RESEARCH AT THE RUINS OF CHICHEN ITZA, YUCATAN. 67 



warring factions. Ancient feuds and jealousies, no longer held in leash by a 

 strongly centralized government, were doubtless revived, and again the land 

 was rent with strife. Presently, to the horrors of civil war were added those 

 of famine and pestilence, each of which visited the peninsula in turn, carrying 

 off great numbers of people. 



These several calamities, however, were but forerunners of worse soon to 

 come. In 1517 Francisco de Cordova landed the first Spanish expedition on 

 the coast of Yucatan,^ and, although he was repulsed after having accom- 

 plished little more than the discovery of the country, this was the beginning 

 of the end. The following year Juan de Grijalva descended on the peninsula, 

 but meeting with such determined resistance, he also sailed away, having 

 gained nothing. The next year (1519) Hernan Cortes landed on the north- 

 eastern coast, but reembarked for Mexico after a few days' stay. Seven 

 years later, in 1526, Francisco Montejo obtained the title of "Adelantado of 

 Yucatan" from the King of Spain and set about the conquest of the country 

 in earnest. He landed an expedition of 500 men on the northeastern coast 

 and, with the elaborate formalities customary to such occasions, took pos- 

 session of the country in the name of Charles V. This empty ceremony 

 proved to be only the prelude to a sanguinary struggle which broke out almost 

 immediately thereafter and continued with extraordinary ferocity, the Maya 

 fighting desperately in defense of their homes. Indeed it was not until four- 

 teen years later, or on June 11, 1541 (old style), that the Spaniards, having 

 defeated a coalition of Maya chieftains near the city of Ichcansihoo (Merida), 

 effected the permanent occupancy of the country. 



Here ends the independent history of the Maya. For fifteen centuries 

 this remarkable people had preserved their cultural life singularly intact and 

 free from alien influences, only to succumb in the end to causes working from 

 within. Through racial decay and internecine strife, the product or perhaps 

 the price of its development, the Maya civilization came at length to naught, 

 and while the Spanish conquest was the immediate cause which shattered this 

 once great culture, the seeds of its decay and downfall had been sown long 

 before the discovery of America. 



'This expedition, however, was not the first appearance of white men on the shores of Yucatan. In 

 1511a caravel, bearing the Regiclor Valdivia from Darien to Espaiiola (Cuba), was wrecked near Jamaica, and 

 all aboard were lost except Valdivia and about 20 companions, who took to a small open boat. After untold 

 Buffering, during which half of them died, the miserable survivors were cast upon the eastern coast of Yucatan, 

 where they were seized by the Maya, thrust into prison, and held for sacrifice. One by one they were killed 

 until only a half dozen were left. These, rendered desperate by the cruel fate of their comrades, broke out of 

 their prison one dark night and fled to a neighboring village whose lord was notso bloodthirsty. Herethey were 

 enslaved. In the course of time all but two died, Geronimo de AguUar and Gonzalo Guerrero. The former, 

 after eking out a miserable existence for eight years, was rescued by Hernan Cortes in 1519, and lived to play 

 an important role in the conquest of Mexico as one of Cortes' two interpreters. Gonzalo Guerrero had even 

 a more picturesque career. He exhibited such proficiency in military affairs that his master, a Maya lord, 

 put him in charge of his army. His successes here won him an Indian wife of noble blood, by whom he had 

 several children. He became a Maya in every respect, covered his body with tattooing, allowed his hair to 

 grow, pierced his ears for earrings, and as the pious chronicler concludes : "It is even believed he was an idolater 

 like them." — Relation des Choses de Yucatan, p. 16. Diego de Landa, Paris, 1864. 



