Gonzalo Guerrero

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Gonzalo Guerrero, mural in Mérida , Yucatan
Gonzalo Guerrero, bronze statue in Akumal , Quintana Roo

Gonzalo Guerrero (* before 1500 ; † probably 1536 ) was a sailor from Palos, Spain . The source situation is rather opaque: the contemporary reports are short and contradicting (even the name is given differently: Gonzalo Marinero according to his activity, and Gonzalo de Aroca or Aroza according to his presumed origin; Guerrero was therefore possibly also not a name). It is doubted that Hernán Cortés actually had contact with Guerrero by letter. Authors of the late 16th and 17th centuries are more willing to provide information, but less reliable because of the distance in time.

Life

In 1511, the sailor set sail on board the caravel Santa María de la Barca from Panama to Santo Domingo , but was shipwrecked. The castaways were able to save themselves on one of the boats and were washed up by strong currents after two weeks on the coast of what is now Quintana Roo in Mexico .

There the survivors were captured by the local Maya and some of them were immediately offered as human sacrifices to the gods . Only two managed to escape: Gerónimo de Aguilar , a Spanish Franciscan , and Gonzalo Guerrero. Soon, however , the two fell again at Chetumal in the captivity of another warlike Maya tribe.

While Aguilar lived as a slave with the cacique Xamanhá for eight years , Gonzalo was given away to the cacique Nachan Can in the course of armed conflict between warring Maya tribes . Gradually he won his trust and soon enjoyed an excellent military reputation among the Maya: in 1514 he had even risen to the position of supreme warlord ( Nacom ) and is said - in recognition of his outstanding achievements on the battlefield - to have been tattooed over and over according to the custom of the Maya be. He married a wealthy, aristocratic Mayan woman named Zazil Há (presumably the daughter or sister of Nachan Can). The children who emerged from this connection are considered to be the first mestizos in Mexico , if not all of Latin America.

When Hernán Cortés , coming from Cuba , landed on Cozumel in 1519 , he sent the news to the two Spaniards that they would join him. Because at that time Cortés did not yet have his interpreter Malinche . Gerónimo de Aguilar complied with Cortés' request immediately, but Gonzalo Guerrero declined, referring to the high esteem he enjoyed among the Maya. Gonzalo Guerrero died, probably around 1536, in a battle in which he fought against the Spanish invaders together with the Maya. At his death he held the rank of cacique.

Modern reception

The person of Gonzalo Guerrero is seen and celebrated in modern Mexico as "Padre del mestizaje", the father of the mixing of European immigrants with the local population. There are monuments in his honor in Mérida , the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán on the edge of a residential area named after him, in Chetumal , the capital of Quintana Roo, in Cozumel and other places. Guerrero is also mentioned in the hymn of Quintana Roo and is the hero of novels and historical essays. In the 1970s, several documents appeared that allegedly contained Guerrero's autobiographies, but could be proven to be modern forgeries.

literature

  • Bernal Díaz del Castillo : History of the Conquest of Mexico . Edited by Georg Adolf Narziss. Insel, Frankfurt 1988 ISBN 3-458-32767-3
  • Hernán Cortés : The conquest of Mexico: 3 reports from Hernán Cortés to Emperor Charles V with 112 pen lithographs by Max Slevogt . Translated by Mario Spiro, CW Koppe. Ed. Claus Litterscheid. 3rd edition Insel, Frankfurt 1992 ISBN 3-458-32093-8
  • Robert Calder: A Hero for the Americas. The Legend of Gonzalo Guerrero. University of Regina Press, 2017

Literary adaptations

  • Hanna Klose-Greger : Are you coming back feather snake? Prisma Verlag Zenner and Gürchott, Leipzig 1966.
  • Peter Danziger: The feathered snake . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2001, ISBN 3-404-14577-1 .

Web links

Commons : Gonzalo Guerrero  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eugenio Aguirre: Gonzalo Guerrero, novela histórica . Centro de Investigaciones Científica y Tecnológica, México, DF 1983, ISBN 968-5827-26-5 .
  2. ^ Carlos Villa Roiz: Gonzalo Guerrero, memoria olvidada - trauma de México . Consejo Nacionjal para la Cultura y las Artes, México, DF 1995, ISBN 968-856-410-9 .
  3. ↑ Fray Joseph de San Buenaventura: Historias de la conquista del Mayab 1511 - 1697 , ed. by Pedro Bracamonte y Sosa and Gabriela Solís Robleda. Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida 1994, ISBN 968-6843-59-0 .
  4. ↑ Hanns J. Prem : The "Canek Manuscript" and other faked documents . In: Ancient Mesoamerica 10, 1999, ISSN  0956-5361 , pp. 297-311.
personal data
SURNAME Guerrero, Gonzalo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gonzalo Marinero; Gonzalo de Aroca; Gonzalo de Aroza
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish sailor and Mayan warlord
DATE OF BIRTH before 1500
DATE OF DEATH around 1536