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Consenting to Early Modern Empires

Translating Native Consent in the Spanish Empire: Maya Words and Agency in Sixteenth-Century Yucatan

O consentimento dos nativos no império espanhol: palavras maias e agência política em Yucatan no século XVI
Caroline Cunill
p. 33-53

Resumos

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Com base em dois estudos de caso, o artigo analisa a forma como os caciques maias entenderam o conceito de consentimento e o utilizaram em negociações políticas com a coroa espanhola em Yucatan, na Nova Espanha, no século XVI. Mostra-se como a análise das práticas de tradução é fundamental para desvendar os meandros da comunicação entre diferentes sistemas jurídicos sob o domínio imperial. Embora parte do corpus analisado no artigo tenha sido originalmente escrito na língua Maya Yucatec, é possível observar o resultado de um processo de tradução no qual duas culturas jurídicas buscavam meios de se fazerem inteligíveis mutuamente. O artigo mostra, além disso, que a conversação e a comunicação não-verbal – através da postura, do vestuário ou da troca de presentes – eram cruciais para expressar o consentimento no império espanhol. Este artigo faz parte do dossier temático sobre Consentimento nos Impérios da Época Moderna, organizado por Sonia Tycko.

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Notas do autor

In developing the ideas presented here, I have received helpful input from Sonia Tycko. I also thank the audiences at the workshop Historicizing Consent: Consenting to Early Modern Empires, organized by José Vicente Serrão, Sonia Tycko, and Tamar Herzog (ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, 12 December 2022), and the anonymous LH reviewers for their thoughtful insights that had helped me to further develop some of my ideas. Obviously, I assume the responsibility of any eventual erroneous assumptions.

Texto integral

1In the Spanish empire, consent was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was pivotal in legitimizing the imposition of Christianity and imperial rule on indigenous people –whatever the circumstances in which such “consent” might have been granted during the military conquest of America. On the other hand, in the writings of Friar Bartolomé de las Casas and other Spanish intellectuals, consent was an efficient tool to articulate and defend the exercise of jurisdictions by indigenous town councils (Cárdenas Bunsen 2014). But how did the Natives understand this concept when dealing with Spaniards? And, more importantly, how did they take advantage of it in specific political struggles? Two case studies of Maya actors’ negotiations in sixteenth-century Yucatan, New Spain, show that the notion of consent circulated not only through written practices, but also thanks to nonverbal communication and concrete actions. In section 1, I examine two letters that the Maya caciques sent to King Philip II in March 1567 and January 1580. In section 2, I analyse a series of records that were produced by both Mayas and Spaniards in the empire’s borderlands. This archival material offers an avenue for exploring how the caciques expressed the notion of consent in their own words and how they made use of it in their negotiations under imperial rule. I argue that the philological analysis helps unravel the intricacies of inter-legal communication, or the dialogue between actors for whom translation was a pivotal issue.

  • 1 On the use of the concept of “legal translation” in the history of the law, see Duve (2014), and (...)
  • 2 Leyes Nuevas de 1542-1543. According to Sell and Kellogg (1997, 326), the Spanish original text w (...)
  • 3 To this day, Christian translation has received more attention than legal translation on behalf o (...)

2In this essay, legal translation is therefore a critical concept.1 By legal translation, I refer not only to the way in which legal concepts were translated into another language, but also to the circulation of legal knowledge through “translation practices” in a more daily basis, as a result of both formal and informal exchanges in a multilingual environment. In America, formal translation was mainly undertaken by missionaries, with the help of indigenous intellectuals, since this work required a profound knowledge of the societies and languages in which legal cultures were embedded. These actors were, in general, literate, bilingual, and sometimes they also read Latin (Yannakakis and Ramos 2014). As early as in the 1540s, the Spanish crown charged the friars with the task to translate the Leyes Nuevas de 1542-1543 into several autochthonous languages. In the 1550s, the Ordinances designed to regulate the political life and jurisdiction of the indigenous town councils were translated by the missionaries with the help of Native experts (Sell and Kellogg 1997).2 The friars might have inserted references to the divine and royal justice in their sermons in order to prompt the indigenous people to defend themselves from abuses (Yannakakis 2013; Cunill 2015). In this regard, it is worth noting that legal translation was closely intertwined with Christian translation.3 Some royal agents, such as the interpreters of the autochthonous languages or some judges, also played a key role in translating legal concepts in a judicial setting (Egío 2016; Cunill and Glave Testino 2019).

3The knowledge accumulated through these multiple experiences of translation was collected and systematized in the first dictionaries of the autochthonous languages that the missionaries produced throughout America from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries (Hernández 2018; Surallés 2023). Obviously, this process evolved over time and was never completely fixed, since power relations and political issues were pivotal in translating legal terms from one language to another (Cunill and Glave Testino 2019; Payàs and Zaslavsky 2023). It is therefore true that the “reduction” of Native languages was part of an imperial project aimed at imposing a new religious and political order on the Natives (Melià 1993; Hanks 2010). Nevertheless, intelligibility was also at stake in inter-legal communication, since both the Spaniards and the Natives’ main concern was to understand each other beyond their eventual cultural differences. As Brian Owensby and Richard Ross (2018, 2) put it, settlers and indigenous peoples “misconstrued the other’s legal commitments while learning about them; and each strained to use the other’s law as a political, strategic, and moral resource. In doing so, each changed its own practice of law and dialogue about justice”. Some degree of tolerance towards the other’s views was therefore part of the linguistic equivalences that were drawn to achieve mutual understanding and legal translation (Arzápalo Marín 2016). This space of compromise could also give rise to misunderstandings (Lockhart 1999). For these reasons, I view the philological analysis of texts written by indigenous actors either in an autochthonous language or in Castilian as a means to grasp how Natives understood some Spanish legal concepts and made use of them to pursue their own political agenda.

1. Expressing Consent in Two Letters to Philip II

  • 4 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter, AGI), México, 359, R. 2, N. 10, Letter to his Maje (...)
  • 5 See Lutz and Dakin (1996), Pérez-Rocha and Tena (2000), Durston (2008), Puente Luna (2016), Hanks (...)
  • 6 AGI, México, 367, ff. 62-71, and Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid (hereafter, AHN), Diversos- (...)

4In March 1567 and in January 1580, different groups of Maya caciques from Yucatan, New Spain, sent letters to King Philip II.4 They asked the Spanish monarch to send Franciscans to Yucatan, arguing that a large majority of friars already knew – or always had shown willingness to learn (when newly arrived) – their people, customs, and language, a series of skills that, according to them, were crucial to evangelizing the Maya people. These texts belonged to a specific genre known as petitions. In the Spanish empire any vassal could write freely to the king to inform him of what was happening locally and to ask for his protection. As free vassals, the Natives were allowed to make requests to the crown. In some occasions, they did not hesitate to write these documents in their own languages. In these cases, the original text was translated into Spanish by an interpreter.5 The 1567 and 1580 letters were written in Maya Yucatec in alphabetic script. The literate caciques signed them on their own behalf and on behalf of their illiterate peers. The Spaniards Alonso de Arévalo and Juan Ruiz de la Vega translated the Maya texts into Castilian. It must be noted that the 9 March 1567 letter was preceded by a series of seven letters written by different groups of Mayas caciques between February and March of the same year. These documents were accompanied by an anonymous Castilian translation.6

5My analysis, however, only builds upon the 9 March 1567 and 8 January 1580 letters. They were indeed longer and contained elements that can be related to the notion of consent. In the following lines, I argue that the caciques thought about consent as an acquisition of knowledge historically situated and contingent upon political circumstances. They used this concept as a means to appeal to the King’s royal grace, which was thought to be inspired by God’s mercy. Although the 9 March 1567 letter has been known since the 1970s, it has not received full attention from historians until recently. Stella María González Cicero (1978, 232-234) was the first scholar who published the Spanish version of the letter. Matthew Restall (1998, 160-164) published an English translation of the Maya text, but did not include the Maya original version nor its Spanish sixteenth-century translation. William Hanks (2010, 322) provided a bilingual (Maya-English) version of some short fragments of the missive. Zoraida Raimúndez Ares (2016) offered, for the first time, a complete transcription of both the Maya and the Spanish texts in her Master dissertation. As for the 1580 letter, it was unpublished until I edited it along with the 9 March 1567 one (Cunill 2023). This edition includes the facsimile of the original records, the transcription of both the Maya and the Spanish texts, and an analysis of the historical context in which they were produced.

  • 7 See Restall (1998, 151-156), Hanks (2003 and 2010, 309-321), and Raimúndez Ares (2016 and 2019).
  • 8 See Dueñas (2010), Ruiz Medrano and Kellogg (2010), Traslosheros and Zaballa Beascoechea (2010), (...)

6It is also worth noting that, for some decades, historians have argued that the 1567 letters did not express an “authentic” Maya point of view, but rather was the result of the Franciscans’ intervention.7 It is true that the defense of the friars, in the context of the ongoing secularization of the indigenous parishes, was at the core of the caciques’ letters. Moreover, Friar Francisco de la Torre was a witness in the authentification of the 1567 missive, and Friar Gaspar de Najera brought the second missive to the royal court in 1580. The existence of an alliance between the Maya caciques and the Franciscans does not mean, however, that the former did not have any autonomy to pursue their own political agenda when writing their letters. It seems clear, on the contrary, that the caciques were struggling to secure the use of the Maya Yucatec language in evangelization and that their alliance with the Franciscans was, in this sense, a strategic decision that shows their awareness of the settlers’ rivalries and their ability to take advantage of them (Cunill 2016 and 2023). This interpretation takes some distance from the colonial discourse regarding the alleged indigenous “legal incapacity”, which has, to some degree, transpired in the academic literature. It is more in line with the historiography that has highlighted indigenous peoples’ profound knowledge of the Spanish legal culture.8

7More broadly, I consider the Maya caciques’ letters as part of the above-mentioned process of legal translation. In Yucatan, the Franciscans, with the help of Maya intellectuals, wrote the Calepino de Motul, one of the first Maya-Castilian dictionaries known to this day, around 1580 (Bolles 2004). Legal knowledge, however, might also have been circulating through formal and informal translation practices as early as the 1540s (Cunill 2015). In 1567 and 1580, the Maya caciques could thus build on this knowledge to write their letters. Though written in Maya words, the authors of the letters had a Castilian horizon. They aimed to formulate their arguments in a way that they thought was likely not only to be understood by the king and his counsellors, and to convince them of the legitimacy of their claim. When thoroughfully examined, the Maya words chosen by the caciques might also reveal their own understanding of the concepts on which imperial power was built, and the degree of political agency they were granted (and were willing to negotiate) under the Spanish rule.

  • 9   According to the Calepino de Motul, hun meant “número uno” (number one), yuk “general cosa y uni (...)

8In the 1567 and 1580 letters, a sign of the cross was located at the top center of the page and was followed by the addressee, namely King Philip II (Figure 1). The visual organization of the page, inspired by Spanish written traditions, was meant to suggest that the authors placed themselves under the authority of God and the king. To put it differently, the association between the sign of the cross and the addressee visually expressed that the caciques’ consent to both God and the Spanish king were two sides of the same coin. In the 1580 letter, the addressee suggested the same idea through a trope that was commonplace in Maya rhetorical discourses (Hull and Carrasco 2012), the double parallel wording. Indeed, they translated the abbreviation of the Castilian expression S[acra] C[esarea] R[eal] M[ajestad] (Sacred Cesarean Royal Majesty), into Maya Yucatec language by Ah hun yuk ocolal ahau, Ah tepale, literally, “King of one unique faith, Majesty”.9 By using this expression, the caciques thus made it clear that they understood the theological conception of the Spanish monarchy and that their consent to the Christian faith was closely intertwined with their consent to the royal authority.

Figure 1. Cross and addressee in the letters of 1567 and 1580

Figure 1. Cross and addressee in the letters of 1567 and 1580
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Aumentar Original (jpeg, 2,1M)
  • 10 The left column contains the text in Maya Yucatec, whereas the right one contains my own translat (...)

9At the beginning of the 1567 letter, the caciques stated:10

  • 11 Restall (1998, 160) translates this fragment as follows: “Because we who are gathered together, w (...)

Yoklal tumul cћabilon

como gente nuevamente traída

because we were newly led,

con chambel uinic

we simple men,

ca naate ca yumil ti dios

al conocimiento de dios nuestro señor

to understand our lord God

yetel tech cech noh ahau ah tepale

y de tu Majestad

and you our great lord, Majesty11

  • 12 Bricker (2019, 142) observes that during the second half of the sixteenth century, “the passive s (...)
  • 13 According to Bricker (2019, 67) the perfective indicates that “the actions referred to by the ver (...)

10In this passage, the authors used the passive form of the verb cћa, which meant “tomar, llevar o traer” (to take, to bring and to bring back) according to the Calepino de Motul (1995, v. 1, 253). In the same entry, the form cћaabal was described as the “pasivo de cћa” (passive of cћa) and cћaabal u hahil than translated by “ser examinado algún testigo” (to be heard as a witness) (1995, v. 1, 254). According to the linguist Victoria Bricker (2019, 153), “both Colonial and Modern Yucatec have inherited the Proto-Yucatecan pattern of passivizing causatives derived from root intransitives by suffixing -b (phonetic [-b’] to the causative stem”. She adds that “the aspectual suffixes that co-occur with passivized causative derived from transitive roots were -al (imperfective), -i (perfective), and -ac (subjunctive) in Colonial Yucatec”.12 The use of the passive voice (-b) and the first person plural (-on) suggests that the caciques viewed their own and their people’s consent as the result of an external process. Furthermore, the verb naat, “entender” (to understand) (1995, v. 1, 554), indicates that they also viewed consent as an issue of rational knowledge. The use of the conjunction yetel in the expression ca yum ti dios yetel noh ahau ah tepal (our lord/ God and you our great lord/ Majesty) – which itself contains two double wordings – points to the simultaneous acceptance of both the Christian faith and the royal authority. Finally, the adverb tumul, “cosa nueva, recién hecha” (something newly done) (1995, v. 1, 730), and the perfective aspect (-i) situate this process in a recent past, probably the immediate aftermath of the military and spiritual conquest of the province.13

  • 14 Chambel: “cosa vulgar y común” (something common and vulgar) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 230). Uinic: “ (...)
  • 15 Ah numyaa: “pobre, miserable, necesitado” (poor, miserable, needy) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 36).
  • 16 See Assadourian (1990), Duve (2004), and Cunill (2011).

11The philological analysis therefore suggests that the caciques understood consent to both God and the Spanish monarch as closely intertwined, on the one hand, and as a rational acquisition of knowledge that took place in specific historical conditions, on the other. Although the precise historical context in which the indigenous people consented to Christianity and imperial rule was not explicitly mentioned in the Maya text, the authors insinuated that it was the result of asymmetric power relations. This is suggested not only by the use of the passive voice, but also by the self-identification of the authors and their people as con chambel uinic (we common men).14 In doing so, they might have been referring to their previous ignorance of the Christian god and the Spanish monarch. Indeed, the expression con chambel uinic might have been used to distinguish the Maya people from the Spaniards, since chambel was often used with the meaning of “de la tierra” (from the land) as opposed to “de Castilia” (from Spain). The Calepino (1995, v. 1, 230) provides the following examples: chambel than, “lengua vulgar o lenguaje así o lengua materna”, and chambel nok, chambel ulum, “ropa y gallina de esta tierra”. In another passage of the letter, the caciques explicitly mentioned their contemporaneous juridical status as personae miserabilis when they identified themselves as ah numyaoon (we miserable men).15 In the 1540s, indeed, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas advocated for the application of this legal status to the indigenous people arguing that they were in a situation of disadvantage with respect to the Spaniards because of their poverty and their ignorance of the law. He therefore considered that the Spanish king had the obligation to exercise his royal grace (inspired by God’s divine mercy) to protect his most underprivileged vassals.16 In the 1567 letter, by defining themselves as “common and miserable men”, the Maya caciques were thus appealing to King Philip II’s royal grace, inspired by God’s mercy.

12In the following lines, the caciques added:

  • 17 Restall (1998, 160) translates this fragment as follows: “We wish you to implement something that (...)

yanix ti col

Deseosos

and we are willing

Ca ↄoc lukeç lauac bal kananil tech xan

de vuestro real servicio

to do all that you need

yoklal hach thonanoon tac lacal

como leales vasallos

because we all deeply bow

yalan auoc yalan akab

[xxx]

under your foot, under your hand17
  • 18 Ool: “voluntad y gana” (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 596). (Yan ooltah: “desear o procurar deseando, tene (...)
  • 19 Lukzah: “quitar o apartar, librar o salvar” (to put aside, to save) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 471). L (...)
  • 20 Thontal: “humillarse, inclinarse” (to humiliate, to bow) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 738). Lacach: “tod (...)

13In this fragment, the verb yan tii ool, “tener determinado” (to be committed to) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 367), derived from ool, “voluntad y gana” (will, desire, longing) (596), was pivotal.18 It referred to the free will on which indigenous peoples’ consent to serve the king was supposed to be based. The notion of “royal service” (real servicio in the Castilian translation) was expressed in the sentence ↄoc lukeç lauac bal kananil tech, that is to say, “to do what was necessary to the king”.19 For the caciques, consent was a question not only of rational knowledge acquired in specific historical conditions, but also of the freedom of will in which the relationship between the king and his vassals had to take place. Although the end of the sentence was not translated by the Spanish interpreter Alonso de Arévalo, it is interesting because it linked the concept of consent to the body posture of bowing. The caciques and their people (a group that acquire a linguistic reflection through the use of the first person -oon, “we”, and of the expression tac lacal, “all of us”) stated that they deeply (hach) bowed (thontal) under his Majesty’s foot (oc) and hand (kab).20 A relation can therefore be drawn between the visual organization of the page, according to which the caciques placed their words under the cross and the king, and the physical posture of bowing, as the metaphorical expression of the indigenous vassals’ humility and their obedience before the king’s authority and rule.

  • 21 Hanks (2010, 323) also views this expression as a “disfrasismo for rule”. He adds that this is “a (...)

14This fragment referred to the ceremony that the caciques would have had to fulfill if they had been able to travel to the royal court themselves. They were verbally accomplishing the ritual act of bowing before the king through the mediation of the written words and the letter. The parallel wording yalan auoc yalan akab, literally, “under your foot, under your hand”, served to invoke the king’s authority. Although it was an echo of the Castilian expression tus vasallos que besan las manos y pies de tu Majestad (your vassals who kiss your Majesty’s hands and feet), couplets were common tropes in Maya and, more broadly, Mesoamerican discourses. Judith Maxwell and Craig Hanson (1992, 36) define the couplet as “a pair of words, or phrases, which evoke a third image. The items paired may be nouns, verbs, or phrases. Each couplet acts as a metaphor, defining a semantic space through the shared features of each member of the pairing”. According to these authors, some standard couplets were conventionalized in Nahuatl. This was, for example, the case of atl tepetl, “water, hill”, which was “fossilized with the referent of ‘town’ in the compound form altepetl”. In the 1567 letter, the expression yalan auoc yalan akab probably referred to the Spanish king’s authority, but also to the fact that the indigenous vassals placed themselves under his protection in exchange of their obedience, thus remembering the king’s obligation towards his vassals, especially the most underprivileged ones.21

15Interestingly, at the end of the letter, the caciques translated into Maya Yucatec the Castilian expression tus vasallos que besan las manos de tu Majestad as follows:

  • 22 Restall (1998, 165) translates this fragment as follows: “Your humble subjects and servants kiss (...)

uchinanilob achinam auah tanlahulob

[xxx]

your humble vassals, your servants

uↄbenic acilich kabob cech ah tepale

[xxx]

kiss his Majesty’s holy hands22
  • 23 See also Raimúndez Ares (2016, 180-181).
  • 24 Ah chinam: “señor de vasallos” (lord of vassals); chintal: “humiliarse, inclinarse” (to humiliate (...)

16Although it is difficult to interpret with certainty the first part of the sentence, it can be asserted that the caciques used parallel phrasing to defined themselves as vassals of the Spanish king. On the one hand, the expression uchinanilob achinam referred to the notion of vassalage. According to William Hanks (2010, 318), chinan “derives from the Maya root -chin meaning ‘bent over, inclined’, a corporal position expressing humility or shame”.23 On the other, ah tanlahul, from tanlah, “servir” (to serve), literally meant “those who serve you”, “your servants”.24 The second-person possessive a- linked the indigenous vassals to the Spanish monarch. Finally, the verb uuↄbinah is glossed by “besar oliendo, como lo hacen los indios” (to kiss while smelling, as the Natives do) in the Calepino de Motul (1995, v. 1, 753). This definition suggests that Maya people probably had their own ways of physically and verbally expressing obedience to a ruler before the Spanish conquest. Physical postures were therefore pivotal in expressing consent in both the Maya and the Spanish legal cultures. The caciques built on these similarities in search for legal intelligibility.

17At the first lines of the 1580 letter, the caciques also began their text by expressing the way in which they conceived their relationship with the monarch. They stated:

Yoklal tesil ca cћuilic ces ah tepal

Como estamos todos debajo de tu protección y amparo

Because we depend on you, Majesty

licil ca ↄaic vuich calab olal tees

ponemos los ojos de nuestra esperanza en tu majestad

we do put the eye of our hope on you

18According to the Calepino de Motul, cћuylic meant “cosa que depende y esta colgada de otra” (something that depends on and hangs from another). In order to illustrate this concept, the following example was given: “Dios ca cħuylic, ca cħuylicil tac lacal”, that the dictionary’s authors glossed by “de Dios dependemos y estamos colgados todos, que él nos sustenta” (we all depend on and hang from God, because He sustains us) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 269). Thanks to intertextuality, a parallel could be drawn between the protection that the Christian god and the Spanish king were supposed to provide to their faithful vassals. A Maya word, cћuylic, and the imagery associated with it, was adapted to a new colonial context to express the nature of the political relationship that bound Maya people to their monarch. This idea of protection might have had roots in precolonial imageries. In his Arte para aprender la lengua mexicana (1547), Friar Andrés de Olmos, with the help of indigenous experts, dedicated a few pages to the metaphorical language used in the Valley of Mexico.

  • 25 The Spanish gloss that accompanied the Nahuatl text said as follows: “Padre, madre, señor, capitá (...)

19One of these Nahuatl texts, translated into English by Maxwell and Hanson (1992, 169), reads as follows: “A mother, a father is as a foundation, and a covering like the silk cotton tree, the cypress tree. They afford shadow, shade, shading as a cool bower, as a spindle”.25 The metaphor of the shadow expressed the idea of authority as protection. According to Maxwell and Hanson (1992, 38), the couplet pochtl ahuehuetil, “silk cotton tree, cypress”, was a “fossilized reference to ‘regal protection, ruler’”. It also seems clear that the caciques conceived consent as a relationship in which the indigenous vassals submitted themselves to the royal authority in exchange for protection. The very action of sending a petition to the king took root in this specific link. The letters highlight how the caciques reformulated some legal concepts in their own words, and used them in the political communication with the king to support their claim. Their lexicon and phrasing were therefore at the crossroad of the Spanish monarchy’s legal thought and a political universe with roots in ancient times.

2. Consent through Acts on the Frontiers of the Empire

  • 26 A relación de méritos y servicios (literally, relation of deeds and services) was a written docum (...)
  • 27 An encomienda was an institution which enabled the Spanish crown to concede to some Spaniards the (...)
  • 28 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff., Don Pablo Paxbolón’s relación de servicios (1569-1571). AGI, Justi (...)

20The conquest of Acalan was mostly undertaken by indigenous actors who represented the king of Spain in the empire’s borderlands and sought for the consent of other groups who had rejected Spanish rule. This episode gave rise to the production of a critical bulk of records. Three documents are particularly relevant to the topic: don Pablo Paxbolón’s relación de méritos y servicios (1569-1571);26 the 1571 trial between Antón García and Feliciano Bravo on the possession of an encomienda of Zapotitlán, a village located in the Acalan region;27 and the relación de servicios of don Francisco de Maldonado, don Pablo’s son-in-law (1612-1622), also known as the Paxbolón-Maldonado papers.28

  • 29 Biographical data on don Pablo are based on the above-mentioned documents.
  • 30 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v, Don Antonio de Figueroa’s account (1604).

21Don Pablo Paxbolón was the legitimate descendant of the indigenous rulers of Acalan at the time of the Spanish conquest. As a child, he was baptized and raised by the Franciscans in the monastery of Campeche, where he was educated in Maya Chontal, his mother tongue, Castilian and Nahuatl – a language that was probably spoken in the region before the conquest. In 1565 don Pablo was appointed to the office of native governor of the village of Tixchel by the higher Spanish authority of the province, don Diego Quijada.29 The next year he received the first bishop of Yucatan, Friar Alonso Toral, who begged the governor to evangelize the indigenous people who escaped from colonial rule and settled in a zone known as “the mountains” at the southern frontier of Yucatan. A few months later, don Pablo Paxbolón selected a few inhabitants of Tixchel and undertook the first journey aimed at locating these fugitive indigenous settlements and at searching for the Natives’ consent to Christianity and to the Spanish king’s authority. A 1604 account, written by the Spanish governor don Antonio de Figueroa on the grounds of official records probably kept in his court’s archives, provides insights on the interactions that took place between the two groups in 1566.30

  • 31 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v: “Para descubrirlos pegaron susto a los caballos y se (...)
  • 32 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v: “…y, examinados y acariciados, dijeron haber sido bau (...)

22After emphasizing the journey’s difficulties and dangers, the text explains that don Pablo and his companions eventually found signs of human activities. However, nobody was found in the area, since the Natives had fled to avoid any contact with don Pablo’s group. In order to find them, don Pablo ordered some of his companions to hide. They then saw two Natives who wore long hairs, “as was the custom at the ancient times”, and had their faces painted with black. They caught them and brought them to don Pablo.31 The 1604 account provides a reconstruction of the dialogue between don Pablo and the two Natives. Don Pablo “asked them questions and caressed them”, to which they responded that “they had been baptized, that they had nothing but the mountains, and that they were not their friends anymore”. This declaration was probably accompanied by signs of alteration, since don Pablo “begged them to calm down, he settled them down, he caressed them, and he asked them to show where the others were”. The Natives’ mistrust against don Pablo and his men can be explained by the fact that they associated them with Spanish imperial rule. This position was implicit in the attempt to avoid any contact with don Pablo’s group. Wearing long hair and having their faces painted was also a physical sign of their willingness to go back to “the customs of the ancient times”. When confronted by don Pablo, the Natives expressed their political divergence in the terms of a broken friendship. At this point, don Pablo sent one of them to go after those who were still hidden in order to “reassure them with sweet and peaceful words and, as a sign of good will and as the lord of their home’s son, he sent them a canoe with five charges of salt”.32

  • 33 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v: “a todos los recibió bien y dio gracias por un presen (...)

23Don Pablo’s decisions reveal that he had assimilated the techniques used by the missionaries to evangelize the Natives. The text emphasizes his ability to use “sweet and peaceful words” to settle the Natives down. The verb “caress” also referred metaphorically to this kind of “sweet” language. Moreover, don Pablo identified himself as the legitimate descendant of the pre-Hispanic ruler of the area and, as a sign of good will, he offered the Natives salt, a valuable commodity in a region far from the sea. The Native came back three days later with three companions and a gift – whose nature was not specified. Following the document, don Pablo “received them properly and thanked them for the gift that they brought to him; he began to talk about our faith and he condemned their way of living which was evil […]”. Then they begged him “to let them live according to the law in which they were living, that they were not friends”. To this, don Pablo “answered, almost crying, that the evil was putting those words into their mouths, that his intention was good and that he was only willing to spend good time with them; these words settled the Natives down”.33

  • 34 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v, Don Antonio de Figueroa’s account (1604).

24The expression “to receive properly”, through imprecise, indicates that don Pablo and the Natives shared some common understanding about how they had to behave in such circumstances. Gift-giving seems to be part of these common grounds. But the text also highlights the tensions between the two groups because of their different position towards both Christianity and imperial rule. To avoid further tensions, don Pablo expressed his sadness as a way of redirecting the conversation toward a less ambitious goal than that of searching for the Natives’ consent to Christianity and obedience to the Spanish king. Nevertheless, when back in Tixchel, he advised Friar Antonio Verdugo, who then sent the Natives a letter full of “loving words to bring them to the knowledge of our faith”. The letter was brought, read and explained to the Natives by don Pablo, to whom they manifested their “sadness” for having revealed their existence to the Franciscans and the Spaniards.34

  • 35 On this complex set of interests and the way in which they transpired in the trial, see Cunill (2 (...)
  • 36 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Esto es lo que suena la carta”.
  • 37 I thank one of the anonymous readers for suggesting this interpretation to me.

25Although don Pablo’s first expedition had failed, he came back to the region a few years later. Don Pablo provided a detailed account of it in the relación de servicios that he elaborated in 1569. The trial between Anton García and Feliciano Bravo also gave further description of the context in which the expedition took place. The concession of the encomienda of the Zapotitlán to Feliciano Bravo generated tensions in the Acalan region, since Anton García claimed that the Natives of Zapotitlán were part of his own encomienda. In the light of this new threat, the Natives were willing to reconsider their position toward imperial rule and don Pablo assumed a role as the intermediary between them and the Spaniards.35 In January 1569 don Pablo sent two messengers to Merida; they were charged with bringing a letter to the Spanish governor don Luis Céspedes de Oviedo in order to inform him about his intentions to bring the Natives under imperial rule. Unfortunately, the original version of the letter was not inserted in don Pablo’s relation of deeds; only the Castilian translation was included. This text was probably written in Maya Chontal, the language spoken in the Acalan region. The Maya interpreter Gaspar Antonio Chi, who was required to translate the document, stated that his text was a summary based on what he was able to understand from the original. The interpreter introduced his text in the following way: “The cacique of Tixchel don Pablo Paxbolón writes a letter to the lord governor.” He concluded as follows: “This is how the letter sounds”.36 The interpreter might therefore have been referring to an oral dictation from which he elaborated his Spanish version.37

  • 38 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Le dieron todas las armas de flechas y lanzas y rodeles que tenía (...)
  • 39 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Movioles a esto ver que el señor gobernador tiene en paz a toda l (...)
  • 40 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Lo que suplica a su Señoría un mandamiento para que los dejen est (...)

26According to the letter, don Pablo was able to establish contact with eighty Natives, whom he convinced to surrender peacefully. As a sign of surrender, they gave him all their weapons and their idols which he burnt in front of them. They then said that “they would receive with good will our catholic faith and that they would be baptized and would believe in one unique true god”.38 The Natives added that they took this decision “because they saw that the Spanish governor maintained the province in peace and that nobody offended anybody, and that nobody took the Natives’ goods”.39 Don Pablo ended by begging the governor for “a decree so that the Natives could stay where they were living and nobody would offend them, because they had very good lands where they grew cacao and large mountains and wood of which they made canoes”.40 It seems clear that don Pablo’s letter was aimed at setting the grounds on which the Natives would eventually consent to both Christianity and imperial rule.

  • 41 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff., Don Luis Poxot’s testimony, Mérida (31 January 1569).

27The indigenous messengers sent to Merida by don Pablo confirmed and completed this information in their testimonies. They stated that don Pablo went to Zapotitlán and that the Natives asked him to send them a father who would baptize them. As a sign of peace, they gave him six Natives who came back to Tixchel with him. Although the text does not contain details on the conditions upon which they were given, it is worth wondering whether this exchange was conceived as a ritual of kin-building. When the six Natives arrived at Tixchel, don Pablo gave them garments and, a few days later, he sent them back to their village so that the others could see them.41 This account demonstrates that consent was expressed through a complex set of actions, in which the written word was closely associated with oral discourses, the ritual burning of symbolic objects such as weapons and idols, their substitution by new material items thanks to gift-giving, and the circulation of people throughout the territory.

3. Conclusion

28The 1567 and 1580 letters open avenues to explore the ways in which Spanish and Maya political cultures dialogued with each other. Their analysis indicates that the caciques systematically associated consent to Christianity with consent to imperial rule. In doing so, they showed that they understood the theological foundation of the Spanish monarchy and that they were able to use this argument to emulate the Spanish king’s Christian virtues, especially his mercy. Moreover, the caciques formulated the notion of consent in terms of the acquisition of rational knowledge that took place during the conquest of America. In this sense, it can be argued that they viewed consent as the result of a historical process in which each party came to compromise with the other. Namely, the caciques and their people were willing to serve God and the Spanish king in exchange for the divine mercy and the royal protection that both figures had the obligation to grant to their indigenous faithful vassals. The letters thus show how the caciques appropriated some legal concepts, reformulated them in their own words, and used them in the political negotiation with the Spanish crown. Consent supported the caciques’ claim that their language would continue to be used in evangelizing the indigenous people of Yucatan. It is also true that the lexicon and phrasing referred to a universe with roots in ancient times. The chosen vocabulary offers an avenue to unravel some of the gaps that characterized inter-legal communication. The caciques expressed consent in Mesoamerican tropes such as the parallel phrasing yalan auoc yalan akab, ‘under your foot, under your hand’.

29The physical posture of bowing and kissing, which found an echo in the visual organization of the page, was central in expressing consent. The caciques metaphorically placed themselves and their writing under the sign of cross and the King’s name. By bringing together the analysis of the letters and the conquest of the Acalan, it becomes clear that acts, objects and words were closely intertwined when expressing consent in the Spanish empire. Although consent was mainly expressed through words and used in a negotiation with the Spanish monarch in the 1567 and 1580 letters, it is also true that these words referred to ritual actions, namely to bow before the royal authority and to kiss the king’s hands or feet. The very act of sending a letter to the king can also be viewed as an action, since it was a material document written, transported, and presented by concrete persons. Moreover, the letters had to follow a series of “ritualized” steps before arriving to the Council of the Indies and, eventually, to the monarch.

  • 42 For a useful comparison with the Portuguese and the French empires, see Herzog (2018), and Carayo (...)

30Oral exchanges, nonverbal communication through posture or clothing, and gift-giving were pivotal in negotiating consent at the frontiers of the empire.42 In these processes, some actors like don Pablo Paxbolón assumed a key role in negotiating with the Spanish governor of Yucatan the terms according to which some indigenous peoples were willing to “receive the catholic faith” and to “give obedience” to King Philip II. This invites us to introduce some nuances to the understanding that Native people did not – and could not – consent in a truly free and informed way. It is true that, in most territories, the Spaniards imposed by force imperial rule and Catholic faith on the indigenous people. Nevertheless, as soon as the indigenous people became vassals of the Spanish king and understood some key legal concepts of the monarchy, such as con-
sent, they made a skillful use of the concepts to justify their political claims.

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Notas

1 On the use of the concept of “legal translation” in the history of the law, see Duve (2014), and Foljanty (2015).

2 Leyes Nuevas de 1542-1543. According to Sell and Kellogg (1997, 326), the Spanish original text was the “Ordenanzas para el gobierno de los indios” decreed by don Antonio de Mendoza in 1546. For an overview on the circulation of these texts throughout New Spain, see Rovira Morgado (2017).

3 To this day, Christian translation has received more attention than legal translation on behalf of historians. See Durston (2007), Zwartjes (2012), Távarez (2013), and Alcántara Rojas (2013 and 2018). In recent years, however, scholars have highlighted the porosity between Christian and political languages. On this topic, see Hanks (2010), Schrader-Kniffki and Yannakakis (2014), Boidin (2022), and Yannakakis (2023).

4 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter, AGI), México, 359, R. 2, N. 10, Letter to his Majesty (9 March 1567). AGI, México, 104, 2 ff, Letter to his Majesty (8 January 1580).

5 See Lutz and Dakin (1996), Pérez-Rocha and Tena (2000), Durston (2008), Puente Luna (2016), Hanks (2010, 315-336), Restall (1997, 230-240), and Broadwell and Dubcovsky (2023). In some cases, the petitions could be written in Castilian, as shown by Baber (2012), Dueñas (2010), or Glave Testino (2023).

6 AGI, México, 367, ff. 62-71, and Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid (hereafter, AHN), Diversos-Colecciones, 24, N. 77, ff. 1r.-2v. Letters to his Majesty, 11 and 12 February 1567.

7 See Restall (1998, 151-156), Hanks (2003 and 2010, 309-321), and Raimúndez Ares (2016 and 2019).

8 See Dueñas (2010), Ruiz Medrano and Kellogg (2010), Traslosheros and Zaballa Beascoechea (2010), Yannakakis (2023), Puente Luna (2018), and Glave Testino (2023).

9   According to the Calepino de Motul, hun meant “número uno” (number one), yuk “general cosa y universal, que lo comprende todo” (general and universal, that encompass everything), oc olal “fe o creencia” (faith or belief), and ahau “rey o Emperador, monarca, príncipe, o gran señor” (king, emperor, monarch, prince or great lord). Oc olal was composed by the verb ocol, “entrar” (to enter), and the substantive ool, “corazón formal y no el material” (the non-material heart, the will) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 7, 328, 376, 586, 595).

10 The left column contains the text in Maya Yucatec, whereas the right one contains my own translation into English from the Maya text. It is slightly different from the Castilian version made by the Spanish interpreter Alonso de Arévalo, which is inserted in the middle column.

11 Restall (1998, 160) translates this fragment as follows: “Because we who are gathered together, we common men, understand our lord Dios, and you who are the great lord ruler”. Hanks’ translation is: “For we who are gathered, we common men, we understand our lord in God and you who are Great King and Majesty” (2010, 322).

12 Bricker (2019, 142) observes that during the second half of the sixteenth century, “the passive stems of root transitives were changing from their relatively simple and consistent structure shared by all passives inherited from Proto-Yucatecan to the more complex and heterogeneous structure that is evident in Modern Yucatec today”.

13 According to Bricker (2019, 67) the perfective indicates that “the actions referred to by the verbs had been completed”.

14 Chambel: “cosa vulgar y común” (something common and vulgar) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 230). Uinic: “hombre o mujer” (man or woman) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 761).

15 Ah numyaa: “pobre, miserable, necesitado” (poor, miserable, needy) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 36).

16 See Assadourian (1990), Duve (2004), and Cunill (2011).

17 Restall (1998, 160) translates this fragment as follows: “We wish you to implement something that is necessary, for you too. For truly we are humbled, all of us, beneath your foot, beneath your hand”. Hanks’ translation is: “We want to do something necessary (for) you indeed. For we are all truly humbled beneath your foot, beneath your hand” (2010, 322).

18 Ool: “voluntad y gana” (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 596). (Yan ooltah: “desear o procurar deseando, tener gana, voluntad y antojo” (to be willing to, to wish, to want) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 367).

19 Lukzah: “quitar o apartar, librar o salvar” (to put aside, to save) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 471). La uac: “whichever, anything” (452). Kanan: “something necessary” (409).

20 Thontal: “humillarse, inclinarse” (to humiliate, to bow) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 738). Lacach: “todos” (all) (442).

21 Hanks (2010, 323) also views this expression as a “disfrasismo for rule”. He adds that this is “another case of double voicing in which Maya reducido is ambiguous between the Maya and the European frames of reference”.

22 Restall (1998, 165) translates this fragment as follows: “Your humble subjects and servants kiss your blessed hands, you, O ruler”.

23 See also Raimúndez Ares (2016, 180-181).

24 Ah chinam: “señor de vasallos” (lord of vassals); chintal: “humiliarse, inclinarse” (to humiliate oneself, to bent over) (Calepino 1995, v. 1, 21 and 243). Tanlah: “servir, gobernar, regir, y tener cuidado de alguna persona” (to serve, to govern, to take care of something) (703).

25 The Spanish gloss that accompanied the Nahuatl text said as follows: “Padre, madre, señor, capitán, gobernador. Que son o están como árbol de amparo”, literally, “Father, mother, lord, captain, governor who are like a tree of protection” (Maxwell and Hanson 1992, 55).

26 A relación de méritos y servicios (literally, relation of deeds and services) was a written document in which a vassal of the Spanish king explained how he and his ancestors had served the monarch in order to request an award. To prove their allegations, the petitioners had to present a series of witnesses who would answer to a preestablished questionnaire. Although a majority of relación de servicios was written by Spaniards, the indigenous people could also send such records to the royal court (Cunill 2013; Jurado 2014).

27 An encomienda was an institution which enabled the Spanish crown to concede to some Spaniards the tribute that the indigenous people of a region had to pay to the royal treasury (Zavala 1935).

28 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff., Don Pablo Paxbolón’s relación de servicios (1569-1571). AGI, Justicia, 250, ff. 1885-2114, Trial between Antón García and Feliciano Bravo (1569-1571). AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, The Paxbolón-Maldonado Papers (1612-1622). On this documentation, see Scholes and Roys (1948), Faudree (2015) and Cunill (2021).

29 Biographical data on don Pablo are based on the above-mentioned documents.

30 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v, Don Antonio de Figueroa’s account (1604).

31 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v: “Para descubrirlos pegaron susto a los caballos y se escondieron y vieron venir dos indios con cabellos largos al uso antiguo y embijados de negro a los cuales asieron y sin resistencia fueron donde estaba el dicho don Pablo”.

32 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v: “…y, examinados y acariciados, dijeron haber sido bautizados y que no tenían cosas más que los montes y que no eran ya sus compañeros, a lo cual les dijo se sosegasen y los quietó y acarició pidiéndoles le enseñasen los demás compañeros y envió a uno de ellos a los indios de los montes a asegurarles de su parte con palabras amables y de paz en cuya señal y como hijo y señor de su casa les envió en una canoa cinco cargas de sal”.

33 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v: “a todos los recibió bien y dio gracias por un presente que le trajeron y les comenzó a tratar cosas de nuestra santa fe afeándoles su vivienda que era del demonio […]; le respondieron que los dejase vivir en la ley que vivían, que ellos no eran sus compañeros, a que les replicó el dicho don Pablo casi llorando que mirasen que el demonio les hacía decir aquellas sus razones, que su celo era bueno y que se venía a holgar con ellos con lo cual se allanaron”.

34 AGI, México, 138, R. 4, N. 62, ff. 13r-15v, Don Antonio de Figueroa’s account (1604).

35 On this complex set of interests and the way in which they transpired in the trial, see Cunill (2010).

36 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Esto es lo que suena la carta”.

37 I thank one of the anonymous readers for suggesting this interpretation to me.

38 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Le dieron todas las armas de flechas y lanzas y rodeles que tenían en señal de paz y le entregaron todos los ídolos el cual los deshizo y quemó delante de ellos y dijeron que recibirían de buena voluntad nuestra santa fe católica y se bautizarían y que creerán en un solo dios verdadero”.

39 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Movioles a esto ver que el señor gobernador tiene en paz a toda la tierra y ninguno hace agravio a otro ni a los indios les toman las haciendas”.

40 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff.: “Lo que suplica a su Señoría un mandamiento para que los dejen estar adonde están y no les hagan agravio ninguno porque tienen muy buenas tierras y tienen milpas de cacao y grandes montañas y madera para hacer canoas y que andando el tiempo se podrían acercar al río de Acalan y entonces están tres días de camino por canoas”.

41 AGI, México, 97, R. 4, 10 ff., Don Luis Poxot’s testimony, Mérida (31 January 1569).

42 For a useful comparison with the Portuguese and the French empires, see Herzog (2018), and Carayon (2019).

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Título Figure 1. Cross and addressee in the letters of 1567 and 1580
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Para citar este artigo

Referência do documento impresso

Caroline Cunill, «Translating Native Consent in the Spanish Empire: Maya Words and Agency in Sixteenth-Century Yucatan», Ler História, 84 | 2024, 33-53.

Referência eletrónica

Caroline Cunill, «Translating Native Consent in the Spanish Empire: Maya Words and Agency in Sixteenth-Century Yucatan», Ler História [Online], 84 | 2024, posto online no dia 19 março 2024, consultado no dia 15 janeiro 2025. URL: http://0-journals-openedition-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/lerhistoria/13029; DOI: https://0-doi-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/10.4000/lerhistoria.13029

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Autor

Caroline Cunill

École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France

cunillcaroline@gmail.com

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