Hidden Histories of Captive and Enslaved Maya Women in the Indigenous Americas

Abstract

Few archaeological studies of Pre-Columbian Maya peoples mention enslaved individuals. While ethnohistoric texts attest to the likelihood of Indigenous Maya enslavement practices before the arrival of Spanish conquistadores and friars, archaeologists are reluctant to consider such practices and peoples into interpretative frameworks because of their tremendous ambiguity in the archaeological record. This paper embraces and probes the ambiguity of the archaeological record to interrogate the possibility of hidden histories of captive and enslaved Maya individuals in general and captive and enslaved Maya women in particular during the Classic and Postclassic periods. It argues that such women cannot be found in particular types of artifacts or hieroglyphic texts but at the intersection of names and landscapes.