Having their main city on a wide river near the ocean allowed them to have an extensive sea trade network.

Juan de Grijalva went up the river to discover the inland area, and found four canoes full of Tabascans, painted and making gesticulations and gestures of war.

But Grijalva sent the Mayas Julián and Melchorejo who were kidnapped from Ekab, so that they could explain to the Tabascans in the Chontal language that they came in peace.

We were being followed by more than two thousand Indians and they were making signs of war (...) This river flows from very high mountains, and this land seems to be the best upon which the sun shines; if it were to be more settled, it would serve well as a capital: it is called the Potonchán province.—Juan Díaz, Itinerary of Grijalva (1518) Once ashore, Juan de Grijalva, with the help of Maya interpreters that he had taken earlier, began to strike up a friendly dialog.

In addition to flattering the natives with gifts, Grijalva begged them to call their boss to meet and hold talks with him.

He decided to have his ships drop anchor and enter the river in skiffs, in search of the great city of Potonchán described by Juan de Grijalva.

On the twelfth day of the month of March of the year one-thousand five-hundred nineteen, we arrived with all the fleet at the Rio de Grijalva, which is also called Tabasco(...) and from the smaller vessels and boats all the soldiers were landed at the Cape of the Palms(as they were in Grijalva's time) which was about half a league distant from the town of Tabasco.

The river, the river banks and the mangrove thickets were swarming with Indians (...) in addition to this there were assembled in the town more than twelve thousand warriors all prepared to make war on us...—Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España (1519)[4] To discover their intentions, Cortés, used a translator, to tell some Tabascans that were in a boat that "he would do no harm, to those who came in peace and that he only wanted to speak with them."

But Cortés, seeing that the natives were still threatening, ordered weapons brought on the boats and handed them to archers and musketeers, and he began planning how to attack the city.

[4] ... and they surrounded us with their canoes with such a spray of arrows that they made us stop with water up to our waists, and there was so much mud that we could not get out and many Indians charged us with spears and others pierced us with arrows, ensuring that we did not touch land as soon as we would have liked, and with so much mud we couldn't even move, and Cortés was fighting and he lost a shoe in the mud and came to land with one bare foot(...) and we were upon them on land crying to St. James and we made them retreat to a wall that was made of timber, until we breached it and came in to fight with them(...) we forced them through a road and there they turned to fight face-to-face and they fought very valiantly....—Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de population la Nueva España (1519)[4] Alonso de Ávila arrived to the combat developing within Potonchán with his hundred men who went traveled by land, making the Tabascans flee and take refuge in the mountains.

Upon hearing the shots and drums, Alvarado went in aid of Lugo, and together, after a long fight, they were able to make the natives flee.