Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/490

470 Coronado pushed westward to the later New Mexico, and with a portion of his followers penetrated perhaps to the territory of Kansas, while detachments of his forces prosecuted explorations in other directions. Still gloomy disappointment was ever at his side, and at last he rode back to Tiguex in the Rio Grande Valley. His soldiers were heart-sick and impudent. Coronado's control over them was lost, and in April 1542 he commenced the homeward march. On the way his authority was little heeded. Sick in mind and body, he proceeded to Mexico, where he arrived with a remnant of his force, shortly after the middle of the year, there to be greeted by the frigid features of his friend the viceroy.

While the progress of affairs in New Galicia was thus retarded by the loss of the able Torre and the weak administration of Coronado, the adjacent province of Michoacan was gradually advancing under the benignant rule of Quiroga. After the march of Guzman through the district, it seemed to have been struck by the flail of the evil one. The treatment of the natives by their oppressors became more brutal; the outrages perpetrated by the encomenderos became more violent, and the scourges in their hands fell heavier, as more labor and still more tribute was exacted from the hapless Tarascans. The missionaries labored hard to mitigate their wrongs, and preached to them the patience and sufferings of the saviour; but even their sympathy and kindly teachings had lost half their power. Horrified at the cruel murder of their much-loved king, the Tarascans regarded Christianity as a mockery. Those who, with the unfortunate Caltzontzin, had embraced the religion, lost their faith in it, and all who could betook themselves to the mountains, or to the depths and twilight shelter of the forests on the western lowlands.