Note XXXVII‑84 — Chapter XXXVII · GUATEMALA AND CHIAPAS. 1701-1800.

Francos was a native of the Villa of Villavicencio de los Caballeros, and was canon of the cathedral of Plasencia when appointed to the archbishopric of Guatemala. He died on the 17th of July 1792. His successors were Don Juan Felix de Villegas, who ruled from May 8, 1794, to February 3, 1800; and Don Luis Peñalver y Cárdenas who entered office on June 3, 1802. Juarros, Guat., i. 295-7. Although Juarros is justly regarded as the chief historian of the Central American provinces for the conquest and colonial period, he has failed to describe in a connected form the political, social, and moral development of those countries during that period. This omission has, in part, been filled by the assiduous labors of the presbyter Francisco de Paula García Pelaez. Residing for many years, as parish priest, at the old city of Guatemala, known as the Antigua, he devoted his leisure time, from 1833 to 1841, in examining as opportunity permitted the public and private archives of the province, and in studying the principal ancient and modern writers on that territory. The result of this research was a work of three volumes in small quarto, entitled Memorias para la Historia del Antiguo Reyno de Guatemala, which was published in Guatemala in 1851. It is divided into the aboriginal and the colonial epochs. The former treats of the origin of the natives and the degree of civilization they had attained at the time of the conquest, and consists of a brief and systematically arranged compilation of facts, with the corresponding references to the authorities from which they were obtained, each chapter being devoted to a separate topic. This occupies but 32 pages of the first volume, the remainder of the work being taken up with the political history of the country to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and with the general condition and progress of the people and their institutions from the conquest to 1821. The manner of treatment, though more connected, is similar to that of the first epoch. The style is terse and clear, though somewhat dry, as few comments are made, and those of an impartial nature. It contains a multitude of valuable facts not found elsewhere; yet Pelaez deplores the incompleteness of his work; for, though he examined many of the original documents in the public archives of Guatemala, the want of an assistant to aid him in extracting notes compelled him to leave the bulk of them untouched. The author subsequently became archbishop of Guatemala.