The Maya city states were continuously at war with each other. By around AD 1240, most of the Maya territories disintegrated into small communities, battling against each other. All their wealth was destroyed by these frequent wars. This made their conquest by the Spanish easy.
In 1511, a Spanish ship sunk in the Caribbean, and about a dozen survivors entered the coast of Yucatan peninsula, in south-eastern Mexico. They were seized by a Maya lord, and most were sacrificed, although two managed to escape.
From 1517 to 1519, three separate Spanish expeditions explored the Yucatan coast, and engaged in a number of battles with the Maya inhabitants.
In 1523, Pedro de Alvarado came with a huge army. Earlier, they formed a good alliance with the Maya but it did not last long because Spanish demanded the gold as tribute.
Francisco de Montejo and his son, launched a long series of campaigns against the kingdoms of the Yucatan Peninsula in 1527, and finally completed the conquest of the northern portion of the peninsula in 1546. This left only the Maya kingdoms of the Peten Basin independent. In 1697, Martin de Ursua launched an assault on the Itza capital Nojpeten, and the last independent Maya city fell to the Spanish.