July 1524 – May 1530
Santiago and the Kaqchikel revolt
From May 1524 Alvarado campaigns against the Pipil and the Xinca of the Pacific plain and in Cuscatlán, in what is now El Salvador. He returns to Iximche on 23 July and founds the first Spanish capital there, Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. By one account the foundation falls on 25 July, the feast of St James, and by the Kaqchikel annals on 27 July. The Spanish call the city Guatemala, from the Nahuatl Quauhtemallan, "forested land", which becomes the name of the country.
The ruins of Iximche, the Kaqchikel capital, at TecpánWikimedia Commons, chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Iximche guatemala 2009.JPG)
Alvarado soon demands gold from the Kaqchikel kings, 1,000 leaves of gold worth 15 pesos each. A Kaqchikel priest foretells that the gods will destroy the Spanish, and on 28 August 1524 the Kaqchikel leave their city for the forests and hills. Ten days later the Spanish declare war on them. The Kaqchikel dig pits with sharp stakes on the roads, and their annals record that many Spaniards and horses die in them.
Pits set with stakes on the roads of Guatemala, a detail of the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, painted about 1530 by Nahua allies of the Spanish from Quauhquechollan, Casa de Alfeñique museum, PueblaWikimedia Commons, unknown artist, Public domain ((original) Lienzo de Quauhquechollan (~1530).png)
On 9 February 1526 sixteen Spanish deserters burn the palace of the Ahpo Xahil and sack the temples. Recinos gives sixty deserters. The Spanish town founded at nearby Tecpán suffers constant attacks, and in 1527 the Spanish move their capital to the Almolonga valley, at today’s Ciudad Vieja.
A Spanish horseman and Tlaxcalan warriors fighting at Quauhtemallan, the Nahuatl name of Iximche, from the 16th-century Lienzo de Tlaxcala in its 1892 reproductionWikimedia Commons, unknown artist, Public domain (Lienzo de Tlaxcala Iximche.gif)
On 9 May 1530 the two kings of the leading Kaqchikel clans return from the hills, exhausted by the war. The next day they surrender at Ciudad Vieja with many nobles and their families. The people of Iximche are resettled at Tecpán, Sololá and other towns around Lake Atitlán.
Sources
- Linda Schele and Peter Mathews, The Code of Kings (1999), pp. 297 to 299.
- Adrián Recinos, Memorial de Sololá, Anales de los Kaqchikeles (1998), pp. 19, 101 to 104.
- Christopher H. Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala, 1541–1773 (1997), pp. 10, 258.
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