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National Geographic : 1936 Nov
Contents
YUCATAN, HOME OF THE GIFTED MAYA pursued their tyrannical way, backed by their powerful Mexican allies. Finally, in the middle of the 15th cen tury, after two and a half centuries of increasing oppression, the Maya, goaded to desperation, banded under the leadership of the then Lord of Uxmal, Tutul Xiu, and attacked Mayapan. The city was captured and sacked. The ruler and all his family were slain, except one son, who was absent from the city at the time, and Mayapan was depopulated. A curious result of this war of independ ence was that both vanquished and vic tors abandoned their former capitals and established themselves elsewhere. The Cocoms, under the leadership of the single surviving son of their royal house, founded their new capital at Tibol6n, in the north-central part of the Yucatan Peninsula. The Tutul Xiu, although victorious in the recent war, abandoned Uxmal, where they had ruled for about five centuries, and founded their new capital at a place which they named Mani, meaning "It is finished." The remainder of the Itza not only aban doned Chichen Itza but withdrew entirely from the peninsula, migrating southward into northern Guatemala, whence the Maya had originally come some six or seven cen turies earlier. There, on a peninsula at the western end of Lake Peten Itza, the Itza established a new capital called Tayasal. And there, in 1525, the Itza ruler, Canek, was visited by Hernando Cortez on the latter's heroic march from Puerto Mexico, Mexico, on the edge of the Maya country, across northern Guatemala and southward to Honduras. This last independent branch of the Maya managed to survive, because of their extreme isolation, for another century and a half, until 1697, when they were finally conquered by the Captain General and Gov ernor of Yucatan, Martin de Ursua y Ariz mendi. THEN CAME THE SPANIARDS The foregoing brings the story of Yuca tan down to the beginning of modern times and the epoch of the Spanish Conquest. W. H. Prescott's stirring accounts of the conquest of Mexico by Cortez in 1521, and of Peru by Francisco Pizarro in 1533, are familiar to most readers, but the conquest of YucatAn by the two Francisco de Mon- tejos, father and son, from 1527 to 1541, is less well known, having had no Prescott to chronicle its heroic achievements. Francisco de Montejo, the elder, was one of that band of valiant Spanish hidalgos who accompanied Cortez to Mexico in 1519. This expedition touched at the island of Cozumel, off the northeast coast of Yucatan, early that year, and also at places on the adjoining mainland. These visits constituted Montejo's first real acquaintance with the land of which he and his son were subsequently to become the conquerors, though he had seen Yucatan the previous year on Grijalva's expedition. Later, when he was in Spain on a mis sion for Cortez before the Spanish King, Charles V, Montejo obtained from his sov ereign the right to conquer the Province of Yucatan at his (Montejo's) own cost, in return for which he was to be named Adelantado of the new province, the title to descend to his heirs, and he also was to be given a large grant of land in recom pense for his original outlay. The first attempt to conquer YucatAn in 1527 failed, as did the second, in 1531, but the third and last attempt, in 1540 and 1541, was successful. The army, under Montejo the younger, landed at Champot6n on the west coast, proceeded northward, and seized the Indian town of Kin Pech (Campeche). The Spanish villa of San Francisco de Campeche, founded there in 1540, is the oldest permanent Spanish set tlement in the Yucatan Peninsula. From Campeche the army pushed on to Merida, the ancient Maya city of Ichcan siho, where in the middle of 1541 Montejo inflicted a crushing defeat on a coalition of Maya chieftains, which brought about the surrender of the country, and here, on January 6, 1542 (Old Style), the noble and loyal city of Merida was incorporated by Montejo the younger (page 633). Yucatan remained a province of the Crown of Spain until the Independence of Mexico in 1821, and has since been a part of the Republic of Mexico. The second city in size in the peninsula is Campeche, capital of the State of the same name, which has a population of about 18,000. It is more Spanish in character and-less modern than Merida (page 637). Its narrow streets with old colonial houses; the section of the wall, which for merly surrounded the city, now preserved only on the land side; the land gate facing 631
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