Procuradores of Nezv Spain 
127 
[Petition of the Procuradores of New Spain and the great 
City of Mexico. Undated .] 
Sacred Catholic Imperial Majesty : We the pro curadores [attorneys] of 
New Spain and the great City of Mexico, and the other cities, towns, 
and villages of it, upon whose behalf we have 
come, kiss the royal feet and hands of your Maj¬ 
esty. And we declare that God, our Lord, in his 
infinite goodness, in the glorious and happy times 
of your Majesty, after many thousands of years, was pleased to grant 
that those great provinces of New Spain and its inhabitants—which had 
been retained and occupied by the devil, without any light or fire of faith, 
where sacrifice was made with many superstitious rites, all, or the most 
of them, living enwrapped in abominable sins contrary to all human 
nature—should be gained by the Spaniards who were there at the begin¬ 
ning of its first exploration, and by those who afterwards followed, ex¬ 
tending and spreading our faith and Christian religion through all the 
provinces of the said New Spain, and subjecting them to the dominion and 
crown of these kingdoms of Castile, without your Majesty having spent 
anything from the royal treasury or patrimony, those who were in the 
first exploration exposed their persons to great hardship and passed great 
dangers in unknown seas and lands, among a very barbarous people, far 
distant from our empire, and spent their wealth and property, exiled from 
their kind, with zeal in the service of God and to bring to a knowledge of 
him those unknown lands and peoples. This being so, and they having 
given in all this great services worthy of immortal memory and perpetual 
reward, your Majesty was well pleased, as the nature of the matter 
required, and as partial remuneration and pay for the services they had 
given, to decide that all the said land should be divided among the per¬ 
sons who were there at its exploration and had afterwards aided in 
conquering and settling it, so that they might enjoy what they had 
gained with so much labor and at their own expense, and so that they 
should be remunerated, your Majesty retaining the royal rights and 
dominion and jurisdiction. And because your Majesty passed this judg¬ 
ment, the Marqués del Valle, who explored the said land and to whom 
your Majesty intrusted its government, and afterwards the licentiate Luis 
Ponce de León 2 and the others who governed it and the president and 
oidores 3 who were there at the beginning, divided the Indians, so that 
those who had gained and held it might be paid and remunerated for 
their services by the land itself. This was right, for every reason, divine 
and human, imposed it, especially in cases so great and services so dis¬ 
tinguished. Afterwards, in confirmation of this, your Majesty ordered 
to be placed under your royal authority some principal towns, the rest 
to remain for the conquerors and settlers; and, besides this, your Majesty, 
in many royal letters of your own, and through the medium of the presi¬ 
dent and oidores who resided in it, daily promised that all the land should 
be divided among the residents that might be in it, granting increased 
allotments to those who had them and giving to those who had none. 
For this you ordered an inventory to be made of all the land, so that in 
All this is important. 
