Mayas and el Monte: Eighteenth-Century Indigenous Perceptions of the Unconquered Interior

During the eighteenth century, an era in which the conquest of Yucatan and Guatemala is usually viewed as complete, hundreds of Mayas continued to evade colonial control. Despite the dearth of scholarly studies on unconquered Mayas in the last century of colonial rule in Mexico and Central America, archival sources from Spain, Mexico, and Guatemala reflect the vexation of Spanish authorities over their inability to apprehend and forcibly resettle “Mayas de las montañas” under the watchful eye of priests and administrators. The territory they inhabited consisted of much of modern-day Petén, Belize, and the southern interior of the Mexican states of Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Yucatan. In correspondence regarding the state of this unconquered territory, referred to as el Monte, Maya informants discussed their perceptions of and interactions with the fugitives who resided there. No single response characterizes the reactions of conquered Mayas to those who avoided colonial impositions or the space that their unconquered counterparts inhabited. Their reactions ranged from collusion and curiosity to apprehension and hostility. In at least one case, a member of a Maya cabildo offered counsel and cover to a runaway settlement, warning them of the aggressive attention of Maya and Spanish authorities. In other cases, Mayas described el Monte as a region as mysterious to them as it was to the Spaniards, including one young resident of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, who headed deep into the interior in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Xocmoes, an elusive ethnic group whose women were reputed to fight as fiercely as the men. Finally, the most frequently recorded response was the familiar trope employed by caciques and prominent Maya militia officers who portrayed themselves as latter-day Indian conquistadors, agents of civilization, extending Spanish royal rule, religion, and roads into remaining unconquered spaces.