Maya Conquistador

by Restall, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780807055076
• ISBN10: 0807055077
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1999-08-30
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

The real story of the Mayan encounter with the Spanish, based on newly revealed eyewitness accounts Our familiar images of Mexico's conquest are powerful and enduring: bold and bloodthirsty Spanish conquistadors; nobly savage Aztecs lamenting their broken bones and spears; the battles of Cortes and Montezuma; enormous pyramids and exquisite gold and jade ornaments unearthed in "the land of the sun." But one story has not yet been told-and it is one that could reshape our entire vision of the conquest. It is the story of the Spanish creation of a colony in the Yucatan, home of the Maya since ancient times. Maya Conquistador tells this tale through a collection of unique firsthand accounts-most of them previously untranslated from the original Mayan hieroglyphs-written from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. In it are surprising twists: the conquistadors are not Spaniards, but Mayas reconstructing their own sophisticated governance and society; and the conquest is not one event, but a story of the survival of a vital and complex civilization evolving over centuries of contact with the Spanish and other peoples. Out of this new chapter in history, the Maya emerge not as passive victims of the Spanish, but as astute observers of their own past and participants in a rich tradition of cultural resilience. Their story is exciting reading to all who are fascinated by the Maya, and it offers rare insight to anthropologists, historians, and students of Mayan and Mexican civilization. "The author's scholarly introduction puts the texts in proper perspective, making this a book for both specialists and anyone interested in ancient civilizations." -Dallas Morning News

Author Biography

Matthew Restall, author of Life and Death in a Maya Community and The Maya World, is associate professor of Colonial Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University and lives in State College, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Maps and Figures
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Contexts and Conquests	p. 1
Conquests	p. 3
Recontextualizing Calamity	p. 29
The Maya Accounts of the Conquest of Yucatan	p. 51
The Insinuated Conquest: The Chontal Account from Acalan-Tixchel	p. 53
Conquest as Chronology: The Annals of Oxkutzcab	p. 77
The Community View: The Calkini Account	p. 82
Maya Conquistadors: The Pech Accounts from Chicxulub and Yaxkukul	p. 104
The Cruel Cycle: The Accounts from the Books of Chilam Balam	p. 129
A Hybrid Perspective: The Accounts by Gaspar Antonio Chi	p. 144
The Politics of Conquest: The Letters of the Batabob to the King	p. 151
Conquest as Negotiation: The Perspective of Petitions	p. 169
Notes	p. 179
Glossary of Maya and Spanish Terms	p. 235
List of Historical Figures	p. 237
Bibliography	p. 239
Index	p. 251
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