Mexico and its Religion Part 7

CHAPTER XI.

From Puebla to Mexico.--The Dread of Robbers.--The Escort--Tlascala.--The Exaggerations of Cortez and Bernal Diaz.--The Truth about Tlascala.--The Advantages of Tlascala to Cortez.--Who was Bernal Diaz.--Who wrote his History.--First View of Mexico.

At early twilight, two stage-loads of pa.s.sengers, drawn rapidly by twelve wild horses through the now deserted streets of Puebla, approached the gate that opened out upon the road to Mexico. The rattle of the wheels and the clatter of so many hoofs had awakened the gatekeeper, and at our approach the ponderous portals that inclosed the city by night flew open, and away we whirled out into the beautiful vega of Puebla.

In times of civil disorder, this is a fine field for robbers to ply their vocation in; and even now, when all was quiet, there was no little apprehension of a visit from these sovereigns of the road. The pa.s.sengers had noticed my unmistakable Anglo-Saxon name, as it was called at the stage-door, and, when I had taken my seat, an elegant, long Colt's revolver was pa.s.sed to me by a pa.s.senger in full uniform.

Such is one of the advantages that a traveler enjoys who belongs to a race of men of acknowledged courage--an advantage that enabled we to travel alone across the continent without enc.u.mbering myself with a weapon; for, where all supposed me fully armed, and skilled in the use of weapons by instinct, I found it convenient to go unarmed. Upon the present occasion, I did not wish to raise a smile of incredulity by protesting that I had never fired a pistol in my life, so I quietly consented to play the part of hero.

By displaying my weapon carelessly in my hand when we stopped to take coffee at Saint Martin's, I procured a seat upon the outside, which had been refused me at Puebla.

Our escort consisted of a body of six lancers, who, standing at the roadside, saluted us as we pa.s.sed, and then rode after us at the top of their speed. Poor fellows! they found it hard riding to keep up with the coach. It was some consolation for them to see a man seated on the top of the stage with a Colt's pistol, even if he did not know how to use it, and for once they rode out their beat without getting frightened at their shadows. As the robbers were as great cowards as themselves, whether the man on the box was really a fire-eater or not, it answered the same purpose. These stage-guards are heroes in their way; they always come when the road appears the safest, and never fail to ask for charity, but invariably leave you just as the coach approaches a thicket. A few days ago, this guard caught a fellow on the road whom they believed to be a robber, and hung him with a pocket-handkerchief.

REPUBLIC OF TLASCALA.

We are now pa.s.sing the borders of that famous Indian republic, of the high table-land, which shut out despotism by a lofty wall,[16] and was so completely isolated in the times of Montezuma that its people could obtain no foreign products, not even cotton or salt;[17] whose food was the maize which they cultivated, and the game which they caught upon the snow-capped mountains; whose clothing was made from the maguey, and from skins of animals taken in the chase; a people whose government was a council of elders, which was presided over by an hereditary chief; whose political inst.i.tutions have been the study and admiration of the learned of many lands. That is, in plain English, they were an ordinary tribe of North American savages, obtaining their living, as other Indians did then and do now, by the cultivation of Indian corn and hunting, having the same crude form of government that is common to all the savage tribes of North America. They gloried in their savage notions of independence, and submitted only to the merest shadow of authority. They had not yet reached that point of social organization at which the loose government of savages gives way to the despotism of the next stage of advancement, which we shall call _barbarism_. The difference between the Tlascalans and the Aztecs was the same difference that exists between the North American savages, who live in underground wigwams,[18] and the barbarous tribes of the interior of Africa, that live in cities of mud huts above the ground, and who yield a slavish obedience to a half-naked emperor, who sits or squats upon an ox-hide in a mud palace, exercising the power of life and death, according to his momentary caprice, upon thousands of trembling slaves.

The concentrated power and wealth of a whole tribe is in single hands, and is made available for conquest and for the sensual enjoyment of a single individual. Savages can only act in concert when all are agreed, hence councils are their governing power, and the orator has as much influence among them as the successful warrior; but when they have advanced a step, and power has become concentrated, the orator becomes silent, and the war-chief is the government.

I had read with avidity the histories of Mexico, and gave to them implicit credence, until I stood upon the Indian mound of Cholula, and searched in vain for the least vestige of that magnificent city of 40,000 houses, which, only 300 years ago, was in the height of its prosperity; and though it is not in the power of man, in the s.p.a.ce of a thousand years, wholly to obliterate the traces of a great city, yet not a vestige of the Cholula of Cortez can now be found. As I followed up the investigation, I soon discovered that not a vestige of any of the cities that entered into the alliance with Cortez can now be found.

Not a vestige exists even of the old city of Mexico, except the calendar and sacrificial stones, of which I shall speak hereafter.

CORTeZ AND BERNAL DIAZ.

Cortez says that a dry stone wall, nine feet high, inclosed Tlascala from mountain to mountain, through which he entered between overlapping semicircles of the wall. He says that he was attacked first by an army of 6000 Indians, then by an army of 100,000 on one day, and on the next by 149,000. He says farther, "I attacked another place, which was so large that it contained, according to an examination I caused to be made, more than 20,000 houses." Of the capital of Tlascala, he says, "It is larger than Granada, and much stronger, and contains as many fine houses and a much larger population than that city did at the time of its capture."

A comparison of the statements of Bernal Diaz and those of Cortez will cast some discredit upon the narrative of the former. The stout old chronicler cuts down the 100,000 Indians in the second battle to 50,000, and makes no mention of the third great action, in which 149,000 Indians were said by Cortez to have been engaged. Here is another comparison:

"There is," says Cortez, "in this city [Tlascala], a market, in which every day 30,000 people are engaged in buying and selling, besides many other merchants who are scattered about the city. The market contains a great variety of articles, both of food and clothing, and all kinds of shoes for the feet, jewels of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and ornaments of feathers; all as well arranged as they possibly can be found in any public square in the world."[19]

Now see the difference between this great Munchausen and his professed apologist and companion, the writer of Bernal Diaz, who was familiar with the suppressed ma.n.u.script of Las Casas, and makes quotations from it. "The elder Xicotencotl," says Bernal Diaz, "now informed Cortez that it was the general wish of the inhabitants to make him a present, if agreeable to him. Cortez answered that he should at all times be most happy to receive one; they accordingly spread some mats on the floor, and over them a few cloaks, upon which they arranged five or six pieces of gold, a few articles of trifling value, and several parcels of manufactured _nequen_--altogether a poor present, and not worth twenty pesos (dollars). The caziques, on presenting these things to Cortez, said to him, 'Malinche! we can easily imagine that you will not exactly experience much joy on receiving a present of such wretched things as these; but we have told you before that we are poor--possessing neither gold nor other riches, as the deceitful Mexicans, with their present monarch, Montezuma, have, by degrees, despoiled us of every thing we had. Do not look to the small value of these things, but accept them in all kindness, and as coming from your faithful friends and servants.' These presents were, at the same time, accompanied by a quant.i.ty of provisions."[20]

THE TRUTH ABOUT TLASCALA.

Thus, according to Cortez, the Tlascalans dwelt in cities rivaling the most polished and commercial cities of Europe; according to Diaz, they were so poor that they were unable to make a present worth twenty dollars! Cortez gives a view of "a large wall of dry stone, about nine feet in height, which extends across the valley from one mountain to the other: it was twenty feet in thickness, surmounted throughout its whole extent by a breastwork a foot and a half thick, to enable them to fight from the top of the wall." Diaz says, "We came to an enormous intrenchment, built so strongly of stone, lime, and a kind of hard bitumen, that it would only have been possible to break it down by means of pick-axes."[21] Such a wall, or the vestiges of it, would last for thousands of years; for it is not in the destructive power of man wholly to obliterate it, and yet I have been utterly unable to find even a ruin, and I verily believe the whole of this Chinese wall is a fiction.

Tlascala is an Indian reservation of an oval shape, sixty-nine miles long by forty-two miles wide. Its climate is cold. Its soil is not remarkably good. It has had its independent government since the time of Cortez. Its means of subsistence have been increased, and extensive manufactories have been established. The only enumeration ever made of its inhabitants was in 1793, when it was found to contain 51,177 souls.

In the extravagant official estimate of last year, its population is set down at 80,171.[22] Cortez says that Tlascala contained a population of 500,000 inhabitants, according to a report made by his orders. We have here our historians within metes and bounds, between mountains and stone walls; a perfect non-intercourse established with all the world; all foreign means of supply cut off, and the Indians dependent for subsistence upon their own rude cultivation of maize. My readers may call me extravagant if I should say that Tlascala probably contained about 10,000 inhabitants in the time of Cortez, and could therefore, in an emergency, produce 1000 warriors. A greater number than this would be contrary to the laws of population. I might here stop and call hard names, but it is not my purpose to "bring a railing accusation" against any. My only duty is to place evidence before the reader, and then let him judge how much reliance is to be placed upon any historical statements that have been trimmed and modified to suit the purposes of the Spanish Inquisition.

The quick wit of Cortez early discovered that Tlascala was a great natural fortress, and that he could make it the centre and base of his operations in the wars he was contemplating against the different Indian tribes of the table-land. The hatred borne against the Mexicans by the Tlascalans a.s.sured him of their co-operation against Montezuma.

Hence the Tlascalans were especially favored. They shared with him in all the perils of his enterprise, and in the plunder gathered from the conquered tribes; for with them rested the question whether he should succeed, and be hailed as the hero of a holy war, or should be branded as a buccaneer, robber, and enslaver. And when, in course of time, the Indian element became the ruling power, curses loud and deep were muttered against the enslaver of the Indians, and the Tlascalans came in for their share of imprecations.

CENSORSHIP OF HISTORICAL BOOKS.

But who was Bernal Diaz? This would be a strange question to ask in a country where there was liberty of speech and liberty of the press, but in Spain the censorship was not only repressive, but it was "suggestive." It not only suppressed the writings of authors, but compelled them to father productions that were the very opposite of those they wished to publish. Take the case of poor Sahagun, who wrote a refutation of the historian of the conquest, under the pretense of giving the Indian account of that event: when his book was finally allowed to see the light, after a delay of many years, it was found that his own account of the conquest had been suppressed, and the regular Spanish account had been subst.i.tuted. Of Las Casas's "Apology for the Indians,"[23] which had occupied thirty-two years of his life, that part only was allowed to appear which treated of Saint Domingo.

But his refutation of the histories of the conquest of Mexico is wholly suppressed. To have proved the Conquistadors a gang of unprincipled buccaneers would have spoiled a Holy War, which was just what the Inquisition would not allow to go before the world. To the little work of Boturini on Mexico there are appended, 1. The declaration of his faith in the Roman Catholic Church in the most unequivocal terms. 2.

The license of the Jesuit father. 3. The license of an Inquisitor. 4.

The license of the Judge of the Supreme Council of the Indias. 5. The license of the Royal Council of the Indias. 6. The approbation of the "qualificator" of the Inquisition, who was a bare-footed Carmelite monk. 7. The license of the Royal Council of Castile. Beyond all this, the writer must be a person in holy orders, and be a person of sufficient influence to obtain the favorable notice of all these bodies, who were instinctively hostile to the diffusion of all information, particularly in regard to the New World. Nor was this the end of the difficulty; the license of any one of these officials could be revoked at pleasure, and, when republished, the work had to be re-"_vised_." Even as late as the year 1825, a Spanish standard author could not be republished without expurgation.[24] With such facts before us, it is safe to declare that not a single statement of fact that affected either the interests of the king or the Church was ever published in Spain or her colonies during the three hundred years of the existence of the Inquisition; but every thing published was modified to suit the wishes of the censors, without any regard to the sentiments of the putative author.

But who was Bernal Diaz? How came he to be familiar with the writings of Las Casas that never saw the light? Had he access to the secret archives of the convent? He refers to the account of Las Casas as follows:

"These [the slaughters at Cholula] are, among others, those abominable monstrosities which the Bishop of Chiapas, Las Casas, can find no end in enumerating. But he is wrong when he a.s.serts that we gave the Cholulans the above-mentioned chastis.e.m.e.nt without any provocation, and merely for pastime."[25] The history of Diaz is among the standard literary productions of that age, and is a very picture of candor and simplicity. On every page there are such evident efforts at truthfulness as to raise a suspicion that something more than, a simple narrative was the object of writing this book fifty years after the conquest. By supposing the author to be only sixteen years old when he came to America, Lockhart makes him only seventy years of age when he wrote the work. But if we suppose him to have been of a reasonable age when he began his adventures, he must have been between eighty and ninety years old when this book is alleged to have been written. Gomara had overdone the matter in the superhuman achievements which he had ascribed to Cortez, while Las Casas had proved the conqueror and his party to have been a gang of cruel monsters. Now, something had to be done to avert the odium that was beginning to attach to this crusade against the enemies of the Church. In Spain, where a padlock was upon every man's mouth, and where each one buried his suspicions in the most secret recesses of his heart, and trembled lest, even in his dreams, a thought of impiety might reach the ear of a familiar, history could always be made to conform to the interests of the Church.

Since the records of the Spanish Inquisition have become the property of the public, and the manner in which the facts of history were trifled with is now understood, it is a question more easily asked than answered, Who wrote such and such a book?

WHO WROTE BERNAL DIAZ?

Who, then, wrote the history of Bernal Diaz? We have seen that it cuts down the monstrous exaggerations of Cortez more than a half, yet we shall see that the statements of Diaz are still incredible. It is a very religious book, as the Spaniards understand the word religion, and reflects great credit on the Church. But, with the slight evidence we have presented, no one would charge the work with being altogether a fiction, and Bernal Diaz a myth. All that can be said is, that we are left in that state of uncertainty in which every one finds himself who looks into a record that was within the control of the Inquisitorial censors.

Our stage-ride has been forgotten in discussing historical questions; and while we have been dwelling upon Cortez and Bernal Diaz, we have crossed the plain, and been climbing the heights of Rio Frio, and now we begin to catch glances of the valley and of the city of Mexico--a city and valley so renowned in history and tradition, that it seems more like a city of the Old World than a town in the interior of the continent that Columbus discovered. Truly it is an old city. It was an old city before Columbus was born--an old city in a new world. It is one of the links that binds the present age to ages long past and almost forgotten--a city where the present and the past are strangely mingled together. In its streets are "penitents," wandering, in sackcloth and sandals, with a downcast look and a rope for self-castigation, among soldiers in new French uniforms and ladies in the latest Paris fashions. This is not the time for a favorable view of the valley from this point. To see it in its full glory, we must look upon it at sunrise.

[16] Folsom's _Letters of Cortez_, p. 49.

[17] _Bernal Diaz._ Lockhart's translation. London, 1844.

Vol. i. p. 157.

[18] "We buried our dead in one of the subterranean dwellings."--_Diaz_, vol. i. p. 152.

[19] _Letters_, p. 61.

[20] _Bernal Diaz_, vol. i. p. 179.

[21] Vol. i. p. 144.

[22] _Colleccion de Leyes_, 1853, p. 184.

[23] _Lord Kingsborough_, vol. vi. p. 265.

[24] _A Year in Spain, by an American._

[25] _Bernal Diaz_, vol. i. p. 207.

CHAPTER XII.

Acapulco.--The Advantages of a Western Voyage to India.--The great annual Fair of Acapulco.--The Village and Harbor of Acapulco.--The War of Santa Anna and Alvarez.--The Retreat.--Traveling alone and unarmed.--The Peregrino Pa.s.s.--Quiricua and Cretinism.--Chilpanzingo.--An ill-clad Judge.--Iguala.--Alpayaca.--Cuarnavaca.

Let us now make a journey in another direction--from Acapulco northward to the city of Mexico--the route that the East India trade used to follow. But, first of all, let us discourse a little time about this port of Acapulco, once so famous upon the South Seas. It was not discovered when Cortez built, in Colima, the vessels that went to search for a northwest pa.s.sage; but when they had returned from their fruitless search, they anch.o.r.ed in the mountain-girt harbor of Acapulco. The discoveries of the celebrated navigator, Magellan, fixed the commercial character and importance of this sea-port. He had sailed through the straits that bear his name, and coasted northwardly as far as the trades. From this port he bore away to the Spice Islands, discovering on the voyage the Philippine Islands, where the city of Manilla was founded. By this voyage he demonstrated that the advantages of a route across the Pacific were so superior to a voyage around Cape Horn, as to justify the expense of a land transit from Acapulco to Vera Cruz, and reshipment to Spain. Now that the Panama Railroad is made, this demonstration may prove advantageous to other nations.

ACAPULCO.