Q'eqchi'

The Q'eqchi' were a Maya people whose settlements were concentrated in the highlands of Verapaz, in present-day Guatemala. In 1537 the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas began a campaign to convert the peoples of Verapaz through preaching rather than military conquest.

In 1543 the colonial town of Cobán was founded to resettle Q'eqchi' communities. After a Spanish friar was killed in 1555, the Q'eqchi' leader Juan Matalbatz led a punitive expedition and brought captives back to the Cobán area.