San Juan Cotzal
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San Juan Cotzal Cotzal |
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| Municipality | |
 San Juan Cotzal
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| Coordinates: 15°26′7″N 91°2′8″W / 15.43528°N 91.03556°WCoordinates: 15°26′7″N 91°2′8″W / 15.43528°N 91.03556°W | |
| Country |
 Guatemala
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| Department |
.png){kind=small} El Quiché
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| Municipality | San Juan Cotzal |
| Government | |
| • Type | Municipal |
| • Mayor | Baltazar Cruz Torres (PP) |
| Elevation | 5,600 ft (1,700 m) |
| Population (Census 2002) | |
| • Municipality | 20,050 |
| • Urban | 9,037 |
| • Ethnicities | Ixil, K'iche', Ladino |
| • Religions | Roman Catholicism, Evangelicalism, Maya |
| Climate | Cfb |
| Website | http://www.inforpressca.com/cotzal/ |
San Juan Cotzal (Spanish pronunciation: [saŋ ˈxwan kotˈsal]) is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. San Juan Cotzal is part of the Ixil Community, along with Santa Maria Nebaj and San Gaspar Chajul.
Worried about the defection of the aj K’ub’ul family chief -who had taken his family away in order to look for fertile and, above all, pacific land-, the K’iche’ king sent a group of soldiers to control every single movement of them. He was afraid that the aj K'ub'ul would look for reinforcements from other ethnic group in the area to form a strong army and then attack the k'iche's. The warriors settled to the east of the aj K’ub’ul and since the latter had moved away to look for peace and tranquility, they were a very peaceful community. And that is exactcly wha the warriors inform the K’iche’ king, reassuring him by telling that he should not worry about the exiled group, as they were really peaceful.
As time went by, the k'iche' warriors realized that the aj K'ub'ul life was very different from the one they were used to have under the ruling of their king, as they simple worked on their land and crops and then enjoyed their families without having to worry about being invaded or called to fight in a war. Therefore, they went back to their place of origin, Tujalj (Sacapulas and Canillá)), but only to pick up their families and went on to settle a new community where they were once stationed to keep an eye on the aj K'ub'ul.
In the ten years after the fall of Zaculeu various Spanish expeditions crossed into the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes and engaged in the gradual and complex conquest of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al. The Spanish were attracted to the region in the hope of extracting gold, silver and other riches from the mountains but their remoteness, the difficult terrain and relatively low population made their conquest and exploitation extremely difficult. The population of the Cuchumatanes is estimated to have been 260,000 before European contact. By the time the Spanish physically arrived in the region this had collapsed to 150,000 because of the effects of the Old World diseases that had run ahead of them.
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Wikipedia