Despotism
The council continued with three members (Zuazo was still a member) until April 20, 1525. In the middle of the night, Zuazo was arrested in his home and taken under guard to be sent back to Spain. He went as far as Santo Domingo, where he spent the rest of his life, and died in 1527.
Zuazo was a respectable, educated man, a friend of Cortés, and apparently incorruptible. His arrest freed Salazar and Almíndez from all checks on their authority, and they began to govern despotically. They made it known that Cortés (untruthfully) had been killed by Indians. On August 19, 1525 they tried to confiscate his property. They arrested Rodrigo de Paz, whom Cortés had left as majordomo of his property. Paz was tortured to find out the location of Cortés's hidden treasure. He provided some locations, and then was hanged in the plaza.
Salazar sent out agents to extort treasures. When refugees were forced to leave a church, Father Valencia protested the violation of sanctuary by excommunicating Mexico City until the prisoners were restored.
Read more about this topic: Gonzalo De Salazar
Famous quotes containing the word despotism:
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)