Fiery Missionary: How a Spanish Monk Brutally Fought Mayan Beliefs and Preserved Their Culture

Diego de Landa Calderon was born on March 17, 1524 in the Spanish city of Cifuentes. Educated at the Franciscan monastery, and in 1547 he became a monk. He lived in Madrid for about a year, and then accepted the offer to go as a missionary to the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula, shortly before conquered by the Spanish conquistadors.

Yucatan reality

Century Yucatan was the center of Mayan civilization. In 1526, conquistador Francisco de Montejo was appointed captain-general and governor of Yucatan. However, the conquest of the peninsula went slowly. Only in 1540, after several unsuccessful attempts, Montejo was able to capture it. At the same time control over the lands of the Indians was quite conditional. In response to the killings, harassment and harassment of the conquistadors, the local population raised large-scale uprisings.

• Cusick tries to kill the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Montejo on the Yucatan Peninsula
• globallookpress.com
• © Mary Evans Picture Library

De Landa wrote that the conquerors burned alive the Indians in their homes, cut off their limbs, hung mothers on trees, and children on their feet.

In defense of the Indians were missionary monks. The episcopate in Yucatan was established in 1519, but until the middle of the XVI century it existed only on paper. The first mission arrived on the peninsula in 1545, three years later it was reinforced by Spanish monks, among whom was Landa.

The monks not only baptized the Indians, but also created schools for them, and also told them about the rights presented to the indigenous people of America by the Spanish king.

“The only force at that time capable of moderating the cruelty and greed of the conquistadors was missionaries. In addition, the clerics became the only representatives of the intellectual elite of Europe of the XVI century in the New World, ”wrote in the preface to Galina Ershova’s book, Fray Diego de Landa, the outstanding domestic Mayanist Yuri Knorozov.

Speaking of de Landé, the historian noted his "modesty and self-denial." The young monk quickly learned Maya. He went deep into the jungle to preach. De Landa's spiritual zeal was appreciated. He quickly moved up the career ladder and eventually became the head of the province .

“Diego de Landa came to America not to conquer the land, but to preach Christianity. He tried to resist the frantic Conquistador pressure, which left no chance for the survival of the Indian community. At the same time, he was a scientist by nature, ”said the director of the Mesoamerican Center for them in an interview with RT. Yu.V.Knorozova, doctor of historical sciences, professor of the RSUH, Galina Ershova.

Investigation and auto-de-fe

However, not all historians agree with this assessment of de Landa's activities. Some researchers consider him a "grave-digger" of Mayan culture.

In 1562, in the village of Mani, a secret cave was found, in which human remains and statues of gods were kept. The local clergy conducted an investigation, which resulted in the arrest of several hundred Indians.

In the course of the proceedings, it became clear that the Indian population still professes the old cults. De Landa ordered the conduct of investigative actions against the leaders and priests. During the interrogations with the use of the prostitution, the suspects admitted their guilt, gave out storage places for religious paraphernalia and told about human sacrifices. Indians sentenced to auto-da-fe.

“At the stake, the apostates of the Christian faith, who did not repent of their sins, and seventy corpses of Indians who were killed during the torture or hanged in prison were burned. De Landa also burned the manuscripts he found and other valuable objects - statues of gods and vessels, ”wrote the historian and geographer Arthur Lielais in his book“ Conquistadors ”.

According to him, books that could uncover the secrets of Mayan culture were destroyed - in their desire to eradicate paganism, fanatical monks stole the history of a whole nation from humanity.

• Illustration from the Kingsboro Codex: Encomendero (landowner) Punishes Indian
• © Wikipedia

However, Galina Ershova does not agree with a similar assessment of what happened.

“The version about the burning of people and priceless monuments by de Landa was due to his enemies who tried to discredit him. But this is nothing more than a black legend. No one was burned alive at the stake, and the destroyed statues were not ancient, but a replica, ”she said.

However, according to Landa’s own confessions, the Mayan cultural monuments were destroyed after all - in addition to several thousand statuettes, 27 books on deer skin were burned.

• Detail of the painting of Diego Rivera in the National Palace of Mexico: the burning of the Mayan books by Catholic priests
• © Wikimedia commons

Detractors immediately informed the authorities in Mexico that de Landa used torture and exceeded his authority by organizing a court and an auto-da-fe. The colonial authorities handed over the documents for consideration to Madrid. De Landa himself went there.

The Royal Council for Indian Affairs ordered the Franciscans to be guided by the order of the Franciscans. De Landa answered all the commission’s questions and presented copies of the papal bulls, which gave him the right to conduct an investigation and auto-de-fe. He was fully acquitted.

Bishop and historian

Landa did not return to America immediately. He was sent to the monastery of Guadalajara. In Spain, he worked on a book about the conquest and the Maya "Report on Affairs in Yucatan." In his work de Landa included the decoding of the characters of the Mayan script with Spanish transcription. For a long time the alphabet written by him was considered erroneous, and only in the twentieth century the Soviet historian Yuri Knorozov was able to decipher the letters of the ancient people.

• Manuscript page with the Mayan alphabet from Diego de Lande’s book “Reporting Affairs in Yucatan”, 1566. Royal Academy of Fine Arts San Fernando in Madrid
• Gettyimages.ru
• © DeAgostini

In 1572, the king of Spain sent the pope a submission for the appointment of de Landa as bishop of Yucatan. The Holy See supported him.

In Yucatan de Landa built schools and churches, and also developed a Latin-based alphabet for the Indians. He died on April 29, 1579.

“Being a zealous minister of the church, de Landa was not the limited“ dogmatist ”he was sometimes tried to represent,” wrote Yuri Knorozov.

According to experts, despite the fact that the bishop was accused of persecuting the Indians and destroying their cultural monuments, he made a great contribution to the preservation of the Mayan history, as well as to the development of Yucatan.

According to the employee of the Mesoamerican Center. Yu.V. Knorozov Dmitry Belyaev, de Landa played though a specific, but very important role in the history of the Maya. According to him, the task of de Landa as the Bishop of Yucatan was the Christianization of the Indians and the struggle against their old beliefs. But, compared with other Spanish church leaders, he did it quite accurately.

“De Landa has done a lot to preserve the history and customs of the Indians. His works have become one of the cornerstones of the study of the Mayan culture, ”concluded Dmitry Belyaev.