Luís de Velasco , 1595 
210 
To the Audiencia of New Spain, ordering it to proceed judicially against 
Gaspar Castaño and other guilty persons for having made an expedi¬ 
tion into New Mexico and for having taken certain Indians for 
slaves without order or license to do so; also ordering that the 
Indians who may be found to be slaves shall be given their liberty 
and that no others shall be permitted to be enslaved. Corrected. 
[Madrid, January ij, 1595.] 
The King. To the president and oidores of my royal Audiencia which 
resides in the City of Mexico in New Spain: I have been informed that 
Gaspar Castaño, former lieutenant of Captain Luís de Carbajal, governor 
of the New Kingdom of León, entered New Mexico with a company 
which he collected upon his own authority without order or license to do 
so. 1 This having come to the attention of yourself, the viceroy, and you 
learning that those men had committed many disorders and abuses and 
had taken certain Indians as slaves, you sent in pursuit of them Captain 
Juan Morlete, who entered New Mexico and took prisoners Captain 
Gaspar Castaño and his companions. Since it is just that such a bold 
and dishonorable act should be punished, I command you to take cogni¬ 
zance of the case of Gaspar Castaño and the others who are guilty, and 
proceed against them judicially. You will give no opportunity nor will 
you permit any Indians to be made slaves, and any whom you may learn to 
be in that condition you will set at liberty through public notice by the 
town crier in that city and in Guadalajara, Nueva Galicia. Dated at 
Madrid, January 17, 1593. I the King. By command of the king, our 
lord. Juan VAsquez. Signed by the Council. 
Letter from Don Diego [Luis] de Velasco to his Majesty. [Mexico, 
January go, 1595 •] 
By the first despatch-boat which sailed for that kingdom on the sixth of 
last November I wrote to your Majesty all that had happened; afterwards, 
in another despatch to Havana on the twenty-second of the same month, 
I sent the news from the Philippines, duplicates of which will be with this, 
And since, outside of what concerns the said islands, of which I am 
writing to your Majesty in a special letter, there is nothing that calls for 
a longer statement, I shall not make it. 
In the land there is peace and health, thanks to God, and an abundance 
of corn, which is the sustenance of the natives. Of wheat little was 
gathered, for almost a third part of the crop was frozen in the middle 
of November, and for this reason, as well as because of the great exporta¬ 
tion of biscuit and flour to Havana, the price is higher than it has been 
for many years, but as there is plenty of corn no scarcity is felt. 
