Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/506

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448
APPENDIX.

into the mountainous territory, on the eastern side, until he came to the river Tuctani, on the banks of which he converted the nation of the Omages,[1] and founded the town of Pozuzu, which still exists, together with that of Tilinga, afterwards annexed to the preceding one. For the relief of the missionaries, on their entering or leaving the mountainous territory, and for the rearing of cattle destined for their support, he had an hospital built on a site named Chaglla. With the same view, another was erected at a spot named Muna. Each of them was provided with a church; and they are both at this time in the centre of towns inhabited by converted Indians.

From the year 1726 to that of 1755, eight entrances were made from Pozuzu to the haven of the river Mayro, and the Plain of the Sacrament,[2] without any other beneficial result beside that of having led to the discovery of the nation of Carapachos, and of having enabled the missionaries to collect a few fugitive Indians belonging to the tribe of Omages. In the year 1760, the fathers of Ocopa penetrated the mountainous territory, with immense difficulties and fatigues, from the conversions of Caxamarquilla to the banks of the Ucayali, where they accomplished the conversion of the Setebos, or Manoitas. In the year 1766, they had extended their spiritual conquest to the Sipibos and Conivos, who were settled in five towns, having the denominations of San Francisco of Manoa, Santo Domingo of Pisqui, Santa Barbara of Achani, Santa Cruz of Aguaitia, and San Miguel of the Conivos. With the intention of affording succour to these conversions, with less inconvenience and danger, by the route of Mayro and the river Pachitea, three expeditions from Pozuzu to the Plain of the Sacrament, were undertaken in the years 1763, 1765, and 1767.[3] The first of these terminated fatally, father Francisco Francis having been put to death by the Casivos, after he had navigated by the Pachitea to nine degrees of latitude. The second reached the same site, but without reaping any other advantage beside that of having explored and noted the navigation of the Pachitea, from the haven of Mayro, situated in the latitude of nine degrees fifty-seven minutes, to the unfortunate port where father Francis was killed. The third went beyond the confluence of the Pachitea and Ucayali, but did not reach Manoa, in consequence of the melancholy intelligence communicated by the unconverted Indians, that the Sipibos, and other nations, had revolted, and murdered the whole of the missionaries, consisting of six priests and nine lay brothers. From the documents collevted on these expeditions, and from those ob-


  1. Amich, p. 75.
  2. Amich, p. 86.
  3. Amich, p. 149, 153, and 160.
tained