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16 This submission appears to have either irritated or emboldened the Xiximes, a tribe of cannibalistic tendencies, who adjoined the Acaxées on the south, and ranked as their bitter foes. The neighbors soon bean to appeal for aid against their onslaughts, and with intercession of friars they were in 1607 induced to relent; but three years later they broke out in open revolt, and an expedition of two hundred Spaniards and eleven hundred Indians marched against them. Their two strongholds were quickly reduced, and after the execution of the ringleaders the excuses of the remainder were accepted with a readiness that served only too often to encourage hostilities, as may be seen throughout the history of this frontier region to the present time. Had the same policy been pursued by Cortés and his contemporaries, Spanish domination might have been deferred for years. This temporizing was owing in part to a change in the character of the settlers, and a diversion of public interest from the career of conquest, and partly to actual weakness and indecision; but under the circumstances it was dangerous to display it so freely.

Of this an instance may be found in the more serious outbreak in the same province, in 1616, among the Tepehuanes, for no outrages or other good reason appear to have afforded the pretext. This tribe covered a wide-spread area in Durango, extending into southern Chihuahua and bordering east and north on Topia, and had yielded good fruit to the Jesuit missionaries. Dismayed by the downfall of their influence, the native sorcerers strove hard to combat the new religion; and encouraged by the example of the Sabaibo bishop, one of them proclaimed himself a messiah divinely appointed to free his people from the foreign yoke. This character he sustained by a number of cleverly executed miracles, and by alluring prospects disseminated by active agents.

His plans succeeded, and his people rose almost en masse. At Atotonilco nearly two hundred Spaniards,