Note IX‑29 — Chapter IX · AFFAIRS IN HONDURAS. 1527-1536.

Mendoza, Carta, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiv. 301-4. The foregoing is the account given in Cereceda's official report to the viceroy of Mexico. Herrera, however, gives quite a different version of the matter. He states that the settlers, seeing that, after an absence of four months, the treasurer Célis did not return or send any message, agreed to abandon the place. Loading their Indian servants with what little effects they had left, they proceeded on their way, after tying Cereceda and two of his friends to trees, because he forbade them to take away their slaves on the ground that it was contrary to royal orders to carry them from one province to another, although he himself had done so and had allowed his friends the same privilege. But after marching a few leagues they fell in with men coming from Guatemala, whereupon they returned to the settlement and made friends with the governor, dec. vi. lib. i. cap. viii. In a letter to Alvarado dated May 9, 1536, Cereceda says nothing about being tied to a tree, although he complains of gross ill-treatment at the hands of the colonists.