Following the conquest of Mexico, Hernán Cortés commissions Pedro de Alvarado to explore the territories to the south.
Though outnumbered by the Quiché army led by Tecún Umán , the Spanish prevail with superior weapons, armor and horses.
After the Quiché defeat, the Spanish invaders continue on to subjugate the remaining indigenous groups, often befriending one group and using them to fight another. Eventually, all kingdoms are brought under Spanish control.
Roughly 750,000 indigenous people die within ten years of contact by brutal violence and European diseases for which the Mayan people had no resistance.
