The Maya are believed to have first settled Cozumel by the early a part of the 1st millennium AD, and older Preclassic Olmec artifacts have been found on the island as well. The island was sacred to Ix Chel, the Maya Moon Goddess, and the temples here were a spot of pilgrimage, particularly by girls desiring fertility.There are a selection of ruins on the island, most from the Put up-Traditional period. The biggest Maya ruins on the island had been bulldozed to make means for an airplane runway during World Struggle II. The ruins of San Gervasio are positioned approximately on the middle of the island and are the biggest remaining ruins.

The primary Spanish customer was Juan de Grijalva in 1518 , and within the following year Hernán Cortés got here with a fleet and destroyed many Maya temples. Some forty,000 Mayans lived on the island then, however the smallpox disease devastated them, and by 1570 solely 30 were left alive In the ensuing years Cozumel was practically deserted, just used as a hideout by pirates from time to time. In 1848, the Caste War of Yucatán resulted in resettlement by refugees escaping the tumult. A plaque on the Museo Cozumel states that Abraham Lincoln, an American president, came shut to purchasing the island of Cozumel as a spot to send the freed slaves. The continued struggle in the Yucatan precipitated him to change his thoughts

 

 

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