Maya DBQ Essay

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The European nation that came into the American territory was the Spanish. The first contact between Europeans and the Maya was in 1502” (Source 3), this expedition was headed b y Christopher Columbus, who was trying to find a new trade route to the far East but inadvertently landed in what came to be known to the Europeans as the “New World” (Source11). The Spanish had claimed the New World territory, and when they found out that the Mayans were a divided group, had no political authority; they were also able to exploit this division by taking advantage of the rivalries within the group.

Even when Montejo travelled to Mexico, he soon later left Yucatan in 1534 because “no gold had been discovered, nor is there anything [else] from which …show more content…

So although they were under Spanish control they still managed to keep hold of some official control because it is stated that some provinces were regarded independent i.e. the Maya, long after the fall of the other Mesoamerican groups.

The Mayan population decreased between 1515 and 1516 there was a rapid wildly spread epidemic among the Mayan people in eastern Yucatan know as the “mayacimil (or “easy death”)”. This epidemic was caused by smallpox which was transmitted by a soldier arriving in Mexico (probably a Spanish soldier), who was carrying the epidemic. This plague spread through the native population of the Americans, modern estimation of the death rate varied from “75% to 90% mortality” among the natives.

The Mayan had no immunity, medicine or technology so the epidemic spread among them. Small pox was rapidly transmited and other Old World diseases, which were the most deadly were, “aforementioned smallpox, influenza, measles…pulmonary diseases, including tuberculosis; the latter disease was attributed to the arrival of the Spanish by the Maya inhabitants of Yucatán.” (Source

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