LITR 5831 Colonial-Postcolonial
Literature
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Research Posts 2011
Cristen Lauck
October 16, 2011
Colonization of Mexico: A survey of limited
results
Starting my
research, I began studying the colonization of Mexico by the Spanish and the
literature that was produced from that settlement. I tried to find sources that
indicated the attitudes of the native people when they were being conquered. I
wanted to know how they felt about the invading Spanish, so that I could compare
that with what the Spanish thought of these “savages”. My interest in this
particular aspect of colonization is partly because of Houston’s close ties to
Mexico. Not only are we
geographically very close to Mexico but we also have a very large Hispanic
population in Houston. But
probably my fascination with this countr's colonization is due more to the fact
that my boyfriend is of Mexican heritage. Both of his parents are first
generation Americans coming from Mexico so I had a personal interest in Mexico’s
history. Before starting my research, I knew Mexico had varying histories of
colonization due to the many different native peoples and civilizations there,
but instead was done through hundreds of years of conquest by the Spanish.
Therefore, I decided to focus my research on the colonization of the Mayan
people and of their attitudes toward the invading Spaniards since that is one of
the larger cultures in the area and the one that is geographically closest to
us.
I started my research just getting a better understanding of
the Spanish conquests and colonization of the Mayans. I “googled” search terms
such as “colonization of Mexico”, “Spanish colonization of Mayans”, and
“Colonization of Yucatan”. Each of these terms inevitably brought me to
Wikipedia which isn’t my first choice of sources due to its possible fallacies
but it at least got me started. I read the Wikipedia article titled “Spanish
conquest of Yucatan” which details the numerous, exhaustive campaigns the
Spanish fought against the Mayans. The article notes that the conquests lasted
for 170 years and finally ended in 1546 (Spanish). Besides the lengthy
descriptions of the several waves of conquest, this article gave little other
information about the writings and attitudes of either the Mayans or the
Spaniards during the conquests. It said nothing about the Mayans’ thoughts about
the Spanish. So I kept looking. I found another Wikipedia article titled “Maya
civilization” which provided more information about the history and fall of the
Mayan peoples. In this article, I was surprised to read that the Mayans are
“noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Colombian
Americas” (Maya). I was excited to continue reading about this culture and about
their written texts but much to my dismay, as I continued reading, I learned
that their language and writings have almost all been lost. The article
explained that “the Spanish Church and government officials destroyed Maya texts
and with them the knowledge of Maya writing” (Maya). I read that only “three of
the pre-Columbian books dated to the post classic period have been preserved”
(Maya). These three surviving texts, called codices, which have now been
deciphered are limited in their information because they mainly focus on the
agricultural and economic development of the culture as well as religious
beliefs (Maya). There is not much about the individual attitudes of the people
with regards to the Spanish invasion.
Nevertheless, after this disappointing, initial overview of
the history of the Mayan civilization, with hope, I began searching for more
specific articles and writings from the Mayans and Spanish people about the
events. I thought by looking for scholarly journals and books about the Mayans,
I would find something with regards to their being conquered by the Spanish. But
I found nothing. Instead, I found other researchers were also having the same
difficulties. For instance, Douglas Peck also discovered in his research that
“little attention was given to the rich history of the indigenous inhabitants
and their advance culture” (Peck 21-22). Peck writes in his article
“Re-examination of Spanish Colonial Period Documents” that there is a lack of
information about the Mayans and suggests that the little information we do have
of the Mayans have been altered or misinterpreted. Peck explains that “The
limited reports related to the prehistoric Maya civilization were contained in
the writings of the earliest Spanish clerics and the writings of early
indigenous converts under their control. The interpretation (or
misinterpretation) of these early Spanish colonial period documents are often at
odds with historical reality or with the findings of current
anthropologist/archaeologists based on limited examination of abandoned ruins”
(Peck 22). What Peck is speaking about, he later elaborates on and explains that
the now commonly believed sacred “Bible” of the Mayan people wasn’t an
authoritative work for the natives at all, but instead was “only a ‘branch of
the ancient Mayan race’ and suggested that the real sacred book … was destroyed
in the wholesale destruction of books” (Peck 30). Peck argues that what modern
historians and archeologists take as definite texts and descriptions of the
Mayan people and culture are not true testaments of the culture because the
writings have been either altered and misinterpreted or destroyed.
Anthony Pagden also found the burning of the Mayan texts
troubling for anyone trying to understand the Mayan people and history. In his
article titled “Diego de Landa in Mexico,” Pagden explains that Diego de Landa
was the Spanish bishop responsible for making “a bonfire of every scrap of Maya
writing and every piece of Maya handicraft he could lay his hands on” (Pagden
482). He emphasizes that Landa’s actions which destroyed “many books on history
of ancient Yucatan which told of its beginning and history” leave us with many
questions about the Mayan people (Pagden 486). Pagden so eloquently concludes
his article saying that what was lost in that fire was “a unique opportunity to
study a primitive people who were just beginning the enormous
task of interpreting and ordering the universe that surrounded it”
(Pagden 488). Inga Clendinnen also comments in her book titled,
Ambivalent Conquests, on the mass
destruction Landa created when he burned the Mayan texts but believes Landa only
did that because of his religious beliefs. Steve Stern, in his review, explains
that Clendinnen sympathizes that the “mix of self-delusion and self-denial by
<the Spanish> missionaries intent on seeing themselves as selfless guardians of
the Christian novitiates proved volatile once the self-delusion became apparent”
(Stern 1515). In other words, Landa may have had good intentions when he burned
the Mayan texts, but once he realized the devastation he created for this
culture, it was too late. The texts that would have helped scholars understand
this culture were all lost.
In conclusion, because of the lack of information about the
Mayan culture and especially the attitudes of the Mayan people towards the
Spanish, I cannot make any judgments about what the Mayans thought about their
conquerors. There is just not that much information out there for me to make any
definite conclusions. Without hearing the Mayans attitudes toward the Spanish,
the history of the colonization of Mexico can only be one-sided. We only hear
accounts of the colonization from the Spanish. And as I have already alerted
too, we cannot take the Spanish documents as absolutely factual. Instead, what I
have learned is that what a person, or country does, even though out of good
intentions, can ultimately be devastating and regrettable. Instead, another
possible research question might be chronicling the destruction of a
civilization as a result of destroying their texts. It would be interesting to
see what other cultures and histories have been lost due to a colonizing country
destroying their written language.
Works Cited
Clendinnen, Inga. Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard
in Yucatan, 1517-1570. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge UP, 1987. Print.
Maya
Civilization." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 16 Oct. 2011.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_civilization>.
Pagden, Anthony. "Diego de Landa in Mexico." History Today
25.7 (1975): 480. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 16 Oct. 2011.
Peck, Douglas T. "Re-examination of Spanish Colonial Period
Documents Related to Prehistoric Maya History and
Mythology." Revista de Historia de América 136 (2005): 21-35. Academic Search
Complete. EBSCO. Web. 16 Oct. 2011.
"Spanish Conquest of Yucatán." Wikipedia, the Free
Encyclopedia. Web. 16 Oct. 2011.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_yucatan>.
Stern, Steve J. "Ambivalent Conquests (Book Review)." American
Historical Review 94.5
