Ever since the close of the sixteenth century, after Viceroy Velasco had colonized the regions about San Luis Potosí, Cololotlan, and San Miguel Mezquitic with Tlascaltec and Chichimec families, missionaries had begun to enter the wild districts of the Sierra Gorda and Tamaulipas, to convert the numerous tribes, which were supposed to have taken up their abode in this part of the country after the conquest. These efforts seem to have been attended with very little success. Toward the end of the seventeenth century six Dominican missions had been established in Sierra Gorda territory. The friars were soon driven away, however; the churches were burned, the missions destroyed, and the Spaniards who had settled in the vicinity were compelled to abandon the country.

In 1704 Francisco Zaraza was made lieutenant captain-general, and commissioned to bring the revolted aborigines under subjection; hitherto all the efforts to that effect of the alcaldes and captains of militia had been unavailing. Zaraza opened a campaign against the natives, but was killed during an attack, without having accomplished anything decisive. In his place was appointed Gabriel Guerrero de Ardila, who with a force of eight hundred cavalry defeated the natives and compelled them to enter into a treaty of peace. This occurred in 1715, and the conditions of the treaty were most favorable to the Indians, who were to retain their liberty and be abso

4 villas, 16 pueblos, 4 mining districts, and 23 haciendas. The population consisted of 27,412 Spaniards, 2,431 Indians, and 13,838 of mixed blood, making a total of 43,681 inhabitants. Navarro, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da ep., i. 291. Gonzalez, Col. Doc. N. Leon, 137-45, Humboldt, Essai Pol., 155, gives the population in 1803 as low as 29,000. In 1828 the population had increased to 88,793, said to have been due to a large immigration; in 1850 there were 137,070 inhabitants. Dicc. Univ., x. 38. For more details concerning Nuevo Leon for the period under consideration see Ordenes de la Corona, MS., v. 11, 99, 104; Revilla-Gigedo, in Mayer MSS., no. 11, 49–51; Villena al Regente Romá, MS.; Cavo, Tres Siglos, iii. 181; Mier-Vida, Aventuras, 3; Alaman, Mej., ii. 96; Not. N. Esp., in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, ii. 19; Gonzalez, in Id., 3da ep., i. 238, 266; Zamacois, Hist. Mj., v. 718; vii. 194.

The mountainous region so called extends from near Rio Verde in San Luis Potosí to the vicinity of Querétaro, and forms the partido of Cadereita, to-day belonging to the province of Querétaro. Gonzalez, Col. Doc. N. Leon,

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lute masters of the sierra. Nevertheless we find that outrages and disturbances soon afterward became the order of the day. For many years the towns in the jurisdictions of Querétaro, San Miguel el Grande, Celaya, Chamacuero, San Juan del Rio, Cadereita and elsewhere remained in the same condition. The native tribes of Sierra Gorda were under neither military, civil, nor religious control, and their raids. extended at times into the very streets of Spanish settlements.

If we can believe Arlegui, one or more of the governors of Nuevo Leon were induced to persecute the natives by private persons who claimed to have lost lands through the appropriation of tracts for the Tamaulipas tribes in 1715, and many Indians were subsequently hanged for trivial offences. Nor would this suffice; the settlers themselves constantly sought to drag the Indians into revolt in order to have a pretence to make them slaves. Under such circumstances the efforts of a few friars were of no avail.

Such was the state of affairs when in 1734 José de Escandon, an officer of the Querétaro militia, was commissioned to pacify the Sierra Gorda. At last the proper person had been found to carry out this difficult task. During his first expedition four hundred prisoners were taken; the ringleaders were summarily punished, while the others, in place of being enslaved, were treated with great consideration. This policy had the desired effect, and in the course of a few years several other expeditions under the same leader completed the work of pacification. All these campaigns were carried on by Escandon with little expense to the crown, without burdening too much the Spanish settlers, and without enslaving the natives. He was a wealthy man, and expended the greater part of his own fortune in maintaining his troops, who were kept under strict discipline, and not allowed to commit any excesses. His conduct gained for him the esteem of the government, the respect of the colonists, and the love

of the pacified tribes, who under similar circumstances had hitherto been treated like brutes. It was also remarked that although he divided lands among Spaniards and Indians, none were reserved for himself.

Thus the wild regions of Sierra Gorda were finally brought under Spanish rule, without much bloodshed, and without any of the revolting incidents usually attending the conquest of new territory. In consideration of his services Escandon was made count of Sierra Gorda, and his achievements paved the way for the conquest of Tamaulipas, where still greater laurels were in store for him.

8

The same causes which led to the final pacification of Sierra Gorda and the subjugation of the Nayarits, ultimately led to the conquest of the gulf region stretching from Pánuco north to the Rio Bravo del Norte. Here, as elsewhere, the Indians were driven to revolt by a series of outrages committed on them by squatters, robbers, kidnappers, and slave-traders." During and subsequent to the operations of Escandon, various proposals were made to the central government at Mexico, and to the crown,10 for the extension. of Spanish settlements in Tamaulipas. No decision was arrived at, however, till 1746, under the rule of Revilla Gigedo, when a council of war held for the purpose intrusted the enterprise to Escandon, who was now universally recognized as a man of consummate

In 1767 there were nine Indian towns in Sierra Gorda, with an average of over 1,700 families. Soreaino, Prologo, 2. Most of these were founded by Escandon at the time of the pacification. For further details concerning Sierra Gorda affairs see Ordenes de la Corona, MS., iv. 67–70; N. Mex., Cédulas, MS., 250-8, 268-81; Arlegui, Cron. Zac., 122-3; Frejes, Hist. Brev., 23840; Tamaul., Conversiones, in Maltrat. Ind., no. 20, 1-5; Guijo, Diar., Doc. Hist. Mex., la ser., i. 330, 362; Prieto, Hist. Tamaul., 60-1, 71-8, 101-2; Zamacois, Hist. Méj., v. 373-4, 570, 575.

"A royal cédula for the protection of the Tamaulipas Indians was issued May 25, 1689. Ordenes de la Corona, MS., iv. 67-70. See also Tamaul., Conversiones, in Maltrat. Ind., no. 20, 1-5.

10 Notably by Ladron de Guevara, whose conditions were very extravagant, and excited suspicion concerning his ultimate object in regard to the natives. N. Mex., Cédulas, MS., 250-8.

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ability; nor could a better selection have been made."1 The whole northern coast from Darien to Florida had gradually succumbed with the exception of this portion, which now, after a successful resistance of over twc

hundred years, was to be the last to submit to Spanish domination.

11 Escandon was appointed September 3, 1746. For the transport of the settlers, soldiers, and other expenses, 115,000 pesos were needed; after that the sum of 29,000 pesos a year was to be paid from the royal treasury. The

Escandon was authorized to extend his operations over a distance of more than a hundred leagues from south to north, and sixty or eighty from east to west, the boundaries being designated on the east by the gulf; south by the jurisdictions of Pánuco and Tampico, Villa de Valles, Sierra Gorda, and Huasteca ; west by Guadalcázar, Venado, Charcas, Nuevo Leon, and part of Coahuila, and north by this latter province and the boundary of Texas. The territory comprised within these limits received the appellation of Nuevo Santander. Most extensive preparations for the expedition were made in the city of Querétaro; and the prestige of Escandon was so great that from all parts of the country Spanish families hastened to join his fortunes, and many an adventurous soldier enlisted under his banner. Enthusiasm ran high, till finally the expeditionary forces numbered seven hundred and fifty, while the number of prospective settlers, consisting of Spaniards and converted Indians, exceeded two thousand five hundred families. That these numbers are not exaggerated is shown by the settlements founded by Escandon, and by subsequent official statistics.

The expedition set forth from Querétaro early in December 1748, passing through the towns of Pozos, San Luis de la Paz, Santa María del Rio, San Luis Potosí, and thence to Tula,12 where it was joined by a number of Spanish families. Various attempts seem to have been made since 1714 to form new settlements in this vicinity, attended apparently with little success. At one of these, Palmillas, Escandon appointed a military governor, and continuing his march in a north-easterly direction, founded on December 25th the town of Llera with sixty-seven families. Turning northward on January 1, 1749, Güemes was

audiencia at Mexico in 1748 granted the funds, and in 1749 the king ordered an additional sum to be paid to complete the enterprise. Revilla Gigedo, in Instruc. Vireyes, 37-8.

12 This place, then in the jurisdiction of Charcas, was at the time quite a flourishing colony.