CHAPTER XVII.
CONQUEST OF NUEVA GALICIA.
1526-1534.
Coruña's Mission — Advance of the Cross — Entry of Guzman into Michoacan — His Atrocities — Terrible Fate of King Tangaxoan — Campaign in Cuinas, Cuitzco, and along Chapala Lake — Battle of Tonalá — Raids from Nochistlan — El Gran Teul — Operations in Jalisco — In Quest of the Amazons — The Greater Spain — Crossing the Espíritu Santo — On to Aztatlan — Devastating Floods — Branding Slaves — The Amazon Myth — Change of Plans — Founding of Towns — Guzman Defies the Audiencia — Castilla's Discomfiture — Nemesis — Bibliography.
It has been related how Cortés, lured by ever present rumors of gold and pearls, had sent forth expeditions which skirted the southern sea from rich Tututepec to distant Jalisco, and then retired to Colima and Tzintzuntzan to form nuclei for proposed colonies, and starting-points for more effective invasions, In Michoacan the exploitation of mines proved a means to attract and maintain settlers chiefly of a reckless class, whose conduct was not calculated to create admiration. The native king, indeed, had cause for bitter complaints, and after the overthrow of Salazar, in 1526,[1] he came to Mexico for redress, there to observe for himself the beneficial influence of friars, particularly in restraining the colonists in excesses against natives. Of a timid nature, Tangaxoan thought it politic not only to accept baptism, with the
- ↑ Beaumont, Crón. Mich., iii. 215, places this visit during the troublous time of Salazar's rule; but had he come then that rapacious tyrant would have held him a prisoner to extort treasures, for Albornoz writes in 1525 that the king should be sent for and seized, because he resisted the miners. Carta, in Icazbaleta, Col. Doc., i. 502-3.
