Early Exploration of the Coast of Te:xas
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Cortes occupies Pameco. But the evil that men do lives long after them. When Garay went to Mexico, his numerous followers remained in the Panuco region. Fearful of being forced to leave, they scattered throughout the land in small groups and greatly irritated the natives by the depredations they committed. The Indians, discerning that there were dissensions among the Spaniards and that they were unable to offer effective resistance, began to kill the scattered survivors of the Garay expedition. Encouraged by their success, they decided to drive the Spaniards from the land. Santiestevan was besieged and all the other settlements were destroyed. Upon being informed of this state of affairs, Cortes immediately dispatched Captain Gonzalo de Sandoval with fifty horsemen, one hundred foot soldiers, four fieldpieces, and two Indian chiefs with fifteen thousand allies to Panuco to restore order and subdue the rebels. This force soon succeeded in relieving the hard-pressed Santi- estevan, where they found only twenty-two horsemen and one hundred foot soldiers alive. Had Sandoval been delayed a few more days, the small garrison would have been forced to surrender to their numerous foes. From the few survivors of the Garay expedition it was learned that about two hundred and ten men had been killed by the Indians in the rebellion. A vigorous campaign was now undertaken to chastise the natives and in a short time more than four hundred prisoners were taken. A number of these, who confessed they had been the leaders of the revolt, were burned as an example. As a consequence of the stern measures adopted, peace was restored. 12 At about the same time that Garay arrived in the Panuco region a year before, Cortes had received instructions from the king, dated June 6, 1523, to explore the coast of both the north and the south seas to find the reputed Strait of Anian that would shorten the distance to the Molucca Islands. 73 His conversations with Garay had led him to believe that some- where along the coast between the Panuco River and Florida the long- sought strait might be found. Now that the danger of Garay' s attempted settlement was over and that there was relative peace in the land, he declared that he desired to know the secret of this mysterious coast, so recently discovered by Ponce de Leon, and to explore it to the north as far as Labrador. "It is held to be a certainty," he wrote to the king, "that 72 Cortes to the King, October 13 1 1524, in Pascual de Gayangos, Carias :Y Rela- ciones de Hernan Cortes al Em,Perador Carlos V (Paris, 1866), 299-303; Oviedo, Historia, Vol. 3, pp. 457-458; Gomara, Cronica de N"eva Es,paiia, 160-161. 73 G6mara, Cronica, I 65.
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