Territory and power: Yucatan between the last years of postclassic and the first colonial age

Abstract

Through a re-reading of the early colonial documents aided by the use of a Geographic Information System or GIS, we propose an analysis of the territorial processes occurred in Yucatan after the spanish conquest. The conquest didn’tinvolve only a great political change: the very idea of political power changed, passing from a personal to a territorial one. The distribution of population and pueblos on the ground had to adapt to the mentality imported by europeans andto their new needs. Some potentates now defined clearly their borders and their territory in order to adapt to the mental change; the fulcrums of power related to territory mutated, while the ancient capitals lose their power. The populationof many villages was united in selected sites by the congregación, and many cities disappeared, gathered within others, totally changing the way of settling on the space, in a tumultuous and constantly changing situation.