Spanish Conquest of Yucatán (1527-1697): The Maya Resist

The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the long and uneven campaign by which Spain brought the Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula under its rule. It began with Francisco de Montejo’s landing in 1527 and did not end until 1697, when the island capital of the Itza Maya fell. Unlike the rapid collapse of the Aztec state, it showed how a divided society without a single centre could resist a European invasion for generations.

Background: a land of many kingdoms

Spaniards first touched the Yucatán coast in 1517 and 1518, and Hernán Cortés passed along it in 1519 on his way to Mexico. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Crown looked for new territories to grant. In December 1526 it gave Francisco de Montejo, a veteran of Cortés’s campaigns, the title of adelantado (a governor with the right to conquer) for Yucatán.

The peninsula Montejo meant to take was not one state. After the fall of Mayapán in the mid-15th century, northern Yucatán had broken into around 16 rival provinces, each with its own ruling lineage. Some, like the Xiu of Maní, would ally with Spain; others, like the Cupul and the Cocom, fought hard. There was no single capital to seize and very little gold to reward soldiers.

The Montejo campaigns, 1527-1546

Montejo landed on the east coast in 1527 with about 400 men. His first campaign failed: disease, heat, lack of water and Maya attacks wore his force down, and by 1528 he had withdrawn.

A second attempt, from the west through Tabasco and Campeche, began around 1530. Montejo’s son, Francisco de Montejo the Younger, pushed inland and briefly set up a Spanish town, Ciudad Real, at the old city of Chichén Itzá around 1532. Local Maya besieged it and the Spaniards had to slip away. By 1535 the Spanish had again abandoned the peninsula.

The third campaign succeeded. Led by Montejo the Younger and his cousin, also named Francisco de Montejo, the Spanish founded Campeche in 1540-1541 and Mérida on 6 January 1542, on the site of the Maya city of T’Hó. The Xiu ruler of Maní accepted Spanish rule the same year, which gave the newcomers vital allies. Valladolid followed in 1543.

The Great Maya Revolt of 1546-1547

Conquest did not mean peace. In November 1546 the eastern provinces rose in a coordinated revolt. Spanish settlers and their Maya allies were killed, livestock and plants of European origin destroyed, and the town of Valladolid threatened. The rising was crushed by early 1547, and northern Yucatán thereafter stayed under Spanish control.

Colonial rule brought the encomienda system of forced tribute and labour and an aggressive Franciscan mission. In 1562 the friar Diego de Landa led an inquisition at Maní in which Maya were tortured for “idolatry” and many hieroglyphic books were burned, a loss still felt by scholars of Maya writing.

Ironically, Landa’s own later account of Yucatán, written in Spain around 1566, became one of the most important sources on Maya life and helped modern scholars begin to decipher Maya hieroglyphs. Only four Maya books, or codices, from before the conquest are generally accepted to survive today.

The last Maya kingdom: Nojpetén

South of the conquered zone, in the forests of the Petén, the Itza Maya kept their independence. Their capital, Nojpetén, stood on an island in Lake Petén Itzá. Cortés had visited it peacefully in 1525, and Franciscan missionaries came in 1618 and 1619, but the Itza refused to submit. Isolation, dense forest and the island’s defences protected them for more than a century.

In the 1690s the governor of Yucatán, Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi, built a road south towards the lake. Negotiations led by the friar Andrés de Avendaño in 1696 with the Itza ruler Kan Ek’ failed. On 13 March 1697 Ursúa’s soldiers crossed the lake in a specially built galley and stormed Nojpetén. Kan Ek’ was captured, and the island became the Spanish town that is now Flores.

Consequences

The conquest and the epidemics that came with it caused a steep fall in the Maya population. Estimates vary, but many historians think the population of northern Yucatán fell by half or more during the 16th century. Old cities were rebuilt as Spanish towns, and Maya nobles who cooperated kept some local power under colonial supervision.

Yet Maya language and community life survived. Yucatec Maya is still spoken by hundreds of thousands of people, and the region saw further large risings, above all the Caste War of 1847-1901.

Timeline

• 1517-1519: Spanish expeditions reach the Yucatán coast.
• 1526, December: Francisco de Montejo receives the royal grant to conquer Yucatán.
• 1527: Montejo lands on the east coast; his first campaign fails by 1528.
• c. 1532: Montejo the Younger founds the short-lived Ciudad Real at Chichén Itzá.
• 1542, 6 January: Mérida founded on the site of T’Hó.
• 1546, November - 1547: The Great Maya Revolt in the east is suppressed.
• 1562: Diego de Landa’s inquisition and book burning at Maní.
• 1697, 13 March: Spanish forces capture Nojpetén, the Itza capital.

Why it matters

The conquest of Yucatán shows that the Spanish takeover of the Americas was neither quick nor uniform. Political fragmentation, which made the Maya look weak, actually made them hard to conquer, and the Itza remained independent until the end of the 17th century. The story also explains why Maya culture and languages remain so strong in the region today.