How we determined to found “La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz” and to build a fort in some meadows near the salt marshes, and close to the harbour with the ugly name [Bernal] where our ships were at anchor, and what we did there.

As soon as we had made this federation and friendship with more than twenty of the hill towns, known as [the towns of] the Totonacs, which at this time rebelled against the great Montezuma, and gave their allegiance to His Majesty, and offered to serve us—we determined with their ready help at once to found the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz on a plain half a league from this fortress-like town, called Quiahuitztlan, and we laid out plans of a church, market-place and arsenals, and all those things that are needed for a town, and we built a fort, and from the laying of the foundations until the walls were high enough to receive the woodwork, loopholes, watch-towers, and barbicans, we worked with the greatest haste.