Diego de Madrid Avendaño, 1620 
79 
III. . . . That in the years 1607 and ’09 until now, four years a little 
more or less, the religious of Saint Augustine administered by the visiting 
method the nations of the Rio Verde, who were to settle in Concha and 
Puxinquia. The father Fray Juan Bautista de Molinedo of the Order of 
Saint Francis, [after being] in this region four years, a little more or less,, 
returned to the Rio Verde and its villages and called them together to 
construct towns and settle in them so that the peace which they have pre¬ 
served in this part for eleven years might be assured. For this good 
purpose the señor viceroy, Marquis of Guadalcázar, appointed as captain 
and commissary the said Don Juan de Porras y Ulloa, in which [office] 
he served intermittently for two years and a half in this part in the said 
congregation and settlement. By doing this he preserved the peace, which 
might have been broken again because the religious of San Agustín had 
not carried out their pledged contracts; for, although the [Indians] were 
congregated in the valley of Concha by the father Fray Francisco de 
Azevedo of the Order of Saint Augustine, through his removal by his pro¬ 
vincial eight or nine years ago the accomplishment of the said settlement 
was stopped and the other religious of his order carried on their admini¬ 
stration by the visiting method, taking them out of their villages. The 
said Fray Juan Bautista and Don Juan de Porras, by settling them in 
towns during the two years and a half in this part, have rendered a great 
service to God, our Lord, and to his Majesty. . . . 
Baltasar de la Cadena, witness. 
II. . . . And he knew Diego de Madrid Avendaño, who was a citizen 
of this city . . . father of the said Estéban de Porras, and Beatrice 
Méndez de Sotomayor, who he knows were married. . . . 
III. . . . He knew in this city the said Diego de Madrid Avendaño for 
perhaps more than fifty years, and he was considered to be one of the 
settlers of this City of Mexico; and he heard some of the conquerors of 
this New Spain, whose names he does not recall, say that the said Diego 
de Madrid Avendaño had served his Majesty in the expeditions referred 
to. . . . 
Licentiate Ambrosio de Lacerna, formerly clerk [relator'] in this royal 
Audiencia, witness ... in addition to the additions to the first question 
he said that this witness knows that the said Don Juan de Porras y Ulloa 
was alcalde mayor of the mines of Sichú and Palma de Vega and captain 
of the frontiers of Chichimecos Indians, to which titles this witness refers; 
and in all the other questions that follow this witness declares that because 
of not having left this said city he was not an eye-witness of any of the 
matters mentioned in them, but that he knows them by public report and 
rumor that have been spread abroad in this city concerning all this. For 
this reason, his Excellency who is now governing, the Marquis of Guadal¬ 
cázar, seeing the great advantage which resulted in those parts from the 
service of the said Don Juan de Porras, and that he had reduced the 
Guachichiles Indians to agree to peace and to submit to the service of his 
Majesty renewed for him this office which the royal Audiencia, while 
directing the government, had previously given him, and he is to-day 
