Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/178

158 It is not strange then that the true faith had little attraction for them, or that occasionally they attempted to shake off a yoke which plunged them not only into a condition worse than they had known in aboriginal times, but threatened the extermination of their race. It was seldom, however, that they even temporarily succeeded, and a severe administration

of justice by the Spanish authorities always suppressed their mutinous tendencies for a number of years.

It is thus that, at frequent intervals, we have to record Indian revolts. The first one, in 1610 at Tekax, caused by dissatisfaction with the cacique, was easily quelled, and three of the ringleaders forfeited their lives on the gallows of Mérida. In 1633, owing to a famine some years before, a large number of natives who had abandoned their villages were