audience Viceroy Valero, after granting all the memorial asked for, gave his attention to the spiritual wants of the applicants, delivering orally and in writing a most eloquent and convincing argument in favor of the adoption of a new and better faith. The poor Indians were somewhat confused, but they could not answer the viceregal logic, and were understood to assent, and to call for 'black padres,' as they termed the Jesuits, to instruct their people. The archbishop entertained and blessed his prospective converts; and the Jesuit provincial, being assured of non-interference of other orders in Nayarit, named on March 19th fathers Juan Tellez Jiron and Antonio Arias Ibarra as missionaries for the new field. He even made a strong effort to convert and baptize the tonati then and there; but the latter did not deem it a convenient season, owning that were he baptized his people would probably kill him. He had no yearnings for martyrdom, but at last agreed to submit to the rite at Zacatecas, a city he was subsequently very careful to avoid.
The treaty, by the terms of which the Nayarits were to be protected in all their rights on condition of rendering allegiance to Spain and admitting Jesuit instructors, was confirmed in a council held March 20th.[1] The party soon started for the north, Torre as governor with authority to recruit troops—called for by the tonati himself, who dared not return without their protection—and to draw on the treasury at Zacatecas for the necessary funds. Now the tonati's real troubles began. In fact the royal representative of the sun lost his wits in Mexico, and promised
- ↑ Revilla Gigedo in his report of 1793, Informe, 467, gives the conditions of the treaty more fully than any other. According to this authority the tonati was to be sustained as lord of his country, his rights and titles to descend to his successors; his subjects were never to pay tribute nor to acknowledge any superior judges save the viceroy; the privilege of obtaining salt from Acaponeta and Nexcatitlan free from all tax was guaranteed; and rebellious Nayarits in the future were to be brought gently back to the path of duty. Frejes gives date of treaty May 20th. His account of Nayarit conquest is incomplete and even inaccurate. Hist. Breve, 150-5.
