the strangers. Subsequent reverses at Mexico, however, changed their minds: the old love for liberty revived, and after killing isolated parties,[1] the hardy mountaineers began to harass even the provinces reconquered by Spaniards. The sufferers appealed to Orozco, the lieutenant at Segura, and with a score or two of soldiers he sought to repel the invaders. His force was wholly inadequate, and the mountaineers grew bolder. The fall of Mexico accomplished, Cortes was able to give attention to the subject, and since the conquest of the region was a needful preliminary to an advance southward, he reënforced Orozco with a dozen cavalry, fourscore infantry, and a large number of experienced allies.[2]
Observing the strength of the army, the Miztecs, against whom the campaign was directed, retired from their several rocky strongholds, and concentrated at Itzquintepec, the strongest of them all, some six leagues from the present Oajaca. Protected by heavy stone walls, fully two miles in circumference, they held forth defiantly for several days, repelling every attack. Water began to fail, however, and under promise of good treatment they surrendered.[3] This, together with the successful operations of a detachment under Juan Nuñez de Mercado,[4] completed the subjugation of the province. The lieutenant sent so glowing a report of the fertility and the products, in-
- ↑ A number were driven into a yard and prodded to death with long poles. Herrera, dec. iii. lib. iii. cap. xi.
- ↑ Cortés, Cartas, 261. Herrera increases the cavalry to 30, and assumes that Alvarado took command, as does Beaumont, Crón. Mich., iii. 150-1. The force left in October 1521, in company with Sandoval, who turned south-eastward at Tepeaca, or Segura.
- ↑ After 8 days it seems. Herrera assumes that Mexican garrisons were the main cause of the resistance, and that they yielded only after receiving an answer from Cortés to their demands. Duran confounds the operations with those of Cortés during his march to Quauhnahuac in the previous spring. Hist. Ind., MS., ii. 518-19. Ixtlilxcochitl alludes to three hard battles. Hor. Crueldades, 57; Chimalpain, Hist. Conq., ii. 84.
- ↑ Involving the capture of Tecomovaca, says Herrera. So much prominence has been given to Mercado's operations as to lead several writers to attribute to him the subjugation of Oajaca. Medina, Chrón. S. Diego, 245; Villa Señor, Theatro, ii. 112; Alcedo, Dicc.; and Ternaux-Compans, Voy., ser. i. tom. x. 287.
