Mediating at the Margins: Yucatan’s Interpreters in Unconquered Lands, 1600-1697

Abstract

Objective/Context: This article emphasizes the distinct duties of interpreters general, primarily working in legal matters, and mediators at the margins of colonial control. The widespread flight of Mayas seeking relief shifted the linguistic map of the interior, requiring speakers of multiple languages rather than the service of interpreters general who resided in Yucatan. Methodology: Research in the Archivo General de Indias and published primary sources show that mediation with migratory Mayas avoiding colonial rule required polyglot indigenous interpreters who moderated encounters between friars and neo-conquistadors, on the one hand, and resistant Mayas, on the other, in Yucatan’s interior, even as the holders of the office of interpreter general— the primary legal translators—were overwhelmingly European-descent creoles. Originality: This article seeks to add depth to our current understanding of the role of translators during the often overlooked seventeenth century. Conclusions: Official translators—interpreters generals whose duties were increasingly circumscribed as court functionaries—diverged from mediators in unconquered terrains whose knowledge of diverse indigenous languages, cultural broker abilities, and similar backgrounds made them ideal intermediaries with resistant Mayas.