Guatemala (Colonial Period)

Abstract

The colonial period in Guatemalan history is customarily dated from 1524 to 1821. During that time, Guatemala was the most populous and most prosperous of the provinces that made up the kingdom, or audiencia, of Guatemala, a district that stretched from Chiapas in the west to Costa Rica in the east. The largest single element in the colonial population consisted of native Mayas, but transatlantic contact added other important groups to the mix, among them Spaniards, ladinos (as mestizos are called in Guatemala), and Afro-descendants. Guatemala’s multiracial past offers multiple historical experiences for scholarly exploration. A challenge confronting any scholar of the colonial period is the need to distinguish clearly among the many different uses to which the place name Guatemala has been put. In addition to the province and the kingdom, both called Guatemala, there are two important cities. Often called simply Guatemala City, Santiago de Guatemala was the capital of both the province and the kingdom from 1524 until 1773, when severe earthquake damage led authorities in Spain to order its abandonment and a new city built some forty kilometers away. Known officially as Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, the new capital remains the center of government in Guatemala and is also commonly referred to as Guatemala City. For its part, the old city remained inhabited and is now known as Antigua Guatemala. Finally, the term Guatemala may also refer to the Valley of Guatemala, actually a complex of nine fertile and well-watered valleys whose dense native population, sometimes laboring alongside enslaved Africans, worked to produce maize, wheat, sugar, livestock, and other consumer goods for local and regional markets. Given the dominant role played in isthmian life by the old and new cities and their surrounding valleys, it should not surprise readers to learn that many works about Central America in the colonial period are, in fact, mostly about Guatemala. As it happens, the country itself has a long tradition of historical writing going back to Santiago de Guatemala’s most renowned 16th-century resident, Bernal Díaz del Castillo. During the colonial and early national periods, writers of history tended to be ecclesiastics, civil servants, attorneys, and other amateurs. About the middle of the 20th century, however, professionally trained historians began to enter the field. Works by pioneer professionals, such as Chinchilla Aguilar 1999, cited under Institutions), Samayoa Guevara 1978, cited under Institutions), and Lanning 1955, under Institutions), made significant contributions to institutional history. With the publication in the 1970s of watershed studies by Martínez Peláez 2010) and MacLeod 2008, all cited under General Overviews), historical production on Guatemala’s colonial past began to expand rapidly in both quantity and quality. It remains, however, a field of broad opportunity, offering abundant primary sources and many topics partially or completely unexplored.