Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/467

Rh effected until several years later, they never united their forces for a general engagement.

On January 6, 1542, the Spaniards founded on the site of Tihoo a city to which they gave the name of Mérida. Thence young Montejo extended his conquest eastward to the districts of Conil and Choaca. On the 28th of May, 1543, he founded, in the latter territory, the city of Valladolid, but afterward changed its site to a more favorable location.

Zatuta, a region occupied by the Cocomes, and Bacalar were also brought under subjection, the latter by Gaspar Pacheco, who with a sufficient force accomplished his task by inflicting on the hapless natives such diabolic atrocities as can hardly be believed. He used to amuse himself by clubbing men to death or by chopping off their hands, ears, and noses; and cutting off the more tender parts from the bodies of his female captives, ordered them to be thrown into a lake, with calabashes tied to their feet, and there left to drown. In Bacalar was founded, during 1544, the city of Salamanca, the second of that name in Yucatan.

Two years later the last organized revolt occurred among the natives. Of all nations brought under Spanish domination, the Ah Kupules in eastern Yucatan were the stubbornest. Leaguing with the neighboring caciques, they rose in revolt, attacking the settlement of Valladolid, after putting to death all the colonists at their encomiendas throughout the adjacent districts. It was on the 9th of November, 1546, that the insurrection broke out. I will cite a few incidents. The first victims were