peninsula of Yucatan, finally spread over the whole of the territory afterward known as Mexico.
At Campeche, or more probably at Champoton,[1] occurred a notable affray. The fleet anchored toward sunset, half a league from shore. The natives immediately put on a warlike front, bent on terrible intimidations, which they continued in the form of shouts and drum-beating during the entire night. So great was their necessity for water that the Spaniards did not wait for the morning, but amidst the arrows, stones, and spears of the natives, they landed the artillery and one hundred men before daybreak, another hundred quickly following. But for their cotton armor the invaders would have suffered severely during this operation. Having reached the shore, however, the guns were planted, and the natives
- ↑ It is remarkable, as I have often observed, how two eye-witnesses can sometimes tell such diametrically opposite stories; not only in regard to time and minor incidents, but to place and prominent events. In this instance Diaz the priest is no less positive and minute in placing the affair at Campeche, than is Diaz the soldier, at Champoton. The second-rate authorities, following these two writers who were present, are divided, by far the greater number, Herrera among the rest, accepting the statement of Bernal Diaz. Oviedo, who was a resident of the Indies at the time, describes the battle as occurring at Campeche. Perhaps one reason why the soldier-scribe has more adherents than the priest, is because the existence of the narrative of the latter was not so well known. Las Casas affirms, Hist. Ind., iv. 425, that the pilot unintentionally passed Lázaro's port, or Campeche, and landed and fought at Champoton. 'Llegaron, pues, al dicho pueblo (que, como dije, creo que fué Champoton, y no el de Lázaro).'
Chrón. de San Diego de Mex., 227; Lopez Vaz, in Purchas, His Pilgrimes, iv. 1432, and Gottfriedt, Newe Welt, 74; also Torquemada, from Herrera, and several standard authors. New Spain was for a long time divided into the three kingdoms of New Spain, New Galicia, and New Leon, each composed of several provinces. Under the administration of Galvez, this division gave way to intendencias, among them Mexico and a few provinces, and New Spain came to be limited in the north by the Provincias Internas, though including for a time at least the Californias. With the independence the name New Spain was replaced by Mexico, less because this term applied to the leading province and to the capital, than because the name was hallowed by association with the traditions of the people, whose blood as well as sympathies contained far more of the aboriginal element than of the imported. On Colon's map the name is given in capital letters, Nova Spaña. Under Nveva España Ribero writes dixose asi por queay aquy muchaa coeitt que aj en españa ay ya mucho trigo qmi tleuado de nca entanta cantidad q lo pueden ea airgar para otrna partes ay aquy mucho oro de nacimiento. Robert Thome, in Hakluyt's Voy., carries Hispania Noua east and west through Central America, while Ramusio, Viaggi, iii. 455, places La Nova Spagna in large letters across the continent.
