Pedro de Alvarado's Conquest of Guatemala (1524-1527)

Pedro de Alvarado’s conquest of Guatemala began in 1524, when the Spanish captain led an army south from Mexico into the highlands of the Maya. He defeated the K’iche’ kingdom, allied briefly with the Kaqchikel and founded the first Spanish capital of Guatemala at Iximche. The campaign created the colony of Guatemala, but it was marked by great brutality, and Maya resistance lasted for years.

Background

In the early 16th century the Guatemalan highlands were divided among rival Maya kingdoms. The K’iche’, with their capital at Q’umarkaj (Utatlán), had once been dominant, but the Kaqchikel of Iximche had broken away and the two were at war. The Tz’utujil ruled around Lake Atitlán, and the Pipil, Nahua-speakers, lived along the Pacific coast to the east. Epidemic disease had probably reached the region before the Spaniards themselves.

After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Hernán Cortés sent expeditions in several directions. He chose Pedro de Alvarado, one of his most aggressive captains, to lead an army towards Guatemala, a region whose rulers had sent envoys to the Spaniards in Mexico.

The campaign of 1524

Alvarado left Mexico City in December 1523 with a force usually given as about 180 horsemen, 300 Spanish foot soldiers and a few cannon. Several thousand Indigenous allies from central Mexico, among them Tlaxcalans and Mexica, made up most of his army (see Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire).

In February 1524 he entered K’iche’ territory through the Pacific lowlands and fought several battles on the plain near Xelajú, later Quetzaltenango. In one of these, according to K’iche’ tradition, the leader Tecun Uman was killed. The K’iche’ lords then invited Alvarado to Q’umarkaj. Suspecting a trap, he seized the two kings, Oxib Keh and Beleheb Tz’i, and had them burned to death in March 1524, then destroyed the city.

The Kaqchikel, rivals of the K’iche’, allied with the Spaniards, and Alvarado entered Iximche in April 1524. With Kaqchikel warriors he defeated the Tz’utujil at Lake Atitlán and then marched east against the Pipil of Cuscatlán, in present-day El Salvador, where he met fierce resistance and was badly wounded in the leg.

Alvarado the conquistador

Pedro de Alvarado, born around 1485 in Badajoz in Extremadura, had served in Cuba and in the expedition of Juan de Grijalva before joining Cortés in 1519. Fair-haired and flamboyant, he was nicknamed Tonatiuh, “the Sun”, by the Nahua. He was also notorious for his violence, and the massacre of the Toxcatl festival in Tenochtitlan in 1520 was carried out under his command. Even some Spanish contemporaries, notably the friar Bartolomé de las Casas, condemned his cruelty in Guatemala.

Santiago and the Kaqchikel revolt

On 25 July 1524, the feast of Saint James, Alvarado founded the town of Santiago de los Caballeros at Iximche, the first Spanish capital of Guatemala. His relations with his Kaqchikel hosts quickly broke down as he demanded large amounts of gold. In late August 1524 the Kaqchikel abandoned Iximche and began a guerrilla war.

The Kaqchikel revolt lasted until about 1530. In 1527 Alvarado’s brother Jorge refounded the Spanish capital in the Almolonga valley, at the site of present-day Ciudad Vieja. That city was destroyed by a mudflow from the Volcán de Agua in 1541, and the capital moved again to the valley of Panchoy, today’s Antigua Guatemala.

Sources

The conquest is unusually well documented from several sides. Two of Alvarado’s own letters to Cortés survive from 1524. Maya accounts, such as the Annals of the Kaqchikels and K’iche’ titles, record the Maya experience. A painted cloth made by Nahua allies from Quauhquechollan, in present-day Puebla, known as the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, shows the campaigns of the later 1520s from the point of view of the Mexican allies.

Myths and facts

• Tecun Uman’s death: Guatemala celebrates Tecun Uman as its national hero, and a later K’iche’ document describes him fighting Alvarado in a cloak of quetzal feathers. Alvarado’s own letter does not name him, and historians debate how much of the story is literal history.
• A Spanish conquest: most of Alvarado’s soldiers were Indigenous warriors from central Mexico, whose role is often forgotten.

Timeline

• 1523, December: Alvarado leaves Mexico City for Guatemala.
• 1524, February: Battles near Xelajú (Quetzaltenango) against the K’iche'.
• 1524, March: The K’iche’ kings are burned and Q’umarkaj destroyed.
• 1524, April: Alvarado enters Iximche and defeats the Tz’utujil.
• 1524, 25 July: Santiago de los Caballeros founded at Iximche.
• 1524, late August: The Kaqchikel abandon Iximche and revolt.
• 1527, 22 November: The capital is refounded in the Almolonga valley.
• 1541: Alvarado dies in Mexico; the Almolonga capital is destroyed by a mudflow.

Why it matters

Alvarado’s campaign brought the Guatemalan highlands under Spanish rule and founded the colony that became the centre of Spanish Central America. It also began centuries of hardship for the Maya peoples, who nonetheless kept their languages and much of their culture, and remain a large part of Guatemala’s population today.