rds made excellent gunpowder[50]. On the
8th December of the same year, Cortes sent Diego de Godoy, with a hundred
foot, thirty horse, two field-pieces, and many friendly Indians, to
Spiritu Santo; where, joining the captain of that town, they went to
Chamolla, the capital of a province of the same name, which they reduced
under subjection[51].

In February 1524, Cortes sent Roderigo Rangel, with 150 Spaniards, and
many Tlaxcallans and Mexicans, against the Zapotecas and Nixtecas, and
other provinces not yet well discovered. They were at first resisted, but
soon defeated the natives, and reduced the country to subjection. In the
same year, Roderigo de Bastidas was sent to discover and reduce the
country of Santa Martha; but refusing to allow the soldiers to plunder a
certain town, he was assassinated in his bed by Peter Villaforte,
formerly his fast friend, who joined in the conspiracy against him. Pedro
de Lugo and his son Don Alfonso were afterward governors of that place,
where they conducted themselves as covetous tyrants, and became much
disliked[52]. In the same year, the licentiate Lucas Vasques de Aillon
obtained the government of Chicora from the emperor, on which he fitted
out some vessels from St Domingo, and proceeded to explore and colonize
that country; but he was lost with all his people. I know not how it
should have happened, except by the righteous judgment of God, that so
little should now remain of all the gold and precious stones which were
got in the Antilles by the Spaniards; but much the greater part has been
dissipated to little purpose, and nothing great or valuable has ensued
from the discovery[53].

In this same year, 1524, Cortes sent a fleet under the command of
Christopher de Olid, to Cuba, to transport provisions and ammunition to
Mexico, which had been purchased there by Alonso de Contreras; and Olid
had orders to discover and colonize the country about Cape Higueras, and
the Coast of Honduras, and likewise to send Diego Hartado de Mendoca by
sea, in search of a strait towards Darien, which was reported to pass
that way into the South Sea, which object of research had been commanded
by the emperor to be attended to. He sent also two ships from Panuco, to
explore the coast from thence to Florida; and he commanded other vessels
to examine the coast of the South Sea, between Zacatullan and Panama. On
the arrival of Olid at Cuba, he entered into a league with Diego
Velasquez against Cortes: