The Spanish population was distributed in two districts—Rio Arriba and Rio Abajo. The governor of the whole province, Don Antonio de Otermín, lived at Santa Fé, the capital, situated in Rio Arriba, but the larger number of the colonists were living at this period in the southern district where the second in command, Alonso García, served as lieutenant-governor. Popé’s runners had met with a refusal, though the penalty was death, from certain chiefs of San Marcos, La Ciéñaga and Tanos, three towns a little south of Santa Fé. Two messengers, Catua and Omtua, were arrested and brought to the governor. They confessed the fact of the general uprising, but said they knew nothing of its causes, having taken no part in the councils of the leaders of the northern pueblos. Enraged by this treachery, the news of which spread like wildfire, the Indian leaders were nothing daunted, and showed astonishing resourcefulness in bringing about the attack prematurely. Those who travel to-day over this wide, rough land by modern conveyance can hardly credit the truth that the scattered pueblos were so quickly informed of the nearly defeated conspiracy that they were able to rise almost simultaneously by daybreak on August 9, two days earlier than was planned. Those colonists living near the Taos and Picuris settlements were the first victims; only two escaped and they eventually fought their way to where García’s band of refugees were halted below Isleta. From tribe to tribe, from settlement to settlement, the hideous slaughter was carried forward according to program. The very day of the outbreak General Otermín heard from three different sources that a revolt of the tribes was under way, but he did not try until the twelfth to “roll back the tide of rebellion,” being up to that time unaware of the magnitude of the plot. By the thirteenth he and his comrades realized how critical was their situation. Many of the Indians were equipped with the guns of Spaniards whom they had already slain. Completely cut off from the outside world, a fight was inevitable. The Indians had successfully divided the Spaniards of Rio Arriba and Rio Abajo and each of these divisions had been assured that their friends were already dead.