Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570 (Cambridge Latin American Studies, Series Number 61) 2nd Edition

On a modern map Yucatan appears to be a region of Mexico but when the Spanish landed Maya and Mexica were distinctly different civilizations, languages and culture. The physical terrains were significantly different as well. The course of “conquest” by the Spanish in each region was also wildly different. You may well have read histories and/or first hand accounts of the Cortes’ actions in Mexica but what was going on at about the same time in Yucatan is not so well documented.For Anglo-American readers it is difficult enough to grasp 16th century Spanish motives, methods and social structure. Seven centuries of Muslim dominance of the Iberian peninsula followed by the “reconquista” resulted in a culture rather different from the rest of Western Europe. At the same time Mayan concepts of time, space, morality and social relations differed greatly from from both ours and from the Spanish of the 16th century. The author attempts to bring light to this meeting of two vastly different civilizations. The result is fascinating and also unavoidably speculative. It may never be possible to truly understand what happened in that place and that time but this book gives some glimpses in to the dark shadows.

A worthy read for understanding the Spanish Conquest and the impact on the indigenous people in the Yucatan in the 1500's.

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On one of the first pages of her book, Ambivalent Conquests, before the Preface and even the Table of Contents, author Inga Cledinnen presents a quote from Antonio de Ciudad Real written in 1588 that reveals the Yucatan became so named because when the Spaniards asked the Mayan residents what the land was called, they replied that they could not understand them, which in their own tongue was “uic athan”. The quote is fitting as this well written and researched book focuses on how the utterly different worlds of the Spaniards and the Maya collided in the 16th century, how each struggled to incorporate the other, not quite succeeding, and how the unique topography of the Yucatan Peninsula and culture of the Mayan civilization made the interplay of natives and settlers, Christians and pagans, unique in the New World. Clendinnen divides the book in two main parts, Spaniards and Indians, presenting as best she can a balanced perspective of the two societies. Naturally, there is a larger wealth of information and analysis in Part I due to the availability of primary sources of Spanish origin. Clendinnen balances the accounts of Bernal Diaz and Franciso Lopez de Gomera to set the stage, recapping the Cortez expedition, before detailing Montejo’s arrival in the Yucatan. Here she introduces the Maya as a people of “selective amenesia” when it came to oaths and treaties, who shared a common tongue but not an over-arching political structure, and who despite the fact that they might fight amongst themselves, “always united against outsiders, and thought of themselves as a distinct people.” (p. 25) Clendinnen then proceeds to give a very detailed description of the Yucatan topography, emphasize the rocky, flat terrain, the hostile vegetation, and the unrelenting scarcity of water. More importantly, she notes how the lack of gold of gold and silver made the resulting hardships of Montejo’s first expedition intolerable for the Spaniards, as they weren’t interested in any other resources at the time. (pp. 24-28)After leaving in 1535, the Spanish returned for good 1540 to settle and profit from local resources, particularly labor. Clendinnen does an excellent job filling in the gap in time, revealing that during the 5 year Spanish absence, the Maya had suffered a severe drought, famine, and huge drop in population, with regional poverty resulting in societal upheaval and transformation of societal roles. (pp. 30-36)Clendinnin shows how the Spanish settlers also experienced societal transformation, as soldiers who lost “their legitimate occupation with victory” couldn’t allow themselves to do anything that wasn’t supervisory “lest they jeopardize their tenuous claims to gentility”.(p. 40) Further, she reveals that because the area was poor, Yucatan was essentially ignored by the Crown and this allowed the encomienda system to persist longer (until the late 18th century) than anywhere else in New Spain. (p. 42) While the settlers were content to graft themselves onto existing Mayan societal structures in order to get things done and were not interested in a remaking Indian society as a whole, the Franciscan friars worked tirelessly bring the Maya into the Christian world.Clendinnen makes a number of interesting observations in the section titled “Missionaries”, among them that instructing the Mayans was more about making them “civilized” and memorizing prayers, even if there was, in fact, a lack of real comprehension, and that the unified language of the Mayan people made it easier to introduce orderly worship. (P.51) Also, the Maya initially benefit from the presence of the Franciscan friars who battle the violence and corruption inherit in the excesses of the encomienda system. (p.56)Things changed drastically when an audiecia was appointed to bring law, order and regularity to the region. The audiencia, Medel, outlawed a number of Indian activities, including village gatherings, the performing of rites and rituals, polygamy and adultery. When he left, the Franciscan seized the opportunity to exert their authority of the Indians’ souls and gathered the Indians into larger towns and villages, leading to scores of deaths and aggravating the encomederos in the process. (pp.57-60) Clendinnen then begins the most fascinating part of the Spanish portion of the book, detailing the effective rule of Frey Diego de Landa. Clendinnen’s portrait of de Landa is completely fascinating. She presents his own Relacion, written later in his life during a period of exile in Spain, in which he extolls the natural wonders of the Yucatan and describes “seaming through the whole, the beauty and send of the Maya people: the babies, ‘marvelously pretty and plump’, the gentle and modest women, the alert, upright, disciplined men.” (p. 69) And yet, she describes in great detail how de Landa, furious at discovering his new children worshipped idols on church grounds, begins a long and violent inquisition against the Mayans, leading to the torture of 4,500 of them. (p. 76). The battles between de Landa and other men like Bishop Toral and Fransico Hernadez are fascinating accounts of raw ambition, indomitable will and political maneuvering. Throughout it all, is the thread of one group of people not quite being able to understand the other: de Landa like an angry father who, not understanding why his children disobey him, punishes them sternly out of a sense of love, and the mindset of the other friars, who despite the awareness that Maya don’t really grasp things like the Holy Trinity and the meaning of the prayers they are made to say, nonetheless believe that “ritual can create reality, as well as confirm it”. (p. 115) In Part 2, Indians, Clendinnen reveals that only 3 of the pre-conquest books of the Maya survive to this day, and having no Indian writings of events themselves, she worked to strip the Spanish accounts down to how the Indians acted and reacted. (p. 134) She details their rich spiritual life, the complexity of the language where each word can have numerous meanings, and how Mayan language was meant more to be performed rather than read, giving more importance to the nobles who could interpret the sacred texts. (p.137-148). The noble tradition, and the barriers between nobles and common, were unbreakable and survived throughout the period of Spanish rule. Clendinnen reveals that the common Maya willingly supported the Lords in secret, and the Lords carried on the recoding of events after the old sacred books were destroyed, writing in the Book of Chilam Balam. The Maya continually selected and incorporated traditions, dances, and rituals into the society the Spanish and mapped out for them (p. 157-160).Most importantly, Clendinnen shows the for the Maya, as radical as the arrival of the Spanish had been and how dramatically their world had change, to them it was just another cycle, like the growing and planting of maize, and their own identity would remain defiantly untouched.

Well documented and writing, I would like to include more information from the other side, not as always, the history is written by the winers

This is really the first book I read in depth on the subject of the Maya. I have read substantial parts of other books, but this author's approach is remarkable in that she is able to delineate at all times between the religious and the historical which can be very much intertwined during this amazing period. It is clear that the histories of the Inca, Maya, and Aztec are very much different. You get from her account an almost novel type of reading experience as it becomes so lifelike. It is truly a remarkable book about a fascinating and extremely resilient and committed people. It was not easy for me to read in the sense that it so dense as far as the knowledge is concerned, and I was hurried. But it is extremely well documented and this helps a great deal in cementing one's understanding to the truth of what actually took place. It is truly a tragic period in human history presented in great clarity and compassion.

The analysis in this book is not critical or innovative. Go find a better book about Mesoamerica unless you really need this temporal/spatial niche.