Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/99

76 some of the Indians of the Sierra came to him with a great inclination and desire to accompany him on that Voyage. And together with These and Those, he entered into the Woodlands to the Southward of that Land of Yucatan.

“And as soon as he began to penetrate the Woods, he kept encountering many of the Indians who were fugitives from the Villages of the Province, and who were living without Decency, Towns or Sacraments, but merely in Huts in several places of that Wilderness.

Zaclun. “He went about, bringing them with flattering caresses and the great suavity of his holy and loving words, and bearing them to the Mountains which are called the Mountains of Pimienta (which are very near the Sierra of Alabaster)....He formed with them a great Village on the same site as where had been before the village called Zaclun, which had been depopulated when the Guardians of the Province of San Francisco, who had gone, in former times, toward those inland Mountain Places, had been lost.

“He gave the Village the Name of San Felipe or Santiago de Zaclun. And in virtue of the Power given him by the Governor of Yucatan, to appoint Justices and Rulers in whatever Villages might be founded, he did this in the new Village of Zaclun in the Name of his Majesty and of his Governor of the Provinces of Yucatan, giving the posts to the most fit of those very Indians he had recently assembled.

“He appointed a Cacique and gave Authority to Alcaldes, Regidores, and other Officials of Government and of Public Weal, all of whom he appointed in order that those Indians might live in Justice, Christianity, and service to God and the King. And when this was done he gave an account of the whole matter to the Governor of Yucatan, begging him to confirm the Elections and Appointments that he had made for that new Village.

“The Governor of those Provinces of Yucatan at the time was Don Diego de Cárdenas, who celebrated with very great merriment the reception of such news, a delight which was participated in by all the Dwellers in the City of Merida and even in the rest of that Land and Province of Yucatan.