Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1986 - 43

The excavated church at Tipu, facing
west, reveals the remains of the altar
(foreground) and cobblestone paving
marking the entrances on the north and
south sides . Only the base of the
masonry portion of the wall still stands.
A reconstruction drawing of the church
(above) shows the sanctuary with the
altar at the far end.
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some Spaniards depicted the
forced population shifts as the work
of murderous apostates who were
anxious to kidnap peace-loving tribute payers from the protection of the
Spanish. Other Colonial observers
more realistically observed that voluntary flight from oppressive Spanish control, stimulated by the
attraction of compelling antiSpanish religious movements in the
frontier areas, was at the root of
these movements.
Although the archaeological
record does not help us understand
the impetus behind these movements, it does document the presence of an active population at Tipu
in the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries. Much of this
population was certainly a carryover from precolumbian times, for
the preceding Postclassic period is
well represented by the ruined Postclassic temples that stand only a
stone's throw from the Historic central plaza and from remains later
buried by Historic buildings.
There are also, however, aspects
of the material remains that have a
"foreign" flavor. The influx of nonlocal Maya may be a possible explanation. The very limited presence
of pottery types known to be Late
Postclassic at the fourteenth-century

site of Mayapan in Yucatán, and
Terminal Postclassic to Early Historic at Lamanai in northern Belize,
also hint at northern contacts. Perhaps more telling is the variety of
European-made goods recoveredglass beads, and sherds from a variety of majolica wares and from
coarse Spanish "olive jars" and
other earthenwares. These could
have been acquired in direct trade
with visiting Spaniards, although
few Spaniards seem to have traveled
to Tipu. They may also have been
collected over time through trade
with Maya either from, or with ties
to, northern Yucatán. There European goods were in wider circulation,
and many goods must have been
carried to faraway places such as
Tipu by Maya fleeing the heavy
hand of Spanish rule.
During the years following
Garzón's entrada , Tipu and the
other mission towns of the region
must have fallen yet again out of
Spanish control, for in about 1608
the Spanish carried out yet another
reducción around Tipu. By 1622
Tipu had a new encomendero from
Salamanca de Bacalar, whose arrival
signaled the beginning of a 20-year
period when the Spanish made a
renewed effort to control this wayward region, all in the hope of moving
westward toward the conquest of
Tayasal, the Itza island capital in
Lake Petén Itzá. Franciscans stayed
at Tipu during 1618-19, using the
town as a base to visit the Itza ruler
Can Ek and to try to convince him
that prophecies circulating among
the Maya signaled an upcoming capitulation to Spanish rule. These
efforts, however, apparently further
hardened Maya resistance, leading

to a resurgence of "idolatry" and
an uneasy but powerful anti-Spanish
truce between the Tipuans and
the Itzas.
This truce, bolstered by Maya
prophecies and claims of Spanish
extortions, led to widescale rebellion centered at Tipu in 1638. So
successful was this rebellion that all
Spanish civil and ecclesiastical control was removed from the region
between Salamanca de Bacalar and
Tipu for more than 50 years following its outbreak. Not until 1695 did
Tipuan leaders, who knew of further
prophecies that the Itzas would
succumb to Spanish rule in 1697,
make peace overtures to Spanish
authorities. Missionaries baptized
several hundred individuals around
Tipu in 1695, but hopes for voluntary
surrender by the Itzas were soon
abandoned. The Spanish conquered
Tayasal militarily in 1697, and in
1707 they moved the residents of
Tipu to the shores of Lake Petén
Itzá. Tipu itself ceased to be a Maya
settlement, and the old location was
soon occupied by seasonal British
lumber camps as these new colonists
pressed westward into the valuable
forests of western Belize.
Such events at Tipu are best seen
in light of the wider scenario of the
Spanish conquest of Yucatán. In the
Yucatán peninsula and its southern
perimeter across Belize and the
Petén, the Spanish confronted numerous independent provinces that
varied considerably in size, degree
of centralization, and extent of confederation with neighboring groups.
The enterprise of conquest was of
necessity a step-by-step process in
which each territory had first to be
secured before pacification of the
lands beyond could take place.
This relatively slow process of
conquest meant that beyond the few
centers of Colonial control, which
were confined for the most part to
the northern half of the Yucatán
peninsula, there remained a vast
frontier of unconquered "heathens."
Although this uncontrolled territory
continued to shrink as the Spanish
economic and religious net was cast
farther into the forest, it remained
an intractable problem for the Spanish for more than a century and a
half following the pacification of
northern Yucatán.
At the heart of this territory
were the powerful, warlike Itzas and
1986
January/February

Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1986

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1986