Yucatán, Spanish Conquest of

The Spanish conquest of Yucatán is the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering southeastern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and all of Belize.

The Spanish conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula is hindered by its politically fragmented state.

The Spanish engage in a strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial towns.

Native resistance to the new nucleated settlements takes the form of the flight into inaccessible regions such as the forest or joining neighboring Maya groups that had not yet submitted to the Spanish.

Among the Maya, ambush is a favored tactic.

Spanish weaponry includes broadswords, rapiers, lances, pikes, halberds, crossbows, matchlocks and light artillery.

Maya warriors fight with flint-tipped spears, bows and arrows and stones, and wear padded cotton armor to protect themselves.

The Spanish introduce a number of Old World diseases previously unknown in the Americas, initiating devastating plagues that sweep through the native populations.The first encounter with the Yucatán Maya occurs in 1502, when the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus comes across a large Maya trading canoe off Honduras.

In 1517, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba makes landfall on the tip of the peninsula.

His expedition continues along the coast and suffers heavy losses in a pitched battle at Champotón, forcing a retreat to Cuba.

Juan de Grijalva explores the coast in 1518, and hears tales of the wealthy Aztec Empire further west.

As a result of these rumors, Hernán Cortés sets sail with another fleet.

From Cozumel he continues around the peninsula to Tabasco where he fights a battle at Potonchán; from there Cortés continues onward to conquer the Aztec Empire.

In 1524, Cortés leads a sizeable expedition to Honduras, cutting across southern Campeche, and through Petén in what is now northern Guatemala.

In 1527 Francisco de Montejo sets sail from Spain with a small fleet.

He leaves garrisons on the east coast, and subjugates the northeast of the peninsula.

Montejo then returns to the east to find his garrisons have almost been eliminated; he uses a supply ship to explore southwards before looping back around the entire peninsula to central Mexico.

Montejo pacifies Tabasco with the aid of his son, also named Francisco de Montejo.In 1531 the Spanish move their base of operations to Campeche, where they repulse a significant Maya attack.

After this battle, the Spanish found a town at Chichen Itza in the north.

Montejo carves up the province among his soldiers.

In mid-1533 ,the local Maya rebel and lay siege to the small Spanish garrison, which is forced to flee.

Towards the end of 1534, or the beginning of 1535, the Spanish retreat from Campeche to Veracruz.

In 1535, peaceful attempts by the Franciscan Order to incorporate Yucatán into the Spanish Empire fail after a renewed Spanish military presence at Champotón forces the friars out.

Champotón is by now the last Spanish outpost in Yucatán, isolated among a hostile population.

In 1541–42 the first permanent Spanish town councils in the entire peninsula are founded at Campeche and Mérida.

When the powerful lord of Mani converts to the Roman Catholic religion, his submission to Spain and conversion to Christianity encourageds the lords of the western provinces to accept Spanish rule.

In late 1546, an alliance of eastern provinces launches an unsuccessful uprising against the Spanish.

The eastern Maya are defeated in a single battle, which marks the final conquest of the northern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula.The polities of Petén in the south remain independent and receive many refugees fleeing from Spanish jurisdiction.

In 1618 and in 1619 two unsuccessful Franciscan missions attempt the peaceful conversion of the still pagan Itza.

In 1622, the Itza slaughter two Spanish parties trying to reach their capital Nojpetén.

These events end all Spanish attempts to contact the Itza until 1695.

Over the course of 1695 and 1696 a number of Spanish expeditions attemp to reach Nojpetén from the mutually independent Spanish colonies in Yucatán and Guatemala.

In early 1695 the Spanish begin to build a road from Campeche south towards Petén and activity intensifies, sometimes with significant losses on the part of the Spanish.

Martín de Urzúa y Arizmendi, governor of Yucatán, launches an assault upon Nojpetén in March 1697; the city falls after a brief battle.

With the defeat of the Itza, the last independent and unconquered native kingdom in the Americas falls to the Spanish.

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