6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 57 



jects in check.^ This unrest finally reached its culmination about 

 the middle of the fifteenth century, when the Maya nobUity, unable 

 longer to endure such tyranny, banded themselves together under 

 the leadership of the lord of Uxmal, sacked Mayapan, and slew its 

 ruler. 



All authorities, native as well as Spanish, agree that the destruc- 

 tion of Mayapjin marked the end of stronglv centraUzed government 

 in Yucatan. Indeed there can be but little doubt that this event 

 also sounded the death knell of Maya civiUzation. As one of the 

 native chronicles tersely puts it, "The chiefs of the country lost their 

 power." With the destruction of Mayapan the country split into a 

 number of warring factions, each bent on the downfall of the others. 

 Ancient jealousies and feuds, no longer held in leash by the restrain- 

 ing hand of Mayapan, doubtless revived, and soon 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 harbingers of worse 

 soon to come. In 1517 Francisco de Cordoba landed the first Spanish 

 expedition ^ on the shores of Yucatan. The natives were so hostile, 

 however, that he returned to Cuba, having accomplished httle more 

 than the discovery of the country. In the following year Juan de 

 Grijalva descended on the peninsula, but he, too, met with so deter- 

 mined a resistance that he saUed away, having gained little more 

 than hard knocks for his pains. In the following year (1519) Her- 

 nando Cortez landed on the northeast coast but reembarked in a few 

 days for Mexico, agam leaving the courageous natives to themselves. 

 Seven years later, however, m 1526, Francisco Montejo, having been 

 granted the title of Adelantado of Yucatan, set about the conquest 

 of the country in earnest. Having obtained the necessary "sinews 

 of war" through his marriage to a wealthy widow of Seville, he sailed 

 with 3 ships and 500 men for Yucatan. He first landed on the 

 island of Cozumel, off the northeast coast, but soon proceeded to 

 the mainland and took formal possession of the country m the 

 name of the King of Spain. This empty ceremony soon proved to be 



1 One authority (Landa, 1864: p. 48) says in this connection: "The governor, Cocom— the ruler of Maya- 

 pan— began to covet riches; and for this purpose he treated with the people of the garrison, which the 

 kings of Mexico had m Tabasco and Xicalango, that he should deliver his city [i. e. Mayapan] to them; 

 and thus he brought the Mexican people to Mayapan and he oppressed the poor and made many slaves, 

 and the lords would have killed him if they had not been afraid of the Mexicans." 



2 The first appearance of the Spaniards in Yucatan was six years earlier (in 1511), when the caravel of 

 Valdivia, returning from the Isthmus of Darien to Hispaniola, foundered near Jamaica. About 10 sur- 

 vivors in an open boat were driven upon the coast of Yucatan near the Island of Cozumel. Here they 

 were made prisoners by the Maya and five, including Valdivia himself, were sacrificed. The remainder 

 escaped only to die of starvation and hardship, with the exception of two, Geronimo de Aguilar and 

 Gonzalo Guerrero. Both of these men had risen to considerable prominence in the country by the time 

 Cortez arrived eight years later. Guerrero had married a chief's daughter and had himself become a chief. 

 Later Aguilar became an interpreter for Cortez. This handful of Spaniards can hardly be called an expe- 

 dition, however. 



