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370 and most desperately fought of any that had taken place. It lasted the greater part of the day, the Indians returning to the attack again and again; but at evening the Spaniards remained masters of the field, though so obstructed by the heaps of bodies of the slain that they could not pursue the retreating foe.

This great battle ended all combined resistance to Spanish arms. Cacique after cacique came in and submitted, until a great part of the territory came under Spanish rule.

[A. D. 1542.] On the sixth of January, 1542, Don Francisco Montejo, son of the Adelantado and conqueror of Yucatan, founded on the site of this Indian town of Tihoo the city of Mérida. To-day you may view this beautiful city, with its noble buildings, its quaint architecture. After sixteen weary years of desultory fighting, after repeated rebuffs, after enduring losses that might well have discouraged a less noble spirit, Don Francisco Montejo found himself in possession of this coveted country.

Forty years had passed since Columbus heard of this country, and eleven since Cortez had humbled the proud capital of the Aztecs. Two new empires, Mexico and Peru, had been added to the Spanish crown during these years of fighting, both as rich in the gold the Spaniards so coveted as this was poor in the elements of wealth. It was a barren conquest, this of Don Francisco Montejo, not at all worthy the great expenditure in men and treasure it had cost him.

Dating from the period of its conquest, Yucatan existed as a Captain-Generalcy, a distinct government from that of Mexico or Guatemala. When we come to speak of Mexico as a whole and united republic we shall take another glance at Yucatan; for the present, we will leave it to follow the action of more stirring events in the territory wrested from the Aztecs.