tarily tendering submission. A garrison was established, the nucleus of the villa de Compostela founded the next year, and regular officers were appointed to collect tribute and otherwise attend to the emperor's interests in this region. In the last days of May the horses were rested, the province was pacified, and the army ready to advance.[1]
Although successful in the acquisition, or rather appropriation, of vast tracts of land properly belonging to the conquest of Francisco Cortés, so far the expedition was deemed a failure, having "yielded but little gold and silver. It was expected, however, that the northern provinces and especially the country of the Amazons, the Hesperides of the sixteenth-century Spaniards, would yield ample compensation for all hardships. Progress hither was checked somewhat by the hostile attitude of the inhabitants of Centipac, or Temoaque, a rich and populous province on the northern bank of the Tololotlan, where Captain Barrios had been sent to explore and seek a ford. He crossed the river, but was repulsed with some loss by the native chieftains, who sent back a warning to Guzman not to invade their country on penalty of being cooked and eaten. The main army, however, marched at once from Tepic and reached the bank of the river on the 29th of May,[2] when the commander, clad in his best armor and mounted on a gayly caparisoned steed, entered the stream, and halting in the midst of the current named it Espíritu Santo. Then mounting the opposite bank, closely followed by the army, Guzman took possession of the new territory
- ↑ Here were appointed Francisco Verdugo, treasurer; Cristóbal de Oñate, contador, or auditor; Juan de Samano, factor; and Hernan Chirinos, veedor, or inspector; but most of these officers seer to have gone on with the army.
- ↑ This date — Espíritu Santo day — is given by Guzman, in several of the original documents, and by Oviedo, in. 571. Tello, Hist. N. Gal., 347, makes the date May 1st, which is the day of San Felipe and Santiago. This author was perhaps misled by the name Santiago afterward applied to the river. Beaumont, Crón. Mich.,i. 401, says the crossing took place early in 1531. A native captured near the river was delivered to the blood-hounds for refusing to give information.
