The period following the Spanish conquest of Yucatán — a conquest that took decades and was never as complete as the conquests of central Mexico, given the Yucatán’s lack of a single dominant political center that could be captured and used as a control point — saw the rapid transformation of Maya society under colonial rule.

The epidemics that swept through Maya communities from the sixteenth century onward killed enormous proportions of the population.

The specific severity varied by region and by the timing and character of European contact, but the overall pattern was catastrophic.

Some estimates suggest that the population of the Yucatán Peninsula declined by 80 to 90 percent in the century following initial contact, due to the combined effects of disease, violence, forced labor, and social disruption.

Spanish colonial religious policy actively worked to suppress Maya religious practices.