expedition to enforce his demands. At this juncture arrived Juan Perez de Gijon, alcalde of San Estévan, and appealed for a stay of hostilities, chiefly for the sake of the settlers, promising either to effect a peaceful arrangement, or to return to Mexico as a prisoner. For this unauthorized mediation Guzman treated him rather severely, and like Regulus the alcalde went back to redeem his word.[1]
Meanwhile Captain Gil Gonzalez de Benavides, alcalde of Mexico,[2] had approached the boundary and taken possession of the tract in dispute.[3] A commissioner thereupon came down from San Estévan to arrange the matter, but nothing was effected until Guzman managed, under a change of circumstances, to settle everything according to his own fancy.[4]
Not content with encroaching on Mexico, Guzman had turned his desire also to the adjoining northern territory of Rio de las Palmas, granted to Pánfilo de Narvaez as a solace for the defeat inflicted by Cortés. Like other little known regions it was supposed to be rich in precious metals; not more so than his own interior tracts, but more alluring since it belonged to another; and he resolved to gather the first-fruit before the rightful owner appeared. To this end he sent his cousin, Caniego, with all his available force. The expedition penetrated for a considerable distance without finding any settlements of note, and struggling
- ↑ He left Mexico in the beginning of December, and returned March 16, 1528. Id.
- ↑ Testimony in Cortés, Residencia, i. 31i-12, ii. 147, shows that Estrada at first proposed to go in person to seize Guzman and 'desolate Pánuco,' but the rumored disloyal projects of Cortés deterred him. Estrada was not a military man, however.
- ↑ 'Prendio a Andres Duero e a Juan Astudillo e a otros dos . . . e destruyo la tierra.' Zuñiga, in Id., ii. 147. This Duero appears to be the secretary from Cuba who at first befriended Cortés and then became his enemy.
- ↑ Benavides offered to surrender 'Tepehuacan, Quautla, Yahualica,' but insisted on retaining the towns in the district of 'Meztitlan, Oxitapa, Tlamatlan, and Guazalingo.' Libro de Cabildo, MS., February 19, 1528. Caniego is named as the Pánuco commissioner, though he appears to have gone to Spain about this time. The audiencia of Mexico, which arrived this year, with Guzman for president, received orders to define the boundary, and to forbid any encomendero to hold land on both sides of it, or to keep natives out of their native district.
