page_title: Spanish conquest of Petén
section_title: Spanish–Itza diplomatic contacts, 1695
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish conquest of Petén / Conquest of the central lakes / Late 17th century / Spanish–Itza diplomatic contacts, 1695
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Lake Petén Itzá, Guatemala, published in Philip Ainsworth Means' History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas 1917, p.209. Reproduction of the Franciscan friar Andrés Avendaño y Loyola's 1696 map in English.Español: Mapa del lago Petén Itzá, Guatemala, publicado por Philip Ainsworth Means en su History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas 1917, p.209. Reproducción del mapa de 1696 del frey franciscano Andrés Avendaño y Loyola, en inglés.
context_page_description: The Spanish conquest of Petén was the last stage of the conquest of Guatemala, a prolonged conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. A wide lowland plain covered with dense rainforest, Petén contains a central drainage basin with a series of lakes and areas of savannah. It is crossed by several ranges of low karstic hills and rises to the south as it nears the Guatemalan Highlands. The conquest of Petén, a region now incorporated into the modern republic of Guatemala, climaxed in 1697 with the capture of Nojpetén, the island capital of the Itza kingdom, by Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi. With the defeat of the Itza, the last independent and unconquered native kingdom in the Americas fell to European colonisers.
  Sizeable Maya populations existed in Petén before the conquest, particularly around the central lakes and along the rivers. Petén was divided into different Maya polities engaged in a complex web of alliances and enmities. The most important groups around the central lakes were the Itza, the Yalain and the Kowoj.
context_section_description: In December 1695 the Spanish colonial authorities in Mérida received a diplomatic visit sent by the Aj Kan Ekʼ. The diplomatic contact had been negotiated by Spanish captain Francisco Hariza y Arruyo, alcalde of Bacalar-at-Chunjujubʼ. Hariza had sent a Christian Maya ambassador to Nojpetén from Tipuj in April 1695, who arrived around the same time that the Itza were preparing to defend themselves against a Spanish party entering from Guatemala; nonetheless the emissary was received in peace and despatched back to Hariza with promises of submission to Spain. In August Hariza travelled to Mérida in the company of a group of seven Tipuj natives offering submission to Spain. Four members of this party were not from Tipuj at all, but were Itza diplomats sent incognito from Yalain to discuss possible peaceful contacts with the colonial authorities. The leader of the Itza delegation was AjChan, a nephew of the Itza king. When friar Avendaño was in Mérida in September 1695 between attempts to reach Nojpetén, he met with the Itza–Yalain delegation and was able to give an account of them when he travelled through Yalain after visiting Nojpetén in January 1696. AjChan and his companions returned to Nojpetén in November but did not stay long before leaving for Mérida again.
  In December, Kan Ekʼ despatched AjChan to negotiate peace with Spain, with three Itza companions. They were accompanied to Mérida by a small number of Mopans from the Tipuj region. AjChan, through family ties and marriage, had a key role as a middleman between the Itza, Yalain and Kowoj; he also had family ties with the semi-Christianised Maya at Tipuj, and his mother was from Chichen Itza in the northern Yucatán. His marriage to a Kowoj woman had been an attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to defuse Itza–Kowoj hostility. Kan Ekʼ sent AjChan to Mérida with a message of peaceful submission to the Spanish Empire in an attempt to solidify his own position as sole ruler of the Itza, even if this meant sacrificing Itza independence from Spain. The Itza king's uncle and the Kowoj were fundamentally opposed to any negotiations with the Spanish and viewed AjChan's embassy as treachery. The Spanish were unaware of the tensions between different Maya factions in central Petén, which by now had escalated into a state of inter-Maya warfare. AjChan was baptised as Martín Francisco on 31 December 1695, with Martín de Ursúa, governor of Yucatán, acting as his godfather.
  The arrival of AjChan and his subsequent baptism was an important diplomatic coup for Ursúa, who used the visit for his own political advancement, promoting the embassy as the peaceful final submission of the Itza kingdom to the Spanish Crown. This formal submission of the Itza kingdom to Spain was a critical turning point, since from a Spanish legal viewpoint the Itza were now subjects and the royal prohibition on military conquest could be sidestepped. AjChan left Mérida with his companions and a Spanish escort in the middle of January 1696 and arrived back at Tipuj around the end of the month. After a few days at Tipuj he learnt of violent events unfolding around Lake Petén Itzá including the battle at Chʼichʼ and the subsequent killing of two Franciscans. Fearing the response of his Spanish escort, he abandoned them and fled back to Yalain.
caption: English-language reproduction of Avendaño's 1696 map of Lake Petén Itzá[117]