Bases Legales De La Conquista De Guatemala
The conquest of the highlands was hampered by the multitude of independent political entities in the region that the conquistadors had to subjugate instead of having to face a single but powerful enemy, as had happened in central Mexico. [Lo. 5] After the conquest of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztecs, by the Spanish in 1521, the Kakchiqueles of Iximché sent emissaries to Hernán Cortés to declare their loyalty to the new ruler of Mexico. [Sch. 7] It is even possible that the K`iche` of Q`umarkaj sent a delegation. [Sh. 7] In 1522, Cortés sent his Mexican allies to explore the Soconusco region in the Chiapas lowlands, where they met at Tuxpan with new Mayan delegations, both from Iximché and Q`umarkaj. [Sch. 7] [Res. 20] At this meeting, the emissaries of the two powerful Mayan kingdoms declared their loyalty to the King of Spain. [Sch.
7] Cortés` allies at Soconusco, however, soon informed him that the K`iche` and Kakchiqueles were not keeping their word, but were harassing the Spanish Allies in the area. [Sch. 7] [Lo. 2] In response, Cortés Pedro de Alvarado commanded with a cavalry of one hundred and eighty mounted men, an infantry of three hundred soldiers armed with crossbows, arquebuses, four cannons and a large amount of ammunition and gunpowder, and hundreds of Mexican warriors allied with Tlaxcala and Cholula. [Sch. 7] [Lo. 2] They arrived in Soconusco in 1523. [Sh. 7] Pedro de Alvarado was already known for the infamous massacre of Aztec nobles at Tenochtitlan and, according to Bartolomé de las Casas, committed other atrocities during the conquest of the Mayan kingdoms of Guatemala. [Sch.
8] Some groups remained loyal to the Spaniards after accepting the conquest, including the Zutijiles and K`iche` of Quetzaltenango, and provided them with warriors to expand their domains. [24] However, other groups quickly rebelled and in 1526 there were numerous uprisings in the highlands of Guatemala. [24] When it comes to the eastern part of the territory of La Quiche, which is still subjugated, its prince Oxib Queh Alvarado makes suggestions and invites him to his capital Gumarcaaj, which is called Utatlán in the Toltec language of the ancient Mexicans. In fact, it is said, it was a trap. Built on an acropolis, isolated by a deep moat, the city consisted of 24 nim-já;4 of them left the west, east, southwest and northeast 100 years ago, the expeditions of the conquest of the Quichés at the expense of their neighbors, the Mames, the Cakchiqueles, the Ixiles, the Uspante-cas, the Rabinaleb, etc. Alvarado, alarmed, refused to settle in the city, which he then captured through attacks, looting and fires. And under the accusation of perjury, he burned Alive Oxib Queh, April 13, 1524.5 11When the Dominicans spread in these regions to the north and east after 1530, they did so from the same territorial bases used by their predecessors, the kings of Utatlán; but as the real Spanish influence then ceased south of the Sierra de Chuacús (Chichicastenango, Gumarcaaj, Zacualpa), they first had to consolidate their bridgehead north of the Sierra. This is where the differences arise in terms of the historical reconstruction of the facts. For Morales Urrutia, the new Hispanic Utatlán (the future Santa Cruz del Quiché) would have existed since 1530, with the departure of Sololá.23 This would coincide very well with the chronology of Remassal, according to which since 1533 a Dominican monastery would operate in Sacapulas, from where the missions of evangelization would go to the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes and the east of the Quiché.
with the help of the newly converted indigenous chiefs of Sacapulas, Aguacatán, Sajcabajá, Nebaj, Cunen “and other villages”.24 But according to Carmack and Sáenz de Santamaría, it was not until between 1538 and 1539 that Bishop Marroquín founded the new Santa Cruz Utatlán and its church, replacing the old Gumarcaaj (Utatlán), which had been destroyed and abandoned since 1524.25 According to Remesal, the Dominicans operated in the vestibule from 1533, that is, in Sacapulas, while their rearguard, Santa Cruz Utatlán, would not have been secured until 1539 during Marroquín`s first episcopal visit to the region. For this reason, M. Bataillon and A. Saint-Lu doubt the chronology – apologetically earlier in their opinion – proposed by the Dominican Remesal, which has always wanted to evaluate the pioneering role of its Order, even if it forced the facts. Moreover, the same Remesal contradicted himself by admitting in favor of the Mercedaries the absence of the Dominicans in the region between 1534 and 1537. This, as he explains, in order to devote himself exclusively to the spiritual conquest of the “lands of Tezulutlán and war”, but to abandon their bridgeheads – Jocotenango, Sacapulas, Quiché and Xacaltenango – which is completely inexplicable.26 If such a thing is to be believed, the first action of the Dominicans in Sacapulas would have lasted at most from 1533 to 1534. in an area militarily subjugated only since 1531. We therefore unforgivably adhere to the version of M. Battalion and A. Saint-Lu: The evangelical investiture of the future Verapaz, from the Eastern Quiché and its two rearguards, Chiapas and the Diocese of Guatemala (founded in 1537), did not actually materialize until 1537 – with the last attempts to military conquest of the belligerent country by the Encomenderos de Santiago de Guatemala. 24 Let us remember that in 1547, and despite their fierce opposition to Las Casas in the Cabildo of Guatemala, the Encomenderos were finally eliminated from Verapaz and the Kingdom of Utatlán.
Thus consolidated in its prerogatives, the Audiencia carries out the first censuses of the territory under its jurisdiction. Between 1548 and 1550, he carried out an “Evaluation of the Fifteen Cities under the Jurisdiction of Guatemala”56 and an “Evaluation of the Indigenous Peoples of the Province of Goathemala and Nicaragua and Yucatan”.57 He then controlled 21,104 tributaries and 52,500 inhabitants, placed under the limited and subsequent controlled authority of 81 Encomenderos.58 Recall that at the time of the conquest, the Guatemalan population was surrounded by Rosenblat and Barón sur Castro. 100,000 inhabitants estimated; and in 327,000 by Cook and Simpson, after Solano and Pérez-Lila, 1969. Among the cities that appear on the lists listed, we distinguish the names of Sacapulas and Cuchumatanes near the Quiché. So, these are the population and the really controlled area, that is, what was recorded by the Audiencia de los confines when it moved its headquarters to the new Guatemala in 1549, which had been rebuilt in a different place after the eruption of 1541.