What led to the romantic perception of the Mayan civilization?
score:5
The following passage from Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan would lend some credence to the first two explanations of remarkable discoveries of a fallen civilization:
The sight of this unexpected monument put at rest at once and forever, in our minds, all uncertainty in regard to the character of American antiquities, and gave us the assurance that the objects we were in search of were interesting, not only as the remains of an unknown people, but as works of art, proving, like newly discovered historical records, that the people who once occupied the Continent of America were not savages.
Keep in mind that Stephens' books were the among the first western studies of Mayan sites and the first to gain wide circulation. On top of that, Stephens is quite a talented writer and writes in the style of similar works in during the period. Given that (as you point out) most earlier books and references had been systematically destroyed, these books would have been about the only point of reference to draw from. The books themselves read more like travel literature or real-life adventure than an anthropological or archaeological study - he was out to sell books and doesn't hide the fact, for example:
My object has been, not to produce an illustrated work, but to present the drawings in such an inexpensive form as to place them within the reach of the great mass of our reading community.
So likely, the answer is likely a combination of all of the things you mentioned, combined with a very healthy dose of not knowing much of anything about the Maya beyond brief examinations of the ruins. In fact, Stephens wildly underestimates the age of some of the sites:
I am inclined to think that there are not sufficient grounds for the belief in the great antiquity that has been ascribed to these ruins; that they are not the works of people who have passed away, and whose history has become unknown; but opposed as is my idea to all previous speculations, that they were constructed by the races that occupied the country at the time of the invasion by the Spaniards, or of some not very distant progenitors.
As for where Gendrop came up with the notion that the Maya were an "eminently peaceful people", it probably wouldn't have been from Stephens. Much of the impression that Stephens forms of the Maya implies a strong cultural continuity with the Aztec, and he acknowledges the accounts of Cortez as historically accurate, including his references to human sacrifice and territorial conflicts.
Upvote:2
Romanticism combined with the need of the Mexicans to have some sort of moral superiority to claim over their northern neighbours.
Wouldn't do to give the Americans in the Mexican-American war (and the Texas war of indepence from Mexico, and the other conflicts between them) a ready made image of hordes of bloodthirsty savages intent on cutting the hearts out of their conquered foes to use as propaganda.
And the romantics that formed the bulk of 19th century historians were quite eager to help create that image of the "noble savage", even when the evidence stared them in the face in the form of mass graves, altars with carved imagery of people brutally slaughtered, etc. etc.
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