How Did Mayan Culture Influence The Mayans

The Spanish administrators along the course establish two centres of authority in the Americas “Mexico (which they called New Spain) and Peru (known as New Castile)” (Source12)

There was also mandatory conversion to Christianity. There was a stage when Provincial Landa found that the Mayans had ongoing idolatry, which led to the arrest of thousands of natives who were suspected on idolatry and Landa supervised the torture of “...more than 4,500 people over the course of three months; many were tortured to death” (Source 8); idols where torched and “convicted idolaters were put to the lash, “(Source8). They forced the Maya to become Christians. The Maya were called pagans and mistreated if they did not adhere to the Christian doctrine that Spanish friars required them to follow. “Huge piles of idols were set to the torch and many convicted idolaters were put to the lash,” Source 7). By Landa destroying “...his writings in all aspects of Maya culture would serve as an invaluable resource for Maya scholars” (Source7). To show the superior moral and political power of the Christian Church, de Landa oversaw a huge “auto-da-fé”. An auto-da-fe, is defined as an “act of faith”. This was a ritual of public reparation of condemned heretics
First it was the “peninsulares” (people born in Spain in advantage of colonial government and Catholic Churches); secondly was the “creoles” (who owned most of the plantations); the “mestizos (people of Native American and European descent); the “mulattos” (people of African and European descent, -mostly from the slave trade). The Native Americans and people of African descent were considered as the lowest social class (Source 13). The people who had lived in the land for many years were considered inferior and part of a lower class in their own land and were disrespected by this act. There was emphasised superiority of the Europeans over the Native Americans traditions (Source