with regard to the value of his encomiendas. Doctor Zurita was consequently deputed by the audiencia to make the count of the Indians, and the report was against the holder.[1]
The crown then resolved that encomiendas should not be transmissible to the third generation. This measure was deemed unjust by the encomenderos, whose wrath against the king and his advisers became hot.[2] Among the more violent was Alonso de Ávila, whose income it is said was twenty thousand pesos per annum. With him were his brother and Baltasar de Aguilar, who as they talked of the matter among themselves, and with others, became more and more enraged, and in time it was said that the three were at the head of a conspiracy against the crown, and fast winning to their plans influential men by the offer of honors and offices, of all which the marquis was said to be apprised.[3] The viceroy hearing of it summoned to his presence the suspected parties, and spoke to them with his customary wisdom and kindness. Little more was heard of it at the time, and it was supposed the affair was at an end.[4] The encomenderos, however, resolved to bring before the crown the matter of their holdings. Having first obtained leave of the audiencia, on the 4th of February, 1564, they came before the city council of Mexico in a committee composed of Francisco de Velasco, Gonzalo de las Casas, Gonzalo Cerezo, and Rodrigo Maldonado. The council approved of the plan, and chose young
- ↑ Cortés complained that the computation had been purposely excessive, not so much to injure him as to blind the king. Carta (Oct. 10, 1563), in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., iv. 460-1. The viceroy on June 22, 1564, reported his towns to have upward of 60,000 natives that must have yielded 84,387 pesos annually, that is to say, a population of 47,000 and an income of over 47,000 pesos in excess of the original grant to his father. Orozco y Berra, Not. Hist., 29.
- ↑ Many of them in their excitement threatened to repudiate the king's authority in these dominions. Peralta, Not. Hist., 195.
- ↑ 'Se habló, que hazian ya maese de campo y oficiales, y titulos en los pueblos, de duques y condes; y puesto ya todo en platica, dieron parte dello al marqués.' Peralta, Not. Hist., 196.
- ↑ Velasco, notwithstanding, represented the marquis' conduct in dark colors; he could not avoid inflicting some punishment on his enemy.
