519 and constituted themselves as the town councilors, as a means to throw off the authority of the governor of Cuba, who did not authorize an expedition of conquest. Once the Aztec Empire was toppled, they founded Mexico City on
3210-772: A portion of the spoils of victory, in the form of precious metals , land grants and provision of native labour. Many of the Spanish were already experienced soldiers who had previously campaigned in Europe. The initial incursion into Guatemala was led by Pedro de Alvarado , who earned the military title of Adelantado in 1527; he answered to the Spanish crown via Hernán Cortés in Mexico. Other early conquistadors included Pedro de Alvarado's brothers Gómez de Alvarado , Jorge de Alvarado and Gonzalo de Alvarado y Contreras ; and his cousins Gonzalo de Alvarado y Chávez , Hernando de Alvarado and Diego de Alvarado. Pedro de Portocarrero
3424-423: A single empire, but by the time the Spanish arrived Maya civilization was thousands of years old and had already seen the rise and fall of great cities . 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 Kʼicheʼ had carved out a small empire covering a large part of the western Guatemalan Highlands and
3638-485: A source in Huancavelica (founded 1572), while Mexico had to rely on mercury imported from Spain. The Spanish founded towns in the Caribbean, on Hispaniola and Cuba, on a pattern that became spatially similar throughout Spanish America. A central plaza had the most important buildings on the four sides, especially buildings for royal officials and the main church. A checkerboard pattern radiated outward. Residences of
3852-407: A source of their own wealth, disappearing before their eyes. In the first settlements in the Caribbean, the Spaniards deliberately brought animals and plants that transformed the ecological landscape. Pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens allowed Spaniards to eat a diet with which they were familiar. But the importation of horses transformed warfare for both the Spaniards and the indigenous. Where
4066-673: A state of hostilities existed between the Mam and the Kʼicheʼ of Qʼumarkaj after the rebellion of the Kaqchikel against their former Kʼicheʼ allies prior to European contact, when the conquistadors arrived there was a shift in the political landscape. Pedro de Alvarado described how the Mam king Kaybʼil Bʼalam was received with great honour in Qʼumarkaj while he was there. The expedition against Zaculeu
4280-404: A way that increased the Spanish advantage. In Guatemala the Spanish routinely fielded indigenous allies; at first these were Nahuas brought from the recently conquered Mexico, later they also included Mayas . It is estimated that for every Spaniard on the field of battle, there were at least 10 native auxiliaries. Sometimes there were as many as 30 indigenous warriors for every Spaniard, and it
4494-399: Is Lope de Aguirre , who led a mutiny against Ursúa, who was murdered. Aguirre subsequently wrote a letter to Philip II bitterly complaining about the treatment of conquerors like himself in the wake of the assertion of crown control over Peru. An earlier expedition that left in 1527 was led by Pánfilo Naváez , who was killed early on. Survivors continued to travel among indigenous groups in
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#17327720625744708-459: Is 250,000 in the 16th century and most during the 18th century, as immigration was encouraged by the new Bourbon dynasty . The indigenous population plummeted by an estimated 80% in the first century and a half following Columbus's voyages, primarily through the spread of infectious diseases . Practices of forced labor and slavery for resource extraction, and forced resettlement in new villages and later missions were implemented. Alarmed by
4922-433: Is a quarter moon, when it rains one or two days, all the other days have such a beautiful sunshine... Chile was explored by Spaniards based in Peru, where Spaniards found the fertile soil and mild climate attractive. The Mapuche people of Chile, whom the Spaniards called Araucanians , resisted fiercely. The Spanish did establish the settlement of Chile in 1541, founded by Pedro de Valdivia . Southward colonization by
5136-541: Is commonly given credit for being the first European to sight Florida in 1513. For political reasons, Spain would sometimes claim that La Florida was all of the North American continent. However, the name was typically used to refer to the peninsula itself as well as the Gulf Coast , Georgia, Carolina, and southern Virginia . In 1521, Ponce de Leon was killed while trying to establish a settlement near what
5350-582: Is estimated that 88% of them died during the first ten years of colonial rule owing to a combination of disease and war. The conquest of the highlands was made difficult by the many independent polities in the region, rather than one powerful enemy to be defeated as was the case in central Mexico. After the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan fell to the Spanish in 1521, the Kaqchikel Maya of Iximche sent envoys to Hernán Cortés to declare their allegiance to
5564-466: Is known about the lives and history of the Qʼeqchiʼ people prior to being conquered by Spanish conquistadors; however, it is known that they were a Maya group located in the central highlands and northern lowlands of Guatemala. Their land was formerly known as Tezulutlan or “the land of war" and the Qʼeqchiʼ people were ruled by a king and had their own laws and government. When the Spanish began their conquest,
5778-585: Is most clearly seen in the conquest of the Aztec Empire with the alliance of the Nahua city-state of Tlaxcala against the Aztec Empire resulting in lasting benefits to themselves and their descendants. Patterns of the first Spanish settlements in the Caribbean were to endure there and had a lasting impact on the Spanish Empire. Until his dying day, Columbus was convinced that he had reached Asia,
5992-484: Is now Charlotte Harbor, Florida . Another failed attempt was conducted by Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón , who set out with approximately 500 colonists and established the settlement of San Miguel de Gualdape in modern-day South Carolina in 1526. In 1559, Tristán de Luna y Arellano established the first multi-year European settlement in the United States in what is now Pensacola , Florida. This settlement predates
6206-574: Is sometimes referred to as "the Last Conquistador ", expanded Spanish sovereignty over what is now New Mexico. Like previous conquistadors, Oñate engaged in widespread abuses of the Indian population. Shortly after founding Santa Fe , Oñate was recalled to Mexico City by the Spanish authorities. He was subsequently tried and convicted of cruelty to both natives and colonists and banished from New Mexico for life. Two major factors affected
6420-556: The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) in Seville. Ships and cargoes were registered, and emigrants vetted to prevent migration of anyone not of Old Christian heritage, (i.e., with no Jewish or Muslim ancestry), and facilitated the migration of families and women. In addition, the Casa de Contratación took charge of the fiscal organization, and of the organization and judicial control of
6634-553: The Audiencia of Bogotá , and comprised an area corresponding mainly to modern-day Colombia and parts of Venezuela . The conquistadors originally organized it as a captaincy general within the Viceroyalty of Peru . The crown established the audiencia in 1549. Ultimately, the kingdom became part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada first in 1717 and permanently in 1739. After several attempts to set up independent states in
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6848-516: The Carolinas , Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas, and California. Puerto Rico was also colonized by the Spanish during this era, occasioning the earliest contact between Africans and what would become the United States (via the free Black conquistador Juan Garrido ). Free and enslaved Africans were a feature of New Spain throughout the colonial period. One of the colonists who conquered Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de León ,
7062-858: The Chinamita , the Kejache , the Icaiche, the Lakandon Chʼol , the Mopan , the Manche Chʼol and the Yalain . The Kejache occupied an area north of the lake on the route to Campeche , while the Mopan and the Chinamita had their polities in the southeastern Petén. The Manche territory was to the southwest of the Mopan. The Yalain had their territory immediately to the east of Lake Petén Itzá. Maya warfare
7276-551: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec . The newly conquered territory became New Spain , headed by a viceroy who answered to the king of Spain via the Council of the Indies . Hernán Cortés received reports of rich, populated lands to the south and dispatched Pedro de Alvarado to investigate the region. In the run-up to the announcement that an invasion force was to be sent to Guatemala, 10,000 Nahua warriors had already been assembled by
7490-493: The Kaqchikel capital of Iximche , and the city of Qʼumarkaj , capital of the Kʼicheʼ , may also have suffered from the same epidemic. It is likely that the same combination of smallpox and a pulmonary plague swept across the entire Guatemalan Highlands . Modern knowledge of the impact of these diseases on populations with no prior exposure suggests that 33–50% of the population of the highlands perished. Population levels in
7704-470: The Kaqchikels , souring the friendship between the two peoples. He demanded that their kings deliver 1000 gold leaves, each worth 15 pesos . A Kaqchikel priest foretold that the Kaqchikel gods would destroy the Spanish, causing the Kaqchikel people to abandon their city and flee to the forests and hills on 28 August 1524 ( 7 Ahmak in the Kaqchikel calendar). Ten days later the Spanish declared war on
7918-489: The Kʼicheʼ , the Spanish were invited into Iximche and were well received by the lords Belehe Qat and Cahi Imox. The Kaqchikel kings provided native soldiers to assist the conquistadors against continuing Kʼicheʼ resistance and to help with the defeat of the neighbouring Tzʼutuhil kingdom. The Spanish only stayed briefly in Iximche before continuing through Atitlán , Escuintla and Cuscatlán . The Spanish returned to
8132-472: The Petén Basin were first contacted by Hernán Cortés in 1525, but remained independent and hostile to the encroaching Spanish until 1697, when a concerted Spanish assault led by Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi finally defeated the last independent Maya kingdom. Spanish and native tactics and technology differed greatly. The Spanish viewed the taking of prisoners as a hindrance to outright victory, whereas
8346-620: The Pipil . All were Maya groups except for the Pipil, who were a Nahua group related to the Aztecs ; the Pipil had a number of small city-states along the Pacific coastal plain of southern Guatemala and El Salvador . The Pipil of Guatemala had their capital at Itzcuintepec. The Xinca were another non-Maya group occupying the southeastern Pacific coastal area. The Maya had never been unified as
8560-553: The Samalá River in western Guatemala. This region formed a part of the Kʼicheʼ kingdom , and a Kʼicheʼ army tried unsuccessfully to prevent the Spanish from crossing the river. Once across, the conquistadors ransacked nearby settlements in an effort to terrorise the Kʼicheʼ. On 8 February 1524 Alvarado's army fought a battle at Xetulul, called Zapotitlán by his Mexican allies (modern San Francisco Zapotitlán ). Although suffering many injuries inflicted by defending Kʼicheʼ archers,
8774-463: The Xinca of the southern coastal plain used poison on their arrows. In response to the use of Spanish cavalry, the highland Maya took to digging pits and lining them with wooden stakes. The sources describing the Spanish conquest of Guatemala include those written by the Spanish themselves, among them two of four letters written by conquistador Pedro de Alvarado to Hernán Cortés in 1524, describing
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8988-669: The Zapotec and Mixtec provinces, with the addition of more Nahuas from the Aztec garrison in Soconusco . In the early 16th century the territory that now makes up Guatemala was divided into various competing polities, each locked in continual struggle with its neighbours. The most important were the Kʼicheʼ , the Kaqchikel , the Tzʼutujil , the Chajoma , the Mam , the Poqomam and
9202-699: The conquest of the Incan Empire , which used similar tactics and began in 1532, was the conquest of the Aztecs matched in scale of either territory or treasure. In 1532 at the Battle of Cajamarca a group of Spaniards under Francisco Pizarro and their indigenous Andean Indian auxiliaries native allies ambushed and captured the Emperor Atahualpa of the Inca Empire . It was the first step in
9416-663: The 1530s, and the Lienzo de Tlaxcala , painted in Tlaxcala. Accounts of the conquest as seen from the point of view of the defeated highland Maya kingdoms are included in a number of indigenous documents, including the Annals of the Kaqchikels , which includes the Xajil Chronicle describing the history of the Kaqchikel from their mythical creation down through the Spanish conquest and continuing to 1619. A letter from
9630-469: The 1540s and regional capitals founded by the 1550s. Among the most notable expeditions are Hernando de Soto into southeast North America, leaving from Cuba (1539–1542); Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to northern Mexico (1540–1542), and Gonzalo Pizarro to Amazonia, leaving from Quito, Ecuador (1541–1542). In 1561, Pedro de Ursúa led an expedition of some 370 Spanish (including women and children) into Amazonia to search for El Dorado. Far more famous now
9844-439: The 1810s, the kingdom and the viceroyalty ceased to exist altogether in 1819 with the establishment of Gran Colombia . Venezuela was first visited by Europeans during the 1490s, when Columbus was in control of the region, and the region as a source for indigenous slaves for Spaniards in Cuba and Hispaniola, since the Spanish destruction of the local indigenous population. There were few permanent settlements, but Spaniards settled
10058-481: The Americas began. Castile and Aragon were ruled jointly by their respective monarchs, but they remained separate kingdoms. When the Catholic Monarchs gave official approval for the plans for Columbus's voyage to reach "the Indies" by sailing West, the funding came from the queen of Castile. The profits from Spanish expedition flowed to Castile. The Kingdom of Portugal authorized a series of voyages down
10272-595: The Andes to the east, Pacific Ocean to the west, and indigenous to the south. Between 1537 and 1543, six Spanish expeditions entered highland Colombia, conquered the Muisca Confederation , and set up the New Kingdom of Granada (Spanish: Nuevo Reino de Granada ). Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was the leading conquistador with his brother Hernán second in command. It was governed by the president of
10486-585: The Argentine pampas. The introduction of sheep production was an ecological disaster in places where they were raised in great numbers, since they ate vegetation to the ground, preventing the regeneration of plants. The Spanish brought new crops for cultivation. (See Mission Garden for specific foods.) They preferred wheat cultivation to indigenous sources of carbohydrates: casava, maize (corn), and potatoes, initially importing seeds from Europe and planting in areas where plow agriculture could be utilized, such as
10700-462: The Aztec Empire and the Spanish conquest of Peru , more stringent laws to control conquerors' and settlers' exercise of power, especially their maltreatment of the indigenous populations, were promulgated, known as the New Laws (1542). The crown aimed to prevent the formation of an aristocracy in the Indies not under crown control. Queen Isabel was the first monarch that laid the first stone for
10914-680: The Aztec and Inca indigenous civilizations, and rich deposits of the valuable metal silver. Spanish settlement in Mexico "largely replicated the organization of the area in preconquest times". However, in Peru the center of the Incas was too far south, too remote, and at too high an altitude for the Spanish capital, so the capital Lima was built near the Pacific coast. The capitals of both Mexico and Peru (Mexico City and Lima) came to have large concentrations of Spanish settlers and hubs of royal and ecclesiastical administration, large commercial enterprises with skilled artisans, and centers of culture. Although Spaniards had hoped to find vast quantities of gold,
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#173277206257411128-585: The Aztec emperor Cuauhtémoc to accompany the Spanish expedition. Warriors were ordered to be gathered from each of the Mexica and Tlaxcaltec towns. The native warriors supplied their weapons, including swords, clubs and bows and arrows. Alvarado's army left Tenochtitlan at the beginning of the dry season, sometime between the second half of November and December 1523. As Alvarado left the Aztec capital, he led about 400 Spanish and approximately 200 Tlaxcalan and Cholulan warriors and 100 Mexica , meeting up with
11342-415: The Aztec emperor Moctezuma II , by Cortés was not a brilliant stroke of innovation, but came from the playbook that the Spanish developed during their period in the Caribbean. The composition of the expedition was the standard pattern, with a senior leader, and participating men investing in the enterprise with the full expectation of rewards if they did not lose their lives. Cortés's seeking indigenous allies
11556-568: The Belize Indigenous Training Institute funded a project which would develop a traditional healing garden and culture center. Here the Qʼeqchiʼ Healers shared their similar methods that had been passed down to them in the hopes of preserving rare plant life and educating their community. They are preserving the biodiversity of their region by coming up with different options other than wild harvesting as well as
11770-660: The Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of Castile and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon , whose marriage marked the beginning of Spanish power beyond the Iberian Peninsula . They pursued a policy of joint rule of their kingdoms and created the initial stage of a single Spanish monarchy , completed under the eighteenth-century Bourbon monarchs. The first expansion of territory was the conquest of the Muslim Emirate of Granada on 1 January 1492,
11984-541: The Chichimeca demanded. "Peace by purchase" ended the conflict. In southern Chile and the pampas, the Araucanians (Mapuche) prevented further Spanish expansion. The image of mounted Araucanians capturing and carrying off white women was the embodiment of Spanish ideas of civilization and barbarism. Cattle multiplied quickly in areas where little else could turn a profit for Spaniards, including northern Mexico and
12198-402: The Comanche in the northern Great Plains and the Mapuche in southern Chile and the pampas of Argentina resisted Spanish conquest. For Spaniards, the fierce Chichimecas barred them for exploiting mining resources in northern Mexico. Spaniards waged a fifty-year war (ca. 1550–1600) to subdue them, but peace was only achieved by Spaniards' making significant donations of food and other commodities
12412-434: The Conquest of New Spain"); his account of the conquest of Guatemala generally agrees with that of the Alvarados. His account was finished around 1568, some 40 years after the campaigns it describes. Hernán Cortés described his expedition to Honduras in the fifth letter of his Cartas de Relación , in which he details his crossing of what is now Guatemala's Petén Department . Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas wrote
12626-424: The Cuchumatanes is estimated to have been 260,000 before European contact. By the time the Spanish physically arrived in the region this had collapsed to 150,000 because of the effects of the Old World diseases that had run ahead of them. After the western portion of the Cuchumatanes fell to the Spanish, the Ixil and Uspantek Maya were sufficiently isolated to evade immediate Spanish attention. The Uspantek and
12840-402: The Dominican Republic (Hispaniola), have become important. Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos denounced Spanish cruelty and abuse in a sermon in 1511, which comes down to us in the writings of Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas . In 1542 Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote a damning account of this demographic catastrophe, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies . It
13054-419: The French, the English, and the Dutch seizing territory in the Caribbean and in North America claimed by Spain but not effectively settled. Portugal's claim to part of South America under the Treaty of Tordesillas resulted in the creation of Portuguese colony of Brazil. Although during the rule of Charles V , the Spanish Empire was the first to be called " The empire on which the sun never sets ", under Philip II
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#173277206257413268-423: The German Welser and Fugger banking families. To satisfy his debts to the Welsers, he granted them the right to colonize and exploit western Venezuela, with the proviso that they found two towns with 300 settlers each and construct fortifications. They established the colony of Klein-Venedig in 1528. They founded the towns of Coro and Maracaibo . They were aggressive in making their investment pay, alienating
13482-446: The Guatemalan Highlands did not recover to their pre-conquest levels until the middle of the 20th century. In 1666 pestilence or murine typhus swept through what is now the department of Huehuetenango . Smallpox was reported in San Pedro Saloma , in 1795. At the time of the fall of Nojpetén in 1697, there are estimated to have been 60,000 Mayas living around Lake Petén Itzá , including a large number of refugees from other areas. It
13696-439: The Habsburg dynasty in 1700 saw major administrative reforms in the eighteenth century under the Bourbon monarchy, starting with the first Spanish Bourbon monarch, Philip V (r. 1700–1746) and reaching its apogee under Charles III (r. 1759–1788). The reorganization of administration has been called "a revolution in government." Reforms sought to centralize government control through reorganization of administration, reinvigorate
13910-451: The Indies. From that misperception the Spanish called the indigenous peoples of the Americas , "Indians" ( indios ), lumping a multiplicity of civilizations, groups, and individuals into a single category. The Spanish royal government called its overseas possessions "The Indies" until its empire dissolved in the nineteenth century. In the Caribbean, because there was no integrated indigenous civilization such as found in Mexico and Peru, there
14124-419: The Ixil towns of Chajul and Nebaj . The Spanish army then marched east toward Uspantán itself; Arias then received notice that the acting governor of Guatemala, Francisco de Orduña , had deposed him as magistrate. Arias handed command over to the inexperienced Pedro de Olmos and returned to confront de Orduña. Although his officers advised against it, Olmos launched a disastrous full-scale frontal assault on
14338-517: The Ixil were allies and in 1529, four years after the conquest of Huehuetenango , Uspantek warriors were harassing Spanish forces and Uspantán was trying to foment rebellion among the Kʼicheʼ . Uspantek activity became sufficiently troublesome that the Spanish decided that military action was necessary. Gaspar Arias , magistrate of Guatemala, penetrated the eastern Cuchumatanes with 60 Spanish infantry and 300 allied indigenous warriors. By early September he had imposed temporary Spanish authority over
14552-430: The Kaqchikel capital on 23 July 1524 and on 27 July ( 1 Qʼat in the Kaqchikel calendar) Pedro de Alvarado declared Iximche as the first capital of Guatemala, Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala ("St. James of the Knights of Guatemala"). Iximche was called Guatemala by the Spanish, from the Nahuatl Quauhtemallan meaning "forested land". Since the Spanish conquistadors founded their first capital at Iximche, they took
14766-410: The Kaqchikel recorded that they sent only 400. With the capitulation of the Kʼicheʼ kingdom, various non-Kʼicheʼ peoples under Kʼicheʼ dominion also submitted to the Spanish. This included the Mam inhabitants of the area now within the modern department of San (. Quetzaltenango and San Marcos were placed under the command of Juan de León y Cardona, who began the reduction of indigenous populations and
14980-472: The Kaqchikel. Two years later, on 9 February 1526, a group of sixteen Spanish deserters burnt the palace of the Ahpo Xahil , sacked the temples and kidnapped a priest, acts that the Kaqchikel blamed on Pedro de Alvarado. Conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo recounted how 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 reported that
15194-479: The Kaqchikels The Spanish founded a new town at nearby Tecpán Guatemala ; Tecpán is Nahuatl for "palace", thus the name of the new town translated as "the palace among the trees". The Spanish abandoned Tecpán in 1527, because of the continuous Kaqchikel attacks, and moved to the Almolonga Valley to the east, refounding their capital on the site of today's San Miguel Escobar district of Ciudad Vieja , near Antigua Guatemala . The Nahua and Oaxacan allies of
15408-471: The Kʼicheʼ and the Kaqchikel were not loyal, and were instead harassing Spain's allies in the region. Cortés decided to despatch Pedro de Alvarado with 180 cavalry, 300 infantry, crossbows, muskets, 4 cannons, large amounts of ammunition and gunpowder, and thousands of allied Mexican warriors from Tlaxcala , Cholula and other cities in central Mexico; they arrived in Soconusco in 1523. Pedro de Alvarado
15622-498: The Maya prioritised the capture of live prisoners and of booty. The indigenous peoples of Guatemala lacked key elements of Old World technology such as a functional wheel , horses, iron, steel, and gunpowder ; they were also extremely susceptible to Old World diseases, against which they had no resistance. The Maya preferred raiding and ambush to large-scale warfare , using spears, arrows and wooden swords with inset obsidian blades;
15836-504: The Mexican Bajío . They also imported cane sugar, which was a high-value crop in early Spanish America. Spaniards also imported citrus trees, establishing orchards of oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruit. Other imports were figs, apricots, cherries, pears, and peaches among others. The exchange did not go one way. Important indigenous crops that transformed Europe were the potato and maize , which produced abundant crops that led to
16050-520: The Mexican coast. By August 1521 the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had fallen to the Spanish and their allies . A single soldier arriving in Mexico in 1520 was carrying smallpox and thus initiated the devastating plagues that swept through the native populations of the Americas. Within three years of the fall of Tenochtitlan the Spanish had conquered a large part of Mexico, extending as far south as
16264-586: The New World in the Caribbean and North and South America, with the exception of Brazil, ceded to Portugal by the Treaty of Tordesillas . Other European powers, including England, France, and the Dutch Republic, took possession of territories initially claimed by Spain. Although the overseas territories under the jurisdiction of the Spanish crown are now commonly called "colonies" the term was not used until
16478-469: The North American south and southwest until 1536. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was one of four survivors of that expedition, writing an account of it. The crown later sent him to Asunción , Paraguay to be adelantado there. Expeditions continued to explore territories in hopes of finding another Aztec or Inca empire, with no further success. Francisco de Ibarra led an expedition from Zacatecas in northern New Spain, and founded Durango . Juan de Oñate ,
16692-627: The Qʼeqchiʼ people. Traditionally the Qʼeqchiʼ people believe in the Tzuultaqʼa (a compound of tzuul "hill" and taq'a "valley"), male and female guardian deities which inhabit the local mountains. However they have mixed those beliefs with the beliefs of the Catholic church. Some Qʼeqchiʼ believe in the Christian God and those who practice Roman Catholicism venerate the saints. They also believe that Tzuultaqʼa preside over nature and dwell in
16906-423: The Qʼeqchiʼ society. From the 1880s to around the 1940s the plantation owners forbid the growing of any crops other than corn and beans, so they could easily identify which crops belonged to them. This created a corn-dependent diet of the Qʼeqchiʼ people. While corn doesn't prove very profitable for the Qʼeqchiʼ economy or their diet it does have other merits. The Qʼeqchiʼ use agriculture as a way to commune with God
17120-400: The Qʼeqchiʼ were hard to control due to a dispersed population. Bartolomé de las Casas was given permission to try to convert the Qʼeqchiʼ people to Christianity, however, only a small portion was converted and the church lost all ability to govern the Qʼeqchiʼ. This led to the exploitation of the Qʼeqchiʼ by plantation owners and slavers. During the nineteenth-century plantation agriculture
17334-517: The Seven Cities in 1599–1604. This Mapuche victory laid the foundation for the establishment of a Spanish-Mapuche frontier called La Frontera . Within this frontier the city of Concepción assumed the role of "military capital" of Spanish-ruled Chile. With a hostile indigenous population, no obvious mineral or other exploitable resources, and little strategic value, Chile was a fringe area of colonial Spanish America, hemmed in geographically by
17548-403: The Spaniards had exclusive access to horses in warfare, they had an advantage over indigenous warriors on foot. They were initially a scarce commodity, but horse breeding became an active industry. Horses that escaped Spanish control were captured by indigenous; many indigenous also raided for horses. Mounted indigenous warriors were significant foes for Spaniards. The Chichimeca in northern Mexico,
17762-484: The Spaniards' indigenous allies and managed to kill one of the Spanish soldiers. At this point Alvarado decided to have the captured Kʼicheʼ lords burnt to death, and then proceeded to burn the entire city. After the destruction of Qʼumarkaj and the execution of its rulers, Pedro de Alvarado sent messages to Iximche , capital of the Kaqchikel , proposing an alliance against the remaining Kʼicheʼ resistance. Alvarado wrote that they sent 4,000 warriors to assist him, although
17976-525: The Spanish Crown in the form of cacao, textiles, gold, silver and slaves. Within a few decades taxes were instead paid in beans, cotton and maize. Acasaguastlán was first given in encomienda to conquistador Diego Salvatierra in 1526. Chiquimula de la Sierra ("Chiquimula in the Highlands"), occupying the area of the modern department of Chiquimula to the east of the Poqomam and Chajoma ,
18190-473: The Spanish Crown to conquer the newly discovered lands in return for tax revenues and the power to rule. In the first decades after the discovery of the new lands, the Spanish colonised the Caribbean and established a centre of operations on the island of Cuba . They heard rumours of the rich empire of the Aztecs on the mainland to the west and, in 1519, Hernán Cortés set sail with eleven ships to explore
18404-468: The Spanish and the indigenous conquistadors were treated in a similar manner to the conquered natives. The Spanish engaged in a strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial towns, or reducciones (also known as congregaciones ). Native resistance to the new nucleated settlements took the form of the flight of the indigenous inhabitants into inaccessible regions such as mountains and forests. Epidemics accidentally introduced by
18618-461: The Spanish and their allies stormed the town and set up camp in the marketplace. Alvarado then turned to head upriver into the Sierra Madre mountains towards the Kʼicheʼ heartlands, crossing the pass into the fertile valley of Quetzaltenango . On 12 February 1524 Alvarado's Mexican allies were ambushed in the pass and driven back by Kʼicheʼ warriors but the Spanish cavalry charge that followed
18832-422: The Spanish as soon as news of the battle reached them. The Spanish continued east towards Uspantán to find it defended by 10,000 warriors, including forces from Cotzal , Cunén , Sacapulas and Verapaz . The Spaniards were barely able to organise a defence before the defending army attacked. Although heavily outnumbered, the deployment of Spanish cavalry and the firearms of the Spanish infantry eventually decided
19046-540: 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 it was delayed by heavy rains. Momostenango quickly fell to the Spanish after a four-hour battle. The following day Gonzalo de Alvarado marched on Huehuetenango and was confronted by a Mam army of 5,000 warriors from nearby Malacatán (modern Malacatancito ). The Mam army advanced across
19260-503: The Spanish empire had a royal treasury controlled by a set of oficiales reales (royal officials). There were also sub-treasuries at important ports and mining districts. The officials of the royal treasury at each level of government typically included two to four positions: a tesorero (treasurer), the senior official who guarded money on hand and made payments; a contador (accountant or comptroller ), who recorded income and payments, maintained records, and interpreted royal instructions;
19474-519: The Spanish garrison at Qʼumarkaj . A year later Francisco de Castellanos set out from Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala (by now relocated to Ciudad Vieja ) on another expedition against the Ixil and Uspantek, leading 8 corporals, 32 cavalry, 40 Spanish infantry and several hundred allied indigenous warriors. The expedition rested at Chichicastenango and recruited further forces before marching seven leagues northwards to Sacapulas and climbed
19688-424: The Spanish in 1526, fighting a battle at Ukubʼil, an unidentified site somewhere near the modern towns of San Juan Sacatepéquez and San Pedro Sacatepéquez . In the colonial period, most of the surviving Chajoma were forcibly settled in the towns of San Juan Sacatepéquez, San Pedro Sacatepéquez and San Martín Jilotepeque as a result of the Spanish policy of congregaciones ; the people were moved to whichever of
19902-634: The Spanish in Chile halted after the conquest of Chiloé Archipelago in 1567. This is thought to have been the result of an increasingly harsh climate to the south, and the lack of a populous and sedentary indigenous population to settle among for the Spanish in the fjords and channels of Patagonia . South of the Bío-Bío River the Mapuche successfully reversed colonization with the Destruction of
20116-430: The Spanish included smallpox , measles and influenza . These diseases, together with typhus and yellow fever , had a major impact on Maya populations. The Old World diseases brought with the Spanish and against which the indigenous New World peoples had no resistance were a deciding factor in the conquest; the diseases crippled armies and decimated populations before battles were even fought. Their introduction
20330-424: The Spanish settled in what is now central Ciudad Vieja, then known as Almolonga (not to be confused with Almolonga near Quetzaltenango ); Zapotec and Mixtec allies also settled San Gaspar Vivar about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) northeast of Almolonga, which they founded in 1530. The Kaqchikel kept up resistance against the Spanish for a number of years, but on 9 May 1530, exhausted by the warfare that had seen
20544-450: The Spanish use of crossbows , firearms (including muskets and cannon ), war dogs and war horses . Among Mesoamerican peoples the capture of prisoners was a priority, while to the Spanish such taking of prisoners was a hindrance to outright victory. The inhabitants of Guatemala, for all their sophistication, lacked key elements of Old World technology, such as the use of iron and steel and functional wheels. The use of steel swords
20758-479: The Spanish with spears, stakes and poisoned arrows. Maya warriors wore body armour in the form of quilted cotton that had been soaked in salt water to toughen it; the resulting armour compared favourably to the steel armour worn by the Spanish. The Maya had historically employed ambush and raiding as their preferred tactic, and its employment against the Spanish proved troublesome for the Europeans. In response to
20972-463: The Spanish, to extract mineral wealth or produce another valuable commodity for Spanish enrichment. The labor of dense populations of Taínos were allocated as grants to Spanish settlers in an institution known as the encomienda , where particular indigenous settlements were awarded to individual Spaniards. There was surface gold found in early islands, and holders of encomiendas put the indigenous to work panning for it. For all practical purposes, this
21186-599: The Yucatán coast. The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries. Pedro de Alvarado arrived in Guatemala from the newly conquered Mexico in early 1524, commanding a mixed force of Spanish conquistadors and native allies, mostly from Tlaxcala and Cholula . Geographic features across Guatemala now bear Nahuatl placenames owing to
21400-495: The approach to Quetzaltenango. The letter was dated 11 April 1524 and was written during his stay at Qʼumarkaj. Almost a week later, on 18 February 1524, a Kʼicheʼ army confronted the Spanish army in the Quetzaltenango valley and were comprehensively defeated; many Kʼicheʼ nobles were among the dead. Such were the numbers of Kʼicheʼ dead that Olintepeque was given the name Xequiquel , roughly meaning "bathed in blood". In
21614-624: The battle. The Spanish overran Uspantán and again branded all surviving warriors as slaves. The surrounding towns also surrendered, and December 1530 marked the end of the military stage of the conquest of the Cuchumatanes. Spanish colonization of the Americas The Spanish colonization of the Americas began in 1493 on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) after
21828-400: The behavior of Spanish settlers in the Americas, particularly with regards to treatment of native Indians in the institution of the encomienda . They forbade the maltreatment of natives, and endorsed the forced resettlement of indigenous populations with attempts of conversion to Catholicism. Upon their failure to effectively protect the indigenous and following the Spanish conquest of
22042-481: The capital of Paraguay . Exploration from Peru resulted in the foundation of Tucumán in what is now northwest Argentina. Much of what is now the Southern United States was claimed by Spain, some of it at least explored by the Spanish starting in the early 1500s, and some permanent settlements established. Spanish explorers claimed land for the crown in the modern-day states of Alabama, Arizona,
22256-635: The caves of the mountains. They also have three specific religious specialists that are from the Tzuultaqʼa side of their religion. These are: They also believe in similar rituals to those in other Latin American countries like the celebration of the Day of the Dead . They also practice a burial ritual which consists of wrapping the body in a petate (palm frond mat). They are then buried with items they would need for
22470-479: The centre of the city and sent out scouts to find the enemy. They managed to catch some locals and used them to send messages to the Tzʼutujil lords, ordering them to submit to the king of Spain. The Tzʼutujil leaders responded by surrendering to Pedro de Alvarado and swearing loyalty to Spain, at which point Alvarado considered them pacified and returned to Iximche. Three days after Pedro de Alvarado returned to Iximche,
22684-415: The city, and were hunted down by the victorious conquistadors and their allies. Those who managed to retreat down the neighbouring valley were ambushed by Spanish cavalry who had been posted to block the exit from the cave, the survivors were captured and brought back to the city. The siege had lasted more than a month and because of the defensive strength of the city, Alvarado ordered it to be burned and moved
22898-467: The city. As soon as the Spanish began their assault they were ambushed from the rear by more than 2,000 Uspantek warriors. The Spanish forces were routed with heavy losses; many of their indigenous allies were slain, and many more were captured alive by the Uspantek warriors only to be sacrificed on the altar of their deity Exbalamquen . The survivors who managed to evade capture fought their way back to
23112-432: The coast of Africa and when they rounded the southern tip, were able to sail to India and further east. Spain sought similar wealth, and authorized Columbus's voyage sailing west. Once the Spanish settlement in the Caribbean occurred, Spain and Portugal formalized a division of the world between them in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas . The deeply pious Isabella saw the expansion of Spain's sovereignty inextricably paired with
23326-507: The coastal islands of Cubagua and Margarita to exploit the pearl beds. Western Venezuela's history took an atypical direction in 1528, when Spain's first Hapsburg monarch, Charles I granted rights to colonize to the German banking family of the Welsers . Charles sought to be elected Holy Roman Emperor and was willing to pay whatever it took to achieve that. He became deeply indebted to
23540-459: The colonial economy. In Peru, silver was found in a single silver mountain, the Cerro Rico de Potosí , which is still producing silver in the 21st century. Potosí (founded 1545) was in the zone of dense indigenous settlement, so that labor could be mobilized on traditional patterns to extract the ore. An important element for productive mining was mercury for processing high-grade ore. Peru had
23754-409: The conditions in a jurisdiction, the position of factor/veedor was often eliminated, as well. The treasury officials were appointed by the king, and were largely independent of the authority of the viceroy, audiencia president or governor. On the death, unauthorized absence, retirement or removal of a governor, the treasury officials would jointly govern the province until a new governor appointed by
23968-425: The conquest of central Mexico include accounts by the expedition leader Hernán Cortés, Bernal Díaz del Castillo and other Spanish conquistadors, indigenous allies from the city-states altepetl of Tlaxcala, Texcoco , and Huexotzinco. In addition, indigenous accounts were written by the defeated from the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan , a case of history being written by those other than the victors. The capture of
24182-415: The conquest, the inhabitants of the eastern part of the kingdom were relocated by the conquerors to 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, were moved to San Martín Jilotepeque . The Chajoma rebelled against
24396-410: The continuing conquest, including the later assault on the Poqomam capital. The Kaqchikel appear to have entered into an alliance with the Spanish to defeat their enemies, the Tzʼutujil , whose capital was Tecpan Atitlan. Pedro de Alvarado sent two Kaqchikel messengers to Tecpan Atitlan at the request of the Kaqchikel lords, both of whom were killed by the Tzʼutujil. When news of the killing of
24610-526: The conventional sense but were the rulers of a confederation of dozens of city-states and other polities; the status of each varied from harshly subjugated to closely allied. The Spaniards persuaded the leaders of Aztec vassals and Tlaxcala (a city-state never conquered by the Aztecs), to ally with them against the Aztecs. Through such methods, the Spaniards came to accumulate a massive force of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of indigenous warriors. Records of
24824-421: The corpses of the dead. 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 report his victory to his brother. In 1525 Pedro de Alvarado sent a small company to conquer Mixco Viejo (Chinautla Viejo), the capital of the Poqomam . At the Spanish approach, the inhabitants remained enclosed in
25038-487: The creator in a very physical and spiritual way. It was a way to feel like a co-creator when planting new life into the soil. All the parts of planting, cultivating, and harvesting are all rituals and worship in their religion. The QHA, which is the Qʼeqchiʼ Healers Association, are an association of indigenous healers that have come together to share their forms of conservation and botany. The QHA along with
25252-453: The crown that the region he now controlled held a huge treasure in the form of gold and spices. Spanish settlers initially found relatively dense populations of indigenous peoples, who were agriculturalists living in villages ruled by leaders not part of a larger integrated political system. The Spanish saw these populations as a source of labor, there for their exploitation, to supply their own settlements with foodstuffs, but more importantly for
25466-523: The crown. Religion played an important role in the Spanish conquest and incorporation of indigenous peoples, bringing them into the Catholic Church peacefully or by force. The crown created civil and religious structures to administer the vast territory. Spanish men and women settled in greatest numbers where there were dense indigenous populations and the existence of valuable resources for extraction . The Spanish Empire claimed jurisdiction over
25680-837: The culmination of the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, held by the Muslims since 711. On 31 March 1492, the Catholic Monarch ordered the expulsion of the Jews in Spain who refused to convert to Christianity. Having departed from the port of Palos de la Frontera on 3 August 1492, on 12 October 1492, Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus and his crew made landfall in the Western Hemisphere, and in 1493 permanent Spanish settlement of
25894-482: The day but was finally decided by the Spanish cavalry, forcing the Poqomam reinforcements to withdraw. The leaders of the reinforcements surrendered to the Spanish three days after their retreat and revealed that the city had a secret entrance in the form of a cave leading up from a nearby river, allowing the inhabitants to come and go. Armed with the knowledge gained from their prisoners, Alvarado sent 40 men to cover
26108-452: The deaths of their best warriors and the enforced abandonment of their crops, the two kings of the most important clans returned from the wilds. A day later they were joined by many nobles and their families and many more people; they then surrendered at the new Spanish capital at Ciudad Vieja. The former inhabitants of Iximche were dispersed; some were moved to Tecpán , the rest to Sololá and other towns around Lake Atitlán . Although
26322-399: The defeated Tzʼutujil Maya nobility of Santiago Atitlán to the Spanish king written in 1571 details the exploitation of the subjugated peoples. Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán was a colonial Guatemalan historian of Spanish descent who wrote La Recordación Florida , also called Historia de Guatemala ( History of Guatemala ). The book was written in 1690 and is regarded as one of
26536-405: The density of Spanish settlement in the long term. One was the presence or absence of dense, hierarchically organized indigenous populations that could be made to work. The other was the presence or absence of an exploitable resource for the enrichment of settlers. Best was gold, but silver was found in abundance. The two main areas of Spanish settlement after 1550 were Mexico and Peru, the sites of
26750-557: The department of Zacapa. Chimalapa, Gualán and Usumatlán were all satellite settlements of Acasaguastlán. San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán and the surrounding area were reduced into colonial settlements by friars of the Dominican Order ; at the time of the conquest the area was inhabited by Poqomchiʼ Maya and by the Nahuatl-speaking Pipil . In the 1520s, immediately after conquest, the inhabitants paid taxes to
26964-462: The discovery of large quantities of silver became the motor of the Spanish colonial economy, a major source of income for the Spanish crown, and transformed the international economy. Mining regions in Mexico were remote, outside the zone of indigenous settlement in central and southern Mexico Mesoamerica , but mines in Zacatecas (founded 1548) and Guanajuato (founded 1548) emerged as key hubs in
27178-447: The early 17th century, the grandson of the Kʼicheʼ king informed the alcalde mayor (the highest colonial official at the time) that the Kʼicheʼ army that had marched out of Qʼumarkaj to confront the invaders numbered 30,000 warriors, a claim that is considered credible by modern scholars. This battle exhausted the Kʼicheʼ militarily and they asked for peace and offered tribute, inviting Pedro de Alvarado into their capital Qʼumarkaj, which
27392-403: The early Caribbean period, particularly Frey Nicolás de Ovando , who was sent to investigate the administration of Francisco de Bobadilla , the governor appointed to succeed Christopher Columbus. Later ecclesiastics served as interim viceroys, general inspectors (visitadores), and other high posts. The crown established control over trade and emigration to the Indies with the 1503 establishment
27606-543: The economies of Spain and the Spanish empire through changes in mercantile and fiscal policies, defend Spanish colonies and territorial claims through the establishment of a standing military, undermine the power of the Catholic church, and rein in the power of the American-born elites. The crown relied on ecclesiastics as important councilors and royal officials in the governance of their overseas territories. Archbishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca , Isabella's confessor,
27820-414: The elderly. Messengers from the community's leaders arrived from the hills and offered their unconditional surrender, which was accepted by Alvarado. The Spanish army rested for a few days, then continued onwards to Huehuetenango only to find it deserted. Kaybʼil Bʼalam had received news of the Spanish advance and had withdrawn to his fortress at Zaculeu. Alvarado sent a message to Zaculeu proposing terms for
28034-406: The enterprise, which in many ways functioned as a commercial firm. Upon the success of the expedition, the spoils of war were divvied up in proportion to the amount a participant initially staked, with the leader receiving the largest share. Participants supplied their own armor and weapons, and those who had a horse received two shares, one for himself, the second recognizing the value of the horse as
28248-411: The evangelization of non-Christian peoples, the so-called "spiritual conquest" with the military conquest. Pope Alexander VI in a 4 May 1493 papal decree, Inter caetera , divided rights to lands in the Western Hemisphere between Spain and Portugal on the proviso that they spread Christianity. These formal arrangements between Spain and Portugal and the pope were ignored by other European powers, with
28462-424: The exit from the cave and launched another assault along the ravine from the west, in single file owing to its narrowness, with crossbowmen alternating with soldiers bearing muskets, each with a companion sheltering him from arrows and stones with a shield. This tactic allowed the Spanish to break through the pass and storm the entrance of the city. The Poqomam warriors fell back in disorder in a chaotic retreat through
28676-656: The expansion of populations in Europe. Chocolate and vanilla were cultivated in Mexico and exported to Europe. Among the foodstuffs that became staples in European cuisine and could be grown there were tomatoes, squashes, bell peppers, cashews , pecans and peanuts . The empire in the Indies was a newly established dependency of the kingdom of Castile alone, so crown power was not impeded by any existing cortes (i.e. parliament), administrative or ecclesiastical institution, or seigneurial group. The crown sought to establish and maintain control over its overseas possessions through
28890-420: The expectation of profiting from it. The leader of an expedition, the adelantado was a senior with material wealth and standing who could persuade the crown to issue him a license for an expedition. He also had to attract participants to the expedition who staked their own lives and meager fortunes on the expectation of the expedition's success. The leader of the expedition pledged the larger share of capital to
29104-484: The fierce battles upon the initial approach to Quetzaltenango. The death of Tecun Uman is said to have taken place in the battle of El Pinar, and local tradition has his death taking place on the Llanos de Urbina (Plains of Urbina), upon the approach to Quetzaltenango near the modern village of Cantel . Pedro de Alvarado, in his third letter to Hernán Cortés , describes the death of one of the four lords of Qʼumarkaj upon
29318-534: The following years the conquistadors and indigenous allies extended control over Greater Andes Region. The Viceroyalty of Perú was established in 1542. The last Inca stronghold was conquered by the Spanish in 1572. Peru was the last territory on the continent under Spanish rule, which ended on 9 December 1824 at the Battle of Ayacucho (Spanish rule continued until 1898 in Cuba and Puerto Rico). [Chile] has four months of winter, no more, and in them, except when there
29532-406: The fortified city. The Spanish attempted an approach from the west through a narrow pass but were forced back with heavy losses. Alvarado himself launched the second assault with 200 Tlaxcalan allies but was also beaten back. The Poqomam then received reinforcements, possibly from Chinautla , and the two armies clashed on open ground outside of the city. The battle was chaotic and lasted for most of
29746-516: The foundation of Spanish towns. The towns of San Marcos and San Pedro Sacatepéquez were founded soon after the conquest of western Guatemala. In 1533 Pedro de Alvarado ordered de León y Cardona to explore and conquer the area around the Tacaná , Tajumulco , Lacandón and San Antonio volcanoes; in colonial times this area was referred to as the Province of Tecusitlán and Lacandón. De León marched to
29960-457: The foundation of St. Augustine by six years, marking an important yet often overlooked moment in the history of Spanish colonization. Archaeological evidence from the University of West Florida has confirmed the presence of Luna's expedition, which included 1,500 people and lasted from 1559 to 1561. The artifacts discovered at the site provide a direct link to Spain's early efforts to colonize
30174-515: The gathered reinforcements on the way. When the army left the Basin of Mexico , it may have included as many as 20,000 native warriors from various kingdoms, although the exact numbers are disputed. By the time the army crossed the Isthmus of Tehuantepec , the massed native warriors included 800 from Tlaxcala , 400 from Huejotzingo , 1,600 from Tepeaca plus many more from other former Aztec territories. Further Mesoamerican warriors were recruited from
30388-546: The governor of Cuba to form an expedition of exploration-only to this far western region. That expedition was to make world history. The Caribbean islands became less central to Spain's overseas colonization, but remained important strategically and economically, especially the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. Smaller islands claimed by Spain were lost to the English and the Dutch, with France taking half of Hispaniola and establishing
30602-420: The governor, it could be joined the military ones, according to military requirements, with the rank of Captain general . The office of captain general involved to be the supreme military chief of the whole territory and he was responsible for recruiting and providing troops, the fortification of the territory, the supply and the shipbuilding. Beginning in 1522 in the newly conquered Mexico, government units in
30816-488: The highlands. ... we waited until they came close enough to shoot their arrows, and then we smashed into them; as they had never seen horses, they grew very fearful, and we made a good advance ... and many of them died. Pedro de Alvarado describing the approach to Quetzaltenango in his 3rd letter to Hernán Cortés Pedro de Alvarado and his army advanced along the Pacific coast unopposed until they reached
31030-441: The houses of the city were still in excellent condition; his account was the last description of the city while it was still inhabitable. The Kaqchikel began to fight the Spanish. They opened shafts and pits for the horses and put sharp stakes in them to kill them ... Many Spanish and their horses died in the horse traps. Many Kʼicheʼ and Tzʼutujil also died; in this way the Kaqchikel destroyed all these peoples. Annals of
31244-661: The indigenous people, it had to be refounded several times, until Diego Hernández de Serpa 's foundation in 1569. The Spanish founded San Sebastián de Uraba in 1509 but abandoned it within the year. There is indirect evidence that the first permanent Spanish mainland settlement established in the Americas was Santa María la Antigua del Darién . Spaniards spent over 25 years in the Caribbean where their initial high hopes of dazzling wealth gave way to continuing exploitation of disappearing indigenous populations, exhaustion of local gold mines, initiation of cane sugar cultivation as an export product, and forced migration of enslaved Africans as
31458-586: The indigenous peoples. After the end of the period of conquests, it was necessary to manage extensive and different territories with a strong bureaucracy. In the face of the impossibility of the Castilian institutions to take care of the New World affairs, other new institutions were created. As the basic political entity it was the governorate, or province. The governors exercised judicial ordinary functions of first instance, and prerogatives of government legislating by ordinances. To these political functions of
31672-558: The indigenous population. From the Spanish viewpoint, their source of labor and viability of their own settlements was at risk. After the collapse of the Taino population of Hispaniola, Spaniards began raiding indigenous settlements on nearby islands, including Cuba , Puerto Rico , and Jamaica , to enslave those populations, replicating the demographic catastrophe there as well. The names of two indigenous leaders ( caciques ) who rebelled against Spanish colonization, Enriquillo and Hatuey in
31886-399: The indigenous populations and Spaniards alike. Charles revoked the grant in 1545, ending the episode of German colonization . Argentina was not conquered or later exploited in the grand fashion of central Mexico or Peru, since the indigenous population was sparse and there were no precious metals or other valuable resources. Although today Buenos Aires at the mouth of Río de la Plata is
32100-464: The influence of these Mexican allies, who translated for the Spanish. The Kaqchikel Maya initially allied themselves with the Spanish, but soon rebelled against excessive demands for tribute and did not finally surrender until 1530. In the meantime the other major highland Maya kingdoms had each been defeated in turn by the Spanish and allied warriors from Mexico and already subjugated Maya kingdoms in Guatemala. The Itza Maya and other lowland groups in
32314-475: The inhabitants could break the bridges. The rest of Alvarado's army soon reinforced his party and they successfully stormed the island. The surviving Tzʼutujil fled into the lake and swam to safety on another island. The Spanish could not pursue the survivors further because 300 canoes sent by the Kaqchikels had not yet arrived. This battle took place on 18 April. The following day the Spanish entered Tecpan Atitlan but found it deserted. Pedro de Alvarado camped in
32528-466: The inhabitants to the new colonial village of Mixco . There are no direct sources describing the conquest of the Chajoma by the Spanish but it appears to have been a drawn-out campaign rather than a rapid victory. The only description of the conquest of the Chajoma is a secondary account appearing in the work of Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán in the 17th century, long after the event. After
32742-450: The initial 1492 voyage of Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus under license from Queen Isabella I of Castile . These overseas territories of the Spanish Empire were under the jurisdiction of Crown of Castile until the last territory was lost in 1898 . Spaniards saw the dense populations of indigenous peoples as an important economic resource and the territory claimed as potentially producing great wealth for individual Spaniards and
32956-479: The initial campaign to subjugate the Guatemalan Highlands . These letters were despatched to Tenochtitlan , addressed to Cortés but with a royal audience in mind; two of these letters are now lost. Gonzalo de Alvarado y Chávez was Pedro de Alvarado's cousin; he accompanied him on his first campaign in Guatemala and in 1525 he became the chief constable of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala ,
33170-455: The journey into the afterlife. Marriages in the Qʼeqchiʼ culture are arranged by the parents of the children. The parents of both children meet over time and if all goes well the children are married. This happens at the ages of 12 to 15 for the women and 15 to 18 for the males. After that the family would look very similar to the normal family picture; a mother, a father, and a couple of children. When it comes to inheritance parents usually give
33384-450: The king could take up his duties. Treasury officials were supposed to be paid out of the income from the province, and were normally prohibited from engaging in income-producing activities. The protection of the indigenous populations from enslavement and exploitation by Spanish settlers were established in the Laws of Burgos , 1512–1513. The laws were the first codified set of laws governing
33598-401: The lack of resistance, Alvarado rode ahead with 30 cavalry along the lakeshore. Opposite a populated island the Spanish at last encountered hostile Tzʼutujil warriors and charged among them, scattering and pursuing them to a narrow causeway across which the surviving Tzʼutujil fled. The causeway was too narrow for the horses, therefore the conquistadors dismounted and crossed to the island before
33812-656: The launching point for further expeditions. These were often led by secondary leaders, such as Pedro de Alvarado . Later conquests in Mexico were protracted campaigns with less immediate results than the conquest of the Aztec Empire. The Spanish conquest of Yucatán , the Spanish conquest of Guatemala , the conquest of the Purépecha of Michoacan, the war of Mexico's west , and the Chichimeca War in northern Mexico expanded Spanish control over territory and indigenous populations stretching thousands of miles. Not until
34026-617: The lords of the Tzʼutujil arrived there to pledge their loyalty and offer tribute to the conquistadors. A short time afterwards a number of lords arrived from the Pacific lowlands to swear allegiance to the king of Spain, although Alvarado did not name them in his letters; they confirmed Kaqchikel reports that further out on the Pacific plain was the kingdom called Izcuintepeque in Nahuatl , or Panatacat in Kaqchikel , whose inhabitants were warlike and hostile towards their neighbours. Pedro de Alvarado rapidly began to demand gold in tribute from
34240-479: The main Mam population was situated in Xinabahul (also spelled Chinabjul ), now the city of Huehuetenango , but Zaculeu's fortifications led to its use as a refuge during the conquest. The refuge was attacked by Gonzalo de Alvarado y Contreras , brother of conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, in 1525, with 40 Spanish cavalry and 80 Spanish infantry, and some 2,000 Mexican and Kʼicheʼ allies. Gonzalo de Alvarado left
34454-574: The majority of which were Maya . Many conquistadors viewed the Maya as " infidels " who needed to be forcefully converted and pacified, disregarding the achievements of their civilization . The first contact between the Maya and European explorers came in the early 16th century when a Spanish ship sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo was wrecked on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in 1511. Several Spanish expeditions followed in 1517 and 1519, making landfall on various parts of
34668-408: The messengers reached the Spanish at Iximche , the conquistadors marched against the Tzʼutujil with their Kaqchikel allies. Pedro de Alvarado left Iximche just 5 days after he had arrived there, with 60 cavalry, 150 Spanish infantry and an unspecified number of Kaqchikel warriors. The Spanish and their allies arrived at the lakeshore after a day's hard march, without encountering any opposition. Seeing
34882-531: The monarchy. Expeditions required authorization by the crown, which laid out the terms of such expedition. Virtually all expeditions after the Columbus voyages, which were funded by the crown of Castile, were done at the expense of the leader of the expedition and its participants. Although often the participants, conquistadors , are now termed "soldiers", they were not paid soldiers in ranks of an army, but rather soldiers of fortune , who joined an expedition with
35096-453: The most important works of Guatemalan history, and is the first such book to have been written by a criollo author. Field investigation has tended to support the estimates of indigenous population and army sizes given by Fuentes y Guzmán. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World for the Kingdom of Castile and León in 1492. Private adventurers thereafter entered into contracts with
35310-489: The most widely spread geographically of all Maya peoples in Guatemala. The Q'eqchi' originally came from a large recorded migration that started from central Mexico towards the Guatemalan highlands, where they settled and developed as a sedentary society characterized by the cultivation of corn, specifically, it was in the present-day department of Alta Verapaz where they had their pre-Hispanic development. Not much more
35524-450: The name of the city used by their Nahuatl-speaking Mexican allies and applied it to the new Spanish city and, by extension, to the kingdom . From this comes the modern name of the country. When Pedro de Alvarado moved his army to Iximche, he left the defeated Kʼicheʼ kingdom under the command of Juan de León y Cardona. Although de León y Cardona was given command of the western reaches of the new colony, he continued to take an active role in
35738-407: The needs of their families not external markets. At first the Qʼeqchiʼ were polycultural. The plants they farmed were edible weeds, banana plants, and other companion crops. They also acquire some of their food from wild plants and some villages still hunt. However for most present day Qʼeqchiʼ people today their food comes from the corn fields. This comes mainly from a time where plantations dominated
35952-405: The neighbouring Pacific coastal plain. However, in the late 15th century the Kaqchikel rebelled against their former Kʼicheʼ allies and founded a new kingdom to the southeast with Iximche as its capital. In the decades before the Spanish invasion the Kaqchikel kingdom had been steadily eroding the kingdom of the Kʼicheʼ. Other highland groups included the Tzʼutujil around Lake Atitlán , the Mam in
36166-458: The new ruler of Mexico, and the Kʼicheʼ Maya of Qʼumarkaj may also have sent a delegation. In 1522 Cortés sent Mexican allies to scout the Soconusco region of lowland Chiapas , where they met new delegations from Iximche and Qʼumarkaj at Tuxpán ; both of the powerful highland Maya kingdoms declared their loyalty to the king of Spain . But Cortés' allies in Soconusco soon informed him that
36380-513: The newly founded Spanish capital. Gonzalo wrote an account that mostly supports that of Pedro de Alvarado. Pedro de Alvarado's brother Jorge wrote another account to the king of Spain that explained 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 neighbouring regions, the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España ("True History of
36594-647: The northern Gulf Coast. In the fall of 1528, Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca landed on present day Follet's Island, Texas . In 1565, Spain established a settlement in St. Augustine, Florida , lasting in one way or another until modern times. Permanent Spanish settlements were founded in New Mexico , starting in 1598, with Santa Fe founded in 1610. The spectacular conquests of central Mexico (1519–1521) and Peru (1532) sparked Spaniards' hopes of finding yet another high civilization. Expeditions continued into
36808-434: The officials and elites were closest to the main square. Once on the mainland, where there were dense indigenous populations in urban settlements, the Spanish could build a Spanish settlement on the same site, dating its foundation to when that occurred. Often they erected a church on the site of an indigenous temple. They replicated the existing indigenous network of settlements, but added a port city. The Spanish network needed
37022-423: The participation of indigenous allies, the conquest of central Mexico was protracted and necessitated significant numbers of indigenous allies, who chose to participate in defeating the Aztec Empire for their own purposes. The conquest of the Aztec Empire involved the combined effort of armies from many indigenous allies, spearheaded by a small Spanish force of conquistadors. The Aztecs did not govern over an empire in
37236-410: The peaceful surrender of the Mam king, who chose not to answer. Zaculeu was defended by Kaybʼil Bʼalam commanding some 6,000 warriors gathered from Huehuetenango , Zaculeu , Cuilco and Ixtahuacán . The fortress was surrounded on three sides by deep ravines and defended by a formidable system of walls and ditches. Gonzalo de Alvarado, although outnumbered two to one, decided to launch an assault on
37450-651: The period of Spanish rule. In the early 19th century, the Spanish American wars of independence resulted in the secession of most of Spanish America and the establishment of independent nations. Continuing under crown rule were Cuba and Puerto Rico , along with the Philippines , which were all lost to the United States in 1898, following the Spanish–American War , ending its rule in the Americas. The expansion of Spain's territory took place under
37664-597: The permanent colonization of the Philippine Islands made it demonstrably true. The Spanish expansion has sometimes been succinctly summed up as being motivated by "gold, glory, God", that is, the search for material wealth, the enhancement of the conquerors' and the crown's position, and the expansion of Christianity to the exclusion of other religious traditions. In the extension of Spanish sovereignty to its overseas territories, authority for expeditions ( entradas ) of discovery, conquest, and settlement resided in
37878-410: The plain in battle formation and was met by a Spanish cavalry charge that threw them into disarray, with the infantry mopping up those Mam that survived the cavalry. Gonzalo de Alvarado slew the Mam leader Canil Acab with his lance, at which point the Mam army's resistance was broken, and the surviving warriors fled to the hills. Alvarado entered Malacatán unopposed to find it occupied only by the sick and
38092-408: The precipitous fall in indigenous populations and reports of settlers' exploitation of their labor, the crown put in place laws to protect their newly converted indigenous vassals. Europeans imported enslaved Africans to the early Caribbean settlements to replace indigenous labor and enslaved and free Africans were part of colonial-era populations. A mixed-race casta population came into being during
38306-533: The property and assets to the child who offers to care for the parents during their life. The traditional dish of the mexican Q'eqchi' people of Campeche is the Ch'ajomik , a preparation of butter, garlic, tomato, onions, coriander and dried chili, only in important dates such as towns festivities they prepare and consume a traditional dish called Kaq'ik . The agricultural production of the Qʼeqchiʼ people consists mostly of subsistence farming. This means they only farm for
38520-445: The rebellion was quickly put down in April 1530. However, the region was not considered fully conquered until a campaign by Jorge de Bocanegra in 1531–1532 that also took in parts of Jalapa . The afflictions of Old World diseases, war and overwork in the mines and encomiendas took a heavy toll on the inhabitants of eastern Guatemala, to the extent that indigenous population levels never recovered to their pre-conquest levels. In
38734-1041: The ruins of the Aztec capital. Their central official and ceremonial area was built on top of Aztec palaces and temples. In Peru, Spaniards founded the city of Lima as their capital and its nearby port of Callao , rather than the high-altitude site of Cuzco , the center of Inca rule. Spaniards established a network of settlements in areas they conquered and controlled. Important ones include Santiago de Guatemala (1524); Puebla (1531); Querétaro (ca. 1531); Guadalajara (1531–42); Valladolid (now Morelia ), (1529–41); Antequera (now Oaxaca (1525–29); Campeche (1541); and Mérida . In southern Central and South America, settlements were founded in Panama (1519); León, Nicaragua (1524); Cartagena (1532); Piura (1532); Quito (1534); Trujillo (1535); Cali (1537) Bogotá (1538); Quito (1534); Cuzco 1534); Lima (1535); Tunja , (1539); Huamanga (1539); Arequipa (1540); Santiago de Chile (1544) and Concepción, Chile (1550). Settled from
38948-461: The second half of 18th century. The process of Spanish settlement, now called "colonization" and the "colonial era" are terms contested by scholars of Latin America and more generally. It is estimated that during the period 1492–1832, a total of 1.86 million Spaniards settled in the Americas, and a further 3.5 million immigrated during the post-independence era (1850–1950); the estimate
39162-480: The south were Buenos Aires (1536, 1580); Asunción (1537); Potosí (1545); La Paz, Bolivia (1548); and Tucumán (1553). The Columbian Exchange was as significant as the clash of civilizations. Arguably the most significant introduction was diseases brought to the Americas, which devastated indigenous populations in a series of epidemics. The loss of indigenous population had a direct impact on Spaniards as well, since increasingly they saw those populations as
39376-462: The steep southern slopes of the Cuchumatanes . On the upper slopes they clashed with a force of 4,000-5,000 Ixil warriors from Nebaj and nearby settlements. A lengthy battle followed during which the Spanish cavalry managed to outflank the Ixil army and forced them to retreat to their mountaintop fortress at Nebaj. The Spanish force besieged the city, and their indigenous allies managed to scale
39590-416: The sugar-producing colony of St-Domingue , as well as also taking other islands. With Spanish expansion into central Mexico under conqueror Hernán Cortés and the conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519-1521)Spanish explorers were able to find wealth on the scale that they had long hoped for. Unlike Spanish contact with indigenous populations in the Caribbean, which involved limited armed combat and sometimes
39804-565: The ten years after the fall of Zaculeu various Spanish expeditions crossed into the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes and engaged in the gradual and complex conquest of the Chuj and Qʼanjobʼal . The Spanish were attracted to the region in the hope of extracting gold, silver and other riches from the mountains but their remoteness, the difficult terrain and relatively low population made their conquest and exploitation extremely difficult. The population of
40018-455: The territory, the king, as sovereign, and the appointed leader of an expedition ( adelantado ) agreed to an itemized contract ( capitulación ), with the specifics of the conditions of the expedition in a particular territory. The individual leaders of expeditions assumed the expenses of the venture and in return received as reward the grant from the government of the conquered territories; and in addition, they received instructions about treating
40232-573: The three towns was closest to their pre-conquest land holdings. Some Iximche Kaqchikels seem also to have been relocated to the same towns. After their relocation some of the Chajoma drifted back to their pre-conquest centres, creating informal settlements and provoking hostilities with the Poqomam of Mixco and Chinautla along the former border between the pre-Columbian kingdoms. Some of these settlements eventually received official recognition, such as San Raimundo near Sacul . The Spanish colonial corregimiento of San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán
40446-474: The trade with the Indies. The politics of asserting royal authority to oppose Columbus resulted in the suppression of his privileges and the creation of territorial governance under royal authority. These governorates, also called as provinces, were the basic of the territorial government of the Indies, and arose as the territories were conquered and colonized. To carry out the expedition ( entrada ), which entailed exploration, conquest, and initial settlement of
40660-471: The use of cavalry, the highland Maya took to digging pits on the roads, lining them with fire-hardened stakes and camouflaging them with grass and weeds, a tactic that according to the Kaqchikel killed many horses. We came here to serve God and the King, and also to get rich. Bernal Díaz del Castillo The conquistadors were all volunteers, the majority of whom did not receive a fixed salary but instead
40874-407: The walls, penetrate the stronghold and set it on fire. Many defending Ixil warriors withdrew to fight the fire, which allowed the Spanish to storm the entrance and break the defences. The victorious Spanish rounded up the surviving defenders and the next day Castellanos ordered them all to be branded as slaves as punishment for their resistance. The inhabitants of Chajul immediately capitulated to
41088-427: The walls. As Alvarado dug in and laid siege to the fortress, an army of approximately 8,000 Mam warriors descended on Zaculeu from the Cuchumatanes mountains to the north, drawn from those towns allied with the city. Alvarado left Antonio de Salazar to supervise the siege and marched north to confront the Mam army. The Mam army was disorganised, and although it was a match for the Spanish and allied foot soldiers, it
41302-463: The weaker northern entrance. Mam warriors initially held the northern approaches against the Spanish infantry but fell back before repeated cavalry charges. The Mam defence was reinforced by an estimated 2,000 warriors from within Zaculeu but was unable to push the Spanish back. Kaybʼil Bʼalam, seeing that outright victory on an open battlefield was impossible, withdrew his army back within the safety of
41516-849: The western highlands and the Poqomam in the eastern highlands. The kingdom of the Itza was the most powerful polity in the Petén lowlands of northern Guatemala, centred on their capital Nojpetén , on an island in Lake Petén Itzá . The second polity in importance was that of their hostile neighbours, the Kowoj . The Kowoj were located to the east of the Itza, around the eastern lakes: Lake Salpetén, Lake Macanché, Lake Yaxhá and Lake Sacnab. Other groups are less well known and their precise territorial extent and political makeup remains obscure; among them were
41730-475: Was a big part of the Qʼeqchiʼ people's lives. This led to the seizure of the Qʼeqchiʼ's communal land by plantations and the service of the Qʼeqchiʼ to farm the plantations. By 1877, all communal landownership was abolished by the government which prompted some of the Qʼeqchiʼ to move to Belize . This seizure of communal land along with the effects of the Spanish Conquest created long-lasting poverty in
41944-447: Was a nobleman who joined the initial invasion. Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a petty nobleman who accompanied Hernán Cortés when he crossed the northern lowlands, and Pedro de Alvarado on his invasion of the highlands. In addition to Spaniards, the invasion force probably included dozens of armed African slaves and freedmen . Spanish weaponry and tactics differed greatly from that of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala. This included
42158-404: Was a shock for the Kʼicheʼ, who had never before seen horses. The cavalry scattered the Kʼicheʼ and the army crossed to the city of Xelaju (modern Quetzaltenango) only to find it deserted. Although the common view is that the Kʼicheʼ prince Tecun Uman died in the later battle near Olintepeque , the Spanish accounts are clear that at least one and possibly two of the lords of Qʼumarkaj died in
42372-408: Was a typical tactic of warfare: divide and conquer. But the indigenous allies had much to gain by throwing off Aztec rule. For the Spaniards' Tlaxcalan allies, their crucial support gained them enduring political legacy into the modern era, the Mexican state of Tlaxcala. The conquest of central Mexico sparked further Spanish conquests, following the pattern of conquered and consolidated regions being
42586-400: Was apparently initiated after Kʼicheʼ bitterness at their failure to contain the Spanish at Qʼumarkaj, with the plan to trap the conquistadors in the city having been suggested to them by the Mam king, Kaybʼil Bʼalam; the resulting execution of the Kʼicheʼ kings was viewed as unjust. The Kʼicheʼ suggestion of marching on the Mam was quickly taken up by the Spanish. At the time of the conquest,
42800-407: Was catastrophic in the Americas; it is estimated that 90% of the indigenous population had been eliminated by disease within the first century of European contact. In 1519 and 1520, before the arrival of the Spanish in the region, a number of epidemics swept through southern Guatemala. At the same time as the Spanish were occupied with the overthrow of the Aztec Empire , a devastating plague struck
43014-564: Was entering a trap. He encamped on the plain outside the city rather than accepting lodgings inside. Fearing the great number of Kʼicheʼ warriors gathered outside the city and that his cavalry would not be able to manoeuvre in the narrow streets of Qʼumarkaj, he invited the leading lords of the city, Oxib-Keh (the ajpop , or king) and Beleheb-Tzy (the ajpop kʼamha , or king elect) to visit him in his camp. As soon as they did so, he seized them and kept them as prisoners in his camp. The Kʼicheʼ warriors, seeing their lords taken prisoner, attacked
43228-642: Was established in 1551 with its seat in the town of that name, now in the eastern portion of the modern department of El Progreso . Acasaguastlán was one of few pre-conquest centres of population in the middle Motagua River drainage, due to the arid climate. It covered a broad area that included Cubulco , Rabinal , and Salamá (all in Baja Verapaz ), San Agustín de la Real Corona (modern San Agustín Acasaguastlán ) and La Magdalena in El Progreso, and Chimalapa , Gualán , Usumatlán and Zacapa , all in
43442-478: Was infamous for the massacre of Aztec nobles in Tenochtitlan and, according to Bartolomé de las Casas , he committed further atrocities in the conquest of the Maya kingdoms in Guatemala. Some groups remained loyal to the Spanish once they had submitted to the conquest, such as the Tzʼutujil and the Kʼicheʼ of Quetzaltenango , and provided them with warriors to assist further conquest. Other groups soon rebelled however, and by 1526 numerous rebellions had engulfed
43656-495: Was inhabited by Chʼortiʼ Maya at the time of the conquest. The first Spanish reconnaissance of this region took place in 1524 by an expedition that included Hernando de Chávez , Juan Durán, Bartolomé Becerra and Cristóbal Salvatierra , amongst others. 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 excessive Spanish demands, but
43870-402: Was known as Tecpan Utatlan to the Nahuatl-speaking allies of the Spanish. Alvarado was deeply suspicious of the Kʼicheʼ intentions but accepted the offer and marched to Qʼumarkaj with his army. The day after the battle of Olintepeque, the Spanish army arrived at Tzakahá , which submitted peacefully. There the Spanish chaplains Juan Godínez and Juan Díaz conducted a Roman Catholic mass under
44084-519: Was no large-scale Spanish conquest of indigenous peoples, but there was indigenous resistance to Spanish colonization. Columbus made four voyages to the West Indies as the monarchs granted Columbus vast powers of governance over this unknown part of the world. The crown of Castile financed more of his trans-Atlantic journeys, a pattern they would not repeat elsewhere. Effective Spanish settlement began in 1493, when Columbus brought livestock, seeds, agricultural equipment. The first settlement of La Navidad ,
44298-422: Was not so much aimed at destruction of the enemy as the seizure of captives and plunder. The Spanish described the weapons of war of the Petén Maya as bows and arrows, fire-sharpened poles, flint-headed spears and two-handed swords crafted from strong wood with the blade fashioned from inset obsidian , similar to the Aztec macuahuitl . Pedro de Alvarado described how the Xinca of the Pacific coast attacked
44512-468: Was perhaps the greatest technological advantage held by the Spanish, although the deployment of cavalry helped them to rout indigenous armies on occasion. The Spanish were sufficiently impressed by the quilted cotton armour of their Maya enemies that they adopted it in preference to their own steel armour. The conquistadors applied a more effective military organisation and strategic awareness than their opponents, allowing them to deploy troops and supplies in
44726-504: Was slavery. Queen Isabel put an end to formal slavery, declaring the indigenous to be vassals of the crown, but Spaniards' exploitation of indigenous labor continued. The Taíno population on Hispaniola went from hundreds of thousands or millions – the estimates by scholars vary widely – but in the mid-1490s, they were practically wiped out. Disease and overwork, disruption of family life and the agricultural cycle (which caused severe food shortages to Spaniards dependent on them) rapidly decimated
44940-474: Was tasked with reining in Columbus's independence. He strongly influenced the formulation of colonial policy under the Catholic Monarchs, and was instrumental in establishing the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) (1503), which enabled crown control over trade and immigration. Ovando fitted out Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation, and became the first President of the Council of the Indies in 1524. Ecclesiastics also functioned as administrators overseas in
45154-410: Was the participation of these Mesoamerican allies that was particularly decisive. In at least one case, encomienda rights were granted to one of the Tlaxcalan leaders who came as allies, and land grants and exemption from being given in encomienda were given to the Mexican allies as rewards for their participation in the conquest. In practice, such privileges were easily removed or sidestepped by
45368-417: Was to propagate and cultivate many rare plant species. Spanish conquest of Guatemala In a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas , Spanish colonisers gradually incorporated the territory that became the modern country of Guatemala into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain . Before the conquest, this territory contained a number of competing Mesoamerican kingdoms,
45582-459: Was translated quickly to English and became the basis for the anti-Spanish writings, collectively known as the Black Legend . Las Casas spent his long life attempting to defend the indigenous populations and to enlist the Spanish crown in establishing protections for them, seen most prominently in the enactment of the New Laws of 1542, restricting Spaniards' inheritance of encomiendas . The first mainland explorations by Spaniards were followed by
45796-409: Was vulnerable to the repeated charges of the experienced Spanish cavalry. The relief army was broken and annihilated, allowing Alvarado to return to reinforce the siege. After several months the Mam were reduced to starvation. Kaybʼil Bʼalam finally surrendered the city to the Spanish in the middle of October 1525. When the Spanish entered the city they found 1,800 dead Indians, and the survivors eating
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