Note 116 — Chapter VI · THE VOYAGE. 1519.

Two carpenters, Alonso Yañez and Álvaro Lopez, claim the honor of having raised the first cross for the church in New Spain. To this the natives made no great objection, the cross having already with them a religious significance; and surely the sanctified effigy of the benign Mary was a more beautiful object to look upon than their idols. See Native Races, iii. 468-70. In one of the temples ‘auia vna cruz de cal tan alta como diez palmos.’ Gomara, Hist. Mex., 24. Las Casas objects to the compulsory mode of conversion used by Cortés and his holy company, and devotes a long paragraph to depicting the folly and evil thereof. Hist. Ind., iv. 460-2, 470. Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 18, describes the idolatrous rite, and Prescott, Mex., i. 269-71, speaks of Cortés as a reformer.