Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/172

CHAPTER VIII.

YUCATAN.

1601-1708.

An Uneventful Period — Good Rulers — Marshal Cárlos de Luna y Arellano — The Government of the Towns — The Monarch as a Mendicant — Governor Juan de Vargas — His Maleadministration — The Licentiate Carvajal Takes his Residencia — Indian Revolts — The Succession of Rulers — Campeche Fortified — Soberanis and Martin de Ursúa — More Dissensions — Excommunication of Soberanis — Concerning the Conquest of the Itzas — Conduct of Ursúa Justified, and his Subsequent Promotion — His Qualities as a Soldier the Cause of his Preferment.

During the latter half of the sixteenth century, it will be remembered, the governors of Yucatan were constantly at variance with the church,^[1] and unseemly quarrels between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities were prevalent almost from the time that the custodian Villapando built at Mani^[2] the first convent founded in the Maya peninsula. On August 11, 1604, the marshal Cárlos de Luna y Arrellano^[3] took possession of the government, and although his reign lacked none of the usual strifes, as well with the city council as with the bishop and the secular and regular clergy, his qualities as an honest ruler and the progress which the province made during his administration were fully recognized. The strongest proof of his rectitude is that, although no failure of crops

1. In Hist. Mix., ii. 428 et seq., this series, the conquest of Yucatan is related, and on pages 648-654 of the same volume is a brief sketch of the history of this province during the latter half of the sixteenth century.
2. About 1550.
3. The author of Datos Biográficos, in Cartas de Indias, 791-2, says his Christian name was Tristan and that of his father Cárlos.

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