The conquest and the formation of colonial Tabasco

The Mayan area had known an important cultural flourishing from the year 300 to 900 A.D., but its repercussion was not homogeneous; some regions participated in this classic development, linked to the influence of Teotihuacan, tangentially. In what is today the territory of Tabasco, the Chontales, a Mayan people with strong Nahua influence and composed of excellent maritime navigators, an ability that allowed them to control the coastal trade around the Yucatan peninsula, distinguished themselves. The continuous incursions of Nahua warriors, however, weakened the integration of the area, so that the Chontales was easily dominated by the Toltecs and later by the Itzaes. Jan de Vos, in Las fronteras de la frontera sur, summarizes this itinerary well and points out that from the "ancient Mayan tradition barely survived, under a layer of foreign customs", a mixed culture.

On June 8 "of the year of the Lord 1518", the Spanish conquistadors arrived at the entrance of a great river through which it flowed from the continent. Due to the great power of its tributary, they could not anchor at the mouth. They called it Grijalva, like the surname of the captain, named Juan, who led the expedition that took them from the island of Cuba to Cozumel, then to Champotón and, going around the bay, to Puerto Deseado, until they reached that region "...so fertile and attractive that we all decided to establish our houses in that place". According to Fray Juan de Torquemada in his Indian Monarchy, the natives designated that river as Tabasco, a name that, according to Bernal Díaz del Castillo in his Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, corresponded to the name of the cacique of that place.

On March 12 of the year 1519, "of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ", according to the chroniclers, when his Church was governed by the supreme pontificate of Rome, Pope Leo X, and the monarch of the Christian princes was the very Catholic Emperor Don Carlos V of Spain, the very famous and very fortunate Captain Don Hernán Cortés disembarked with his entire army at the mouth of the Grijalva River. He left the larger ships at sea, and in small boats, his men went to disembark in the palm groves.

Among the mangroves, the inhabitants of that region, mounted in their canoes, showed no signs of hospitality and had already asked Juan de Grijalva, a year before, to withdraw from their domains. Cortes decided to undertake the attack in the face of what seemed to be a very strong resistance, which chroniclers have considered to be composed of thousands of men. Presumably, the horses, as unfamiliar to the indigenous people as the fire-spitting crossbows, had a discouraging effect on them. The Spaniards had consoled themselves during the war with the cries of "Santiago and San Pedro", and when the engagement was over they declared: "...heaven must have fought on our side since our force could never have prevailed against such a multitude of enemies", as William H. Prescott recounted in History of the Conquest of Mexico.

With that battle Cortes opened the door to the evangelization of the new world so that "...the Catholic Church would be restored and rewarded with the conversion of many souls, the great loss and damage that the accursed Luther had caused in the same season and time in the ancient Christianity", said Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta in his Historia eclesiástica indiana at the end of the XVI century.

Faithful to the mandate of the Church, Cortes called the place of the battle Santa Maria de la Victoria "to give thanks to God and his blessed mother"; sometime later it would be in the vicinity of that place where the capital of the province was established, probably very close to that city that dazzled Pedro Martir, according to his account in Décadas del nuevo mundo (Decades of the New World):

They say that on the banks of the river extends a city so large that I dare not say. The pilot Alaminos assures that it has a league and a half and 25,000 houses [...] Its houses, very well built of stones and lime with architectural art, are separated by orchards. Climb to their rooms by ten or twelve steps. No one is allowed to carry beams or timbers on his neighbor's wall. The buildings are all separated from each other by a space of three feet, and, for the most part, covered with thatch, reeds, or marsh grapes, although many exhibit stone slabs.

It is not known for sure what the chronicler contemplated; it could have been Comalcalco although its constructions are of brick, due to the difficulty of locating stone in the region. The conquerors coincided in emphasizing the fertility and wealth of the lands of Tabasco, more than the fabulous cities found. The region was even more important because it was there that Cortés was introduced to Malinche, who would later be baptized with the name of Doña Marina. A native of Guazacualco, she spoke Nahua, but she also knew Mayan, a language also understood by Jerónimo de Aguilar, who transmitted Cortés' wishes to doña Marina so that she could communicate them to the natives. In this way, the conquistadors entered into a direct relationship with the two most widespread languages in Mexico.

The stay of the Spaniards in Tabasco was definitive for evangelization, because their first city was settled there and because after their conquest the doors of the new territories were opened to them, although they hardly understood the differences that existed between one people and another, because when they arrived in America it was a melting pot of civilizations, and Tabasco was but a sample of that diversity.

Historical geography is full of changes, and the extensive southern and southeastern part of the country was exposed to them. Although identified with the Mayan culture, it acquired several elements from the neighboring Olmec culture, considered the mother culture for being the first in Mesoamerica. Later it also suffered the influence of the Toltecs, until the region was militarily occupied by the Nahua speakers, who eventually acquired the language and customs of their subjects. For this reason, upon the arrival of the Spaniards, the Mayan language was spoken in a very extensive area, extending from Comalcalco to the Petén.

This large territory must have formed a single province according to its cultural traits, but it gradually fragmented until it was divided, in colonial times, into two large zones: "that which fell under the control of the Spanish government and that which escaped that control", according to Jan de Vos himself.

Autor: Carlos Martínez Assad