Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/338

322 which he even increased by supplying them with a considerable train of artillery. Iturbe was transferred to the governorship of Colotlan and Arredondo appointed to that of Nuevo Santander, which was shortly afterward increased in territory by the addition of the Huasteca.

At this time, Matehuala again became the scene of an insurgent defeat. In June the unfortunate town was taken possession of by Bernardo Gomez de Lara, better known by the sobriquet of Huacal. Lara, by birth an Indian, was the most ferocious of the insurgent chiefs who infested portions of San Luis Potosí. Captain of a band of half-savage Indians, he directed his hostilities not only against Spaniards, but against all who were not of his race. At Matehuala and in the vicinity he put to death a number of victims, and by compelling the inhabitants to join his band, raised his force to more than a thousand men. On the 21st of June he was simultaneously attacked by a company of Arredondo's troops under Antonio Elosúa, and a force brought up by Semper, the cura of Catorce. Assailed on opposite sides, Huacal was routed with slaughter, between two and three hundred of his followers being slain and a large number taken prisoners. He himself, though wounded, effected his escape and retired to the Bajío of Guanajuato. Some what later he entered San Miguel el Grande; but the inhabitants recovering from their first panic, surprised and captured him, with a number of his principal followers. Huacal was put to death in his prison, and his body exposed on the gibbet. This occurred about the end of the year. By this success the northern