can monks, inspired by their indefatigable
zeal, ventured in 1671, on a new mission to the fatal Cerro de la Sal;
and they had the good fortune to found a village in which eight hundred
Neophytes were collected. A second and smaller village was founded in
the vicinity of the destroyed San Buenaventura, and named Santa Rosa de
Quimiri; but the avarice of some Spaniards who fancied there were gold
mines in the Cerro de la Sal, induced them to get the missions withdrawn
from the superintendence of the priests, and to turn the whole into a
political system. Then commenced the oppression of the Indians in those
parts. The consequence was a great insurrection in 1674, when all the
whites were massacred. Thus were the labors of the missionaries a second
time annihilated. Every attempt for the conversion of Indians was for a
long time fruitless, and the missionaries who ventured to approach them
were shot. After the lapse of about thirty years, during which interval
the Chunchos had fallen back to their original savage state, the founder
of the Convent of Ocopa, Fray Francisco de San Jose, with four priests
and two lay brothers, penetrated into the valley of Vitoc, and entered
upon the territory of the Chunchos. At this time (1709) Vitoc was first
peopled, and in the course of twenty years six large villages were
built. In the year 1739 these missions, again flourishing, counted ten
Christian villages and three thousand baptized Indians. Three years
afterwards the Indian insurrection, headed by the apostate Juan Santos,
destroyed all the missions of Central Peru.

Juan Santos was an Indian born at Huamanga, and he claimed descent from
the last of the Incas. This claim was probably well founded, for before
the revolt he was called Atahuallpa, which was the name of the Inca put
to death by Pizarro. Juan Santos was haughty, high spirited, and clever.
In the year 1741 he killed, in a quarrel, a Spaniard of high rank, and
to elude the pursuit of justice, he fled to the forests. There he
brooded over plans for taking vengeance on the oppressors of his
country. He first addressed himself to the tribes of the Campas, and
having gained them over, he proceeded to Quisopongo in the Pajonal. From
thence, in the year 1742, he made his first attack on the mission of the
Cerro de la Sal. The Spaniards had already been warned of the intended
rising, but they considered it too unimportant to call for serious
measures of repression; and whilst lu