Sacapulas, Quiché, Guatemala Genealogy

Guide to Municipality of Sacapulas ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, church records, parish registers, and civil registration.

History

 * After being an important town in pre-Columbian times, it was part of the Tezulutlán region where numerous indigenous people barricaded themselves to resist the Spanish conquest. When Spaniards and indigenous Tlaxcalans and Cholulans invaded Guatemala, the region of Sacapaulas and other Ixil and Uspantek indigenous villages resisted the conquest for several years thanks to their location in the Cuchumatanes mountains and the ferocity of their warriors; after several years of defeating the Spanish conquest attempts, they were finally defeated in December 1530, and the surviving warriors were marked as slaves in punishment for their prolonged resistance.
 * On July 6, 1539 the friar Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. got the authorization of the Viceroy of Mexico Antonio de Mendoza so that the natives of Tezulutlan, when they were conquered, were not given in charge but were vassals of the Crown.
 * As of August 12, 1872, Sacapulas became part of the new department of Quiché.
 * During the Civil War of Guatemala Sacapulas was immersed in the radius of action of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), one of the guerrilla organizations that operated in Guatemala and that justified their attacks against private property and the State arguing that they affected, On the one hand, the economic interests of the State and the productive sectors, and on the other, that violated the Army.
 * The municipality of Sacapulas has an approximate population of 36,000 people

Civil Registration

 * 1877-1930 (*) at FamilySearch Catalog — images

Church Records

 * 1581-1977 at FamilySearch — How to Use this Collection; index and images

Census Records

 * 1795-1819 (*) at FamilySearch Catalog — images
 * 1813 (*) at FamilySearch Catalog — images

Cemeteries

 * Cementerio Municipal de Sacapulas, Antiguo (Barrio San Francisco)
 * Cementerio Municipal de Sacapulas, Nuevo (Caserío Chupacay)