RETREAT OF THE SPANIARDS--DISTRESSES OF THE ARMY--PYRAMIDS OF
TEOTIHUACAN--GREAT BATTLE OF OTUMBA
1520
The Mexicans, during the day which followed the retreat of the
Spaniards, remained, for the most part, quiet in their own capital,
where they found occupation in cleansing the streets and causeways from
the dead, which lay festering in heaps that might have bred a
pestilence. They may have been employed, also, in paying the last honors
to such of their warriors as had fallen, solemnizing the funeral rites
by the sacrifice of their wretched prisoners, who, as they contemplated
their own destiny, may well have envied the fate of their companions who
left their bones on the battle-field. It was most fortunate for the
Spaniards, in their extremity, that they had this breathing-time allowed
them by the enemy. But Cortés knew that he could not calculate on its
continuance, and, feeling how important it was to get the start of his
vigilant foe, he ordered his troops to be in readiness to resume their
march by midnight. Fires were left burning, the better to deceive the
enemy; and at the appointed hour the little army, without sound of drum
or trumpet, but with renewed spirits, sallied forth from the gates of
the _teocalli_, within whose hospitable walls they had found such
seasonable succor. The place is now indicated by a Christian church,
dedicated to the Virgin, under the title of _Nuestra Señora de los
Remedios_, whose miraculous image--the very same, _it is said_, brought
over by the followers of Cortés[194]--still extends her beneficent sway
over the neighboring capital; and the traveller who pauses within the
precincts of the consecrated fane may feel that he is standing on the
spot made memorable by the refuge it afforded to the Conquerors in the
hour of their deepest despondency.[195]
It was arranged that the sick and wounded should occupy the centre,
transported on litters, or on the backs of the _tamanes_, while those
who were strong enough to keep their seats should mount behind the
cavalry. The able-bodied soldiers were ordered to the front and rear,
while others protected the flanks, thus affording all the security
possible to the invalids.
The retreating army held on its way unmolested under cover of the
darkness. But, as morning dawned, they beheld parties of the natives
moving over the heights, or hanging at a distance, like a cloud of
locusts, on their rear. They did not belong to the capital, but were
gathered from the neighboring country, where the tidings of their rout
had already penetrated. The charm which had hitherto covered the white
men was gone. The dread _Teules_ were no longer invincible.[196]
The Spaniards, under the conduct of their Tlascalan guides, took a
circuitous route to the north, passing through Quauhtitlan, and round
lake Tzompanco (Zumpango), thus lengthening their march, but keeping at
a distance from the capital. From the eminences, as they passed along,
the Indians rolled down heavy stones, mingled with volleys of darts and
arrows, on the heads of the soldiers. Some were even bold enough to
descend into the plain and assault the extremities of the column. But
they were soon beaten off by the horse, and compelled to take refuge
among the hills, where the ground was too rough for the rider to follow.
Indeed, the Spaniards did not care to do so, their object being rather
to fly than to fight.
In this way they slowly advanced, halting at intervals to drive off
their assailants when they became too importunate, and greatly
distressed by their missiles and their desultory attacks. At night, the
troops usually found shelter in some town or hamlet, whence the
inhabitants, in anticipation of their approach, had been careful to
carry off all the provisions. The Spaniards were soon reduced to the
greatest straits for subsistence. Their principal food was the wild
cherry, which grew in the woods or by the roadside. Fortunate were they
if they found a few ears of corn unplucked. More frequently nothing was
left but the stalks; and with them, and the like unwholesome fare, they
were fain to supply the cravings of appetite. When a horse happened to
be killed, it furnished an extraordinary banquet; and Cortés himself
records the fact of his having made one of a party who thus sumptuously
regaled themselves, devouring the animal even to his hide.[197]
The wretched soldiers, faint with famine and fatigue, were sometimes
seen to drop down lifeless on the road. Others loitered behind, unable
to keep up with the march, and fell into the hands of the enemy, who
followed in the track of the army like a flock of famished vultures,
eager to pounce on the dying and the dead. Others, again, who strayed
too far, in their eagerness to procure sustenance, shared the same fate.
The number of these, at length, and the consciousness of the cruel lot
for which they were reserved, compelled Cortés to introduce stricter
discipline, and to enforce it by sterner punishments than he had
hitherto done,--though too often ineffectually, such was the
indifference to danger, under the overwhelming pressure of present
calamity.
In their prolonged distresses, the soldiers ceased to set a value on
those very things for which they had once been content to hazard life
itself. More than one who had brought his golden treasure safe through
the perils of the _noche triste_ now abandoned it as an intolerable
burden; and the rude Indian peasant gleaned up, with wondering delight,
the bright fragments of the spoils of the capital.[198]
Through these weary days Cortés displayed his usual serenity and
fortitude. He was ever in the post of danger, freely exposing himself in
encounters with the enemy; in one of which he received a severe wound in
the head that afterwards gave him much trouble.[199] He fared no better
than the humblest soldier, and strove, by his own cheerful countenance
and counsels, to fortify the courage of those who faltered, assuring
them that their sufferings would soon be ended by their arrival in the
hospitable “land of bread.”[200] His faithful officers co-operated with
him in these efforts; and the common file, indeed, especially his own
veterans, must be allowed, for the most part, to have shown a full
measure of the constancy and power of endurance so characteristic of
their nation,--justifying the honest boast of an old chronicler, “that
there was no people so capable of supporting hunger as the Spaniards,
and none of them who were ever more severely tried than the soldiers of
Cortés.”[201] A similar fortitude was shown by the Tlascalans, trained
in a rough school that made them familiar with hardship and privations.
Although they sometimes threw themselves on the ground, in the extremity
of famine, imploring their gods not to abandon them, they did their duty
as warriors, and, far from manifesting coldness towards the Spaniards as
the cause of their distresses, seemed only the more firmly knit to them
by the sense of a common suffering.
On the seventh morning, the army had reached the mountain rampart which
overlooks the plains of Otompan, or Otumba, as commonly called, from the
Indian city--now a village--situated in them. The distance from the
capital is hardly nine leagues. But the Spaniards had travelled more
than thrice that distance, in their circuitous march round the lakes.
This had been performed so slowly that it consumed a week, two nights
of which had been passed in the same quarters, from the absolute
necessity of rest. It was not, therefore, till the seventh of July that
they reached the heights commanding the plains which stretched far away
towards the territory of Tlascala, in full view of the venerable
pyramids of Teotihuacan, two of the most remarkable monuments of the
antique American civilization now existing north of the Isthmus. During
all the preceding day they had seen parties of the enemy hovering like
dark clouds above the highlands, brandishing their weapons, and calling
out, in vindictive tones, “Hasten on! You will soon find yourselves
where you cannot escape!” words of mysterious import, which they were
made fully to comprehend on the following morning.[202]
The monuments of San Juan Teotihuacan are, with the exception of the
temple of Cholula, the most ancient remains, probably, on the Mexican
soil. They were found by the Aztecs, according to their traditions, on
their entrance into the country, when Teotihuacan, _the habitation of
the gods_, now a paltry village, was a flourishing city, the rival of
Tula, the great Toltec capital.[203] The two principal pyramids were
dedicated to _Tonatiuh_, the Sun, and _Meztli_, the Moon. The former,
which is considerably the larger, is found by recent measurements to be
six hundred and eighty-two feet long at the base, and one hundred and
eighty feet high, dimensions not inferior to those of some of the
kindred monuments of Egypt.[204] They were divided into four stories, of
which three are now discernible, while the vestiges of the intermediate
gradations are nearly effaced. In fact, time has dealt so roughly with
them, and the materials have been so much displaced by the treacherous
vegetation of the tropics, muffling up with its flowery mantle the ruin
which it causes, that it is not easy to discern at once the pyramidal
form of the structures.[205] The huge masses bear such resemblance to
the North American mounds that some have fancied them to be only natural
eminences shaped by the hand of man into a regular form, and ornamented
with the temples and terraces the wreck of which still covers their
slopes. But others, seeing no example of a similar elevation in the wide
plain in which they stand, infer, with more probability, that they are
wholly of an artificial construction.[206]
The interior is composed of clay mixed with pebbles, incrusted on the
surface with the light porous stone, _tetzontli_, so abundant in the
neighboring quarries. Over this was a thick coating of stucco,
resembling, in its reddish color, that found in the ruins of Palenque.
According to tradition, the pyramids are hollow; but hitherto the
attempt to discover the cavity in that dedicated to the Sun has been
unsuccessful. In the smaller mound an aperture has been found on the
southern side, at two-thirds of the elevation. It is formed by a narrow
gallery, which, after penetrating to the distance of several yards,
terminates in two pits or wells. The largest of these is about fifteen
feet deep,[207] and the sides are faced with unbaked bricks; but to what
purpose it was devoted, nothing is left to show. It may have been to
hold the ashes of some powerful chief, like the solitary apartment
discovered in the great Egyptian pyramid. That these monuments were
dedicated to religious uses, there is no doubt; and it would be only
conformable to the practice of antiquity in the Eastern continent that
they should have served for tombs as well as temples.[208]
Distinct traces of the latter destination are said to be visible on the
summit of the smaller pyramid, consisting of the remains of stone walls
showing a building of considerable size and strength.[209] There are no
remains on the top of the pyramid of the Sun. But the traveller who will
take the trouble to ascend its bald summit will be amply compensated by
the glorious view it will open to him;--towards the southeast, the hills
of Tlascala, surrounded by their green plantations and cultivated
corn-fields, in the midst of which stands the little village, once the
proud capital of the republic. Somewhat farther to the south, the eye
passes across the beautiful plains lying around the city of Puebla de
los Angeles, founded by the old Spaniards, and still rivalling, in the
splendor of its churches, the most brilliant capitals of Europe; and far
in the west he may behold the Valley of Mexico, spread out like a map,
with its diminished lakes, its princely capital rising in still greater
glory from its ruins, and its rugged hills gathering darkly around it,
as in the days of Montezuma.
The summit of this larger mound is said to have been crowned by a
temple, in which was a colossal statue of its presiding deity, the Sun,
made of one entire block of stone, and facing the east. Its breast was
protected by a plate of burnished gold and silver, on which the first
rays of the rising luminary rested.[210] An antiquary, in the early
part of the last century, speaks of having seen some fragments of the
statue. It was still standing, according to report, on the invasion of
the Spaniards, and was demolished by the indefatigable Bishop Zumárraga,
whose hand fell more heavily than that of Time itself on the Aztec
monuments.[211]
Around the principal pyramids are a great number of smaller ones, rarely
exceeding thirty feet in height, which, according to tradition, were
dedicated to the stars and served as sepulchres for the great men of the
nation. They are arranged symmetrically in avenues terminating at the
sides of the great pyramids, which face the cardinal points. The plain
on which they stand was called _Micoatl_, or “Path of the Dead.” The
laborer, as he turns up the ground, still finds there numerous
arrow-heads, and blades of obsidian, attesting the warlike character of
its primitive population.[212]
What thoughts must crowd on the mind of the traveller as he wanders
amidst these memorials of the past; as he treads over the ashes of the
generations who reared these colossal fabrics, which take us from the
present into the very depths of time! But who were their builders? Was
it the shadowy Olmecs, whose history, like that of the ancient Titans,
is lost in the mists of fable? or, as commonly reported, the peaceful
and industrious Toltecs, of whom all that we can glean rests on
traditions hardly more secure? What has become of the races who built
them? Did they remain on the soil, and mingle and become incorporated
with the fierce Aztecs who succeeded them? Or did they pass on to the
South, and find a wider field for the expansion of their civilization,
as shown by the higher character of the architectural remains in the
distant regions of Central America and Yucatan? It is all a
mystery,--over which time has thrown an impenetrable veil, that no
mortal hand may raise. A nation has passed away,--powerful, populous,
and well advanced in refinement, as attested by their monuments,--but it
has perished without a name. It has died and made no sign!
Such speculations, however, do not seem to have disturbed the minds of
the Conquerors, who have not left a single line respecting these
time-honored structures, though they passed in full view of
them,--perhaps under their very shadows. In the sufferings of the
present they had little leisure to bestow on the past. Indeed, the new
and perilous position in which at this very spot they found themselves
must naturally have excluded every other thought from their bosoms but
that of self-preservation.
As the army was climbing the mountain steeps which shut in the Valley of
Otompan, the vedettes came in with the intelligence that a powerful body
was encamped on the other side, apparently awaiting their approach. The
intelligence was soon confirmed by their own eyes as they turned the
crest of the sierra, and saw spread out, below, a mighty host, filling
up the whole depth of the valley, and giving to it the appearance, from
the white cotton mail of the warriors, of being covered with snow.[213]
It consisted of levies from the surrounding country, and especially the
populous territory of Tezcuco, drawn together at the instance of
Cuitlahua, Montezuma’s successor, and now concentrated on this point to
dispute the passage of the Spaniards. Every chief of note had taken the
field with his whole array gathered under his standard, proudly
displaying all the pomp and rude splendor of his military equipment. As
far as the eye could reach, were to be seen shields and waving banners,
fantastic helmets, forests of shining spears, the bright feather-mail of
the chief, and the coarse cotton panoply of his follower, all mingled
together in wild confusion and tossing to and fro like the billows of a
troubled ocean.[214] It was a sight to fill the stoutest heart among the
Christians with dismay, heightened by the previous expectation of soon
reaching the friendly land which was to terminate their wearisome
pilgrimage. Even Cortés, as he contrasted the tremendous array before
him with his own diminished squadrons, wasted by disease and enfeebled
by hunger and fatigue, could not escape the conviction that his last
hour had arrived.[215]
But his was not the heart to despond; and he gathered strength from the
very extremity of his situation. He had no room for hesitation; for
there was no alternative left to him. To escape was impossible. He could
not retreat on the capital, from which he had been expelled. He must
advance,--cut through the enemy, or perish. He hastily made his
dispositions for the fight. He gave his force as broad a front as
possible, protecting it on each flank by his little body of horse, now
reduced to twenty. Fortunately, he had not allowed the invalids, for the
last two days, to mount behind the riders, from a desire to spare the
horses, so that these were now in tolerable condition; and, indeed, the
whole army had been refreshed by halting, as we have seen, two nights
and a day in the same place, a delay, however, which had allowed the
enemy time to assemble in such force to dispute its progress.
Cortés instructed his cavaliers not to part with their lances, and to
direct them at the face. The infantry were to thrust, not strike, with
their swords; passing them at once through the bodies of their enemies.
They were, above all, to aim at the leaders, as the general well knew
how much depends on the life of the commander in the wars of barbarians,
whose want of subordination makes them impatient of any control but that
to which they are accustomed.
He then addressed to his troops a few words of encouragement, as
customary with him on the eve of an engagement. He reminded them of the
victories they had won with odds nearly as
[Illustration: THE GREAT BATTLE OF OTUMBA
_Goupil & Cº., Paris_]
discouraging as the present; thus establishing the superiority of
science and discipline over numbers. Numbers, indeed, were of no
account, where the arm of the Almighty was on their side. And he bade
them have full confidence that He who had carried them safely through so
many perils would not now abandon them and his own good cause to perish
by the hand of the infidel. His address was brief, for he read in their
looks that settled resolve which rendered words unnecessary. The
circumstances of their position spoke more forcibly to the heart of
every soldier than any eloquence could have done, filling it with that
feeling of desperation which makes the weak arm strong and turns the
coward into a hero. After they had earnestly commended themselves,
therefore, to the protection of God, the Virgin, and St. James, Cortés
led his battalions straight against the enemy.[216]
It was a solemn moment, that in which the devoted little band, with
steadfast countenances and their usual intrepid step, descended on the
plain, to be swallowed up, as it were, in the vast ocean of their
enemies. The latter rushed on with impetuosity to meet them, making the
mountains ring to their discordant yells and battle-cries, and sending
forth volleys of stones and arrows which for a moment shut out the light
of day. But, when the leading files of the two armies closed, the
superiority of the Christians was felt, as their antagonists, falling
back before the charges of cavalry, were thrown into confusion by their
own numbers who pressed on them from behind. The Spanish infantry
followed up the blow, and a wide lane was opened in the ranks of the
enemy, who, receding on all sides, seemed willing to allow a free
passage for their opponents. But it was to return on them with
accumulated force, as rallying they poured upon the Christians,
enveloping the little army on all sides, which, with its bristling array
of long swords and javelins, stood firm,--in the words of a
contemporary,--like an islet against which the breakers, roaring and
surging, spend their fury in vain.[217] The struggle was desperate of
man against man. The Tlascalan seemed to renew his strength, as he
fought almost in view of his own native hills, as did the Spaniard, with
the horrible doom of the captive before his eyes. Well did the cavaliers
do their duty on that day; charging, in little bodies of four or five
abreast, deep into the enemy’s ranks, riding over the broken files, and
by this temporary advantage giving strength and courage to the infantry.
Not a lance was there which did not reek with the blood of the infidel.
Among the rest, the young captain Sandoval is particularly commemorated
for his daring prowess. Managing his fiery steed with easy horsemanship,
he darted, when least expected, into the thickest of the _mêlée_,
overturning the stanchest warriors, and rejoicing in danger, as if it
were his natural element.[218]
But these gallant displays of heroism served only to ingulf the
Spaniards deeper and deeper in the mass of the enemy, with scarcely any
more chance of cutting their way through his dense and interminable
battalions than of hewing a passage with their swords through the
mountains. Many of the Tlascalans and some of the Spaniards had fallen,
and not one but had been wounded. Cortés himself had received a second
cut on the head, and his horse was so much injured that he was compelled
to dismount, and take one from the baggage train, a strong-boned animal,
who carried him well through the turmoil of the day.[219] The contest
had now lasted several hours. The sun rode high in the heavens, and shed
an intolerable fervor over the plain. The Christians, weakened by
previous sufferings, and faint with loss of blood, began to relax in
their desperate exertions. Their enemies, constantly supported by fresh
relays from the rear, were still in good heart, and, quick to perceive
their advantage, pressed with redoubled force on the Spaniards. The
horse fell back, crowded on the foot; and the latter, in vain seeking a
passage amidst the dusky throngs of the enemy, who now closed up the
rear, were thrown into some disorder. The tide of battle was setting
rapidly against the Christians. The fate of the day would soon be
decided; and all that now remained for them seemed to be to sell their
lives as dearly as possible.
At this critical moment, Cortés, whose restless eye had been roving
round the field in quest of any object that might offer him the means of
arresting the coming ruin, rising in his stirrups, descried at a
distance, in the midst of the throng, the chief who from his dress and
military cortége he knew must be the commander of the barbarian forces.
He was covered with a rich surcoat of feather-work; and a panache of
beautiful plumes, gorgeously set in gold and precious stones, floated
above his head. Rising above this, and attached to his back, between the
shoulders, was a short staff bearing a golden net for a banner,--the
singular, but customary, symbol of authority for an Aztec commander. The
cacique, whose name was Cihuaca, was borne on a litter, and a body of
young warriors, whose gay and ornamented dresses showed them to be the
flower of the Indian nobles, stood round as a guard of his person and
the sacred emblem.
The eagle eye of Cortés no sooner fell on this personage than it lighted
up with triumph. Turning quickly round to the cavaliers at his side,
among whom were Sandoval, Olid, Alvarado, and Avila, he pointed out the
chief, exclaiming, “There is our mark! Follow and support me!” Then,
crying his war-cry, and striking his iron heel into his weary steed, he
plunged headlong into the thickest of the press. His enemies fell back,
taken by surprise and daunted by the ferocity of the attack. Those who
did not were pierced through with his lance or borne down by the weight
of his charger. The cavaliers followed close in the rear. On they swept
with the fury of a thunderbolt, cleaving the solid ranks asunder,
strewing their path with the dying and the dead, and bounding over every
obstacle in their way. In a few minutes they were in the presence of the
Indian commander, and Cortés, overturning his supporters, sprang forward
with the strength of a lion, and, striking him through with his lance,
hurled him to the ground. A young cavalier, Juan de Salamanca, who had
kept close by his general’s side, quickly dismounted and despatched the
fallen chief. Then, tearing away his banner, he presented it to Cortés,
as a trophy to which he had the best claim.[220] It was all the work of
a moment. The guard, overpowered by the suddenness of the onset, made
little resistance, but, flying, communicated their own panic to their
comrades. The tidings of the loss soon spread over the field. The
Indians, filled with consternation, now thought only of escape. In their
blind terror, their numbers augmented their confusion. They trampled on
one another, fancying it was the enemy in their rear.[221]
The Spaniards and Tlascalans were not slow to avail themselves of the
marvellous change in their affairs. Their fatigue, their wounds, hunger,
thirst, all were forgotten in the eagerness for vengeance; and they
followed up the flying foe, dealing death at every stroke, and taking
ample retribution for all they had suffered in the bloody marshes of
Mexico.[222] Long did they pursue, till, the enemy having abandoned the
field, they returned, sated with slaughter, to glean the booty which he
had left. It was great, for the ground was covered with the bodies of
chiefs, at whom the Spaniards, in obedience to the general’s
instructions, had particularly aimed; and their dresses displayed all
the barbaric pomp of ornament in which the Indian warrior
delighted.[223] When his men had thus indemnified themselves, in some
degree, for their late reverses, Cortés called them again under their
banners; and, after offering up a grateful acknowledgment to the Lord of
Hosts for their miraculous preservation,[224] they renewed their march
across the now deserted valley. The sun was declining in the heavens,
but, before the shades of evening had gathered around, they reached an
Indian temple on an eminence, which afforded a strong and commodious
position for the night.
Such was the famous battle of Otompan,--or Otumba, as commonly called,
from the Spanish corruption of the name. It was fought on the eighth of
July, 1520. The whole amount of the Indian force is reckoned by
Castilian writers at two hundred thousand! that of the slain at twenty
thousand! Those who admit the first part of the estimate will find no
difficulty in receiving the last.[225] It is about as difficult to form
an accurate calculation of the numbers of a disorderly savage multitude
as of the pebbles on the beach or the scattered leaves in autumn. Yet it
was, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable victories ever achieved in
the New World. And this, not merely on account of the disparity of the
forces, but of their unequal condition. For the Indians were in all
their strength, while the Christians were wasted by disease, famine, and
long-protracted sufferings; without cannon or fire-arms, and deficient
in the military apparatus which had so often struck terror into their
barbarian foe,--deficient even in the terrors of a victorious name. But
they had discipline on their side, desperate resolve, and implicit
confidence in their commander. That they should have triumphed against
such odds furnishes an inference of the same kind as that established by
the victories of the European over the semi-civilized hordes of Asia.
Yet even here all must not be referred to superior discipline and
tactics. For the battle would certainly have been lost had it not been
for the fortunate death of the Indian general. And, although the
selection of the victim may be called the result of calculation, yet it
was by the most precarious chance that he was thrown in the way of the
Spaniards. It is, indeed, one among many examples of the influence of
fortune in determining the fate of military operations. The star of
Cortés was in the ascendant. Had it been otherwise, not a Spaniard would
have survived that day to tell the bloody tale of the battle of Otumba.