In the year 1616, some Spanish soldiers, stationed on the frontiers of Quito, pursued some Indians into their canoes on the Marañon; in the pursuit they descended this river till they came to the Maynas,—a tribe of Indians who showed such a disposition to amity and to become Christians, that, on the return of the soldiers to the frontier station of Santiago de las Montañas, so favourable a report was made of them to the Viceroy of Peru, that in 1618 he appointed Don Diego Baca de Vega as Governor of Maynas and Marañon; who was the first to subdue the people of these territories, and subject them to the dominion of Spain. In 1638, according to Alçedo, the Jesuit fathers, Gaspar Cuxia and Lucas de la Cueva, settled several missions in the country of Maynas on both shores of the Marañon, which continued to flourish until the abolition of the useful society of Jesuits in 1767.[18] At first the capital of Maynas was San Francisco de Borja, which, according to Ulloa, is situated in latitude 4° 28´ south, and 1° 54´ east, of the meridian of Quito. In this city an insurrection of the native Indians took place in the year 1635, which was happily quelled by the indefatigable Jesuits: but afterwards the town of Laguna on the east bank of the Huallaga, in latitude 5° 13´ south, became the principal seat or capital of the missions of Maynas, which extend from St. Borja along both sides of the river Marañon, embracing many villages or settlements, to the frontier possessions of Brazil at Tabatingo. From the Marañon the patriarchal government of the missionaries extended southward along the river Ucayali, and among several of the tribes on its banks, or in the adjacent woods, such as the Cocamas, Piros, and Conibos or Conivos Indians, whom the Jesuits of Quito had in a great measure converted to the faith; but they again revolted, and returned to their original wandering and savage mode of life, having put their pastors to death. After this unfortunate event, several fruitless efforts—especially in the year 1695, and also in 1764,—were made to reconvert these tribes, till at length the Franciscan missionaries of the college of Ocopa succeeded to a great extent in this hazardous undertaking.