passed through that province in search of Zacatula's gold mines.[1]
Before leaving Itzucan, Cortés was called upon to appoint a successor to the fugitive cacique. The candidates were a bastard son of the late native cacique, whose death was due to Montezuma, and the son of the deceased ruler's legitimate daughter, married to the lord of Quauhquechollan. The general, being only too eager to please so loyal an ally, decided in favor of his son, on the ground of legitimacy; but since he was not yet ten years old, the regency was intrusted to the bastard uncle, aided by some chiefs.[2] The boy followed the army to imbibe Spanish ideas and instruction, and received baptism not long after, with the name of Alonso,[3] the first Christian prince in New Spain.
Another important yet troublesome expedition was to secure the road to Villa Rica, on which so many Spaniards had fallen, and which was still dangerous. It was intrusted to two hundred men, with ten horses, and a large force of allies.[4] The first reduction in this quarter had been Quecholac, where pillage and enslavement formed the retaliation for murders committed,[5] and Tecamachalco, which gave greater trouble before it fell, and yielded over two thousand slaves,
- ↑ They had always been loyal, they said, although deterred by fear of Mexico from sooner proclaiming it; the four remaining pueblos of the province would soon send in their allegiance. Cortés, Cartas, 152–3.
- ↑ The construction of sentences in Cortés, Cartas, 152, and the complex relationship, have misled nearly every one who notices this incident — as, Gomara, Hist. Mex., 171; Vetancvrt, Teatro Mex., pt. iii. 147; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 116a.
- ↑ Alonso Coltzin. Chimalpain, Hist. Conq., ii. 12. Ixtlilxochitl calls him Ahuecatzin. Hist. Chich., 305. Alvarado stood sponsor. Terrified by some idle gossip, or by the preparations for his baptism, the boy asked the friar when he was to be sacrificed; but received comfort in a pious exhortation. Torquemada, i. 520.
- ↑ Herrera gives the command to Olid and Juan Rodriguez de Villafuerte, the owner of the much disputed first madonna image, accompanied by Juan Nuñez, Sedeño, Lagos, and Mata. dec. ii. lib. x. cap. xvii. Olid may have been detached from Quauhquechollan after the first success had made troops less necessary; yet Herrera indicates that he set out before this expedition.
- ↑ 'En lo de Cachula fue adonde auian muerto en los aposentos quinze Españoles.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 112.
