Note 8 — Decade Fourth

Then commenced the greatest felicity of that land; for our religious, having as their object the welfare of [201] those barbarians, tried to gain their good-will by gentle measures. For that purpose, father Fray Miguel de Santa Maria, the superior of that spiritual squadron, refused to settle in the said fortress of Tanda; for, since those heathen had a horror of it, they would not go to it. Consequently, despising his life, and exposing it to manifest danger, he determined to enter the country one legua further, and to build a dwelling-place on the shores of a river. His design did not succeed badly, for, attended by good fortune, he continued to attract and gain the affections of those fierce Indians by making them understand their illusions and errors. His other associates were not idle amid so much, for, having separated among the environs (after having left a priest in the redoubt as chaplain, who was not slothful in his gaining of souls), they worked fervently in scattering the light of the faith, in the midst of the darkness of that blind people, without excusing themselves from great perils and hardships. They chose their residence in the village of Yguaquet,8 on the bank of another river where the country people generally met. Those gospel workers were divided and separated from one another, in order that they might attend with greater convenience to the different districts.