Of the subsequent career of Coronado little is known, but he does not appear to have continued long in office, for in 1573 Diego de Artieda Cherino[XXIV‑14] entered into a contract with the crown to pacify and further colonize the provinces of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Nicoya, and was appointed governor and captain general of those territories. According to the terms of his contract the natives were to be taught the arts of peace, and those who should be christianized were to be exempt from tribute for ten years; commerce with the Indians was to be encouraged; agriculture, mining, and other industries were to be developed; no hostilities with the natives were to be permitted until overtures of peace had been thrice rejected; settlements were not to be founded in districts reserved for the use of Indians; the principal towns were to revert to the emperor; four ecclesiastics must accompany the expedition, two of them at least to be Jesuits. Finally, full reports of all important proceedings were to be forwarded from time to time to the crown.[XXIV‑15]
BUCCANEERS.
Cherino soon levied a force of two hundred men, but on account of the difficulty in procuring vessels, his Majesty having secured every available ship for a naval expedition to Flanders, it was not until the 15th of April 1575 that he took his departure, setting sail from the port of San Lúcar.[XXIV‑16] He was directed first to cruise off the coast in search of English buccaneers, who were then infesting those parts; but finding no sign of their presence he landed on the shore of Costa Rica near the mouth of a river to which he gave the name of Rio de Nuestra Señora del Valle del Guaini. Sailing up the stream for two or three leagues, he founded on its banks two settlements, to one of which he gave the name of Ciudad de Artieda del Nuevo Reyno de Navarra. In the presence of most of his men he took formal possession of the site; on a tree standing on the spot selected for the plaza he marked with a cutlass the sign of the cross "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;" he then addressed his followers,[XXIV‑17] telling them that all who desired might select town lots and secure all the privileges granted to settlers by the emperor. Captain Francisco Paron was then ordered by the governor to make further explorations, and ascending the river for a distance of nine leagues he discovered a fertile valley, and finding the natives tractable and well disposed, took possession with the usual formalities, naming it Valle de los Pufibais y del Valderroncal. Cherino does not appear to have been successful in founding any permanent settlements in Costa Rica; for we learn that in 1586 Cartago and Esparza were the only towns in the province inhabited by Spaniards,[XXIV‑18] and that they were constantly at war with the Indians.
Thus the efforts of the Spaniards to subjugate the natives of Costa Rica were but partially successful; but meanwhile great progress had been made in the pacification of the province by the efforts of the Franciscan friars. About the year 1555 Fray Pedro Alonso de Betanzos laid there the foundation of the province of San Jorge de Nicaragua.[XXIV‑19] Betanzos came to New Spain in 1542, being one of the two hundred friars who formed the mission of Jacobo de Testera, and was assigned to Guatemala. He had labored there with great zeal and success, translating the catechism into the Indian vernacular, converting many, and inducing others to quit their nomadic life and form regular settlements. Four friars, among whom were Juan Pizarro from Guatemala and Lorenzo de Bienvenida from Guatemala, the latter having previously labored in company with Testera in Yucatan,[XXIV‑20] accompanied Betanzos to Costa Rica.[XXIV‑21] Bienvenida soon afterward departed for Spain, and bringing thence thirty ecclesiastics returned to Costa Rica. The bishop of Nicaragua furnished a like number, and when all were assembled the province was founded in 1575, and four years later its establishment was confirmed by a general chapter of the order held in Paris in 1579, the number of convents assigned being twelve.[XXIV‑22]
Betanzos was a man of ability and tireless industry. In a short time he had made himself master of twelve Indian dialects, speaking them as fluently as did the natives themselves.[XXIV‑23] "When first he went to Costa Rica," says Vazquez, "he would not allow soldiers to enter the territory. He travelled barefoot and accompanied only by a little boy. In two or three months he returned with many natives, all baptized and converted, bringing great store of provisions for the Spaniards. This he did many times, until by the word of God alone he pacified great multitudes. During the sixteen years which he thus labored, there remained not a palm of territory in the province which he did not traverse in search of souls." After laboring for thirty years he was attacked by fever and died near the town of Chomez in 1570, his remains being interred in a convent which he himself had founded at Cartago.[XXIV‑24]
ANOTHER MARTYR.
The year 1586 was made memorable by the martyrdom of Juan Pizarro, an aged and venerable friar of the Merced order, friend and associate of Betanzos, and one who first established the Mercenarios in Costa Rica. On the day of the immaculate conception he was preaching in one of the Indian towns, when a band of natives rushed upon him, disrobed him, bound him naked to a post, and flogged him unmercifully. Not satisfied with this, they fastened a rope round his neck, beat him senseless, hanged the bruised and bleeding body to a tree, and when life had fled flung the corpse down a neighboring chasm.
The dissensions which the new code of laws had occasioned in Nicaragua were not yet at an end. Cerrato, who was still president of the audiencia, of the Confines,[XXIV‑25] was harassed on all sides. The ecclesiastics contended that the natives should be taken from the encomenderos and placed under the crown, which virtually meant the church, and that their owners be recompensed directly from the royal treasury. The conquerors, however, would listen to no such proposition, but tenaciously held to their possessions.
The number of Indian towns subject to the crown in Nicaragua about the year 1555 was twenty-seven.[XXIV‑26] Nicoya, the largest, contained five hundred families; there was no other with more than one hundred, and most of them had but ten or twenty families. The extreme poverty of the natives had rendered necessary a reduction of their tribute,[XXIV‑27] and hence the salaries of civil officers and of the clergy were on a reduced scale. The aggregate tithes of the church in the province amounted in 1555 but to sixteen hundred pesos, and were decreasing from year to year. The bishop's portion was three hundred and eighty pesos, a sum insufficient for his maintenance, and he was compelled to petition the king to increase his income. Priests laboring in native villages received two hundred pesos, and in one instance the stipend was only eighty pesos.
ECCLESIASTICAL SUCCESSION.