class="continue">Trouble with soldiers

The Padres suffer hardships and lose their way

Hard travel in the wilderness for fifteen days

Miracle of the bent branch

An uncomfortable night

Great want of food

The situation grows still worse

They find some miraculous honey

Two Padres go ahead

A desperate situation

They find some edible thistles

Some hills are reached

Deserted buildings

False hopes; further hardships

They face starvation

A sign from our Lady of the Apparition

They climb some high hills

Avendaño left alone

The miracle of the sapote

Rescued

What had happened to the Indians whom Avendaño sent off

The messenger from Tayasal

Reasons for Avendaño's distrust

CHAPTER X

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE CONQUEST OF TAYASAL
BY THE SPANIARDS, 1695-1696

The expedition from Guatemala reaches Cahabon

Preliminary movements and plans

The fate of Diaz de Velasco; Amezquita follows him

Conclusion of the subjection of the Itzas begun

Paredes is ordered to march to Los Dolores

Canek's ambassador, Can, arrives at Merida

Zuviaur goes to the lake

Ursua determines to take vigorous measures

Lawsuits between Soberanis and Ursua

Captain Paredes at Tzucthok

Captain Hariza at Tipu

The Cacique Cintanek's villages

Can's report

The commands of King Charles II

Soberanis and Ursua in agreement at last

The part to be taken by Indian villages

The road completed as far as the lake

Quincanek feigns friendliness

The hostilities begin

The captains urge Ursua to fight; the battle

Tayasal becomes a Spanish possession

Later history of Tayasal

APPENDICES

I The Question of Orthography

II The Dialect of Peten. (From an unpublished manuscript by Dr. Berendt in the Brinton Collection in the University Museum, Philadelphia)

III The Maps of Yucatan, 1501-1800

IV Itinerary of Avendaño, together with geographical information

Bibliography

LIST OF PLATES

Ia Avendaño's Map of Lake Peten, circa 1697.

Ib Avendaño's Map with English translation.

II Peten Itza in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century.

III Lake Peten and Flores.

IV Sketch (with English translation) of a Map of Yucatan, circa 1566, found with the Landa MS.

V Sketch (with English translation) of another Map of Yucatan, circa 1566, found with the Landa MS.

VI Map showing Entradas to Lake Peten.

HISTORY OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF
YUCATAN AND OF THE ITZAS

CHAPTER I

THE PRECOLUMBIAN HISTORY OF THE MAYAS
AND OF THE ITZAS, 1445

In general it may be said that the Maya culture occupied the peninsula of Yucatan, portions of the states of Tabasco and Chiapas in Mexico, Guatemala, and the northern part of Honduras. That branch of the Mayas who called themselves the Itzas and who form the chief subject of this work occupied the southern portion of Yucatan and the greater part of what is now the Department of Peten in Guatemala.

A few decades ago it was the fashion to credit the aboriginal peoples of America with a civilization of enormous antiquity. But the whole trend of modern scientific investigation tends to prove that the American continent was one of the last parts of the world to be settled and that, at the time of the Spanish conquest, the aboriginal cultures were certainly not more than three thousand or so years old. Even this estimate should be understood to include centuries of migratory shiftings and centuries of development along lines which eventually led to the erection of the earlier types of high culture in Middle and South America. Roughly speaking, the time of Christ coincides with the period at which the earliest high cultures in this hemisphere began to flourish.

For the sake of convenience we shall follow the chronology suggested by Mr. Morley (1915) and divide the pre-Columbian history of the Maya race into eight periods. The first seven of these periods we shall discuss briefly in this opening chapter; the eighth will furnish the subject matter for the remainder of the book. The dates given should be regarded as merely approximate.