WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 73I 



Chapter III 



Continuing the Description of the Diocese of Santiago de Chile. 



1932. The city of Mendoza, which is the capital of the Province 

 of Cuyo, has as many as 40 Spanish residents and over 1,500 Indians 

 to convert and civilize ; it is 60 leagues from Santiago. The Governor 

 appoints for it and for the whole province, a Corregidor to administer 

 it and dispense justice. The city of Mendoza has Franciscan, Merce- 

 darian, and Jesuit convents. The country is very fertile and prolific ; 

 everything planted there does very well. There are very good vine- 

 yards from which they make quantities of wine which they export 

 in carts via Cordoba to Buenos Ayres. Wheat yields well ; from 

 one fanega they usually harvest 150; corn does still better. They 

 have quantities of Spanish fruit, of excellent quality and early 

 bearing. The land is very fertile in itself, but the people are very 

 poor, with few possibilities and no help from headquarters, being 

 so distant and remote. 



1933. The city of San Juan is also 60 leagues from Santiago, but 

 near the city of Mendoza and with the same hot climate. It has 24 

 Spanish residents, poverty-stricken for the reasons given above, 

 although the land itself ranks with the best and most fertile in the 

 world ; it has vineyards, sugar plantations, all kinds of Spanish fruit. 

 There are in the neighborhood a little over 800 Indians of the Huarpes 

 tribe, like those in the other cities and settlements. Although these 

 natives are humble and gentle folk, very few have been converted, 

 because the Spanish residents living there' are so powerless. A few 

 Indians of this Huarpes tribe have been taken to Santiago by the 

 encomenderos for their service. 



In the district of the city of Santiago there are 48 small Indian 

 villages, assigned to 30 encomenderos. In the 48 villages in the year 

 1614 when they were inspected by Licentiate Machado, Justice of 

 that Circuit Court, there were 2,345 Indians. 331 old people, etc. 

 Tribute payers in the villages were 696 ; the others were away, some 

 out on their work, others in the service of their encomenderos. In 

 these villages of the district of this city and Diocese, and on the 

 farms, there are 23 curacies, 21 administered by clerics and 2 by friars. 



1934. At the above date there were 72 Indian men and 85 Indian 

 women (?) slaves captured in the war after the slavery proclamation. 

 There were likewise 501 Huarpes Indians from the Province of 

 Cuyo residing in the country, of those who had come in for their 

 mita, and 225 from Peru and Tucuman. There were likewise 481 

 of the Beliches tribe from these villages, who were artisans : Car- 



