the Spanish to collect revenue from the Mayan people. The Tz'utujil community has never had over ten cofradías at a given time, but larger indigenous communities sometimes have up to twenty cofradías. Although the cofradías were intended to be Catholic sites, the Tz’utujil people participated in ritual activity that was more in line with indigenous practices than Catholic practices, such as idolatry. Economically, Mayan leaders used the revenue collection from the cofradías as a means of bargaining with priests to gain favors. The Mayan communities would protest against priests who did not comply with the leaders’ offers by doing things such as intentionally not paying the priests and attacking the priests’ public images. Demographics The Tz'utujil population was estimated to decrease from 72,000 in 1520 to 48,000 in 1525 to 5,600 in 1550 to 5,300 in 1575. Geographer Dr. W. George Lovell suspects that the population decline is linked to an outbreak of either smallpox, measles, influenza, pneumonic plague, or exanthematic typhus originating from an outbreak amongst the Kachiquel Maya. Anthropologist Dr. Sandra L. Orellana suggests that additional causes of death among the Tz’utujil during the colonial era are gold mining and battles with the Spanish. 20th-century land distribution In the 19th century, Guatemala transitioned to a capitalist economy and in the 20th century, Guatemalan leaders expropriated agricultural lands that belonged to indigenous people to the non-indigenous. This process created estates called fincas that were not owned by indigenous people. At the beginning of the century, 95 fincas had Tz’utujil workers working under debt peonages. By 1928, 80% of Tz’utujil people worked under debt peonages. Anthropologist Robert S. Carlsen reports that in 1990, fewer than a quarter of Tz’utujil people did not have enough land to provide sufficient food for themselves and their families. 1990 massacre in Santiago Atitlán As part of the Guatemalan genocide, guerilla violence occurred near Lake Atitlán in the 1980s. In June 1980, the guerrilla group, Organization of People in Arms, recruited citizens in the region. By December of that year, ten disappearances through guerilla force were reported. Throughout the decade, guerilla violence persisted against the Tz’utujil people as the guerilla army murdered hundreds. Following the 1985 election of Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo and terror in 1987, the guerilla violence was reduced in the region. On December 1, 1990, five local soldiers became intoxicated then injured a 19-year-old from Santiago Atitlán while trying to invade a cantina