Northeastern Yucatán Project:
Archaeological Survey in the Northeastern Corner of Yucatán, México

The Spanish Exploration in the XVIth Century

The First Spanish in the Yucatán Peninsula

It seems that the first Spanish who accidentally reached the Yucatán shores were Jerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero, who jointly with other seamen wrecked in 1511 near the island of Jamaica (Landa, 1992:12). When they reached the shores of Yucatán in the Caribbean, they were made prisoners by the chieftain of the village; later, Aguilar and Guerrero escaped and arrived someplace else where Aguilar lived as a prisoner until he rejoined Hernán Cortés’ expedition in 1519, while Guerrero married a native woman, had children, and became the war lord of a Maya village whose name still remains a mystery. According to the available data, by the time of the early expeditions to Yucatán, the villages of Jerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero were located somewhere near Isla Mujeres (Díaz del Castillo, 1999:46-48), in the region we now know by the name of Ecab.

First Expedition to Yucatán

Around 1517, in Quadragesima, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba set sails from Cuba with three vessels, and for the first time touched the coasts of Yucatán, more precisely Isla Mujeres (Landa, op. cit.: 13). There, the Spanish were astonished at the sight of people wearing "cotton shirts and mantas, white and colored, feathers, earrings, brooches, and gold and silver jewelry, and the women’s chests and heads were covered" (Gómara, 1922:114-115).

When they headed to the coast at the north of the island and reached Cape Catoche, from their vessels they observed a village, a couple of leagues away from the coast and named it Gran Cairo, as they had never seen before such a large and populated village in the new territories. Several canoes came near the vessels and invited the Spanish to visit the village, the day after. So it happened: the Spanish went along with the natives, and in the vicinities of some brambly mounts they were attacked, and a great struggle began with the final victory of the strangers, who proceeded a bit farther into the hinterland, where they saw "a plaza with three stonemasonry houses known as cúes, which are temples full of idols" (Días del Castillo, op. cit.:5-6). This attack against the Spanish expedition was apparently planned by the shipwrecked Gonzalo Guerrero, who accidentally had arrived to Yucatán eight years before (Ibid.:47).

During the navigation around the coast, stone towers, moderately tall, were visible: these buildings rested on bleachers and the towers were topped with straw, and on top of some of them, small fruit trees, such as the guava tree, were found (Oviedo, 1851, I:497). Later, they surrounded the peninsula and arrived to Campeche, where after being defeated by the natives, they returned to Cuba (Landa, op. cit.:14).

It was during this journey that the name of Yucatán was given to the peninsula (Antochiw, 1994:89-90).

Second Expedition to Yucatán

One year later, in 1518, Juan de Grijalva left Cuba with four vessels and sailed once again to the new territories of Yucatán, and saw for the first time the island of Cuzmil (Cozumel); and they sailed south to Bahía de la Ascensión and then returned north to surround once more the peninsula and to explore Tabasco, Pánuco and Nueva España, and on their way back they tried to obtain supplies, and they fought so hard with the natives that the Spanish preferred to set sails and return to Cuba (Landa, op. cit.:14-15).

On their way back, they encountered a sandbank presently known as Arrecife Alacranes (Scorpion Reef), which forced them to approach the coasts of Yucatán (Antochiw, op. cit.:91), and they once again explored the area of the Lagartos River and went across an extended territory known as Coni (Conil, Chiquilá), according to what some natives said (Oviedo, op. cit., I:536).

In this second expedition, Francisco de Montejo, who would later initiate conquest operations in the peninsula, was the captain of one of the vessels.

The Cortés Expedition

When news arrived about the newfound lands and the wealth they contained, Hernán Cortés, in 1519, left Cuba with nine ships; among the members of this expedition was Francisco de Montejo and the pilot Alaminos; the latter had already been a part of the explorations conducted by Hernández de Córdoba and Juan de Grijalva. They arrived to Cuzmil (Cozumel) through the northern portion of the island, and it was during this stay in the isle that Cortés heard about the Spanish who had wrecked, back in 1511, and sent for them with messengers; only Jerónimo de Aguilar responded to his message and joined the expedition that would try to conquest the New Spain by skirting the peninsula (Landa, op. cit.:17).

Montejo’s First Attempt to Conquer Yucatán

Francisco de Montejo the Adelantado, born in Salamanca, finally conquered Yucatán. By the end of September, 1527, Montejo and his fleet attacked the island of Cozumel, where they encountered a positive reaction of the local inhabitants. Then, they crossed the channel that divided the island from the rest of the continent, anchored at a spot near Xelhá, and established the first Spanish settlement: Salamanca. Montejo left forty men in this place, and headed with over four hundred men on foot and on horseback (Garza, 1983:27, Rel. Valladolid) towards the northern shore, where they arrived to the next port settlement known as Polé; they later reached Xamanhá, just off the island of Cozumel. His expedition moved on and crossed Mochi (a place with around 100 houses and several cúes or pyramids), to reach, finally, a settlement that was the capital of a province known as Belma (Oviedo, op. cit., III:225-226).

Belma was located by the sea, where the coast was densely populated. There, Montejo took a two-months rest, approximately, and was visited by chieftains of different places and provinces. Before arriving to the port of Conil they encountered many villages, some with nearly 500 houses, and others with up to 1,000 houses (Ibid.:226-227).

Once they left all these places behind, they proceeded bordering the coast and arrived to Cabo Catoche, then headed west to reach the large port of Conil, which had around 5,000 houses. Before reaching this port, there were four depopulated leagues, so the inhabitants of the place approached to greet them before their arrival, offering them water and food, and pushing canoes on the ground to be used as water troughs for the horses, which required numerous pitchers of water to get filled. In this depopulated area, the plain surface of the territory could be observed, with zones exhibiting patches of savannas and other extensions of land with dense woods; and as Montejo went farther ahead, and in the salty water, fresh water springs could be seen coming up to the surface, and these water springs were so abundant that they could not be counted (Ibid.:281-282).

After a two-month stay in the port of Conil, Montejo continued with his journey, this time towards the southwest and the inland, until he arrived to another large town known as Cachi, which displayed a remarkable commercial activity. Once this town was left behind, the expeditioners turned west and arrived to Sinsimato, a settlement with several copal trees, a resin used as incense in Maya ceremonies. From this location they departed north and encountered a larger town called Chauaca, main capital of the Chikinchel province, which a decade later would lead to the foundation of the Villa de Valladolid (Figure 2). From Chauaca, the Spanish cavalry and the rest of the people proceeded to the towns of Dzonotaké and then Sishá and Loche (Antochiw, op. cit.:106).

In the summer of 1528, Montejo returned to the New Spain in the search for more men and supplies to elaborate the plan of his second attempt to conquer the territories of Yucatán (Ibid.:106).

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Third Phase of the Conquest

In 1537, following two attempts to subdue the Maya (the second phase of the conquest has not been considered in this work, as it does not present any important data related to our study area), Montejo the Adelantado, together with his son and his homonymous nephew, decided to prepare a third advance from Xicalango, to conquer Yucatán. After several years of struggles, Montejo the Adelantado instructed both his son and nephew to culminate the conquest. On January 6, 1542, the city of Mérida was founded, on top of the pre-hispanic ruins of Tihó. Meanwhile, Montejo the nephew continued fighting and getting deeper into the northeastern territories of Yucatán, establishing his main camp in the well known village of Chauaca, where Montejo the Adelantado had fought a great battle during his first conquering attempt. From Chauaca he managed to surrender other towns, and it was right there that the Villa de Valladolid was initially founded on May 24, 1543; in spite of its proximity to the port of Conil, the territory proved unhealthy and very humid, causing the Spanish to move the Valladolid settlement to a new place in the spring of 1544, which was the Maya village of Sací (Ibid.: 109-110).

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