Francisco de Montejo and his Son. Although northern Yucatan was reduced to the condition of an orderly Spanish possession some one hundred and fifty years before the Peten region, it was done, nevertheless, only at the cost of many years of desperate struggling. Two men, Don Francisco de Montejo the Elder and Don Francisco de Montejo the Younger, his son, were the leading figures in the undertaking. The elder Montejo seems to have been a man of gentle birth and of fairly good property. He came to America about 1514 under Pedrarias Dávila. Soon after that, however, he left Dávila and settled in Cuba, where he served under Velazquez. He also served, a few years later, under Cortes in Mexico.
Soon after the granting of a patent or general order Francisco de Montejo the Elder set forth on his undertaking. Several officials were appointed to accompany him. Alonso Dávila was Contador (Paymaster), Pedro de Lima was Tesorero (Treasurer), and Hernando Moreno de Quito was Veedor de las Fundiciones (Overseer of the Smelters). (Cogolludo, p. 73.)[4.1] Of these three offices the last was a sinecure by reason of the absence of mines in Yucatan. Dávila had taken an active part in the conquest of Mexico.
Montejo's Preparations and Sacrifices. The expedition numbered some four hundred soldiers, in addition to the crews who manned the four ships. The expense, all borne by Montejo, was heavy. To furnish the necessary arms, horses, and munitions the Adelantado found himself obliged to sell a Mayorazgo (entailed estate) yielding one thousand ducats a year ($2500, equal to about $10,000 of modern money). The seamen received pay, but the rest of the expedition received no money, depending on their fortune in the New World for remuneration. Only one cleric, Francisco Hernandez, accompanied the expedition; he was its chaplain. He later attributed the failure of the expedition to the lack of priests.
He Sets out. Setting out in 1527, the expedition arrived at Cozumel, where a landing was effected. There, as elsewhere, the Spaniards found themselves at a great disadvantage in having no interpreter. By various makeshifts, however, they made themselves understood, and poor Montejo, misled by the seeming docility of the natives, flattered himself that he had an easy task before him.
Montejo and his Men Go along the Shore of Yucatan. Skirting the eastern shore of Yucatan, the fleet arrived at a point near the first site of Valladolid, where all the soldiers landed, leaving the seamen to guard the ships and supplies. What seemed a sufficient number of horses, munitions, and provisions was taken. As usual on such occasions, the first thing to be done was to take formal possession of the land for the King of Castile. Accordingly appropriate ceremonies were carried through, and the standard bearer, Gonzalo Nieto, unfurled the royal banner. Cogolludo is very definite as to the region in which the conquest of Yucatan had its beginning. Valladolid,[4.2] not Bakhalal or Campeche, is, he says, the site of the first operations. He quotes as his authority on this point the Bachiller Valencia, a native of Valladolid, whose Relación was made in 1639. Coni, a village in the province of Choaca,[4.3] was reached. Some of the chiefs of the region came to see the Adelantado and were well received; they, however, were treacherously minded, but their attempt to kill or injure Montejo was foiled. From Coni the Spaniards went to the village of Choaca, where their real trials began.
Description of the Campaign. In their early wanderings the Spaniards suffered greatly from lack of proper water and from bad roads. Often they found the villages deserted by their inhabitants or, still worse, bristling with armed warriors. Led by an Indian whom they had picked up at Coni, Montejo and his followers traveled through the province of Choaca to a place called Aké. On the way they ran into an ambush of armed Indians. The weapons of these latter consisted of arrows hardened by fire, lances with sharp flint points, two-handed swords of very hard wood, and shields made of very large tortoise shells adorned with snail shells and antlers; their bodies were naked save for breech clouts of flimsy material, and they were all painted. Since the Indians were as stubborn as they were brave, and as the Spaniards found themselves at a disadvantage, being unable to use their horses properly on account of the rough country, the fight was a fierce one; the Adelantado himself acted well, showing the less experienced of his followers the best way to combat the Indians. The Spaniards, greatly outnumbered, kept up the fight all day, receiving many lance wounds in their faces and bodies; many died; more were seriously wounded. The horses and bloodhounds also suffered greatly. Only after a second day of fighting did the Indians finally flee, leaving twelve hundred of their companions dead behind them. This first victory over the Indians took place in the last weeks of 1527. Cogolludo dwells at great length on the errors of Herrera (Dec. ix, lib. iii, cap. 3) concerning the founding of Tihoo or Merida and of Chichen Itza. According to Herrera, Montejo went to Tihoo, where he came into contact with the Cheles, who showed him Chichen Itza, seven leagues away. The Tutul Xiu, Lords of Mani, were then ruling there, and with them, Herrera says, the Spaniards made a peaceful arrangement. All this, according to Cogolludo, is wrong. In the opinion of Cogolludo, events were as follows. After the battle of Aké, Montejo determined to proceed cautiously and to endeavor by peaceful means to win over the natives to obedience to the king. Slowly he made his way to Chichen Itza, which, by reason of its great buildings, seemed to him a suitable place for one of the two fortresses he was to build. Having fortified himself against attacks, he set about subduing the country. He managed to win the friendship of the Indians of that neighborhood. A village of Spaniards with houses built after the native plan was erected. The dwellings were made of vertical wooden logs and had palm-leaf roofs. One hundred and seventy Spaniards were left in the new settlement. One of the first things done was to divide the land among them. Cogolludo thinks that the name first given to the new village was that of Salamanca. Misled by the seeming peacefulness of the Indians, Montejo determined to divide them up into encomiendas. The plan was carried out, to the secret disgust of the Indians, who determined to get free as soon as an opportunity offered.
Dávila and Vazquez Search vainly for Gold in the Region of Chetemal. From the map which Montejo had with him it was learned that there were gold mines in the vicinity of Bakhalal, which place the Indians called Vaymil or Chetemal. Because no sign of gold had been seen in that part of the country through which they had hitherto been, the soldiers were getting downhearted, and Montejo determined to send a party in search of mines. Captain Alonso Dávila, the Royal Paymaster, with fifty Spaniards and sixteen horses, was sent to found a village at a place called Tulma (Tuloom?) in the province of Cochva. A mine expert, one Francisco Vazquez, accompanied the party in the hopes of earning the reward of three hundred ducats which Montejo offered to the discoverer of gold mines. When Tulma was reached it was found to be entirely unsuitable for a village, and the explorers went on to the now deserted town of Chablé, which was a place reported to have gold mines. The cacique of Chablé received them well; but the cacique of Chetemal was bellicose and would give no aid when Montejo sent to find out whether there were gold mines at Bakhalal, a town in his domain. With twenty men and eight horses the Adelantado set forth to punish this chief. At the end of a hard journey he found Chetemal deserted.
Foundation of Villa Real de Chetemal. Chetemal, however, seemed to have been admirably adapted for the site of a town, and so, when the rest of his men, together with some Indians, had arrived from Chablé, the town of Villa Real de Chetemal was established by Dávila. The cacique of Chetemal was treacherous in his intentions; several skirmishes took place between his men and the Spaniards, in which the latter, through superior arms, were the victors. An attempt made by Dávila to get to Montejo a report of all that had been done in the last two months was foiled by some Indians, who killed Dávila's messengers.
Hardships of those who Were at Chichen. Meanwhile those Spaniards who had remained behind with the Adelantado in Chichen Itza were also in grave straits, not only because of the hostility and ill-will of the Indians, but also because of the lack of various things they had brought from Spain but had been left behind in their ships which were not now to be reached. Their condition daily grew worse.
Dávila and his men wandered back and forth between Villa Real and Chablé (where the Indians were more or less friendly) in search of gold and in the hope of establishing their power. At length even the Indians of Chablé grew weary of them, and the Spaniards under Dávila set off on their journeys once more. Finally they came to Bakhalal, where some seemingly friendly Indian chiefs offered to carry letters to Montejo. They, however, like all the rest, were traitorous, and the Indians of the province of Cochva were so turbulent that Dávila determined to make war on them. To do this he had the help of the chief men of Vaymil, and he hoped for that of those of Chablé. When he returned to the latter place, he found that it had rebelled against his authority.