1695 – 1696
The road from Yucatán
In 1692 Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi proposes a road from Yucatán south to Guatemala. As governor of Yucatán he starts it from Campeche in 1695. In May Captain Alonso García de Paredes leads south 115 Spanish soldiers and 150 Maya musketeers with their labourers and builds a fort at Chuntuki in Kejache country. From Guatemala, Juan Díaz de Velasco marches from Cahabón with 70 soldiers, fights Itza hunting parties near the lake in April and turns back.
Forest of northern Petén seen from the ruins of El Tintal, near ChuntukiWikimedia Commons, Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 3.0 (El Tintal 1.jpg)
In December 1695 AjChan, a nephew of Kan Ek', comes to Mérida and offers the submission of the Itza. In January 1696 the friar Andrés de Avendaño reaches Nojpetén and baptises more than 300 children, but Kan Ek' will not convert, and AjKowoj, king of the Kowoj, speaks against the Spanish. Warned of a plot against the friars, Avendaño leaves.
Andrés de Avendaño’s map of Lake Petén Itzá, about 1696, as printed by Philip Ainsworth Means in 1917Wikimedia Commons, Andrés de Avendaño, Public domain (SCY D236 Plate Ia. - Avendaño's map of lake Peten, Guatemala circa 1697.jpg)
On 2 February 1696 Captain Pedro de Zubiaur reaches the lake at Ch'ich' with 60 musketeers, two Franciscans and about 40 Maya porters. About 300 canoes come over with perhaps 2,000 Itza warriors, who offer to carry the party across to Nojpetén. A fight breaks out, and the Itza carry off the two friars and about a dozen others. A Spanish volley kills 30 to 40 Itza, and Zubiaur retreats to Chuntuki. The prisoners are killed at Nojpetén.
In March 1696 a second Guatemalan party under Díaz de Velasco reaches the lake. The Itza lure it into canoes and kill 87 men, among them 50 soldiers and two Dominican friars.
Sources
- Grant D. Jones, The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom (1998), pp. 129 to 147 and 167 to 240.
- Robert J. Sharer and Loa P. Traxler, The Ancient Maya (6th ed. 2006), pp. 774 to 776.
- Philip Ainsworth Means, History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas (1917), pp. 97 to 144.
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