Atlácatl (

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

''Ātlācatl'': ''ātl'' "water", ''tlācatl'' "human being" – whose death is sometimes put at 1528) is reputed to have been the name of the last ruler of an indigenous state based around the city of

Cuzcatlan Cuzcatlan ( Nawat: Kuskatan) (Nahuatl: Cuzcatlan) was a pre-Columbian Nahua state confederation of the Mesoamerican postclassical period that extended from the Paz river to the Lempa river (covering most of western El Sal ...

, in the southwestern periphery of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

(present-day

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by ...

), at the time of the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predec ...

. Atlácatl appears to have been a myth, however, as no contemporary chronicler mentions him. The only mentions of him are in the

annals of the Cakchiquels The ''Annals of the Cakchiquels'' (in es, Anales de los Cakchiqueles, also known by the alternative Spanish titles, ''Anales de los Xahil'', ''Memorial de Tecpán-Atitlán'' or ''Memorial de Sololá'') is a manuscript written in Kaqchikel by Fran ...

where the Pipil coastal people were called ''Pan Atacat'' (water men); this might have been an elite personage or a title for a chief in Pipil culture. The myth is still believed locally. The name "Atlácatl" was adopted by one of El Salvador's elite army battalions: the

Atlácatl Battalion The Atlácatl Battalion (Spanish: ) was a rapid-response, counter-insurgency battalion of the Salvadoran Army created in 1981. It was implicated in some of the most infamous massacres of the Salvadoran Civil War, and as a result, it was disbanded ...

. Cuzcatan was a powerful state that had incorporated several Nawat Pipil regions in the western and central territory of today's El Salvador. With a standing army and lucrative cacao and Indigo exports, this wealthy state had resisted several Mayan Calakmul ally invasions and was one of the strongest in the region. It was the only

polity A polity is an identifiable political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any other group of p ...

in the region to maintain a standing army. The myth of Atlácatl appears to have originated in a historian's misreading of Spanish chronicles. It was later developed as a nation-building myth in modern Salvadoran nationalist discourse, symbolising Cuzcatan's courageous resistance against the invading Spanish forces. According to another account, when

Pedro de Alvarado Pedro de Alvarado (; c. 1485 – 4 July 1541) was a Spanish conquistador and governor of Guatemala.Lovell, Lutz and Swezey 1984, p. 461. He participated in the conquest of Cuba, in Juan de Grijalva's exploration of the coasts of the Yucatá ...

and his forces arrived at Atehuan (Ateos) he received a message sent to him by Atlacatl in which Atlácatl acquiesced to Alvarado's demand for Cuzcatan's surrender. Alvarado's own account records that when he entered the city of Cuzcatan he found it partly abandoned, the men all having fled to the mountainous region nearby. Alvarado sent a demand to them for their surrender, but instead received the answer: "If you want our arms you must come to get them from the mountains". In the myth, it was Atlácatl who sent this message. Alvarado's forces launched a furious attack on their mountain positions in which many horses, Spaniards and their native auxiliaries were killed. Alvarado retreated from Cuzcatan on 4 July 1524. Two years after this battle, Alvarado's kinsman

Gonzalo de Alvarado Gonzalo de Alvarado y Contreras was a Spanish conquistador and brother of Pedro de Alvarado who participated in campaigns in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador (co-founding its present capital, San Salvador). Gonzalo de Alvarado was a native of ...

had founded a Spanish base at San Salvador (August 1526), from where the Spanish forces continued to raze the surrounding districts and combat the remaining Pipil resistance. Finally, in 1528,

Diego de Alvarado Diego is a Spanish masculine given name. The Portuguese equivalent is Diogo. The name also has several patronymic derivations, listed below. The etymology of Diego is disputed, with two major origin hypotheses: ''Tiago'' and ''Didacus''. ...

and his

Indian auxiliaries Indian auxiliaries were those indigenous peoples of the Americas who allied with Spain and fought alongside the conquistadors during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. These auxiliaries acted as guides, translators and porters, and in th ...

set out on another attack on Cuzcatan, during the defense of which the Nawat Pipil forces were defeated. One embellishment of the Atlácatl myth is that he jumped into a volcano to remain an unconquered legend.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Atlacatl Mesoamerican people Pipil History of El Salvador Audencia of Guatemala 1528 deaths Year of birth unknown 16th-century indigenous people of the Americas Salvadoran people of indigenous peoples descent

See also

References