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ORIZABA TAKEN.
399
While independents were concentrating around Tehuacan, Mariano de las Fuentes Alarcon, curate of Maltrata,[1] raised a force and declared for independence, having cast a cannon with the metal of the large church bell. Besides keeping a watch on Orizaba, he captured every train having merchandise for the royalists. He put men under Miguel Moreno,
Puebla and Southern Vera Cruz.
who with great activity began to plunder and desolate the neighboring haciendas, daily augmenting his force. Lieutenant-colonel Miguel Paz comandante at Ori-
- ↑ From its position between Tehuacan and Orizaba, where the hill of the same name terminates, it was at the time almost the only passage between Puebla and Orizaba, Córdoba, and Jalapa, the road over Aculcingo not having yet been made.
Chalchicomula had been shot by order of the priest Sanchez de la Vega. Gaz. de Mex. 1812, iii. 774-7; Bustamante, Cuad. Hist. ii. 130-1; Alamas Hist. Mej. iii 222-5.
