HERNANDO CORTEZ AND THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO.
High on the table-land of Mexico there was once a beautiful city which
was built partly around the shores of a lake and partly on islands
within the lake. It had broad streets and fine buildings, and its
temples were among the most beautiful in the world, the principal one,
that which was devoted to the worship of the sun, being ornamented with
gold and silver and precious stones; here and there were great public
squares around which splendid temples were built, and in the centre of
the city in one of these great squares stood the temple of the god of
war. The people who lived in this city were Aztecs, a tribe of Indians
very different from those of the Atlantic coast. They worshipped the sun
and the moon, and, above all, they worshipped the terrible god of war,
in whose honor they burned the bodies of the enemies they captured in
battle. The temples were attended by priests, who were held in great
honor by the people, and in every temple there were little boys who were
being trained to the priesthood. On great festival days the priests and
boys and all the people would form a grand procession and march all
around the city, singing and playing on instruments. The lake on which
the city was built was one of the finest in the world, and the Aztecs
were fond of building floating gardens on its waters; these gardens were
very beautiful, with flowers of all kinds, and vegetables were also
cultivated in them. The palaces of the king and nobles were built of
stone and of great size, and very elegant, being ornamented sometimes
with gold and silver. The Aztecs were a very powerful people, and all
the nations around them were afraid of them and acknowledged the Aztec
king as theirs; and everywhere from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico
were great roads leading from the city down to the coasts, so that the
king could send messages at any time from one part of his kingdom to
another; all over the country outside the city were great fields, where
cotton, corn, wheat, sugar, coffee, and other things were raised. The
Aztecs did not dress in skins, as did the Indians farther north, but
they wove cotton into cloth and made garments of that. They also had a
written language and wrote their history down in books. The name of the
king was Montezuma, and all his people loved and worshipped him as a
god, and when he looked over the city and saw the turrets and spires of
the palaces and temples glittering in the sunlight, and the floating
gardens, filling the lakes with beauty and fragrance, and the fields
rich with harvest, and the green forests, stretching away to the base of
the great volcano whose snowy peak shone in the golden light of the sun,
he felt that his was, indeed, a great and fair kingdom, beautiful and
strong and happy.
But the riches of this great city had been heard of across the sea, and
the Spaniards, as ever eager for gold, resolved to make its wealth their
own. So an army was sent from Cuba to conquer Mexico, and Hernando
Cortez was made its leader. Cortez was a brave soldier, but a cruel and
treacherous man. In the year 1519 he landed his troops at Tabasco on the
southern coast of Mexico; he found the natives prepared for war, but
they were soon glad to fly from the Spaniards, leaving many of their
number killed. Cortez then went on to Vera Cruz, where Montezuma had
sent messengers to meet him; these messengers brought with them
magnificent presents of gold and jewels which they gave to the
Spaniards, at the same time trying to persuade them to go away from
their country. But Cortez would not go away; he said he was going to the
City of Mexico to see Montezuma himself, as the King of Spain had
ordered him to do, and for fear his soldiers would not go with him, he
burned all his ships so they could not go back to Cuba if they wanted
to.
[Illustration: THE MESSENGERS OF MONTEZUMA.]
The Aztecs returned to Montezuma and told him that the Spaniards were on
their way to his city. Montezuma did not know what to do; for although
he was a good and kind king, he was not a great soldier. He sent other
messengers and more presents, and commanded Cortez to go back, but
Cortez pressed on. Now among the Aztecs there was a tradition that,
hundreds of years before, their country had been visited by a glorious
stranger from the East, a child of the sun, who had taught them how to
till the ground, and all the arts of peace and war; and he lived with
them many years, and they loved him and worshipped him as a god, and the
stranger was very beautiful to look upon, with hair like the sunlight
and eyes as bright as the stars, and his skin was as white as the snow
which glistened on the tops of the volcanoes. And one day he called the
Indians around him and told them that he must go away forever, but that
some time in the years to come a race would come from the East, children
of the sun like himself, and that they would demand the Aztec Kingdom
for their own, and that it would do no good for the Indians to fight
these strangers, for they were the children of the sun and could conquer
all before them; and so saying, the stranger from the East vanished
from their sight, and they saw him no more, though they mourned for him
many days; for he had gone into the mysterious West, whence the sun goes
at night, for all things that come from the East find a home at last in
the land of the sunsetting, but save the sun himself, nothing ever comes
back from that land, but all things remain forever hidden by the shadows
which lie on its borders.
And so when Montezuma heard that the Spaniards, who were fair-skinned
and light, compared with the Indians, were resolved to come on to his
city, he thought that perhaps they might be the children of the sun, and
if so, it would be of no use to try and repel them; and when at last
Cortez came up to the city, he went out to meet him and gave him a
courteous welcome.
The Spaniards were rejoiced when they saw the beautiful city, for they
thought that its splendid palaces and treasures would soon be theirs.
Montezuma led Cortez into the city and gave him a large and elegant
building for his quarters, and to every soldier in the army magnificent
presents were made. The army was quartered in the great central square,
near the temple of the god of war; it was in the winter, and for a month
Cortez remained quiet; he and his soldiers were allowed to go about, and
were even permitted to enter the temples and examine the altars and
shrines, where the Mexicans offered up human beings every day as
sacrifices to their gods. But the thing that interested the Spanish
general most were the vast treasures of gold and silver, the huge
storehouses filled with provisions, and the great arsenals filled with
bows and arrows. He saw that the Aztecs were well prepared for war, and
began to grow a little alarmed for his own safety. He knew that by
lifting his finger Montezuma could fill all the squares with armed
soldiers, and prevent the Spaniards from leaving the city, and he knew
also that the Indian warriors were no longer afraid of his men, as they
were at first, when they thought them immortal; so thinking over all
these things, Cortez resolved upon a bold plan. He knew that if he could
get possession of Montezuma the people would be afraid to make war on
him; so, one day, he asked Montezuma into his quarters, and then refused
to let him go out again, saying that he would kill him if the people
should attack the Spaniards.
Cortez was now obliged to leave Mexico for a short time to oppose a
force that had been sent against him from Cuba. While he was gone,
Alvarado, the general he left in command, attacked the Mexicans one day
when they were celebrating a great feast, and killed five hundred of
their priests and leaders. The Aztecs became furious, and attacked the
palace where Alvarado and his men were, and they would soon have
conquered the Spaniards had not Cortez come back just in time.
Cortez tried to make peace, but the Mexicans would not listen to him. In
a few days the fighting began all over the city, and the streets were
stained with the blood of tens of thousands. Then Cortez compelled
Montezuma to go upon the top of the palace, in front of the great
square, and ask his people to make peace with the Spaniards. The Aztecs
worshipped Montezuma as a god, and when they saw him standing on the
palace roof, they dropped their weapons on the ground, and every head
was bowed with reverence. But when he asked them to make peace with the
Spaniards, they grew very angry and immediately began fighting again.
Montezuma was wounded twice by their arrows, which so alarmed the
Aztecs, that they stopped fighting again; but soon the battle
re-commenced, and in a few days Cortez was compelled to leave the city.
In the meantime, Montezuma had died in the Spanish camp; the Spaniards
had treated him kindly toward the end, and had nursed his wounds, but he
refused to take any food, and died at last from a broken heart. Cortez
now saw that there would have to be a great battle fought, so he made
ready his men. On the morning of the battle he looked out from his camp
and saw the Mexican soldiers extending as far as the eye could reach; he
trembled when he saw this great army of men, knowing that his own troops
were few, but he resolved to conquer or die. Without giving his men
time to think, he began to attack the enemy; at first the Aztecs gave
way, but others came in their stead, for the whole valley was lined with
armed Indians. The Spaniards gave up hope, and prepared to die, but just
then, Cortez advanced to the Mexican standard-bearer and snatched the
sacred standard from his hand. The Mexicans believed that on this
standard depended the fate of every battle, and that if it were
captured, there was no use in fighting any longer. Cortez knew this, and
when they saw it in his hands, they threw down their arms and fled to
the mountains, and thus the Spaniards won the battle.
And so Cortez conquered Mexico, and all its vast wealth passed into the
hands of the Spaniards; its fertile valleys and rich plains, its
beautiful capital and prosperous villages, its great mines of gold and
silver, its thousands and thousands of inhabitants, all became the
property of the King of Spain, a man who cared nothing for the conquered
people, but thought only of the great wealth that had so unjustly become
his. The gold and silver mines of Mexico were then the richest in the
world, and the conquered Aztecs were obliged to work in these mines as
slaves, but the gold and silver was no longer used to ornament their
temples and palaces; it was sent across the sea to Spain, who thought
more of gold than she did of honor or justice.
It was in the year 1521 that Cortez conquered Mexico, and for three
hundred years it was ruled by Spain; at the end of that time it became
again free. The Mexicans of to-day are partly Indians and partly Spanish
in race, but there are some who remember with pride that they are the
descendants of the ancient Aztecs, and they point to the ruins of the
great temples, which may still be seen in the new Capital, as an
instance of the wealth and power of their nation when the Aztecs ruled
from ocean to gulf, and when from mountain peak to lowest valley every
heart beat with pride in thinking of the glory of the kingdom which
Montezuma called his own.