Ambivalent Conquests

Australian author and anthropologist Inga Clendinnen’s Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatán (1987) is a historical study of the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula. Rigorously researched, relying on letters, memoirs, and documents produced during the Spanish conquest, it presents a balance between depicting the horrors visited upon the Maya at the hands of the Spanish with a drier discussion of the rationales of the Spanish Empire's colonialism.

The book begins with a possibly apocryphal but compelling explanation of how the Spaniards came to call the peninsula " Yucatán ": "When the Spaniards discovered this land, their leader asked the Indians how it was called; as they did not understand him, they said uic athan, which means, what do you say or what do you speak, that we do not understand you. And then the Spaniard ordered it set down that it be called Yucatán." Clendinnen uses this story as a jumping-off point to describe how colonizers are drawn to such origin stories, perhaps because they erroneously distill complex cultural clashes into simple misunderstandings—a helpful tactic to those looking to whitewash the atrocities of our ancestors.

In Clendinnen's telling, these atrocities are not whitewashed or swept aside. The perpetrators of said atrocities, however, are humanized. Because the book is sourced from primary documents and letters, the three key figures of the book come from the Spanish side of the conflict, rather than the Mayan, because there is far more written historical material from which to work. The book's three main characters are the cruel and fanatical bishop, Diego de Landa, the bumbling mayor, Diego Quijada, and the somewhat more humanistic missionary, Francisco de Toral.

According to Clendinnen, Landa, persuasive and charismatic, was also zealous and probably insane. He doled out brutal punishments for the smallest transgressions, but most importantly, he is a true believer. She reframes the general narrative behind the Spanish conquest by describing the conquerors as religious fanatics, determined in what they believe to be their noble quest to convert the Maya to Christianity—specifically Franciscan Catholicism—and less as gold-hungry Conquistadors. This is because the Yucatán Peninsula wasn't an especially lucrative area to conquer. Though the crown had its own shifting motivations for exploring the region, the Spaniards actually in Yucatán were chiefly there to save souls, not make money, the author writes.

Landa's love for the Holy Spirit easily morphed into cruelty and an all-consuming desire to destroy the Maya's "heretical" culture at all costs. For example, Clendinnen discusses how Landa gained favor with one of the surliest and most difficult Maya leaders, Nachi Cocom, described as an "implacable enemy of the Spaniards." Cocom was impressed at how the Maya women became chaste after the arrival of Landa's missionaries. This small victory for Christianity was enough to convince Nachi Cocom to reveal the location and substance of his community's most sacred texts. Even many in the local indigenous community were unaware of the texts' location. Now, Landa knew, and a few years later, after thoroughly embedding himself in the local community, he burned these texts in order to purge the Maya of their connection to their old gods.

However, it wasn't just books Landa burned. Between 1536 and 1543, records show that Landa tortured 4,500 Maya and killed 158. He used the techniques of the Spanish Inquisition to extract confessions, false or not, about members of the Maya community whose customs, possessions, or behaviors betrayed even a hint of devotion to the old, pre-Christian ways.

Meanwhile, the mayor of the region Diego Quijada, a mealy-mouthed Spaniard, reveals in a letter to the Crown that he is frightened of Landa. In fact, his letter isn't meant to convince the Crown to remove Landa, but rather to proclaim that he bears no ill will toward Landa, for fear that Landa might retaliate against him. Finally, Bishop Francisco de Toral, an opponent of Landa, sought to end the madman's practices of tortures. De Toral was a reformer but also a realist. He didn't share Landa's conviction that every last one of the Maya's souls could or should be saved. As for the Maya's own ritual practices of sacrifice and torture, Clendinnen notes that although evident, they are vastly exaggerated due to the prevalence of false confessions.

Due to its reliance on firsthand accounts from letters and memoirs, Ambivalent Conquests provides readers with a look at the Maya-Spaniard conflict that is unlike other accounts.