Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican/Volume 1/Book 2/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
1624—1642.
Don Roderigo Pacheco Osorio, Marques de Cerralvo,
XV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1624—1635.
Upon the violent expulsion of the viceroy Gelves by the popular outbreak, narrated in the last chapter, the government of New Spain fell once more into the hands of the Audiencia during the interregnum. This body immediately adopted suitable measures to terminate the disaffection. The people were calmed by the deposition of one they deemed an unjust ruler; but for a long time it was found necessary to keep on foot in the capital, large bands of armed men, in order to restain those troublesome persons who are always ready to avail themselves of any pretext for tumultuary attacks either against property or upon people who are disposed to maintain the supremacy of law and order.
As soon as Philip IV. was apprised of the disturbances in his transatlantic colony, he trembled for the security of Spanish power in that distant realm, and immediately despatched Don Martin Carillo, Inquisitor of Valladolid, with unlimited power to examine into the riots of the capital and to punish the guilty participants in a signal and summary manner. It is not our purpose, at present, to discuss the propriety of sending from Spain special judges, in the character of Visitadores or Inquisitors, whenever crimes were committed by eminent individuals in the colony, or by large bodies of people, which required the infliction of decided punishment.
But it may be regarded as one of the characteristic features of the age, and as demonstrative of the peculiar temper of the king that an Inquisitor was selected upon this occasion for so delicate and dangerous a duty. It is true that the church, through the late archbishop, was concerned in this painful affair; but it little accords with the ideas of our age to believe it necessary that a subject of such public concern as the insurrection against an unjust and odious viceroy should be confined to the walls of an inquisition or conducted by one of its leading functionaries alone. Had the investigation been intrusted exclusively to a civil and not an ecclesiastical judge, it is very questionable whether he should have been sent from Spain for this purpose alone. Being a foreigner, at least so far as the colony was concerned, he could have scarcely any knowledge of or sympathy with the colonists. Extreme impartiality may have been ensured by this fact; yet as the Visitador or Inquisitor departed, as soon as his special function ceased, he was never responsible for his decrees to that wholesome public opinion which visits the conduct of a judge with praise or condemnation during his life time when he permanently resides in a country, and, is always the safest guardian of the liberty of the citizen.
It seems, however, that the Inquisitor administered his office fairly and even leniently in this case, for his judgments fell chiefly on the thieves who stole the personal effects of the viceroy during the sacking of the palace. The principal movers in the insurrection had absented themselves from the capital, and prudently remained in concealment until the Visitador terminated his examinations, inflicted his punishments upon the culprits he convicted, and crossed the sea to report his proceedings at court.
Carillo had been accompanied to New Spain by a new viceroy, Don Roderigo Pacheco Osorio, Marques of Cerralvo, who arrived in the capital on the 3d of November, 1624, and assumed the government. He left the examination of the insurrection entirely in the hands of the Inquisitor and directed his attention to the public affairs of the colony. These he found peaceful, except that a Dutch squadron, under the command of the prince of Nassau attacked Acapulco, and the feeble city and garrison readily surrendered without resistance. The fleet held the city, however, only for a few days, and set sail for other enterprises. This assault upon an important port alarmed the viceroy, who, at once, sent orders to have the town immediately surrounded with a wall, and suitable forts and bastions erected which would guard it in all subsequent attacks. These fortifications were hardly commenced when another Dutch fleet appeared before the town. But this time the visit was not of a hostile nature;—it was an exhausted fleet, demanding water and provisions, after recovering which it resumed its track for the East Indies. Whilst the Spaniards were thus succoring and sustaining their enemies the Dutch, a dreadful famine scourged Sinaloa and neighboring provinces, carrying off upwards of eight thousand Indians.
During the long reign of the present monarch, Philip IV., Spain was frequently at war with England, Holland, and France; and the Dutch, who inflicted dreadful ravages on the American coasts, secured immense spoil from the Spaniards. In 1628, Pedro Hein, a Hollander of great distinction, placed a squadron in the gulf on the coasts of Florida to intercept the fleet of New Spain. The resistance made by the Spaniards was feeble, and, their vessels being captured by the Dutch, the commerce of Mexico experienced a severe blow from which it was long in recovering.
In 1629, there were ecclesiastical troubles in the colony, growing out of an attempt by the higher order of the Spanish clergy to prevent the increase of the regular priesthood from among the natives of the country. They feared that in the course of time the dominion of the establishment would thus be wrested from their hands by the power of the Mexicans. The king, himself was appealed to on this subject and caused it to be examined into carefully. In 1631, in consequence of the repeated danger of the capital from floods, the project of removing the site from its present location, to the loftier levels between Tacuba and Tacubaya, was seriously argued before the people. But the interest of property holders, and inhabitants of the city would have been so seriously affected by this act, that the idea was abandoned.
The remaining years of this viceroyalty were consumed in matters of mere local detail and domestic government, and in fact we know but little of it, save that the severe inundations of 1629 caused the authorities to use their utmost efforts in prosecuting the work of the desague, as we have already seen in the general account given of that gigantic enterprise. In 1635 this viceroy's reign terminated.
Don Lope Diaz de Armendariz, Marques de Cadereita,
XVI. Viceroy of New Spain
1635—1640.
The five years of this personage's government were unmarked by any events of consequence in the colony; except that in the last of them,—1640,—he despatched an expedition to the north, where he founded in New Leon, the town of Cadereita, which the emigrants named in honor of their viceroy.
Don Diego Lopez Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla,
Duke of Escalona, Marques of Vilbua and Grandee of
Spain of the first class.
XVII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1640—1642.
The Duke of Escalona succeeded the Marques of Cadereita, and arrived in Mexico on the 28th of June, 1640, together with the venerable Palafox, who came, in the character of Visitador, to inquire into the administration of the last viceroy whose reputation, like that of other chief magistrates in New Spain, had suffered considerably in the hands of his enemies. Whilst this functionary proceeded with his disagreeable task against a man who was no longer in power, the duke, in compliance with the king's command ordered the governor of Sinaloa, Don Luis Cestinos, accompanied by two Jesuits, to visit the Californias and examine their coasts and the neighboring isles in search of the wealth in pearls and precious metals with which they were reputed to be filled. The reports of the explorers were altogether satisfactory both as to the character of the natives and of the riches of the waters as well as of the mines, though they represented the soil as extremely sterile. The gold of California was reserved for another age.
Ever since the conquest the instruction of Indians in christian doctrine had been confided exclusively to the regular clergy of the Roman Catholic church. The secular priests were, thus, entirely deprived of the privilege of mingling their cares with their monastic brethren, who, in the course of time, began to regard this as an absolute, indefeasible right, whose enjoyment they were unwilling to forego, especially as the obvenciones or tributes of the Indian converts, formed no small item of corporate wealth in their respective orders. The Indians were, in fact, lawful tributaries, not only of the whole church, in the estimation of these friars, but of the special sect or brotherhood which happened to obtain the first hold on a tribe or nation by its missionary residence among its people. Palafox requested the Duke of Escalona to deprive the monkish orders of this monopoly; a desire to which the viceroy at once acceded, inasmuch as he was anxious to serve the bishop in all matters pertaining to his religious functions.
The kindly feeling of the viceroy does not appear to have been appreciated, or sincerely responded to by Palafox. This personage was removed in 1642, to the archiepiscopal see of Mexico, and under the pretext of installation in his new office and opening his tribunals, he visited the capital with the actual design of occupying the viceroyal throne to which he had been appointed! This was a sudden and altogether unexpected blow to the worthy duke, who was so unceremoniously supplanted. No one seems to have whispered to him even a suspicion of the approaching calamity, until the crafty Palafox assembled the oidores at midnight on the eve of Pentecost, and read to them the royal despatches containing his commission. His conduct to the jovial hearted duke, who was no match, in all probability, for the wily churchman, was not only insincere but unmannerly, for, immediately after the assumption of his power at dead of night, he commanded a strong guard to surround the palace at dawn, and required the Oidor Lugo, to read the royal cedula to the duke even before he left his bed. The deposed viceroy immediately departed for the convent at Churubusco, outside the city walls on the road to San Agustin de las Cuevas. All his property was sequestrated, and his money and jewels were secured within the treasury.
The reader will naturally seek for an explanation of this political enigma, or base intrigue, and its solution is again eminently characteristic of the reign in which it occurred. It will be remembered that the Duke of Braganza had been declared King of Portugal, which kingdom had separated itself from the Spanish domination, causing no small degree of animosity among the Castilians against the Portuguese and all who favored them. The Duke of Escalona, unfortunately, was related to the house of Braganza, and the credulous Philip having heard that his viceroy exhibited some evidences of attachment to the Portuguese, resolved to supercede him by Palafox. Besides this, the Duke committed the impolitic act of appointing a Portuguese, to the post of Castellan of St. Juan de Ulua; and, upon a certain occasion, when two horses had been presented to him by Don Pedro de Castilla, and Don Cristobal de Portugal, he unluckily, remarked that he liked best the horse that was offered by Portugal! It is difficult to believe that such trifles would affect the destiny of empires, when they were discussed by grave states-men and monarchs. But such was the miserable reign of Philip IV.;—the most disastrous indeed, in the annals of Spain, except that of Roderic the Goth. Folly like this may justly be attributed to the imbecile king, who witnessed the Catalan insurection, the loss of Rousillon, Conflans, a part of Cordaña, Jamaica, and, above all, of Portugal; and who, moreover, recognized the independence of the Seven United Provinces.
Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,
Bishop of Puebla—Chosen Archbishop of Mexico,
Visitador of New Spain, & c. & c,
XVIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1642.
The administration of Palafox as viceroy was of but short duration. He occupied the colonial throne but five months, yet, during that brief space, he did something that signalized his name both honorably and disgracefully. He seems to have been ridiculously bent upon the sacrifice of all the interesting monuments which were still preserved from the period of the conquest as memorials of the art and idolatry of the Aztecs. These he collected from all quarters and destroyed. He was evidently no friend of the friars but sought to build up and strengthen the secular clergy whose free circulation in the world brought them directly under the eye of society, and whose order made them dependent upon that society, and not upon a corporation, for maintenance. During his short reign he manifested kindness for the Indians; caused justice to be promptly administered, and even suspended certain worthy oidores who did not work as quickly and decide as promptly as he thought they ought to; he regulated the ordinances of the Audiencia; prepared the statutes of the university; raised a large body of militia to be in readiness in case of an attack from the Portuguese; visited the colleges under his secular jurisdiction; and, finally, in proof of his disinterestedness, refused the salary of viceroy and visitador.