During the year 1545, Bartolomé de las Casas arrived at San Francisco de Campeche, and claiming that Yucatan was included in his diocese, exhorted the Spaniards to liberate their slaves. "Providence," exclaimed the apostle of the Indies, "only desires to work on misguided souls through the teachings of the gospel; it has a horror of unjust wars undertaken in its name; it wishes neither captives nor slaves to bow before its altars. Persuasion and gentle treatment are enough to win the hearts of the most obdurate to the shrine of God." The colonists answered this appeal with slights and threats. They subjected the bishop to incessant annoyances; they denied his claim to the diocese; they refused him the means of support; and being left to find his way back to Chiapas as best he could, he was compelled to borrow one hundred castellanos from one of the friars to defray expenses. Before his departure, however, many of the vecinos, ashamed of their conduct, besought his forgiveness, and testified their sincerity by presents.
Soon after the pacification of Yucatan, Villapando is invited by the adelantado to settle at Mérida, then the capital of the province. Here he founds a convent, and so successful are his efforts that his proselytes soon number more than one thousand, among them being many of the leading caciques. In company with Father Melchor de Benavente he then sets out for the region south of Mérida, travelling barefooted and staff in hand toward Mani in the fastnesses of the sierra. Here the missionaries meet with marked success, and soon two thousand of their converts are engaged in building for them a church and a dwelling.
For a time they are not molested in their labors; but when they endeavor to procure the release of the natives from the bondage in which they are held by their caciques, the latter resolve to burn them alive, while celebrating worship in the sanctuary. On the 28th of September, 1548, the eve of Saint Michael's
