at first assigned to New Galicia, and the governor's first care was to distribute the Jalisco towns among his partisans,[1] encroaching without scruple on the earlier encomiendas of Francisco Cortés and others in southern Jalisco, the Ávalos provinces, Colima, and even Michoacan, maintaining that the former Discoverers had not permanently occupied the territory, and that he had been obliged to reconquer it — a plea of some plausibility, were it not that the hostility of the natives and the necessity for reconquest had resulted altogether from his own outrageous acts.[2] He founded, either immediately or within a few years, several Spanish settlements. Among these was the villa of Santiago de Compostela, in the immediate vicinity of Tepic and Jalisco towns, for a long time the capital of New Galicia.[3]
Not long afterward Juan de Oñate was sent to establish Espíritu Santo, Called later Guadalajara, in honor of Guzman's birthplace. The first founding was
- ↑ Tello, Hist. N. Gal., 355-62, gives a list of the principal encomiendas and the persons who received them. See also Société Amér., i. 33-52. Guzman Was 1n some way prompted to it, because several of his captains, asking permission to go to Mexico, went to Peru. Afraid lest the desertions might materially reduce his power, thus invalidating his conquest, he went in person to Ahuacatlan and the Rio Grande, where by tiberal grants of encomiendas he contrived to satisfy the discontented. Beaumont, Crón. Mich., iv. 58-9.
- ↑ The dispossessed holders appealed to the crown, and by cédula of April 20, 1533, Guzman was forbidden to meddle with Colima encomiendas. Puga, Cedulario, 82. He pleaded that the settlers of Colima had encroached on Jalisco. Carta, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xxiii. 438.
- ↑ Named after the capital of Galicia in Spaiu and honored with all the privileges of its old-world namesake. Also Called by some writers Espíritu Santo de Compostela, Compostela y Santiago. Ogilby, 1671, Dampier, 1699, Laet, 1633, West-Ind. Spieghel, 1624, write Compostella; the latter adds Cenquipa; Jefferys, 1776, Kiepert, 1852, Compostella. Cartog. Pac. Coast, MS., it. 528. Beaumont and Mota Padilla mention the year as 1535, but the different declarations given by Guzman's captains about the year 1532 speak already of the establishment, and agree that it was made on their return from the north, and hastened by the arrival of Castilla from Mexico. Guzman himself says in his letter of January 16, 1531, that the 'Villa del Espíritu Santo,' as he calls it, had been established in the Tepic province, and that it was the first town laid out on this expedition, but probably the real foundation was made when he returned. Ramirez, Proceso, 215, claims that Guzman founded the town in that place against the wishes of his officers, in order the better to defend himself by sea or land against Cortés. Tello gives a list of the early settlers. Hist. N. Gal., 360-1. Ancient map-makers fill up this space as follows: Lok, 1582, Galicia, in large letters across the country; Laet, 1633, Nueva Galicia; Kino, 1702, Nova Gallicia; Jefferys, 1776, New Gallicia or Guadalaxara; Kiepert, 1852, Jalisco or Nueva Galicia. Cartog. Pac. Coast, MS., 11. 552.,
