History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas / Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Hard University. Vol. VII.

by Philip Ainsworth Means

Cano's Account of the Entrada from Guatemala. For the sake of continuity we will begin by quoting Cano's account of the entrada from Guatemala: "My Lord, Your Majesty having been pleased to appoint me in the Royal decree of Nov. 24, 1692, to enter into the territories of the heathen, to try to bring about their conquest, in the due obedience and execution of which, I personally took part in the expeditions into those lands which they have made during these years through the Province of Vera Paz, wishing to correspond to the Royal favor by which Your Majesty has been pleased to appoint me for this purpose; I understand that it is my duty to inform Your Majesty of what has happened in these expeditions, making up for the delay of this report by the simple truth and clearness of the information which up to the present time could not be given without a great deal of confusion on account of the strange character of the events."

The Route Followed by Cano. "The President [Barrios] ... finally determined to enter by way of Chiapas, and that I should go by way of Vera Paz with Captain Juan Diaz de Velasco and seventy men as an escort to the priests. Accordingly, in the month of March, of the said year '95, we started from the town of Cahabon, which is the last town of Vera Paz; seven priests of my order, and we entered by very rough paths into the highlands of the Chol, where we found many Indians, some baptized, others heathen, and the more we penetrated those highlands, the more numerous did we find the families in their hamlets, without the form of towns. We told all these people that the object of our journey was to search for them so that they should come together in towns in such a way that we should be able to come and live with them in order to teach them the law of God and to administer the holy Sacraments to them, and that we also wished that all the people of their tribe and of all the other tribes in those highlands should know God, and should come together in towns. Thus we went, passing from some farms to others in prosecution of our journey to the Lake, and we left all the Indians peaceful and satisfied with the promise which they made us to gather together in towns. In this we were obtaining plenty of good results, since we taught them the Christian doctrine of which most of the baptized Indians were totally ignorant. The children whom their fathers brought to us were baptized, and the grown people confessed themselves, many who had relapsed were consecrated anew, and the Holy Sacraments were administered to some Christian Indians who were found dying in their houses.

"After passing through the Province of Chol, which stretches from Cahabon forty-five or fifty leagues, we came upon another tribe which is called the Mopanes, among whom Spaniards or ministers of the holy gospel had never entered, and, although the difference in language was of some embarrassment, God willed that we should find some Mopan Indians who understood the Chol language and by means of these we declared to them the purpose of our journey. This had good results at that time in the case of some adults, who, being dangerously ill, asked for holy baptism, and in the case of some sick children whom their fathers brought and who went to Heaven as the first-fruits among this tribe. Their principal cacique, Taximchan, fled from us, and although we made various endeavors to draw him to us, he always deceived us with false promises. But we made friends with four other caciques of this tribe of the Mopanes Indians, called, in their paganism, the Cacique Zac, the Cacique Tuzben, the Cacique Yahcab, and the Cacique Tezecum. They came to see us with a part of their families, and every day there came many Mopanes Indians to buy knives and many other little trifles which the soldiers sold in exchange for blankets. We presented them with salt, and for this they came to see us and to sell us their fruit, and apparently they were becoming friendly."

The Chols and the Mopanes. "On account of the many Indians who came every day to see us, and of the many farms and farm-buildings which we saw in those highlands, we knew that that tribe of Mopanes was very numerous. They all go naked like the Chols, and differ from them only in their hair, in that they do not wear it of the same length like the Chols, but cut the hair on the front part of the head and only wear it long behind. It is a race more robust and barbarous than the Chols; they have idols of diabolical forms, some of which we found, and they have many other superstitions, about which it would take long to tell. We found very little frankness in their nature and we found that they have relations with the Ahizaes Indians of the Lake; and we even learned that they all were of one Ytza nation, calling themselves Mopan Ytza; Peten Ytza and these Mopanes were subject to the petty King of the Lake, about which and about its Island of Peten and about its caciques they gave us much information, although they always refused to show us the way thither. Nevertheless, we prevailed upon the Cacique Zac to show us the way from Mopan as far as the first plain, and from there forward our guide was the Cacique Yahcab, who knew the Chol language, by means of which he served as an interpreter, though a very unskilled one.

"In this way we had some means of prosecuting our journey to the Lake, and having written to the President by way of Vera Paz what had been done, and leaving in Mopan two priests to take care of those Indians, with twenty men for their protection, we priests, five in number, passed onward with Captain Juan Diaz de Velasco and fifty men."

From Mopan to the Lake. "We traveled from Mopan toward the Lake a matter of thirty-two leagues, in which the confusion of our guide and interpreter, the Cacique Yahcab, delayed us much more than our ignorance of the way; for he, whether from his want of knowledge, or from malice, said at each stream or small river that there was no more water till we reached the Lake. Having then come to a small river called Chacal, we made a halt while some of our men crossed with the guide and proceeded to reconnoiter the path, and they went forward in such a way that they reached the Lake and discovered the great Peten or island which stands in the middle of it, and which, according to the story of those who went there, must be distant from Chacal a matter of fourteen or sixteen leagues. Our people met many Ahizaes Indians, who came from the Lake to the shore armed with bows and arrows, and they, at the first sight of our people, got their bows ready; but the Indian Yahcab, who had been told what to do, calmed them by telling them that we were traders, which the Ahizaes heard with much pleasure. But when the said interpreter of ours went on to tell them that with these merchants were some Padres to teach them the law of God, the Ahizaes raised a great whispering among themselves; and as our people were unable to give the Ahizaes more reasons than those which that rude interpreter had studied and offered, there was no way to pacify them, and it was not known what they said, but all was confusion and disturbance, which resulted in fighting and general encounters, in which our men received no damage, but of the Ahizaes some were killed and wounded and two of them were captured; one of these was called Quixan and the other Chan. These two Indians uniformly said that the Ahizaes had taken up arms because they had had notice that we had come to Mopan, and that they had not perceived any other people in their lands either in the direction of Yucatan or in any other direction; which agreed with our not having any sign either from the people who went with the said President Don Jacinto, nor of those whom he had sent with the Padres de la Merced, although we made every effort to find them. I wished that the said two Indians, or one of them, should go with a message for his companions, but the affair was so stained with blood, and the time was so advanced that it did not permit of these delays, and the Captain gave sufficient reason for a contrary decision; and the Ahiza Indian called Chan quickly removed any doubt by fleeing by night, as a result of which we took more care of the remaining Indian called Quixan. Seeing, then, that at that time we were not able to get any result in that Ahiza nation, as they had taken up arms and we, not understanding their language, were not able to persuade them nor to come to an agreement with them; so that, if we went on, it would only be to continue a war against the will of our Majesty, as expressed in the Royal decree, and without any hope of good results, since we were not able to enter into the Island for want of canoemen and of instruments to make canoes, and for the same reason we could not go across the Lake in search of the people of the said President."

Cano Advises Return. "Seeing also that the rains were beginning with great fury, and that our people were becoming sick because of the change of weather, to which was added our finding ourselves in such want of supplies that we scarcely had what was needed to return to Mopan; for these reasons I advised the Captain that we should return to Mopan, and that there we should await news of the said President, and that when we had received this news we should see what ought to be done. This plan we carried out, taking in our company the Ahiza Indian called Quixan, treating him kindly and carefully."

Explanations of their Withdrawal Sent to Guatemala. At this juncture an unfortunate controversy sprang up. Cano says that he and his companions wrote to Guatemala, explaining why they had withdrawn. Their explanations were not accepted, however, because a false report had gained credence to the effect that Don Jacinto Barrios had reached Lake Peten. The authorities in Guatemala persisted in believing the latter report, and they charged the Padres with trying to discredit the President. The General Assembly then issued a decree in which they ordered Captain Velasco at once to return to the lake and fortify himself there on pain of losing all his property like a traitor.

The Decree of the General Assembly. "This was the substance of the decree which was despatched to us, with many other circumstances in a line with the ends and false bases on which the whole was founded.

"We received this decree in Mopan, with many other letters of the same tenor, so that beside the ordinary troubles (common to all), I had this one in addition to lay before our Lord.... Other letters [arrived] from the said President, D. Jacintho, written from a place of the Lacandones, which we called Nuestra Señora de las Dolores, where he had joined the people who had entered the country with the Padres de la Merced. In these letters he replied to those which we had written when we entered Mopan, and he gave orders in these that the men should retire, leaving thirty men as an escort in that place, since the rainy season was beginning, and because he was doing the same thing on his part; by this we knew that the second basis of the decree did not exist, since the President found himself in Lacandon, which is so far away from the Lake of Ahiza...."