page_title: Cobán
section_title: Order of Preachers in the Vera Paz
hierarchical_section_title: Cobán / History / Order of Preachers in the Vera Paz
caption_attribution_description: Cobán, Guatemala. Rabin Ahau parade. On the orange design on the float is the "Rabin Ahau", the India (Native American) beauty queen. (At the time, the "Miss Guatemala" beauty queen competition was restricted to Caucasian Guatemalans.)
context_page_description: Cobán, fully Santo Domingo de Cobán, is the capital of the department of Alta Verapaz in central Guatemala. It also serves as the administrative center for the surrounding Cobán municipality. It is located 219 km from Guatemala City.
  As of the 2018 census the population of the city of Cobán was at 212,047. The population of the municipality, which covers a total area of 1,974 km², was at 212,421. Cobán, at a height of 1320 metres above sea level, is located at the center of a major coffee-growing area.
context_section_description: Between 1530 and 1531, captain Alonso de Ávila on his way to Ciudad Real accidentally discovered the lagoon and hill of Lacam-Tún People of that place had historically traded with all the people that the Spaniards had conquered, so, knowing what was coming, they sought refuge in the jungle. The Spaniards tried in vain to conquer the lacandones: from Nueva España Juan Enríquez de Guzman tried; from the Yucatán Peninsula, Francisco de Montejo tried; Pedro de Alvarado attempted it from Guatemala along with captain Francisco Gil Zapata and, finally, Pedro Solórzano from Chiapas. That is when the Order of Preachers tried to convert the Tezulutlán "War Zone" into a peaceful region.
  In the meantime, after a series of setbacks in La Española, the island Audiencia allowed Bartolomé de las Casas to accept Friar Tomás de Berlanga's invitation to go to Nueva Granada in 1534, where he had just been appointed as Bishop. Both sailed toward Panamá, to then continued to Lima, but during the trip a storm tossed their ship to Nicaragua, where Las Casas chose to remain in the Granada convent. in 1535, he proposed to the King and the Council of the Indies to start a peaceful colonization of the unexplored rural zones in the Guatemala region; however, in spite of Bernal Díaz de Luco and Mercado de Peñaloza intentions to help him, his suggestion was rejected.  In 1536 Nicaraguan governor Rodrigo de Contreras organized a military expedition, but Las Casas was able to postpone it by a couple of years after he notified queen Isabel de Portugal, wife of Carlos V. Given the authorities' hostility, Las Casas left Nicaragua and went to Guatemala.
  In November 1536, Las Casas settled in Santiago de Guatemala, then the capital of Guatemala; a few months later, his friend, bishop Juan Garcés, invited him to move to Tlascala, but after a few weeks he came back to Guatemala. On May 2, 1537 governor Alonso de Maldonado granted him the Tezulutlán Capitulations - a written commitment ratified on July 6, 1539 by Antonio de Mendoza, México Viceroy- in which everybody agreed that Tezulutlán natives, once conquered, would not be given as encomienda but would be King's subjects. Las Casas, along with friars Rodrigo de Landa, Pedro Angulo and Luis de Cancer, looked for four Christian natives and taught them Christian hymns where the Gospel's basic principles were explained. Luis de Cancer visited the cacique of Sacapulas and was able to perform the first baptisms among his people.  Later, Las Casas lead a retinue to bring girts to the cacique, who was so impressed that he decided to convert and become his people preacher. The cacique was baptized with the name of Don Juan and the natives granted permission to build a small church; however, Cobán, another cacique, burned the church. Don Juan, along sixty men, Las Casas and Pedro Angulo, went to talk to Cobán's people and convinced them of their good intentions; Don Juan even took the initiative to marry one of his daughters with cacique Cobán by the Catholic Church.
  In 1539 pope Paul III authorized the diocese of Ciudad Real; that year, Alonso de Maldonado—under pressure by Spanish settlers—began a military campaign in Tezulutlán [...] gave all the natives in encomiendas.  This flagrant violation of the Capitulations enraged Las Casas, who traveled to Spain to denounce it before king Charles V.  On January 9, 1540 a royal document was issues which the Tezulutlán Capitulations were ratified and gave the region to the protection of the Order of Preachers. On October 17 of that year, Cardinal García de Loaysa -then president of the Indias Council- ordered the México Audiencia to comply with these laws. The Capitulations were officially published on January 21, 1541 in the church of Sevilla.
  Las Casas was appointed bishop of Chiapas in 1544, but he tried to apply the new ways in his diocese, they were flatly rejected by the encomenderos. In 1545, Guatemala bishop Francisco Marroquín visited Tezulutlán and met with the preachers. Back in the city of Gracias a Dios, where the Audiencia de los Confines had its main office-
caption: "Rabin Ahau" festival 1979
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