_Of Cortes' plans after he had obtained the appointment of governor
of New Spain; the way in which he distributes the Indians; and of
other matters._
I and other of the most experienced and deserving of the veteran
Conquistadores had always made sure that, as soon as Cortes should
receive the appointment of governor of New Spain, he would remember the
day when he set sail from Cuba, and that he would bring back to his mind
the great troubles by which he was immediately after surrounded, and
that he would have remembered all those of the men who, soon after he
had landed with his troops in New Spain, had procured him the
appointment of captain-general and chief justice of the country, and
have borne in mind that we never for a moment left his side in all the
subsequent battles and dangers. By heavens! he ought never to have
forgotten any one of us,--we who always took his part, who exerted
ourselves to the utmost for him on the occasion when a portion of the
troops clamoured to return to Vera Cruz, and strove hard to persuade him
to abandon all thoughts of the campaign against Mexico, on account of
the vast power of this state and the great strength of its metropolis.
We were the same men who marched with him into Mexico, who assisted him
in taking the powerful Motecusuma prisoner in the midst of his warriors,
who lent him such efficient aid against Narvaez, and then instantly
marched back with him to Mexico to the assistance of Alvarado; the same
men who fought the terrific battles on the disastrous retreat from this
city, and who had to mourn the loss of so many of their brave companions
on that night of sorrows; the men by whose valour the memorable battle
was gained on the plains of Otumpan; who again put down the
insurrections in the provinces, conquered all the large townships which
lay around the lake, and subdued the country; who rallied round his
person when a conspiracy was set on foot by Villafana and others to put
him to death; who patiently endured the indescribable fatigues and
hardships of the ninety-three days' siege of Mexico, during which time
we had night and day encountered the attacks of an infuriated enemy
until at length we placed him in possession of that strong city. We
remained faithful to him when Christobal de Tapia arrived in New Spain
with the appointment of governor. We wrote three several times to his
majesty in praise of the great services he had rendered to the crown,
extolling his loyalty to the skies, and begging of his majesty to confer
upon him the appointment of governor. I will not even mention the many
other great services which we rendered to our general; but certainly,
after he had obtained the government of New Spain, he ought to have
remembered the brave and courageous men who also, subsequent to the
conquest of Mexico, made those severe campaigns to Colima, Zacatula, and
Panuco, and those of the troops who from extreme poverty were obliged to
relinquish the settlement founded by Alvarado at Tutepec.
We had altogether shared badly in the division of the Indians, and
miserable districts of the country had been allotted to us, although his
majesty had so often desired Cortes to reward our meritorious conduct,
and to give us the preference in all matters. In all his letters which
he wrote to his agents in Spain he ought never to have omitted
mentioning our names with unbounded praise, and ought to have made it a
point of obtaining from his majesty, for ourselves and children, the
preference in all official appointments in New Spain: but he never gave
this a thought; and on both occasions, the one when he obtained the
appointment of governor, and the other when he went to Spain himself and
became Marquis of Oaxaca, he only strove to further his own ends, and he
forgot his brave companions in arms. Indeed, the most sensible and
intelligent of the Conquistadores were quite of opinion that nothing
would have been juster on the part of Cortes, and nothing more
practicable at that time, than to have divided the whole of New Spain
into five equal parts: one fifth, containing the best townships, to have
been set apart for the crown; a second fifth for the churches,
hospitals, and cloisters, and for gifts which his majesty might think
proper of bestowing on those men who had distinguished themselves in the
Italian campaigns or elsewhere; the three remaining fifths to have been
divided among the whole of the true Conquistadores, according to their
respective stations and merits, and this in perpetuity. At that time his
majesty would have consented to such a division, as the whole of the
conquest of New Spain never cost the crown anything, and his majesty
himself had altogether a very imperfect notion of the country. Besides
which, his majesty was then still in Flanders, and would have been
pleased to know the country was in the hands of such faithful and
courageous subjects.
But nothing of all this ever entered Cortes' mind, while our condition
was daily growing worse; and at present there are even many of us
veteran Conquistadores who have not the common necessaries of life! What
will become of our children which we shall leave behind? But enough of
all this; let us now see to whom Cortes distributed the townships.
The first persons who were rewarded by the governor were Francisco de
las Casas and Rodrigo de Paz, with the royal factor, the inspector, and
treasurer, who had come from Spain with those gentlemen. Then came a
certain Avalos, and one Saavedra, both relatives of Cortes. Next follow
Barrios, who was married to his sister-in-law Dona Xuarez; a certain
Alonso Lucas, Juan and Luis de la Torre, Alonso Valiente, and the
squinting Ribera. But these are only a few instances; for a person had
only to come from Medellin,[41] or to stand in favour with some great
personage, and flatter Cortes a little, and he was presented with some
of the best lands in New Spain. I am not going to reproach Cortes for
having remembered all these people, for there was plenty to do all this
with, but certainly he should have given the preference to his soldiers,
as he had been recommended to do by his majesty; to those men through
whose assistance he was elevated to that high station. Whenever any
campaign was in contemplation, or any battles to be fought, he never for
an instant forgot where every individual man of us was to be found, and
his commands to march to the field of battle never failed to reach us.
But I will put an end to my complaints of the neglect which we suffered,
for now it cannot be remedied.
Though I must not forget to mention how conscious Cortes was of the
injustice which he had done us, and that he even acknowledged it. After
the death of Luis Ponce de Leon and of Marcos de Aguilar soon after,
whom the former, as will be seen in the proper place, appointed his
successor in the government, myself, with several officers and
cavaliers of the veteran Conquistadores called upon Cortes, and begged
of him, conformably to his majesty's commands, to give us some of the
numerous Indians which fell to his share on that occasion. To this he
replied, that we fared no worse than he himself did. "But," added he,
"if his majesty should again be pleased to appoint me governor of New
Spain, upon my conscience, I will repair the neglect you have suffered
at my hands, and will bestow the best commendaries on those for whom his
majesty intended them. You may depend upon it I will make good the great
errors I have committed."
With these fine words and flattering promises he thought to satisfy the
old and tried Conquistadores.
A little before Cortes received the appointment of governor, the new
officers of the crown arrived in Mexico: these were Alonso de Estrada,
of Ciudad Real, as royal treasurer; as factor, Gonzalo de Salazar; as
accountant, Rodrigo de Albornoz, of Paladinos, (Julian de Alderete
having died a short time previously); as veedor, Pedro Almindez
Chirinos, a native of Ubeda, or of Baeza, besides many others.
About this time Rodrigo Rangel, although he was neither present at the
siege of Mexico nor in many of the great battles we fought in New Spain,
all of a sudden got it into his head that he must also reap some glory
to himself; he therefore begged of Cortes to give him a small body of
troops in order to put down the rebellion which had arisen among the
Zapotec townships, and also that Pedro de Ircio might be allowed to join
the expedition in order to support him with his good counsel. Cortes
very well knew what kind of man Rangel was; that he was not fit for any
kind of service, as he constantly suffered from ill health. He was
gouty, had large swellings in his groins, was covered all over with
sores, and so debilitated in strength that he could scarcely move along
on his thin ulcerated legs. Cortes consequently refused this man his
unreasonable request, representing to him what a ferocious people the
Zapotecs were, and how excessively difficult it was to subdue a people
like this who inhabited rugged mountains covered with eternal mists;
that no cavalry could penetrate into their country, or, at most, they
were wholly useless there; how, owing to the narrow and steep mountain
paths, his men would only be able to march one abreast, and then with
great risk of their lives, from the slippery state of the ground, which
was covered with perpetual dew. For an expedition of this nature,
continued Cortes, the most experienced and robust of soldiers were
required, who thoroughly understood the art of war. Rangel, however, was
a very conceited fellow, and also a native of Medellin, and solicited so
strongly that Cortes at length granted him his request; but, from what
we afterwards heard, it would appear that Cortes only gave way to him to
rid himself for ever of this man, who was of a malicious disposition,
thinking he would never survive this campaign. However, this is very
little to the purpose, and I will rather acquaint the reader that
letters arrived from Cortes to twelve of us soldiers who had settled in
Guacasualco, with orders for us to accompany Rangel on this expedition.
I was likewise among the number, and it happened that all twelve of us
were neighbours.
I have already informed the reader, in a previous chapter, that the
country of the Zapotecs consists of high mountains; how nimble and
courageous the inhabitants are, and how they communicate with each other
by means of piping, the shrill sound of which reechoes through all the
valleys. In such a place it may readily be imagined that a man like
Rangel, and the troops under such a leader, would not be able to achieve
anything. Wherever we came, the inhabitants had fled away; besides
which, the houses were not built together as in other townships of New
Spain, but straggling about, some on the mountains, others in the
valleys. The rainy season had just set in when we arrived in this wild
country, and poor Rangel suffered so violently from the swellings in his
groins, that he cried out aloud in the agonies of pain. The rest of us,
therefore, were not a little annoyed that we were compelled to sacrifice
our time for such a man; however, he was soon convinced himself that all
his trouble was to no purpose, and he resolved to relinquish the
expedition, and to allow the men to return to their respective abodes.
Pedro de Ircio, whom Rangel had purposely taken with him to profit by
his good counsel, was the first who advised this latter step, and left
him to return to Vera Cruz, where he had settled. Rangel himself marched
back with us to Guacasualco, the warm climate of which he affirmed would
agree best with his health. This we looked upon as a greater calamity
even than marching out with him into the field of battle; however, we
were obliged to submit, and we put the best face we could on the matter.
When we had arrived in Guacasualco, he got it into his head to march to
Cimatan and Talatupan, in order to put down the insurrection which still
continued in these provinces. The inhabitants there principally confided
in the strength of their positions, which lay between rivers, swamps,
and marshy ground, where every step was attended with danger; besides
which, they were remarkably expert archers, and the arrow which flew
from their enormous bows seldom missed its aim.
In order that we might not dispute his word, Rangel produced his
instructions from Cortes, in which he was also commanded to march
against the rebellious provinces of Cimatan and Talatupan; he,
therefore, in his capacity of commander-in-chief, summoned all the
inhabitants of Guacasualco to join him in the expedition, and we stood
in such awe of Cortes' mandates that we durst not offer the slightest
opposition to Rangel's authority; and above one hundred of us, with all
our horses, about twenty-six musketeers and crossbow-men, marched out
with him. We passed through Tonala Ayagualulco, Copilco, Zacualco,
crossed several rivers in canoes; and then marched through Teutitan and
the townships of Chontalpa, until within twenty miles of Cimatan. Thus
far the whole country was in profound peace; but a little further on we
found the whole armed force of the country drawn up against us, strongly
posted between the swamps and dangerous passes, having fortified their
position by ramparts and a palisade, from which they flew their arrows
at us through loop-holes. When we had arrived near enough, the enemy
showered their arrows so quickly upon us, that six of our horses were
killed and eight men wounded. Rangel himself, who was seated on
horseback, received a slight wound in the arm. We, the veteran
Conquistadores, had often told him what bold, crafty, and expert
warriors he would have to encounter here, and now he began to believe so
himself; and as he was a man who talked a good deal, he said if he had
followed our advice this would not have happened to him; and, for the
future, he desired we would take upon ourselves the command of the
troops during this campaign.
After the wounds of our men and those of our horses had been dressed,
Rangel desired me to reconnoitre the enemy's position, and take with me
two of our most active musketeers, and a remarkably fierce dog which he
possessed; he himself, as he had been advised, would follow me at some
distance behind with the cavalry and the rest of our troops. When I,
with my two companions, approached near to Cimatan, we came up to other
fortifications equally as strong as the former, from out of which we
were greeted with a cloud of arrows and darts. The poor dog lay
instantly dead at our feet, and I myself should have shared a similar
fate if my jacket had not been very thickly quilted with cotton, for I
was wounded in no less than seven places by the enemy's arrows, one of
which struck my leg; nor did my two companions fare better. I now called
out to some of our Indian troops, who were close behind us, to hasten
back and call the whole of the foot to our assistance, but to desire the
cavalry not to advance, as they would not be able to manoeuvre here, and
would only expose their horses to the enemy's unerring arrows.
With the musketeers, crossbow-men, and the remaining foot, we now
marched forward in a body to the attack, and very soon beat the enemy
out of their entrenchments, who then retreated precipitately to the
swamps, where it was impossible to follow them without great risk, for
the ground was of so spongy a nature that the moment we set foot on it
we sank down, and it was with great difficulty a person was got out
again.
By this time Rangel had come up with the horse, and we quartered
ourselves in a number of houses which stood together, and were quite
deserted by the inhabitants; here we remained quiet for the remaining
part of the day and dressed our wounds. The next morning we marched
direct for Cimatan itself, and our route lay through extensive open
plains, in which there were many dangerous bogs. In one of these the
enemy lay in wait for us, and certainly they had calculated well in
taking up their position here, for they easily foresaw, when the
cavalry, in the heat of the battle, spread themselves in the open plain,
they could not fail to get into the swampy ground, where they would be
unable to move. We had many times cautioned Rangel about this, but he
refused to listen to our advice; and, indeed, he was the first to get
fixed in the bogs, where he lost his horse, and would himself
undoubtedly have been killed if several of us had not hastened to his
assistance, for several Indians had already laid hold of him to carry
him off and sacrifice him to their idols. He thus narrowly escaped with
his life, though his head, which, besides, was covered with sores, had
been shockingly beat about by the enemy.
As this district was very thickly populated, and there was another
township not very far off, we determined to march thither; but the
inhabitants, on our approach, fled precipitately. Here we halted for a
short time to dress Rangel's wounds and those of three other soldiers.
The next township we came to was likewise deserted by its inhabitants;
but in this neighbourhood the enemy had thrown up a very formidable
entrenchment, with a palisade of uncommon strength, supplied with
loop-holes. Here we had scarcely rested a quarter of an hour when the
enemy came suddenly pouring forth into the town from all sides, and fell
upon us with so much intrepidity that they killed one of our men and two
horses, and it was with the utmost difficulty we could succeed in
driving them back again.
Our friend Rangel suffered greatly from the wounds he had received on
his head; besides which he was tormented by the moschitoes and a large
species of bat which bite people and suck their blood, so that he could
get no rest day or night; and as it rained without intermission, he,
with several of the men who had recently arrived from Spain, grew
heartily sick of this mode of warfare; these soldiers brought forcibly
to his mind the bad state of his health, the little advantage we had
gained by the three several battles we had fought with the enemy, and
how we had lost eleven horses and two men, besides that numbers were
wounded, and that it would be impossible to accomplish anything more in
a country so full of swamps and morasses. All this Rangel listened to
with secret delight, for to turn back was the very thing he so ardently
desired himself; however, in order to save appearances, and that it
might seem as if his determination of marching back to Guacasualco was
upon the advice and at the request of the troops themselves, he called a
council of war, for which he selected those only whom he well knew would
be of the same opinion with himself. I, with twenty of the men, just at
that moment returned from a short excursion to some cacao plantations in
the neighbourhood to try if we could not capture a few of the natives,
and we had the good luck to bring in three females and two men
prisoners. When I arrived in Rangel's quarters, he took me aside; he
spoke a good deal about the terrible wounds on his head, and assured me
that the greater part of the troops had advised him to relinquish the
expedition and return to Cortes in Mexico.
I declared myself against this step without any hesitation; and, as we
had known each other for four years, even before we left Cuba, I said
boldly to him, "How, Senor; you have advanced up to Cimatan, and now
wish to return? What will Cortes think of this, and what will your
enemies say? How they will always throw in your teeth that you were
neither able to gain any advantage over the Zapotecs nor to subdue the
inhabitants of this province, although you had among your troops some of
the most experienced of the Conquistadores, of those who settled in
Guacasualco! Here not your honour alone is at stake but ours also;
wherefore I, with a number of my companions, have determined further to
explore these swamps and mountains, and to force our way into Cimatan,
the principal township of the province. My horse you may give to some
other soldier who is expert in handling the lance, it is of no use to me
in this country, for, on account of the bad state of the ground, the
cavalry are always obliged to remain behind the rest of the troops."
As Rangel was a great talker, and a man who soon fell into a passion, he
jumped up from his seat, immediately ordered all the troops to assemble
around him, and cried out to them, "The die is cast! by heavens! (for he
could scarcely say two words together without swearing.) We must march
forward! I am now convinced of the policy of so doing, since Bernal
Diaz del Castillo has explained to me what our duty is. He is perfectly
right in what he says."
Many of the men were certainly anything but pleased with this second
determination of Rangel; on the other hand, however, several were
delighted, and thus we marched forward again. I, at the head of the
musketeers and crossbow-men, marched in advance with every military
precaution, the cavalry following at some distance. The first town we
came to was quite deserted by the inhabitants; we therefore continued
our march towards Cimatan itself. Here we met with a very stout
resistance from the enemy before we could drive them to flight, and take
possession of the towns. Many of the Indians as they fled set fire to
their own dwellings, and all the prisoners we took were about fifteen
men and women, but we immediately set them at liberty again, and
despatched them with a kind message to their countrymen, desiring them
to send ambassadors to us, and conclude peace with us, when we would
freely pardon their past hostilities. These prisoners soon returned with
their relations and a great number of poor people, among whom we
distributed all the booty we had made. The whole of these people then
left, and promised they would persuade the enemy to send us messengers
of peace, and declare themselves vassals of our emperor; but they took
very good care neither to return themselves, nor to send us any message
whatever. Upon this Rangel turned to me, and said: "By heavens, you have
deceived me! You may now therefore go with some of your companions, and
just catch me an equal number of Indians, as I have lost by thus
following your advice." I did not give him an opportunity of repeating
this command, but I immediately marched off at the head of fifty men,
and attacked some houses which lay among the marshes. The inhabitants
fled precipitately, and sought refuge among the large thorn bushes,
which they term Xiguaquetlan, where it was impossible for any one to
penetrate without being severely wounded by the sharp prickles; we
managed, however, to capture twelve men and women among the cacao
plantations, whom we presented to our captain. This put him into so good
a humour again, that he liberated these prisoners, and despatched them
with a very friendly message to the enemy, but all to no purpose; the
Cimatecs still defied us, and we were thus obliged to return to
Guacasualco without accomplishing our object.
These are the two campaigns of Rangel, in which he thought to have
reaped so much glory, when he so ardently solicited Cortes to bestow the
chief command on him. Two years after we made a more successful
expedition against the Zapotecs, and we completely subdued them, and
other provinces in that quarter. The pious father Olmedo also did his
utmost to give them some notion of the holy Christian religion: he
taught them the articles of faith, preached to them, and of these
Indians alone he baptized above a hundred; but he was unable to continue
this holy occupation very long, as he was growing old and infirm;
besides that, his enfeebled frame could not stand the ruggedness of the
roads.
I must now, however, return to Mexico, and relate what magnificent
presents Cortes sent to his Majesty in Spain.