page_title: Panajachel
section_title: Spanish colony
hierarchical_section_title: Panajachel / History / Spanish colony
caption_attribution_description: English: Area controlled by the Franciscans under Provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús in the XVII Century.
context_page_description: Panajachel is a town in the southwestern Guatemalan Highlands, less than 90 miles from Guatemala City, in the department of Sololá. It serves as the administrative centre for the surrounding municipality of the same name. The elevation is 1,597 metres. Population was 11 thousand in the 2000 census, estimated as 15,000 now, and has approximately doubled each of the last few decades. The town of Panajachel is located on the Northeast shore of Lake Atitlán, and has become a centre for the tourist trade of the area as it provides a base for visitors crossing the lake to visit other towns and villages.
  "Panajachel" derives from the Kaqchikel language and roughly translates to "place of the Matasanos," the white sapote fruit tree.
context_section_description: In the 16th century, during the period of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, the shore of the lake was the scene of a battle in which the Spanish and their Kaqchikel allies defeated the Tz'utujils. After the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, the Franciscans set up a church and monastery in Panajachel soon afterward, and used the town as a centre to convert the indigenous people of the region to the Roman Catholic faith. The original façade of the church still stands and is considered one of the gems of the colonial style in Guatemala.
  Panajachel was part of the Tecpán Atitlán "corregimiento" (English: Province) and when it turned into a major municipality in 1730, Panajachel became part of it as well; regarding the Catholic faith, this was in charge of the  franciscans, who had convents and doctrines in the area covered by the modern departments of Sacatepéquez, Chimaltenango, Sololá, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán, Suchitepéquez and Escuintla.  The "Provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús" (English:"Province of the most Holy Name of Jesus"), as the Franciscan area was then called, reached up to 24 convents.  By 1700, Panajachel had a convent with three priests, in charge of ca. 1800 people, four doctrines and twelve cofradías.
  Given that Panajachel had a convent, there was daily Mass attended by cofradías leaders and their wives, who kept lighted candles during most of the ceremony.  Also daily, there was religious teaching for 6-year-old girls and older starting at 2:00 pm and for boys of the same age starting at sunset;  the class lasted for 2 hours and consisted on memorizing the church teaching and prayers and to make some exercises with the catechism and it was run by a priest or by elder natives, called "fiscales".  Adults attended Mass every Sunday and holiday and after mass, there were religious teachings in their own language.
  Lent was a time of the year when the friars prepared the natives thoroughly, using their own language to accomplish their goals; every Friday of Lent there was a procession following the Rosary steps all the way to the Calvary temple.
  In 1754, as part of the borbon reforms, the Franciscans were forced to give their doctrines to the secular clergy; thus, when archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz visited Panajachel in 1770, he described it as the "San Francisco Panajachel parish".
caption: Some of the 24 convents of the Franciscan Provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús during the Spanish colony in Guatemala and the approximate area it doctrines occupied.
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