Petatan                 En la cibdad de Santiago de la provincia de Guatemala
                            diez e nueve dias del mes de Hebrero año
Diego                   del nascimiento de maestro Salvador Jesu Cristo de myll
Sanchez                e quinientos e cuaranta e nueve anos por los señores
Santiago               presidente e oydores del audiencia y chanci
                            lleria real de su Magestad que en la dicha cibdad reside
                            se taso el pueblo de petatan que es en los terminos
                            e jurisdiccion de la dicha cibdad y esta encomendado en Diego
                            Sanchez Santiago vezino della mandose a los na
                            turales del dicho pueblo que en cada un año
                            le pagan una sementera de mahiz de dos fa
                            negas y se las beneficien cojan y encierren
                            en el dicho pueblo e media fanega de frisoles
                            y le den en cada año treynta mantas de las
                            que suelen y acostumbran a dar e cient petates
                            pequeños para barbacoas de los que acostum
                            bran a dar y seis açumbres de miel cada año
                            y tres cargas de agi e le den cuatro dozenas
                            de gallinas de castilla cada año e le den dos
                            yndios de servicio ordinarios en esta cibdad
                            con que sea obligado a darles de comer el tiempo
                            que se sirvieren y enseñarles la dotrina cristiana
                            no an de dar otra cosa ni se les a de lle
                            var a los dichos yndios por ninguna via que sea
                            ni comute ninguna cosa de un tributo en otra
                            cosa so la pena contenida en las leyes y ordi
                            nanças por su Magestad fechas para la buena governacion
                            de las Indias el licenciado Cerrato el licenciado
                            Pedro Rramirez el licenciado Rogel

                            En la ciudad de Santiago en la provincia de Guatemala a treynta
                            dias del mes de Dizienbre año del nascimiento de nuestro sal
                            vador Jesu Cristo de mill e quinientos e cinquenta años
                            por los señores presidente e oidores del audiencia y chance
                            lleria rreal de su Magestad que en la dicha cibdad reside fue
                            mandado a los naturales del pueblo de Petatan
                            que por los dos yndios de servicio que por esta tasacion
                            estaba mandado que diesen en esta cibdad
                            den en cada un año treynta mantas como las
                            demas contenidas en esta tasacion la mytad por
                            San Juan y la otra mytad por navidad y no
                            an de dar los dichos yndios de servicio........

Santiago de Guatemala

Tribal warfare—and its turmoil—had been the condition of affairs in Guatemala for centuries before the Spanish arrival in the early sixteenth century. Early evidence of it is to be seen in the change of town sites from open valley bottoms to mesa tops protected mostly by steep-walled ravines, and with small, defensible entryways.

Remote origins are to be found in earlier events in Mexico, where, after about a.d. 900 and until about 1200, the Toltecs, a group made up of disparate peoples including Chichimecs (not a disparaging term, but one proudly claimed by the descendants who remembered their prowess) became supreme in central Mexico (Diehl '83, p. 7; Coe '86, pp. 123-25). In the thirteenth century they moved into the Gulf region and small, military units went from Xicalanco on the Laguna de los Terminos in Campeche, up the Usumacita River and its tributaries into the highlands of Guatemala.

Their raids led to the relocation of towns from open lowlands to defensible highlands. Notwithstanding this protective device, the Mexicans succeeded in establishing themselves as a ruling elite over the mass of upland Guatemala Mayan-speaking peoples. Because there were relatively few of the conquerors, local languages persisted, and were adopted ultimately by the invaders (Carmack '81, p. 52).

The basic desires of the conquerors—made up of several groups— were conquest of territory, acquisition of tribute, and sacrificial victims (Carmack '68, pp. 44, 71-2, 86). Each conquering group established control over a territory, and each from its own territory became a potential rival of the others, a condition that led to internecine warfare.

Emerging as the most important of the conquering groups were the Quichés, whose class society made warfare the most important part of a noble's life (Orellana, '84, p. 57). The Cakchiquels, in an early period of time, served as troops under their command (Carmack '81, p. 378). That situation changed several generations prior to the Spanish conquest when the Cakchiquels became an independent force contesting with the Quichés for power. A third group, the Tzutujils, became involved in the tribal warfare, perhaps not by their own volition. Their tribal name identifies them as farmers, not, as do the names of the other two groups, with war and conquest. (Carmack, '81, p. 62). They settled and once controlled the lands circumnambient to Lake Atitlan which included extensions into the Pacific piedmont and coastal plain (Orellana, '84, pp. 52-54). Much of this territory had been appropriated by the Cakchiquels some generations prior to the Spanish conquest (Carmack, '81, p. 329 n.3, p. 140; Orellana, '84, pp. 52-54).

In this tumultuous area there may have been little possibility of an organization for trade similar to the government-chartered Pochteca of the Mexican plateau. Trade was an individual endeavor conducted, in spite of internal warfare, by a small, elite group of wealthy merchants who achieved a sufficient order to maintain long-distance trade and distribution without the tight politicization of the Pochteca (Sharer, '84, p. 82; Sabloff, cited by Hammond, '82, pp. 238-39). But that there was considerable efficiency in their trade is indicated by dishes designed to be stacked for effective use of space in transport and storage (Hammond '82, p. 146, quoting Eric Thompson).

The natives were dwellers in towns, small and large: villages for local exchange, and a few relatively large towns from which distant trade was effected.

Traders' attitudes as opposed to those of the truculent warriors were expressed by a 1571 informant who said that his forbears living in Atitlan—a traders' town—had submitted to Pedro de Alvarado, whereas the Indians of present Sololá, Tecpanguatemala, and Rabinal resisted (Indios de Atitlan -Simancas, Cartas, RAH Muñoz coll. vol. 42, f. 115-118).To traders the disruption of war can be anathema.

Towns on the tribute list

In the mid-sixteenth century, Santiago encomenderos held, not only territory of present Guatemala, but also the southwestern area of present El Salvador: the cacao-producing zone that composed the native province of Los Izalcos. It included Ahuachapan, Apaneca, Xuayoa (present Juayua), and Yzalco. Presumably Caluco was included although it was not listed. However, in the Relacion of 1583 (A.G.I. Patronato , legajo 183, no. 1, ramo 1 [2-2-4] it was included among the pueblos of Santiago; and the bishop Cortés y Larraz, in 1770 (Vol. 1, pp. 80ff), listed it as an ecclesiastical cabecera whose district included Nahulingo. From the territory of Caluco the boundary ran southward to the ocean. Towns to the east of it (and north of the territory of Ahuachapan) were included in the Spanish province of San Salvador.

After a quarter of a century of dominance in Central America, the Spanish Crown issued a precise list of tributes to be paid by the natives to their conquerors (legajo 128). In it, the list of towns paying tributes to the encomenderos of Santiago de Guatemala was recorded mostly in the four months. February 19 to June 19, 1549. It included 169 entries. Many towns that are known to have existed at that time do not appear. In a number of such cases, the omission resulted from the town being the annex of another. For example, in legajo 128, the town of Zapotitan, no. 117 on the tribute list, had three barrios under it: Cuyotenango, Mazatenango, and Cintecomatlan (AGCA, p. 18). The first two of these barrios are important towns now and could not have been negligible then, but their names do not appear on the tribute list. Several names appear more than once. In some cases there were two towns with the same name; but in others there was more than one listing of the same town because its tributes were divided between two or more encomenderos: such duplications occurred twenty three times. Position on the list is no necessary indication of geographical location, nor relation to the preceeding or following entries.

The position on the list of town names with an initial C-cedilla (Ç) is difficult to decide because some so listed in the sixteenth century are now spelled with an S (e.g., Sacapulas), others with a Z (e.g., Zacapa). For that reason, on this list, all those spelled with initial C-cedilla follow those with plain C.

In referring to a town, the number of its appearance on the list is shown and also, after a slash, its number of tributaries, e.g. Acatenango is listed three times: #75/100 est., #132/100 est., #139/80 which indicates that the seventy fifth entry was identified as Acatenango, and the number of tributaries is estimated to have been 100 (see section on estimating tribute populations at end of chapter). Another listing of Acatenango was in the hundred and thirty second position. It, too, showed no number of tributaries, so an estimate is given. The third entry of the name is in the hundred thirty ninth position. The number of tributaries was listed as being eighty.

Brackets—mostly around numbers of servants—indicate exchanges which are listed in chapter three, "Tributes."

Acatenango

The settlement of that name is now located at an elevation of 1571 meters (5154 feet), on a re-entry of lower country into the south slope of the mountains, west of Antigua Guatemala. Long before the Spanish conquest, the importance of that position for trade between the hot lowland and the densely settled interior had been exploited by the Cakchiquel Maya from their capital at Iximché, by the Mam of Zaculeu, and the Quiché at Utatlan. In spite of conflicts between these Maya groups, trade was generally maintained and the importance of the route was never broken for long (Morley, Brainard, and Sharer, p. 224). Such was the condition of affairs at the advent of the Spaniards.

In early years after the conquest the town was held in part by Diego Sanchez de Ortega (Kramer, Lovell, Lutz, and Swazey, 1990, p. 15). Another part—or a separate pueblo called San Bernabe Acatenango— was held by Jorge de Alvarado's servant, Andres de Rodas (Kramer, et al, p. 16)

The name appears three times on the tribute list. The entries are as follows

                                                                              

	#75/100 est.	#132/100 est.	#139/80
Encomendero	Andrea de Rodas	Gonçalode Alvarado and Pedro de Cavallos	The Crown
Maize	6	4	—
Beans	.5	—	—
Mantas	150	—	100
Chickens	96	72	—
Cacao	—	—	40
Salt	—	200	—
Petates	—	48	—
Servants	(6)*	(6)**	—
	* (exchanged for  100  tostones)	** (exchanged 36 gold pesos)

In 1531 (Kramer et al, '90, pp. 15,16), the two entries probably indicate two towns of the same name - as was the case about 1770 when the bishop Cortés y Larraz, referred to San Pedro Acatenango and San Bernabé Acatenango, about three leagues apart, (vol ii, p. 295).

The three entries of 1549 (numbers 75, 132, and 139) might involve two towns, with Andrea de Rodas retaining San Bernabé Acatenango that he had held in 1531 (Kramer, et al, '90, p. 16); but, given the approximate equality in values of the three entries of 1549, they probably represent a three-part division of one town that included a smaller annex. Cortés y Larraz (Vol. 11, p. 295) wrote that San Pedro Acatenango had only one quarter the population of San Bernabé).

Acatepeque(caption) Coçalchiname(text)#158/10, under Antonio de Salamanca, one of the conquerors with Pedro de Alvarado. Muñoz lists it as Cozalchiname-Acatepeque (Acad. de Hist., Madrid: Muñoz Coll. Vol. 85 ff 87-94). Payments of 900 lbs. of salt and 150 lbs. of fish indicate the coastal plain. This entry and the previous one (#157, Coçalchiname), which planted 200 lbs. of maize and paid sixty mantas to the Crown, may refer to same small town which was probably in the area of present El Salvador, near the Guatemalan border. (Sherman, p. 24; Lardé y Larin, p. 345; Barón Castro, p.612, n.9).

Acaxutla/#35/20, under Hernan Perez Peñate. Present Acajutla in El Salvador. By 1555 Perez Peñate had died, but the current encomendero was not named. In the review of tributes at that date, salt and fish were eliminated, and payment of cacao was reduced from twenty xiquipiles to fifteen.

Aguacatlan/#85/200, under Juan de Celada. This entry may refer to the same town as does #5 (Ystapalatengo y Aguacatlan), whose encomendero, the son of Juan Paez, was allotted a smaller number of tributaries and received a smaller proportion of the total tributes. The payment of feathers was unusual. Only one other town, Pajacis, #119, listed such payment. Even Queçaltepeque, named for the Quetzal birds, did not list them as tribute. Present Aguacatan is eastnortheast of Huehuetenango at 1670 meters elevation (5479 feet). By the time of the Central American review of 1554 (AGCA, legajo 2797, p. 11), Juan de Celada had died and his minor son was the heir of the encomienda. Tributes were not changed from those of 1549 except for the elimination of 100 lbs. of beans to be sown.

Aguachapa/# 109/100 est., under Bartolomé Marroquin (brother of the bishop). Now Ahuachapan in El Salvador. In the mid-sixteenth century Tomás López, of the Audiencia de los Confines, reported that the men spoke Nahuat and the women Pokomam, because of the recent Pipil conquest. The Pokomam town had been renamed, (cited by Lardé y Larin, p. 31). Pineda, shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century, reported that it was a prosperous town, that the natives took crops and pottery to trade for cacao at Izalcos; and some owned their own cacaotales . (pp. 453-54). Garcia de Palacio in 1576 (p. 21) referred to the fine pottery (más galana loza) made by the women "without the use of a potters' wheel, or any tool".........and that they made a red coloring matter for the pottery "from the excrescence of nearby hot springs".

The present town is in an area of faults and fissures approximately at the border between the older volcanics (Pliocene) and deposits of the younger (Quaternary) volcanics (Williams and Meyer-Abich, 1955, Reconnaissance map). Also see the soils map of the Republic of El Salvador (Mapa Pedologico, January, 1974) which shows it to be at the edge of the region of red clays (Latosols arcillo rojizos).

In 1586, Ponce also remarked about the special, fine, red pottery of the bonito pueblo. That the skill was continued is the testimony of Fuentes y Guzman toward the end of the seventeenth century (Vol. II, p. 40). But it would seem that the pottery was a trade item with little importance as tribute: none was paid to the encomendero in 1549.

Alotepeque

Two towns with this name appear on the tribute list.

#96/130, under Pedro de Ovid is unidentified now. Two other towns of his encomienda: #72, Teguantepeque, and #73, Texcoacao, were cacao-paying towns of the coastplain. Alotepeque paid cacao, and also fresh fish. It, like Teguantepeque, may have disappeared or, like Texcoaco, may have been absorbed by another coastplain town.

#166/75 est., under Gonçalo Ortiz. It, like three other towns in the encomienda of this man (Conetla, Chicuytlan, and Bohon), is not identified; but, like the others, its payments all suggest the inland west, near the Chiapas border and saline streams, e.g. petates, large mantas , henequen and salt. The specified size for the mantas (2X2 braças: about eleven feet square ) in that area was greater than that of any other area giving specifications in Santiago province. ( A Mexican influence?)

In the review of 1554 (AGCA, p.6) Gonçalo Ortiz was still the encomendero, but his tributes were reduced by 50 lbs. of sown maize, 300 lbs. of dried beans, 12.5 lbs. honey, 20 mantas, 5 chickens (and the remainder to be local fowl not European chickens as originally specified). There was one small increase, that of five mats (petates ).

Amatenango /#89/70

In early years, and until 1533, it was part of the encomienda of Rodrigo de Benavides who relinquished it in 1533 when he left for Peru. (Kramer, et al, '90, p. 17)

By 1549 the encomienda had been divided between Gutierrez de Gibaja and Mendez de Sotomayor. Jointly, they held four towns: two in present Chiapas (Amatenango, and Motolcintla), Cuilco, in present Huehuetenango near the Mexican border, and Suchitepéquez (probably present San Antonio Suchitepéquez).

Amatitan,/#18,#19,#20/356.

In 1528 the town was divided between Cristobal Lobo and Juan Freyle, (Kramer et al, '90, p. 14). Frayle's name does not appear on the 1549 list.

The three entries on the 1549 tribute list related to parts of one town and its anexos, under Cristobal Lobo: present Amatitlán, at 1,190 meters elevation (3904 feet), a town that had been founded by assembling five earlier pueblos (Chinchilla y Aguilar, p.29).

Its elevation is hardly enough for successful planting of wheat; but its annexes doubtless included the high territory that had formerly appertained to them (perhaps present Santa Lucia Milpas Altas and Magdalena Milpas Altas, both over 6,600 feet, had been a part of the encomienda). From town number 20, the encomendero was allotted an Indian to herd goats - the only reference to goats in the legajo. Perhaps even he didn't have any: the goatherd was exchanged for silver tostones.

Amayuca/#43/ 3. Granted, in 1528 by Jorge de Alvarado to Fernando de Arévalo who was forced to give it up two years later (Kramer, et al., '90, p.15). In 1549 it had been assigned to Diego de Alvarado and Juan de Astroqui, who received sixty five xiquipiles of cacao from it. Pineda (p.430) reported it as being near the sea, in the area of Escuintla; and remarked that it had formerly been a great pueblo "but now has only seven or eight Indians". Later it disappeared, as apparently, did another town, Chandelgueve, #82, under the same encomenderos.

Amystlan/#50/25 est., under Juan de Ecija. Paid 40 xiquipiles of cacao. Probably extinct.

Apaneca/#6/100, under the minor sons of Bartolome de Molina. In present El Salvador, at 1300 M. elevation (4265 feet) (Servicio Meteorologico, San Salvador, 1977), south of Ahuachapan. Two crops of maize per year were planted, and also 6 fanegas of wheat (which may have been at risk). As cotton was planted as well as cacao for the encomendero; and it was specified that the workers in the cacao plantation were to be fed when they worked in it, it would seem that he also held somewhat distant lower and warmer lands.

Ataco/#15/160, under the minor sons of Alonso Perez (who had held it in 1528: Kramer, et al., '90, p. 13). Present Concepción de Ataco, at 1340 meters elev. (4396 feet), near Ahuachapan. The cacao it paid in tribute either had to be acquired by trade with an area of lower elevation, or Ataco had lowland annexes.

Atescatempa/# 147/100, under Francisco de Utiel, a surgeon who received the tributes from the town by assignment from Jorge de Alvarado in the 1520s and passed them on to his heir in 1560 (Kr., L, L, and Sw, '90, p. 16). Present Atescatempa is at 700 meters elevation (2297 feet) in the department of Jutiapa. The name suggests that it may have been founded by Pipiles. Its chief payment, cacao, could hardly have been grown immediately near the town. Either the municipio included lower territory or the tributaries obtained it by trade.

Atiquipaque.

Its tributes were divided:

#14/25, under Martin de Guzman, and #22/30 under Juan Lopez. It was a Xinca town once named Atiepar (Lehmann,1920,p.747).The bishop Cortés y Larraz reported it as being west of Tasisco, Xinca in speech, with many insects, snakes, etc. and with poor harvests (Vol. II, pp. 232 ff). As tribute, the Indians paid maize, fish and cacao. The town no longer exists.

Atitlan/#l 16/1000. It was, soon after the conquest, allotted to Jorge de Alvarado (Kramer thesis, p. 81), but by 1529 it was jointly held by Pedro de Cueto and Sancho de Barahona (op. cit., p. 83). Cueto's share went, in 1533, to Jorge de Alvarado (Kramer et al, '90, p. 13). That share by 1549 was under the Crown, and the other share was held by the minor children of Sancho de Barahona. The sole payment, 1200 xiquipiles of cacao, was equally divided.

Present Santiago Atitlán was established in 1547, across the bay from the original Tzutujil capital of Chiyá, (a Tzutujil name equivalent to Nahuat" Atitan" - (Orellana, pp. 4, 122). Chiyá had been the principle settlement of the Tzutujils, and their nobles controlled and drew tribute from several lowland cacao-producing settlements including Nagualapa and San Antonio Suchitepéquez (Thompson, '48, p. 9), and north at least as far as present San Pedro and Santa Clara(op. cit. pp. 18-19, 49, 82, 131-33). A 1571 report by the native town leaders mentioned their pre-conquest estancias "now called Sant. Bartolomé i Sant Andres i Sant Francisco i Sancta Barbara" (RAH Munoz coll. vol. 42, f. 115-118). These lords may have traced their lineage back to the Mexican invaders of the thirteenth century (Thompson, '48, op. cit. pp. 26, 34, 47, 83, 87). The importance of the settlement was not based on local production, but because its position favored it to be a center of transport and trade. The bishop Cortés y Larraz described its territory as being very arid, and its harvests as being of some maize, beans, chili, and chia; and that there was some fishing in the lake (Vol. II, pp. 279 ff). MacLeod refers to its sixteenth century decline: he gives figures from the Relación de Santiago Atitlan for 1524 when it had 12,000 tributaries, that had decreased to 1,005 by 1585 (p. 131).

Ayllon/#69/160. From 1528 to 1530, one half was under Hernando de Yllescas, the servant of Jorge de Alvarado. The holder of the other half was not given (Kramer et al '90, p. 14). In 1549 the tributes were still divided, but between Juan Resino and Diego Diaz.

The town's payments of 120 mantas and 48 chickens were modest in view of the number of tributaries; but an allotment of ten servants was higher than average. They were exchanged for 150 tostones. Resino held other towns in the southeast; Diaz probably did. This town may have been in that region. However, Kramer,et al ('90, fig. 11) identify it with present Ilóm in interior Quiché province .

Basaco/#29/20, under Juan Resino. Present Pasaco, at 150 meters elev. (492 feet) in southeast Guatemala, was a Pupuluc