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and force them to work in their mines. The fierce
Chichimec tribes respond with a series of guerrilla
raids on Spanish settlements and mines. In their most
successful raid, the Chichimec take 30,000 pesos’
worth of silver and supplies.
The Maya’s Popul Vuh is written.
Using Spanish characters, the Maya (see entry for ca.
300 TO 1500) begin to write the Popul Vuh in the
Quiché language of the Guatemalan Maya. The Popul
Vuh is a sacred Maya text that preserves ancient sto-
ries of the Maya’s creation, the actions of their gods,
and the history of the Maya people and their kings.
In the 18th century, the text will be found by Spanish
priests, who will translate it into Spanish. The Popul
Vuh remains a primary source of information about
the Maya’s history, religion, and worldview.
“Truly now,
double thanks, triple thanks
that we’ve been formed, we’ve
been given
our mouths, our faces,
we speak, we listen,
we wonder, we move,
our knowledge is good, we’ve
understood
what is far and near
and we’ve seen what is great
and small
under the sky, on the earth.
Thanks to you we’ve been
formed,
we’ve come to be made and
modeled.
our grandmother, our
grandfather.”
—the first people’s expression of
thanks to their creator, from the
Maya’s Popul Vuh1562Jacques Le Moyne creates the first
European images of Indians from life.
To escape persecution, a group of French Huguenots
travel to North America and establish settlements
in what is now South Carolina and Florida. Among
them is Jacques Le Moyne, an artist whose paintings
of the Timucua will be the first European images of
Indians created by an eyewitness. Although painted
from life, Le Moyne’s Indians are often positioned in
poses and given proportions of classical sculpture, a
convention that later European artists will adopt in
their depictions of Indians. Although only one of his
pictures will survive, they will be popularized in a
1591 publication of engravings by Theodor de Bry.July 12Diego de Landa destroys sacred books of
the Maya.
Diego de Landa, a Spanish official in the Yucatán,
initiates an inquisition to end the native religious
practices of the Maya Indians (see entry for ca. 300
TO 1500). Over a three-month period, he over-
sees the torture of more than 4,500 Maya, about
150 of whom die of their injuries. Landa burns 27
Maya books written in hieroglyphs, thus destroying
many of the most important chronicles of the Maya
world. Ironically, the Spaniard will later write Rela-
cion de las cosas de Yucatán—now one of the best
sources on Maya culture, history, and religion.1565September 8The Spanish found St. Augustine.
Appointed governor of Spanish Florida by King
Philip II, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and 3,000
Spanish colonists arrive on the coast of present-
day northern Florida. To eliminate French presence
from the area, they attack Fort Carolina, near
what is now Jacksonville, and kill all of its male41