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The American Claimant/Chapter XI

During the first few days he kept the fact diligently before his mind that he was in a land where there was "work and bread for all." In fact, for convenience' sake he fitted it to a little tune and hummed it to himself; but as time wore on the fact itself began to take on a doubtful look, and next the tune got fatigued and presently ran down and stopped. His first effort was to get an upper clerkship in one of the departments, where his Oxford education could come into play and do him service. But he stood no chance whatever. There, competency was no recommendation; political backing, without competency, was worth six of it. He was glaringly English, and that was necessarily against him in the political centre of a nation where both parties prayed for the Irish cause on the house-top and blasphemed it in the cellar. By his dress he was a cowboy; that won him respect—when his back was not turned—but it couldn't get a clerkship for him. But he had said, in a rash moment, that he would wear those clothes till the owner or the owner's friends caught sight of them and asked for that money, and his conscience would not let him retire from that engagement now.

At the end of a week things were beginning to wear rather a startling look. He had hunted everywhere for work, descending gradually the scale of quality, until apparently he had sued for all the various kinds of work a man without a special calling might hope to be able to do, except ditching and the other coarse manual sorts—and had got neither work nor the promise of it.

He was mechanically turning over the leaves of his diary, meanwhile, and now his eye fell upon the first record made after he was burnt out: "I myself did not doubt my stamina before, nobody could doubt it now, if they could see how I am housed, and realise that I feel absolutely no disgust with these quarters, but am as serenely content with them as any dog would be in a similar kennel. Terms, twenty-five dollars a week. I said I would start at the bottom. I have kept my word."

A shudder went quaking through him, and he exclaimed: "What have I been thinking of! THIS the bottom! Mooning along a whole week, and these terrific expenses climbing and climbing all the time! I must end this folly straightway."

He settled up at once and went forth to find less sumptuous lodgings. He had to wander far and seek with diligence, but he succeeded. They made him pay in advance—four dollars and a half; this secured both bed and food for a week. The good-natured, hardworked landlady took him up three flights of narrow, uncarpeted stairs and delivered him into his room. There were two double-bedsteads in it, and one single one. He would be allowed to sleep alone in one of the double beds until some new boarder should come, but he wouldn't be charged extra. So he would presently be required to sleep with some stranger! The thought of it made him sick. Mrs. Marsh, the landlady, was very friendly and hoped he would like her house—they all liked it, she said. "And they're a very nice set of boys. They carry on a good deal, but that's their fun. You see, this room opens right into this back one, and sometimes they're all in one and sometimes in the other; and hot nights they all sleep on the roof when it don't rain. They get out there the minute it's hot enough. The season's so early that they've already had a night or two up there. If you'd like to go up and pick out a place, you can. You'll find chalk in the side of the chimney where there's a brick wanting. You just take the chalk and—but of course you've done it before."

"Oh, no, I haven't."

"Why, of course you haven't—what am I thinking of? Plenty of room on the Plains without chalking, I'll be bound. Well, you just chalk out a place the size of a blanket anywhere on the tin that ain't already marked off, you know, and that's your property. You and your bed-mate take turnabout carrying up the blanket and pillows and fetching them down again; or one carries them up and the other fetches them down, you fix it the way you like, you know. You'll like the boys, they're everlasting sociable—except the printer. He's the one that sleeps in that single bed—the strangest creature; why, I don't believe you could get that man to sleep with another man, not if the house was afire. Mind you, I'm not just talking, I know. The boys tried him, to see. They took his bed out one night, and so when he got home about three in the morning—he was on a morning paper then, but he's on an evening one now—there wasn't any place for him but with the iron-moulder; and if you'll believe me, he just set up the rest of the night—he did, honest. They say he's cracked, but it ain't so, he's English—they're awful particular. You won't mind my saying that. You—you're English?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. I could tell it by the way you mispronounce the words that's got a's in them, you know; such as saying loff when you mean laff —but you'll get over that. He's a right down good fellow, and a little sociable with the photographer's boy and the caulker and the blacksmith that work in the navy yard, but not so much with the others. The fact is, though it's private, and the others don't know it, he's a kind of an aristocrat, his father being a doctor, and you know what style that is—in England, I mean, because in this country a doctor ain't so very much, even if he's that. But over there of course it's different. So this chap had a falling out with his father, and was pretty high strung, and just cut for this country, and the first he knew he had to get to work or starve. Well, he'd been to college, you see, and so he judged he was all right—did you say anything?"

"No—I only sighed."

"And there's where he was mistaken. Why, he mighty near starved. And I reckon he would have starved sure enough, if some jour' printer or other hadn't took pity on him and got him a place as apprentice. So he learnt the trade, and then he was all right—but it was a close call. Once he thought he had got to haul in his pride and holler for his father and—why, you're sighing again. Is anything the matter with you?—does my clatter—"

"Oh, dear—no. Pray go on—I like it."

"Yes, you see, he's been over here ten years; he's twenty-eight, now, and he ain't pretty well satisfied in his mind, because he can't get reconciled to being a mechanic and associating with mechanics, he being, as he says to me, a gentleman, which is a pretty plain letting-on that the boys ain't, but of course I know enough not to let that cat out of the bag."

"Why—would there be any harm in it?"

"Harm in it? They'd lick him, wouldn't they? Wouldn't you? Of course you would. Don't you ever let a man say you ain't a gentleman in this country. But laws, what am I thinking about? I reckon a body would think twice before he said a cowboy wasn't a gentleman."

A trim, active, slender and very pretty girl of about eighteen walked into the room now, in the most satisfied and unembarrassed way. She was cheaply but smartly and gracefully dressed, and the mother's quick glance at the stranger's face as he rose, was of the kind which inquires what effect has been produced, and expects to find indications of surprise and admiration.

"This is my daughter Hattie—we call her Puss. It's the new boarder, Puss." This without rising. The young Englishman made the awkward bow common to his nationality and time of life in circumstances of delicacy and difficulty, and these were of that sort; for, being taken by surprise, his natural, lifelong self sprang to the front, and that self of course would not know just how to act when introduced to a chambermaid, or to the heiress of a mechanics' boarding house. His other self—the self which recognized the equality of all men—would have managed the thing better, if it hadn't been caught off guard and robbed of its chance. The young girl paid no attention to the bow, but put out her hand frankly and gave the stranger a friendly shake and said: "How do you do?"

Then she marched to the one washstand in the room, tilted her head this way and that before the wreck of a cheap mirror that hung above it, dampened her fingers with her tongue, perfected the circle of a little lock of hair that was pasted against her forehead, then began to busy herself with the slops.

"Well, I must be going—it's getting towards supper time. Make yourself at home, Mr. Tracy, you'll hear the bell when it's ready."

The landlady took her tranquil departure, without commanding either of the young people to vacate the room. The young man wondered a little that a mother who seemed so honest and respectable should be so thoughtless, and was reaching for his hat, intending to disembarrass the girl of his presence; but she said:

"Where are you going?"

"Well—nowhere in particular, but as I am only in the way here—"

"Why, who said you were in the way? Sit down—I'll move you when you are in the way."

She was making the beds, now. He sat down and watched her deft and diligent performance.

"What gave you that notion? Do you reckon I need a whole room just to make up a bed or two in?"

"Well no, it wasn't that, exactly. We are away up here in an empty house, and your mother being gone—"

The girl interrupted him with an amused laugh, and said: "Nobody to protect me? Bless you, I don't need it. I'm not afraid. I might be if I was alone, because I do hate ghosts, and I don't deny it. Not that I believe in them, for I don't. I'm only just afraid of them."

"How can you be afraid of them if you don't believe in them?"

"Oh, I don't know the how of it—that's too many for me; I only know it's so. It's the same with Maggie Lee."

"Who is that?"

"One of the boarders; young lady that works in the fact'ry."

"She works in a factory?"

"Yes. Shoe factory."

"In a shoe factory; and you call her a young lady?"

"Why, she's only twenty-two; what should you call her?"

"I wasn't thinking of her age, I was thinking of the title. The fact is, I came away from England to get away from artificial forms—for artificial forms suit artificial people only—and here you've got them too. I'm sorry. I hoped you had only men and women; everybody equal; no differences in rank."

The girl stopped with a pillow in her teeth and the case spread open below it, contemplating him from under her brows with a slightly puzzled expression. She released the pillow and said: "Why, they are all equal. Where's any difference in rank?"

"If you call a factory girl a young lady, what do you call the President's wife?"

"Call her an old one."

"Oh, you make age the only distinction?"

"There ain't any other to make as far as I can see."

"Then all women are ladies?"

"Certainly they are. All the respectable ones."

"Well, that puts a better face on it. Certainly there is no harm in a title when it is given to everybody. It is only an offense and a wrong when it is restricted to a favored few. But Miss—er—"

"Hattie."

"Miss Hattie, be frank; confess that that title isn't accorded by everybody to everybody. The rich American doesn't call her cook a lady—isn't that so?"

"Yes, it's so. What of it?"

He was surprised and a little disappointed, to see that his admirable shot had produced no perceptible effect.

"What of it?" he said. "Why this: equality is not conceded here, after all, and the Americans are no better off than the English. In fact there's no difference."

"Now what an idea. There's nothing in a title except what is put into it—you've said that yourself. Suppose the title is 'clean,' instead of 'lady.' You get that?"

"I believe so. Instead of speaking of a woman as a lady, you substitute clean and say she's a clean person."

"That's it. In England the swell folks don't speak of the working people as gentlemen and ladies?"

"Oh, no."

"And the working people don't call themselves gentlemen and ladies?"

"Certainly not."

"So if you used the other word there wouldn't be any change. The swell people wouldn't call anybody but themselves 'clean,' and those others would drop sort of meekly into their way of talking and they wouldn't call themselves clean. We don't do that way here. Everybody calls himself a lady or gentleman, and thinks he is, and don't care what anybody else thinks him, so long as he don't say it out loud. You think there's no difference. You knuckle down and we don't. Ain't that a difference?"

"It is a difference I hadn't thought of; I admit that. Still—calling one's self a lady doesn't—er—"

"I wouldn't go on if I were you."

Howard Tracy turned his head to see who it might be that had introduced this remark. It was a short man about forty years old, with sandy hair, no beard, and a pleasant face badly freckled but alive and intelligent, and he wore slop-shop clothing which was neat but showed wear. He had come from the front room beyond the hall, where he had left his hat, and he had a chipped and cracked white wash-bowl in his hand. The girl came and took the bowl.

"I'll get it for you. You go right ahead and give it to him, Mr. Barrow. He's the new boarder—Mr. Tracy—and I'd just got to where it was getting too deep for me."

"Much obliged if you will, Hattie. I was coming to borrow of the boys." He sat down at his ease on an old trunk, and said, "I've been listening and got interested; and as I was saying, I wouldn't go on, if I were you. You see where you are coming to, don't you? Calling yourself a lady doesn't elect you; that is what you were going to say; and you saw that if you said it you were going to run right up against another difference that you hadn't thought of: to-wit, Whose right is it to do the electing? Over there, twenty thousand people in a million elect themselves gentlemen and ladies, and the nine hundred and eighty thousand accept that decree and swallow the affront which it puts upon them. Why, if they didn't accept it, it wouldn't be an election, it would be a dead letter and have no force at all. Over here the twenty thousand would-be exclusives come up to the polls and vote themselves to be ladies and gentlemen. But the thing doesn't stop there. The nine hundred and eighty thousand come and vote themselves to be ladies and gentlemen too, and that elects the whole nation. Since the whole million vote themselves ladies and gentlemen, there is no question about that election. It does make absolute equality, and there is no fiction about it; while over yonder the inequality, (by decree of the infinitely feeble, and consent of the infinitely strong,) is also absolute—as real and absolute as our equality."

Tracy had shrunk promptly into his English shell when this speech began, notwithstanding he had now been in severe training several weeks for contact and intercourse with the common herd on the common herd's terms; but he lost no time in pulling himself out again, and so by the time the speech was finished his valves were open once more, and he was forcing himself to accept without resentment the common herd's frank fashion of dropping sociably into other people's conversations unembarrassed and uninvited. The process was not very difficult this time, for the man's smile and voice and manner were persuasive and winning. Tracy would even have liked him on the spot, but for the fact—fact which he was not really aware of—that the equality of men was not yet a reality to him, it was only a theory; the mind perceived, but the man failed to feel it. It was Hattie's ghost over again, merely turned around. Theoretically Barrow was his equal, but it was distinctly distasteful to see him exhibit it. He presently said: "I hope in all sincerity that what you have said is true, as regards the Americans, for doubts have crept into my mind several times. It seemed that the equality must be ungenuine where the sign-names of castes were still in vogue; but those sign-names have certainly lost their offence and are wholly neutralized, nullified and harmless if they are the undisputed property of every individual in the nation. I think I realize that caste does not exist and cannot exist except by common consent of the masses outside of its limits. I thought caste created itself and perpetuated itself; but it seems quite true that it only creates itself, and is perpetuated by the people whom it despises, and who can dissolve it at any time by assuming its mere sign-names themselves."

"It's what I think. There isn't any power on earth that can prevent England's thirty millions from electing themselves dukes and duchesses to-morrow and calling themselves so. And within six months all the former dukes and duchesses would have retired from the business. I wish they'd try that. Royalty itself couldn't survive such a process. A handful of frowners against thirty million laughers in a state of irruption. Why, it's Herculaneum against Vesuvius; it would take another eighteen centuries to find that Herculaneum after the cataclysm. What's a Colonel in our South? He's a nobody; because they're all colonels down there. No, Tracy" (shudder from Tracy) "nobody in England would call you a gentleman and you wouldn't call yourself one; and I tell you it's a state of things that makes a man put himself into most unbecoming attitudes sometimes—the broad and general recognition and acceptance of caste as caste does, I mean. Makes him do it unconsciously—being bred in him, you see, and never thought over and reasoned out. You couldn't conceive of the Matterhorn being flattered by the notice of one of your comely little English hills, could you?"

"Why, no."

"Well, then, let a man in his right mind try to conceive of Darwin feeling flattered by the notice of a princess. It's so grotesque that it—well, it paralyzes the imagination. Yet that Memnon was flattered by the notice of that statuette; he says so—says so himself. The system that can make a god disown his godship and profane it—oh, well, it's all wrong, it's all wrong and ought to be abolished, I should say." The mention of Darwin brought on a literary discussion, and this topic roused such enthusiasm in Barrow that he took off his coat and made himself the more free and comfortable for it, and detained him so long that he was still at it when the noisy proprietors of the room came shouting and skylarking in and began to romp, scuffle, wash, and otherwise entertain themselves. He lingered yet a little longer to offer the hospitalities of his room and his book shelf to Tracy and ask him a personal question or two: "What is your trade?"

"They—well, they call me a cowboy, but that is a fancy. I'm not that. I haven't any trade."

"What do you work at for your living?"

"Oh, anything—I mean I would work at, anything I could get to do, but thus far I haven't been able to find an occupation."

"Maybe I can help you; I'd like to try."

"I shall be very glad. I've tried, myself, to weariness."

"Well, of course where a man hasn't a regular trade he's pretty bad off in this world. What you needed, I reckon, was less book learning and more bread-and-butter learning. I don't know what your father could have been thinking of. You ought to have had a trade, you ought to have had a trade, by all means. But never mind about that; we'll stir up something to do, I guess. And don't you get homesick; that's a bad business. We'll talk the thing over and look around a little. You'll come out all right. Wait for me—I'll go down to supper with you."

By this time Tracy had achieved a very friendly feeling for Barrow and would have called him a friend, maybe, if not taken too suddenly on a straight-out requirement to realize on his theories. He was glad of his society, anyway, and was feeling lighter hearted than before. Also he was pretty curious to know what vocation it might be which had furnished Barrow such a large acquaintanceship with books and allowed him so much time to read.

title: The American Claimant/Chapter XI


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432 "Is faith then the only form of piety?"

"I know, I know," continued Silva hastily. "I am not come to dispute with you. You may attribute it to pride that I still ascribe piety to you. But when you left the synagogue forever you must have seen beside a seat of prayer, where once your father stood, a child, and that child prayed fervently, and that child was yourself. Forget it not. And you may know and keep it in remembrance that a Jew, with sorrow in his heart, sees you set forth on your lonely way. Farewell!"

Spinoza stretched out his hand to de Silva, but the latter only grasped that of the heretic with a mantle-covered hand, and went quickly away.

This new circumstance deeply agitated Spinoza. It was news from a life that he had lost. He could not be forgotten yet.

Soon, however, news of a death roused sincere sorrow in Spinoza's heart. It was the news that his teacher. Van den Ende, was executed in Paris. The always good-natured physician, who prized laughter as the highest good, had in action shown a devotion to his fatherland that no one would have expected from him. In order to prevent Louis XIV. from levying war on the United Provinces by a popular rising at home, he, with the Duc de Rohan and others, had plotted an insurrection in Normandy. He paid for it with a death on the gallows.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Rh All the inhabitants of Amsterdam, indeed of the United Netherlands, gave a tender, and in some cases, remorseful thought to the departed. Many indeed maintained that the doctor wished to enjoy his greatest good wholesale; he wanted to laugh in chorus with all Europe at Louis XIV. driven hither and thither over the world's stage. But the undertaking of Van den Ende, and his self-sacrificing death, were too grave and impressive not to cut short such an explanation.

Spinoza tried to explain to himself this astonishing turn in his teacher's life. That a lightly living nature might also be a lightly dying one is easily admissible; and even this neck-risking setting of his formerly squandered life on a single cast might be traceable to Van den Ende's character and theories. Still something remained inexplicable. Spinoza had mentally to excuse himself to his teacher; he had not expected so much from him.

He felt obliged to offer Olympia his condolences. In the expression of his grief and recognition of the bold deed must lie his reparation.

He examined himself severely, and felt he could say that only pure participation in the grief of his former love moved him to it; and in the evening he took the once familiar way to Van den Ende's dwelling. The house was silent and deserted, and he learned from a neighbor that Olympia had accompanied her husband to Hamburg.

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434 As he passed the church of St. Olave's on his return, there, where he had once passed the night on the steps, and gazed at Olympia's window, some one rushed at him, seized him by the arm, and stabbing him in the breast with a dagger, ran swiftly away, saying, "The ass hath horns." Spinoza had luckily escaped the stroke. Only his mantle was pierced. He thought he recognized the assassin. It was Chisdai.

When the first involuntary shock and its immediate effects on his mind had passed, Spinoza only reflected that fanaticism is nothing but a return to a primeval law of nature, which is apparently founded on laws of mind and on the sacredness of law. The confused, hot-headed zeal which makes the internal law an external watchword has in all times cursed, crucified, burnt at the stake, and stabbed its enemies. It is worth while to reveal their innate laws to mankind, and lead them to love, and joy, and felicity. ...

He kept the torn mantle as a reminder to do it.

Can we take this as a metaphor, that hatred and want of judgment only pierce the clothes of the wise, but cannot reach their inner self?

Spinoza did not hear that on the morning after the attempted crime a body was dragged from the Amstel. It was Chisdai's. He was buried unmourned, as a suicide, like Uriel Acosta, whose grave he had insulted.

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Rh No news of the Jewish congregation reached Spinoza, and now he was prostrated by sickness.

Thy free thought hath raised thee aloft into the infinite; above isolated appearance thou dost hover in the knowledge of universal laws, then suddenly thou art overthrown in an obscure chamber, dead to the world, the mind shattered, extinguished the streaming light from the law of the universe. No dagger stroke of the hand of man had reached Spinoza's heart, and yet he felt inexpressible pain in his breast, and blood flowed from his mouth.

Was it the result of so many agitating events following one after the other, and that infirmity which had already attacked him in early youth, and recurred on the occasion of his preaching in the synagogue?

Spinoza lay in sore sickness.

Now it was that Ludwig Meyer showed himself the faithful, helpful friend through day and night. And with his own gay humor he told his friend in quiet hours:

"Now you are what you ought to be; indeed, more. You are a banished Jew and a bachelor. A bachelor can return again to that innocence of Paradise before woman was created. He stands alone and free. My original sin—you may laugh away—you will help me by it. Is it not of deep significance that as soon as a second being speaks to Adam he is no longer alone? He no longer acts

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436 merely for himself. He must accommodate his actions to another's. Indeed, in the end he follows another's will. That is the fall; he did not act for himself, but for another. But the bachelor is like Adam in Paradise. You must remain the Adam of the mind."

Spinoza smiled at his friend, and explained that man is not really free in solitude, but only in society. Ludwig Meyer often stood as if in prayer beside the bed of the philosopher, who in painless moments looked upon his illness as a circumstance foreign to his real being. Only once he spoke of the trials he had gone through, and extended an idea he had expressed before:

"The heaviest burden that men can lay upon us is not that they persecute us with their own hatred, ingratitude and scorn; no, it is by planting hatred and scorn in our souls. That is what does not let us breathe freely nor see clearly. It is vanity and self-destruction to hate a man. We must only try to make the wrong action unavailing, and thus again obtain the love of God, in which the world is so peaceful and happy, and which fills us at all times with joy."

He rose ever higher towards that serene height of contemplation, so that he might say of himself:

"I have ever carefully striven with myself neither to despise, nor to blame, nor to detest human actions, but to understand them. And likewise the

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Rh human sensations of love, hatred, envy, avarice and pity, and the other motive powers of the soul to regard them not as faults but as qualities of human nature, which belong to it as much as air, heat, cold, storm, thunder and the like are in the nature of the atmosphere, and which, if they are uncongenial, are yet necessary, and have their ascertained causes through which we try to apprehend their nature, and in whose contemplation the mind is as much entertained as in apprehending the things that are agreeable to the imagination."

Meyer could not abstain from plainly telling this investigator of truth his serious situation. For a short time, as if he already felt the sleep of death, Spinoza closed his eyes, while Meyer explained to him that his symptoms were unmistakably those of consumption, and only careful and regular supervision of his life could lengthen his years. Silence reigned for a time, and Meyer watched the unmoved countenance of his friend, who still kept his eyes closed. Then the sick man arose, his eyes shone brightly, no sound of pain, no complaint parted his lips. With the peace of perfected wisdom he decided on the rule of life which he would henceforward follow. And he stood erect while he declared that now, in reflection and self-knowledge alone should his life be ordered, in self-control should his existence be maintained, and in peace of mind it should be fulfilled.

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438 He kept his word.

When full of years to contemplate death, to leave the world of sight and sensation, this is hard, and yet we may comfort ourselves in that we have run through our allotted space. But in the bloom of years, before the midday of life, to feel the seed of death within us, to fight it day by day, to watch each evidence of life, to miss the habitual quiet conviction that life will go on of itself, with careful forethought to keep the duty of existence at all times before our eyes, and thus to rejoice gayly and innocently in the sunny day, to work vigorously, aroused by no appeal from without, to find in his own thoughts the sacredness of life and its, joys—that man alone is capable of this to whom freedom and necessity, mortality and eternity, are one, who in wisdom has mounted the highest peak of existence. For wisdom is recognized harmony with nature's laws, the fulfilment of duty, which, in recognition of and obedience to these, becomes inclination.

Such wisdom was Spinoza's.

The world, with its thousand contradictions and inconsistencies in individual manifestations, was in his mind dissolved into harmony. He had thrown off all selfishness, all measurement of things in their influence on individuals; his own life and its trials were lost in the whole. And in enjoyment of the knowledge of divine truth he lived the life eternal.

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Rh "He was the free man who can dare to say:

"I forbear from evil, or strive to forbear from it, because it is in direct opposition to my special nature, and would divide me from the love and knowledge of God, which is the highest good."

In everlasting, unalterable harmony, as the legend says of the gods, and as nature around is unchangeable, lived Benedict Spinoza. What he had attained to by knowledge became to him blissful habit. And as he had once planned life in his thoughts, his thoughts now gave him life.

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NE night he saw a great vision. A man stood before him who was wonderful and strange to see. His head was covered with a broad hat whose color was as yellow as the grain beneath the sickle, and the hair of his head was white and flowed to his shoulders; on his brow was a sign of blood; his eyes lay hidden in their sockets overgrown with straggling hair. Two furrows reached from them to the corners of his mouth; in them his tears had once streamed, but now they were empty, for the spring was dried up. His white lips were overgrown with hair that reached to his girdle. A hair shirt flapped round his meagre body, and his feet were naked and cut. At his right side hung a pouch, and there also his robe was covered with a patch of the color of his hat. On his heart he carried a small roll in an iron case, fastened to a cord which hung round his neck and made a deep furrow in his flesh. In his right hand he held a staff which reached high above his head.

And the man bent over him, kissed him on the brow, and said:

"Knowest thou me well, O thou my son, in whom I am well pleased! Already more than six

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text: The Failure of the Church Rock Tailings Dam


text: Spinoza: A novel/Chapter 26

title: Spinoza: A novel/Chapter 26


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Rh hundred times has the sun fulfilled its course since the day when woe flowed over my head. I stood in my doorway and held my child in my arms. There they brought Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth, who called himself our Messiah. I hated him, for we loved the earth and he showed us the Heavens. We wished for a sword, and he taught us to love the foreign yoke. He was not our Messiah. When he would have rested on the threshold of my house, I spurned him with my foot and thrust him away. But he said, 'Come with me; thy foot which hath spurned me shall find no rest until the day when I return and found my kingdom upon earth.' The child fell from my arms. I followed him. I saw him die the death on the cross. I saw my house, I saw my children no more. They were scattered like chaff before the wind, or were devoured by the sword. Unstable and unsettled as Cain I wandered through forest and field, over stream and mountain. The flowers closed their petals before my eyes, the grass withered if my feet approached it, the birds became mute in the air, and the hungry lion, roaring as he came near, recoiled in fright when he saw me. But the wild animals were merciful and kind compared with those whom I regarded as of my race. I wandered through town and country. They drowned me with wormwood and choked me with gall, they poured poison in my wounds and made my bed on thorns,

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442 and when I would have laid down my head to rest they made the ground tremble beneath me, and when I uplifted my complainings they stopped my mouth with fiery embers. In every place to which I directed my footsteps they seized me by the hair, collected wood in a pile, and thrust me into the flames; but Jehovah, the God of Israel, whose eternal Law I bore in my heart, sent his angel. And though the flames stretched out their devouring tongues towards me, he saved me; and though they shed my blood in streams, he raised me and animated me anew; and though they enveloped me in thick darkness, yet his light was kindled and shone clearly around me; and though they buried me in mouldering graves, his breath blew on me and breathed new life into me. Often I asked him, 'When will it end, O Lord? When wilt thou have mercy on me? When wilt thou hold me in kindness again before thy countenance? When wilt thou pour balm into my wounds? When soften my torments? When wilt thou let me find rest? When wilt thou turn hatred into love, that I may cease to be an abomination, and the mark of scorn unto all nations? Why must I endure eternal dying without death, an eternal death without life? See, race after race have I seen fade and pass away like the grass of the field; kingdoms have I seen arise and crumble to dust before the breath of thy mouth. Everything rots and is brought forth anew; only I

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Rh alone hang like the drops to a pail that tremble in the wind but do not fall. Where the bonds of ice hold the earth everlastingly chained, there I stood; and Arabia's hot sands burned the soles of my feet; and nowhere, nowhere a land where I might sow or reap, or where I might find a grave. Jerusalem the Glorious lies in ruins. When wilt thou rebuild her? When lead us back again? Look down! I say in the morning, Would that it were eve; and in the evening. Would that it were morn. Look down! Trouble is my companion, shame and sorrow are my playfellows. I have won love from them. Give me tears, tears give me, that I may weep my misery. Wilt thou not take then thy hand from off me. Let mine enemies pierce the core of my soul, let me die, let me die. See, I have covered myself with hatred; let me take revenge on mine enemies, and ten times told over their heads what they have done unto me. Speak to the thunder that it may shatter them; command thy lightning that it may devour the marrow of their bones; or give me a sword, a sword give me, that I may bathe myself in their blood. Or will the time come when Love and Faith shall meet, Justice and Peace kiss one another, Truth spring from the earth, Justice look down from Heaven?'

"See, my son, such were my complainings, such was my despair, such my hope! Thou art come to be a Saviour to mankind, me too thou wilt save.

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444 Those who are of thy race have rejected thee, they have attempted thy life; those who are not of thy race have betrayed thee, they have embittered thy sweetest feeling. Thou knowest no anger, thou rewardest them with the truth."

The vision bent again over the sleeper and kissed him. It was a kiss of the dying Ahasuerus, who bore on himself the doom of that Israel which slew Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Spinoza went to Rhynsberg, and from there to Voorburg and the Hague, and wrote the "Theologico-Political Tractate" and the "Ethics." There, alone and deserted, he ended his days. The five books of the "Ethics" came out after his death.

He died on February 21st, 1677, in his forty-fourth year.

No thinker, arisen since Spinoza, has lived so much in the eternal as he did.

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text: Spinoza: A novel/Epilogue

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Author:John D. Nelson

Works

 * Nuclear Regulatory Commission, The Failure of the Church Rock Tailings Dam (1980)

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 of the thing, but when the thing exists, it is not necessary that every cause should exist, still some cause indeed, yet not every cause. Or if the problem is always universal, is the cause also a certain whole, and that of which it is the cause universal? as to shed the leaf is present definitely with a certain whole, though there should be species of it, and with these universally, i. e. either with plants or with such plants. Hence in these, the medium and that of which it is the cause must be equal, and reciprocate, for instance, why do the trees shed their leaves? if indeed through the concretion of moisture, whether the tree casts its leaf, there must of necessity be concretion, or whether there is concretion not in any thing indiscriminately, but in a tree, the latter must necessarily shed its leaf.

Chapter 17
however may there not be possibly the same cause of the same thing in all things, but a different one, or is this impossible? or shall we say it cannot happen, if it is demonstrated per se and not by a sign or accident? for the middle is the definition of the extreme, but if it is not thus, (shall we say that) it is possible? We may however consider that of which and to which


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 it is the cause by accident still they do not appear to be problems, but if not, the medium will subsist similarly, if indeed they are equivocal, the medium will be equivocal, if however as in genus the medium will be similar. For instance, why is there alternate proportion? for there is a different cause in lines, and in numbers, and the same (medium) so far as they are lines, is different, but so far as it has an increase of the same kind, it is the same, the like also occurs in all things. There is indeed a different cause in a different subject, why colour is similar to colour, and figure to figure, for the similar in these is equivocal, for here perhaps it is to have the sides analogous, and the angles equal, but in colours it consists in there being one sense (of their perception) or something else of the kind. Things however analogically the same, will have also the same medium by analogy, and this is so from cause, and that of which, and to which it is the cause following each other; but by assuming each singly, that of which it is the cause is more widely extended, as for the external angles to be equal to four, is or wider extension than triangle or square, but equal in all, for whatever have external angles equal to four right, will also have the medium similarly. The medium however is the definition of the first extreme, wherefore all sciences are produced by definition, thus to shed the leaf, is at the same time consequent to the vine, and exceeds, and to the fig tree, and exceeds, yet does not exceed all (plants), but is


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 equal to them. If then you take the first middle it is the definition of shedding the leaf, for the first will be the middle of one of them, because all are such, next the middle of this is, that sap is congealed, or something else of the sort, but what is it to shed the leaf? it is for the sap to be congealed, at the junction of the seed. In figures, to those who investigate the consequence of the cause, and of what it is the cause, we may explain the matter thus: let A be present with every B, and B with every D, but more extensively, B then will be universal to D, I call that universal which does not reciprocate, but that the first universal, with which each singular does not reciprocate, but all together reciprocate, and are of similar extension. B then is the cause why A is present with D, wherefore it is necessary that A should be more widely extended than B, for if not, why will this be rather the cause than that? If then A is present with all those of E, all those will be some one thing different from B, for if not, how will it be possible to say that A is present with every thing with which E is, but E not with every thing with which A is? for why will there not be a certain cause as there is why A is present with all D? wherefore will all those of E be one thing? We must consider this, and let


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Rh substitute for the whole at sea in a Scottish vessel or in the Bush in a Scottish family.

Copeland felt that night as if he needed prayer more than a set discourse. He was beginning a new life and he would fain have had some living devotional thoughts and feelings suggested to him. Jessie sat for a quarter of an hour after he conclusion of the sermon in silent thought, perhaps in silent prayer, and George resumed his letter and finished it. By that time the family were retiring to bed, for though Sunday was hailed as a day of rest, the limitation of employments—where there was no church to go to, no Sunday-school to teach or learn in, no neighbours to visit, and very few to see—made one and all of the household willing to abridge a little at both ends. Jessie was going with the others when George stopped her.

"I'd be glad if you would stay and see what I have been writing, Miss Lindsay, as it is according to your advice I am taking up the pen."

She accordingly stayed, and George put his letter into her hand. She was not much of a scholar; as she had said herself, she had taken care of a flock of sheep when she was eleven years old, and when she was relieved of that work there had been always a great deal of domestic and dairy work to occupy her hands and her

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172 mind; her own writing was a slow and painful process, and she could not read written hand with any degree of fluency. She had had no idea that George was such an expert penman, and blushed when she returned him his letter.

"You had better read to me what you wish me to hear," said she. "It does not seem to be my business, but as I urged you to write and as I wish that we should pa friends I'll listen to it."

George's letter was to this effect:

"My dear Father and Mother—I have been too much ashamed of my long silence and of the unsatisfactory nature of anything I ever had to say to you since I came to Australia to write till now, but you must not think that I forget you, or cease to think of you with love and self-reproach. As I am resolving to act differently for the future, I am going to try to confirm my resolution by beginning a regular correspondence.

"It is now I think eighteen months since I wrote to you from Boorundara. I have since been on the South Australian side, and have been twelve months here doing miscellaneous farm and station work, and have got such a character for being a good hand that I am begged to stay by my present master and pressed to leave by one of his neighbours, and in both

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Rh to take a better situation than my present. I think I will stay in my present employment. for I appear to have been too fond of change. What between the sea and the diggings and the quart-crushing company and the brewery I have always had tempting offers for bettering myself, sad the consequence is that those who have stuck to the worst employment have distanced me in the race. And it is this desire for change that has made me so averse to return to you when you urged it so strongly; if I could not stay at home when I got there I should only disappoint you doubly.

"But I think I have come to a turning in my life, and that I may yet become worthy of your affection. Something has come my path just at this time in the shape of a good woman, and whether I my ever see my way to marry her or not, whether I may ever grow deserve her or not, I shall always feel indebted to her for the advice she has given and the resolution she has inspired. If I am ever a comfort or a pride to you in my life, it will be greatly owing to her.

"I have a year's wages almost untouched and mean to keep it sacred, and when I have saved of my own earnings as much as will take me home and bring me back again, if I cannot settle

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I]

[Slowly.] And so you have followed me with pride and scorn also in your heart?

And loneliness.

Do you love him still?

I do not even know.

It was that that made me so reserved with you—then—even though I felt your interest in me, even though I felt that I too was something in your life.

You were.

Yet that separated me from you. I was a third person, I felt. Your names were always spoken together, Robert and Beatrice, as long as I can remember. It seemed to me, to everyone

We are first cousins. It is not strange that we were often together.

He told me of your secret engagement with him. He had no secrets from me; I suppose you know that.

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10

[Uneasily.] What happened—between us—is so long ago. I was a child.

[Smiles maliciously.] A child? Are you sure? It was in the garden of his mother's house. No? [He points towards the garden.] Over there. You plighted your troth, as they say, with a kiss. And you gave him your garter. Is it allowed to mention that?

[With some reserve.] If you think it worthy of mention.

I think you have not forgotten it. [Clasping his hands quietly.] I do not understand it. I thought, too, that after I had gone Did my going make you suffer?

I always knew you would go some day. I did not suffer; only I was changed.

Towards him?

Everything was changed. His life, his mind, even, seemed to change after that.

[Musing.] Yes. I saw that you had changed when I received your first letter after a year; after your illness, too. You even said so in your letter.

It brought me near to death. It made me see things differently.

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I]

And so a coldness began between you, little by little. Is that it?

[Half closing her eyes.] No. Not at once. I saw in him a pale reflection of you: then that too faded. Of what good is it to talk now?

[With a repressed energy.] But what is this that seems to hang over you? It cannot be so tragic.

[Calmly.] O, not in the least tragic. I shall become gradually better, they tell me, as I grow older. As I did not die then they tell me I shall probably live. I am given life and health again—when I cannot use them. [Calmly and bitterly.] I am convalescent.

[Gently.] Does nothing then in life give you peace? Surely it exists for you somewhere.

If there were convents in our religion perhaps there. At least, I think so at times.

[Shakes his head.] No, Miss Justice, not even there. You could not give yourself freely and wholly.

[Looking at him.] I would try.

You would try, yes. You were drawn to him as your mind was drawn towards mine. You held back from

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Jeepday (talk) 12:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

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32 long time in reaching the farms, on account of the badness of the path, it was discovered by the laborers, who, judging that harm was intended, fled into their canoes and made for the island in the Lake, rowing as hard as possible.

“The army encamped in the farms on the shore of the Lake and fortified itself very well, because that Indian guide had told Cortes that the Itzas were a people well skilled in war and that they were feared by the whole region. And also this Indian told the Spaniards that if they would let him go he would cross to the city in his canoe and would speak to Canek, Lord of those Lands of the Itzas, and would tell him of their intention, and of their arrival.

The Indian is Sent to Tayasal. “Cortes acceded to this request, and gave orders that he should be set free. At midnight the Indian returned to the army. As it was two leagues from the mainland to the Island or Peten (as they called it), he could not return earlier. He brought with him two chiefs of that City who came to visit Cortes by order of Canek, who had told them to see on his behalf the Captain General of that army and learn from his lips what it was he wished.

Some Indians Come to Cortes from Tayasal. "Don Fernando Cortes gave these personages some Spanish soldiers as hostages, so that the Canek or Lord might be able to come to the Royal camp. And after Cortes had treated them with so much courtesy, kindness, and graciousness that those Indians were delighted with him, as well as with the Spaniards' beards, clothes, arms, and horses, he took leave of them and they went away. And on the following day Canek came to the camp with thirty-two chiefs and many Zamaguales or common people, who came in their canoes, bringing with them the Spanish hostages and without showing any signs of fear or of hostility.

Canek himself Comes and is Courteously Received. “Don Fernando Cortes received Canek with much love and urbanity. After saluting one another, and speaking by means of interpreters, Cortes, to honor him and to show Canek how the Christians adored their God, had a mass sung with all solemnity to the sound of the reed instruments, sackbuts, or flageolets


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Rh which he had with him, and he had out his best table ornaments, so as to treat Canek with great majesty.

Canek Hears Mass and Promises to Put away his Idols. “Canek listened to the mass with great attention and took good notice of the Ceremonies, decorations, and the altar-service, and he derived much pleasure from what was shown him. He praised highly the music, saying that such a thing had never been heard before, and those who were with him were astonished and fascinated at seeing and hearing it.

“And when the religious and clerics had finished the divine office, they preached to Canek, urging him to put away his idols and see how good was the Law of God....They told Canek that his idols were but pieces of stone or old wood harboring demons and that he was deceived in them and that all who believed in them would lose their souls and would be carried to the Infernal regions.

“Canek replied that he would willingly leave his Idols and that he wished to know the manner in which they venerated the True God of whom they told him and whom they declared unto him, and he asked for a cross in order to place it in his village. Don Fernando Cortes told him that soon it would be given to him, as it had been done in the other pueblos through which they had passed. The Padres said the same and added that as soon as possible men should be sent to him to instruct him and all his vassals in the Faith of Christ our Lord, for at present it could not be done, as many important things were pressing....

“Don Fernando Cortes made to Canek a very full and eloquent speech about the Emperor Charles V and his many dominions and his great sovereign power; Cortes begged Canek and urged him with affectionate arguments to be the vassal of the Emperor, as were already the Lords of the great Kingdom of Mexico and many others. Canek replied, saying that he thus gave himself up; for, many years before, men of Tabasco, when passing through his lands into the wilderness, had told him that certain Strangers had arrived at their villages and that they fought much and well, for they had conquered the Tabascans in three battles.


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34 “And Cortes told Canek that he himself was the Captain of those of whom the Tabascans spoke, and that he had conquered them and subjected them to his will. Thereupon the conversation came to a close and they all sat down to eat with much ostentatious magnificence. And it was suitable that it should be so, in order that those Indians might come to esteem and fear the Spaniards, and thus know how majestic was their King.

“Canek ordered his vassals to bring from the canoes birds, fishes, cakes, honey, and gold (though only a little of the latter), and beads of red snail-shells, which the Indians value highly. They ate, and Cortes gave Canek a shirt, and a cap of black velvet, and some little things of iron, such as scissors and knives.

“Once again Don Fernando Cortes asked Canek about some Spaniards of his who should be on the coast of the sea, not far from there. To this Canek replied that he indeed had news of them and that he would give Cortes a man who should lead him to where they were without wandering from the road, although it was rough and bad on account of the great forests, rivers, and marshes that had to be traversed; once the sea was reached the going would not be so difficult.

Cortes Goes to Tayasal with Canek. “Don Fernando Cortes thanked him very much, but told him that the horses could not go in the canoes in order to cross the Lake and continue their journey. Canek replied that after a matter of three leagues the Lake would be left behind, and he begged that while the army was marching around by land Don Fernando Cortes should come with him to his city to see him burn the idols. Don Fernando Cortes did so, against the advice of all his captains, who held that he was of great foolhardiness and overconfidence.

The Itzas Give Cortes News of Olid. “Cortes embarked with thirty crossbowmen, Canek, and the chief Indians for the town on the Island, which town was very large, and from a long way off they saw the whiteness of its many houses and adoratoria. And on reaching the town Canek received Cortes with great rejoicing, regaling him, as well as he could, with a


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Rh present of poor gold of little value (for it is not found in that country) and some mantles. And there the Indians informed Cortes of where the two villages of the Bearded Men (as they call the Spaniards) were. They said that one of them was called Pueblo de Nito (Ferns) and was on the coast to the north, while the other was called Pueblo de Naco and was inland.

“This news brought great joy to Cortes and his men on account of the great desire they all had to find the Spaniards in search of whom they had undertaken this perilous journey.

“Those of the army who were marching along the shore of the Lake went with great care, being suspicious lest the affability of Canek was but a piece of premeditated craftiness to enable him to perpetrate some treachery.

Cortes Takes Leave of Canek, Leaving Morzillo. “But things did not take such a course as they had feared. Indeed, Don Fernando Cortes was ahead of time (at the meeting place) with all his crossbowmen, and when he joined with the main body of his army he rid the rest of all the anxiety they had suffered during his absence.

“He took leave of Canek and the Itza Indians who had accompanied him to the mainland. He left in their charge his horse Morzillo, which had been injured in the ankle, charging them to take good care of him, and to cure him. Cortes said that he would send after the horse from the place where he should meet those Spaniards for whom he was seeking. Such horses were, he said, esteemed highly, for it was a good horse.

Idols not Burnt. “There was no burning of the idols, nor anything else of the sort, in that city of Tayasal (as they call it) or Chief City of Canek. Some say, however, that the idols were burnt in the presence of Cortes, but in truth, from the time when he left his horse among the Itza Infidels, they had a worse and more abominable idol than they had had before, as we shall see later....


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36 Cortes Arrives in Honduras. “With...innumerable other excessive trials, at the end of many days, they arrived at Honduras and met the Spaniards in search of whom they had come, in the villages of Naco and Nito, which Gil Gonzalez de Avila and Christoval de Olid had settled with Spaniards. The town of Nito was founded by Avila and was called San Gil de Buena Vista. All that happened is to be found and read in the Histories of the Indies and it does not concern this History.

“Only this concerns us: on account of a variety of circumstances Don Fernando Cortes neither returned himself through the land of the Itzas, nor did he send after his horse, nor did he send the Missionary Fathers to the Itzas, as he had offered to do.... So that that wretched little ruler, Lord of the Itzas or Canek, and all his subjects, remained as barbarous and idolatrous as they were before, and even daily grew more so, as well as becoming more horrible, cruel, atrocious, and formidable. And in this state we must leave them until the time comes for us once more to speak of them....”

Though this account of the entrada made by Cortes into the country of the Itzas seems full enough, it differs, nevertheless, from some of the others.

Comparison of Villagutierre with Other Authorities. In the first place Villagutierre tells us that the motive which led Cortes into sending an expedition to Honduras was that “it was a very good land,” and when, because of 0lid's treachery, it became necessary for him to go thither himself, Villagutierre says he took four hundred Spaniards and thirty horses. Bernal Diaz (vol. iv, p. 283 ff.) differs widely from this account in several respects. He says that Cortes hoped to find a passage to the Spice Islands, and that it was for that purpose that he sent out Olid, on whom he believed he could rely. Olid, though brave enough, was not a wise or faithful man. He fell a victim to the machinations of Diego Velazquez, Governor of Cuba, who was a mortal enemy of Cortes.

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Rh went in person to Honduras. He tells us that the vanguard of the Spaniards, after capturing ten Indian men and two Indian women, who were treated kindly, sent one of their canoes to the island of Tayasal with six Indians and two Spaniards, who were to give Canek some small Castilian presents. As a result of this, when the main body of the army, under Cortes himself, reached the shore of the lake, Canek and several of his chiefs were waiting for them. The rest of the account of Cogolludo is the same as that of Villagutierre.

In his Fifth Letter, Cortes furnishes some interesting details with which we will complete our account of the first entrada into the Itza territory. He tells us (The Letters of Cortes to Charles V, MacNutt's translation, vol. ii, p. 259) that Apospolon, Lord of Izancanac, first pretended to be dead, being in fear of Cortes, but that later he took the Spaniards to Izancanac, which was "quite large, and has many mosques." This Apospolon was a sort of merchant prince and had widespread trading connections. At Nito, where Cortes met Gil Gonzalez de Avila, a whole quarter "was peopled with his agents under command of one of his brothers." The articles of trade were, of course, only such things as cocoa, mantles, red shells, and dyes. As the people of Izancanac were near neighbors of the Itzas, and as the latter lay between them and Nito, it seems as if it must have been almost inevitable that the two tribes, the subjects of Apospolon and those of Canek, should have had much in common.

When Cortes left Izancanac he passed through the fortified village, the name of which no one mentions, and later came to that of Tiac, which was still larger and very well built. From the province of Mazatlan (in which was Tiac) to that of Taiza (Itza) was a matter of four nights. At length he reached the lake, which he thought to be an arm of the sea, and from the shore he saw Tayasal. He found that his scouts had captured an Indian, who gave valuable information. From this point the account of Cortes agrees absolutely with that of Villagutierre, even to the number of the crossbowmen (twelve) whom Cortes took with him.

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38 this entrada we must summarize our impressions. In the first place it is clear enough that a possibility may exist of Villagutierre having copied Cogolludo minutely. In the second place it is equally clear that in those instances where Villagutierre puts aside Cogolludo he draws from someone else of even more authority. Therefore we may safely believe that in quoting the accounts of various events given by Villagutierre we shall be availing ourselves of the best possible information.

Canek’s Attitude toward Cortes. At the time when Cortes was at Tayasal (1525) a tolerant attitude toward the white men was prevalent. Far from resenting the proposed change in religion, the Canek of that day seems rather to have welcomed the new faith, and one can readily believe that had Cortes been able to do all that he promised, an early Christianization of the Itzas would have taken place. Instead, however, as we shall see, their idolatrous ways were to continue for many decades, and their attitude was to suffer a great change which, we must concede, is largely to be accounted for by Spanish brutality and bad faith.

The foregoing is all in harmony with what Gomara says. He especially emphasizes the friendly attitude of Canek (Gomara, 1826, vol. ii, p. 136 ff.)


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RANCISCO DE MONTEJO and his Son. Although northern Yucatan was reduced to the condition of an orderly Spanish possession some one hundred and fifty years before the Peten region, it was done, nevertheless, only at the cost of many years of desperate struggling. Two men, Don Francisco de Montejo the Elder and Don Francisco de Montejo the Younger, his son, were the leading figures in the undertaking. The elder Montejo seems to have been a man of gentle birth and of fairly good property. He came to America about 1514 under Pedrarias Dávila. Soon after that, however, he left Dávila and settled in Cuba, where he served under Velazquez. He also served, a few years later, under Cortes in Mexico.

Soon after the granting of a patent or general order Francisco de Montejo the Elder set forth on his undertaking. Several officials were appointed to accompany him. Alonso Dávila was Contador (Paymaster), Pedro de Lima was Tesorero (Treasurer), and Hernando Moreno de Quito was Veedor de las Fundiciones (Overseer of the Smelters). (Cogolludo, p. 73.) Of these three offices the last was a sinecure by reason of the absence of mines in Yucatan. Dávila had taken an active part in the conquest of Mexico.

Montejo's Preparations and Sacrifices. The expedition numbered some four hundred soldiers, in addition to the crews who manned the four ships. The expense, all borne by Montejo,


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40 was heavy. To furnish the necessary arms, horses, and munitions the Adelantado found himself obliged to sell a Mayorazgo (entailed estate) yielding one thousand ducats a year ($2500, equal to about $10,000 of modern money). The seamen received pay, but the rest of the expedition received no money, depending on their fortune in the New World for remuneration. Only one cleric, Francisco Hernandez, accompanied the expedition; he was its chaplain. He later attributed the failure of the expedition to the lack of priests.

He Sets out. Setting out in 1527, the expedition arrived at Cozumel, where a landing was effected. There, as elsewhere, the Spaniards found themselves at a great disadvantage in having no interpreter. By various makeshifts, however, they made themselves understood, and poor Montejo, misled by the seeming docility of the natives, flattered himself that he had an easy task before him.

Montejo and his Men Go along the Shore of Yucatan. Skirting the eastern shore of Yucatan, the fleet arrived at a point near the first site of Valladolid, where all the soldiers landed, leaving the seamen to guard the ships and supplies. What seemed a sufficient number of horses, munitions, and provisions was taken. As usual on such occasions, the first thing to be done was to take formal possession of the land for the King of Castile. Accordingly appropriate ceremonies were carried through, and the standard bearer, Gonzalo Nieto, unfurled the royal banner. Cogolludo is very definite as to the region in which the conquest of Yucatan had its beginning. Valladolid, not Bakhalal or Campeche, is, he says, the site


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Rh of the first operations. He quotes as his authority on this point the Bachiller Valencia, a native of Valladolid, whose Relación was made in 1639. Coni, a village in the province of Choaca, was reached. Some of the chiefs of the region came to see the Adelantado and were well received; they, however, were treacherously minded, but their attempt to kill or injure Montejo was foiled. From Coni the Spaniards went to the village of Choaca, where their real trials began.

Description of the Campaign. In their early wanderings the Spaniards suffered greatly from lack of proper water and from bad roads. Often they found the villages deserted by their inhabitants or, still worse, bristling with armed warriors. Led by an Indian whom they had picked up at Coni, Montejo and his followers traveled through the province of Choaca to a place called Aké. On the way they ran into an ambush of armed Indians. The weapons of these latter consisted of arrows hardened by fire, lances with sharp flint points, two-handed swords of very hard wood, and shields made of very large tortoise shells adorned with snail shells and antlers; their bodies were naked save for breech clouts of flimsy material, and they were all painted. Since the Indians were as stubborn as they were brave, and as the Spaniards found themselves at a disadvantage, being unable to use their horses properly on account of the rough country, the fight was a fierce one; the Adelantado himself acted well, showing the less experienced of his followers the best way to combat the Indians. The Spaniards, greatly outnumbered, kept up the fight all day, receiving many lance wounds in their faces and bodies; many died; more were seriously wounded. The horses and bloodhounds also suffered greatly. Only after a second day of fighting did the Indians finally flee, leaving twelve hundred of their companions dead behind them. This first victory over the Indians took place in the last weeks of 1527. Cogolludo dwells at great length on the errors of Herrera (Dec. ix, lib. iii, cap. 3) concerning the founding of Tihoo or Merida and of Chichen Itza. According to Herrera, Montejo went to Tihoo, where he came into contact with the Cheles, who showed him Chichen


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42 Itza, seven leagues away. The Tutul Xiu, Lords of Mani, were then ruling there, and with them, Herrera says, the Spaniards made a peaceful arrangement. All this, according to Cogolludo, is wrong. In the opinion of Cogolludo, events were as follows. After the battle of Aké, Montejo determined to proceed cautiously and to endeavor by peaceful means to win over the natives to obedience to the king. Slowly he made his way to Chichen Itza, which, by reason of its great buildings, seemed to him a suitable place for one of the two fortresses he was to build. Having fortified himself against attacks, he set about subduing the country. He managed to win the friendship of the Indians of that neighborhood. A village of Spaniards with houses built after the native plan was erected. The dwellings were made of vertical wooden logs and had palmleaf roofs. One hundred and seventy Spaniards were left in the new settlement. One of the first things done was to divide the land among them. Cogolludo thinks that the name first given to the new village was that of Salamanca. Misled by the seeming peacefulness of the Indians, Montejo determined to divide them up into encomiendas. The plan was carried out, to the secret disgust of the Indians, who determined to get free as soon as an opportunity offered.

Dávila and Vazquez Search vainly for Gold in the Region of Chetemal. From the map which Montejo had with him it was learned that there were gold mines in the vicinity of Bakhalal, which place the Indians called Vaymil or Chetemal. Because no sign of gold had been seen in that part of the country through which they had hitherto been, the soldiers were getting downhearted, and Montejo determined to send a party in search of mines. Captain Alonso Dávila, the Royal Paymaster, with fifty Spaniards and sixteen horses, was sent to found a village at a place called Tulma (Tuloom?) in the province of Cochva. A mine expert, one Francisco Vazquez, accompanied the party in the hopes of earning the reward of three hundred ducats which Montejo offered to the discoverer of gold mines. When Tulma was reached it was found to be entirely unsuitable for a village, and the explorers went on to the now deserted town of Chablé, which was a place reported to have gold mines.


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Rh The cacique of Chablé received them well; but the cacique of Chetemal was bellicose and would give no aid when Montejo sent to find out whether there were gold mines at Bakhalal, a town in his domain. With twenty men and eight horses the Adelantado set forth to punish this chief. At the end of a hard journey he found Chetemal deserted.

Foundation of Villa Real de Chetemal. Chetemal, however, seemed to have been admirably adapted for the site of a town, and so, when the rest of his men, together with some Indians, had arrived from Chablé, the town of Villa Real de Chetemal was established by Dávila. The cacique of Chetemal was treacherous in his intentions; several skirmishes took place between his men and the Spaniards, in which the latter, through superior arms, were the victors. An attempt made by Dávila to get to Montejo a report of all that had been done in the last two months was foiled by some Indians, who killed Dávila's messengers.

Hardships of those who Were at Chichen. Meanwhile those Spaniards who had remained behind with the Adelantado in Chichen Itza were also in grave straits, not only because of the hostility and ill-will of the Indians, but also because of the lack of various things they had brought from Spain but had been left behind in their ships which were not now to be reached. Their condition daily grew worse.

Dávila and his men wandered back and forth between Villa Real and Chablé (where the Indians were more or less friendly) in search of gold and in the hope of establishing their power. At length even the Indians of Chablé grew weary of them, and the Spaniards under Dávila set off on their journeys once more. Finally they came to Bakhalal, where some seemingly friendly Indian chiefs offered to carry letters to Montejo. They, however, like all the rest, were traitorous, and the Indians of the province of Cochva were so turbulent that Dávila determined to make war on them. To do this he had the help of the chief men of Vaymil, and he hoped for that of those of Chablé. When he returned to the latter place, he found that it had rebelled against his authority.

Continual Misfortunes. In the events which follow one


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44 note, misfortune, makes itself heard above the confusion. Battles, skirmishes, and murders filled the lives of Dávila and his men. Their wanderings lay mainly in the region of the province of Bakhalal. (Cogolludo, lib. ii, cap. viii.) Chablé and Villa Real de Chetemal were the places they most often visited. In many cases villages were found to be deserted. All through the discouraging period Dávila was seeking for some means of letting Montejo know the straits he was in. Once more he found Indians whom he believed to be willing to act as messengers, and once again he was tricked. Worse even than this was the unmistakable evidence that the Indians were making elaborate preparations to attack Villa Real. The fact that one of their own chiefs was being held as a hostage for the safe delivery of the letters did not seem to deter them in the least. One fortunate circumstance, however, does appear in this mass of misfortunes: Dávila was forewarned of his danger, for he sent out Francisco Vazquez with ten men in seven canoes to get supplies. Two of the party were killed by Indians; the remainder returned to Villa Real with at least a small amount of supplies.

If Dávila and his men were badly off in Villa Real, Montejo and his party at Chichen Itza were equally if not more precariously situated. The chief causes of their misfortunes were the lack of men, and of the most common necessities, the want of certainty as to the best course to be followed, and the knowledge on the part of the Indians that the number of the Spaniards was daily growing less on account of the ceaseless skirmishes. Food was so scarce that parties had to be formed on purpose to make sallies from the fortifications in search of it. As Cogolludo (p. 86) graphically puts it, “Their dinners now cost them their life-blood.”

Although, as we have already seen, centralized power was at an end long since in the peninsula, a revival of the old-time feeling of unity is to be seen in the determination the Mayas had to get rid of the Spaniards. Cogolludo (p. 87) says, “For this purpose almost all the people of that land had made an agreement, so that the multitude [of Indians] was very great. The Indians who led the attack were of a vigorous and proud


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Rh nature, and so, confident in their great number, they surrounded the Spaniards, who, in no direction, could be reached by help.” At length, seeing themselves faced with the choice of dying by inches from starvation or of being put to death fighting their enemies bravely, the Spaniards determined to make a sally when as good an opportunity as possible should present itself. Both sides were desperate: the invaders were fighting for their lives; the Indians for their liberty. The havoc wrought by the superior arms of the Spaniards was, however, more than counterbalanced by the overwhelming numbers of the Indians. At last, seeing the utter hopelessness of further efforts, Montejo gave the signal to retreat. One hundred and fifty soldiers died at the hands of the Indians in this engagement. An anecdote which Cogolludo tells as an explanation of the unity and determination of the Indians is a possible light upon the cause of their resistance. A cacique named Cupul, in the early days of the Spanish occupation of Chichen Itza, feigned friendliness toward the invaders and went about freely among them. One day, when Montejo was off his guard, Cupul went up behind him, snatched his sword away, and tried to kill him. Fortunately a Spaniard, one Blas Gonzalez, cut off Cupul's arm just in time to prevent the blow. It was to avenge the injury thus done to a chief that the Indians shut off the Spaniards' food supply.

Chichen Itza and Villa Real both Deserted. For our purpose it is unnecessary to give further details of the first expedition of Montejo. We need only say that both the settlements made by the Spaniards, Chichen Itza and Villa Real de Chetemal, were deserted for the time being. Cogolludo, after reviewing the various accounts of the further wanderings of Montejo and his son, Francisco Montejo the Younger, comes to the conclusion that the son remained at a port called Zilam, while his father went by sea to Campeche (Kin Pech), where he remained till 1534 without entirely deserting Yucatan. He did go, however, to New Spain in an effort to get more men so that he might continue the conquest. Those whom he already had remained at Campeche. Cogolludo's authority for these statements are the depositions written by Gonzalo


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46 Nieto and Blas Gonzalez, who were two soldiers of the Adelantado's forces.

Dávila Goes to Honduras. Captain Alonso Dávila stayed in Villa Real de Chetemal until 1532, constantly suffering from hunger and his struggles with the natives. His efforts to communicate with the Adelantado were constant. Finally it was decided to move to some place nearer Honduras. As no suitable place for a settlement was found, Dávila and his followers went to the town of Trujillo in Honduras. On the journey they lacked for every comfort and even for proper food. When they reached Trujillo they found the people there little better off than they. Dávila agreed with Andres de Zerezeda, who was governing Trujillo, that a vessel should be built to be sent out in search of the Adelantado and also for things from Spain. At about this time two ships from Cuba brought news of the discovery of Peru, and in one of these ships Dávila and his men went off. Ultimately they rejoined the Adelantado at Campeche.

Even after he was rejoined by Dávila and his followers at Campeche, Montejo still had plenty of trouble with the natives. Like all the rest, the Indians of Campeche were bitterly opposed to the Spaniards and gave them much trouble. It is pleasant to know that Queen Juana recognized the sacrifices made by Montejo in a cedula given at Ocaña on April 24, 1534.

The Elder Montejo Goes to Tabasco in 1535. Nothing daunted by all his misfortunes, the Adelantado bought some ships and gathered some soldiers to continue his conquest. In New Spain, also, he obtained new supplies of munitions and other necessary things. Apparently Montejo the Elder was ordered to pacify the province of Tabasco, which was in revolt. As a result of this Tabasco became, and for a long time remained, a part of the province of Yucatan. The ships, under Gonzalo Nieto, went on to Campeche to get all the Spaniards there were in Yucatan and bring them to Tabasco, for the subjugating of that province was found to be more difficult than had at first been thought. The motive which led Montejo thus to make sure of his grasp on Tabasco speaks well for his generalship: he knew only too well how few were the men


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Rh available as fighters, and so he wished to make sure that there were no revolted provinces in his rear at the time when he should begin again his attack on Yucatan.

In the year 1535 the Spaniards deserted Yucatan proper, retiring to Champoton and to Tabasco.

The Franciscans Enter Yucatan, 1535. At this juncture a very important incident took place: the Religious of the Order of San Francisco entered Yucatan. (Cogolludo, lib. ii, cap. 12.) At that time, 1534-1535, Antonio de Mendoza was in possession of the post of Viceroy of New Spain, and he had long before received orders from Queen Juana signed at Madrid, September 22, 1530, to the effect that Religious must at once be sent to Yucatan to fulfill the conditions under which that province had been granted to Francisco de Montejo. As there were no Religious in Yucatan there was nothing for Mendoza to do but send some from his own dominions. When the project was made known it was answered by Fray Jacobo de Testera, who, although he was the occupant of a high post in Mexico, offered to go to Yucatan to evangelize the country. In 1531 he, with Fray Lorencio de Bienvenida and two others, went to Tabasco. On March 18 of the same year they reached Champoton. Having asked leave of the natives to enter, the Mexican Indians in the party were welcomed by those of Champoton. The beginning was fortunate enough; the end of the mission was unfortunate. The cause of the change was the resentment the Indians felt against the Padres, who burned up their idols. Campeche was the farthest point from Mexico that they reached. (Remesal, lib. v, cap. 6.) Disgruntled by their failure, the Padres finally returned to Mexico. Cogolludo is very explicit as regards the exaggeration of Spanish cruelty by some writers, notably Remesal, Las Casas, and others.

In 1536 another band of friars, led by Fray Antonio de Ciudad-Rodrigo, preached in Coazacoalco, Santa Maria de la


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48 Victoria de Tabasco, Xicalango, Champoton, and Campeche, returning to New Spain two years later.

Renewal of the Subjection of Yucatan by Montejo, 1537. Cogolludo (lib. iii, cap. 1) expatiates upon the difficulty of setting an accurate date for the renewal of the pacification of Yucatan. It is plain enough, however, that Montejo wisely decided to begin this time with Tabasco, on which he already had a hold. This was accomplished with the aid of Diego de Contreras with a ship, men, and supplies. The task was completed by 1537. In all his undertakings Montejo seems to have been hampered by a scarcity of men, which may, as Cogolludo suggests, be accounted for by the recent discovery of Peru, with its alleged great wealth. There is some doubt as to whether Francisco de Montejo or his son led this second expedition; Cogolludo suggests that the former may have gone to Yucatan in person to start the work and that he may then have returned to Tabasco, leaving his son in charge.

Hostility of the Indians. Champoton was the place selected for the Spanish headquarters. The camp was established there in 1537. Mochcovoh, Halach Uinic of the place, treated them well at first. (Landa, pp. 82-83.) Before very long, however, the latent hostility of the Indians burst out and there was a battle which resulted in the flight of the Indians. The Spaniards foolishly neglected to follow up this advantage, preferring to bury their not numerous dead. In the days which followed there was a cessation of hostilities, which seems to have misled the Spaniards, who thought that the Indians were cowed. As a matter of fact they were forming a great army composed of warriors from many neighboring districts. In the battle which was soon precipitated the Spaniards were driven to their ships, and the royal camp was sacked. Stung and enraged by the insults of the seemingly victorious Indians, the Spaniards turned and faced them so boldly that the victory, in the end, was a Spanish one. Most of the Spaniards went home to their lands in New Spain after this battle; nineteen, however, remained at Champoton waiting for an opportunity to proceed with the conquest. Several of the names of these intrepid adventurers are given by Cogolludo (p. 117). They all


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Rh speak, in their Relaciones, of the younger Montejo as a good leader.

Matters continued for some time in very much the same way as heretofore. Towns were founded; troubles with the Indians occurred; the Adelantado went back and forth between Tabasco and Champoton; Don Francisco Montejo the Younger went to New Spain to get more soldiers, things went on in a fairly satisfactory manner until 1519, when, with some twenty cavalrymen from New Spain, Don Francisco went to Campeche. At about this time the chief command and the powers laid upon him by the king were passed by the Adelantado Francisco de Montejo to his son of the same name. The Instructions of the Adelantado are so important that we will give an extract of them paragraph by paragraph as described by Cogolludo.

The Elder Montejo’s Instructions to his Son

1. You, my son Don Francisco de Montejo, are to do the following in your conquest of Yucatan and Cozumel and in your fulfillment of the powers which I hold from His Majesty.

2. You are to see that your men live like good Christians and speak well of God, and you are to punish wrong-doers.

3. On your arrival at San Pedro (Champoton) you are to punish any who may have enslaved Indians against their will, and you are to thank the Indians of Champoton for having treated our men so well for two and one-half years.

4. Leaving the Indians of Champoton well contented, and taking with you some of their chief men, you will go to Campeche, where you will tell the leaders that you have come to take that land in His Majesty's name and mine in order to win it for the Holy Faith. You will punish those who will have no knowledge of God and who will not obey His Majesty. Those who do come into the faith and are obedient you will favor and shelter. Then, taking two chiefs of the said Pueblo and two of that of Champoton, you will let the rest go home; thereupon you will enter the province of Acanul, taking great care to do no harm to the natives.

5. In this province you will endeavor to meet a Lord called Vua Chancan, who has always been a friend of the Christians and most helpful in time of war. You will treat him very well, and will try to find out through the other leaders of the province whether they wish war. And if they do, you will give them to understand that you come in peace and that if they receive you in His Majesty's name and mine they will be well treated and favored. If they do not yield you will have to make war upon them.


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50 6. Having arrived at the Pueblo of Tihoo, which is in the province of Quepeche, you will establish there a Cabildo and Government if it seems to you that the region is such as to favor it. There you will labor to bring the whole land to peace, and if some hold back you will make war upon them in fulfillment of His Majesty's commands.

7. Afterwards you are to pacify the provinces which are to serve the said City. They are those of Acanul, Chacan, Quepeche, Kin Chel, Cocola, Tutul Xiu, and Kupules; these are the greatest provinces of the land.

8. You are to give repartimientos to not more than one hundred men because the land is large and the Indians many. This city is to be the chief of all. Besides the repartimientos which you make and besides that which I have kept for myself, you will leave a number of villages, without giving them permanently, for the use of persons who most forward the service of His Majesty. It is customary to do so in new lands.

9. And you are to make a general inspection of all that you conquer in the provinces hereinbefore mentioned; you will especially be informed of the number and quality of villages and houses. In each village you will establish Spanish citizens suitable for each village. You will also make Cedulas of encomienda and repartimiento wherever you think best, in fulfillment of His Majesty's command.

10. And having done all this, you will labor to see to it that all build their houses and other buildings well, and you the first of all, so that others may take your example. And you will endeavor to see that the Indians are well treated and taught our Holy Catholic Faith and are made to lose their bad habits.

11. At the same time you are to open roads to the sea and between all the principal cities. In all this you will place all the diligence and care possible, because I trust you. Signed in this Royal City of Chiapa, 1540.

12. Furthermore you will grant me again the provinces of Tutul Xiu, Techaque, Campeche and the village of Champoton.

The Younger Montejo Founds Campeche, 1540-1541. Before setting out with the main body of his forces Don Francisco de Montejo, the son, sent four picked men in advance to Campeche to ascertain the attitude of the Indians. At a place called Cihoo in the province of Telchac (Cogolludo, pp. 126, 127) these scouts found some Indians fortified. They warned the army of the danger. A fight took place in which the Spaniards were the victors. They took the Indians' deserted town and recuperated there for a number of days. From Cihoo,


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Rh Montejo went to Campeche, where he established the town of San Francisco de Campeche in 1540 or 1541.

All that was necessary for the establishment of government at Campeche having been done, it was time for Don Francisco to attend to the founding of Merida at Tihoo. He sent his cousin with fifty-seven or so men to conquer it; he himself remained behind. There was some trouble with the Indians, and it transpired that the friendship of a chief named Na Chancan, Lord of Acanul, was feigned. The Spaniards passed through the village of Pokbac.

Tutul Xiu of Mani Offers his Aid. Having reached Tihoo, the Spaniards established their camp on a hill near the present cathedral. (Cogolludo, lib. iii, cap. 6.) They had not been there long when some Indians brought the news that a large war-party was about to attack them. The Spaniards resolved to be the aggressors; they went in search of their enemies and beat them in a sharp fight. On his return to Tihoo, Montejo set his followers to work building the town. They were soon interrupted once more, this time by the arrival of the Lord of Mani, who came in peace. Voluntarily he submitted to Spanish authority and asked to be made a Christian. As it was the day of San Ildefonso, Archbishop of Toledo, the new town was placed under his patronage because of this good fortune. The date was February 23, 1541. Tutul Xiu said that he had been won over by the valor of the Spaniards.

Accompanying the Lord of Mani (Tutul Xiu) were numerous vassals whose names are interesting for us. I give the spelling of Cogolludo (pp. 130-131). They were: Ah Na Poot Xiu, son of Tutul Xiu; Ah Ziyah, a governor; and Ah Kin Chi, a priest. These three are said to have been lieutenants of Tutul Xiu at Mani itself. Others of the vassals were: Yi Ban Can, Governor of the pueblo of TeKit; Pacab, Governor of Oxcutzcab; Kan Caba of Panabchen, which is now deserted; Kupul of Zacalum; Nauat of Teab; Uluac Chan Cauich, whose home is unknown; Zon Ceh of Pencuyut; Ahau Tuyu of Muna; Xul Cumche of TipiKal; Tucuch of Mama; Zit Couat of Chumayel. Just before he left, Tutul Xiu promised to send ambassadors of his to other great lords in the country urging them to accept


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52 Christianity and Spanish sovereignty. He did as he said he would. Ambassadors were sent to the Cocomes of Zotuta and to other chiefs. The chief of Zotuta at this time was Nachi Cocom; he killed all the ambassadors save Ah Kin Chi, who was sent back to Mani with the news.

While the Indians of Mani and those of Zotuta were at odds, a number of Indians from the country around Tihoo came to yield obedience to the Spaniards. Warned by their ally, the Spaniards learned that Nachi Cocom had made a league against the Spaniards, comprising all the people from the country east of Tihoo as far as Ytzamal. In the end, according to Cogolludo (p. 137), no less than seventy thousand hostile Indians came against the Spaniards. As a result of the great battle that took place the main part of the Indians' resistance was destroyed.

Foundation of Merida and of Valladolid, 1542-1543. On the Feast of the Kings, January 6, 1542, Señor Don Francisco de Montejo and Rodrigo Alvarez, scrivener, established the city of Merida with the entire province of Quepech subject to it. Aside from its Indian population, however, Merida had only one hundred citizens. Cogolludo (p. 137) gives a complete list of the first Alcaldes and Regidores.

On March 13, 1542, Montejo made arrangements for the founding of the city of Valladolid, a task which he intrusted to one of his relatives. In May of the same year he himself set forth from Merida to subdue the Cocomes of Zututa or Sotuta, while at the same time another relative went to conquer the province of Choaca, the inhabitants of which were very warlike. After more or less resistance the Cocomes were beaten and the city of Zotuta fell into Spanish hands.

On January 1, 1543, the Cabildo elected the second set of municipal officers for Merida. From that time the city increased in permanency; solares or lots were given out; the Spanish rule was firm.

On May 28, 1543, the city of Valladolid in the province of Choaca was founded and a church was established, the town being placed under the protection of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. Cogolludo (lib. iii, cap. 14) gives a full list of all the officers and citizens.


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Rh It is uncertain where the site of the first settlement of Valladolid is. It is quite certain, however, that the city was soon moved from its first position “six leagues from the sea.” The reason why the site was changed was the unhealthful locality in which the first settlement was placed. The new site was the pueblo of Zaqui, where the present city of Valladolid now stands. In 1544 the city of Salamanca de Bacalar was founded on or near the site of Bakhalal.

Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas Arrives in Yucatan. At this time, 1544-1545, Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas and his friars of the Order of Santo Domingo arrived in Yucatan, going first to Campeche and later spreading their influence through the country, the natives of which greatly needed improvement. From this time onwards we may consider that the Spanish rule was firmly established throughout the northern portions of the peninsula, although, as we shall see, a long time was still to pass before the southern regions were subjected. Montejo and those associated with him came no nearer to the Itzas than Bakhalal. All this is not meant to imply that there were no further revolts and resistance against Spanish authority, for there still were sporadic efforts on the part of the Indians to maintain their freedom. In Valladolid, for example, in the year 1546, there was a very serious rebellion, which was crushed only with great difficulty. (Landa, p. 93.) In general, nevertheless, Spanish power daily grew more firm, and the power of the Religious grew constantly greater, despite hostility from both Spaniards and Indians.


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HE next entrada was made by two members of the Franciscan Order, which has done so much in many parts of the world to bring unbelievers into the Church. As we shall very shortly see, their coming inaugurated a new period in the conquest of the Itzas.

From lack of any sort of information we must assume that from 1524 to 1614 the Itzas of Tayasal or Peten were unmolested by Spaniards. There are numerous hints of their formidableness during this period, and the event of which we shall soon learn shows that they were not without a certain grim humor.

The Name Canek. Cortes, when he visited Peten, found the governmental power in the hands of a personage bearing the name or title of Canek. Cogolludo and Villagutierre both say that this term was a name arrived at by combining the family names of the ruler's parents. This seems to me difficult to believe. Rather, I think the word Canek to be a title. My reason for so thinking is this: in 1524 the ruler was called Canek, and ninety years later the then ruler was also Canek. It could hardly have been the same individual, and it is equally unlikely that the parents of two rulers should have exactly the same name. It is possible, of course, that the first king of Peten or Tayasal had the name of Canek, derived as the two historians suggest, and that this family name later took on the attributes of a title. The same thing happened in the case of the Pharaohs, the Seleucidae, the Roman emperors (Caesar), and the Incas.

While the northern part of the peninsula was being made a Spanish dominion, the southern woodland remained unconquered, causing much annoyance to the authorities. If we