13 March 1697
The fall of Nojpetén
Under the musket fire and the guns of the galeota the Itza in the canoes and on the shore soon flee. The Spanish land on the island after a short, bloody fight in which many Itza warriors die and the Spanish suffer only minor losses. The bombardment kills many people on the island.
The island of Flores from Lake Petén Itzá, with the church on its highest point, 2017Wikimedia Commons, Edgouno, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Isla de Flores desde el Lago Petén Itzá.jpg)
The surviving Itza abandon Nojpetén and swim across to the mainland, and many drown in the water. The defenders who reach the shore disappear into the forest, and the Spanish occupy an empty town. Kan Ek' and the Itza nobles scatter to settlements across Petén.
Ursúa plants his standard on the highest point of the island and names it Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo, Laguna del Itza. The Spanish later count 21 temples in the town. The largest, which they call the castillo, has nine stepped levels on a base 16.5 m square and faces north.
The castillo of Mayapan in Yucatán, which the largest temple of Nojpetén resembledWikimedia Commons, HJPD, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Mayapan Castillo.jpg)
Sources
- Grant D. Jones, The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom (1998), pp. 74 and 298 to 299.
- Robert J. Sharer and Loa P. Traxler, The Ancient Maya (6th ed. 2006), pp. 777 to 778.
- Prudence M. Rice, The Kowoj in Geopolitical-Ritual Perspective, in Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice, eds., The Kowoj (2009), p. 43.
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