Note 1196 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

Bancroft, Central America, vol. i. p. 686. Bandelier has given a partial list of the authorities on the conquest of Guatemala in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., October, 1880; and Bancroft (Central America, vol. i. p. 703, vol. ii. p. 736) characterizes the principal sources. Helps (end of book xv. of his Spanish Conquest) complained of the difficulty in getting information of the Guatemala affairs; but Bancroft makes use of all the varied published collections of documents on Spanish-American history, which contain so much on Guatemala; and to his hands, fortunately, came also all the papers of the late E. G. Squier. A Coleccion de Documentos Antiguos de Guatemala, published in 1857, has been mentioned elsewhere, as well as the Proceso against Alvarado, so rich in helpful material. The general historians must all be put under requisition in studying this theme,—Oviedo, Gomara, Diaz, Las Casas, Ixtlilxochitl, and Herrera, not to name others. Antonio de Remesal’s is the oldest of the special works, and was written on the spot. His Historia de Chyapa is a Dominican’s view; and being a partisan, he needs more or less to be confirmed. A Franciscan friar, Francisco Vasquez, published a Chronica de la Provincia del Santissimo Nombre de Jesus de Guatemala in 1714, a promised second volume never appearing. He magnified the petty doings of his brother friars; but enough of historical interest crept into his book, together with citations from records no longer existing, to make it valuable. He tilts against Remesal, while he constantly uses his book; and the antagonism of the Franciscans and Dominicans misguides him sometimes, when borrowing from his rival. He lauds the conquerors, and he suffers the charges of cruelty to be made out but in a few cases (Bancroft, Central America, vol. ii. pp. 142, 736). The Historia de Guatemala of Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman is quoted by Bancroft from a manuscript copy (Central America, vol. ii. p. 736), but it has since been printed in Madrid in 1882-1883, in two volumes, with annotations by Justo Zaragoza, as one of the series Biblioteca de los Americanistes. Bancroft thinks he has many errors and that he is far from trustworthy, wherever his partiality for the conquerors is brought into play. The chief modern historian of Guatemala is Domingo Juarros, who was born in that city in 1752, and died in 1820. His Compendio de la historia de la Ciudad de Guatemala was published there, the first volume in 1808 and the second in 1818; and both were republished in 1857. It was published in English in London in 1823, with omissions and inaccuracies,—according to Bancroft. The story of the Conquest is told in the second volume. Except so far as he followed Fuentes, in his partiality for the conquerors, Juarros’ treatment of his subject is fair; and his industry and facilities make him learned in its details. Bancroft (Central America, vol. ii. pp. 142, 737) remarks on his omission to mention the letters of Alvarado, and doubts, accordingly, if Juarros could have known of them.