In course of the late campaign the advantages of the town of Tepeaca for permanent occupation had become apparent, chiefly as a point of observation for watching over the new conquest. It was well situated for protecting the road to Villa Rica,35 and for communicating with Cholula and Tlascala, each capital eight or nine leagues distant, and it lay in the midst of a fertile
maize country, which offered ample subsistence for a garrison. Although the punishment at first inflicted, by sacking and enslaving, had been severe, yet the treatment of the inhabitants became afterward so considerate that they themselves prayed for a continuance of Spanish protection.36 Every circumstance, therefore, demanding a settlement, it was decided in council to found a villa in this same town, with the appropriate name of Segura de la Frontera, intended, as it was, to secure the frontier against the Mexicans. Pedro de Ircio was made alcalde, with Francisco de Orozco and others as regidores.37
The campaign being practically concluded, a division was ordered to be made of the spoils not hitherto distributed, including slaves, which had now become a prominent feature thereof, and were intended for personal and plantation service, as already practised in the Antilles. The pretence was to enslave only the inhabitants of districts concerned in the murder of Spaniards, but the distinction was not very strictly observed, and rebellious tribes and those addicted to cannibalism and other vicious practices were included.38 The Spaniards, as a rule, kept only the women and the children, the men being transferred to the allies for their share, “because they were difficult to watch,”
says Bernal Diaz, “and because their services were not needed while we had the Tlascaltecs with us.”39