Chakán Putum

Chakán Putum, at the mouth of the Champotón River, gave its name to a Maya province that stretched from Seybaplaya to the Laguna de Términos and was settled by the Putún, the Chontal Maya of Tabasco. When the League of Mayapán broke up in 1441, it was one of the independent chiefdoms that took its place. The Spanish who saw it counted more than 8,000 houses and a fleet of over 2,000 canoes used for trade and fishing.

In 1517 the first Spanish expedition to the Mexican coast, under Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, landed for water. The soldier Bernal Díaz del Castillo says about a thousand armed Maya attacked, killed more than fifty Spaniards and wounded their captain, who died after returning to Cuba. The Spanish called the place the Port of the Bad Fight, and the chief Moch Couóh is remembered as the leader of the first defeat of a European army in the Americas. In 1518 Juan de Grijalva landed for water again, better prepared, and was wounded by arrows; no chief answered his call to talk. In 1538 Montejo moved a Spanish town here from Tabasco, the first Spanish foothold on the peninsula.