Xinka

The Xinka are a non-Maya people of the Pacific plain and highlands of southeastern Guatemala, in what is now Santa Rosa and Jutiapa. Their languages have no known relatives, though they borrowed many words from Mayan, and they may have lived there before the Maya and the Pipil arrived.

In 1524 Pedro de Alvarado crossed their country with 250 Spanish infantry and some 6,000 native allies, and took their chief city, Atiquipaque, near Taxisco, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting. The Xinka then paid tribute in cacao, cotton, salt and vanilla, and many were enslaved and made to join the conquest of El Salvador. After 1575 their culture and language declined rapidly as people were shipped to other regions.