13 March 1697, morning
The galley crosses the lake
On the morning of 13 March 1697 Ursúa leaves 25 Spanish soldiers, three Maya musketeers and several guns to hold the camp at Ch'ich'. He boards the galeota with 108 soldiers, two priests, five servants, AjChan with his brother-in-law, and an Itza prisoner from Nojpetén. The galley is rowed east from Ch'ich' towards the island.
Halfway across, a fleet of canoes lies in an arc across the approach to Nojpetén, about 600 m from one shore to the other. Ursúa orders the rowers straight through it. Defenders crowd the shore of the island and the roofs of the city, and more canoes put out from the shore until the galley is surrounded.
Dugout canoes on the southern shore of the island of Flores, photograph by Claudio Urrutia, 1897Wikimedia Commons, Claudio Urrutia, Public domain (Flores1897e.jpg)
Itza archers in the canoes begin to shoot. Ursúa has ordered his men not to fire, but arrows wound several soldiers. One of the wounded fires his musket, the officers lose control of their men, and the soldiers open fire.
Sources
- Grant D. Jones, The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom (1998), pp. 295 to 298.
- Robert J. Sharer and Loa P. Traxler, The Ancient Maya (6th ed. 2006), p. 777.
- Norman B. Schwartz, Forest Society: A Social History of Petén, Guatemala (1990), p. 37.
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