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 passengers, 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
passengers 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 passed to me by a passenger 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 encumbering 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 passed, 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 passing 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 institutions 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 space 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 manuscript 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 quantity 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 assured 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 substituted. 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 asserts that we gave the
Cholulans the above-mentioned chastisement 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.