of the original population, if we may believe the chroniclers. Comets and earthquakes added their terrors, imaginary or real.[1] Nevertheless the province prospered, thanks to its fertility and manifold resources, and the abundance of mines, which afforded a ready market for produce and live-stock.[2]
While not choosing to engage in the severer occupation of farming, the Spaniards could always raise cattle and sheep, and their broad grants were rapidly stocked with animals, which offered material for manufacture.[3]
Information is meagre concerning the early history of that singularly ill-peopled province of Zacatecas, as it is denominated by Humboldt, and yet its capital is even to-day, next to Guanajuato, the most celebrated mining-place in that country. From the visit of Captain Chirinos in 1530 to the year 1546 we have no definite record that any Spaniard penetrated farther north than Nochistlan and Juchipila. The Cascanes, Zacatecs, and other Chichimecs of the north had, as we have seen, taken a prominent part in the Mixton rebellion of 1541, and since its suppression they had continued to some extent their hostile raids on the frontier. In 1543 the emperor and viceroy were petitioned by the municipal authorities of the New Galicia towns to authorize war on these marauders, and their extermination or enslavement. The coveted
- ↑ The pest of 1545-8 carried off five sirths of the population, according to Beaumont, and caused the establishment of hospitals. The malady of 1551 was an inflammation of the throat. That of 1562 resembled the ravages of 1541. Comets appeared in 1567-8, and an earthquake which threw down many churches, and caused the death of two friars at Cocula. In 1577 some of the hospitals had 400 patients. A shower of ashes preceded the pest of 1590. Mota Padilla, Conq. N. Gal., 156-7, 237, 244; Beaumont, Crón. Mich., MS., 430, 623-4, 791-2, 913; Gil, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, viii. 495-6; Torquemada, iii. .506-7. The thousands of Indians in Banderas Valley had within 20 years dwindled to 300 men. Toral, Carta, 1559, in Cartas de Indias, 138-9. The Indians tributary to Guadalajara in 1569 were estimated at 24,300. Inform's del Cabildo, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. 492-504.
- ↑ Yet prices were low, a sheep costing 2 reals; 8 hens, 1 real; maize, 1 half real per fanega. Mota Padilla, Conq. N. Gal., 180.
- ↑ Stock-raising early assumed such proportions that semi-annual councils were held to regulate it. Herrera, dec. vii. lib. v. cap. ii.
