Tag Archives: aztecs

Huatulco

Aztec Nobility – The Descendants of Moctezuma

Leave a comment

By Randy Jackson

At the time of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, the Aztec civilization was highly stratified, with social classes ranging from nobility and merchants to commoners and enslaved people. The conquest devastated the Aztec civilization and social order through disease, warfare, and the imposition of Spanish rule. Yet, like the Aztecs, Spanish society was organized under a monarchy and a noble class. Intermarriages allowed some members of the Aztec nobility to integrate into the Spanish elite in what was then called New Spain. Today, several Mexican families can trace their lineage back to the ruling Aztec nobility at the time of the conquest. One notable lineage is that of the descendants of Moctezuma II, the Aztec ruler at the time of the arrival of the Spanish.

Moctezuma’s Captivity and the Aztec Rebellion

On November 8, 1519, Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire, with 400 Spanish soldiers and cavalry. The Spaniards were welcomed by the Aztec ruler, Moctezuma, in a display of pageantry, marking the historically momentous meeting of the two civilizations. However, the Spaniards quickly wore out their welcome. Within a week, Cortés had Moctezuma under a form of house arrest. Soon, the Aztec noble class began planning to rid themselves of the Spanish.

By June 1520, a full-blown Aztec uprising against the Spanish had erupted. On June 29, 1520, Moctezuma was killed, possibly by a rock thrown from within an Aztec mob. The next day, the uprising, known as “La Noche Triste” or “The Night of Sorrows,” drove the conquistadors out of the capital, forcing them to retreat to Tlaxcala with significant loss of life and almost all of their precious treasure. Among the surviving Spaniards in Tlaxcala were some of Moctezuma’s children, likely taken against their will.

Moctezuma’s Children

Polygamy was a common practice in Aztec society. Although less common in the lower classes, it was prevalent among the nobility, in part to strengthen alliances between families. For the Aztec leader, political alliances through marriage were essential for maintaining power. Moctezuma II had numerous wives and concubines and fathered many children. Historical sources vary on the exact number of his children, but they often cite around 19. Many of these children died during the tumult of the conquest and its aftermath. However, a few survived to continue the bloodline of Moctezuma. Although historical records for most surviving children are poor or nonexistent, there are better records for two children, one son and one daughter, whose stories provide a glimpse into the partial legacy of the Aztec emperor.

Tecuichpotzin / Doña Isabel Moctezuma

Tecuichpotzin, later known as Isabel Moctezuma, was the daughter of Moctezuma II and his principal wife, Teotlalco of Tlacopan, a city-state of the Aztec Empire. Born in 1509 or 1510, Tecuichpotzin was about ten years old when the Spaniards arrived in 1519. At this young age, she was already married to Atlixcatzin, the ruler of Tlatelolco, another city-state within the Aztec Empire. Atlixcatzin died in 1520. Following his death, she was quickly remarried to her uncle Cuitláhuac, who became emperor after Moctezuma II’s death. Cuitláhuac, however, succumbed to smallpox only 80 days later. She was then married to the next emperor, Cuauhtémoc, whom Cortés had executed when the Conquistadors returned to defeat the Aztecs of Tenochtitlán in 1521.

By 1526, at the age of 17, Tecuichpotzin was converted to Christianity and baptized. Henceforth she was known by her Spanish and Christian name, Isabel. Cortés then had Isabel married for the fourth time to Alonso de Grado, a close colleague. With this marriage came a grant of a large encomienda (land and slaves), the largest encomienda in the Valley of Mexico. Within about a year of this marriage, Alonso de Grado died. Cortés took Isabel into his household, and she became pregnant with Cortés’s daughter. Cortés had the child raised separately, and Isabel was married to another of Cortés’s colleagues, Pedro Gallego de Andrade. Together, Isabel and Pedro had a son in 1530; shortly after, Pedro Gallego died. In 1532, Isabel was married for the sixth (and last) time to Juan Cano de Saavedra. Together, they had five children.

In 1550 or 1551, Isabel died at the age of about 42. The children of Doña Isabel Moctezuma became prominent members of Mexican and Spanish societies, and her lineage continues to have a flourishing presence in both countries today.

Tlacahuepan / Don Pedro Moctezuma

Tlacahuepan, later known as Pedro Moctezuma, was born in 1520 or 1521, at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. He was born to Moctezuma’s wife Miahuaxchotzin, the Empress of Tula’s city-state, the Toltec Empire’s ancient capital. Sometime before the Spanish siege and final conquest of the Aztec capital, Pedro and his mother relocated back to her home city of Tula. Although Pedro was too young to have witnessed the fighting and collapse of his father’s empire, for the majority of his adult life, he was involved in fighting in Spanish courts to prove his entitlement as a son of Moctezuma.

In 1522, the King of Spain appointed Hernán Cortés as governor and captain general of New Spain. Although Cortés was instructed to limit the granting of encomiendas and respect the indigenous people’s land rights, he largely ignored these directives. Cortés argued that granting encomiendas was essential for civilizing the territory and rewarding the loyalty of his followers. Additionally, he used the system to incorporate the Aztec ruling class into the emerging colonial administration. One notable encomienda was granted in Tula to Don Pedro Moctezuma.

In 1528, Hernán Cortés returned to Spain to appeal directly to King Charles I regarding conflicts with various colonial authorities and to defend himself against accusations of abuse of power and inappropriate granting of lands. In the 1530s, Spanish courts revoked Don Pedro’s encomienda, converting it to Royal Crown property. Don Pedro subsequently spent his life embroiled in legal battles in Spanish courts over his noble entitlements as a son of Moctezuma.

Don Pedro Moctezuma traveled to Spain to appeal directly to the King. In 1539, he was granted a coat of arms in recognition of his status as the son of Moctezuma II. Later, he was also granted annual sums from the crown. Don Pedro Moctezuma died in 1570, still struggling with land entitlements. However, the Spanish Crown firmly recognized his noble lineage. His grandson, Pedro Tesifón Moctezuma, was granted the title of “Count of Moctezuma de Tultengo,” which was later upgraded to “Duke of Moctezuma de Tultengo” in 1865, a title that still exists today. Holders of this title have been prominently involved in Spanish society over the centuries. Although historical records vary regarding the number of children of Don Pedro Moctezuma, it is known that two prominent sons carried on the noble lineage in Spain and with descendants also in Mexico.

Despite the collapse of the Aztec Empire and the challenges posed by colonial rule, Moctezuma’s noble lineage managed to endure and integrate into the new societal structure and carry on over the centuries. Through strategic marriages and legal battles, Moctezuma’s descendants preserved their noble status and secured recognition from the Spanish crown. The Spanish noble titles and the prominence of some of the descendants of families in Mexico testify to the legacy of Moctezuma II.

For contact or comment: box95jackson@gmail.com.

Huatulco

Social Class, Politics, Economics, and Religion: A Brief History of Aztec Sex

Leave a comment

By Deborah Van Hoewyk

The Aztecs are one group of Mexico’s ancient indigenous peoples; although it is a diverse group, the different peoples are connected through use of some version of Nahuatl language. They called themselves the Mexica, arrived in what is now Mexico City in the 1300s, and were conquered by Hernán Cortés in 1521. In their short two centuries of rule, however, they established an empire that stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and had over 400 to 500 small states and 5 to 6 million people.

How Do We Know What We Know About the Aztecs?

Until recently, our knowledge of the Aztecs – not to mention the Maya, the Olmecs, the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs (there are more) – was based on “codices,” manuscript histories written by indigenous people at the request of the conquistadors. Friars who had learned the local native language then translated the manuscripts into Spanish, and they were shipped back to the European monarchs as reports on their colonies. The codices are useful resources, but they’re more than a bit iffy about “what came before.”

Recently historians and anthropologists have begun investigating earlier writings by ancient Mexicans. In a recent (2019) book, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, Camilla Townsend from Rutgers University, notes that “the Native Americans were more intrigued by the Roman alphabet than the Spaniards ever knew. Unbeknownst to the newcomers, the Aztecs took it home and used it to write detailed histories in their own language.”

Until now, no one paid much attention to these sources, but there has been a major effort to integrate pre- and post-conquest documents to reach a better understanding of ancient Latin American civilizations. Townsend’s book – which makes the point that the Conquest was not “introductory or climactic,” but “pivotal” in the long story of Mexico – gives us a history, in their own words, of a people who lived complex, nuanced lives in a cultural context the Spanish barely attempted to understand.

In searching for a more accurate understanding of the Aztecs – were they bloodthirsty savages? Focused only on warfare? Superstitious and easily duped into surrender? – Townsend, among other historians, introduces new perspectives to understanding “these complex and often mischaracterized people.”

Gender and Sex, Polygamy and Politics

The big picture for Aztec sex is that it occurred primarily in marriage, although the upper classes practiced “polygyny,” the kind of polygamy where a man can have multiple wives; there was no such privilege for women. There was one “true” wife, presumably the first, and the others were sometimes called “weavers.” In Aztec culture, women were the weavers, textiles were very valuable, so having many weavers increased the man’s wealth – Moctezuma had hundreds of wives. Men could also keep concubines – women to whom they were not married.

Aztec historian Caroline Dodds Pennock of the University of Sheffield in the UK looked at “Gender and Aztec Life Cycles,” a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs (2017). She says our notion of Aztec life driven by “brutal warriors, glorious kings, and bloody priests” is a bit off: in reality, “women in Aztec culture were powerful and effective figures, possessing tangible rights and responsibility, and clearly recognized as indispensable to society’s collective success.” That is not to say that gender wasn’t prescribed in Aztec society – the model was “complementarity,” that is, men and women had different roles that complemented each other.

As she looks at pre-Conquest Aztec life via the role of women and gender, Townsend finds upper-class women played a political role in bringing altepetls (city states) into the empire through marriage; they exercised considerable influence during the Conquest on whether any given altepetl would side with or fight against the Spanish.

Both Dodds Pennock and Townsend used documents that focused on upper-class women. In The Flower and the Scorpion: Sexuality and Ritual in Early Nahua Culture (2011), history professor Pete Sigal of Duke University argues that the “sexual lives and imaginations” of the ordinary Aztecs included pleasure, seduction, and components of the rituals of fertility and warfare. Moreover, they resisted Spanish efforts to inculcate repressive Catholic attitudes towards sex for well over a century after the conquest.

The Specifics of Aztec Sexuality

When references to specific sexual practices come up, you might think the Aztecs were just waiting for the Catholic church to arrive and say, “Nope, that’s a no-no, not that!” There was a group of deities who ruled over sexuality, and they were much given to punishing those whose sexual behavior was outside the approved realm. A couple of these gods were associated with disease – think of STDs as a punishment for sex outside marriage.

Pre-marital sex. Punishable by death. Adult men and women not allowed to interact with each other outside of marriage. Both men and women were supposed to be virginal at marriage, but women were also required to pass a virginity test (i.e., presence of the hymen). For upper-class young men, though, this prohibition didn’t really apply – they often had small collections of concubines.

Adultery. Upper-class men, of course, couldn’t commit adultery because they were allowed multiple wives and concubines. Once adultery was claimed, a lower-class man might be beaten or have his head shaved, but a woman was sentenced to death, usually by stoning.

Homosexuality. Mentioned infrequently in contemporary documents, and was punishable by death. The gay man who took the active (penetrating) role was murdered by being impaled while his partner died when his intestines were extracted through his anus – a much harsher penalty, actually, since the “receiving” partner was perceived as being less “macho.” Lesbians were killed with a garrote.

There is a double-gendered god, Xochipilli as a male and Xochiquetzal as a female, who governs flowers, love, art, and fertility; Xochipilli is the patron/protector of homosexuality and male prostitutes. There have always been festivals to Xochipilli/Xochiquetzal, suggesting that the Aztecs might have had a “Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t get caught or we’ll kill you” policy.

Sodomy (oral or anal sex). Even among heterosexual partners, punishable by hanging.

Masturbation. Forbidden – punished by rubbing hot pepper powder on the genitals.

Prostitution. Prostitution was alive and well in Aztec society. “Respectable” Aztec women wore their hair up; prostitutes let it loose. They were the only women allowed to wear perfume, jewelry, and makeup. Sometimes prostitutes and priestesses were one and the same; they rewarded young men who survived battle with their favors. Another ritualistic role was to pleasure those men who were on their way to being sacrificed.

When the Spaniards Arrived …

The conquistadors brought their sex-as-sin Catholic beliefs with them. Within two years, they had converted two men to the priesthood and within ten years, they had begun converting the upper classes to Christianity. They hoped Christianity at the top would “trickle down” to rest of society.

Christianity, of course, requires that a man have only one wife; the Spanish began to require monogamy, which created social chaos. The additional wives, not to mention the concubines, suddenly had no legal or social status. Basically, the Spanish enslaved them, many on the encomiendas they created to reward their conquering soldiers; the Spaniard who held the encomienda had the right to tribute, produced through labor, of all inhabitants in a particular area. The Spanish replaced women who had been paid to weave with men, destroying the men’s identity as warriors. The alliances that marriages had fostered, the wealth that had accumulated within allied city-states, resolved disputes between altepetls – all suddenly thrown into disarray. Starting with its stance on sex, Catholic law destroyed a culture.

Moreover, at the urging of Queen Isabella of Spain, the conquistadors intermarried with the native peoples (she called them “free vassals of the Spanish Crown”) at a great rate. This “marathon sexual activity” on the part of the Spanish began to destroy indigeneity. By January 1, 1821, when Mexico won its independence from Spain, only half the population of Mexico was indigenous; 20% was mestizo. In the 2015 census conducted by INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography), only 23% of Mexicans said they were indigenous or of indigenous descent.

Huatulco

The Pochteca

Leave a comment

By Julie Etra

Triple Alliance
Before addressing the subject of this article, the Pochteca, some background information about the Mexica Empire helps explain the setting within which this particular social class existed. Commonly known as the Aztec Empire, a sort of misnomer, the Empire was governed by the Triple Alliance (Alliance) from 1428-1521. On August 13, 1521, it fell to the conquering Spaniards, accompanied by the indigenous enemies of the Alliance. The Alliance was a military, political, and social agreement among three city-states who shared lands in the Basin of Mexico and joined forces for their mutual benefit. The city-states consisted of Tenochtitlan, now known as Mexico City, which was settled by the Mexica/Aztec; Texcoco, home of the Acolhua tribe who settled in the Valley 100 years before the Mexica; and Tlacopan, where the Tepaneca preceded the Acolhua by about a century. The three tribes shared the same Nahua language and a number of customs. The Alliance replaced the previously dominant Tepaneca.

Social Classes of the Empire
Within this empire/alliance existed a highly structured class system with eight more or less distinct classes. At the top was the sovereign ruler or Emperor, called the Tlatoani, (for example the last Tlatoani ruler prior to the Spanish conquest was Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin aka Moctezuma II). The word is derived from the nahuatl verb tlahtoa, which means “to speak”, The Tlatoani was followed by the nobility, warrior class (guerreros) the high priests and priestesses, the middle class (commoners), the free poor, servants, and slaves.

Nobility

The nobility included the wealthy families within the same bloodline and lineage to which they were born. Following the leadership of the Tlatoani they ran the government, including the army, and oversaw the other classes. Their great wealth was accrued through management of the land, slavery, and tributes from outlying towns to the central government in the ever-expanding empire. Following the top-ranking Tlatoani were the Tetecuhtin, the high lords and the Pipiltin who were the regular lords.

Warriors
The soldiers were essential to the defense and expansion of the empire, conquering and subjugating surrounding territories. All Aztec males were required to serve in one capacity or another and received military training at a young age. The military offered an opportunity for upward class mobility for commoners and free/poor citizens (not unlike the contemporary volunteer military of the USA), in particular for taking captives for sacrifices and slavery. Also, somewhat similar to the contemporary USA, warfare was a major component of the Aztec economy, and innately entwined with religion (unlike the USA). Warriors were between 15 and 20 years old. To be eligible for battle recruits had to pass a physical test of carrying very heavy burdens for a predetermined duration. The warriors were also called on to provide additional protection of the Pochteca, and to keep an eye on the neighboring untrustworthy Tlaxcalans.

The Priests
The priests, next in rank, had an enormous amount of responsibility, respect, and power. They were the prophets of the society, observing and interpreting the movements of the heavens (planets and stars) and tracking planetary events such as eclipses. They had a direct line of communication with the gods, maintained the temples and organized all the religious festivities and associated gods, which were many. The priests oversaw and implemented human sacrifices to the gods over the sacrificial stones. They were responsible for the education of children as well as the general population in matters of religion and traditions, thereby wielding power and influence over society. There were female priests, known as cihuatlamacazqui, but they were much less common than their male counterparts.

The Middle Class
The middle class, or the commoners, made up the largest component of the population. This class was responsible for many of the skilled trades and included stone cutters, masons, feather workers, potters, weavers, sculptors, painters, boatsmiths, goldsmiths, and silversmiths. This class also included accountants and arbitrators for business and personal matters.

Poor/Free
This class could work their way up through the ranks through bravery in the military service or marriage. They included hunters (fowlers, who hunted the abundant waterfowl), fishermen, and the farmers who cultivated the chinampas of Tenochtitlan.

Servants
This class was similar to the serfs of Medieval Europe. They were owned by the nobility but had a higher status than slaves as they were allowed to marry, and their children were not automatically considered property of their owners. Unlike serfs, they could have side trades and additional income as well as their own slaves and servants. Like slaves, they could be sold but could also be freed with the proper documentation.

Slaves
The obvious does not need to be repeated. Many of these were captives of war, and subject to human sacrifice.

The Pochteca
And finally, the Pochteca. They were a powerful and elite class or guild of professional soldier – traders, ranking just below the nobility. The guilds were restricted, highly controlled, and membership was hereditary, passing from father to son. Being secretive, the guild did not share information about trade routes, source of goods, and third-party local merchants and suppliers. Although they served multiple purposes the Pochteca were primarily long-distance traveling merchants, particularly in luxury and exotic items, traveling from Tenochtitlan to Nicaragua and as far north as what is now New Mexico in the United States.

Trips could last months The trade or commerce was known as pochtecayotl in their Nahuatl language, derived from pochtecatl, which was one of the neighborhoods of Tlatelolco (now within modern Mexico City) that housed the Pochteca, and where the market, called a Pochtlan, sometimes spelled Puxtla or Puxtlan, was located.

The guild had their own internal structure which included another class of servants, tlamemeh or tamemes who were porters, as there were no beasts of burden until the arrival of the Spaniards with their horses. The word is derived from the Nahuatl word tlamama, which means to carry. Like other classes, they were born into this system and trained as children to carry heavy loads. The Pochteca sometimes received protection from the warrior class as they had to cross into foreign and potentially hostile territory outside the control of the Empire, including modern day Guatemala and other countries in Central America in order to obtain unique treasure such as quetzal feathers and birds (Chiapas, Guatemala, Costa Rica) and jade (Guatemala), for example. They had their own god, Yacatecuhtli, the patron saint of commerce, their own ceremonies, and their own laws and courts, overseen by Pochteca elders. They were allowed to keep merchandise, but public display was not permitted as to not outshine or offend the nobility. Hence, they were able to quietly self-enrich and organize elaborate feasts and rituals for their own community.
Some of the more exotic goods they brought to the Capital for the Tlatoani and the nobility included the aforementioned quetzal feathers and birds (check the penacho of Moctezuma II; a replica is on display in the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. The original is on display at the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna, Austria) and other exotic and colorful birds such as scarlet macaws (Moctezuma II had an aviary), marine shells, turquoise, other gemstones, jaguar pelts, coca, and polychrome pottery. Many of these luxury items are on display at the Templo Mayor Museum just off the Zócalo in Mexico City.

Since they had license to unconstrained travel, they were well positioned for another role as spies and informants, relaying information about subordinate states, especially the aforementioned Tlaxcalans (who indeed betrayed the Mexica and sided with the Spaniards) to the central government in Tenochtitlan.

Although there were other merchant guilds in Mayan society called ppolom, compared to the Aztec Pochteca, they lacked the complex structure and unique characteristics of the Pochteca.

 

Uncategorized

Contrasting Transitions:Guerrero and Aguilar Among the Maya

Leave a comment

By Randy Jackson

The path of human history is a story of successive transitions. Few transitions are peaceful enough to allow the individuals affected to adjust without a personal cost. The greatest historical transitions are the collapse of civilizations. Pre-Conquest, and over the course of 3,000 years, Mexico has had seven major civilizations: The Olmec, the unknown culture or cultures that built Teotihuacán, Zapotec, Mixtec, the Maya, the Toltec, and the Aztec. The last of these civilizations, the Aztec, ended with the Spanish Conquest.

When wandering the ruins of some of these ancient civilizations, I believe one question intrigues us all: What was it like to be a person living in those ancient times? Anthropologists and archaeologists can articulate many aspects of the daily lives of people in these civilizations surprisingly well. These aspects are things people did, how they lived, even what they might have believed. But, except for the leaders of these civilizations, very little is known about any individual, especially individuals who had witnessed the transition of one civilization to another.

Two exceptions to this are Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero. These two Spanish men survived a shipwreck and were washed up on the shores of the Yucatan in 1511, eight years before the arrival of Cortés. There were between twelve and fifteen men in all who washed ashore that day. Some were killed (their leaders likely sacrificed); the remaining men were all enslaved. All but two died or were killed in the following years.

The only two men to survive, Aguilar and Guerrero, escaped their initial enslavement and ended up among a rival Mayan group. Among this second group the Spaniards were treated somewhat better. By working hard, over some years they were able to integrate with the Mayan people and learned to speak their language.

The different ways these two men integrated into the Mayan society seems to have been a function of the type of person each man was. Aguilar was educated in the Catholic Church and was a Franciscan friar. As a man of faith, he kept his Christian faith and persevered in his time among the Maya. He hung onto some hope that he might, one day, return to Spanish society and even Spain. Less is known about Guerero’s upbringing, except that he was likely a fisherman before joining a Spanish crew heading to the new world. Guerrero distinguished himself in battle fighting for his Mayan compatriots. He became a warrior chief, he married a woman named Zazil Ha, the daughter of the cacique (chieftain) and had a family.

When Cortés approached the Mexican coast, he first stopped on the island of Cozumel for some ship repairs. While there, the Spaniards were approached by a canoe of Mayans. To the Spaniards bewilderment and surprise one of the Mayans asked in Spanish, “Gentleman, are you Christians?” This person was Gerónimo de Aguilar, indistinguishable to the Spaniards from his Mayan companions.

Aguilar had adapted and survived his Mayan captivity. With Aguilar’s ability to speak Mayan he was of great service to Cortés and when teamed up with Malinche (an amazing former noblewoman with command of several Mexican languages – see The Eye, March 2021), Aguilar had a front row seat to the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The societal collapse Aguilar watched was from the perspective of a Spaniard and conqueror.

Gonzalo Guerrero’s perspective was fundamentally different. Before leaving for Cozumel to meet up with Spanish, Aguilar went to Guerrero to tell him about the Spanish ship and to see if Guerrero would join him in meeting with the Spanish. Guerrero refused, telling Aguilar he would never be accepted back into Spanish society. He was tattooed and had nose rings and ear plugs in the Mayan style. And besides, Guerrero added, “And look at how handsome these boys of mine are.”

Cortés and his conquistadors passed through the Yucatán and went on to defeat the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. The Mayan peoples proved much more difficult for the Spaniards to overcome. It took them decades, and the lives of hundreds of Spanish soldiers, to subdue the Yucatán. The successful Mayan resistance is likely the result of having Gonzalo Guerrero to advise them.

The first Spanish attempt to subdue the Mayan Yucatán was in 1527, six years after the fall of the Aztecs at Tenochtitlán. Francisco de Montejo led a group of Spanish soldiers on this mission; his first effort was to try to get Guerrero on his side. From a ship in the Bahia de Chetumal, Montejo was successful in getting a letter to Guerrero promising to “honor and benefit” him if he became one of Montejo’s “principal men.” Guerrero responded, writing on the back of the letter in charcoal. He once again refused to join his former countrymen.

Montejo’s attempt to conquer the Yucatán was unsuccessful. The Mayans used guerilla tactics, as well as craftily supplying the Spaniards with misinformation. These tactics were considered to have originated with Guerrero. The heat, mosquitos and the Yucatán jungle did the rest. There were further excursions and some battles with the Mayans, but by 1535 the only Spaniard living in the Yucatan was Gonzalo Guerrero. By this time Guerrero had been among the Maya for twenty five years. Earlier, in 1531, Guerrero’s former compatriot, Gerónimo de Aguilar, had died near Mexico City on his encomiendia (an estate allowed to exact tribute from the native population after the Conquest).

Then in 1536, the Spanish attacked and overwhelmed a Mayan cacique named Çiçumba at a fortress in Ticamaya, Honduras. After the battle, among the dead, Spanish soldiers found a bearded man in native dress killed by a shot from an arquebus, an early long gun. The Spanish commander, Alvarado, reported that the man was Gonzalo Guerrero. Stories say he arrived from Chetumal with 50 canoes of warriors to support Çiçumba.

The dictionary definition of “transition” is “the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.” It’s hard to imagine a greater transition than a civilization collapsed by conquest. Millions of people living in what is now Mexico at the time suffered unknown hardships and death. So many individual stories that will always remain unknown to us. As for Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero, we know the main structure of their lives, the decisions they made, some of the things they faced in life, even how they died. Their stories are grand and the transitions they faced are recorded for all times.