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The fight at the northern entrance
Kayb'il B'alam holds Zaculeu with about 6,000 warriors gathered from Huehuetenango, Zaculeu, Cuilco and Ixtahuacán. The Selegua River runs below the plateau on the west, deep ravines close it on the south and east, and the narrow neck of land on the north is guarded by walls and ditches. Outnumbered two to one, Gonzalo de Alvarado attacks this weaker northern entrance.
The ravine on the south side of ZaculeuWikimedia Commons, Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Zaculeu 53.jpg)
The Mam warriors hold the northern approaches against the Spanish infantry but fall back before repeated charges of the Spanish cavalry. About 2,000 warriors come out of Zaculeu to reinforce them, and still they cannot drive the Spanish back.
Kayb'il B'alam sees that he cannot win in the open and withdraws his army behind the walls. Alvarado digs in and lays siege to the fortress.
Sources
- W. George Lovell, Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala (3rd ed. 2005), p. 62.
- Patricia del Águila Flores, Zaculeu: ciudad postclásica en las tierras altas mayas de Guatemala (2007), pp. 10 to 11.
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