[IV Sketch (with English translation) of a Map of Yucatan, circa 1566, found with the Landa MS.]
[VI Map showing Entradas to Lake Peten.]
HISTORY OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF
YUCATAN AND OF THE ITZAS
[CHAPTER I]
THE PRECOLUMBIAN HISTORY OF THE MAYAS
AND OF THE ITZAS, 1445
In general it may be said that the Maya culture occupied the peninsula of Yucatan, portions of the states of Tabasco and Chiapas in Mexico, Guatemala, and the northern part of Honduras. That branch of the Mayas who called themselves the Itzas and who form the chief subject of this work occupied the southern portion of Yucatan and the greater part of what is now the Department of Peten in Guatemala.
A few decades ago it was the fashion to credit the aboriginal peoples of America with a civilization of enormous antiquity. But the whole trend of modern scientific investigation tends to prove that the American continent was one of the last parts of the world to be settled and that, at the time of the Spanish conquest, the aboriginal cultures were certainly not more than three thousand or so years old. Even this estimate should be understood to include centuries of migratory shiftings and centuries of development along lines which eventually led to the erection of the earlier types of high culture in Middle and South America. Roughly speaking, the time of Christ coincides with the period at which the earliest high cultures in this hemisphere began to flourish.
For the sake of convenience we shall follow the chronology suggested by Mr. Morley (1915) and divide the pre-Columbian history of the Maya race into eight periods. The first seven of these periods we shall discuss briefly in this opening chapter; the eighth will furnish the subject matter for the remainder of the book. The dates given should be regarded as merely approximate.
| PERIODS | APPROXIMATE DATES A.D. | |
| I | Migratory period | ?-200 |
| II | Golden Age or Old Empire | 200-600 |
| III | Colonization period | 450-700 |
| IV | Transitional period | 700-1000 |
| V | Renaissance or League period | 1000-1200 |
| VI | The period of the Toltec mercenaries | 1200-1450 |
| VII | Disintegration | 1450-1541 |
| VIII | Period of wars with Spain | 1519-1697 |