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The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom

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I can't say that I have ever had the pleasure to read from beginning to end a more thoroughly and carefully researched work of archeo/historical significance which simultaneously succeeds in grabbing your attention with a sense of paced suspense and drama. The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom is based on records Jones painstakingly unearthed from 300+ year old Spanish archives,. It really amounts to the rescue from time's decay of a story, too often repeated, of the directed destruction of an advanced indigenous people of the New World by European invaders, driven by their greed for wealth and power. Additionally, "Conquest" has great relevance to the present day. I find astonishing the uncanny historical parallels between the current conflict over the construction of a road by the Mexican Government into the Lacandon region of the Chiapas for the military suppression of a popular indigenous revolt, and the creation at great expense by the Spanish colonial government of Yucatan in 1697 of a road from Campeche to Lago Peten Itza for the purposes of "reducing" the virtually uncontacted and intact Itza Maya kingdom that ruled Peten and tens of thousands of Maya living there. Traditional Maya custom is to view history as a series of cycles that repeat, so perhaps the parallels are to be expected. The "The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom" by Grant Jones, an anthropologist, sets force with remarkable detail and scholarship exactly what happened 300 hundred years ago on the Yucatan peninsula, including a detailed examination of the forces and internal conflicts among both the Spanish and the Maya ruling elite regarding the construction of the road through previously unexplored jungle. Ostensibly it was to link the Yucatan with Guatemala, but Jones makes its clear that the introduction of an army into the Peten by the Yucatecan government was the real intent of the road builders. Let's hope that the outcome this time around will be more favorable to the Maya. The military adventure 300 years ago, whose intent, hiding behind a complex screen of religious motives, was to enslave the Maya as laborers on Spanish encomiendas, resulted in the swift and bloody deaths of thousands of uncontacted Maya when the island where the King and the other Maya elites ruled was suddenly attacked by a Spanish galeota laden with soldiers and cannon. Most of the remainder of the Maya died through the introduction of smallpox and influenza and overall civil collapse, leaving the region severely depopulated for centuries.

This is a dense but well-written and -researched work. It is simply invaluable as a thoughtful treatment of later Maya social structure, political interaction, and history. Even allowing for the passage of the greater part of a millenia between the collapse of Tikal and the conquest of Noj Peten, students of the Classical Maya will find a great deal to ponder in this work.

I must, in good conscience, voice some reservations.

The author appears to regard his sources as differentially-reliable. A single witness may be regarded as reliable one moment while speaking negatively of the Spaniards, but hopelessly biased and unreliable when speaking negatively of the Maya. In this context, the author particularly takes no account of the widespread antipathy between Spanish military and religious officials in the Americas, diplayed in many instances from the Mission Trail in Spanish Florida to Paraguay in South America (dramatized in the 1986 film 'The Mission').

The author is peculiarly intent on dismissing any evidence or allegation of cannibalism among the Maya -- even when the eyewitness source is Maya himself! He takes extraordinary pains to limit any perceived complicity in human sacrifice -- a very broad cultural phenomenon in Mesoamerica -- to "a very small number... the highest-ranking priests and nobility". Placing the hyperbole of some Spanish commentators into perspective is all very well, but Dr. Jones appears to be deliberately trying to blame -- or excuse -- the various parties for their cultural proclivities.

None of those present at the storming of Noj Peten(including missionaries and captured Maya leaders) claimed massive mortality among the Maya. However, Dr. Jones uses one obscure, cryptic statement by Ursua and some hyperbole from three men who each had cause to oppose Ursua (and who were not even present at the action), to postulate the existence of a massacre... which he thereafter treats as a proven, factual occurence. It would not be surprising if a massacre did occur -- but the evidence presented seems an uncommonly slender and broken reed, and Dr. Jones seems excessively eager to grasp it.

Please don't take my word for it, however -- read the book and decide for yourself, because even if my impression is correct and my criticisms valid, this work is not to be missed.

'The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom' is an essential resource for students of Maya history. Highly recommended... but read with discernment.

I just finished reading "Conquest" and I must say that the story it tells has many classic elements to it. While author Grant Jones is concerned with getting all the facts, dates and listing of sources right, I found the drama behind his words more exciting.

The real story of Nojpeten, the last Maya kingdom to be conquered by the Spanish, is better than fiction. There are political machinations on both the Spanish and Maya sides. Unfortunately for the Maya, the political machinations on their side, namely that their king had essentially lost control of his kingdom, spelled their ultimate doom.

While it is not certain that, in the long run, the Spanish would've maintained their promises of not using force in terms of dealing with the area, attacks by Maya kingdoms adjacent to Nojpeten created the perception that the Maya were not to be trusted.

Overall, I found the information in this book very useful. I found it helped me understand the Maya as a real people, with family and political problems just as we do today. I'd say the only other book that does a better job of describing these elements (on a grander scale) is "Lost Chronicles of the Maya Kings" by David Drew.

Dr. Grant Jones's book The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom is an excellently researched and well written piece. I had the pleasure of taking a course from Dr. Jones in which this book was used and I think that its primary strength is that it is entertaining and gripping as well as informative and educational. If you are interested in Mesoamerican history, you must read this book.

I can hardly believe that some of the other reviewers were reading the same book I was. I read a lot of history, and a lot on the Mayans, and was drooling over this book. But reading it was painful - it is SO dry, SO academic, that despite repeated attempts to continue I finally gave up on it.