selves till their last cartridge was spent, inflicting heavy loss upon their assailants, Iriarte alone killing eighteen. But the crowd now closed in upon them in overpowering numbers, and the ground was quickly covered with the slain. It is said that some, to avoid death by the hands of the merciless victors, threw themselves into the well.
By five o'clock in the afternoon the contest, which had lasted for four hours, ceased, and orders were given to take the prisoners to the jail from which the criminals had been released. Naked and wounded and bound with cords, the wretched survivors were dragged and driven along with insults, blows, and threats of death, many of them dying on the way. Others perished in the prison. Gilberto Riaño and Bernabe Bustamante, both badly wounded, were permitted to go into a private house, but died a few days afterward. Among the slain were sons of the first families of Guanajuato, and many of the principal citizens. With regard to the number killed no certainty can be arrived at, but it probably amounted to over six hundred men, soldiers and civilians.[1]
Of the insurgents, exclusive of the regular soldiers
- ↑ According to Bustamante, 105 Spaniards and an equal number of soldiers perished. Id., 41. Alaman says about 200 soldiers and 105 Spaniards, following Bustamante, but remarking in a note, 'Creo que murió mayor numero de españoles.' Hist. Mej., i. 434-5. Zamacois considers that more than 200 soldiers were slain, and not less than 150 Spaniards. Hist. Mej., vi. 394. But Liceaga examines the question with some closeness. He argues that the number of Europeans as given by Bustamante only included known inhabitants of the city whose deaths were noticed at the time. A large number of Europeans, estimated by him at not less than 300, had, however, flocked into the city as a place of refuge from the surrounding towns as soon as the news of the rebellion reached them. The greater part of these were unknown, their arrival even being unnoticed. Most of them perished; and he considers that 400 Europeans fell as well as nearly all the soldiers. Adic. y Rectific., 117. Although Liceaga has, perhaps, overestimated the number of Europeans, bearing in mind the exterminating character of the contest, I think it probable that the survivors bore a comparatively small numerical proportion to the slain; and as there were many Europeans in the alhóndiga other than those who bore arms, I think the numbers given by the three first named authors underrated. I may add that Torrente, whose unmitigated partiality to Spanish domination in the colonies leads him to make assertions which can only be classed as mendacious, boldly states that 2,000 loyal victims were killed and 2,000 more cast into dungeons. Hist. Rev. Hisp. Am., i. 145. Robinson says: 'The unfortunate Spaniards, and all who adhered to them, were sacrificed by the infuriated Indians.' Mem. Hex. Rev., i. 28.
