Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican Part 5

"When all those who had been able, quitted the city, we went to examine it, which was as I have described; and some poor creatures were crawling about in different stages of the most offensive disorders, the consequences of famine and improper food. There was no water; the ground had been torn up and the roots gnawed. The very trees were stripped of their bark; yet, notwithstanding they usually devoured their prisoners, no instance occurred when, amidst all the famine and starvation of this siege, they preyed upon each other.[8]

The remnant of the population went, at the request of the conquered Guatemozin, to the neighboring villages, until the town could be purified and the dead removed."

[Footnote 8: This fact, as stated by Bernal Diaz, is doubted by some other writers, and seems, unfortunately, not fully sustained by authority.]

CHAPTER X.

1521.

DUTY OF A HISTORIAN.--MOTIVES OF THE CONQUEST.--CHARACTER AND DEEDS OF CORTeZ.--MATERIALS OF THE CONQUEST.--ADVENTURERS-- PRIESTS--INDIAN ALLIES.--HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF THE CONQUEST.

It is perhaps one of the most difficult duties of a historian, who desires to present a faithful picture of a remote age, to place himself in such a position as to draw the moral from his story with justice to the people and the deeds he has described. He is obliged to forget, not only his individuality and all the a.s.sociations or prejudices with which he has grown up surrounded, but he must, in fact, endeavor to make himself a man and an actor in the age of which he writes. He must sympathize justly, but impartially, with the past, and estimate the motives of his fellow beings in the epoch he describes. He must measure his heroes, not by the standard of advanced Christian civilization under which he has been educated, but by the scale of enlightened opinion which was then acknowledged by the most respectable and intellectual cla.s.ses of society.

When we approach the Conquest of Mexico with these impartial feelings, we are induced to pa.s.s lighter judgments on the prominent men of that wonderful enterprise. The love of adventure or glory, the pa.s.sion of avarice, and the zeal of religion,--all of which mingled their threads with the meshes of this Indian web, were, unquestionably, the predominant motives that led the conquerors to Mexico. In some of them, a single one of these impulses was sufficient to set the bold adventurer in motion;--in others, perhaps, they were all combined. The necessary rapidity of our narrative has confined us more to the detail of prominent incidents than we would have desired had it been our task to disclose the wondrous tale of the conquest alone; but it would be wrong, even in the briefest summary of the enterprise, to pa.s.s from the topic without awarding to the moving spirit of the romantic drama the fair estimate which his character and deeds demand.

We have ever regarded Hernando Cortez as the great controlling spirit and embodiment of the conquest, regardless of the brilliant and able men who were grouped around him, all of whom, tempered and regulated by his genius, moved the military machine, step by step, and act by act, until the capital fell before the united armies of discontented Indians and invading Spaniards. It was in the mind of this remarkable personage that every scheme appears to have originated and ripened.

This is the report of the most authentic contemporaries. He took counsel, it is true, of his captains, and heard the reports of Sandoval, Olid, and Alvarado; but whenever a great enterprise, in all the wonderful and varied combinations of this adventure, was to be carried into successful execution, it was Cortez himself who planned it, placed himself at its head, and fought in its midst. The rash youth whom we saw either idling over his tasks at school, or a reckless stripling as he advanced in life, seems to have mellowed suddenly into greatness under the glow of Indian suns which would have emasculated a character of less rude or nervous strength. As soon as a project, worthy of the real power of his genius, presented itself to his mind and opened to his grasp, he became a sobered, steadfast, serious, discreet man. He was at once isolated by his superiority, and contrived to retain, by his wisdom in command, the superiority which was so perfectly manifested by this isolation. This alone, was no trifling task. His natural adroitness not only taught him quickly the value of every man in his command, but also rendered keener the tact by which he strove to use those men when their talents, for good or evil, were once completely ascertained. There were jealousies of Cortez, but no rivalries. _Men from the ranks_ conspired to displace him, but no _leader_ ever ventured, or perhaps even conceived the idea, whilst under his orders, of superceding the hero of the Mexican conquest. The skill with which he won the loyal heart of that clever Indian girl--his mistress and companion through all the warfare,--discloses to us his power of attaching a s.e.x which is always quickest to detect merit and readiest to discard conceit. We speak now of Cortez during that period of his career when he was essentially the soul of the conquest, and in which the stern demands of war upon his intellect and heart, did not allow him to sleep for a moment on his post, or to tamper with the elements upon which he relied for success.

In all this time he made but few mistakes. The loss of the capital during the first visit is not to be attributed to him. The stain of that calamity must rest forever upon the escutcheon of Alvarado, for the irreparable harm was already done when Cortez returned from the subjugation of Narvaez.

Nor is it alone as a soldier, at this time, that we are called on to appreciate the talents of our hero. Whilst he planned, fought, travelled, retreated, and diplomatised, he kept an accurate account of the adventures of his troop; and, in his celebrated letters to the Emperor, he has presented us a series of military memoirs, which, after three hundred years, furnish, in reality, the best, but least pretending, narrative of the conquest. Other contemporaries, looking upon the scenes from a variety of points, may serve to add interesting details and more copious ill.u.s.tration to the story; but they support without diminishing the value and truth of the despatches of Cortez.

The conqueror, in truth, was one of those men whose minds seem to reach results intuitively. Education often ripens genius, as the genial sun and air mature the fruits of the earth which would languish without them. But we sometimes find individuals whose dealings on earth are to be chiefly in energetic and constant action with their fellow creatures, and who are gifted with a finer tact which enables them to penetrate the hearts of all they approach, and by this skilful detection of character are empowered to mould them to their purposes.

There are, it is true, many subordinate qualities, besides the mere perceptive faculties, that are needful in such a person. He must possess self-control and discrimination in a remarkable degree. His courage and self-reliance must be unquestionable. He must be able to win by gentleness as well as to control by command or to rule by stratagem; for there are persons whom neither kindness, reason nor authority can lead, but who are nevertheless too important to be disregarded in such an enterprise as that of the conquest of Mexico.

Nor is our admiration of the characteristics we have endeavored to sketch, diminished when we examine the elements of the original army that flocked to the standard of Cortez. The Spanish court and camps,--the Spanish towns and sea-ports,--had sent forth a motley band to the islands. The sedate and worthier portions of Castilian society were not wooed abroad by the alluring accounts of the New World and its prolific wealth. They did not choose to leave hereditary homes and comfortable emoluments which made those homes the permanent abodes of contentment if not of luxury. But there were others in the dense crowds of Spain whose habits, disposition and education, fostered in them all the love of ease and elegance, without bestowing the means of gratifying their desires. These men regarded the New World as a short and easy road to opulence and distinction. There were others too, whose reckless or dissipated habits had wasted their fortunes and blasted their names in their native towns, and who could not bear to look upon the scenes of their youth, or the companions of their more fortunate days, whilst poverty and disgrace deprived them of the rights of free and equal social intercourse. These were the poor and proud;--the noisy and the riotous;--the soldier, half bandit, half warrior;--the sailor, half mutineer, half pirate;--the zealot whose bigotry magnified the dangers of Indian life into the glory of martyrdom; and the avaricious man who dreamed that the very sands of the Indian Isles were strewn with gems and gold. Among all this ma.s.s of wayward l.u.s.t and ambition, there were some lofty spirits whose love of glory, whose pa.s.sionate devotion to adventure, and whose genuine anxiety to spread the true word of G.o.d among the infidels, sanctified and adorned the enterprise, whilst their personal efforts and influence were continually directed towards the n.o.ble purpose of redeeming it from cruelty. These men recollected that posterity would set its seal upon their deeds, whilst many of them acted from a higher and purer Christian motive, devoid of all that narrow selfishness with which others kept their eyes fixed on the present and the future for the popular opinion that was to disgrace or dignify them on the pages of history.

Such were the Spanish materials of the armies with which Cortez invaded Mexico; and yet, even with all the masterly genius he possessed to mould and lead such discordant elements, what could he have substantially effected, against the Aztec Empire, with his handful of men,--armed, mounted and equipped as they were,--without his _Indian allies_? These he had to conquer, to win, to control, to bind to him, forever, with the chains of an indestructible loyalty. He did not even know their language, but relied on the double interpretation of an Indian girl and a Spanish soldier. Nor is it less remarkable that he not only gained these allies, but preserved their fealty, not in success alone, but under the most disheartening disaster, when it was really their interest to destroy rather than to sustain him, and when not only their allegiance but their religion invoked a dreadful vengeance on the sacreligious hands that despoiled their temples, overthrew their G.o.ds, and made a jest of their most sacred rites. It was, indeed, not only a victory over the judgments, but over the superst.i.tions, of an excitable, ardent and perhaps unreflective nation; and, in whatever aspect we regard the man who effected it solely by the omnipotence of his will, we are more and more forced to admire the majesty of his genius and the fortune or providence that made him a chosen and conspicuous instrument in the development of our continent.

The conquest of Mexico,--in its relation to the rest of the world,--has a double aspect, worthy of examination. The subsequent history and condition of the country, which we design to treat in the following pages, will develope one of these topics;--the condition of the country, at the period of the conquest, will disclose another, whilst it palliates, if it does not altogether apologize for the cruelties and apparent rapine by which the subjugation of the empire was effected.

CHAPTER XI.

1521-1522.

DISCONTENT AT NOT FINDING GOLD--TORTURE OF GUATEMOZIN.--RESULTS OF THE FALL OF THE CAPITAL.--MISSION FROM MICHOACAN.--REBUILDING OF THE CAPITAL.--LETTERS TO THE KING.--INTRIGUES AGAINST CORTeZ--FONSECA--NARVAEZ---TAPIA.--CHARLES V. PROTECTS CORTeZ AND CONFIRMS HIS ACTS.

The capital had no sooner fallen and the ruins been searched in vain for the abundant treasures which the conquerors imagined were h.o.a.rded by the Aztecs, than murmurs of discontent broke forth in the Spanish camp against Cortez for his supposed concealment of the plunder. There was a mingled sentiment of distrust both of the conqueror and Guatemozin; and, at last, the querulousness and taunts rose to such an offensive height, that it was resolved to apply the torture to the dethroned prince in order to wrest from him the secret hiding place of his ancestral wealth. We blush to record that Cortez consented to this iniquity, but it was probably owing to an avaricious and mutinous spirit in his ranks which he was unable at the moment to control. The same Indian stoicism that characterised the unfortunate prince during the war, still nerved him in his hours of abject disaster. He bore the pangs without quivering or complaint and without revealing any thing that could gratify the Spanish l.u.s.t of gold, save that vast quant.i.ties of the precious metal had been thrown into the lake,--from which but little was ultimately recovered even by the most expert divers.

The news of the fall of Mexico was soon spread from sea to sea, and couriers were despatched by distant tribes and princes to ascertain the truth of the prodigious disaster. The independent kingdom of Michoacan, lying between the vale of Anahuac or Mexico and the Pacific, was one of the first to send its envoys, and finally even its king, to the capital;--and two small detachments of Spaniards returned with the new visitors, penetrating their country and pa.s.sing with them even to the waters of the western ocean itself, on whose sh.o.r.es they planted the cross in token of rightful possession. They returned by the northern districts, and brought with them the first specimens of gold and pearls from the region now known as California.

It was not long, however, before Cortez resolved to make his conquest available by the reconstruction of the capital that he had been forced reluctantly to mutilate and partly level during the siege. The ancient city was nearly in ruins. The ma.s.sive relics of idolatry, and the huge stones of which the chief palaces had been constructed, were cast into the ca.n.a.ls. The desolation was complete on the site of the ancient imperial residence. And the Indians, who had served in the work of dilapidation, were even compelled by their Spanish leader and his task masters to be the princ.i.p.al laborers in the toil of building up a city which should surpa.s.s in splendor the ancient pride of Anahuac.

Meanwhile the sagacious mind of Cortez was not only busy with the present duties and occupations of his men in Mexico, but began to dwell,--now that the intense excitement of active war was over,--upon the condition of his relations with the Spanish Court and the government in the islands. He despatched to Castile, letters, presents, and the "royal fifth," together with an enormous emerald whose base was as broad as the palm of his hand. With the General's missives, went a letter from his army, commending the heroic leader, and beseeching its royal master to confirm Cortez in his authority and to ratify all his proceedings. Quinones and Avila, the two envoys, sailed for home; but one of them, lucklessly, perished in a brawl at the Azores, whilst Avila, who resumed the voyage to Spain, after the loss of his companion, was taken by a French privateer, who bore the spoils of the Mexicans to the Court of Francis the First. The letters and despatches of Cortez and his army, however, were saved, and Avila, privately and safely forwarded them to the Spanish sovereign.

At the Court of Charles the Fifth there were, of course, numerous intrigues against the successful conqueror. The hatred of Velasquez had not been suffered to slumber in the breast of that disappointed governor, and Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos, who was chief of the colonial department, and doubtless adroitly plied and stimulated by Velasquez, managed to obtain from the churchman, Adrian, who was Regent whilst the Emperor resided in Germany, an order for the seizure of Cortez and the sequestration of his property until the will of the court should be finally made known.

But, the avaricious Velasquez, the vindictive Fonseca, and the _Veedor_ Cristoval de Tapia, whom they employed to execute so delicate and dangerous a commission against a man who at that moment, was surrounded by faithful soldiers and whose troops had been augmented by recent arrivals at Vera Cruz,--reasoned with but little judgment when they planned their unjust and ungrateful measures against Cortez. The commissioner, himself, seems to have soon arrived at the same conclusion, for, scarcely had he landed, before the danger of the enterprise and the gold of the conqueror, persuaded him prudently to decline penetrating into the heart of the country as the bearer of so ungrateful a reply to the wishes of a hero whose genius and sword had given an empire, and almost a world, to Spain.

Thus, at last, was Cortez, for a time, freed from the active hostility of the Spanish Court, whilst he retained his authority over his conquest merely by military right and power of forcible occupation.

But he did not remain idly contented with what he had already done.

His restless heart craved to compa.s.s the whole continent, and to discover, visit, explore, whatever lay within the reach of his small forces and of all who chose to swell them. He continually pressed his Indian visitors for information concerning the empire of the Montezumas and the adjacent territories of independent kings or tributaries. Wherever discontent lifted its head, or rebellious manifestations were made, he despatched sufficient forces to whip the mutineers into contrite submission. The new capital progressed apace, and stately edifices rose on the solid land which his soldiers had formed out of the fragments of ancient Mexico.

Whilst thus engaged in his newly-acquired domain, Narvaez, his old enemy, and Tapia, his more recent foe, had reached the Spanish Court, where, aided by Fonseca, they once more bestirred themselves in the foul labor of blasting the fame of Cortez, and wresting from his grasp the splendid fruits of his valor. Luckily, however, the Emperor returned, about this period, from eastern Europe, and, from this moment the tide of intrigue seems to have been stayed if not altogether turned. Reviled as he had hitherto been in the purlieus of the court, Cortez was not without staunch kinsmen and warm friends who stood up valiantly in his behalf, both before councils and king. His father, Don Martin, and his friend, the Duke of Bejar, had been prominent among many in espousing the cause of the absent hero, even before the sovereign's return;--and now, the monarch, whose heart was not indeed ungrateful for the effectual service rendered his throne by the conqueror, and whose mind probably saw not only the justice but the policy of preserving, unalienated, the fidelity and services of so remarkable a personage,--soon determined to look leniently upon all that was really censurable in the early deeds of Cortez. Whilst Charles confirmed his acts in their full extent, he moreover const.i.tuted him "Governor, Captain General and Chief Justice of New Spain, with power to appoint to all offices, civil and military, and to order any person to leave the country whose residence there might be deemed prejudicial to the crown."

On the 15th of October, 1522, this righteous commission was signed by Charles V., at Valladolid. A liberal salary was a.s.signed the Captain General; his leading officers were crowned with honors and emoluments, and the troops were promised liberal grants of land. Thus, the wisdom of the king, and of the most respectable Spanish n.o.bility, finally crushed the mean, jealous, or avaricious spirits who had striven to leave their slimy traces on the fame of the conqueror; whilst the Emperor, himself, with his own hand, acknowledged the services of the troops and their leader, in a letter to the Spanish army in Mexico.

Among the men who felt severely the censure implied by this just and wise conduct of Charles V., was the ascetic Bishop of Burgos, Fonseca, whose baleful influence had fallen alike upon the discoveries of Columbus, and the conquests of Cortez. His bigoted and narrow soul,--schooled in forms, and trained by early discipline, into a querulousness which could neither tolerate anything that did not accord with his rules or originate under his orders,--was unable to comprehend the splendid glory of the enterprises of these two heroic chieftains. Had it been his generous policy to foster them, history would have selected this son of the church as the guardian angel over the cradle of the New World; but he chose to be the shadow rather than the shining light of his era, and, whether from age or chagrin, he died in the year after this kingly rebuff from a prince whose councils he had long and unwisely served.

CHAPTER XII.

1522-1547.

CORTeZ COMMISSIONED BY THE EMPEROR.--VELASQUEZ--HIS DEATH.--MEXICO REBUILT.--IMMIGRATION--REPARTIMIENTOS OF INDIANS.--HONDURAS-- GUATEMOZIN--MARIANA.--CORTeZ ACCUSED--ORDERED TO SPAIN FOR TRIAL.--HIS RECEPTION, HONORS AND t.i.tLES--HE MARRIES--HIS RETURN TO MEXICO--RESIDES AT TEZCOCO.--EXPEDITIONS OF CORTeZ--CALIFORNIA--QUIVARA.--RETURNS TO SPAIN--DEATH--WHERE ARE HIS BONES?

The royal commission, of which we have spoken in the last chapter, was speedily borne to New Spain, where it was joyfully received by all who had partic.i.p.ated in the conquest or joined the original forces since that event. Men not only recognized the justice of the act, but they felt that if the harvest was rightfully due to him who had planted the seed, it was also most probable that no one could be found in Spain or the Islands more capable than Cortez of consolidating the new empire.

Velasquez, the darling object of whose latter years had been to circ.u.mvent, entrap or foil the conqueror, was sadly stricken by the defeat of his machinations. The reckless but capable soldier, whom he designed to mould into the pliant tool of his avarice and glory, had suddenly become his master. Wealth, renown, and even royal grat.i.tude, crowned his labors; and the disobedience, the errors, and the flagrant wrongs he was charged with whilst subject to gubernatorial authority, were pa.s.sed by in silence or forgotten in the acclamation that sounded his praise throughout Spain and Europe. Even Fonseca,--the chief of the council,--had been unable to thwart this darling of genius and good fortune. Velasquez, himself, was nothing. The great error of his life had been in breaking with Cortez before he sailed for Mexico. He was straitened in fortune, foiled in ambition, mocked by the men whose career of dangerous adventure he had personally failed to share; and, at last, disgusted with the time and its men, he retired to brood over his melancholy reverses until death soon relieved him of his earthly jealousies and annoyances.

Four years had not entirely elapsed since the fall of Mexico, when a new and splendid city rose from its ruins and attracted the eager Spaniards, of all cla.s.ses, from the old world and the islands. Cortez designed this to be the continental nucleus of population. Situated on the central plateau of the realm, midway between the two seas, in a genial climate whose heat never scorched and whose cold never froze, it was, indeed, an alluring region to which men of all temperaments might resort with safety. Strongholds, churches, palaces, were erected on the sites of the royal residences of the Aztecs and their blood-stained Teocallis. Strangers were next invited to the new capital, and, in a few years, the Spanish quarter contained two thousand families, while the Indian district of Tlatelolco, numbered not less than thirty thousand inhabitants. The city soon a.s.sumed the air and bustle of a great mart. Tradesmen, craftsmen and merchants, thronged its streets and remaining ca.n.a.ls.

Cortez was not less anxious to establish, in the interior of the old Aztec empire, towns or points of rendezvous, which in the course of time, would grow up into important cities. These were placed with a view to the future wants of travel and trade in New Spain. Liberal grants of land were made to settlers who were compelled to provide themselves with wives under penalty of forfeiture within eighteen months. Celibacy was too great a luxury for a young country.[9] The Indians were divided among the Spaniards by the system of _repartimientos_, which will be more fully discussed in a subsequent part of this work. The necessities and cupidity of the early settlers in so vast a region rendered this necessary perhaps, though it was promptly discountenanced but never successfully suppressed by the Spanish crown. The scene of action was too remote, the subjects too selfish, and the ministers too venal or interested to carry out, with fidelity, the benign ordinances of the government at home. From this apportionment of Indians, which subjected them, in fact, to a species of slavery, it is but just to the conquerors to state that the Tlascalans, upon whom the burden of the fighting had fallen, were entirely exempted at the recommendation of Cortez.

Among all the tribes the work of conversion prospered, for the ceremonious ritual of the Aztec religion easily introduced the native worshippers to the splendid forms of the Roman Catholic. Agriculture and the mines were not neglected in the policy of Cortez, and, in fact he speedily set in motion all the machinery of civilization, which was gradually to operate upon the native population whilst it attracted the overflowing, industrious or adventurous ma.s.ses of his native land. Various expeditions, too, for the purpose of exploration and extension, were fitted out by the Captain General of New Spain; so that, within three years after the conquest, Cortez had reduced to the Spanish sway, a territory of over four hundred leagues, or twelve hundred miles on the Atlantic coast, and of more than five hundred leagues or fifteen hundred miles on the Pacific.[10]

This sketch of a brief period after the subjugation of Mexico developes the _constructive_ genius of Cortez, as the preceding chapters had very fully exhibited his _destructive_ abilities. It shows, however, that he was not liable justly to the censure which has so often been cast upon him,--of being, only, a piratical plunderer who was seduced into the conquest by the spirit of rapine alone.