History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas/6. Today, the pools are popular tourist attractions. The Maya had no single leader (like the Inca of Peru), but instead lived in numerous independent states, some of which fiercely resisted foreign domination. The First Spanish Entradas into Yucatan, 1517-1526; The first Spaniards in Yucatan 24: Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, 1517 24: Juan de Grijalva and other, 1518 25: Cortes in Mexico, 1519 26: Villagutierre's account of the entrada of Cortes, 1524-1525 26: Cortes starts for Honduras 27: Cortes arrives at Izancanac 27: Description of a large town 28 As late as 1680, the Spanish occupied only the northwestern third of the peninsula, while numerous polities, most notably the Itzá kingdom, endured in the jungles of the Maya lowlands to the south. It was the beginning of colonization through the Spanish. They … The first phase, an exploratory one, began with Cortes in 1524 and ended with Montejo in 1545 or thereabouts. The Spanish Conquest of Yucatan was a long and involved process taking some 170 years to complete. ... We have now, with the year 1624, reached the close of the second phase of the Spanish conquest of the Maya-Itza stock. Hernan Cortez tried to conquer the Aztec empire with 500 men. The conquest of Yucatán and adjacent highlands and lowlands was never fully achieved. When Spanish explorers got there in the early sixteenth century, they found cities full of people. The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and all of Belize.The Spanish conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula was hindered by its politically fragmented state. The Spanish Conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states. Yucatán has approximately 2,600 fresh water pools called cenotes, which the indigenous natives used for drinking water and sacrificial offerings. Diego de Landa Calderón, O.F.M. The southern lowlands were nearly deserted. The Conquest of the Spanish. But Maya splendor lived on in the Yucatán peninsula. The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and all of Belize.The Spanish conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula was hindered by its politically fragmented state. They were seized by a Maya lord, and most were sacrificed, although two managed to escape. In 1562, Friar Diego de Landa of Yucatan discovered that some of the Indians who had supposedly been converted to Christianity some 20 years before did, in fact, worship their old "idols". 1st January, 1519. They saw highly decorated palaces and temples raised on stepped pyramids. After the Spanish conquest of Yucatán, the Peninsula was a single administrative and political entity, the Captaincy General of Yucatán. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba landed on the Mexican peninsula, Yucatán. Belize Spanish Conquest and its Aftermath In 1511, a Spanish caravel was wrecked in the Caribbean, and about a dozen survivors made landfall on the coast of Yucatán. (12 November 1524 – 29 April 1579) was a Spanish bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán.