"It does not appear whether this Governor divined what was to occur in the future from the obstinacy, cruelty, and malevolence of these Barbarians, and how many efficacious Means were to be insufficient to reduce them to Peace; but that of War (is the best). But he pressed for permission to make use of it in order to bring them to subjection."
Here it may be well to compare Cogolludo's account of these same events with that of Villagutierre. Cogolludo (lib. ix, cap. 1) says that these events took place in the reign of Bishop Don Fray Gonzalo de Salazar. In 1609 a great plague did much harm in Yucatan. In 1610, at the end of August, Salazar arrived to take the post of Bishop of Yucatan. At about that time two Indians called Alonzo Chable and Francisco Canul gave out that they were respectively the Pope and the Bishop, and they made the wretched Catholic Indians venerate them as such. All the most sacred mysteries of the Church were profaned by them, even the Host itself. This deplorable state of affairs was brought to an end by the intervention of the Governor of the village of Tikax in the sierra. He was one Don Pedro Xiu, a descendant of Tutul Xiu, Lord of Mani. Owing, perhaps, to the influence of a convent in his region, this chief was a good Christian, and he severely punished the offenders for their sacrilege. He even forced the Spaniards to attend Mass. In short his virtue was such as to earn him the hatred of all malcontents. Finally, being pursued by his enemies, the cacique sought refuge in the convent of Tikax, the guardian of which was the Reverend Padre Fray Juan de Coronel.[5.3] Xiu was hidden behind the sacristy altar while the search was going forward. In due time the more orderly portion of the Spanish population came to the aid of the cacique, and his enemies were put to death by order of the Governor of Yucatan, who at this time was the Mariscal Don Carlos de Luna y Arellano. His qualities as a governor receive the following terse tribute from Cogolludo: "His term of office completed, he came forth from his post in debt, whereas others, in a short while, pay great debts and come forth very rich." Luna had been rich when he went into office.
A New Period in the History of the Itzas. We have now reached a sort of natural break in our history. Beginning with a review of the pre-conquest history of the Mayas and of the Itzas, we have studied the entradas of Cortes, of Montejo, and of Dávila into the regions formerly occupied by them. We have seen the manner in which the northern portions of Yucatan and of the Maya-Itza stock were made subject to the crown of Castile; we have just examined the best two accounts of the events leading up to the conquest of the southern tribes, and especially of the Itzas of Tayasal. From the year 1614, which we have now reached, the main interest centers about the small nation whose chief town was at Tayasal on Lake Peten. They and their subject tribes resisted the Spanish onslaughts from 1614 to 1697. It took eighty-three years for the Spaniards to subject this nation, which cannot have numbered more than one hundred and fifty thousand souls. The Itzas resisted successfully for a much longer time a power more their superior than was that of Caesar to that of the Gauls.
Having noticed the beginning of a new period, we will continue the translation of Villagutierre. We shall thus see how the conquest of the Itzas began as a more or less desultory evangelical affair, and how no real vigor was injected into it until a commercial motive (the building of the Yucatan-Guatemala road) was introduced.
Fuensalida and Orbita. The account continues thus:
"Three or four years later, when the year 1618 was already running its course, on the 25th of March, while Francisco Ramirez Briceño was governing these Provinces, the Provincial Chapter of the Religious Order of San Francisco was held in the City of Merida; before it, ... Padres Fray Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Fray Juan de Orbita offered to go and preach the Holy Evangel to the Itzaex; both of these were Learned Men and of consummate Virtue, they were Priests well versed in that Maya Tongue which was natural to those Itzaex as to the Yucatecs, where they had been before.
"... It was determined that they should set forth on that Holy Errand; and they, well pleased, and trusting in God, determined to depart without delay and without other arms than the loving force of the Divine Word, thus fulfilling the will of the King that only Religious should go, and without the clangor of Soldiery. The Provincial gave them their patents which were presented before the Bishop, Don Gonzalo de Salazar, who was so overjoyed at their holy resolution that had his presence not been needed for the Government of his Bishopric, he would have gone with the Padres.
"Since this could not be, the Bishop despatched to them with great pleasure very ample Authority, in which he gave them as much Power over the Spaniards as they would have had if he had been present with them; and especially in regard to the People of the Town of Salamanca de Bacalar and its territory, commanding the Beneficiado of that Town and District, which includes Tipu, under penalty of the greater Excommunication, in no manner direct or indirect to embarrass or to expel the Religious while they were in Tipu, from which point they were to make ready for their Entrada to the Itzaex."
Briceño's Opposition. "And the Bishop perceived that the Religious were going without attention to temporal matters, for the Governor Francisco Ramirez Briceño, in spite of His Majesty's command that in such Cases the Necessary Funds for the Divine Worship and the Viaticum for the Religious should be given from the Royal Chest, did not wish to give anything to these men; nor did he wish to give them even the Despatch for which they asked in order that the Villages through which they passed might give them assistance, his excuse being that he did not have orders from the King, and that if they were killed by the Barbarians or by some Native Indians they had with them, or if any other misfortune should come to pass, the Blame would be upon him. The Bishop gave them, beside the Appointment, orders and aids which I have spoken of, many Crosses, Knives, Shears and other trifles and Charms from Spain so that they might treat the Indians well; and he comforted them, and put new life into their zeal for this good purpose.
"The Citizens of Merida joined the Bishop in his joy and also in giving the Padres increased Alms; and the Former Governor Don Antonio de Figueroa gave them Rosaries, and Glass Beads, and the Citizens gave them these and many other things, and still others were bought with the Alms contributed by the Encomenderos. Even the Indians of the City and the Villages through which they later passed, the Chiefs, and Indian Women, gave them Clothing of the sort they were wont to use for the improvement [of the Itzas], in order that they might be given to the King Canek and to his Wife and to the other Chiefs of the Itzas."