COUNCIL OF THE INDIES ON REPARTIMIENTOS. 143 



the insurgents, until at length, Mendoza obtained such decided 

 advantages over his opponents that they gave up the contest, threw 

 down their arms, and enabled the viceroy to return to his capital 

 with the assurance that the revolted territory was entirely and per- 

 manently pacified. His conduct to the Indians after his successes 

 was characterized by all the suavity of a noble soul. He took no 

 revenge for this assault upon the Spanish authority, and seems, to 

 have continually endeavored to win the natives to their allegiance 

 by kindness rather than compulsion. 



These outbreaks among the Indians were of course not unknown 

 in Spain, where they occasioned no trifling fear for the integrity 

 and ultimate dominion of New Spain. The natural disposition of 

 the Emperor towards the aborigines, was, as we have said, kind 

 and gentle ; but he perceived that the causes of these Indian dis- 

 contents might be attributed not so much, perhaps, to a patriotic 

 desire to recover their violated rights over the country, as to the 

 cruelty they endured at the hands of bold and reckless adventurers 

 who had emigrated to New Spain and converted the inoffensive 

 children of the country into slaves. Accordingly, the Emperor, 

 convened a council composed of eminent persons in Spain, to 

 consider the condition of his American subjects. This council 

 undertook the commission in a proper spirit, and adopted a liberal 

 system towards the aborigines, as well as towards the proprietors 

 of estates in the islands and on the main, which, in time, would 

 have fostered the industry and secured the ultimate prosperity of 

 all classes. There were to be no slaves made in the future wars 

 of these countries ; the system of repartimientos was to be aban- 

 doned ; and the Indians were not, as a class, to be solely devoted 

 to ignoble tasks. 1 The widest publicity was given to these 

 humane intentions in Spain. The Visitador of Hispaniola, or San 

 Domingo, Miguel Diaz de Armendariz, was directed to see their 

 strict fulfilment in the islands ; and Francisco Tello de Sandoval 

 was commissioned to cross the Atlantic to Mexico, with full powers 

 and instructions from the Emperor, to enforce their obedience in 

 New Spain. 



In February, 1544, this functionary disembarked at St. Juan de 

 Ulua, and, a month afterwards, arrived in the capital. No sooner 

 did he appear in Mexico than the object of his mission became 

 gradually noised about among the proprietors and planters whose 

 wealth depended chiefly upon the preservation of their estates and 

 Indians in the servile condition in which they were before the 



1 Herrera Decade vii., lib. vi., chap. v. 



