page_title: Spanish conquest of the Maya
section_title: Campaigns in the Cuchumatanes and Lacandon Forest
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish conquest of the Maya / Campaigns in the Cuchumatanes and Lacandon Forest
caption_attribution_description: English: Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Español: Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, en Huehuetenango, Guatemala.
context_page_description: The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas, in which the Spanish conquistadores and their allies gradually incorporated the territory of the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Maya occupied a territory that is now incorporated into the modern countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador; the conquest began in the early 16th century and is generally considered to have ended in 1697.
  The conquest of the Maya was hindered by their politically fragmented state. Spanish and native tactics and technology differed greatly. The Spanish engaged in a strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial towns; they viewed the taking of prisoners as a hindrance to outright victory, whereas the Maya prioritised the capture of live prisoners and of booty. Among the Maya, ambush was a favoured tactic; in response to the use of Spanish cavalry, the highland Maya took to digging pits and lining them with wooden stakes.
context_section_description: In the ten years after the fall of Zaculeu various Spanish expeditions crossed into the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes and engaged in the gradual and complex conquest of the Chuj and Qʼanjobʼal. The Spanish were attracted to the region in the hope of extracting gold, silver and other riches from the mountains but their remoteness, the difficult terrain and relatively low population made their conquest and exploitation extremely difficult. The population of the Cuchumatanes is estimated to have been 260,000 before European contact. By the time the Spanish physically arrived in the region this had collapsed to 150,000 because of the effects of the Old World diseases that had run ahead of them.
caption: The difficult terrain and remoteness of the Cuchumatanes made their conquest difficult.
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