CHAPTER CLXI.

_How Alvarado marches to the province of Tutepec, to build a town there; and how far he succeeded in subduing the country, and in founding a colony._

To give an account of Alvarado's expedition to the province of Tutepec, we must return to the period immediately following the conquest of Mexico. It will be remembered that after the news of the fall of that large city had spread through the provinces, ambassadors arrived from all parts to congratulate Cortes on this great victory over the Mexican power, and the different tribes declared themselves vassals of our emperor. Among the more powerful tribes which submitted on this occasion was that of the Tecuantepec--Tzapotecs, whose ambassadors brought with them a present in gold, stating at the same time that they were at war with their neighbours, the Tutepecs, who had commenced hostilities with them, because they had submitted to the Spanish crown. This tribe inhabited the coast on the South Sea, they added,--and possessed great quantities of gold, both in the raw material and in ornaments; they themselves now came to request Cortes to assist them against their enemies with some of his cavalry, musketeers, and crossbow-men.

Cortes assured them, in a very affectionate manner, that he would send Tonatio (as they called Alvarado) with them. He accordingly despatched Alvarado thither with a considerable detachment, consisting of one hundred and eighty men, among whom there were thirty-five horse; and a further reinforcement of twenty men, most of whom were crossbow-men, would join him in the province of Guaxaca, where the captain Francisco de Orozco commanded in chief.

Alvarado left Mexico in the year 1522, and first of all marched to a mountainous district, where it was said disturbances had recently broken out; but he found all in profound peace here, and the inhabitants well disposed towards the Spaniards; nevertheless, he appears to have been very tardy in his movements, for he did not reach Tutepec until forty days after. The inhabitants, who had received intelligence of his approach, came out to meet him with every show of magnificence, and conducted him to the most populous of all their townships, where stood the temples and their largest buildings. The houses were very crowded, and made of straw, for in this excessively hot climate the dwellings have no upper stories, and are not built of stone. Father Olmedo here observed to Alvarado, that it would not be advisable to quarter the troops in the houses, for if the inhabitants were to take it into their heads to set fire to the town there would be no possibility of escape. Alvarado considered his apprehensions well founded, and encamped with his men at the extremity of the town. The cazique soon after arrived with a valuable present in gold, which he repeated almost every day, and provided the troops with abundance of provisions. When Alvarado found what a quantity of gold the inhabitants possessed, he ordered them to make him a pair of stirrups of the finest gold, and gave them a couple of his own for a pattern; and indeed those they made turned out very good.

Notwithstanding all the gold which Alvarado received from this cazique, he ordered him to be imprisoned a few days after his arrival, as the people of Tecuantepec had assured him that the whole province was upon the eve of rising up in arms against him, and that the chiefs of Tutepec had only invited him to quarter his troops in the large houses in the heart of their town, that they might set fire to them, and burn him, with all his men, to death.

Many credible persons have asserted that Alvarado's only motive for ill using this cazique was, to extort more gold from him; one thing, however, is certain, that he gave Alvarado gold to the value of 30,000 pesos, and that he died in prison from excessive grief. Father Olmedo indeed strove to give him every consolation in his last days, but all his endeavours proved fruitless; melancholy had sunk too deeply into his heart. The caziquedom then devolved upon his son, from whom Alvarado extorted even more gold than from the father.

Alvarado then sent a small detachment of his troops to visit the other townships of the province, and distributed these among the settlers of the new town which he founded, to which he gave the name of Segura, because most of the new inhabitants had formerly settled in the town of Segura de la Frontera, or Tepeaca. After he had done all this, he ordered the vast quantity of gold he had collected from the townships to be securely packed, in order that he might take it with him to Mexico, and hand it over to Cortes; for he pretended that the latter had desired him to collect all the gold he possibly could, as it was to be forwarded to his majesty, to make up for the loss of that which Jean Florin had carried off to France; and that he had received particular instructions from our general not to divide any of it among the men who accompanied him on this expedition. When Alvarado was about to make preparations for his departure, a certain portion of his troops, mostly musketeers and crossbow-men, formed a conspiracy to put him and his brothers to death, because he had refused, after their repeated solicitations, to give them any share of the gold, or to distribute among them any very lucrative Indian townships.

This plot was fortunately discovered to father Olmedo by one of the conspirators, named Trebijo, the evening preceding the night on which the bloody deed was to have been carried out. Father Olmedo instantly communicated what he had heard to Alvarado, who was about to start, in company of some of the conspirators, to go a hunting. Alvarado therefore pretended to be taken with a sudden pain in his side, and turning to those who were to have accompanied him, he said, "Gentlemen, I must return to my quarters; let a barber immediately come to bleed me."

As soon as Alvarado had arrived in his quarters he sent for his brothers Jorge and Gonzalo Gomez, with the alcaldes and alguacils; he then ordered the conspirators to be seized, and two of them, after a short trial, were sentenced to the gallows. One of these men was a certain Salamanca, of Condado, who had formerly been a pilot; the other was Bernardino Levantisco, and both of them died like good Christians, after father Olmedo had fully convinced them of the enormity of their crime. This example of severity brought the remaining conspirators to their proper senses; so that Alvarado was enabled to depart with the gold for Mexico without any fear.

Alvarado had certainly laid the foundation of a new town, but it soon fell to nothing again; for the settlers had obtained very poor lands; the climate was excessively hot, and very unhealthy; many of the Spaniards soon fell ill, and the Indian naborias and slaves whom they had brought with them died away very fast. The place swarmed with moschitoes, mice, and even lice;--to which was added, that Alvarado had carried off all the gold. The inhabitants therefore determined to leave the new town, and to settle elsewhere; so that they soon dispersed, and some returned to Mexico, some settled in Guaxaca, and others in Guatimala. When Cortes received intelligence of this, he instituted a formal inquiry into all the circumstances, and it was found that the determination to abandon the new town had been agreed upon in a council held by the alcaldes and regidors of the place. Sentence of death was then pronounced against the guilty personages; but father Olmedo begged so hard of Cortes to mitigate this severe sentence, that the latter at length, though very reluctantly, yielded to his prayers, and altered the sentence into that of banishment.

Such was the ill-fated termination of the colony of Tutepec, which never after rose again, for every one feared the unhealthy climate, though the country was uncommonly rich. When the inhabitants, who could not forget Alvarado's cruel and unjust treatment, saw that all the Spaniards were leaving, they revolted anew, which obliged Alvarado to return, and he again forced them to lay down their arms and to sue for peace.