Guatemalan soldiers conquered a number of Chʼol communities, the most important being Sakbʼajlan on the Lacantún River in eastern Chiapas, now in Mexico, which was renamed as Nuestra Señora de Dolores, or Dolores del Lakandon. The Franciscan friar Andrés de Avendaño oversaw a second attempt to overcome the Itza in 1695, convincing the Itza king that the Kʼatun 8 Ajaw, a twenty-year Maya calendrical cycle beginning in 1696 or 1697, was the right time for the Itza to finally embrace Christianity and to accept the king of Spain as overlord. However the Itza had local Maya enemies who resisted this conversion, and in 1696 Avendaño was fortunate to escape with his life. The Itza's continued resistance had become a major embarrassment for the Spanish colonial authorities, and soldiers were despatched from Campeche to take Nojpetén once and for all. Fall of Nojpetén Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi arrived on the western shore of Lake Petén Itzá with his soldiers on 26 February 1697 and, once there, built a galeota, a large and heavily armed oar-powered attack boat. The Itza capital fell in a bloody waterborne assault on 13 March 1697. The Spanish bombardment caused heavy loss of life on the island; many Itza Maya who fled to swim across the lake were killed in the water. After the battle the surviving defenders melted away into the forests, leaving the Spanish to occupy an abandoned Maya town. The Itza and Kowoj kings (Ajaw Kan Ekʼ and Aj Kowoj) were soon captured, together with other Maya nobles and their families. With Nojpetén safely in the hands of the Spanish, Ursúa returned to Campeche; he left a small garrison on the island, isolated amongst the hostile Itza and Kowoj who still dominated the mainland. Nojpetén was renamed by the Spanish as Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo, Laguna del Itza ("Our Lady of Remedy and Saint Paul, Lake of the Itza"). The garrison was reinforced in 1699 by a military expedition from Guatemala, accompanied by mixed-race ladino civilians who came to found their own town around the military camp. The settlers brought disease with them, which killed many soldiers and colonists and swept through the indigenous population. The Guatemalans stayed just three months before returning to Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, taking the captive Itza king with them, together with his son and two of his cousins. The cousins died