Inquisition in the Yucatan

An entry from Diego Montejo, a Spanish missionary through the Inquisition


August of 1572:
     Since I first arrived in 1543 I've experienced and witnessed the struggle of the intertwining of the Spanish and Maya culture. It has been a long journey and I have never lost focus of my main objective of converting the Mayas to Christianity.
     The Inquisition had began in New Spain as early as the 1520s and was not formerly established until only last year, 1571. Over the past years I was determined to steer the Mayas away from their ritual practices of idolatry. However, they still practiced idolatry as well as sorcery, witchcraft, and bigamy in secrecy while making us believe they had converted.  With the recurring idolatry and religious syncretism, this became the prime concern of the Mexican Church. Also, the situations of resistance in the Yucatan showed similarities to those in central Mexico and Oaxaca.

    
 The Mayas in the Yucatan struggled with the Inquisition mostly because of their desire to preserve their long cultural and religious traditions  They wanted to maintain what they could of their traditional way of life. Many performed ritual ceremonies worshiping idols in secret locations beyond the boundaries of the settlements.
    Once knowledge of these ceremonies started circulating among the friars (main supporters of the Inquisition) investigators and some locals were sent out to uncover the idols and sites of ceremonies. Those who went against the Church and worshiped idols were brought to the leader of the Inquisition in the Yucatan at the time, Fray Diego de Landa.

     Fray Diego de Landa lead the Inquisition in the Yucatan while waiting for the arrival of their resident bishop.  From his first discovery of Mayas practicing idolatry in 1562, over the next three months, Landa proceeded with mass arrests, brutal and indiscriminate torture, and excessive punishments of those accused. "More than 4,500 Indians were put to the torture during the three months of this episcopal inquisition." (1) Landa claimed his actions were accordingly in relation to the legal issues of the Inquisition.  Torture was part of the interrogations but not to the extend Landa enforced. These trials are the most known in our region.
     Landa remained in power until "Bishop Francisco Toral, a veteran Franciscan missionary from Mexico, finally arrived officially ending Landa's inquisitorial authority ."(2) Toral was appalled with Landa's behavior and was determined to prove that is actions were unjustified.  So through the Episcopal Inquisition we were not only experiencing resistance from the Mayas but also were dealing with disagreements amongst the leaders. After several months of disagreeing, Landa resigned and returned to Spain.  After an ongoing battle, "Landa returned this year, 1572, after Toral died." (3)
     In the end, any sacred books or Maya manuscripts were burned to symbolize the destruction of the "demons worshiped in secret by the Yucatan communities."(4) From the Maya perspective this represented the destruction of their own identity and the perception of a life which had taken centuries to develop.


{From a later entry by an unknown Spaniard in 1800}
"Throughout the 1600s resistance towards Catholicism continued.  The Inquisition began to prosecute mulattoes and zambos for mixed crimes of idolatry and sacrifice in the late 17th century."(5) Prosecutions in 1721 of mestizos represented a look at evolving syncretism. Finally, the last Indian idolatry case in the Yucatan "occurred in 1785 when charges were made against a father and his sons for mestizo idolatry."(6)


1.  Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniards in Yucatan, 1517-1570, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 76. 
2. David E. Timmer, "Providence and Perdition: Fray Diego de Landa Justifies His Inquisition against the Yucatecan Maya, "Church History 66, no. 3 (1997): 478.
3.  David E. Timmer, "Providence and Perdition: Fray Diego de Landa Justifies His Inquisition against the Yucatecan Maya, "Church History 66, no. 3 (1997): 479.
4.  Brian R. Hamnett, A Concise History of Mexico, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 66.
5.  Richard E. Greenleaf, "The Mexican Inquisition and the Indians: Sources for the Ethnohistorian," The Americas 34, no. 3 (1978): 333. 
6. Richard E. Greenleaf, "The Mexican Inquisition and the Indians: Sources for the Ethnohistorian," The Americas 34, no. 3 (1978): 333.