himself. Laguna offered to escort him beyond reach of danger, and on the morning of the 8th the intendente and his family left Zacatecas for Guadalajara. On the following morning Laguna returned to Zacatecas, having been appointed, by a popularly elected ayuntamiento, intendente ad interim of the province, which office he deemed it his duty to accept in the hope of preventing excesses. He left an escort of twenty men for Rendon, who continued his journey. On the 29th, although reënforced by a troop of twenty-five lancers and four dragoons sent to his assistance by Abarca, Rendon and his family were captured by a body of insurgents, who after appropriating their clothes, conducted them to Guadalajara, where they arrived after thirty-three days, and were delivered to Hidalgo, who in the mean time had reached that city.[1]
The revolt in Zacatecas was spontaneous, and not allied with the insurrection in other provinces. The latter were directed by the leaders either in person or by agents, to whom Hidalgo extended commissions of various grades. No such commissioner, however, had appeared in Zacatecas, and the outbreak was due to the excitement produced by news of the grito de Dolores. The people, after the first agitation, were moderate and tractable, and the conde Santiago de Laguna succeeded in suppressing pillage. About the middle of October, Rafael Iriarte,[2] styling himself lieutenant-general, appeared at Aguascalientes at the
- ↑ Rendon escaped the massacre of Europeans at Guadalajara in December following; and when Calleja entered that city after the battle of Calderon, he appointed him intendente del ejército del centro. Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. 138.
- ↑ Of Iriarte's antecedents but little is known. According to Mora, he had previously at different times been known by the names of Martinez and Laiton. Mej. y sus Rev. iv. 96. Zerecero and Liceaga state that in San Luis he went by the name of Cabo Leyton, and had been a scrivener in the secretary's office of the comandancia. Mem. Rev. Mex., 385; Adic. y Rectific., 151. His first commission as an insurgent officer, from evidence given later by Pedro de Aranda at his own trial, was to arrest and appropriate the property of the Europeans in the villa of Leon, situated between Guanajuato and Aguascalientes. In the execution of this commission he acted with great cruelty, 'prendia á los europeos de aquella villa, devoraba sus bienes y dejaba á perecer sus familias.' Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. app. 60.
