30 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 



through some excellent reform laws. The first Viceroy, 

 the great and good Mendoza, arrived in 1535 and for 

 fifteen years the land prospered under his rule, which 

 was benign without being weak. He was succeeded by 

 Luis de Velasco, who emancipated many of the enslaved 

 Indians. The long line of viceroys continued until 1821 

 when Spain was forced to relinquish her provinces in 

 America. Among the greatest of the viceroys was 

 Bucareli, the forty-sixth in line, who ruled Mexico from 

 1771-1779 while the United States of America were just 

 beginning to feel the pulse of life. 



During the viceregal period in Mexico the region to 

 the south was ruled by the captain general of Guate- 

 mala. The dominion was subdivided into five depart- 

 ments corresponding to the modern republics of Guate- 

 mala (which then included the Mexican state of Chi- 

 apas), Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. 

 Panama was ruled from the South American province 

 of New Granada. 



Weakened by Napoleonic wars and rent by internal 

 dissensions, Spain found herself in the first two decades 

 of the nineteenth century unable to maintain her wan- 

 ing power in America. Bolivar and his brother patriots 

 raised the standard of revolt in South America in 1810 

 and in the same year war for independence broke out in 

 the north. Hidalgo, the parish priest of Dolores, rang 

 the liberty bell of Mexican freedom on the 16th of 

 September, 1810. This beloved patriot was captured 

 the year following, and shot, but the revolution once 

 begun was continued under Morelos and other leaders. 

 After 1815 the cause seemed hopeless, but in 1820 there 

 was a new uprising and General Iturbide, who was sent 

 to put it down, turned his army against the govern- 

 ment and established himself as emperor. Central 

 America was also included in this Mexican empire. The 



