the prisoners and other matter. In answer, Cortés sent the alcalde mayor Ocampo, to whom pertained the administration of justice, while the captain should continue to effectually assure tranquillity. A trial was held at Chachopal, near the fort, where bribery and policy played important parts in securing the acquittal of a few, while confession and testimony consigned the rest to the stake and halter. The condemned pleaded in vain that they had been driven to rise in defence of their homes by the outrages of the Garay party, against whom the followers of Cortés had incited them; if some of the latter had fallen, it was but the accident of war.[1] But they were pagans who had dyed their hands in the blood of Christians; and, above all, they had dared to disobey their masters, and for such crimes the perils to which their own insignificant lives were exposed could be no excuse. White men must be respected at all hazards, and thoroughly to impress this, the pardoned prisoners, including the friends and families of the condemned, were compelled to attend the execution; to witness the agonies of the ringleaders at the stake, and the struggles of the less prominent who were strangled in the noose. Yet it did not need the witnessing of death-throes to teach the lesson: the number of the victims was sufficient. There were whole lines of smoking columns, each enclosing a writhing form and shielding an agonized face; a succession of human bodies suspended amidst revolting contortions. It was one long continuation of horrors, until horror grew tame, and darkness brought rest.[2]
- ↑ Por que nos quemays pues que vosotros los de Mexico nos mandastes que mataramos estos xpianos.' Lúcas, in Cortés, Residencia, i. 283.
- ↑ Cortés himself admits that upward of 400 were burned. 'Señores y personas principales se prendieron hasta cuatrocientos, sin otra gente baja, á los cuales todos, digo á los principales, quemaron por justicia.' Cartas, 302. Gomara increases this number to 400 rich men and 60 chiefs. Hist. Mex., 228. Lúcas reduces it to 306, while Herrera seeks to cover Spanish fame by writing 30. Bernal Diaz avoids stating a figure, for the same reason, and to shield his friend Sandoval, whom Robertson charges with the act, Hist. Am., ii. 137, not aware probably that Ocampo was the judge who inflicted the punishinent, by the general order of Cortés. While not blameless, Sandoval
