Governor Ursua Vexed by the Captains' Letter. "The Governor was vexed with this letter which the Captain Alonso Garcia wrote to him, seeing that he had chosen me to carry out his purpose, and then seeing that I gave him a slap in the face by returning without any reason, as they wrote him; for which reason he suspended judgment till he had news of my coming to the Province, to inform himself of the truth. At this time we arrived on our return, with hard work enough on account of so many wild thickets, as I spoke of in the beginning, and of all the overflowed lands, deep in water, since our return was made in the season of heaviest rains, at the first town of the Province called Hopelchen, whence I wrote to my Prelate of the resolution which we had taken of returning to the Ytzaes by another route, since on the one we had started on, our work was stopped. I received a reply from my Prelate by which he said he expected me in the City, without informing us that we should go back by the way we suggested."
Return to Merida. "We came to his presence and entered the City on Saturday the 16th of September of the said year 1695...."
[CHAPTER IX]
THE SECOND ENTRADA OF PADRE AVENDAÑO
The first entrada being spoiled on account of trouble with the soldiers, Avendaño remained in the province until October 4, 1695. On that day news reached him from a Spanish resident of Bacalar, called Francisco de Ariza, that the nation of the Itzas, who numbered eighty thousand fighting men, had expressed their willingness to receive Christianity. This news pleased the Governor (Ursua) because the Itzas were now the only obstacle that lay between him and the completion of the Guatemala-Yucatan highway. Accordingly arrangements were concluded according to the terms of which Avendaño was once more to attempt to bring the Itzas to the Church. At his own wish he and his priests were to do this alone without the retarding influences arising from the presence of soldiers. Avendaño asked for and received various letters and documents in which the policies he was to follow and the authority with which he was invested were very fully set forth.
The Orders of the Governor. One thing is particularly striking in connection with all the conquests of the Spaniards in America, and that is the very divergent attitudes toward the natives assumed by the Church and State on the one hand and by the soldiery and colonists on the other. Nowhere does this difference come out more clearly than in the matter of the entradas of Avendaño. As that writer's report of the papers given to him by Governor Ursua just before he set out on his second trip is rather long, I will give an extract of it in order that the reader may see just what was desired by the Padres and by the Governor.
In the first place the Governor ordered that Avendaño and his companions be given all necessary horses, Indians, and other equipment. He also ordered Paredes, who had caused so much trouble before, to observe carefully the wishes of His Majesty as expressed in the famous cedula of 1526. In that cedula it was urged that the Indians be turned from their evil ways; that any necessary houses, fortresses, and other buildings be erected; that Christianity be introduced among the Indians; that colonization from Spain should be encouraged in a number of ways; and a number of other wise provisions were recommended.[9.1]
Departure of Avendaño. We will allow Avendaño (pp. 22v-29v, 49v-66r) to tell of the trip in his own words. "With all these papers and the benediction of my Prelate, I took my departure in the name of God from this City of Merida on the 13th day of December of this year 1695, in the company of my companion priests, who were the Padre Preacher, Fray Antonio Peres de San Roman, who also accompanied me in the first trip; the Padre Preacher Fray Joseph de Jesus Maria, who from the other mission of the Reverend Padre Commissioner Fray Juan de Chaves (being his Apostolic Notary) passed to my mission with the blessing and consent of the Prelate Superior; and the Padre Preacher, Fray Diego de Echavarria, with a lay brother of the holy convent, all of whom united in the love of God and in charity burning to rescue the souls of those infidel and heathen Ytzaes from the power of Satan in which, through their idolatry, they were plunged for so many centuries."
The Same Route Followed as Before; Batcab is Reached. "We went through the same ways and places as the first time, till we came to a town of the nation of the Cehaches, called Batcab, in which we met General Alonso Garcia de Paredes, with a captain called Don Pedro Zuviaur, an engineer or guide who was going in the direction in which they were opening the road from this province to that of Guatemala."
Chuntucí. "The next day, which was that of the Holy Kings, on January 6th of this year of '96, I said mass, which the army listened to; after which we started from the town for Chuntucí of the said nation of the Cehaches, which is four leagues of very bad roads during the rainy season, on account of the many overflowed and dangerous places that there are in them in some parts which they call in this language akalchees or hulbalex, and in Castilian pantanos. On the said road likewise are found two rivers in the first league,--a small one which is not permanent except in the rainy season; as is the case with an aguada which is found in the middle of the road on the slope of a ridge which is ascended in times of rain with some difficulty, although the other river, which is found about three leagues off, is permanent, the water of which, though it is somewhat sluggish, for they say it is a river of copper, nevertheless is very cool and raises very good fish, though not very large ones. A league and a half from this river is the said town of Chuntucí, which consists of not more than eight houses close together, though there are many others in the corn fields a little more or less distant, in a circuit of about half a league.