[936] See Vol. II. 419; Bancroft, Nat. Races, v. 564; Bandelier in Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc., i. 105. Bandelier (Peabody Mus. Repts., ii. 391) says that it is now acknowledged that the Recordacion florida of Fuentes y Guzman is “full of exaggerations and misstatements.” Brasseur (Bib. Mex.-Guat., pp. 65, 87), in speaking of Fuentes’ Noticia histórica de los indios de Guatemala (of which manuscript he had a copy), says that he had access to a great number of native documents, but profited little by them, either because he could not read them, or his translators deceived him. Brasseur adds that Fuentes’ account of the Quiché rulers is “un mauvais roman qui n’a pas le sens commun.” This last is a manuscript used by Domingo Juarros in his Compendio de la historia de la ciudad de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1808-1818, in two vols.—become rare), but reprinted in the Museo Guatemalteco, 1857. The English translation, by John Baily, a merchant living in Guatemala, was published as a Statistical and Commercial History of Guatemala (Lond., 1823). Cf. Vol. II. p. 419. Francisco Vazquez depended largely on native writers in his Crónica de la Provincia de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1714-16). (See Vol. II. p. 419.)
[937] See note in Bancroft, iii. 451.
[938] Vol. II. 419. Helps (iii. 300), speaking of Remesal, says: “He had access to the archives of Guatemala early in the seventeenth century, and he is one of those excellent writers so dear to the students of history, who is not prone to declamation, or rhetoric, or picturesque writing, but indulges us largely by the introduction everywhere of most important historical documents, copied boldly into the text.”
[939] Vol. II. 419.
[940] Vol. II. 417.
[941] E. G. Squier printed in 1860 (see Vol. II. p. vii.) Diego Garcia de Palacio’s Carta dirigida al Rey de España, año 1576, under the English title of Description of the ancient Provinces of Guazacupan, Izalco, Cuscatlan, and Chiquimula in Guatemala, which is also included in Pacheco’s Coleccion, vol. vi. Bandelier refers to Estevan Aviles’ Historia de Guatemala desde los tiempos de los Indios (Guatemala, 1663). A good reputation belongs to a modern work, Francisco de Paula Garcia Pelaez’s Memorias para la Historia del antiguo reyno de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1851-53, in three vols.).
[942] For details follow the references in Brasseur’s Nat. Civil.; Bancroft’s Nat. Races; Stephens’s Nicaragua, ii. 305, etc. See the introd. of Brinton’s Güegüence (Philad., 1883), for the Nahuas and Mangues of Nicaragua.
[943] Leclerc, no. 1070. Bancroft summarized the history of these ancient peoples in his vol. ii. ch. 2, and goes into detail in his vol. v.
[944] He condenses the early Mexican history in his Mexico, i. ch. 7. There are recent condensed narratives, in which avail has been had of the latest developments, in Baldwin’s Ancient America, ch. 4, and Short’s North Americans of Antiquity.
[945] Mrs. Alice D. Le Plongeon has printed various summarized popular papers, like the “Conquest of the Mayas,” in the Mag. Amer. Hist., April and June, 1888.