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Updated: June 6, 2025
For what the Priest Captain demanded was that the apostle of the new religion should be relinquished to him to be slain as a sacrifice to the Aztec gods, and that once more the Tlahuicos should be thrust back into slavery; while what he conceded in that it affected only the higher classes made the lot of the Tlahuicos but the more unjustly cruel and hard to bear.
Through the savage and tumultuous throng the envoy was led forth his looks showing plainly his very natural expectation that his life would be let out of him amid that ferocious company and so down to the water-side; and thence was sent back again to Culhuacan with the firm assurance which message of defiance the soldiers themselves dictated that the terms offered by the Priest Captain would be accepted only when all the Tlahuicos then risen together in arms against him had been slain!
In return for these concessions, he demanded that the army raised by the rebels should be immediately disbanded; that order should be restored in Huitzilan by returning the miners to their work, and the Tlahuicos generally to their masters throughout the valley; and that the arms which had been manufactured should be turned over to the keeper of the arsenal in Culhuacan.
Tizoc knew not how long a time passed before the Tlahuicos made use of the way of escape thus opened to them; but their flight could not have been taken hastily, because it included a very great number of them, and included also carrying with them large quantities of arms for warfare, and of useful household stores.
And thus was collected together material as dangerous as it was inflammable; for the fresh additions to the Tlahuicos kept constantly alive in the whole body a spirit of moody discontent, that time and again, at the season when the lots were cast by which one in every ten was doomed to death, was fanned into armed mutiny.
There was a very grave look upon his face as he told us of our probable destination; and presently added that the population of this town save the few freemen who were in charge of the workings, and the large guard of soldiers that always was maintained there was made up wholly of Tlahuicos who had been selected from their fellows to be miners because of their exceptional hardiness and strength.
Excepting only among the Tlahuicos who, in the nature of things, could have no share in it there had ever been among all classes a fervent longing for the summons that should call them forth to aid their brethren in the battling with a foreign foe that Chaltzantzin had prophesied.
It was among these men, he went on to tell us speaking in a low, guarded voice, that the most dangerous of the revolts of the Tlahuicos invariably had their origin; for the miners were fierce, half-savage creatures, naturally turbulent and rebellious, and were stirred constantly to resentful anger because of the life of crushing toil that they were condemned to lead.
The Council, at a stroke, had transformed the Tlahuicos into soldiers, and had given the promise that in reward for their faithfulness and valor these slaves thenceforward should be freemen.
For more than an hour we were suffered to lie in the gate-way; while the work went on of slaying the wretched Tlahuicos, and then of marshalling the more important personages who had been reserved alive as prisoners, and, finally, of restoring order in the victorious ranks.
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