514
THE MIXTON WAR.
their deserts, being now reduced to some three hundred men, haggard and worn, clad in tatters and the skins of animals. They were kindly received by the Spanish settlers and natives, and the viceroy invited them to Mexico, where they were properly cared for.[1]
Not only this episode, but the early history of New Galicia, depends chiefly on Fray Antonio Tello, Fragmentos de la Historia de la Nueva Galicia, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. 343-438. The author was a learned Franciscan and a native of Guadalajara, who occupied positions of honor and trust in his order during his long life and service in Mexico, being also one of the religious who accompanied Sebastian Vizcaino in his expedition for the discovery of the 'Island of California' in 1596. He wrote or at least revised his work between 1650 and 1652, when he must have been about 86 years of age. Mota Padilla, and Beaumont, author of the Crónica de Michoacan, made frequent use of Tello's manuscript. The former speaks of it as the Cronicon del Padre Tello, and it seems then to have been complete. Beanmont, who wrote about 1780, said that he had seen the manuscript long before, and that it had been lost, which implies that the loss occurred between the date of his seeing it and that of his writing. Beristain, Biblioteca, refers to him as the author of the Historia de Xalisco y de la Nueva Vizcaya, MS., adding that an extract existed in the archives of the province of the Santo Evangelio of Mexico. Icazbalceta was not allowed access to those archives while the Santo Evangelio existed, and after the closing of the convents he could not find the manuscript. The title of the book has reached us, thanks to Icazbalceta's efforts: Libro Segundo de la Cronica Miscelánea en que se trata de la Conquista espiritual y temporal de la Santa Provincia de Santiago de Jalisco y Nueva Vizcaya, y descubrimiento del Nuevo México. The two fragments being a copy in the possession of Hilariano Romero Gil, of Guadalajara, were presented to and published by Icazbalceta, with the valuable literary assistance of Romero Gil himself, as the editor informs us, and were preceded by remarks on what he had ascertained about Tello's manuscript, particularly chapters viii. to xiii., the last. apparently incomplete, and chapters xxvi. to xxxix., probably of the second book, which chapters give a portion of the expeditions of Nuño de Guzman, the conquest of territories and founding of towns, an extensive account of the great uprising of the Indians in Nueva Galicia, and the campaign for their subjugation, to the capture of the Mixton in 1542 by Viceroy Mendoza. The style is pure and even elegant as compared with contemporary writings, clear and to the point, and the writer evidently availed himself judiciously of the labor of others to obtain information.
A later and complete book on the same region is that by Mota Padilla, Historia de la Conquista de la Provincia de la Nueva Galicia, Mex., 1870,
- ↑ Full particulars of the expedition may be found in Garcilaso de la Vega, La Florida, 255 et seq.; Robertson's Hist. Am., ii. 1005; Monette's Hist. Discov. Miss., 1. 63-4; Biedma, Narr., in French's Hist. Louisiana, 97-220.
