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Providence and Perdition: Fray Diego de Landa Justifies His Inquisition against the Yucatecan Maya

Part of: Looking Forward, Looking Back: Christianity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David E. Timmer
David E. Timmer
Affiliation:
Mr. Timmer is associate professor of religion at Central College, Pella, Iowa.
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Extract

Fray Diego de Landa's harsh inquisition against the Maya Indians of Yucatán has generated passionate controversy for over four centuries. This essay reexamines documentary sources related to the case in order to better understand both the event and Landa's interpretation of his own actions. The evidence suggests that Landa's reading of and response to the Mayan apostasies were shaped by the millenarian ideas of Spanish Franciscanism. Within this millenarian context, a richer and more consistent account of Landa's character and actions becomes possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , September 1997 , pp. 477 - 488
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1997

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References

The author would like to thank E. William Monter and the members of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar on “Church, State, and Moral Control in Early Modern Europe” (Northwestern University, 1990) for their helpful suggestions.

1. The primary sources related to this incident are found in France Scholes, V. and Adams, Eleanor B., eds., Don Diego Quijada, Alcalde Mayor de Yucatán, 1561–1565, 2 vols. (Mexico City, 1938).Google Scholar Detailed accounts of Landa and the inquisition can be found in France Scholes, V. and Roys, Ralph L., “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucatán,” in Co-operation in Research (Washington, D.C., 1938), pp. 585–620;Google Scholar and Clendinnen, Inga, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatán, 1517–1570 (Cambridge, U.K., 1987), pp. 72–111.Google Scholar

2. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 1:24–26.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., 1:170, 182; 2:393, 401. The jurisdictional issues in this case are complex, but they do not involve the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which was not present in Mexico until 1571, and which in any case never had jurisdiction over the Indian population. See Moreno, Roberto, “New Spain's Inquisition for Indians from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century,” in Perry, Mary E. and Cruz, Anne J., eds., Cultural Encounters: The Impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World (Berkeley, Calif., 1991), pp. 23–36.Google Scholar

4. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 2:213–214Google Scholar. Landa vehemently denied that any deaths or injuries directly resulted from the torture; see, ibid., pp. 418–419.

5. Ibid., 2:27, offers an eyewitness description; see Landa's own account in ibid., 1:295. For a description and interpretation of the ritual pattern of an auto-da-fé, see Avilés, Miguel, “The Auto de Fe and the Social Model of Counter-Reformation Spain,” in Alcalá, Angel, ed., The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind (Boulder, Colo., 1987), pp. 249–264.Google Scholar

6. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 1:171, 197.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., 1:249–289, sets out Toral's case against Landa.

8. Ibid., 2:429–435.

9. The most recent edition of the Spanish text is that of Rivera, Miguel, Crónicas de América series 7 (Madrid, 1985); references will be to this edition.Google ScholarEnglish translations include Gates, William, Yucatán Before and After the Conquest (1937; repr. New York, 1978);Google ScholarTozzer, Alfred, Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (Cambridge, Mass., 1941);Google Scholar and Pagden, A. R., The Maya: Diego de Landa's Account of the Affairs of Yucatán (Chicago, 1975).Google Scholar Unless otherwise specified, translations here follow Pagden.

10. See also Clendinnen, , “Disciplining the Indians: Franciscan Ideology and Missionary Violence in Sixteenth-Century Yucatán,” Past and Present 94 (1982): 27–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. This conflict still plays a role in Landa's reputation among contemporary Yucatecans. The inscription on a statue of Landa erected in Izamal in 1971 reads: “Fray Diego de Landa. Contradictory provincial of iron. Fanatical destroyer and tireless builder. Light and shadow. He persecuted the Maya as inquisitor. As bishop he defended them from the encomenderos. He created the auto-da-fé of Maní and the Relación de las cosas de Yucatan.”Google Scholar

12. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 1:172.Google Scholar

13. Clendinnen, , “Disciplining the Indians,” pp. 45–46; andGoogle ScholarClendinnen, , Ambivalent Conquests, pp. 113–114.Google Scholar

14. See also the version of the story told, in comic book form, in Varios episodios mexkanos (Mexico City, 1982), published for use in Mexican schools.Google Scholar

15. Clendinnen, , Ambivalent Conquests, pp. 123–126. Clendinnen's own reconstruction confirms that certainty; seeGoogle ScholarClendinnen, , Ambivalent Conquests, pp. 176–189. This issue is still controverted.Google ScholarTedlock, Dennis, “Torture in the Archives: Mayans Meet Europeans,” American Anthropologist 95 (1993):139–152, gives the evidence for human sacrifice less credence than Clendinnen,CrossRefGoogle Scholar while Greenleaf, Richard, “Persistence of Native Values: The Inquisition and the Indians of Mexico,” The Americas 50 (1994): 351–376, gives it greater credence.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Geertz, Clifford, “Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols,” in The Interpretation of Cultures (Princeton, N.J., 1972), pp. 126–141.Google Scholar

17. Phelan, John Leddy, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World, 2d ed. rev. (Berkeley, Calif., 1970).Google ScholarOther basic works include Baudot, Georges, Utopie et histoire au Mexiaue: premiers chroniquers de la civilisation mexicaine (1520–1569) (Toulouse, France, 1977); andGoogle ScholarMilhou, Alain, Colón y su mentalidad mesiánica en el ambientefranciscanista español (Valladolid, Spain, 1983).Google Scholar

18. Diego López de Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatán (1688; Merida, Mexico, 1867–1868), vol. 1, chap. 1.Google Scholar

19. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 1:289–301; 2:392–94, 400–423.Google Scholar

20. The sole surviving manuscript of the Relación is an abridgement or extract by an unknownFranciscan, probably around 1616; see Tozzer, , Landa's Relation, pp. vii–viii. Despite the frequent textual problems, however, the overall structure of the work is clear.Google Scholar

21. Relación, pp. 43–48.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., pp. 60–61.

23. As Baudot, Georges describes Toribio Motolinía, Utopie et histoire, p. 509;Google Scholarsee also Phelan, , Millennial Kingdom, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

24. See Baudot, , Utopie et histoire, pp. 301–311.Google Scholar

25. Phelan, , Millennial Kingdom, pp. 29–38, 107.Google Scholar

26. Relación, p. 182;Google Scholarsee Pagden, , The Maya, pp. 163–64. The last two sentences are garbled in the text; my translation is revised on the basis of a repunctuation as follows: “La justicia los ha sacado de ellos mediante la predicación, y ella los ha de guardar no tornen a ellos; y si tornaren, los ha de sacar de ellos. Con razón, pues, se puede gloriar España en Dios, pues la eligió entre otras naciones para remedio de tantas gentes” (rather than “los ha de sacar de ellos con razon, pues se puede gloriar Espana en Dios … ”).Google ScholarSee Gates, , Yucatán Before and After the Conquest, p. 112.Google Scholar

27. Relación, p. 70: “Que de este manera aprovecharon tanto los mozos en las escuelas y la otra gente en la doctrina, que era cosa admirable.”Google Scholar

28. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 2:393: “haber sidos los indios predicados y bastantamente instruídos en las cosas de nuestra fe católica y no haber errado de ignorancia sino de gran malicia, pues se confesaban ya muchos de ellos y algunos recibían el Santisimo Sacramento, y están más expertos ya en estas cosas muchos de ellos que alguna gente labradora de España.”Google Scholar

29. Ibid., 2:417: “acudían a las iglesias a misa y sermones como si hubiera quinientos añios fueren cristianos.”

30. Compare Relación, p. 69, with Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 2:418: “sus vicios y pecados pasados …, todo lo cual les teníamos ya quitado que no habia memoria de ello.”Google Scholar

31. The manuscript reads: “entre los espanoles los que mas fatigaron a los religiosos, aunque encubiertamente, fueron los sacerdotes, como gente que habia perdido su oficio y los provechos de el”Google Scholar (Relación, pp. 69–70; emphasis mine). But the context clearly indicates that he is referring to Mayan, not Spanish, priests (who were thinly present in Yucatan in any case, and had little involvement with the Maya). He later describes the Mayan sacerdotes as living from the “oficios y ofrendas” of the people (p. 73). When Landa refers to a secular Catholic cleric, he uses the more specific term clerigoGoogle Scholar (Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 2:413). Perhaps Landa's original had “extra” rather than “entre.”Google ScholarSee Gates, , Yucatan, p. 29; andGoogle ScholarTozzer, , Landa's Relaci'n, p. 73 n. 326.Google Scholar

32. Relación, p. 71;Google Scholarsee also Pagden, , The Maya, p. 62.Google Scholar

33. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 2:417–418. Landa's awareness of the influence of Mayan prophecy in fomenting religious revolt helps to account for his (to modern eyes) most heinous act, the burning of the Mayan codices;Google Scholarsee Relación, p. 148. Mayan prophecy was closely tied to the historical and calendrical content of the codices; hence, their destruction was not an act of vandalism, but a shrewd blow at the root of Mayan rebellion.Google Scholar

34. The cedula in question was probably one issued on 13 July 1559, “Se tenga cuenta de castigar a los Luteranos que fueren a las Indias”;Google Scholarsee Rubio, Luis y Moreno, Inventario general de registros cedularios del Archivo General de Indias deSevilla, Collección de documentos ineditos para la historia de Hispano-América, Tomo 1 (Madrid, 1921), item no. 895. It was delivered by Garci Jufre de Loaisa, an oidor in Guatemala, who was in Yucatán from February to May 1561.Google Scholar

35. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 2:410: “una cédula de la cristianísima princesa de Portugal, la cual envió … a todos los prelados de las Indias avisándoles y encargándoles mucho mirasen con gran cuidado por las cosas de la fe y cristiandad porque en España habiagran perdición.” This is Landa's paraphrase of the contents. For a description of the anxieties concerning heresy in Spain at this time,Google Scholarsee Kamen, Henry, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Bloomington, Ind., 1985), pp. 74–7Google Scholar

36. Milhou, Alain, “El concepto de ‘destrucción’ en el evangelismo milenario franciscano,” in ArchivoIbero-Americano 48 (1988): 297–315.Google Scholar

37. Milhou, , “De Jerusalén a la tierra prometida del Nuevo Mundo. El tema mesiánico del centro del mundo,” in Iglesia, Religión y Sociedad en la Hisloria Latinoamericana, 1492–1945, (Szeged, Hungary, 1989), 1:31–56 esp. 38.Google Scholar

38. Relación, pp. 113–114.Google ScholarSee Pagden, , The Maya, p. 108; translation slightly revised.Google ScholarSee also Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, 1:294: “viendo los dichos religiosos tan gran perdición en panes donde tanto habían trabajado y tanto fruto entendían haber hecho y tanta cristiandad mostraban los naturales en lo exterior.”Google Scholar

39. Autos against Protestants continued in Castile throughout the 1560s; for the evidence regarding Toledo during this decade, see Dedieu, Jean-Pierre, L'administration de la foi: l'lnquisition de Tolède (XVle–XMIe siècle) (Madrid, 1989).Google Scholar

40. Sahagún, Bernardino de, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, ed. Moreno, W. J. (Mexico City, 1938), 3:302;Google Scholartranslation follows Dibble, Charles E., “Sahagún's Prologues and Interpolations,” in The Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, ed. Anderson, Arthur J. O. and Dibble, Charles, (Santa Fe, N.M., 1982), 1:93. The term “peregrinacion de la Iglesia” is used on p. 305 of the Historia general.Google Scholar

41. See Milhou, , Colón y su mentalidad mesiánica, pp. 171–172;Google ScholarBaudot, Georges, Utopie et histoire, pp. 83–84;Google ScholarCatala, Jose Sala and Reyes, Jaime Vilchis, “Apocalíptica española y empresa misional en los primeros franciscanos de México,” Revista de Indias 45 (1985): 421–447; andGoogle ScholarWest, Delno C., “Medieval Ideas of Apocalyptic Mission and the Early Franciscans in Mexico,” The Americas 62 (1988–1989): 293–313.Google Scholar

42. Historia general, Prólogo, vol. 1:11;Google Scholartranslation follows Dibble in Florentine Codex, 1:50. The prologue was originally written in 1569 (see p. 7).Google Scholar

43. Historia general, 3:305;Google Scholarsee also Florentine Codex, 1:94–96. This passage was written during the plague of 1576.Google Scholar

44. Scholes, and Adams, , eds., Don Diego Quijada, p. 393–394, contrasting “la facilidad al mal de estos pobres si les faltan el temor” with “la salvación de las ánimas de aquella pobre gente, la cual es salvable a maravilla si no les falta ayuda.”Google Scholar

45. Ibid., p. 420: “la ocasión en que los indios estaban de nunca ser cristianos ni sus hijos.”

46. Relación, p. 114; andGoogle ScholarPagden, , The Maya, p. 108.Google Scholar

47. Milhou, Alain, “De Jerusalén a la Tierra Prometida,” p. 38.Google Scholar