Maya Christians and Their Churches in Sixteenth-Century Belize

Introduction

1 Introduction When piety meets politics it can be a volatile mix. —Christiane Amanpour, The Observer Television, August 2007 The Christianity of sixteenth-century Europe came to the Maya of Belize in two major ways. The first, and better known, comprises the efforts of Spanish friars and clergy to convert the Maya to Christianity as part of a larger plan of imperial domination by Spain. The second is rarely considered significant, but must surely have figured in Maya deliberations about what it meant to be Christian. As Belize communities became more and more “frontier” relative to developing centers of power in Yucatan, Guatemala, and lower Central America, the Maya of these communities became more and more vulnerable to non-Spanish Christians: the British, French, Dutch, and other European seafarers, legal or otherwise, who plied the Caribbean, preyed on Spanish shipping, and carried on slaving well into the early eighteenth century. Historical sources tell us that British activity in Belize dates from the seventeenth century, but evidence suggests overwhelmingly (see chapter 5) that knowledge of Belize’s fluctuating coastline—its shallow coastal shelf, barrier reef, and cayes—was built on many decades of sailing experience and ships pilots’ detailed records. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to consider that non-Spanish activities, or at least activities unrelated to official Spanish imperial expansion, had repercussions for Belize as early as the sixteenth century (see fig. 0.1). It is the Spanish encounter with which this book is concerned, owing to the fact that the ruined churches which we excavated at Lamanai and Tipu are the historical product of this encounter. Nonetheless, the nature of the challenges faced by the Maya of Belize extended beyond what the Spanish Christians alone would generate. Even if my proposal about sixteenth-century raids on the Belize coast is regarded with scepticism, there is no doubt that the kinds of Christianity that characterized Europe in the sixteenth century 2 Maya Christians and Their Churches in Sixteenth-Century Belize deeply affected events in the Maya lowlands of Belize. This includes the late medieval Christianity of the mendicant friars, with its attendant energy, engagement , and optimism; the authoritarian Christianity that developed in response to the concerns of the Council of Trent; and the radical reform that led to what has come to be called Protestantism. All of these Christianities reached Belize, and to the extent that this book deals with them, it can be called a study of religion. On the other hand, I devote considerable effort to describing the problems that arise in assuming that “religion” is a viable concept (see chapter 3). Perhaps it is safer to say that the book is about people in Maya communities in Belize who came to call themselves Christians in the sixteenth century, in particular the inhabitants of the towns of Tipu and Lamanai (see map 1.1). Figure 0.1. Belize Maya chronology. Introduction 3 These communities remained active in the seventeenth century, but it was during the pivotal years of the sixteenth century that the Maya encountered, learned about, weighed, wrestled with, and appropriated Christian thought and ideas. Even though historical conditions would change, in terms of diminishing Spanish activity, the encounter with Christianity was pervasive and its impact long-term. In fact, the impetus behind the writing of this book was the recovery of archaeological evidence which suggested that the Maya inhabitants of Tipu and Lamanai considered themselves Christians and remained Christian even in the absence of church or civil authority. In the chapters that follow, I examine the evidence for how and why the Maya converted to Christianity in the region of Mesoamerica now known as Belize. The “when” we already know, at least in broad outline: the time of Spanish colonization of the New World in the sixteenth century. The “how” and “why” questions—about precisely what constituted conversion or what Spanish colonizers thought conversion would lead to—necessitate turning to the experience of the missionary encounter elsewhere in Mesoamerica, and even elsewhere in the world. This broadened spatial dimension is complemented by extension of the dimension of time, because the Christianization of Europe in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, from about the fourth to the tenth century a.d., turns out to be highly relevant to an understanding of how people “became Christian.” The contemporary Western world and the history of its expansion are rooted in the process by which indigenous Europeans...