The 'discovery' of the Yucatan peninsula occurred in 1517, several years before Hernan Cortes took down the Aztec empire. An expedition, led by Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, set out to explore the lands beyond Cuba; however, the men were totally unprepared to see advanced cities and defensive native warriors. Their ignorance proved to be their undoing.
The expedition had now dealt with the Maya twice, and all pretenses of 'simple Indians' were rapidly disappearing. The locals were smart; they had complex cities and a very efficient army. Out of 110 men, five or so had died from the previous battles. But the fleet couldn't turn back towards Cuba; water was of prime concern once again, after a four-day storm nearly sank the ships. It was a desperate situation, so they landed once again with the intent to gather water. Hundreds of natives surrounded the men as they awaited for their jugs to be re-filled. Their exit was blocked, and they could not leave the precious water behind.
With few options, Hernandez and his crew decided to stay and fight. The outcome was easily predictable; they were vastly outnumbered, and the natives had lost their fear of muskets and swords. The Maya were especially merciless with Hernandez, who was hit with ten arrows. When the air cleared, the Spaniards had lost fifty men, and there was only one soldier who remained uninjured. They called the area the 'coast of the bad fight', a name which would appear on maps for many years afterward. And as the men fled for their lives, they left the water barrels--the reason for the bloodshed--behind.
The survivors were in a rough state, to say the least. With half the crew dead, they were forced to scuttle one of their ships. Dehydration began to take its toll, weakening the men even further. Pilot Anton de Alaminos, a veteran of expeditions with Columbus and Ponce de Leon, decided to navigate to Florida first before heading back to Cuba. Twenty men disembarked there to search for water; they were prepared for the notoriously aggressive natives, though Alaminos took an arrow to the neck. The fresh water situation was so dire, that apparently one man drank so much of it, once it was obtainable, that he swelled up and died.
Once the water stores were replenished, the decrepit ships were sailed back to Havana by the wounded crew. Hernandez, the leader, died of his injuries within days of reaching the port; his grand plans had collapsed in the worst ways imaginable. But the Yucatan expedition was a crucial moment for the Spanish. Before the mission, the Europeans had no idea that there were any advanced civilizations in the Americas; the stories of the Yucatan resembled the reports of Marco Polo's journey through Asia. The stories of 'El Gran Cairo'--as the Maya cities were called--sparked the Spanish imagination. They dreamed of gold, of paradise lying just around the corner in this new land. And the reports helped encourage two further expeditions: one in 1518 under Juan de Grijalva, and one in 1519 commanded by a young rebel named Hernan Cortes.
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