1

Las Casas detained in Spain.

369

the chiefs that favoured the introduction of B. XV. Christianity, and the names of their provinces, which is a valuable contribution to the history, and perhaps to the ethnology, of Central America. They were Don Juan, Governor (so he is called) of the town of Atitlan, Don Jorge, Principal of the town of Tecpanatitan, Don Miguel, Principal of the town of Zizicaztenango, and Don Gaspar, Principal of the town of Tequizistlan.

detained in

The business of Las Casas at Court was finished, and the monks, for whose sustenance the good Bishop of Guatemala had provided, were ready to leave Spain, when the President of the Council of the Indies detained Las Casas, in order Las Casas that he might assist at certain councils which Spain. were about to be held, concerning the government of the Indies. This is the second time within a short period, that we have seen the Authorities in Spain anxious to avail themselves of the local knowledge and experience of eminent persons who had lived in the Indies.

The monks chosen to aid in the conversion of Guatemala consisted of Franciscans and Domini

cans.

The Dominicans were detained in Spain, Francis

Guatemala.

detained in

as Las Casas was their Vicar-General. But the cans sent to Franciscans were sent on, and with them went Dominicans Luis Cancér, carrying all the letters and royal Spain. Orders relating to the province of Tuzulutlan, still called "the Land of War," but which now de- Publication served that name less than any part of the Indies. at Seville of Before sailing, a very solemn proclamation was Order in made on the steps of the Cathedral at Seville of Tuzulutlan, that royal Order which sternly forbad the entrance 1541.

the royal

favour of

Jan. 21,

370

Royal Order in favour of Tuzulutlan.

B. XV. for the present of any lay Spaniards into the Ch. 7. favoured province of Tuzulutlan. This was a

precaution adopted by Las Casas, who well knew that the Provincial Governors, though they kissed the royal Orders very dutifully, and were wont to put them, after the Eastern fashion, upon their heads, with every demonstration of respect, were extremely dexterous in disobeying them, on the pretext that His Majesty had been misinformed, or had been informed in a left-hand manner (siniestramente). Las Casas, therefore, was anxious to give all possible publicity to this royal Order in Spain, where its validity could not be denied.

CHAPTER VIII.

DISCOVERY TO THE NORTH OF MEXICO-DEATH OF

ALVARADO EARTHQUAKE AT GUATEMALA

GUATEMALA GOVERNED BY AN AUDIENCIA.

THE

Ch. 8.

HE history of Guatemala is not so poor and B. XV. infertile as to be included in the account of the proceedings of the monks of its only monastery, deeply interesting as those proceedings are. The conversion of the natives of Tuzulutlan did not, probably, excite much attention amongst the inhabitants of Santiago after their first astonishment at the successful beginning of that conversion, and when their mocking laughter was no longer applicable. Not that we must imagine them to have been silenced. A prophet of ill, having all time before him, and most human affairs admitting of frequent reverses, holds a secure position; and, when controverted by facts as to the present time, has only, with an air of increased wisdom corresponding with the increased distance of his foresight, to prophesy larger evils at more advanced periods. In the present instance, however, the men who had laughed at or prophesied against Las Casas had enough to occupy their attention in their own affairs, for the infant colony at Guatemala had been anything but flourishing. The town of Santiago

Ch. 8.

372 Discontent in Alvarado's "Encomiendas."

B. XV. was torn by those small, yet vexatious disputes which infest a colony; and these colonies in America laboured under the additional difficulty arising from their inhabitants being, for the most part, a community of conquerors. Every private soldier had become a person of some importance; and, contemplating the great achievements that he had taken part in, each one, it is said, thought that he alone had gained New Spain for the Emperor.* Thus, magnifying his own merits, and diminishing those of others, every Spanish colonist was a man who had a grievance. This spirit of discontent might have been controlled, and frequently was so, by a wise and just Governor; but in this colony of Guatemala, the Governor, Pedro de Alvarado, had acted with so little care in giving Alvarado's encomiendas,† that even he himself confessed, on

encomiendas.

the occasion of some petition on the subject being presented to the Town Council, that "he had been deceived, and had erred much, when he had. divided the lands amongst his people; on which account he admitted that many persons had a just grievance to complain of."

Then the artizans in such a colony were a most difficult body to deal with, as from artizans they had been developed with more than tropical rapidity of growth into aristocrats. Moreover,

*"Cada uno entendia que él solo ganó al Rey la Nueva España."-REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. 4, cap. 4.

"Que á él le constava ser assí lo que la peticion_dezia, y |

que él se avia engañado y errado mucho quando repartió la tierra, por lo qual justamente muchos estavan agraviados.”—REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. 4, cap. 4.

Ch. 8.

manence in

where wealth had been so suddenly and largely B. XV. acquired, gaming, a favourite vice among the Spaniards, was sure to flourish largely. In such Want of pera community almost everything was fluent, the colony. nothing consolidated. The following fact strikingly exemplifies this want of fixity. Men who have been habituated to power, or even who have once enjoyed it, seldom like any other than an official life; but, in Guatemala, Regidores were seen to lay down their offices, that they might be free to go where they listed. The Governor himself afforded an example of restless enterprize, which no doubt was readily followed.

of the

The Indians suffered much from everything which tended to make the colony an ill-ordered Sufferings state, and they seem to have had a particular Indians. dread of Alvarado's cruelty. They were known to have fled in large numbers on the rumour of his coming back from any of his numerous journeys, when they doubtless feared that they would be seized upon for ship-building, in which kind of work they suffered greatly. Las Casas says that Alvarado, when he was accompanied by large bodies of Indian troops, permitted cannibalism in his camp, an accusation which has hardly been brought against any other commander. The Bishop of Guatemala, an intimate and affectionate friend of Alvarado's (who, with all his careless atrocity, seems to have had something about him which attached men), informs Bishop of the Emperor, in a letter bearing date the 20th of does not January, 1539, that now was not the time for the think that Indians to pay any such things as tithes, for what pay tithes.

The

they can