Tayasal is on a small island surrounded by water, and unless the natives go by canoe, they cannot enter by land; and they whitewash the houses and temples so they may be seen from more than two leagues distantBernal Díaz del Castillo described Nojpetén in Chapter CLXXVIII of his Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España[1] Nojpetén was closely packed with buildings that included temples, palaces and thatched houses.

It had nine stepped levels and faced northward; it appeared very similar in design to the principal pyramids at Chichen Itza and Mayapan in Yucatán.

[6] In 1525, after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Hernán Cortés led an expedition to Honduras over land, cutting across the Itza kingdom en route.

[9] The Roman Catholic priests accompanying the expedition celebrated mass in the presence of Kan Ek', who was said to be so impressed that he pledged to worship the Cross and to destroy his idols.

[10] Cortés accepted an invitation from the king to visit Nojpetén, and crossed to the Maya city with a small contingent of Spanish soldiers while the rest of his army continued around the lake to meet him on the south shore.

[11] Cortés left behind a lame horse that the Itza treated as a deity, attempting to feed it poultry, meat, and flowers, but the animal soon died.

In 1618 two Franciscan friars set out from Mérida in Yucatán on a mission to attempt the peaceful conversion of the still pagan Itza in central Petén.

They stayed at Nojpetén for some days in an attempt to evangelise the Itza but the Aj Kan Ek' refused to renounce his Maya religion, although he showed interest in the masses held by the Catholic missionaries.

The missionaries' lodgings were surrounded by armed warriors and the friars and their accompanying servants were escorted to a waiting canoe and instructed to leave and never come back.

[16] Kan Ek' sent emissaries to Mérida in December 1695 to inform Martín de Ursúa that the Itza would peacefully submit to Spanish rule.

A Spanish party led by Captain Pedro de Zubiaur arrived at Lake Petén Itza with 60 soldiers, friar San Buenaventura and allied Yucatec Maya warriors.

This turn of events convinced Martín de Ursúa that Kan Ek' would not surrender peacefully and he began to organise an all-out assault on Nojpetén.

On 10 March Kan Ek' sent a canoe with a white flag raised bearing emissaries, including the Itza high priest, who offered peaceful surrender.

Ursúa decided that any further attempts at peaceful incorporation of the Itza into the Spanish Empire were pointless and a waterbourne assault was launched upon Kan Ek's capital on 13 March.

[21] Ursúa returned to Mérida, leaving Kan Ek' and other high-ranking members of his family as prisoners of the Spanish garrison at Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo.

The cousins died en route but the last Kan Ek' and his son spent the remainder of their lives under house arrest in the colonial capital.