Guatemala–Spain relations are the current and historical relations between Guatemala and Spain. Both nations are members of the Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.
History
Spanish conquest
The first Spanish troops to arrive to Guatemala were led by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado in 1524. On arrival to the territory, the Spaniards discovered various peoples of the Mayan and Nahua cultures. The Spaniards, with help of indigenous allies and Tlaxcaltec troops, began to slowly conquer the peoples of Guatemala. The first and major battles involved the Kʼicheʼ people who were defeated in March 1524 and resulted in the capture of the K'iche' capital of Qʼumarkaj. In 1525, Spanish conquistador of the Aztec Empire, Hernán Cortés arrived to Petén to subdue the rebellious Cristóbal de Olid who had been sent to conquer Honduras. Cortés soon returned to New Spain after the battles.
Soon after the conquest of southern Guatemala, the Spanish, in 1557 founded the city Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala which was to be the capital of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Spanish missionaries soon began to Guatemala to convert the native indigenous people to Catholicism. In March 1697, the Spanish fully conquered all of Guatemala for Spain after the conquest of Petén. The Captaincy General of Guatemala became part of New Spain and was governed by the Viceroy of New Spain based in Mexico City.
Independence
In 1808, Joseph Bonaparte was installed as King of Spain and several Spanish American colonies began to declare their independence from Spain. As Guatemala and most Central American nations were governed by Mexico City; New Spain declared its independence from Spain in 1810. In 1821, the Plan of Iguala which declared Mexico as a constitutional monarchy. Guatemala declared its own independence from Spain on 15 September 1821 and chose to join the Mexican Empire under Emperor Agustín de Iturbide.
In March 1823, Iturbide resigned as Emperor and Mexico became a republic. Guatemala decided to separate from Mexico on 1 July 1823. Guatemala, along with El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica formed the Federal Republic of Central America (with the exception of the Guatemala province of Chiapas which choose to remain part of Mexico in July 1824). In 1839 the Central American Federation dissolved and Guatemala became an independent nation.
Post-Independence
In May 1863, Guatemala and Spain signed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Recognition. During the 1920s, several hundred Spaniards immigrated to Guatemala. In 1960, Guatemala entered into a civil war between the government and various leftist rebel groups supported chiefly by ethnic Maya indigenous people and Ladino peasants. In September 1977, King Juan Carlos I of Spain paid an official visit to Guatemala, his first and only trip as King to the country.
Burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala
In the early morning of 31 January 1980, a group of Guatemalan peasants from the Committee for Peasant Unity, joined by workers and students, entered the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City. The protesters announced that they had come to the embassy peacefully and that they would hold a press conference to state their grievances against the Guatemalan government. The protesters choose to enter the Spanish embassy as Spain had been sympathetic towards their cause. At the time the protesters entered, the Spanish Ambassador, Máximo Cajal López was meeting with former Guatemalan Vice-President Eduardo Rafael Cáceres Lehnhoff at the embassy.