(1485-1547)
[Footnote 17: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Hernando Cortes. [TN]]
Among the millions that from age to age are born into this world there
arise in every generation one or two pre-eminent men and women who are
objects of the wonder and the envy, the admiration and the hatred of
their contemporaries, and whose names, after their deaths, stand out
as landmarks by which we shape a course across the dark and doubtful
seas of history. Caesar and Cromwell, Mahomet and Napoleon, to mention
no others, were such men, and such a man was Hernando Cortes, the
conqueror of Mexico. They have been called, and well called, Men of
Destiny, since it is impossible in studying their lives and tracing
their vast influence upon human affairs, to avoid the conclusion that
they were raised up and endowed with great talents and opportunities
in order that by their agency the ends of Providence might be shaped.
Hernando Cortes was born of a good family, at the town of Medellin in
Spain, in 1485, and educated at the college of Salamanca. At the age
of nineteen having proved himself unfit to follow the profession of
the law to which his parents had destined him, he emigrated to the
Indian Island of Hispaniola where he was appointed notary of the town
of Acua, and in 1511 assisted in the conquest of Cuba under the
command of Velasquez. Here after many curious adventures and
vacillations he married a lady named Catalina Xuarez, and being
created _alcade_ of the settlement of St. Jago realized a moderate
fortune by the practice of agriculture and mining. In 1518 there came
to Cuba news of the discoveries made by Grijalva in Yucatan on the
coast of the country now known as Mexico, and the Governor, Velasquez,
determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much
intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum
of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had
already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to
persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition.
Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the
appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well
become his master, and made arrangements to invest some other hidalgo
with the leadership of the expedition. Now it was that Cortes showed
what manner of man he was. Many in his position on learning the wishes
of their superior would have tamely yielded up their posts. Not so
Cortes, who on the first hint that he was to be deprived of his
authority, collected his men, and all unprepared as was his squadron,
weighed anchor while the governor slept. At the town of Trinidad he
landed to collect stores and volunteers, treating with contempt the
orders that reached the commander of the town from Velasquez to depose
him from his command and detain his person. Here it was that Cortes
made his famous address to the volunteers, wherein he shows that
although his instructions were to undertake a trading voyage and
acquire information of the country, his real aim was far different,
since he promises unimagined wealth to those who are true to him, and
by a curious flash of prescience prophesies immortal renown to their
enterprise. On February 10, 1519, he sailed to the conquest of Mexico,
accompanied by some six hundred and fifty white men and a few Indians.
Cortes was in his thirty-fourth year when he entered on this the
greatest of his enterprises. He was pale faced and dark eyed, somewhat
slender in build, but of an iron strength and constitution. In temper
he was patient though liable to fits of passion, and in disposition
frank, merry, and generous, but most determined. He dressed richly and
was constant in his religious exercises. Such was the great captain, a
man suited by circumstances and nature to the desperate undertaking
which it was his destiny to bring to a successful issue.
Having touched at the island of Cozumel on the coast of Yucatan,
Cortes sailed up the Tabasco River and began his work of conquest by
attacking a great army of Indians in the neighborhood of that town.
For a while the natives held their own notwithstanding their dismay at
the sound and effects of fire-arms; but the appearance of the
horsemen, whom they took to be strange animals, caused them to flee in
terror leaving many hundreds of their warriors dead upon the field. On
the morrow they made their submission, bringing women and other gifts
as a peace-offering. Among these women was one named Malinche, or by
the Spaniards Marina, whom Cortes took as a mistress and who is
described by Camargo as having been "beautiful as a goddess." It was
this lady, born to be the evil genius of her country, who instructed
her lord and master in the habits, traditions, and history of the
Aztecs, and of the land of Anahuac which they inhabited together with
other tribes. She was Cortes' interpreter and confidante, whose
business it was to gain information from the Indians, which he could
use, and whose wit and devotion more than once saved him from
disaster. So invaluable were her services to Cortes that it is
doubtful if without her aid he would have succeeded in conquering
Mexico, and it was from her that he acquired the name of Malinche by
which he was known among the Indian races. Her reward, when she had
served his purpose and he was weary of her, was to be given by him in
marriage to another man.
Leaving Tabasco Cortes sailed along the coast till he reached the spot
where the city of Vera Cruz now stands, whence he opened
communications with Montezuma, Emperor of the Aztecs. In due course
envoys arrived from the monarch laden with magnificent gifts, who
delivered a civil but none the less peremptory message requesting the
Spaniards to return whence they came. By this time Cortes had learned
that although the Aztecs were the greatest power in Anahuac, their
supremacy was not acknowledged by all the tribes; notably was it
contested by the Tlascalans and their allies the Otomies. The
Tlascalans were republicans having their home in the mountains almost
midway between Mexico and the coast. For fifty years or more they had
been at bitter enmity with the Aztecs, who again and again had vainly
attempted to subjugate them. To this people Cortes despatched an
embassy asking for a safe passage through their territories on his
road to Mexico, for his political insight told him that they might
prove valuable allies. No answer was returned by the Tlascalans who
when the Spaniards advanced attacked them furiously, only to be
defeated by Cortes in several engagements, till, discouraged and
believing the white men to be invincible, they sued for peace, and
from enemies were converted into firm allies. From Tlascala the
Spaniards proceeded to the neighboring city of Cholula where Marina
discovered a plot to put them to death. For this offence Cortes took a
terrible vengeance. Falling on the inhabitants of the city when they
were unprepared he butchered vast numbers of them, giving their houses
and temples to sack. Having thus established the terror of his name he
marched on to Mexico accompanied by a body of about five thousand
Tlascalan allies. Meanwhile the counsels of the Aztecs were darkened
with doubt. The Spaniards might easily have been kept out of Mexico by
force, but the arm of Montezuma was paralyzed by superstitious fears.
Prophecy foretold that the children of the white god Quetzalcoatl
should rise from the sea to possess the land, and in the Spaniards he
beheld the fate fulfilled. To him they were not mortal but divine and
when diplomacy had failed to keep them at a distance he feared to lift
a sword against them. Thus it came about that without a blow being
struck to drive them back Cortes and his little band of adventurers
found themselves established at the heart of the strange and rich
civilization that they had discovered, not as enemies, but as the
guests of the king. They were not slow to avail themselves of the
opportunities of their position in order to advance their ends which
were, first plunder, secondly conquest, and, thirdly the extension of
the authority of Spain and of the Christian religion. In pursuit of
these ends upon some slight pretext Cortes seized the person of
Montezuma, the great emperor, and imprisoned him in one of his own
palaces whence, however, he was still allowed to direct the government
and issue his commands.
Meanwhile reports of Cortes' doings and success had reached Velasquez
the Governor of Cuba, who determined to despatch an expedition to
conquer or capture him as a traitor. Accordingly eighteen vessels
containing nearly a thousand white men were placed under the command
of Panfilo de Narvaez, and reached Vera Cruz in April, 1520. When
Cortes heard of the arrival of this armament and its object which was
to punish him for his supposed rebellion, he marched from Mexico,
leaving the little garrison and the person of Montezuma in charge of
his comrade Alvarado. Although he had with him but two hundred and
fifty men in all, he did not hesitate to hazard a night attack upon
Narvaez who was strongly encamped at Cempoalla. It was completely
successful; Narvaez was wounded, captured, and sent in chains to Vera
Cruz, while the army that had come to conquer him swore allegiance to
Cortes as Captain-General and marched with him back to Mexico. Here
great events were in progress. Moved to the deed by fear or by the
discovery of some real or fancied plot against the Spaniards,
Alvarado, the deputy of Cortes, had fallen upon the unarmed Aztec
nobles while they were celebrating a feast in the courtyard of the
great temple, and butchered some six hundred of them with every
circumstance of brutality. Then at last the patient Aztecs rose and
until the womanly Montezuma begged them to desist, attacked the palace
where the Spaniards were quartered, with fury. At the intervention of
their monarch the attack was turned to a blockade and Cortes arrived
from his victory over Narvaez to find his companions in desperate
straits. Reinforced by fresh soldiers the Spaniards carried on the war
with activity. They assaulted and captured the great pyramid, putting
to the sword the priests of human sacrifice and burning the
blood-stained temples of the gods. Also they made several sallies into
the city and repelled onslaughts upon the palace. It was in the course
of one of these attacks that Montezuma received the wound that brought
about his death. Mounting the central tower of the palace he implored
his subjects to cease from attacking his friends the Spaniards,
whereupon in their fury they overwhelmed him with a shower of darts
and stones, inflicting injuries from which in course of a few days he
died. Surrounded as he was on every side by thousands of fierce
enemies determined to stretch every Spaniard upon the stone of
sacrifice, Cortes saw the impossibility of maintaining the unequal
fight and determined on retreat. Accordingly on the night of July 1,
1520, the Spaniards and their native allies sallied from the fortress,
and laden with gold from Montezuma's treasury, took the route of
Tlacopan. Soon their escape was detected and instantly a fierce attack
was made upon them from every quarter. The bridge that they had
brought with them to span the gaps in the causeway became fixed in the
mud, so that their only path across the canals lay over the bodies of
their comrades. At length they won through, but out of their small
force there had perished, or been taken captive as victims for
sacrifice, some four hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand
native allies. It is said that when the shattered army reached a place
of safety outside the city, Cortes sat down beneath an ancient
cedar-tree which is still shown to travellers, and wept. Yet within a
week fortune smiled on him again, for he and the few comrades who
remained to him fought and won the battle of Otompan against thousands
of the Indians, Cortes killing their chief Cihuaca with his own hand.
The Aztecs rejoiced at the departure of the Spaniards from their
capital Mexico or Tenoctitlan, but their joy was premature. First the
small-pox, introduced into the country by the white men, fell upon the
city and swept away thousands, among them Cuitlahua, the emperor who
succeeded to Montezuma, and then came the news that the indomitable
Cortes was marching upon them with a great army of native allies and
large reinforcements of Spaniards from overseas. Guatimozin, the new
emperor, made every possible preparation for defence and the siege
began, a siege as cruel as that of Jerusalem and perhaps more bloody.
First Cortes laid waste the cities about Mexico, then he attacked the
Queen of the Valley herself--attacked it again and again till at
length it was a ruin and tens of thousands of its inhabitants were
dead by starvation, by pestilence, and by the sword. On either side
the combat was one of desperate courage, but notwithstanding
occasional successes on the part of the Aztecs, such as that when they
captured and sacrificed some sixty Spaniards, from the first the
genius of Cortes made the end inevitable. When nothing remained of
Tenoctitlan and its people save some blackened walls and a few
thousand wretches reduced to skeletons by hunger, the capture of
Guatimozin while attempting to escape in a canoe, made an end of the
fighting in August, 1521. Cortes promised honorable treatment to the
fallen king, but before long he put him and some of his companions to
the torture in order to force the discovery of hidden treasure. This
brutality proved ineffectual, but taken together with the subsequent
hanging of Guatimozin upon an unproved charge of conspiracy against
the Spaniards, it constitutes the blackest blot upon the fame of
Cortes. It is fair to add, however, that he was not by nature a harsh
man, and that he was driven to the commission of these cruelties by
the clamor of his soldiers who were infuriated at finding so little
treasure in the devastated city. With the capture of Mexico the
fortunes of Cortes culminated. He was appointed Captain-General of the
land of New Spain in October, 1522, and the next few years he occupied
in rebuilding the city, and in bringing the surrounding territories
under the rule of Spain. Wearying of these comparatively peaceful
occupations, in 1524 he undertook an expedition of discovery and
conquest to Honduras, upon which he was absent until May, 1526, when
he returned after enduring much hardship and suffering, to find that
enemies had been plotting against him in Mexico. This discovery and
the desire of clearing himself with the emperor, caused him to
determine to visit Spain where he arrived in May, 1528. Charles the
Fifth received him with much favor creating him Marquis of the Valley
of Oaxaca and military commander of New Spain, and endowing him with
vast estates in the lands that he had conquered. In 1530 he returned
to Mexico accompanied by his second wife, a lady of good family whom
he had married while in Spain. Very soon he entered on a course of
expeditions of discovery and maritime adventures which involved him in
great pecuniary losses and a quarrel with the viceroy Mendoza; and in
1540 he sailed a second time for Spain to obtain redress from the
emperor. But Cortes was no longer the power that he had been; his
youth was gone and his work was done, therefore his prayers and
remonstrances were treated with cold neglect. For nearly four years he
pressed his suit and in February, 1544, we find him writing a letter
to the emperor begging him to direct the Council of the Indies to come
to a decision upon it. This letter in which pathetically enough, he
speaks of himself as "old and poor and indebted," produced no result
and once again, worn out and bitterly disappointed, its writer turned
his face toward the land that he had won for Spain. But he was never
to behold it more. At Seville he was seized with dysentery and passed
away December 2, 1547, being then in his sixty-third year. His body
was taken to Mexico for burial.
In Hernando Cortes died one of the great men of the world, though how
much of his greatness was due to chance is difficult to determine. It
is certain that again and again fortune stood his friend in a manner
that was little short of miraculous, as in the instances of the
unexpected victory over Narvaez and of the death of the general at the
battle of Otampan. But if chance or fate gave him opportunities it was
Cortes' own genius and unconquerable will that enabled him to avail
himself of them. These qualities were the most striking
characteristics of the man. He showed them when having determined on
the conquest of Mexico he burnt his ships that there might be no
escape from the decision; when he hit upon the expedient of using
rival tribes to accomplish the overthrow of the Aztecs; when, driven
from Mexico with the loss of the half of his army he returned to the
attack; and in many another time and place. He had great good
qualities, he was a true friend, and according to his lights, an
honorable and even a religious man, and his faults were those of his
time and training, or at worst such as are not inconsistent with a
generous nature. His cruelties may be urged against him, but no
Spaniard of his age thought it cruel to slaughter enemies of the Faith
who practised human sacrifice; also having once embarked upon his
colossal undertaking he and his companions must either slay or be
slain. There is evidence to show that personally he was not a cruel
man. Thus when called upon to sign the death-warrant of a soldier he
lamented that he had ever been taught to write, and there are passages
in his will which show his conscience to have been troubled by
questions as to the right to enslave human beings. With a handful of
followers Cortes overthrew the fabric of the Aztec Empire, broke the
spirit of its people so effectually that to this day it has not
recovered itself, and swept away its religion. Whether for good or
evil this was a stupendous achievement and one that must make his name
immortal.
[Signature of the author.]