Berrotaran was negotiating for the conduct of the enterprise, having offered to raise two hundred men for forty days at his own cost; but he immediately appointed Torre capitan protector of Nayarit, with four hundred and fifty pesos per year for his expenses, and an allowance of two or three hundred with which to entertain the embassy.[1] This according to Mota Padilla was on December 10th, and at the appointed time the tonati with his fifty companions arrived at Jerez. Every attention was shown them, both here and at Zacatecas where they soon went with their protector. The devil, fearing to be forced from his last Galician intrenchments, circulated a report that the tonati's companions were not Nayarits at all, but apostate frontiersmen. This not being credited, he worked upon the fears of the Indians themselves, so that twenty-five of the fifty on one excuse or another returned home. The rest followed their ruler to Mexico, where they arrived under the escort of Captain Torre and Captain Santiago Rioja, in February 1721.[2]
The visitors were entertained in the metropolis with the attention and pomp due their rank, hospitalities being measured somewhat by what the Spaniards hoped to gain. They created no little sensation among all classes, and were themselves suitably impressed, though we are told they were successful in concealing their wonder. At their first audience for the transaction of business, perhaps on March 16th, each of the native nobles, kneeling, presented to the viceroy an arrow, and the tonati offered his wand and a crown of feathers, all in token of submission. In return the marquis Valero expressed thanks, pardoned past delinquencies, and received a written memorial containing the Nayarit grievances. At the second
- ↑ So say Mota-Padilla and the Relacion. According to Apostólicos Afanes Torre was appointed before the negotiations for a visit to Mexico.
- ↑ Villa-Señor, Teatro, ii. 268-9; Dicc. Univ., x. 834. Cavo, Tres Siglos, ii. 115-17; and Revilla Gigedo, Informe, 467, make the date of the visit to Mexico 1718.
